Canada Free Press
Water has become the new blood libel against Israel
The Water Ambassadors
By Ari Bussel Saturday, May 22, 2010 http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23475
Agriculture and water played a pivotal role in Biblical history, to such an extent that Jewish people still bless God every day, “He who returns the wind and brings down the rain” or “He who brings down the early morning dew” depending on the time of the year. Without water, the Land of Milk and Honey would become barren and dry, its trees would wither, its future in doubt.
Water is intrinsically intertwined in Israel’s history, from parting the sea to allow the escape from tyranny and slavery to the days the Israelites were wondering the desert and yet all their needs were met. Other highlights include Elijah the Prophet standing on Mount Carmel seeing a tiny father-of-cloud approaching; supplying water to Jerusalem in King David’s time; the aqueducts built during Roman time from Haifa to Caesarea – still standing today – and during the same era the water-collecting and storing mechanism in Massada.
In the beginning of the 21st Century, water has become the new blood libel against Israel. Seeing the effectiveness of the argument “The Holocaust Never Happened,” Israel’s enemies now use the very weapon once used to thirst the Jewish inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem in an attempt to force them to surrender against Israel. All it takes is to accuse her of the wrongdoings her enemies never hesitated to commit.
Water assumes a modern, every day importance as well. The most known phrase in Israel is “And You Save Every Drop.” Every drop of water is crucial, from not wasting water to clean one’s car (use a bucket rather than a hose) to using a two-tier water container in the bathroom. Water is so expensive in Israel that people are trained, from very early age, to conserve.
This week the largest desalination plant opened in Israel, from seawater to drinking water that actually tastes good. Israel has long been the leader and pioneer in water technologies, from drip irrigation to gray water usage in agriculture.
A classroom guide about water for grades one through 12 is readily available online and in numerous textbooks. Water is part of the curriculum in Israel, thus reinforcing what children learn out of necessity at home. Moreover, water is the subject of songs and dances in Israel, truly embracing a cultural experience.
It is exactly in this context that foreign photojournalists came to Israel to take pictures and tell a story. The story is part of a major project, a special National Geographic issue about a thirsty world.
What did they find in Israel? Nothing of the sort I describe, not a thing that every Israeli child had experienced since early age: the great respect shown a very scarce resource, the admiration, the dependence and the knowledge that water comes with a price.
Against that background of care and conservation, the photojournalists did not describe the Israeli reality. Instead, they focused on a story they wanted to tell, one of hatred and suspicion, one twisting reality into an attack on the Jewish State.
National Geographic: The Dead Sea is drying up and it is Israel’s fault
Dressed as a photo exhibit, National Geographic blames a water shortage and the ills of the region on Israel. The Dead Sea is drying up and it is Israel’s fault. Israelis consume more water than Arabs and this too is Israel’s fault. With ever increasing population pressures throughout the arid Middle East, there is a decreasing water table, so BLAME ISRAEL.
Reinforcing the photo-exhibit message are pictures and captions showing Israel exploiting water supposedly by growing crops that are high consumers of water. Implying Israel does not know her right from her left is foolish given most crop types were refined over the decades to better adapt to the climate. Most irrigation types and water used—gray water—were developed for lessening Israel’s dependence on water.
Every first, second and third grader in Israel can educate the world about water and its conservation. Their innocence will do the trick. The sophisticated National Geographic photojournalists with their ultra sensitive cameras and amazingly twisted hearts and minds set out to frame Israel for crimes she never committed. It is easy to accuse, and let the lies carry in the wind, like fire in a dry field on a scorching day.
“More humanity per pixel” says the Los Angeles-based Annenberg Foundation that opted to host the exhibit during the fifty days between Passover and Shavuot. Today, on the fiftieth day, let us celebrate water, not hate, and let us learn from Israel and her long history intermingled and dependent on water. We must disallow the spread of propaganda against Israel under the guise of a National Geographic photo exhibit.
Alas, the day is here that cultured people are using sub-texts and innuendos to blame Israel for wrongdoings never committed. Before we, too, find her guilty by association, based on unsubstantiated allegations that sound good, let us investigate, learn from all that Israel can offer and celebrate the true Israel and the vital water lessons she provides.
Israel needs each and every one of us to combat the lies. The war does not rage in Israel proper, but right here in Los Angeles and on campuses throughout North America. It is in museums and places of culture and thought, locations that should have been the first to reject the lies, yet most adamantly embrace them.
To counter the lies we need to become Israel’s true Water Ambassadors
To counter the lies we need to become Israel’s true Water Ambassadors and restore to the world a semblance of sanity and respect before the truth is buried forever.
In a new leaflet by the Los Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Center, “2010 Top Ten Anti-Israel Lies,” water is not mentioned. A recent lecture by a doctoral student titled “Thirsting the Palestinians” held at Loyola Law School in Downtown Los Angeles and a billboard on Sunset Strip promoting the same lies were just appetizers. The Annenberg Exhibit is ushering in hatred with all its glory, propaganda with all its might, via no other doors than those of the Jewish Community itself. The very leaders of the community seem not to have noticed it.
Shame, Wallis Annenberg. Your love of photography and your family’s many contributions to culture cannot justify your helping to propagate hatred toward Israel and the Jewish People. Take action, lest you remain an accessory, a major facilitator in fact, to this horrible blood libel.
It is time to stand up and speak against the continued delegitimization, demonization and dehumanization of the Jewish State. Lest we ask later “why did we not do something about Israel’s fall when we had a chance,” let us answer the following now: If not we, who, and if not now, when?
In the series “Postcards from Israel—Postcards from America,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, an Israel visitors rarely discover
This point—and often—counter-point presentation is sprinkled with humor and sadness and attempts to tackle serious and relevant issues of the day. The series began in 2008, appears both in print in the USA and on numerous websites and is followed regularly by readership from around the world.
Ari Bussel is a reporter and an activist on behalf of Israel, the Jewish Homeland. Ari left Beverly Hills and came to Israel 13 weeks to work in Israel Diplomacy’s Front from Israel. Ari runs a website web.me.com/bussel.
Annenberg Foundation, Maurice Strong, United Nations-controlled World Water Vision
Zero Hour’s Hydrological Poverty blamed on Israel
By Judi McLeod Saturday, May 22, 2010 http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23481
The Los Angeles-based liberal Annenberg Foundation, which through its organization FactCheck org., which led to the United States Supreme Court conclusion that the Certificate of Life Birth (COLB) posted on Barack Obama’s website is the Real McCoy, is now accusing Israel of depriving Palestinians of their daily water.
According to the United States Supreme Court in December, 2008, “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship…Obama was born in the U.S. A. just as he has always said.” To refresh reader memory about the liberal Annenberg Foundation’s place in recent history: It is the foundation that groomed a young Obama through his ACORN community rabble-rousing days in Chicago, and funded his failed education venture, the Annenberg Challenge, with Obama partner William Ayers.” (J.B. Williams, Dec. 8, 2008).
Now through the breathtaking photography of National Geographic, The Annenberg Space for Photography, in an exhibit examining the “precarious state of the world’s fresh water” showcases Israel as the prime bad guy in the Mid-East `Water War’.
The Annenberg Foundation presents the same bleak picture for a thirsting humanity as does the anti-American UN Poster Boy Maurice Strong, who has long predicted that water will be a life-taking Battle Royale as soon as 2031. By that time, water will have to be rationed out by armed guards, according to Strong.
In the Annenberg Foundation’s estimation, as described in Water: Our Thirsty World, “a third of the people on Earth may lack a clean, secure source of water by 2050.”
As Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Ari Bussel points out, “This week the largest desalination plant opened in Israel transforming sea water to drinking water that tastes good.”
“Israel has long been the leader in water technologies, from drip irrigation to gray water usage in agriculture.”
In the Annenberg sponsored Water: Our Thirsty World, National Geographic portrays Israel as the greedy, hostile keeper of the Mid-East Water Well, thirsting out the Palestinians.
“According to a 2009 World Bank Report, Israelis use four times as much water per capita as Palestinians, much of it for agriculture.
“Israel disputes this, arguing that its citizens use only twice as much water and are better at conserving it. In any case, Israel’s West Bank settlements get enough water to fill their swimming pools, water their lawns and irrigate miles of fields and greenhouses.
“In contrast, West Bank Palestinians, under Israeli military rule, have been largely prevented from digging deep wells of their own, limiting their water access to shallow wells, natural springs, and rainfall that evaporates quickly in the dry desert air.”
The description of the water for Israelis versus water for Palestinians comes from Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli co-director of Friends of the Middle East.
We may ponder the proverbial question, “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”
“When the sources run dry in the summer Bromberg said, Auja’s Palestinians have no choice but to purchase water from Israel for about a dollar a cubic yard—in effect buying back the water that’s been taken out from under them by Mekorot’s pumps, which also lower the water table and affect Palestinian springs and wells.” (Italics CFP’s).
In 1996, the World Water Council, a private think-tank, was formed. The founding members were Egypt’s Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources; the Maurice Strong-founded Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the French transnational water corporation, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux.
At a 1998 meeting held in Washington, D.C., the World Water Council appointed a group of commissioners to turn the United Nations-controlled World Water Vision into a reality. The membership of the World Water Commission reads like a Who’s Who of the ruling elite, and includes among its high profile commissioners, Maurice Strong.
By 2003 experts were predicting that a water crisis was coming in statements claiming that by the year 2025 the world would be suffering the dramatic effects of—hydrological poverty. They share the Maurice Strong view that there will be great disputes, and even wars, over water access.
They even came up with a name for the timeline for the water crisis, calling it “zero hour”.
“Already 26 countries have more people than their water supplies can adequately support. Tensions are mounting over scarce water supplies in the Middle East, and could ignite during this decade. Competition for water is intensifying between city dwellers and farmers around Beijing, New Delhi, Phoenix, and other water-short areas.” (Nexus Magazine).
Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and Glenn Beck.
Meanwhile, Zero Hour is almost upon us, and who to more conveniently blame than the Israelis?
Israel's Response
Why China can be a game-changer in the ME
By AVRUM EHRLICH, 20/05/2010 (Jerusalem Post)
Several decades of US failure to bring peace to the region has not prompted the sages of Israeli diplomacy to consider other tracks
At an Iran crisis simulation exercise held at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (IDC) this week, a star-studded cast of ambassadors, former generals, experts and professors representing state and non-state actors played out the “responses” to a flare up between Iran and Israel. I was asked to play the Chinese position in such a scenario, affording a front-row view of some of the worryingly outdated attitudes of the Israeli (and American) participants. It was embarrassing to observe how out of touch the players were with the fast-changing geo-political and economic fault lines underscoring the tensions. It was also concerning that all seemed to misunderstand, did not care enough to understand, or chose to ignore Chinese interests and influence in Iran and the Middle East.
Consumed by an almost drug-induced US-centric psychosis and unshakeable faith in the infallibility of a US-led track, several decades of failure to bring about a Middle East game-changer has not prompted the sages of Israeli diplomacy to review its veracity or consider other options and tracks. Despite the incredible energy Israelis spend on integrating with the American consensus – sending students to Harvard and MIT, scholarly hob knobbing and shoulder rubbing with policy institute doyens in Washington and political back scrubbing – no such efforts (or even signs of interest) are invested in developing relations with China.
Israel has become bound in the service of US conceptual frameworks, while not understanding the nuances of others and the fault lines of other geo-political and economic realities.
No alternative horizons or different models of thinking are proposed by the iconoclastic Israeli strategist. The prospect that a home-grown Asian entity, the emerging economic giant, a local resident to the continent, could actually play an important role in resolving a regional problem, has not occurred to the brilliant Israeli political adviser.
FOR THOSE who don’t have time to read more, suffice to internalize a short message. China’s role in resolving the Middle East stalemate is overlooked as if it didn’t exist. Perhaps so many political advisers have their careers built on the Israel-American relationship, they are loathe to kick a ball over to the Chinese court. China’s influence over Iran and the Arab world is many times greater than that of the US: It has massive, unprecedented investments, hundreds of thousands of workers, engineers and professionals on the ground. China consumes and underwrites a huge percentage of the ME and Iranian GDP.
Iranian and Arab world economies are dependent on China’s continued engagement. Impressive, regular and high-level exchanges between these countries are continuous. Thousands of students, delegations, trade and investment groups travel between countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt and so on. China does not like to acknowledge the full extent of its influence in the region because of the obvious ramifications this would have on its international obligations if it were recognized as a Middle East game changer.
Furthermore, attention must be paid to how to steer China’s interest toward reconciling the problems in the region instead of benefiting from them, as it does at present.
I was asked by several parties at the simulation exercise to vote in favor of regional peace – something which, despite all good will, I could not do, because peace and stability in the region were designed to bring maximum benefit to the US and reduce those of other national players.
At present, China is cherry-picking the oil, gas and resource deals while selling its goods to a captive market.
Unless Israel understands Chinese interests and decides to design a situation where China can benefit from regional stability and cooperation, it cannot expect to bring the country over as a partner to its vision. This work must be done by Israel alone. It cannot expect the Americans to understand that Israel’s interests may lie elsewhere.
A short example of how Israel can work with China for regional stability is demonstrated in the recently reported expression of interest from Doha to reestablish diplomatic relations in return for rights to rebuild Gaza. Constructing a Chinese-Israeli-Arab understanding for large construction and infrastructure programs across the ME may be of sufficient interest to the Chinese for them to use their influence to halt tensions between the parties. The reconstruction of Gaza is an excellent opportunity to bring them in.
Obama Advisor: Warm Words for Saudi Arabia, Hizbullah, Al-Quds
Sivan 10, 5770, 23 May 10 12:37, by Hillel Fendel
(Israelnationalnews.com)
John Brennan, Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security, called Jerusalem “Al-Quds,” praised Saudi Arabian religious tolerance, and is encouraging of Hizbullah.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has drawn attention to the above three instances of recent remarks by one of U.S. President Barack Obama’s top terrorism-issues advisors, calling them “outrageous” and “disgraceful.”
Speaking to an apparently Muslim audience at New York University in February, at a forum co-hosted by the White House and the Islamic Center at New York University." Brennan first told a story in Arabic, evoking laughter and concluding with, “Don’t tell the folks who don’t speak Arabic what I said.” He then said that his favorite city in the Middle East is “Al Quds, Jerusalem.”
In the same speech, Brennan also spoke of his time at the American University in Cairo in the 1970s, referring to the common aspirations of his former Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinian classmates, including the freedom “to practice our faith freely … In Saudi Arabia, I saw how our Saudi partners fulfilled their duty as custodians of the two holy mosques at Mecca and Medina.”
In another speech before Lebanese leaders who visited Washington recently, Brennan told them, “Hizbullah is a very interesting organization,” and said that it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and now to an organization that has members within the parliament and the cabinet. “There is certainly the elements of Hizbullah that are truly a concern to us, what they’re doing,” Brennan said. “And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”
The ZOA noted that Hizbullah is actually a Lebanese-Iranian proxy terrorist group that has called continually for the elimination of Israel.
“These comments by John Brennan are as outrageous as they are deeply troubling,” ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “No one refers to Jerusalem in the English language as Al-Quds, unless they have a specific political, anti-Israel agenda - in this case, pandering to Israel’s enemies, who will draw comfort from the use of the term Al-Quds by a senior U.S. government official.”
Klein termed “disgraceful” the fact that “Mr. Brennan’s pandering is taken so far that he speaks of some supposed shared goal of freedom of religious practice, and then immediately refers in complimentary words to Saudi Arabia - a country that is notorious for its harsh denial of freedom of religion, in which even non-Wahhabi Muslim mosques are prohibited, let alone churches and synagogues.”
Regarding Brennan’s comments about Hizbullah, Klein said, “Worse, Brennan give unwarranted legitimacy to the recognized terrorist group Hizbullah, thereby undercutting past U.S. efforts to isolate this murderous outfit.”
Klein sums up: “John Brennan is yet another hand-picked Obama adviser who shows a distinct animus against Israel and partiality for its enemies. It is unsurprising that, when Barack Obama is advised by people like these, quite apart from the President’s own troubling history of friendships with vicious critics of Israel and having belonged for two decades to an anti-Israel, anti-American black supremacist church, the Obama Administration has ignited major tensions in its relations with Israel while not holding accountable and penalizing the Palestinian Authority for continuing terrorism and incitement to hatred and murder.”
www.IsraelNationalNews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment