WHO NEEDS A PALESTINIAN STATE?
by Sultan Knish

  Who needs a Palestinian State, Sultan Knish asks and answers it this way: aside from the Administration in Washington and the European Union, it's "the dictators of a dozen Arab states who agree that the only thing that will fix the region is adding another Arab dictatorship to the place, and subtracting the area's one democracy." That's it in a nutshell. As it is, the diplomats are pressing harder for a state than are the Palestinians themselves. A state doesn't particularly appeal to those Cultists of Death — the fabricated Palestinian people — whose unity derives from their common source of support, charity from various world governments, and the pride they take in their talent for killing.
 READ MORE
 

WHITHER THE "PEACE PROCESS"?
by Ted Belman

  Ted Belman summarizes the latest thinking on the Peace Process -- creating a Palestinian state in Biblical Israel. Israel believes she can hold firm until the Palestinians do what they've committed themselves to but have never honored: stopping their violence. The American Administration believes it can make magic happen: two states in the Middle East, one of them Muslim, "living side by side in peace and security." The Arabs believe they can force Israel to accept the Saudi peace plan that will destroy Israel by flooding it with Palestinians; a Palestinian state is unimportant to them. All ignore that by international resolution, there is "the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine..."anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The land is Jewish — all of it including the West Bank — by irrevocable legal trust conferred by the League of Nations and continued by the United Nations. In 1922 it was also confirmed by a unanimous endorsorsement by both Houses of Congress, So, as Belman writes, "... it lies ill in the mouth for the U.S. to now deny Jews the right to settle the lands. It is the settlement freeze that's illegal, not the settlements."
 READ MORE
 

THE QUESTION OF THE APPLICABILITY OF THE FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION ON OCCUPATION TO JUDEA, SAMARIA AND GAZA
by Howard Grief

  Howard Grief makes clear why applying rules from the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) to Israel's ownership of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and Gaza rests on dubious and incomplete interpretions of FGC. Briefly, the IDF can not be considered a "hostile army" occupying Judea, Samaria and Gaza because these areas did not belong to Jordan or Egypt. By irrevocable trust, the land belonged to Israel. He also overturns the myth that Israel is an occupier of Arab land, because Mandated Palestine was never Arab land. This is an important paper. We have included appendices on some basic documents that indicate that the Peace Process and the Two-State solution violate Israel's irrevocable right to Mandated Palestine.
 READ MORE
 

ON TWISTED HIGHWAYS TO "PALESTINE" WHY "OCCUPATION" IS STILL A LIE
by Louis Rene Beres

  Louis Beres provides clearly-stated facts and long-term contextual history that makes it clear that "the so-called 'Palestinian Territories' are not occupied by Israel." They are Israeli. The context enriches the legal discussion on Israeli's right to Mandated Palestine by Howard Grief (see above).
 READ MORE
 

FORCED TO CONCEDE A BIRTHRIGHT?
by Victor Sharpe

  Victor Sharpe points out in this essay that tearing off pieces of Israeli land supposedly for peace is not new. And the result has been greater Arab hostility, not peace. The objective now is to hack Biblical Israel out of tiny Israel. It has begun by Arabs creating facts on the ground — building illegally in Samaria and Judea -- while the Israeli government devotes its time to harassing the Jews in Samaria and Judea who understand it isn't enough to own the land legally; Jews have to hold the land physically. Sharpe asks, "How long before the majority of politicians in the Knesset finally accept that Jews have returned to their ancestral and Biblical land, a land which presently stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River." Until they themselves are persuaded, how can they communicate the facts to outsiders?
 READ MORE
 

WHY TIME IS ON ISRAEL'S SIDE: A LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE ON ISRAEL'S SECURITY CHALLENGES
by Max Singer

  Max Singer succinctly summarizes Israel's major political and security problem: "... the Palestinians are determined to destroy Israel, and no concessions or improvements in our treatment of them will induce them to give up their goal." He argues that democracy is globally on the rise, and so long as Israel can continue to keep terror attacks at what he calls "tolerable levels", then within a decade, Israel can count on America to stifle the jihadist threat to the West. I wish he had given voice to how to handle related problems: as long as Israel continues a defensive minimalist policy, the morale of her citizens will continue to drop, while foreign diplomats, seeing Israel as an easy mark, will likely demand more and more concessions from her. Then too, what if, while Israel waits, Iran does just what she says she will. There is also the nightmare possibility that America will become a much weaker country, a weak reed to rely on.
 READ MORE
 

