Confronting the Apologists of Israel

David Ha'ivri of Ynet published an opinion piece entitled 'Confront the Bashers of Israel' that I think merits being sliced, diced and otherwise dissembled. The pretext for the piece is Ha'ivri's experiences debating two left-wing peace activists: Dr. Hussein Ibish and British MP Julian Brazier. Now while I disagree politically with both Dr. Ibish and Mr. Brazier I think it is beholden on me as an opponent of Israel to confront Ha'ivri as an unqualified apologist for Israel.

The tone for Ha'ivri's piece is set by his silly ad hominem against Dr. Ibish when he says that he has a 'PhD in obnoxious' when all Ibish has done is criticise Israeli policy and call for action. If one is obnoxious just because one strongly criticises something - as Ha'ivri implies - then surely Ha'ivri is himself far more obnoxious precisely because of his failure - unlike Dr. Ibish - to produce substantiation for his views.

This becomes twisted in Ha'ivri's interpretation as ‘his [Ibish's] strategy is to use academic rhetoric to make nonsense sound important’, which is nonsense and Ha'ivri knows it. In fact it is not in small part a Freudian projection on Ha'ivri's part precisely because he is the one harping on about research and using academic rhetoric rather than substantiating his views. Indeed one could say that Ha'ivri is using journalistic rhetoric to make his views sound like they are the objective, absolute, God-given truth of the matter. This is so typically jewish a debating/argumentation strategy - i.e., tacitly using the logic of 'as I am a jew, I am therefore chosen by God, so therefore anything I believe is what God believes' - that it makes much of Ha'ivri's implicit claims to be academically rigorous beyond simply hilarious and cross-over into the realm of fantasy.

I would also add - with not a little humour - that Ha'ivri's English obviously needs work as he uses 'obnoxious' rather than the correct 'obnoxiousness'. Perhaps you ought to spend the time that you recommend Mr. Brazier spends doing research doing some of your own eh David.?

Ha'ivri then leaves the subject of Dr. Ibish and moves on to berate Mr. Brazier with little stylistic vigour let alone intellectual substance.

Ha'ivri thinks he can detect a 'contradiction' between Brazier's opposition to a boycott of all Israeli products/produce and his call to investigate British local authorities (Ha'ivri calls them 'municipalities' incorrectly) who worked with the French company Veolia (well sorry Dalkia is the parent company of which Ha'ivri seems to be unaware) who are involved in the creation of a Light Rail network in Jerusalem (aka a step towards making Jerusalem a purely jewish city).

Ha'ivri seems to think one is related to the other: however if Brazier does believe in a boycott then he would have to oppose all transactions with Israel. On the other hand if Brazier doesn't believe in a boycott then he can still advocate specific and/or partial opposition to transaction with Israel without contradicting himself: precisely because he is suggesting punitive action against Israeli interests not an actual boycott. There is a significant and important difference, which for all Ha'ivri's poorly lyricized posturing about intellectual rigour: he doesn't seem to comprehend let alone mention.

Ha'ivri styles Brazier as claiming that the activity of Israeli settlers and the ever-increasing expansion of the settlement policy and scope (even with the occasional abandonment of a settlement too costly or controversial to hold on to) is a factor (although Ha'ivri tries to claim Brazier is using it as a mono-causal explanation which he isn't) in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (and presumably the Salafist movement as well) in Egypt, which is correct: it is. A central plank of the Muslim Brotherhood's political program and intellectual ideology derives from its strong support of the Palestinian cause and as such Israel's settlement policy and the routinely genocidal and murderous actions of Israeli settlers will necessarily play into that.

Ha'ivri then asserts that Brazier argues that Israeli activities are behind (again assigning a mono-causal claim where a multi-causal one was made) the rise of anti-British sentiments in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is again reasonably correct in that it was the British who allowed Israel to become an international problem in the first place and allowed jewish organisations to take root that then allowed Israel to become a fact. It doesn't help that the power of the Israel Lobby in Britain - as in America and the rest of Europe - is frightening and has been documented more than once to have been heavily involved in campaigning for war (and the extension of those wars already fought) in the Middle East. That - like Brazier himself assert - is not to suggest that this is the only reason for the rise of such sentiment, but that rather is is one of the reasons for the rise in such sentiments.

