Sunday, March 01, 2009

Good news, bad news

There is both good news and bad news. For example, the Durban II conference that is being planned by the UN in Geneva is turning out to be more biased against Israel than many had hoped. However, the good news is that the Obama Administration, on seeing this trend, has decided to join Israel and Canada in boycotting it. The idea is that the UN Human Rights Agency is so institutionally biased against Israel that nothing can be done about it. In effect, anti-Semitism has been removed from the list of racisms in the UN definitions and has become the main cause of racism. Remember the UN's "Zionism=racism" resolution that was eventually overturned, well we're back there again.
The bad news is that Pope Benedict XVI recognized Bishop Richard Williamson, who is overtly anti-Semitic, and welcomed him back into the Church. The good news is that the Pope then renounced Williamson's views to a Jewish group, and then Williamson was fired from his seminary job in Argentina and expelled from that country. Upon arriving in England, Williamson issued an apology for his embarrassment of the Church and the Jews, but did not renounce his own views, and the Vatican rejected his apology.
In London, there is another anti-Israel play, after the manipulated memoir "My name is Rachel Corrie", called "Seven Jewish children" by Caryl Churchill. It is inspired by the view that the IDF deliberately carried out massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which is a gross lie, and compares Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto, a truly anti-Semitic comparison. In this play, Jewish children are shown to be brought up and indoctrinated to hate Palestinians and treat them as "unter-menschen," just as the Jews were treated by the Nazis. This is so far from reality, note that there are Arabs recently elected to the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and that Israel continues to provide water, food and electricity to Gaza, even through the fighting, apart from the fact that the IDF is a well organized Army that has orders to avoid civilian casualties, that it follows. So this is another part of the leftist campaign to delegitimize Israel in order to gain a State for the Palestinians, that if it is anything like Hamas in Gaza, would kill any leftists, including Caryl Churchill, if they could get hold of her. I suppose the good news is that this propaganda piece is so extreme and devoid of reality that in the end it will fade into obscurity.
On the other hand, the movie "Defiance" that depicts the true story of the Bielsky borthers, who established a large Jewish partisan group in the Byelorussian forests, fought the Nazis and rescued 1,200 Jews, is a great antidote to all this Jew-hatred. Fortunately it will be seen by many more people than this sick anti-Semitic play.
The good news is that the US, EU and UN want a united Fatah-Hamas Palestinian Government in order to be able to continue peace negotiations and to dispense the more than 3 billion dollars that are being donated for the reconstruction of Gaza. The bad news is that a united Fatah-Hamas government will legitimize Hamas and allow them to access some of these funds, that they will no doubt use to fight Israel.
The bad news is that Hamas continues to fire rockets at Israel, the good news is that they are a few a day, four on Saturday. The bad news is that a Grad rocket hit a school in Ashkelon, the good news is that no children were there at the time. But these rockets are enough to cause concern and trigger IAF counter-attacks against Hamas targets in Gaza.
Around the world there is the growth of anti-Semitism, in the wake of the war in Gaza, that results in attacks on Jews, who of course had nothing directly to do with this war. In Venzuela, there has been an attack by an armed group of men (including soldiers) on the main Synagogue and then a grenade attack on a Jewish center. The 30,000 Jews in Venezuela are concerned for their lives (sounds familiar). Also, the growth of right-wing anti-Semitic groups in Eastern Europe is linked to the world-wide economic crisis that they of course blame on "the Jews."
The campuses in the UK, US and elsewhere continue to be hot-beds of anti-Israel activity, that borders on anti-Semitism, and Jewish students now fear to walk on many campuses. The bad news was that Hampshire College appeared to have been forced by an extremist student group to divest its investments from Israel, but the good news is that the College Authorities clarified their position and will not divest from Israeli investments.
The British Unions are still trying to introduce selective boycotts of Israel academia. The good news is that a delegation of British Union leaders is expected in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza soon on a fact-finding mission, but the bad news is that unfortunately their minds are already made up.
In Israel, there is good news on the alternative energy front, the Tamar gas field find off the coast of Haifa is even larger than expected and will make Israel energy indpendent for many years. Also, the sun as a source of energy is being developed in Israel, both using reflectors and the heat in the Arava region. The bad news is that these projects will take years to realize.
Another piece of bad news is that last year, 2008, had the lowest rate of aliyah into Israel for 20 years, ca. 16,230. However, the good news is that the resurgence of anti-Semitism both in East and West is projected to cause a 20% or more increase in aliyah this year. Last week a family of 20 Jews from northern Yemen was spirited out of that country after numerous threats on their lives and a grenade was thrown at their house and they arrived safely in Israel. At least the Jews of the world, especially those in danger, know that they have a safe haven in Israel.
By the way, the bad news is that Israel has a drought, but the good news is that its been raining heavily for 2 days and is expected to continue!

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