Did a N.Y. Times columnist call his colleague an antisemite?

We will never effectively combat antisemitism until we are willing to speak out when the guilty party is in our own camp.

 By Stephen M. Flatow

My Arutz Sheva column 

A New York Times columnist has defined antisemitism in a way that implicates one of his most prominent colleagues.

In a recent column, Bret Stephens described how “the common denominator” in a wide range of antisemitic accusations, whether on the extreme right or the extreme left, “is an idea, based in fantasy and conspiracy, about Jewish power.” That’s certainly true.

 According to Stephens, some religious antisemites in the past “believed Jews had the power to kill Christ.” And secular antisemites “believed Jews had the power to start wars, manipulate kings and swindle native people of their patrimony.” No doubt about it.

On the far right, antisemites believe Jews are trying “to replace white, working-class America with immigrant labor.” On the far left antisemites “attribute to Israel and its supporters in the United States vast powers that they do not possess.” Again, all true.

 There’s just one problem. Stephens’ description doesn’t fit only David Duke or Ilhan Omar. It also fits one of his most prominent colleagues at the Times, longtime foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman. 

“Jews have the power to manipulate kings”? 

“Israel and its supporters have vast powers”? 

Friedman has written exactly that—on multiple occasions. 

Thomas Friedman - Reuters

In his column in the New York Times on February 5, 2004, Friedman declared that Israel "had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office.”  

On December 13, 2011, Friedman infamously wrote that the standing ovations which Israel’s prime minister received in Congress were "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” 

On December 13, 2011, Friedman infamously wrote that the standing ovations which Israel’s prime minister received in Congress were "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” 

And Friedman asserted in his column on November 19, 2013, that "many American lawmakers [will] do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and cam donations." 

The fact that Friedman happens to be Jewish doesn’t get him off the hook. We all know plenty of examples of Jews who—for whatever reason—choose to perpetuate anti-Jewish stereotypes.

It’s equally irrelevant that Friedman himself occasionally complains about antisemitism. Most outrageously, he wrote on February 4, 2015 that if Israel’s prime minister spoke to Congress against the Iran deal, "anti-Semites, who claim Israel controls Washington, will have a field day.” In other words, it’s antisemitic to claim Israel controls Washington—except, apparently, when Friedman is the one making that claim.

 We will never truly be able to effectively combat antisemitism until we are willing to speak out when the guilty party is in our own political or ideological camp. If liberals acknowledge antisemitism only when it comes from conservatives, and conservatives acknowledge it only when it comes from liberals, then we will all be mired in little more than a sleazy political power game.

 We’ve had a good dose of that one-sided, partisan approach in recent weeks. Political figures on both the right and left have made outrageous remarks comparing certain domestic American policies to Nazism or the Holocaust. Liberal Jewish leaders have angrily denounced only the right-wingers who made those comparisons; conservative Jewish leaders have furiously criticized only the left-wingers who have said such things. That reduces the entire discussion to a cheap attempt to score points, not a serious effort to stop antisemitism.

 The same is true when it comes to Thomas Friedman. The fact that he is an influential journalist is no reason to be afraid of speaking the truth about him. The fact that one may agree with positions Friedman has taken on other issues is no reason to treat him as if he is immune from criticism.

 According to Bret Stephens, “the fantasy about Jewish power may seem outlandish, but it’s far more pervasive than many think.” He’s right—and it’s so pervasive that, according to Stephens’ own definition, it’s right up there in the list of New York Times columnists.

 

Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.” He is an oleh chadash.

This column can be read on line at Israel National News - Arutz7.

 Stop taking pictures of terrorists!

Why exactly are the barbaric Israelis, with their violent cameras, taking so many pictures of Arabs? Can you guess?
 

My recent column on Israel National News.   

Israel’s critics have a new rallying cry: Stop taking pictures of terrorists! They don’t word it quite that way, of course. They wrap it in slogans about “big tech” and “privacy rights.” But at the end of the day, the message is the same—they don’t want Israel to keep track of Arab terrorists and their supporters.

 The Washington Post and the New York Times delivered this message with a journalistic one-two punch on November 9, each publishing a major feature story about how Israel is intrusive, sneaky and underhanded.

Security Cameras           iStock

The Post headlined its front page story “Israel Targets Palestinians with Cameras, Facial Tracking.” The word “target” was obviously intended to conjure up images of violence. They want readers to think of Israelis as sharpshooters with their rifles aimed at the backs of innocent Arabs.

 Why exactly are the barbaric Israelis, with their violent cameras, taking so many pictures of Arabs? It takes a patient and discerning reader of the Post to figure that out. One has to fist wade through paragraph after paragraph that Post correspondent Elizabeth Dwoskin has loaded with ominous terms like “secrecy,” “broad surveillance,” and “invasion of privacy.” The reader is thoroughly confused and frightened before he or she can even figure out why the Israelis are doing what they are accused of doing.

