Anti-Israel EU Labeling Ignores Real Occupations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the European Union’s (EU) decision forcing importers to differentially label Israeli products from Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) and the Golan Heights as “hypocritical and [that it] constitutes a double standard.”

The administration of US President Barack Obama expressed support for the EU effort.  But then, as US Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio noted, Obama “treats the Prime Minister of Israel with less respect than what he gives the Ayatollah in Iran.”

The EU seems obsessively anti-Israel with its decision not to identify products from the West Bank and Golan as “Made in Israel” as only the latest example of that obsession.  It calls ad nauseam for Israel-Arab negotiations as the only path to peace but has already pre-determined their outcome by saying that these disputed territories are not part of Israel.  In lock step, that Obama administration spokesman who expressed support for the labeling also said that “we do not consider settlements to be part of Israel.” 

The evidence of this “asymmetrical” warfare against the Jewish State goes beyond righteous indignation, however.  That same EU labeling that targets Israel’s unconfirmed "occupation” ignores real ones, most egregiously Iran and Pakistan’s occupation of   Baluchistan.

Baluchistan stretches across southwestern Pakistan, southeastern Iran, and a small section of southwestern Afghanistan.  When the British left India, they thought they were leaving an independent Baluchistan, but the Pakistanis ruthlessly crushed it and have been treating the Baloch as virtual serfs ever since.  I’ve never heard of the EU refusing to label Balochi exports as Made in Pakistan, and their occupation is not disputed, as is the one with which they are obsessed.  Moreover, there are massive human rights violations by both Pakistan and Iran against the Baloch, and the European Union remains silent about them.  Moreover, Iran’s violations (see as one example, http://www.interfaithstrength.com/Studies%20on%20IRAN.pdf, scroll to page 196) were never even raised during the ill begotten “negotiations” on Iran’s nuclear program.  And judging by the slobbering excitement with which Europeans are greeting prospects of commerce with Iran; don’t expect them to be.

Only about 60 percent of Iran’s population is Persian.  The rest are ethnic minorities (many Muslim) whose identity is being ruthlessly crushed.  There are Baloch, Sindhi, and Pashto independence movements within Pakistan, all Muslim.  Yet, none of them is being taken up by the anti-Jewish state obsessed European Union.

It seems that the EU’s finger wagging “morality” is selective and coincides with historical European  tastes and economic interests.  When will the world wake up and stop Europe's carnage-complicit hypocrisy?

Remember "The BDS 59" at election time

Those of us who feel passionately about our nation's security and the international fight against Islamists, and who are equally passionate about the State of Israel, have been snubbed time and again by the Obama administration and its fearful acolytes in Congress.  When that happens, people shake their fists and rant about those who are placing our security and that of our ally Israel in jeopardy, but too often we do nothing more.

I've spoken with so many individuals--passionate supporters of Israel--who have come to me with their anger about Barack Obama and his clearly anti-Israel actions.  Yet, when pressed, they admit that they voted for him not once but twice, the second time after his anti-Israel actions were--as they too admitted--on full display.  So with the 2016 US elections not that far away, from time to time, this blog will remind voters who snubbed them and did so expecting that they did not have the heft to administer the appropriate consequences.

Let's begin with "The BDS 59."

Do you remember when Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed a joint session of Congress, and several members of that body publicly boycotted our friend and ally.  They did so even though were it not for our ally Israel, Saddam Hussein would have ten years of nuclear material for use against our troops in 1991; and even though were it not for our ally Israel, ISIS would have a bomb today.

Some of The BDS 59 tried to hide behind an excuse about protocol, however, there are historical precedents for the Netanyahu speech; and their anti-Israel boycott reflected their tacit or vocal support for the Obama's attempts to distance the US from Israel.  Here are The BDS 59 who do not deserve our votes in 2016 or any time:

Vice President Joe Biden

Sen. Al Franken (Minn.)

Sen. Martin Heinrich (N.M.)

Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.)

Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.)

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)

Rep. Karen Bass (Calif.)

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.)

Rep. Corrine Brown (Fla.)

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (N.C.)

Rep. Lois Capps (Calif.)

Rep. Andre Carson (Ind.)

Rep. Joaquin Castro (Texas)

Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.)

Rep. William Lacy Clay (Mo.)

Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.)

Rep. Steve Cohen (Tenn.)

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.)

Rep. John Conyers (Mich.)

Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.)

Rep. Danny Davis (Ill.)

Rep. Peter DeFazio (Ore.)

Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.)

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (Texas)

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.)

Rep. Donna Edwards (Md.)

Rep. Chaka Fattah (Pa.)

Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.)

Rep. Marcia Fudge (Ohio)

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.)

Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (Ill.)

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.)

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas)

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio)

Rep. Rick Larsen (Wash.)

Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.)

Rep. John Lewis (Ga.)

Rep. Dave Loebsack (Iowa)

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.)

Rep. Betty McCollum (Minn.)

Rep. Jim McDermott (Wash.)

Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.)

Rep. Jerry McNerney (Calif.)

Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.)

Rep. Gwen Moore (Wis.)

Rep. Beto O'Rourke (Texas)

Rep. Donald Payne (N.J.)

Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine)

Rep. David Price (N.C.)

Rep. Cedric Richmond (La.)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.)

Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.)

Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.)

Rep. Mike Thompson (Calif.)

Rep. John Yarmuth (Ky.)

They put partisanship over our security, and did so expecting that none of us will remember come election day.  We do remember, and this blog will put out more reminders in the coming weeks and months, including reminders of who voted for the Iran deal that places US and Israeli security in jeopardy.

