Recognizing terror in its many forms

By: Eli Verschleiser

There’s a plague of fear spreading across the globe. The news greets us nearly every day like a blast of cold air. Acts of evil intended to influence the behavior of others.

The attack on Sony by North Korea may have been bloodless, but it’s an act of terrorism no less, undertaken by a dictator desperate to exert his influence in a world in which he feels insecure. This time it was the hacking of email accounts and other information from a major international corporation. Next time the hackers could target power grids or an airport, and the results could be actual loss of life. The entire fragile US economy could be thrown into chaos by a maniac with sophisticated cyber-terrorists on his leash.

As in any case, the US can strike back, as it appears to have done by somehow shutting down Internet access in North Korea (the White House won’t confirm or deny). But the effects of cyber-terror are already felt.

Kim Jong-un

Theater chains across North America declined to show a lowbrow comedy starring Seth Rogen that accomplished its mission of poking the bear, in the form of Kim Jong-un. Fearing liability, they caved in to vague threats by hackers that they would somehow punish audiences who saw The Interview. The media were Kim’s accomplices, not only rushing to publicize the hacked Sony emails and causing severe corporate mayhem, but also, in the case of CNN, referencing the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting and even 9-11 in its coverage as feasible outcomes of screening the movie.

Americans nearly universally groaned at this capitulation – it’s not like us to hide from bullies – but there were defenders, too.

“They’ll never be able to protect [audiences],” said Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of The New York Daily News and US News and World Report on the McLaughlin Group last week. Fortunately some 300 small theaters agreed to show the movie in time for the release date and Sony Pictures wisely made it available online at the same time.

It is the very essence of terrorism to upset a society’s way of life, economic and cultural, via violent intimidation, whether the threat is real or just perceived.

It’s not surprising that terrorism is gaining an upper hand in a world that gives a free pass to groups that embody it. Last month the European Union court ordered Hamas removed from the EU terrorist list for “procedural reasons.”

Never mind that US courts have found that in fact Hamas has been responsible for the murder of innocent people, or that it has turned Gaza into a rocket base to attack Israel from the moment it gained independence. International donors have raised $5.4 billion to rebuild the area from Israeli retaliation strikes last summer, and schools across the United Kingdom are joining a five-mile walkathon next week to raise money for rebuilding schools in Gaza.

One wonders how much will be ponied up for the rebuilding effort by the international Hamas supporters who paid for the rockets that soared into Israel and ignited the conflict.

Does the fact that the EU court is located in Belgium, now known as one of the most anti-Semitic locations in the EU, contribute to this “procedural reasoning” or is this part of an attempt to encourage inclusion of Hamas in the coming debate over a Palestinian state, along with the more reasonable Fatah wing of the Palestinian Authority? It was in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU, that shouts of “Death to the Jews!” and “Gas the Jews!” were heard at pro-Palestinian rallies. As The New York Times reported, “ugly threats were surpassed by uglier violence” as a new wave of Antisemitism sweeps across Europe even as anti-Israel fervor grows. Recently, there was a deadly attack on a Jewish Museum in Brussels, a Jewish-owned pharmacy in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles was destroyed and a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany was firebombed.

The plague of physical and economic terrorism will only worsen until we find a way to take a tough stand against its practitioners rather than kowtow to them or capitulate to their demands.

Evidently the world can’t even wait for the generation of Nazi victims to pass before moving on to the next wave of hate against the Jews. While world leaders gathered in Berlin last month for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s 10th annual conference on Antisemitism, some participants noted that it was largely a gathering of governments who either pay lip service to the issue, or are fully committed but simply lack the wherewithal to have a serious impact on the problem, as in the case of France.

The more “sophisticated” Jew haters at least make an attempt to mask their hate as political activism, utterly fixated on the policies and actions of the Jewish state (while yawning at the daily bloodshed in Syria and elsewhere). Their form of terrorism is also cloaked in faux respectability: a boycott campaign against Israeli academic institutions and companies. Never mind that one of the targeted companies, Sodastream, is a major source of stable unemployment for Palestinians, and Israeli universities are full of professors harshly critical of their own government.

The plague of physical and economic terrorism will only worsen until we find a way to take a tough stand against its practitioners rather than kowtow to them, whitewash them or capitulate to their demands.

I will leave it to experts to decide a strategy that is effective for deterrence. But the first step is easy. Call it what it is.

Originally Published: The Hill

The Familiar Face of Terror, And Resolve

The blood shed from Nov. 18's massacre of 4 rabbis &
one Israeli  at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Photo: Twitter

By: Eli Verschleiser

Living in the Har Nof section of Jerusalem more than 20 years ago, I knew what terror was like. In those days, it was the Scud missiles of Saddam Hussein that brought fear, but also a lesson in faith, determination, and the simple resolve of people that want to live a peaceful life in their country at all costs.

Like other mostly American communities in the Jewish state, Har Nof has only grown tenfold, instead of families running back to the United States where a majority of these residents were born and raised. But as we saw last month, regardless of their desire to do nothing more than live, work, study and pray, there will still be those determined to deprive them of all of the above.

The horrific carnage that erupted inside a Har Nof synagogue on Nov. 19 reminded me of the old adage coined by Abba Eban that those who want to destroy Israel “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

After gaining widespread sympathy during the Gaza war provoked by Hamas rockets last summer, those who embraced or justified this attack, and the vehicular homicides in Jerusalem that shortly preceded it, have brought back a familiar narrative: senseless targeting not of military forces controlling Palestinian areas but the soft underbelly of Israeli society, its women and children and rabbis at prayer who do not serve in the army.

Some have attempted to link the attacks to a so-called “dispute” over the holy Temple Mount and recent moves by some Jews to gain the right to openly pray there (as if this might justify the horrific gun and ax attack).

Since the very idea of this “dispute” is fiction – Prime Minister Netanyahu has rejected any notion of change in religious control of the site – the linkage is even more preposterous.

What’s more likely happening is that Arabs from east Jerusalem, who have free access to the rest of the city, are being prodded by Palestinian jihad groups to pick up the slack in terror attacks caused by the highly successful security barrier. The object of international scorn, this 430 mile fence has nevertheless drastically reduced homicide bombing infiltrations.

Now, instead of bombs we see attacks with cars and construction equipment or, stabbings and shootings.

These attacks are celebrated by some Palestinians, and a Hamas spokesman reacted to the Har Nof attack by saying “The new operation is heroic and a natural reaction to Zionist criminality against our people and our holy places. We have the full right to revenge for the blood of our martyrs in all possible means."

While Fatah Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, he made a desperate attempt at linkage by decrying in the same statement “incursions and provocations by settlers against the Aksa Mosque.”

In a bitter rebuke to Abbas and Israel’s international critics, Ambassador Ron Dermer on Nov. 24 decried the “fog [that] descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity [when the Israel-Palestinian conflict is discussed. ] The result isn’t realpolitik, its surrealpolitik.”

Supporters will claim that the absence of peace talks and harsh rhetoric from Israeli extremists fuel Palestinian rage and invite attacks such as the Har Nof atrocity.

It is clear that Jewish right-wingers do seem to strike great fear in the hearts of Palestinians and their supporters: Meir Kahane of the Kach Party and Rahavam Zeevi of Moledet, who advocated expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, were assassinated by Arab gunmen in 1990 and 2001, and in October another tried unsuccessfully to kill Rabbi Yehudah Glick for his advocacy of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

But Palestinians know full well the Israeli mainstream is ready for peace and willing to make great sacrifices if they only had a partner that is willing, trustworthy and capable of delivering on promises of coexistence.

To see the likelihood of that, one need look to Gaza, handed over to 1.5 million Palestinians almost a decade ago in the best of hopes, with significant restrictions by Israel that would have surely been eased over time had trust been gained.

Like many people, I would love to one day have an opportunity to visit beach side resorts operated by the Palestinians in Gaza, on one of the most beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, in a state negotiated by the parties with the help of the US.

But the coastline that could have attracted throngs of tourists from Europe and international investment has instead become the object of intense Israeli blockades to keep out weapons shipments from Iran and other terror supporters.

Beautiful, innovative, productive greenhouses built by Jews were destroyed, as labor and creativity was put instead to the smuggling and firing of rockets. Concrete that could have built schools and hospitals above ground instead went to terror tunnels below.

There may well be a large segment of Palestinians who want peace, but they are continuously eclipsed by the more visible and deadly elements for whom the conflict is a nihilistic zero-sum game. In the absence of more attainable goals, killing Israelis is no longer a means to and end for them, but the end unto itself.

Life went on in Har Nof and the rest of Israel after the Scuds fell, and will go on after November’s massacre, and after every other vile murderous outrage that, God forbid, may come after it.

Each time, a lesson in faith and determination from a people who embrace life over death.

Originally Published: The Allgemeiner

Black-and-White Boycotts Defy a Technicolor Middle East

By: Eli Verschleiser

The subtleties beneath Scarlett Johansson’s controversial endorsement of SodaStream products should blunt the euphoria of pro-Israel advocates, who celebrate the Hollywood star’s choice to abandon Oxfam in favor of her new West Bank-based patron. More fundamentally, the fallout in this case reveals the all-out assault on Israel’s very existence, and should give everyone pause about making facile judgments about right and wrong in a complex situation. The world is never black and white, and it's just such binary, zero-sum thinking that perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian impasse in the Middle East.

Scarlett chose to stick with a model of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence within the West Bank, rather than accept the dogma against conducting any business involving Israeli settlements over the 1949 Green Line. The reactions against her decision demonstrate that the sophisticated effort to condemn and boycott Israel’s West Bank settlements without demonizing pre-1967 Israel has largely failed, both in the popular imagination and in the pronouncements of other high-profile celebrities. Any well-intentioned supporters of the West Bank boycott must realize that the so-called “BDS” movement (pushing for boycott, divestment, sanctions) against the entire State of Israel is coopting their message for a greater cause – eliminating the Jewish state.

I vehemently disagree with those choosing to deny Israel their patronage for items produced in the West Bank until the entire dispute is resolved, but I can also understand their moral premise. But as the SodaStream controversy has highlighted, many BDS activists see Jewish independence anywhere in historical Israel as illegitimate and offensive. What could have been a principled abstaining from the fruits of the West Bank is now a witch hunt, boycotting or intimidating anyone who sees the world differently, or without the same black-and-white filter.

Well-meaning people who support Palestinian rights in the West Bank while accepting Israel's right to exist within secure and negotiated borders should understand that this level of nuance is beyond the comprehension of many Israel-haters. Possibly against its own better judgment, BDS has seamlessly conflated a boycott against Jewish settlements over the Green Line with boycotting all Israeli people and products.

Make no mistake: Plenty of BDS activists would attack Scarlett for representing SodaStream even if it were based in the heart of Tel Aviv. An official BDS website, representing two dozen groups identified as Palestinian, celebrated the fact that Scarlett Johansson stepped down as an Oxfam Ambassador, “following public outcry,” and

Every entity which agrees to boycott Israeli companies doing business with the West Bank represents a victory for the BDS movement. And such a secondary boycott is hardly some new innovation meant to punish Israel’s current right-wing government for not moving fast enough to abandon the West Bank. The boycott of Israeli products, and of companies that do business with Israeli companies or use Israeli products, goes back decades. It gathered steam after the 1973 surprise attack against Israel by Egypt and Syria, when the Arab Gulf states imposed an oil embargo against countries dealing with Israel.

It’s not just Palestinians or Arabs who recognize no Green Line. For Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters, Israel is illegitimate and unjust on either side of the Green Line, so it doesn't even matter that SodaStream is based in the West Bank. In an open letter on Facebook, he lectures Johansson about Israeli human rights violations against non-Jews inside the Green Line – which international law recognizes as Israel – and champions the return of a Palestinian refugees, not to the West Bank but to Israel proper. He also objectifies people like Scarlett, having once pegged her as "anti-neo-con" and now labeling her a turncoat, all because of personal choices she has made. When the world, and the people in it, disappoint our neatly tailored expectations, that's not necessarily a crime against humanity.

Beyond Waters, for years hundreds of intellectuals and artists have also been promoting a “cultural boycott of Israel”. While only comprising a slender minority of the Western cultural elite, led by such notables as Booker Prize winner John Berger, this movement (also titled “The Electronic Intifada”) promotes the isolation of Israel – not as an extension of the West Bank-related campaign, but as a continuation of the longstanding boycott of Israel.

More recently, the American Studies Association (ASA) joined the list of academic groups boycotting Israel for its West Bank policies, its actions in Lebanon, and even this shocking reason: “Armed soldiers patrol Israeli university campuses, and some have been trained at Israeli universities in techniques to suppress protesters.” Such twisted reasoning should offend anyone who’s seen the long list of terror attacks on Israeli institutions, from which many Palestinian BDS leaders received their own degrees. Anyone who thinks Israelis enjoy needing soldiers to patrol their universities… should probably join the ASA.

In its ultimatum to Scarlett Johansson, Oxfam comes across as anti-Israel, or at least as anti-occupation, and its overt political style has overshadowed its record of feeding millions sound the world. Now, its political choices have definitely tarnished the hunger brand in ways that could impact a million or more innocent, hungry humans who depend on voluntary donations via Oxfam.

One humane West Bank factory does not undo all the grievances of Palestinians, but that also doesn't make the company (or its spokesperson) a villain for coloring outside the lines imposed by one ideology or the other. Ironically, SodaStream is a rare example of how Jewish-Palestinian coexistence could actually succeed. Including this company among Israel’s crimes against Palestinians undermines the already dubious case for a single bi-national state as advocated by Waters and so many others would-be do-gooders. And yes, there are many.

The American Jewish Congress has made it a high priority on our current agenda to challenge the BDS movement to de-legitimize and isolate Israel, as we continue the agency’s efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East.

One lesson we might all take from this latest ripple is that, even if SodaStream and BDS remain problematic, most Jews and Palestinians on the ground are increasingly seeing their grievances and aspirations in full color, not as a take-no-prisoners battle to the death. Anyone who claims to want peace in that part of the world should not be allowed to think any less broadly than they do.

Originally Published: The Allgemeiner