THE ROLE OF RADICAL ISLAMIC GROUPS IN ISRAEL: IMPLICATIONS FOR ISRAELI-ARAB COEXISTENCE
by Lt.-Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar

  As Mordechai Kedar writes, "The core question is to whom does this country belong? According to the Arab narrative, this has been an Arab Islamic state since the days of Omar, the caliph who conquered the country in the seventh century. According to the Islamic approach, since Islam began in 622 CE, all of history before that time has no meaning or significance." Nor do they accept that modern Israel holds the land because it overcame Arab invasions of Israel. Nevertheless, many of the names of the resident Arabs reflect the fact that they are not native to Israel but came originally from Egypt or Syria or Jordan or Lebanon or Iraq. And not that long ago. It is true that Islam insists that "land can only go one way, to become Islamic, and it can never go the other way," but why ever should we sane Westerners accept this Islam-centric view?
 READ MORE
 

BASIC THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW PRIME MINISTER
by Louis René Beres

  In this essay, Louse René Beres astutely advices the new prime minister of Israel to move cautiously. Some fundamental questions need to be answered: for example, for Israel's viability, is any form of diplomacy indicated? He notes that in its eagerness for peace, Israel has been too quick to follow directives from the "civilized world." As a result, it has yielded up Israeli land in return for nothing. Yet the Jews continue to hope for a negotiated peace while the Arabs speak plainly and truthfully that it is their "irremediable intention to annihilate the Jewish state." "For both Palestinian insurgents and Iran's president, conflict with Israel is always an all or nothing proposition [...] On the Palestinian and Iranian side, Oslo and 'Road Map' expectations have never been seen as anything more than a cost-effective method of dismantling Israel." If Israel is to survive, it must cast off some of its deepest-held fantasies, peace-seeking strategies and fallacious assumptions because it is dealing with Arab realists who know just what they want. They may on occasion need to slow down and may occasionally agree to negotiate, but they are never deviated from their goal — the destruction of Israel as a prerequisite to attacking the West. There is no middle ground and Israel should not be frittering away valuable time trying for measures — like a demilitarized Palestinian state — that look good but that have no substance. Beres' advice is both obvious and sensible: abrogate the Oslo Accord. It was a terrible and deadly mistake.
 READ MORE
 

POLITICS OF PALESTINIAN DEMOGRAPHY
by Yakov Faitelson

  Yoram Ettinger, who writes on the assesment of demographic data for Jews and Arabs, says about this essay by Yakov Faitelson: "Faitelson refutes Demographic Fatalism and documents Demographic Optimism. Faitelson highlights critical errors committed by demographic fatalism: understating Jewish fertility rate; overstating Arab fertility rate; ignoring the potency of annual Jewish Aliya (immigration) since 1882; overlooking the high Arab emigration; attributing to Jews West normative European demographic patterns, while Jewish demographics — and Jews in general — have been non-normative; accepting Palestinian Bureau of Statistics numbers without scrutiny, while these numbers have been inflated dramatically." Faitelson's essay is an excellent summary of actual demographic trends in Israel and the Territories.
 READ MORE
 

USING THE PRESENT TO FABRICATE HISTORY; USING HISTORY TO FABRICATE THE PRESENT
by Seth J. Frantzman

  A major reason Israel has communication problems is that the Arabs do so well fictionalizing history. This goes over well with an ignorant media. It is a truism that we see the present in terms of our history. Seth Frantzman makes the case for the converse: we see historical events in terms of our present biases. "... western slavery is seen as the greatest evil while Muslim slavery, which began earlier and murdered more people, is seen as positive and tolerant, all because we have a common view of the Old South as evil and Modern Islam as tolerant and diverse." Similarly, the PLO's new image as "moderate" is projected backwards. "People forget its role in Lebanon and Jordan, its mass murder of Olympic Athletes or its bombing of synagogues in Europe. People even forget that it was founded long before 1967, along with Fatah, and that its original goal was not the liberation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, but the opposite, only the destruction of Israel inside the Green Line." Part I presents a grotesque example of how the past is imagined as a doppelganger of the present in a book by a Holocaust survivor, who loathes Israel and blames America for the botchup in the Middle East. Part II describes the reality of life in Iraq in the 1920s. Despite our projected-backwards belief bolstering the assertion that modern-day Islam is tolerant, minorities in Muslim countries — Egypt's treatment of the Copts is an egregious example — were and are actively discouraged from maintaining their identities, until in many cases, they dwindle away. Part III gives us insight into at least one reason why Muslim countries are said to be tolerant and benign — their treatment by journalists as amplified in the Main Stream Press.
 READ MORE
 