 What the Israelis are doing is secretly taking photographs of potential terrorists. Good! I’m delighted that they are using modern technology to engage in surveillance that will preempt massacres.

 Terrorists do not deserve privacy.

 I’m delighted that they are using modern technology to engage in surveillance that will preempt massacres.

 Elizabeth Dwoskin and the Washington Post evidently want Israel to feel guilty and stop taking the pictures. But Israel has nothing to feel guilty about. When the Palestinian Arabs stop trying to burn and stone Jews to death nearly every single day, the Israelis won’t need to take pictures of the would-be murderers.

 Over at the New York Times, that same day, a headline read, “Palestinians Targeted by Israeli Firm’s Spyware, Experts Say.” There’s that “target” word again, helping to create the impression that terrorists and aspiring terrorists are the victims.

 The Times actually managed to be even more slippery than the Post, because the Times article was not about the State of Israel or the government of Israel, but rather a private Israeli software company. How can you blame all of Israel for one company’s transactions? By portraying the Israeli government as a “backer” of the company, because the government has issued licenses and used some of the products.

 The product that seems to worry the Times the most is software that can access private telephones. The Israeli authorities used it to get into the phones of Palestinian Arab groups that it recently outlawed for supporting the terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

 Well, once again, I say: Good! That’s how Israel finds out which Arabs are legitimate political activists, and which of them are funneling their European grants to PFLP terrorists.

 The Israelis had two choices regarding the six groups that it outlawed for helping the PFLP. Their first choice was to put privacy rights above the right to life. In other words, allow the groups to keep giving money to the PFLP, let the PFLP use the funds to buy guns and axes, and then mourn when PFLP terrorists make use of the guns and axes—like when PFLP members shot and hacked to death those four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014.

 The Israelis’ second choice was to preempt such slaughter by outlawing the six groups and thus disrupting the flow of funds to the killers. I’m glad the Israelis chose that option.

 The story won’t end soon, however, because we all know how this little game works. First, the articles are published. Next, groups like J Street and Americans for Peace Now will declare how concerned they are by the “chilling effect” of Israel’s latest misbehavior. That will be followed by an “investigation” by some United Nations panel or “human rights” organization.

 In a few months, the investigators will release a “report” confirming what the accusers claimed before there was any investigation. J Street will then announce that the report “deserves serious consideration.” The Washington Post and the New York Times will publish articles about the report, quoting some Jewish former State Department official expressing grave concern. And so it will go, until the next inevitable round.

 Fortunately, the Israelis will ignore all this chatter. They have to ignore it because they have no choice—their lives are on the line. For Diaspora Jewish complainers, it’s all just an amusing intellectual exercise. For Israelis—of all political persuasions—it’s a matter of life and death. Literally.

 So American newspapers and UN panels and Diaspora Jewish whiners can complain all they want. At the end of the day, Israel is just not going to commit national suicide.

 Stephen M. Flatow, is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”

 

Peace treaties that don’t bring peace

My comments on a recent New York Times ad placed by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace urging Israel to sign a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

Israelis of a certain age have a saying which translates from Hebrew as, “We’ve already seen that movie.” 

Read the full column at Peace treaties that don’t bring peace



 Well, that's what I have to say.Stephen M. Flatow

Rocks kill a child

This is a sad follow-up to a previous post entitled Murder by stoning: Palestinian terrorists’ forgotten weapon in which I discuss the use of rocks and stones as weapons.

Rocks are still being thrown at Israeli civilians in cars and soldiers at "peaceful" demonstrations, more like riots, by Palestinians in the disputed territories.  But a news story from the New York Times brings home the sad fact that rocks do kill.

It's the story of Adele Biton a

4-year-old Israeli girl who was critically injured in a car accident caused by Palestinian rock throwers two years ago died on Tuesday [February 17, 2015] after a severe bout of pneumonia that relatives said was complicated by her neurological trauma.

This should put to rest the lie that rock throwing is not a serious effort to kill innocents.  As

The report can be read here.

Burning Jews is not news for The New York Times and other newspapers

When burning Jews isn’t news

By Stephen M. Flatow/JNS.org

On Aug. 30, Palestinian terrorists set a Jewish man on fire in Jerusalem, and on Sept. 1, other Palestinian terrorists tried to set an entire bus full of Israeli Jews on fire.

Yet I couldn’t find any mention of these horrific attacks in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other major American news outlet. Why is it that news about burning Jews is not considered fit to print?

The first of the firebomb attacks took place in Jerusalem’s City of David neighborhood. A Molotov cocktail—a flaming bottle of gasoline which explodes upon contact—was hurled through the window of a historic 19th-century house known as Beit Meyuhas. One of the residents, a 45-year-old man, was struck by the firebomb and set on fire. He suffered first and second-degree burns to his face and head. Second-degree burns often result in permanent scarring and require skin grafting.

Burning one Jew is not enough to satisfy the appetite of Palestinian terrorists. On Sept. 1, two firebombs were thrown at an Israeli bus traveling on Route 505, between the towns of Migdalim and Kfar Tapuach. The attackers’ goal was to set the entire bus on fire and burn all of its passengers alive. They almost succeeded. The flaming bombs exploded as they crashed through the front windshield of the bus. Flying glass slashed the driver. It was only by a miracle that he was able to stop the bus without crashing—and that the flames did not spread through the entire vehicle.

Palestinian terrorists sometimes use rocks instead of firebombs. Stoning is, after all, a time-honored method of execution in that part of the world. Recently, they certainly have been trying to do just that.

On Aug. 20, Palestinian rock-throwers attacked an Israeli automobile traveling near the Yitzhar junction. An 11-month-old baby was wounded. Medics on the scene were quoted as saying that it was a “miracle” she survived, since the rock that hit her was the size of a fist.

Three days later, Yedaya Sharchaton, his wife Hadassah, and 1-year-old daughter Nitzan were driving in the Gush Etzion region. Arab rocks smashed through the front windshield, causing Yedaya to lose control of the car. It flipped over. All three family members were injured; Yedaya suffered internal bleeding.  It turns out that my family was on the same road as the Sharchaton’s just a few days before as we headed to celebrate my granddaughter’s bat mitzvah by serving hot dogs to Israeli soldiers at a base in the Hebron hills.

On Aug. 29, a mob of Palestinians emerging from prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount threw rocks at Israeli police officers. It would be interesting to know if anything in the sermons they had just heard encouraged them to try to murder Jews. Two of the rock-throwers were arrested; they were minors. One wonders what they are learning in school about the idea of stoning Jews to death.

The next day, Palestinian rock-throwers targeted Israeli policemen in another section of Jerusalem. Three of the officers were injured. Their names were not mentioned by the Israeli media. Nor were the extent of their injuries. Did one of them lose an eye? Was one of them permanently disfigured? Three more anonymous, forgotten victims of Arab terror.

On Sept. 1, the rock-throwers chose the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev. Spotting an Israeli bus coming down Uzi Narkis Street, from Pisgat Ze’ev to the adjoining Arab neighborhood of Shuafat, the would-be killers attacked. The rocks smashed the windows, one striking and injuring a 3-year-old girl. The Magen David Adom paramedics who rushed to the scene to provide emergency treatment knew that the difference between life and death for that little girl was just bad aim.

So once again, they are burning and stoning Jews. Yet the New York Times and the others are not interested. Why? Because it doesn’t fit their preferred narrative.

Most of the editors and reporters in the mainstream media subscribe to a narrative of the Israeli-Arab conflict in which the Israelis are the aggressors, and the Palestinians are the victims. That narrative supports the political outcome that most editors and reporters personally endorse: an Israeli retreat to the 1967 lines, a division of Jerusalem, the rise of a Palestinian state.

But when you report about Palestinians burning and stoning Israelis, that changes everything. Americans—from the average person in the street to Members of Congress—regard such behavior as barbaric. They naturally conclude that giving a state to such violent extremists is crazy. Telling the truth about Palestinian behavior makes it harder to mobilize pressure on Israel to give in. That’s why in the editorial offices of the New York Times and so many other newspapers, news about burning Jews isn’t fit to print. Sadly, it’s that simple.

Mr. Flatow, a New Jersey attorney, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995.

N.Y.TIMES' TOUR OF IRAN: P.R. VICTORY FOR DICTATORS?

N.Y.TIMES' TOUR OF IRAN: P.R. VICTORY FOR DICTATORS?

By Rafael Medoff

The controversy over the New York Times-sponsored luxury excursion to Iran is a reminder that totalitarian regimes are always looking for ways to soften their image--and there always seem to be someone ready to oblige.

With veteran Times correspondent Elaine Sciolino as their guide, travelers who pay $6,995 each will spend thirteen days visiting a very different Iran from the one we've all read so much about. Not the Iran of terror-sponsorship, nuclear arms development, Holocaust-denial and oppression of minorities--no, they'll see "beautiful landscapes, arid mountains and rural villages, [and] vibrant bazaars,” according to the Times' promotional pitch. Sciolino and company will “get lost in ancient cities and learn about the traditions and cultures of Iran. Traveling in a small group and staying in luxurious hotels along the way, [their] journey through Iran will reveal the secrets from this once forbidden land.”

Sadly, it's all been done before.

In the 1920s, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin welcomed numerous American intellectuals and cultural celebrities. Among them was Isadora Duncan, one of the leading figures in American dance in the 1920s, who returned from Soviet Russia bursting with enthusiasm for the Communist cause. She soon began concluding her performances by waving a red scarf over her head, while shouting, "This is red! So am I! It is the color of life and vigor!" 

During the 1930s, Nazi Germany welcomed visitors, especially from the American academic community. This sordid story has been chronicled in Prof. Stephen Norwood's critically-acclaimed book, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower. American University chancellor Joseph Gray, for example, returned from a visit to Nazi Germany "full of praise" for the Hitler regime. Gray reported to the American public in 1936 that German cities were "amazingly clean" and that "everybody was working in Germany."

That same year, more than twenty U.S. universities sent delegates to take part in celebrations at the Nazi-controlled University of Heidelberg, scene of some of the earliest mass book-burnings. In fact, the chief book-burner, Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, presided over one of the receptions for the American delegates. Columbia University's representative, Prof. Arthur Remy, reported that mingling with Goebbels and company was "very enjoyable."

Prof. Norwood describes how American students, too, visited Nazi Germany, thanks to a program of student exchanges with German universities, in which Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and others took part. Even after a German official's candidly asserted that his country's students were being sent abroad to serve as "political soldiers of the Reich," only Williams College terminated the exchanges.

During the Holocaust itself, Hitler used visits by foreigners to help camouflage the mass murder of the Jews. As part of this disinformation strategy, the Nazis in June 1944 invited a delegation from the International Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt, the Jewish ghetto that the Nazis had created in Czechoslovakia. Theresienstadt was a transit point for Jews being shipped to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, but the Nazis sought to present the camp as a final destination, where Jewish prisoners lived happily.

In the days before the Red Cross visit, the Nazis worked the Jewish inmates at breakneck speed to pretty up the site. Houses were freshly painted--but only those portions that would be visible to the Red Cross inspectors as they walked down the street on the preselected route. Schools, stores, a bank and a cafe were quickly built, to give the appearance of a normal village. Deportations to Auschwitz were increased so as to temporarily relieve overcrowding in the camp. With Theresienstadt's flower beds neatly trimmed and its orchestra well rehearsed, the Red Cross delegates saw only what the Nazis wanted them to see.

The visitors' subsequent reports to Red Cross headquarters were critical of some aspects of Theresienstadt, but also described conditions there as "relatively good." They agreed with the Germans' contention that it was a final-destination camp--even though the Red Cross knew that the population of Theresienstadt at the time of the visit was 30,000 less than it had been shortly before. From the Germans' point of view, the visit was quite a success.

In different forms, this phenomenon has continued in recent decades. From Jane Fonda visiting Hanoi, to Jack Nicholson meeting Fidel Castro (and praising him as "a genius") to ex-basketball star Dennis Rodman traveling to North Korea last year, more than a few Americans have enjoyed the charms of a carefully-choreographed visit and then returned to share with the U.S. public a whitewashed picture of life under a dictator's heel.

(Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, http://www.wymaninstitute.org/)

When burning Jews isn’t news

When burning Jews isn’t news

By Stephen M. Flatow/JNS.org

On Aug. 30, Palestinian terrorists set a Jewish man on fire in Jerusalem, and on Sept. 1, other Palestinian terrorists tried to set an entire bus full of Israeli Jews on fire.

Yet I couldn’t find any mention of these horrific attacks in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other major American news outlet. Why is it that news about burning Jews is not considered fit to print?

The first of the firebomb attacks took place in Jerusalem’s City of David neighborhood. A Molotov cocktail—a flaming bottle of gasoline which explodes upon contact—was hurled through the window of a historic 19th-century house known as Beit Meyuhas. One of the residents, a 45-year-old man, was struck by the firebomb and set on fire. He suffered first and second-degree burns to his face and head. Second-degree burns often result in permanent scarring and require skin grafting.

Burning one Jew is not enough to satisfy the appetite of Palestinian terrorists. On Sept. 1, two firebombs were thrown at an Israeli bus traveling on Route 505, between the towns of Migdalim and Kfar Tapuach. The attackers’ goal was to set the entire bus on fire and burn all of its passengers alive. They almost succeeded. The flaming bombs exploded as they crashed through the front windshield of the bus. Flying glass slashed the driver. It was only by a miracle that he was able to stop the bus without crashing—and that the flames did not spread through the entire vehicle.

Palestinian terrorists sometimes use rocks instead of firebombs. Stoning is, after all, a time-honored method of execution in that part of the world. Recently, they certainly have been trying to do just that.

