" Between the Idea and the Reality . . . Falls the Shadow"

Media Coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian Clash Is Built on a Myth

Daniel Harsanyi
National Review Online

No matter how often Hamas tells us that rioters on the Israel–Gaza border are armed, the media keep referring to them as “protesters” and “demonstrators.” No matter how often Hamas concedes that those rioters are part of a broader “war,” the media simply won’t report it as such. And even though rioters assure reporters they have a desire to kill and burn Jews, left-wing journalists and pundits continue to frame Israel as the aggressor.

This week, a senior Hamas official bragged that 50 of the nearly 60 people killed by the Israeli Defense Forces at the Israel–Gaza border were members of Hamas. Israel has identified around 24 of those killed during the riots as Hamas members — ten of them reportedly members of the internal-security apparatus. All of this is an amazing coincidence considering how the clashes have been portrayed as a massacre of innocent civilians and children.

Hamas, of course, has no problem boasting about these deaths, but it’s the goal: If you’re going to embed armed terrorists in a ginned-up mob that has been propagandized, paid, coerced, and then sent toward military installations and civilian centers across the border, you are counting on casualties. Because martyrdom is the point.

Instead of taking them at their word, Hamas apologists continue arguing that Gaza is an open-air prison. This is true only if you consider people who lock themselves up as prisoners.

A Has-Been Cause

Another Blow to the Palestinians 

Trump Threatens To Cut Off Aid

By cutting off hundreds of millions in American aid to the Palestinian Authority, the president could radically alter the Middle East.

By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online

President Trump set off another Twitter firestorm last week when he hinted that he may be considering cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Trump was angered over Palestinian unwillingness to engage in peace talks with Israel after the Trump administration announced the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Given that the U.S. channels its Palestinian aid through third-party United Nations organizations, it’s unclear how much money Trump is talking about it. But in total it may exceed $700 million per year, according to reports.

A decade ago, the U.S. row with the Palestinian Authority would have been major news. But not now.  Why?

The entire Middle East has radically changed — and along with it the role and image of the Palestinians.

Turning of the Tide

An Open Letter to Israel

The editors at ContraCelsum have no particular connection to the nation of Israel.  We do not see the existence of Israel as any representing any particular fulfillment of biblical prophecy, although the existence of Israel as a modern state surely falls under the decrees of God's providence.  But His purposes for His ancient people will be fulfilled whether Israel continues to exist as a nation, or not.

To say this begs a question.  Will Israel survive as a nation state?  We are not used to states going out of existence, but of course it has happened many times in human history.  It is highly likely, for example, that the state of Iraq might cease to exist.  Syria similarly.  If Israel were to cease to exist, why ought that to surprise us--as if such a thing had never happened before?  After all there are plenty of voices, some near at Israel's hand, calling for the annihilation of that nation and its expunging from human history.

Perhaps most significantly, Israel's strongest supporter (in a geo-political sense) has been the United States.  Yet under Barack Obama that support has not just waned: it has turned into near official hostility, with the President recently engaging in rhetoric that if any other Western state were to utter in an official, or semi-official capacity, would be deemed anti-semitic.

Letter From London (About The Real Problem in Palestine)

Why Netanyahu is Back

by David P. Goldman
Asia Times Online
May 10, 2015

^{Originally published under the title, " Why Israel Has a Right-Wing Government."}


I left Israel last week just before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new coalition with the Bayit Yehudi ("Jewish Home") and religious parties, with the slimmest of parliamentary margins. The response from the punditeska was a predictable as the emergence of a gumball after one introduces a quarter and turns the knob: Netanyahu and the ogres from the settlements are the supposed obstacle to peace. Inside Israel, the matter looks otherwise. I don't meddle in Israeli politics, but the reason Israelis support a tough government should be obvious to the casual observer.

Writing in the May 7 Financial Times, former Obama Middle East aide Philip Gordon warns Netanyahu against "expanding settlements, punishing the Palestinian Authority for its quest for international recognition, [and] insisting on an indefinite presence of Israeli forces on the West Bank and intervening militarily in Gaza. The risk is that this could ultimately lead to the collapse of the PA, Israeli reoccupation of West Bank cities and expanded global efforts to isolate Israel."