PESSACH COMES
by Moshe and Rachel Saperstein

  Moshe Saperstein is in top form, his black humor at split-second timing as he records what he sees as his deteriorating body — which, all things considered, doesn't bother him as much as the soupy-headed ideas of much of the Israeli administration. in one essay, Rachel Saperstein writes of Aryeh Eldad — surgeon, politician and defender of the Jews of Gush Katif, when they were senselessly ripped out of their homes in Gaza — and his father, who she never met. She makes us wish that we too knew both father and son.
 READ MORE
 

THERE'S ROOM AT THE 'TREE' FOR YOU
by Catriel Sugarman

  Catriel Sugarman provides us with a brief but clear history of the Christian need to convert Jews. In modern times, this urgency has spawned Messianic Judaism. Initially conceived as a ruse to entice Jews into Christianity, it has — as do all social engineeering projects — had unintended consequences. It has mostly attracted Christians, some of whom try to live more or less "Jewish" while they acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, some of whom see themselves as the real Jews and are increasingly hostile to Judaism and some of whom have used it as a half way house to Judaism or Noahidism. It has also helped galvinize Jewish groups such as Jews for Judaism, Chabad and Aish HaTorah to work to stem the tide of Jews moving out of Judaism out of indifference, ignorance or amorphous spiritual longings. To date, missionaries of whatever stripe have been more of a problem in America, but Israel is also being targetted. A fascinating essay.
 READ MORE
 

THE SYRIAN FOOL'S ERRAND
by Bruce Thornton

  A major problem for the new Israeli administration is an American president who has not shown good instinctive judgment. He appears to have no familiarity with the major problem besetting the globe -- if anything, he has ignored the global Islamic insurgency and put all his eggs in the 'let's reason together' diplomacy basket. In this essay Bruce Thornton points out that Washington's last attempt at engaging Syria in diplomatic talks is but the latest of a long sequence of fool's errands. We've been there, done that. Again and again. It doesn't work. Why? The basic reason is simple but always ignored by diplomats and other fantasists: the Arab countries refuse to have a non-Muslim state in the Middle East. As a result, as Thornton writes, "We in the West assume that the Arab countries really want peace and coexistence with Israel, if only the Palestinian Arabs get their own state and the 'occupation' is ended. So ... we pressure Israel into making concessions and offers, the offers are turned down ..., and then the whole process ends with Israel excoriated on the world stage for her stubborn recalcitrance, and the U.S. condemned for not putting enough pressure on Israel to make a deal." Can diplomacy work? It depends on the objectives. Hitler and Ahmadinejad of Iran have found diplomacy an excellent delaying tactic while building a war machine. It works particularly well when the other side is a western fantasist.
 READ MORE
 

A REALITY CHECK ABOUT GAZA
by Martin Sherman

  The IDF fought in a disciplined fashion in Gaza, but they were hamstrung by the politicians, who feared a bad press. The IDF wasn't allowed to finish the job -- to destroy the sources and resources that continue to enable the Gazan terrorists to lob missiles at Israeli cities. In consequence, Hamas can, and does, claim victory. As Martin Sherman writes, Israel suffered a "calamitous diplomatic defeat" and "its international standing and image suffered." Sherman suggests the root cause of the poor showing in 2007 in Lebanon and now in Gaza is "a loss of faith in 'Victory' both as valid cognitive concept and as an attainable military objective... the real victor in both campaigns was in fact the myth of the 'The Impossibility of Victory.'" Israel needs to understand it will continue to be harassed by foreign politicians and local arabs until it is willing to "inflict a degrading defeat" on the radical Arabs and by military means make them understand that their "path can — and will — only lead to disgrace and dishonor."
 READ MORE
 

