The Jewish Week's Associate Editor, Jonathan Mark, is rightly worried about the reactions of Israeli Arabs to Israel's war in Gaza.
Mark's problems, however, are his inability to admit shades of gray, to understand nuance, and to tell the truth. For Mark, all Israeli Arabs are of one voice and one mind. And this oversimplification allows Mark to see all Israeli Arabs as if each were extremists.
That allows Mark to label all Israeli Arabs as "fifth columnists" devoted to the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of Jews from Israel.
And that is one small step away from endorsing ethnic cleansing:
Israel’s Fifth Column
January 9th, 2009
Every now and then, you hear some folks worrying that Jewish charity money ought to help not just the Jewish poor and Jewish institutions but should go to help Israeli Arabs.
After all, wasn’t it clever when American Jews gave $14 million to Gaza’s Arabs to take over greenhouses built by Jews after Jewish settlers were run out of Gaza?
The Palestinians burnt the greenhouses to the ground. How many rockets can you buy for $14 million?
Now that Israel has decided it was high time, after seven years of Zionist malpractice, to do something about rockets landing on kindergartens, what we’re seeing is that the Israeli Arabs are a fifth column supporting the enemy.
One Israeli Arab, a member of Knesset, called Israel’s belated self-defense “a war crime.”
Of course, this same thug Member of Knesset MK, Ahmed Tibi, said Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza in 2006 when there was no war in Gaza.
Just as post-Holocaust Europe can have anti-Semitism without Jews, Israeli Arabs can scream “war crimes” before there’s a war.
A charming people. When Jewish couple pulled into a gas station in the Israeli city Um El Faham, several hundred Israeli Arabs people threw molotov cocktails at them. We’re told the Jewish couple barely escaped a lynching. It was a Palestinian Sodom (the city notorious for its abuse of ‘the other.’). Not only did the Jewish couple barely escape but the attempted lynching escaped without a word in even many Jewish newspapers that would rather write about Jewish settlers behaving badly in Hebron, where Arabs say Jews “don’t belong,” rather than Arabs behaving badly in Israel, where Arabs say Jews also “don’t belong.”
Israeli Arabs protested against Israel in the cities of Taiba, Sakhnin, and the Galilee village of Ibillin. In Nazareth, some 3,000 Arab Israelis demanded a halt to “all the massacres of the Israeli army in Gaza,” but these Israeli citizens never protested, ever, against the 8,000 rockets that landed on Jewish Israelis.
Israeli Knesset member, Muhammad Barakei said, “We are part of the Palestinian people.” Indeed.
In Jerusalem, “hundreds of Arab residents of east Jerusalem “pelted police with stones in several locations in protest of the IAF strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza… More than a dozen rioters were arrested.”
In Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood, Jewish parents listen to the news, their sons are soldiers defending Israel in Gaza. One night, “dozens of masked teens,” Israeli Arab teens, “from the Isawiya quarter clashed with police” after throwing stones and trying to fight their way into that Jewish French Hill neighborhood. To protect Jewish Israelis, police had to be stationed not only in the street but on rooftops.
The Israeli Arabs threw three firebombs, and a fourth firebomb at a Jewish home in Abu Tor. Such is the fifth column.
Hey, Israeli Palestinians, there are still “Progressive” Jews who want to help you. How would you like the next $14 million, cash or check?
Lenin used to say, “Capitalists will sell us the rope from which they will hang.”
“Progressive” Jews won’t sell the rope, they’ll donate it.
It seems Mark drew heavily but inarticulately on a column Yossi Klein HaLevi wrote for the The New Republic. Here is the key section of HaLevi's work:
Arab Israelis: The fragile but enduring web of decency that connects many Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis is once again being put to an almost impossible test. Even now, Arabs and Jews continue to work together, and Arabs continue to shop in Jewish areas. The anguish among Israel's one million Arab citizens regarding the fate of Palestinians in Gaza needs to be respected by the Jewish majority. But Arab Israelis also need to understand the desperation of their Jewish neighbors. Instead, Arab members of the Israeli parliament have placed the entire blame for the conflict on Israel, in effect siding with Hamas and Iran.
For those of us committed to Arab integration into Israeli society and national identity, these are depressing times. The extremists among Israeli Arabs and Jews are setting the tone, and reinforcing each other's argument about the impossibility of coexistence. Without strong countering voices on both sides, the big winners will be the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which sees Arab Israelis as a fifth column, and the pro-Hamas Islamic Movement, which is inciting some Arab Israelis to violence. In the Arab Israeli town of Um El Faham, several hundred people threw molotov cocktails at a Jewish couple who pulled into a gas station there and barely escaped a lynching.
What Mark has done is invert HaLevi's work, eliminating any nuance and making it seem as if all Israeli Arabs are extremists.
A bit of proof of Mark's malevolent intent can be seen in these two sentences:
When Jewish couple pulled into a gas station in the Israeli city Um El Faham, several hundred Israeli Arabs people threw molotov cocktails at them. We’re told the Jewish couple barely escaped a lynching.
Those two sentences were clearly lifted from the end of the section of HaLevi's piece posted (and italicized) above. Mark's crude copy and paste left Halevi's "people" preceded by Mark's insertion of "Israeli Arabs."
This is not necessarily plagiarism, but it is crude and ethically challenged.
Even more troubling is how Mark frames that incident. Here it is with the frames in place, in bold italics:
A charming people. When Jewish couple pulled into a gas station in the Israeli city Um El Faham, several hundred Israeli Arabs people threw molotov cocktails at them. We’re told the Jewish couple barely escaped a lynching. It was a Palestinian Sodom (the city notorious for its abuse of ‘the other.’). Not only did the Jewish couple barely escape but the attempted lynching escaped without a word in even many Jewish newspapers that would rather write about Jewish settlers behaving badly in Hebron, where Arabs say Jews “don’t belong,” rather than Arabs behaving badly in Israel, where Arabs say Jews also “don’t belong.”
Mark takes the actions of a group of extremists, apples them to an entire people, and then compares that people to Sodom of Sodom and Gomorrah infamy.
And we all know what happened to Sodom: it was the Bible's first ethnic cleansing. Clearly, Mark would like the same to happen again.
Just as he did with HaLevi, Mark also quotes a Jerusalem Post report without attribution or a clear link.
Here is what the Post reported:
On Saturday evening, a 22-year-old Arab ran over a policeman in east Jerusalem, lightly injuring him in what police called a terrorist attack.
The assailant, who has a criminal record, was arrested on the scene, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
It was the fourth vehicular terror attack in the capital this year, and came as hundreds of Arab residents of east Jerusalem pelted police with stones in several locations in protest of the IAF strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.
According to an initial police investigation, the driver intentionally ran over the policeman near the Augusta Victoria Hospital as he exited his patrol car, after having watched the police patrol from his own vehicle for several minutes.
The victim managed to overcome the attacker with the help of his colleague. He was then evacuated to Hadassah-University Hospital on Mount Scopus.
More than a dozen rioters were arrested.
In one incident, dozens of masked teens from the Isawiya quarter clashed with police after trying to enter the adjacent French Hill neighborhood, police said.
The rioters, who were forcibly dispersed by police, threw stones at a gas station on the edge of the Jewish neighborhood.
A large police force was positioned in the area from early afternoon, some officers on rooftops.
Later in the evening, three firebombs were thrown at police on the edge of Isawiya, police said. Also on Saturday night, a firebomb was hurled at a Jewish home in the mixed Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu-Tor. There were no injuries or damage reported in the attack, according to police.
Now, Mark's rendition:
Israeli Arabs protested against Israel in the cities of Taiba, Sakhnin, and the Galilee village of Ibillin. In Nazareth, some 3,000 Arab Israelis demanded a halt to “all the massacres of the Israeli army in Gaza,” but these Israeli citizens never protested, ever, against the 8,000 rockets that landed on Jewish Israelis.
Israeli Knesset member, Muhammad Barakei said, “We are part of the Palestinian people.” Indeed.
In Jerusalem, “hundreds of Arab residents of east Jerusalem “pelted police with stones in several locations in protest of the IAF strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza… More than a dozen rioters were arrested.”
In Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood, Jewish parents listen to the news, their sons are soldiers defending Israel in Gaza. One night, “dozens of masked teens,” Israeli Arab teens, “from the Isawiya quarter clashed with police” after throwing stones and trying to fight their way into that Jewish French Hill neighborhood. To protect Jewish Israelis, police had to be stationed not only in the street but on rooftops.
The Israeli Arabs threw three firebombs, and a fourth firebomb at a Jewish home in Abu Tor. Such is the fifth column.
Now let's look at Mark's Muhammad Barakei quote. First, Mark's rendition:
Israeli Arabs protested against Israel in the cities of Taiba, Sakhnin, and the Galilee village of Ibillin. In Nazareth, some 3,000 Arab Israelis demanded a halt to “all the massacres of the Israeli army in Gaza,” but these Israeli citizens never protested, ever, against the 8,000 rockets that landed on Jewish Israelis.
Israeli Knesset member, Muhammad Barakei said, “We are part of the Palestinian people.” Indeed.
In Jerusalem, “hundreds of Arab residents of east Jerusalem “pelted police with stones in several locations in protest of the IAF strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza… More than a dozen rioters were arrested.”
Now, the quote as it actually appeared in the Jerusalem Post:
MK Muhammad Barakei (Hadash) accused Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak - both candidates for prime minister in the upcoming elections - of "using Palestinian blood for political aims."
"We are part of the Palestinian people," he said. "We can't be silent about a situation like this when there are innocent people that are killed in cold blood."
Barakei called on the government to stop its attack and on the international community to do something "to stop the massacre of the Palestinian people."
"It's clear that these attacks will not bring quiet or calm, only negotiations will," he said.
Mark removes the original context from these stolen quotes and then interweaves them with his own Kahanist ideology. And, to make sure his readers (few as they are) do not see that original context, Mark fails to link to or cite his sources, except for one link in passing to a quote from Ahmed Tibi, itself also wrenched from its original context.
This is plagiarism base and simple.
Journalists have been fired for less than Mark's plagiarism.
In this case, the crimes are even worse – the Jewish Week is essentially the house paper of the New York Jewish Federation, which pays for hundreds of thousands of Jewish Week subscriptions, subsidizing the Jewish Week in the process.
The Federation should move to clearly distance itself from Mark.
As for the Jewish Week, it needs to do far more than that.
The Jerusalem Post report Mark stole from:
Tibi protests Israeli 'war crime' -- Jerusalem Post.pdf
Yossi Klein HaLevi's TNR column:
Mark's complete blog post as a PDF file: