Showing posts with label Noah Beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Noah Beck. Show all posts

Thursday, May 3, 2018

The Great Deception March on Gaza’s Border - Noah Beck Israel Today

The Great Deception March on Gaza’s Border

Thursday, May 03, 2018 |  Noah Beck  Israel Today
What would the US do if 30,000 Mexicans, organized by a known terrorist group, marched towards the Texas border, demanding to return to their ancestors’ homes, with many of the protesters throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, carrying fence cutters, launching burning kites that set ablaze US territory near the border, igniting tires, and even shooting guns at US agents across the border? 
If the US used force to protect its border against such a “peaceful protest,” what percent of the 30,000 Mexicans would end up dead or injured? Would it be more or less than 40 (about .13%)? And how would the global media and human rights organizations cover these incidents?
Now consider the reaction to Israel’s defense against precisely this kind of assault on its sovereign border, dubbed the “Great Return March” and organized by Hamas, a US-State-Department-designated-terrorist organization. Hamas has acknowledged that at least five of its members were among those killed in the march. The number of terrorists involved in the related violence is likely much higher. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, “32 of the 40 Palestinians killed (80%) were terrorist operatives or individuals affiliated with them.” 
If the “Great Return March” had any truth to it, the Hamas-organized propaganda offensive would have been called the “Great Deception March” because it is entirely founded upon deception. Incredibly, on April 6, an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA), actually highlighted the deceptive nature of the march, accusing Hamas of “only selling illusions, trading in suffering and blood.” Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Abbas’ Advisor on Islamic Affairs and Supreme Sharia Judge, delivered a sermon, broadcast on official PA TV, in the presence of Abbas, in which Al-Habbash accused Hamas of intentionally sending Palestinians in Gaza to “go and die,” only so that Hamas has stories of dead Palestinians for “the TV and media.” 
Hamas has a long history of using human shields to maximize Gazan casualties and thereby smear Israel’s image. As each of the last three Gaza-Israel wars has shown, the more Gazan victims Hamas can produce, the more easily Israel can be tarnished by the media and its consumers. Such demonization supports the broader goal of delegitimizing Israel legally, with lawfare attacks in international forums, and economically, with boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS). 
Hamas knows that most observers will simply focus on images of injured and killed Gazans, rather than blame Hamas for sending children towards a militarized border. Obviously, there would be no risk of provoking any forceful reaction from Israel’s military if the protests were peacefully held at a distance of at least 500 meters from the border. But instead, the protestors actively tried to damage the border fence itself, while threatening Israelis on the other side of it. Were they expecting hugs and flowers in response?
But the biggest deception of all behind the so-called “Great Return March” is deceiving the Palestinians themselves into thinking that they have any hope of “returning” to any homes or territory in present-day Israel that their ancestors might have occupied before 1948. Have Israeli Jews ever demanded a “return” to the millions of homes their ancestors lost in Europe, during the Holocaust, or in the Arab and Muslim world, from which roughly a million persecuted Jews were displaced between the 1940s and the 1970s? Instead, the Jews accepted the cruelty of history and focused their energies on building a vibrant state in the tiny sliver of land they were given the chance to develop in 1948. 