THE FAITHFUL CHILDREN
by Patricia Berlyn

  In the previous article, Martin Sherman indicated that convincing the politicians to change their belief structure is a major Israeli problem. In this essay, Patricia Berlyn writes of the IDF soldiers, who are disciplined and moral and more than willing to fight for their country. She writes about three of these soldiers and how they behaved during the Gaza campaign. Despite their discipline and compassion, the world press still managed to demonize them. And their politicians made sure they will have to fight again to finish Hamas' war from Gaza.
 READ MORE
 

JIHADI PIRATES ON HIGH SEAS: WHAT'S THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THEM?
by Walid Phares

  An American ship was recently hijacked by Somali pirates. The captain, Richard Phillips, acted heroically in protecting his crew as did the Navy snipers who took out the pirates. As reported in the Main Stream Media (MSM), Prez Obama got the credit. Actually the initiative came from the on-the-scene commander (see here.) while an indecisive Obama was still averaging out the advice from his multiple advisors. Further, the MSM ignored the fact that the pirates were Muslim and Jihadist. Walid Phares explains the significance of the episode thus: " [The pirates are] in fact part of a regional Jihadi apparatus ... [that] is not limited to the pirates but involves hostile forces from the mid Red Sea to East Africa. The Somali pirates are merely one facet of this grand circle."
 READ MORE
 

BARAKA
by Boris Zubry

  Boris Zubry has drawn on his experiences working in Saudi Arabia in several previous stories. In this one, he writes about a man named Baraka, an illiterate Muslim, a good observer, a philosopher of sorts. In our society he'd be called a homeless person. In his environment, he blends in. In this soliloquy he muses on a life filled with ugliness, abuse and death. Orphaned in Turkey he is routed to Gaza, where he and other immigrants from the Ottoman Empire "the refuse of the great empire, would" he writes, "claim this territory as our own. Who could say back then that they would teach us to hate the Jews more than the Turks?" He has been transformed into a "Palestinian." He has become member of a welfare group supported by the world and a useful weapon to club the Jews, but he is never allowed to be his own person.
 READ MORE
 

PALESTINIAN MODERATES WANT PEACE — WITH HAMAS, NOT ISRAEL
by Barry Rubin

  Months, if not years, of western and Israeli propaganda went out the window when Smiling Abbas — the Good Terrorist, Israel's 'peace partner' — announced he doesn't accept the Jewish state. Another assertion — that the PLO-PA moderates want to live in peace with Israel — was also punctured, as Barry Rubin demonstrates, when a leader of the moderates, Muhammad Dahlan, made it clear he seeks peace with Hamas, not with Israel. And the two are mutually exclusive.
 READ MORE
 

THE USE OF MOSQUES FOR MILITARY AND POLITICAL PURPOSES BY HAMAS AND OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND ISLAMIC GROUPS
by Reuven Erlich

  The Western mind doesn't see churches or synagogues as places to store and launch weaponry so it has difficulty believing Muslims have a different attitude towards mosques. Reuven Erlich provides us with detailed evidence that terror groups and their clerics find it acceptable to use the mosque for military purposes. Interestingly enough, this is not a recent innovation. As Erlich notes, "A commonly held view by Muslim religious scholars is that a mosque is more than just a place of worship and can have military and political uses, because in Muslim tradition Muhammad himself used the mosque for such purposes." What needs to be emphasized is that when a mosque is used to store explosives, launch missiles and train terrorists, it can not claim "the special protection afforded houses of worship [by international law] and may become legitimate targets for attack."
 READ MORE
 

ISLAM SHOULD PROVE IT'S A RELIGION OF PEACE
by Tawfik Hamid

  Geert Wilders' film FITNA links actual footage of violence committed by Islamists to quotes from the Koran. In consequence, Wilders has been accused of hate crime, and disrespect to Islam. Tawfik Hamid cut through the nonsense and asks the right question: "[is the] blame with Mr. Wilders, who simply exposed Islamic radicalism, or with those who promote and engage in this religious extremism." Phased thus, the answer is obvious. Hamid suggests it's time that Muslim scholars reinterpret the Koran to eliminate barbaric practices and the denigrating of other religions. These practices have no place in modern civilization. A fine idea but I'm not holding my breath.
 READ MORE
 

WHAT IS MARXISM?
by Steven Plaut

  Nowadays, Communism seldom commands front-page headlines and "You're a Communist" has ceased to be a dreaded exclamation of disapprobation, So many a younger American haven't a clue to what Communism is. Marxism, the parent of Communism, unfortunately, is still very much with us and nicely sums up the ideology common to extreme left-wingers, socialists, communists, power-to-the-peoplers, wealth-distributors, welfare-staters, nanny-staters, radical judicial activists, illiberal liberals, identity-politicians and radical theologians. Steven Plaut defines Marxism for us in clear terms. It is particularly necessary, now that the new administration in Washington seems to have embarked on yet another version of Marxism.
 READ MORE
 

SHARIAH'S BROTHERHOOD
by Frank Gaffney, Jr.

  Given Pres. Obama's new policy of showing Islam unreserved (and perhaps undeserved) respect, the command centers of current-day Islamism are having an easier time in attempting to make Sharia law universal. In the latest scheme, the United Nations is urged to criminalize Islamophobia. Islamophobia is an odd term — it doesn't mean an irrational fear of Islam. It means in practice any word or deed that will upset a Muslim. "The demand that no criticism of Islam be permitted is the preeminent feature of the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts in the West." As Frank Gaffney, Jr. points out "the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam ... concludes with the caveat that, 'All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shariah.' Translation: Liberties enshrined in the UN's foundational Universal Declaration of Human Rights are largely rendered null and void." You are urged to contact the White House and speak against this threat to American freedom of speech.
 READ MORE
 

WARFARE THROUGH MISUSE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Elizabeth Samson

  Previous articles on Lawfare -- waging war by using the muscle of the legal system -- have focussed on specific cases and countries. In this article, Elizabeth Samson points out lawfare has acquired a global reach, using three legal manipulations: involving the International courts; "misus[ing] legal terminology to manipulate international institutions and the public"; and the "prosecution of foreign nationals in domestic courts for military and civilian action." Consequently, as she points out, "...the rule of law, a weapon designed to subdue dictators and tyrants is now being misused to empower the very same, and being manipulated to subvert real justice and indisputable truth. That is not the purpose the law is designed to serve." Lawfare is a particularly effective tool for Islamists to use because as Samson writes, "Lawfare is exponentially effective because one lawsuit can silence thousands who have neither the time nor the financial resources to challenge well-funded terror financiers or the vast machine of the international judicial system."
 READ MORE
 

SHARIA'S INROADS AROUND THE WORLD
by Olivier Guitta

  Olivier Guitta reviews the latest inroads Sharia law is making globally. In Pakistan, Sharia law has been imposed in the Swat valley. In Europe, it has made significant advances in the judiciary of several countries — Italy, France and Denmark — where the courts have ignored the laws of the land and have ruled in accordance with Islamic law. In England, many Englishmen are enthusiastically in favor of adopting portions of Sharia law. They may eventually find that just as it's impossible to be a little pregnant, it is impossible to adopt a portion of sharia law.
 READ MORE
 

EUROPE'S RIGHT TURN
by Bruce Bawer

  Bruce Bawer, an American who has lived in Europe for many years, is an astute observer of western Europe's changing political and social mores. Once proud of putting their socialist idealism into welfare practice, Europeans are finding that they can no longer afford the huge influx of Muslims living on their benevolence while attempting to subvert them to Sharia law. As one consequence, their socialized health and education systems are broken. As another, political alliances are in turmoil: while many voters are reacting to the deterioration of their countries by turning politically to the right, the entrenched political establishments are reacting by ignoring the Muslim threat and focussing on demonizing right-wing politicians. The U.S.A. should take warning.
 READ MORE
 

IRAN SETTING UP SHOP SOUTH OF THE BORDER
by Todd Bensman

  Iran doesn't just rant and polish her nuclear skills. It looks like she's taking advantage of a naive administration in Washington to infiltrate into Mexico. It's possible, of course, that Iran is lonely and just wants to chat with a fellow oil-producer. But we know that Muslims — Hezbollah included — come in from Mexico, blending in with the Mexican illegals, and occasionally leaving prayer mats at the border. It will certainly be nice for the Iranians to have America ignore them while they explore business opportunities with Mexican politicos and maybe even important Mexicans like the ones that run the drug cartels.
 READ MORE
 

NAIVETE KILLS
by Barry Rubin

  Barry Rubin writes of the arrogance and self-delusion of the ignorant reporter. He writes, "It never ceases to amaze me that people who know nothing about the Middle East, in this case Roger Cohen but many other names come to mind, can suddenly proclaim themselves experts and make the most elementary errors involving the lives of other people. It also never ceases to amaze me that people can visit a country, especially a dictatorship, be wined and dined, handed a line and believe it so thoroughly that their mind is closed ever after." They return and praise dictators, explain how justified the terrorists are and whitewash the Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, too often, they write for influential newspapers that help certify they are to be taken seriously. They act in this generation as the notorious Walter Duranty did in the 1920-30s when he assured New York Times readers the Soviet dictatorship — which was busy starving millions of Kulaks — wa benevolent, doing a fine job and was just right for the Russian people. Rubin suggests reasons why "the gap between reality and perception [is] so much wider on the Middle East than on other subjects or areas of the world."
 READ MORE
 

TEXTBOOK LIES ABOUT ISLAM
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Raymond Ibrahim discusses the treatment of Islam and Muslims in textbooks used to educate our children, noting that "key subjects like jihad, Islamic law, [and] the status of women are whitewashed." Textbooks mislead "by projecting Western interpretations onto Islam." As Ibrahim writes, "... necessary knowledge is not merely ignored, but not even acknowledged as real in the first place. When American universities [or high schools] fail to teach Islamic doctrine and history accurately, a flawed epistemology permeates society at large. And since new students and new professors come from this already conditioned - towards - Islam society, not only do they not question the lack of accurate knowledge and education; they perpetuate it." So it is that while textbooks in Muslim countries openly teach hatred and hostility for non-Muslims, or infidels,..." in this country, "the government is now pushing to ban Arabic words connotative of Islamic ideology from formal analysis..." Ibrahim asks, "if children are sheltered from ugly truths today, how can they ever be expected to confront them as adults tomorrow?"
 READ MORE
 

THE VOICE OF AMERICA SILENCED ON RADICAL ISLAM
by Daniel Pipes

  It is a telling point that almost 8 years after 9/11 we still don't have agreed-upon terminology to label the Muslims who declared war against the West, America and Israel in particular. In fact, as Daniel Pipes makes frighteningly clear, the situation has deteriorated from an inability to decide whether all Islam was resurgent or only a small percentage — say 150 to 200 million Muslims — was on the rampage. Now, in both England and U.S.A., the trend among our leaders is never to use terrorist and Muslim or Islamist and fundamentalist in the same breathe. In Orwellian fashion, we will soon have no vocabulary or only a neutered vocabulary to name the enemy. This is the thinking in the Administration in Washington, the State Department, Homeland Security, the National Counter Terrorism Center, and many in the media. Islamic terrorism is now considered as 'anti-Islamic activity', as if the ones suffering are the Muslims, not us.
 READ MORE
 

ISLAM AND THE WEST: LINES OF DEMARCATION
by Roger Scruton

  In this thoughtful essay, Roger Scruton asks why radical Islam is so successful in the war they initiated against the west. True, they are dedicated to jihad, and confident they will succeed, but a major reason for their gain is that, unfortunately, the West is not confident. Scruton fears we may be at a point "in which the legitimate claims of our own culture and inheritance will be ignored or downplayed in an attempt to prove our peaceful intentions." Scuton undertakes to "spell out some of the critical features of the Western inheritance which must be understood and defended in our current confrontation." He stresses that we can not succumb to the debilitating belief that we are to blame for Islam's behavior. "... our enemies' hatred of us is entirely unjustified; and ... their implacable enmity cannot be defused by our breast-beating." An important essay. Read it carefully.
 READ MORE
 

FOLLOWING THE HERD
by Barbara Barron

  In the last issue of Think-Israel, Steven Plaut discussed the politicization of the Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal. In this essay, Barbara Barron writes of other professional journals in England that have succumbed to one-sided politics, publishing inaccurate and unprofessional pro-Palestinian articles that indulge in attributing all Palestinian ills to the machinations of the Zionist entity. As Barron points out: "The deliberate use of a professional body's publication to promulgate personal political views, especially when many of these are based upon lies and misconceptions, is unethical as well as immoral. Any professional body which actively encourages this by publishing it is in gross dereliction of its duty."
 READ MORE
 