The Truth WILL set us Free

In January, I helped force an anti-Israel conference to be canceled in Australia. As so many anti-Israel events are, this one too was cloaked in the language of human rights. In fact, the conference organizer, Maqsood Alshams, was known as a human rights activist Down Under, and the conference was to "debate" charging Israel with war crimes for the Gaza War.


A few days before it was to begin, however, the conference organizer made some blatantly anti-Semitic remarks and used them--not human rights--to explain his rationale for the conference. With the help of several Australians, we exposed him. (Now, to be sure, that faux human rights language is more times than not a fig leaf for anti-Semitism, which we exposed in this case. But it was not the rabid Israel haters (and Jew haters) who were the key. If anything, they would have cheered Alshams' remarks. The key was the academic institutions and liberal participants, including Jews who justified their participation by "compassion for the Palestinians.

Even after Alshams' anti-Semitism was exposed in one of Australia's most widely-read dailies, they were not planning to pull out of the conference. It took another day of emphasizing the poison that was the rationale for the conference before they did. "I don't want to confuse the Palestinian issues that I care about with any form of racism or anti-Semitism," said one of the academics, explaining his pullout. "As a Jew who condemns anti-Semitism I though it would be inappropriate to engage in a debate in that kind of environment," said another.

And that's the key. Regardless of how chic it has become in those circles to be anti-Israel, it is still difficult for participants to associate themselves with open and blatant "racism or anti-Semitism." As the Australian conference is far from unique (we have seen recent examples of the same in Canada, for instance), Israel's supporters world wide should be vigilant and ready to act in similar situations. It is not all that difficult if we (1) have truth and justice on our side; (2) are active in smoking out these things; and (3) have an organized effort ready to act whenever we do.

The elements are all there, too, and I offer to work with anyone who wants to see the same results we gained in Australia this January.

Victory over Anti-Semitism!

An anti-Israel conference scheduled for an Australian government building was canceled after a several individuals revealed its leader’s anti-Semitic motives. Maqsood Alshams, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh, planned the conference to debate charging Israel with war crimes for its recent actions in Gaza. Alshams has become known Down Under as a “human rights” advocate, his stated context for relentless anti-Israel venom. On December 30, he circulated an email, calling Israel’s defensive war a “crime against humanity” and demanding international intervention to “stop the Israeli carnage.” In an email response, I asked Alshams why he did not call for “international intervention when Palestinians--and Hamas in particular--thanked Israel for leaving Gaza by making it a terrorist base to lob missiles onto civilian populations in Southern Israel?”

Alshams replied, “The simple answer is that you the Jews are real motherf***ing bast*rds.” He claimed the Mossad abused him in Turkey’s “Jewish Consulate” and told me to “keep your dirty mouth shut calling any Bangladeshi a brother, you guys are simply as*h*les….keep your dirty mouth shut…I wonder why God himself (sic) hate the Jews…” Now Alshams did not share these sentiments with the larger group as it would sully his carefully crafted image and reveal his actual motives; so I did.

I also asked Bangladeshi journalist, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, to investigate Alshams’ claims of being a persecuted journalist in need of asylum, which many Australians believed. Choudhury found no one at the National Press Club who knew of Alshams or could verify that he “ever worked with any newspaper here.” He did, however, find a connection between Alshams and the radical Jammat e-Islami. Choudhury, the Bangladeshi Alshams told me not to call brother, was imprisoned and tortured for writing pro-Israel, anti-Islamist articles. While I led the campaign that freed him, Alshams and his ilk did nothing. So when he emerged from the hell of that confinement, it Choudhury who said, “When my own people abandoned me, my Jewish brother protected me, stood with me.”

Anna Berger is a child of Holocaust survivors, outraged by Alshams anti-Jewish tirade and again when he called Israel’s actions worse than the Nazis’. We exposed him to others, including the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. Soon, the Sydney Morning Herald, one of Australia’s largest newspapers, picked up the story. They verified my accusations, and I sent them Alshams’ damning email. The next day, it ran the story exposing Alshams. He first defended the hate-speech as private then claimed “I have many Jewish friends.” When he saw that no one was buying his “some of my best friends” defence, he blamed his tirade on being “intoxicated and angry.” While that might explain Alshams’ bad judgement in revealing his motives, it would not explain away the motives themselves. Conference participants distanced themselves from him, and the conference was cancelled. The revelations spoiled its public façade of being s fair debate engaged of the purest of motives.

Israel’s enemies have successfully—and fallaciously—appropriated the human rights high ground. Talking heads in academia, the media, and government have allowed them to engage in the worst sort of illogic and bigotry by adopting their version of history and morality. No hyperbole is out of bounds for them. They compare Israelis to Nazis and Palestinians to Jewish holocaust victims, though there is no similarity between the two. They have so terribly skewed the ideological playing field that Hamas can use Arab civilians as human shields then accuse Israel of human rights violations when those civilians become casualties of war. This incident exposed the Israel-bashers’ real motivations by stripping away its cynical use of human rights language.

This lesson must not be lost. We were just a group of individuals--no different from so many other people on just about every continent--who encounter the hate-filled and often genocidal words of the Israel-hating crowd. But how often are people silent? More to the point, how often do people take their outrage to lengths that expose the truth of so many in the anti-Israel crowd? And so many of them would do so if the hatred was about any group other than their own. Good for them, but not good for us. Those who engage in honest debate and dialogue are welcome to join verbal battle with us. As my fundamentalist Islamic friend and brother say, we "agree to disagree." And because of that, Bangladeshi Kazi Azizul Haq and I have found many points on which we do agree.

But those who cloak genocidal aims in false human rights language must be exposed for who and what they are and for the danger they represent. The media does not do it, so we must.