On Aug. 20, Palestinian rock-throwers attacked an Israeli automobile traveling near the Yitzhar junction. An 11-month-old baby was wounded. Medics on the scene were quoted as saying that it was a “miracle” she survived, since the rock that hit her was the size of a fist.

Three days later, Yedaya Sharchaton, his wife Hadassah, and 1-year-old daughter Nitzan were driving in the Gush Etzion region. Arab rocks smashed through the front windshield, causing Yedaya to lose control of the car. It flipped over. All three family members were injured; Yedaya suffered internal bleeding.  It turns out that my family was on the same road as the Sharchaton’s just a few days before as we headed to celebrate my granddaughter’s bat mitzvah by serving hot dogs to Israeli soldiers at a base in the Hebron hills.

On Aug. 29, a mob of Palestinians emerging from prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount threw rocks at Israeli police officers. It would be interesting to know if anything in the sermons they had just heard encouraged them to try to murder Jews. Two of the rock-throwers were arrested; they were minors. One wonders what they are learning in school about the idea of stoning Jews to death.

The next day, Palestinian rock-throwers targeted Israeli policemen in another section of Jerusalem. Three of the officers were injured. Their names were not mentioned by the Israeli media. Nor were the extent of their injuries. Did one of them lose an eye? Was one of them permanently disfigured? Three more anonymous, forgotten victims of Arab terror.

On Sept. 1, the rock-throwers chose the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev. Spotting an Israeli bus coming down Uzi Narkis Street, from Pisgat Ze’ev to the adjoining Arab neighborhood of Shuafat, the would-be killers attacked. The rocks smashed the windows, one striking and injuring a 3-year-old girl. The Magen David Adom paramedics who rushed to the scene to provide emergency treatment knew that the difference between life and death for that little girl was just bad aim.

So once again, they are burning and stoning Jews. Yet the New York Times and the others are not interested. Why? Because it doesn’t fit their preferred narrative.

Most of the editors and reporters in the mainstream media subscribe to a narrative of the Israeli-Arab conflict in which the Israelis are the aggressors, and the Palestinians are the victims. That narrative supports the political outcome that most editors and reporters personally endorse: an Israeli retreat to the 1967 lines, a division of Jerusalem, the rise of a Palestinian state.

But when you report about Palestinians burning and stoning Israelis, that changes everything. Americans—from the average person in the street to Members of Congress—regard such behavior as barbaric. They naturally conclude that giving a state to such violent extremists is crazy. Telling the truth about Palestinian behavior makes it harder to mobilize pressure on Israel to give in. That’s why in the editorial offices of the New York Times and so many other newspapers, news about burning Jews isn’t fit to print. Sadly, it’s that simple.

Mr. Flatow, a New Jersey attorney, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995.

Rockets from Gaza due to lack of salaries? I think not

Just when you think someone would properly hold Hamas accountable for its rocket fire into Israel along comes Nathan Thrall in The New York Times who blames the war on Israel because Hamas has not been able to pay salaries.

He writes,

AS Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities and Israel follows up its extensive airstrikes with a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian “national consensus” government that was formed in early June.

And what is one of those obstacles?

Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one…

This, my friends, is just another instance of the West’s patronizing of Palestinian terrorists.  In other words, the Palestinians cannot help but be violent when a crisis (of their own doing) erupts.

I was able to have a letter in response to this column printed in The Times.

It reads

Re “How the West Chose War in Gaza” (Op-Ed, July 18): I disagree with Nathan Thrall that the absence of pay to civil servants is the reason for war in Gaza. War has broken out because Hamas does not recognize the right of Israel to exist. A look at the Hamas charter and listening to the spoken words of Hamas leadership would convince all but the most jaundiced of that.

Hamas made a choice when it took over Gaza. Instead of building an economy and housing for Gazans by using the many tons of concrete and other building materials that were allowed into Gaza, it used them to build tunnels to smuggle weaponry from Egypt and to cross under the border of Israel for future attacks against its citizens, as demonstrated this week.

It’s not the West’s failure that brought about war, but Hamas’s refusal to live peaceably side by side with Israel.

STEPHEN M. FLATOW

The above link will bring you to the full column.  My letter can be found on line here.   

 

Well, that’s what I think.

Flatow Family lawsuit leads to other cases

On Tuesday, July 2, 2014, The New York Times featured us in a front page story (below the fold). 

The story which can be read here, outlines how the family lawsuit, Flatow v. Islamic Republic of Iran, eventually led New York City prosecutors and, eventually, the United States Attorney in Manhattan, to track down the illegal flow of money through a French bank, BNP Paribas, in violation of American law.  The result, a whopping multi-billion fine paid by BNP to avoid further prosecution.

In the scheme of things, the fine is meaningless.  What has to happen in these cases is that the faceless mandarins who designed the scheme that led to the illegal transfers have to be personally held accountable.

Until that happens, BNP and others, will conduct business as usual and their profits will continue to soar.

That's what I think.

Israel’s Enmity?

OK, I admit it, I am a fan of the New York Sun and its editorial staff led by Seth Lipsky.  But reading the editorial set out below reinforces my belief that there is still hope for editorial integrity in America's media.

“President Rouhani is sending strong signals that he will dispatch a pragmatic, experienced team to the table when negotiations resume, possibly next month. That’s when we should begin to see answers to key questions: How much time and creative thinking are he and President Obama willing to invest in a negotiated solution, the only rational outcome? How much political risk are they willing to take, which for Mr. Obama must include managing the enmity that Israel and many members of Congress feel toward Iran?”
* * *
We’ve read our share of editorials in the New York Times, but it’s hard to recall a paragraph to match the above, issued Sunday under the headline “Reading Tweets From Iran.” It’s not altogether surprising that it took the new Persian president, Hassan Rouhani, only a few keystrokes on the social media to send the Gray Lady into a swoon of appeasement. But the suggestion that for President Obama this “must” include “managing the enmity that Israel and many members of Congress feel toward Iran”? Neville Chamberlain call your office.

The idea that the little difficulty with Iran has something to do with an enmity that Israel and many members of Congress feel toward Iran is just a classic of Timesian logic. What does the Times figure — that the poor, innocent mullahs were promulgating their peaceable revolution when the dastardly Israelis turned on them for no good reason other than bigortry, and the Congress the Times must imagine was bought and paid for by the Zionists suddenly turned against the Iranians? Just out of plain anti-Persian prejudice?

Maybe the Times figures that it’s similar to the enmity that FDR (and the Jews, for that matter) maintained for Nazi Germany. We understand that the Times strove to maneuver itself above that fray, too; it thought our enmity could be managed. But one would have thought that history would have taught it a lesson. The mistake wasn’t just the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia. It was the going to Munich in the first place. That was the mistake. The way we have put it before is that the talking is the appeasement.

As for President Obama, he rode into office on a promise of good will. He went to Cairo and reached out to the Muslim world. He said he would meet with the Iranians, and he’s taken every opportunity to talk to probe for possibilities. He pulled out of Iraq and is retreating in Afghanistan. This vast display of good will has delivered a Middle East in flames, a region where America’s standing is lower than at any nadir ever reached by any previous president. The fact is that a deal with the mullahs would be a defeat for freedom. Wisdom for Mr. Obama can only start with the comprehension that whatever enmity fuels this fight, it did not begin in either Israel or the Congress of the United States.

 You can read the on-line version Israel’s Enmity?

NY Times still calls them "militants"

Not that I truly expect the New York Times to change its ways with all things Israelis, but today's report on the cross border attack into Israel that took the life of an Israeli soldier continues the canard that the attackers and others like them are "militants."

An obscure militant group based in Egypt’s North Sinai region claimed responsibility over the weekend for a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli soldier last week. The claim called fresh attention to the uphill struggle the newly formed Egyptian government is facing to control the restive Sinai region.

If not terrorists, what are the members of "Supporters of the Holy Places" the group that has claimed credit for the attack? To claim that the attack was in retaliation for the idiotic anti-Islam movie just adds insult to the injury.

With condemnation of Jews a near daily occurrence in the Muslim world, killers like the Supporters of the Holy Place have a place, but it's in hell without the 72 virgins promised to them by their Islamist teachers.

Well, that's what I think.

You can read the full Times report here.
Alisa Flatow
Stephen M. Flatow

So much for secrets, I agree with Peter King

What's with the intelligence community?  I always thought that operatives--in the good old days, spies--were to be anonymous, working in the background, with methods of operation and identities protected.

Comes now the CIA and Saudi intelligence authorities talking about the operation that interrupted another Al Qaeda underwear bomb plot.

As reported in the New York Times,

The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.

 I'm not the only one puzzled by this behavior.  Congressman Peter T. King of Long Island, New York has also weighed in:

But American intelligence officials were angry about the disclosure of the Qaeda plot, first reported Monday by The Associated Press, which had held the story for several days at the request of the C.I.A. They feared the leak would discourage foreign intelligence services from cooperating with the United States on risky missions in the future, said Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

OK, guys, good job here, but let's keep these stories out of the newspapers.

Well, that's what I think.

Stephen M. Flatow

Peaceful Protest Can Free Palestine - NYTimes.com

I am posting this later than I had intended because I was eager to submit a letter to the editor of theNew York Times before I finished my post.  Of course, where know where good intentions brings us, don't we?

In any event, the this op-ed, written by Mustafa Barghouthi, let's us know from the very first words where the writer truly stands about Israel, Palestinians and "peaceful" protest.

OVER the past 64 years, Palestinians have tried armed struggle; we have tried negotiations; and we have tried peace conferences.

Any pretense that he was interested in peace were belied by that sentence.  Reader - Israel was established 64 years ago!  1948, when Israel was created is his point of reference, not 1967 when the occupation of the territories began.

My letter to the editor was short and, I believe, accurately pointed out that no where in Barghouthi's piece did he acknowledge that Israelis have a right to live in peace in their own homeland.

While all letter writers believe theirs is worthy of inclusion in the Times, I must admit that the letters selected did a better job than I in making the fallacy of the op-ed so obvious.

I invite you, belatedly, to read the full op-ed, Peaceful Protest Can Free Palestine - NYTimes.com, then read the letters to the editor that were published.

Well, that's what I think.  What about you?

Stephen M. Flatow alisa terror victims

Mujahedeen Khalq. Whose side are they on? Terrorists, freedom fighters or something else?

Mujahedeen Khalq, a listed terrorist organization, is on the Op-ed pages of today's New York Timses. Mujahedeen Khalq, or Warriors of God, has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds in a little known war with Iran. Elizabeth Rubin takes them, and their outspoken American supporters, to task.

[A]n unlikely chorus of the group’s backers — some of whom have received speaking fees, others of whom are inspired by their conviction that the Iranian government must fall at any cost — have gathered around Mujahedeen Khalq at conferences in capitals across the globe.

This group of luminaries includes two former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, Gens. Hugh H. Shelton and Peter Pace; Wesley K. Clark, the former NATO commander; Gen. James L. Jones, who was President Obama’s national security adviser; Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director; the former intelligence officials Dennis C. Blair and Michael V. Hayden; the former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; the former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former congressman who was co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Ms. Rubin's position,

Mujahedeen Khalq is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.

Personally, I'm puzzled by MK, and wonder if its supporters are on the right track. I can only think back to the heady days of American belief that Fidel Castro was the right man for Cuba at the right time in history, only to have those beliefs smashed when Castro aligned himself with the Soviets and embarked on a course of state-sponsored terror.

So, it's time to sit back and see how this plays out because, brother, this is bigger than us all.

What do you think?


Stephen Flatow Iran Mujahedeen Khalq

Syrians attempt to "breach" borders; double standard on horizon?

From the New York Times,

Wave after wave of Syrian and Palestinian protesters from Syria approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire at activists who crossed a newly dug trench and tried to breach the border fence near the Golan town of Majdal Shams. The protests then spread out along the border.

The operative word in the above paragraph is "breach."

No other sovereign country would be forced to accept a massed invasion of its borders whether by so-called "protesters" or military forces.

The Jerusalem Post reports that armed gunman can be seen in the background. Are they there to fire on the protesters who turn back or on those going forward?

A crisis along the border between Syria and Israel works to the benefit of the Syrian dictatorship by directing attention away to its slaughter of its own citizens. In any event, no doubt that there will be criticism of Israel's response. Double standard in action, once again.

You can read the Times report here and JPost.com report here.

Assad and the sanctions, shmanctions

Reading the news about the imposition of financial sanctions on Syria President X, I just had to check the OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL - SPECIALLY DESIGNATED NATIONALS & BLOCKED PERSONS and there was his name on page 20 -

AL ASSAD, Bashar Hafez (a.k.a. AL-ASAD,
Bashar; a.k.a. AL-ASSAD, Bashar; a.k.a.
ASSAD, Bashar); DOB 11 Sep 1965; POB
Damascus, Syria; President of the Syrian Arab
Republic (individual) [SYRIA]

According to the New York Times story,.

The sanctions against Syria reflected mounting American frustration that Mr. Assad’s government was ignoring international condemnation by not pursuing a peaceful resolution to the popular uprising that has swept the country since March.

Well, "gee whiz, Phil," what's going on here? Is the Obama administration going to pressure the Europeans to impose sanctions, too? As the Times reports, the Europeans are considering it.

Now remember, we're the same country that has found it increasingly difficult to isolate Iran through the use of sanctions that are primarily American in nature.

Without European support, sanctions are meaningless. Tie up Assad's personal bank accounts and the ATM card no longer works.

More disconcerting is the face of post-Assad Syria. Who steps in to fill his shoes? Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?

The wheels of justice grind slow - Demjanjuk Convicted

Former prison guard John Demjanjuk convicted of role in Nazi death camp.

Read the story from the New York Times.

Enough said.

Makes my stomach turn- Sanctions Are Dropped Against Libyan Defector

This is the kind of news that no one should have to read in the New York Times- a man who may be responsible for the terror bombing of PanAm 103 is standing in good stead with the Obama administration.

