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Israel Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 5 Comments
We previously reported on the profanity-laced shout-down of Professor Alan Johnson at National University of Ireland at Galway by anti-Israel activist Joseph Loughnane. If you haven't seen the video yet, watch it. It's a microcosm of the culture of anti-Israel intimidation on many campuses, fostered by anti-Israel faculty propagandists pushing their policial agenda at places such as conferences run by NYU and the American Studies Assocation. (Language Warning) ) Professor Johnson, the subject of this abuse, has written a blog post about the incident and what he believes was behind it, BDS bullies at Galway University:
Third, ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’ have become tied up with the performance of political identity in the West in a most dangerous way. ‘The Palestinians’ are a stage on which the BDS activists act out their identity. To make that possible, ‘The Palestinians’ must be reduced to pure victims of the evil Nazi-Israelis. For only those kind of Palestinians can enable feelings of moral superiority, purity, quest, meaning, even transcendence of sorts. Palestinians being starved by Assad hold no interest. Palestinians being thrown from rooftops by Hamas members hold no interest. When Salam Fayyad is building up the Palestinian Nation the BDS activists just yawn, or denounce him as a collaborator. Only as agency-less pure victims can the Palestinians play their allotted role as a screen onto which the individual projects his or her identity of the righteous activist. It is the Palestinians misfortune that they have become this.
[caption id="attachment_80976" align="alignnone" width="488"](Professor Alan Johnson being shouted down at NUIG-Galway) (Professor Alan Johnson being shouted down at NUIG-Galway)[/caption] As I previously reported, NUIG-Galway has promised an investigation and condemned the conduct. In my follow-up, however, NUIG-Galway declined to provide details or even to commit to making the result public, although it did clarify its prior statement by adding that the investigation will include violations of the student code, as follows (in part):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 11, 2014 10 Comments
The announcement recently by Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinians never, ever would recognize a Jewish state garnered plenty of headlines. It quickly was followed up by a similar announcement from the Arab League and Fatah party. Watch this speech by Abbas, which led to the headlines, and read the text. It appears that the peace negotiations were a farce from the get-go. Abbas is in favor of the 1 1/2 state solution -- one for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and another half a Palestinian state within Israel itself through the unfettered and unrestricted "return" of 1948 refugess in the war started by the Arab plus their descendents. It is clear that any peace deal only is a first step. Abbas, the supposedly most moderate Palestinian leader Israel is likely to see (according to Obama-Kerry), does not accept a Jewish national entity. That's the bottom line. Transcript via MEMRI:
Mahmoud Abbas: "Our position is that the settlements – from start to finish – are illegal. They talk about settlement blocs, or about settlements here and there, but we say that every house and every stone that were placed in the West Bank since 1967 and to this day are illegal and we do not recognize them." […] "No resolution that we agree upon with the others will be passed unless it is confirmed by popular referendum of all the Palestinians worldwide." Applause […]

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 09, 2014 12 Comments
This video of an anti-Israel Boycottt Divest and Sanction activist at National University of Ireland - Galway, shouting profanities at Professor Alan Johnson of the Fathom journal, is beginning to get attention after our post about it on Friday. Johnson supports a two-state solution and is against BDS. The video, obtained by the Irish for Israel, features NUI Galway student Joseph Loughnane shouting as a row of students behind him banged on the tables in support and themselves shouted (off camera, as video panned towards speaker):
“You’re f-ing Zionist, f-ing pricks, get the f–k off our campus”
Language warning ) We reached out to the President of NUI Galway for comment, and received an email back from NUI Galway press and information officer Tomás Ó Síocháin, with the following statement on behalf of the university:
NUI Galway has over 110 societies and 50 clubs on campus, reflecting the diverse interests of students and staff. The University has a pluralist ethos and all societies have the freedom to both express and communicate those views to students and staff. They must, however, act within the law and in accordance with the University’s code of conduct. The behaviour portrayed is unacceptable and has no place at any forum of discussion or debate. This matter will be investigated immediately. NUI Galway has a long and proud tradition of welcoming visitors and guests to the University’s campus, to both engage in and observe robust debate. The University will take steps to ensure that this remains the case and that all speakers are given the dignity and respect they deserve.
The investigation presumably will not be limited to Loughnane, but also the students behind him banging and shouting in support as he ordered Prof. Johnson to "get the f-k off our campus".

