Israel Palestine Blogs

S.S. Free Gaza and Liberty in port (EPA)

The war of words between Israel and the Free Gaza Movement is heating up as its ships prepare to sail toward Gaza in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade.  I’ve written before here that there are some aspects of this project that don’t have the greatest appeal to me, but that I support it nevertheless.

For example, the group’s invitation to Tzipi Livni to join them on their voyage is fatuous and annoyingly so.  Likewise, their decision to name one of their ships the S.S. Liberty in honor of the U.S.S. Liberty, which was attacked by Israel during the 1967 War.  An FGM press release even refers to the “assassination” of U.S. sailors during the incident. Gimme a break. Whatever happened in 1967, whether it was a dastardly act or an accident, these were sailors serving military duty. “Assassination???” C’mon. This just shows the group’s partisan agenda. As a political activist, I hate the idea of muddying the waters and confusing your prospective audience by combining disparate political goals.  What, in God’s name does the U.S.S. Liberty have to do with the Gaza blockade?  To me, it simply dilutes the power and purity of whatever idea or goal you’re pursuing.

But none of these criticisms outweigh the essential importance of the political statement FGM is making.  The fact that the Israeli foreign ministry bothered to address FGM directly indicates it takes the project seriously.  But I found the ministry statement to be riddled with inaccuracies and parroted arguments.  Take this:

We assume that your intentions are good but, in fact, the result of your action is that you are supporting the regime of a terrorist organization in Gaza…

In fact, FGM’s goals have nothing to do with Hamas and everything to do with alleviating the suffering of the average Gazan who is not responsible for whatever sins Hamas may or may not have committed.

In June 2007, Hamas led a violent coup in Gaza and seized the government illegally, a fact which led to an international boycott and isolation of its government.

This, in fact, is a basic and egregious error.  In fact, the international boycott began in 2005 after Hamas won the PA election and not after Hamas took over Gaza.  Keep in mind this is an official statement of the Israeli foreign ministry and they can’t even get their facts straight.

Hamas is the central player in the Gaza Strip and the address to which you should direct your complaints concerning the situation there.

This is blaming the victim.  Because Hamas won an election, Israel is justified in essentially strangling the innocent civilian population of Gaza.  And not only is it justified in doing so, it is Hamas’ fault it has had to do so.

Your claim that the residents of the Gaza Strip are suffering from hunger is groundless…There isn’t another conflict in the world in which one side supplies all the needs of the other side

This is a real laugher.  In its reply, the FGM quotes various humanitarian sources serving Gaza:

According to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “only 43.5% of basic commercial food import needs were met during the period between 3 and 30 December 2007.” Furthermore, in May 2008, several international aid organizations, including CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, and Medecins du Monde UK, stated that, “the stranglehold on Gaza’s borders has made … the work of the UN and other humanitarian agencies … virtually impossible. Only a trickle of medicine, food, fuel and other goods is being allowed in. [The Israeli Blockade of Gaza] has made people highly dependent on food aid, and brought the health system and basic services such as water and sanitation near to collapse.”

This closing statement from the Israelis, which was preceded by a “generous” offer from them to guarantee delivery of FGM’s aid via Israeli-controlled land crossings, was also typically cheeky:

…If you do not intend to deliver the humanitarian aid via Israel, this proves that your goal is political…

In other words: if you seek to deliver the aid yourself and independently then you are an enemy of Israel. However, if you allow us, the Occupiers, to deliver it to Gaza on your behalf, then you truly are humanitarians and not political partisans. Which of course implies that the Israelis themselves are NOT political or partisan.

The Independent reports a defense ministry spokesperson referring to the FGM as “pirates,” an ominous escalation of the verbal conflict between the two entities:

“From my point of view this is some kind of pirate ship,” said Shlomo Dror, a defence ministry spokesman.

“You can demonstrate, that’s OK with us. But you are not allowed to break international law.”

Which, of course, is ironic.  This means Israel claims its blockade is being mounted on behalf of international law.  The opposite, of course, is the case.  International law specifically forbids a nation from besieging a civilian population and blaming it for the acts of military forces.

Finally, the FGM ships are not “pirates” nor are they a danger to Israel.  The government has threatened to “use force” to prevent them from reaching Gaza.  Again, this is a completely unjustified threat compared to the “danger” the group represents.  Pro-Israel supporters have made death threats to private unlisted phone numbers and sent similar e-mail messages to participants and crew in an attempt to intimidate them.  If Israel engages in violence of any kind in detaining the activists, it deserves the opprobrium of the world community.

My piece about the “Gaza Fulbright 3″ was published today at Comment is Free under the title, Let Them Come and Study.

Tonight a rare thing has happened.  When someone from Campus Watch tries to publish a comment at this site it’s always because Daniel Pipes or one of his minions is taking another pot shot at me.  But tonight, the comment linked to a post by Islamophobe wingnut Debbie Schlussel.  Surprisingly, the post had nothing directly to do with me.  But was it ever rich!

Before we review Schlussel’s ravings, we should say a word about another site, Masada2000.  This is a Kahanist hate-site filled with spew against liberal Jews, Arabs, rabbis insufficiently pro-Israel, gay Jews, feminists, you name it.  Though the site owner attempts to conceal his identity, it is one of the worst kept secrets of the internet that the site is likely maintained by Victor Vancier aka Chaim ben Pesach.  Vancier was a national leader of the JDL in its heyday and spent 10 years in the federal slammer for throwing hand grenades and smoke bombs into opera halls and the like whenever Soviet arts groups performed in New York.

Vancier, now calling himself Chaim ben Pesach, runs another Kahane-wanna[be] site called Jewish Task Force which, along with Masada2000, is perhaps the vilest Jewish website I’ve ever come across.  A member of its discussion forum once wished cancer of the rectum on me.  Oh, it’s a swell bunch I tell you.

Getting back to Debbie, she’s on the warpath because three moderate Republicans (yes, Virginia, there are a few) created Repubicans for Obama: Jim Leach, Lincoln Chafee and Rita Hauser.  The one that really sticks in Deb’s craw is Hauser, a wealthy New York corporate lawyer and former president of the University of Miami.  Hauser has held numerous power positions running various Jewish organizations and been a political fixture as a donor to Republican presidential campaigns over many years.

One has to be careful crediting anything a lunatic like Deb has to say–but according to her, Hauser’s foundation was “the funder” of the Edward Said chair at Columbia University and her law firm represented the interests of the PLO during Arafat’s day.  In the eyes of a rabid Israel-Uber-Alles supporter like Schlussel this is tantamount to a betrayal of one’s race.  So it is fitting that as she foams at the mouth against Hauser, Schlussel invokes none other than Masada2000:

The most spot-on description of Rita Hauser is on Masada 2000 (with background music of “Who Let The Dogs Out?”), where she is a member of the Jewish S.H.I.T. (Self-Hating and/or Israel-Threatening Jews). Here’s just a tad:

Her unsolicited meddling on behalf of the Jewish State led to the Oslo Peace Accords and the resulting murder of more than 1,400 Jews! But this lady is not through with Israel yet, in fact, not by a long shot. On a Oct.14, 2003 C-SPAN2 speech, she told her audience, “It’s a moral duty to speak out against Israel” followed by “The Oslo Process was the best thing that ever happened to Israel!” … “a joyous moment.”

Read the rest.

Just as an antidote to this lunacy, let’s note this paragraph at the Fulbright Association which accompanies the news that she has been awarded its lifetime achievement award:

Rita Hauser, a Fulbright fellow in France in 1954-55, chairs the International Peace Academy, a research body affiliated with the United Nations. Ms. Hauser, an international lawyer, was the founding chair of the Advisory Board of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. She is a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the RAND Corporation, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, among other organizations. In 1997, she and her husband founded the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University, where she sits on the Visiting Committee of the John F. Kennedy School.

Omitted here is her role in government service during the administration of George Bush pere. Do I even need to say the idea of blaming her for Oslo or killing Jews is a calumny of the worst kind. I’d venture to say that the CSPAN “quotations” are probably also fabricated, as is most of the material at Masada2000.

Three web hosts have taken down Masada2000 for content so vile it violated their terms of service. Vancier is so paranoid about concealing his identity he’s violated the provisions of ICANN by registering Masada2000 using fraudulent contact data. Neither ICANN nor the site registrar, to whom the violation has been reported, can be bothered to enforce their own regulations.  UPDATE: I’ve just noticed that he’s now using a service to conceal entirely his registration data from public scrutiny.

You’ll note that Schlussel quite wittily says of Hauser’s involvement with Republicans for Obama:

…With Hauser at the forefront, they might as well call the group Lewinskys for Arafat.

Masada2000 advocates sexual violence against Jewish women

She, of course, would like to conjure in your mind Dr. Hauser, like Lewinsky, performing a certain sex act on Yaser Arafat and Palestinians in general. Sadly, No! memorably described this passage:

…Rita Hauser…is a…fellatrix of Yasser Arafat’s dead penis

This is of a peace with the rhetoric spewed by Masada2000 attacking Rabbis Michael Lerner and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi:

“What’s with this guy!! Is he some sort of pervert? As part of his ordination of Lerner, did Schachter-Shalomi ask Lerner how he strokes it?”

Masada2000 pornographic obsession with Jewish-Arab sex

Also quite charming is the page dedicated to mocking Jewish women peace activists (including rabbis) saying “a few leftist chicks in need of a good reaming” with the “Palestinian peace dildo.”  I have a question for Debbie Schlussel: how do you feel now linking to a Jewish site that advocates raping Jewish women? Or dare we say that you and Masada2000 are made for each other?