The reason Israelis support a tough government should be obvious to the casual observer.

It is inconvenient for diplomats to say so, but the Palestine Authority collapsed quite some time ago.

Ideological Curios, Part III

The Spirit of Ahab still Lives

Israel is a divisive topic.  For many--particularly those on the Left, in the Commentariat, and amongst the chattering classes--it represents implacable evil, whilst Islamic Palestinians represent unimpeachable goodness.  For some Christians influenced by Dispensational biblical theology, Israel represents unimpeachable goodness, whilst those who oppose Israel--on any count--represent forces opposed to God.

Naturally, the world is neither that simple, nor binary. Christians run the risk of thinking in a binary fashion about the modern nation state of Israel when they read Biblical texts outside of the context of the "broad-brush" narrative of the Bible.

To cut to the chase, the modern nation state of Israel is not a fulfilment of biblical promises to the ancient Jewish people.  It is a creation of Britain, the United States, and the UN.  Is this a problem?  Not necessarily.  There have been plenty of such artificially created nations during the hey-day of imperialism, as well as before and after.

However, the artificiality of the origins of a nation should not be an argument to obliterate it.  In the end, nation states exist and should be reckoned with accordingly.

As Cold as Self-Righteous Charity

Being Seduced by the Dark Side

Oxfam long ago became seduced by leftwing political ideology.  The trajectory is easy to understand.  A charity is formed to provide relief against famine, aka hunger and malnutrition.  The struggle soon broadens into fighting not just at the bottom of the cliff, but at the top--by which we mean the focus upon preventing or palliating conditions which cause poverty and hunger.   

In every society there are relative disparities of wealth and property.  The facile fix at the top of the cliff is for groups like Oxfam was to begin to advocate for the redistribution of wealth and property as more permanent prevention of hunger.  We call this the first degree of abstraction, representing the initial step towards adopting a left-wing political ideology.

The second degree of abstraction comes when the illuminaries in an organization like Oxfam begin to form the view that fighting hunger at the top of the cliff requires not just paying attention to the socio-economic conditions causing poverty, but focusing upon the power structures, the political regimes which exploit the lower socio-economic sectors, and which use them as tools, keeping them subjected to poverty so they are kept perpetually dependant.   This is the second degree of abstraction into left-wing political ideology--identifying the governments and regimes that are evil exploiters of the poor and vulnerable, and opposing them by the ban and the black-list. 

The third degree of abstraction occurs when organizations like Oxfam begin to exclude certain regimes and practices as inherently evil--regimes that they will ban and boycott to the best of their abilities.  At this point, Oxfam and their fellow-travellers are willing to sacrifice the poor and needy whilst they conduct their politically fashionable campaigns against the fomenters of sin.

Using the Bible as Pretext

The Bible Belongs to Christ

A recent piece in the National Review Online by Dennis Prager has taken the National Church of Scotland to task for anti-semitism. That church has come out with a new report on Israel which Prager alleges represents "a combination of medieval anti-Judaism and leftist anti-Zionism".  

We have not read the report (which has now been taken off the church's website for re-editing) and we acknowledge that the Church of Scotland long ceased ceased to be a reliable guide on things taught in the Bible, having been racked with Enlightenment rationalism and humanist, epistemic autonomy.  Nevertheless, it is Prager's rejection and rejoinder to the Church of Scotland's report which is worth reflecting upon.  

There are at least three assertions made in the report which Prager reacts to:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Define Terrorism 

Culture and Politics - A Second Battle of Tours
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Having commented on things Middle Eastern a few times in the last few days, I have had occasion to examine the quality of what passes for "oh, yeah?" these days.

One of the things we need to learn is that terrorism is a tactic. It is an evil tactic, but it is a tactic, and the success of the tactic depends upon it being out there in the open. Thus, to do something evil in secret, or to conduct a "false flag" operation, can be every bit as evil as terrorism, but it does not qualify as terrorism. That secret operation may or may not have happened, and if it did, it was evil. But an "out in the open" operation did happen, and we know because we all saw it, and this means that we know that those who claim to have done such things are in fact evil.