Posted by Laurel Conrad on March 08, 2014 8 Comments
I'd like to re-pose the age-old question: "If Israeli Apartheid Week happens on campus and no one notices, does it make a sound?" Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) officially took place on campuses across the U.S. over the course of February 24-March 2, although the exact boundaries of the "week" varied somewhat. When we set out to monitor events at Legal Insurrection, we expected an avalanche.  But it never showed up.  There were events, but none seemed to have much energy or attendance. We're just starting the "Israeli Apartheid week" in Europe too, but even in Sussex, England, only 8 people showed up to the BDS march.  That may reflect that even in Britain, a hotbed of anti-Israel activities on campus, IAW is losing steam, UK Students Say 'Israel Apartheid Week' Losing Steam. Has Israeli Apartheid Week peaked already in the U.S.? The Jewish Press reported that pro-Israel counter-events outnumbered IAW events. We had trouble finding reports of any large-scale IAW activities, and those that did occur failed to draw coverage or attendance on numerous campuses. For example, at the University of Maryland, only 12 of 426 invited guests rsvp'ed as attending the IAW event, "The Wall Must Fall." Neither did the event receive any coverage from their student newspaper.

University Maryland IAW

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 05, 2014 6 Comments
The Leftist-Islamist anti-Israel coalition relentlessly complains about the Israeli military blockade of Gaza.  On a number of occasions they have put together flotillas of civilians to break the blockade. One of those flotillas, organized by Turkish Islamists and loaded with European leftists, led to the controntation in 2010 in which nine people were killed after Israeli troops boarding the ship were attacked and beaten: (Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF, May 31, 2010 -- additional footage here) That blockade is legal, as even a U.N. panel ruled (and U.N. panels almost never side with Israel). Israel today seized a ship loaded with long-range missiles destined for Gaza via Iran. Here are two videos:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2014 2 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing the AIPAC conference this morning.

Posted by David Gerstman on March 04, 2014 0 Comments
The video embedded at the bottom of the post is of Dr. Massad Barhoum, the medical director of the Western Galilee Medical Center, one of three Israeli hospitals to treat Syrians wounded in that country's civil war. He tells of how his hospital was informed by the IDF that they would be receiving Syrian casualties. He gives the background of his hospital too. It is six miles from Lebanon and has come under rocket fire. It serves the 600,000 residents of the Galilee - Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze - that make up the "tapestry" of the population in northern Israel. He also explains that there's an extra worry the Syrians have when they find themselves in Israel - that they are alone with no support system. Dr. Barhoum speaks with empathy of those patients who, all of a sudden, find themselves receiving help from a country they have been taught to hate. The whole talk is worth listening to. Dr. Barhoum speaks well and is direct but understated. But here are three quotes that stood out:
  • "Who are these wounded? These mysterious patients who travel in secret, the whole story is wrapped in melodrama, victims of war seeking medical salvation at the hands of their sworn enemies. Yet when they past through the gates of my hospital, the cease to be Syrians. Just as when we walk through the gates we cease to be Jews, Muslims, or, like me, an Arab Christian. They are patients, we are caregivers and nothing else matters."
  • "Arriving unconscious they awoke to a strange language and the sudden terrifying realization that they are in Israel. For every patient this fright, this mistrust is natural. They have been saved by the Israel they have been told to fear and hate. But I have seen this terror dissolve into trust, to appreciation and thanks for the Israeli doctors who saved their lives."
  • "... But still we help. Israel's decision to provide medical care to Syrians in their time of need is recognition of a shared humanity and compassion. That to us has no race, no ethnicity, and no borders."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2014 21 Comments
Jeffrey Goldberg has carved out what for a journalist covering the Middle East is an enviable niche -- vigorously pro-Israel yet not anti-Obama. When Bibi Netanyahu lectured Obama on the Middle East in a White House press conference in 2011, Goldberg leapt to Obama's defense with the following declaration:
Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don’t Speak to My President That Way
That niche is why Goldberg landed an interview with Obama on the eve of Netanyahu's visit to the White House, detailed in Goldberg's column today, Obama to Israel -- Time Is Running Out. The interview is best described as preparing the public for what is to come: The Obama administration twisting Bibi's arm off as to John Kerry's "framework" under the threat of the U.S. stepping aside from defending Israel against the worldwide, decades-long lawfare and boycott movement. It's the same threat John Kerry made several weeks ago, but now it's coming from Obama's own lips, as Goldberg noted (emphasis added):
On the subject of Middle East peace, Obama told me that the U.S.'s friendship with Israel is undying, but he also issued what I took to be a veiled threat: The U.S., though willing to defend an isolated Israel at the United Nations and in other international bodies, might soon be unable to do so effectively. “If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time,” Obama said. “If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”
For Goldberg to characterize Obama's statement as a "veiled threat" is pretty significant. To me, it wasn't a veiled threat, it was just a threat.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2014 10 Comments
Friday and Saturday was the super-secret, closed-door BDS organizing conference held by NYU's American Studies Department under the direction of Lisa Duggan, an NYU Prof. and incoming President of the American Studies Association. Duggan, a big supporter of the anti-Israel academic boycott, apparently did not want dissenting voices present: duggan The agenda was stacked with anti-Israel professors. The lunchtime program explicitly was oriented toward organizing anti-Israeli groups on campus, including an appearance by someone from Students for Justice in Palestine. NYU American Studies Conference February 28 2014 part poster The conference was controversial not just because of the topic, but the one-sided stacking of the deck by an academic department and the exclusion of non-approved attendees. The event was not even open to all NYU students. A group of NYU students wrote a letter of protest to NYU's President, which reads in part:
From the beginning, this event has been shrouded in secrecy; Professor Lisa Duggan, the event’s sponsor (in a post that has now been removed) cautioned, “PLEASE DO NOT post or circulate the flyer. We are trying to avoid press, protestors and public attention.”