The Obama administration dropped financial sanctions on Monday against the top Libyan official who fled to Britain last week, saying it hoped the move would encourage other senior aides to abandon Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country’s embattled leader.

But the decision to unfreeze bank accounts and permit business dealings with the official, Moussa Koussa, underscored the predicament his defection poses for American and British authorities, who said on Tuesday that Scottish police and prosecutors planned to interview Mr. Koussa about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other issues “in the next few days.”

So what is going on here? This is not a case where a bank robber gets immunity from prosecution for testifying against his buddies. Koussa is not a bank robber. He works for Qaddafi (the Times' spelling) at the highest level of government. Perhaps he's dangling information about Qaddafi's authorization of the bombing? Maybe, but does Koussa deserve a free ride because of it? What do you think? Read the full report from the New York Times: Sanctions Are Dropped Against Libyan Defector

About the Itamar massacre

Some have wondered why this blog has not mentioned the horrific murder of the Fogel family in the Jewish community of Itamar on Friday, March 11th.

Be assured that the murdered and their family members have been in my mind since I first read the news Saturday evening after the Sabbath.

Frankly, my silence is attributable to being as the proverbial deer blinded by the headlights of an approaching car. I’ve been frozen not only by the attack but the implications of the attack and the world’s response to it.

When the Associated Press could only conclude its Sunday report of the massacre by stating that the community of Itamar is “home to some of Israel’s most radical settlers,” a line picked up by the New York Times, my fear that we are sinking to the lows of pre-war Nazi Germany in the demonization of Jews became more real.

In that vein, I came across the following poem by Uri Tzvi Greenberg written in response to the Holocaust.

To God in Europe

We are not as dogs among the gentiles: a dog is pitied by them
fondled by them, sometimes even kissed by a gentile’s mouth
as if he were a pretty baby
of his own flesh and blood, the gentile spoils him
and is forever taking pleasure in him.
And when the dog dies, how the gentile mourns him!

Not like sheep to the slaughter were we brought in
trainload but rather-
through all the lovely landscapes of Europe-
brought like leprous sheep
to Extermination itself.
Not as they dealt with their sheep did the gentiles deal with
our bodies;
they did not extract their teeth before they slaughtered them
nor strip them of their wool as they stripped us of our skins;
nor shove them into the fire to turn their life to ashes;
nor scatter the ashes over sewers and streams;
like this that we have suffered at their hands!
There are none-no other instances.
(All words are shadows of shadow)
This is the horrifying phrase: No other instances.

No matter how brutal the torture a man will
suffer in a land of the gentiles
the maker of comparisons will compare it thus:
He was tortured like a Jew.
Whatever the fear, whatever the outrage,
how deep the loneliness, how harrowing the sorrow-
no matter how loud the weeping-
the maker of comparisons will say:
This is an instance of the Jewish sort.

What retribution can there be for our disaster?
Its dimensions are a world.
All the culture of the gentile kingdoms at its peak
flows with our blood,
and all its conscience, with our tears ....
(Tr. Robert Friend)

I conclude by reminding myself that it’s necessary for me to double my efforts to understand the message of this disgusting act of violence and to teach that lesson to our friends, neighbors, media people and elected officials. So I’ll ask God to give me the strength for that because my tank is getting perilously low.

Stephen M. Flatow

From Jpost.com: The Region: Egypt gets its Khomeini

Barry Rubin writes in the Jerusalem Post, "Friday, February 18 may be a turning point in Egyptian history. On that day Yusuf al-Qaradawi spoke to a giant cheering crowd in Tahrir Square."

Al-Qaradawi, 84-years old, had been in self-imposed exile in Qatar for 50 years but his return to Egypt may mean that Egypt's Khomeini has entered the scene.

And The New York Times reports,

"Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died.

“Don’t fight history,” he urged his listeners in Egypt and across the Arab world, where his remarks were televised. “You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.”

Rubin points out,

"IT WAS 32 years ago almost to the day when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned in triumph to Tehran to take over the leadership of that country. Qaradawi has a tougher job, but he’s up to the challenge if his health holds up. Up until now, the Egyptian revolution generally, and the Brotherhood in particular, has lacked a charismatic thinker, someone who could really mobilize the masses. Qaradawi is that man. Long resident in the Gulf, he is returning to his homeland in triumph."

Qaradawi has called attacks against Israelis and American soldiers legitimate resistance. And he is considered a terrorist by the US for his support of terror oganizations.

Giving Qaradawi access to Egyptians in the street is asking for trouble. So, in my opinion, the slide to another Islamist government in the Middle East begins.

Read Rubin's report: The Region: Egypt gets its Khomeini and The New York Times, After Long Exile, Sunni Cleric Takes Role in Egypt.