The IDF spokesperson is taking heavy flak for his handling of last week’s border clashes; some say he’s a scapegoat
While the army of Israel succeeded in fending off repeated infiltration attempts from the Gaza border during mass protests and clashes over the past seven weeks, the State of Israel lost the fight for public opinion — resoundingly, according to some.
“There’s a war being waged, and we’re not even on the battlefield,” Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Michael Oren told The Times of Israel.
The story accepted by much of the world appears to be one of largely peaceful Palestinian protests met by overwhelming, disproportionate lethal force by the powerful Israel Defense Forces, said Oren. This beat out the Israeli narrative that says this was a military campaign by the Hamas terrorist group, which regularly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, using human shields as a cover for its attacks along the fence with the intention of getting as many of its own civilians shot by Israeli troops as possible, he said.
Israeli officials repeated that Hamas was trying to get mobs of Gazans through the fence, including its own gunmen, potentially to carry out attacks inside Israel, and that the IDF’s prime obligation was to ensure this did not happen. But precisely because it didn’t happen, this was a mere claim on Israel’s part — and it was set against actual pictures of dead and injured Gazans.
Palestinian mourners surround the body of Yazan al-Tubasi, wrapped in the flag of the Hamas terror group, after he was killed during clashes in Gaza the previous day, during his funeral in Gaza City on May 15, 2018. (Mahmud Hams/AFP) Over 100 Palestinians, including two journalists, have been killed by the IDF since the border clashes began on March 30, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, while there has been just one Israeli casualty reported — an IDF soldier, who was lightly wounded by a rock.
During these weekly riots, most of the demonstrators keep away from the security fence, staying in tents a few hundred meters back, but there are thousands who approach the border, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers on the other side or damaging the security fences and trying to break through them. So-called “terror kites” laden with containers of burning fuel were also flown into Israel, setting fire to hundreds of dunams of farmland and fields.
In response, Israeli forces have used tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds, which were aimed at the legs unless there was a direct, immediate threat to life, in which case shots were aimed at the torso. The army maintains that snipers adhered to strict rules of engagement and required approval from a commander in order to shoot. Israeli human rights groups have questioned the legality of the army’s rules of engagement, taking the issue to the High Court of Justice, where the case has yet to be resolved as of time of writing.
Some weeks have also seen direct clashes between armed Palestinians and Israeli forces.
Though a coalition of various organizations in Gaza proposed the march, the Hamas terror group, which has ruled the coastal enclave since taking it over in 2007 in a violent coup, quickly coopted it — providing free buses to the border, offering money to those who were injured, and sending its operatives to the fences disguised as civilians.
A Palestinian uses a slingshot during clashes with Israeli forces along the border with the Gaza Strip, east of Gaza City, on May 18, 2018. (AFP Photo/Mahmud Hams)
“The idea was ours, but the real situation is another story,” Ahmad Abu Artema, a Palestinian activist generally credited with starting the march, told the Financial Times newspaper last month, after the first riots.
While Artema and the original organizers maintain that the protests were meant to be nonviolent, Hamas leaders made it clear that this was not their aim. “We will tear down their border and tear out their hearts from their bodies,” Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief in Gaza, shouted during a rally on April 6.
At least one-fifth of the people killed were actively engaged in armed clashes with IDF troops — either using firearms or explosives — when they were shot. According to the army, a number of Palestinians were also shot dead as they tried to plant improvised explosive devices along the security fence, though the IDF would not provide an exact figure.
But the majority of those killed appeared to be unintended fatalities, who died from what were meant to be nonlethal wounds to the legs or were struck by bullets that missed their target.
A picture taken on May 14, 2018, from the southern Israeli kibbutz of Nahal Oz across the border with the Gaza Strip shows Israeli soldiers keeping position and Palestinian protesters gathering along the border fence with Israel. (AFP/JACK GUEZ)
While this disparity in the number of casualties between the two sides is the result of the military actions to prevent infiltrations on the border, and not a lack of deadly intent by Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Strip, it nevertheless exists.
And though the vast majority of the Palestinians killed were identified as members of terrorist organizations, either by the IDF or by the groups themselves, this information came out only after the fact.
Similarly, the fuller story of one of the more enduring images of the violence — the funeral of an eight-month old Gaza baby purportedly killed after inhaling tear gas — emerged only after hours of headlines and TV news reports last Tuesday; her family acknowledged she had a congenital heart disease, which a Gaza doctor indicated to the Associated Press was the more likely cause of her death.
“Bloodbath” and “massacre” appeared in headlines in major American and European newspapers on articles about Monday’s border clashes.
“Hamas can’t cut through the fence, so it wants to get people killed in order to delegitimize Israel. And the press plays into that, the press enables Hamas to win,” Oren said in an interview Friday.
In the aftermath of Monday’s border riots, Israel came in for sharp criticism, not only in press reports, but also in international fora.
A day after the clashes, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency session on the border violence and was only blocked from releasing a statement against the “killing of Palestinian civilians exercising their right to peaceful protest” by a United States veto.
On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council approved an independent inquiry into the deaths of the Palestinians on the border, with only the US and Australia voting against it.
The Palestinian Authority also contacted the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for potential war crimes on Monday.
In the aftermath of these blows, some Israeli politicians and officials have looked for someone to blame, and many found it in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, which played the central role in Israel’s official public relations efforts surrounding the Gaza border clashes.
But others say the army and its spokesperson Ronen Manelis are being used as a “scapegoat,” taking unfair flak for losing an unwinnable battle or, in the view of Oren, absorbing all the guilt for what is actually a deeper, national problem.
Who’s to blame?
One of the first to remark on the ostensible public relations failure was Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who told Israel Radio there was “criticism that could be heard” regarding the army’s public relations efforts.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, he said, “could have operated better, maybe ahead [of the riots].”
Veteran Israeli military correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai also published a scathing critique of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit’s handling of the Gaza clashes last week, titled “The PR failure on the Gaza fence.”
Criticism of the unit ramped up after the leaking of a phone briefing between the head of the IDF’s international media department, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, and representatives from the American Jewish communities last week, in which the officer said the dramatic images emerging from Gaza of wounded protesters had given Hamas an “overwhelming victory, by knockout” in the fight for public opinion.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh delivers a speech on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on May 18, 2018, at al-Omary mosque in Gaza City. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)
On Friday, former IDF spokesman and current Labor Party MK Nahman Shai condemned the unit for publicly acknowledging what was already clear to all: that Hamas had won the narrative battle.
“Hamas wanted the casualties, Hamas wanted people to die. Hamas wanted the pictures of the wounded and the overflowing hospitals and everything else,” Conricus was recorded as saying.
“It’s been very difficult to tell our story,” he told the American Jewish leaders, acknowledging, “Some of that, I’m sure, is my fault.”
Nothing that Conricus said would be much of a surprise to followers of the Gaza coverage, though he was perhaps more candid than spokespeople are expected to be. The IDF also said in a statement that the recording released by Haaretz was edited and removed important context for his remarks.
Shai criticized the officer for “giving out compliments to Hamas.”
Scapegoats
Malcolm Hoenlein, the longtime executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, defended Conricus and his commander Manelis, saying they were being unfairly criticized.
“You see them getting knocked in some press reports, and it’s just not understandable,” he said.
“They become scapegoats,” Hoenlein said.
Hoenlein, who is generally seen as a major figure on Israeli and Jewish issues, described as insurmountable the challenge facing Manelis and Conricus of selling the IDF’s narrative in light of what he regarded as bias in the international media, either against Israel or against US President Donald Trump, whom many blamed for the violence in Gaza over his decision to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last Monday, the day of the deadliest clashes.
“There was a bias that they started out against, which was not based on any facts. You could give the media all the information, but they were out to get [Israel]. Some of it is anti-Trump, some of it is other stuff,” Hoenlein said in a phone interview.
“I think they were doing a good job,” he said.
In addition to the phone call that was leaked, Conricus and Manelis made several calls to representatives from over 100 American Jewish organizations in order to provide them with information about the army’s Gaza operations and intelligence on Hamas’s efforts, which was passed on to the groups’ members and used in their lobbying efforts.
According to Hoenlein, this was an unprecedented level of contact with the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.
This can be seen as both the army taking initiative and other national bodies — the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Prime Minister’s Office — dropping the ball, which prompted the army to fill the vacuum.
“Other parts of the government could take a lesson from them in terms of how responsive they’ve been, how much they try to address our concerns and how available they’ve been for briefings on very short notice,” Hoenlein said.
Deputy Minister Oren, who has criticized Israel’s handling of the public relations surrounding the Gaza riots since they started, said IDF Spokesperson Manelis and his unit were being used as a whipping boy, though he too said there was room for improvement.
“I feel bad for Ronen. He is being made into a scapegoat for a far, far deeper problem,” the deputy minister said.
According to Oren, the government has not made public diplomacy a priority, as many lawmakers and senior officials feel that “‘they’ just hate us, so it won’t help.”
I feel bad for Ronen. He is being made into a scapegoat for a far, far deeper problem
For instance, Oren noted that the government had not prepared a list of talking points and messages for Israeli diplomats to use in interviews ahead of the first round of demonstrations on March 30, despite having had ample time to do so.
“A couple weeks ago, when these riots started on a Friday, people were calling me, saying ‘What are our messages? What are our messages?’ My response was, ‘Wait a minute, we’ve had months to prepare for this, months. And you’re preparing messages now, after the riots? Are we insane?’” Oren said.
“I propose we set up a multi-agency body, with powers and budget, of which the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is a part, but not the crucial part,” said Oren, who as deputy minister of public diplomacy would likely lead such an outfit.
Concrete steps
While the deputy minister said the real criticism should be focused more on the government’s disinterest in public diplomacy, and not Manelis and the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, he said there were concrete steps that the army could have taken to better express Israel’s messages.
The first was for the spokesperson’s unit to be faster, particularly in distributing visual materials.
There is typically a delay, from a few hours to a few days, before the military releases photographs and videos. In the case of images made by army photographers, this is because the materials need to be reviewed and approved up the chain of command before they can be disseminated. In the case of footage from surveillance cameras or other operational equipment, there are also technical stopgaps — meant to prevent sensitive information from being leaked — that can hold up the distribution process.
These are issues that do not exist on the Gaza side of the security fence.
“What I need from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is to release pictures in real-time,” Oren said.
The second issue, also mentioned in Ben-Yishai’s article, was the army’s refusal to allow reporters to embed with troops along the border or even approach it, with very few exceptions.
The military forbade journalists from getting closer than a few hundred meters from the fence during the “March of Return” protests. While few Western reporters approached the border from the Gaza side, they were able to speak with participants and photograph the riots.
On the Israeli side, the only soldiers who could talk to the press were those farther back, guarding the nearby Israeli communities. They were also technically prohibited from speaking to journalists, though some did so off-record.
The IDF said the riots were violent, with participants trying to breach the fence and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, but refused to allow journalists to see it firsthand.
The photographs distributed by the IDF of soldiers along the border also appeared to have been taken in the calm before the riots, before protesters set tires on fire, filling the skies with inky black smoke, and before the army started dropping tear gas, which was regularly blown back into Israel.
“You don’t see what it’s like to be an 18-, 19-year-old kid seeing people coming at you and know that if you let a breach of the fence happen, you’ve got 2,000 people armed with knives in Nahal Oz,” Oren said, referring to an Israeli community located less than a kilometer from the Gaza border.
“So the only perspective you get is the Palestinians’,” he said.
The IDF is generally loath to allow reporters to embed with soldiers during operational activities, though some exceptions have been made over the years, always under a tight watch by spokespeople.
This aversion comes, in part, from the last time the military allowed reporters such close contact with army units, during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Following the conflict, the spokesperson’s unit faced significant criticism for the practice, as some tactical information was accidentally published in the media, along with internal army gossip, according to officers from that time.
In the past, the army has also had concerns that individual soldiers could face legal trouble abroad if they are identified in the media — as in the case of Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, who could not get off a flight to London in 2005 for fear that he would be arrested and tried for war crimes upon debarking. (The British foreign secretary later apologized for the affair, and the arrest warrant was withdrawn.)
The military was thus unlikely to alter this policy on its own, and “no one told them” to change it, Oren said.
On Monday, Manelis accused the world of “falling for Hamas’s lies,” in an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal.
He brushed off all criticism of the spokesperson’s unit.
“Some of Israel’s greatest friends might have preferred that we had looked better in the media this past week, but between vanity and truth, the IDF always chooses truth,” Manelis wrote.
“The IDF will win where it matters — protecting our civilians in the face of terror,” Manelis wrote.
This seemed to prove Oren’s central criticism, that the military did not appreciate the importance of garnering — or at least not losing — public opinion, which can ultimately have an impact on the army’s ability to wage war.
“We think the primary battleground is the battleground. The primary battleground is not the battleground. The primary battleground is (US Senator) Dianne Feinstein and the Europeans. And that’s why we’re losing it; we’re not even fighting the right battle,” Oren said, referring to the Democrat lawmaker from California who last week supported an independent United Nations investigation of Israel’s actions on the Gaza border.
According to the deputy minister, however, the diplomatic and, potentially, legal fallout from the Gaza border violence will be a “pinprick” compared to what might come from a war with the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, which has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles stored in and around the homes of Lebanese civilians.
“The goal of the rockets — yes, it’s to cause us damage — but the main goal of the rockets is to get us to kill the people in the houses,” Oren said.
“Hezbollah and Hamas do not have a military strategy. They have a military tactic that serves a media, a diplomatic and a legal strategy,” he said.
“They know they can’t beat tzahal,” Oren said, using the Hebrew acronym for the army. “What they can do is create a situation where tzahal can’t act, where the tanks can’t roll and the planes can’t act.”
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar that may be useful so thanks. I feel it is important not to duplicate work. There is a foundational book on this which is on Amazon but no kindle edition…Ireland and the Palestine question 1948–2004 by Roy or Rory Miller…the last I knew of him he was a professor in a university in UK…I see the hardback book is about 18 euros and comes from a shop in Galway called Kennys Bookshop…they probably will post it to you for about another 5 euros
@ Felix Quigley:
Felix, you answered as the person I’ve always believed you to be. You will certainly not lose contact with me. As well, just in case, I herewith give Ted permission to give you my personal email address if you should need it for anything.
@ Edgar G.:
Anti-Semitism certainly has a strong historical basis in Christianity. Luckily not this not true across the board anymore in certain segments of modern Christianity.
Islam in its teaching and practices is anti-Semitic to the core. Todays Muslims are largely anti-Semitic in a very large overwhelming percentage.
Edgar on the contrary, believe me, not shut up but I am pledged to get the mechanism to make this known!
I maintain we are in a different situation one that is filled with possibility but also the opposite. It depends on leadership.
It is connected with the left. it will be decided there. The left is antisemitic. But the situation that these antisemites of the left face is contradictory. The Journal tried to plead this case of Ibrahim Halawa who was a Morsi supporter with his sisters and was for 4 years in prison in Egypt. Every time they did this on their journal which is thejournal.ie there was massive hatred for Halawa in the comments.
I conclude there is great hatred for Islam in Ireland.
Yet at the same time they still love the “Palestinians”.
You probably see where I am heading with this. How to create that necessary connection like a spark of electricity passing between diodes?
I would like to keep in touch, I would wish that this information you have, these memories, will figure in this. I hope to create an organization.
You probably understand how they sold “Palestinianism” in Ireland. They worked on the “refugee” meme.
We Irish really have been refugees. In the house I was brought up in, there were seven in the family, six of those including a girl left that house and made it on those boats to arrive in America. The seventh remained in poverty to carry on the line. In the years from 1842 to 1846.
With their lies of “Nakba” the Arabs of course sold the fakery on that basis.
They are no use to humanity and all they have is a dull cunning.
@ Felix Quigley:
Felix, I appreciate your thinking powers, but I totally disagree with your conclusions about Anti-Semitism. I have been reading scholarly tomes about it now for over 50 years, in fact longer than most people on this site have been alive. I say 50 but I am not giving the real figure by any means. Solomon Zeitlin in his 3 volume work, “The Rise And Fall of The Judean State; A Political Social And Religious History Of The Second Commonwealth”, deals shortly but ably with this subject, almost in a synoptic way; although it is not actually the focus of his work. And if my memory was good enough, I could detail, perhaps 100 or more equally cogent and accurate volumes of factual events. I have quite a few. Also my teacher was Professor Menahem Mansoor of Wisconsin University, a much published and acclaimed scholar of world renown.
The root cause of Jew-hate is the Christian religion, both strands, and in my time in Ireland, I went through the fire almost daily, as did most of my schoolmates. I had a regular convoy, which i steered home every day, because i was a fighter, and hardy any of the other kids could even throw a pebble into the sea. We were in the block next to the Jesuit Synge Street School. They used to run like hell to catch us at 3 o’clock every day, It was so bad that our headmaster had to go over to speak with the their Chief. It was useless, and eventually we were let out 10 minutes early every day.
Later, I was a prominent local sportsman yet I was blackballed, getting the telegram not to turn up “tomorrow”, at 11 p.m. the night before out first (cricket) match of the season. This, after a lot of newspaper publicity and my name published on the team list. That was only a tiny minor incident.
I joined a theatrical group, where I fighred that religions was not a problem. Yet, one night having driven one of the guys home as usual, he started talking about religion. “You Jews will go to hell” he said very seriously to me. I though he was kidding. Going further, he said. “You killed our god, you killed Christ, and will suffer through all the generations. I asked him where he got this info from. (I very politely did NOT call it rubbish) He said it was in his teachings and his (I think) catechism . He showed it to me a little black book that he said he always carried with him that taught him everything he needed to live. . He was dead serious. I was astonished-dumbfounded. I also learned that he wasn’t allowed to read a Bible.
But these are only a couple of my personal details, really meaningless in the whole story of Jew-hate that seethed for hundreds and hundreds of years throughout Europe and Russia, far too much to go into here. Just read Joshua Trachtenberg’s “The Devil and The Jews” and it will clarify my stumbling, inadequate explanations.
By the way-and I may have mentioned this already on this site- one of the teachers in my Jewish school was a man named Mr.Frank Edwards. A red hot Communist, he went to fight Franco in Spain. When he returned to Ireland, nobody would hire him. Our Community leaders heard about it and brought him in to teach in our school. He was a very fine teacher and a very fine gentleman. He spent the rest of his life with us.
Felix, Anti-Semitism is not to my mind a matter of leadership, perhaps organized atrocities are, but the disease is individually spread like contagion amongst the people. How would you, aged about 20-21, like to be asked to remove your hat, and then have grubby fingers search around to see where the little horn stubs are…? Yes that happened too, because I spoke up in a group that was running down Jews. I did not look like the popular concept of a Jew, always being taken as of German or Dutch descent. However pure Jew all the way back to Abraham I expect. Maybe a little pogrom rape here and there along the weary route..
I really cannot see that a man of your level could doubt the inherent and almost genetic extent of Jew-hate amongst the Gentiles. Especially Irish ones perhaps mainly in the cities but I saw it in the country too. Ireland was a factory for priests and nuns. As a child I recall a neighbour who owed us very many favours, try to get me to eat a piece of pork. A sort of miniature Mortara case.
I’m sorry that as I write, personal events come back to me and are related to the topic. And there are so many more…So I should shut up.
Edgar I am in disagreement with you on how you see Antisemitism and you seem to suggest there is a constant “pool” of Antisemitism in the world whereas I see this in our period as being an issue of leadership.
In my own case growing up in a rural setting in Ireland and with my grandparents having lived through all of these massive events, as regards the Holocaust I often think they knew nothing of what was happening. I mean my Grandfather was dependent on the Irish Press, because he supported the Republican side in the Civil War, and again it was an issue of leadership. The DeValera family who owned the Irish Press were feeding what they liked to people like my Grandfather. Republicanism was a dead end as far as leadership was concerned.
In the world it is ALL about leadership. There is no set pool of Antisemitism. It is about Trotskyist leadership today which can eliminate it. You can NEVER blame the ordinary people because what is in their heads has been put into their heads by the ruling class with its control of the Media in that case by the republican Irish Press.
It is very much the same today. There is need for a Trotskyist Party with its banner of truth flying in the air. Martin is super but he does not have that concept.
My own opinion without that concept people are reduced to dodging and diving to survive.
To some extent Ted. But no I think the essence of his essay was of a more general nature, which is the crucial importance of an understanding of history to guide us, not just the Jewish issue, but all issues. In other words Joseph was following the English tradition of establishing the facts and then allowing the truth to emerge from those facts.
In my first article I maybe made it a bit dreary by reprinting all of the points of the Versailles meeting in 1919. I thought though they had to go down on paper. In thinking of this I began to rate this year of 1919 and this conference in Paris as ultra important. It was here that the states of the world were gathered together and it was also here that they gave “Palestine” to the Jews as their Homeland. Most important we have many pictures to show it. The picture I chose for my first article is very powerful. There are many others. How will the oposition argue against this historical material? They will fall back on a mix of things one of which is conspiracy theory based on Jews controlling governments, and out of that emerges an alliance between Islam and leftism.
My interpretation Edgar is that Joseph was driven out of Israpundit and certainly not by Ted who did massive work from its origins. Something else was in operation.
It is something that you find in all national movements. There is an insularity. I met this in the insular Irish movement the worst of which was the Provies.
They had the answers such as they were amd you joined them on their terms.
I as a marxist and Trotskyist was totally against that. I saw that they had no answers just as today I see that the way Jews and Israel are going they have NO answers either.
So what to do? Actually there is no problem. It has all happened before many times.
I fight in a “United Front” with the Jewish movement for a Homeland but I do so as a Marxist and Trotskyist. My aim is to fight against Israel being defeated and part of that is that if Israel is defeated it will mean a descent into Antisemitism, Fascism and a Hell on Earth.
Sadly Joseph was not a Trotskyist. He did not have that perspective.
I disagree with Martin Sherman as well. The reason for Israel not stating its case in the way that Joseph did in 23 Reasons is that politically it is not ABLE to do so. Politically the Israeli leaders are just as bankrupt as the Provies were.
In relation to Gaza Israpundit under Ted was a mess. It was totally divided and no clear position was fought for. There was Omri Coren who thought that Sharon and the US had things well under control and that great things were on their way. And there was a side which predicted, it was not hard to do actually, that the disengagement what a word that is!, would produce massive problems.
There was an alternative and that was the total mobilization of the Jewish people behind a certain type of leadership which would place Israel at the head of the fight against the despotism of the “Palestinians”. That above necessitated a fight also against the US leaders.
Gaza as I remember it meant a tailing behind the American and world leaders and an inability of the Israeli bourgeoisie to lead this national struggle independent from these major powers in the world.
Under Netanyahu and all of the present leaders Israel has become a case simply of ducking and diving. Never really independent. Israel has a case so Israel must make the case, act and face the consequences.
All of the policies and actual political positions on the ground, as with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, flow from these false positions of these leaders.
Assad was desperate. Russia also was desperate. People deliberately overlook this desperation. Israel lost a huge opportunity to put itself at the front of the fight against the Jihad. Israel HAD TO offer a United Front with Russia and Syria in order to defeat this Jihadist Fascism.
Remember Yamit and Ross. They argued “what is there not to like?” with ISIS and the chaos was to be a welcome thing for Israel. And Ted was silent at this time that is he had NO position.
I am saying something very simple. The cause is great but these bourgeois national leaderships sell out all the time. It is in their DNA.
@ adamdalgliesh:
The original site ws called israpundit.blogspot.com. It was started in 2001 and we changed the name and format to just Israpundi.com in 2006. So our fight against the Disengagement is there for all too see.
The archives (look in menue above). I did something wrong and lost a year or two of posts..Some how along the way,
Norland had a Phd in demographics I believe, and he worked fo the Canadian government.
Norland was best know for 23 Reasons to oppose a second Palesttinian state in Gaza and J&S
http://israpundit.blogspot.com/2002/09/why-one-should-oppose-second_10.html
Here is the full argument in PDF format.
http://www.onestateplan.com/23-Reasons.pdf
I am going to read the whole thing again because obviously the basis of his opinion was Jordan is Paletine. I had forgotten this.
If you see my article here on http://trotskyist.org/from-word-go-israel-was-legitimate/ you will understand that it is my intention to rewrite 23 Reasons in a different form, but essentially to show that Palestinianism is a fake concept that has been successful in trapping far too many. You will understand that this is very tied in with my concept of the way forward being Trotskyism, or truth in history, a kind of “truth no matter what”, and there are many who cannot take this, but Arnold who “likes” Stalin not so strangely has understood this. History is actually very complicated.
Jews are very wary of “the stranger” and they have a dammed good right to be too. Joseph felt that. I was different, more arrogant in a certain way because I saw and see Trotskyism as tied in with the WHOLE future. And there were differences especially over Sharon and the Gaza issue where Ted had a complicated position for a while. Joseph and myself were dead against Sharon giving it up. But mainly the issue is the same as today…The Jews around Israpundit, some anyway, did not realize what a treasure it was to have non Jews leading on the issue. I am very precise in my use of the word “leading”. That was one of the main causes of Joseph drifting off. Please urgently find out what happened. Last time I wrote to him so many years ago he did not answer. Thanks so much to here for keeping this article alive http://www.onestateplan.com/23-Reasons.pdf
@ Michael S:
They never had any right to “accuse”. At one time I though they were improving from impossible to practically impossible, but I know now that I was wrong. Is there any negative worse than impossible…If there is, that’s what they are. The Goyim. Mamzerim.
The American Jews are almost Goyim with their mostly Reform adherence, and ignoring or deliberately breaking as many Torah dictums as they can find. The only good thing about them is that in another generation, maybe two, they’ll be all gone….I mean from any kind of Judaism.
It’s a given, that whenever Israel defends itself from attacking Arabs, Israel is blamed. Blaming the Israeli government or military for such actions is completely counterproductive.
I might add, that the opposition to Israel has been deeply entrenching itself since President Trump got elected. That opposition consists of nearly all the mainstream media, universities, movie producers (the usual suspects) and nearly all the Democratic Party — which includes most American Jews. Those opposed to the Dems and their insanity, meanwhile, seem to be reflexively supporting Israel as a result.
This partisan situation has become really ugly in the US. The church I have been attending for several years has now been taken over by blatantly antisemitic Democrats; and I have been tossed out. The church is very mainstream Evangelical; so you can see that Israel’s main support base here has been compromised.
Just a gut feeling, but I am looking forward to a Republican landslide in the Fall 2018 elections. This should be good for Israel, for a while; but I expect really raw evil to take over this country (and much of the church) in a few years.
I see no reason to criticize Israel for ANYTHING; because its accusers are going from very wicked to extremely wicked; and they have lost any right they might have once had to accuse.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Yes, very intriguing, I was wondering what happened to him, perhaps he was dead. I think it was even then named Israpundit because the items I saw that he submitted were on an Israpundit page of a different format. Perhaps he contributed fora while after Ted took over. I could be wrong as I really don’t know anything. I should have thought of asking Ted, who would know if anyone would. A pity the other bloggers dropped off it sounded like a very high level production, and am glad that Felix is still here.
@ Ted Belman: Just a question for Ted: When you refer to “the site” begun by Mr. Norland, which he later turned over to you, are you referring to Israpundit, or some other blog? If it was some other blog, what was its name? Can any of its posts still be found on the web? Again, just a request for information. I find this reference to a Joseph Norland blog intriquing but a little mysterious. Does Mr. Norland still run some sort of web blog? Do you have a web address or email address for him? Thanks, Adam.
@ Ted Belman:
A very memorable and accurate quote.
@ adamdalgliesh:
American Lawyer Allan Dershowitz and the Muslim authors who write for the Gatestone Institute do more positive PR for Israel than the Israeli government does.
Israel has never done well with public relations. David Ben-Gurion was opposed to it in principle: “It’s not what the Gentiles say, but what the Jews do is important.” Shimon Peres claimed that all Israel had to do was to adopt what he thought were moral policies (meaning appeasement of the Arabs and Western governments), and Israel’s image would automatically improve. Since the state was founded “hasbara” has received only a pittance from the Israeli government–less per year, someone pointed out, than what one medium size Israeli candy manufacturer spends on advertising. Israel has never had a ministry of information, as all other Mideast countries do. Israel’s government-financed radio and television both spout anti-Israel, pro-Palestine propaganda, as does one of its major newspapers. Israeli “intellectuals” such as Amos Oz, Ari Shavit and Daniel Gordis constantly engage in anti-Israel propaganda, publishing anti-Israel books and articles for the foreign press, and making anti-Israel speaking tours to diaspora Jewish communities and congregations. Senior Israeli politicians parrot accusations that Israel is an “apartheid state.” Of all the Israeli institutions to scapegoat, the IDF spokesperson’s office is the most unfairly accused, since it is the only one that has published and made available to the press documentary evidence that vindicates the conduct of the Israeli military and demonstrates its innocence of the constant false accusations in the foreign, and all too often the Israeli, press. The Spokesperson’s unit may be slow to react to false accusations because it is so scrupulous about always being accurate and having all the facts before it goes public. But at least it gets the facts out eventually. The rest of the Israeli government , including the foreign ministry, do absolutely nothing to tell Israel’s side of the story. Israel’s government lawyers even refuse to defend Israel before the World Court!
Joseph Norland is not Jewish. He started the siteshortly after 9/11. At first it was host to a number of bloggers of whi9ch I wqas one and Quigley was another. After a few years Niorland decided to turn the reins over to me as he thought it was better if a Jew ran the site. Bit by bit the other blo0ggers moved on. !uigle6y was the last to go.
I never heard from Joseph again.
He started out pro Palesintine and proceeded to research everything and as a result of his new found knowledge, switched to our side.
I agree with Bear. Gaza was a win for Israel. I don’t care about us loosing the propaganda war.. In fact, I don’t believe we did. Everyone who fights us knows the truth.
Who was it that said, “It doesn’t matter what the gentiles think, it matters what the Jews do.”
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
Hugo, I don’t know. He was on this site years before me, as you obviously were too, but I’ve come across reference to his postings over the years on the internet. I recall reading an extract from Martin Gilbert, describing the way that England swindled the Jewish People out of their Trans-Jordan Province. and it sees to me that it was very like my often mentioned account on this site, of the way it happened as described by Christopher Sykes in his “Crossroads to Israel”. A wonderful book.
The Gilbert extract was submitted by Norland.
Almost everyone of the English language online papers in Israel, wrote an article how Israel lost the PR battle regarding the Gaza riots and attempted break-ins into Israel.
Israel starts with a stacked decks against it as many of the worlds large papers and TV outlets do not provide a level approach to Israel. They employ journalists who time and again write anti-Israel pieces and present the enemies propaganda as the truth. Even if it is a terrorist group such as Hamas.
The article these Israeli papers need to be writing is why can Israel not get a fair shake?
The good news is actually that the terrorists did not proceed to enter Israel and these marches basically were major flops. Enemy terrorists died trying to break into Israel without harming any Israeli soldiers. I call that a win. Would these papers prefer better press from the western media outlets?
Better press would come if the terrorists break into Israel and not only kill soldiers but Israeli civilians. What a real disaster that would be!
So I personally call this a win for Israel. 100+ Dead terrorists and their operation foiled. The bad news is that their are still way too many terrorists on our borders and in Judea/Samaria. The Israeli press could also commend the IDF for a job well done!
@ Edgar G.:
Joseph Alexander Norland…what happened to him?
@ ArnoldHarris:
It’s a wonderful scenario Arnold, to salivate over , but it won’t happen this way. We don’t know what fresh disaster faces the Jews in the future which can possibly cut down our numbers. And, logically, the surrounding countries, wiil, at some time, and after maybe many years, settle down to become proper countries, and conform to the mores of other normal countries. with alliances and etc. So it will be difficult to expand much beyond our present borders. Perhaps part of southern Syria, maybe something will happen which will allow us to take over part of Sinai. Maybe Jordan will eventually disintegrate, but then, what about those living there…?
I know that just as I am sitting here typing, that the solution will be …another Diaspora. Jews will emigrate, as they have been doing all through Israel’s forming and growing years. If they are smart, and this will have to be an official government backed move, they will find a country which is much underpopulated, and consolidate a colony there, which will eventually become another Jewish State, something like King Solomon’s intrepid explorers used to do. But, unlike them, who assimilated into the local population, keep in close and constantly interchanging touch with the State of Israel.
The truth is..we DON’T know at all what will happen except for the close, more immediate future. But it’s a wonderful dream you have. I’ve had the same although I know it’s not realistic….
More like the old Irgun/Lehi song..”on both sides of the Jordan”…….
Wanted to welcome you back on the site. I missed you..and your other poster comparable in age, I can’t recall his name but he through just like you. You’ll know who I mean.
Some of you — maybe most of you — waste too much of your time and even your lives agonizing about what none-Jews think of us — to the point at which you allow your concerns — and more likely your endless fears — that the goyim will frown upon you and maybe even pounce upon you.
Pounce on me is one of the things that happened to me in my high school years in one of what proved to be the nastier parts of Chicago. On that occasion, I went upside his head with the business end of a hammer, and put a scar their which that particular Jew hater — if he is still living 70 years later — still carries on the left side of his face. Nothing else I ever have done fills me with more pride.
I really and truly do not give a shit what any of the non-Jews think of our Jewish nation. Because life is not a public relations game. It is in fact a struggle to get and defend a patch of the surface of Planet Earth, and to expand that patch at the expense of our enemies.
And if we play our Jewish national cardsright, we will win that struggle over time. The Jewish popilation growth level in Israel is about 2% per annum, and sometimes greater than that. And my statisticin’s math tells me that the Jewish population of the Jewish state will be doubling every 36 years or less. It’s about 6.5 million now. Which could mean 13 million in 36 years, 26 million in 72 years, 52 million 108 years, 104 million in 142 years.
But — “oy v’avoy, where oh where shall be house all thos people in tiny Israel? ”
Well, we won’t. As our national strength grows with each generation, we will jack that that strength into battery — as they used to say when I served the US Army in a big gun artillery unit — and let the belligerence of our Arab neighbors to conquer and Israelicize significant new segments of land to the north, the east, and the southeast.
And believe it or not, we will have more foreign allies that way then we ever could arrange showing them all the despicable face of the cringing Jew and his endless fears.
Think on it.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ Edgar G.:
I meant to add that abroad, roughly the same attitudes prevail. They are fearful because they don’t know what he’ll do next, and because it will benefit the USA first, they’ll naturally know that they’ll be put “under the gun”. The respect him very highly, believe me. However, it’s all so new and sudden to them after many years of freeloading on the American taxpayer, that they are resisting by trying to band together, but that ploy is already fraying a bit at the seams.
We can see, how Israel, normally very fearful and cautious where the EU is concerned, even with Jordan and the PA, are suddenly taking the bull by the horns and committing themselves to long term building and on the verge of declaring Sovereignty in Area C, not to mnetion how much iron the US Embassy move to Jerusalem put in their collective government spine.
Israel today is bombing all across Syria, taking out the Iranian and Hezballah facilities with impunity and a daring brinkmanship that has been very lacking for the past many years. I’m sure they don’t first drop leaflets to make sure that no civilian employees are injured either. !!
@ Buzz of the Orient:
No I don’t think so. There was widespread electoral fraud by the Dems. They were stealing ballot boxes and stuffing others. An old, well practiced Democrat gimmick, they have ways of doing it that would open your eyes. The Dem popular majority was fake, and I’ve read lots about it, also heard about it on Fox news.
Clinton won in California which was a major part of the popular vote. There were boxes which had more Dem votes in them than there were actual people living there. Don’t forget the Dems invented sophisticated voter fraud. They are the founders of Tammany Hall.
They used to meet the immigrant Jews straight off the boat, bring them to a place to stay, food and a little money. Which is why the Jews were always sticking to the Dems from the beginning.
When it came a few months before voting times, the ward heelers would go around to every one of their voters. That meant they would stop shaving. a few months later at the voting booths, the voter (still an immigrant and not a citizen yet) would vote with a full beard and moustache. Then go away and shave part of his beard and change his jacket. A little later, maybe at a different booth, with different identity papers, he’s vote with only a moustache, and vote later again..clean shaven. I say it again, the Dems invented voter fraud.
Tammany Hall used to be run for many years by Frank Costello, the Mafia boss who was looking after Lucky Luciano’s Mob after he was deported. He was so influential, that HE picked the candidates and organised everything. They used to call him “The President”. He was enormously powerful….and a “Democ-rat”…
I have a comprehensive biography of Frank Costello-real name Francesco Castiglia_ in which his close friends Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigal are often mentioned. He was known to be one of the few Mafia Dons who was alllowed to stay alive and retire. ..
@ Edgar G.:
Hopefully you are correct that Trump will gain respect, but concerning what you said:
“But the LARGE MAJORITY of the PEOPLE are behind him.They voted for him…”
As it happens, Trump was elected due to the Electoral College procedure, not by majority of votes, because in fact he did not obtain a majority of the votes, Hillary did.
@ Buzz of the Orient:
I think you missed my point. I wrote “as time goes on’…in other words it won’t come immediately, but Trump is the unstoppable force and the Dems are the not quite immovable object. They’ve been afraid of him almost since he began to campaign, as witness by the highly illegal measures taken by the Dems, and some Repubs to stop him all the way through the run-up.
But he won, and they are terrified of him to the degree that they are practically dribbling at the mouth in fear and loathing. But the LARGE MAJORITY of the PEOPLE are behind him.They voted for him, and are being more and more satisfied with the results of what he’s accomplishing.
So…they’ll always hate him, but will be forced, as not doubt they already are beginning to,, respect him.
@ Edgar G.:
I don’t think Trump gets much respect in the US, and in a lot of the rest of the world, even grudging respect, but at least he’s the best POTUS friend Israel has ever had. If the Democrats take over from him down the road, with Elllison and Sanders calling the shot, dark days for Israel could be ahead.
@ Buzz of the Orient:
If i’m right, then there is no way you also can be right…..that I can visualise; perhaps could be done via a rabbinic drasha……or maybe a Jesuit….
In my opinion, the only way it can be partially changed and pushed underground like the Hamas terrorists, is that when Israel has a military/terrorist problem to act with massive force, and clear out the contagion in a way that it will be permanent. As time goes on, and Israel acts accordingly, the hate will still be there, but also a grudging respect, like there is with Trump, who generally does what he says.
The majority of Goyim will NEVER like us, Jew-hate is endemic, it’s contagious, it’s in the air the Goyim breathe…… incurable, but controllable as above.
@ Edgar G.:
I think we’re both right, but if you’re 100% right and I’m 100% wrong, then I don’t think there is any hope whatsoever to change it.
@ Buzz of the Orient:
It gives me no pleasure to tell you that you’re wrong, at least mostly wrong. Jew-Hate is what causes the Goyim to act the way they do towards Israel. At first it was against the Jews, but since so many Jews are now in Israel, and, so-to-speak, out of the range of the normal Jew-hate, it has been transferred to Israel, using Israel’s actions, HOWEVER LEGAL AND JUSTIFIED, even innocuous, to twist into crimes, so as to have some sort of cause to hate Israel, in actuality because this is the Jewish State full of Jews.
If it was an Arab State, or a Timbuktu State, they wouldn’t hate it. They would either praise or ignore it.
I’ve been saying for years that I believe a big part of the bias against Israel is because it was never concerned about public relations and its image. Why? In my opinion it was because of arrogance and a widespread superiority complex. So the bias against Israel grew to the extent of what it is today, an almost insurmountable mountain of disrespect, embraced even by so many diaspora Jews. Now the problem will be almost impossible to solve, and for sure I don’t have the answer. It could take years to reverse the effect caused by Israeli negligent disinterest.