EXPOSED: HOW PALESTINIAN FIXERS MANIPULATE THEIR MEDIA BOSSES
by Honest Reporting Staff

  There's a problem when foreign journalists need to depend on locals to translate and smooth the way, especially when the locals have a third-world political agenda and no sense of fairness or professional ethics. The locals "can be selective with the information they feed the journalist or, at worst, mistranslate the words of the interview subjects." In Israel and the Territories, far too often the Arab fixers and translators "encourage journalists to report exclusively on the 'evils' of the Israeli occupation, rather than on the lack of democratic freedoms or human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza." This becomes the 'news' fed to the newpaper's readers. This essay by Honest Reporting Staff presents a case study of one such betweener -- Nidal Rafa, who is both committed to the Palestinian 'cause' and a presumably-impartial employee of CNN and NPR. She was often the gatekeeper for what got through to the final reader; and she didn't let professional standards and ethics stand in the way of obscuring the facts in favor of the image she wanted to project. She was finally outed when she indulged in an unprofessional tirade during a talk given by Danny Ayalon, Israel's ex-ambassador to the United States -- and this was caught on tape..
 READ MORE
 

POISONING THE AMERICAN MIND
by Daniel Doron

  This is an interesting case study on NPR's anti-Israel stance by Daniel Doron. NPR promotes the notion that Palestinian Arabs are a noble folk with a noble mission — to win back their homeland, occupied by Israel, who has no business being in the Middle East. They aren't indoctrinated with hate; no, of course not. The Palestinians resort to terrorism because they are weak and poor and have few resources. Israel is excoriated if — despite trying to avoid the human shields the terrorists cynically use — they hit one child. The Arabs, of course, are given a free pass, no matter how many Jewish children they deliberately kill. A noble mission is a powerful excuse. Just as interesting is the indignation shown by those who deny NPR's obvious bias. Doron records one such letter and his response.
 READ MORE
 

WHO WAS IT THAT DEMOLISHED THE WORLD TRADE CENTER (WTC)?
by Ron Mossad

  Ron Mossad takes on the conspiracy theorists who are sure it was the Jooz that attacked the World Trade Center. This time it's a chemistry teacher that's sure nano-thermite was the method used to ignite the buildings to a high enough heat to destroy the structure. What remains a mystery is how, when the culprits are known — the Saudis who learned to fly a plane but not how to land it — and the planes crashing into the building were witnessed by anyone owning a TV set, it is still the Jews who are blamed. But why stop there? In conspiracy-think, there was no Holocaust. Or it was greatly exaggerated. And the recent stock market and housing market crash? Maybe you think it was the politicians who forced the banks to lend to people who couldn't afford the homes they bought. Maybe you think it's groups like ACORN that used "the people" to persuade the politicians to insist the banks make risky loans. Maybe you think it was the bankers who saw a way to make a lot of money. The conspiracy theorists know better — they know it's the Jews.
 READ MORE
 

A METAPOLITICAL VIEW OF USEFUL IDIOTS
by Professor Paul Eidelberg

  For the last 30-35 years, Israel's leaders have pursued a monomaniacal policy of "land for peace," despite the fact that the Arabs continue to say openly — and demonstrate — that they wish to destroy Israel, not make peace. When Israel showed the Arab countries she could rebuff direct attack, they started following a phased peace-and-war strategy -- taking over in stages. Unfortunately, Israel's wrongheaded policy is reinforced by useful idiots in the Administration in Washington, who believe that, unlike all who have previously tried their hand at a two-state solution, they will succeed. They won't.
 READ MORE
 

OBAMA AS MUSLIM APOLOGIST: AMERICA "ENRICHED" BY ISLAM
by PauL L. Williams with Michael Travis

  Dr. Paul Williams takes issue with Pres. Obama's attempt to rewrite history when he said that over the centuries "the United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans." In fact, no Muslim was in the army as late as World War 1 and less than 5000 lived here as late as 1975. His assertion that America "is not and never will be at war with Islam" ignories that even in Washington's time, American ships were harassed by the Barbary pirates, an earlier version of today's Somali pirates. The larger issue, of course, is whether Americans "must deny their heritage as a people for the sake of globalism, multiculturalism, and a New World Order."
 READ MORE
 

U. PENN HILLEL WORKING WITH HAMAS-SUPPORTING MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION (MSA)
by Beila Rabinowitz and William Mayer

