It’s A Bad Day to be Indigenous
There can be honest disagreement and debate about Israel’s policies in the territories, settlements, and borders. But by extending their argument to all of pre-1967 Israel as well as by smearing the Jews as colonists in their own country, the Native American studies group forfeits its credibility. Rather than being seen as the cutting edge of enlightened opinion, their support for BDS should mark them as a pack of incorrigible haters who should be treated with the same disdain and isolation that they would like to dish out to Israelis.
via Indigenous? Native American Studies and Big Lies About Israel « Commentary Magazine.
Agreed.
Haters gonna hate, even about things on which they appear singularly unqualified to pass .judgment.
I can only wonder how many Native Americans feel the same way as the Indigenous Ivory Tower?
Queen Elizabeth Knighted an Anti-Israel Officer
Reading through the 1948 account of Israeli forces battling the Arab Legion at Latrun, I was slightly peeved to find out that the Legion, widely considered the most potent force among the forces attacking Israel, was led by British officers, notably John Bagot Glubb (“Glubb Pasha.”) Not only was Glubb not censured for his actions against the UN mandate, which caused the British no small embarrassment internationally and was technically a violation of his British commission, he was allowed to continue his service leading the legion against Israel for eight years.
Worse, at the end of that time, when he lost his commission in a political struggle in Amman, Glubb went home to be created a Knight Commander of the Order of Bath by Queen Elizabeth II for his efforts.
After reading Anshel Pfeffer’s balanced 2012 Haaretz article, it is hard to see Elizabeth II or the Windsor family as anti-Semites, with the notable exception of the Queen’s uncle. The family’s opinion on Israel, however, is somewhat less clear. George VI had Lord Halifax advise Hitler that German Jews would not be permitted into Palestine as the tide of the Holocaust rose, and the Queen has in her six decades on the throne never visited Israel.
Knighting Glubb in 1956 may well have been the act of a young monarch acceding to the requests of Arabists in government or on her staff at the time. That record has never been clarified, though, and it compels British Jews and many of us in America and the Commonwealth to wonder whether succeeding generations of Windsors will continue to draw a line between Jews and Israel, or whether a different approach is in the offing.
Related articles
In Food and religion: A meaty question, The Economist casts a light on the disputes within the Jewish and Muslim communities over who is allowed to certify meats, and the standards to be used in the process. The newspaper asks if there needs to be regulation, or whether the system of private certifiers developed in the US Jewish community is appropriate.
For those of my fellow tribesmen with an environmental bent, Greenfaith.org offers a nice collection of traditional Jewish prayers that relate to natural phenomena and the environmental world. The file is a pdf, and is available here.
Hebrew Hutong 