SPRINGTIME FLOWERS IN ISRAEL AND IN AMERICA

Lupine Hill in the Ela Valley (Yehoshua Halevi) Cherry Blossom, Washington DC (Carrie Devorah) Yehoshua HaLevi writes: "One of my favorite spring haunts is Tel Socho, also known as Givat Hathermosim or, in English, Lupine Hill, off route 375 in the Ela Valley near Beit Shemesh. A popular hiking spot for families, the hill is an easy 10-minute ascent to one of the richest concentrations of wildflowers I have discovered in Israel. Although there are at least two dozen varieties growing there, the dominant flower is the purple lupine, seen here, which grows primarily on the top and southern slope. This photo is another example of how I try to merge land and sky into a unified composition. I love dramatic cloud formations as complements to the main subject. The position and length of the clouds in this image forced the vertical composition, and I chose a low camera angle which follows the slope of the hill down to the left, thereby creating a sweeping, almost circular motion from the stems and flowers up through the clouds. The low angle of view, as opposed to the angle most often used by photographers -- shooting down from a standing position –– offers a more detailed and engaging look at the flowers. By crouching down and shooting up, I was able to extend the tops of the uppermost flowers above the horizon line and into the sky, which brings together the two main elements of the photo." Contact him at smile@goldenlightimages.com. Carrie Devorah is a professional photographer based in Washington D.C. Her beat is the White House, special events, meetings, conferences and –– when in bloom –– cherry blossoms. Contact her at editor@carrieon.com To Go To Top

THE PROCESSION –– A PERSONAL REPORT Posted by Patricia Berlyn, March 31, 2008.

Those living far from Israel may think of life here mostly in terms of reports in the standard new media. That means an impression of tension, apprehension, peril and murderous attacks that carry with them grief and horror. That is why I would like to share with you this account of doings Tuesday evening in the small town where I live. Just after dark, as I was sitting at my computer slogging away at a book I am writing, I heard very loud music and singing near my house. At first I thought it came from a neighboring residence, and that a television set was on much too loud. Then I found it that it came from the street outside my house, and went out to check the reason for the commotion. It was a procession on the way to install a new Torah in a yeshiva a few blocks away. I at once joined the procession. The population in this town is about 12,000, and I would take a guess that several thousand of them were in the procession. First came a van that carried the music-making apparatus, and it was very lively and joyful music. On top of the van was an emblem shaped like a Torah Crown, flashing in colored lights. Next came the Torah itself, carried by Yeshiva boys, under a red velvet canopy embroidered in gold and trimmed with gold fringe –– like the huppah under which the bride and groom stand at a wedding. Next came the procession that escorted it; men, women, and children –– all vigorously singing and clapping and occasionally stopping to dance, while fireworks flashed glittered above us. When we reached the street outside of the Yeshiva the celebration reached its peak, with dancers from young students to aged greybeards, all virtually ecstatic with happiness. It is likely that all of those in the procession –– except for the babies snug in their prams –– must have been thinking of our blessed lost boys. But this was the Israeli response to that hideous cruelty –– to treasure and celebrate our heritage. It was a privilege to have been part of it. I wish you could all have seen it. Patricia Patricia Berlyn is an essayist, an American who made aliyah. She authors the A Time to Speak columns at http:www.israel.net/timetospeak. To subscribe, write ATTS@actcom.co.il To Go To Top

3/4 OF ISRAELIS SEE AT LEAST PARTIAL TRANSFER OUT OF ARABS Posted by Sergio Tessa (Hadar), March 31, 2008.

In spite of media propaganda, reflecting a small percentage of the Israeli public, it's not Peace Now's ideas that have made deep inroads among Israelis in the last 20 years The following are data on the ever growing support among Israeli Jews for the transfer of hostile elements, support that was certainly smaller by 80% 20 years ago. It is even more interesting to notice that such suport has grown IN SPITE of an ever growing and uninterrupted MEDIA campaign, accompanied by judicial activism, supporting just the opposite. This was written by Hillel Fendel and it appeared in Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125745

(IsraelNN.com) A survey carried out the Panels Research Institute finds that more than 75% of Israelis see partial or total transfer for Israeli-Arabs out of Israel in any final-status agreement that includes a Palestinian state. The poll asked whether it would be justified, in the framework of an agreement for the establishment of a Palestinian state, to demand the transfer out of Israel of all Arabs. Nearly 30% said yes with no reservations, while 28% said only Arabs who did not express loyalty to Israel should be expelled. In addition, another 19% said that Arabs who lived in areas bordering the PA-controlled areas, such as Wadi Area and the southern Galilee, should be transferred out. The remainder, just under 25%, said no Arabs should be transferred out. The survey encompassed 668 respondents, taking part in a series of Panel4All internet surveys. The Panels Institute says the respondents are a representative sampling of the adult population in Israel, and that the margin of error is 3.7%. Another finding of the survey shows that 43% of Israelis feel Arabs in Israel are discriminated against. In addition, 40% feel that Israeli-Arabs have an exclusively Palestinian national identity, while 50% feel they have both Palestinian and Israeli national identities, with the former taking precedence. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top

AL-QAIDA WANING ON 10TH BIRTHDAY Posted by Olivier Guitta, March 31, 2008.

Under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders, Osama Bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in February 1998, calling it a religious duty of Muslims "to kill the Americans and their allies –– civilians and military –– in any country it is possible." This statement marked, for most experts, the birth of what was later called al-Qaida. Now, 10 years after its birth, some experts, in particular in the Arab world, estimate that al-Qaida is thriving. Coincidentally, some of the same analysts are actually blaming the United States for this, insisting that the U.S. is using the terrorism excuse to dominate the world. For instance, Egyptian analyst Diaa Rashwan said that it is only when the U.S. gives up its plans to dominate the world that al-Qaida will start getting weaker and lose ground. In the same vein, Muhammad Darif, a Moroccan expert on radical Islam, told the Egyptian daily Al Fagr: "?terrorism has become the whip the United States uses against any country that doesn't follow the superpower in the new world order." These are two very questionable assessments, to say the least. In fact, it is quite telling that the responsibilities are reversed and that, in a way, al-Qaida and the United States are on the same level. Working on that assumption that the U.S. is trying to dominate the world and also wage a war against Islam, let's take a look at the pre-9/11 time period. Incidentally, al-Qaida's argument dating back to 1998 is totally flawed because the United States has actually a recent history of intervening to save Muslims in the world, from helping the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to Lebanon, to Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Even the first Iraq war was fought with the help and the support of most Muslim countries. In a post 9/11 world, it is very questionable to deem that the United States is using terrorism to build an "empire." It is also vital to underline that al-Qaida's war is not aimed at just the U.S. but rather against the West in its whole. Viewing it just as a dichotomist war between al-Qaida and the U.S. is clearly ignoring the facts. In a previous assessment of al-Qaida, Darif also said: "Al-Qaida has suffered tremendously from the Western propaganda, and [also] from the regimes that succeeded in tarnishing its image ? by presenting it as an organization targeting civilians." The facts prove him wrong: first, it was not Western propaganda that tarnished al-Qaida's reputation but rather its actions; second, al-Qaida has a long history of almost exclusively targeting civilians (from the bombings against the U.S. embassies in east Africa in 1998 to 9/11, to Bali, Casablanca, Madrid, Amman, London and Iraq). Interestingly, one of the proofs of al-Qaida's declining influence is that by targeting civilians in Muslim countries, it has lost tremendous popularity in the Muslim world. But more than anything, it is al-Qaida's failure in Iraq that has clearly inflicted the maximum damage to Bin Laden's organization. Indeed, there, al-Qaida failed to mobilize the masses mostly because it killed gruesomely scores of civilians and also because it lost its charismatic emir, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by U.S. forces in June 2006. Al-Qaida suffered another blow when a drone killed one of his most senior operatives, Abu Laith al-Libi, in January 2008 in Afghanistan. Another sign of al-Qaida's recent decline includes the fact that they reached out to groups that they previously shunned: for example, the Algerian GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) was brought into the fold and changed its name in January 2007 to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). And finally the recent public dissension within the movement, proven by the recent spat between Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2, and its former mentor Sayed Imam al-Sherif (aka Dr. Fadl), is clearly pointing to a deterioration of the internal situation. Incidentally, CIA Director Michael Hayden told The Washington Times on March 11 that internal divisions between Saudi and Egyptian leaders of al-Qaida are producing "fissures" within the terrorist group. While al-Qaida still clearly represents a forceful threat (especially with its recent regrouping in Afghanistan and Pakistan), it has witnessed serious setbacks. Olivier Guitta, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant, is the founder of the newsletter The Croissant (www.thecroissant.com). This appeared in Middle East Times http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/03/31/ al-qaida_waning_on_10th_birthday/4324/ To Go To Top

MANDATE FOR PALESTINE: THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF JEWISH RIGHTS TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL Posted by Doris Wise Montrose, March 31, 2008.

This material is excerpted from the Myths and Facts website run by Eli E. Hertz. Visit the website at www.MythsandFacts.com for accurate and important information on the Arab-Israeli conflict such as "The U.S. Congress in 1922," http://www.mythsandfacts.com/article_view.asp?articleID=100

The "Mandate for Palestine" granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle anywhere in Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a right unaltered in international law and valid to this day. Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria (i.e., the West Bank), Gaza and the whole of Jerusalem are legal. This material is provided to enhance the understanding of the Jewish people's legal rights as granted by the international community in 1922 –– the right to live in peace and security in its designated Jewish National Home. This is not a question of right or left, for or against ... These are Jewish rights that should be recognized by the world communty before any negotiation is aimed at resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Contact Doris Wise Montrose at doris@cjhsla.org To Go To Top

WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT THE CRISIS FACING ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE? Posted by Rachel Neuwirth, March 31, 2008.

More and more people have been saying to me, "I realize that Jews are facing a major crisis in Israel, here in America, in Europe, and everywhere in the world. But what can I do about it? I am just one person. Vast forces are threatening Israel. Can I stop anti-Israelism and anti-Judaism on my own? I feel helpless in the face of the vast forces that are arrayed against us." These are natural and normal human feelings. I have felt them at times myself. The confluence of international forces that has gathered against the Jewish people and faith, including the spiritual and intellectual fifth column amongst us, is indeed a formidable adversary. Nevertheless, there are things we can do if we are willing to work together to protect our rights and stand up to the massive defamation campaign waged against us. One very important thing that all of us can do is to counter the endless lies and distortions of Israel's history and character that appear in the press, mass media, on the Internet, and even in scholarly journals. These distortions and outright falsehoods are a major reason why Israel is in such deep trouble, and in danger of "going under." Because the entire world has been led to believe an inaccurate, grossly distorted "narrative" of the conflict, the government of Israel feels it has no choice but to make concessions to the demands of its enemies, in order to appease world opinion. But these concessions imperil Israel's existence. Each of us can help to correct this appalling situation by acting immediately, whenever we encounter such a distortion in the press or mass media, to correct it with a letter to the editor or news manager. We can also actively monitor the mass media on the Internet in order to locate as many distortions as we can and correct them. Further, we can speak up to counter distortions in public lectures and meetings about the Arab-Israel conflict, and even in private conversations. All of this requires work and time, but it really does help. Each of us should devote as much time and energy to these tasks as we possibly can. But in order to counter the endless flow of lies and distortions about Israel, we must first learn what the true facts of Israel's history are. Before we can answer the chorus of unfair criticisms leveled against Israel and her supporters in the United States and elsewhere, we must first educate ourselves. What are the facts about the conflict over "Palestine" that Arab and other anti-Israel propagandists have distorted, misrepresented and covered up? The following are some, although by no means all, of the most important ones: The Israelis are not colonialists or alien "settlers" in the Land of Israel with no past connection or relationship to the country; on the contrary, we Jews have lived in Israel for at least 3,200 years if not longer. This is far longer than most peoples have lived in their present national homelands. Our two glorious temples, wonders of the ancient world, were there for a thousand years. King David's kingdom endured for more than four hundred years; later, there was the independent Jewish state of the Maccabees. Jews had lived in the Land of Israel in large numbers for at least 1,800 years before the Arabs conquered it in 635 C.E. Moreover, while hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from their land or put to death in it by foreign conquerors, there have been at least some Jews living there almost continuously for 3,200 years. There has never been a distinctive "Palestinian" Arab people or an Arab "Palestine" state or nation; while it is true that some Arabs have lived in the Land of Israel for many centuries, they have never been ethnically or culturally distinct or different from the Arabs who live in other lands, including the original Arab homeland, the Arabian Peninsula. The Jews, however, are a people who originated in the Land of Israel and never had any other national homeland. During over a thousand years of Muslim rule, "Palestine" was rarely the name even of an administrative district, let alone a nation. Arabs referred to the entire land that now comprises Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the "occupied territories" as "al-Shams" (Syria), which they regarded as one country. While the Land of Israel, also called "Palestine" by Romans and Europeans, was densely populated in ancient times, its population steadily declined during over 1,000 years of Muslim rule. In the nineteenth century, Israel/Palestine was very thinly settled. There was very little agriculture, and extensive abandoned and uninhabited "waste" lands. Most of the population, such as it was, lived in dire poverty. Brigandage was such an established and accepted way of life that it was impossible to travel on the roads without the payment of large bribes to the leading men of each village along the way. The roads themselves were no more than unpaved footpaths. Villages fought wars with each other. Nomadic Bedouin tribes frequently raided villages and even larger towns. The inhabitants of the few larger towns (there were no real cities) had to cower behind thick walls and locked gates every night for security. The Arab population of Israel/Palestine only began to grow in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at the same time that Jews began to resettle the land. Jewish immigrants brought with them modernized agriculture, including the growing of oranges, which had been previously unknown; a market for Arab agricultural goods; employment at Jewish farms and factories; modern hospitals and medicine that saved thousands of Arab lives; the draining of swamps that had caused thousands of deaths from malaria and other insect-born diseases; and vastly expanded Arab education funded by Jewish taxes. The Arab population of Palestine has grown extensively, from under 500,000 in 1891 to over 3,600,000 today, partly because of increased life expectancy brought about by the economic and scientific progress introduced by Jewish immigrants/settlers, but also in part because of extensive immigration to Palestine from many Arab countries. As a result, many of the Arabs who call themselves, or who are called by other Arabs "Palestinians," have ancestors who originated in Egypt, Syria, what are now Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other Arab countries. These Arab countries ought rightfully to give these "Palestinians" citizenship, but refuse to do so. The Arabs, including and especially the Palestinian Arabs, have been the aggressors throughout the nearly 100 years of the Arab-Israel conflict. This "one long war" began with the communal violence that convulsed Palestine between 1920 and 1948, even before Israel was founded. Palestinian and other Arabs organized and carried out massive pogroms against the Jews of Palestine in 1920, 1921 and 1929, waged a sustained terrorist campaign against them from 1936 through 1939, and a full-scale jihad against them in 1947-48. Thousands of Palestinian terrorist/guerillas, the regular armies of six Arab states, and "volunteers" from throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds all participated in this aggressive war. Before the 1947-48 Arab attack against the Palestinian/Israeli Jews there had been few if any displaced Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs were not innocent bystanders in the war that made them refugees. They initiated the war in which some, although not all, of them fled from parts of Israel in 1948. They killed over two thousand Jews in that war. The six invading Arab states killed over 4,300 more Jews. The Israelis defended themselves as best they could against these unprovoked attacks. But they did not expel the Palestinian Arabs. Many Arab leaders as well as ordinary Palestinian Arabs have admitted that Arab leaders urged the Arabs living in Palestine to flee, promising them that Arab armies would soon defeat the Jews and allow them to return to their homes. Despite this bad advice, many Palestinian Arabs never left Israel, and became Israeli citizens, with full rights of citizenship. Today there are over one million Arab citizens and residents of Israel –– more than there were in 1947, before Israel was established. Following this first major Arab-Israel war, the Arab states induced the United Nations to keep the Palestinian Arabs refugees and their descendants in "refugee camps" (actually segregated towns) for generations. All of the Arab states except Jordan denied the Palestinian Arabs citizenship and equal rights. Arab governments and the refugee camp administrations taught the Palestinians that it was their Arab duty to wage war against Israel in order to gain back the homes in what is now Israel where (some) of their ancestors had lived before 1948. This segregation and indoctrination of the Palestinian refugees, as well as their descendants to the third, fourth and all later generations, is the true origin of Palestinian terrorism, not Israeli "oppression" or "occupation." Also following the Arab-Israel war of 1947-49, the Arab nations refused to sign peace treaties with Israel, sponsored Palestinian Arab terrorist raids into Israel in which hundreds of Israelis were killed, and waged war by economic boycott and propaganda as well. Last but not least, Egypt waged war by blockading Israeli shipping in the Suez Canal and in the Gulf of Aqaba (also called the Gulf of Eilat by Israelis). These acts of war severely damaged the Israeli economy in addition to causing widespread loss of life and injury to Israel's citizens. Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks on, and raids into, Israel have been continuous since 1949. Whatever reprisal raids and counterterrorist operations Israel has conducted over these years against the Palestinian terrorists have been reluctant responses to aggression against Israeli civilians and soldiers--not deliberate attacks on Arab civilians, as Arab spokesman and much of the press in the West have misrepresented them. Israel only "occupied" the so-called "occupied territories" in 1967 as a necessary act of self-defense, in response to a whole series of acts of aggression by the Arab world: two and a half years of Palestinian Arab terrorist raids sponsored by Syria; decades of Syrian shelling of Israeli border villages from artillery positions on the Golan Heights, the forced removal of United Nations peacekeepers from the Sinai by Egypt's President Nasser: a reinstatement of the Egyptian blockade of Israeli shipping in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba: the mobilization of the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies along Israel's three borders, and public declarations of war on Israel by Egypt's Nasser, the government of Syria and other Arab regimes. Israel "occupied" these territories only as a means of forestalling the publicly proclaimed, imminent Arab invasion, and to stop the Jordanian shelling of Israeli Jerusalem. This Jordanian barrage had killed 17 Israelis and wounded many more before Israel moved to occupy the "West Bank," (more accurately known as Judea and Samaria). Israel has now withdrawn from 90% of the territories that it occupied in 1967, including all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza region, large parts of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), and part of the Golan Heights. But these very substantial concessions have failed to persuade the Arab world to make peace with Israel. All of the other Arab-Israeli wars were also initiated or heavily provoked by Arab states, usually working in tandem with the Palestinian Arab terrorist groups whom they sponsored. Egypt forced a war with Israel in 1956 by sponsoring Palestinian terrorist raids deep into Israeli territory for more than two years, and by blockading Israeli shipping in the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba. In 1973, Egypt and Syria launched an unprovoked surprise attack on Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur (the timing was surely no coincidence). Israel invaded Lebanon in 1981 only after years of Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks originating in that country; Israel withdrew completely from Lebanon in 2000, but was forced in 2006 to deal with renewed terrorist attacks into its territory from Lebanon -this time, by a Lebanese, not a Palestinian, terrorist organization, Hezbollah. Israel quickly withdrew from Lebanon again following a ceasefire. Jewish settlements established since 1967 outside the pre-Six Day War ceasefire lines are not "illegal." The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, issued in 1922 with the unanimous support of the League member states and with the additional support of the United States (although it was not a member of the League), requires that the administration of Palestine "shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency . . . close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes" (article 6). The International Court of Justice has ruled in a similar case (that of Southwest Africa) that the Mandate documents issued by the League of Nations remain international law, even though the League itself was disbanded in 1946, and its responsibilities transferred to the United Nations. The United Nations Charter (Article 80) states that the "rights of peoples" in the League of Nations Mandate documents remain in force, as well as the documents themselves. The Israel "occupation" of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is also legal according to international law, for three reasons: 1) Israel only occupied these territories in a defensive war; 2) her enemies continue to wage an aggressive war of terror from these territories, requiring a continued Israel military presence in them for self-defense. 3) Israel has a better title to these territories than any other nation, since the League of Nations Mandate document for Palestine, which has never been rescinded, specifies that the administration of these territories "shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home," The British Mandatory power ceased when the State of Israel was born but the rights of the Jewish people to the land remain intact, since they are a "sacred trust of civilization," as defined by the Covenant of the League of Nations, Art. 22. These permanent rights are enshrined in the Trusteeship Chapter of the UN Charter [Chapter XII, Art. 80] There are many, many additional salient facts about the conflict that supporters of Israel should learn in order to combat the campaign of defamation and slander waged against her throughout the world. Here we have had space only to summarize a few of the most important points. But learning even these few important facts makes a useful start for those who wish to be activists in correcting the lies and distortions about Israel's history and character. They make important "talking points" for responding to these lies and distortions, whether in the mass media, on the Internet, at lectures and public meetings, or in private conversations. We need to remember Benjamin Franklin's observation during the American Revolution: "if we don't hang together, then most assuredly we shall hang separately." We Americans, whether Jewish, Christian and even Muslim, cannot separate our own freedom and security from that of Israel. Documentation For the history of the Palestinian refugee problem, as well as good general introductions to the history of the Arab-Israel dispute, see Big Lies: Demolishing The Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel by David Meir-Levi, Introduction by David Horowitz, and Arab and Jewish Refugees –– The Contrast, by Eli E. Hertz For see Carta's Historical Atlas of Israel, the Jewish History Atlas, by Martin Gilbert, present the long and continuous history of the Jewish habitation of Israel/Palestine in clear, easy-to-follow language with visual aids. Also very helpful for this purpose is " Israel 's Story in Maps," produced by www.Israelinsider.com. For the condition of Palestine under Islamic rule before Jewish resettlement, see Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial, also Arnold Blumberg, Zion Before Zionism 1838-1880, and Saul S. Friedman, Land of Dust: Palestine at the Turn of the Century, Ms. Peters' book also contains documentation of the extensive Arab immigration to Palestine that went on at the same time as the Jewish resettlement. For the history of the Arab-Israel wars and Arab terrorism in Palestine, the best source is Neaten Lorch, One Long War: Arab versus Jew Since 1920, also excellent on this subject is Martin Gilbert, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps. Another book by Netanel Lorch, The Edge of the Sword: Israel's War of Independence 1947-49, gives the best account of the Palestinian and other Arab aggression in which the Palestinian Arab refugee "exodus" occurred. Also useful guides to these events are Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem; and Jon and David Kimche, Both Sides of the Hill, also published also under the alternative title A Clash of Destinies. For the legality of the Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and the legality of the Israeli administration of these areas, see Eli E. Hertz, "This land is My Land: Mandate for Palestine; The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights; and Eugene V. Rostow, "Resolved: are the Settlements Legal?" Professor Meir-Levi's pamphlet Big Lies can be downloaded from the www.frontpage.com web site, and can also be ordered in "hard copy" from that site. All of Mr. Eli E. Hertz's articles can all be downloaded from his www.mythsandfacts.org web site. Eugene V. Rostow's article can be found on the http://middleeastfacts.org web site and elsewhere on the web; it was originally published in the Oct. 21, 1991 issue of The New Republic. " Israel 's Story in Maps," is available for downloading on the www.Israelinsider.com web site, and can also be ordered on DVD. Carta's Historical Atlas of Israel can be ordered from eisenbrauns.com, TomFolio.com, Biblio-com, and Israel-catalog.com. Martin Gilbert's Jewish History Atlas and The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps can be ordered from Amazon.com. Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial can be ordered from http://shop.wnd.com/store, www.eretzyisroel.org, amazon.com, and other sites on the web. Professor Blumberg's Zion Before Zionism 1838-1880 can be ordered from amazon.com and antiqbook.com. Professor Friedman's Land of Dust can be obtained from www.Nowandtherebooks.com. Netanel Lorch's books One Long War and The Edge of the Sword can be ordered from Amazon.com and antiqbook.com. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's O Jerusalem are available through amazon.com and centuryone.com. Jon and David Kimche's Both Sides of the Hill can be ordered through amazon.com, AmericanaExchange.com, BookNet.com, and alibris.com. Pro-Israel activists wishing to counter the constant misrepresentations of Israel's history and actions should obtain, and read, as many of these or similar books and articles as possible. Contact Rachel Neuwirth at rachterry@earthlink.com This article appeared in the American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/but_what_can_i_do_about_the_cr.html John Landau contributed to it. To Go To Top

SHARE YOUR BAS-MITZVAH WITH A GIRL IN ISRAEL Posted by Heart to Heart, March 31, 2008.

All donations are tax-deductible Heart to Heart helps disadvanted Israeli girls. Contact them at http://www.levlalev.com/contact.htm. To Go To Top

A TECHNIQUE OF PROPAGANDA CALLED "TURNSPEAK" Posted by Samuel Katz, March 31, 2008.

The Arab League makes use of a cognitive technique of propaganda called "turnspeak", where you attack someone and then turn it around 180 degrees and claim they attacked you. Because the truth is the exact opposite of the information being disseminated it is psychologically difficult to counter and leads to confusion. Turnspeak leads to psychological confusion and a feeling of being "burned-out" or "overwhelmed" with too much information, effectively creating a blanket of "white noise" which makes clarity difficult to achieve. Joan Peters, former White House consultant on the Middle East writes: The term was first used by journalists to describe German propaganda after it invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939. To win sympathy for their invasion, the Germans practiced what has become known as "turnspeak". They turned the blame back on the Czechs for trying to precipitate an all-out war in the region. In other words, the Czechs in their attempt to hang onto their land were ready to plunge all of Europe into war. How did the rest of Europe respond to this lie? They believed it. World leaders decided that something had to be done to preserve peace at any cost. Author William Shirer, who was a reporter in Europe at the time, distilled the truth simply when he wrote, "Thus the plight of the German minority in Czechoslovakia was merely a pretext...for cooking up a stew in a land he [Hitler] coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and concealing his real purpose...to destroy the Czechoslovak state and grab its territories..." [1] The Arab claim that Jews are "Nazis" is not without motive. They are trying to obscure their own close connection with the Nazis. During World War II leading Muslims including Haj Amin al-Husseini worked for the Nazis in Germany and called for a intifada against Britain. Haji Amin al-Husseini was the grand mufti of Jerusalem, as well as Yasser Arafat's close relative and mentor The Arabs, especially Iraq, sided with Germany during W.W.II. In May 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini issued a fatwa –– "summons to a holy war against Britain". The Mufti's widely heralded proclamation against Britain was declared in Iraq, and was instrumental in his 1941 pro-Nazi intifada in Iraqi. The Mufti also requested Arab-Americans not to support FDR. Yasser Arafat's actual name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and Mufti of Jerusalem.[2] Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, who was a leader in the Mufti's pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May 1941. Both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein were greatly influenced by the Mufti during their time in Cairo during the 1950s. Side-by-side comparison of "turnspeak" Many examples of "turnspeak" abound in today's news media. For example a article in a leading Western news service reported "The settlers are a roaming the west bank with guns and randomly shooting at Palestinian civilians... making Palestinians prisoners in their own villages", or another article that said "They [the settlers] are hunters... They go into jail through one door and out the other." An even more obvious example is Arafat's claims that Israel is stopping the peace process. Footnotes 1."From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984 2.The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini was later the notorious Nazi who mixed Nazi propaganda and Islam. He was wanted for war crimes in Bosnia by Yugoslavia. His mix of militant propagandizing Islam was an inspiration for both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Husein: He was also a close relative of Yasser Arafat and grandfather of the current Temple Mount Mufti. "Arafat's actual name was Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini." Howard M. Sachar, A HISTORY OF ISRAEL (New York: Knopf, 1976). The Bet Agron International Center in Jerusalem interviewed Arafat's brother and sister, who described the Mufti as a cousin (family member) with tremendous influence on young Yassir after the Mufti returned from Berlin to Cairo. Yasser Arafat himself keeps his exact lineage and birthplace secret. Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, who was a leader in the Mufti's pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May 1941. See also History of Fedayeen, PLO, Fatah, PFLP, PFLP-GC, DFLP, etc Militant Palestinian Groups and Yasser Arafat worthy successor to Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini [NOTE: This was published on www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/turnspeak.html The original article contains live links to additional material and a comparison of "what's said" and "what is". Read it by clicking here.] Joseph E Katz is a Middle Eastern political and religious history analyst. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Contact him at jkatz@eretzyisroel.org To Go To Top

RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATE IDF PRE-'DISENGAGEMENT' MENTAL TRAINING Posted by Stern, Daisy, March 31, 2008.

This was written by Maayana Miskin and was in the March 31, 2008 Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125751

(IsraelNN.com) The Jabotinsky Heritage House in Tel Aviv recently completed a study on the psychological training given to IDF soldiers before the 2005 "Disengagement" and its effect on subsequent IDF operations. The psychological training given to soldiers had a serious impact on soldiers' performance in later conflicts, researchers found. Dr. Gadi Eshel said the research team managed to collect a vast amount of material on the mental preparation for the eviction and the eviction itself. The material showed that the army put a great deal of effort into creating terms that would help soldiers to feel that they were doing the right thing, said researcher Ruthie Isakovich. Isakovich labeled the training given to soldiers to mentally prepare them to evict Jews "brainwashing." NOTE: The original article embeds a video in which the researchers, Eshel and Isakovich, explain their research and the connection they found between the pre-Disengagement training and the army's difficulties during the Second Lebanon War. Contact Daisy Stern by email at daisystern1@gmail.com To Go To Top

THE SUNNI-SHIITE TERROR NETWORK Posted by Daily Alert, March 31, 2008.

This was written by Amir Taheri and it appeared March 29, 2008 as an Opinion Piece in the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120675195927473485.html Mr. Taheri's new book, "The Persian Night: Iran and the Khomeinist Revolution," will be published later this year by Encounter Books.

The American presidential election campaign took a bizarre theological turn recently when Barack Obama accused John McCain of not being able to distinguish Sunnis from Shiites. The exchange started when Sen. McCain suggested that the Islamic Republic in Iran, a Shiite power, may be helping al Qaeda, a Sunni outfit, in its murderous campaign in Iraq and elsewhere. Basing its position on received wisdom, the Obama camp implied that Sunnis and Shiites, divided as they are by deep doctrinal differences, could not come together to fight the United States and its allies. The truth is that Sunni and Shiite extremists have always been united in their hatred of the U.S., and in their desire to "bring it to destruction," in the words of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. The majority of Muslims does not share that hatred and have no particular problem with the U.S. It is the country most visited by Muslim tourists and it attracts the largest number of Muslim students studying abroad. But to understand the problem with extremists, it is important to set aside the Sunni-Shiite divide and focus on their common hatred of America. Theology is useless here. What we are dealing with is politics. For Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, the slogan "Death to America" was as important as the traditional device of Islam "Allah Is The Greatest" –– hence his insistence that it be chanted at all public meetings and repeated after each session of the daily prayers. And to that end, Khomeinists have worked with anyone, including brother-enemy Sunnis or even Marxist atheists. The suicide attacks that claimed the lives of over 300 Americans, including 241 Marines, in Lebanon in 1983, were joint operations of the Khomeinist Hezbollah and the Marxist Arab Socialist Party, which was linked to the Syrian intelligence services. The Syrian regime is Iran's closest ally, despite the fact that Iranian mullahs regard the Alawite minority that dominates it as heretics or worse. Today in Lebanon, Tehran's surrogate, Hezbollah, is in league with a Maronite Christian faction, led by ex-Gen. Michel Aoun, in opposition to a majority bloc that favors close ties with the U.S. For more than a quarter century, Tehran has been host to the offices of more than three dozen terrorists organizations, from the Colombian FARC to the Palestinian Hamas and passing by half a dozen Trotskyite and Leninist outfits. It also finances many anti-American groups and parties of both extreme right and extreme left in Europe and the Americas. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has bestowed the Muslim title of "brother" on Cuba's Fidel Castro, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. Communist North Korea is the only country with which the Islamic Republic maintains close military-industrial ties and holds joint annual staff sessions. George Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese maverick who led a campaign of terror in Paris in the 1980s on behalf of Tehran, was a Christian. So was Anis Naqqache, who led several hit-teams sent to kill Iranian exile opposition leaders. For years, and until a recent change of policy, Tehran financed and offered shelter to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Marxist movement fighting to overthrow the Turkish Republic. Why? Tehran's displeasure with Turkish membership of NATO and friendship with the U.S. Yes, Mr. Obama might ask, but what about Sunni-Shiite cooperation? The Islamic Republic has financed and armed the Afghan Sunni Hizb Islami (Islamic Party) since the 1990s. It's also financed the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS), a Sunni political-terrorist outfit in Algeria between 1992 and 2005. In 1993, a senior Iranian delegation, led by the then Islamic Parliament Speaker Ayatollah Mehdi Karrubi, attended the Arab-Muslim Popular Congress organized by Hassan al-Turabi, nicknamed "The Pope of Islamist Terror," in Khartoum. At the end of this anti-American jamboree a nine-man "Coordinating Committee" was announced. Karrubi was a member, along with such Sunni eminences as Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. Turabi and the Algerian Abdallah Jaballah. The fact that Karrubi was a Shiite mullah did not prevent him from sitting alongside Sunni sheikhs. In 1996, a suicide attack claimed the lives of 19 American servicemen in Al Khobar, eastern Saudi Arabia. The operation was carried out by the Hezbollah in Hejaz, an Iranian-financed outfit, with the help of the Sunni militant group "Sword of the Peninsula." In 2000, Sunni groups linked to al Qaeda killed 17 U.S. servicemen in a suicide attack on USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. This time, a Shiite militant group led by Sheikh al-Houti, Tehran's man in Yemen, played second fiddle in the operation. In Central Asia's Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Tehran has for years supported two Sunni movements, the Rastakhiz Islami (Islamic Awakening) and Hizb Tahrir Islami (Islamic Liberation Party). In Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, Tehran supports the Sunni Taleshi groups against the Azeri Shiite majority. The reason? The Taleshi Sunnis are pro-Russian and anti-American, while the Shiite Azeris are pro-American and anti-Russian. There are no Palestinian Shiites, yet Tehran has become the principal source of funding for radical Palestinian Sunni groups, notably Hamas, Islamic Jihad and half a dozen leftist-atheist minigroups. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh refuses to pray alongside his Iranian hosts during his visits to Tehran. But when it comes to joining Khomeinist crowds in shouting "Death to America" he is in the forefront. With Arab oil kingdoms no longer as generous as before, Iran has emerged as the chief source of funding for Hamas. The new Iranian budget, coming into effect on March 21, allocates over $2 billion to the promotion of "revolutionary causes." Much of the money will go to Hamas and the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah. In Pakistan, the Iran-financed Shiite Tehrik Jaafari joined a coalition of Sunni parties to govern the Northwest Frontier Province, until they all suffered a crushing defeat at last month's parliamentary elections. The fact that the Sunnis and Shiites in other provinces of Pakistan continued to kill each other did not prevent them from developing a joint, anti-U.S. strategy that included the revival of the Afghan Taliban and protection for the remnants of al Qaeda. Almost all self-styled "holy warriors" who go to Iraq on a mission of murder and mayhem are Sunnis. And, yet most pass through Syria, a country that, as already noted, is dominated by a sect with a militant anti-Sunni religious doctrine. Next month, Tehran will host what is billed as "The Islamic Convergence Conference," bringing together hundreds of Shiite and Sunni militants from all over the world. The man in charge, Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Taskhiri, has described the goal of the gathering to be delivering "a punch in the face of the American Great Satan." Still, Mr. Obama might ask: what about al Qaeda and Iran? The 9/11 Commission report states that Tehran was in contact with al Qaeda at various levels before the 2001 attacks. Tehran has admitted the presence of al Qaeda figures in Iran on a number of occasions, and has arranged for the repatriation of at least 13 Saudi members in the past five years. The Bin Laden family tells us that at least one of Osama's sons, Sa'ad, has lived in Iran since 2002. Reports from Iran claim that scores of Taliban leaders and several al Qaeda figures spend part of the year in a compound-style housing estate near the village of Dost Muhammad on the Iranian frontier with Afghanistan. One way to verify these claims is to allow the world media access to the area. But Tehran has declared large segments of eastern Iran a "no-go" area, even for its own state-owned media. In short, the claim that al Qaeda and the Khomeinists, not to mention other terrorist groups operating in the name of Islam, would not work together simply because they have theological differences is both naive and dangerous. Messrs. McCain and Obama do not need to know about doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The problem they face is not theological but political. All they need to know is that there are deadly and determined groups dedicated to destruction of the U.S. in the name of a perverted version of Islam, and that they need to be resisted, fought and ultimately defeated. 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 To Go To Top

NEW TERRORIST TRAPS ATTEMPT TO FOOL TROOPS Posted by Daily Alert, March 31, 2008.

Terrorists deploy new booby-traps: Bombs meant to explode in soldiers' hands hidden in books, canteens, shampoo bottles. IDF special task force: 'There is no room for error' This was written by Yossi Yehoshua and it was published in YNET news http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-3524720%2c00.html

'Yahalom', a special task force of the Engineering Corps, is battling a revolution in the world of terrorism these days. A few months ago a unit of troops from the force was doing a routine scan of a seemingly ordinary tunnel dug by Hamas militants near the Karni Crossing in Gaza, when they discovered that the hen-house blocking the entrance was actually a ticking time bomb. This is one of the many examples of sophisticated terrorist plots the task force has come in contact with lately, in which Palestinians hid bombs inside of mundane objects. Recently Yahalom soldiers have seen booby-trapped books, egg trays, canteens, and even baby shampoo bottles. On the eve of perhaps yet another operation in Gaza, this is worrying news for the IDF. Deputy commander of the force, Major Eran Davidi, warned that the plots' ingenuity lies in setting the bombs to respond to touch. Thus, if an IDF soldier opens the booby-trapped book or picks up the army-issue canteen from the ground, the bomb explodes in his hands. Another way terrorists have chosen to disguise bombs is inside of plastic rocks. The troops nicknamed these faux rocks skirts, because they must be lifted in order to recognize the trap. "Recognizing a 'skirt' in open territory full of rocks that all look exactly the same is a real mission impossible," Davidi remarked. Dealing with the threat well The task force distinguishes between operations performed in Gaza and those performed in other territories, such as the north of Israel. Davidi explained that the controlled detonation of bombs should ideally be performed in open territory, but in Gaza the heavy population makes controlled detonation very difficult. "The operations almost require tweezers," he said. The good news is that during the last three years Yahalom has been recognized as deserving of more funds, and new technology has been made available to the force. For example, recently they received a new light-weight robot that has the added bonus of a deployment arm. Use of the robot quickly replaced the presence of soldiers in dangerous areas, such as tunnels and other enclosed spaces. Even so, the IDF continues to invest in the competence of the Yahalom troops. "It is crucial that they stay on their toes. There is no room for error," said Davidi. "The enemy has had a few successes, but when compared to the amount of failures they point to an overall conclusion, that the IDF is managing to deal with the threat quite well." 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 To Go To Top

ISRAELI CRIMES IN HUMSA AND HADIDIYA –– AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HOAX Posted by Simon McIlwaine, March 31, 2008.

This article was written by Ami Isseroff and comes from his March 25, 2008 article on the ZioNation-Zionism and Israel website http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000515.html

Amnesty International is sending out letters to the faithful asking them to protest an Israeli crime: Israel is denying water and electricity to Arab Palestinians, destroying their villages that have existed since time immemorial and driving them off their land -- another Nakba. If it were true it would be truly frightening and shameful. From what I can learn, this circular letter ought to be listed in Snopes and Urban legends. The letter reads: "Dear Ehud Olmert –– Prime Minister, I am concerned to learn that house demolitions are continuing and that currently the residents of Humsa and Hadidiya face the demolition of their homes and expulsion from their area. I call for the demolition and expulsion orders to be rescinded, for harassment to end, and for confiscated property to be returned. Another grave concern is the restrictions placed on the residents living in the area and the failure to be allowed access to essential resources such as water and electricity. I urge you to remove any hindrance to the residents' access to water, electricity and other basics needed to survive. Please allow the Palestinian villagers in the Jordan Valley to move freely within the Jordan Valley, and between the valley and the rest of the West Bank. I ask that you impose a moratorium on house demolitions and forced evictions in the occupied West Bank until the law is amended to bring it into line with international standards. Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity to urge you to remove the responsibility for planning and building regulations in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from the Israeli military authorities and to transfer it solely to the local Palestinian communities. Many thanks for your attention to this serious matter. I look forward to receiving your response." Note that this supposed humanitarian protest has included a number of political demands that add up to "end the occupation now, unconditionally." The letter is not intended to really influence PM Olmert, who is no doubt informed about the actual nature of activities in the Jordan valley. However it does influence the Amnesty International recipients and donors who get the letter. Any reasonable person would infer from the letter, that Israel is uprooting thousands of Arab Palestinians from a verdant paradise where they have lived since the time of Goliath, tending their flocks like the patriarchs of old. Evil Zionists driving Caterpillar bulldozers demolished the picturesque stone houses of the Palestinian Arabs, which have stood for hundreds, maybe thousands of years in Filastin. Fat Nazi-like IDF officers cutting the electric wires and settler fanatics poisoning the wells. Veritably a second Nakba. Worse than the Holocaust without a doubt. Here is a picture of the "verdant paradise" and the great metropolises that Israel is destroying, from a pro-Palestinian source, POICA: Verdant Arab Palestinian village "destroyed by Israel" (source: poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1123 ) A picture is worth 10,000 words. The light brown stuff is called sand. This type of region is generally called desert. The villages that have stood from time immemorial turn out to be tents and tar paper and sheet metal shacks. This is freely admitted by the POICA: ...the local people who confirmed that all the dwellings are of primitive nature built of animal hair tents and barracks which are very easy to dismantle at any time.... The population of Al Hadidiya and Humsa derived from the families of Basharat and Bani Odeh from Tamun village to the east of Tubas city. Before the occupation of 1967, a portion of Tamun people moved to settle in a place called Al Hadidiya in the Buqei'a valley which is about 10 km to the eat of Tubas, and began to rear animal due to the availability of rich soil, pastures and water... ...the supreme court issued a decision confining them to stay in 91 dunums which are un enough for the livelihood of their cattle whose number is estimated at 10000. [English errors reproduced as in the original] POICA's map shows that the real name of Humsa is Khirbet Humsa, which means ruin of Humsa –– a village that was abandoned a very long time ago. Some of the people in question are from the Bani Odeh "family." Bani Odeh is probably the name of a Bedouin tribe. Amnesty International tells us, under the scare headline, "Evictions crisis deepens for Palestinian villagers" (source: amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/Evictions-crisis-deepens-for- Palestinian-villagers-20070820") More than 100 villagers, most of them children, risk losing their homes and being forced out of the area."(emphasis added) That is the entire crisis that demands world attention, and requires that the Israeli government immediately end the occupation. "More than 100" people have violated a court order and pitched tents in the desert, and they "risk" losing their homes. Well yes, if you pitch your tent on public land, you are trespassing, and and you risk losing your home, if home is where the tent is. But one suspects that these people have adequate permanent housing in town. Imagine if you pitched your tent in Yucca flats, and the evil US Army arrived and said, "You can't stay here, it's a closed military area." You call amnesty, and next thing you know Amnesty International and the United Nations are condemning the US government and demanding that they stop the "house demolitions," and run water pipes and electric lines to your house. It is interesting that this story has gotten little mention in the Israeli press. There are no articles presenting the Israeli point of view and no mention of the court decisions. There is only one article by Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz (Source: haaretz.com/hasen/spages/903676.html) that paints the same fictitious atrocity story that Amnesty International does, with a bit of additional embroidery and a small "improvement." Levy insists that these are not "Bedouin" but "Palestinians: In the summer everyone is together; in the winter the women and children are in Tamun and the men remain with the flocks. We sit in the shade of used flour sacks stretched between wooden poles, a substitute for the tents that were destroyed. The women crowd together on the ground behind a curtain made from another sack of flour. There is no electricity, no water, no sewer, no school. Nothing. Despite their lifestyle, these people are not Bedouin but rather Palestinian shepherds –– even if the documents of the omniscient Civil Administration sometimes indicate otherwise. Abu Saker says his father was born here, too. For decades they have been shepherds in these deserted areas. How does Levy decide they are not Bedouin? It is not Israeli documents, but anti-Israeli articles that claim they are Bedouin. They live as Bedouin live. Somehow it is supposed to be the fault of the Israeli government that there is no water, no sewage and no electricity in the middle of the desert. Does illegal "possession" for decades grant right of ownership? But the most important revelation of Gideon Levy is that this is just a summer encampment of people who live in Tamun, and decided to expropriate some land for their flocks. If some Jerusalemites erect tents in a park, is that OK because they lived in the area for decades? If I decide to set up a sheep farm in Arizona, is the US government obliged to supply water and sewage and electricity? Of course, the argument that Levy and others are trying to make is that these are just "temporary" encampments. But if the "Palestinians" (Bedouin or otherwise) had built stone houses there, would Amnesty International or Gideon Levy or POICA or the UN (which also publicized this hoax) be any less upset? If settlers put up an outpost next to Efrat or Ariel, will Gideon Levy say that they have a right to be there, because they have been "in the area" for decades? Will Amnesty international uphold the right of Palestinian Jews to these illegal outposts? Will they ask people to petition Ehud Olmert to stop destroying the settlements? It must take a special mentality for Amnesty International donors to pay money to an organization in order for them to receive hoax letters from that organization, which they are asked to forward to the Israeli government. I get my hoax letters for free and put them in the deleted folder. But if someone wants to pay for such letters, I will gladly supply all they want. In Britain they stopped teaching the Holocaust, Germany is boycotting Israel, the French are encouraging anti-Semitism, Barak Obama is a Muslim, Bill Gates is giving away $200 to each person who forwards the e-mail and this inexpensive preparation will make any 80 year old great grandmother look like Beyonce. (I should not have to add that these are all hoaxes and not true –– but based on some responses I got, it seems I need to add it. –– A.I.) If you want to contact Amnesty International about their hoax letter, you can do at the addresses listed in this contact form (or send email through the form) AI Contact on http://www.amnesty.org. Remember the one hundred people in their summer tents the next time you read about Israeli "atrocities" –– "expropriation," "house demolitions," and "war crimes" from a "reliable" source like Amnesty International or Ha'aretz newspaper. Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk To Go To Top

IT IS ABOUT TIME PEOPLE BEGAN TO PUSH BACK Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, March 31, 2008.

It is about time people began to push back. However once you begin to push back, you can not turn back. The next encounter will deliberately be violent to test the extent of people's resolve and how far they are willing to fight. Those organizing this resistance effort, please take that into account. If you are prepared to meet violence with violence and go beyond civil disobedience to active rebellion, fine. Just understand exactly what you are doing. Furthermore, please be sure you are in the front of the group and not in the back being interviewed by CNN in preparation for your next speaking tour. Leading people into a dangerous situation is an enormous responsibility. This news item is called "Police Retreat From Har Bracha" and it comes from today's Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/144197 Stop complaining and fight back! Here's how: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7702 http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/003-D-27449-00.html?tag=04-32-31

(IsraelNN.com) The Police force and Civil Administration members have retreated from Har Bracha after worries that clashes with hundreds of protesters could break out. Police claimed they retreated in order to try and restore calm. The police planned to halt the placement of new caravan homes in the community on Monday morning. The decision is part of the Olmert administration's policy to not allow any new buildings in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. To Go To Top

NAZISM, COMMUNISM, ISLAMISM; CHENEY REPEATS THE MANTRA; RICE & EGYPT SAVE HAMAS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, March 31, 2008.

HOW TO STOP THE ROCKETS An Israeli built his own rocket. His announcement alerted police, who confiscated it. This gave him the opportunity to advise other Israelis to make their own and discourage Gazans from firing at Israel (Prof. Steven Plaut, 3/5). MOTHERHOOD Motherhood. Wonderful? It isn't the same everywhere. Western mothers want their children to become distinguished professionals and benefactor of mankind. Many Muslim mothers in the P.A. want their sons to become suicide bombers. (Their notion of honor seems paramount, and "martyrs" honor their families and would lead the good life after death. Their families would be paid off.) International law bans such "martyrdom" by differentiating between combatants and civilians, who may not deliberately be attacked. Islamists who turn civilians into bombs, and who use human shields, don't follow those rules. They exploit their civilian appearance to kill civilians. If law enforcement personnel hesitate to shoot terrorists, they and civilians may get killed. Islamic terrorists make law enforcement more likely to shoot innocent civilians by mistake, and then they blame the law enforcement officials. The officials don't deserve the blame, but not everyone understands that. We must consider those who promote suicide bombing as terrorists –– criminals. This would include preachers of the death cult, people who lend or rent their houses for firing rockets (or smuggling arms), civilians who willingly become human shields. Then there are those who donate money for terrorism. We need new rules of warfare to allow us to fight effectively against those who don't follow the old rules (Alan Dershowitz in Plaut, 3/5). Why let barbarians abuse our humanitarianism to murder us? The US is somewhat sensible about this. Israel is particularly unwise about this, while praising itself for being moral. I think its government is immoral to allow its people to be murdered. I disapprove of journalists and critics of Pres. Bush who seize upon inadvertent civilian casualties as indicators of US brutality. The fact that the casualties are low should still their criticism. They simply call those casualties high, though they pale by comparison with earlier wars in my lifetime. DUTCH FILM DEPICTS ISLAM AS WORLD THREAT Internet sites tried to censor the film, but millions saw it and the UNO immediately condemned what, as it is described, was an accurate depiction. There were films of Islamist violence and the Islamists quoting Koranic authorization. Arutz-7 (3/28) noted that there were no riots. But agitators need time to rile up crowds. V.P. CHENEY REPEATS THE MANTRA He said that if the Palestinian Arabs want to qualify for their "long overdue" state west of the Jordan R., they should eradicate terrorism. Terrorism not only is wrongful, he explained, but it impedes the "legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people. He encouraged "the advocates of peace and reconciliation" (NY Sun, 3/25). What "legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people?" They are not a nationality, but pretend to be, in order to claim Jewish territory. Their aspiration is to take Israel away from the Jewish people and murder them. Not legitimate! I wonder whether Cheney knows that there already is a Palestinian Arab state –– Jordan –– and it is several times the size of Israel. What Muslim Arab "advocates of peace and reconciliation?" If there are any, they don't speak up. He doesn't name them. If named, they would be assassinated. Then they lack power. Who is supposed to eradicate terrorism? Abbas, who said he'd resume the "armed struggle," i.e., terrorism (not that he ever abandoned it, and his forces commit terrorism), if he doesn't get what he wants by negotiation. Negotiation and terrorism both are means to the same end, Islamic triumph over infidels, in this case, Israel. Why don't they eradicate terrorism, after all these years? Simple. It's how they fight, and it's what they deem legitimate, doesn't he know? Why "overdue" or even due? Because they long have been demanding that step towards the conquest of Israel? What have they done to deserve anything but mass-imprisonment? If he took 9/11 seriously, he would not support jihadists. Terrorism doesn't just impede formation of another Palestinian Arab state. It also hastens it. It is in response to terrorism that appeasement-minded people urge statehood for the terrorists. I wonder whether Cheney knows that the P.A. is anti-American and that its terrorist organizations are allied with Iran. ABBAS' FURTHER SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM Abbas said he will not sign a final peace agreement with Israel unless it releases all Palestinian Arab prisoners (IMRA, 3/9). Israel is holding thousands of terrorists in prison, convicted of murder or attempt/conspiracy to murder. They did not fight by the rules of warfare, and therefore are not prisoners of war but the worst of criminals. His advocacy of their release supports their terrorism. He has called them heroes. HOLLOW BOAST THAT ISRAEL DETERS HIZBULLAH? Investigation found that the murderer of the yeshiva students was taking orders from Hizbullah (IMRA, 3/9). Ha0mas said that hundreds of its troops were trained by Iran and that more are in process of being trained (IMRA, 3/10). PM Olmert has boasted that his war on Hizbullah (which ended inconclusively) deters Hizbullah from attacking Israel. In any case, Hizbullah has found another way. Its way is to work with Arabs in Israel. It recruited one from Jerusalem whose non-citizen residents are allowed to travel freely throughout Israel. Israeli Arab agitation, terrorism, and grip on the country keeps expanding. I think it is a serious mistake to allow a couple of hundred thousand enemy citizens to live in the capital of Israel, and to allow more than a million Arab Muslims to live in the country. Isn't that an obvious security problem? POLICE ARREST ARAB STONE-THROWERS They arrested ten who attacked Israeli cars (IMRA, 3/9). I report this, because often Israel does not arrest Arabs for attacking Jews and sometimes arrest Jews for resisting attack. CORRECTION Years ago I reported that half the 3.5 million people of Muslim Mauritania were slaves. The NY Sun of 3/24 reports that half a million are slaves. RICE & EGYPT SAVE HAMAS Just as it seemed that PM Olmert had run out of excuses for not invading Gaza and destroying Hamas, Sec. Rice brought an Egyptian formula for a truce. Although the week before, the Cabinet of Israel had voted to maintain pressure on Hamas, now the government has restrained the IDF, while Hamas has held off on most rocket attacks. The agreement is informal (relayed indirectly by Rice). The agreement does not advance the Cabinet's goals. Indeed, it gives Hamas latitude to accumulate more rockets for a greater, future bombardment. 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 richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top

SLEEPWALKERS IN DANGEROUS TIMES Posted by Phyllis Chesler, March 31, 2008.

I am intimately surrounded by enemy propaganda and I've only myself to blame. For example, I have been reading Publishers Weekly (PW) for a very long time. I don't have to but I won't give it up. Yes, I have noted the leftward drift of their reviews but, like the New York Times, whose editors and book reviewers have drifted similarly left-ward, PW remains a "must" for all those who want to read reviews of upcoming book titles and who want to know what publishing deals are in the works. In their March 10th issue (I am behind this month), there is an image on page 66 and a glowing review on page 74. The photograph is titled "Palestinians waiting to be processed at an Israeli checkpoint, West Bank." Yes, another image, another work. The book is titled Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. The anonymous reviewer finds the book "urgent," and focuses on how many Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli military operations-as if Israelis planned to kill the children. This image, this idea, this reality has been burned into Western and Eastern brains. The Chinese Occupation of Tibet, the Sudanese genocide, the thousands of Muslim on Muslim atrocities and Islamist acts of terrorism all pale by comparison. The "Israeli checkpoints" was an accusation hurled at me when I spoke at Barnard in 2003. As I described the features of Islamic gender and religious apartheid, (honor killings, arranged marriage, polygamy, forced veiling, female genital mutilation, etc.) the assembled feminist crowd kept yelling at me to "admit" or to "focus on" the checkpoints. No matter what I said, they shouted back: "What about the humiliation at the checkpoints?" They were very noisy for "sleepwalkers." Here is how one of Doris Lessing's characters in the novel The Four Gated City viewed others going about their daily lives: "They all looked half drugged or half asleep, dull, as if the creatures had been hypnotized or poisoned as if they were not conscious of their existence here, were somewhere else. But the most frightening thing about them was this: that they walked and moved and went about their lives in a condition of sleepwalking: they were not aware of themselves, of other people, of what went on around them, they were essentially isolated, shut in." Ah, yes. But today, our "sleepwalkers" have more of an edge. If anyone interrupts their "sleepwalking" they angrily turn on them, call them "racists," "alarmists," "provocateurs." Dutch politicians blame and wish to hold only Geert Wilders liable in case his film, "Fitna," leads to riots or to any boycotts of Dutch goods. They do not condemn Muslim acts of violence in the name of Islam. Left European groups blame the Danish cartoons and Ayaan Hirsi Ali for unecessarily "provoking" Muslim rage and endangering both Holland and Denmark. Those Americans who are voting for Obama honestly hope that his shadow, blended Christian-Muslim and person-of-color identity will usher in a diplomatic love affair between Obama's America and the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda. Those Americans who are (Just Make My Day) waiting to vote for McCain, believe that it is World War Two again and that a John Wayne war hero will win the day for America and the West. I am no longer sure what Hilary Clintons' people dare to fantasize, All attempts to explain the precise way in which Islam is different from other religions-that it is not just a religion but is, rather, a political ideology or at least, it is not only a religion-falls on absolutely deaf ears. Document the genocidal history of Muslims towards non-Muslims (and towards each other); document Islamic gender apartheid and the tragic fate of Muslim women-and it is as if nothing has been said. More: It is as if one has spoken out of turn, with malice aforethought. In response to the Islamist death-eaters of today, the "sleepwalkers" say: "But we have also had Crusaders, (but they were trying to take back Christian lands from Arab Muslim invaders-but why quibble?), a Christian Inquisition, an American genocidal extermination of native-Indians, ancient Israel was commanded to murder all the pagans in the Holy Land, (but they did not do so-again, why quibble), etc." Others say: "America is the New Crusader, 9/11 was our own fault-hey, that's what Obama's Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said and it is deemed uncivilized, unfair, boring, and racist to harp upon this. One might as well howl right into the wind. Let me try to say this in World War Two terms one more time. But please remember that we live in far more dangerous times. The rise of Islamist suicide terrorism and Big Lie propaganda is equivalent to Hitler's rise. At the end of the day, it did not matter that individual Germans were very polite, or personally peaceful, or that they loved music. Their refusal to stop Hitler led to eleven million deaths and great suffering. But this knowledge demands that one gird up one's loins and Do Something, even something educational and non-violent. And our "sleepwalkers" have been too heavily propagandized or are too busy dreaming of peace. And I have a nasty virus and face surgery and can but write this fevered column, my daily note-in-a-bottle, meant for you. Dr. Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is an author and lecturer and co-founder of the still ongoing Association for Women in Psychology (1969). Visit her website at http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/phyllischesler/ To Go To Top

WRONG AGAIN! BY RABBI "A" Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, March 31, 2008.

People make a big mistake. They think that the evacuation from Gaza was in order to advance the "peace process" –– and that the Jewish settlers in Gush Katif/Gaza just happened to get hurt in the process. Wrong. The purpose of the Gush Katif/Gaza evacuation was to hurt the settlers –– and the "peace process" was just an excuse. People think that putative attempts by the world, abetted by Quisling-style Israeli government to make Judea and Samaria Judenrein (Jew-free), is in order to advance the "peace process". Wrong again. Their goal is to make Judea, Samaria (and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv) Judenrein. The "peace process" is just a flimsy excuse. We have all been imagining that the "peace process" was real. Yet, we couldn't understand how any moderately rational individual would be so stupid, or so delusional, to imagine that anybody at all on the Muslim-Arab/Palestinian side wanted to make peace. The insanity of it all was driving people to literally "pull their hair out" in frustration. You see, they really weren't all that dumb, or locked up in their own fantasy world. They all know that this so-called "peace process" has absolutely no chance whatsoever. They know that it will leave what is left of Israel in a vulnerable position. That is exactly what they want! Ever hear the expression: "Crazy like a fox"? What did you think, that anti-Semitism had disappeared? They want to destroy the Jewish people and the Jewish Land because we carry the G-d given message of morality to the world. They don't want to be moral. So what should we do? Taking on the whole world is not an easy thing. We see how the nations of the world failed to stop the Holocaust –– some even assisted. They didn't even let fleeing refugees in. We've tried rallies and reason –– they didn't seem to have much of an effect. There is one hope. It takes a bit of effort. If we simply return to following G-d, completely –– He has offered to do miracles for us. Or we can keep trying to do things "our" way. Most of the world will actually be destroyed or damaged –– largely for the sin of collaborating to harm G-d's Chosen People and for trying to silence G-d's messengers. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinston.interaccess.com To Go To Top

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES GROW BY 'DEVIOUS' METHODS, CHARGE ANTI-MISSIONARIES Posted by Shoshanna Walker, March 30, 2008.

This was written by Daphna Berman and it appeared in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/ PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=969459

Recent success by controversial religious group Jehovah's Witnesses to bring in local Israelis has anti-missionary activists accusing the group of using devious recruitment methods. The Witnesses, as they are known, have had a presence here since the state's founding but say their active missionary work –– an obligation for members –– has gained traction in recent years, bringing in several hundred additional members. They now number an estimated 2,500 in Israel. Missionary work is not illegal here, though the law forbids proselytizing to minors or proselytizing with promises of financial or material gain. Still, missionary attempts rile up many Israeli Jews. Last week, a teenager from Ariel whose family is part of the city's small Messianic Jewish community was seriously injured after a bomb, disguised as a Purim package, went off in his apartment. The incident marks what some onlookers are calling an escalation in tension between religious groups that proselytize and the ultra-Orthodox Jews who actively oppose them. Meir Cohen, coordinator of the anti-missionary department at Yad L'Achim, says his ultra-Orthodox organization receives about a dozen calls a day from people complaining about Jehovah's Witnesses who come to their door. Accusing the Witnesses of targeting society's weaker elements, including new immigrants, the poor and the handicapped, critics blast what they call the group's devious recruitment methods. "They've mapped out all of Israeli society and then target segments that don't get attention elsewhere," said Cohen. "They introduce themselves, they smile, they are nice and they are successful. They cynically abuse people in distress and like other cults in Israel are growing." Cohen asserted they've actively proselytized in group homes for the deaf-mute, adding, "Jehovah's Witnesses, messianic Jews, scientologists all thrive here because there is no public awareness to counter them." "They target the less educated people and not the university professors," said Ruth Cohen, a former member who returned to Judaism in 2002. "In Tel Aviv, they go building to building, but in Jerusalem, they are more careful because they are terrified of the ultra-Orthodox. They target Russians, foreign workers and Arabs –– but not Muslims, because that is considered too dangerous." David Namer, head of the group's non-profit organization, countered in a recent interview that most of its members are Israeli and that their movement cuts across ethnic and socioeconomic lines –– rejecting claims of honing in on the weak. "We go to Ramat Aviv," added spokesperson Eran Katri, referring to the affluent north Tel Aviv neighborhood. Both representatives denied charges their movement is a cult. The movement –– called "the Chabad of the Christian world" by Cohen –– has a national office off the Nachalat Binyamin pedestrian mall in Tel Aviv, but claims to have a presence in most major cities, including Haifa, Beer Sheva, Jerusalem and Ashdod. The work of Jehovah's Witnesses is hardly new to Israelis who have spent significant time abroad. In the U.S., home to the movement's international headquarters, they have about one million active members who go door to door to spread their message. Here, small numbers make their evangelizing less noticeable. Methods, however, are similar: believers canvass neighborhoods, stand on street corners and approach strangers on places like the Tel Aviv beach promenade. "We believe that sharing our faith is an obligation," Katri said. "We spread a message and if someone becomes a Jehovah's Witness, it is his choice." According to Jehovah's Witnesses officials, some 1,300 active members in Israel engage in spreading the message. "We are seeing an increase in the numbers of people who come to us," said Namer. "But relatively speaking, we are still quite small." The group, which is active in some 230 countries, is known for their refusal to take blood infusions as well as for their persecution during World War II by the Nazis. Claiming to have nearly 7,000,000 practicing members, they are especially controversial for the way they treat those who leave the flock. A Jehovah's Witness who behaves in a way that the community deems immoral is completely excommunicated, or "disfellowshipped," in the parlance of the congregation –– an experience Ruth Cohen had to live through. Jehovah's Witnesses do not consider themselves part of Christianity –– which they see as idolatrous –– despite their belief in Jesus as the messiah. They also do not accept the Trinity or use the cross as a religious symbol. Members of the group dress modestly and meet some three times a week at their local "Kingdom Halls" to worship, study, pray and sing. They say they are firm adherents of the Bible. Namer referenced verses from Genesis and Leviticus during the interview to prove a point. "To be a Witness doesn't just mean to be a believer," explained Penina Taylor, director of the Jerusalem offices of Jews for Judaism, an international anti-missionary group. "Their raison d'etre is to share their faith." Ruth Cohen, who was a member for 30 years, believes that "Jews don't realize how serious the threat is and how much money and effort is being put into missionizing here." Namer, for his part, rejects criticism of the group. "It's a shame that [these people] don't respect other people's beliefs," he said. Contact Shoshanna Walker at rosewalk@concentric.net To Go To Top

THE WORLD WILL NOT ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS Posted by Dave Nathan, March 30, 2008.

This is by Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief and publisher of U.S. News and World Report.

The world applauded when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, forcibly removing Jewish settlers. At last, the Palestinians were free to show how they could build their own society. But what did they do with their freedom? They elected the terrorist organization Hamas in 2006. First Fatah and now Hamas have rained 4,000 rockets on Israel, killed 24, and wounded 620 –– the equivalent of killing 1,200 Americans and wounding 31,000. The citizens of Sderot and Ashkelon have suffered a collective trauma; children fear that when parents leave for work, they will never see them again. And what does the world do? It criticizes Israel –– Israel! –– for a "disproportionate" response. Israel is discriminating in trying to defend its people. It attacks Gaza's rocket launchers, weapons factories, and terrorists, all hidden in civilian areas. What is a proportionate response? None at all, it seems. Hamas kills indiscriminately. It makes no distinction between civilians and combatants. But it is Israel that earns the opprobrium. The moral equivalency was evident in a New York Times headline: "Hamas and Israelis Trade Attacks, Killing at Least Nine." Nor did TV broadcast pictures of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza celebrating the news that eight teenagers had been shot dead and many more injured in the library of a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem. Would Paris, London, Bonn, or New York sit back quietly if terrorists attacked from sanctuaries somewhere just off their borders? Silent voices. Where is the world's outrage against these Palestinian war crimes? Twelve resolutions have passed the United Nations Human Rights Council on the conflict, but not one has made even a passing reference to the terrorism against Israel. Where is the appreciation that while under attack, Israel has continued to supply its enemies with electricity and with 2,500 tons of food and medicines every day? Last year, 14,000 Gazan Palestinians were treated in Israeli medical facilities. But Palestinians continue to get away with their confidence trick of persuading the world that they are the victims. The death of every Arab woman and child is a propaganda victory for Hamas, so it uses women and children as human shields and then exaggerates the casualties. The distortion foisted on the world is manifest in the celebrated case of the death of Mohammed al-Dura, who was alleged to have been shot by the Israelis in Gaza on the first day of the intifada. Now an independent French ballistic expert reports that he could not have died from Israeli gunfire. The technical analysis shows the shots could have come only from Palestinian positions. And what of the Palestinian leader supposed to be leading the peace effort? Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas says, "What is happening now in Gaza is more than a Holocaust." Absurd? This from the "peacemaker" whose doctoral dissertation included the theory that European Zionists conspired with the Nazis to push for the Holocaust so that it could ultimately result in the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. According to Abbas's writings, 6 million Jews were not sent to the gas chambers to be killed but were among corpses cremated for sanitation reasons. Some suggest Israel should deal with Hamas; there is talk of Egypt negotiating a truce. But why negotiate with an enemy dedicated to Israel's destruction? Recognition of Hamas would prove that terrorism, not diplomacy, is the way to gain Israeli concessions –– not to speak of international support –– and would strengthen Hamas in the West Bank. Any truce would protect the smuggling of arms and munitions until Hamas can attack again, with missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. This current turmoil is a direct outcome of Bush administration misjudgments. We forced the Israelis and the Palestinians to include Hamas in the 2006 election. Later, we caused the removal of Israeli control of the Philadelphi road, a crucial barrier in the protection against the smuggling of arms, insisting it be left to the Palestinians under Egyptian and European supervision. Israeli protests that foreign troops would not stop either terrorists or arms from making their way into Gaza went unheeded. America has an extra moral obligation to defuse this crisis. We should pressure Egypt by both political and economic means to stop the smuggling. Hamas must be contained. In the meantime, we have a war of attrition with Hamas determined to show Fatah's Abbas that terrorism is the only path. In the process, Hamas has made a mockery of President Bush and the Annapolis process. It has made it clear in blood that it will not permit Abbas to conduct real diplomatic negotiations. The entire Arab world watches to see if Israel can find can find a way to deter Hamas –– or if terrorism, with the acquiescence of the hand-wringers, can win. Contact Dave Nathan at DaveNathan@aol.com To Go To Top

1945 TO 2008: A LESSON FROM DRESDEN –– EXISTENTIAL WARS HAVE ONLY MILITARY SOLUTIONS Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), March 30, 2008.

This was written by Eliav Bar-Hai. He has a degree in International Relations from UCLA, is a 30-year resident of YESHA and the Golan; and works in high tech manufacturing. It appeared March 28, 2008 in Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7868

Existential wars have only military solutions. Sixty-three years ago, the Allied air forces bombed the German city of Dresden into oblivion, accelerating the final defeat of the Nazi regime and bringing a rapid end to the Second World War just four months later. Today's Islamofascist Jihad is gaining ground against the non-Islamic world and the Islamists are on the threshold of obtaining nuclear weapons. The failure of the West, including the USA, Europe and Israel, to recognize and deal seriously with this existential threat could have catastrophic ramifications for the future of mankind. It is therefore educationally imperative to review the concluding events of World War II and thus gain a better perspective of how fascist national cults have been successfully dealt with in the past. By Spring of 1945, the war in Europe and Asia against the fascists had been won militarily, yet the two primary Axis powers were still defiant and determined to fight to the end, in the hope of causing the maximum number of American and British casualties. The large task that remained for the Allies was the invasion and occupation of Germany and Japan. To this end, the US and Great Britain intensified their aerial bombardment of Germany in preparation for the final assault. The allies decided to "upgrade" their tactics to achieve the maximum psychological impact on the enemy, to teach him the folly of further resistance. This new campaign reached its peak in a massive bombardment of the city of Dresden on the night of February 13, 1945. The RAF dispatched some 200 heavily-laden aircraft during the night that were followed the next day by 400 bombers of the US 8th Air Force, followed by three more waves of bombings in March and April. The aircraft dropped incendiary bombs on one of Europe's oldest and most beautiful architectural monuments, built from wood to a large extent, and succeeded in obliterating virtually the entire city. Some 100,000 German civilians were incinerated (some estimates range as high as 135,000) –– as many people as were killed in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima six months later. Dresden had no military installations or strategic value other than being a communications center. The primary purpose of the bombing was to assist the advance of the Red Army and to demoralize the German population. The "success" of the attack on Dresden inspired a change of tactics on the Japanese front, as well. Instead of high altitude bombing runs in daylight that caused little damage, low-level night-time napalm strikes were initiated with impressive results. The first, on the night of March 9-10, destroyed 25% of Tokyo's flimsy wood buildings, killing more than 80,000 people –– twice the number killed in Nagasaki in the second atomic bomb attack –– and made more than one million homeless. Similar raids followed against Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka and Yokohama. This phenomenal carnage was not "collateral damage" (a euphemism for inadvertent killing of civilians), but targeted mass annihilation of civilian populations for its morale-weakening contribution to a military effort. The ultimate political goal of the above military effort was to destroy Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan –– two nations whose organized national purpose, supported by their civilian populations, was willful imperialism by force and large-scale killing. What is the significance of these last-century events for Israel and the West in the context of the ongoing ruthless Islamic war against "global non-belief" (a Wahabi Islamic term for all non-Muslims)? First, the Allies in World War II recognized that total existential war is fought between peoples or nations. This is decidedly different from today's politically correct and militarily impotent "War On Terror." The German and Japanese people wholeheartedly supported an aggressive, genocidal war effort and willingly sent their sons and husbands to fight and butcher in the name of Emperor and Fuhrer. The British lost 93,000 civilians in German air raids, the Chinese are estimated to have lost 20 million at the hands of the Japanese, the Russians suffered five million civilians killed, and the Jewish people suffered six million murdered in history's worst ethnic genocide. Israel and the USA are not facing a band of independent terrorists, but rather a national and religious movement supported by an international grouping of Islamofascist societies. This same jihadist warfare is being practiced by non-Arab converts to Islam in the US, Britain, Holland and other non-Arab, non-Muslim countries. These terrorists are not poor, downtrodden "desperate victims of occupation who have no other choice," as many in the Western press portray suicide murderers. Non-Arab converts in America who go out and shoot passersby because they are not Muslim or try to blow up an airliner with explosives in their shoes have joined the same jihadist Satanic cult that has declared war on the non-Islamic world. Second, the Allies in World War II ultimately realized –– in contrast to another modern mantra: "There is no military solution –– only a political solution" –– that existential wars have only military solutions, which dictate the political reshuffling that follows. In the wake of the "political solutions" early on in Hitler's methodical push to take over Europe, which strengthened Germany with Austria, the Sudetenland and Czechoslavakia, and Japan with southeast Asia, the Allies belatedly focused on military victory. When treated to a taste of their own tactics, and crushed with overwhelming force, both the Nazi and Japanese fascist regimes disintegrated, as did their popular national support. The defeat of the fascists in World War II was so complete that there was virtually no violent resistance in Germany and Japan from the end of the war until this day, even though the US maintains large military forces in both countries. Inadvertent civilian casualties will result from military action –– that is the price the Palestinian population must pay for supporting a war of genocide against the state of Israel. The reluctance by Israel to use force and the recurring one-sided retreat from territory (Oslo Accord retreats in the mid-1990s; the flight from Lebanon in May 2000; the destruction of all Jewish presence in Gush Katif and northern Samaria; the promise by Ehud Olmert of more retreats to come; the hesitancy to use force to stop the ongoing rocket and missile attacks against Sderot and Ashkelon) are an open admission of defeat in Islamic eyes. The immediate result of Israel's head-long flight from Lebanon in May 2000 was the Palestinians' war on Israel launched four months later and now in its eighth year. And Israel's decline is encouraging increasing numbers of Israeli Arabs and Druze citizens to participate in terrorist activities against the state, as they perceive a shifting of power and fluctuating long-term interests. Over 1,600 Israeli citizens have been murdered in the 10 years since the Oslo Accords were signed. Open warfare has been conducted by the Palestinians in the past eight years, with 1,200 victims on the Israeli side (compared with 679 casualties in the full-scale Six Day War against three regular armies). This is a long-term national and religious struggle that will either be won or lost; there will be no middle ground. And this war is not only Israel's, but of the West as a whole; the eyes of Islam are watching, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Iran. The Islamic jihad in all of its forms is measuring Israel's national will, and that of America, to fight. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top

FROM ISRAEL: DEPLORABLE Posted by Arlene Kushner, March 30, 2008.

Well, it was unlikely that Rice, who is here, would have readily walked away without further concessions from Israel for the sake of the "peace process." Some concessions, of some sort, from our craven, appeasing government. But what has taken place is above and beyond. After Rice met with Defense Minister Barak and PA Prime Minister Fayyad here in Jerusalem, she actually said she was "amazed" by the gestures being advanced by Israel. I don't wonder at her amazement, as this sort of one-sided, tushy-kissing effort to be nice to an entity that in fact wishes us gone is quite breath-taking. But, rather than being "amazed," I'm just plain shocked. And outraged. Rice announced that a number of concrete actions will be taken to improve the situation. ~~~~~~~~~~ Take a deep breath before reading this list of Barak's major offers: [] The establishment of a Palestinian city (or series of neighborhoods) north of the town of al-Bireh, outside of Ramallah, to be paid for by a Jordanian businessman, to alleviate housing shortages in the Ramallah area. It would house tens of thousands of Palestinians. This strikes me as most offensive of all. After the PA screams bloody murder about building a few hundred units in existing communities, and just one day after Abbas lied about this and said we were doing unprecedented building, we make this offer? [] Increasing the number of laborers allowed into Israel to 5,000. [] Taking down one checkpoint and 50 roadblocks, in order to ease the movement of Palestinians between the cities of Jenin, Tulkarm, Kalkilya and Ramallah. As I remember, these roadblocks went up because easy movement between these cities allowed weapons to be transported. [] Easing of restrictions on Palestinian public figures. But just about a week ago that a Palestinian official was caught smuggling large numbers of phones from Jordan. [] Easing security checks for Palestinian businessmen. Of course, a businessman would never aid a terrorist. Barak further suggested: [] Upgrading the infrastructure for aiding the Palestinians waiting at the crossings, the cost of which is estimated at NIS 8.3 million. [] Transferring 325 cars and logistic equipment from the IDF to the Palestinian security organizations, including generators, blankets and first aid kits. ~~~~~~~~~~ I have on occasion commented that our leaders who take such actions are crazy. But I've been cautioned by some readers to avoid saying that, because truly crazy people are absolved of responsibility for their actions –– and the comment is on the mark. What I will say, instead, is that this is very sick, but that Barak remains fully responsible for his decisions. ~~~~~~~~~~ You may be wondering what the PA will be offering in all of this. After all, Fayyad and Barak met together to put forward suggests to improve the situation. Well, it was agreed that the Palestinians security forces must assume "greater responsibility." I did not note a precise delineation of responsibility for what. They also agreed to step up efforts to "prevent terror." Again, that vagueness. Nothing that could be quantified or measured –– the way Barak's promises on taking down 50 roadblocks or allowing 5,000 laborers into Israel can be measured. I heard tonight, by the way, from a very reliable source that Rice said today that the US would be watching Israel closely to see that these commitments were honored. But the Palestinians? Hey, they can say they made an effort to prevent terror, they gave it their best. ~~~~~~~~~~ And Fayyad? This particular son of a bitch refused to make a public statement with Olmert and Rice. Take all that's offered, but not be seen to be too close to Israeli leader, who is an enemy of Palestine, after all. The photo op would not have served him in the street, which admires Hamas. ~~~~~~~~~~ And as if this is not bad enough, Barak and Olmert are making gestures to Syria regarding resuming peace negotiations. From a military perspective this is a disaster. I heard Maj. Gen (res) Yaakov Amidror –– former Commander of the IDF's National Defense College and currently with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs –– speak on a panel sponsored by Likud Anglo tonight. As Syria's demand for peace is return of the Golan Heights, his assessment was that negotiating peace with Syria might mean we would ultimately find ourselves fighting Iranians in the Galil. Another panel member, Dan Diker –– Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs and a Senior Foreign Policy Analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs –– made this incisive observation: Timing is everything. We have just seen that heads of major Arab countries are snubbing Syria by not participating in the conference in Damascus. And now? Now is the time we pick to undercut that message and confer legitimacy on Syria by reaching out to Assad? A theme of this panel was the recognition that concessions don't work. Israel, in 1993, had the notion that the more we gave the more the world would respect us. But the reverse has happened, as the world has lost respect for us and has stopped understanding that we have legitimate rights in this land. As we fail to stand up for ourselves, it is the Palestinian narrative that is being internalized internationally. ~~~~~~~~~~ One last comment before closing: I heard it tonight from an American with major contacts (as I've hard it before from an international lawyer here with Washington DC connections): Rice is running the show, and she's doing the work of Saudi Arabia. But Bush's attitude towards Israel is not the same as Rice's. He is being seriously misled: By Rice, whom he trusts, and by the PA leaders, whose lovely words of peace he trusts, and by the Israeli leaders, who tell him how much we're willing to give up. It may be futile. But it must be attempted at every juncture, calling on every possible political contact, sending every possible message: Bush needs to be provided with the realities. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top

OLMERT/LIVNI/BARAK WILLINGLY SACRIFICE ISRAEL FOR RICE'S FUTURE NOBEL AWARD Posted by Bryna Berch, March 30, 2008.

"Barak says will allow establishment of Palestinian city. Israeli source says US Secretary of State Rice was 'amazed' by Israeli gestures to Palestinians presented during three-way meeting with defense minister, Palestinian prime minister" The first item below is by Roni Sofer and appeared today in Ynet News. The second item by Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA is a list of "concessions" agreed to by Israel. Does this mean Israeli leaders are just weak? No, they are typical bullies –– they put Israel in jeopardy because they don't resist Rice's pressure but when they have the upper hand, they are despicable –– they put teenagers in jail for legal civil disobedience and place Israelis at risk of losing their lives. Likely Rice can handle them because she's also a craven bully but she's better at it –– she pushes where she can without mercy and caves when she encounters an alpha-er bitch or dog. The comments to the original article are interesting –– they note that Israel doesn't have the sheckels to improve medical care or help the Jewish poor or for job training, but they have the money to evict Jews from their homes. Why not give money to compensate Arabs to move back to Arabland? Others note that while Arabs live in Israel as citizens that vote, no Jews are allowed in Arab countries –– and nobody complains about that.

Condoleezza Rice was amazed by the Israeli gestures to the Palestinians, an Israeli source reported Sunday following a three-way meeting between the US secretary of state, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The Palestinian leader refused to issue a joint Palestinian-Israeli-American statement, which was supported by Barak due to the Israeli gestures to the Palestinians presented during the meeting. Rice eventually delivered a short statement, and the three officials were photographed and bid farewell. During the meeting, the US secretary of state received a 35-page booklet in English, prepared by Barak's assistants in three days. Barak demanded that the booklet include a series of real gesturers, which would manifest Israel's seriousness without harming the security of Israel's citizens. Ynet has learned that the series of gestures include the establishment of a city or several neighborhoods near the West Bank city of Ramallah, which would be financed by a Jordanian businessman. The project would be built north of the town of al-Bireh and is aimed to be inhabited by tens of thousands of Palestinians in a bid to ease the housing shortage in the Ramallah area. The city will be connected by a road in the Birzeit area, approved by the IDF. The plan is currently subject to the approval of the Civil Administration, in coordination with the Palestinians. 35 pages of restrictions to be eased Rice told Barak during the three-way meeting that she welcomed the serious work she was presented with. During her meetings Sunday with Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the US secretary of state said that such actions were the only way for the process to move forward. Fayyad, Rice and Barak in Jerusalem (Photo: AFP) The defense minister said during the meeting that Israel planned to remove the Mevo Horon outpost, in addition to two other outposts already removed. Barak also announced that 700 Palestinian police officers would be allowed to enter Jenin, and that a checkpoint and 50 dirt roadblocks would also be removed, easing the Palestinians' movement between the West Bank cities of Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya and Ramallah. Additional gestures presented in the meeting include: * The establishment of a Palestinian police station in the B areas. * The transfer of 25 armored vehicles to the Palestinians. * Ease of restriction on Palestinian public figures. * Building two intersections for the Palestinians in the Hebron area. * Advancing the establishment of industrial zones in Jericho and hebron. * Increasing the number of laborers allowed to work in Israel to 5,000. In addition, Palestinian businesspeople passing through the crossing will undergo easier security checks, and the daily quota of people allowed to pass will be increased from 500 to 1,500. Barak also suggested upgrading the infrastructure for aiding the Palestinians waiting at the crossings, the cost of which is estimated at NIS 8.3 million, transferring 325 cars and logistic equipment from the IDF to the Palestinian security organizations, including generators, blankets and first aid kits, and looking into the possibility of handing bullet-proof vests to the police officers subject to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as building a sewage purification device in the Beit Hanoun area. As she left the meeting Sunday, Rice said that the parties discussed the need to improve reality in accordance with the route suggested at the Annapolis peace conference. She added that Barak and Fayyad tol