Thus Brazier is quite right and Ha'ivri exposed as the lying little toad he surely is.

After making a proverbial pig's breakfast out of representing the arguments of Brazier: Ha'ivri decides that it is time once again for him to stand on the proverbial soapbox (taking care not to fall through of course) of the 'irrationality' of Israel's opponents and critics: a position that I would also add is exactly what jewish 'experts' on anti-Semitism love to discuss and claim about those who criticise jews in general.

As if to be a critic of the jews and/or Israel it makes you ipso facto irrational, which I would point is once again typical jewish reasoning of 'one cannot be opposed to jews, because jews are the chosen people and it therefore follows anything the jews do is right and thus anyone criticising them is simply being irrational'.

Why is it that only in the case of Israel do a country's apologists assert - overtly or covertly - that is simply irrational to criticise that country, but yet it is not similarly irrational to sing peons of praise to that country?

The answer is deceptively simple in that it is not a contradiction in their eyes, because Israel is a 'chosen nation' for the 'chosen people' and thus it can do no wrong. So as it can do no wrong there is nothing to criticise, but much to laud.

Ha'ivri then tells us that he suggests that apologists of Israel 'confront the bashers of Israel and not let them get away so easily'. Aside for the laughable notion that Israel's Amen Corner don't already follow critics of Israel around screaming abuse at them, trying to ruin their careers and/or sue them: it is apposite to remark that if Ha'ivri's article is supposed to be a good example of 'confronting the bashers' then I don't think the 'bashers' have much to worry about.

In fact as someone who has been called an 'Israel basher' (on the nicer end of the abuse spectrum) on numerous occasions in my professional and intellectual life then I have a simple response to Israeli apologists like Ha'ivri: bring it on.

Ha'ivri then swiftly moves on to lionise himself and his invitation from the British Israel Coalition. After all there is nothing quite like lots of empty rhetoric and no intellectual meat in a pro-Israel opinion piece: is there?

The British Israel Coalition for those unaware of it a hard-line Zionist organisation - evident from just reading their web page - that tries to divine - in practiced although rather stale terminology - 'extremism', 'bigotry' and 'anti-Semitism' in any anti-Israel activity and specializes in the weird sub-genre of alarmist literature that jewish 'watchdog' and 'advocacy' organisations have more or less created. To them everything critical of Israel is ipso facto 'anti-Semitic' and an example of 'extremism' while everything that is positive about Israel is ipso facto 'objective', 'balanced' and 'well-researched'.

The idea that say BDS is an 'extremist organisation' while its mirror-image pro-Israel counterpart is somehow the representation of supposed sanity on earth is quite the amusing paradox: isn't it?

Ironically Ha'ivri then confirms a central argument of the so-called 'bashers of Israel' when he asserts that the British Israel Coalition imported an Israeli hack like himself and then 'organised a letter-writing campaign to the British Parliament and local newspapers' in attempt to publicly defame and bring pressure to bear on Brazier.

That my dear David is called partial evidential confirmation of the Israel Lobby hypothesis: put simply (as evidently I need to do so with your pedestrian mind) [mainly jewish] proponents of Israel systematically pressurize those in power to support Israel, defame and try to remove them from power if they do not, misrepresent themselves as not being the agents of a foreign country and systematically push the interests of that country to the exclusion of the interests of the country being campaigned in.

Oh and then scream 'I'm jewish you can't criticise me, because that's anti-Semitic' when somebody asks them an impertinent - or even simply inconvenient - question.

Now surely you can recognise what you have just said is yet more direct confirmation of the existence of such a coordinated group?

I hope so as otherwise I'd have to conclude that you are blind as well as a bit slow.

Ha'ivri then moves on to beat his breast once more about the 'jewish birthright to the land of Israel' and that this 'stated in the Bible'. No David if you had paid attention in your Torah classes you would be aware that Palestine was only 'given' to the jews by Hashem and that if one does not believe in Hashem or that Hashem is the sole god in the pantheon then this claim is de facto null and void. It is basically magical thinking as it is only true if you believe it to be true: rather how I could similarly claim that if I dance round a tree making strange signs with my hands it would conjure up a demon from hell.

