Coteret

I’ve uploaded the video broadcast on Israeli TV on Friday (December 18 2009) with Israel’s former Chief Pathologist, Prof. Yehuda Hiss, admitting that he oversaw the unauthorized harvesting of organs in the ’90s. You can view it here, and a translated transcript with some hyperlinks is after the cut. If anybody wants to help and caption the video, that would be great: download it, upload to your account, caption and send me the link so I can re-upload.

Yehuda Hiss

Short story

There is no corroboration of what appears to be the way most of the world now perceives as the assertion of the now infamous Aftonbladet op-ed — that Palestinians were targeted and killed by Israel for the purpose of  harvesting their organs. If anything, Israel was an equal opportunity organ thief. All cadavers going through the National Center for Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir were subject to this treatment, including at least one IDF soldier. The Palestinian connection is indirect — because they are occupied by Israel, some of their cadavers also went into this production line. This is not to understate the criminality of the practice, nor it’s immorality and hypocrisy, especially from a culture that places so much value in the integrity of cadavers and a state obsessed with their recovery from enemy hands. The classic blood libel — that Jews kill gentiles and use their bodies — has not been affirmed, however.

Long (and more important) story

The behavior of the Government of Israel has made the jobs of anti-Semites and blood libelers much easier. I am not referring to its policies on the Palestinian issue, to the monstrous beliefs and actions of right-wing Jewish fundamentalists, nor to the medieval theocrats who increasingly govern the personal lives of Israelis of all persuasions. I am referring to a political class, unable to deal coherently with the country’s core problems, which has made demagoguery, disguised as ”defense of the Jewish people,” a primary weapon in its communications arsenal.

A government that truly cared about defending Jews from anti-Semitism would have  reacted to the Aftonbladet op-ed by publishing Prof. Hiss’ confession on its own, in the same paper and within a short period of time. That way, it would have remained a Swedish tabloid flap and not fueled an un-extinguishable global debate. Embarrassing but not dangerous.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Instead, either incompetently or maliciously, Netanyahu and Lieberman used it to show their mettle in standing-up to the pro-Palestinian Europeans, with the Israeli neoconservative chorus, like Dore Gold and Gerald Steinberg, enthusiastically cheering. End result: Much of the world became aware of Aftonbladet allegation and now has also heard that someone exposed an Israeli admitting that it was true. That is how modern communications works, as Netanyahu, the self-proclaimed hasbara expert, should know. The damage is not limited to this specific libel, because it contributes to the perception that, as a matter of course, Israelis lie until caught.

One does not have too look far for proof that this behavior is pathological (and I don’t mean that as a pun.) Last Thursday, (December 17 2009) the Arbeit Macht Frei sign was stolen from Auschwitz. No self-respecting Israeli politician lost even a moment in decrying the anti-Semitism/neo-Nazism behind the incident. Sunday is cabinet meeting day. From the first morning radio newscast to the late-night TV news wrap Ministers tried to outdo each other in sanctimony and pathos. Then, this evening (December 22 2009,) some very minor reporting that it was theft-on-order for a collector (I am aware that the fact that he is Swedish may well keep the anti-semitic conspiracy alive. But I think readers get my point.) Tomorrow is another day, which might very well bring another incident to give these addicts their polemic fix.

When I was younger, progressives here expressed their humanistic worldview by saying that they were Israelis before they were Jews. I don’t think that works any more.

Channel Two TV News, Ulpan Shishi [Friday Newsmagazine], December 18 2009

Narrator Yair Lapid: For years it has been rumored that dark things were happening in the National Center for Forensic Medicine [popularly known as the Forensic Institute] in Abu-Kabir that must not happen.  Courageous doctors who worked in the autopsy cellars occasionally tried to break through the wall of silence and alert the media of what was really going on there, but when their testimonies were published, others denied them.  This evening, Ulpan Shishi will air the facts for the first time.  A small tape with the recorded voice of Prof. Yehuda Hiss, the institute director, where he reveals how — ceaselessly, for almost a decade — organs were harvested there without the knowledge of the victims’ families.  Yifat Glick has the story. Read more…

This has probably already been in the news, and I am probably inadvertently plagiarizing someone else’s original sarcasm, but I couldn’t resist the temptation: Where is Bill O’Reilly when we need him?

On a more serious note, this type of behavior probably contributed to the State Department’s damning report on religious freedom in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Rabbinate versus Santa Claus

Itamar Eichner, Yediot, December 22 2009 [Hebrew original here]

A recommendation issued by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate to hotels and restaurants has generated new tension between Israel and the Vatican [see this for another recently reported source of tension].

While hotels, restaurants and clubs put up fir trees, Santa Claus dolls and red hats for the Christmas celebration and New Year parties that will take place in the next two weeks, the chief rabbinate  recommends not displaying symbols of the Christian holidays. Moreover, the rabbinical “Lobby for Jewish Values” recently began to take action against restaurants and hotels that intend to put up Christian symbols. “We are considering making public those business establishments that put up Christian symbols for the Christian holidays and will call to boycott them,” said the lobby’s chairman, Ofer Cohen. Read more…

Michael Oren

RELATED POST Amb. Michael Oren’s credibility problem

One of the major criticisms of Ambassador Michael Oren’s attack on J Street is that it constitutes improper meddling in the internal politics of the Jewish-American community. In this morning’s Haaretz, columnist Akiva Eldar reminds (annotated excerpt after the jump) readers that Oren has a habit of intervening in his host country’s domestic affairs.

This is not the first time that Oren has stuck his nose where it does not belong. After the Oslo Accords were signed, Oren, then the American Jewish Committee‘s representative in Israel, distributed a document calling for a centrist bloc headed by Ehud Barak (then chief of staff) and MK Benny Begin as a counterweight to Yitzhak Rabin, who was being led by the left and Yossi Beilin, and to Benjamin Netanyahu, who was being led by the radical right. The American Jewish Committee’s president, Al Moses, said he did not agree with his representative’s remarks. Oren stepped down soon afterward. Incidentally, this short interval was omitted from the ambassador’s official resume.

Eldar is referencing a news report he wrote as Haaretz Washington correspondent on December 8 1993 (annotated full text at bottom). Here’s the relevant excerpt

Last week, Michael Oren, who represents the American Jewish Committee in Israel, distributed a document in which he called for the establishment of a “central block, headed by Chief of Staff Ehud Barak and MK Benny Begin, to counter Yitzhak Rabin, who is being led by the left and Yossi Beilin; and Benjamin Netanyahu, who is dragged behind the extreme right.”

American Jewish Committee President Alfred Moses said that he “does not concur with the content of the position paper that Oren distributed, and that he will make it clear to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres when they meet in Jerusalem.”  Moses clarified that the “committee does not intervene in the domestic affairs of the State of Israel, and supports the government moves.”

Note that Eldar also references another recent, but hardly noticed, Oren shocker reported by The Forward

Oren issued a surprising proclamation of a personal belief in a divine plan behind the creation of the State of Israel

In the run-up to his appointment as ambassador, Oren, with the help of the mainstream US media, pulled off an amazing image makeover — the movement neoconservative became a pragmatic centrist. It seems, however, that Mr. Hyde has overcome Dr. Jekyll. As Oren reverts to his old self, it’s time to look at his history. Just a cursory investigation reveals that this is only one skeleton of many in his closet. More to follow soon.

Read more…

Future historians will be able to judge whether Israel at the end 0f 2009 was on the brink of an existential crisis or had already gone over the edge. Mainstream political actors find the second option inconceivable. The intellectually honest, however, are no longer willing to waffle, understanding that the status quo is untenable. Thus, a Likud hardliner, MK Tzipi Hotovely, endorses the one-state solution and, below, centrist author and academic Gadi Taub to assert that a showdown between the State of Israel and the fundamentalist settlers is inevitable.

The land or the state

Op-ed, Gadi Taub, Yediot, December 21 2009

Judging by the reports, it appears that the IDF is preparing to enforce the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria as if this were an attack on nuclear facilities in Iran.  On the face of it, this would seem to be a serious exaggeration.  The security establishment regards the inflammatory rhetoric of the settlers as if this were truly an enemy army numbering 300,000 people.  But the rhetoric is far from the reality.  The settlers will not try to subdue us by arms.  They are used to having the state pamper them, and they believe that the “price tag” policy will deter us. Read more…

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Tzipi Hotovely

This is from MK Tzipi Hotovely, one of the more rightwing members of Likud:

“Israeli law should be applied on the Judea and Samaria region,” Hotovely said during a conference in the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and stated she did not rule out granting citizenship to Palestinians.

The MK explained that “Judea and Samaria are a part of the land of Israel,” and blamed the Palestinians for the failure of the political process. “We strongly wish to get a divorce, but the other side doesn’t want to separate.”

Hotovely told Ynet later in the evening, “It’s unthinkable that Jews in Judea and Samaria would live under occupation and under a military regime. The distorted policy, which states that every construction permit must be approved by the defense minister harms the most basic rights.

“It’s time to lift the question mark over Judea and Samaria and view the people living there as citizens with an equal status. Thinking ahead, strategically, we should consider granting gradual citizenship to Palestinians based on loyalty tests.”

And with that, the usually unimpressive Hotovely became the first Likud member to face reality: you cannot settle the West Bank and talk about a solution to the Palestinian problem at the same time, unless you are ready to turn the Palestinians into equal citizens.

The “loyalty tests” part is indeed troubling, but let’s look on the bright side this time: if Netanyahu is talking about two states, and the radical right about a bi-national one, it seems that Israelis are finally realizing that the occupation can’t go on for much longer.

The Jerusalem Post reports that a liberal orthodox group is petitioning the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to order the indictment of the author of the “Handbook for the Killing of Gentiles“

Rabbi Elitzur, Author of the "Handbook for the Killing of Gentiles"

A group of petitioners on Sunday called on the High Court of Justice to indict two Yitzhar settlement rabbis for writing and marketing a book in which they say Jewish religious law permits the murder of Palestinian babies and that at times it is preferable to deliberately kill innocent people.

“There are reasons for killing babies even though they have not violated the seven sins, because of the danger that will be caused if they are allowed to live and grow up to be as evil as their parents,” the petitioners quoted from the book, “The Torah of the King.”

Attempts to criminalize expression in Israel never succeed. The Attorney General interprets the incitement law very narrowly in accordance with a landmark HCJ ruling from 2000. In the few cases that an investigation is opened, it rarely results in an indictment. The courts are also reluctant to convict and when they do, usually years after the event, the sentences are so light that they have no deterrence value.

Liberal Israelis should be happy that this is the legal state of affairs. It’s no accident that the petition on which the HCJ ruled was submitted by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Strict limits on freedom of expression undermine democracy and provide a handy tool for government to suppress political opposition — already an emerging problem in Israel.

The petitioners are undoubtedly well intentioned, but they have chosen an ineffective, and ultimately dangerous, mode of action. Their cause would have been better served if they focused their energies on blocking government funding of the yeshiva in question or rescinding federal tax exemptions for its US supporters.

Brig. Avi Benayahu, IDF Spokesperson

This year (2009), the Israeli public debate on the issue of institutional corruption in the IDF has been particularly angry. Defense Minister Barak’s lavish stay in Paris during Aeronautical Salon provoked an already incensed media into a frenzy of muckracking. One result was the exposure, in late November, of the fact that MK Nachman Shai (Kadima) was receiving a full IDF pension, even though he served only three years of regular duty (as IDF spokesperson in the early ’90s.)

Unlike the rest of the media, which took the easy path and blasted Shai, Globes columnist Matti Golan, decided to find out who exactly in the IDF made the decision to award the extraordinary pension. Since many Israeli politicians (Barak, for example) held senior IDF positions at the time, this is not a trivial question.

The IDF Spokesperson, unused to questioning of his statements, was caught off guard. Golan’s December 4 2009 column is a blow-by-blow account of how a journalist can sink his teeth into a defense bureaucrat’s calf and hold on like a bulldog.

The spokesman’s office asked what I mean. They are right. They are used to telling journalists “competent authorities” and the journalists repeat it like parrots without unnecessary questions.

Two weeks later, even though the issue is completely out of the news, Golan is still at it. His December 17 column (full text after the jump) chronicles his continued interrogation of the IDF spokesperson’s staff, who continue to throw fragments at him, when he will settle for nothing except the whole story.

I was troubled by the phrase “To the best of our examination.”  What does it mean?  The obvious conclusion would be that they are not certain.  They did not say, “We looked into it and that’s the way it is.”  They said that their examination failed to yield a clear and unequivocal answer.  Should it turn out in the future that their reply was inaccurate, incorrect, or wrong, they could always argue that “the best of our examination” was not good enough…

This is why I sent my following reaction to the IDF spokesperson:  “I wish to know what exactly do you mean by ‘to the best of our examination’?  Is it possible that your examination was inconclusive?

The pension is no longer the issue. Neither is the conduct of the IDF Spokesperson. Golan is out to prove that the soft-pedaling of his fellow journalists facilitates IDF obfuscation. Under the subheading “This is how the media help the whitewashers,” he ends with

I was doubtful right from the start.  In this era of computers, does it really take time to find 13-years-old material?  What is worse, if the IDF needs to look for the “authorizing party,” why did it eventually name those very parties when answering the press?  Was it trying to lie, knowingly?  No, it was not.  This is simply the automatic reply to embarrassing queries: “Authorized parties approved,” “everything was done according to the rules,” and so on.

For civilian deaths, even those of children, a common IDF reply is along the lines of “the force felt threatened and fired at suspects” and, except for a few exceptions that prove the rule, that is the end of any investigative journalism. Imagine the change if every foreign bureau chief or Israeli defense correspondent, took the Golan approach and really looked into the death of even one of every fifty or a hundred dead children. That’s how oversight works — even the slight chance of exposure causes a tremendous change in behavior.

Read more…

Last week (December 13 2009) we wrote about the new General Security Service (GSS; aka Shin Bet and Shabak)  method to deal with settler ‘Price Tag‘ terrorists — “warning talks.” The post quoted a monologue by the subject of one of these talks, Efraim Ben Shohat, who was not fazed, to put it mildly.

Ben Shohat spoke to the Jewish Voice, a weekly ‘Price Tag‘ organization leaflet. The publication has turned these monologues into a regular feature. Here is this Friday’s edition (December 18 2009; Hebrew original here) toying with GSS agents trying to recruit an informant.

Several weeks ago, the Jewish Voice revealed the story of Shimshon Schlissel, a resident of the settlement of Maale Levona.  The Shin Bet contacted Shimshon trying to arrange a meeting with him, over a cup of coffee, of course…  Shimshon realized exactly what their intentions were and used the Jewish Voice platform to let them know he was not interested.  They, however, did not despair and kept trying.

Shimshon told us later:

I went shopping and suddenly the phone rang.  “Hello, this is Amram, Golan’s partner.  Remember?  Golan talked to you some two weeks ago and we agreed to meet, so I wanted to arrange the meeting.  What would be a good time for you?”

“Listen, I do not want to meet with you at all,” I told him.

There was silence on the other end of the line.  He must have been completely shocked.

Amram regained his senses: “Are you sure?  But we had an agreement?”

“Yes, I am sure!  I do not want to meet you.”

Amram sounded totally stunned.  Another sentence or two and he hung up.

Naturally, the Jewish Voice editorial board can only congratulate Shimshon for having learned the lesson of the (too) many stories and cut off this link.  Strong and blessed [is he].

A word from the editor: Seriously, you there in the Jewish Department [of the Shin Bet]: What is going on?  Do you not relay information from the readers of Jewish Voice to those who draft activists?  He has already said he does not want to go on.

Background

• On December 1 2009 a front-page investigative report in Haaretz revealed that Machanaim a US 501c3 tax exempt charity was funding the Task Force to Save the Nation and the Land (aka SOS Israel,) an Israeli NGO paying soldiers to refuse orders to move against settlements and settlers.
• 

  Ami Kaufman

  On December 9 Coteret reported that SOS Israel had also begun paying soldiers bounties for dead Palestinians. On the same day, the Israeli Attorney General ordered police to investigate the NGO.

• Progressive US bloggers, such as Richard Silverstein, have begun questioning the legality, morality and wisdom of continued tax exemptions for charities supporting settlementand radical right-wing activities. On December 16, the Forward’s Gal Beckerman reported that Machanaim was simply a front with a PO Box maintained by Rabbi Dov Wolpe, the head of SOS Israel, and that it was in violation of US tax law.

This post – Ami Kaufman, an Israeli journalist and editor, recorded and subtitled an Israeli television interview with Rabbi Wolpe, which provides chilling insight into the kind of man US tax dollars are funding.  Cross-posted from Kaufman’s blog, Half & Half. Read more…

Below is a translation of the communiqué published by Netanyahu in response to the British warrant for former Foreign Minister Livni’s arrest.

Note what it does not assert: That “IDF commanders and soldiers” operated lawfully during the Gaza war. The statement does assert that the initiation of proceedings is tantamount to condemnation, i.e. Israelis cannot get a fair trial outside the country.

The omission and assertion together comprise a radical statement — Israel has removed itself from the international law system. This might seem trivial because it reflects the de facto situation. It does appear, however, to diverge significantly from much of Israeli messaging to date, which argues that the IDF generally acted legally and that internal investigations have addressed incidents where this is in doubt.

Statement from PM Netanyahu’s bureau

Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser, December 15 2009

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views with utmost gravity the attempt to issue an arrest warrant in Great Britain against Opposition Leader MK Tzipi Livni.

The Prime Minister said this morning (Tuesday), 15.12.09: “We will not agree to a situation in which Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendant’s bench.  We will not agree that IDF commanders and soldiers, who – heroically and in a moral fashion – defended our citizens against a brutal and criminal enemy, will be condemned as war criminals.  We reject this absurdity outright.” Read more…