A "surprise attack" is also a tactic, and if the attack is not a surprise, then it was not a surprise attack. Shall I go over this again?

Peace in Our Time?

Not Likely, It Would Appear

The drive for peace at all costs can prove to be a dangerous illusion. British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis is a case in point. Before people start glibly talking about peace or longing for its transpiration, it behoves everyone to have a realistic view of what those involved in conflict (or the threat thereof) really think.

Above all else we must reject as hopelessly naive, idealistic, and arrogant the idea that "other people think as we do". The assumptions that people actually want peace and that given a chance they would support cessation of conflict can be utterly wrong and very dangerous.

In the seemingly perpetual conflict between Israel and Palestine the question of whether both protagonists desire peace and a peaceful outcome is moot. Recently some research was undertaken by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies ("FDD") on social media content in Palestine, according to a news report.

"FDD undertook this project with the assumption that online social networks provide important political insights–particularly in the Palestinian online environment–because they grant their users anonymity and freedom of expression,” the authors write.

One finding of the review of expressions of anonymous opinions found on social media sites was the continuing divide between Fatah and Hamas.

Once that was done, Schanzer said, it was time to find the trends. One of the first such trends they noticed, he said, was that “the Palestinian position on violence has absolutely not changed,” especially with regard to Hamas-affiliated authors or discussions taking place on Hamas Web sites, which still encourage violence against Israel.

The representations of Fatah, on the other hand, would not surprise many. “This is a faction that is in utter disarray,” Schanzer said. Additionally, Hamas and Fatah loyalists “sniped at each other incessantly.” There was not much support for rapprochement between the two parties, though Hamas members found a lot of common ground with the more radical Salafist Palestinians. The Salafist Palestinians are relatively low in number but maintain a “persistent, tenacious presence online.”

Secondly, there was a passive acceptance of Iran's influence in Palestinian territories; it was not regarded as nefarious.

On Iran, the trends were just as troubling. There was a noticeable absence of criticism of Iran, which Schanzer said is dangerous because it means Iran is finding at least passive acceptance and generating minimal anger for its meddling among the Palestinian factions. (Or at least not enough anger for Palestinians to “bite the hand that feeds.”)

Thirdly, the social website chatter showed next to no support for genuine political reform. There appears to be little interest in peace.

Discouraging signs could be found in talk of the political reformers as well. “The reform factions are simply not popular,” Schanzer said. He added that there is “not a lot of interest, not a lot of excitement” about peace, but “a lot of suspicion” toward working with the U.S. and Israel.

Insofar as these views are in any way representative--and the research is not yet deep and wide enough to be confident--they do not bode well for any peace process. It behoves the protagonists of that process (US, Europe) to be very clear and realistic about the beliefs, agendas, and aspirations of the parties--and not be guilty of gratuitous assumptions to the effect that "these folk" would think just like us, if they were given half a chance. We fear that this may well be the case.

The Truth About Gaza

Just How Hungry is Gaza?

In the splenetic outpouring of opinion over the failed attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, extreme positions have been taken by both sides. On the one hand there were those voices portraying Gazans as living in a national concentration camp, in a situation akin to that faced by refugees in Darfur. On the other hand, some were claiming that Gaza is a holiday camp, well stocked with provisions on every side.

The truth, as often is the case, appears to lie somewhere in the middle. Adrian Blomfeld, writing from Gaza for the Daily Telegraph, sums up the actual situation this way:

Despite its blockade, Israel insists Gazans are not starving and there is no humanitarian crisis. The enclave's poverty is not as bad as the worst parts of Africa but a people struggle to cope amid the rubble left by cross-border strikes.

The reality is that Gaza is oppressed by the blockade. The deliberate objective of Israel is to prod Gazans into rejecting Hamas--which, we recall, was legitimately elected by the people of Gaza. We always get the government we deserve, as they say, and no government can long survive without the consent of the governed. So, the policy of Israel is designed to get the people of Gaza to face up to the inevitable consequences of choosing Hamas to govern them.

Now we have been widely told that Hamas was more favoured than Fatah because the latter was (and is) venal and corrupt and Hamas went about its activities underpinned with basic ethical integrity and an apparent incorruptibility. But Hamas also is committed to the extermination and obliteration of Israel--so to elect Hamas to govern has meant the acceptance of a state-of-war with Israel, like it or not. Israel's objective is to help Gazans come to a position where they do not like being in a state of war with Israel.

Gaza is not eastern Congo, nor is its suffering comparable. Yet by the standards of the Middle East, the poverty is palpable. In a territory the size of the Isle of Wight, 1.5 million people -- 1.1 million of them refugees from previous conflicts with Israel -- often live in conditions close to squalor.

A landscape of ruined buildings, destroyed by Israeli forces, greets the rare visitor who crosses into Northern Gaza through Israel's Erez Checkpoint. Small groups of men toil in the heat to load salvaged bits of masonry, a precious commodity after Israel banned all construction material entering Gaza, onto donkey-drawn carts.

Further south, dilapidated, ramshackle buildings separated by narrow and often fetid alleyways stretch all the way to Rafah, on the border with Egypt. The stench of rotten rubbish, and sometimes sewage, regularly assaults the nostrils.

Occasionally, the monotony is broken by groups of makeshift tents, inhabited by those made homeless by an Israeli military offensive 17 months ago that destroyed or damaged 5,000 houses. The UN's Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) would like to rebuild those houses but Israel has largely prevented cement from entering Gaza, saying it could be used by Hamas to make homemade Qassam rockets.

Mr Netanyahu's government says the persistent launching of those rockets and Hamas's creed of violent resistance has left it with little choice but to adopt such drastic measures.

Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, but imposed its blockade two years later when Hamas violently wrested control of the territory in a civil war with the more moderate Fatah faction of Mahmoud Abbas, the pro-American leader of the West Bank.

Unlike Fatah, Hamas refuses formally to recognise Israel's right to exist or to negotiate with it, and has fired thousands of rockets towards Israeli towns, causing about 30 deaths. Israel retaliated with a massive counter-offensive in December, 2008, killing over 1,200 people, many of them civilians.

Although it insists it is not engaged in "collective punishment", Israel's blockade bans both material that could be used to make rockets and all but the most basic humanitarian supplies. Its aim, it says, is to create an austerity regime in Gaza while using the West Bank, with its comparative prosperity, as "a shop window" in the hope of convincing its people to throw off their Islamist masters and choose the moderation of Fatah.

So, whilst it is true there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, neither is it a picnic.

Hamas officials concede that the blockade has not caused a humanitarian crisis in its classic sense.

"There is no starvation in Gaza," said Khalil Hamada, a senior official at Hamas's ministry of justice. "No-one has died of hunger.

Even so, People have been forced to subsist rather than to live. There is no development.

"It is an inhumane siege by any standards, even a brutal one, for it imposes collective punishment on an entire people, whether they support Hamas or not."

So, is Hamas as popular as it once was in Gaza? Is Israel's policy of dividing the Palestinian electorate from a terrorist organization as their government working?

Yet there is no sign that the blockade is substantially weakening the position of Hamas as Israel had hoped.

Talk to Gazans in private and many will say the movement, once praised for bringing law and order to their territory, is less popular than it used to be -- in part because it is now seen as corrupt but also because it is indeed blamed, in part for the blockade.

Yet at the same time Hamas is perceived as more invulnerable. Its spies are everywhere; its rule is often ruthless -- it recently hanged two Israeli "collaborators" -- and few dare publicly oppose it.

But even those disenchanted with Hamas see Israel as the greater transgressor when it comes to the blockade and regard arguments that suggest otherwise as disingenuous.

"It's like trying to convince a child to take a half-shekel coin instead of a one-shekel coin because the half-shekel coin is bigger," the entrepreneur said. "Israel can try to get us to blame Hamas, but it is a conceit most will not fall for."

In many ways, Hamas has actually grown stronger since, unlike many Gazans, it profits from the smuggling tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt that were built to circumvent the blockade.

The tunnels, which bring in a huge array of consumer goods, are the reason Mr Hasuna can sell creme eggs -- but they are also the reason fewer people can afford to buy them.

Wares that come through the tunnels are expensive, often double their true market rate and Gazans must therefore be selective in what they purchase. Gaza's shops may be full, but for many of its people the shelves are out of reach.

Hamas, on the other hand, makes a tidy sum by charging each smuggler who opens a tunnel GBP 1,900 for the privilege and exacting a levy thereafter.

A key question is this: is Hamas more committed to the peace and prosperity of its subjects, or to the destruction of Israel? Which has a higher priority? If the latter, then Hamas will likely desire the blockade and the current situation to continue, at least for the foreseeable future, for it enables them to get wealthy through exacting exorbitant tariffs. This, in turn, can be used to secure armaments and weapons and maintain control over the population.

Critics in Israel also point out that although Hamas has largely stopped firing rockets onto Jewish territory, the blockade has not stopped it using the tunnels to smuggle in large quantities of weapons. By some reckoning, the movement's arsenal is as strong as it ever has been.

"The blockade has been a failure even if you measure it by the narrow question of whether Hamas has fewer rockets," a leading Israeli columnist, who asked not to be identified so he could speak frankly, argued.

As is usually the case, the actual real-life situation in Gaza and Israel is complex and murky. But it is also true that it could be changed overnight if Hamas were to relinquish its intent to destroy the state of Israel. Unless we keep focused upon that as the all-critical issue things become very confused and murky indeed.

Whilst it is easy to be an armchair general--and no doubt arguably fatuous--we continue to believe that Israel constantly confuses itself and its neighbours by not making this point about Hamas constantly.  We wonder if Israel is truly focused upon the issue, or whether it has become distracted by political games.  Israel should be saying to Hamas, to Gazans, to the world: renounce violence and armed aggression against Israel and the blockade could end tomorrow.  It should be saying it repeatedly. 

Balance of Terror Seems A Safer, More Sane Approach

Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread

It is our firm conviction that when do-goodie governments interfere in the national affairs of other states, even with the best of motives and the most noble of intentions, the actual results are likely to be greater harm.

The so-called peace-process in the Middle East is a classic example. Who could criticise successive US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, for trying to persuade, cajole, arm-twist, and plead with the Palestinians and the Israelis to reach a negotiated, long-lasting peace settlement. No-one in his right mind.

Not so fast. What if the efforts and actions of the international community actually made the situation much more precarious, and the made the prospects for peace much less likely? Impossible, you say. What if leaving the Palestinians and the Israelis to discover their own solutions under the aegis of a balance of terror were far more helpful and productive in reaching mutual agreement? Fantastical, you reply.

There are those very close to the actual situation who argue this in all seriousness--and their case is weighty and persuasive, if not compelling. Miranda Devine, in the Sydney Morning Herald reports on evidence and arguments presented by Khaled Abu Toameh, a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post.

An Israeli citizen and Arab Muslim, one of 1.4 million Arabs in Israel, Toameh first worked for the Palestine Liberation Organisation newspaper Al-Fajr, where he said editors waited for instructions from Yasser Arafat about how big his picture should be and what should be on the front page. Wanting to be a ''real journalist'', he went on to work for foreign news organisations, such as BBC and CNN, where his high-level contacts on both sides and courageous independence provided invaluable insight.

He says the principles of the Oslo accords - the 1993 negotiations between Arafat and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, brokered by Bill Clinton - setting out the two-state solution architecture were ''wonderful'' but impractical, and set the stage for the second intifada.

After Oslo, American money poured into the corrupt coffers of the PLO, whose chiefs built themselves huge beach villas while the Palestinian people grew disillusioned. Arafat's rule was ''not much different than other Arab dictatorships, though not as bad as Saddam [Hussein]''.

The PLO took people flooding out of Israeli jails and made them generals and colonels, despite not finishing high school. Car thieves were now interrogators. ''The longer in an Israeli jail, the higher the rank.''

How's that for an unintended consequence? American aid money to the Palestinians so corrupted the PLO, that Hamas and its supporters were radicalized into wanting nothing more to do with the West, the PLO, and Israel. The PLO became so repugnant to the Palestinians, anything was preferable. Hamas was astutely able to present itself as the "anything". Hamas's success in Palestine is an indirect consequence of American well-meant interference.