By contrast, when Gazans received a historic opportunity, after Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, to prove that they can engage in responsible and peaceful state-building, they opted to turn Gaza into a Somalia rather than a Singapore. Instead of choosing coexistence and cooperation, Hamas has promoted a culture of anti-Israel hatred, while diverting Gaza’s resources to terrorist rockets and attack tunnels, even after launching and losing three wars against Israel in the span of seven years (2008, 2012, and 2014). 
Poor governance has consequences, as Gazans have painfully learned from a shortage of jobs, electricity, sanitation and other basic goods that Hamas has consistently failed to deliver.
Yet global reaction to the Gaza border “protests” shows just how much the Great Deception March succeeded in deceiving so many, who end up blaming Israel while ignoring Hamas’ primary role in the violence and, more generally, giving Hamas a pass on its cruelty, corruption, and disastrous policies.
The human rights organization Amnesty International recently called for an arms embargo against Israel, arguing that Israel has been “killing and wounding of civilians demonstrating in Gaza by the Israeli forces, despite the fact that they don’t pose any immediate threat.”
If even Palestinian leaders see through the Hamas ruse, why do Amnesty, the UN, the NY Times, Bernie Sanders, and so many others have such a hard time understanding what's really going on?
Their reactions show no regard for history or context, and demonstrate how little Israelis can rely on the assurances of those pressuring them to make concessions to Israel’s sworn enemies.
Why is there no comparable outrage for Turkey's recent actions in Afrin, for example, where far more have died (500 civilians) and at least 150,000 have been displaced. Maybe because Palestinians somehow deserve a unique level of sympathy?
Maybe because, for example, the New York Times devoted almost four times as much coverage to Gaza than to Yarmouk. Comparing the Times’ coverage of the two conflict zones from April 17 (when fighting in Yarmouk began) through April 30, the results are striking:
-Yarmouk is covered by 22 articles with zero op-eds
-Gaza is covered by 81 articles, including at least three op-eds.
To put that distorted Times’ emphasis into perspective, nearly 4,000 Palestinians in Syria have been killed since 2011 – about double the number of Gazans, including terrorists, killed in all conflicts with Israel during the same period. Such figures, coupled with the Times’ well documented and extensive bias against Israel, suggest that the disproportionate coverage is driven more by an anti-Israel animus than any compassion for Palestinian suffering.
It has been an article of faith among European and US “progressives” that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians would be resolved if, and only if, Israel withdraws from territory that it conquered in 1967, after surrounding Arab armies threatened to annihilate the NJ-sized country. In 2005, to test that idea and hopefully promote better relations with Gazans, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza Strip. 
Israelis on the right argued that such a move would be perceived as a surrender out of weakness, and the power vacuum created by the Disengagement, as Israel’s 2005 Gaza withdrawal was called, would be quickly filled by extremists who exploit their newfound freedom to attack Israel. 
Israelis on the left claimed that taking a big risk to promote better relations, and eventually peace, with Gaza would strengthen Israel’s international standing. Those supporting the Disengagement also argued that it would bring Israel global support if ever the Israeli army was forced to defend its border with the Gaza territory that it evacuated. 
The Great Deception March shows just how much the right was right.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
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Monday, April 2, 2018