Posted by David Gerstman on February 28, 2014 24 Comments
According to an article last month in the New York Times Iran is facing a major water crisis.

Iran is facing a water shortage potentially so serious that officials are making contingency plans for rationing in the greater Tehran area, home to 22 million, and other major cities around the country. President Hassan Rouhani has identified water as a national security issue, and in public speeches in areas struck hardest by the shortage he is promising to “bring the water back.”

Experts cite climate change, wasteful irrigation practices and the depletion of groundwater supplies as leading factors in the growing water shortage. In the case of Lake Urmia, they add the completion of a series of dams that choked off a major supply of fresh water flowing from the mountains that tower on either side of the lake.

According to a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Iran didn't always have a water problem.

That cooperation began in 1962, after a severe earthquake in the Qazvin region of Iran killed more than 12,000 people. The earthquake collapsed a chain of wells that engineers had drilled in a qanat, or tunnel, style. Hundreds of thousands were at risk from lack of drinking water. Israel flew in teams of drillers. New water supplies were identified, and a series of artesian wells were drilled. The drilling was such a success that Israel’s water engineering company, today a private enterprise, was hired to identify and gain access to underground resources elsewhere in Iran.

Beginning in 1968, a desalination company owned by the Israeli government built dozens of plants in Iran. These are now aging, while Israel continues to innovate: On its Mediterranean coast, it recently opened an immense, energy-efficient desalination plant. More than half of Israel’s drinking water — purer, cleaner and less salty than natural sources — now comes from seawater.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 27, 2014 10 Comments
We previously made reference to the anti-Israel conference organized for February 28- March 1, 2014 by Lisa Duggan, a professor in NYU's American Studies Department and incoming President of the American Studies Association. (Full conference poster at bottom of post.) When Elder of Ziyon blog and others caught wind of Duggan trying to keep the Conference from coming to the attention of those who oppose ASA's academic boycott of Israel, the Facebook post for the event was taken down. The Conference is an NYU function, but it's hardly academic. The panels are stacked with anti-Israel academic boycott movement supporters arguing in favor of the boycott, including Wesleyan University Professor J. Kehaulani Kauanui. The lunchtime panel is explicitly an anti-Israeli organizing event:

NYU American Studies Conference February 28 2014 part poster

There isn't even a pretense of academic discussion on that panel. Such is American Studies at NYU. NYU's response?
“This weekend’s American Studies Program Annual Conference is an annual academic conference that is organized by graduate students in NYU’s American Studies Program and designed for faculty and students in this and related disciplines,” said Philip Lentz, the university’s director of public affairs. “Given the purpose of the conference and space considerations, it is not open to the general public or the press.”
Elder of Ziyon points out:
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