The former makes just as much lack of sense as the latter and both are dependent on a priori belief rather than being simply vindicated by objective observation: that is unless Ha'ivri wants to summon a demon from hell by dancing round a tree making strange signs with his hands to prove me wrong?

If Ha'ivri had been paying attention when he was taught Torah he would be aware that Palestine was already occupied when the jews turned up and decided it had been 'given to them by Hashem': a fact also attested to by both Herodotus and Strabo in their accounts. In fact Herodotus doesn't even mention the jews supposedly living in Palestine (which is the term he uses not 'Israel' or 'Judah') but rather seems to be of the un-biblical opinion that the locals were worshipers of Aphrodite and Canaanite gods.

So one wonders how on earth can Palestine be 'the jewish birthright' if it was occupied before the jews even turned up: surely it is the birthright of the Canaanites not the jews. Incidentally I should add that Judaism commands all jews to exterminate all the Canaanites however despite the similarity of the command to also exterminate all the Amalekites as well: the jews are held by Maimonides to have already exterminated the former.

So one wonders if Ha'ivri is actually telling us that because of the jewish genocide of the aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine: the jews have thus inherited their birthright?

It would certainly be of interest to know as I am sure Ha'ivri would be among the first to make known to the world his opposition to genocide, but yet he doesn't mention genocides his people - according to their own religious literature that he manifestly believes in - have performed.

Strange that!

Ha'ivri continues on by asserting that Israel is not occupied land, but David according to the Torah: it is occupied land! I thought secular justifications were irrelevant to your biblically-based agenda?

He then goes to make another absolute howler of a comment when he asserts that 'creation of Jewish communities in Judea and Samara' are not the cause of anti-West sentiment, but rather fundamentalist Islam is.'

The problem - for those readers unable to spot it at first glance - is that Ha'ivri is asserting that an anti-Western intellectual system is creating anti-Western thought so Ha'ivri is using a tautology as he does not explain why 'fundamentalist Islam' is 'creating' anti-Western sentiment when he should know that Islamic theology - in the words of John Esposito - is a mosaic not a monolith. Islam has many strands: the fact that one of the most abhorrent is currently the most popular does not mean that it the cause as Ha'ivri hasn't told us why this version of Islam is so popular.

Oh and no David it cannot be because of 'anti-Western sentiment' as that is circular logic.

So basically what Ha'ivri is trying to sell here is the idea that Islam itself somehow creates this anti-Western sentiment, which leaves out the human context and the myriad and sectarian nature of theology in general. In essence: the human context creates the appeal of an intellectual system of any kind and if the jews weren't taking over - what is perceived to be - Islamic land then an Islamic theological system which stresses the concept of Jihad would not be as popular as it is as it would not have the explanatory power of other Islamic theological systems.

Therefore it is Israel's settlement policy that is a significant cause = although one of several - which is driving the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East and it is no use trying to get away from that precisely because in this idea of the jews besieging the lands of Islam using the Christian West as an unknowing (or sometimes knowing among the most radical) tool is almost de rigor in radical Islamic literature.

Ha'ivri then ends his opinion piece with another frequent and almost axiomatic claim in that 'bashing Israel is a convenient excuse and meeting place for anti-West and anti-Semitic types who pose as liberals and human rights activists'.

In this we have - what we may call - the true face of the jew in all his dubious glory: claiming that everyone who opposes Israel (and by extension the jews) is an 'anti-Semitic Nazi' effectively and that if one opposes Israel then one is engaged in a massive Protocols of Zion type conspiracy against the jews. After all one cannot be a 'human rights activist' if one opposes the jews who - according to Judaism - are not merely human but chosen: so how can one campaign for the rights of those lower in the Judaic pecking order of things than the jews?

I would hasten to add that as an 'anti-Semitic Nazi' I am all for the West and no David Israel isn't part of the West. Israel has as little to do with the West as Islam as both jews and Muslims have resided in Western countries for centuries, but neither have ever been or ever will be Western!

Might Ha'ivri listen to what I have to say and change his mind about not doing his research before he opens his big mouth?

I doubt it.

References

(1) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4219135,00.html