More Israel

Posted by Josh Rosenau on May 19, 2010
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Right-wing Israeli activists threaten to protest Rahm Emanuel’s son’s bar mitzvah in Jerusalem:

Last year, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel announced at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington that he was planning to take his son Zach to Israel for his bar mitzvah. “This memorial break, I am taking my son, my nephew Noah with Ari my brother, so they can have their bar mitzvah in Israel,” said Emanuel. Now, right-wing Israeli activists, who consider Emanuel a “traitor” to Israel because of the Obama administration’s stance against new settlement construction, are threatening to “blow up” his son’s ceremony with protest…

“with all that Rahm Emanuel has done against the People of Israel and Land of Israel, we would have no choice but to demonstrate.” “I think he is worse than Hamas,” said Ben Gvir.

To be clear, what these activists regard as “against the People of Israel and Land of Israel” is that Emanuel has worked with the Obama administration to hold Israel to legally binding commitments it made to cease new settlement activity in certain areas, and to withdraw settlers from certain areas. The day that holding a nation to its freely assumed legal obligations is synonymous with treason is the day you cannot call that nation a free and democratic society.

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Comments

  1. #1 Rick in PV
    May 19, 2010

    Contrary to what you often hear, the Oslo Accords never required Israel to cease building in the disputed territory of the West Bank. So what agreement(s) are you referring to?

  2. #2 Elf Eye
    May 19, 2010

    Legally, this land is not ‘disputed’? The phrase ‘disputed territory’ suggests that the government of Israel is formally staking a claim to land and that its claim is meeting resistance. However, other than East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, Israel has never formally annexed any of the territory it seized in the 1967 war, and the so-called ‘disputed territory of the West Bank’ is universally recognized as ‘occupied territories’, that is, by definition not part of Israel. So what business does Israel have in settling its citizens on land that its government has not claimed as part of its nation? If Israel does want the West Bank, then annex it outright–but don’t forget to extend civil rights to the people living there, all of them, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. The problem, however, is that Israel wants the land, but it doesn’t want to absorb Arabs into the body politic. What has resulted from this policy? Currently, something that resembles apartheid. Yes, apartheid. If you don’t like the word, then what would you suggest to describe a situation in which enclaves are carved out for both Israelis and Palestinians but in which the mobility and civil rights of one group are severely restricted? And before you pull out the antisemitism card that is routinely played whenever someone has the temerity to criticize Israeli policy, my background is Jewish.

  3. #3 Elf Eye
    May 19, 2010

    Today I am setting a personal best (worst?) record for typos. There should be no question mark after the first sentence. (Guess that’s the point, actually–there is no question.)

  4. #4 Reinder Dijkhuis
    May 20, 2010

    So when did Rahm Emmanuel pledge allegiance to the state of Israel anyway?