Hands Off, EU.

Fresno Zionism

European Union officials. Fix your own problems, leave Israel alone!

The European Union, as well as EU countries independently, provide millions of dollars annually to finance left-wing Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which could not survive on what they would get from the small number of Israelis that support them.

These organizations use their resources to try to influence Israeli policies, laws, actions and even elections. They sponsor anti-government demonstrations, protests against the security fence, etc. In addition, they present highly distorted ‘data’ to the UN and to the media outside of Israel. For example, the majority of the material cited by the Goldstone Commission to support its false and libelous conclusion that Israel deliberately targeted Arab civilians in Gaza came from these NGOs.

They have also participated in ‘lawfare’, instigating prosecutions in foreign countries of Israeli officials for ‘war crimes’ which did not occur, supported boycott-divestment-sanctions, encouraged anti-Zionist activities among Arab citizens of Israel, etc.

These groups are in the forefront of the effort to delegitimize the Jewish state from without and destabilize it from within, and there is an ongoing debate in Israel’s Knesset about how to control, or at least expose, their foreign funding. An excellent summary of the issue is provided by NGO Monitor here.

No nation likes it when others interfere in its internal affairs, and the massive scale of intervention in the case of Israel is remarkable. But recently an internal EU document has come to light which calls for an even greater attack on Israeli sovereignty:

    The European Union should consider Israel’s treatment of its Arab population a “core issue, not second tier to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” according to a classified working paper produced by European embassies in Israel, parts of which were obtained by Haaretz.

    This is an unprecedented document in that it deals with internal Israeli issues. According to European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials, it was written and sent to EU headquarters in Brussels behind the back of the Israeli government.

    Other issues the document deals with include the lack of progress in the peace process, the continued occupation of the territories, Israel’s definition of itself as Jewish and democratic, and the influence of the Israeli Arab population.

    The original document also included suggestions for action the EU should take, but these were removed from the final version at the insistence of several countries.

    Among these were the suggestion that the EU file an official protest every time a bill discriminating against Arabs passes a second reading in the Knesset, and that the EU ensure that all Arab towns have completed urban plans, “with each member state potentially ‘adopting’ a municipality to this end.”

There is no internal issue more pressing for Israel than the relationship between the Jewish population and the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Arabs. Simplistic understandings of the admittedly difficult relationship as one of a powerful majority discriminating against a minority ignore the increasing perception of many Arabs that they are ‘Palestinians’, not Israelis (and the idea that ‘they are all disloyal’ is also simplistic and wrong).

Regardless of the details, the last thing that Israel needs is for the sanctimonious, hostile and (to a great extent) stupid European Parliament to stick its nose into the relationships between Jews and Arabs in Israel.

Ironies abound here: the document was said to have been initiated by Britain, which did such a good job with Arabs and Jews during the Mandate! And the Europeans apparently fancy themselves experts on the question of integration of ethnic and religious minorities because they are doing it so successfully in their own countries!
But that’s not all:

    VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Peace negotiations in the Middle East must tackle the issue of the status of the holy sites, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said Friday.

    “There will not be peace if the question of the holy sites is not adequately resolved,” the Holy See’s former foreign minister said in response to a question on Jerusalem and the Israel-Palestinian problem at a Rome conference…

    The Vatican says the answer is to have the global community regulate the sites — and it favours handing the task to a “large group” of states, rather than placing it in the hands of the United Nations Security Council or Europe.

There is really no ‘question of the holy sites’ that needs to be resolved. Israel, since 1967, has been guaranteeing access to all three major faiths to their sites for the first time in history. The problem is that Islamic radicals do not accept anything other than total Muslim sovereignty over the area, as shown by the recent fury over Israel’s actions to in closing a decrepit wooden bridge outside of the Temple Mount for repairs.

The fact that Muslims, and apparently some Christians, simply can’t bear the idea that these sites are in Jewish hands is not a legitimate reason to take actions that would almost certainly end in one or more religious groups being denied access.

So Israel is considered not capable of running its own politics, not capable of managing the relationship between its ethnic groups, and not capable of protecting the holy sites in Jerusalem. One would think that both the European Union and the Church ought to devote their energy to solving their own problems, some relatively serious, rather than Israel’s.

But unfortunately it seems that much of the world, while accepting without question the legitimacy and sovereignty of some rather tenuous ‘states’ (an extreme example being the recognition by many countries of ‘Palestine’) still does not think — after 63 years in which Israel has accomplished far more in science, medicine, literature, music, art, industry, standard of living and, yes, democracy than almost all of them — that Israel has a right to exist unmolested.

The message to them from Jerusalem should be simple: Hands off.

December 18, 2011 | 14 Comments »

Subscribe to Israpundit Daily Digest

Leave a Reply

14 Comments / 14 Comments

  1. The EU significant economic dependence on the Muslim world cannot allow her to be an fair and or objective partner for Israel. Oil and gas come either from Russia or the Muslim countries!
    The EU cannot openly defend itself against the Muslim infiltration of their countries even if they wanted to do so.

  2. Teshuvah says:

    Again, Catholics started Freemasonry and Freemasons started Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Only Jews are Bible based.