  Arab student venomous hostility to Jewish students became a front-page issue in 2002 when, at San Francisco State University, they physicaly attacked a group of Jewish students from Hillel, which, ironically, was marching around singing about the joys of peace. But apparently many Jews still refuse to accept that they have been selected as attackable objects of hate by the Muslims. Beila Rabinowitz and William Mayer chronicle a recent example at U Penn, where Hillel has partnered with Muslim Student Association (MSA), a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, to promote Shari'a law. They should look at Muslim websites, which make it clear that living with Jews in love and peace is not a Muslim goal. By participating in these "sham dialogues" the Jews don't persuade the Arabs to become peaceful. They do lose their self-respect.
 READ MORE
 

IS SELF-HATE A GOD OF THE JEWS?
by Seth J. Frantzman

  After reading so many books and articles by self-effacing Jews whose hearts go out to the Palestinians, never to the Jews, Seth Frantzman wonders if there aren't really two Judaisms, "one of Jews and the other of 'the Jews'." The first group practices the Jewish religion; the second talks about "being Jewish" and "what Jews should do." They distort the meaning of Jewish symbols and Jewish holidays to gain sympathy for the Palestinians and other causes, always for a group other than the Jews. Frantzman prefers actual, authentic Judaism, where one is instructed to kill one's intractable enemies, to the practise of the Jews in name only, who define "every cause as a 'duty' of Jews and who ceaselessly heap scorn and hate on other Jews because they believe those Jews reflect badly on them."
 READ MORE
 

WAVES OF FREEDOM
by Steve Kramer

  Steve Kramer writes of the years just after World War 2 when the survivors of the Holocaust were still languishing in temporary quarters in camps in Europe. The drive was on to bring these survivors to Palestine, despite the illegal and immoral ban the British had placed on Jewish immigration. The English had received the Mandate for Palestine to help Jews build their homeland. They did not honor their mandate, even when Hitler's policy of exterminating Jews made Palestine a desperately-needed haven. They encouraged Arab immigration and made bringing in Jews a hanging offense. After the War, ten American boats were retrofitted to transport civilians to Palestine. Kramer tells the story of one of these ships, HaTikvah. and the American volunteers, Jews and non-Jews, who manned it.
 READ MORE
 

ESPIONAGE AND THE ZIONIST ENDEAVOR
by Meir Zamir

  What a Eric Ambler plot for a novel! It is 1948 and a secret and very large arms deal between a Swiss company and Egyptian and Jordanian envoys is finalized in the office of the British minister of state for foreign affairs, with Ethopia acting as beard for arms that will actually be shipped to various Arab states. If all goes well, there'd be no chance of survival for the soon-to-be-born state of Israel. Fortunately, French intelligence and the Swiss Government learn of the "Swiss-Ethiopian" arms sale, and it falls through. This isn't fiction; it happened. Meir Zamir traces the ramifications of the transaction for us, with the Hagana and France pitted against England and the Arab states. Subplots include England engineering a crisis in Syria to oust France, France planting a mole in the British Legation in Beirut and the Hagana seizing British diplomatic mail en route to the port of Haifa. It is a fascinating detailed look at a real-life spy thriller with duped diplomats, blackmailable leaders, spies, moles and duplicitous British politicians who schemed to divide Palestine among the Arab countries, not help it become a Jewish state. The underlying theme is the contrast between the actual manipulations by the colonial powers and their official position of neutrality in the Arab-Israel confllict. Scene 1 was soon followed by the invasion of the fledgling state of Israel by the neighboring Arab countries.
  READ MORE
 

REMEMBERING THE MASSACRE OF THE HADASSAH CONVOY APRIL 13, 1948
by Dr. Alex Grobman

  Alex Grobman recalls the last days of the Mandate period. Jews fought against the British to take the land already granted them and fought side by side with the British against the Germans. They also provided experts in fighting local medical problems — blood diseases, jaundice, dysentery, exotic fevers and an abundance of disease-carrying insects and poisonous snakes. The local Arabs, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, an associate of Adolph Hitler, violently attacked both Jew and Brit. Grobman focuses on the day they ambushed a convoy of non-combatant Jews and massacred most of them, while the Brits, who had promised safe passage, watched and did nothing.
 READ MORE
 

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

March 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
April 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE