Larry King Live: Benjamin Netanyahu

http://vodpod.com/watch/3981285-larry-king-live-benjamin-netanyahu

PM Netanyahu addresses Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+leaders/2010/PM_Netanyahu_addresses_Conference_Presidents_7-Jul-2010.htm

I outlined my vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish State of Israel. (Photo: GPO)

Address by PM Benjamin Netanyahu to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, New York Transcript: I had a very good meeting with President Obama yesterday. We discussed those issues that formed the common bond between Israel and the United States. I'm speaking now in the city of New York. New York was bombed several years ago. There were reactions that were different throughout the Middle East. In many places there were celebrations. In Israel people wept. They grieved because we view ourselves as part of that same civilization that the United States of America represents - a free, pluralistic, democratic society. America has no better friend, no better ally than the State of Israel. The President and I discussed Iran, and he reiterated his determination to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. We discussed the sanctions of the Security Council that formed an international consensus about the lack of legitimacy of Iran's pursuit to develop atomic bombs. That's important. Equally important were the sanctions that were signed by the President the other day - they have teeth. It's important that other countries follow suit with sanctions with teeth. That means that they bite into Iran's energy sector. I cannot tell you that this will stop Iran's nuclear program. I think that it's important to understand however, that it must be stopped and I welcome the determination and the clarity that this issue that I've been talking about for fifteen years and it was the first thing that I discussed in my first term as Prime Minister before a joint session of the U.S. Congress. I said that there is no greater threat to humanity than the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and today the greatest threat is still that the world's most dangerous regimes acquire the world's most dangerous weapons. This must not be allowed to happen. Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. We also discussed our quest for peace with the Palestinians. I outlined my vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish State of Israel. Now let me be clear about the elements of this vision. I said a demilitarized Palestinian state. First of all, we don't want to govern the Palestinians and we don't want them to be either our subjects or citizens of the country. But we also want to make sure that they have their own independent dignified life, but that they don't threaten the State of Israel. Now this is not something that was fully clear when the peace process began in the Oslo Accords a decade and a half ago. This has been overshadowed by two events. And the first event is the rise of Iran and its proxies and the second event is the rise of missile warfare. What we have learned in the intervening years is that territories that we have vacated for the sake of peace have been taken over by Iran's proxies and have been used as staging ground for terrorist attacks against us. We have put up fences to prevent the terrorists, the suicide bombers from getting into our areas. But Iran's proxies poured in rockets and missiles into these areas and flew over the fence and today the problem that we face is to make sure that this does not repeat itself. Strike one was our withdrawal from Lebanon. Strike two was our withdrawal from Gaza. We cannot afford a strike three. We want to have peace with the Palestinians. We want to ensure that territories that we vacate as part of that peace do not get used as staging ground for rocket attacks against Israel. Because we're not dealing with the distant past, because we're dealing with twelve thousand rockets that were fired against us in recent years, this issue must be addressed and demilitarization means that we have not a piece of paper, but genuine security arrangements on the ground that can prevent this smuggling and penetration of territories that we vacate by Iranian weapons and by other means that are aimed to harm Israel's civilians. So the need for security, robust security arrangements, is absolutely vital as part of this peace and I had a good opportunity yesterday to discuss this at some length with the President and we shall continue to discuss this because security is not the enemy of peace, it's the friend of peace. It makes peace possible. It makes a realistic peace take hold and endure in our part of the world which the President correctly called a very tough neighborhood. The second pillar of a successful peace is the Palestinian recognition of the Jewish state. This means that Israel is the nation-state of the Jews. Jews can come to Israel, just as Palestinians can go to the Palestinian state. But Israel cannot solve the Palestinian problem within its borders. That has to be resolved outside Israel's borders. This is a point of consensus in Israel, but it must be a point of consensus among the Palestinians as well for peace to take hold. I believe that in addition the Palestinians have to do something that they so far have not done. And that is to do what Anwar Sadat did - to come forward and say, “It's over. The conflict is over. There is no more war, there is no more bloodshed and there will be no more conflict.” This second pillar of peace, the pillar of legitimacy, of an end to claims, an end to conflict, I think is as essential as the first, of security. And the third is something that I think is happening anyway, and that is prosperity. We relieved or removed hundreds and hundreds of roadblocks, checkpoints and other barriers of movement and the Palestinian economy is prospering in the West Bank and that's good. I think we could do more. I intend to do more, but in the context of peace we could do a lot more - for security, legitimacy and prosperity. All of this requires one thing, it requires negotiation. There are all sorts of impediments in negotiations that have been put up; all sorts of preconditions; all sorts of excuses. I suggest we do away with them. You either put up excuses or you lead. I proposed to lead. I want to enter direct talks with the Palestinian leadership now. I call on President Mahmoud Abbas to meet me in the coming days to begin peace talks so that we can have and fashion a final peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. So we have before us the twin challenges of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and advancing a secure and prosperous peace between Israel and the Palestinian people - something I think we can achieve. I think we can defy the skeptics. I think there are a lot of doubters. There were a lot of doubters about Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat of Egypt and they forged a peace. There are a lot of stereotypes that govern the world's perception of leaders and yet it is when these stereotypes are broken, as in the case of Gorbachev and Reagan or Nixon in China, or Begin and Sadat. That's when history flows and it flows in a positive direction. And this is a challenge I'm up to and I hope that President Abbas is up to and I know that President Obama looks forward to. It's something that can happen. It requires Palestinian leadership. It has Israeli leadership. I'm sure it has American leadership. But today I want to talk about a third challenge that we face. It has been mentioned by the speakers before me and that is the battle for our legitimacy. When you look at the battle that is being waged against us, and its one that has intensified greatly over the last decade, it really has two main lines of attack. The first line of attack is conducted by our enemies, quite overtly, and that is the denial of the Jewish people's connection to the land of Israel. The second line of attack unfortunately includes many who call themselves and consider themselves our friends. And this is the denial of our right to defend ourselves. Now, I know that one thing that unites all of us is that we all know that we are not foreign interlopers in the land of Israel. I have a little display in my office. It was given to me by the Department of Antiquities. And I show it to every foreign dignitary who visit me. It's a signet ring, it's a seal, that was found next to where the present Western Wall is, the wall of the second Temple, but it predates the second Temple by about 700 years. It was found nearly 3000 years ago, in Jerusalem, and it has the name written in Hebrew of a Jewish official and the name is Netanyahu - Netanyahu ben Yoash, Netanyahu the son of Yoash. My first name, Benjamin, pre-dates that by about a thousand years to Benjamin the son of Jacob. They all roamed the same hills. So we have nearly a four thousand year connection to this land and the return of the Jewish people to Zion, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland is not just one of the great events of modern times, it's one of the greatest events of all time. I have visited Uganda twice at the kind invitation of the President of Uganda, but for the Jews, Zion is not Uganda. Jerusalem is not Kampala. Zion is only one place - Israel - and the connection between our people and the land of Israel is as strong as enduring as any people's connection to any place on earth. The best thing that we can do fight the efforts to deny this connection is to educate ourselves and our children about our own history, and our own connection to this land. And I've been doing that with you, in two programs. One is our Heritage Program that we've launched to restore over one hundred sites in Israel: biblical sites and the sites of modern Zionism, and many other programs connected with public education, but also the Birthright and Masa programs which bring so many young Jews to Israel to acquaint them with our common heritage. And I think we need to expand these programs because the best way to fight ignorance in others is to ensure that we ourselves are not ignorant. And I believe that that is gaining ground and I think we should invest in it - when I say invest, I actually put Israeli government money in programs to bring young Jews - we've done that. I began that as Prime Minister in my first term of office and we're continuing that now and, believe it or not, the Israeli economy can afford it. It's a very robust economy. And it's the best investment we can make. As for the denial of our right to defend ourselves, I see a disturbing pattern. All responsible countries say that Israel has a right to defend itself, but virtually every time we seek to exercise that right, we are nearly universally condemned. In 2002, when we finally launched Operation Defensive Shield - this followed a year and a half of terror attacks and the bloodiest suicide attacks in Israel's history - after we did this operation, we were falsely condemned and falsely accused. We were condemned and falsely accused of massacres in Jenin and elsewhere. Time and fact cleared that up but this is how our defensive action was received. In 2004, we put up a fence, a fence to prevent terrorist attacks and suicide bombers from crossing into our cities. And when we put up that fence to protect civilians from direct attacks, we were hauled before the International Court of Justice and we were told that we were doing something criminal and terrible. In 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, we responded with precision attacks to the unprovoked murder and kidnapping of our soldiers and to rocket attacks on our northern cities, and we were accused of using disproportionate force. And finally, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, when we finally responded after a year of, years really, of rocket fire on our southern cities by Hamas, we received the Goldstone Report. I said finally but that's not true because it continues. One month ago when our soldiers boarded a ship to enforce a blockade designed to prevent weapons from going to Hamas and to defend themselves against a mob wielding knives and steel pipes, the whole world condemned us. I was asked today by a journalist how we view this, and I said: "Well, how would you view it? Suppose a coastguard boarded a ship and the coastguard was beaten, clubbed and your people were put in danger of their lives and defended themselves, how would you feel?" And yet this analogy that people try to make about their own situation, so much of the world doesn't do. So much of the world supports Israel's right to defend itself in theory, but consistently condemns it in practice. And understand that a right that you cannot exercise eventually withers away. It is no right at all. So it seems that, even after six decades, many around the world are still uncomfortable with the idea of Jewish sovereignty. Perhaps they have not internalized the fact that the Jews will no longer be passive victims of history. We are now actors on the stage of history. We now chart our own collective destiny and that requires Israel to have a secure and unchallenged right of self-defense that is accorded to other nations as well. For 2000 years, the Jews were the perfect victims. And perfect victims may be perfectly moral but they're still victims. The purpose of the Jewish state is to defend Jewish lives. And in that defense, the standard that must be applied to Israel is not perfection but a standard that is applied to any other country faced with similar circumstances. What other country is faced with similar circumstances? What other country has suffered thousands and thousands of rockets rained on its cities? Well, we only have one example: a country I admire deeply and that's Britain. And yet Israel's response to the rocketing of its cities is a fraction, a fraction, perhaps a percent or less of the response in terms of casualties inflicted by Britain on those who attacked it. I'm not in any way castigating Britain or the British government or its leader, Churchill. I'm a great admirer of them but I think that when people talk about standards, how do you judge the standard? Only by similar examples. Israel took great pains to target the racketeers. It did not engage in wholesale carpet bombing. It tried to do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties on the other side. These are not my words - they're actually the words of the British commander, the former British commander in Afghanistan who said them, General Richard Kemp, who said that never in the history of warfare, has any country gone to greater lengths than Israel to prevent civilian casualties on the other side. So we have to ask when people say Israel has to conform to international standards, I say that international standards may take a page out of Israel's book. And I believe, I believe that speaking this truth, saying it the way it is, is one of the most important challenges that the friends of Israel have today. We face three great challenges in the coming months: to ensure that everyone keeps focus on preventing a nuclear Iran, to redouble our efforts to find a path to peace with the Palestinians - to begin those peace negotiations as soon as possible - and to unite against any effort to challenge Israel's right to defend itself. I know that with the help of everyone here, we'll be able to meet all three challenges. Friends of Israel, my friends, I thank you for your support for the Jewish state and the Jewish people. I salute your clarity. I applaud your courage. I know that we'll be able to count on you every step of the way. Thank you very, very much. Malcom Hoenlein, Executive Vice-President: The Prime Minister agreed to answer two questions. There were many questions - they dealt with Jerusalem, Israeli Arabs, but a number of them dealt with the direct talks and what you would expect the issues - the final-status issues and especially about Jerusalem, and second about your discussions with Ban Ki-moon and what your expectations are about the United Nations. And lastly, to the leaders of tomorrow, what's your advice to pro-Israel students on campuses to make a difference? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I think that the connection to the Jewish people of Jerusalem is part and parcel of our connection to our land, and I think it, you all know that there are Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that under any peace plan will remain where they are as part of Israel. I don't think that is really contested and I think the last thing we should do is again pile on grievances and pre-conditions that prevent the joining of Israel's leadership and the Palestinian leadership to resolve the problems. There are basically six problems - the first I discussed here and that is our security, the second is the question of borders, the third is the question of settlements, the fourth, no less important, the question of refugees, the fifth is the, the dominating problem of water that is not being discussed but water has one advantage over land - you can create more of it. We need desperately to create more water sources for our peoples and for the sake of peace. What did I leave out? Well, territories obviously. It will all have to be discussed and these things are intermeshed - they affect one another and they probably need to be resolved together in order to get a realistic solution. Now, this is going to be a very, very tough negotiation but I'm prepared to engage in it. I cannot engage with somebody who doesn't come and sit down. I think there's something anomalous in the fact that I sit in Jerusalem, ten minutes away in Ramallah sits President Abbas and George Mitchell, who I respect greatly, has to shuttle back and forth from the other side of the earth to pass messages between us. This is not my idea of peace. My idea of peace is that we live next to one another and that we talk to each other to achieve peace - the sooner the better. Direct negotiations must start right away and I hope they will and I believe there's reason to think that they will very soon. What would I say to the young supporters of Israel on the campuses? Well, I can tell you that I was a young supporter of Israel on a college campus 40 years ago - actually in 1973, I was studying at MIT and I went back to serve in the Yom Kippur War and when I came back, I slept for a week and then went up the steps of MIT and I saw a lot of stands in which anti-Israeli propaganda was being disseminated and I saw one stand in which supporters of Israel, Israeli students, were distributing material. And I went up to them and I said: "What are you doing?" And they said: "We're defending Israel against libel. Would you join us?" And I said I would. And I think that defense is no less important than the physical defense of the country. So what I would say to young Jews and non-Jews on college campuses today is: "Defend Israel against libel and defend the truth. The battle that we are fighting is a battle for truth. And that is perhaps the single most important things you can do today in your lives to advance the cause of Israel and to advance the cause of peace. Thank you very much.

Obama's selective modesty; The president is convinced of his own magnificence, yet not of his country’s

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=181117

Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Barack Obama’s vision of NASA’s mission, as explained by administrator Charles Bolden: “One was he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.”

Apart from the psychobabble – farcically turning a space-faring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer – what’s the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far – but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra.

Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence – lauding, for example, Russia’s contribution to the space station.

Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the US to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.

For good measure, Bolden added that the US cannot get to Mars without international assistance.

Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of president John F. Kennedy’s pledge that America would land on the moon within the decade.

There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy’s. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in Strasbourg, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Which of course means: If we’re all exceptional, no one is.

TAKE HUMAN rights. After Obama’s meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we too are working on perfecting our own democracy.

Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America.

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with China about human rights, the US side brought up Arizona’s immigration law – “early and often.” As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents, suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship.

Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama’s modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America’s alleged failing – from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11.

It’s fine to recognize the achievements of others and be nonchauvinistic about one’s country. But Obama’s modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.

It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America’s sins and the world’s to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the first-person pronoun – I.

Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to cabinet members and other high government officials as “my” – “my secretary of homeland security,” “my national security team,” “my ambassador.”

The more normal – and respectful – usage is to say “the,” as in “the secretary of state.” These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution – not just the man who appointed them.

It’s a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama’s exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies – both about himself.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama’s modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence – yet not of his own country’s.

Jewish criticism of Israel While criticizing Israel, US Jews must beware of biased agendas around them

Jewish criticism of Israel

While criticizing Israel, US Jews must beware of biased agendas around them

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3917694,00.html

When American Jews are confronted with actions of the Jewish state that they believe to be wrong or immoral, do they have the right to publicly criticize Israel? Moreover, assuming for a moment that they have the right, should they exercise it? In other words, is their criticism actually helping Israel or is it only providing ammunition for our enemies to further harm Israel?

While American Jews are faced with such difficult questions, not surprisingly their counterparts in Israel are strongly against Diaspora Jewry publicly criticizing Israel in any shape or form. In addition, feeling increasingly threatened and ostracized, Israel now more than ever expects to receive strong support from Diaspora Jewry, especially from the large and powerful American Jewish community.

What then is the proper path to follow? For starters, since the Jewish nation is comprised of every Jew and the land of Israel, eretz yisrael, belongs to every Jew, then certainly American Jews can speak their mind about events in Israel. No one is suggesting that these two cornerstones of our tradition, namely that all Jews have an intrinsic connection with each other as well as with a common land, be tinkered with. However, since we don't live in a bubble and the situation is obviously more complex, the subject needs to be further analyzed from both sides of the coin.

From the Israeli perspective, one argument frequently heard is that American Jews should not speak out against Israel since they have little or no understanding of the reality of life in the Middle East. Bluntly stated, Israel's neighbors are not Canada and Mexico. This line of thinking helps explain why many left-leaning Israeli Jews are frequently very different from their American counterparts.

Unlike a Jew living in America, the typical left-wing Israeli has to deal with army service, wars and terrorist attacks. Thus, although he may support certain policies that are considered left-wing, he usually doesn't do this out of a naïve belief that Jews and Arabs will soon become best of friends or that relinquishing more land will actually bring an end to the region's hostilities.

Another common assumption in Israel is that those American Jews who feel uncomfortable about Israeli actions or policies are probably struggling with their own Jewish identity. With assimilation ravaging American Jewry, it's only natural that one's Jewish identity frequently takes backstage to other identities that are a part of one's psychological makeup. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that the most steadfast supporters of Israel usually come from Jews who are more traditional since for them the Jewish component is a dominant factor of their identity.

Finally, on a psychological level some claim that Israeli activities that appear harsh or unjust would make an American Jew with a relatively weak Jewish identity feel uncomfortable in his non-Jewish environment. Thus, by criticizing Israel perhaps he is subconsciously trying to be accepted by the non-Jewish world around him.

These are some of the claims from the Israeli angle, in addition to the ubiquitous "if you don't live here, don't tell us what to do" claim.

Nonetheless, in spite of any truth that these arguments may contain, as previously stated American Jews have the right to express their beliefs. True, perhaps they should ask themselves why they are criticizing – to honestly help Israel or to merely alleviate their own uncomfortable situation – but this is a side issue. The point is they can criticize.

Non-Jewish morality

Having said all that, perhaps there is something else going on here. Unlike the Middle Eastern culture that has an aspect of tribal affiliation and less internal criticism, American culture is hypothetically based upon an objective pursuit of truth and justice. Therefore, being influenced by the surrounding culture, American Jews tend to give precedence to what they consider the pursuit of truth and justice as opposed to simply granting unconditional loyalty to other Jews.

On the surface this is quite a noble quality, one worthy of exporting to the rest of humanity. However, this otherwise praiseworthy approach also contains two potential flaws. One is the assumption of objectivity and the second is the very understanding of such terms as “truth” and “justice”.

The combined effect today of both the media and the many powerful public relations, marketing and advertising firms is arguably more influential than ever before in shaping the mindset of the average person. Together with this powerful group there is the academic world with its own unique ability to penetrate all sorts of ideas into society.

The problem is that many of the people who have the power to influence are heavily biased when it comes to Israel. For instance, I remember being fed seemingly endless Edward Said and Noam Chomsky while working on my master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies. Although a small minority of students sensed that something was wrong and that the studies were biased, most did not have the tools to argue with our well published and seemingly brilliant political science professor. For the majority of the students, the professor's words were simply accepted as irrefutable truth.

The point is that there are many intelligent and powerful people, be it in the media or in the academic world, with a very biased approach when it comes to Israel and through their positions of influence they easily blow away the assumed theory of objectivity.

The second problem is frequently just an outgrowth of the first problem since it is people with an agenda that often shape our understanding of what constitutes truth and justice or right and wrong when assessing Israel. Moreover, even in the best-case scenario where this is not happening, the basic understandings that most American Jews have of these concepts usually come from non-Jewish sources. Although occasionally these are similar to Jewish concepts of morality, sometimes they’re not.

Thus rather than judging the Jewish State based upon the rich tradition of Jewish morality and ethics, Israel is ironically being judged by good-intentioned Jews according to non-Jewish morality.

To summarize, American Jews definitely have the right to express their opinion regarding the Jewish State since Israel, like any nation, is certainly not absolved from criticism. However, while continuing with the pursuit of the lofty ideals mentioned above, American Jews need to be more cognizant of the fact that both their understanding of these very ideals and of the actual events that transpire in Israel are frequently influenced by people with a very clear and biased agenda.

What You Can't Say About Islamism American intellectuals won't face up to Muslim radicalism's Nazi past by Paul Berman

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704862404575351354230485696.html

In our present Age of the Zipped Lip, you are supposed to avoid making any of the following inconvenient observations about the history and doctrines of the Islamist movement:

You are not supposed to observe that Islamism is a modern, instead of an ancient, political tendency, which arose in a spirit of fraternal harmony with the fascists of Europe in the 1930s and '40s.

You are not supposed to point out that Nazi inspirations have visibly taken root among present-day Islamists, notably in regard to the demonic nature of Jewish conspiracies and the virtues of genocide.

And you are not supposed to mention that, by inducing a variety of journalists and intellectuals to maintain a discreet and respectful silence on these awkward matters, the Islamist preachers and ideologues have succeeded in imposing on the rest of us their own categories of analysis.

Or so I have argued in my recent book, "The Flight of the Intellectuals." But am I right? I glance with pleasure at some harsh reviews, convinced that here, in the worst of them, is my best confirmation.

No one disputes that the Nazis collaborated with several Islamist leaders. Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, orated over Radio Berlin to the Middle East. The mufti's strongest supporter in the region was Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Banna, too, spoke well of Hitler. But there is no consensus on how to interpret those old alliances and their legacy today.

Tariq Ramadan, the Islamic philosopher at Oxford, is Banna's grandson, and he argues that his grandfather was an upstanding democrat. In Mr. Ramadan's interpretation, everything the Islamists did in the past ought to be viewed sympathetically in, as Mr. Ramadan says, "context"—as logical expressions of anticolonial geopolitics, and nothing more. Reviews in Foreign Affairs, the National Interest and the New Yorker—the principal critics of my book—have just now spun variations on Mr. Ramadan's interpretation.

The piece in Foreign Affairs insists that, to the mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler was merely a "convenient ally," and it is "ludicrous" to imagine a deeper sort of alliance. Those in the National Interest and the New Yorker add that, in the New Yorker's phrase, "unlikely alliances" with Nazis were common among anticolonialists.

The articles point to some of Gandhi's comrades, and to a faction of the Irish Republican Army, and even to a lone dimwitted Zionist militant back in 1940, who believed for a moment that Hitler could be an ally against the British. But these various efforts to minimize the significance of the Nazi-Islamist alliance ignore a mountain of documentary evidence, some of it discovered last year in the State Department archives by historian Jeffrey Herf, revealing links that are genuinely profound.

"Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion," said the mufti of Jerusalem on Radio Berlin in 1944. And the mufti's rhetoric goes on echoing today in major Islamist manifestos such as the Hamas charter and in the popular television oratory of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a revered scholar in the eyes of Tariq Ramadan: "Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one." Foreign Affairs, the National Interest and the New Yorker have expended nearly 12,000 words in criticizing "Flight of the Intellectuals." And yet, though the book hinges on a series of such genocidal quotations, not one of those journals has found sufficient space to reproduce even a single phrase.

Why not? It is because a few Hitlerian quotations from Islamist leaders would make everything else in those magazine essays look ridiculous—the argument in the Foreign Affairs review, for instance, that Qaradawi ought to be viewed as a crowd-pleasing champion of "centrism," and Hamas merits praise as a "moderate" movement and a "firewall against radicalization."

The New Yorker is the only one of these magazines to reflect even briefly on anti-Semitism. But it does so by glancing away from my own book and, instead, chastising Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch champion of liberal values. In the New Yorker's estimation, Hirsi Ali's admiration of the philosopher Voltaire displays an ignorant failure on her part to recognize that, hundreds of years ago, even the greatest of liberals thought poorly of the Jews. And Ms. Hirsi Ali's denunciations of women's oppression in the Muslim immigrant districts of present-day London displays a failure to recognize that, long ago, immigrant Jews suffered oppression in those same districts.

But this reeks of bad faith. Ms. Hirsi Ali is one of the world's most eloquent enemies of the Islamist movement. She makes a point of singling out Islamist anti-Semitism. And the anti-Semites have singled her out in return.

Six years ago, an Islamist fanatic murdered Ms. Hirsi Ali's filmmaking colleague, Theo van Gogh, and left behind a death threat, pinned with a dagger to the dead man's torso, denouncing Ms. Hirsi Ali as an agent of Jewish conspirators. And yet, the New Yorker, in the course of an essay presenting various excuses for the Islamist-Nazi alliance of yesteryear, has the gall to explain that, if anyone needs a lecture on the history of anti-Semitism, it's Ms. Hirsi Ali!

Such is the temper of our moment. Some of the intellectuals are indisputably in flight—eager to sneer at outspoken liberals from Muslim backgrounds, and reluctant to speak the truth about the Islamist reality.

Mr. Berman is a writer in residence at New York University. He is most recently the author of "The Flight of the Intellectuals" (Melville, 2010).

American Trial Attorneys in Defense of Israel

As American trial attorneys, we are highly educated professionals who are dedicated to the highest of ideals of justice, the pursuit of truth, & the zealous advocacy of our clients' rights. We rely on factual evidence, historical accuracy, and persuasive arguments to champion our clients' interests. We flush out bad arguments that are devoid of fact and reason, and impeach the lying witnesses. We are not intimidated by our adversaries. We come to the defense of those causes are righteous. We apply these ideals and trial skills to our staunch defense of the State of Israel.

Trial attorneys should be at the forefront of the battle defending Israel. If not us, who?

If we were in a court of law and had to defend Israel against her enemies, we know we would win because the law and the facts are on our side. Courtrooms do not entertain propaganda. They entertain justice.

Short of defending the State of Israel in court, we have the opportunity to defend Israel against her enemies in the court of public opinion. Our tool is the internet and we disseminate pro-Israel articles to our colleagues via this newly-formed Linkedin group. Please join and make a difference.

American Trial Attorneys in Defense of Israel