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A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF JEWISH LIFE IN POLAND, 1864-1939
Posted by Boris Celser, June 30, 2007. |
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Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939 By Lucjan Dobroszycki & Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Published by Schocken Books, New York, 1977 ISBN 0-8052-3607-4
CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME OF THE IMAGES.
Boris Celser lives in Canada. Contact him at
celser@telusplanet.net
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THE LONG WAR STRATEGY?
Posted by Mrla, June 30, 2007. |
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Today, among those states, organisations and people in the region who reject Israel's continued existence, there is a perception that the correct strategy for producing the eventual demise of the Jewish state has been found. The new strategy has been likened to the antique far-left doctrine of "prolonged popular war." According to this view, conventional battlefield confrontation is only one of a variety of means to be employed to achieve the desired end. Ongoing, demoralising guerrilla attacks, which sap will and morale, the constant maintenance of conflict -- with the intention of preventing successful societal development, and a parallel political strategy of delegitimisation and isolation -- are all key ingredients. The perceived combination of sophistication and indefatigability represented by Hizbullah in Lebanon is a key model and source of inspiration in this. Victory here is not predicated on a Syrian armored column entering Tel Aviv. The intention is to gradually whittle away at the various components of Israel's strength. The goal is to make of Israel a "failed state", in which the pursuit of normal life becomes impossible This is where the various international delegitimisation initiatives come in. Initiatives such as the UCU boycott are the result of the efforts of a fairly small number of people. The anti-Israel boycott campaign offers a chance for activists of fringe political organisations to "punch above their weight" and for a moment take centre stage. The people behind the latest move in Britain, for example, are members of a small far-left party -- the Socialist Workers party. This was written by Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya P.O. Box 167 Herzliya, 46150 Israel Email: gloria@idc.ac.il Phone: +972-9-960-2736 Fax: +972-9-956-8605 |
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The decision by the University and College Union (UCU) to consider a boycott of Israel is the latest manifestation of a broader process which has been steadily gathering speed in the last half-decade: the converging of opinion on the Middle East conflict among members of two camps, who might ordinarily be considered to have little in common. The two camps are the European radical left and supporters -- both in Europe and here, in the region of Islamist states and organisations. The alliance is built around a joint commitment to Israel's disappearance from the map. Supporters of these streams sometimes gather together. The "anti-war" conference in Cairo in April of this year, attended by representatives of Hamas, Hizbullah and European extreme-left and Islamist groups, was organised jointly by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Socialist Revolutionary party. Leaders of Respect -- that joint venture of far-leftists and Muslim Brothers -- were also in attendance. But the important cross-pollination is taking place in the realm of ideas and strategies, rather than joint political organisation. Israel's regional enemies are currently in a state of euphoria. The failures of the second Lebanon war, combined with the possibly imminent eclipse of US strategy in Iraq, and the emergence of Iran as an active sponsor and inspiration for radical Islamist organisations, have combined to produce in the region an atmosphere familiar to students of its history. This mood might aptly be termed "pre-conflict euphoria". Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent contention that the "countdown to Israel's destruction has begun" perfectly captures it. A previous manifestation of this phenomenon in the region took place in the period between Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990, and his expulsion from there in Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. The atmosphere in Arab capitals prior to the war of June 1967, and the lionisation of the Palestinian guerrillas in 1968-70 are similar instances. On all these occasions, broad swathes of the intelligentsia and the people of a number of regional states came to believe that after many failures, they had finally found the blueprint for defeating Israel, and undoing the shame inherent in its creation. Today, among those states, organisations and people in the region who reject Israel's continued existence, there is a perception that the correct strategy for producing the eventual demise of the Jewish state has been found. The new strategy has been likened to the antique far-left doctrine of "prolonged popular war". According to this view, conventional battlefield confrontation is only one of a variety of means to be employed to achieve the desired end. Ongoing, demoralising guerrilla attacks, which sap will and morale, the constant maintenance of conflict -- with the intention of preventing successful societal development, and a parallel political strategy of delegitimisation and isolation -- are all key ingredients. The perceived combination of sophistication and indefatigability represented by Hizbullah in Lebanon is a key model and source of inspiration in this. Victory here is not predicated on a Syrian armored column entering Tel Aviv. The intention is to gradually whittle away at the various components of Israel's strength. The goal is to make of Israel a "failed state", in which the pursuit of normal life becomes impossible. This is where the various international delegitimisation initiatives come in. Initiatives such as the UCU boycott are the result of the efforts of a fairly small number of people. The anti-Israel boycott campaign offers a chance for activists of fringe political organisations to "punch above their weight" and for a moment take centre stage. The people behind the latest move in Britain, for example, are members of a small far-left party -- the Socialist Workers party. But such figures have been able to emerge from eccentric obscurity precisely because of the current febrile mood regarding Israel and the Middle East conflict among significant parts of educated British opinion. Thrilled by the militant challenge offered by the popular war strategy and its supporters, the boycotters wish to cast themselves in the mould of the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid campaigners of the past. They will do their bit by cutting the ties of support linking the enemy entity to its western backers through commerce, trade, and cultural and educational links. Israel, in the analogy, is to play the unflattering role of Thieu's doomed South Vietnamese republic, or the apartheid regime. Ultimately, the followers of the strategy of prolonged popular war and their international cheerleaders are advocates of failed ideologies, backed by states whose achievements in the field of societal and economic development are modest in the extreme. Previous outbreaks of pre-conflict euphoria in 1967, 1970 and 1990-91, ended in defeat and humiliation. In all three of the previous cases cited, however, it is worth noting that the mood eventually faded as a result of a decisive military humiliation suffered by its main protagonists. This time, hopefully, another way will be found in time to deflate the ugly, politicidal alliance now gathering strength. Contact Mrla at mrla26@aol.com |
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ADVICE FOR MR. BLAIR: STOP PATRONIZING THE PALESTINIANS
Posted by Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, June 30, 2007. |
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This was published June 2007 in JCPA as Vol. 7, No. 6 June 28, 2007
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The brutality of the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the collapse of the remnants of Fatah and the PLO may provide a small foundation from which to begin this transformation among the Palestinians, particular those in the West Bank. But this process will also require a basic change in international policies and perceptions with respect to Palestinians. In particular, the patronizing and ineffective emphasis on Palestinian suffering and helplessness that has dominated actions since 1948 must end. Palestinians must be given the opportunity and the external push to take control over their own destiny, and stop seeing themselves simply as passive victims. The rampant corruption and failed leadership in Palestinian society is, to a large degree, a product of the massive welfare system in effect since the Israeli defeat of the 1948 Arab invasion, and the refugees that resulted. At that time, "temporary" camps and housing were created under control of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Rather than work to end their refugee status, as in many similar situations of warfare and displacement, (and following Israel's example of integrating hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who fled violence in Arab countries), this situation was deliberately and cynically perpetuated. The objective was blatantly political -- as long as refugees and camps existed, the goal of reversing the UN partition resolution and the establishment of Israel remained alive. In this central respect, nothing has changed in almost 60 years. Beyond the massive economic cost of maintaining this situation (UNRWA spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year), more damage is caused by perpetuating the image of Palestinian victimization. The Arab defeat in the 1967 war led to the reinforcement of this image, as well as further increases in welfare funding through other aid and development frameworks through European governments, major churches, and powerful via pro-Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Although the PLO was founded in 1964, and came to be accepted as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people", its leaders limited their activities to the political and military struggle against Israel. Yassir Arafat showed no interest in building civil society or ending the dependence and victimization. On the contrary, for decades, he was a major contributor to this syndrome. The international community, and particularly European governments, perpetuated and widened this process, handing over additional funds, often in bags of cash handed directly to Arafat and his cronies. Officials in London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Oslo, Bern, Stockholm, Rome and elsewhere, ignored the obvious evidence of massive corruption and the lack of interest in building institutions or providing services (the report written much later by the EU's watchdog agency OLAF remains a tightly guarded secret, making a mockery of European calls for transparency). The core reason for allowing huge amounts of European tax revenues to disappear among Palestinian officials was paternalism. European leaders did not expect anything better from Arafat and Fatah, and did not try or condition aid to fundamental changes. After the 1993 Oslo peace framework established the Palestinian Authority and the refugee camps in this territory ceased to exist, the image of victims and helpless refugees continued, and the corruption increased, abetted by the donors. In parallel, the "Palestinian cause" and the prevalent image of helpless victims was perpetuated among self-proclaimed human rights groups and other NGOs, in the media, in churches, on university campuses, and among politicians. In Britain, powerful groups such as War on Want, Christian Aid, and others held rallies for the Palestinians, collected funds, and demonized Israel through boycott and divestment campaigns. European leaders continued to embrace Arafat until his death, long after his personal corruption and failed leadership was revealed and many Palestinians distanced themselves. By the same token, Palestinians were not expected to behave by the ordinary rules of moral and civilized behavior, or to respect human rights. And no terror attack, including bus bombings and suicide bombers in cafes, was considered repulsive enough by officials in Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch to change in this neo-colonialist image of Palestinian victimhood. Given this dismal condition, Mr. Blair would be well advised to avoid more of the same -- more victimization and sympathy for "Palestinian suffering". A sharp cut-off of all international aid would worsen the situation, but the terms of this assistance should be radically altered. Palestinians must be told that the aid will decrease annually, and that they will have no alternative but to use this assistance to become self-sufficient and to demand effective leaders. And this aid should no longer be used to perpetuate the political and ideological war against Israel being waged, in large part, through the manipulated images of passive Palestinian victimhood. This in itself will be a very difficult challenge for Mr. Blair and his staff. They will encounter stiff resistance from both Palestinian and European officials in UNRWA, the powerful development agencies such as DFID, the pro-Palestinians NGOs that receive this funding, and elsewhere and who know no other approach. Most importantly, if this is to succeed, Palestinians must be taught to take responsibility for their own situation, rather than appealing for international assistance, both economic and political, whenever they are in difficulty. In this process, more Palestinians will come to realize that support for terror and suicide bombers, and the preaching of incitement in schools, mosques and the media, has an unacceptable cost. And along with Mr. Blair, they will also understand that the decades of war with Israel must finally end through difficult compromises on the Palestinian side as well. Without leaders and society capable of such compromises, nothing else will succeed. Gerald M. Steinberg is editor of NGO Monitor and director of the Program on Conflict Management at Bar-Ilan University. |
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OSLO, WYE, THE "ROAD MAP," AND NOW THE "BENCHMARKS"
Posted by Susan Rosenbluth, June 30, 2007. |
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At the beginning of May, the Bush administration handed Israeli and Palestinian leaders an eight-month timetable setting specific dates -- some of which have already passed -- for steps both sides must take to push the peace process forward. The timeline demands that Israel remove its security roadblocks from Palestinian areas and allow Palestinian bus and truck convoys to travel unimpeded between Gaza and Judea and Samaria. The timeline gives dates for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to deploy his forces in an attempt to implement a halt to the terrorist Qassam rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. The US plan demands that Israel approve and support, in an "immediate and ongoing" manner, US requests for weapons, munitions, and equipment for PA forces loyal to Mr. Abbas. "The eight-month timeline calls for a series of steps that resemble the 'confidence-building measures' laid out in the tattered Road Map plan, another US initiative which Israel began to carry out and the PA basically ignored," said Hana Levi Julian of Arutz Sheva. "Benchmarks" US diplomats said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was committed to the effort and that she hoped to draw up a blueprint that both sides would agree to, possibly in writing, when she arrives in the Middle East on May 15. The US plan calls for the "benchmarks" to be implemented between May 1 and the end of December. A senior US official who has been involved in the discussions told Reuters that the benchmarks, which, he said, both sides had, at least in principle, agreed to, were designed to give Israelis and Palestinians "an incentive." "One side gets security. The other side gets greater freedom of movement," said the official. "A Joke" Upon receiving the timetable, Israeli officials said many of the benchmarks imposed on the Jewish state would be impossible from a security standpoint. Hamas leaders said they simply would refuse to adhere to the US plan which essentially asks the Palestinians to halt their rocket fire and relinquish terrorism in exchange for easing of restrictions and barriers in PA areas. "I swear it's a joke," the Damascus-based Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mishaal told Al Jazeera. "The equation has now become: dismantling the checkpoints in exchange for giving up resistance. This has become the Palestinian cause." Mr. Mishaal said the Palestinians would "never agree to stop Qassam rockets in exchange for easing barriers." "Very Dangerous" Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the PA minister of information and formal spokesman for the Hamas government, called the American initiative "very dangerous." "It does not meet the minimum hopes of the Palestinian people," he said, noting that it "does not include one single word in reference to lifting the economic siege on the Palestinian people." Ever since Hamas's election, the PA has faced an economic and diplomatic freeze from the US and most of Europe. To have aid restored, Hamas leaders will have to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terrorism, and accept all past signed agreements with Israel. Thus far, Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, has adamantly refused to comply with any of those requirements, and the freeze, which the Palestinians refer to as "the siege," has continued. "Pointless Initiative" "The US administration asks the Palestinian people to stop resisting the occupation, in exchange for the removal of military checkpoints, which are scattered here and there, and Israel already started gesturing that they will refuse this initiative, in order to create an atmosphere of negotiations over an originally pointless initiative," said Dr. Barghouti,describing the document as "a plan to end and trivialize the Palestinian cause." The An Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, characterized the US document as "a trickster's plan aimed to reduce Palestinian demands to below the level of the sacrifices that have been made so far." Dr. Barghouti also objected to the US proposal's reference only to Mr. Abbas's Presidential Guards, rather than the entire PA government, which, of course, means Hamas. This, he said, was a US attempt "to set a crack between the government and the presidency." Dr. Barghouti said if the Hamas government falls, "there will be no other government having the same Palestinian unanimity." He vowed that Hamas would not seek early elections because that would "neglect the challenge to break the siege imposed on the Palestinian people." No Conditionality Israeli officials said most troubling from their perspective was Washington's decision to set specific dates for when Israel would begin allowing Palestinians to travel from Gaza to Judea and Samaria. "There is no conditionality. Even if the Palestinians don't complete their obligations, the US will expect us to complete ours," a senior Israeli official explained. Israelis fear that Hamas will use the proposed convoys to extend the terrorists' power and weapons from Gaza into Judea and Samaria. Since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in the summer of 2005, Palestinian terrorists have smuggled into that area over 30 tons of illegal, offensive weaponry. It is feared that convoys would permit these weapons to reach terrorist groups in Judea and Samaria, where the security situation has not deteriorated as badly as it has in Gaza. Israeli officials also raised concerns that the Jewish state was being asked to ease restrictions on Palestinian movements without any assurances that Mr. Abbas has completed his own commitments to security. Talk and Photo-Ops "Under the plan, Israel agrees to allow the transfer of weapons to the Palestinians and to unilaterally and unconditionally forfeit Israel's security. At the same time, all the Palestinians are required to do is make declarations, hold meetings, publish documents, and have photo-ops, including at least one showing they are 'beginning to destroy tunnel networks,'" said Dr. Aaron Lerner of the IMRA news agency. He pointed out that the Palestinians already have produced some photos of PA forces pouring cement into tunnels as well as deploying forces, efforts that had no impact on either smuggling or Qassam rocket fire. Dr. Lerner maintained that, if the US were really serious, it could have required a different set of benchmarks for the Palestinians, such as the destruction of a specific list of "hard targets," including training camps or specifically identified fortifications. The US plan says nothing about requiring the Palestinians to close down rocket factories or confiscate rockets, weapons, or explosives, or hand over contraband for removal or destruction. Nothing Real Asked why he thought the American proposal has no real benchmarks for the Palestinians, Dr. Lerner offered two possibilities: The Americans don't really think the Palestinians can meet any goals, or the Americans "really don't care." "Which is worse? In either case, this means the US is proposing that Israel unilaterally increase the exposure of its citizens to terror attacks," he said. It is suspected that even the minimal security demands on Mr. Abbas could bring a backlash from Hamas and other terrorist groups, which have already stated that they have no intention of complying with the US plan. "Some of these steps are difficult," said Mr. Abbas's aid, Saeb Erekat. "But it's the right approach." Not All Demands On May 4, officials in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said Israel would not be able to agree to all the demands in the US document, especially the issue of the convoys. Other requirements in the plan, such as the lifting of restrictions on Palestinians' movements, seem more acceptable, the officials said. "Some of the ideas in the timetable Israel is already implementing; others are already well advanced; and there are some that Israel will not be able to address at the present because of security concerns," an official in Mr. Olmert's office said. The demand for a corridor between PA territories is not new. Such convoys were approved in a deal brokered by Ms. Rice in November 2005 before the Hamas terror organization became the ruling faction of the PA government. Hamas in Gaza Although Israel faced numerous attacks before Hamas's election, the number skyrocketed after the terror group took control of the PA in January 2006. Since Hamas has been in power, Gaza has been the site of kidnappings of an IDF soldier, foreign nationals, and Palestinians from many different factions. In fact, the situation in Gaza has so badly deteriorated that thousands of PA residents are reportedly lining up for visas that will enable them to live in other countries, far away from life under the PA government. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and wounded in the internecine fighting between Hamas and Fatah as they battle for control of the government, despite the unity coalition that was supposed to end the bloodshed. Journalists Targeted Reflecting the general consensus that Gaza is simply not safe, many foreign journalists no longer maintain permanent bureaus there, and the Foreign Press Association recently warned its members to avoid on-site coverage in Gaza if at all possible. Since Hamas took power, a number of reporters have been kidnapped, including journalists from the Associated Press, Fox News, the French Agence France Presse, Presse, and others. Some were held for a few hours; others much longer. On March 12, Alan Johnston, a Scottish national who works as a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation and had been in Gaza for three years, was kidnapped and has not been heard from since. In mid-April, a Gaza group, "The Battalions of Jihad and Tawheed in Palestine," said to be allied with the Islamist terror organization Al Qaeda, issued a flyer claiming it had executed Mr. Johnston and promised to release a video showing his murder. The announcement connected Mr. Johnston's kidnapping with Israel's imprisonment of convicted Arab terrorists from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Beyond the flyer, there has been no further confirmation of Mr. Johnston's death and no video has been released. Unpopular Prime Minister Perhaps one of the major obstacles to the US plan from the Israeli side is the fact that it was Mr. Olmert who agreed to it, and no one knows whether his government will last another week, to say nothing of eight months. At the end of April, the Winograd Commission, which was established to investigate the government's mishandling of the Second Lebanon War last summer, issued its findings which severely castigated Mr. Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, who had already resigned. In the wake of the Winograd Commission's findings, there have been serious calls from inside the government and from the public, for Mr. Olmert to resign and for new elections to be held. Mr. Olmert's support levels in the polls had been hovering at about three percent before the Winograd Commission's report. Afterwards, they dropped to nearly zero. Waiting for Bibi The polls also predict that, if Mr. Olmert's government falls and new elections are called, the Likud party will receive between 30 and 35 Knesset seats, compared to its present representation of 12 MKs. The polls have consistently shown that the head of Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu, is favored to be the next prime minister and that he would have little trouble forming a politically conservative coalition with the National Union/National Religious Party, Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, and a hareidi religious party, such as Shas. The three parties are expected to garner about 30 seats together, easily giving Mr. Netanyahu the necessary 61 seats to form a government. In addition, a recent poll gave Russian businessman Arkadi Gaydamak's prospective new party nine seats. Mr. Gaydamak has already forged a political alliance with Mr. Netanyahu. Asked about his plans, Mr. Netanyahu said he felt ready to reassume the position of prime minister. He said he had learned his lessons from his previous term at the head of the government, and he predicted Mr. Olmert's government would fall prematurely due to public pressure. Mr. Netanyahu and the Likud are regarded as much more security-minded than are Mr. Olmert and his government, meaning that a Netanyahu government is more likely to object to any US benchmarks that involve security risks. Israel's security establishment has already said the moves required in the benchmark plan would dramatically endanger already vulnerable Israeli civilians who face constant missile launchings from Gaza, suicide bombings, and other terrorist attacks. A Gift According to IMRA's Dr. Lerner, the new American proposal may be an inadvertent gift to Mr. Olmert. "At the very moment that many Israelis are focused on getting rid of the rascals, Ms. Rice has provided a common enemy in the form of a one-sided ludicrous proposal for Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to fight on behalf of the Jewish state," he said. The PA's problem is that while Mr. Abbas may agree to the US plan, he has, in the past, proven powerless against Hamas, who has already stated its objections to it. Not Yet Accepted The US blueprint was written by US security coordinator, Major-Gen Keith Dayton; US Ambassador to Israel Dick Jones; and US Consul-General in Jerusalem Jacob Walles. Ms. Rice approved it before it was presented to Israel and the PA, neither of whom has formally accepted it yet. Palestinian sources told Ha'aretz that the PA's Mr. Abbas has accepted the document, but, the sources said, it is feared that Mr. Olmert will "sabotage" it due to his precarious political situation. Binding Document If both sides accept the document, its rigid timetable will become a binding agreement. The bus convoy operating five days a week between the Erez checkpoint at the entrance to Gaza and the Tarqumiya roadblock at the entrance to Hebron is required to be established no later than July 1, 2007. Even earlier -- June 1, 2007 -- Israel is required to remove specific roadblocks and other traffic and movement restrictions in Bethlehem, Hebron, and Shechem (Nablus). The document requires the PA to develop a plan against the Qassam rockets no later than June 21, 2007, and Mr. Abbas must deploy his forces against the terrorists by then. Palestinian forces are also required to act to prevent arms smuggling in Gaza in coordination with Israel. The plan requires Israel and the PA to re-establish coordination and liaison headquarters in Judea and Samaria. Transferring Weapons Some Israeli officials expressed dismay at the new plan's requirement for Israel to transfer or allow others to transfer weapons to the PA. This, too, is not a new idea. In the past, Israel has been encouraged to allow weapons to reach Palestinian leaders who allegedly were going to make efforts to stop terrorism. It never worked, and the weapons that went to the Palestinians usually were eventually used to kill Jews. In May 2006, weapons given to the PA were used in terrorist attacks that resulted in the death of one Israeli and the wounding of another. Last December, when another series of weapons were transferred to PA forces loyal to Mr. Abbas, a Palestinian-terrorist leader frankly told the press, "We promise to show Israelis very soon that the weapons brought for [Mr. Abbas's] Presidential Guard and [PA] security forces will be used against the occupation." Yuval Steinitz, then chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, predicted that "a lot of IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians will be killed with these weapons." No Discussion of Benchmarks According to Mr. Olmert's foreign press adviser, Miri Eisen, benchmarks were not discussed by Messrs. Olmert and Abbas at their meeting in mid-April. "They certainly discussed the problem that the Palestinians have not addressed the security issue to Israel's satisfaction at all," Ms. Eisen told Dr. Lerner. She called the halting of Qassam rocket-fire into Israel "a pretty obvious benchmark." "This is something that comes up at every meeting. And the bottom line is that Israel is not willing to expand -- certainly not the 'non-ceasefire,'" she said. However, she said, there has been no discussion between the Israelis and Palestinians on any concrete benchmarks that fall into a timeline for achievement. Endanger Israeli Lives In the US, the Zionist Organization of America took immediate exception to the "benchmark plan." ZOA president Morton Klein, who is urging Israel to reject the plan, wrote to President George Bush, asking him to revoke it. Mr. Klein said the plan "entails major Israeli concessions to the unreformed Hamas/PA terrorist regime and will thus endanger Israeli lives." Mr. Klein pointed out that the plan does not mention the need for the PA to fulfill its commitments under the signed Oslo agreements and the Road Map to jail terrorists, close Palestinian-terrorists' weapons factories, and end the incitement to hatred and murder which is regularly heard in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools, and youth camps that feeds terrorism. "None of these commitments have been fulfilled by the PA," said Mr. Klein. Rewarding Terror He pointed out that, in return for many far-reaching concessions by Israel, all the "benchmark plan" requires of the PA is that it deploy security forces and merely "begin curbing rocket fire" into Israel by Palestinian terrorist groups. "The 'benchmark plan' is simply a dangerous mistake that rewards the PA's promotion of terror and refusal to comply with their signed commitments. It not only fails to hold them accountable for their horrific actions, but sends a message that we are not serious about their compliance with past agreements," said Mr. Klein. He maintained that because the plan "seeks to launch Israel along the road to major concessions to the PA regardless of the on-going non-fulfillment of PA commitments" to past agreements, the "benchmark plan" is "divorced from reality" and "dangerous to the security and welfare of Israel and its citizens as well as to America and its citizens." Under these circumstances, he said, the new plan "not only makes a mockery of Israel and US, but sends the message to Al-Qaeda and others murdering Americans in Iraq and elsewhere that terrorism pays." No More Weapons Mr. Klein also strongly condemned the "benchmark plan" requirement that Israel supply weapons to the PA at the discretion of Maj-Gen Dayton, calling it "an insult to Israeli sovereignty and a danger to Israeli citizens." "Israel has taken huge risks for peace in the past, handing over all of Gaza and half of Judea and Samaria to the PA, as well as money, assets, and even arms, all of which were simply used to murder and maim more innocent Jewish men, women and children. The very existence of this new timetable for further, dangerous Israeli concessions to the PA, which has done nothing to jail and arrest terrorists or end incitement to hatred and murder within the PA, shows that these realities are simply being ignored by Secretary Rice and her advisers," said Mr. Klein. He called for the Israeli government to "decisively and utterly reject this plan" and for President Bush to "disown it." "The 'benchmark plan' is simply incompatible with the President's insistence that he is 'the best friend Israel ever had,'" said Mr. Klein. Susan Rosenbluth is published and editor of Jewish Voice and Opinion in Englewood, NJ. Contact her at susan@jewishvoiceandopinion.com or visit the website: http://jewishvoiceandopinion.com |
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HAMAS, AL-QAEDA, IRAN AND THE GAZA CIVIL WAR
Posted by David Meir-Levi, June 30, 2007. |
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To: president@whitehouse.gov Dear Mr. President, There is a real civil war going on in the Gaza Strip now. Hamas is winning. Hamas seems to have planned an assassination attempt on both PM Abbas and PM Olmert. Hamas seems suddenly to have gone in to high gear with attacks on Fatah as well as on Israel. Two questions come to mind: 1.) Why is Hamas diverting some of its bellicose energy against Israel, even while its fighters roam the streets of Gaza assassinating putative Fatah sympathizers and attacking Fatah emplacements and personnel? Per the analysis below, el-Qaeda has been in Gaza since c. August 2005, if not before. Its operatives have grown in strength and in recruits. And as some may recall, Dr. Ayman ez-Zawahiri (el-Qaeda's #2 terrorist leader) had some very harsh words with PA Prime Minister Isma'il Haniyeh earlier this year when it looked like Haniyeh was going to enter in to some type of agreement with Abbas in order to advance the notion that a 'Hudna' with Israel was in the works. ez-Zawahiri's chastizement of Haniyeh came on the tail of an argument between Haniyeh (who lives and works in Gaza) and Khaled Mesha'al, the operative leader of Hamas living in exile in Damascus. Mesha'al was displeased with the degree to which Haniyeh was ammenable to Abbas' more flexible approach to Israel, and to his willingness to meet with Rice about peace talks with Israel. It looks like Mesha'al and ez-Zawahiri won. And where does Iran fit in to this? Israeli security sources noted months ago that Iranian operatives were located in the Gaza Strip. Let's recall that despite their Shi'ite-vs.-Sunni differences, el-Qaeda and Iran have worked together for decades. And Iran has long desired (since the Presidency of Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at least, and more probably since the Ayatollah Khoumeini's 'Islamic Revolution' back in November of 1979) to be the leading force in the world-wide Jihad against 'global non-belief', displacing Saudi Arabia who held that honor since shortly after the six-day war (June, 1967). So, with Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip, the anarchy and power vaccuum there created the ideal circumstances for the injection of el-Qaeda forces in the Strip, with Iranian funding. My guess (just a guess) is that Iran now funds Hamas, and with that funding gains leverage such that it, via its Damascus puppet Mesha'al, decides that Hamas needs to stay true to its doctrine and its commitments -- terrorism until victory of martyrdom. And to make sure that Haniyeh is not seduced by the power that he could wield if he were to acquiesce to the west's pressures to moderate, Iran sends in the el-Qaeda troops. So, what better way to establish the supremacy of Jihadist Imperialist Supremacist Totalitarian Triumphalist Terrorist Theocratic Tyrannical Islamofascism than to: a.) get rid of the more moderate competitor/partner in a civil war which Hamas is sure to win (recall that many PA police and security forces moonlighted for Hamas during the Intifada 2 years) It may not be likely that this will lead to a better life for Palestinians, but it will most assuredly advance the cause of el-Qaeda's war against global non-belief and strengthen the position of Akhmedi-Nejad as the first and only Muslim leader to be in a position to really wipe out Israel and take on the full force of western opposition to the 'Islamic Revolution'. That's why the civil war is happening now. So, Mr. President, what should you learn from these events and analyses? a. THERE IS NO PEACE PROCESS. HAMAS DOES NOT WANT TO GOVERN. HAMAS DOES NOT WANT PEACE. HAMAS WANTS TO FIGHT AND TERRORIZE AND ATTACK UNTIL ISRAEL IS DESTROYED -- AND THEN THEY'LL START ON OTHER WESTERN TARGETS, IN OPEN ALLIANCE WITH EL-AL-QAEDA AND IRAN. Yours,
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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SCANDAL: THE WELFARE STATE OF "PALESTINE"
Posted by Moshe Dann, June 30, 2007. |
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According to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) tens of billions of dollars (one-third from US taxpayers, the rest mostly from Canada and European countries) have been spent over the last 50 years providing "Palestinian refugees" and their descendents. An estimated half million people 60 years ago, that number is now over four million and increasing daily. UNRWA's purpose: to insure the "Palestinian Right of Return" -- the destruction of Israel. No Arab country except Jordan -- where they constitute more than two-thirds of the population -- accepts them as citizens. Saudi Arabia, for example, recently passed a law allowing all foreigner workers in the country to apply for Saudi citizenship next year – except Palestinians. More than 400,000 "Palestinian refugees" living in UNWRA-supported "camps" in Lebanon cannot work or even go to school outside their designated areas. Ditto for Syria. Most "Palestinian refugees" listed by UNRWA (which includes Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza) in 2002, don't even live in the camps, but in nearby villages and towns. All receive free assistance and services for the rest of their life, including their children, their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, ad infinitum. According to UNRWA's rules, anyone who applied for relief, claiming they lived in Palestine for at least two years prior to 1948 (when Israel was attacked) and claimed to have lost property and livelihood was entitled to assistance, regardless of where they came from, or where they live today. Once a "Palestinian refugee," always a "Palestinian refugee" –no matter what. That explains why the number of "Palestinian refugees" who receive aid has grown from a few hundred thousand to four and a half million (although no one really knows the exact numbers because of UNRWA's faulty records). That number could double in a generation – along with UNRWA's nearly half-billion-dollar annual budget. UNRWA is supposed to verify that those who receive assistance don't work. Not surprisingly, however, no one checks. No one confirms the validity of those who receive benefits from UNRWA. After death, certificates of eligibility are simply passed on to others. No one checks bank accounts, automobile registrations, or property ownership. With multiple wives families can comprise scores of children – all "refugees." And, according to UNRWA rules, even if one parent is "Palestinian," the entire family is eligible for assistance and "refugee" status. UNRWA openly admits that they don't monitor programs that support terrorism, or payments to families of terrorists by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hizbullah and (until recently) Iraq's Sadaam Hussein. In fact, nearly all teachers employed by UNRWA are members of terrorist-controlled unions. Funding these teachers and the curriculum of hatred and bigotry which they teach supports terrorism and terrorist organizations. This may explain why so many children are willing to blow themselves up, carry weapons and explosives and place themselves as shields for terrorists. Although responsible for what goes on in the areas it administers, UNRWA ignores the fact that terrorists are being trained there, including the next generation of homicide bombers, that bomb-making factories flourish inside the camps, and that arms and ammunition are stockpiled there. UNRWA ignores the launching of thousands of rocket attacks against Israel from within territory under its responsibility. And most outrageous, UNRWA is accountable only to the UN General Assembly, dominated by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference which is also part of the 115-member Non-Aligned Movement -- an automatic majority in the 191-member U.N. UNRWA violates its own UN mandate (Resolution 302), which states (Paragraph 5): "constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief." UNRWA (Paragraph 7) indicates only two responsibilities: to work with Arab governments to provide jobs for the refugees and to help Arab governments end (not perpetuate) international assistance. UNRWA has been doing the exact opposite. The "Palestinian Right of Return" (to Israel) -- their basic, non-negotiable demand – encourages the refusal to accept Israel's existence and fuels Palestinian terrorism. It reinforces Palestinians' belief in their victimization, promotes a culture of denial and self-destruction, and sabotages any hope for change. UNRWA facilitates this mess. And we pay for it. Had enough? Stop the funding, now. Moshe Dann, a former asst professor of History, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem. This essay comes from the May 2007 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
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A MIGHTY SPIN: PARAMOUNT IN BED WITH CAIR
Posted by Arlene Peck, June 30, 2007. |
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This essay appeared in Arutz-Sheva
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CAIR has perfected the art of spin. Move over, Bill O'Reily! CAIR has so perfected the art of spin that I don't think even you would catch the con job until it was over. At least, I'd bet that the innocents at Paramount didn't have a clue that the screening they arranged for the movie A Mighty Heart was a ruse to make CAIR, the terror-supporting organization, look good. Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of CAIR-Greater Los Angeles Area, joined forces with Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, a nondescript nobody whom no one has ever heard of. Lacking credibility, his claim to fame, apparently, is that he is head of a dot.com "synagogue" and a group called "Jews on First.com." He shared the panel with another group called "Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace" (don'tcha just love it?). Oh yes, another of the panelists was DeDe Gardner, co-producer with Brad Pitt/Plan B Entertainment. She was on the stage thinking she would be discussing the movie in an effort to publicize it. The event was held in the Sherry Lansing screening room at the studio. I thought it kind of a clever that the venue was a site named for a Jewish girl who made good. It was simply a forum for presenting the audience with a means to discuss how to "Build Unity and Understanding in Today's World." Folks, for this terrorist-supporting organization to carry that off.... Well, imagine the Nazi party having a car wash benefit for a group of yeshiva boys. I was waiting for them to raffle off a puppy. The movie, about Daniel Pearl, was made to show the sick, barbaric mentality of his captors and the primitive and savage lifestyle in that part of the world. Yet, Paramount gave CAIR a platform from which to proclaim that the criminals out there were giving Muslims a bad name. Hussam, referring to CAIR, claimed that Muslims suffer from misconceptions: "There is widespread belief that Muslims are sympathetic to terrorism," and, of course, "CAIR cares about all religions." I think that he referred to what is happening now as the "demonization of the Muslim religion." Finally, he smiled and said, "CAIR cares about not only Daniel Pearl, but all human beings. CAIR is speaking against evil through their own people." Of course, had we been allowed to ask questions during this so-called "dialogue," I would have said that if that were the case, then how come the Koran says that if you're not one of them, then you must be destroyed. Of course, they carefully picked a self-hating "rabbi," who never said where his congregation was located -- except in the universe of the dot.coms. He spoke movingly about how the Jews should be so grateful because the Muslims gave them refuge in Turkey in years past. And how no Jewish group would be "brave" enough to bring together a group such as the one gathered. And that the "problem in the Jewish community is because they suffer from Islamic phobia," and he commended CAIR for the courage that they showed. He couldn't imagine a Jewish organization having the "courage" to bring about a dialogue such as the wonderful evening we were experiencing.... Gawd! While the now-benevolent group CAIR was presented by the good people at Paramount as a loving organization, with all of its 33 chapters, I couldn't help but wonder what Daniel's wife and parents would think of that evening. I don't blame Paramount because they are so clueless. Here, in the land of Hollywood, they don't even know what FOX news is, much less CAIR or its intentions. However, it might have been prudent for Paramount to do a little homework before giving this group credibility by letting CAIR use their studios to promote its propaganda. In the movie, the terrorists made the comment that it was "the Jews" who were responsible for 9/11 and that 4,000 Jews stayed home from work that day at the Twin Towers. I thought it wouldn't have hurt had this misconception been corrected. In fact, the ultimate spin was the end of the movie, when they didn't show the beheading. These peaceful people needed a reminder. One of the primary comments, repeated often, was that there was no reason to be ashamed of being Muslim. Oh really? It was interesting that this so-called panel was, in reality, a sounding board to promote the Islamic culture. Although the evening had been billed as a "dialogue" about the movie, only two hand-picked, bland questions were asked. Then, suddenly, an announcement was made that there was,unfortunately, no more time for questions. Apparently, there was no time for questions at all. Especially the one that I had written, asking, "If the Muslim religion is such a peaceful one and the 'criminals' don't represent the masses, then why aren't we seeing 'million man marches' protesting the actions of the murderous and the dysfunctional, by the 1.6 billion people they claim to represent?" In fact, forget the million-man marches, how about a twenty-five-man march? (Women, in many of those Islamic countries, aren't even allowed on the streets. Look at the pictures next time and see how many women you see in the crowd.) The moral of the story? Maybe the Israeli government ought to hire CAIR to handle their public relations, as CAIR sure seems to be doing a better job at it. Maybe they could get a big Hollywood studio to help them in their endeavors. Maybe they'll even raffle off a trip to the Holy Land. Or at least have everyone leave with a hug. Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com |
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SIXTY YEARS OF SILENCE: THE STORY OF GUNTER GRASS
Posted by Bryna Berch, June 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Petra Marquardt-Bigman, a freelance writer and researcher with a Ph.D. in contemporary history. She has published a book and a number of articles on American intelligence on Germany during and after World War II; her current work focuses on Europe's political discourse about Israel and the Middle East conflict, and she is writing a related blog, "The Warped Mirror", at the Jerusalem Post's Blogcentral site. This article was published as Volume 1, Issue 2 (April 2007 / Iyar 5767) Article 8/9 in Covenant -- Global Jewish Magazine by the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya -- P.O. Box 167, Herzliya, 46150, Israel. The email address is covenant@idc.ac.il |
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Abstract: In August 2006, the German writer and Nobel laureate Gunter Grass caused a media-quake of major proportions when he revealed that he had served in the SS. While the ensuing controversy pushed the debate about the war between Israel and Hezbollah into the background, both issues once again brought up the problematic legacy of a past that, reflecting postmodern preferences, is increasingly viewed as a "grand narrative" structured in terms of "victims" and "perpetrators." Highlighting a casual remark of Grass about his supposedly first encounter with racism as an American POW and his failure to break his silence when he accepted the offer of an honorary doctoral degree from an Israeli college, the article explores how Europe's "grand narrative" shapes the European discourse about Israel and the Middle East. At the end of 2006, the Guardian's Berlin correspondent noted that Germans would remember the year "for just one rather marvelous thing -- the World Cup." [1] Under the title "The War is Over", the article highlighted some of the World Cup's aspects that doubtlessly were appreciated even by those (relatively few) Germans who couldn't care less about football: the country had shown for all the world to see that it had emerged from the shadows of its past -- Germans could wave their flag and cheer their national team without projecting anything but a harmless, infectious enthusiasm for a popular sport. Among the fans watching the World Cup was the famous German author and Nobel laureate Gunter Grass. The almost 80-year-old writer had just finished his latest book, an autobiographical work about his youth that was due to be published a few weeks after the World Cup. He had also been offered an honorary doctoral degree from an Israeli college, and in between watching the World Cup matches and reading the proofs for his book, he made time to meet the representatives of Netanya Academic College. It was reportedly a pleasant meeting that took place at Grass's home near Lubeck in northern Germany. The Nobel laureate told his guests that he was happy to accept the honor offered to him and that he looked forward to visit Israel for an official ceremony that would be organized by the college. But Gunter Grass did not tell his guests what he would tell an interviewer a few weeks later: his forthcoming autobiography Peeling the Onion[2] would reveal a secret that he had kept for more than sixty years. The secret was a most unexpected one from a man like Grass who had spent a lifetime speaking out passionately about the need for Germans to face up to their Nazi past. The secret was that Gunter Grass himself had kept silent for more than sixty years about his own service in the SS. It quickly became clear that the young Grass had been drafted for service in the Waffen-SS towards the end of the war, and that he had not been involved in any of the atrocities committed by Himmler's notorious organization. Yet, it was unavoidable -- and some thought, calculated -- that his confession caused a media-quake of major proportions that would reverberate for months throughout Germany and even in the European and international press. The history that during the World Cup had seemed just a faded memory was back in the headlines again. But it was not just the confession of Nobel laureate Gunter Grass that forced Germans in mid-August 2006 to once again confront their past. The summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah had already brought back the sensitive question of whether Germans could feel as free as others to criticize Israel's conduct. Yet, this debate was quickly drowned out by the flood of editorials, commentary and TV programs that covered any conceivable reaction to Grass's confession and tried to square the rather belated revelation with the writer's lifelong pose as a righteous leftist. In the respected Suddeutsche Zeitung, two younger writers soon issued an exasperated "plea for less Grass and more debate on the Middle East."[3] Protesting that the generation of Grass was dominating the political discourse, they criticized that "all express their understanding, their consternation, their disappointment, even their nausea -- none of them is under 75. A class reunion of old German intellectuals who feel chronically inclined or obliged to enlighten us on the same topic: Hitler and me.[...] It's shameful that within three days, the Grass affair has elicited more statements and morally-grounded positions from German writers and thinkers than the war in northern Israel and southern Lebanon did in the 33 days prior." There was another aspect of the frenzy surrounding Grass's revelation that was perhaps no less "shameful" and certainly no less telling: In the lengthy interview before the publication of his book, Grass had smugly recalled how he, a young SS recruit who was held as a POW by American forces, encountered "direct racism" for the very first time when he witnessed the discrimination of black soldiers in the US Army.[4] It was a rather casual remark, and among German commentators, it went largely unnoticed. But the Wall Street Journal picked it up for what it was: an editorial noted with some sarcasm that, growing up in Nazi Germany, the young Grass should have had a few opportunities to notice racism prior to his capture by American forces. Describing the Nobel laureate as "a darling of the anti-American and anti-globalization set," the editorial concluded that SS-recruit Grass "felt morally superior to those damn Yanks, and he still does six decades later" -- all of which earned him, in a pun on his most famous novel, the designation "Tin Moralist."[5] A Hungarian commentator highlighted another aspect: the public intellectual Grass, who claimed to speak with the authoritative voice of moral indignation on Germany's past and present, had obviously failed to notice in his youth that Jews were disappearing; sixty years later, he was an outspoken critic of America, but had once again nothing to say about the threats of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[6] There was indeed something very characteristic in the casual and smug way in which Grass had recalled his first encounter with "direct racism," and the incident -- as well as the fact that it was barely noted in the flood of commentary that engulfed Europe's media in the aftermath of Grass's belated confession -- may well serve as an illustration of a crucial mechanism that shapes the views of Europe's elites not only about America, but also about Israel. Europe has come a long way in its approach to the country that was established because of the very direct racism that went unnoticed by the young SS recruit Gunter Grass. Guilt-ridden support for the state of the Holocaust's survivors has given way to sharply critical attitudes that do not always stop short of accusing Israel of crimes as evil as those committed against European Jewry. Neither Israelis nor pro-Israel advocacy groups seem quite to understand what feeds the hostility that they see coming from Europe: the countless calls to boycott Israeli academia, films, exhibitions, companies, and products; the threats to try Israeli army personnel and Israeli politicians for war crimes, and, beyond calls and threats, actual measures like the ban that prohibits refueling stops of El Al planes with military cargo in several European countries, Germany among them. Equally hard to understand is how those who used to fervently endorse the pledge of "Never Again" would remain somewhat aloof when the call to wipe Israel off the map was issued from Teheran. Eyebrows were raised, dismay was expressed, but in the end the response remained muted, and neither the intellectual nor the political debate took much notice of the existential threat that a nuclear Iran poses for Israel. But perhaps Europe simply sees little reason to worry about existential threats to Israel -- after all, in the fall of 2003, a survey in the European Union revealed that 59 percent of Europeans regarded Israel as a greater threat to world peace than Iran. As always in situations like this, Israeli media and international organizations like the Anti-Defamation League blamed latent antisemitism for European hostility towards Israel. But this well-worn explanation fails to grasp the formative forces that are shaping European public opinion. In this context, Grass's casual remark about his first encounter with "direct racism" may be paradigmatic: Obviously a young man who grew up in Nazi Germany and went through SS training did not encounter "direct racism" for the first time when he witnessed the discrimination of black servicemen in the US Army, but doubtlessly that was the first time Grass noticed racism. His sensitivity to manifestations of racism might have been enhanced by his "demotion" from being a member of what he perceived to be SS elite troops to being a prisoner of war, in other words: from being a potential perpetrator to being a potential victim. Some sixty years later, Gunter Grass seems to have devoted precious little effort to questioning his perceptions or the notions that were formed on the basis of these perceptions. It is the narrative that preoccupies him -- and it is narratives that preoccupy the political discourse in postmodern Europe. In the prosperous and largely peaceful environment that Europe has provided for its citizens in the past few decades, the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s have receded into history. While the Holocaust is obviously still widely regarded as part of a traumatic and formative past, prevailing postmodern preferences have shaped the discourse about this past. On the one hand, the Holocaust has given rise to a "grand narrative" that structures European perceptions of the past and present in terms of "victims" and "perpetrators." On the other hand, the postmodern perspective which views the legacy of the Holocaust as a narrative construct has diminished the acceptance of interpretations that tied European, and particularly German, guilt for the destruction of European Jewry to the establishment of Israel and required a basically positive view of the Jewish state. After decades of diligent Vergangenheitsbewaltigung -- that quintessentially German construct describing the process of coming to terms with the past -- Germans and Europeans alike feel that they have graduated beyond the constraints of "political correctness" in the discourse about Israel. At the same time, this discourse reflects Europe's grand narrative and is thus generally still conducted within the coordinates set by the categories of the "victim" and the "perpetrator." The perception that, in the case of Israel, the state and the people that had been accorded unquestioning victim status have become perpetrators makes this discourse particularly resistant to voices that speak for a country that wants to be neither victim nor perpetrator. Europe's tendency to now overcompensate for the previous "political correctness" towards Israel also has to be understood in the context of the current challenges that are posed by the radicalization of Muslim minorities in Europe and the related threats to social peace and public security. Faced with these problems, Europe has, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, experienced a sense of being threatened. In a somewhat paradoxical switch of roles, the political right tends to interpret that threat within a conceptual framework that conjures the specter of the rise of a new fascism; by contrast, the political center and left resolutely reject any attempts to look for parallels in the past and insist that the present policies of the US and Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories are the major factors that cause the radicalization of Muslim populations. What seems to be rarely noted in the European discourse is that this view echoes quite uncritically the narrative that has been instrumentalized for decades in the Muslim world to channel popular dissatisfaction with repressive and stagnant regimes. Thus, the publication of a statement of support for Gunter Grass by 46 Arab intellectuals, who dismissed criticism against the writer as a ploy to divert attention from the crimes of Israeli "neo-Nazis," may have been an embarrassing show of solidarity, but it was not necessarily a completely undeserved one.[7] The Neue Zurcher Zeitung that carried the report noted critically that the statement reflected an intellectual discourse divorced from reality, feeding on slogans, empty rhetoric, and conspiracy theories. This criticism may not only apply to the intellectual discourse in the Arab world. The dichotomy between the role of the victim and the perpetrator that dominates the discourse about Israel in Europe and elsewhere reflects perhaps a deep-seated human longing for morality and justice. However, as the example of Gunter Grass might illustrate, the human experience is more ambiguous: what would have happened if he had been just one year older, and had been drafted earlier in the war? Would his misguided youthful idealism have made him a willing perpetrator, or would he have refused participation in murderous SS commandos, and have become a victim? And what would have happened to a Jewish US soldier taken prisoner by Grass and his comrades? Futile questions perhaps, and Grass himself seems either never to have wondered about them, or is simply all too sure of the answers. Against this background, it is interesting to note that Tom Segev, in an article in Haaretz,[8] still thought that Israelis should appreciate the positive response of Grass to the offer by Netanya Academic College, because "Israel these days is not a major source of attraction for people who stand for the values of justice and human rights, even if they're German." After the interview in which Grass revealed that he had served in the SS, the college requested and received from Grass a letter of explanation -- which clearly was formulated with German public opinion in mind -- but eventually it was decided to "defer" the granting of the honorary degree to Grass. However, Segev suggested that Grass should perhaps still be invited at some point to Netanya, so that Israelis would have a chance to hear "what a person like him ought to say about the occupation and the oppression in the territories." Just a few days after Segev's article appeared, Israelis actually did get a chance to hear something that was probably not far from what Grass would say: considering what is known about the views held by Grass, it is safe to assume that he would largely agree with the positions expressed by a group of mostly German academics who, in mid-November 2006, published a "manifesto" demanding a re-evaluation of the "special" relationship between Germany and Israel.[9] Under the title "Friendship and Criticism", the authors devote considerable room to assuring readers of their friendship for Israel, but they reject the notion that Germany's past requires them to uncritically support Israel; at the same time, the manifesto repeatedly invokes the need, even the duty, for "special sensitivity." Unfortunately, the manifesto shows little evidence of "special sensitivity"; indeed, it would rather seem that there is "special insensitivity" when the manifesto echoes some of the favorite lines of such "friends" of Israel as the Iranian president. Just like Ahmadinejad, the manifesto's authors seem to regard the establishment of the State of Israel as a historic injustice against the Arabs: "It is the Holocaust that has, for six decades, caused the continuous, and currently even unbearable, suffering of the Palestinians.[...] countless dead, families torn apart, expulsion, and life in make-shift housing up to today have been the consequence." The text continues to argue that, without the Holocaust, Israel would not feel justified to ignore so intransigently the human rights of Palestinians and Lebanese, and without the Holocaust, Israel would not be backed in this -- materially and politically -- by the US. By arguing that Israel owes its existence exclusively or primarily to the Holocaust, the authors of the manifesto seem to deny that Zionism was a legitimate quest for a Jewish homeland. Indeed, the manifesto emphasizes that the UN decision to "accept" the establishment of the State of Israel was taken still under the "shock" of the Holocaust and "against the Arab states." According to the manifesto, the Middle East conflict has German and European roots, and it was no fault of the Palestinians that "a part of the European problems was transferred to the Middle East." Obviously, this has been said before in Farsi and in Arabic. There is equally little "special sensitivity" when the manifesto's authors declare that they are "convinced" that Jewish intellectuals like Adorno, Einstein, Freud, Marx and Zweig -- "of whom we are so proud and without whom German culture and the German contribution to the sciences would be so much poorer" -- would subscribe to the principle that only respect for equality, human rights and international law can guarantee peace and the continued existence and security of Israel, Jews in the Diaspora, and the future Palestinian state. It is indeed likely that these German-Jewish intellectuals would have agreed with this principle, but the problem that is overlooked by the professors who authored the manifesto is that there has been historically a severe shortage of Arab-Muslim intellectuals who agree with this principle. In fact, not long before the publication of the manifesto, the Berliner Zeitung carried an article by an Iraqi-born writer who discussed the "Two faces of Arab Intellectuals" and criticized that Arab intellectuals would routinely condemn terrorist attacks in English, German, or French, and praise them in Arabic.[10] However, the authors of the manifesto clearly prefer to focus on what can be criticized about Israel. While there are unequivocal condemnations of suicide attacks and the launching of Qassam rockets, the manifesto leaves little doubt that it is the suffering inflicted by Israel on Palestinians and Lebanese that is "unbearable." Notwithstanding all the reaffirmations of friendship for Israel, the nine pages of the manifesto paint Israel as the victims' state that has become a cruel perpetrator, cynically trampling human rights and dignity in its lust for land, a mighty militaristic monster, propped up by 20 percent of America's foreign aid budget, oppressing, terrorizing and killing Palestinians and Lebanese at will. It is simply remarkable with how much righteousness European intellectuals feel entitled to criticize Israel based on a simplistic view of the Middle East conflict that ultimately reflects Europe's "grand narrative" of victims and perpetrators. Europe's image of Israel is central for European perceptions of the Middle East: torn between feelings of obligation from their historic guilt and resentment arising from the often unacknowledged notion that the Jewish state has to prove that it is indeed a worthy guardian of whatever might be defined as the "legacy" of the Holocaust, Europeans feel increasingly justified in condemning Israel as racist, militaristic, oppressive, and generally malevolent. Perhaps one should also not underestimate the power of the associations triggered whenever the issue of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories comes up: when the French hear "occupation", they think of the Nazi occupation of France, not of their own colonial rule in North Africa and elsewhere; and when the Germans hear "occupation", they think of the Allied occupation of Germany, not of the Nazi occupation of much of Europe. Thus, Israel becomes the greatest threat to world peace, and the Star of David somehow gets distorted into a swastika. And since Europe's grand narrative assigns the role of the perpetrator to Israel, the role that remains for the rest of the Middle East is that of the victim. Yet, when Europeans, and certainly Germans, look at themselves, the dichotomy between the victim and the perpetrator all but dissolves. The story of Gunter Grass is paradigmatic: as we learn from his autobiography, the young SS recruit "somehow" managed before his capture to strip off his SS uniform and change into a more innocuous Army uniform; with equal ease, he managed to strip off his role as a potential perpetrator and change into a potential victim by taking offense at the discrimination of black US soldiers. And while it would be just a strange historical coincidence if -- as Grass has implied -- the German Nobel laureate and the German Pope really came to know each other as POWs in an allied camp, it may be less of a coincidence that the Pope suggested in a speech in May 2006 at Auschwitz that the Nazis had been "a ring of criminals" that "used and abused" the Germans, and that the Shoah was "ultimately" directed against the sources of the Christian faith.[11] Coming to terms with the past for many meant not only acknowledging guilt, repenting, paying reparations, and building memorials, but also working up the courage to say: "we were victims, too" -- because the perpetrators were "a ring of criminals" that victimized the rest of Germany and Europe. Not surprisingly, one literary critic commented that Grass narrated his memories in a way that made it "comfortable" to recall life in the former Reich territories: "West and East Prussia re-emerge from the fog of the Cold War, reflections about expulsion can take place under his watchful eye and it's even acceptable for the Germans to be victims too."[12] Like the Guardian's Berlin correspondent, many Germans seem to feel that "the war is over", that it is time to see Germany untainted by its past. Having graduated from a lengthy, though not always entirely voluntary process of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung, many also seem to feel that they can claim a moral superiority that entitles them to judge the Middle East conflict all the more harshly. A decidedly nonconformist German voice -- the author and songwriter Wolf Biermann -- summed it all up in his characteristically polemic way: Three decades after the Holocaust, the Germans had just about forgiven the Jews for what they'd done to them. But now the perpetrators are becoming increasingly ungracious towards this hopeless ongoing conflict of their victims. Again and again I hear the cold-hearted argument: these Jews must have learnt what oppression is at the Nazi school of hard knocks. Precisely! Which is why I cold-heartedly counter, having learnt their Shoah lesson, the survivors have no desire to get slaughtered all over again.[13] NOTES [1] Luke Harding, "The War is Over," December 26, 2006, at:
[2] Gunter Grass, Beim Hauten der Zwiebel [Peeling the Onion], Steidl 2006. The projected publication date of Grass's book in English, by Harcourt, is Fall 2007. [3] Eva Menasse and Michael Kumpfmuller, "This Endless Moral Flutter," originally in German in Suddeutsche Zeitung, August 17, 2006; English at: http://www.signandsight.com/features/909.html. [4] An English summary of the extensive debate in the German and international press about Grass's revelation can be found at http://www.signandsight.com/features/899.html; Grass's remark about his first encounter with "direct racism" was addressed mainly by non-German commentators, e.g.: Neue Zurcher Zeitung: "The Staged Confession," by Roman Bucheli, August 14, 2006, available in English at: http://www.signandsight.com/features/903.html. [5] Wall Street Journal editorial: "Tin Moralist," August 16, 2006; Page A10. [6] Rudolf Ungvary, Elet es Irodalom (August 25, 2006), English summary at:
[7] Neue Zurcher Zeitung, "Peinliche Solidaritat", September
14, 2006, at: [8] Tom Segev, "I was Young and Stupid," Haaretz Magazine, November 10, 2006, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786092.html. [9] Text in German at:
http://www.frankfurter-rundschau.de/in_und_ausland/dokumentation/?em_cnt=1009679;
a documentation of the ensuing debate in Germany is at:
http://www.frankfurter-rundschau.de/in_und_ausland/dokumentation/?em_cnt=1014426;
a news report in English is at
[10] Khalid al-Maaly, "Two Faces of Arab Intellectuals," originally in
German, Berliner Zeitung, September 14, 2006; English translation at:
[11] Address by the Holy Father, "Visit to the Auschwitz Camp,"
Auschwitz-Birkenau, 28 May 2006, at:
[12] Ina Hartwig, August 22, 2006, quoted in English at:
[13] Wolf Biermann, "Germany Betrays Israel," October 26, 2006, English at:
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ISLAM'S WAR AGAINST BUDDHISM
Posted by David Meir-Levi, June 30, 2007. |
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Christians and Jews are not the only ones in the islamofascist cross-hairs. This was written by Dhammajarat and it appeared in Front Page Magazine April 4, 2007. |
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Allahu Akbar! The tinny P.A. system tore asunder the pre-dawn peace and quiet. I was jolted in my mind, almost like experiencing a car wreck, suddenly and without any warning. This totally incongruous sound intruded upon and encompassed everything, causing even the birds to rustle in the darkness. It was just after 4 a.m. I was seated underneath the holy Maha Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, in the state of Bihar in India. It was a few days past the full moon of May 2004, a few days past Veesak. This was my second visit to this unparalleled location, the site of the Lord Buddha's attainment of full Enlightenment over 2,500 years ago. Now, towards the end of my 10 day stay, I had applied for and been granted the great honor of permission to spend the night within the Maha Bodhi compound. My plan was to spend the entire night practicing seated meditation, walking meditation, and circumambulation of the great Maha Bodhi Stupa. The air was warm and my practice was going very well as I alternated between the three practices, as the hours passed. The beautiful waning full moon light filtering through the glistening leaves of the Maha Bodhi Tree, the soft fluttering of the leaves, the serene quiet, took me back to that time long ago when the Buddha himself had sat very near this same exact spot. Or so I thought... The mussein's call to prayer for the faithful of Islam, here in this most sacred location to all of Buddhism, ripped me back to modern reality. I was stunned! How could this be? Here in one of the most significant spots of Buddhism, loud speakers come on at four in the morning every day, to shock and intrude upon meditators and Buddhist practitioners using this spot for that which it has to offer in its most special way? How could this be allowed? It is... The Muslim call to prayer seemed to go on and on...20 minutes to a half-hour later, the scratchy recording thankfully ended and quiet returned. My concentration was thoroughly blown. Instead of following my breath, I found myself looking at the great distraction and paradox I had just experienced. I thought about Mecca! Could any other religion intrude itself there in the holiest of places to Islam, as the tenets of Islam had so intruded itself here in the holiest place of Buddhism? No way! I could imagine immediate death being visited upon anyone that would even try -- that is, if they would be admitted anywhere close to the Muslims' holy Kabah -- let alone be allowed to set up a loud public address system that would broadcast the message of another religion across the courtyards of the Grand Mosque, or any other Moslem religious site. The hypocrisy was astounding. After awhile, I ceased to be so shocked and began to calm down. I began to see that this was merely a continuation of a long and sad trespass against Buddhism perpetrated by the faith of Islam. In my previous visits to India, I had visited every site that was specific to the actual life of the Lord Buddha. At every location the pattern was the same: Just the partial foundations remaining of what had once been great Stupas or elaborate religious universities of Buddhist learning and practice. Even the place of the Buddha's birth had been destroyed and buried, with modern day excavations only now giving some restoration. I had learned from guides on location, and then from further studies once I returned home, that these locations had all been laid to waste in the early Moslem invasions of India, starting in the 900's by Turkic hordes issuing forth from what is now Afghanistan, and continuing for over a thousand years until the Mughal era. A prolonged and calculated assault, an assault designed to wipe an entire belief, an entire religion, off the face of the Earth. The long history of Islam, being spread by the sword and by fire, had left its indelible mark on these wonderful peaceful, harmless, legacy sites of Buddhism. I learned how the monks and nuns and religious students were slaughtered without mercy and piled up and burned, and all terrified survivors were driven like dry leaves before a strong wind, out of the region of India entirely, wherever this Islamic wind blew. I was told this is how Buddhism actually came to Tibet and Southeast Asia, by Buddhists fleeing for their lives! My faith had been rendered a refugee faith via the tender mercies of Islam. I learned how Islam was particularly unkind and brutal to Buddhists, because to Moslems the Buddhist represented the most reprehensible type of human personality: the "atheist" holding no monotheistic God image as their object of worship and veneration. We were worse even than the far more numerous Hindus, with their vast pantheon of multiple gods. The Buddhists, to the Muslims, only worshipped the image of a man, and no God higher. Apparently they did not bother to look into the philosophies of Buddhism any more deeply. That was enough for the sword to come down and the fire to be applied. And so they have over the centuries until today. I remember, some years back, before the gripping situations that we face today had quite come in to focus for many of us, I followed the story of the great Buddhas of Bamiyan, in sad and war torn Afghanistan. The Russian war was over, and the rein of the Taliban was in full force, but they were not content to merely rule the people with an iron hand by the strictest applications of Sharia law. They had to physically erase the "infidel" past, as well. I remember shedding tears as I saw the footage of those magnificent Buddhas, the tallest ancient statues in the world, being reduced to rubble by explosive charges and artillery shells. I remembered hearing on the news footage, that same cry of Allahu Akbar! -- as the dust of Bamiyan settled to reveal the emptiness of the destruction. The same cry that destroyed my meditative absorption under the Bodhi Tree. Now, I pray we never hear this call in this our home, America. Not until and unless Islam totally and completely reforms itself after over a thousand years of ravaging and sweeping all others before it. I feel, through my direct experiences of it, that Islam has not changed its ways in the least. In fact it has become more aggressive now than at any time since its period of greatest expansion in the 900s to the 1200s. "Modern" Islam seeks to return humanity to those very same times -- a revival of the dark ages of Islamic slaughter, mayhem, and pillage -- all in the name of Allah. We Buddhists must realize that we, and our cherished practices, would be swept away entirely and crushed utterly, should Islam ever gain ascendancy in this world in which we live. Islam is the only belief that propagates itself thus == by the sword. And it is very patient. Satu David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THE SPIN STOPS HERE
Posted by Ted Belman, June 30, 2007. | ||
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Dr. Aaron Lerner is Director of Independent Media Review and Analsis (IMRA). Its website address is http://www.imra.org.il IMRA offers examples of spin below. | ||
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1. Spin after Hamas exploited decision of Sharon and Olmert administrations to ignore reality and avoid addressing the smuggling from Egypt to Gaza Strip: "fall of Gaza to Hamas is an opportunity" 2. Spin after Fatah terrorists exploit proposed timeout to murder Israelis: "now that Fatah has regained the respect of the Palestinian street by murdering Israelis they will be strong enough to make peace" 3. Spin after the next shipment of weapons America supplies are turned against Israel: "now the world appreciates the sacrifices Israel made to try to bolster Mahmoud Abbas" 4. Spin after successful mega attack murders thousands of Israelis: "this opens a window of opportunity for the IDF to act without concern for bad press". Now Aluf Benn reports Cabinet approves transfer of withheld tax revenues
The spin is that Israel must offer "gestures" or "confidence building measures" to support the Abbas government. I can't think of one instance where such gestures have resulted in increased support for Arafat or Abbas, or for that matter a benefit for Israel. On the other hand it may be argued that making gestures increased support for their policies of intransigence and violence. Such gestures merely reward intransigence. The Government of Israel must explain how gestures will result in Arab compromises for peace. The latter must be a precondition for the former. Furthermore it is not enough to say Abbas is moderate or willing to compromise for peace. Such willingness must first be demonstrated by his words to his own constituency and then by action. Rather than hold the Arab feet to the fire by demanding compromise we say what they want because they won't say it and because they don't want it. Similarly we call Islam a religion of peace so Muslims don't have to take a stand on the issue. What we say is spin and it doesn't accord with reality. Abbas has yet to indicate his willingness for substantial compromise. If he is not willing to compromise, why are we sucking up to him. INSS just published a paper "First We Take the West Bank..." byAnat Kurz.
Now that's a bit of truth telling.
Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of
the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact
him at tedbel@rogers.com
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WE'RE NOT DOING ENOUGH TO COMBAT OUR ADVERSARIES
Posted by Phyllis Chesler, June 30, 2007. |
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The cultural war between Islamic barbarism and Judeo-Christian civilization is raging even as Gaza and Sderot are under siege. The manipulation of propaganda is a key factor here. Britain -- the country that turned Nazi-era European Jews back from Palestine's shores -- is now trying to boycott and isolate Israeli doctors, journalists, and university professors. The British Anglican Church, well-financed British-based NGOS (Christian Aid, World Vision, Amnesty International, etc.) and British academics have joined their voices to the Islamist-led jackal-chorus against Israel. In order to understand such British actions -- or in order to see how Jew-hatred is synchronized in Britain -- let me refer to two recent British cultural offerings. First, a Welsh-British theatre troupe appeared in New York City and, in a powerful and well acted play, "Memory," presented yet again the morally false equivalent of Nazi soldiers and Jewish civilians in Germany in the 1930's and 40's with Israeli soldiers and Palestinian villagers today. Both sets of soldiers are only "following orders." While our sympathies are with the persecuted and murdered Jews, they are also meant to extend to the Palestinian villager in the play who, appealingly, holds a basket of fresh oranges as he contemplates the demolition of his home. (There is absolutely no discussion of why his home is being demolished, no mention of the non-stop terrorist violence against Israeli civilians.) Thus, our terror, pity, sorrow, and moral outrage on behalf of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust and our considerable repugnance toward the Nazis is masterfully manipulated so that we transfer exactly such negative feelings toward (undeserving) Israelis and positive feelings toward (undeserving) Palestinians. Obviously, many Palestinian civilians are worthy of compassion. Like the rest of the civilized world, they, too, are held hostage by hate-filled terrorist maniacs. The barbarism of Hamas gunmen toward Fatah gunmen and leaders has revealed to the world that Israel never had a peace partner in Gaza and that neither the secular Fatah nor the Islamofascist Hamas is able or willing to protect the Palestinian civilian. Most Palestinian civilians, however, along with their many Western allies, still scapegoat Israel rather than their own leaders for their considerable misery and danger. Like the so-called moderate Muslims (whom we cannot easily find) who maintain a loud silence, Palestinians do not denounce and resist their own corrupt and murderous leaderships and are still filled with a pathological hatred toward Jews and Israel. The other recent British cultural offering that warrants discussion is a "mockumentary" directed by Gabriel Range and titled "The Death of a President." Drawing on our collective trauma over the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, this film, which poses as a documentary, transposes 1963 emotions onto an event that has not occurred, namely, the assassination of President George W. Bush. The British desire for the death of the American president is so great that wish-fulfillment fantasy is presented through a reality-form technique. Surely, this is a new kind of propaganda. The man jailed as the president's assassin, Jamal abu Al Zikri, is really an innocent Muslim whose wife, Zahara, is presented on camera as a soft-voiced, eminently sympathetic figure in hijab. The true assassin is an African-American father whose son was killed fighting the war against jihad in Iraq. Beyond culture -- or rather as an extension of it -- the siege against the Jews also includes the rockets raining down on Sderot and the bizarre international silence about it; the Western intellectual glamorization of Tariq Ramadan (who, I might add, teaches at Britain's distinguished Oxford University whose press publishes his clever double-speaking books which essentially strive to present a Muslim Brotherhood message for the twenty-first century). One might expect that Jewish advocates and Israeli intellectuals would condemn all this and boycott or at least ostracize those who write books justifying the demonization of Israel. Some do just that, but many others do not. For example, the influential American Jewish Book Council just gave a showcase to Stephen Walt, who together with John Mearsheimer authored a paper about how the "Zionist Lobby" was causing unrest both on American campuses and in terms of American foreign policy. Walt was invited to speak at the council's annual Jewish book network conference in New York. (Walt and Mearsheimer have expanded this dangerous libel into a book to be published this fall.) Meanwhile, Brandeis, the "Jewish" university, gave Jimmy Carter a stand-alone platform to spout his anti-Israel views. And then there's the Forward -- a Jewish newspaper that has previously honored me and in whose pages my work has appeared -- which covered the latest British attempt to boycott Israeli academics mainly by focusing on the allegations of one Israeli-American academic, Dr. Yigal Arens, a professor of computer science who insists that he has been " boycotted" or disinvited to a conference at Ben Gurion University because of his anti-Israeli politics. This is passing strange since so many Israeli academics are themselves left wing and specialize in criticizing Israel. And now leaders of Americans for Peace Now, Israel Forum, and Brit T'zedek v'Shalom are contemplating a merger in order to increase their clout and attract "more money to push for a two state solution." Nevertheless, there is some sanity on the horizon:
It is not enough. Nothing is enough. It is not our fault; the forces arrayed against us are overwhelming. Therefore, I implore the grassroots members of the Jewish Book Council not to invite Professors Walt and Mearsheimer to any more Jewish book fairs. (I do not have enough space to discuss why this seeming relaxation of our commitment to free speech may ultimately save the very civilization in which such an idea evolved). So many non-Jewish universities are caving in to Islamist demands for pro-Islamic programs; I hope administrators at Brandeis (where I once taught and where my beloved son went to school and loved it) will consider it incumbent upon them not to join this lynch mob; may they "boycott" Walt-Mearsheimer and others of their ilk as lecturers -- unless they allow for face-to-face debate. Finally, I hope that, like the Nazi-era Danes, other American and European professors will proudly "wear the Jewish star" and join me in affiliating with Israeli universities.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the author of many works including the
bestseller "Women and Madness" (1972), "The New Anti-Semitism"
(2003) and "The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for
Women's Freedom" (2005). Her forthcoming book is titled "The
Islamification of America."
An Emerita professor of psychology and women's studies and the
co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National
Women's Health Network, she may be contacted through her website,
www.phyllis-chesler.com
This article appeared
June 27, 2007 in the Jewish Press.
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IS THIS THE END OF PALESTINE?
Posted by Daily Alert, June 30, 2007. |
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These are excerpts from an article written by Martin Peretz which appeared in the New Republic. |
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* So what is Palestine? It is an improvisation from a series of rude facts. Palestine was never anything of especial importance to the Arabs or to the larger orbit of Muslims. Palestine was never even an integral territory of the Ottomans but split up in sanjaks that crossed later post-World War I borders, a geographical and political jumble. * When the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine was passed, envisioning a "Jewish" state and an "Arab" (not, mind you, Palestinian) state, even the idea of a separate Arab realm was met at best with a yawn. Though almost no Arab wanted Jewish sovereignty in any of Palestine, virtually no Arab seemed to crave Arab sovereignty, either. Foreign Arab armies did the fighting against the Haganah, and foreign states sat for the Palestinians at the cease-fire negotiations. * Indeed, from 1949 through 1967, what was the West Bank of Arab Palestine was annexed -- yes, annexed -- by Jordan, and what was the Gaza Strip was a captive territory of Egypt, unannexed so that Gazans had no rights as Egyptians (whereas the West Bankers had rights as Jordanians). The Palestine Liberation Organization, founded in 1964, was not founded to liberate these territories. It was founded to liberate that part of Palestine held by Israel. * The final fall of Gaza to Hamas puts the whole question of Palestine and the Palestinians into a new perspective. There are now three cohorts of Palestinians between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. (Four, if you count the Palestinian majority under Hashemite rule.) * The most serious near-term danger actually comes from the West Bank. Rockets and more precise weapons aimed at the thickly populated heart and narrow waist of Israel from almost any place in what is now Fatah land would revive both the anxieties and military reflexes of Israel. That is why U.S. policy must not assume that there are facile ways to render the West Bank peaceful. What keeps that area more orderly than Gaza is the presence of Israeli troops. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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TWO YEARS LATER, GUSH KATIF EVACUEES STILL NEED HOUSING
Posted by Bryna Berch, June 30, 2007. |
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What a rotten way to treat people who made the wildness bloom, who
contributed to Israel's economy, and who, by the superb quality of the
produce they marketed, won the respect of the European community,
which was conditioned by Arab money and their own low resistence to
the Anti-Semitism virus, to hate Jews. The Israeli government hasn't
the competence to resettle 10000 people. But their solution to
fighting their Arab enemies? They babble on about expelling up to
another quarter of million Jews from Samaria and Judea (the West Bank
for the illiterati). It kind of reminds you of Stalin killing off his
best generals despite the certainty that the Germans were about to
start to invade Russia.
This was written by Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent, and it
appeared June 22, 2007 in Haaretz
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Almost two years after the disengagement from Gaza, construction of permanent housing has begun at only two of the 26 sites intended for 9,000 evacuees, according to a report by the Gush Katif Settlements Committee. For example, no groundwork has been laid at Nitzanim and Talmei Yafe, projects decided upon months before the disengagement began. The committee predicts that the trailer parks now housing the evacuees will remain in use for at least five years, instead of the two years that the government intended. The resulting problems are legion. -Some 1,450 former residents of Gush Katif are still unemployed. Despite all the above, the committee noted that more than 85 percent of evacuees continue to live in a community framework, in order to uphold their ideals and provide a support network for each other. MK Uri Ariel, who chairs both the National Union-National Religious Party faction and the Knesset lobby for the evacuees, said the report underscores the state's colossal failures. "Housing at temporary sites is continuing long beyond the period intended, and no government ministry has a working plan for the extended stay," he said. |
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TWO STATES OF DESTRUCTION
Posted by Daily Alert, June 30, 2007. |
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This article was written by Cal Thomas and it appeared June 20, 2007
in the Washington Times
(www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070620/ COMMENTARY09/106200010/1012&template=nextpage). Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist. |
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The Bush administration's announced goal for Israel and the "Palestinian people" has been two states, living side by side in peace. The administration is two-thirds there. There are now two states -- one in Gaza, headed by the militant Hamas organization, which shot its way to power; and another in the West Bank headed by accused Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas. Unfortunately for Israel, there is no peace, which should not surprise those who have been predicting exactly what is now coming to pass. Whatever their names, be they groups like Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda, or states like Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, their objectives are identical: the annihilation of the democratic Jewish State and the elimination of all Jews, either by death or displacement, from the land. To argue otherwise and to continue believing the fiction that "infidel" diplomats from the State Department or European Union can magically transform people commanded to hate Jews and Israel based on a twisted mandate from their corrupt notion of God, is to be in extreme denial. Hamas won't stop with Gaza. After Hezbollah's victory over poorly directed Israeli forces in Lebanon last summer, why should it? The one thing terrorists understand is weakness. They perceive Israel, under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as weak and they are going for Israel's jugular. Benyamin Elon, a conservative member of Israel's Knesset, said, "The Fatah is diminishing in front of our eyes, and a group of gangsters is taking over. Israel can wake up now from the delusion of an independent Palestinian state." Will it, or will Mr. Olmert be passing out and swallowing, himself, more diplomatic sleeping pills during meetings this week with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and members of Congress? The violence and broken agreements are not being perpetrated by Israel. They are being perpetrated on Israel. It is mystifying why Western diplomats continue to pressure Israel to "do more" when "more" has brought Israel less. Each time Israel gives up something necessary for its security, it receives in return more war, more terror and more insecurity. If more for less remains the "strategy" of the United States, Israel has two choices: surrender now or prepare for all-out war with catastrophic results. Since President Bush laid out his "vision" for a two-state solution to Middle East turmoil four years ago this month, Israel has frozen expansion of Jewish communities beyond the armistice lines of 1949 (a major Palestinian demand). As Caroline Glick wrote in the Jerusalem Post, "Israel expelled all Israeli residents of Gaza and northern Samaria in order to render the areas Jew-free to the Palestinians." What was the Palestinian response to Israel's construction halt? Did they suddenly embrace the two-state solution of peace and harmony with Israel? No. The Palestinians held elections in January 2006 and instead of picking leaders to make peace with Israel, they overwhelmingly voted in members of Hamas to head the Palestinian Authority. A flood tide of terrorists and arms subsequently flowed into Gaza. The intentions of Hamas and other terrorist groups are not hidden. They openly proclaim what they intend to do and do it. Osama bin Laden said five years before September 11, 2001, that he planned to attack the United States. Few took his statement seriously enough to eliminate him when they had the chance. Those still in doubt or denial about what Israel's (and America's) enemies plan might benefit from reading Jed Babbin's new book, "In the Words of Our Enemies" (Regnery Publishing). In it, Mr. Babbin assembles what the Islamic terrorists, Chinese and North Korean communists and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez are saying they want to do to us. This quote from the al Qaeda training manual leaves no room for diplomacy: "The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun." Anyone who questions the sincerity of such a statement is a fool. Apparently enough fools remain in leadership in Israel, the United States and Europe to encourage the killers to fight on until victory is attained. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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TWO FAILED STATES -- HAMASTAN AND FATAHLAND
Posted by Bryna Berch, June 30, 2007. |
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It isn't often the Guardian sounds like a news-paper and not like a ranting I-hate-Israel rag. Savor this. Of course, the columnist writes as if Palestinians are a real people and deserve a state. But he recognizes the "palestinians" have screwed themselves out of a state -- at least in the short run. This was written by Emanuele Ottolenghi and it appeared June 18,
2007 in the Guardian |
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Already in its death throes after seven years of futile struggle against Israel, the Palestinian national movement suffered a fatal blow last week, when Gaza fell in the hands of Hamas. Now, instead of a state-in-the waiting, Palestine is two failed states, under two governments at war with one another. Hamas in Gaza might still pursue its fight against Israel; and Fatah in the West Bank might still voice the rhetoric of grievance against Israel as the occupier. But the two are now locked in a deadly struggle. Anti-Zionist rhetoric has been waving the ghost of a one-state solution -- implying that Israel might disappear, replaced by a united binational state comprising the West Bank and Gaza as well as present Israel. It now looks as though there will be a one-state solution after all -- Israel, alongside two failed states, both Palestinian, and fighting each other. It has not been easy for Palestinian nationalists. Ever since their late leader and national symbol, Yasser Arafat, chose to exploit the Intifadah, in September 2000, to extract more concessions from Israel, everything that could possibly go wrong, did. First, violence turned Israeli public opinion against the now moribund Oslo process: Ariel Sharon quickly replaced the left-wing peace coalition against which Arafat had unleashed his Intifadah. Systematic resort by Palestinian factions to terrorism against Israeli civilian targets only created the momentum for Israel's military offensive in late March 2002. West Bank towns were reoccupied and the backbone of the terror network that seemed so close to breaking Israel's will was crushed. Arafat's flirting with gun-toting militias and a myriad offshoot of armed groups only earned him confinement by Israel and isolation from America. Sharon easily won the next electoral round and set the stage for unilateralism -- Israel would withdraw to borders of its choosing and the Palestinians would be left behind, once more. The spectre of this move did nothing to propel Palestinian leaders into action to bring an end to the mounting anarchy within their ranks and sue for peace. Instead, Arafat allowed anarchy to grow, as if it would only harm the enemies of Palestine, and not Palestine itself. Eventually, the persistent refusal of the Palestinian Authority, first under Arafat, then under Abu Mazen, to disarm all militias and dismantle all terror networks yielded the outcome all but fools would predict. In January 2005, I wrote that: "Terror groups have grown stronger since the intifada began. Abbas' predecessor... used terrorism to pressure Israel into more concessions. Convinced as he was that outsourcing violence to a network of terror groups would promote his goals, he willingly let them run amok, thus renouncing the monopoly over the use of force. Four years later, terrorists pose a formidable challenge not only to peace, but even more crucially to Palestinian statehood. Today, terrorists mainly attack Israeli targets. But tomorrow, unless disarmed and forced to recognize that only the Palestinian Authority has the monopoly over the use of violence, they could use their weapons and their militancy to dictate conditions or carve out areas of influence through threats, blackmail and intimidation. They have to be disarmed -- not for Israel's sake, but for Palestine's sake." Alas, it is too late now. Brother will fight brother, while the West Bank and Gaza go their separate ways. At last, Abu Mazen seems to have understood the need to establish the monopoly over the use of force. Hamas has clearly understood it too, as it moved to disarm everyone not loyal to Hamas in Gaza. But this is too little too late. Two governments are now in place, and with them, two separate entities are slowly coming into being. They'll play this war out to the bitter end. The west has already chosen its horse, not realizing that this is a cockfight, where the audience can do little else but watch. There is little rejoicing in this turn of events, but it must be understood for what it is: the end of Palestinian national aspirations. Hamas' takeover in Gaza has created a small Islamic state on the shores of the Mediterranean, next door to Israel and to Egypt. Helped by Iran and Syria, Hamas has now opened a southern front in their war against Israel but in the process, it has made Palestine as a state even less viable than before. Now, Hamastan needs to conquer the West Bank to make itself the credible and legitimate champion of the Palestinian struggle. Meanwhile, Fatahland will try to regain its lost territory of Gaza before it can even begin to negotiate credibly with Israel. An endless war will further contribute to Palestine's demise. For ordinary Palestinians, seven years of the Intifadah yielded nothing but grief, death, and poverty. The passage of time did nothing to strengthen Palestinian territorial claims: if anything it gave time to Israeli settlements to expand and Israeli control over Jerusalem to tighten. As Hamas assumes control over Gaza, Gazans are longing for the return of the despised Israelis. Palestinian intellectuals have conceded that Palestinians might need to be "re-occupied" by an international force led by the Arab league -- a return to the pre-1967 occupation by Jordan and Egypt, no less. Now, not even this option seems available -- unless, that is, foreign forces are sent to fight Hamas and re-conquer Gaza. With the Gaza takeover by Hamas, history has finally drawn its curtain on the two-state solution. Before Palestinian nationalism can reclaim one Palestine, complete, before it can even settle for the meager leftovers Israel held for 40 years, Palestinians have to face their own, wearing each other out, Hamastan against Fatahland, while the Israelis look on. |
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PALESTINIAN POLITICS: "GOOD GUY FATAH VS. 'BAD GUY' HAMAS" IS NO POLICY SOLUTION
Posted by Barry Rubin, June 30, 2007. |
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The problem here is that while Fatah is certainly less extreme than Hamas (and there are good reasons to prefer a Fatah victory between the two), we should have no illusions about Fatah's moderation. An international policy of "backing" Fatah is not a good idea, not least of all because it is spreading many of the same ideas and using the same tactic (terrorism) as does Hamas. Moreover, the two are willing (at least at times) to be partners. And, I regret to say it, I think Hamas is the long-term leading group in the Palestinian movement though Fatah will of course also remain powerful. At least, Hamas is going to set the [Arab] agenda on all things concerning Israel, even if many do not accept Islamization. |
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Given the Middle East's grim circumstances and poor prospects for peacemaking, it is tempting to see the Palestinian scene as a struggle between good-guy moderates, Fatah, and bad-guy extremists, Hamas. If so, the best policy seems simple: support Fatah against Hamas in hopes of strengthening those favoring peace and compromise. It would be good if this were true but unfortunately it is not. Fatah is not better than Hamas because even if it is slightly less extreme, Fatah itself is the core of the problem. Only by recognizing reality can policymakers be freed to find better ways to ameliorate the situation -- including reducing the Palestinian people's suffering. Why does this conflict remain unsolved? If the issue is merely a wish by Palestinians, led by Fatah, to create a West Bank-Gaza Strip state, the issue would have been settled long ago with such a solution. But despite Western media interviews in which the Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas expresses such ideas, this is not Fatah's line. The problems are legion:
1. Weakness as Leader
There is no possibility that he will take a strong hold over the movement or the PA and he is incapable of defeating Hamas or taking decisive steps toward compromise and peace. 2. Fatah's Shortcomings
3. Fatah's Strategy In 2000, Fatah rejected a peace agreement that would have quickly ended the Israeli presence, created a Palestinian state, made possible repatriation of refugees, and provided more than $23 billion in international payments. Instead, it launched a disastrous five-year-long war based mainly on terrorism, and ending with Hamas taking over control of the PA. Moreover, the group insists on the return of all Palestinian refugees to Israel -- rather than their resettlement in a Palestinian state -- as a way of subverting Israel. Abu Mazin is personally strongly wedded to this demand which is absolutely critical in Fatah's thinking. Qaddumi explained, "The Right of Return of the refugees to Haifa and Jaffa is more important than statehood."[1] Equally, Fatah favors a two-stage process -- in which any Palestinian state would immediately be used as a base for a renewed conflict to conquer Israel -- not a two-state peace. It remains loyal to the 1974 program proclaiming that any Palestinian state is only a way-station to total victory. One might expect Fatah leaders to take a pragmatic stance along the following lines: We are in a terrible situation and have no state because of our incorrect strategy. Violence, radicalism, and maximalist demands have not brought benefits. We must instead try a strategy of compromise, peace, and moderation. Let us accept Israel's existence; get our own state; bring home the refugees to become productive citizens; and focus on economic, social, and cultural development to benefit our people. This would have required a new program based on self-criticism of the past and a sense of reality about the present. Fatah could have made a deal with Israel to end the conflict and obtain a state. It might have focused on raising living standards; convincing refugees to return to a Palestinian state (rather than demand they move to Israel); gaining credibility with Israel as a peace partner; creating a strong economy, schools, and health system; and other such steps. There is no evidence that the leadership of Fatah or the PA -- except for a handful of people -- ever seriously considered such a program. Refusing to acknowledge the situation means Fatah rejected the usual response of those being defeated: changing course, being cautious, reducing expectations, and offering compromises. Instead, it tells its own members and people: Our armed struggle is winning. Continue the battle, produce more martyrs, make no concessions, gain international support by projecting an image of moderation, and we will win in the end as Israel collapses or surrenders, no matter how many years are required, lives it costs, or resources must be spent. Fatah has never told Palestinians that in 2000 the United States and Israel offered a comprehensive negotiated solution including an independent Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem. Misinformed that Israel poisoned Arafat and told that it wants to wipe out the Palestinians, that Israel is the enemy of Islam, has no right to exist, and offers them nothing, Palestinians understandably see long-term armed struggle as their only alternative. Told repeatedly -- by Fatah as well as Hamas -- that total victory is just and that the whole world supports them, they believe this program will triumph. Certainly, such a conclusion makes them unlikely to opt for a comprehensive moderate rethinking of their world view. This political culture -- spread through the PA-controlled schools, mosques, and media -- has now been passed to a new generation. At the same time, the kind of program required as a minimal basis needed to achieve peace with Israel is basically defined as treason, a charge that the many rivals for leadership in Fatah would not hesitate to fling at anyone deemed excessively moderate. More immediately, Fatah failed to use the opportunity of a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to build a stable polity. Instead, the collapse of Gaza in anarchy, radicalism, and violence provides a vision of what a Fatah-led state would look like. For Fatah, weakness and failure is guaranteed by internal divisions and the inability to make key decisions, on one hand, and the lack of moderate goals or a viable strategy, on the other hand. As a result, it is unable to achieve a state, improve its people's material well-being, or end the violence. As a result of all these factors, other than on the specific issue of Islamism there is little difference between Hamas and Fatah. Given Fatah's low credibility, poor performance, and inability to offer success or an alternative vision, it is understandable -- though very regrettable -- that most Palestinians support Hamas. Conclusions Here is the paradox: Money is given Fatah it is likely to be stolen, not used to improve the lives of Palestinians. Arms and military training given Fatah will be turned against Israel Fatah is unwilling to challenge Hamas militarily or even to restrain it -- and smaller radical groups -- from terror attacks and rocket launching against Israel. It will either reject or not implement any promises it makes in this regard, as experience as repeatedly shown. The correct response to this unpleasant situation is to decertify the Palestinian movement. Since it failed the test of the peace process, and events since then, and is now in the hands of a movement that opposed the peace process, there is no sense giving it the rewards based on pledges to do otherwise. As before 1993, the world must wait until there emerges a Palestinian movement that is truly ready to cease terrorism, negotiate seriously, and make a permanent peace with Israel. Such a movement would be offered great rewards but until then there is nothing to be gained by dealing with Fatah or Hamas. Notes [1] Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2002 Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, has written and edited 50 books on the Middle East. His latest book, The Truth About Syria, has just been published by Palgrave-Macmillan. |
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The FOURTH WAY IS THE BEST
Posted by Fred Reifenburg, June 30, 2007. |
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I find it amazing, that bright and experienced people keep hitting their heads against a stone wall, and won't face up to a simple fact. There cannot be peace with Muslims, specially since they've made it ever so clear they wish to destroy Israel and the west. I'm sure if they succeed it wouldn't stop there. So....enough already at finding peaceful solutions. There is IMO, another way to settle the matter. The west has got to get its act together, and fight this menace.....to victory. Not likely in our time, but it's the solution that has always worked, where as negotiation is looked upon by our enemies as a sing of weakness. Think about it. And read this piece by Israel Zwick, who can be reached by email at israel.zwick@earthlink.net or go to his website: www.cnpublications.net |
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In his op-ed column in the NY Times on June 6, 2007, Thomas Friedman made some astute observations about the prospects for Arab-Israeli peace. The article was aptly titled, "What a Mess." Friedman noted that the three methods that were tried so far have all failed. Land for peace, favored by the Left was discredited by the failure of Oslo. Permanent occupation, favored by the Right, was rendered impossible by Palestinian militancy. The third way, unilateral withdrawal, was discredited by the debacles in Lebanon and Gaza. So the solution to the mess can only come about via a still undetermined "fourth way." Mr. Friedman, who has a long and deep involvement with Middle East affairs, should know that a fourth way has already been proposed over 20 years ago and offers the best possible solution. However, it is still considered to be too politically taboo to be placed on the table. This plan involves voluntary relocation of the Palestinian Arabs, while the remaining Arabs in Israel and the territories will form a commonwealth government that would be in federation with Israel. There are a number of variations to this plan but the essential elements are as follows: 1. All Arabs living within the 1947 boundaries of Palestine as well as those living in the UNRWA refugee camps would be offered a compensation package to end their refugee status and allow permanent relocation. The package would include a $50,000 cash payment per family, compensation for their property, and free transportation to any country of their choice that is willing to take them. The 22 countries of the Arab World must participate in this process and be willing to absorb some of the Palestinians and contribute to resettlement costs. Recent polls have suggested that a large portion of the 4 million Palestinian "refugees" would be willing to consider such an offer. To avoid discrimination, Israeli Arabs should be offered the same opportunity. This stage of the plan is expected to take about three to six years for completion. It would be financed by the same donations that are now funding the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA, and UNICEF. The advantages of such a plan are as follows:
As Thomas Friedman acknowledged, the three ways that have been attempted so far have failed to bring peace to the region. So it is time to dismiss the political taboos and try an innovative fourth way, such as this plan, which has the ability to satisfy all the interests in the conflict. Variations of this plan have been floating around for the last 30 years. Perhaps it is time that they be seriously considered. Reference:
Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@gmail.com |
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PREVENTING THE ISLAMIZATION OF EUROPE
Posted by Bryna Berch, June 30, 2007. |
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Below is part of an extensive article on how to prevent Islam from
conquering Europe. The whole evolving article is to be found on
Islam Watch (http://www.islam-watch.org) The list is at The excerpt below is "is Policy Area 12: Foreign Policy Part B
12.3 'More about Goals and Policies.'" It is part of a section
archived at Among the numerous new proposals are the following:
He also describes how the future political development will lead to a dismantling of the non-economic parts of the EU constitution, and the historic possibility that will appear to replace social democracy and social liberalism as important forces on the political scene of Europe. Islam Watch is a website run by a dedicated group of Ex-Muslims, who have made it their mission to tell "the truth about Islam." They put "Islam under scrutiny by Ex-Muslims." |
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12.3 MORE ABOUT GOALS AND POLICIES Besides some new goals, attention is here mainly given to policies regarding some goals stated in 12.2. The order of subjects is not the same as in 12.2. 1. The European Union shall declare its view of terrorism and Islam in the following manner: Western countries and the European Union have no responsibility for the occurance of Islamic terrorism based on one or more interpretations of Islam´s holy or most respected texts. Many of the common explanations now for this terrorism are excuses without value. Islamic terrorism is a consequence of the goal to impose Islam on the world, and -- if necessary -- by force. It is a basic goal for the foreign policy of the European nations to actively uphold universal values like those defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations (UDHR; 1948). That is also a recognition of the fact that the only way western nations can coexist "peacefully" now with real, traditional Islam is by compromising over time all their basic values. But since that is an utter impossibility, it means that Islam must change -- and by that enter the modern world. A. The religion Islam contains parts which are not accepted in the European Union as parts of a religion in a modern western sense. Some parts of Islam violate the human rights of individuals according to e g UDHR. Such parts can therefore not be accepted by the members of EU on the basis of the principle of religious freedom. One human right -- religious freedom -- cannot be allowed to violate many other human rights. 2. All current Conventions, Declarations and Programs of EU, or parts of them, which work against the goal to prevent the Islamization of Europe, shall now be changed or eliminated. 3. It is an important goal for the European Union to promote human rights in countries where human rights are widely violated on a daily basis. The violations regard e.g. women and children; religious minorities: christians, buddhists, hinduists etc; apostates, atheists and secular humanists; and members of the political democratic opposition. Special attentions shall be given to countries geographically close to the Union. In the long run, this policy will secure peace even if it may sometimes create extra opportunities for political gains for Islamists in the short run. Just the treatment of the christian copts in a so-called moderate moslem country like Egypt is abhorrent but the treatment of atheists/secular persons there, is worse. The treatment of Muslim women in a so-called moderate country as Malaysia, or persons in that country who want to leave Islam, is unacceptable. Any country with similar uncivilized and cruel domestic policies is not a true and reliable friend of the western democracies even if e.g. Malaysia is a democracy, but in a more limited sense. But in reality it, like Egypt, is an enemy of important values of the European countries. It shall have consequences for all types of contacts. 4. It is of vital interest to EU that the school education in moslem countries consists of real subjects incl science, and that religion is just is a small part of the curriculum. The children will then get impulses of many types which is important for their intellectual growth, and they learn for the future. Improvements in these school systems are an important part of the dismantling of the ideological infrastructure of extremism. The special subject of religion at school ought to contain objective descriptions of other religions. The religious education at schools or universities shall not contain hate against people of other faiths, or against people without religious faith. Neither shall it contain teachings contrary to the UDHR, Muslim supremacism, incitements against western countries, promotion of physical jihad, encouragement of terrorism incl glorification of forced Islamification of infidel countries a s o. A country which allows such elements as a part of the schools´ religious curriculum is an enemy of of important values of the European countries. It shall have consequences for all types of contacts with that country. 5. The principles expressed in p. 4 are also valid regarding the contents of sermons and all messages conveyed in mosques and other buildings used for religious activities and education. The government of the specific country has the duty to control that no teaching supporting violations of human rights is performed. Neither shall any enmity, hatred or contempt of nonMuslims based just on their religious affiliation or lack of it, be expressed on a regular basis (see p.4). 6. A new International Center for Crimes Against Human Rights (ICAHR) shall identify, find and arrange for the arrest of persons who regularly commit specially serious or abhorrent crimes against UDHR in countries where the governments do not protect human rights enough. New legislation shall be introduced in EU countries when there is a lack of legal rules concerning responsibility for certain barbaric acts based on religion. New principles or interpretations of international law are probably needed to increase the personal responsibility for inhuman acts based on the rules of a religion, anywhere in the world. Religion is now the primary reason for violence, terrorism, conflicts and wars, and special rules are therefore necessary in this area. It is self evident that only a very small part of all abhorrent crimes against human rights can get attention, be investigated and have their perpetrators arrested and tried in a court in a EU country. However, just the possibility that such crimes a r e investigated, the publicity around various trials, and that attention aimed at certain crimes, will have important effects. Priority is initially given to countries close to EU. Examples of possible criminals to be given attention by this center are: -- Prison guards in moslem countries who regularly rape girls or young women before their execution (often for political /religious reasons). These acts are committed in order to prevent them from going to heaven, and are a common practice in e.g. Iran. 7. All financing of mosques, or financing of religious activities in EU, by states which do not allow full religious freedom on their own territories, is forbidden. This prohibition also regards companies and all types of organizations in, or from, those countries. Financing includes all types of gifts or loans, directly or via middlemen. No already existing financial agreements of these types may contain conditions regarding choice of personnel, rules about the contents of the religion in the specific building or organization etc. Such agreements shall no longer be observed. The local mosque in question shall decide regarding such matters. It is well-known that moslem countries discriminate against other religions than Islam, and that specially Saudi Arabia, where other religions are not allowed, finances a fundamental interpretation of Islam in many western countries. Its financial muscles help it to take over and dominate other versions of Islam. The ultimate goal of eg Saudi Arabia regarding its financing of wahabism in Western countries is also to help to transform these countries to Islamic countries. Then other religions will heavily discriminated or even forbidden, christians and jews forced into dhimmitude, and e.g. apostates, atheists and agonostics persecuted and sometimes killed. Allowing religious financing from those moslem states is the same as financing the Islamisation and future limitation of e.g. religious freedom and freedom from religion in EU countries. This type of financing shall therefore be forbidden. 8. All collections of money for charities in EU countries shall be controlled. The distribution shall later be controlled by an EU-, or state, organization. No activities of the organizations which in other countries receive the money are allowed to violate the UDHR. If a specific sub-organization is active in social work but another suborganizaton belonging to the same umbrella organization is active regarding religious extremism or terrorism, no money is allowed to be distributed to the social work-organization. There are no possibilities to make certain that money is not distributed to terrorist organizations, or organizations which partly support terrorism, if the receiving organizations (and the activities the money is meant for) are not tightly controlled. The controlling or distributing state/EU organization therefore has a strict responsibility that unsuitable recipients do not receive any money. 9. All countries (1) where one religion is given preferences by the constitutions and/or laws, and that religion is in opposition to UDHR regarding important aspects, or (2) which have signed the The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990), shall be prevented to: (a) buy existing companies active in the following industries in EU countries, or If these rules violate earlier trade agreements etc, these shall be renegotiated and amended, cancelled, or just copied and reconfirmed by the parliaments but now with certain countries excluded. 10. (1) Immigration, (2) the demographic growth of the Muslim population in Europe and its consequences in form of an increasing radicalization of it, and (3) the acceptance as members of EU of countries with populations trained in a version of Islam that often violates human rights, are all parts of the same problem. Policies regarding them must therefore be formulated from the same point-of-view and with the same goal. Issues regarding immigration will be treated in Policy Area 8. Just a few desirable components in a future immigration policy are mentioned here: A. In order to increase the strength and power of the extended family that is so vital in many clan/tribe based countries in the Middle East, marriages between cousins are common. In some countries or regions, the proportion of marriages between first and second cousins are about one half of the total number of marriages. In western countries where the reason for marrying generally is love and affinity, this proportion is insignificant. For that reason, Muslim girls are influenced or forced to marry cousins from their homecountries in order to strengthen their extended families. A male Muslim immigrant in Europe marries his daughter to a nephew in the home country (1). The opportunity to increase the family in the west is often seen as so important and the pressure on the daughter is so hard that the daughter very often doesn´t have the power to resist the pressure. A ban on marriages between first and second cousins is therefore one of the most effective ways to help young Muslim women avoid forced marriages. If they choose freely, the same low proportion of them as in Europe would choose cousins as partners. The psychological drive of her parents -- and specially when forced marriages have been made unlawful -- to force the daughter to marry a non-family person is also much weaker. At the same time a ban weakens the extended families which -- like earlier in Europe -- has positive consequences for the feeling for, and growth of, citizenship in the relevant group. B. People who base their careers on applying or teaching a version of Islam which often violates human rights, are not neutral or negative to these violations. If they were, they would have chosen another career. Instead these people constitute the strong base for continuous human rights violations in a Muslim country. They accept and approve of the violations and teach and argue for them. Their values and goals make them dangerous for a tolerant democracy. Regarding visits or immigration to Europe of such persons and their families, certain special rules were indicated in P A 4 (4.2). Special restrictive rules shall apply to: (1) professional teachers and students of shari'a and Islamic jurisprudence; (2) jurists which practice sharia laws except defense attorneys (new category); (3) politicians, representatives and employees of Islamic religious parties which don't accept UDHR; (4) managers and representatives for religious or faith organizations, financial organizations etc with charters, policies and/or record of earlier actions that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and/or the rights of a citizen or an individual defined in the Constitution of X-country. Such persons are not allowed to visit or immigrate to EU unless they are able to show that their opinions regarding human rights don't in any way contradict the UDHR. They have the burden of proof. No members of any Islamist organization like the Muslim Brotherhood can visit EU or immigrate here. No immigrants shall be allowed to enter Europe without a psychological test of his /her values regarding democratic and human rights and a written assurance that he/she will accept the important values of his/her new country; and that he/she will bring up his/her children to accept the laws and important norms of his new country. 11. Islamic clergy with traditional Islamic education and training in countries that have signed the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, or have received similar education in other countries, are not allowed to act as clergy regarding religious activities in EU. It is a training that is built on contempt for human rights, inequality and dislike for non-Muslims, and recommends all types of practices that are contrary to UDHR. A reformed education of Islamic clergy must be created by Muslims in Europe with a contents that is not contrary to the UDHR, Individual members of the clergy who are able to give ironclad assurances that they will never act or talk in any manner against UDHR, can be allowed to function as clergy. During a period of transition, traditional clergy may temporarily be allowed to work even without such an assurance. 12. Lying about the holocaust, or the genocide against the Armenian people, has been criminalized in a few countries. The pervasive atmosphere of a certain definition of multiculturalism (meaning that Islamic values have the same worth as western values), and the intolerance in media against everybody who dissents from this view, makes it necessary to counteract the tendency in media to conceal negative aspects of Islam. Media are in their practical work dominated by socialists and socialdemocrats who are now trying to regain the political initiative for the left by destroying the non-socialist market society by using multiculturalism (in the given meaning), Islam and immigration as tools. Many of the journalists understand that an Islamic society and Islamic laws are fundamentally unsuitable for handling the modern world and complex economies. They believe that moslem politicians will then turn to socialists to find help. So after the cold war showed the bankruptcy of the socialistic ideas, the socialists would again be able to revive their collapsed doctrine because Islam will need s o m e theory for running large, or complex economies. Market economy has as its foundation individualism, freedom, creativity and democracy with protection of minority rights -- all values antithetical to Islam. That Islamic countries historically have partly used a market economy for their primitive industrial sectors and their commerce activities will not be enough of an obstacle to introducing extensive socialistic policies in European countries.. The collectivism of socialism will be found to be more suitable for Islam in western societies. Another advantage of socialism is that its first purpose in practice was never to produce goods and services effectively but -- to control people. The future Islamic regimes in the west will appreciate the possibilities to cement their positions of power and realize the Islamization of society by using all control mechanisms that socialism offers. That socialism is a totally unsuitable system for economic growth and development doesn't matter, because future moslem societies in Europe will stagnate and decline anyway. It is not correct today to see the media as a guarantee for political freedom. For many of the left-oriented journalists, a revival of socialism is probably more important than freedom. They therefore want to suppress everything that can prevent the Islamification and hinder Muslims positive to sharia to get into power in the west. In order to reach their political purposes, they try to conceal all negative matters regarding Islam and call nearly all criticisms for Islamophobia, racism, cultural imperialism etc. Then the population is kept in the dark and therefore passive. It shall therefore be a crime to conceal the religious background of criminals in cases it may have played a role. For example, data from various countries show that rape is committed much more frequently by Muslim young men than by men from other religions. It is evident that religion may play a role in that. The matter shall be freely discussed, and the opinions of the citizens shall be heard. But in order not to cause any obstacles for their political goals the journalists instead suppress all negative matters regarding Muslim persons where the religion may play a role. That behaviour shall therefore be criminalized and the religious background of e.g. criminals shown. 13. Leftist governments and governments sympathetic to Islamists shall not be able to use the bureaucracy and decision-making processes within EU to prevent effective anti-Islamist or antiterror measures. It is therefore important for governments really concerned about protecting human rights to agree outside EU on such measures concerning national security, in case differences of opinion inside EU prevents the union from acting. The most important parts of the anti-Islamist/anti-terrorist work by police, intelligence/security, or military personnel shall either be carried out outside the EU organization, or -- if kept in EU -- an organization shall be prepared by interested governments which organization immediately (if needed) can take over all functions (relevant for those countries) of the specific EU administration. 14. Anti-Islamist (ie Human Rights) parties which are members of coalition governments in various countries shall together determine and cooperate regarding those EU policies to which they give special priority. The Human Rights (HR) parties can then force, or gain important concessions from their domestic coalition partners concerning just these EU policies by sacrificing their own standpoints regarding less vital domestic matters. By concentrating on a small number of issues and sacrificing others, essential results may be won. One can foresee that at some point in time during phase 5-7 of the future development of Europe (see part 1), one EU country will during a crisis declare that certain specified EU laws, conventions etc are not operative (valid) any longer in that country. It just stops to apply these specified laws that EU has created and forced upon the member states. Some other countries will later follow that example. Because the EU establishment at that time have pushed through too many laws without support of, or against the wishes of a majority of the population in EU, the union will have lost part of its legitimacy and support. And the populations have generally started to understand the great danger that the politicians have put Europe in. The governments committed to human rights, and sympathizers in coalition governments in other countries will be able to prevent that any effective measures are taken against them by EU. The HR parties will in various countries threaten to topple the coalition governments if those want to support the EU commission. New elections can't generally be used by the establishments, because at that time most political conditions will support the HR parties. The consequences of decades of disastrous policies regarding immigration and wholesale acceptance of Islam start to become visible to everybody. And if decisions are made by EU, they are ignored. The legal process is too slow and cumbersome and unable to handle such political processes. And if any verdicts are made, they will be ignored. When EU has lost its legitimacy, legal issues will anyway in practice have little importance. By paralyzing the political process and ignoring a number of EU laws and conventions, these states will get back their freedom of action and can then carry out the policies they find necessary in accordance with their national interest and national rules. EU loses rapidly its importance outside the economic sphere, and its house of cards consisting of various conventions, declarations and programs etc with no basis in the will of the populations, will crash. 15. The intelligence about all types of Islamist activities in the EU countries shall be improved. A considerable effort shall be made so that enough persons in the police, intelligence services, the military, diplomatic corps a s o swiftly learn the Arab language All large mosques and Muslim organizations where any Islamist activities can be suspected, shall be under surveillance. All possible Islamist organizations shall be infiltrated. A European center shall be created that gathers information from national centers in EU countries regarding all (1) acts of violence, or (2) threats of violence that can be judged to be political and are motivated by religion. Political violence and political murders constitute the beginning of physical jihad (see phases 3-5 (c-e) in part 1). Good indicators regarding the degree of radicalization of various parts of the Muslim population shall be created. A European center shall be created with the goal to collect the information from national centers regarding all crimes against the human rights of Muslims by Islamists and other Muslims, owing to religion or traditions, which in practice are accepted and/or supported by religion. These crimes aim at supporting or strengthening parallel societies in Europe, and are often directed towards women, girls, apostates, or Muslims who are not enough religious. They constitute an important part of the efforts to undermine Europe. 16. All legal obstacles for an effective anti-terrorism and anti-Islamist policy shall be removed in all EU countries. Countries may have to modernize their legislations so that laws used in a state of war, can be used during e.g. armed rebellion and civil war. Terrorists are not soldiers and shall not be given any protection similar to that a soldier has according to the Geneva Convention. They shall not be tried in civilian courts: special or military courts and military laws shall be used. A terrorist is according to his philosophy and way of fighting, a fundamental enemy of the specific country and also of civilization. Any type of armed rebellion for religious reasons against a member state of EU shall be treated as if the participants have committed high treason during war. Using explosives is comparable to using a firearm against own citizens and soldiers, and helping the enemy in wartime. A military state of emergency is an extremely drastic measure, and a small number of less drastic "Levels of Emergencies" with varying limitations of human rights shall be defined for the EU countries. They shall be suitable for combating lower levels of unrest and violence than a widespread armed rebellion. 17. In order to meet a new political situation in Europe, new laws and punishments are necessary. Economic criminals are sometimes forbidden to work as business men. Likewise, it shall be possible to forbid political/religious criminals to work with political and/or religious matters. Members of the Islamic clergy who have committed e.g. religious hate crimes or crimes against integration (see PA 4 -6) shall not be allowed to take part in religious work or activities. Other punishments which may be new in some countries are: ban against moving outside a geographic area; house arrest; ban to meet people besides the family; ban to communicate with others via telephone, internet etc. The new crime called |Betrayal of the European Civilization" was described in sect 12.2 p.6. It is necessary to establish such a crime because the nation state is now heavily influenced by the actions of non-elected international administrators and bureaucrats, who can seriously damage the specific country. If the consequences of the actions of such EU employees are highly detrimental to the national interest of a state, and can be judged to be part of a political agenda that aims at promoting the interests of radical Islam, or objectively helps radical Islam to gain influence in Europe, such a crime is committed. The proper definitions, criteria and safeguards for the legal rights of the accused will be formulated by the European states which introduce this crime in their legal systems.. It can be expected that laws in different countries may counteract each other regarding such a crime. However, during a political process similar to the one described in p. 13 above, there will probably be possibilities in various countries to apprehend and bring accused EU employees to justice even before an armed rebellion or civil war in Europe has been started by the Islamists. After military operations start, there will be a widespread demand among the European populations that those politicians and EU employees who are responsible for the misguided policies that have caused a disaster for Europe, shall be brought to justice. Then other parts of national laws will also be relevant. ____________________________________________________________
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HAMAS TV MICKEY MOUSE BEATEN TO DEATH BY ISRAELI
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, June 29, 2007. |
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Hamas TV Mickey Mouse becomes Martyr in final episode
The Hamas satellite TV channel has responded to the international controversy over its hatred-spouting Mickey Mouse clone by having the character beaten to death by an Israeli and becoming a Shahid, martyr for Allah. Al-Aqsa TV broadcast Friday the final episode of the children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers, starring Farfur, the Mickey Mouse lookalike whose teachings about world Islamic domination, violence and hatred outraged the world after PMW made them public in May. Without apparent regard for the sensitivities of their child viewers, the show's creators killed off the character in a particularly violent way that allowed them to continue the show's rabidly anti-Israel messages. In this last episode, the squeaky-voiced Farfur receives land documents from his grandfather. The episode ends when an Israeli investigator tries to force Farfur to give up the key and the papers that his grandfather had given him. When Farfur refuses, the Israeli continues his brutal attack and beats Farfur to death. Although Farfur's death is not shown to the child viewers, the hostess of the show, Saraa', sadly announces his death to the children: "Yes, our children friends, we lost our dearest friend, Farfur. Farfur turned to a Martyr while protecting his land. He turned into a Martyr at the hands of the criminals, and murderers, the murderers of the innocent children." PMW reported the existence of the Mickey Mouse knockoff and his hateful messages in May, prompting worldwide outrage. The New York Daily News dubbed the character "Terror Mouse," while Walt Disney's daughter Diane described it as "pure evil." Despite promises by the PA that the show would be suspended immediately, it remained on the air for another week, and was then suspended during the violence in Gaza. This final episode, which includes the killing of Farfur by Israel, enabled Hamas to remove the program while continuing its hate messages. Click to view video on YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9lL81QhiR8) The following are excerpts from the final episode: [Text:] "Farfur in Interrogation" Israeli interrogator: "Sit down, Farfur... Farfur, we want to buy the land, we will give you a lot of money. You will get a lot of money, and we will take the documents." Farfur: "No!! We will not sell our lands to terrorists!" Interrogator: "Farfur!!! I want you to give me the documents, give me the documents!" Farfur: "I'm not giving the documents! Not giving! Not giving!" Interrogator: "Farfur!!! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur] Farfur! Hand me the documents. Farfur! Hand me the documents, Farfur!" Farfur: "I am not handing them to criminals, to terrorists!" Interrogator: "You call us terrorists, Farfur?! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur again] Take this! Take this! Take this! Take this!" Farfur: "Stop! Stop!"
Saraa': "Yes, our children friends, we lost our dearest friend, Farfur. Farfur turned to a Martyr while protecting his land. He turned into a Martyr at the hands of the criminals, and murderers. The murderers of the innocent children... [Talking to a child caller] You saw that the Jews let Farfur die as a Martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?" Shaimaa', 3 years old, on the phone: "We don't like the Jews because they are dogs! We will fight them!" Saraa' [sarcastically]: "No, the Jews are good, oh Shaimaa'. The Jews are our friends, and we play with them, isn't it so?" Shaimaa': "They killed Farfur!" Saraa': "That's right, oh Shaimaa'. The Jews are criminals and enemies, we must expel them from our land."
Itamar Marcus is director of PMW -- Palestinian Media Watch --
(http://www.pmw.org.il). PMW is based in Jerusalem. Barbara Crook, a
writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's
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ASSOCIATED PRESS -- TRUTH UNFIT TO PRINT
Posted by Daniel Mandel, June 29, 2007. |
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In February, I dissected a classic example of malign reportage by Associated Press (AP) in which an attack in Jerusalem upon Jews worshipping at the Western Wall by Muslims throwing stones, bottles and refuse was presented as an unprovoked Israeli police assault upon peaceful Muslim worshippers that included a (non-existent) storming of the Al-Aqsa mosque. AP achieved this Orwellian effect by the propaganda devices of distortion, tendentious expression and obscuration of salient facts. Now AP has done it again -- this time in relation to one of its all-too-rare reports on the Palestinian media, a perversely skilled hate industry that incites hatred and murder of Jews. Its depredations on the Palestinian mind, especially that of Palestinian youth, have been systematically reported by organisations like by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) and the Middle East Media Research Institute. PMW has a detailed report, including transcripts, on the antics of Farfur, a clone of Disney's Mickey Mouse featured on Hamas Al-Aqsa TV who devoted his air time to indoctrinating Palestinian children with hatred of Jews and America. AP now reports (hat tip to Barry Rubin) that Farfur, in a final program broadcast today, was shown beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfur's land. But AP found no space to inform the reader of the incitement to hatred, the anti-Semitic statements, the promotion of the theme of Muslim world domination that characterized Farfur's stint on television. AP noted only that "the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel." AP seems determined to keep the public in ignorance of the hatred within the Palestinian Authority and its promotion of it in its media. A public aware that hatred drives the conflict rather than the usual suspects of occupation, settlements, statehood et al would end up having a very different view of the conflict. That prospect AP does its best to preclude. Daniel Mandel is a Fellow in History at Melbourne University and author of H. V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (Routledge, London, 2004). His blog can be found on the History News Network. This essay appeared today on the History News network (HNN) website
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15 SECONDS OF TERROR
Posted by Jenny Grigg, June 29, 2007. |
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This presentation comes from Honest Reporting. Honest Reporting monitors the media for inaccuracy and unfairness in how they report the news about Israel. Ther website address is http://www.honestreporting.com. You can help support their research online or by sending contributions to: HonestReporting, 400 South Lake Drive, Lakewood, NJ 08701-3167. |
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15 seconds isn't a long time, unless you are a resident of Sderot. That's about as much warning as they can hope for once missiles are launched and en-route to their homes and schools. 15 seconds of fear and panic can seem an eternity, as captured in our latest short film. 
CLICK HERE TO VIEW FILM.
The people of Sderot are under constant bombardment. It is a horrifying situation that demands the world's attention in a context that reveals the full extent of civilian suffering at the hands of Gazan terrorists. Watch our short film about the situation and help us demand that the media report accurately on the intent of the terrorists' actions and their psychological impact instead of a simple analysis of damage assessment. As our movie shows, there is no child who survives those 15 seconds, who is likely to live a life unharmed. Together we can make a difference in media coverage of Israel. Click the image above to view, and thank you for supporting our cause. Want to skip the film? Head straight to our donation page at
www.honestreporting.com/a/securedonate.asp or click the button below.
Contact Jenny Grigg at jennygrigg@gmail.com
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TONY'S TRAGIC BLIND SPOT
Posted by Daniel Mandel, June 29, 2007. |
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This week, Tony Blair departed office after ten years, the British Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister, the only person to have led the party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour prime minister to serve more than one full consecutive term. He leaves office with 61 percent of the British public judging him to have been a good prime minister. Add to that the high popularity that he enjoyed through much of his tenure and it becomes difficult to reconcile it with his earlier than intended departure under compulsion from his own party. What happened? To say the Iraq war happened, with Blair's stalwart support and involvement, is the lion's share of the answer, but that in turn poses other questions. Opposition to the war generally splits into two: those who revile the Western powers as motivated by all manner of avarice and aggression, and others who know that good is intended but who doubt or reject the means used to achieve it. No argument will sway the former, but the latter have been listening and many in the end have found the argument wanting. Why? It used to be customary for the war's supporters in America to bemoan President Bush's inarticulateness while breathing a sigh of relief when Blair stepped into the breach to make a rousing case for removing Saddam Hussein and reviving Iraq. That he led a British Labour government was only to be marveled at, just as his defiance of popularity at home over a matter of conviction was only to be admired in a man often held to be manipulative and media-obsessed. (Even by his own recent admission, he devoted "inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging and persuading the media.") Yet in the end Blair's argument failed to sway enough of the British public and even his own party. Partly, this is bad luck. There was no reason to assume that the post-Saddam epoch would be one of prolonged American mishandling and several, not easily reversed, mistakes. The operational decisions being American ones, Blair was to that extent at the mercy of events. A swifter and more decisive outcome would have caused much of the criticism to wither away. There is little point complaining about liberating Iraqis from tyranny. But on-going bloodshed is another matter, say the critics. They are
right, but only if one accepts the premise that a failure to bring
tranquil democracy to Iraq is the decisive test of the war's merit.
MANY, PERHAPS MOST, SUPPORTERS of the war, including me, did not subscribe to that view. Instead, we cited Saddam's chronic violations of the 1991 Gulf war ceasefire; his retention of the technology, toxins and research infrastructure to achieve it; the massive human toll of his rule (eclipsing today's casualty figures); his past genocide, aggression and patronage of terrorists. The problem is that Tony Blair, the war's most effective spokesman, did subscribe to the democracy litmus test. What possessed him to set the bar to such heights and to invite a negative verdict on his own conduct? Blair believes that democracy is a cure for terrorism. In a sense he is right. But in an important sense he is mistaken. That which militates against democracy -- religious fanaticism, ideological totalitarianism, tribal loyalties trumping civil society -- also produced the repression that Blair sought to cure. Yet he failed to understand that there is no democratic silver bullet, that a society devoid of democratic traditions and memory cannot become democratic in the short space of a few years. To think otherwise exposes a confusion of democratic processes (elections, parliaments, constitutions, referenda) with the characteristics of democratic society (separation of religion and state, contractual, law-abiding, pluralistic, tertiary educated) that alone permit democratic processes to have meaning. The nature of the society in question, not assemblies and documents, is the deciding criterion. Failure to understand this leads to polices that stress democratic processes at the expense of democratic purposes -- something witnessed last year when the Bush Administration foisted legislative elections upon Palestinians, thereby bringing to power the doctrinally genocidal Hamas movement. Similarly, in Iraq, making democracy a higher priority than security, at least until now, has thwarted efforts to bring either to Iraq. Yet Blair understood this no better than Bush, to judge by one of his fullest statements on Iraq -- his July 17, 2003 address to a joint session of Congress, as these excerpts show: "There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people." Like so many, Tony Blair believed that, given half a chance, all would seize liberty with both hands. Yet the instinct for autocracy, for rule by ruthless men who dispose of the complex problems of life, has in the past permitted even the most educated societies to tolerate fascism, to vote in Nazism, to yearn for various forms of communism or to acquiesce in the terrors of all three. The Middle East is no different. Now, it is perfectly true that Afghans celebrated the fall of the Taliban; that Iraqis too are free and in the main relieved, no matter the editorials masquerading as news insinuating otherwise. But democracy has few roots in the region. Authoritarian nationalist or Islamist parties could win the day in most parts of the Middle East were elections held today. To curbstone pundits, that would make authoritarianism or Islamism democratic. All it actually proves is that certain societies are unprepared for democracy, since "one man, one vote one time" is no democracy at all. "Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police." Were it only true. Admittedly, the election of Hamas was then in the future, but had Blair not noticed what nearly occurred in Algeria in 1992 when elections presaged an Islamist victory which, when curtailed, led to a horrific internal war that makes Iraq's present one look tame? Egyptians and other Arabs once idolized Nasser, who introduced the political concentration camp into the Middle East. If successful in appealing to our baser instincts, dictatorial regimes are often venerated and their crimes ignored or justified. "How hollow would the charges of American imperialism be when these failed countries are and are seen to be transformed from states of terror to nations of prosperity, from governments of dictatorship to examples of democracy, from sources of instability to beacons of calm?" "Examples of democracy"? "Beacons of calm"? It was bold of Blair to suggest this outcome even in 2003. How much better it would have been to say forthrightly that the Taliban and Saddam were rightly removed because both harbored terrorists capable of inflicting enormous damage against innocent lives everywhere. Both produced the bulk of refugees that had come from the Middle East in recent years. Both were exceedingly brutal to those who fell under their rule. Removing the Taliban and Saddam warded off international dangers, freed captives, and allowed Afghans and Iraqis to breathe easier. Instead of saying as much and standing on that record, Blair conceded the logic of his critics, arguing that anything less than establishing a new golden age would be a failure. Small wonder that Blair wanted then, as now, to see dividends on the Israeli-Palestinian front, as if that had anything at all to do with Afghanistan or Iraq. "This terrorism will not be defeated without peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Here it is that the poison is incubated. Here it is that the extremist is able to confuse in the mind of a frighteningly large number of people the case for a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel." This reverses matters. Terrorism is a symptom of war, not an aberration that can be cured by peace. It follows that its defeat is a condition of peacemaking, not the other way around. In the Oslo years (1993-2000), Israelis sought a peace based on two states for two peoples, whether Arabs wanted it or not. Thus the blind eye towards Yasser Arafat's sponsoring of a culture of terrorism and hatred. Successive Palestinian polls indicate enthusiasm for terrorism and rejection of Israel. Israelis awoke in 2000 from the delusion that a two-state solution was obtainable from men dedicated to a one-state program. Others, including Tony Blair, have still not.
UNFORTUNATELY, BLAIR'S ADVOCACY, like Bush's, failed to clarify issues that went to the heart of how Iraq was to be restored and secured and how other regional conflicts related to it and should be managed. Increasingly, Blair was caught in a pincer movement of dislike of Bush at home and ongoing conflict abroad. That is a tragedy, because the ideals that animated Blair were both principled and in short supply in a cynical world. As a result, Britain has yet to awake from the illusion that it can have its war on Islamism in concert with Europe rather than the United States. His support last year for the American position favoring giving Israel time to dispose of Hizballah in Lebanon (a task Israel botched) led his party, which dislikes Bush, is unsympathetic to an Israel under attack and fed up with bad news from Iraq, to press for his departure. David Pryce-Jones has it right when he avers, "It is a horrid irony that his best decision is the cause of his unpopularity and downfall." Daniel Mandel is a Fellow in History at Melbourne University and author of H. V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (Routledge, London, 2004). His blog can be found on the History News Network. This article was published in the American Spectator
and is archived at
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LEIKEN'S FOLLY AND WHY IT ENDANGERS US ALL
Posted by Barry Rubin, June 29, 2007. |
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Bob Leiken*, phony Islam expert, has written a poem about me which he is sending around. For those who don't know, Leiken is a Latin American expert turned immigration expert turned Islamism expert. He hasn't read the sources and knows nothing about the subject, of course. He makes the most basic errors. I wrote a satire making fun of him. You can also read my article on
Muslim Brotherhoods at
This ignorance wouldn't matter if he weren't advocating that the United States team up with Muslim Brotherhoods, thus helping the forces responsible for extremism, repressive dictatorships, and terrorism in the world. Imagine someone who advocated in the 1930s that the fascists were misunderstood and you could work with the more moderate ones. Same goes for the Stalinists. How different would the world be if the appeasers had won out on those occasions. In this current conflict, what Leiken doesn't know -- well, one of many things he doesn't know -- is that when people like him talk about engagement with Muslim Brotherhoods, people in the Middle East reach the following conclusion: The Islamists are winning, even the Americans are recognizing it. We better either join the Islamists, give up or make our own deal. Lives are at stake. People are tortured, murdered, blown up. This is not a game. The policies Leiken advocates cost lives and may even cost countries. Just imagine that you are an Egyptian or a Jordanian who doesn't want to wear a veil, lose the limited freedoms now enjoyed, or have a regime that implements Islamist punishments. You hear about some American pseudo-intellectual who is advocating that the West work with those who want to turn your countries into Iran- or Taliban-type societies. And if you want to discount 10 or 20 percent for the "moderation" of the Muslim Brotherhood go right ahead. How typical that Bob has responded with a poem -- poem which makes no reference to the Middle East or Islamism. Not a detailed discussion of the issues but a poem which you are free to interpret as you wish. I will only remark on the opening three lines: Line 1: To suggest that those who oppose revolutionary Islamism lack a heart is pretty shocking. Think of the victims of this movement. Now think of someone who is promoting his career by advocating cooperation with the closest thing to totaltiarianism in our era. Line 2: To suggest that those who actually research their topic and can provide detailed refutations of his claims have no mind is equally shocking. Isn't the absence of mind something that arises from the lack of real research, serious analysis, and instead just talking to people who want to seize state power and create dictatorships and believing them? Line 3: Well if goods offered to the public are worthless, whose goods does that label best fit? I think this poem is all too revealing. I repeat, as much as during the struggle against fascism and the struggle against Communism, the fate of freedom and civilization is at stake. This is no game for dilettantes. And yet we are living in an era in which fools and ignoramuses too often seize the floor and the microphones. What is truly remarkable is that they don't even see how clearly they are demonstrating their total lack of qualification to conduct rational discourse. And if you have any doubt on that point here's the poem Absence of heart -- as in public buildings * Robert S. Leiken is Director, Immigration and National Security Program, at The Nixon Center. Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, has written and edited 50 books on the Middle East. His latest book, The Truth About Syria, has just been published by Palgrave-Macmillan. |
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URGENT!! THREE WEEKS TO SAVE SHOAIB CHOUDHURY'S LIFE
Posted by Naomi Ragen, June 29, 2007. |
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Friends, On July 18, the Bangladeshi journalist whose only crime is his pro-Israel stance goes on trial for his life. He faces a judicial system that is weighted against him. We need to urgently contact our Senators, Congressman, and political leaders in countries around the world to help him. You can google to find out the name and e-mail, or phone number of your representative. Below, a heartrending letter from Shoaib's brother. We need to get behind this man whose only crime is that he is a Muslim who dares point out the Koran says the land of Israel was given to the Jews. Please help. Please forward this. We cannot let Shoaib be sacrificed. In America, to find your representative, go to
In Australia,
In Canada http://www.canada.gc.ca/main_e.html For the rest, just google. Below is an appeal by Choudhury's brother. Naomi |
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Dear Colleagues and Friends, My brother Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury went to court today, June 28th, filled with optimism. The Government of Bangladesh had recently sent the judge and public prosecutor who, until now, had been trying his case, to another part of the country with the result that his trial would have to begin again with a new judge and prosecutor. We were hopeful that this might result in this judge dropping the charges again Shoaib today. Sadly, it appears that the government has only removed a judge who was hopelessly tainted by his public assertions that he would convict Shoaib regardless of the evidence that might be presented. Today, the judge stated that he is prepared to proceed quickly, and the prosecutor was prepared with witnesses ready to testify against Shoaib. You may recall that, in Bangladesh, there will be no jury in this trial on charges of treason, sedition and blasphemy. Neither will Shoaib's attorneys be permitted to bring any witnesses in his defense. The only option open to the defense is to cross examine the prosecution witnesses. In addition, the judge has the option of ending the trial and issuing a verdict after only half of the witnesses have been heard. It is safe to assume that the witnesses who can make the most convincing case against Shoaib will be heard first. If convicted the penalty will be either death by hanging or thirty years in prison, which is, in fact, a death sentence. This only reason for the present delay is that there is one more appeal to void the charges now pending in the Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court is on vacation, it may or may not be possible for the judge to press for a decision from a jurist in chambers rather than from the full appellate court. Shoaib Choudhury is on trial because he urges his government to recognize the State of Israel. This is not a crime. He is on trial because of rumors originating in Saudi Arabia that he is a Mossad agent, something so patently ridiculous that no reasonable court would even consider it. Why would a secret intelligence agent publicly proclaim his support for Israel in an Islamic country? The Qur'an states that Allah/God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people. His country proclaims that Shoaib's support for Israel is treason because it is in opposition to their policy and that it is blasphemous, a charge they find convenient. He is on trial because he has Jewish and Christian friends and because he publishes their articles in his newspaper. This is not blasphemy, and it is not a crime. although some extremist Muslims would like to think that it is. He is on trial because he writes plainly about the danger of extremist madrassas teaching children as young as five to hate Jews and Israel. The majority of Bangladeshis cannot afford any other form of education for their children and are willing to send them anywhere as long as they learn to read and write. Every charge against Shoaib is false. Shoaib works tirelessly for interfaith understanding. Bangladesh considers this treason and blasphemy. He has committed no crime at all, except for his attempt to travel to Israel -- a minor passport violation for which others have been assessed a fine equivalent to about US $7.00. Yes, seven. Shoaib was imprisoned, tortured and held in solitary confinement for seventeen months. His glaucoma was not treated, and he lost his sight in one eye. During that time, he was never tried. He was released only because of the efforts of his dearest friend and brother in the United States, Richard Benkin and a U.S. Congressman, but without the charges being dropped. Please note that Shoaib takes no public position on matters of Israeli policy. We will begin again. We will not give in to defeatism or despair. There is a new U.S. Ambassador in Dhaka who has scarcely had time to unpack. We cannot give him the luxury of easing into his responsibilities. PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS AND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS. TELL THEM THIS IS AN URGENT HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERN, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. REMIND THEM THAT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PASSED RESOLUTION #64 IN SUPPORT OF SALAH UDDIN SHOAIB CHOUDHURY IS MARCH OF THIS YEAR BY A VOTE OF 409-1. URGE THEM TO CALL THE STATE DEPARTMENT NOW. WE WANT OUR AMBASSADOR TO BANGLADESH TO TAKE THIS TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT THERE. THE TIME IS PAST FOR LOWER LEVER DIPLOMATS TO MAKE INEFFECTIVE GESTURES SUPPORTING SHOAIB. THESE HAVE BEEN APPRECIATED, BUT THEY ARE NOT ENOUGH. WE HAVE LESS THAN THREE WEEKS TO SAVE SHOAIB'S LIFE. Yes, this is a worst case scenario. There may be further legal delays, but it is equally possible that there may not be. What is absolutely clear is that this new judge and prosecutor are fully prepared to hear the case against Shoaib quickly. In Bangladesh, this is never a good sign. We must proceed as if the worst will happen, because it is very possible, and then pray that it does not. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO OTHERS WHO MIGHT CONTACT SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES. THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE CLERGY, PLEASE SPEAK TO YOUR CONGREGATONS AND ASK YOUR MEMBERS TO CALL CONGRESS. Additional information about Shoaib may be found at www.interfaithstrength.com. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO HELP SHOIAB.WHEN YOU CALL CONGRESS, PLEASE TELL ME WHO YOU REACH AND WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE IN TO FRUSTRATION. IT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT TO REACH OUR PUBLIC SERVANTS. Wishing you abundant blessings, Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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BALAK: BELIEVING IS SEEING
Posted by Avodah, June 29, 2007. |
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This was written by Rabbi Yaakov Zev. Rabbi Zev writes from Jerusalem. His commentary was distributed by the Aloh Naaleh organization. |
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Sight is not an objective sense given to all. This week's parasha, Balak, includes the fascinating story of Bil'am and his donkey on their journey to curse the Jewish people. Suddenly, the donkey stops in his tracks, unable to continue; whereas, Bil'am, in his rush to complete his mission, sees no reason for the sudden delay. The obvious question presents itself. "How is it possible that the donkey sees that which Bilaam does not see?" Rashi explains: "God permitted an animal to see that which man is unable to see." Only eight verses later, we are told that "God gave sight to Bil'am" to see the reason for the road blockage. It seems, then, that sight is not an objective sense given to all living beings equally. In the story of Hagar exiled from Avraham's home, she becomes thirsty and God opens her eyes so that she can see a well of water only a few feet away from her. An automobile accident witnessed by two people standing at the same location will be seen differently by each of the witnesses. The subjective phenomena of sight is based on factors related to the intellectual and emotional background of the viewer. Evidence of this is found in the midrash describing the sight of the "cloud on the mountain" seen by Avraham and Yitzchak, but not by Eliezer or Yishmael. Their spiritual capacities were very different. About two months ago, the Jewish people celebrated the 59th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. The founding of the state opened the doors of the country to immigration for the first time in 2,000 years. Since then, the population of the state has grown to almost half of the world's Jewish population, a miracle in itself. There is, however, the other half of our people whose "subjective vision" is still blurred by all kinds of issues, blinding them from "seeing" the "cloud on the mountain," God's gift to our generation -- the possibility of returning to our homeland. May they soon see the beacon of the Light of Zion, guiding their way to the birthplace and future of our People. Contact Avodah at Avodah15@aol.com |
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WAS THERE EVER A PALESTINIAN 'NATION'?
Posted by Avodah, June 29, 2007. |
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This was written by Ofir Haivry and it appeared today as an opinion
piece in YNet
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The growing political and cultural rift between the Arabs of the Gaza Strip and those residing in Judea and Samaria has stirred debate about the possibility of establishing two separate political entities and the future of Palestinian nationalism in general. Yet perhaps we should be asking whether there ever really was a Palestinian "nation"? In many places in the world, arbitrary borders set by colonialist powers define a "nation" that do not exist in practice. Is there such thing as a Sudanese "nation" or Iraqi "nation"? Or are we talking about a collection of tribes, groups, and even nations possessing vastly different ways of life, religions, and values that has been gathered together by chance and who are paying a bloody price for this to this very day? The borders of British Mandatory Palestine too were set, just like the case with its neighbors, on the basis of colonial interests. In many areas, the border was drawn in a rather random manner. Had it been performed a little differently, would the Arabs of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon become Palestinian? Would the Arabs of Tarshiha in the Galilee be Lebanese? Are residents of Trans-Jordan, which was initially part of Mandatory Palestine and a few years later became the Kingdom of Jordan, Palestinian or Jordanian? During the less than 30 years of the existence of this Mandate, from which the Palestinians draw their name, no significant indications were to be found of a united national identity of their own. The leader of Mandate Arabs was the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who viewed himself as a pan-Arabic leader, imposed his rule through the persecution and assassination of his rivals, and headed a loose alliance of clans, tribes, and local interests that were mostly united by hatred towards the Jews, and to a lesser extent towards the British. Illusion of national identity Hence, in the bloody clashes of 1936-1939, where the Arabs seemingly fought the British (and of course massacred the Jews,) more people were killed in intra-Arab violence than at the hands of the British. Similarly, in 1947-1949, the Arabs fought against the establishment of the Jewish state in a disorganized and separate manner, in various locations, such as the Jerusalem mountains, the Galilee, Jaffa, and so forth. Following the Mandate's end, it is even more difficult to find a united national activity or perception, aside from the hatred of Israel. Under Egyptian rule in Gaza and Jordanian rule in Judea and Samaria, there were neither substantial cultural development attempts nor national activity or a demand for the establishment of a state in those areas. The only objective that aroused support and stirred activity -- and saw the establishment of Fatah and PLO to that end -- was the establishment of an Arab country in place of Israel. After 1967, the unification under Israeli rule created an illusion of national identity. Yet the characteristics of Arafat's leadership replicated those of the Mufti -- one-man rule focused on hostility to Israel, and based on regional and clan calculations alongside the persecution and assassination of rivals. Arafat's death and Israel's withdrawal from Arab population centers revealed that forced unification and hostility towards Israel are apparently the only characteristics of the Palestinian "nation." Perhaps when a state existing within superficial borders has been in place for a long period of time, there is a point in maintaining it without genuine national identity. Yet Mandatory Palestine ceased to exist about 60 years ago and hatred towards Israel is no substitute for national identity. This conclusion should prompt us to ask new questions regarding the conflict's essence, ways of addressing it, and possible objectives. Contact Avodah at Avodah15@aol.com |
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NY POST COLUMNIST, RALPH PETERS, TAKES ON SIX DAY WAR HISTORICAL REVISIONISTS
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, June 29, 2007. |
| This article was written by Jason Moaz, Senior Editor of The Jewish Press and it appeared June 7, 2007 in the Jewish Press. |
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Trolling the Internet these past couple of weeks has served to quash any lingering, hopeful doubts that the post-Zionists have indeed won the battle over how Israel is perceived. (... by the ignorant, the uninformed and deliberate liars) jsk. The historical revisionists, whose initial attempts at recasting Israel's image from David to Goliath were focused on the events surrounding Israel's creation, have in recent years focused increasingly on the 1967 Six-Day War, which for the first decade or so after its occurrence was widely seen as a case of Israel's justified response to Arab threats and aggression. But, as Israel in the 1970's and 1980's came to lose favor among liberal and leftist academics and journalists, there was a significant shift in the way the Six-Day War was being portrayed -- in terms of both cause and effect. The change was already evident well before the term "post-Zionism" was coined, and became even more pronounced as post-Zionism came into its own in the 1990's. So it was refreshing to see military historian and New York Post columnist Ralph Peters take on the post-Zionists this week with a free-swinging celebration of Israel's 1967 victory. Peters, a retired intelligence officer, castigated, "revisionist historians [for] reinventing the Six-Day War as the source of Israel's problems." Reading the revisionists, he wrote, one would think "prior to June 1967, Israelis had lived in an Age of Aquarius, eating lotus blossoms amid friendly Bedouin neighbors who tucked them in at night. The critics also imply that, by some unexplained magic, Israel might have avoided war and its consequences." Contrary to the doomsayers, "June 1967 announced Israel as a regional great power -- less than 20 years after the state's desperate founding. And the Six-Day War remains more important today for what it achieved than for the Arab failures it left behind.... "The Six-Day War didn't create the Middle East's problems, it only changed the math. For Israel, it marked a coming of age. Taken together with the Yom Kippur War, six years later -- two rounds in a single fight, really -- the war of June 1967 meant the end of Israel's basic struggle for existence and the beginning of its 'quality of life' wars." "In the real world," Peters concluded, "outcomes aren't perfect. There are no wars to end all wars. The proper question is, "Are you better off than before the shooting started? Judged by that common-sense standard, Israel is vastly better off than it was on the eve of the Six-Day War. Thanks to the heroes of June 1967, Israel survived. Miracle enough." Peters's column brought to mind a piece written two decades ago by the redoubtable George F. Will. A slew of American and Israeli intellectuals were marking the 20th anniversary of the Six-Day War by lamenting Israel's lopsided victory, which, they sobbed, had transformed Jews into occupiers and oppressors and hardened them to the plight of the Palestinians. It remained for Will to cut through the muck (crap) of leftists wallowing in misplaced guilt, which he did in a Newsweek column titled, "A Just War Remembered." "It has been 20 years since those six days that shook the world," he wrote. "Because of what happened then, a united Jerusalem is capital of Israel, and Israel never again will be 12 miles wide at the waist. Because of the war the West Bank, which Jordan seized militarily and held for 19 years, is rightfully Israel's to dispose of, as it deems prudent. "And, because of the echoing thunderclap from Israel 20 Junes ago, the security of Israel and hence the spiritual well-being of world Jewry have been enhanced. The Holocaust ended in 1945, but the Holocaust as aspiration was not destroyed until June 1967, when Israel smashed encircling armies that had the inescapably genocidal mission of obliterating the national gathering of Jews." Noting the inclination in certain circles to denigrate the idea of history being determined by the actions of individuals, Will wrote that it was "invigorating to revisit in memory the Six-Day War, a clear case of enormous consequences assignable to the decisions of particular people -- Nasser, Hussein and some young Israeli pilots and tankers who reminded the world of the good that can come from a just war." George Will and Ralph Peters -- two non-Jews with more intellectual honesty and moral clarity than all of Israel's post-Zionists and their American Jewish fellow travelers put together. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America and hosts the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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CIVIL WAR IN GAZA; TREASON BY PERES & OLMERT; WAR BY SUMMER
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, June 29, 2007. |
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S. ARABIA BUILDING MORE MOSQUES S. Arabia is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Wahabi-type mosques in northern Africa. Basically its foreign policy is to promote that version of Islam. Unfortunately, Wahabiism is similar to al-Qaeda ideology (IMRA, 6/11). HAMAS FIGHTING ALL OUT Declaring war, hundreds of Hamas troops attacked Fatah troops all over Gaza. They inflicted many casualties. Hamas captured some Fatah headquarters, thousands of rifles, many rounds of ammunition, and armored jeeps. Hamas took over northern Gaza, and warned P.A. security men not to enter. Hamas is pursuing leading Fatah men by attacking their homes. Pundits call northern Gaza "Hamastan." The P.A. called it a coup, but Hamas pointed out that Fatah was the one being given US weapons against its coalition partner (IMRA, 6/12). The civil war was predicted. So was Hamas' victory. To the aggressor, goes the victory. Fatah waited, but Hamas organized and attacked. The US bet on a lame horse (tough only against civilians). The thousands of rifles that it gave Fatah are ending up in the hands of Hamas, as Hamas boasted they would and right-wing Israeli commentators feared they would. PM Olmert had approved the arms transfer to Fatah. Soon they will be used against Israel. I think that Israel should have evened the odds by attacking Hamas more, this past year, so both sides would lose more gunmen. Israel should not, howver, have let Fatah bring in arms. HOW GOVERNMENT WORKS The June 13 NY Sun headline: "Mayor Cheers As Math Gains Start To Show." The story was that N.Y. City math students had almost caught up to the state's. The June 12 Op.-Ed. headline was, "An Invitation to Cheat." The story was that American faculty change test scores to favor their students. Mayor Bloomberg pays $15,000 bonuses to principals whose students make substantial gains on reading tests. In one New York City school, students went from about 40% passing to 80% in a single year. Next year, the principal retired with the $15,000 bonus and, as a result of the bonus, $12,000 more in annual pension. The percent of passing fell back to the original 40%. The matter is under investigation. The Mayor's repeated misuse of before-and-after comparisons is deceptive. Although, he is getting a reputation for competence, it should be for incompetence and using statistics misleadingly. SHIMON PERES' TREASON Peres opposed PM Begin's plan to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor. He threatened to leak the plan of attack. Iraq would have been able to destroy Israel, if Peres had his way. Peres betrayed Israel's agent, Pollard, to the US government, and lied about it. Peres subverted PM Rabin's policy of not negotiating with the PLO. Peres foisted Oslo upon the country. He armed Arafat's terrorists and brought them to the edge of Israel's cities. As a result, at least 1,500 Israelis have been killed. Peres and his associates bribed politicians to support Oslo. Politicians who disputed the policy were falsely indicted. With Oslo, the government politicalized the Army, promoting officers who supported Oslo. Furthering the corruption, IDF generals retired into partnerships with terrorist chieftains. (Some of Israel's negotiators with the PLO had partnerships with PLO leaders.) The government defamed civilian opponents and restricted their civil liberties. "The Israeli media corrupted public debate by silencing and demonizing voices of opposition. The education system of Israel was corrupted when schoolchildren were provided with new 'peace friendly' textbooks which taught a revisionist history of the state that called into question the morality and legality of the establishment of Israel." As Foreign Minister, Peres canceled his agency's public relations. Now it could not explain Israel's right to the land, that Peres did not believe in. He used his position to make public relations for the terrorists. He courts foreign, anti-Israel politicians. Peres' Peace Center gave a monetary award to one of those officials, who was on its board. That official, Larsen, falsely accused Israel of war crimes in Jenin. Larsen seems to have tried to influence the Nobel committee in Peres' behalf (Caroline Glick in Winston Mid East Analysis, 6/12). As opposition leader, Peres undermined the first war in Lebanon. Leftist generals performed suspiciously badly. Peres may be behind the death of PM Rabin and others and perhaps PM Sharon's coma. He seems to want to get Israel destroyed. He does seem to be a foreign agent, I though, French. It's been hinted to be Russian, however. WHY OLMERT ASKS FOR UNIFIL AT GAZA BORDER In order to retain power, PM Olmert pretends that UNIFIL successfully checks Hizbullah arms smuggling in Lebanon, rather than admit his terrible mistake in inviting UNIFIL. Now he suggests that UNIFIL guard arms smuggling into Gaza, even though it would cause Israel great harm (IMRA, 6/12). I think IMRA has assessed Olmert shrewdly. IRAQI SUNNIS VS. AL-QAEDA Al-Qaeda has outraged the Sunnis of Iraq. They have joined the government effort against al-Qaeda (IMRA, 6/13). They are from a province that a few months ago, a Marine intelligence officer called hopelessly lost. ABUSING ISRAELI HUMANITARIANISM Islamic Jihad trained two Arab women in suicide bombing. Then it sent them on a mission to blow up people in and near Tel Aviv. They got there on a false application of needing medical attention, but were captured by guards. Dr. Aaron Lerner cites this as evidence why Pres. Bush ought not demand that Israel let down its guard for the convenience of Arab life (IMRA, 6/13). Those Arabs want independence? Let the P.A. provide their medical care! It is not Israel's responsibility to save the P.A. money and to save enemy lives. WAR BY SUMMER Syria has removed governmental archives from Damascus. That is a sign of imminent war. Pres. Assad declares readiness to negotiate peace, but when Israeli officials accept his invitation, he does not respond. Apparently he declares readiness to negotiate merely for public relations (Arutz-7, 6/15). Israel's folly is to let Hizbullah and Hamas build up forces that could divert the IDF from dealing with Syria. Syria might not have chosen war, if Israel forcefully eliminated Hizbullah and Hamas and had pounded Syrian positions on the Lebanon border that supplied Hizbullah. Israel didn't even have its planes over Gaza, to bomb the ammunition trucks Hizbullah captured from the P.A.. ANOTHER STATE DEPT. FOUL-UP "American Middle East military envoy Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton said last week that reports of Hamas forces being superior to those of American-trained Fatah were incorrect. He and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently convinced American Congressmen to approve more than $60 million to help equip the Fatah militia despite the danger that Hamas might confiscate its weapons." (Arutz-7, 6/15). That was only days before Fatah's collapse in Gaza. The State Dept. is adept at arming America's enemies. It also is adept at avoiding the blame. We need a President who will clean out the State Dept.. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5verizon.net |
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THERE IMAM BUSH GOES AGAIN
Posted by Andrew Bostom, June 29, 2007. |
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This essay is called "Dhimmification' on the march" and it
was written by Diana West. It appeared today in the Washington
Times
(www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070629/ EDITORIAL04/106290013) |
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If anyone wants to know why Muslims the world over tell pollsters the United States is at war with Islam, just read President Bush's speech at the Islamic Center of Washington, especially the part about American-style religious freedom -- in the president's words, "what we wish for the world." He began this way: "For those who seek a true understanding of our country, they need look no farther than here." No, not the mosque itself, but down the street it occupies. "This Muslim center sits quietly down the road from a synagogue, a Lutheran Church, a Catholic parish, a Greek Orthodox chapel, a Buddhist temple -- each with faithful followers who practice their deeply held beliefs and live side by side in peace," the president explained, standing in his Islamically observant stocking feet before a cool Muslim audience. "This is what freedom offers: societies where people can live and worship as they choose without intimidation, without suspicion, without a knock on the door from the secret police." As one who has attended a Bar Mitzvah at that synagogue down the road, I have news for the president: Freedom, American-style, has changed. To enter, I passed an armed guard holding an automatic weapon manning the door. Armed guards like him man many such doors in many such cities. In fact, so common is it for religious worship (mainly, but not exclusively, Jewish worship) to require armed protection today that we miss the implications: the degree to which freedom to worship without fear in America has been curtailed by the open-ended threat of Buddhist violence. Whoops, sorry. I mean, curtailed by the open-ended threat of Greek Orthodox violence. Or was that Catholic Lutheran violence? No, the peril to the synagogue was, and remains, Islamic violence. The resulting diminution of freedom is a symptom of advancing dhimmitude -- the diminished cultural condition of non-Muslims living in relation to Islam. So, freedom of worship ain't what it used to be. But even in its terror-constrained state, the spread of American religious freedom actually threatens religiously unfree Islamic cultures, which, for example, consider "apostasy" -- deciding not to be Muslim -- a capital crime. But that threat is only on paper. Where Americans actually become involved in the Islamic world, Shariah (Islamic law) is protected, enshrined even, as shockingly attested by Shariah's primacy in the American-fostered constitutions of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian Authority. The president doesn't seem to understand that. I don't think he even understands Shariah, under which the primacy of Islam is absolute, and other religions are "tolerated," at best, at the high cost of dhimmitude. Nearly six years after September 11 -- nearly six years after first visiting the Islamic Center and proclaiming "Islam is peace" -- Mr. Bush has learned nothing. In fact, his peroration on freedom at the Islamic Center mainly underscored "America's respect for the Muslim faith here at home." Abroad, too. Even as he was asking Muslim leaders (again) "to denounce organizations that use the veneer of Islamic belief to support and fund violence" (some veneer), the president announced the United States would send an envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a global Islamic support group that does a large bit of that. "Our special envoy," the president said, "will listen and learn from representatives from Muslim states and share with them America's views and values." What can the Free World learn from the Unfree World? Maybe something about the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam adopted by the foreign ministers of the OIC in 1990. In dire contrast to the United Nation's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Islamic document recognizes only human rights sanctioned by Shariah -- which, basically, leaves women and non-Muslims without human rights. Hmm. Might Mr. Bush -- or anyone in our leadership, civilian or military -- notice the unbridgeable cultural differences revealed by these disparate notions of human rights? Alas, probably not. Islam's still peace, according to the prez. Those pesky "extremists" fighting jihad are not, he said, "the true face of Islam." There Imam Bush goes again. "I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Qu'ran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam," jailed jihadi cleric Abu Qatada said under similar circumstances almost six years ago. "Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Qu'ran?" No. He's just leader of the Free World -- a Free World that has become less free and more dhimmified on his severely myopic watch. Contact Andrew Bostom at abostom@cox.net |
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HAMAS IS THE REAL THING
Posted by Judah Tzoref, June 29, 2007. |
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Castigating the Hamas has become an international fad. Across the West and particularly in Israel, public figures condemn Hamas and berate it with multifarious terms of abuse on media channels and every public podium. The more such condemnation of Hamas appears to be mordant and excruciating, the more it emerges as a redemptive process of self purification, typical of every generation's prudes. However, launching the poisonous arrows of censure at Hamas alone, as the epitome of evil and the ultimate obstacle to every prospect of reconciliation, is not necessarily indicative of virtue and greatness of mind. In general, the sweeping condemnation of Hamas reflects the extent to which the West has fallen in love with its own lies. So much so, that it has been driven to the point of fundamental misconception of the reality in which it fumbles its way. Hamas is indeed murderous, abusive and recalcitrant, but it can boast a basic advantage, by which it outshines many others: it is the real thing. Hamas compels us into focusing our reluctant eyes straight to reality. The overwhelming reality encroaches upon our sanity once we are bold enough to cast a close-up glance at it, so that in every possible manner we attempt to circumvent any direct visual contact with it. However, when the unsavoury reality is exposed before our eyes and intimately imposed on us, it's most convenient to point our blaming finger at Hamas. Not surprisingly USA is the most bitter enemy of Hamas, which indulges in the bad manner of undermining well-established American lies. America, that ardently nurtures the cult of the "politically correct", prefers to wallow in the quagmire of moral and cultural decadence, wrapped up in its fine veneer of sublime values. It is the same USA, the population of which amounts to only four percent of the world population, that consumes about 25 percent of the world energy sources. It is USA that preaches to the entire world on morality, but at the same time features as the star polluter of the globe, deteriorating it to the verge of ecological catastrophe. USA avows its most staunch friendship to Israel, but at the same time channels her into the treacherous path of disaster-begetting Judenfrei land plans. Those pernicious plans are first and foremost foiled by Hamas, for its own motives and interests, dusting away the grimy layers of fraud and counterfeit accumulated on them. Hamas is the only factor that is capable of curing us from the delirious addiction to the narcotic peace potion before too late. Above all, only the Hamas is endowed with the power to force us, Jews, to contemplate our unfortunate image reflected from the mirror of Israeli reality. With a razor-blade sharpness it confronts us with a truth invoked from the roots of our spiritual identity: "If you are indeed the Jews that have returned home, then prove it, otherwise, if you are just imposters, then go away". Moreover, without inhibitions of political correctness, Hamas flings the purest truth in our faces, the truth we fear so much, up to the point of escapism into mental hideouts of denial and suppression. The self-demanding message is openly conveyed to us by the Hamas: "If you have in mind to get entrenched here along the coastal plain within a noisy, dense and polluted ghetto, teeming with towers, real estates, carnivals, pride parades and non-stop urban buzzing, then forget it. This kind of story is already behind us. There isn't any justification for yet another Crusader Kingdom in a pseudo-Jewish style. You don't fathom the Holy Land, and you don't deserve it." The more we understand that Hamas is an indispensable essence of present-day reality, the deeper we shall be able to perceive its fierce nature. For Hamas is an inevitable product of our substance, and is the one that scourges us with the whip of truth and wakes us up from the twilight zone of lies, illusions and self-delusions, in which we have bogged down, and consequently losing contact with reality. Dr. Judah (Yehuda) Tzoref is a scientist, trained at the Technion in Haifa and Oxford University in England. His expertise is in physics and energy engineering. He is a grass-roots activist on behalf of Israel. He lives in Rehovot. |
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THIS THE END OF PALESTINE?
Posted by Steven Plaut, June 28, 2007. |
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This was written by Martin Peretz, editor in chief of
The New Republic (TNR). Ir is archived at
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Think back two years. Ariel Sharon was not only alive but healthy and staking his place in history on an idea he had never truly believed: that the Arabs of Palestine might be ready for peace with the Jewish state. This idea may have run against both his deepest convictions and his basic instincts. But somehow he carried many of his old comrades with him: comrades from Israel's old wars and comrades from the political right--where, after a brief parliamentary stint on the left, he had positioned himself. Carrying comrades to a place they had not been before also entailed making enemies, and Sharon's enemies were bitter and vindictive. Nonetheless, he carried out the withdrawal of all 8,000 or so Israelis from Gaza unconditionally and without making explicit demands on the Palestinians--or inexplicit ones, for that matter. He also dismantled four settlements in the West Bank, from what he and his friends called Samaria. No one thought that these would be the last to be vacated, no one. And Israel's entire security establishment (army, intelligence, the diplomatic corps) laid out various maps for discussion that were uncannily reminiscent of the (overly generous) proposals put forward by Ehud Barak in the waning days, the pathetic waning days, of the Clinton administration. Condoleezza Rice even persuaded a few American Jewish zillionaires to ante up roughly $15 million to buy, as a parting gift from the Jews at once symbolic and practical, for the Gaza Arabs the hothouses that had helped make local agriculture, for the first time in history, so abundant and also valuable. Ask about the hothouses of Gaza now, and people will laugh. Ask about the rest of Gaza, and people will cry. They cried even before Gaza was put through the trauma of civil war. For what was unraveling was the whole idea of the Palestine nation itself. Of course, some said, "I told you so." (I count myself among those entitled to say that.) I was never taken in by the dream of Palestine, although I realized that Israeli dominion over so many Arabs did somewhat dim the incandescence of the Zionist reality, a free Jewish people, free in politics and in spirit, in arts and in science and above all in literature, in law, and in the press, free from the religious coercion of the rabbis, a nation speaking its own language at home at last. No people moves without an elite committed to the whole. That the Palestinian elites were and are corrupt is a historic reality, a shabby reality. It was the Palestinian aristocracy that sold off its lands for Jewish settlement from the very beginning of the Zionist experiment. And the last act broadcast on television: the dismantling of the gaudy riches of Palestine's "revolutionaries" in Gaza. Contrast this with the secular, although economically impoverished, aristocracy of the kibbutz, created by the early Zionists, which, as Dorothea Krook has shown, shaped the ethos of both the movement and the state. There was an exhilarating and learned asceticism to the Jewish pioneers, an asceticism that has almost altogether vanished but remains as contingent reproach. It is needed now. Most of the Arabs of Palestine resented the Jews. But resentment is not a foundation for a nation. In some uncanny way, Yasir Arafat grasped the guilefulness of Palestinian peoplehood and so was always inventing new myths (e.g., Jesus was the first Palestinian). There has been a big to-do in academic circles over the last quarter-century about "imagined communities" as nations. This was meant to help legitimize groups whose coherence was incoherent. But, alas, even Benedict Anderson, in fitting his lax definitions with history, does not refer at all to the Palestinians. The British Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm does allude to the Palestinians in his book on nationalism, but only to dismiss them as a nationalist movement. One of the harsh truths that we have learned is that terrorism may be the prime expression of a fledgling nationalism, perhaps even its only collective expression. But it does bring a certain dread to its adversaries, and Palestinian terrorism has over the decades brought that dread to Israel. A suicide bomb also makes a big and incredulous splash, and with that comes to its instigators the sense that they can no longer be ignored. Of course, their hapless but willing instrument is dead. Poor man, increasingly we can also say poor woman, poor pregnant woman. "Palestine" is not the only place where the very idea of the nation is so weak that its violent eruptions seem to be dismal admissions of failure. But, however impoverished the reality, it has caught the fancy of many outside Palestine. The fact is that, had these outsiders--some cynical, some hopelessly muddle-headed--not embraced the cause, the cause already would have perished from its own exhaustion. So what is Palestine? It is an improvisation from a series of rude facts. Palestine was never anything of especial importance to the Arabs or to the larger orbit of Muslims. Palestine was never even an integral territory of the Ottomans but split up in sanjaks that crossed later postWorld War I borders, a geographical and political jumble. When General Allenby captured Jerusalem, it was a great happening for believing Christian Europe, not a tragedy for Islam. When the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine was passed, envisioning a "Jewish" state and an "Arab" (not, mind you, Palestinian) state, even the idea of a separate Arab realm was met at best with a yawn. Though almost no Arab wanted Jewish sovereignty in any of Palestine, virtually no Arab seemed to crave Arab sovereignty, either. Foreign Arab armies did the fighting against the Haganah, and foreign states sat for the Palestinians at the cease-fire negotiations, as they had sat for decades at the international conferences on Palestine convened by the powers. Palestine was being fought over to be divvied up by Cairo, Amman, and Damascus. The Syrian army was overwhelmed by the Israelis. No rewards there. It was different for King Farouk and Abdullah I, who got land in reward for their soldiers' combat. Indeed, from 1949 through 1967, what was the West Bank of Arab Palestine was annexed--yes, annexed--by Jordan, and what was the Gaza Strip was a captive territory of Egypt, unannexed so that Gazans had no rights as Egyptians (whereas the West Bankers had rights as Jordanians). The Palestine Liberation Organization, founded in 1964, was not founded to liberate these territories. It was founded to liberate that part of Palestine held by Israel. We are long past this history, and Israel had become accustomed to the idea--if not exactly the precise reality--of an independent Palestine for the Palestinians, the name of their desire. Ehud Olmert gladly would have signed on the dotted line if the Palestinian Authority could bring itself to realize it would get what it could get (and perhaps even a little more) if the Palestinians would finally stop their war against the Jews. And their rage. But the Palestinians' war against the Jews is actually also a war against one another. While Mahmoud Abbas probably would have settled for being president of a cartographically realistic Palestine, there were integral parts of Fatah, and particularly its fighting gangs, that still held out for the grand irredentist map--if not "from the river to the sea," something more than was ordained in 1967. Could Abbas, in the end, rein them in? Not when Hamas had set the terms of the intra-Palestinian conflict as all or nothing. Those are characteristic Hamas conditions, with other Arabs as with the Jews. It is true that Fatah men of combat were battling for their lives. But they were not battling for peace with Israel. The disintegration of Gaza began as soon as the Israelis departed. This was not an issue of what Israel did or did not do. The ur-religious and the ur-nationalist were in psychological control of the strip from the beginning. Hamas did not shoot (many) rockets across the border into enemy territory. But its surrogates did. Hamas did nothing about this, and Fatah really couldn't. They couldn't, although Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, the American coordinator in the area, assured they could, especially after supplying arms to Fatah and persuading Olmert to supply more weapons, which, as luck would have it, are now in Hamas's possession. The ordinary Gazans clearly were not pleased by the chaos and the haphazard murders on the streets. They were and are objects not subjects, victims not victimizers. But Hamas is also bitter, embittered by its costly victory. For them, there remains the project of Reconstruction, in the American Civil War sense, of the souls of their neighbors. The final fall of Gaza to Hamas puts the whole question of Palestine and the Palestinians into a new perspective. There are now three cohorts of Palestinians between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. (Four, if you count the Palestinian majority under Hashemite rule.) Let's deal first with the easiest of these to grasp: the Arabs of Israel, citizens of Israel with freedoms--legal and social--that are unimaginable in any Arab country. Their loyalties are always tested by kin and undermined by the residual discriminations of the Jewish state. But their loyalties are also the subject of an inevitable internal struggle. They are, after all, the privileged Palestinians, the Palestinians who live in a decent society. But one thing of which they will not hear--and that is a perfectly logical proposal--is that some of them, together with their land and homes, become part of whatever Palestine will be. The hostility to this idea will, by way of compensation, radicalize these Israeli Arabs and thus make them more and more suspect by their Jewish fellow citizens. Then, there is the West Bank. The optimism about peace prospects there is, at least, very much premature. And, frankly, from what I know about locales like Jenin and Hebron, I wonder why commentators think that the Judea and Samaria territories are so different from Gaza. In fact, these Palestinian cities historically have been centers of Arab extremism, although--and this is a curious characteristic of Arab extremism--this rarely ties one locale to another. So what you have is the bane of fanaticism without the bonds of community. Indeed, the defining loyalty among many Palestinians is loyalty to family, clan, and tribe, not progressive social formations, as they say. But Rashid Khalidi does not focus on these persistences in his book Palestinian Identity, which he optimistically subtitled The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. In fact, the persistence of these antique ties is another reason why the Palestinians are far from being a coherent people. But, then, Pakistan is also not a nation, and neither is Iraq. I recall that Palestinian embroidery differs in every town and city. That is quaint, and it makes for pretty dresses in many styles. But it is not a model for a nation-state. The initiative remains with the Gaza Palestinians, which is to say, Hamas. It will not be tempted, as many of the journalistic prophets informed us when the group won the parliamentary elections, to become responsible. Rage is actually its way in the world, and it is a shrewd, if not wise, tactic. Your adversary becomes uncertain and jittery, afraid to provoke but loath to ignore. Rockets will continue to land in the towns and kibbutzim of the Negev and further into Israel. More advanced weapons will be smuggled into Gaza--alas, from Egypt, which did not, over the past years, demonstrate either the will or the capacity to stop the running of war materials from the Sinai to the Strip. Israel must now make choices that will determine Egypt's responsibilities. Given the fact that Hamas has declared war on Israel, Jerusalem could decide to simply seal its border with Gaza. Enemies at war do not generally supply one other with food and medical provisions, let alone gas and electricity. What should persuade Israel to make such arrangements? To win goodwill? Nonsense. Of course, Egypt could assume greater responsibility, including the shepherding of endangered Fatah Palestinians to safety. But a corollary to that would be the obligation to truly bar weapons from being sent underground to Hamas. So what if Israel responds to Hamas rocket and missile assaults harshly and with the precision that its air power permits? Is not Mubarak afraid of Hamas's cousins in the streets of Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood, already chafing under the regime's heavy hand? Israel might also recapture the Philadelphia Corridor and police the Gaza border with Egypt. There is at least one assumption that we can make: Israel will not permit attacks without appropriate response. The abandonment of Sderot by a third of its population is a stain on Zionism. It will not occur again. And, with Israel under such intense pressure from Gaza, it is hardly possible to imagine that even Fatah will be able to resist the temptation of armed mischief. And why do I say even Fatah? I shouldn't. Then, of course, Hezbollah may be tempted, and Syria, too. The resulting combination--assaults from the north, the east, and the west--would be a peril for Israel. But the most serious near-term danger actually comes from the West Bank. For rockets and more precise weapons aimed at the thickly populated heart and narrow waist of Israel from almost any place in what is now Fatah land would revive both the anxieties and military reflexes of the state and its population. Surely that would not be good for the Arabs. That is why U.S. policy must not assume that there are facile ways to render the West Bank peaceful. Almost everyone has admitted, some with bitterness, that what keeps that area of Palestine more orderly than Gaza is the proximate presence of Israeli troops near Arab population centers. Would that there were a mature national will among the Palestinians. It might even be able to temper the rage of the Arabs against one another. Not until their sense of peoplehood conquers their rage against one another will they be in the psychological position to think of peace with Israel. I doubt this will happen any time soon. This is the end of Palestine, the bitter end. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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ARNOLD ROTH: 'THAT FEMALE IS OUR CHILD'S MURDERER'
Posted by Doris Wise Montrose, June 29, 2007. |
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This comes from the Solomonia website:
The essay was written by Arnold Roth. His daughter was one of the people massacred when Arab terrorists blew up the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001.
(http://www.kerenmalki.org/Press/Press_Listing.htm) "Far from matching the media cliché of under-privileged and 'desperate', she was a university student and journalist with a troubled personal past who transplanted herself from Jordan to Ramallah in 1998. In the days before the massacre, she visited the center of Jerusalem several times, collecting intelligence information. After her arrest, she confessed to a previous attempt at civilian mass-murder by planting a bomb among beer-cans on the shelf of a mid-town supermarket, a few minutes walk from Sbarro in the center of Jerusalem on July 30, 2001. This bomb was discovered in time and innocent lives were saved. Ten days later, the outcome was completely different." |
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June 27, 2007 -- The New York Times carried a review of a film called "Hot House" that goes inside Israeli prisons and examines the lives of Palestinian prisoners. We're not recommending the film or the review. But we do want to share our feelings with you about the beaming female face that adorns the article. You can see it here. The film is produced by HBO. So it's presumably HBO's publicity department that was responsible for creating and distributing a glamor-style photograph of a smiling, contented-looking young woman in her twenties to promote the movie.
That female -- Ahlam Tamami -- is our child's murderer. She was sentenced to sixteen life
sentences or 320 years which she is serving in an Israeli jail.
Fifteen people were killed and more than a hundred maimed and injured
by the actions of this attractive person and her associates. The
background facts are available at
Neither the New York Times nor HBO are likely to give even a moment's attention to the victims of the barbarians who destroyed the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem and the lives of so many victims. So we would be grateful if you would pass along this link to some pictures of our daughter whose name was Malki. She was unable to reach her twenties -- Hamas saw to that. Though she was only fifteen years old when her life was stolen from her and from us, we think Malki was a beautiful young woman, living a beautiful life. We ask your help so that other people -- far fewer than the number who will see the New York Times, of course -- can know about her. Please ask your friends to look at the pictures -- some of the very few we have -- of our murdered daughter. They are at http://www.kerenmalki.org/photo.htm And remind them of what the woman in the Israeli prison -- the woman smiling so happily in the New York Times -- said last year. "I'm not sorry for what I did. We'll become free from the occupation and then I will be free from prison." With so many voices demanding that Israel release its terrorist prisoners, small wonder she's smiling. With greetings from Jerusalem,
Contact Doris Wise Montrose at doriswise@sbcglobal.net
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HAMAS IS STRONG IN THE WEST BANK. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE USA?
Posted by David Meir-Levi, June 28, 2007. |
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Dear Mr. President A very ugly picture is emerging from the new situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Until now it was possible to assert (and, in fact, I often asserted) that the overwhelming majority of Palestinian people (the rank-and-file, man-in-the-street) wanted peace and did not want to destroy Israel and genocide its Jews. It was their leaders, their terrorist leaders, who were the cause of the problem, and the people as a body politic were afraid to speak out because their terrorist leaders terrorized them just as they terrorized the Israelis. The articles below offer up, indirectly, some distressingly clear evidence that this is not the case any more (and indeed, perhaps it never was). 1.) Note in the NY Times article that Hamas remains strong in the West Bank, even after slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza. Not only did the Palestinian people vote Hamas in to power as the Palestinian Authority leaders, but they also voted for Hamas locally as well....in dozens of city and town councils in the West Bank. Qalqilyah is a Hamas stronghold in the West Bank, and an apparently very large number of West Bank Arabs still strongly support Hamas. Some pundits were wont to opine that Hamas won the 2006 elections on a ballot of clean government...although Hamas spokespersons denied that this was the case, saying that Hamas' priorities are completely clear and well known to all in the Palestinian Authority territories: destroy Israel, genocide the Jews. But even if the pundits were right (they were not, but even if they were), they cannot make that claim any longer. Hamas' non-transparency has become obvious, as has its disregard for 'clean government'. Moreover, its role as the prime mover and inciter in the recent, very brutal and very brief civil war underscores its brutal terrorist nature and disregard for the concepts of 'Palestinian unity' and democracy which were part of its platform. It is also now clear that Hamas has become a proxy for Iran and Syria, as is Hezbollah. It is now beyond obvious to those who tried to whitewash Hamas, that Hamas is a brutal, thugish, barbaric terrorist group. Few are still alive in Gaza who do not support its Islamo-fascist rule; but it still has the support of many, perhaps most, Palestinans in the West Bank. 2.) In the Yahoo article, Fayyad's baby steps toward rule of law in the West Bank seem to be one small baby step in the right direction: disarm 'militants' and stop the incitement in mosques. But note that armed groups are defying Abbas' demand to disarm, and Hamas preachers (many of whom are elected officials in local government) defy Fayyad's demand to end the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate-preach that has typified Hamas friday sermons since the terror group came in to existence in 1987. Perhaps even more telling, Fayyad condemns Israel's military operations in the West Bank to stop terrorists before they blow up civilians. Why? Because it '..undermines... (Fatah's).... efforts to provide security and end the chaos'. Hmmm...how does stopping terrorists undermine Fatah's efforts? Only if Fatah's efforts are to continue terrorism. There are two possibilites: either Fayyad must say something anti-Israel in order to dis-associate from Israel, or he and Abbas have other plans for the deployment of those terrorists later (and recall that many Fatah 'security personnel' moonlight for Hamas). Either way, Fayyad's condemnation of what should logically be seen as Israel's cooperation with Fatah, to strengthen the PA in the West Bank, tells us that he and his constituency are not seeking peace and cooperation with Israel. 3 & 4.) Note the Pew Poll discussed in these two newspapers: A majority of the Palestinian people support Iran's acquisition of WMDs. Iran's acquisition of WMDs is opposed by every Arab state and almost every Muslim state in the world...leaders and populace. Yet a majority of the Palestinian people, and two Islamo-fascist terrorist states, are rooting for Iran's bomb. Let's recall Akhmedi-Nejad's promise: a world without Israel, and a world without America. So what is the ugly picture that emerges from these news items: 1 & 2 = There is some very significant plurality, or majority (hopefully a small majority, but we really cannot know, and hope is not a contraceptive) of Palestinian people (the rank-and-file, man-in-the-street) who really do not want peace and co-existence with Israel. They really do support Hamas in its commitment to genocide every Jew in Israel, and they remain supportive of that Hamas goal even as Hamas slaughters other Muslim Palestinians and openly grabs power and destroys any hope of a Palestinian state other than a Hamas terrorist state run by Shari'a law. That is what they really want, that is why they voted for Hamas, and that is why they still support Hamas in the West Bank, and that is why they do not want to give up their arms, and that is why Fayyad must distance himself from Israel even as Israel helps him and Abbas hold on to power in the PA. 3 & 4 = A majority of the Palestinian people have aligned themselves with the enemies of the USA. At first glance this would seem odd. After all, the USA has provided billions of dollars of aid to UNRWA for the benefit of Arab refugees over the past 55 years; whereas the Arab countries pay less than 3% of the annual UNRWA budget. The USA has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Arafat and the PA since the 1993 Oslo Accords, turning a blind eye to the obvious fact that almost all of that money (USA taxpayer money) was going to support Arafat's terror war. The USA has provided, twice since the Oslo Accords, advanced and sophisticated weapons and training for the PA security forces with the understanding that they would be used to keep order and quell terrorism, and then turning a blind eye to the fact that many Fatah operatives turned these weapons in terror attacks against Israel. The USA supported and hosted and feted and honored and lionized and white-washed Arafat and his terror war during six presidential administratons. Clinton hosted him more times than he hosted any other head of state. In sum, the Palestinian people have received more aid, per capita, than any other political body in the entire world (with the exception of the tiny African state of Cape Verde) over the past 14 years, much of it from the USA. So why do they support America's enemy and cheer when their leaders shout 'death to America'? Well, a brief look at history gives us the answer. In the 1930s and 40s, Palestinians under the leadership of the Haj Amin el-Husseini, sided with the Nazis. During the 50's to 80's under Arafat's leadership they sided with the USSR. After the Cold War came to an end, they sided with Saddam Hussein and cheered when he bombed Israel and cursed the USA for Gulf War 1. And they sided with el-Qaeda and cheered when el-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And they sided with Saddam Hussein and cursed the USA for Gulf War 2, and then mourned Saddam's fall. And now they side with Iran and root for the Iranian Bomb -- the bomb whose sole raison-d'etre is the nuclear destruction of Israel...the very same Israel in which they themselves live. In sum: a significant majority of the Palestinian people have always sided with the totalitarian, tyrannical, triumphalist, supremacist, imperialist, fascist anti-Israel and genocidally Jew-hating side of the world's dominant conflicts, over the past 85 years. The Palestinian people have always sided with America's enemies...who have also been Israel's enemies. If 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' then 'my enemy's friend is my enemy'. Britain supported the creation of a Jewish State: so the Palestinians adored Hitler. The USA supported the existence of a Jewish State: so the Palestinians helped the Soviets. Saddam opposed the USA....and the USA aided Israel...so the Palestinians adored Saddam. el-Qaeda plans to wipe out both the USA and Israel, so the Palestinans support el-Qaeda. Hamas promises the destruction of both the USA and Israel, so the Palestinians support Hamas. The Palestinian national movement, such as it is, displays two glaringly evil characteristics: 1.) it is the only national movement, in all the world and throughout all of world history, whose sole defining paradigm is terrorism, and whose unique and unrelenting goal is the destruction of a sovereign state and the genocide of its Jews No matter what the human and economic costs, no matter what the suffering, no matter how many dead....if the leaders promise the destruction of Israel and the humiliation of Israel's ally, then those leaders have the followers they need in order to rule. Even though the Iranian promise of a nuclear attack on Israel means the death of millions of Palestinians...the Palestinians cheer wildly for this nuclear consumation, seemingly blinded to this dire reality by their intense hatred for Israel and desire for its destruction. Now, that's a real suicide bombing. So, from the current state of affairs in the West Bank, and from a brief look at Palestinian history, we must conclude that the Palestinian people are the enemy of Israel and the enemy of the USA. And in case you are thinking...well, really it is not the majority...recall that Hamas was voted in to power democratically, and recent polls say that hamas would win again if there were another election. Whether a plurality or a majority, enough Palestinians want Hamas to lead them in its end-of-days armageddon-scenario eternal cosmic war against Israel....such that Hamas does indeed lead, and is likely to continue to do so. So, even if it is not the majority, it is enough of a plurality. And enough of that peaceful majority are silent in the face of that pro-terrorism plurality, such that Hamas can continue to rule, terrorism can continue to increase, and the dream of an end to Israel and an end to Jews can continue to burn in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people, and continue to mobilize the energies of that society. And in case you are thinking....well, really it is just the leaders....recall that there are no leaders without followers. I encourage you, and Madame Secretary, to temper your enthusiasm for a West Bank state of Palestine with the information noted above. |
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1.) In West Bank, Hamas Is Silent but Never Ignored
A new code was born here overnight. No one, it seems, belongs to Hamas in the West Bank anymore. Everyone now is an "Islamist," a word that neatly, and maybe more safely, shears the religious from party affiliation amid the uncertainty of a Palestinian people newly divided. "I don't want to spend my life in jail!" a 35-year-old restaurant owner said, refusing to give his name after expressing pro-Hamas sentiments in an interview here. Hamas, shrewd as it is deadly, has gone to ground in the West Bank, which is controlled now by its secular rival Fatah and supported by the United States, Europe and Israel as the territory with the only workable Palestinian government. Dozens of Hamas members have been arrested in the last week, since the militant Islamic group drove Fatah out of Gaza, the West Bank's smaller and more radical sibling. Men with beards -- the symbol of religious devotion and, often, of Hamas -- say they are sticking close to home. Hamas's charities, a bedrock of the group's support, have been attacked, and their workers are lying low. But in scores of interviews in the West Bank with people of all political shades, one thing seems clear: Hamas remains a powerful presence in the West Bank, even if kept somewhat in check by both Fatah and the Israeli Army. This may be the most crucial fact that Israel, the United States and others will have to absorb as they bolster the West Bank as a sort of trial Palestinian state. "If Hamas doesn't like it, Hamas can destroy it," said Fais Hamdan, 34, a stone cutter with an "Islamist" beard in this village of 6,000 near Nablus, as he sat in the restaurant with the owner who would not give his name. "If they want to kill any political deal, they only have to attack a settlement or another Israeli target. Don't think that Hamas is very weak in the West Bank." The central issue, as it has been for years, remains credibility. Hamas crushed Fatah politically last year, sweeping legislative elections in January 2006, partly because Fatah was perceived as corrupt and aloof. That reality, even many Fatah members complain, has changed little. Hamas also still remains, on paper at least, a strong political force, with the majority of legislative seats in parliament and in control of dozens of city and town councils around the West Bank. Israel has curtailed that as best it can. Of the 74 Hamas legislators, 40 are in Israeli prisons -- and many of its other leaders have been arrested since the fighting erupted in Gaza. But that could end up helping Hamas because Israeli prison is where Palestinian leaders often gain their contacts and organizational skill. More broadly, many Palestinians seem to hold little hope that anyone -- America, Israel or even Arab states fearful that Hamas's Islamism could spread -- will actually make good on promises of aid to the West Bank. [..] For the moment, political leaders and security officials say, the danger of the Gaza violence spilling into the West Bank seems remote. Fatah is stronger here and, unlike in Gaza, Israeli soldiers still occupy the West Bank. At any rate, Hamas seems for now to have taken itself out of any fight in the West Bank -- though its critics say that is not only because its members fear arrest. "If they are hiding, then they are hiding for shame at the crimes that were committed in Gaza," said Ahmad Hazaa Shreim, a legislator and leader of Fatah in Qalqilya, a Palestinian city of 40,000 close to the Israeli line. Qalqilya, walled off almost completely by the Israeli barrier, presents a telling test case for the future of Hamas in the West Bank. Flags of both Fatah and Hamas still fly here, and in 2005, its residents voted in a 15-member city council composed entirely of Hamas members (including the mayor, who was in an Israeli jail at the time and was arrested again last month). But then last year, the city bucked the trend, voting in a majority of Fatah legislators at a time when Hamas won elections around the Palestinian territories. Now the two forces are locked in another standoff. Hamas is coming under verbal fire for pushing Fatah from Gaza. [..] Akram al-Himouni, a local Fatah leader, said he saw some hope if Hamas apologized for Gaza and allowed Fatah back there. If Hamas does not "say sorry," he said, "then the story will become worse, and there could be a military resolution." He added grimly: "I know Hamas. I believe there may not be a dialogue; the resolution may be unfortunately by force." But many others predicted some sort of reunion, if not from love than from an inescapable logic tied, as always here, to what the outside world decides to do. If the outside world manages to create stability in the West Bank, and thus hunger for real peace, many argue a final settlement cannot happen without Hamas, which represents a sizable, if unknowable, percentage of the population. [On Wednesday, Saudi and Jordanian officials called for Palestinian unity.] [..] 2.) Fayyad warns Islamic preachers
The new Palestinian prime minister delivered a stern warning Thursday to hundreds of Islamic preachers, including Hamas supporters: He won't tolerate calls for violence delivered from mosque pulpits and plans to collect militants' weapons. Salam Fayyad's meeting with some 800 Muslim clergy marked the latest attempt to stem the influence of Hamas in the West Bank following the Islamists' violent takeover of Gaza this month. Security forces have arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank, and President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to dry up funding to Hamas with a review of all private organizations. But Fayyad's crackdown on Hamas was complicated by Israel's hunt for gunmen from Abbas' Fatah movement in the West Bank city of Nablus. 'We view this aggression as a way to undermine our efforts to provide security and end the chaos,' Fayyad said. Israel described the operation as a routine one targeting militants involved in plots to carry out attacks, and said troops found weapons and explosives in Nablus. Five Israeli soldiers were wounded by bombs as they moved from home to home through the densely populated Old City. Tens of thousands of residents were confined to their homes by a curfew. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised to bolster Abbas' government in his struggle with Hamas. Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said the Israeli government is committed to working with Abbas, but would not risk the safety of its own citizens. 'We will go forward with full strength to strengthen Abbas, and full strength to stop the terror,' she said. This week, Abbas issued a decree barring militants from carrying weapons, but it is doubtful he will be able to disarm Fatah's violent offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Fatah gunmen said they need their weapons for future confrontations with Hamas and Israel, and will not surrender them. Previous attempts to collect illegal weapons ended in failure. In his meeting with clergymen Thursday, Fayyad was accompanied by Abbas' top security official, Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh. 'We will collect weapons and replace them with pens and books,' the minister told the crowd. 'The phenomenon of militants is very dangerous, and we want to stop it in all forms.' Fayyad told the preachers to take politics out of their sermons. 'We won't allow them (mosques) to be turned into places of incitement and intimidation,' he said. 'It's the responsibility of men of religion to ... present religion as a way of tolerance, not as a cover for bloodshed.' Hamas is influential in many mosques in the West Bank and Gaza, and has been using Friday sermons as a vehicle for spreading its hard-line message. Preachers have also been actively involved in politics. In Nablus, seven of eight Hamas members of parliament are preachers, said Suhair al-Dubai, a moderate clergyman from the city. 'The government has realized how important the mosques are in forming and leading public opinion,' said al-Dubai, who attended the meeting with Fayyad. 'But Hamas is very well organized in mosques ... The government can restrict them, but not eliminate them because they are part of a structure and can always find a way to play a political role. Mohammed Abu al-Hasan, a Hamas preacher from the West Bank town of Jenin, said clerics would continue to speak their minds, regardless of any government directive. 'We will not accept these restrictions and we are going to respond with our own message in this Friday's sermons,' he said. 'Fayad is a politician, he can handle political issues and we...can handle religious issues.' Copyright 3.) Israel Today,
Palestinians rooting for Iran to get 'the bomb' A majority of Palestinian Arabs are in favor of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, according to the results of a global survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. Despite their reliance on American aid and their constant insistence that Washington support their nationalistic claims, the Palestinians continue to exude some of the most anti-US sentiment in the Middle East. This phenomenon first came to light for most following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The fall of the Twin Towers in New York and the partial destruction of the Pentagon were joyously celebrated by huge crowds of Palestinians throughout Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem. The same tendency to back the enemies of America, no matter who they might be, is believed to also lie behind the Palestinians' support of Iran obtaining nuclear arms against the efforts of the US-led international community. The Pew survey also showed that Israel is one of only four nations where a majority backs America's war in Iraq and its efforts to establish a stable democracy there. 4.) Poll: Most Palestinians favor Iran nukes,
Iran's potential acquisition of nuclear arms is favored by majorities in only Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Palestinian territories, a poll released Wednesday showed. The international survey conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center also indicated that unease with American foreign policy and with President George W. Bush had intensified in countries that are some of the closest US allies, while Russia and China also face growing international wariness. Support for the US-led war in Iraq, the NATO military action in Afghanistan and worldwide American efforts against terrorism have dropped since 2002, and views of the US in much of the Muslim world remain particularly negative. [...remainder of article unrelated to this issue] David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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TURN AROUND
Posted by Arlene Kushner, June 28, 2007. |
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I have been reporting in recent days on the growing sense, reinforced in many quarters, that Palestinian nationalism is dead and will be replaced by a more overt allegiance to clans, factions, etc. And this is, indeed, the way matters are likely to ultimately go. But the nationalism seems to be in the throes of a last gasp. Last week, I shared the response of a furious Saudi Arabia, which had worked hard to mediate the Mecca agreement for a unity government, that they were not having it any more: no more mediation. I shared, in fact, a report on the disenchantment with the Palestinians being widely expressed within the Arab world. Now, however, according to Agence France-Presse (cited by IMRA), Saudi King Abdullah told Egypt's President Mubarak on Monday that Saudi Arabia would resume mediation between Palestinian factions. "We need some time for the spirits to calm down, for the verbal clashes to subside," he reportedly said. "We need time to create the climate conducive to mediating between the Hamas people and the Palestinian Authority in order to sort out their differences." "Sort out their differences" indeed. My take is that the Saudis can mediate until the cows come home, but will not achieve genuine national Palestinian unity. The nationalism is too shallow and the other allegiances (the "differences") too deep. If the Saudis are not yet prepared to acknowledge this, they will simply delay the inevitable. ~~~~~~~~~~ Of course, Hamas is in deep trouble, isolated as it is in Gaza. And so at present this terrorist group is presenting a conciliatory face. According to a Palestinian news agency, Hamas has said that it is prepared to relinquish the position of prime minister and allow an independent to assume the post in order to bring about reconciliation. A high level (unnamed) Hamas official has reportedly said, "Hamas is ready for dialogue and to form a government with an independent figure at its head. Hamas is ready to return things to normal. [Normal?] Hamas is not willing to control the [Gaza] Strip, or the security offices and headquarters, or other departments, but rather Hamas calls on Abbas to begin dialogue..." This source said Hamas is ready to deal based on "national criteria and not factional criteria." Coming from a member of Hamas, this is nonsense. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Saudis are not moderates, nor promoters of moderation; they fund and promote terrorism. It is important to remember that when they "mediated" the Mecca agreement, they were partisan, pushing the Hamas position down Abbas's throat. Reports surfaced from a reliable source, after the fact, about how Abbas felt coerced to accede to Hamas demands. (The fact that he did accede rather than walking away is another story.) It is possible that the Saudis may have as a concern now the rescuing of Hamas. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is yet another element to be factored into this picture: According to the Middle East Newsline -- a security oriented news agency -- Egypt quietly supported the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. MENL reports that Egypt cooperated with the infiltration of weapons into Gaza that would strengthen Hamas. This is not a surprise. We saw this, we knew this. Egypt has been turning a deaf ear to Israeli demands that it stop the flow of weapons coming from the Sinai. What is startling is the reason why they apparently did this. MENL cites Western intelligence sources that say Egypt was worried about al-Qaida, which presents a serious threat, and that Fatah was allied with al-Qaida as a way to undermine Hamas. According to this report, Hamas's strongman, Ma'ashal, was in communication with Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman with regard to this matter. Ma'ashal specifically fingered Fatah's Muhammad Dahlan as the man dealing with al-Qaida. It has long infuriated me that Dahlan is represented in the media as a "moderate" ally of Abbas, capable of unifying the security forces in a positive way. For Dahlan is a terrorist, no more than scum. That he may have been involved with al-Qaida does not shock. And it may help explain why Hamas has had such virulent hatred for him. This report dovetails with other information: For Egypt has also now declared a readiness to "mediate" between Palestinian factions. It would make sense. Having helped to secure a Hamas victory in Gaza, Egypt would be ready to help Hamas out of its bind of isolation. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is a great deal to be learned from all of this, starting with the fact that matters, in this part of the world especially, are frequently not what they seem. There is here a vast complexity -- often counter-intuitive -- regarding the relationships between groups. The prevailing motivation is one of self-interest and short-term survival, not necessarily ideology at all, and some surprising covert alliances result. Most significant is the overwhelming evidence that there is nothing remotely "moderate" about Fatah. ~~~~~~~~~~ From the other side comes a decree from Abbas, announced on Tuesday, that includes an exemption from fees and taxes for all people living in Gaza. As it was officially worded: "item 88 of the constitution will be suspended in the southern governorates." Not that Fatah could collect fees and taxes there in any event. But this is significant in that it indicates Abbas has not washed his hands of Gaza but is continuing with the assumption (or the fiction) that all Palestinian areas are under the jurisdiction of the PA. ~~~~~~~~~~ Ismail Haniyeh, who was removed as prime minister by Abbas, has made an offer, through channels, to Israel that was rejected. Haniyeh requested that crossings to Gaza, in particular Karni, be opened, and in return they would stop the terrorism. What has been made clear by Israeli officials is that this was not a plea for crossings to be opened for humanitarian purposes, but rather commercial purposes, to enhance prosperity for the area. The fact is that there is no humanitarian crisis, as relief -- in the main, food and medicine -- is going into Gaza daily, primarily through the Sufa and Keren Shalom crossings. Yesterday alone, according to the IDF spokesman, supplies that went into Gaza included: 581 tons of animal feed; 319 tons of straw; 327 tons of sugar; 164 tons of flour; 5 tons of semolina; 143,000 liters of oil; 134 tons of rice; 27 tons of seedlings; 32 tons of salt; 30 tons of baby formula; 24,000 liters of hypochlorite (a water purifier); and 50,000 vaccinations. Additionally, 22 Palestinians were taken for medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. The first commercial shipment into Gaza since Hamas took over -- a joint effort of Israel and the Dutch government -- made its way to the Rafah area in the last two days: One million flower bulbs, which must be planted now if a season of growth is not to be lost. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile the EU monitors who served at the Rafah crossing have said they would not return while Hamas was in charge, but only if Abbas's presidential guard, Force 17, came back. They are in Ashkelon, 70 strong, awaiting orders. This is one of those matters that sounds serious but is truly a joke if you know that background. The EU monitors monitored. They watched terrorists and weapons move through the crossing. Watched. Who cares where they are? ~~~~~~~~~~ President Moshe Katsav. I have not written about his situation in some time. But now he's top of the news again, as Attorney General Mazuz has negotiated a plea bargain with him. The rape charge will be dropped and he will plead guilty to two lesser sexual charges (indecent assault and sexual harassment); he will resign and pay penalties, but receive a suspended sentence and not do time in prison. The furor surrounding this is considerable: Questions are being asked as to why Mazuz did this and whether he was, in the final analysis, without the evidence to convict him of rape. The woman who leveled that charge and her attorney are furious. So are women's rights groups, who see a person of status as being able to get away with major wrong doing. Mazuz, in making the announcement, spoke about "evidential difficulties due to legal limitations," but said there were also other considerations. There was considerable interest in not subjecting the nation to a trial that would be embarrassing and put Israel in a bad light. What is more, if Katsav had been indicted on rape, he might have been convicted and might not have been; this way there is a certain guilty plea. Katsav himself said he was tired and was prepared to do this to save his family anguish. Clearly, Katsav is guilty of wrong-doing of a sexual nature. Did he rape? I cannot say. I had assumed that if the investigation was headed in this direction that there was reasonable possibility that this was so; but heard unsubstantiated statements subsequently that made me wonder. The bottom line is that at this juncture I do not very much care. There is too much of greater importance to deal with. And I, for one, am frankly very glad that our nation won't be exposed to an extended trial in this regard. It would not have done us any good. As it is, Katsav's career has ended and he will suffer public censure for his misconduct. ~~~~~~~~~~ A small correction in the interest of accuracy: The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Briefing I alluded to yesterday on the matter of possible Jordanian federation with Palestinian elements in Judea and Samaria is not new, but was originally released in 2005. Another arm of the JCPA just publicized this Briefing and I was not diligent in picking up its date. It was publicized now because it is relevant now -- and that is the most significant point, I think. Arlene Kushner is Senior Research Associate, Center for Near East Policy Research, Beit Agron International Press Center, Jerusalem, Israel. Contact her at akushner@netvision.net.il |
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JEWISH GOOD WILL; ENTERTAINMENT IN GAZA; WHAT PEACE WITH EGYPT MEANS; U.S.-ISRAEL IRRATIONALITY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, June 28, 2007. |
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ISRAEL BOMBS THOSE IT ARMS The IDF bombed a Fatah arms factory in Gaza (Isabel Kershner, NY Times, 6/11, A9). Only weeks earlier, Israel had authorized thousands of rifles for Fatah. JEWISH GOOD WILL Israeli settlers and soldiers fixed some Arab tombstones that a few rogue Jews had broken. Leftists and Arabs were trying to get the media to denounce settlers as a whole for the original vandalism. The story of the reconstruction should have made the headlines. Arabs often wreck Jewish cemeteries, but never reconstruct any (IMRA, 6/10). KIDNAPPERS OF ISRAELI SOLDIER ON P.A. PAYROLL When the kidnappers were killed, the P.A. pensioned their families (IMRA, 6/11). Thousands of Fatah and Hamas terrorists are on the P.A. payroll! So much for Abbas' moderation! EU RESUMES SOME AID TO THE P.A. The Finance Minister promised to spend the money properly (IMRA, 6/11). The P.A. is in a war of aggression, imperialism, and genocide, but it would spend this money on officially designated projects. Some standard, the EU has! Since the aggression, imperialism, and genocide is against the Jewish state, the EU does not mind helping the P.A.. It calls its aid to jihadists humanitarian. IS THE U.S. INCONSISTENT? The US demands independence for the western Palestinian Arabs, but encourages Morocco to grant the western Saharans autonomy (IMRA, 6/11). I AGREE WITH NPR Accusing NPR of having implied that Pollard spied for the Soviets, Jonathan Pollard's attorneys demanded that NPR apologize. I read the passage. I agree with NPR that it is clear that not all the spies it named had worked for the Soviets or for enemies of the US (IMRA, 6/11). THREAT TO ISRAELI AIR TRAFFIC Illegal Arab radio stations in Judea-Samaria have interfered with communication between pilots and Ben-Gurion Airport. When the problem becomes acute, flights are canceled or delayed, and airport workers threaten to strike, then the Israeli Communications and Police Ministries detect the station and close it. Apparently detection and penalty are not much deterrent, because there have been 50 such closings this year (IMRA, 6/7). The article did not state what penalty was exacted. DEALS BASED ON ISRAELI CONCESSIONS In addition to the usual arguments, Dr. Aaron Lerner note the blunders made by Israeli commanders and prime ministers, and suggests that risking Israeli security for peace-on-a-paper would go poorly for Israel if future leaders blunder again (IMRA, 6/7). Here's the next possible blunder. Fatah asked Israel to allow it to have armored personnel carriers and anti-tank missiles, ostensibly for use against Hamas. PM Olmert is mulling this over, rather than rejecting it out of hand. He should reject it, because the Fatah has used weapons Israel allowed (actually supplied) to attack Israelis (Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/7). This brief is out-of-date, but Prof. Plaut's warning was prophetic. He foresaw what would happen. Why didn't Olmert? ENTERTAINMENT IN GAZA Gazans have a new form of TV entertainment. They watch videos of lavish villas formerly owned by Fatah officials and scenes of the heavily armed Fatah militiamen fleeing at the first sign of battle with Hamas. This is bound to disgust the Muslims of Judea-Samaria with Fatah. They know that Abbas has 60,000 gunmen on the P..A. payroll, which consumes most of the lavish foreign aid, and most of which the rest goes into building more villas and bulging private accounts. Fatah originally was more secular. When it turned more virulently Islamist and indoctrinated the people in hatred and warfare, it legitimized Hamas, which has the same ideology. Thus is boosted its own nemesis. NARROW-SIGHTED ECONOMICS Avi Shauli wrote an analysis of what it cost Israel to control the Territories. He wonders how much poverty Israel might have avoided, if it had not taken over the Territories and had not spent those billions of dollars. If it had not, Dr. Aaron Lerner suggests, the Territories long ago would have been like Lebanon, with Israel under terrible siege, immigrants not coming, investors not confident, the economy not expanding, and the country perhaps not surviving (IMRA, 6/9). It if had crushed terrorism, reclaimed territory, and encouraged Arab emigration, it would have saved a lot of money. SHIFTS IN LEBANON The Lebanese Army finally stopped adhering to the agreement not to enter Palestinian Arab towns in Lebanon, which agreement Syrian-backed terrorists abused in order to gain sanctuary from which to build up forces and attack the Lebanese Army. The regular terrorists within may be ganging up on the Syrian agents, in order to put down the insurrection that otherwise is drawing the Lebanese Army in and could put them down, too. The Lebanese Army caught Hizbullah men ferrying arms. As usual, the Army let the men go, but this time it confiscated the arms (Arutz-7, 6/7). Lebanon can use the arms. Its duty is to stop their flow to Hizbullah, but it usually looked the other way. The Palestinian Muslims make such trouble wherever they are given sanctuary. No wonder the Arab states want to foist them upon Israel! WHAT "PEACE" WITH EGYPT MEANS, in part "We naive Jews truly believe in peace, but actually, now that we have 'peace' with Egypt, we all know what it means to have peace with an Arab country. Egypt is right now mediating between Hamas and Fatah to have them point their guns at us, at Israel, instead of at each other. Egypt is also responsible for supervising the border with Gaza to ensure that no weapons or terrorists are smuggled in -- and look how 'efficient' they have been. They just freed from prison some terrorists who built the tunnels... Egypt wages war against us in the United Nations and everywhere else..." A phony peace is not desirable. The goal for as long as Muslim Arab culture remains intolerant should be co-existence. Co-existence requires strength to deter, not concessions to signal weakness (Arutz-7, 6/11). Concessions not only signify weakness, they also often make for weakness, because they give away strategic ground, etc.. P.A. ARABS DON'T BELIEVE P.A. ARABS In an attempt to kidnap an Israeli soldier, Gaza gunmen approached Israel in a jeep marked "TV." Islamic Jihad, however, denied the jeep was so marked by the gunmen. It accused Israel of having stuck the TV signs on the jeep upon retrieving it. P.A. journalists did not believe Islamic Jihad's claim (Op. Cit.). By contrast, Human Rights Watch accepts unknown P.A. Muslims' accusations against Israel. If the P.A. journalists don't believe fellow Gazans' claims in contrast to Israel's claims, why does Human Rights Watch? The terrorists committed the war crime of "treachery." Why doesn't Amnesty Intl. condemn it instead of falsely condemning Israel for war crimes. U.S.-ISRAELI IRRATIONALITY The US is pressing Israel to agree to Abbas' request for permission to bring from Sinai armored personnel carriers, thousands more rifles, millions more bullets, and anti-tank weapons. This is supposed to enable his forces to fight Hamas. But they are too poorly motivated to do so, meaning that the weapons would end up in Hamas' hands, and Fatah usually fights Israel more than it fights Hamas. Israel has objected to the US plan to sell "smart" bombs to S. Arabia, lest the bombs fall into Osama's hands. An objection that should be made but isn't is that the government of S. Arabia may use them against Israel, after having violated its agreements with the US by station in jets only 100 miles from Israel. The US plans and US refusal to sell Israel the F-35 and to let Israel install its software in purchased F-22s are part of Bush's shift against Israel after losing ground in the recent election. Bush has turned to James Baker's notion of preserving stability by supporting at the expense of Israeli security the extremists it calls moderate Arabs. Bush officially rejected Baker's recommendations, but replaced some of his top staff with people who favor some of them. Israel also adopted Baker's illusion that one can negotiate peace with Mideast fanatics. Baker's notions make no sense in this era of all sorts of Muslim alliances. Bush said he would not attack Iran's nuclear facilities, so Arab states are engaging in a destabilizing nuclear arms race. Iran and Syria, are arming rebels to destabilize Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the P.A.. The elderly leaders of Egypt and S. Arabia are not stable or moderate, despite what Olmert says they are. Egypt refuses to stop the arms flow into Gaza. S. Arabia subsidizes Hamas, and its diplomacy would get Israel destroyed. PM Olmert refrains from attacking Gaza much, lest that destabilize it (IMRA, 6/9 from Caroline Glick), but Gaza already is destabilized. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5verizon.net |
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ONE YEAR AGO AND--GILAD, UDI, ELDAD--ARE NOT HOME YET!...
Posted by Nurit Greenger, June 28, 2007. |
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This next is from the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles and is entitled "One Year in Terrorist Captivity". The Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles is located at 6380 Wilshire Blvd. #1700, Los Angeles, CA, 90048. |
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THE ABDUCTION Eleven months have passed since the unprovoked abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, an action that precipitated widespread confrontation between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization. To date no word has been heard from the two captive soldiers, and neither their families nor the government of Israel have any knowledge of their whereabouts or their current state of health. Two weeks prior to their abduction, another soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted as well, this time on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. His family, too, anxiously awaits news from him. Especially grave is the fact that these unprovoked abductions were carried out on sovereign Israeli territory. Taken from their families ten months ago, these captive soldiers are denied the most basic of human rights as enshrined in the Geneva Convention. In a gross breach of U.N. Resolution 1701, the terrorist organizations that carried out these abductions, and Syria and Iran who support them, behave as if these human rights are nothing more than a bargaining chip in their game of negotiation, refusing even to transmit messages to the captives from their families. International bodies who met with the captives' families have also tried to forward messages and letters, but they have been met with a negative response as well. The Israel Foreign Ministry is active in efforts to gain their release on all levels: Foreign Ministry Tzipi Livni and her fellow ministers, alongside Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, raise the issue at the highest levels in their diplomatic meetings, in Israel and abroad -- as do the Foreign Ministry's director-general and other senior officials. The Foreign Ministry also assists the families of the kidnapped soldiers in their meetings, both abroad and with visiting dignitaries in Israel, in an effort to keep the cause of the abducted soldiers on the international public agenda. Israel's embassies abroad are also taking part in this effort, with emphasis on the humanitarian aspect: the families await a clear sign that their sons are alive and well. Those with influence, whether direct or indirect, on Syria and Iran are being asked to exert this influence on these countries. Thus, it is hoped, Syria and Iran, which sponsor the terrorist organizations holding the abducted soldiers, will be forced by growing international pressure to bring their influence to bear to obtain the hoped-for news and their eventual release. Neither Israel nor any other civilized, law abiding country can accept this situation. We urge you to support us in our endeavor -- to bring our soldiers home. POWERPOINT PRESENTATION http://www.banim.org/download/EngPowerPoint.ppt MOVIE CLIPS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2-olR1HfhU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHIDSH2SKKI HaTikva -- Rally for the release of four Israeli soldiers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBex3EMM67w
Interview with Israeli Kidnapped Soldier's Wife.
Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog:
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kyISRAEL'S BLACK AFRICAN PRIORITIES
Posted by David Bedein, June 27, 2007. |
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This was published in Arutz-Sheva
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7229 |
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Rescue operations conducted by the government of Israel to bring more than 16,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel represented one of the few times in history that a Black African community willingly and enthusiastically moved to a majority-White Western country. From the point of view of Ethiopian Jewry, they had come home to Zion. Having visited Ethiopian Jews during their trek from Ethiopia during Operation Moses in 1984, this reporter heard numerous stories from Ethiopian Jews about their own prophetic lore. Passed down from one generation to the next was a tradition that Ethiopian Jews would be repatriated to Zion when the last emperor of the Solomonic dynasty would fall. And when Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, was overthrown in 1974, that was one of the signs that Ethiopian Jews would indeed come home. Although Israeli Jews of Ethiopian origin now number more than 100,000, there were some Ethiopian Jews who were left behind. They are the 15,700 Ethiopian Jews from a group known as the Falash Mura, the remnants of Ethiopian Jews who had been forcibly converted over the course of previous generations. After intense pressure, the Israeli government made a decision on February 16, 2003, that anyone who can trace maternal descent to Jews of Ethiopia would be allowed to return to Israel under the Law of Return. The Israeli government then launched Operation Promise to raise funds to bring this last community of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. With expectations raised, these 15,700 Ethiopian Falash Mura have moved their residence into three temporary compounds in the Gondar region of Ethiopia, awaiting their repatriation to Zion. However, the Israeli government will only allow 300 Falash Mura per month to arrive in Israel. No one in the Israeli government will give an explanation as to why such a low quota exists. Meanwhile, although the Israeli government is supposed to be providing "Immigration Eligibility Forms" for the Falash Mura, no Israeli government representative has visited the three compounds where the Falash Mura have been lingering since the decision to bring them to Israel. No Israeli government official will give an explanation for this policy. However, the Israeli government is making every effort to absorb at least 5,000 Muslim Sudanese refugees from Darfur, who are leaving transit camps where they had been living in temporary accommodations in Egypt. The Israeli collective farms known as kibbutzim are absorbing the Darfur refugees and giving them work in exchange for room and board. How an unpaid Muslim population will integrate into Israeli society is a question that no one in Israel is prepared to deal with. Now the Jewish State prepares to welcomes Black African non-Jews, who are strange to Israel, while it turns its back on Black African Jews who perceive Israel as their home. To learn more about the plight of remaining Ethiopian Jewry, check out the web site of The Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry at http://www.SSEJ.org David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. (http://Israelbehindthenews.com). He is president of Center for Near East Policy Research. Contact him by email at media@actcom.co.il |
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BUSH'S CONDESCENSION TO JEWS--THE WHITE HOUSE SENT OUT A MESSAGE TO "JEWISH LEADERS"
Posted by Nurit Greenger, June 27, 2007. |
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It is becoming increasingly infuriating when politicians give away our money like it's their own, while shamelessly pandering to special interest groups. The same is with foreign aid; it hurts the country that gives it as well as the country that receives it! Sending a dime of foreign aid to any country in the world is unconstitutional, which should be enough reason not to do it; it's also counterproductive! Kind of like welfare; receiving welfare over a long period of time is a result of confiscating by force the wealthy and seducing the other side to dependency on government. Recognizing the morally qualitative difference between Israel and any other nation in the Middle East is a given. Anyone who takes a noncommittal backseat on this issue must be carefully examined. Israel however, is not better off today because of all the billions of dollars -- in foreign aid -- U.S. taxpayers have pumped into her economy of its enemies! And America is not better off because of all the billions of dollars --in foreign aid -- U.S. taxpayers have pumped into the coffers of misguided politicians around the world -- including, as scary as it is -- madmen like Kim Jong-il, Arafat, or now terrorist Abbas in suit-Abu Mazen, a new foreign aid fiasco in the making. The time has come for the U.S. to stop thinking that we can buy peace and freedom for our allies from our enemies. No money is ever given away to anyone with no strings attached therefore, giving it creates restrictions on the defense of freedom foreign aid. Foreign aid ultimately represents pandering to -- all type of -- special interests groups, therefore must end. This was written by Joseph Farah and it appeared today in
WorldNetDaily |
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The White House sent out a message to "Jewish Leaders" last Wednesday. For some reason, I, an Arab-American Christian journalist, received a copy. (This won't surprise those who deride me as a "neocon," which has become a euphemism for Jew.) The message came from Jeremy Katz of the Office of Public Liaison, who identifies himself as the White House liaison to the Jewish community. (I couldn't help but wonder how many other taxpayer-supported liaisons there might be.) Katz offered that he wanted to ensure that recipients "didn't miss this important statement from the president." Here's what it said: "I am strongly committed to Israel's security and viability as a Jewish state, and to the maintenance of its qualitative military edge. During our meeting today, I told Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert that I am committed to reaching a new 10-year agreement that will give Israel the increased assistance it requires to meet the new threats and challenges it faces. The work on this new agreement was launched during the prime minister's previous visit. I will send Under Secretary of State Nick Burns and an interagency team to Israel in July to lead discussions aimed at concluding an agreement soon." Translation? This president, who seems hopelessly confused or inept when it comes to protecting his own country's security and viability is going to send more of my hard-earned money and your hard-earned money to Israel, a nation that also seems hopelessly confused and inept under its recent political leadership when it comes to protecting its own security and viability. What's wrong with this picture? Plenty. Do you detect the condescension in this message? Do you hate it as much as I do when politicians give away your money like it's their own, while shamelessly pandering to special interest groups? Do you know foreign aid not only hurts the country that gives it but the country that receives it as well? I take a backseat to no one in recognizing the morally qualitative difference between Israel and any other nation in the Middle East. But I don't think America should send a dime of foreign aid to Israel or any other country in the world. It's not only unconstitutional, which should be enough of a reason not to do it; it's also counterproductive. Think of foreign aid like you think about welfare. Is receiving welfare over a long period of time a good thing for anyone -- those whose wealth is confiscated by force and those who are seduced into dependency on government? I don't think so. Most of us have been able to see the harmful effects of welfare on both the recipient and those of us who are coerced into this supposed act of compassion. It, too, is wholly unconstitutional and counterproductive. Nowhere in our founding documents will you find any provision for forcible redistribution of wealth -- and that's exactly what domestic welfare and international welfare, aka foreign aid, are all about. Is Israel stronger today because of all the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have pumped into the coffers of its misguided politicians? No. Is Israel better off today because of all the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have pumped into the coffers of its enemies? No. Is America better off because of all the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have pumped into the coffers of misguided politicians around the world -- including madmen like Kim Jong-il? No. It's time to end the foreign-aid fiasco. It's tie to end the charade that suggests we can buy peace and freedom for our allies and from our enemies. It's time to end the pandering to special interests groups that foreign aid ultimately represents. It's time to end the restrictions on the defense of freedom foreign aid often represents -- because no money is ever given away to anyone with no strings attached. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog:
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HELP ISRAELI SOLDIERS
Posted by Yasharlachayal Organization, June 27, 2007. |
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Dear Friends, Please take a few moments to look at our latest project helping soldiers through Sderot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcFRZcCmrEs Just a reminder, every donation goes 100% to helping Israeli combat soldiers. We would greatly appreciate passing this link to as many of your friends and relatives throughout the world. Thank you,
Contact the Yasharlachayal Organization at yasharlachayal@yahoo.com |
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BOLTON: I'M 'VERY WORRIED' FOR ISRAEL; THE 'SPIRIT OF ENTEBBE'; DEMONIZING ISRAEL AGAIN
Posted by Michael Travis, June 27, 2007. |
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Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Worse still, according to Ambassador Bolton, the Bush administration does not recognize the urgency of the hour and that the options are now limited to only the possibility of regime change from within or a last-resort military intervention, and it is still clinging to the dangerous and misguided belief that sanctions can be effective. As a consequence, Bolton said he was "very worried" about the well-being of Israel. If he were in Israel's predicament, he said, "I'd be pushing the US very hard. I am pushing the US [administration] very hard, from the outside, in Washington." Bolton, interviewed by telephone from Washington, was speaking a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency announced it would send a team to Teheran, at Iran's request, to work jointly on a plan ostensibly meant to clear up suspicions about the nuclear program. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had met on Sunday with IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, and a day earlier with top EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana. Bolton, however, was witheringly critical of the ongoing diplomatic contacts with Teheran, which he said were merely playing into the hands of the regime. "The current approach of the Europeans and the Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous," he said. "Dealing with [the Iranians] just gives them what they want, which is more time... "We have fiddled away four years, in which Europe tried to persuade Iran to give up voluntarily," he complained. "Iran in those four years mastered uranium conversion from solid to gas and now enrichment to weapons grade... We lost four years to feckless European diplomacy and our options are very limited." Bolton said flatly that "diplomacy and sanctions have failed... [So] we have to look at: 1, overthrowing the regime and getting in a new one that won't pursue nuclear weapons; 2, a last-resort use of force." However, he added a caution as to the viability of the first of those remaining options: While "the regime is more susceptible to overthrow from within than people think," he said, such a process "may take more time than we have." Overall, said Bolton, it was clear that Iran had surmounted "all the technical problems of uranium enrichment," and it "may well be that we have passed the point of Iran mastering the nuclear fuel cycle." If so, it was now merely a matter of time before Iran reached a bomb-making capability -- "a matter of resources and available equipment," he said -- and it was solely up to Iran to set the pace. To his dismay, however, the Bush administration was still clinging to the empty notion that the sanctions route could work, "even though [the UN's sanction] Resolutions 1737 and 1747 were full of loopholes. The US is still seeking another sanctions resolution and Solana is still pursuing diplomacy," he said bitterly. Bolton lamented that the Bush administration today was "not the same" as a presumably more robust incarnation three years ago, because of what he said was now the State Department's overwhelming dominance of foreign policy. "The State Department has adopted the European view [on how to deal with Iran] and other voices have been sidelined," he said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "is overwhelmingly predominant on foreign policy." Asked where this left Israel, Bolton said simply: "Israel's options are as limited as those of the US, except that you are in more danger in that you are closer. I hate to say that." Bolton, who served as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security from 2001 to 2005, before taking the ambassadorial posting to the UN from August 2005 to December 2006, said the failed handling of the Iran nuclear crisis was one of the reasons he had left the Bush administration. "I felt we were watching Europe fiddling while Rome burned," he said. "It's still fiddling." 2. Whatever happened to the 'Spirit of Entebbe'?
Once upon a time, and it truly seems like it was a very long time ago, the State of Israel knew how to take swift and decisive action in order to protect its citizens and punish its foes. I know, dear reader, that may be hard for you to believe, particularly in light of recent events. After all, Israel has spent much of the past decade in retreat, ignominiously capitulating to terrorism and turning over vast swathes of territory to Palestinian control. With Cpl. Gilad Schalit being held captive by Palestinians in Gaza for the past year, and the residents of Sderot and the Western Negev dodging Kassam rockets on a daily basis, it is easy to forget that words such as heroism, daring and bravery once exemplified our government's approach towards combating terror. None of these qualities were on display the other day at Sharm e-Sheikh, of course, where Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saw fit to heap concession after concession on the ineffectual and increasingly irrelevant Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. After agreeing to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the Abbas-led regime, and to strengthen the armed Fatah gangs loyal to him, the premier presented his Palestinian counterpart with an unexpected parting gift. "As a gesture of goodwill to the Palestinians," Olmert declared, "I decided today that I'll bring to the Israeli government at its next meeting a recommendation to release 250 prisoners from Fatah without blood on their hands." Then, in what passes for Israeli resolve and determination these days, the premier insisted that the Fatah terrorists would be freed, but only if "they sign commitments not to become involved again in terrorism." Phew. And I thought they would be let go for nothing. Apparently, it didn't dawn on the Prime Minister to link the release of Palestinian terrorists with freedom for Gilad Schalit, or to condition any further movement on the diplomatic front with progress towards his return home. Instead, the fact that a young Israeli Jew serving his country was abducted 12 months ago by a group of thugs was treated as if it was a pesky and tiresome nuisance, rather than a substantive and fundamental matter of principle. In light of the Prime Minister's sorry display, it is especially important that we recall the anniversary of an important event that took place just over three decades ago this week, one which offers us a potent and timely reminder of just how terrorism should truly be fought. IT WAS 31 years ago today, on June 27, 1976, that armed gunmen from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, together with some German accomplices, hijacked Air France flight 139, diverting it to Libya and then on to the city of Entebbe, in Idi Amin's Uganda. As the world looked on, the terrorists proceeded to separate out the Jewish and Israeli passengers, threatening to kill them if Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails were not set free. Back then, however, Israel was not yet in the habit of yielding to terrorist demands. No international summits were convened at Sharm e-Sheikh, no "gestures" were made to the terrorists, nor were any tax receipts transferred into their coffers. Instead, Israel reacted precisely as it should have, by launching a stunning military raid on July 4, 1976, freeing virtually all the captives and bringing the situation to a sudden and dramatic end. In one fell swoop, Israel had underlined its role as the sovereign defender of Jews everywhere. An entire generation was inspired to believe that the Jewish people were determined to defend themselves whatever the consequences might be. THE RESCUE at Entebbe was also a powerful symbol for the entire free world. It showed that with a little courage and resolve, and a healthy dose of military force, the scourge of international terror could be defeated. For years afterwards, it was the "Spirit of Entebbe" which guided this country, and which deterred its enemies from once again thinking that Jews and Israelis were fair game. Looking back, it is hard to believe how much has changed since then. In just three decades, Israel has gone from being a country which frees hostages to one that frees terrorists. Instead of refusing to negotiate with the bad guys, we now offer them unilateral concessions while getting nothing in return. In times such as these, we must seek to revive the "Spirit of Entebbe" and infuse it into our national life. Jewish lives were once considered precious enough to warrant risking international condemnation over saving them in a distant land. That must again become a pillar of Israeli security policy. By refraining from taking the steps necessary to protect itself for fear of how the world will react, Israel is effectively placing greater importance on international public opinion than on the lives and well-being of its citizens. That calculus is not only morally warped, but short-sighted and dangerous too. As Entebbe so clearly demonstrated, winning the war against terrorists comes not when one yields to them, but when the terrorists themselves are forced to yield. Only by regaining the spirit of triumph and fortitude that was embodied at Entebbe, and by hitting back at our foes, can Israel possibly hope to dissuade them from committing further atrocities and outrages. And the sooner our government adopts this basic and self-evident approach, the safer all of us will be. 3. Here we go again, demonizing Israel
It's not big news when Palestinians throw one another from the roofs of tall buildings, engage in gunbattles in hospitals, hunt down opposition Palestinians (identified by numbers and different colored stars) and either execute them or shatter their kneecaps with a bullet to the back of the knee... ... after an hours-long gun battle ... the Hamas military wing removed all the family members from their compound and lined them up against a wall. Militants selected a 14-year-old girl, two women aged 19 and 75, and two elderly men, and shot them to death in cold blood... ... BUT when Israel does anything, Dhimmedia is on it! Israeli troops kill 10 Palestinians JERUSALEM -- Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed 10 Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, Palestinians said, the bloodiest fighting in the area since the Hamas militant group violently seized control two weeks ago. That is all the American reading public will ever hear or know of it. Never mind the context, supplied here by Arutz Sheva reporter, Ezra HaLevi: 5 Terrorists Dead in 2 Counter-Terror Operations in Gaza Five terrorists were killed as the IDF carried out counter-terror operations in Judea, Samaria and two parts of Gaza Tuesday night. And (from the same link) you will NEVER see this in American newspapers: IDF Continues Humanitarian Aid Despite Dangers Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com |
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WEAKNESS IN ISRAELI POLITICAL SYSTEM; LEBANON UPRISING STAGED BY SYRIA; WHAT PEACE WITH EGYPT MEANS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, June 27, 2007. |
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LYING U.S. OFFICIALS NEVER CHALLENGED Sec. of State Rice and other US officials keep asserting such falsehoods as that most western Palestinian Arabs are moderate and want a two-state solution. Neither journalists nor Israeli officials challenge the assertions or ask what they are based on. They let officials assert whatever they want. Poll after poll finds that most P.A. Muslims want Israel conquered. When asked about descendants of refugees, P.A. Muslims reply that they want those millions to be able to move to Israel. If they moved in, they would take over and make a single, Muslim state. They have not declared yet whether they would bury or cremate the Jews. But they explicitly don't want ultimately there to be two states, one being for the Jews. WEAKNESS IN ISRAELI POLITICAL SYSTEM It sounds democratic. Israel's elected Knesset picks the President, a largely ceremonial post with the crucial power of pardon. Why crucial? Israeli politicians, whether in the Cabinet of Knesset, by and large are venal. Since Israel lacks a constitution, institutions carve out powers for themselves, as have the attorney-generals and the Supreme Court. So might a President, especially if that master of corruption, Shimon Peres becomes one. In addition, Peres, who helped the US prosecute Pollard, is sure not to appeal for US clemency. The problem in letting the Knesset pick the President is that the Knesset, itself, is not democratic. It is elected by proportional representation, which is democratic in theory and non-democratic in practice. Proportional representation means that a certain number of most parties' candidates are going to be elected, a few more if the party gains more popular favor. The party bosses pick the candidates. To get an assured place on the list for each election, aspiring Members of Knesset cater to the party bosses, not to the electorate. Therefore, the party bosses really pick the President, and for reasons of their own. The US method of districts electing their own representatives is more democratic. WHAT IS THE U.S. DOING WITH EGYPT? The US has built up Egypt's military sufficiently for it to challenge Israel's. Polls of various Muslim countries report the people of Egypt being the most hostile both to Israel and to the US. Perhaps the State Dept. thinks that the risk of Egypt's military falling into Islamist hands is small -- I don't -- and perhaps it thinks that Egypt may help the US defend S. Arabia -- which it once tried to capture -- but in the 28 years or so since US subsidies began, the US has gotten nothing for its $50 billion gift to Egypt. Israel may get attacked. JERUSALEM, WHOSE? Passed after the Six Day War, "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem and this omission was deliberate," said the author of 242, Ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg. Re-dividing Jerusalem and the other proposals for Israel to withdraw from all the territory it gained up to the armistice line of 1967, gained in self-defense, would make Israel difficult to defend and therefore a likely object of war. Imagine, turning non-Muslim holy sites over to Hamas, after the precedent of Jordan destroying all 50 synagogues upon seizing Jerusalem in its earlier aggression! (former Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold, NY Sun, 6/8, Op.-Ed.) At least don't call Israeli concessions to the aggressors a peace process. AMERICAN DIPLOMAT EXPLAINS An American diplomat agrees with the Gulf Cooperation Council that it is entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful use, as Iran would be. He hopes that Iran finds a diplomatic solution to its development for non-peaceful uses (IMRA, 6/5). There is no diplomatic solution; this is not a diplomatic problem. Iran has no grievances. Iran is building nuclear weapons in behalf of its religious goal of conquering the world and destroying some of its enemies at the outset. That problem is religious. Not willing to reform its intolerant, imperialist religion, and finding no resolute resistance to its weapons drive or its wars by proxy, Iran continues to pursue its goal. It welcomes diplomacy without teeth, equivalent to time for weapons development without hindrance. There would have been a purely economic sanction, but other great powers support Iran. That leaves these options: (1) Overthrow the regime. Iran is too close to culmination of weapons development for the US to accomplish much with dissidents; (2) Bomb certain non-nuclear facilities, making an economic crisis that may topple the unpopular regime. This may or may not work. Probably not enough time to take a chance on it, as the sole remedy; and (3) Attack the nuclear facilities. That would work in combination with other options, and if rebuilt nuclear facilities were attacked, in turn. What a naïve US diplomat! The route to nuclear weapons is to develop industrial nuclear facilities and learn the technology. Then, under cover of industrial nuclear works, sneak in development of nuclear weapons. The diplomat might have noticed that Iran's and N. Korea's rogue development, rogue behavior, and ability to develop nuclear power clandestinely in violation of pacts, sparked interest in Gulf development. The GCC doesn't need it to save oil! NEW EVIDENCE FOR CONVENTIONAL VIEW OF WAR Pro-Arab, advocacy historians are turning the evidence on its head to make Israel seem to have fought the Six Day War for nothing, and to blame it for not having peace and for seeking territory. The revisionist "historians" (including Benny Morris) do not consult Arab sources contemporary to the time. Genuine historian Michael Oren did research Arab sources. He found their 1967 plans to attack Israel. He also notes that Israel did not let citizens settle in the Territories for years. Instead, it immediately offered the Territories back, for peace, but the Arabs said "No, no, no, no." An offer of the Territories indicates no craving for more land (IMRA, 6/5). The Arab aggression and their "No" does indicate a craving for more land. Of course the Arabs planned war! Various Arab states put their armies under a unified command that frequently boasted of a blood-curdling purpose. Hostile armies mobilized on the edge of Israel, which is an act of war. Egypt closed an international strait Israel used as a shipping lane, another act of war. Israel asked Jordan to stay out of the war, even after Jordanian bombardment. When Jordanian ground forces started moving in, Israel retaliated. I remember the gathering of enemy forces, more formidable than Israel's, and the mounting of dread in my circle. How diseased is the human mind that so many people seek to blame the victims! We Jews experienced that often, but some of us are so desirous of outsider approval, that we help place that blame. Isn't that sick! LEBANON UPRISING STAGED BY SYRIA Syrian agents and terrorists under Syrian auspices staged an uprising in a Palestinian Arab town of Lebanon, just as the UNO seemed about to start a tribunal for assassins of Lebanese officials, probably at Syrian orders. Syrian agents told journalists that the uprising was at the behest of Lebanon or the US, rather than admit being behind it. Generally uninformed, the journalists swallowed the line. The terrorists in question are part of a Syrian-sponsored organization. Its leader operates from Damascus, meaning under Syrian protection. Its commander long has been a Syrian agent. When Jordan demanded his extradition, Syria claimed to punish him, but imposed a three-year sentence, if he even served it, instead of shooting him "while attempting to escape," their usual punishment. Sentence over, Syria let him go to Lebanon (Barry Rubin, IMRA, 6/6) to foment strife. NARROW-SIGHTED ECONOMICS Avi Shauli wrote an analysis of what it cost Israel to control the Territories. He wonders how much poverty Israel might have avoided, if it had not taken over the Territories and had not spent those billions of dollars. If it had not, Dr. Aaron Lerner suggests, the Territories long ago would have been like Lebanon, with Israel under terrible siege, immigrants not coming, investors not confident, the economy not expanding, and the country perhaps not surviving (IMRA, 6/9). It if had crushed terrorism, reclaimed territory, and encouraged Arab emigration, it would have saved a lot of money. SHIFTS IN LEBANON The Lebanese Army finally stopped adhering to the agreement not to enter Palestinian Arab towns in Lebanon, which agreement Syrian-backed terrorists abused in order to gain sanctuary from which to build up forces and attack the Lebanese Army. The regular terrorists within may be ganging up on the Syrian agents, in order to put down the insurrection that otherwise is drawing the Lebanese Army in and could put them down, too. The Lebanese Army caught Hizbullah men ferrying arms. As usual, the Army let the men go, but this time it confiscated the arms (Arutz-7, 6/7). Lebanon can use the arms. Its duty is to stop their flow to Hizbullah, but it usually looked the other way. The Palestinian Muslims make such trouble wherever they are given sanctuary. No wonder the Arab states want to foist them upon Israel! WHAT "PEACE" WITH EGYPT MEANS, in part "We naive Jews truly believe in peace, but actually, now that we have 'peace' with Egypt, we all know what it means to have peace with an Arab country. Egypt is right now mediating between Hamas and Fatah to have them point their guns at us, at Israel, instead of at each other. Egypt is also responsible for supervising the border with Gaza to ensure that no weapons or terrorists are smuggled in -- and look how 'efficient' they have been. They just freed from prison some terrorists who built the tunnels... Egypt wages war against us in the United Nations and everywhere else..." A phony peace is not desirable. The goal for as long as Muslim Arab culture remains intolerant should be co-existence. Co-existence requires strength to deter, not concessions to signal weakness (Arutz-7, 6/11). Concessions not only signify weakness, they also often make for weakness, because they give away strategic ground, etc.. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5verizon.net |
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FRIMET ROTH SPEAKS IN A TELEVISED DEBATE ON FREEING THE MURDERERS
Posted by Boris Celser, June 27, 2007. |
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Please give your support to the Malki Foundation
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Dear Friends of Keren Malki: It's one of the most vexing issues of the day in this country: does it make sense to open the gates of Israeli jails and release convicted Palestinian Arab prisoners now. And if yes, what do people hope is going to be achieved by it? This afternoon, Infolive.tv posted a streaming video of a debate, moderated by journalist Margot Dudkevitch, between two women with quite different viewpoints on this life-and-death question. One is Naomi Hazan, a professor of political science and previously a member, on behalf of a very left-wing party, of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. The other is Frimet Roth, the mother of Malki who was murdered in the Hamas terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant in August 2001. This being Israel, the debate is a lot closer to the bone than the abstract sort of airey-fairy discussion that sometimes goes on in other places. One of the names being touted for release in the current initiative happens to be that of a convicted murderer who was involved in the murder of the Roths' daughter. Prof. Hazan has very definite views about whether and why that convicted felon ought to go free now, right now. (And about whether he's actually a political prisoner.) Frimet Roth has a different position. The streaming video of the debate is at Good wishes, The Team at Keren Malki Boris Celser lives in Canada. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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NATIONALIST SUICIDE
Posted by Daily Alert, June 27, 2007. |
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This was written by Fouad Ajami and it appeared June 24, 2007 in U.S. News and World Report (the July 2, 2007 edition). |
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Five summers ago, on June 24, President George W. Bush, in a landmark speech, offered the Palestinians his and America's commitment to support "the creation of a Palestinian state." America was in the throes of a campaign against terrorism; the Iraq war, as we now know, was in the planning phase. It was important for the Bush administration, or so it seemed, to set the stage for these two campaigns by a generous and forthcoming policy toward the Palestinians. This was claimed to be nothing less than an American equivalent of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which had pledged Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish "national home." Bush's pledge drew the right moral and political parameters. America's support was contingent, the president said, on leaders "not compromised by terror." The vision was generous and held out to the Palestinians the promise of normalcy: "You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy." The Palestinians were to squander the chance given them by that diplomatic opening. Tahani Skaik, a woman of Gaza, in the most recent dispatches coming from that setting of grief and anarchy, understood what had become of the dream of statehood. "I feel now it's far away. As a Palestinian, I feel very empty." The Palestinians have lived, and for decades now, on a sense of historical entitlement. The world owed them a state come what may; it would be delivered to them even when their leaders faltered, even as they fell afoul of international norms and expectations. Now they know better. Another telling dispatch laid bare the Palestinian malady: It has come to pass that the Fatah leaders in the West Bank have served notice that they are done with the Qatar-based al Jazeera television. In bitter, scalding language, one of the influential leaders of Fatah -- Yasser Abed Rabbo -- accused al Jazeera of being a "partner in the crimes of Hamas," of covering up the mayhem of Hamas in Gaza while playing up "individual transgressions" in the Fatah-dominated West Bank. The Palestinians have come full circle. The "second intifada," which broke out in September 2000, had played out on al Jazeera's broadcasts. The insurrection and al Jazeera were twins. The mayhem of Palestine. In the intervening years, the "Palestinian street" would be whipped into a frenzy, and the anarchy and the cruelty of the homicide bombers would become a diet for the Palestinians -- and for a wider Arab audience that lived, vicariously, on the mayhem of Palestine. This was not destined to last, but the Palestinians never grasped that. The American war on terrorism that would come in the aftermath of 9/11 had put before the Palestinians one of those great, defining moral and political questions: They could opt for the forces of order, tie their fate and their cause to sobriety and realism, or ride with the outlaws. Terrorism had lost its glamour, but the Palestinians had persisted with the belief that their bargaining power had increased because America was now on the ground in the Arab-Islamic world. Saddam Hussein was a marked man, but he was a hero to the Palestinian street. To the bitter end, the Palestinians insisted -- and have continued to do so -- that they were entitled to judge what was best for the Iraqis, that the Iraqis had been better off under the tyrant. The Shiites of Iraq had risen, they had come forth with their grim tales of what they had endured during the long night of Baathist despotism, but the Palestinians remained hostile to the claims of the Shiites. They seemed to begrudge those tormented people of Iraqtheir moment and the right to their own grief. By the time the fury of the second intifada burned out, as it was bound to, the Palestinians were politically bankrupt and bereft. The Arab world had bigger battles to fight in Iraq and the Persian Gulf; the Israelis, keen to conciliate the Palestinians, had grown weary of them. There was a diplomatic dance, the quartet, which brought together the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations in a halfhearted effort to keep the Palestinian world afloat. But the Palestinians would do all in their power to snuff out those diplomatic efforts as well. Given a chance, by an election in early 2006, to signal their desire for normalcy, the Palestinians voted for mayhem. Two convicted terrorists, Marwan Barghouti and Abu Ali Yatta, headed the Fatah list; all in all, 14 members of the new parliament were serving prison sentences. National movements are often carried away by delirium, their politics can become deeds of self-immolation, and the Palestinians have come to embody the suicidal streak of mass-based nationalism. This is not a failure of the Bush diplomacy, the disorder now on full display in Gaza and the West Bank. This is the harvest of Palestinian history. What we see is the inevitable fate of a national movement given over to the cult of the gun. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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HAMASTAN
Posted by Naomi Ragen, June 27, 2007. |
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Friends,
The article below by Barry Rubin was forwarded to me by Jim
Sinkinson, director of FLAME, with some wise remarks,
including the following:
"Hamas" Coup in Gaza Makes Mid-East Peace a Remote Fantasy: It's Time for a Change in U.S. Policy I'm sure the irony of last week's flurry of Mid-East "peace initiatives" was not lost on you. Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert have been invited to a summit meeting in Egypt that will include Condoleezza Rice and representatives from Egypt and Jordan. And they will discuss what exactly? Only the most naïve Mid-East observer would claim that the conditions for peace between Israel and the Palestinians have improved over the last three months or six months or year. To the contrary: Overall, the Palestinians as a group have become less interested in and less capable of forging a peace deal than ever in the history of the conflict." Peace-nowers and those who naively swallow their fantastical reasoning, people who have not stopped agitating for Israel to continue its suicidal policies of far-reaching iniatives that would lay her throat bare to the knife of Hamas terrorists or PLO murderers, have truly become a fifth column. All those who continue to support policies calling for peace talks, or any other word containing the word peace, when our enemies are committed body and soul to a war of annihilation against us, should please stop calling themseves Israel's "friends and supporters." Just admit you agree with Hamas and Abbas and want Israel wiped off the map. So much more honest. Mr. Bush, Ms. Rice, these words are meant for you as well. We all need to reexamine our outlook and our thinking in light of unfolding realities. This was written by Barry Rubin, and it appeared in the Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2007. Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, has written and edited 50 books on the Middle East. His latest book, The Truth About Syria, has just been published by Palgrave-Macmillan. Naomi |
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The seizure of the Gaza Strip by Hamas opens a new period in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East. A new Islamist state is being established and it doesn't bode well for the West or regional stability. And yet we can hope that something will be learned from this experience. Israel's left-leaning Ha'aretz expresses the lesson with what some would call British understatement: "Anyone in Israel still contemplating the question of a Palestinian partner might also need to do some rethinking. In Gaza, at least, it seems there is nobody left for Israel to talk to." In 2000, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turned down President Bill Clinton's offer of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem and an opening offer of $23 billion in aid. Ever since then it has been clear that there is no diplomatic solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arafat's renewal of terrorist violence only reinforced this point. The problem was not just Arafat, but the overall strategy of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian movement. Since the peace process began in 1993 with the Oslo Accords, that leadership made hardly a single effort to move Palestinian society toward peace and moderation. Fatah did have an attractive alternative it could have offered: We will get a state, return the refugees to live in it, develop our economy and culture and enjoy large-scale international aid in exchange for ending the conflict. Instead it continued to glorify violence, spread hatred of Israel and America, and raise a new generation with a belief in eventual "total" victory and the extinction of Israel. After Arafat died, Fatah remained incompetent and corrupt but lacked a strong leader. Unable to obtain a state, unwilling to make peace and uninterested in governing well, Fatah dug its own grave. Why should anyone be surprised that Hamas replaced it? At most, Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and American pressure to hold fair elections only accelerated this process. There has been another important lesson in this recent history: Most of the Arab states and movements need the conflict to continue. After all, what would mismanaging dictatorial regimes do without having Israel as a scapegoat? If, for example, Syria made peace with Israel in exchange for getting back the Golan Heights, it would be the beginning of the end for that regime. Within weeks, its people would be demanding human rights and free-enterprise economic reforms. The regime could not use anti-Israel and anti-American demons as an excuse to continue the dictatorship, deprive its people of rights and material well-being, and mobilize support. The same applies to radical Islamist movements seeking to gain power. So let's get this straight: There is no near-term solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is no Palestinian side with which a compromise agreement can be negotiated. Many Arab states seek to exploit the conflict. Others would like to make peace but are too scared, and it is to the West's discredit that such states don't believe that it can or will protect them. There are several key policy conclusions to be drawn from the Hamas triumph. First, Western and especially U.S. policy must get beyond an obsession with solving this conflict. It is going to go on for decades. Peace plans will go nowhere. Hamas will not be persuaded to moderate -- why should it when it expects victory at home and appeasement from Europe? Hamas is the enemy, just as much as al Qaeda, because it is part of the radical Islamist effort to seize control of the region, overthrow anything even vaguely moderate, and expel any Western influence. Second, since Palestinian politics have clearly returned to a pre-1993 status, so must Western and U.S. policy. This means no Western aid and no diplomatic support until their leaders change policies. The Palestinian movement can only earn financial help and political backing on the very distant day when it accepts Israel's right to exist, stops endorsing and using terrorism, and is serious about negotiating a real two-state solution. Third, it is time to support Israel proudly and fully. Israel has done everything possible for peace, taking great risks to do so. But the idea that evenhanded, confidence-building behavior can broker peace is regrettably dead. There are wider strategic implications for U.S. and Western interests in this dramatic yet predictable development. The radical forces have gained a major new asset that will encourage theq recruitment of new cadre. Iran, Syria and Hezbollah will grow more confident and aggressive. We are now in the middle of the third great battle with totalitarianism in living memory. As with the struggles against fascism and communism, this conflict can only be won by a mobilization of Western resources and resolve. What has happened in the Gaza Strip is a lost battle in that process. There is not room for too many more of these defeats. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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THE ISLAMIC APARTHEID THAT CREATED A MYTH ABOUT ISRAEL
Posted by American, June 27, 2007. |
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This comes from The Reality Show website -- http://lightonthings.blogspot.com |
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The very APARTHEID bastion of the world, otherwise known as the `Islamic world', or the totalitarian dictatorships inc. where no one is ever equal there, not women, not one class to the other, not one minority has any decent rights, but persecuted in the regular Arab racism's supremacy & Islamic apartheid, or Islamo fascism. In order to divert attention from the real criminals of apartheid in this world [or to disperse their populations' resentment of the oppressive regimes, after all, what else can can so 'unify' that intolerant culture than common hatred?], and much much worse then that [to say the least], they, in their collective hatred & Apartheid motivation against the `non Arab' the `non Muslim' entity AKA Israel, to deny it's right to exist, have come up with a myth about "apartheid in Israel", what it actually means is that if democratic & free Israel dares to defend it's self from a Racist Arab terrorist it is doomed to be branded as an "apartheid" system. The sad part is of course that some have been bought by Arab oil money like Jimmy Carter, but the world should not let the magic sand cover the Arabian monsters including those "freedom fighters" fascists in Gaza that oppress Christians or those "moderate" `Palestinians' that try to ethnic cleanse all Jews from the land, and so far there's not one Jewish family under "moderate" fascist `palestine'. Contact American at American1627@yahoo.com |
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"JAWS OF LIFE" NEEDED FOR TAPU'ACH FIRST-RESPONSE TEAM
Posted by Ya'aqov Ben-Yehudah, June 27, 2007. |
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Kfar Tapuach is located in the Shomron 15 minutes from Sh'chem the burial place of Joseph, and 10 minutes away from Har Brachah, where we received the blessings when we first entered Eretz Yisroel. As you may very well know, this area is one of the more dangerous areas in Israel. The Tapuach First Response Team is comprised of 18 dedicated members eight of whom are paramedics. We respond to everything from roadside shootings and hostage situations to car accidents. The members of the medical team have all been trained by Magen David Adom (Red Star of David), and attend regular refresher courses. The medical team responds to over 95% of the car accidents in our area and are often the first on the scene. We have gone through extensive extraction training using our rescue saw as well as the Jaws of life. Currently there are not any government nor local organizations that are willing to help us obtain equipment. All of our equipment that we have obtained so far, was obtained through private donations. Currently, we are looking to buy a battery-operated "Jaws Of Life." It can be brought through a company in Israel at the cost of $11,850, or in New York for $9,900. The same company in New York has one, second-hand unit for $6,630. It is two years old and they claim that it is in excellent working condition but will probably need new batteries. We accept donations through Hatzalah Yehuda & Shomron. Please contact them before sending any donation and tell them that you wanted to donate specifically to "The Tapuach Medical Rescue Team." Please write that on the check in the memo area as well. Please also notify me about any donations, so I can keep track of them. Thanking you in advance,
If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me. I can
also be contacted through Contact Details for Hatzalah Yehuda & Shomron:
In the United States:
In Israel:
Hatzalah Yehuda & Shomron is a charitable 501(c)3 non-profit organization as determined by the US Internal Revenue Service, ID # 20-1239468, and in Israel as a registered Amutah under article 46 of the Israeli tax authorities. ID # 58-036-3885. All donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Contact Ya'aqov Ben-Yehudah at yaaqov.ben.yehudah@gmail.com |
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WHO KILLED PALESTINE?
Posted by Mrla, June 26, 2007. |
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This was written by Bret Stephens and it appeared as an opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal. Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays. |
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A failure with a thousand fathers Bill Clinton did it. Yasser Arafat did it. So did George W. Bush, Yitzhak Rabin, Hosni Mubarak, Ariel Sharon, Al-Jazeera and the BBC. The list of culprits in the whodunit called "Who Killed Palestine?" is neither short nor mutually exclusive. But since future historians are bound to ask the question, let's get a head start by suggesting some answers. And make no mistake: No matter how much diplomatic, military and financial oxygen is pumped into Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, it's oxygen flowing to a corpse. Palestine has always been a notional place, a field of dreams belonging only to those who know how to keep it. Israelis have held on to their state because they were able to develop the political, military and economic institutions that a state requires to survive, beginning with its monopoly on the use of legitimate force. In its nearly 14 years as an autonomous entity, the PA has succeeded in none of that, despite being on the receiving end of unprecedented international goodwill and largesse.
HAMAS'S SEIZURE of the Gaza Strip this month--and the consequent division of the PA into two hostile, geographically distinct camps--is only the latest in a chain of events set in motion when Israel agreed, in September 1993, to accept Arafat and the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. An early indicator of what lay ahead took place on July 1, 1994, when Arafat made his triumphal entry into Gaza while carrying, in the trunk of his Mercedes, four of the Palestinian cause's most violent partisans. Among them were the organizers of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the 1974 Ma'alot school massacre. If ever there was an apt metaphor for what Arafat's rule would bring, this was it. Arafat was determined to use Gaza and the West Bank as a staging ground for attacks against Israel, and he said so publicly and repeatedly: "O Haifa, O Jerusalem, you are returning, you are returning" (1995); "We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion" (1996); "With blood and spirit we will redeem you, Palestine" (1997). With equal determination, the Clinton administration and the Israeli governments of Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak treated Arafat's remarks as only so much rhetorical bluster. Mr. Clinton desperately wanted a Nobel Peace Prize; Israelis wanted out of the occupation business at almost any cost. These were respectable goals, but neither had as its primary aim the creation of a respectable Palestinian state. Later, after the second intifada had erupted in all its suicidal frenzy, former U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross would admit the Clinton administration became too obsessed with process at the expense of substance. He should give himself more credit. The decision to legitimize Arafat was Israel's, not America's; once he was brought inside the proverbial tent he was bound to put a match to it. Still, the Clinton administration elevated Arafat like no other leader of the 1990s. If the rais came to flatter himself as a second Saladin, the flattery of White House banquets surely played a role. The global media also did their bit in Arafat's elevation. Successive generations of Jerusalem bureau chiefs developed a conveniently even-handed narrative pitting moderates on both sides against extremists on both sides--a narrative in which Arafat was a "moderate" and Ariel Sharon was an "extremist." When Mr. Sharon took his famous walk on the Temple Mount in September 2000, it was easy to cast him as the villain and Palestinian rioters--and, later, suicide bombers--as the justifiably aggrieved. Cheering Palestinians on from the sidelines were the Arab media and the governments that own them, happy to channel domestic discontent toward a foreign drama. As with individuals, nations generally benefit from self-criticism, and sometimes from the criticism of others. No people in modern history have been so immune from both as the Palestinians. In 1999, Abdel Sattar Kassem, a professor of political science in the Palestinian city of Nablus, put his name to the "petition of the 20," written to "stand against [Arafat's] tyranny and corruption." Arafat imprisoned him; the rest of the world barely took notice. Arafat's global popularity reached its apogee in the spring of 2002, exactly at the same time the civilian Israeli death toll from terrorism reached its height. Yet what served Arafat's interests well served Palestinian interests poorly. Arafat learned from his experience with Mr. Clinton that one could bamboozle an American president and not pay a price. George W. Bush took a different view and effectively shut the Palestinians out of his agenda. Arafat learned from the "international community" that no one would look too closely at where its foreign aid was spent. But a reputation for theft has been the undoing of Fatah. Arafat thought he could harness the religious power of "martyrdom" to his political ends. But at the core of every suicide bombing is an act of self-destruction, and a nation that celebrates the former inevitably courts the latter. Above all, Arafat equated territory with power. But what the experience of an unoccupied Gaza Strip has shown is the Palestinians' unfitness for political sovereignty. There are no Jewish settlers to blame for Gaza's plight anymore, no Israeli soldiers to be filmed demolishing Palestinian homes. The Israeli right, which came to detest Mr. Sharon for pulling out of the Strip, might reconsider its view of the man and the deed. Nothing has so completely soured the world on the idea of a Palestinian state as the experience of it.
WHAT DOES this mean for the future? At yesterday's summit in Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah threw rose petals at Mr. Abbas's feet. But the potentates of the Middle East will not midwife into existence a state the chief political movement of which has claims to both democratic and Islamist legitimacy. The U.S. and Israel will never bless Hamastan (even if the EU and the U.N. come around to it) and they can only do so much for the feckless Mr. Abbas. "Palestine," as we know it today, will revert to what it was--shadowland between Israel and its neighbors--and Palestinians, as we know them today, will revert to who they were: Arabs. Whether there might have been a better outcome is anyone's guess. But the dream that was Palestine is finally dead. Contact Mrla at mrla26@aol.com |
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THE MARKET SQUARE IS EMPTY
Posted by Nurit Greenger, June 26, 2007. |
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An article very few will know about or read... The (Hebrew) article is based on The Market Square Is Empty: The Rise and Fall of Arab Jerusalem, 1967-2007, written by Dr. Hillel Cohen. It should remove any doubt that "the Palestinian dream to see East Jerusalem become the capital of Palestine, which in the early 1990s appeared within reach, now appears further than ever from being attained." |
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Lacking the leadership to address the crisis, Israel can only hope that the Palestinian Arabs seal their own fate. For sixty years, like clockwork, the Palestinian Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. If the book, entitled The Market Square Is Empty: The Rise and Fall of Arab Jerusalem, 1967-2007, does not make an impression on readers, nothing will. It states, "The Palestinian dream to see East Jerusalem become the capital of Palestine, which in the early 1990s appeared within reach, now appears further than ever from being attained." Israel, therefore, was recently able to celebrate the fortieth year of the unification of Jerusalem with greater ease. Scarcely any real hope remains for a Palestinian capital based in Jerusalem. For the past fifteen years, East Jerusalem has sunk into ruins. The area is chocked to death with heaps of filth. It is a ghost of Palestinian politics. East Jerusalem is a divided from the rest of the city. It is also isolated from Judea and Samaria, which are areas surrounded by many Jewish communities. In protecting against terror, the security wall, moreover, is ensuring the demise of East Jerusalem. The second Intifada, also known as Intifada El Aksa, sounds like a pitiful joke if one examines the willingness of Jerusalem Arabs to be part of a Palestinian state and their affinity for the Palestinian Authority (PA). One has to differentiate between the affinity of Jerusalem Arabs for Palestinian or Arab nationalism or for Islam. Because of what they have gone through with Israel and because of the internal struggles and weakness of the PA, affinity for the PA is not strong. At present, the Palestinian Arabs residing in Jerusalem prefer to ignore the PA, but this does not mean they have lost their basic hope for nationalism. To severe East Jerusalem from greater Jerusalem is to invite the chaos of the territories. The East Jerusalem Arabs are identified as a neither here nor there hybrid society somewhere between Israeli Arabs citizens and the Arab residents in the territories. Their legal position and rights also differ from their brothers, and being isolated by the wall makes their reality much different. The fact is that East Jerusalem Arabs feel more comfortable in a mall in Jerusalem than the Kasbah in Hebron. After Oslo, the general Palestinian Arab populous perceived East Jerusalem Arabs to be somewhat privileged. Others think that they suffer much more from Israel's "occupation." Being governed by Israel has its advantages and disadvantages. The movement of East Jerusalem Palestinian institutions to Ramallah increased the crisis in that part of the city. In reality, the balance of power is in Israel's favor, and this is most noticeable in East Jerusalem. There will be no problem to squelch any uprising or resistance. Therefore, truthfully speaking, those still trying to get organized and take action no longer speak about armed struggle. It is not that pleasant to reside in East Jerusalem, and many who have the wherewithal are leaving. Ever since Palestinian Arabs living outside the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem were denied Israeli residence identity cards, many from all social classes have been flocking inside the city. Those who benefited from social security or who could work in Israel came back. People wanted back in at all cost, even if it meant taking residence in half-demolished, half-livable buildings, which led to overcrowding and further contributed to the city's economic and social decline. The Palestinian Arabs' society, filled with sexual taboos, is in crisis largely due to its exposure to Israeli society. The Palestinian Arab youths working in West Jerusalem go out to have fun there are made confused by the breakdown in their conventionally accepted behavior. Poverty and congestion have made prostitution, rape, and incest clear characteristics of East Jerusalem culture. What has really happened since 1967? What has happened to the Palestinian Arabs' traditional customs of hospitality from just thirty years ago? Everything has changed. Today, nothing from then is possible -- not from the Israelis or from the Palestinian Arabs. The level of suspicion and mistrust has intensified. People are leery of strangers. They worry about being identified of collaborating with Israeli authorities. In fact, the entire world around has changed. Most of the Palestinian Arab villages are now small westernized towns with increased consumption and satellite television service. Now, when a Jew enters such a village, the Arabs become suspicious, thinking that the Jew will not leave, will claim the land, and will settle it! In 2002-2003, Jerusalem endured many terror attacks mostly at the hands of East Jerusalem residents. Today, this threat has been reduced, and sitting in a city café is a smaller risk. This has changed throughout Israel. The Israeli intelligence and military crackdown has worked. Israel crushed Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank but not in the Gaza Strip where the situation is different. The harsh IDF crackdown has made it clear that the armed struggle of the Palestinian Arabs is problematic, and many of them understand it today. Some say the security wall is the deterrent of terror, but the wall does not necessarily prevent the terrorists from entering Israel. The wall proved that Israel can do whatever it wants, and acts of terror only gives Israel the right to seize more land that Palestinian Arabs sit on. The Palestinian Arabs do not gain anything from armed struggle. Okay, they kill many Jews, but what do they gain by it? Nothing! Since 1996, many Israelis have known that Hamas would screw the Palestinian Arabs. Israel will use Hamas to stop any further disengagement and to capture more "Palestinian Arab land." And that is exactly what has happened. This was Faisal Husseini legacy as well (Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini, July 17, 1940-May 31, 2001, born in Baghdad, was the PLO representative in Jerusalem and a Palestinian Authority (PA) minister. He was thought to be a possible future leader of the Palestinian people. In his last post as Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, he was based in East Jerusalem. Husseini was considered a pragmatist by journalists. He taught himself to speak Hebrew and regularly appeared on radio and television shows in Israel to explain the Palestinians' point of view. Following Husseini's death, Israeli police seized his headquarters, the Orient House.) In Oslo, the PLO gave up on Jerusalem sovereignty. That was the first step. With that, they provided Israel legal ground to shut down the POL institutions in Jerusalem. The second step was the struggle to weaken Husseini's influence. Budget cuts and his competition for power with Arafat helped. All of this undermined East Jerusalem. It became apparent that all the struggles in Jerusalem failed. How long one can struggle without reward? Oslo was a main reason for the second intifada of 2000. Since the Oslo Accords, 2,000 new Jewish communities have been built on what the Palestinian Arabs see as their future state. All the diplomatic meetings and protests did not help. The tragedy of the Palestinian Arab armed struggle is that it brought about the same, if not worse, results. They lost at every turn. Perhaps Israel taught them that only force works and that they lack the required force to resist. Another tragedy is that the Palestinian Arabs found themselves living on land that legally, according to the League of Nations, belongs to the Jews. It is rightly the historical land of the Jews. Contrary to what the Palestinian Arabs think, the Jews have historic roots in Eretz Yisrael, and they established solid foundation there. This is where the tragedy really begins. If the Jews did not arrive, nothing would have developed the way it did. But the Jews did arrive, and they are much stronger on all levels. Assessing this equation, what should the Palestinian Arabs do? The disaster in this equation is that if the Palestinian Arabs keep quiet and do not protest it does help. Protesting peacefully does not work. Turing to an arm struggle screws them over. No matter what they do, they are screwed. What are the Palestinian Arabs to do? Theoretically, if they launched another massive peaceful protest, they would only achieve another Oslo like process. If an alien from Mars came to ask what nation would be worthwhile joining, the answer definitely would be, not the Palestinian Arab nation! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog:
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SHURAT HADIN: NY TIMES and WASHINGTON POST LEGALLY COMPLICIT IN TERROR
Posted by Honest Reporting, June 26, 2007. |
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In November 2005, Al Qaida spokesman Ayman al-Zawahiri said "We are in a battle and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media." Like Al Qaida, Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently described Hamas as "murderous terrorists". American newspapers would not give Osama bin Laden op-ed space. So why would they give the oxygen of publicity to a Hamas terrorist whose organization is responsible for the murder of US citizens in Israel and whose charter calls for Israel's destruction and is filled with unadulterated anti-Semitism? This is the question being asked following the appearance of op-eds by Ahmed Yousef, advisor to former Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh, on the same day in both the New York Times and Washington Post. Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center is a Jewish legal rights institute staffed by some of Israel's leading attorneys. It provides legal representation to assist the hundreds of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror to fight back, through Israeli, American and European courts, against Palestinian terrorist groups and their financial patrons. Asked for comment by HonestReporting, Shurat HaDin Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said: It is bewildering and shameful that these newspapers would bestow any measure of legitimacy on an Islamic terrorist organization like Hamas by providing them a public forum. The liberal doctrine of freedom of expression should never be extended to organizations which are openly dedicated to carrying out acts of murder against Jewish civilians and who draw encouragement from their new found respectability. Legally speaking, it would seem that there is not much difference between outlaw regimes like Iran and Syria, which illegally provide material support and resources to terrorist organizations, and liberal media outlets which provide millions of dollars in free advertising and access to groups like Hamas when they publish their leaders' dangerous messages. The NY Times and Washington Post are every bit the supporters of the terrorist organizations that Tehran and Damascus are when they facilitate the publication of Hamas' messages. Many people around the world were, quite rightly, appalled that Hamas, having brutally taken over Gaza, could score another coup, having its propaganda published in two of the most influential US broadsheets. However, according to Reuters, it seems that the only embarrassment felt by the newspapers was the admittal that neither would have carried the articles had they known of the other paper's publishing plans. While the Washington Post's Ombudsman, Deborah Howell has yet to address this issue, NY Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, in response to outraged readers, issued a rather weak response: "The point of the op-ed page is advocacy." And, Rosenthal [editorial page editor] said, "we do not feel the obligation to provide the kind of balance you find in news coverage, because it is opinion." Op-ed pages should be open especially to controversial ideas, because that's the way a free society decides what's right and what's wrong for itself. Good ideas prosper in the sunshine of healthy debate, and the bad ones wither. Left hidden out of sight and unchallenged, the bad ones can grow like poisonous mushrooms. We agree that left unchallenged, bad ideas can grow like poisonous mushrooms. But has the New York Times really ever challenged the negative portrayal of Israel that consistently appears in its own pages and those of much of the mainstream media? Could the New York Times and Washington Post be guilty of providing material support for a terrorist organization? After all, many legitimate charities and political groups would pay tens of thousands of dollars for a prominent ad in these newspapers. Instead, Hamas has been given the equivalent publicity for no charge whatsoever. Not to mention other newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune, Sacramento Bee and Salt Lake Tribune, that republished these Hamas op-eds in their own pages. We urge you to write to the New York Times and Washington Post, inviting them to contact Shurat HaDin, which has been at the forefront of providing legal representation to victims of Hamas terror. Demand that these terror victims are given equal op-ed space to tell their stories and to present their case that Hamas is a terrorist organization whose messages and goals are illegitimate. MASS MEDIA AS A TERRORIST WEAPON The above is a prime example, along with the broadcasts of kidnap victims Alan Johnston and Gilad Shalit, of how, as a Jerusalem Post analysis explains, modern terrorists have adopted the mass media as their weapon of choice: "The better the show is, the higher the ratings are. The higher the ratings, the more people receive the terrorists' message," said Eviathar Ben-Zedeff, a research fellow at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, on Monday. "Terror is a political act of psychological warfare. The terrorists' purpose is to influence the viewers and to motivate them into political action. That is achieved by creating fear among the viewers who, as a result, are ready to put pressure on their politicians to change policy, for example, to give back occupied territories or to free many prisoners," Ben-Zedeff explained. According to Ben-Zedeff, this is part of a propaganda mechanism aimed at leveraging the terror organization's ideas. Read the full article here and remember to ask why the New York Times and Washington Post have allowed themselves to be party to exactly this sort of manipulation. BBC SLAMS DOOR ON HR SUBSCRIBERS Many of you have expressed your disatisfaction with the impersonal nature of making complaints through the BBC's website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints. In our last communique, we gave you the e-mail address of Fraser Steel, the BBC's head of editoral complaints. Unfortunately, your complaints bounced straight back. While it was certainly a genuine working e-mail in the past, it appears that the BBC has discontinued Steel's address to avoid dealing with volumes of e-mail. So it's back to the website for complaints to the BBC. But please do not be disheartened -- the BBC usually replies to your complaints (even if the responses are rarely satisfactory). Please continue to hold the BBC to account for its anti-Israel bias. Honest Reporting monitors the media for inaccuracy and unfairness in how they report the news about Israel. Ther website address is http://www.honestreporting.com. You can help support their research online or by sending contributions to: HonestReporting, 400 South Lake Drive, Lakewood, NJ 08701-3167. |
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AL-QAEDA DESCRIBES HOW THE PERFECT MUSLIM ACTS: TEAR HEARTS OUT, CUT OFF HEADS & LIMBS...
Posted by David Meir-Levi, June 26, 2007. |
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If you, or anyone you know, still labors under the Islamo-fascist apologist falsehood that jihad is really first and foremost a psychological battle within your own psyche to make yourself a better person, or a spiritual struggle against one's evil impulses, be sure to read (or have your benighted acquantances read) the MEMRI article below which appeared in a recent Islamo-fascist Jihad media outlet. Islamophile apologists claim that the West misunderstands the concept 'jihad'. There is, of course, the historical interpretation of jihad as conquest....but this is the 'lesser jihad'. Far more important in Muslim tradition, they say, is the 'Greater Jihad'...the spiritual jihad against one's evil inclinations (like smoking, eating too much, praying to little, etc.). Hence, they say, once the West understands better the 'true Islam', the Islam of peace and tolerance and brotherhood, then the West can better appreciate the 'radiant face of Islam' and then understand as well that the so-called Islamo-fascist threat is really no threat at all, but just an internal misunderstanding among Muslims as to the true nature of jihad. In my opinion, such Islamophile apologists are doing far more than just misrepresenting jihad as a theolgocial concept. They are obfuscating the reality of Islam's nefarious history and whitewashing a truly great evil in order to allow that evil to advance more effectively. That is not merely misrepresentation. In time of war, that is treason. I am not a theologian, and certainly no expert on Islam. Hence I have no way of knowing what the 'true Islam' really is. In fact, no one seems to know what the 'true Islam' really is, since there are at least 7 different interpretations of Islam (Shi'ite, Sunni, Alawi, Suffi, Hanaffi, Salafi, Wahhabi)and at least four different interpretations of Shari'a law. Each claims its interpretation as the unique truth of Islam. Thus I cannot know whether Islam's interpreters among el-Qaeda, per the MEMRI article below, are correct in their representation of 'true Islam,' or whether the Sufi version of Islam is correct and Islam's 'believers' should denounce violence and war and seek universal acceptance of Islam via exemplary living and wonderously effective teaching. But, now, as we are engaged in World War 4, that distinction does not matter: not for us, nor for the tens if not hundreds of thousands (and if you include Sudan, it is millions) of victims of Jihad. As we can deduce from the material below, if some brave and brilliant Sufi got in front of Osama and proved to him categorically and irrefutably that Osama had mis-interpreted the Qur'an, and in fact Allah wanted Islam to prevail world-wide ONLY via exemplary living and wonderously effective teaching, and in fact Mohammed's Jihad, which was indeed slaughter and massacre and conquest and rapine and pillage and genocide.... was NOT at all what Allah REALLY wanted [i.e., what ALLAH really meant when his Angel Gabriel talked to Mohammed was the 'greater Jihad' of spiritual struggle].... In light of all that Sufi wisdom, Osama is not likely to respond with: Oh My GOD!!! I've been wrong all these years. Stop the fighting, call back the Mujahideen, dismantle the WMDs...we've got some serious internal repentance-"greater jihad"-inner-struggle to do!! If anyone out there does think that Osama might repent if he could be shown the 'radiant face of Islam', please email me with a rational account of why you think I am wrong. But consider first the reason why I presume to know Osama's response. The 1375 years of war by Moslems (especially Arab Moslems) against all non-Moslem nations that bordered upon Arab/Moslem conquered lands [starts in Arabia, moves to middle east, then west across africa, then north into spain and france, then moves east into iraq, iran and then 500 years of fighting against india, then intermittent war and terrorism against other smaller states so that parts of Asia and what was once Soviet Central Asia become Moslem -- but, bottom line, endless war and terrorism] cannot rationally be understood as one gigantic and horrendously erroneous mis-interpretation of Islam? Were all those Moslem warriors and historians who rejoiced in the conquests and slaughter....were they all deceived, or were they all in error as to the correct interpretation of 'jihad', were they all just unfortunate mis-understanders of Mohammed's message? Osama's 'True Islam' and the 'True Islam' of the writer in the MEMRI article below are completely consistent with, and in fact modeled after, the 1,375 years of Islamo-fascist Jihad....an unending relentless assault on the non-Muslim world by Muslim forces, killing hundreds of millions and obliterating half-a-dozen civilizations....all in the name of 'true Islam'. Whatever 'true Islam' may be, the dangers to Jews, to Israel, to Christians and to Hindus, and to the USA, and to all of Western civilization, are inherent in the interpretation of Islam that is exemplified in the article below. This interpretation, demanding ruthlessness in slaughter and endless war and violence and terrorism and decapitations until Islam reigns supreme in all the world ('Islam uber Alles'), is used by the Islamo-fascist Jihadist terrorists to justify their terrorism, their imperialism, their supremacism, their triumphalism, their anti-democracy tyranny, their totalitarian shari'a law, their theocratic caliphate, and the beastly and brutal acts of inhumanity which characterize their war against us. And their colluding apologists try to lull us into inaction with speculation about 'true Islam' and its 'greater Jihad'. This article comes MEMRI (http://memri.org); it is Special Report No. 1635 (http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP163507). |
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Senior Al-Qaeda Sheikh: 'May Allah Send Someone Who Will Kill Them Even More [Savagely]... Tear Their Hearts Out... Cut Their Heads Off, Tear Them Limb From Limb, and Shed Their Blood in Rivers' The April-May 2007 issue of the jihadi e-magazine Sada Al-Jihad, published by the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), includes an article by Sheikh Hussein bin Mahmoud [1] titled "Let Them Find Ruthlessness in You," in which he criticizes the Muslims for being too lenient in their war against their enemies. Bin Mahmoud states that Allah commanded the Muslims to fight their enemies fiercely, without compassion or mercy, and uses Koranic verses to back up his assertions. He extols the example of Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, who cut off the infidels' heads and struck terror in their hearts. The following are excerpts from the article: "When... Al-Zarqawi Went Out and Slaughtered a Few Infidels, the [Advocates of] Tolerance and Friendship Had a Fit" "The way of [waging] jihad changes according to the [available] means, innovations, ploys and practices. Over the history of Islamic conquests, jihad was [waged] according to these [changing] general principles... which we cannot enumerate here fully. We can, however, mention one aspect which our [Islamic] nation is now in dire need of, since many Muslims today have a distorted [understanding] of Islamic principles and tenets, due to [the influence of] the enemy, or due to [the influence] of some Muslims whose spirit has been defeated... and they have begun to distort the [true] meaning of Koranic verses on [the pretext of] rationalism, moderateness, a civilized [outlook], or similar notions. These notions have lost their [true] meaning and have become synonymous with defeat, withdrawal, impotence and falsification of the truths of Islamic shari'a. "The aspect that Muslims must accept is that of ruthlessness and firmness in jihad. Many Muslims today are educated in a spirit that is far from the [true] spirit of the Koran... The Muslim nation is the strongest nation in history... since it has the mightiest prophet, the mightiest book [i.e., the Koran] and the mightiest religion on Earth, and it is the nation which strikes its enemies hardest, [since it fights them] according to Islamic shari'a. Owing to these qualities, [the Muslim nation] is the most awe-inspiring of nations, and nobody [dares to] covet [what belongs to it], as long as it adheres to its principles and to the sources of its strength, which are the Koran and the sunna. "It is no exaggeration to say that many Muslims today have never heard of the Koranic verses [that speak of] jihad... and do not believe that the Koran includes verses that speak of force, firmness, terror and cruelty, since they have heard so much about peace, security, compassion, friendship, justice, grace, honesty and moderateness. These are all words of truth, but in times of war, they are used to express falsehoods. "When the emir and commander Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi went out and slaughtered a few infidels, the [advocates of] tolerance and friendship had a fit. They jumped up, made threats and swore that this [act] runs counter to the spirit of [Islam]. How much suffering have these people and their supporters caused us! When we told them that Allah commanded to cut off the heads [of the enemies], they would say, 'be mindful of Allah, and do not make things up,' and we had to bring the Koran and show them these verses so that they would believe [us]. Some of them even turned the book over [and looked] at the cover to make sure that it really was the Koran. These [people] had read the Koran many times, but they had not read it [carefully]..." "The Perfect Muslim is Gentle with His Fellow Believer and Harsh Towards His Enemy, the Infidel" "A quick review of some Koranic verses [will help us] characterize [the concept of] cruelty in battle, so that the Muslims understand the truth about this matter and [realize] what is missing from their [school] curricula, sermons and religion courses. The [Muslim] nation must urgently familiarize itself with these military aspects of the Koran, so that it can deal with its enemies and fight [them]... in the way prescribed by Allah in order to grant [the nation] victory. After the great battle of Badr, Allah told the Prophet [Muhammad]...: 'It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. You desire the frail goods of this world, while Allah desires [for you] the hereafter; and Allah is Mighty and Wise [Koran 8:67]'... The word 'prophet' in this verse appears in the indefinite form, which means that [all] the prophets used to kill many of their enemies by the sword rather than take them captive... Allah says this explicitly [in the following verse]: 'So when you meet the infidels in battle, then cut off their heads, and after you have killed many of them by the sword, place [them] in shackles, and afterwards either set them free if you choose or let them ransom [themselves] until the war ends [Koran 47:4]'... "The first real battle fought by the Muslims was the battle of Badr, in which they captured many polytheists in order to hold them for ransom, according to the custom of the [pre-Islamic] Arabs. Allah rebuked them and explained to them that this was not the way of the prophets, for [the prophets] killed many of the infidel leaders and soldiers in order to purge the land of them... and [in order to] prepare the world for da'wa for the sake of Allah. During the battle of Badr, something momentous happened: Allah ordered the angels to fight alongside the Muslims and to strengthen their spirits, and He told [the angels] that he would strike terror into the hearts of the infidels. [The Koran says]: 'Remember thy Lord inspired the angels [with the message]: I am with you. Give firmness to the Believers, [and] I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers. You cut off their heads and smite all their fingers off them [Koran 8:12]'... "This was the beginning of the war against the infidels, and the initial shock, [meant to] fill the hearts [of the infidels] with fear and terror of the Muslims, so that they would stop resisting and accept the treaty, and later either convert to Islam if they want to, or continue to live under the treaty and come to no harm... "[The question is]: This violence, ruthlessness and firmness -- Is it [meant to be] a permanent law and feature of war, or does it apply only to the early [years of Islam]? The answer [is given in] Koran 9:123, where Allah says: 'O ye who believe! Fight the infidels who are near to you, and let them find ruthlessness in you, and know that Allah is with the faithful.' This was one of the last suras to descend, its verses were among the last to descend, and the laws [they set out] are timeless... The perfect Muslim is gentle with his fellow believer and harsh towards his enemy, the infidel..." "Allah Commanded the Believers... to Show [Their Enemies] No Mercy or Compassion" "Today, the content of all these verses is perhaps encapsulated in a single verse, which is: 'If ye punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith ye were afflicted [Koran 16:126].' [In this verse], Allah commands [us] to fight the enemy the same way he fights us, to kill him in the same way he kills us, and to deliberately kill those who set out to kill us. Today, our enemies hit us with nuclear bombs, cluster [bombs] and chemical [bombs] which have killed many of our men, women and children, destroyed homes and crops, spread disease and burned [people's] bodies. We [therefore] have the right to fight back by the same means, by the command of Allah who [instructs us] to be ruthless and fierce [with the enemy] and to smite him, in order to teach others a lesson... "These verses teach us that Allah commanded the believers to be firm, forceful, ruthless and radical in killing the enemies who fight against [Islam], and to show them no mercy or compassion... This applies to offensive jihad. What about [the case in which] the infidels attack the Muslim states, shed [Muslim] blood, violate women's honor and offend [Islam]? In that case, there is no doubt that they must be struck and killed with even greater ruthlessness, as a lesson to others and in order to fill them with awe for the [Muslim] nation, so that no-one will wish to attack [the Muslims] anywhere, ever again. For Allah has said in the Koran: 'If ye gain the mastery over them in war, disperse them and those who follow them, that they may remember [Koran 8:57]'... "Wars are fought on the basis of theories of warfare, and not [on the basis of] a hodgepodge of peace[full terms] and philosophies that are all talk. [War] is bloodshed and killing, and not [a matter for] religious arguments, theories, debates and... programs on the satellite channels. Our righteous forefathers implemented the principles of the Koran, and the results were amazing: [they gained] victory after victory and Allah's triumph was realized, because they defended his faith and obeyed his command to kill, disperse and smite the enemies of the faith... "Looking at the Islamic [world] today, we find that these divine edicts are hardly ever implemented. We once had two men whom we beseeched Allah to give a long life so they would revive the tradition of Khaled [Bin Al-Walid]. [2] [These two men were] the commander Sayf Al-Islam Khattab [who led the jihad in Chechnya] and the slaughtering Emir Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi... Despite their short lives, they left an enduring legacy that will be remembered for generations to come... They were among those who stood most firmly against the infidels, and reminded the Muslims of some of the [Koranic] verses [that they had forgotten]. They killed and cut off heads, and the mere mention of their names on any front was enough to scare the enemies and disperse those who followed them... "May Allah send the [Muslim] nation someone who will kill them even more [savagely], strike terror in their [souls], tear their hearts out... cut their heads off, tear them limb from limb and shed their blood in rivers... "Hussein Bin Mahmoud "The 29th day of Rabi' Al-Awwal, 1428 (April 17, 2007)." Footnotes [1] Sheikh Hussein Bin Mahmoud is the pseudonym of an Al-Qaeda leader who frequently writes on Islamist forums (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, November 30, 2006). [2] Khaled Bin Al-Walid, also called Sayf Allah (the Sword of Allah), was a commander during the Muslim conquests. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO STOP HAMAS!
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, June 26, 2007. |
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Unless and until Hamas and kindred spirit terror organizations are forced to cease launching deadly Qassam missiles into Israel, wrecking havoc in Israeli neighborhoods, destroying the lives of aggrieved Israeli citizens, nothing current prime minister Olmert and his Kadima party do in a presumed effort to secure peace for the beleaguered state they steward has any consequence. Period! Making nice nice with Holocaust trivializer Mahmoud Abbas is a farce. Negotiating with Arab movers and shakers is a farce. If Olmert and his crew cannot even secure the safety of Israeli citizens, routinely bombarded by missiles, ever projecting an image of weakness to the world, ever allowing his nation to be disgraced by taunting Arabs, these elected leaders have no credibility whatsoever! No other nation would or should tolerate the 'in your face' day in and day out militant behavior Israel absorbs. Any other nation would deploy its military, crushing an enemy that will not be subdued by reason. But Olmert, in consultation with the Bush Administration, dances to the beat of a different drummer. He and his Kadima cronies make life a bit uncomfortable for Hamas on occasion, sounding the clarion call for an intrepid IDF to put to sleep or jail a murderous jihadist or two, but such waltzing about or doing a two-step in lieu of a war dance on steroids brandishing potent weapons does not cut it. Harsh verbiage, as well as sanctions, for the most part, Olmert and Bush's primary weapons of choice, bizarrely challenged by former U.S. president and Nobel peace prize recipient Jimmy Carter, directed at militant atavist cadres like Hamas, as if those that shroud their own vulnerable adults and even children in suicide gear effectively deserve merely verbal castigation and trade embargos, will not stop the intolerable Qassam missile launchers, obsessed with jihad and the annihilation of Israel at any cost to an Arab populace they care little about. And what does it matter if Israel finesses its strategy? As Jackson Diehl points out in his opinion piece 'A human rights watchdog barks only at one nation', published in the 06/26/2007 edition of the Newark Star Ledger, Israel is virtually the only nation excoriated again and again by the United Nations Human Rights Council, composed of a cadre of presumably civilized 'humane' countries. Bizarrely, member in good standing Sudan, Islamic General Omar al-Bashir's oil-rich racist genocidal regime, distinguished by tendencies to torture, rape, and murder Muslim Black African's with virtual impunity, co-sponsored on behalf of the Arab League the latest condemnation of the Jewish State. Never forget, even a despicable nation that happens to be drenched in oil will always trump Israel in the hearts and minds of mostly all industrial nations, many of which happen to squat on the aforementioned 'morally principled' council, including India, South Africa, China, Mexico, eight nations of the European Union, and many others apparently immune to shame. Enough! If current Israeli leaders refuse to deploy enough troops, supported by state of the art air power, into Gaza and wipe out an enemy that grows stronger each day, let them resign forthwith, making room for others that truly have Israel's best interests at heart. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net |
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UN AS PROPAGANDA PLAYGROUND FOR ARAB LEAGUE
Posted by David Meir-Levi, June 26, 2007. |
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This Washington Post article is for anyone you may know who still thinks that the UN condemnations of Israel have any moral or legal valence. This article is another piece of evidence strongly substantiating my assertion that the UN is run by the Arab league, and is nothing more than a platform from which to demonize Israel and the USA. That the Arab states have done this is no surprize. Part of their long term strategy to destroy Israel is the PR war, of which the UN condemnations are an imporant part. But...why do western NGOs and Human Rights groups, and western nations, go along with this macabre charade? The article was written by Jackson Diehl and is called
"A Shadow on the Human Rights Movement". It appeared yesterday in the
Washington Post and is archived at
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Where does the global human rights movement stand in the seventh year of the 21st century? If the first year of the United Nations Human Rights Council is any indication, it's grown sick and cynical -- partly because of the fecklessness and flexible morality of some of the very governments and groups that claim to be most committed to democratic values. At a session in Geneva last week, the council -- established a year ago in an attempt to reform the U.N. Human Rights Commission -- listened to reports by special envoys appointed by its predecessor condemning the governments of Cuba and Belarus. It then abolished the jobs of both 'rapporteurs' in a post-midnight maneuver orchestrated by its chairman, who announced a 'consensus' in spite of loud objections by the ambassador from Canada that there was no such accord. While ending the scrutiny of those dictatorships, the council chose to establish one permanent and special agenda item: the 'human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.' In other words, Israel (or 'Palestine,' in the council's terminology), alone among the nations of the world, will be subjected to continual and open-ended examination. That's in keeping with the record of the council's first year: Eleven resolutions were directed at the Jewish state. None criticized any other government. Genocide in Sudan, child slavery and religious persecution in China, mass repression in Zimbabwe and Burma, state-sponsored murder in Syria and Russia -- and, for that matter, suicide bombings by Arab terrorist movements -- will not receive systematic attention from the world body charged with monitoring human rights. That is reserved only for Israel, a democratic country that has been guilty of human rights violations but also has been under sustained assault from terrorists and governments openly committed to its extinction. The old human rights commission, which was disparaged by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan for casting 'a shadow on the United Nations system as a whole,' frequently issued unbalanced condemnations of Israel but also typically adopted half a dozen resolutions a year aimed at the worst human rights abusers. For the new council, Israel is the only target. Eighteen of the 19 states dubbed 'the worst of the worst' by the monitoring group Freedom House (Israel is not on the list) were ignored by the council in its first year. One mission was dispatched to examine the situation in Darfur. When it returned with a report criticizing the Sudanese government, the council refused to endorse it or accept its recommendations. The regime of Gen. Omar al-Bashir, which is responsible for at least 200,000 deaths in Darfur, didn't just escape any censure. Sudan was a co-sponsor on behalf of the Arab League of the latest condemnations of Israel, adopted last week. This record is far darker than Kofi Annan's 'shadow.' You'd think it would be intolerable to the democratic states that sit on the council. Sadly, it's not. Several of them -- India, South Africa, Indonesia -- have regularly supported the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement in their assaults on Israel and defense of Cuba, Belarus and Sudan. The council's chairman, who rammed through last week's decisions without a vote, is a diplomat from Mexico. The European Union includes countries holding eight of the council's 47 seats. It has made no serious effort to focus the council's attention on the world's worst human rights violators. According to a report by the independent group UN Watch, the European Union 'has for the most part abandoned initiating any country-specific resolutions.' At one point before last week's meeting, the European Union threatened to quit the council, effectively killing it. Yet when the meeting ended, Europe's representative, Ambassador Michael Steiner of Germany, said that while the package of procedural decisions singling out Israel 'is certainly not ideal ... we have a basis we can work with.' What about Western human rights groups -- surely they cannot accept such a travesty of human rights advocacy? In fact, they can. While critical of the council, New York-based Human Rights Watch said its procedural decisions 'lay a foundation for its future work.' Global advocacy director Peggy Hicks told me that the council's focus on Israel was in part appropriate, because of last year's war in Lebanon, and was in part caused by Israel itself, because of its refusal to cooperate with missions the council dispatched. (Sudan also refused to cooperate but was not rebuked.) Hicks said she counted only nine condemnations, not 11. Never mind how you count them: Is there a point at which a vicious and unfounded campaign to delegitimize one country -- which happens to be populated mostly by Jews -- makes it unconscionable to collaborate with the body that conducts it? 'That could happen, but I don't think we're anywhere near there,' Hicks said. That's the human rights movement, seven years into a century that's off to a bad start. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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STOP FUNDING FATAH TERRORISM
Posted by UCI, June 26, 2007. | |
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Terrorist organizations like Fatah should not be financially supported, especially by Israel and the United States. We urge you to send this letter to President Bush and oppose the support of Fatah. A sample letter and President Bush's contact information are shown below. Please feel free to change the wording to express your own thoughts.
CONTACT INFORMATION
UCI -- The Unity Coalition for Israel
(http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) -- is "the largest worldwide
coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200
groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we
have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and
Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of
Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for
the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a
united voice, our message is being heard!"
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A MOTHER BRUSHES HER YOUNG SON'S HAIR AT 7:00, SO THAT HE WILL BE KILLED AT 7:30
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, June 26, 2007. |
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A Palestinian journalist has expressed despair about the society of death worship in Gaza. In so doing, he has corroborated PMW findings documenting the death culture promoted in Palestinian Authority education. The journalist wrote: "We knew that they would do it, especially in Gaza, where a mother brushes her young son's hair at 7:00, so that he will be killed at 7:30, and where the children learn that death is preferable to life! We knew that they would do this, it was clear to us: with language overflowing with the rhetoric of death and the norms of killing, in the religious rulings [Fatwas] and in Friday and holiday sermons."-- [Ghassan Zaqtan, Al-Ayyam, June18, 2007] The journalist's critical mistake is that he seems to attribute the death culture only to Hamas, whereas it has been the Fatah leadership and education that initiated and still actively teach that death is preferable to life. For example, a Palestinian Authority schoolbook written by Fatah educators teaches 13- and 14-year-olds literally to prefer death over life, while it is the "enemies" who cherish life: "O heroes, Allah has promised you victory ... Do not talk yourselves into flight...Your enemies seek life while you seek death. They seek spoils to fill their empty stomachs while you seek a Garden [Paradise] as wide as are the heavens and the earth. Do not be anxious to meet them [enemies], for death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers. These drops of blood that gush from your bodies will be transformed tomorrow into blazing red meteors that will fall down upon the heads of your enemies." -- [Reading and Texts Part II, Grade 8 (2002), p. 16] The words introducing this poem are: "Read and enjoy." PMW has been alerting the world in numerous reports since November 2000 that the PA has been indoctrinating children to see death as preferable to life. Senator Hillary Clinton severely criticized this PA education when she introduced PMW's latest report on PA schoolbooks earlier this year: "When we viewed this report [on PA textbooks] in combination with other media that these children are exposed to, it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these children." -- [Press conference introducing PMW report, US Senate, February 8, 2007] The Director of the Palestinian Children's Aid Association, Firial Hillis, explained that it was an integral part of the official educational policy to educate young children to aspire to Shahada -- Martyr's death. These are her words: "The concept of Shahada for him [the child] means belonging to the homeland, from a religious point of view. Sacrifice for his homeland. Achieving Shahada in order to reach Paradise and to meet his God. This is the best. We also teach our children to protect the homeland, belonging and to reach Shahada". [PATV, May 4, 2003] Music videos that have run thousands of times on PA TV have reinforced this message to children to aspire to Shahada. The following are some examples: 1. In a video broadcast on Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority TV hundreds of times from 2001 to 2004, a young boy leaves a farewell letter to his parents and goes off to seek Shahada, describing the death he achieves as "sweet." This PA clip is designed to offset a child's natural fear of death by depicting Shahada as heroic and tranquil. Click to view video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0_ExnR6yxs)
2. From 2000 to 2003, PA TV broadcast a music video depicting the delightful Shahid paradise of Muhammad Al-Dura, who died in a crossfire. The child actor is shown flying a kite, frolicking on the beach and even at an amusement park. The clip opens with an invitation to other children from Al-Dura to aspire to death: "I am waving to you not in parting, but to say 'follow me'." This video directing children to follow Al-Dura to paradise as Martyrs was suddenly broadcast again in June 2006, after Israeli troops had gathered at the border of the Gaza Strip after the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Click to view video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=canTCmXEMk8)
The result of such virulent PA indoctrination is apparent, when
listening to the interview on PA TV with two 11-year-old Palestinian
girls talking about Shahada and describing it as a primary ideal and
personal goal. They explain that "all Palestinian children" view
Shahada as more worthwhile than living, because of its promised grand
Afterlife.
Click to view video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dPb1bF-s4M)
Itamar Marcus is director of PMW -- Palestinian Media Watch --
(http://www.pmw.org.il). PMW is based in Jerusalem. Barbara Crook, a
writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's
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LONGING FOR THE OLD COUNTRY
Posted by Manhigut Yehudit, June 26, 2007. |
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A new mishigas (nonsense) has entered the Jewish world. It is becoming more popular by the day. It's called traveling to Europe to see the great alter haym (old home). The goal of these trips is to relive the wonderful life the Jews had back in those good old days. Very often, prominent Rabbis lead these trips, whose frequency and popularity are growing rapidly. Virtually every week, a major Rebbe goes to Hungary, Ukraine or Poland. Thousands flock with him to walk the sacred European ground where his grandfather once stood. Ahhhh, what holiness! What a privilege to travel to these places where Jewish life once flourished. In reality, however, the opposite is true. Those places in Europe were never great. The alter haym was replete with poverty, depression and sickness -- not to mention pogroms, blood libels, book burnings and forced conversions. Europe is dripping with Jewish blood that has not stopped bubbling. The smell of the crematoria is still in the air; it is the scent of Jewish weakness and defeat. When I think of Jewish life in Europe I do not see greatness. I see tragedy, sadness, persecution, desecration, defamation and humiliation. In short, I see an exile that has been turned into an illusion of paradise. Yes, there were great people in those countries who overcame unbelievable obstacles to become Torah giants. Yes, they built Yeshivas, wrote works of Torah scholarship and started Chassidic dynasties. I am not saying to forget them. Heaven forbid! These great Jews are our pillars of strength and their words are holy and pure. But here is my point: Their words are holy;their villages in Hungary are not! Think about the message we are sending our youth when we glorify these foreign, anti-Semitic cities. If Radin is holy because the Chofetz Chaim lived there, then the Lower East Side is holy because of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. If Lublin and Volozhin are special because of the yeshivas they once had, then Lakewood and Baltimore are too! And if Munkatch and Bobov are special because of the Chassidus that grew there, then imagine how wonderful Boro Park, Williamsburgh, Monsey and Monroe are. Virtually- the Holy of Holies!!! Let us be clear. These towns served a purpose and in many of them Torah grew. It is vital we hold on to that Torah -- never letting it go -- but at the same time, it is equally vital we stop glorifying the dirt and rubble these places became. Europe is not holy -- period! There is only one place that a Jew calls holy and it's not anywhere in the exile. Similarly, there is only one language that a Jew calls his own and it's not Yiddish. Sorry to disappoint you, but holding on to that language is yet another example of clinging to -- and exalting -- the world of the exiled, battered and punished Jew. Yiddish served a purpose, as did Ladino for our Spanish brothers and sisters. But those days are over. Our language is Hebrew and it is our obligation to study it and speak it to our children. During holiday prayers we say: "Because of our sins we were exiled
from our land." This means that the exile is a punishment. We must
never forget that. No matter how you look at it, it is still jail.
Jewish life was meant to be in Israel and only due to our sins did we
end up in places like Poland, Germany and New York. Stop glorifying
those places and focus all of your energy on the one and only place
for Jewish life -- the Land of Israel. May we merit to meet there
soon!
Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside
the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character.
Shmuel Sackett, together with Moshe Feiglin, is its cofounder.
The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org.
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WAS CHURCHILL A FRIEND OF THE JEWS AND ZIONISM? MORE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Posted by Daniel Mandel, June 26, 2007. |
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"Was Churchill A Friend Of The Jews And Zionism?" was posted by
Daniel Mandel, May 21, 2007. To read it, click
here. This is a followup to that essay and was published on
History News Network (HNN) and is archived at
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I thank those who have discussed my piece on HNN, " Was Churchill a friend of the Jews and Zionism?" published on 21 May. Putting aside all exchanges extraneous to the precise subject, three major challenges have emerged from readers:
1. This Churchill article attacks "Jewish domination" of Bolshevism, of which Churchill had rightly written the previous year that it "means in every country a civil war of the most merciless kind between the discontented, criminal, and mutinous classes on one hand and the law abiding on the other." At the same time, Churchill contrasted the Jewish role in Bolshevism to the "simpler, truer, and far more attainable goal" of Zionism, hoping to direct Jewish energies in that direction. Such a hope was hardly anti-Semitic, but the belief in Jewish domination of, as opposed to participation in, Bolshevism conveys, in the words of Churchill's biographer, William Manchester, "a sour tang of anti-Semitism." Why Churchill briefly took this line (for he never recurred to it) is a matter for speculation. It has been suggested that this was the baleful influence of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had exploded onto the international scene and was everywhere in the air at the time. My own view is that this was an uncharacteristic lapse. My evidence is that Churchill, who at this time was backing mightily the anti-Bolshevik military campaign of the White Russians under Anton Denikin, was not blind to the persecution of Jews under the ancién regime that had contributed to the Jewish gravitation to Bolshevism. Accordingly, he was far from being an uncritical supporter of Denikin. Churchill urged upon Denikin several liberal commitments, including demanding a written promise to suppress anti-Semitism in Russia. Which anti-Semite, furnished with an opportunity to harm Jews, would have done that? 2. I cannot see how the notion that Churchill permitted the bureaucracies to abandon the Jews to their fate at the hands of the Nazis can be inferred from what I wrote. I referred to the failure of the RAF to bomb Auschwitz stemming from the overriding of Churchill's directives on sometimes spurious logistical grounds. In other words, Churchill supported the idea, but the relevant bureaucracies did not. To understand this better, here is Gilbert's explanation of Churchill's reaction on 7 July 1944 to the news received that day from the Jewish Agency for Palestine that Jews were being gassed at Auschwitz: The ... request of the Jewish Agency was, "that the railway line leading from Budapest to Birkenau, and the death camp at Birkenau and other places, should be bombed." As Gilbert relates in Road to Victory (Volume 7 of his Churchill biography), Eden duly passed on Churchill's request for bombing the railway lines to the Air Ministry. Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Secretary of State for Air, replied that it "was out of our power" and that bombing the gas chambers could only be done by day, thus necessitating action by the US 8th Air Force, which conducted the daylight raids on the Third Reich. Churchill was not shown Sinclair's reply and the US War Department turned down the request. In short, those who say that Churchill permitted the bureaucracies to have their way are mistaken. Much more to the point is that the bureaucracies were peopled with hostile and anti-Semitic officials. That this was so can be demonstrated also by other indices, of which the following is telling: one British Foreign Office official, Armine Dew, felt moved to minute on 1 September 1944, "In my opinion a disproportionate amount of time of this office is wasted on dealing with these wailing Jews." As Conor Cruise O'Brien comments on this passage in his The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism, "Officials don't write that sort of thing on files, if they feel that other officials are likely to think the comment in poor taste. The comment was in fact neither reproved nor exceptional; it represented the dominant official view." 3. Readers who argue that Churchill could and should have initiated timely British action to stop the farhud against the Baghdadi Jews have simply ignored the fact that, like other war leaders, Churchill was compelled to delegate many important decisions to diplomats and commanders in the field, of which the Iraqi situation in 1941 was a classic instance. I said in my earlier piece that the defective judgment of the British ambassador in Baghdad, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, and the military commander, General Archibald Wavell, were to blame, but some readers maintain that the Foreign Office ran affairs in Iraq and Churchill could and should have initiated timely British action to stop the farhud. This is inaccurate. Large discretion was invested in Cornwallis and Wavell and not even the Foreign Office took the fateful decisions that permitted it to occur. The Foreign Office and Wavell believed in propitiating the pro-Nazi Rashid Ali al Kaylani and coming to terms with him rather than putting an end to his take-over of Iraq. If the decision had been left to either, that is probably what would have occurred. However, the efforts of the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, the government of India (with its justified strategic anxieties about securing supply lines to India) and ultimately Churchill himself prevailed to override their objections and put into effect the operation to quash Rashid Ali's coup and establish control in Iraq which is recounted with panache by Somerset de Chair, a British intelligence officer who participated in it, in his book The Golden Carpet. This move and the decisions that flowed from it in London forced Rashid Ali's hand by compelling him to militarily oppose the British before German forces in the Mediterranean theatre could come to his aid. In this connection, Kedourie writes in Arabic Political Memoirs that "Churchill's hand is clear in this swift and decisive response." However, even after Rashid Ali's coup had been suppressed, Wavell remained devoted to the idea that Britain should leave, to use contemporary parlance, a "light footprint" in restoring the pro-British administration. He also gave orders that, once communications had been reestablished with Cornwallis in Baghdad, that the latter would issue all directives on the ground. Cornwallis, like Wavell, had believed that Rashid Ali was a man who could be dealt with, that he represented Iraqis in some meaningful sense and that consequently firm British action would be resented by Iraqis and so tended to the improvisatory, weak policy favoured by Wavell. It was Cornwallis who, on behalf of Britain, approved the terms of the armistice with the internal security committee appointed by Rashid Ali, which included permitting the Iraqi military to retain its arms. This clause, and others like it, was motivated by the flawed assumption that British interests could not be secured unless the fiction was established that Britain had not clashed with the Iraqi army but was there solely to reinstate the legitimate Iraqi government. This in turn led Cornwallis to insist that British troops not enter Baghdad or its environs. (The failure to station troop in Baghdad was even remarked upon in the Foreign Office as contrary to expectations and mistaken). Responsibility for the maintenance of law and order thereby devolved on Iraqi police and troops, but since they were "debauched by Nazi propaganda, and bereft of leadership, they ran amuck and themselves began the attacks on the Jews" (Kedourie). Until the Iraqi regent signed orders on 2 June to suppress the rioters, no one moved to end the killing, which claimed the lives of 180 Jews. De Chair with justice commented bitterly, "All who cared to defend their own belongings were killed, while eight miles to the west waited the eager British force which could have prevented all this. Ah, yes, but the prestige of our Regent would have suffered." To reiterate, the vital sequence of British decisions that permitted the farhud to occur were made by Wavell and Cornwallis, not by Churchill -- and one could add, not even by Eden and the Foreign Office. This reflects the inescapable fact that fateful decisions on the ground in war-time are often made by local commanders and officials, not prime ministers and cabinets. Dr. Daniel Mandel is a Fellow in History at Melbourne University
and author of H.V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The
Undercover Zionist (Routledge, 2004). His blog can be found at
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DEMOCRACY: HARDLY PRACTICED; HAMAS BECOMES PRACTICAL; MEDIA BIAS; GUILT FELT BY INNOCENT ISRAELIS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, June 26, 2007. |
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In theory, informed adults select consumer products and elect
officials to govern as the people would wish. Observing an in-flight
movie without being distracted by its sound track, I was struck by how
much adults are manipulated rather than informed.
You know that direct advertisers generate unnecessary desires. The movie was a comedy about ordinary people. Their dwelling was not ordinary. Room after room! All were equipped with similar and therefore largely useless furniture, all lamps aglow continuously. TV producers save time for the plot by not having the actors turn lights off and on, but I think that viewers get the habit and desire to over-consume power and housing. This is a form of indirect advertising for waste. During the vacation, we walked past immense, single-family houses that recently displaced attractive but moderate ones. Show-offs! Many affluent homeowners set up second and third houses. The additional houses receive the same federal tax deduction on local real estate taxes and mortgage interest intended to encourage people to own their own home instead of renting. This causes some of the urban sprawl and the resulting car pollution and municipal expense for roads and extended sewage lines. Americans denounce the pollution that their way of life increases but mostly ignore the sprawl. When the people demand an end to such abuses, lobbyists for the status quo overwhelm their representatives. American business is losing its competitiveness and is being drained by excessive lawsuits and excessive fines, but the Trial Lawyers Association lobbies mightily against reform. In other respects, American government often reflects what business wants, in conflict with what the people want. You probably know that the Bush administration had the polluters' lobbyists write its environmental legislation. The latest Bush attack on the environment is to reinstitute last year's attempt to sell off millions of acres of wilderness. A great outcry last year thwarted the proposal. The wilderness had been accumulated as a national treasure reflecting the wonder and beauty of our continent-wide country. The rationale by a profligate Administration (not that Congress is less profligate) was that sell-offs would help balance the budget. Another trick is to legislatively or administratively redefine a food ingredient, but keep the label the same, so as to deceive the people. Thus the proposal to allow pasteurized almonds to be sold as "raw" on the label. It takes a lot of abuse to rouse the people, and sometimes they are roused for the wrong cause (against national defense). What do the people know? Working longer hours, many people return home too tired for what TV broadcasters still call "the news." It is just enough news to misunderstand. Others read newspapers that slant into more detail. NY Times readers have a great depth of misunderstanding, more depth of it than the skimpy broadcasts that strive primarily to entertain. Every week, the readers absorb another lesson in why they should oppose Pres. Bush. It may not be the right reason, but it is their reason. They get steered in the direction of changes that exacerbate the problem. Wouldn't be dire, if it weren't a matter of survival against jihad. We are supposed to pick among candidates, but the candidates are anything but candid. After winning, they still try to evade tough issues. Tough issues are ones whose solution requires voters to pay a price. The longer the evasion, the higher the price, until only a crisis sees a reform through. Congress and more so the New York State legislature pass a flood of bills, each hundreds of pages long, on little notice. Few solons can claim to have read and studied them and none to have debated them. But they pass the hasty concoctions. Then come the inevitable complaints. Oh, exclaim the solons, as if not responsible for the new problems, we must do something about it. One could go on in this vein. Point is, the system has several serious weaknesses that produce problems instead of solving them. The people are manipulated by lobbies and advertisers. Our democracy in some ways is more theoretical than actual. "OCCUPATION" AS MYTHICAL CAUSE OF THE CONFLICT Arab propaganda, in collusion with the radical-led "human rights" organizations and the media, has succeeded in keeping people from awareness of the Arab-Israel conflict's origin. They don't know of the decades of Arab terrorism and aggression that led to the 1967 war. All they know is that in 1967, Israel took over the Territories. All they hear after that is the false claim that this led to the present conflict, so therefore Israeli withdrawal from the Territories would end the conflict. They don't understand the Arab imperialism and Islamic jihad that initiated the conflict and still impels it. The so-called human rights organizations ignore Arab terrorism against Israel, and mis-characterize the Arabs as victims of Israel. Foreign groups and governments finance radical Israeli organizations that promote the concept that if Israel treated the Palestinian Arabs better, they would make peace. (I have seen cited no evidence for the concept but much against it.) It is the Arabs who treat Israel badly, not the reverse. Most Israelis have come to see the bankruptcy of Oslo-like concessions to the Arabs (Gerald Steinberg in IMRA, 6/5). Israel is no occupier. Most Jews have no idea of the collusion among the Arabs, "human rights" organizations, the media, and European governments against Zionism. STINGS OPERATIONS AGAINST TERRORISM They work (Ernest Sternberg, NY Sun, 6/7, Op.-Ed.). HAMAS MOVES TOWARD PRACTICALITY Hamas has just declared a willingness to accept a state in the Territories. It would not deem that a solution but a step to capturing Israel, too (IMRA, 6/5). Hamas now is more dangerous, because it can accept more concessions.
I bet that if it did take over Israel, it would bring up the fact now conveniently ignored by those who ask Jews to "compromise" territory," that Palestine includes Jordan (whose detachment form the Mandate was Zionist compromise enough), and demand that it merge with Jordan. Islamists work, in stages. They don't upset people by presenting their total demands at the outset, though Hamas demanded more, publicly, than did Arafat. That was what was dangerous about Arafat. He was more able to deceive the West. Of course, the West and Israeli leaders, being anti-Zionist, want to be deceived by the Muslims. ISRAELI MEDIA ADMIT THEIR BIAS Several Israeli radio broadcasters admitted that they and news editors often slanted the news to promote the prior withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. They wanted to get their sons out of combat. They were not apologetic for their breach of journalistic ethics and deceit of their audiences, and even though they admitted that the prior withdrawal led to the recent war and casualties. Another journalist admitted that, just as the Right has claimed, the media protected PM Sharon from criticism earned by firing Cabinet Members who opposed his withdrawal of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria. The media deliberately helped his policy because they favor it. There were no calls to punish the miscreants and reform the institution (Arutz-7, 6/5). NY TIMES SHOWCASES ITS BIAS The June 5 edition has an Op-Ed piece by "new historian" (i.e., falsifier of history in behalf of appeasement) Tom Segev. Mr. Segev claims, "I belong to a generation of Israelis who slowly but surely came to believe in peace." He insinuates that that the prior generation did not want peace. That is libel. Of course they wanted peace! They didn't start wars nor commit terrorism. The Arabs did; Israel was forced to defend itself. Mr. Segev aids his country's critics who ignore Arab imperialism and defame Israel as bellicose. Segev also questions the wisdom of having taken over the Territories and the Old City. The Old City has the Jewish people's holiest site, and the Territories contain the historical core of the Jewish homeland, a major attraction for a Zionist return to the Jewish homeland. He questions this, because he is a "post-Zionist" and evinces little devotion to the Jewish religion. He doesn't understand the religious role in anchoring Jewish claims to the country and to its purpose in redeeming the country, though Jewish secularists do not object to Muslim religious claims to the country. In questioning the wisdom of take-over, he confuses a worthy goal with weak policies that fell short of goal. After having weakened those policies, Segev and other secular leftists illogically cite policy failure as indicating poor goals. In the June 9 edition, Steven Erlanger quotes leftists who call the "occupation" corrupting and who suggest "Israel must reach out to the majority of Palestinians who want a two-state solution." Leftists don't show why it is an occupation, what is corrupting about it, and where is the majority that want a solution. Polls show the Arabs want dominance. The Left's leaders are corrupt, as police investigations show. PHILOSOPHY BEHIND FLOODING ISRAEL WITH ARABS The euphemistic label, "right of return," is false. It isn't a right for people who tried to seize the country and commit genocide. It isn't a return for most of those who would flood in, because they never lived in Israel. Their parents and grandparents did, for the most part. Dr. Aaron Lerner has his own term for the philosophy behind the alleged right: "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine." (IMRA, 6/6.) U.S. WOULD HELP HAMAS Israel's Gen. Yadlin said, "Hamas is demanding open passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip because it is interested in exporting the knowledge it has gained in Gaza to the West Bank." Then it would be able to fight Israel from there, too (IMRA, 6/6). The US has demanded open passage between Gaza and Judea-Samaria, too. ISRAELI CONFUSION OVER ROLE OF UNIFIL UNIFIL's mandate is due to expire soon. Should it be continued? Israel: (1) Complains that UNIFIL does not patrol where Hizbullah tells it not to; but (2) Asks that UNIFIL be extended to the Syria-Lebanon border to stop arms smuggling and northern Lebanon. What a contradiction, asking that a group that failed in its current task be given two more like tasks! (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 6/6). Israel should recommend ending UNIFIL, so that nobody could pretend Hizbullah is being checked and so that UNO troops would not be in the way when Israel must fight Hizbullah, again. Israel should proclaim UNIFIL a failure, to open people's eyes to how counter-productive the UNO is. Alas, Israel goes along with pretenses: that the UNO tries to preserve peace, that the US is pro-Israel and trustworthy, and that the Arabs would make peace if only the right formula of concessions to them were found. ISRAELI URGES ISRAEL TO ADMIT GUILT A psychology professor at Tel Aviv U. who fashions himself an expert on terrorism suggests that Israel apologize to the harm it caused the Palestinian Arabs and accept millions of them. It would not undermine Israel's legitimacy, he (falsely) says. Instead he thinks if Israel stopped its "racism," the Arabs would make peace. Prof. Steven Plaut thinks it absurd to apologize to those who launched a genocidal attack, and instead the Arabs should apologize. The Arabs don't have legitimate grievances and terrorism is not caused by grievances (6/6). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5verizon.net |
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ACCESS DENIED IS JUSTICE DENIED
Posted by Justice for Jonathan Pollard, June 26, 2007. |
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This article was written by Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman and was published in Legal Times 6/25/07 under the title "Give Pollard a Chance." Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman are litigation partners in the New York office of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle. They specialize in white-collar criminal defense, securities litigation, and complex commercial litigation. Dora Straus, an associate of the firm, assisted with this article. |
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Richard Jones, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, issued a public apology on May 22 for stating that Jonathan Pollard, our pro bono client, had committed "treason," and that "[t]he fact that he wasn't executed is the mercy that [he] will receive" from the U.S. government. The ambassador's statements had caused an uproar. Pollard delivered classified information to Israel, an ally of the United States. He was never charged with treason, which entails aiding an enemy of the United States. And Pollard's crime, espionage, was not a capital offense. This incident raises the question of why he remains in prison after nearly 22 years. What harm did he actually cause the United States, and does it warrant continued incarceration? To this day, about 40 pages of the court docket upon which Pollard was sentenced remain under seal, at the direction of the U.S. government. The sealed portions contain the government's projections, circa 1987, of possible harm from Pollard's conduct that might arise after sentencing. More than 20 years later, the government refuses to allow us, Pollard's security-cleared attorneys, access to these portions of the docket. The likely explanation for this stonewalling is that the government's projections did not materialize. Importantly, this renders invalid the premise underlying Pollard's life sentence and the justification for keeping this man in custody. On Nov. 21, 1985, Pollard was arrested on a charge of delivering classified information to Israel. He has been incarcerated since that day. In 1986, pursuant to a written plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage. Although he was never charged with intending to harm the United States, in 1987 he was sentenced to the maximum sentence, life in prison. Before sentencing, then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger submitted a declaration to the court, specifying the claimed harm caused by Pollard. Portions were designated classified and placed under seal. Before sentencing, they were shown to Pollard and to his attorney. We, however, have never seen the classified portions of the Weinberger declaration. The publicly available Victim Impact Statement filed by the government before sentencing describes the actual damage to the United States: "Mr. Pollard's unauthorized disclosures have threatened the U.S. [sic] relations with numerous Middle East Arab allies, many of whom question the extent to which Mr. Pollard's disclosures of classified information have skewed the balance of power in the Middle East. Moreover, because Mr. Pollard provided the Israelis virtually any classified document requested by Mr. Pollard's coconspirators, the U.S. has been deprived of the quid pro quo routinely received during authorized and official intelligence exchanges with Israel, and Israel has received information classified at a level far in excess of that ever contemplated by the National Security Council." Although this was the actual harm caused by Pollard, we know from the public record that the sealed portions of the Weinberger declaration contain projections of possible future harm that might occur from Pollard's conduct. Pollard's lawyer noted to the court that the Weinberger declaration did not allege that the United States "has lost the lives or utility of any agents, that it has been obligated to replace or relocate intelligence equipment, that it had to alter communication signals, or that it has lost other sources of information, or that our technology has been compromised. Indeed, the memorandum only discusses the possibility that sources may be compromised in the future" (emphasis in original). The government responded by urging the court to consider "the reasoned concerns of a U.S. Cabinet member as to the real potential for further injury resulting from defendant's crimes" (emphasis added). In sum, the thrust of the Weinberger declaration was to project what might happen, and to urge the court to sentence Pollard as if those projections had already happened. The court was evidently persuaded, as it sentenced Pollard to life in prison. OVERLY AGGRESSIVE There is real reason to believe that Weinberger's projections were overly aggressive. In a second declaration, Weinberger inappropriately described Pollard's crime as "treason." Four years later, the Justice Department admitted that it was "regrettable" that Weinberger had used the term "treason." In 1992, addressing Pollard's habeas corpus petition, Judge Stephen Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit went much further. He called the government's misuse of the word "treason," in conjunction with other government misconduct at sentencing, a "fundamental miscarriage of justice requiring relief" from the life sentence. Williams was outvoted, 2-1, largely on the basis of procedural impediments to relief, such as the heavy burden of proof on habeas review. Pollard's only remaining avenue of relief is executive clemency. If Weinberger's projections have failed to materialize, we can present a compelling argument for clemency because the premise underlying Pollard's life sentence will have been invalidated. In 2000, we took Pollard's case pro bono. We applied for, and were granted by the Justice Department, the requisite security clearances needed to see the sealed portions of the Weinberger declaration. But despite our security clearances, the Justice Department refused to consent to our viewing the sealed portions, even under strict conditions of confidentiality. The department claimed we had no "need to know." We filed a motion, asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to allow us access. We explained that we were applying for executive clemency from then-President Bill Clinton and that we needed to be able to address authoritatively what harm Pollard had actually caused. The government argued that we had no need to know the contents of the court docket. It stated that the sealed docket materials were irrelevant, intimating that they had lain dormant and unread by anyone since the sentencing. The district court refused to grant us access. In the face of the government's insinuation that the materials had not been accessed since the 1987 sentencing, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) demanded that the Justice Department inform him whether any persons had been permitted access to the department's copies of the sealed materials since the 1987 sentencing, and if so, provide the details of the access. The Justice Department admitted that between 1993 and 2001, it had unilaterally allowed access to its copies of the sealed materials on at least 24 separate occasions. None of those instances of access were by anyone representing Pollard. It was apparent from the dates that access had been allowed precisely at times when initiatives were under way to obtain executive clemency for Pollard -- clemency that the Justice Department has consistently opposed. Since, by law, no one could see the materials without a "need to know," the Justice Department conveniently determined on at least 24 occasions that someone had such a need to know because the purpose was to oppose clemency for Pollard. In 2001, we moved for reconsideration based upon this newly discovered information. Surely, if opposing clemency provided government personnel with a need to know the contents of the documents, seeking clemency should provide security-cleared defense counsel with a corresponding need. Basic fairness mandated such a result. In 2003, our motion for reconsideration was denied. We then appealed to the D.C. Circuit. NO JURISDICTION? At oral argument on our appeal in 2005, Judge David Sentelle sua sponte expressed the unprecedented view that the D.C. Circuit lacked jurisdiction to allow us access to the sealed docket materials because our motivation for access was in conjunction with a contemplated clemency application and the separation of powers would somehow be violated were the court to allow us to see materials in its docket. The documents in question were created as part of a judicial process, are governed by a court-issued protective order, and were filed with the court under seal pursuant to that protective order. The protective order expressly contemplates that, in the future, additional persons may obtain access to the sealed materials. And, while jurisdiction is not conferred by stipulation, it is noteworthy that neither the district court below, nor the government, our adversary, had ever expressed the slightest concern about jurisdiction. To the contrary, the government had expressly conceded that there was jurisdiction. Nevertheless, in a 2-1 decision, Judges Sentelle and Karen LeCraft Henderson of the D.C. Circuit ruled in 2005 that it had no jurisdiction to consider our motion for access to the sealed docket, because the doctrine of separation of powers provides the executive branch with sole jurisdiction to decide who may have access to court docket materials if the access is to make a clemency application. A dissenting opinion by Judge Judith Rogers vigorously rejected the reasoning of the majority, stating "Neither Pollard's counsel's request to the district court nor the court's potential granting of it ... poses interference with the President's clemency power" and therefore implicates no separation-of-powers concerns. In the absence of any such concerns, the majority's ruling placed the district court "in the untenable position of lacking jurisdiction over motions that relate to documents that were filed with it and over which it has continuing control." The dissent further noted that because this case does not involve the typical request for access to classified documents within the executive branch's possession, there was no concern that the court's exercising jurisdiction could open the floodgates to similar motions. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. FACT, NOT SURMISE The courts have thus left the decision whether to allow us access to the materials squarely with the executive branch. To make a serious and effective application for clemency based on fact and not on surmise, we should be permitted to see the sealed docket materials. This is not a discovery request. We are asking to see only documents previously shown to Pollard and his counsel. We have the appropriate security clearances, and we have the "need to know." The Justice Department has never questioned our integrity. If, as we anticipate, Weinberger's projections did not materialize, the appropriateness of clemency after 22 years in prison will be manifest. Basic fairness mandates that we be provided access to these materials so that we can make a fact-based presentation in support of clemency for a man sentenced to life in prison on the basis of projections of harm that, most likely, have never come to pass and never will. Our system of justice is predicated on the constitutional protection of checks and balances, so that those in political control are prevented from wielding the authority of government to deny justice to those who are disliked or unpopular. It is the role of the judiciary to protect the individual against prosecutorial overreaching. Unfortunately, the judiciary did not fulfill that role in this case, and the executive branch remains unchecked. Where a life sentence is, in all likelihood, unfairly premised on projections that, two decades later, have not materialized, justice requires access to the sentencing docket materials by security-cleared counsel. We need to be able to make a viable clemency application to right the wrong of Pollard's continued imprisonment. Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman are litigation partners in the New York office of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle. They specialize in white-collar criminal defense, securities litigation, and complex commercial litigation. Dora Straus, an associate of the firm, assisted with this article. SEE ALSO: *Give Pollard a Chance -- Legal Times -- [PDF of the original publication of the above article]
Don't be Fooled by Ron Olive -- By Eliot Lauer and Jacques
Semmelman
The Court Case Page (legal filings, documents, articles)
Contact Justice for Jonathan Pollard by email at Justice4jp@gmail.com |
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CONGRATS HAMAS: AN OPINION PIECE INTO THE NY TIMES AND WASH POST ON THE SAME DAY IS UNPRECEDENTED
Posted by Naomi Ragen, June 25, 2007. |
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Journalist Tom Gross points out in an article in the National Review Online that Hamas scored a publicity coup, getting its propaganda into both the NY Times and the Washington Post on the same day as an editorial! Wow, what do we need Al Jazeera for? Tom also points out what the Times and Post forgot to mention about Hamas. Sort of like letting Goebbels have his say, without mentioning the activities of the Nazi Party, wouldn't you say? And these are the "newspapers of record" of the free world? Boy, are we ever in trouble. Tom Gross' article appeared June 24, 2007. Naomi |
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Congratulations Hamas: Getting an opinion piece into the NY Times and Washington Post on the same day is unprecedented While Hamas was still executing people in Gaza last week, including civilians, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the NY Times-owned International Herald Tribune all rushed to promote the propaganda of one of the world's most murderous terrorist groups. Getting an opinion piece into the Times and the Post on the same day is unprecedented. Congratulations Hamas! Even Reuters acknowledges the achievement: Hamas scores publicity coup in U.S. WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Shunned by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, the Islamist group Hamas scored a publicity coup this week by defending its policies in Gaza with opinion pieces in two of the country's most influential newspapers on the same day. The New York Times and The Washington Post gave space to Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas figure, on Wednesday to argue that the United States should not interfere in Gaza, where Hamas took control after six days of bloody fighting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah fighters. Yousef is senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, who became Palestinian prime minister after elections last year. He is now contesting his dismissal by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who formed a new government in the West Bank after Hamas took over Gaza. Hamas leaders rarely have access to major U.S. media to express their views unfiltered, and getting an opinion piece into the Times and the Post on the same day appeared unprecedented. Here is what the New York Times and the Washington
Post didn't put on their editorial page. This is what
Ha'aretz reports Hamas was not using a random hit list. Every Hamas patrol carried with it a laptop containing a list of Fatah operatives in Gaza, and an identity number and a star appeared next to each name. A red star meant the operative was to be executed and a blue one meant he was to be shot in the legs -- a special, cruel tactic developed by Hamas, in which the shot is fired from the back of the knee so that the kneecap is shattered when the bullet exits the other side. A black star signaled arrest, and no star meant that the Fatah member was to be beaten and released. Hamas patrols took the list with them to hospitals, where they searched for wounded Fatah officials, some of whom they beat up and some of whom they abducted. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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A 3-STATE SOLUTION? WHAT A GROTESQUE AND STUPID IDEA
Posted by Boris Celser, June 25, 2007. |
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The article below is such a grotesque and stupid analysis that it hardly deserves comment. It is just disengagement propaganda disguised as policymaking. Why not a 4-state solution? Two Palestinian states, one in Gaza and the other in the West Bank. Two Jewish states, one anti-settler, one for the settlers. The settlers, smaller in number, would be the equivalent of the Gazans, since the Israeli media and most politicians consider them pariahs, and they have little in common with mainstream Israelis, just like those in Gaza and the West Bank. The settlers can then demand the whole Judea and Samaria (as they should), and launch Kassam attacks against the moderate Palestinian state in the West Bank. Of course, in this case the world would not deny the West Bankers the right to defend themselves against the savage settlers, who will also want Hebron to be divided, so they can set up their capital there. The bloody Americans would of course support a Abbas-Olmert alliance to crush the enemy, considering them the Jewish version of the Taliban. Olmert would then visit MJ Rosenberg and the Israel Policy Forum, and declare that as far as the illegal settler state is concerned, he is not "tired of fighting, tired of wining, tired of defeating his enemies", because destroying these enemies, unlike the other ones, will bring him glory and power. The settler state would have to rely on the kidnapping of Jews from the main Zionist state, in order to obtain the release of its prisoners and tax revenues. Of course, in this case the main Zionist state would cut off electricity and water to the settler state, because it is not a partner for peace. The Olmert government, to avoid being accused of killing its own people, would arm, train, and pay terrorists from the bad mean Gaza Palestinian state to attack the Jewish settler state. It would transport them there, ensuring contiguity from Gaza to the West Bank, after all. Eventually the settler state would succumb to the joint Arab-Israeli effort to wipe it out, leaving a 3-state solution in place. But not for long, because the Gazans would be considered heroes by the Palestinian West Bankers for their role in the fighting against the settlers. They would join forces and proclaim a common Palestinian state on temporary borders, which would result in a two-state solution. This new stronger Palestinian state, immediately recognized by the world, would launch attacks on the remaining Jewish state, embued with all the confidence of having destroyed with one of the two Jewish states. The purpose is to create a one-state solution" Arab Palestine. The remaining Jewish state, now settlerless, would collapse out of total demoralization. My question is: Why is the Jerusalem Post sending this exclusive to registered users only? Are the non-registered users smarter? Apparently so. This essay is called "The three-state solution?" and was written by Jacob Savage, a graduate fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. It appeared in today's Jerusalem Post. |
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Separating Gaza from the West Bank makes more historical sense than forming a unified Palestinian nation. (AP) The Hamas takeover of Gaza this month revealed deep fissures within the Palestinian cause. The Americans, the Israelis and the Palestinians all might like to think these divisions are temporary, but the reality is not so simple. To a large extent, residents of Gaza and the West Bank are two different peoples, and the idea of a three-state solution -- Israel, plus a Hamas-run Gaza and a Fatah-governed West Bank -- makes historical sense. Gaza was, starting in the early 1800s, culturally dominated by neighboring Egypt. Though Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire, a large number of its residents were Egyptians (and their descendants) who had fled political turmoil. The West Bank, on the other hand, became culturally and economically linked with Jordan after the kingdom's founding in 1921. Unlike Gaza, the West Bank always has had a prosperous Christian minority, which served as an important moderating influence. The two regions' experiences after the establishment of Israel in 1948 also were quite different. In 1950, Jordan annexed the West Bank, granted its residents citizenship and created a bureaucratic and legal infrastructure that helped connect the West Bank with the rest of the Arab world. The simultaneous Egyptian occupation of Gaza, however, was both careless and brutal. Gazans remained stateless and were forbidden to leave the strip. Egypt never created a Gazan civil service, placing Egyptians in charge of all civil and military posts. Even today, the two economies are almost entirely disconnected. Gaza wallows in a poverty that has led to political and religious radicalization. In 2006, Gaza's unemployment rate was more than 35 percent, compared to 18% in the West Bank. With the exception of the joint distribution of foreign aid and political patronage, the two regions have very little to tie them together. However, the most important difference is the way that refugees who fled or were expelled from Israel in 1948 have assimilated. More than a million refugees and their descendants live in the Gaza Strip, making up more than 84% of the total population -- and nearly 50% still live in camps. The much larger West Bank integrated its refugees far more successfully. Only 26% of refugees are in camps there -- representing less than 10% of the total population. Because they have created familial and economic ties to the West Bank, they are more rooted and amenable to political compromise. It is conceivable, for instance, that West Bank Palestinians would give up the refugees' right of return in exchange for Israeli territorial concessions. Yet many Gazans, who have lived in refugee camps their whole lives, are tragically, if understandably, unwilling to accept such a compromise. The idea that national identities remain static is a late 20th century fiction. Palestinian identity has been in flux since the Ottoman period, and there is no reason to think that it is now frozen in place. Indeed, after receiving Jordanian citizenship in 1950, many residents of the West Bank came to see themselves as Jordanian. Yet following the Israeli conquest in the 1967 Six Day War, they quickly adopted a panPalestinian identity. All that was needed for this identity to shift was a single generation severed from Jordanian power, influence and institutions. (Acknowledging that his ostensible subjects would never again view themselves as Jordanians, King Hussein renounced all claims to the West Bank in 1988.) A similar division has existed for some time between Gaza and the West Bank. As a result of Israeli travel restrictions, an entire generation of Gazans has never set foot in the West Bank, and vice versa. In light of the current political schism between the West Bank and Gaza, Yasser Arafat's vision of a united Palestine seems more remote than ever. It is finally time to seriously consider a threestate solution. Israel would be able to treat Gaza as a pariah state and respond to Hamas's rocket attacks accordingly. Israel could then await Gaza's further descent into a quarantined chaos or the unlikely emergence of a more moderate political leadership. West Bank Palestinians also could profit from such an arrangement. Indeed, the Israelis are already considering giving Fatah the nearly halfbillion dollars in tax revenues they've been withholding. Once detached from Gaza, the West Bank leadership probably could force Israel to dismantle roadblocks and evacuate settlements. Following a perverse logic, the benefits might even extend to residents of Gaza. Freed from West Bank hegemony, Gazans could live in whatever Islamist dystopia they choose. A bifurcated Palestine ultimately might facilitate a temporary solution to the conflict: peace between Israel and the West Bank, continued fighting between Israel and Gaza. This is an admittedly partial solution, but it is better than the status quo of no solution at all. (Los Angeles Times) Boris Celser lives in Canada. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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COMMEMORATING THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE ABDUCTION OF ISRAELI SOLDIER GILAD SHALIT
Posted by Rachel Kapen, June 25, 2007. |
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A Name is Better than Oil There is a Hebrew proverb: tov shem mishemen tov -- a name is better than oil, which actually can be interpreted, and often is, to mean the reputation of a person. However, the first meaning is just as valid. The name a person is given at birth accompanies him throughout his entire life and may have an effect on it for good or bad. Jews in general and Israelis in particular see the TANACH -- the Hebrew bible -- as the best source of names for their children and barring the instances when naming a child after a deceased grandfather or other close family member, they prefer to choose a name which implies bravery. Such is the name Ehud which I chose for our son, albeit, the reason was actually to make it sound similar to his paternal grandmother for whom he was named. Ehud ben Gera, son of Gera, was a biblical hero from the Book of Judges. His heroism was tempered with cunning. He was left-handed. He came to bring a gift of offering to Eglon, the king of Moab and the enemy of the Israelites at that time. His left-handedness was relevant to the method he used to outwit the oppressive king, kill him, and thus save his people. The parents of the two most important people responsible nowadays for the security of the State of Israel named them Ehud, Ehud Olmert the Prime Minster and Ehud Barak former Chief of Staff of the IDF, former Prime Minister, and currently the Defense Minister. However, it is also the name that was given to one of the two Israeli IDF soldiers, namely, Ehud Goldwasser, abducted by the terrorists of Hizbullah. Let us hope and pray that the legacy of their ancestor and namesake Ehud ben Gera from the Hebrew tribe of Binyamin -- the courage and cunning which he possessed and which enabled him to save his oppressed people thousands of years ago -- will be transferred to his modern namesakes Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak and inspire them to bring back the three IDF abductees real soon and in good health. Contact Rachel Kapen at skapen285466MI@comcast.net |
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IRAN SPEAKS THE TRUTH, UN SPEAKS THE TRUTH, HAMAS SPEAKS THE TRUTH. YOU NEED TO LISTEN
Posted by David Meir-Levi, June 25, 2007. |
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When Iran speaks the truth, and the UN speaks the truth, and Hamas speaks the truth, it behooves you to listen. The Hamas putsch in Gaza was done at the behest of Iran. Iran said so. they are not joking about their commitment to wipe Israel off the map. They created Hezbollah 25 years ago to do just that, and now they are co-opting the leadership of Hamas. Now there's an 'axis of evil' for you. When the UN says something nice about Israel, you need to take note. Israel is pouring food and water and electricity and medicine in to the Gaza Strip....at no charge...to prevent a humanitarian crisis. None the less, Hamas is causing the crisis. And when Hamas tells you that you and Madame Secretary Rice look like absolute fools as you pour money and weapons in to the hands of terrorists, pretending that the terrorists will not use their new-found lucre for terrorism.....well, I suggest that you take their criticism to heart. The American strategy for peace in the middle east is a failure. A complete failure. when a strategy fails over and over and over, it is time to take a look at it with a critical eye....an eye toward revising it, re-evaluating it, replacing it. Here are some concrete suggestions: a.) Stop pouring money in to Fatah's and Abbas' pockets. Have you forgotten all those emails I sent you telling you that Fatah terrorists moonlight for Hamas? The money and weapons will end up in Hamas hands, one way or another. They will be turned against the USA and Israel. These news items come from Jerusalem Newswire (http://www.jnewswire.com). david ml |
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Iran admits aiding Hamas, Hizballah
While Fatah officials have accused Iran of carefully orchestrating Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza, Hamas leaders deny any connection. Palestinian Authority Intelligence Chief Tawfiq Tirawi accused Teheran of funding Hamas and training hundreds of their gunmen. He told a news conference that the Hamas leadership planned the takeover in a meeting in Syria a month before the battle for Gaza began. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri dismissed the allegations of Hamas-Iran cooperation as 'baseless fabrication,' and denied Hamas fighters had been trained in Iran. The chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council admitted to Newsweek magazine, however, that Iran indeed supports Hamas. "We do support Hizballah and Hamas; that is right. But these two are not terrorist groups. These are the two groups that are defending their own land," Ali Larijani said in an interview published on Friday. Larijani scoffed at American, Israeli and international efforts to bolster Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Have the Americans seen any miracle coming out of the support they have given to Abbas?" he asked. Tirawi, meanwhile, warned that Hamas is stockpiling weapons in the West Bank and might try to target Palestinian government installations there. UN official says Israel doing all it can for Gaza
In a rare commendation from one of the many UN agencies established specifically to deal with the "Palestinian issue," John Ging, director of UNWRA (United Nation Relief and Works Agency) operations in Gaza, admitted that Israel is doing everything possible to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip. "The Israelis are very committed to stopping such a crisis from happening," Ging told Israel's Ynet news portal on Saturday. "The problem is on the Palestinian side, or lack there of." Ging said he is coordinating with Israel on how to get supplies into Gaza via one of the several border crossing terminals without allowing Hamas to exploit the situation. He recognized that "Israel, naturally, can't accept Hamas being there," but stressed that some solution must be found to aid the people, who "really are just stuck in the middle." Hamas: Thanks for arming us, America!
Hamas has successfully transformed itself from a fringe terrorist group into a powerful military machine thanks largely to the generous financial aid the United States has given to the Palestinians, according to one of the group's co-founders. "Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around $4 -- now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!" said former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel. Despite imposing a crushing economic embargo on direct aid to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas' electoral victory last year, America and Europe have continued pour funds into humanitarian operations in Judea, Samaria and Gaza at an unprecedented rate. Zahar is not the first Palestinian official to admit the bulk of that money is used for guns, not bread. On top of that, Hamas took possession of a massive cache of US-supplied arms when it defeated its rivals in Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah-aligned security forces two weeks ago in Gaza. The Bush Administration decided to militarily bolster Abbas in order to curb Hamas' growing strength, but the Iranian-trained terrorist militia easily overran their CIA-trained Fatah foes in a stunning three-day assault. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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LEVERAGE IN HAMASTAN
Posted by Bryna Berch, June 25, 2007. |
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This article was written by David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post. To my mind, the most interesting thing about it is that the usually timid and conciliatory Horovitz advocates bartering the services Israel has continued to suppy its sworn enemy instead of giving them to the Gazan terror thugs for free. That's certainly better than being totally stupid. But Horovitz seems to think in terms of leverage. Leverage and subtlety and hard bargaining are all good tactics when both sides want to negotiate and actually end hostilities. Hamas (openly) and Fatah (quietly) don't want to negotiate. They are dedicated to their mission: to destroy Israel and then go on to take over the West. When they are losing badly and someone offers them a deal, they'll take it -- on a temporary basis. They make deals but they don't keep them, even when a reasonable person would think they've gotten everything they need to administer a thriving economy and a contented citizenry. When they recover, they go back to carrying out their mission. What's worse -- the "innocent" Arab civilians are, for the most part, just as bloodthirsty and gungho for massacring Jews as their leaders. I liked one of the comments made by a reader of the article. "Not Jewish" from the USA said: The Jews are in a death fight with these vile Gazan heathens. Israel needs to destroy Hamas, retake Gaza and eliminate the Islamic threat to her existence and citizens. To me that's a cleaner and more effective solution. It's going to come to it anyways -- and the longer Israel delays, the bloodier it will be. Israel should stop pretending -- as Condi, the Bush wacko does -- that Israel can make peace with the "good" terrorist, Abbas. A terrorist is a terrorist and it is no more comforting to be killed by a "moderate" terrorist than a "bad" terrorist. |
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Let's be sure we've got this straight. Hamas has taken over the Gaza Strip, with a display of ruthless brutality toward its own people. We've seen Palestinians shoved off the roofs of buildings, by other Palestinians. We've seen Palestinians with literally dozens of bullets pumped into their heads, by other Palestinians. Palestinians murdered in front of their families, by other Palestinians. Palestinians murdered as they waited, desperate and helpless, to get out of the Strip, by other Palestinians. Hamas's gunmen were gleefully prepared to mow down their own people. They even looted the home of the very icon of the Palestinian cause, Yasser Arafat, stealing his Nobel Prize -- terrorists, farcically, snaffling the globe's most prestigious peace award from the late laureate who had so signally and duplicitously thwarted the possibility of peace. But the prime target of their murderous aspirations, of course, remains our reviled Zionist state. Israel, to Hamas, has no right to draw breath. It must be destroyed. There can be no Jewish sovereignty here. Young Palestinian minds must be educated to murder us infidels at any and every opportunity. Now Hamas may have cemented its hold on Gaza via the resort to barbarism, but it was the Palestinian public, of its own free will last year, that entrusted Hamas with the task of parliamentary governance. Yes, the people wanted to be rid of the corrupt Fatah. But they knew everything about Hamas's uncompromising and violent fundamentalism, and they were not deterred. And it was that other duly elected leader of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas, who chose to enter a full governing partnership with this murderous outfit. Yet this ballot-box-rooted and now bloodily culminated rise of Islamic extremist military rule on our doorstep in Gaza is being hailed in some international circles as enabling a positive transformation. Abbas, who legitimized Hamas politically, who chose not to confront Hamas terrorism militarily, whose loyalists have often outdone Hamas in carrying out acts of terrorism and whose American-trained and American-armed forces failed to put up a fight against Hamas in Gaza -- thus, incidentally, providing Hamas with great additional quantities of weaponry -- has been rewarded with a renewal of Western aid. This despite the fact that some of the international funding will obviously be conveyed to Gaza, as he maintains the fiction of PA rule there, where it will be used, for instance, to pay salaries in the very education apparatuses that are so systematically teaching hatred of Israel and the West. At the same time, Israel is now being called upon to ensure that the people of Gaza survive the Hamas takeover that they themselves helped effect. Israel is called upon to insist on delivering water and gas and food to a Gaza dominated by a leadership that doesn't merely fail to coordinate the receipt of such assistance but emphatically denies the very fact of our existence. Israel is called upon to keep supplying electricity to Gaza in the certain knowledge that such electricity will be used, among other purposes, for the manufacture of Kassam rockets and other weaponry to try and kill Israelis. And Israel, of course, does feel a moral obligation to help ordinary Palestinians in need. Israel is also now called upon to put aside the inconvenient issue of
the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the consequent emboldening of its
fundamentalist ideology and that of its key state champion, the
would-be nuclear, Israel-eliminating Iran. Israel is called upon to
set aside, for a moment, the daily escalating threat posed by Hamas's
full control of what is now an overt arms supply route via the
Philadelphi Corridor from Egypt. And instead it is being urged -- and
its government is ostensibly endorsing the idea -- to seize the moment
to advance substantive peace talks with the suddenly tough-talking but
hitherto demonstrably impotent Abbas over the fate of the next slice
of territory Hamas is eyeing, the West Bank.
HERE, IN the words of Giora Eiland, the former national security adviser, is how Israel should be grappling with Hamastan and its repercussions. First, suggests Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eiland, Israel might take the elementary step of setting out its immediate interests in Gaza, which he lists as 1) an end to Kassam attacks, 2) a prevention of the further arming of Hamas, mainly via the Philadelphi Corridor, and 3) a deal for the return of the captured Gilad Schalit. Next, he recommends, Israel should recognize that it enjoys a certain leverage to try and achieve those interests. Hamas's coup damaged the Palestinians, all Palestinians, he says, "more than they understand. It broke two iron-clad rules -- no civil war ("the Palestinians had always stepped back from the brink") and no differentiation between Gaza and the West Bank. Furthermore, as the sole address in Gaza now, he notes, Hamas has a lot more to lose than in the recent past. To that end, the last thing Israel should be doing is throwing away its leverage by declaring that it recognizes that it must provide humanitarian aid, electricity and water, and must open the border crossings and so on. Rather, on the declarative level, it must say that "Gaza is an enemy political entity, in its activity and its orientation." As a consequence, Israel should further say that it must insist on keeping border crossings closed in order to stop arms smuggling, and that it is prepared to attack not only Kassam cells but also Gaza government targets and supply routes in order to improve security for Israel. This would prompt international protests, Eiland recognizes. "But Israel's response would be, 'Well, that's how we have to act because we are up against Hamas.'" However, Eiland goes on, Israel should also declare that "if our three immediate interests are met, we'll be able to step back." The guiding principle, Eiland stresses, is that it is not in Israel's interest to maintain supplies to Gaza, "so why do it for nothing? Why give up on our interests? If we give Gaza all it needs, and Hamas is able to keep firing and keep rearming, we are left with no leverage." How would this unfold practically? "Israel makes clear, discreetly if necessary, that if there is a complete halt to Kassam attacks from a given date -- and it doesn't matter who is behind such attacks, because Hamas is the sole government address now -- it will slowly open borders and allow supplies. But this stops if a single Kassam is fired." Similarly, Eiland goes on, "Israel makes clear that the current situation on the Philadelphi Corridor is intolerable and that it may need to retake and widen the corridor to hundreds of meters. This would require the razing of houses, leaving people homeless. The world would protest. And Israel would say, 'Okay, we'll be prepared to pull back if the border is respected.'"
IF EILAND'S recommendations, in our phone conversation, have thus far been delivered in his familiar sober tones, his voice ratchets up a few notches when he speaks of the wider political situation. "I just don't understand this talk of diplomatic options," he says. "What are they on about? Any political deal has to apply to the West Bank and Gaza. But what can Abu Mazen do about Gaza? The last thing Israel should do is deal with Abu Mazen in the West Bank and reconcile to Hamas in Gaza. "Abu Mazen and [Prime Minister] Olmert say they want renewed political talks," he goes on, "but how can that work? Israel will say it wants a permanent accord, but security issues have to be resolved first. Abu Mazen will say there's no chance of resolving security issues, not even in the West Bank, until there's a permanent accord. It's a dead-end." Prime minister Ariel Sharon's national security adviser, now based at Tel Aviv University's INSS (Institute for National Security Studies), does not anticipate Hamas replicating its Gaza success in the West Bank in the near future, though he doesn't marginalize its strength there and doesn't doubt its ambitions. "Fatah is stronger in the West Bank. The West Bank is more secular and more modern than Gaza. There isn't equivalent popular support for Hamas. And Israel, of course, is deployed there and prevents Hamas gearing up in the way it did in Gaza." In terms of the specific dangers posed by Hamas's Gaza takeover, Eiland's main concern is over the weapons flowing in, and the fighters going in and out -- including for Iranian training, which proved so effective against Fatah. As it stands, he says, the 50-100-meter-wide Philadelphi Corridor cannot be effectively sealed even if Israel were to redeploy there. "It should be at least 500 meters wide," he says, to thwart the tunnelers, and Israel should clear such a space, which would involve knocking down houses. "That sounds tough. But we need to create a new reality. To say, 'I'm here and I'm staying.' And to be prepared to rethink if the Egyptians and/or an international force are demonstrably ready to police it instead." Indeed, Eiland reveals that after disengagement from Gaza had been announced, but before it was implemented, when Israel was insisting it would stay in the Philadelphi Corridor unless the security situation enabled its departure and the international community was pressing it to leave, an international proposal was put to Israel to resolve the issue. Under this proposal, international forces, recognizing that the corridor needs widening and effective policing, would have done the job instead of Israel. "They said, 'If you leave Philadelphi, we'll destroy the homes near the existing route and we'll rehouse those people in Gush Katif." Of course, no such agreement was reached. "And after we'd left Gaza, in that interim period when we were still holding Philadelphi, defense minister Shaul Mofaz suddenly announced that Israel was prepared to give up Philadelphi." At that point, of course, says Eiland, the international community recognized that if Israel was ready to go anyway, there was no need to pay any such price to get the IDF out. This, says Eiland, was symptomatic of Israel's mishandling of Gaza. "Where disengagement is concerned, we closed our eyes to reality," he charges. Sharon decided not only that Israel was going, but that it would do so one-sidedly. "He didn't give the Palestinian relative moderates the chance to take control. This strengthened Hamas and prevented any political chances." The debate over leaving Gaza, he laments, was "so superficial" -- something, as he has stressed often in the past, that typifies the decision-making process here. "What happens is that it is recognized that a certain situation is no good. Someone has an idea. And it's a case of "yes" or "no." Maybe there are other options? Well, they're not discussed." In the case of Gaza, "Sharon announced at [the] Herzliya [strategy conference in December 2003] that leaving is good for us. That meant right away we'd get nothing for it. If you tell your neighbor you're throwing your fridge onto the trash, he's hardly going to offer to buy it from you. We decided we were leaving Gaza. We declared it had no value and so we gave it up for nothing in return. We sacrificed all leverage." That is precisely what Eiland fears Israel risks doing again now with regard to easing Hamas rule. "And amazingly," he goes on, voice rising again, if it hadn't been for the rude awakening of the war last summer, and the collapsed credibility of unilateralism, "we'd be doing the same thing right now in the West Bank. Unbelievable." The argument at the heart of Kadima's thinking, he notes, was that the security barrier represents Israel's best line of defense, and that troops should be pulled back to that line, unilaterally if necessary. But the consequences of withdrawing unilaterally "would be terrible," he argues, and offers one small example. "A couple of weeks ago, you'll recall, the Israel Airports Authority wanted to shut Ben-Gurion Airport because pirate radio signals were interfering" with communications between the flights and the control tower. By extension, "if you install radio transmitters in Ramallah, you can close down the airport. So if Israel were to leave the West Bank without an agreement, before Iran even brings in the weapons, a few innocent radio transmitters will play havoc with normal life here." "We are here and they are there," he quotes, witheringly, from the unilateralist mantra. "It's childish. And yet," he notes, "that's the platform that won Kadima more votes than any other party in the last elections." Eiland's stillborn initiative Giora Eiland himself, when still heading the National Security Council under Sharon three years ago, advocated leaving Gaza only as the first stage of an internationally sponsored multi-stage negotiated program leading to a permanent accord. Specifically, Egypt would have been asked to contribute to the resolution of the conflict by allocating a 20-kilometer by 30-kilometer (230 sq. miles) rectangle of sparsely populated Sinai territory on its side of the border to allow Gaza reasonable space to grow and flourish. Conjoined with today's Strip, this enlarged Palestinian Gaza, boosted by overseas investment and support, was intended to feature a major city, major airport and major seaport -- and to come to serve as an attractive potential destination for Palestinian refugees seeking a return to the new homeland. In return for its territorial generosity, Egypt would have been compensated with a strip of land perhaps a third of the size from the Israeli western Negev, with its president receiving the adulation of a grateful world. The initiative also envisaged that tunnels from Jordan under the Negev to that new strip of Egypt, and routes up through the Sinai to the new Palestinian Gaza seaport, could carry oil and other commodities to the world from Saudi Arabia and beyond -- with Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians all benefiting financially. Jordan would also have gained from the fact that, with Gaza a newly attractive location, the dire threat of a Palestinian refugee influx to its territory would be much reduced. Meanwhile, having pulled out of Gaza as a good-faith first step toward this negotiated solution, Israel would have completed its West Bank security barrier along the route Eiland was finalizing at the time, leaving 11 to 12 percent of the territory and some 90% of the settlers on the Israeli side. And with Egypt and Jordan deeply invested in the new arrangement, they would have had an unprecedented interest in ensuring its success. That, at least, was the idea... |