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August 2018

On Israel’s Nation-State Law by Denis MacEoin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12880/israel-nation-state-law

Israel is being wrongly condemned for something that not one Muslim state has ever been condemned for: identifying its nationality with its religion — and in the case of those Muslim states, this is done frequently in a manner that excludes or restricts the rights, or even the very existence, of minorities.

In Saudi Arabia and the Maldives, only Muslims are allowed to be citizens. In both those countries, the open practice of any religion other than Islam is forbidden — even Christianity and Judaism, which are supposedly accepted by Islam. In Israel, members of all religions and ethnic groups are full citizens.

On July 19, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted into law the Nation-State Bill. As Israel has never had a constitution, the bill became the latest iteration of the country’s Basic Laws, in the form of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. To many, this seemed like stating the obvious. Had not Israel been created in the first place for that very purpose? The only question was, “Why had it taken 70 years to turn the obvious into law?” Well, perhaps not the only question. The next one was “Why did 55 Knesset members vote against it, with two abstentions, with a narrow majority of 62 in favour?”

Once word got out to the outside world that the Israeli parliament had dared to enact such a definition of their state, it was, for many, as if the end of the world had taken place. As if they had never known that, since the time of the Bible, the land now called Israel was home to the Jews.

Just about everybody went out to condemn the bill as racist, discriminatory, anti-democratic, and opposed to Jewish principles of egalitarianism with non-Jewish citizens. NBC News ran a headline stating: “Israel ‘nation-state’ law prompts criticism around the world, including from U.S. Jewish groups”. On the very day the bill was passed, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, claimed that:

“We’ve been very clear when it comes to the two-state solution, we believe it is the only way forward and any step that would further complicate or prevent this solution of becoming a reality should be avoided.”

She did not say why Israel’s being a Jewish state with equal rights for non-Jews would interfere with a future two-state solution. Rejection of such a solution has always come from the Arab and Palestinian side, never the mainstream Jewish side. Instead, Mogherini planned a meeting for September 4 with Israeli Arab lawmakers — these being another group vociferously opposed to the new law. She does not appear to have invited any Jewish lawmakers to an equivalent meeting.

The European Union, a supra-national conglomeration that has done much good in advancing the rights of individual nation-states that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union as a means to preserving peace on the continent of Europe, has for many years taken an anti-Israel position that serves only to encourage Palestinians who launch wars and terrorist attacks precisely to prevent a two-state solution, all the while demanding the right to abolish Israel and create an exclusive Palestinian state “from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea”, a call for massive ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Opposition to the nation-state law was also strongly expressed by Israeli Arabs, Israeli Druze, and many Israeli and American Jews, including the Jewish Federations of North America and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews — in clear defiance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, even though, for example, the United Kingdom officially exists as an Anglican state, without mistreating, at least officially, any of its minorities.

In Israel, artists, authors and purported intellectuals called for the cancellation of the law. Sometimes, the language used to describe the law passed the bounds of common decency. British Jewish socialist David Rosenberg, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, spoke in vile terms about three Jewish UK Labour Party MPs before slurring Israel’s new law:

“If [Margaret] Hodge and her sisters in struggle, [Ruth] Smeeth and [Juliana] Berger, were not craven opportunists and selective anti-racists and defenders of human rights, they might have been speaking out more, or even at all, about the disgusting and openly racist nation state bill that the Israeli government has just approved…”

One Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, Zouheir Bahloul, resigned, predicting that other Arab MKs would follow suit. He claimed falsely that the law discriminated against non-Jewish minorities. On August 4, many Israelis, organized by Druze leaders, gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest the law. It later emerged, however, that the rally was paid for and directed by the left-wing Anu group, a grantee of the New Israel Fund. According to Breitbart Jerusalem:

Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, issued a divisive statement calling the legislation “tribalism at its worst,” a “slap in the face to Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel,” and a “danger to Israel’s future.”

In other words, anti-Zionists tried to weaponize the new law to promote their existing agendas.

By contrast, in Saudi Arabia and the Maldives, only Muslims are allowed to be citizens. In both those countries, the open practice of any religion other than Islam is forbidden — even Christianity and Judaism, which are supposedly accepted by Islam. In Israel, members of all religions and ethnic groups are full citizens.

It probably should not be a surprise that many Arab and European leaders used the passage of the law as an excuse to further their anti-Zionist agenda, but the opposition of Israel’s Druze community, always the most loyal to the state, with a long and admirable role in the Israeli armed forces, as well as the anger of so many Jews both in Israel and abroad, came as something of a shock.

There is no doubt, however, that this simple law does not change anything for anyone.

On August 8, during a special Knesset debate on the law, Zionist Union party activists, led by a former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, attacked the government, called for fresh elections, and “said the opposition would pass the Declaration of Independence as a basic law in lieu of the nation-state law.” Whatever the problems abroad, there is little doubt that the decision to make Jewish identity a core part of Israeli law has intensified political divisions at a time when unity of purpose is essential for a country that still faces existential threats on several fronts.

Readers should consult the full text of the law in order to reach their own conclusions. But it may help to consider one or two key clauses from it as a starting point for our understanding of it. In reality, the only contentious clauses are those in Article 1:

A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.

B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.

C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

Surely we knew all this already. The passage of the law was done simply to give a firm legal basis for the creation of Israel in 1948 following the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Its preamble states clearly that:

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. [Author’s emphasis.]

As for “the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, does not Israel’s Declaration of Independence (May 14, 1948) clearly state that the State of Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions”, and has not Israel done exactly that, as the Druze, Muslims, Christians, Baha’is and other minorities, can attest?

Why, then, do so many around the world claim that reinforcing the fact that Israel is a Jewish state will harm the lives of its non-Jewish inhabitants? In Iran, for instance, the large Baha’i minority suffers massive persecution, including imprisonment, execution, and much more,[1] while in Israel, they have their international governing body and their holiest shrines, and bring in pilgrims from round the world.

Accusations levelled against the new law often include outright falsehoods. Daniel Pomerantz of Honest Reporting has identified a series of, shall we diplomatically call, “myths” about the law published by the New York Times, including that “Israel is a country where Jews enjoy rights that others don’t have” and “a state in which Judaism is the only national expression permissible by law will, by definition, reject any minority member who wishes to be part of it”. Of course, Judaism is not “the only national expression permissible by law” and more than in England the Anglican religion is. Additionally, go tell that to any of the religious and ethnic minorities who live unmolested in Israel, who serve in parliament, in the judicial system, in universities and across all sectors.

Those false accusations against Israel, however, draw attention to something else that has been grievously neglected in this debate: Israel is being wrongly condemned for something that not one Muslim state has ever been condemned for: identifying its nationality with its religion — and in the case of those Muslim states, this is done frequently in a manner that excludes or restricts the rights, or even the very existence, of minorities.

There are currently four countries that officially identify as Islamic Republics: Iran, Pakistan, Mauritania, and Afghanistan. There have been four others, some very short-lived, in the past: the Comoros (1978-2000), the East Turkestan (1933), the Gambia (2015-2017), and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1996-2000). All four of the current Islamic republics are dangerous places for non-Muslims to live, with laws against apostasy, against blasphemy (freedom of expression), and, in the case of Mauritania, prevalent slavery, all of which contradict international human rights standards. In those republics, as well as in monarchies with Islam as the official religion (such as Saudi Arabia), the persecution of heretical Muslims, Christians and Baha’is and others, is — in direct contrast to Israel — commonplace. The use of shari’a law to enforce human rights abuses banned under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, clamps down heavily on the lives of women, freethinkers, secularists, and all non-Muslims. Where capital punishments are carried out for non-criminal offences such as heresy, blasphemy and “sorcery”, or floggings and stonings-to-death are imposed for moral infringements such as alleged sex outside marriage, including having been raped, there is a huge imbalance between Western democracies and many Muslim states.[2]

In Saudi Arabia and the Maldives, only Muslims are allowed to be citizens. In both, the open practice of any other religion, even those (Christianity and Judaism) that are accepted by Islam, is forbidden. In Israel, members of all other religions and ethnic groups are full citizens, who may vote, serve as lawmakers and judges, and more, worship in protected holy places.

It is important to add that few Muslim states are democracies in the full sense. Several are outright monarchies or emirates: Morocco, Jordan, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait (an emirate where there is an elected parliament, but political parties are illegal), Qatar, Oman, and the 7-emirate United Arab Emirates. In the modern period, others have been or still are dictatorships: Syria, Iran (a theocracy, formerly a monarchy), Iraq, Libya, and Pakistan under Zia-ul Haq. It is only fair to state that the three most populous Muslim-majority nations (Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) are all democracies, and that some others are democracies, yet often threatened by coups d’état or growing Islamisation. Lebanon, which was a decent democracy, is now controlled by Hizbullah. Turkey, the first Muslim secular democracy, is run today by Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently acquired massive powers.

Furthermore, Islam is the official religion of many states: Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, Nigeria, the Maldives, Brunei, and Malaysia. Article 4 of the 2003 Amended Basic Law of the Palestinian National Authority reads:

1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained.

2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation.

3. Arabic shall be the official language.

It is worth noting a couple of things here. By “all other divine religions”, the law means only Judaism and Christianity, which are the only faiths recognized in the Qur’an as divinely-revealed (though corrupted) beliefs. Israel does not impose such limitations on other religions. The elevation of shari’a religious law to a “principal source of legislation” can rule out democratic laws that contradict Islamic punishments for offences such as homosexuality, adultery, or blasphemy.

Israel, though a Jewish state, does not have an official religion — not even Judaism. As such, it imposes no religious conformity on any of its citizens. There are secular Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Muslims who become agnostics or atheists, even those who openly leave Islam or convert to another religion, are far safer in Israel than in any Muslim country. Israeli laws — for all of its citizens — are made by members of the Knesset; there, the laws are debated openly and given force by an independent judiciary, just as laws are in other genuinely democratic countries such as the USA or the UK.

Finally, one crucial question remains. Several people, including many patriotic Israelis such as Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party, the current leader of the opposition in the Knesset, or the Likud’s MK Benny Begin, have expressed the view that the law should have included the phrases “full equality of rights for all its citizens” and “Jewish and democratic state”, which might have reassured the non-Jewish population. The government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insists that it was not necessary to do this, given the presence of such affirmations in the Declaration of Independence and other Basic Laws. There are strong arguments for and against repeating it yet again, but for the moment, that debate and others related to it remain deeply divisive. Might it not be wise to consider another Basic Law in which the issue of full equality and democracy may be made even more explicit than they already are? That is for the Israeli people to decide.

Denis MacEoin holds a PhD in Persian Studies (Cambridge, 1979) and taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University in the UK. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

[1] See Nazila Ghanea, Human Rights, the U.N. and the Baha’is in Iran, Oxford, 2003.

[2] For a detailed study of the clash between shari’a-based “human rights” legislation and universal values, see Ann Elizabeth Meyer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, 5th. Ed., New York, Abingdon, 2013; see also, Anver Emon, Mark S. Ellis, and Benjamin Glahn, Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law, Oxford University Press, 2015.

What The Left’s Defense of Brennan Really Exposes Why the Deep State is fretting. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271097/what-lefts-defense-brennan-really-exposes-bruce-thornton

The progressives’ hysterical response to President Trump stripping the security clearance from ex-CIA boss John Brennan reveals the sandy foundations of progressive ideology and its technocratic rule. Trump, of course, was responding to Brennan’s blatant politicization of his office, both while working for Obama, and now as a paid talking head on MSNBC. Like all attacks on Trump, the defense of Brennan is so intense because any assault on the federal Leviathan threatens to expose the false assumptions justifying its concentrated and unaccountable power.

The rush to the barricades on the part of bipartisan anti-Trumpers and deep-state veterans was a harrumphing “how dare you sir” rhetorical misdirection away from the privilege and power enjoyed and abused by the deep state. The fundamental justification for that power is the technocratic expertise its functionaries presumably possess. From the start progressives have rationalized their dismantling of the Constitution’s separated powers, and their expansion of federal offices and agencies, by touting “the beneficent activities of expert social engineers who would bring to the service of social ideals all the technical resources which research could discover,” as progressive theorist Herbert Croly put it.

Democrats’ Attack on ICE Agents is Working Why more terrorism is inevitable. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271034/democrats-attack-ice-agents-working-michael-cutler
Open-Borders/Immigration Anarchist “journalists” and politicians howl virtually every time an ICE agent arrests an illegal alien, who is, in fact, violating our immigration laws.

Their high-profile positions cover them while deceiving the American people – with their carefully crafted narratives designed to tug on the heartstrings of millions of trusting people. But Americans are coming to understand how they have been lied to and manipulated.

This realization explains why Donald Trump is now President Trump.

However, die-hard globalist politicians, Democrats, in particular, refuse to acknowledge that President Trump won the election and they deny that he won by promising the American people secure borders and national sovereignty were behind his victory.

Rather than listening to American citizens to meet their demands and expectations about immigration, these globalists have publicly descended into madness, concocting a “Russian collusion” narrative to de-legitimize the election. What’s worse, these globalists demonize supporters of any commonsense immigration law enforcement.

“Allahu Akbar” Rules at Minnesota Vikings Stadium Super Eid “rally” features roster of scary speakers with Jihadist ties. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271112/allahu-akbar-rules-minnesota-vikings-stadium-matthew-vadum

As Islamic leaders with ties to terrorism addressed them, thousands of Muslims chanted the jihadist battle cry “Allahu Akbar” at taxpayer-funded U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis yesterday as part of a huge celebration of the Muslim festival of animal sacrifice known as Eid al-Adha.

One media estimate put the size of the crowd at 30,000.

“Allahu Akbar” is not an innocuous phrase. It is generally the last thing victims of Muslim terrorism around the world hear as their lives are cut short at the hands of groups like Islamic State or al-Qaeda. The phrase means “God is greater,” but there is more to it. It is a cheer that goes back to the still-celebrated Muslim slaughter of Jews at Khaybar in 628. It means the Muslim deity, Allah, is greater than the religions of those vanquished by Islam. It is an active, actionable threat to all non-Muslims, a belligerent statement of Islamic supremacy.

As Daniel Greenfield writes:

“Allahu Akbar” isn’t merely associated with terrorist attacks. It’s the reason for those attacks.

Muslims kill non-Muslims to prove that, “Allahu Akbar”: that Allah is greater [than] the religions of their victims.

“Allahu Akbar” is the motive for Islamic terrorism.

The organization putting on the event, Super Eid, previously said it hoped to attract 50,000 people to the morning event and to a celebration afterwards at a nearby park.

Manafort, Cohen and Trump

https://www.wsj.com/articles/manafort-cohen-and-trump-1534894066

The jury conviction of Paul Manafort and the guilty plea by Michael Cohen on Tuesday are a damaging commentary on the shady operators Donald Trump associated with in his private and political life. Whether they also pose a fatal threat to his Presidency is far from clear, however, and the evidence in both cases is unrelated to the Russian collusion claims that set these prosecutions in motion.

A Virginia jury convicted Mr. Manafort on eight counts of fraud in his personal financial dealings, while failing to reach a unanimous verdict on 10 others. As these columns warned Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Manafort is a longtime Beltway fixer whose business was profiting from his political connections. He is the personification of “the swamp.”One irony is that Mr. Trump hired him as campaign chairman in part because most Republicans with political experience shunned the New York insurgent. Mr. Trump knew Mr. Manafort from his apartment in Trump Tower, and he came recommended for his experience as a convention delegate counter for Gerald Ford in the 1976 scrum with Ronald Reagan. Mr. Trump fired him as campaign chairman weeks after the July GOP convention, but in 2017 special counsel Robert Mueller targeted Mr. Manafort for his ties to Ukrainian politicians who are close to Russia.

Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea may pose a greater risk to Mr. Trump given the lawyer’s role in paying $130,000 to pornography actress Stephanie Clifford so she would keep silent about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. Mr. Cohen first denied making the payments, and Mr. Trump publicly denied knowing about them, but Mr. Cohen now says they both knew.

Not the Climate Apocalypse The EPA’s power rule won’t save coal and won’t poison the planet.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/not-the-climate-apocalypse-1534894336

Of the Obama Administration’s many power grabs, none was more audacious than its bid to regulate coal-fired electric power out of business. The Trump Administration is now proposing to rewrite the rule in a way that honors the law and still reduces carbon emissions, yet it is being portrayed as radical.

The disparate treatment reflects the double standard toward climate-change policy in the media. Anything that enhances government control of the energy economy and punishes fossil fuels is seen as virtuous, while solutions that defer to the states and don’t punish carbon fuels are a sellout to business. How about looking at the legal and energy merits?