New Book Exposes Depth of Anti-Israel Hate on American Campuses - Noah Beck ISRAEL TODAY

New Book Exposes Depth of Anti-Israel Hate on American Campuses

Monday, April 02, 2018 |  Noah Beck  ISRAEL TODAY
Originally written for the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
About six months after Andrew Pessin posted on his Facebook profile a defense of Israel during its 2014 war against Hamas, the once popular Connecticut College philosophy professor was subjected to an academic smear campaign. The school paper published articles defaming him. The administration hosted condemnations of Pessin from across the campus community on the school's website, and tolerated other anti-Semitic activities that only worsened the climate for Jews and Israel supporters. Pessin received death threats and, in the spring of 2015, took a medical leave of absence. The Connecticut College administration offered no meaningful protection or support to Pessin, and never issued any apology for its role in his abuse.
The Pessin affair was part of a growing trend of anti-Israel hostility on U.S. campuses, but at least his story has a somewhat happy ending. Pessin resumed teaching last fall after an extended paid sabbatical, and – together with a colleague – convinced the school to establish a Jewish Studies program. Moreover, he has edited a new book with Fordham University's Doron Ben-Atar on the general campus trend: Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS. Ben-Atar, who is part of Fordham's American Studies program, protested at a faculty meeting about the 2013 passing of a resolution calling for a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel, only to find himself soon being investigated for unspecified charges, resulting in a Kafkaesque campaign of intimidation and vilification. This volume of essays, by faculty and students who have confronted anti-Israelism on their campuses, documents and analyzes how this movement masks an underlying anti-Semitism that creates a hostile environment for Jews while undermining free speech and civility.
Writer Noah Beck interviewed Pessin via email.
Q: Your book catalogues the many underhanded tactics used to promote the anti-Israel agenda on college campuses, which should help Israel advocates prepare for what awaits them. Did your personal ordeal inspire you to create a potential resource for campus Israel advocates? Or did you have the idea for such a book even before what happened to you?
Pessin: I had been observing the general campus scene for some time, but passively; like many professors, I preferred to spend my time teaching and doing my research, rather than get involved in the mess. And so, when I read about Doron's affair at Fordham, being persecuted for standing up for Israel, I simply thought, "That's terrible," then clicked on the next story. It was only six months later, when I began to receive hundreds of emails of support from around the world, that I realized how important it is to hear from people off campus. So I wrote to him, belatedly, to offer my support—and he wrote back immediately to suggest we collect narratives from faculty members who have been on the receiving end of anti-Israel nastiness on their campuses. Though the book evolved from there—we include several more analytical essays, as well as some narratives from students—that's how it was born.
Q: What would you say is the principal message of the book?
Pessin: The book is not about "defending Israel." Indeed, a good number of our contributors are people who are critical of various Israel policies, of settlements, etc. What it is about is how the anti-Israel movement manifests itself on campuses around the world. And as you work through the essays it becomes clear: the anti-Israel campus movement corrodes the academy in every way, on every level, it harms scholarship, teaching, community, it violates numerous academic and moral norms, and more. Whatever you specifically think about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian-Jewish-Arab-Muslim conflict, the campus movement largely operates not as a bona fide academic movement but as something more sinister. There are legitimate ways to be supportive of the Palestinian cause on campus, but this isn't one of them. (Pessin exhaustively outlined legitimate ways to support Palestinians on campus in his 2017 article.)
Q: What factors did you consider when selecting the different contributors for this collection of essays?
Pessin: When we put out the original "calls for papers" we were shocked at the response. Within weeks we had some thirty faculty members who wanted to share their stories, of being targeted for standing up for Israel, or even for just not hating Israel. The problem is that pervasive. Most of these stories happen entirely under the radar, either on smaller campuses or in such a way that the media doesn't pick them. We tried to select the most compelling stories, the most representative stories, the ones that could teach people something. There were several we wanted to include but could not because legal procedures were in place that precluded their contributing. There was one who opted out because he didn't want to relive what was a devastating personal experience.
Q: What types of campus activity and speech, if any, should be suppressed (regardless of which side benefits), and under what principles? What, for example, is your view on the lawsuit against Fordham for refusing to allow a chapter of SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] to form?
Pessin: That's a good question. We all believe in free speech. We all are opposed to hate speech. But does opposition to hate speech mean you may censor or restrict or punish hate speech? What about speech that consists of slander and defamation and demonization? The traditional norms of the academy suggest we should err on the side of the freedom, to hear all sides, even the evil sides. So nothing should be "suppressed," not even the most hateful, slanderous speech. But of course it should be answered. Lies should be countered, motives should be exposed, and while the simple label "anti-Semitic" can be abused (as can labels such as "racist" or "Islamophobic"), you shouldn't hesitate to explain and defend exactly how and why you take some particular speech or action to be anti-Semitic. As for Fordham, while I deeply respect the courage of that decision, I'm not sure in the end it was the right decision. Perhaps they should let the group form, but then closely observe its activities (as they observe all student groups) to be sure it operates within appropriate academic and community norms.
Q: Some anti-Israel activists argue that they are widely suppressed on campuses, and routinely maligned in the press and by organized Jewish and pro-Israel groups. What would you say in response?
Pessin: They do like to claim there is a "Palestine exception" [depriving Palestinian advocates of their free speech on campus]. And in the past few years Jewish and pro-Israel groups, both on and off campus, have gotten more vocal as they begin to take the anti-Israel movement more seriously as a genuine threat to Jewish students and to the academy in general. Indeed, we hope our book, by documenting the problem, will help inform and thus contribute to that response. The problem is that anti-Israel activists take nearly every criticism, every objection, every argument against them to be "censorship" and "suppression," rather than recognize these as academically appropriate responses to them. What they essentially want is unlimited freedom of speech to slander and defame Israel and pro-Israel faculty and students, while rejecting the freedom of speech of others to respond to them.
Q: Your sobering introduction highlights how the campus "debate" has become so extreme as to shut down any meaningful discussion in favor of assertions that, "Israel and Zionism are...illegitimate, incorrigible abominations" as you describe it. How should pro-Israel activists counter this strategy when those espousing it have no interest in reasonable or balanced discussion?
Pessin: You've put your finger on a central point. The anti-Israel attack on the academy as a whole is reflected most clearly in (a) the personal attacks on pro-Israel individuals documented in the book and (b) the utter rejection of the pro-Israel voice via campus disruptions, the relentless calls to boycott, and the rejection of "normalization" (i.e. refusal to have any dialogue with pro-Israel voices). They couldn't be more explicit in their aims: the Israeli perspective, including the intimate connection between the Jewish perspective in general and the Israeli perspective, is simply not to be permitted on campus. They object to the "Palestine exception" while explicitly and actively advocating for and executing the "Israel exception" to free speech. The best response, I think, is to repeatedly and vocally point this out, and thus promote and defend our book's principal message: that whatever you may think about the conflict over there, the anti-Israel movement over here is profoundly antithetical to the academic and moral norms of the campus environment.
Q: Because on nearly every campus Jews and Israel supporters are severely outnumbered, their disadvantaged position arguably mirrors that of Israel's in global forums. Yet Israel -- thanks to its technology, security intelligence, and many other assets -- has managed to reduce the impact of international boycotts, lopsided UN votes, and other fora where attempts to punish or isolate Israel used to succeed far more. Is there any similar set of assets that Jews and Israel supporters on campus can leverage to start turning the tide in their favor?
Pessin: That's a great way of putting the question. It highlights what is simultaneously both an asset and a liability on campus: the many smart, talented, Jewish faculty and students on many campuses. The significant majority are generally supportive of Israel, but for many reasons they tend not to be vocal on campus, while the small minority who are Israel-haters tend to be very vocal. What's necessary is to give that majority the courage to stand up, speak up, and be heard—and denounce the anti-academic antisemitism that largely characterizes the anti-Israel movement. We hope our book will help in that regard, by letting potential advocates know they are not alone.
Anti-Zionism on Campus comes out April 1.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017

A Tale of Two Terror Attacks and The New York Times - Noah Beck ISRAEL TODAY

A Tale of Two Terror Attacks and The New York Times
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 |
  Noah Beck ISRAEL TODAY
Originally written for the Investigative Project on Terrorism
Last month’s suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester wasn’t the first time an Islamist terrorist targeted young people out for a night of fun. In 2001, a Hamas-affiliated terrorist blew himself up outside the Dolphinarium, a Tel Aviv nightclub, killing 21 Israelis, including 16 teenagers.
But news coverage of the two massacres was strikingly different, as the Manchester attack generated exponentially more attention. The New York Times, for example, offered a handful of small accounts about the Tel Aviv attack. But the Manchester bombing generated dozens of wire service and Times staff updates along with analysis stories and an editorial lamenting the horror of targeting children.
There are reasons why attacks in Europe are covered more exhaustively than those targeting Israelis. But as a result, Americans may not fully appreciate the depth of Palestinian violence because the near-daily examples of it are all but ignored.
The stark reporting contrast between the Manchester and Dolphinarium attacks reveals a change in how terrorism has been covered during the intervening 16 years. The Dolphinarium attack took place about three months before the September 11th attacks that dramatically increased media attention to terrorism.
A significant reporting gap continued after 9/11, however. Two 2002 shooting attacks within 12 days of each other prompted vastly different coverage by the New York Times. The July 4 shooting attack at Los Angeles International Airport, which claimed two lives, produced at least 13 articles. By contrast, nine people were murdered in a July 16 shooting and bombing attack against an Israeli bus going to the settlement of Immanuel. The Times devoted only one article to this slaughter.
The Times commits minimal attention to attacks on Israelis today. Last Friday’s fatal stabbing attack in Jerusalem received a scant 431-word article containing no images or references to “terror,” “terrorist,” or “terrorism.”
Worse, the newspaper ran a 243-word Associated Press article about the attack with a headline emphasizing the terrorists’ deaths, rather than their victim: “Palestinian Attackers Killed After Killing Israeli Officer.”
By contrast, the Times provided much more sympathetic coverage to an April terrorist attack in Paris that similarly claimed a police officer’s life. At 1,037 words, the article was almost three times as long, contained six photos of the attack scene, and referred six times to “terrorism” and thrice to “terrorist attack.”
An attack’s location plays a significant role in determining the extent of news coverage. Commentator Joe Concha calls this the “there versus here” phenomenon.
For example, the Times published eight articles about last November’s car ramming and stabbing attack at Ohio State University that killed no one, but injured 11 people. That included a profile of the suspected terrorist behind it. Deadlier attacks overseas generally receive far less coverage.
However, that “there versus here” explanation falters when comparing vehicular attacks in Israel with similar attacks in other non-US countries since Ohio State.
The March truck attack in Westminster that killed five people generated 20 articles. December’s Berlin Christmas market truck attack that killed 12 generated at least 50 articles.
By contrast, January’s truck attack in Jerusalem that killed four people generated just three articles and a mention in a daily news digest.
One reason European attacks receive more attention is that they raise new concerns about safety throughout the West, as the Islamic State pursues a campaign to hit soft targets wherever it can.
Another explanation may be that so many terrorist attacks in Israel have occurred over the last few decades that the Times has grown desensitized to them, no longer considering them as newsworthy.
Egyptian Copts, who have also suffered from Islamist terror for decades, may fall into the same unfortunate category. The attack last month in Minya, in which gunmen opened fire on Christian pilgrims, massacring 29, generated only four Times articles.
When the news media under-report terrorist attacks in places where they occur routinely, they do an injustice to victims in need of sympathy, while helping terrorists to defer the day that international leaders unite against them.
CAMERA, a nonprofit media watchdog, has compiled an extensive record of chronic anti-Israel coverage and commentary by the Times, and has launched billboard campaigns to expose the bias.
While some might point to the newspaper’s April decision to hire pro-Israel columnist Bret Stephens as a sign of growing balance on the issue, subsequent coverage led veteran Times critic Ira Stoll to argue that the move just gave the paper cover to intensify its anti-Israel slant. Stoll lists five Times op-eds, each of which “taken alone, would be totally outrageous and indefensible. The onslaught of all five of them, in six weeks, constitutes an outbreak of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hostility at the Times.”
The Dolphinarium attack, one of Israel’s deadliest suicide bombings, marked its 16th anniversary on June 1. While it’s too late for the Times to give due coverage to the 16 teens and five adults who were slaughtered, the paper conceded the parallels between their fate and that of the Manchester victims, by running this op-ed by a survivor of the Dolphinarium massacre expressing empathy for those affected by the Ariana Grande attack.
However, when the Times published its May 23 editorial on the Manchester attack, it failed to mention the Dolphinarium attack, and thereby omitted the suicide bombing most similar to the Manchester attack in its targeting of children. The editorial duly notes how terrorists have shattered innocent lives, listing attacks in three European cities, but somehow forgets that Islamists have taken far more lives of Israelis “simply out enjoying themselves” than of all Islamist terror victims in Europe combined.
At least 1,600 Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks since the 1993 Oslo accords that were intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace. How many more Israeli casualties are needed before the New York Times starts to cover them as it would European victims?
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
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