    FIFY M 😉

  3. I’ll pull rank on you Bland and other youngsters… I’am edging 72 and meaner than a Kodiak.
    Anyway I wish you all health so you keep on teaching me about your worlds and hopes. I enjoy the threads very much.
    As to the Israeli leadershit… oops, and in particular the political generals preparing to take care of Iran and other such. It is not going to happen. Too risky for their political careers. If you do not believe me, look at what happened to “Ghandi”, Rabin, Sharon, Halutz and getting there to happen to Barak who has no chance of getting elected again. (thank G.d!)
    You see, it is much safer for them to advance in their careers by attacking JEWISH localities and disarmed Jewish people than to mix it up in real battle against true enemies.. Just a thought….

  4. BO: I am pleased your wife is a nurse and takes good care of you. Click the link above to learn about Magnesium. Low Magnesium can kill you.

    you sure do sound like a Seventh-Day Adventist, of the old-order, in all their anti-papist, anti-masonic vigor. You have refuted this well enough; but you must know that they’re also on a full-blown health kick. They are “cultish” in some ways, but that means nothing to me. I consider all Jews, Catholics, Mormons, JWs and Protestants of every stripe to be cultish to some degree or another.

    Again, Catholics started Freemasonry and Freemasons started Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Only Protestants and Jews are Bible based.

    Find a religion with a leader, and by gum, you’ve got a cult.

    We are not SDAs and have never been in a SDA church. We don’t even know any SDAs. Our only connection to SDAdventism is Prof. Walter Veith, an ex-Catholic and has studied the NWO in depth. We might be characterized as Pentecostal Holiness, with a Hebrew roots lean (and there is no church for that combo), but basically are just Bible believers and follow no man so we aren’t a cult.

    Your pet conspiriacy theories are no more nor less silly to me than …

    I would call them conspiracy FACTS.

  5. Thanks for the health advice, Teshuvah. My wife is a nurse, so I’ll bring up the magnesium thing with her. Her diagnosis of me, which she doesn’t harp on, is essentially that I should get off my arse more and do something to burn off all the calories I consume. Thank God, for women to look after me.

    T., you sure do sound like a Seventh-Day Adventist, of the old-order, in all their anti-papist, anti-masonic vigor. You have refuted this well enough; but you must know that they’re also on a full-blown health kick. They are “cultish” in some ways, but that means nothing to me. I consider all Jews, Catholics, Mormons, JWs and Protestants of every stripe to be cultish to some degree or another. Find a religion with a leader, and by gum, you’ve got a cult. Your pet conspiriacy theories are no more nor less silly to me than the Jews’ thinking they violate “boiling a kid in its mother’s milk” by eating turkey with cheese. As for me, I say, “Let God be true, and every man a liar”, and I leave the issuing of tickets to heaven to Him. All that said, I will look into the magnesium thing; but if I don’t get enough exercise, I dare say it won’t do me any good. Modern research has confirmed that we’re more in danger of being killed by our backsides than by anything else.

    As for being old, I applied for a job when I was 49; and when the interviewer saw how old I was, his jaw practically fell off his head, and he said, “How old ARE you!!” (I was a Chemist). There’s old, and there’s old.

    P.S. If Israel doesn’t get its act together to attack Iran soon, and to tell Obama where to go, the whole country might as well move to the US and sign up for Obamacare — they’re finished.

  6. Ah well, the demise of the EU had to help someone… Left-wing nutjobs will soon have to actually gain, wait for it, JOBS… (I know, it is unthinkable isn’t it?)…:P

  7. BO: I don’t consider 63 old and I’m older than you and don’t yet have a single wrinkle. If we can remain healthy and uninjured, we can live a long time and not burden the sickcare system. My main plan is do not smoke; limit coffee and alcohol. Then drink 10 glasses of water a day (with 1/4 tsp of sea salt for every quart/liter), take Magnesium supplements every day (because 80% of people in the West are deficient in Magnesium), go natural health, only eat food you can identify on your plate (no hot dogs!) and don’t drink the government Kool-aid in the form of vaccines. Many “degenerative diseases” are because of low Magnesium and some can be corrected by taking Magnesium. Floaters in the eyes may be because of high BP which can be lowered with Magnesium.

  8. Ed, are you old too? I’m only 63, but I already have a helluva time reading my monitor through my blended bifocals, and the words on the screen compete with the floaters in my eyes. It’s a real blessing to see so many seniors here. I respect the hoary head, and I wish my speech here were more respectful. Youth is a wonderful thing, and I wish our younger generation the very best; but real wisdom comes from (1) the fear of God, and (2) the school of hard knocks — MANY YEARS of the school of hard knocks; and (1) comes from (2). God bless and keep you, and give you many more years with us 🙂

  9. Katz depending on what browser you use there is in every browser a magnifier to enlarge text. Usually it is under view or in the tools.

  10. Ted, I don’t know why you have down sized the font. The letters are so small Old people like myself can’t read them.

  11. The message to them from Jerusalem should be simple: Hands off.

    I would substitute the word “hands” with another that starts with f.