The most notable fact about the draft Environmental Protection Agency rule introduced on Tuesday is its modesty. Rather than dictating from Washington, the rule restores the cooperative federalism of the Clean Air Act by giving states much-needed flexibility to balance their energy needs while cutting CO2 emissions.

The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to implement the “best system of emission reduction” for pollutants, which the agency has long applied to individual power plants. The Obama anti-carbon crusaders soared over that language to compel states to reorganize their electric grids to favor renewable fuels.

Clarity About Clearances By Angelo Codevilla

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/21/clarity-about-clearances/

Last week, a dozen former directors and deputy directors of CIA in Democratic administrations (Robert Gates made the list bipartisan) chastised President Trump for removing their former colleague John Brennan’s security clearance. This week, another 150 lesser former officials, nearly all Democrats, joined in.

“Never before” they trumpeted, had they “seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool.”

On what planet?

It Isn’t a “Free Speech” Issue
The following are the cardinal facts about security clearances in the American legal system—unchallengeable and unchallenged—followed by an equally incontrovertible account of how President Trump has departed from the presidency’s management of security clearances—but in a way entirely opposite from that which his “deep state” detractors allege.

First, blow away the smoke. The former directors allege Trump’s removal of Brennan’s clearance had “nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”

Note well: while reasonable people may disagree about the basis on which security clearances should be granted or removed, it is wholly distinct from the question of who has the authority to do so. About that, no disagreement is possible. The president of the United States has the sole, unquestionable, unrestricted authority to grant and withhold security clearances. Conflating those questions with that of all citizens’ freedom of speech confuses the public and suggests dishonestly that certain people have a right to special access to secrets. Not so.

“Enough is Enough”: UK Antisemitism & Leftist Double Standards

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2018/08/enough-is-enough-uk-antisemitism.html

As most readers will know, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, adopted in May 2016, includes

Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

James Allan Sly, not Smart, and Going Down

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/08/sly-smart-going/

Turnbull is now just a few party-room votes away from getting his marching orders. A rash of Cabinet resignations would speed that exit and establish for the record those best qualified to begin repairing the immense damage this Prime Minister has wrought, not least bringing back the base

So it was 48-35 for the Black Hand gang and its various hangers-on in today’s Liberal Party leadership spill. Mr. Turnbull might be just about the most incompetent politician ever when it comes to choosing policies that appeal to his supporters and his party’s base and then defending them in the court of public opinion. But put Malcolm into the Machiavellian world of provoking or fighting off leadership spills and the man comes into his own. He can white-ant and leak and undermine a first-term PM who won a huge majority better than anyone.

Make him the target of others who might want his leader’s mantle and a prodigious rat cunning comes into play. It was a tactical move of immense intelligence to vacate the leadership at the start of today’s party room meeting, and then force a vote of MPs a week or so before the challengers were ready. You can expect the Prime Minister’s office to go into overdrive undermining the naysayers from today forward too, by which I mean even more than usual for those outside his Black Hand inner circle.

John Brennan Shows How to Lose to Trump in One Easy Step By Rich Lowry

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/john-brennan-former-cia-director-diminishes-himself/When Trump’s opponents are baited into violating norms, they diminish themselves and their cause.

John Brennan may not know it, but he is acting in a drama scripted and produced by Donald J. Trump.

As Eli Lake of Bloomberg perceptively observed, President Trump isn’t trying to silence Brennan by revoking his security clearance, as the former CIA director’s defenders insist, but to elevate him as a foil.

Trump couldn’t hope for a better poster boy for the so-called deep state than a former CIA director who immediately began to sound like a commentator for MSNBC upon leaving government — and, indeed, signed up as a commentator for MSNBC.

It has been the usual practice of former top intelligence professionals to keep their political opinions, and especially their wild-eyed rants, to themselves. They understand that, having been entrusted with some of the most sensitive powers of the United States government, they should show forbearance and restraint lest they undermine the reputations of their institutions.

Brennan has had no such compunction. Granted, he’s acted under provocation. Trump has goaded him on Twitter and launched extraordinary broadsides against the work of U.S. intelligence agencies.