1. Israel-loather who lives at the expense of the taxpayer, Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, May 2, 2009
  2. Yes, I do want peace, Jeff Halper, Ma’ariv, May 2009
  3. We will not forgive those who provoke, Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, May 12 2009

(All texts translated from the original Hebrew by NGO Monitor)


1. Israel-loather who lives at the expense of the taxpayer, Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, May 2, 2009

Part 3: The Taliban came back to Pakistan. There is reason to worry

But do not worry. There will always be Jews in the hate-campaign against Israel. Not only the progressive Jews who will appear at a conference, or a rabbi from Neturei-Karta, who will gladly appear in such forums. Just a few weeks ago Jeff Halper was there, Jewish and Israeli, a former professor at Ben-Gurion University.

This is the same Halper who many months ago was the “first Israeli” to join the ship of hate which sailed to Gaza. “I do not identify with Hamas,” he tried to claim then. Really, no. He is just identifying with every group that identifies with Hamas. Halper is antisemitic? It seems that one should listen to things he said at the same conference, to clarify the answer.

Well, Halper explained to his listeners, today in Palestine there are 50% Arabs and 50% Jews (a lie), and when the Palestinians return (to him it is an indisputable fact), they will become the majority. That is why, Halper has explained, there is no justification for the “two-state” solution on the basis of the ’67 borders because that will give the Jews 78% of the territory and only 22% to the Arabs.

The Saudi Initiative, which demands a full unconditional Israeli withdrawal, is actually a scam. According to Halper, the Arab tyrants in the neighboring countries want to make Israel a regional military power, which will assist them in perpetuating their tyrannical regimes. Not a word about the right of return, which is included in the same initiative, which will destroy Israel. This does not fit in with Halper’s fantasy.

And the parade goes on. According to Halper, Avigdor Lieberman’s party is calling for the transfer of the Israeli-Arabs. Is that true? Lieberman never called for a transfer. The opposite is true. Lieberman supports a transfer of Jews, to make the establishment of a Palestinian state possible. All political parties in Israel, according to Halper, not only Lieberman, are striving to complete the deportation of ‘48. In Israel, Halper explained, you do not call it “ethnic cleansing,” but “transfer.”

And what is the Annapolis process? Establishing Bantustans (the protectorates of blacks under the Apartheid regime in South Africa) on 15% of Palestine.  But in order to fulfill this kind of plan, there is a need for a collaborator – just as those who collaborated with the white regime in South Africa that established the Bantustans. “Collaborator” from the mouth of Halper sounds worse than “traitor.” And who is this bad person, who is selling off the Palestinians, and who is serving the enslavement plot? Abu-Mazen.

It is true that Abu-Mazen has not agreed to any peace proposal, even not to 96% of the land, and that he has never given up the right of return, but this is not important. The facts will not confuse Halper. To make the picture complete, Halper explains that the operation in Gaza was not because of the rockets, but because Hamas opposes Condoleezza Rice, Abu-Mazen, and Israel’s Bantustan plot.

The conclusion was amazing. Halper claimed that there are surplus populations in the world, whom world Capitalism is not interested in.  Those are the populations of the poor, the illegal immigrants, the prisoners, all of Africa, etc. The world does not need these populations. They do not serve the Capitalist monster. This is where the role of Israel comes in. It is the one giving the world a model for making those populations disappear into a warehouse.  And Israel is exporting this model all over the world. Serving world Capitalism. A claim which makes the writers of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion appear sane.

Al-Qaida and Hamas, one should repeat, do not need any propagandists. They have their own branches in Western academia who do the work for them. This kind of propagandist fantasy, in the service of groups which declare their will to destroy Israel – even Hamas and Al-Qaida could have not invented.

Is an Ahmadinajad double and an Israel-loather, who spreads poison and lies of the antisemitic type, who supports Hamas, worthy of teaching in an Israeli university and living at the expense of the taxpayers? So far, the answer of the writer of this article has been – yes, even if he grits his teeth. The case of Jeff Halper forces us to reconsider this.
 


2. Yes, I do want peace/Jeff Halper / May 2009

I believe that only if a just peace with the Palestinians is achieved, can the State of Israel survive. Other than that, everything that Ben-Dror Yemini wrote about me is a distortion of the truth.

In a characteristic Ben-Dror Yemini way, articles like the one which appeared last Friday (“Jews, there is reason to worry”, 1.5), in which he attacked me personally in an hysterical manner, inaccurately and even violently, push the public debate away from the actual issues to a pointless list of reproaches, full of accusations, but which has no analysis. Maybe calling me an “Ahmadinajad double and an Israel-loather, who spreads poison and lies of the antisemitic type, who supports Hamas” satisfies Yemini, but how does that contribute to the profound public debate which the Israeli public should be having in these critical times?

And if that’s not enough, Yemini is turning me into a monster, while twisting and distorting my viewpoints. The thing which apparently made Yemini “jump” was my participation in a conference which dealt with genocide, in which I never participated – although he is allegedly quoting me. I never said that two state solution is impossible because the maximum Palestinian state will be only 22 percent of the Historical Palestine.  I said, that considering that the Palestinians will be the majority in the state when the refugees come back, our refusal to let the Palestinian state be established on 22 percent of the land only, a step which will lead to peace with the other 78 percent of the Land of Israel, will be a historical mistake.

Furthermore, I see the assault on Gaza in a broader context, that of the Annapolis process which has almost been forgotten, but remains important. I claim that in Annapolis the preparations for an Apartheid “solution” of the conflict were completed. Israel, according to Olmert’s “convergence plan”, will broaden to 85 percent of the country (including the settlement blocs). The Palestinians will be limited within a Bantustan on 15 percent of the land, which will be cut down to 4 or 5 “Cantons”. Many Palestinians are afraid that Abu-Mazen is collaborating with this kind of plan (although I have never called him a collaborator, as Yemini said. That is not my job), without even mentioning Mubarak.  If, in this kind of a scenario, Hamas and the people of Gaza remain the only obstacles, this explains Israel’s disproportionate assault in Gaza – The will to take down Hamas – and not the rocket fire, which was only an excuse.

And finally: “lives at the expense of the taxpayer”. Why, as Yemini himself notes, I am a retired professor from the university (Anthropology). In the framework of my current task as the director of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, my salary (if anyone is interested to know) comes from our funding raising in the organization. The Israeli public will be happy to know that not a single part of my modest salary comes from them.

Yes, I am a leftist who is not ashamed of that, and who believes that only if a just peace with the Palestinians is reached, can the state of Israel survive. Let Yemini continue his slander campaign and his simplistic slogans. I have traveled to Gaza not out of identification with Hamas, but out of solidarity with a nation which has lived under our occupation for too many years.

Jeff Halper is the director of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions.
 


3. We will not forgive those who provoke, Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, May 12 2009

Jeff Halper Claims that I have distorted his words. That a lie. What was written is a documented truth. And no, Mr. Halper, whoever incites against Israel does not want peace.

I like debates. They enrich your mind. The debate between Yaakov Herzog, then the Israeli Ambassador in Canada, and the Historian Prof. Arnold Toynbee, which took place in the sixties, is worthwhile enough to be studied even today. It’s a shame that it has been forgotten.

But not every argument is a debate.  Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about a man named Jeff Halper. I told about Halper’s horror show, erasing the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. He preached to his Muslim listeners in an American university to reject the Arab Peace Initiative, because it serves the Muslim tyrants.

He told his listeners that Israel is actually a force that serves world Capitalism, in the framework of the attempt to make enormous populations in the world disappear. The antisemites could not have said it better. And so on and so forth. Yesterday Jeff Halper had the opportunity to respond here, and he claimed that I distorted his words.

But I watched his lecture, and I listened to it. What I have written is a well-documented and recorded truth. In other words, Halper abused the right given to him to respond, and lied.  On second thought, that is actually the story here. Indeed I have written a thousand and one times that anti-Zionist propaganda is an industry of lies.

They are probably addicted. So after Halper finished spreading his antisemitic venom in front of an American crowd, he came to spread it here. Shamelessly he claims that his words were distorted. But they are recorded. Any reader could come and check what has been said by the antisemitic Jeff Halper, and understand that this is not an exaggerated title, but a worthy title for someone who turns Zionists into servants of world Capitalism in its mission to make enormous populations in the world disappear.

Making the Refuseniks stronger

One of his claims, only one, is worthy of a response. “I want peace,” he claims. Whoever incites against the State of Israel does not want peace. He wants destruction. But even more than that, Halper is representing an odd species of people who earn their living from the struggle. Not only that they live very well from it (“My salary comes from raising donations…”), but they do everything they can to ensure that there will be no peace. Because among Muslims and Arabs there are many, even if it is not a majority, who want peace and are willing to make some painful concessions. Even the Saudi Initiative, which has become Arab, is a step in the right direction, assuming that you take the right of return out of it, of course.

And what do people like Halper do? They make those who refuse stronger. They preach to them not to make any compromises. They make the struggle hotter. They make Hamas stronger. According to Halper, the Arab Initiative is another plot. A plea for Israel to join the tyrants’ camp. This preaching of Halper’s, I will say it again, is documented and recorded.

His denial is a lie. Halper is not convincing the Arabs to insist on peace. It’s the other way around. He convinces them to insist on refusing. Between the Palestinian Authority of Abu-Mazen and Hamas of Mashaal and Haniya, Halper is decisively determining that he is on Hamas’ side.

Even Hamas have not justified the rockets by claiming that it is against any peace plan, which settles the Palestinians in Bantustans, but this is what Halper claims. More Hamas than Hamas. Hamas says that its goal is to destroy Israel and harm the Jews. Halper, of course, does not listen.

Some members of the “Peace camp” – not all of them, of course – will be remembered eternally in disgrace as those who convinced the Arab side to stick with refusal. The Palestinians in the refugee camps will continue to rot. Jews will continue to be murdered. This is happening also because of those who provoke strife from the likes of Jeff Halper. History will never forgive them.