He said the process radicalised Palestinians and empowered Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist group backed by Iran and Syria, declared a terrorist organisation by the US, and whose charter is to destroy the Jewish state. It won democratic Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006. The result was a surprise to Washington, but not to Toameh, who wrote the election-eve ''scoop'' for The Wall Street Journal.

He said it was obvious the Palestinian people wanted "regime change" and joked that even Ariel Sharon would have won the election. He knew Christians who voted for Hamas. He would have voted for Hamas, not because he believes in suicide bombers, but to get rid of the PLO. ''No party could be as corrupt as Fatah'', the PLO's political party. Hamas shrewdly won Palestinian hearts and minds by building schools, hospitals and charities. Its leaders lived frugally, while the PLO's drove around in motorcades.

I used to visit the home of the Hamas founder and there were no secretaries, no limousines. When you interview Fatah you have to go through 10 secretaries. It has an effect on Palestinians." The election was "not just a Hamas coup. I saw Palestinians chase [the PLO] away."

Fatah refused to accept the result, and so a virtual civil war developed between it and Hamas, with 2000 Palestinians killed in the "Battle of Gaza" in the summer of 2007. When the smoke cleared, Fatah had taken over the West Bank, while Hamas retained Gaza.

Israel is confronted with the real-politik of the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO is discredited and corrupted; it lacks political legitimacy. The PLO has far more political legitimacy, but lacks legitimacy with Israel and the US. The upshot--a real-politik engagement between Israel and Hamas. This is something which peace negotiations brokered by outsiders could never produce. But it offers real potential--gradual, slow, but meaningful potential.

Toameh says, wryly, a two-party state already exists - on the Palestinian side. It is disarray that he says must be useful to Israeli leaders. Arafat's successor as PLO chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, has had his chance, Toameh says. Sixty per cent of Palestinians voted for him in 2005. "He came to power and did nothing for a year. He's weak, he didn't fight against corruption and under him the number of Palestinians killed were more than were killed by Israel."

Hamas, on the other hand, is popular in mosques and kindergartens, in the fabric of Palestinian society. "Sadly, I see young Palestinians becoming more radical than previous generations", under the influence of Hamas and global jihad. Yet a truce of sorts exists between Israel and Hamas, with ''secret understandings'' and ''signs of pragmatism''.

This stable status quo is the result of relentless Israeli pressure on Hamas

History shows us many things--but one thing clearly stands out. Peaceful solutions that arise from the bottom up are always more genuinely long lasting than artificial solutions derived from external pressure and badgering. But to arrive at internally engineered solutions, one has to be pragmatic, patient, and non-dogmatic. Alamo-like, internally derived lines-in-sand can be effective for a time as part of an evolution to a deeper and broader solution. Externally imposed "lines in sand" almost never work as a basis for long-lasting peace.

Young people in Israel today are more pragmatic than their elders, prepared to give territory for peace. ''Just leave us Tel Aviv, the airport and the beach,'' he jokes, is their attitude. "There are people in Israel saying we can't make peace but . . . we are prepared to talk to the devil. You can't make peace with Hamas but you can do arrangements. I'd rather deal with an enemy who is strong and can deliver.''

But the proximity talks now threaten this state of relative calm. They are "forcing talk on explosive issues, forcing them to sit and talk about these issues . . . When [the talks fail] we might have a third intifada . . . Peace should be from the bottom up.'

In his second term, Bush had learned from bitter experience that the most constructive contribution the US could make to a lasting Arab-Israeli settlement was for the US to apply benign neglect to the region. And he did. But this was too much for the Progressives, who want "peace in our time". And the likely consequence of their interference? More instability and a prolonging of the conflict.

It is a key US foreign policy goal to achieve a "two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", as the US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, said on Sunday. The goal is "a comprehensive peace in the Middle East". For the next four months, Mitchell will shuttle backward and forward between Ramallah and West Jerusalem, but Toameh says Abbas cannot deliver peace. He is afraid of his own people. The Palestinian internal conflict needs resolving first.

Until then, leaving well enough alone is a diplomatic maxim that might save more pain.