RUTHFULLY YOURS

Exposing the ‘pinkwashing’ lie

On Wednesday, thousands of tourists from around the world arrived in Israel for the Nonstop Gay Festival, a joint venture of the Tourism Ministry and the Tel Aviv Municipality. From Dec. 24 to Jan. 7, members of the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender communities of North America, South America and Europe are being offered an array of activities and entertainment across Tel Aviv.

The ostensible draw of and impetus for this two-week celebration of LGBT life in the Holy Land is the relatively warm weather, which is why its logo is a snowman made out of sand, wearing a rainbow scarf and holding a flag with the temperature of 20°C (68°F) written on it.

And though it is true that tourists escaping freezing weather elsewhere are happy to bask in the sun along the shores of the Mediterranean, the real reason that this particular tourism campaign was a shoe-in for success has to do with Israel’s reputation as one of the most gay-friendly places in the world.

This is but one aspect of the Jewish state that illustrates its openness and pluralism, something that would be less striking if the tiny democracy were not surrounded by barbaric regimes. Naturally, it is the very freedom of Israeli society that most irks those regimes, which aim to destroy Western civilization as a whole and to wipe out Zionism in particular.

That they oppose all forms of human rights makes perfect sense. It is impossible to wield the kind of power required to subjugate the masses when individuals have a say in how they lead their lives.

What makes no sense at all, however, is the phenomenon of leftist apology for those regimes, and simultaneous bashing of Israel, in the name of human rights. Because it is now indisputable that Israel is LGBT-friendly, a convoluted tactic has been employed by the Left to attack the Jewish state on this score. This involves accusing Israel of “pinkwashing.” According to the accusers, Israel boasts about its LGBT-rights record in order to obfuscate its abuse of Palestinians, even gay and lesbian ones.

Canadian Member of Parliament and international human rights warrior Irwin Cotler, the architect of the 2005 law which legalized gay marriage in Canada, considers the spread of the “pinkwashing” lie to be both worrisome and worsening. Cotler was Canada’s justice minister and attorney-general at the time of the passing of the Civil Marriage Act, which was organized around two principles under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Quality Rights and Freedom of Religion. The first gave gays and lesbians the equal right to civil marriage. The second gave rabbis, priests and imams the right not to conduct or sanction a gay marriage, if doing so would violate their beliefs.

When asked on Thursday about Israel (where marital rights are still governed by the Orthodox Rabbinate, which means that any couples ineligible to wed under a strict interpretation of Jewish law are not able to marry in Israel, but are recognized by the state if they tie the knot abroad), Cotler was unequivocal.

“There’s only one country in the Middle East in which gay rights are protected, and that’s Israel,” he said.

This sentiment was echoed in a New York Times ad that ran this week. Sponsored by “America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach, in conjunction with This World: The Values Network and Stand with Us, the ad shows a photo of a man, under the rhyming headline: “Hamas, ISIS [Islamic State] and Iran kill gays like me. In Israel I am free.”

The accompanying text, in smaller print, says it all:

“My name is Rennick Remley. I’m a gay American and I support Israel. If I lived in Gaza or Israel’s neighboring states, I would be thrown in jail, mutilated or killed.

Gordon Barnes, the editor-in-chief of The Advocate, penned the disturbing editorial calling for violent protests.

A disturbing editorial in a CUNY grad-student newspaper calls for rioters protesting the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to arm themselves and wage violent war with cops.

“The time for peace has passed,” says a revolutionary editorial titled “In Support of Violence” that was penned by editor-in-chief Gordon Barnes in the Dec. 3 issue of The Advocate.

‘The acts of looting, destruction of property and violence directed towards state representatives is not only warranted, it is necessary.’
– Gordon Barnes

“The problem with the protesters’ violence in Ferguson is that it is unorganized. If the violence was to be organized, and the protesters armed — more so than the few that sparingly are — then the brunt of social pressures would not be laid onto middling proprietors [of looted small businesses], but unto those deserving the most virulent response of an enraged populace,” Barnes writes in the CUNY Grad Center’s publication.

Pick up any international press these days, and you might think Israel is on the verge of catastrophe – with sanctions from Europe just around the corner, boycotts being adopted by academia and beyond, terrorism back in vogue on the streets of Jerusalem and tourism in a tailspin.

You wouldn’t be faulted for assuming that businesses around the world would certainly soon be pulling out of the Start-up Nation – after all, who wants to fly into a war zone or consort with an international pariah? That assumption would be very wrong, judging from the turnout at the first conference put on earlier in December by OurCrowd, the Jerusalem- based crowd-investing platform.

OurCrowd makes it possible for individuals to jump into the once-exclusive venture capital game, as long as they have a minimum of $10,000 to invest. The company identifies promising start-ups; its investor members decide where to spread their money.

OurCrowd has generated plenty of buzz since it launched in early 2013, in no small part due to its energetic founder, Jon Medved – who has been either leading or backing Israeli hi-tech companies for close to 30 years.

To prevent this Palestinian State that Europeans seem determined to push down our throats, many people are discussing a “Palestinian Spring” revolution. They simply do not know what else to do to protect ourselves from these “Goodists” of Europe.

Do they honestly think we will have better lives in a “Palestinian State”?

ISIS operatives are already in Egypt, ready to take over the Sinai Peninsula, and with their eyes set on Libya. Is this what the Europeans really want?

Listening, in both English and Arabic, to the latest speeches of Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas and his fellow Fatah Central Committee members, we get the uncomfortable feeling that the Palestinian State, now being promoted in Europe, will not only be a threat to the stability of the entire region, but to us who have to keep living here, as well to those countries in Europe who promote it.

The heritage of centuries has been wiped out in little more than a year.

Eventually the need to wipe out all traces of unbelief becomes obsessive. At one time, for instance, Egyptian law demanded that any house found to contain a copy of The Apology of al-Kindi (a book containing a polemical dialogue between a Muslim and a Christian) would be demolished along with 40 houses around it.

Ethics were defined by what Allah said was good or evil in Sharia law. The Islamic State’s behaviour is solidly rooted in Islamic ideology, law and practice. It is only when this fundamental fact is grasped that we will be able to address what confronts us.

Walter Lippmann began writing The Public Philosophy in 1938 and completed it in 1955. His words have particular relevance today when the Obama administration tries to “discredit stories and sources and reporters that the powers-that-be don’t like.”

In Chapter IX, Section 3, Lippmann explains why freedom of speech is a necessary component in a society. It is “a principal method of attaining truth” because of “the ability to raise searching difficulties on both sides of a subject [that] will make us detect more easily the truth and error about the several points that arise.” Thus, freedom of speech is not merely the “pleasure of [an] utterance” by an individual; it is more essential than that. Freedom of speech is the” ability to confront ideas with opposing ideas in order that the pro and the con of the dispute will lead to true ideas. But the dispute must not be treated as a trial of strength. It must be a means of elucidation.”

A week ago, New York City police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were murdered in an act of premeditated assassination by a man who was patently inspired by — indeed, was a documented participant in — a radical movement that has brazenly called for cops to be murdered.

To be sure, not every radical in the movement is down for the cop killing, no more than every Islamist thinks jihadist terror is the best route to imposing sharia. But cop killing is undeniably an aim of a not insignificant part of the movement’s hard core, and a good many more members applaud it even if they would not carry it out themselves. Cop killing is thus a foreseeable, if not inexorable, consequence of tolerating the movement as a well-intentioned display of our commitment to free speech.

Thoughtful commentators, including several at National Review, have been quick to assert that responsibility for the murders lies solely with the triggerman. As a narrow proposition, and in a strictly legal sense, that is true.

Republican Indiana Governor Mike Pence spent Christmas with his family in Israel, part of a nine-day trip that includes a three-day jobs mission to meet with government and business leaders to discuss expanding economic ties between Indiana and the Jewish State.

According to a Facebook post by Caroline Glick, senior contributing editor of The Jerusalem Post:

As a visiting dignitary, Pence and his family were invited to PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s annual Christmas dinner, where he was notified that a car would be sent to fetch him to Abbas’s office for an unscheduled and unsolicited meeting at 10:45pm.

Governor Pence in his inimitable wisdom, politely and firmly declined the summons.

Pence’s support for Israel is not new.

During his tenure as congressman, representing Indiana’s 2nd and 6th Districts, Pence was regarded as one of Israel’s staunchest supporters.

“His support for Israel and the safety and security of her people is genuine, not politically motivated in the least,” said Protect Our Heritage PAC Co-Chair, Peggy Shapiro. “I have always been impressed with his knowledge of the region and the threats against Israel’s existence. He is a truly genuine friend of the Jewish people.”

In 2010, then-Congressman Pence revealed his disgust with the way the Obama administration was treating the Jewish State. As reported in The Hill, he told the Christian Broadcasting Network:

I believe the Obama administration is the most anti-Israel administration in the modern history of the state of Israel and our relationship with her. Israel is our most cherished ally. The American people support Israel’s right to self-defense. The American people support the Jewish state of Israel, and the American people expect the American president to unambiguously do the same.

He added, “I’ll be honest with you: I never thought I’d live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the Jewish state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem.”

According to the official Indiana government website, Mr. Pence is being accompanied by his wife and three children, along with three members of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and two members of the governor’s security detail. Private donations and personal funds are covering the cost of the trip, with the exception of the security detail paid for by Indiana taxpayers.

A call and email to the governor’s press secretary went unanswered.

A request for comment via phone and email to the Palestinian ambassador in Washington was also unanswered.

Europe is leading the way on a path to oblivion.

My background is basically European—and more specifically, Western European. I have lived and worked in many of those countries, and I know most of the major cities intimately—from Stockholm in the north, Newcastle, London, Paris, The Hague, Munich, Vienna, to Rome and Erice, Sicily in the south. I have also spent several months in Moscow and in Jerusalem as a guest of academic institutions.

Economic Suicide

The economic suicide story is based on a faulty understanding of the climate issue by most Western politicians and on their extreme policy response, based on emotion rather than logic and science. The major European economies have reacted irrationally to contrived, unjustified fear of imagined global-warming disasters.

One of the most serious accusations against Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is that Israel systematically steals or “seizes” private Palestinian land.

One of the most serious accusations against Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is that Israel systematically steals or “seizes” private Palestinian land. Not only would that be illegal, it would also be immoral. The source for this charge is not only the Palestinian Authority/Hamas, anti-Israel media and Arab propaganda, but an agency of the Israeli government: Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

COGAT, a unit of the Defense Ministry, is responsible for “implementing government policy in Judea and Samaria.” But COGAT not only “implements,” it also makes policy. And, as separate, independent military-legal administration, it is virtually unaccountable to anyone except the defense minister and the prime minister.

They are responsible for this misrepresentation of fact.

COGAT and the IDF legal advisor, in cooperation with the attorney general’s office, the state prosecutor’s office, the Justice Ministry and the High Court, routinely decide that land claimed by Arabs are valid. These claims, however, based on massive distributions of state land throughout Judea and Samaria during the Jordanian occupation, lack supporting evidence of ownership. Nevertheless, COGAT recognizes the claims as valid, thus supporting charges that Israel steals private land.

Based on COGAT’s decisions, which are not reviewed by district courts – the only judicial body mandated to determine matters of land ownership – NGOs supporting Arab claims appeal to the High Court, which relies heavily on COGAT as the government’s authority. COGAT defends its decisions by citing the land registry (taba) for Judea and Samaria, which lists names of “owners,” mostly villages and tribes who were given state land during the early 1960s. None of the land was purchased, most of the land was never used, no taxes were paid and the original Arab recipients of land are no longer alive. To whom does this disputed land belong? According to Ottoman and British Mandate law, gifted land could not be inherited without approval by the sovereign.

Moreover, land that was given by the sovereign could be claimed as private only if the land was used continually (usufruct) for 10 years and taxes were paid.

Otherwise, unused land reverts to the sovereign by law. Jordan changed this law and registered the land as privately owned, permanently, without conditions.

But since Jordan was never acknowledged as the legitimate sovereign over this territory, its occupation and anti-Jewish laws – including prohibiting non-Jordanian citizens from owning land and incurring the death penalty for selling land to Jews – have no validity.

COGAT disagrees.

The status of land in Judea and Samaria was further confused by former High Court chief justice Dorit Beinish who, at the end of her term, decided unilaterally that hazakah, the right to claim title to land by working it and paying taxes, applied only to Arabs, not Jews.

Since COGAT considers the land registry for Judea and Samaria “confidential,” it restricts access to it by Jews, making it nearly impossible to challenge Arab claims of private ownership or for Jews to acquire land. COGAT’s secretive procedure is backed by the High Court which defends COGAT’s rule as a government agency. COGAT refuses to explain why its rules prevail exclusively and why access to public documents is forbidden. Regavim, an NGO, challenged the legality of COGAT’s position specifically with regard to land surrounding the Jewish community of Psagot.