Sep. 16, 2009
Jonny Hadi , THE JERUSALEM POST
Israel's population numbers 7,465,500 - some 5,634,300 Jews, 1,513,200 Arabs and 318,000 others - according to the annual pre-Rosh Hashana report released by the Central Bureau of Statistics Wednesday.
President Shimon Peres was presented with the report and thanked the CBS for its work. "The data you presented is a product of very important work," he said upon receiving the report. "I give you my blessing and wish all of us a happy and successful year."
The report found that Israel's population has been growing at a steady annual rate of 1.8% since 2003.
It showed that the growth rate among Jews in 2008 was 1.7%, and among Arabs 2.6%. The growth rate of the 'others' dropped to 0.5%, compared with 1.8% in 2007 and 3% on average between 2003-2006.
Life expectancy continued to rise, to 79.1 years among men and 83 years among women. Compared with 2007, life expectancy among men went up by 0.4 years, and among women 0.6 years. The life expectancy was 3.7 years greater among Jewish men and women than among Arabs.
The national expenditure on education went up by 3% in 2008, compared with a 4% average rise between 2006-2007
It also emerged that Israel has a relatively young population compared to the West. In 2008, the percentage of children between 0-14 in Israel was 28.4%, compared with the 17% Western average, while the percentage of those aged 65 and up was 9.7%, compared with the West's figure of 15%.
The number of Israelis 75 and older has risen steadily over the years, particularly among Jews - 5.6% in 2008, compared with 3.8% at the start of the 90s.
Also according to the 2008 figures, there were 979 men to every 1,000 women in Israel.
It further emerged that among Jews there was a tendency to push off marriage, with 32% of men and 42% of women between the ages of 25-29 being bachelors. Among the Muslim population for the same age group, the figure was 39% for men and 15.5% for women.
The proportion of Israeli-born Jewish members of the population continued to rise, standing at 70.7% (3.9 million) at the end of 2008, compared with 35% when the state was established.
At the end of 2008, 2.2 million people - 37.9% of the Jews and 'others' - had originated from Europe and the US.
Regarding geographical trends, about half of Israel's Jewish population is concentrated in central Israel, while less than 10% of Israeli Jews live in the North.
On the other hand, some 60% of the Arab population live the North, and 11% in the South.
The Central District saw the most internal migration in 2008, following a decades-old trend, adding 11,700 people to the population in 2008, compared with 12,600 in 2007. The number of residents of Judea and Samaria rose by 3,900 in 2008, compared with 4,900 in 2007.
One of the most striking statistics in the report is the number of people who have apparently been priced out of the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv regions. The population of the former area dropped by 4,200 and of the latter by 5,700. The Tel Aviv area negative migration is the largest since the end of the 90s.
In all the five biggest cities - those with a population of 200,000 or more - negative migrations were recorded, the smallest being in Rishon Lezion (600) and the largest in Jerusalem (4,900). In Tel Aviv, the figure was 3,200, in Haifa 1,400 and in Ashdod 900.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804585800&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
U.S.-Iran Negotiations: Once you start you must be nice to them, right?
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
Before I respond to some points about the U.S. government negotiating with Iran, let me tell a personal story that illustrates the issue. Some years ago, a colleague wanted to invite me to speak at his think tank in Washington. To his surprise the director of the program absolutely refused to have me as a speaker. He said that I had done something he didn’t like but he just couldn’t remember what it was.
While this seems a rather flimsy excuse—hey, this is Middle East studies so one always expects the worst—I know exactly what happened. It was in Cairo and I was on a delegation of researchers. A couple of mid-level bureaucrats from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry were giving a briefing which was pure junk, a waste of time to listen to, constituting the official line that everything that has ever happened and was going on in the Middle East was Israel’s fault.
My philosophy on these matters is to challenge this kind of performance. There are good reasons for doing so.
First, the way it works in the Arabic-speaking world is that visitors are fed nonsense unless they show that they won’t accept it. When that happens, you get a higher level of information and more respect.
Second, it puts the speakers on notice that they have to be more honest and more realistic if they want to get anywhere.
Remember, I was not an official or a journalist representing any governmental or journalistic institution, but a researcher and analyst. We’re supposed to question things, right?
In fact, my polite demurrals upset others in the delegation to the point that I was immediately disinvited from continuing with the group to Saudi Arabia and, apparently I was banned from speaking at the think tank of one member of the delegation (not the organizing group).
Now, why am I telling you all this? The reason is this: the person in question has just written an article supporting U.S. negotiations with Iran. He gives three reasons why negotiations are a great idea (he doesn’t really engage with the critique very much) but the real problem is revealed by his own behavior.
Briefly the argument is this (for my fuller discussion see here and here):
A. By talking with Iran the United States will better keep together the Western coalition for higher sanctions. I have repeatedly asked: What specifically are you talking about? This argument is never accompanied by examples. Russia and China won’t switch to supporting higher sanctions as a result of these talks; from everything we’ve heard, Britain, France, and Germany are ready to raise sanctions now. So who is Washington trying to convince? Unless you hear something specific, disregard this argument, the main theme of the administration.
B. The United States talks to other dictatorships so why not to Iran? Answer: Some dictatorships do not threaten U.S. interests and so once one disregards human rights there are no big barriers to talking. Libya is given as an example, but the United States engaged Libya only after the Libyans abandoned their nuclear program and gave full information to U.S. policymakers. In contrast, Iran has done nothing and will do nothing. Moreover, the Tehran regime has become far worse but is being rewarded now at the moment it is most repressive and extremist.
C. Iran might help the United States on other issues, Afghanistan being the one specifically mentioned. Ok, but what will have to be given up to gain that help, assuming Tehran would do anything? Obviously, the first thing is acceptance of the Iranian nuclear program. The game is not worth the candle as the saying goes or, more bluntly: the United States would be giving up a lot to get very little in return.
Now back to my point. Once talks begin, the tendency is to become uncritical. Can the United States raise sanctions? But that would jeopardize the talks and their collapse would be America’s fault. Can U.S. leaders be tough in criticizing Iran (they are hardly doing so even now) about things like repression, anti-Americanism, killing American soldiers in Iraq, sponsoring terrorism, having a wanted terrorist as defense minister, and breaking all their promises regarding their nuclear program?
No, because—as the author of the article I have in mind showed in my case—you punish people who raise tough questions and point out the other side’s shortcomings and lies.
Thus, we arrive at a ridiculous but common situation. Iran or Syria, or even Egypt or Saudi Arabia, ridicules U.S. policy and attacks the United States daily—the former through government circles; the latter through state-controlled media—but any American response so upsets the other side that it is forbidden.
After all, it’s impolite and they get angry if you criticize them, right?
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books: . To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports, .
A. By talking with Iran the United States will better keep together the Western coalition for higher sanctions. I have repeatedly asked: What specifically are you talking about? This argument is never accompanied by examples. Russia and China won’t switch to supporting higher sanctions as a result of these talks; from everything we’ve heard, Britain, France, and Germany are ready to raise sanctions now. So who is Washington trying to convince? Unless you hear something specific, disregard this argument, the main theme of the administration.
B. The United States talks to other dictatorships so why not to Iran? Answer: Some dictatorships do not threaten U.S. interests and so once one disregards human rights there are no big barriers to talking. Libya is given as an example, but the United States engaged Libya only after the Libyans abandoned their nuclear program and gave full information to U.S. policymakers. In contrast, Iran has done nothing and will do nothing. Moreover, the Tehran regime has become far worse but is being rewarded now at the moment it is most repressive and extremist.
C. Iran might help the United States on other issues, Afghanistan being the one specifically mentioned. Ok, but what will have to be given up to gain that help, assuming Tehran would do anything? Obviously, the first thing is acceptance of the Iranian nuclear program. The game is not worth the candle as the saying goes or, more bluntly: the United States would be giving up a lot to get very little in return.
The best thing that can happen is that the talks go on for three or four months, the United States says they aren't going anywhere, and then returns to the sanctions' policy that would otherwise have been implemented in late September. Time would be lost, the Iranians would progress toward their goals, nothing would be gained, but the losses would be limited.
But what if the process stretches out? And let's face it Tehran will pull every clever trick it can to drag out the talks and stall off tough action as long as possible.
Now back to my point. Once talks begin, the tendency is to become uncritical. Can the United States raise sanctions? But that would jeopardize the talks and their collapse would be America’s fault. Can U.S. leaders be tough in criticizing Iran (they are hardly doing so even now) about things like repression, anti-Americanism, killing American soldiers in Iraq, sponsoring terrorism, having a wanted terrorist as defense minister, and breaking all their promises regarding their nuclear program?
No, because—as the author of the article I have in mind showed in my case—you punish people who raise tough questions and point out the other side’s shortcomings and lies.
Thus, we arrive at a ridiculous but common situation. Iran or Syria, or even Egypt or Saudi Arabia, ridicules U.S. policy and attacks the United States daily—the former through government circles; the latter through state-controlled media—but any American response so upsets the other side that it is forbidden.
After all, it’s impolite and they get angry if you criticize them, right?
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).
Barry Rubin
Before I respond to some points about the U.S. government negotiating with Iran, let me tell a personal story that illustrates the issue. Some years ago, a colleague wanted to invite me to speak at his think tank in Washington. To his surprise the director of the program absolutely refused to have me as a speaker. He said that I had done something he didn’t like but he just couldn’t remember what it was.
While this seems a rather flimsy excuse—hey, this is Middle East studies so one always expects the worst—I know exactly what happened. It was in Cairo and I was on a delegation of researchers. A couple of mid-level bureaucrats from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry were giving a briefing which was pure junk, a waste of time to listen to, constituting the official line that everything that has ever happened and was going on in the Middle East was Israel’s fault.
My philosophy on these matters is to challenge this kind of performance. There are good reasons for doing so.
First, the way it works in the Arabic-speaking world is that visitors are fed nonsense unless they show that they won’t accept it. When that happens, you get a higher level of information and more respect.
Second, it puts the speakers on notice that they have to be more honest and more realistic if they want to get anywhere.
Remember, I was not an official or a journalist representing any governmental or journalistic institution, but a researcher and analyst. We’re supposed to question things, right?
In fact, my polite demurrals upset others in the delegation to the point that I was immediately disinvited from continuing with the group to Saudi Arabia and, apparently I was banned from speaking at the think tank of one member of the delegation (not the organizing group).
Now, why am I telling you all this? The reason is this: the person in question has just written an article supporting U.S. negotiations with Iran. He gives three reasons why negotiations are a great idea (he doesn’t really engage with the critique very much) but the real problem is revealed by his own behavior.
Briefly the argument is this (for my fuller discussion see here and here):
A. By talking with Iran the United States will better keep together the Western coalition for higher sanctions. I have repeatedly asked: What specifically are you talking about? This argument is never accompanied by examples. Russia and China won’t switch to supporting higher sanctions as a result of these talks; from everything we’ve heard, Britain, France, and Germany are ready to raise sanctions now. So who is Washington trying to convince? Unless you hear something specific, disregard this argument, the main theme of the administration.
B. The United States talks to other dictatorships so why not to Iran? Answer: Some dictatorships do not threaten U.S. interests and so once one disregards human rights there are no big barriers to talking. Libya is given as an example, but the United States engaged Libya only after the Libyans abandoned their nuclear program and gave full information to U.S. policymakers. In contrast, Iran has done nothing and will do nothing. Moreover, the Tehran regime has become far worse but is being rewarded now at the moment it is most repressive and extremist.
C. Iran might help the United States on other issues, Afghanistan being the one specifically mentioned. Ok, but what will have to be given up to gain that help, assuming Tehran would do anything? Obviously, the first thing is acceptance of the Iranian nuclear program. The game is not worth the candle as the saying goes or, more bluntly: the United States would be giving up a lot to get very little in return.
Now back to my point. Once talks begin, the tendency is to become uncritical. Can the United States raise sanctions? But that would jeopardize the talks and their collapse would be America’s fault. Can U.S. leaders be tough in criticizing Iran (they are hardly doing so even now) about things like repression, anti-Americanism, killing American soldiers in Iraq, sponsoring terrorism, having a wanted terrorist as defense minister, and breaking all their promises regarding their nuclear program?
No, because—as the author of the article I have in mind showed in my case—you punish people who raise tough questions and point out the other side’s shortcomings and lies.
Thus, we arrive at a ridiculous but common situation. Iran or Syria, or even Egypt or Saudi Arabia, ridicules U.S. policy and attacks the United States daily—the former through government circles; the latter through state-controlled media—but any American response so upsets the other side that it is forbidden.
After all, it’s impolite and they get angry if you criticize them, right?
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books: . To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports, .
A. By talking with Iran the United States will better keep together the Western coalition for higher sanctions. I have repeatedly asked: What specifically are you talking about? This argument is never accompanied by examples. Russia and China won’t switch to supporting higher sanctions as a result of these talks; from everything we’ve heard, Britain, France, and Germany are ready to raise sanctions now. So who is Washington trying to convince? Unless you hear something specific, disregard this argument, the main theme of the administration.
B. The United States talks to other dictatorships so why not to Iran? Answer: Some dictatorships do not threaten U.S. interests and so once one disregards human rights there are no big barriers to talking. Libya is given as an example, but the United States engaged Libya only after the Libyans abandoned their nuclear program and gave full information to U.S. policymakers. In contrast, Iran has done nothing and will do nothing. Moreover, the Tehran regime has become far worse but is being rewarded now at the moment it is most repressive and extremist.
C. Iran might help the United States on other issues, Afghanistan being the one specifically mentioned. Ok, but what will have to be given up to gain that help, assuming Tehran would do anything? Obviously, the first thing is acceptance of the Iranian nuclear program. The game is not worth the candle as the saying goes or, more bluntly: the United States would be giving up a lot to get very little in return.
The best thing that can happen is that the talks go on for three or four months, the United States says they aren't going anywhere, and then returns to the sanctions' policy that would otherwise have been implemented in late September. Time would be lost, the Iranians would progress toward their goals, nothing would be gained, but the losses would be limited.
But what if the process stretches out? And let's face it Tehran will pull every clever trick it can to drag out the talks and stall off tough action as long as possible.
Now back to my point. Once talks begin, the tendency is to become uncritical. Can the United States raise sanctions? But that would jeopardize the talks and their collapse would be America’s fault. Can U.S. leaders be tough in criticizing Iran (they are hardly doing so even now) about things like repression, anti-Americanism, killing American soldiers in Iraq, sponsoring terrorism, having a wanted terrorist as defense minister, and breaking all their promises regarding their nuclear program?
No, because—as the author of the article I have in mind showed in my case—you punish people who raise tough questions and point out the other side’s shortcomings and lies.
Thus, we arrive at a ridiculous but common situation. Iran or Syria, or even Egypt or Saudi Arabia, ridicules U.S. policy and attacks the United States daily—the former through government circles; the latter through state-controlled media—but any American response so upsets the other side that it is forbidden.
After all, it’s impolite and they get angry if you criticize them, right?
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).
Ex-Commandos Rescue US Woman Imprisoned in Arab Home
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu US Woman Freed from Arab Captor
Former IDF commandos secretly entered a Palestinian Authority village on Monday and rescued an American woman and her 2 1/2-year-old son from her Muslim husband, who had beaten and and held her captive for three years. The woman and child flew to the United States Wednesday night and are en route to her family’s home in Ohio. The Arab met the woman during a visit to the United States and enticed her to return with him to Israel and to the house where he lives with his first wife and several children, according to Voice of Israel government radio military reporter Carmella Menashe, who reported the story.
“She had no idea of where she was and was unable to escape,” Menashe reported. The woman wore Muslim clothes, including a veil over her face, and the man threatened her that she never would see her child again and that security agents would pick her up if she fled. She was kept under guard to make sure she could not reveal details of her ordeal on the telephone.
Her family, knowing she was somewhere in Israel, unsuccessfully tried to get the U.S. Consulate in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian Authority to help, and finally a member of the family turned to a friend in Israel, a former commando in the Israeli Defense Forces.
The commando, who did not reveal his identity, explained that he gathered nine comrades, and they used their own intelligence connections to locate the house where she was being held.
“We carried out surveillance around the house, wore civilian clothes and staged the operation without any danger. We were unarmed, but part of the group was armed in a waiting vehicle in case there was trouble," he revealed.
They carried out the secret operation in broad daylight without resistance and when the captor was not home, whisked the woman and child into a car and brought them to an apartment already prepared for them near the American Consulate.
Her husband had destroyed her American passport, and after she signed documents and obtained a new passport, she and her son were driven to Ben Gurion International Airport, where they boarded a plane to New York.
The commando who was interviewed by Menashe pointed out that the IDF and American government were not involved in the mission although the Consulate was notified so officials could be prepared to help the woman after her rescue. He said there was no problem entering the Arab village and that the rescuers crossed the IDF checkpoint when they knew there would be a minimum number of soldiers.
He said they carried out no illegal activities, and that they did not care if they were stopped on their way to Tel Aviv from the village because they had accomplished their mission of freeing the woman.
The woman’s family will pay the commandos for their work, he said.
Asked if he would carry out the same type of operation to free kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, he said that is exactly what the government should be doing.
A7 News
NATO aids water bridge between Israel, Jordan and the US
Karin Kloosterman
September 15, 2009
Israel 21c
Israel is home to the largest seawater desalination plant in the world, at Ashdod (pictured). Now Israeli company Rotec is developing a desalination plant for inland brakish water. Photo by Edi Israel, Flash90.
A new Israeli technology for desalination is the centrepiece of a NATO grant that promotes collaboration between Israel and Jordan and could save water and energy across the globe. srael and Jordan share environmental problems, but regional politics and prejudices keep them from solving them together. A new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) grant set up to develop two inland water desalination plants - one in Israel and one in Jordan - not only gets two Middle East universities collaborating, but the end-product could quench the region's thirst. It could also boost an under-used new technology that promises to save energy and water the world over.
According to the terms of the project, three universities - Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, the Hashemite University of Jordan and the University of Colorado in the United States - are to implement a new Israeli reverse osmosis desalination technology at two pilot sites.
Developed originally at Ben Gurion University by Dr. Jack Gilron of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research and Prof. Eli Korin of the department of chemical engineering, a new six-person company called Rotec is commercializing the research and turning it into a product.
The universities, as partners, will implement the new reverse osmosis Rotec technology at an existing water plant near Eilat run by Mekorot, Israel's national water carrier. A second pilot site north of Amman in Al Zareqa could become a new water plant if the pilot goes well.
Desalination technology is famously known for squeezing drinking water from the sea, but Rotec's new desalination technology works inland to clean the salts from brackish water located in aquifers deep underground. Although far from the sea, these areas can also contain high concentrates of salts, which need to be removed to make water drinkable.
Cost-saving, scalable technology
While pilot sites in Israel and Jordan will be set up to produce a small amount of water, about 120 cubic meters a day, the technology is easily scalable, with the pilot meant to be a proof of concept in the field, Noam Perlmuter, Rotec's CEO, tells ISRAEL21c.
Rotec was formed as a company this year and the scalable, retrofit technology will get its pilot run at Israeli and Jordanian sites, by the end of this year, and the beginning of 2010 respectively. In the meantime, Perlmuter is seeking US and foreign strategic partners to set up the technology elsewhere, in areas like the Midwestern United States, India and Australia, where drinking water is scarce but inland aquifers could provide water.
"The most important thing is not only the additional clean water you are getting," says Perlmuter. "The biggest advantage to the technology is you are increasing recovery, and reducing brine intended for disposal, by 50 percent."
Since it costs up to $2 per cubic meter to dispose of the brine, the savings are significant. "I believe that there are other technologies out there, but am not sure if they are in the commercialization stage," Perlmuter tells ISRAEL21c. At least, "none are working using flow-reversal," notes the 38-year-old.
Rotec will benefit indirectly from the international grant, awarded through the NATO Science for Peace program and the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC). The company has already attracted considerable interest and seed funding through Israel's Office of the Chief Scientist, Israel's national water carrier, Mekorot and a smaller Israeli-based venture capital firm BDB. Perlmuter did not wish to disclose financials.
A briny solution for peace
Based in the Ashkelon Technology Incubator (ATI), Rotec's technology is ready for commercialization, says Perlmuter, stressing that it's an attractive solution wherever brackish water and brine removal are a problem.
Developed by the Israeli scientists, the Rotec clean technology solution exploits a physical process on the surface of the desalination membrane before it can be fouled. Gilron says that "the process will be tuned to reduce brine volumes to 33%-50% of those generated in conventional reverse osmosis. This greatly reduces the environmental burden and improves the economics of the inland desalination process.
"Water scarcity and the need to develop new water resources for populations not on the seacoasts are driving efforts to desalinate brackish water and municipal wastewater with ever-increasing efficiencies," he notes.
The technology is out-licensed by BGN Technologies, the university's technology transfer company and ATI. The university inventors and Perlmuter, as well, are quite proud of NATO's interest in the project, which has a number of positive parameters for the environment and for promoting Middle East peace.
Perlmuter tells ISRAEL21c: "NATO normally wants to establish peace. And as you know water is a source of a lot of problems in the Middle East."
An add on to existing plants
NATO promotes peace, he explains, "by investing in and funding a novel technology to improve desalination processes, to get more water, to produce less brine for disposal and less chemicals against anti-scalants."
An advantage of the technology is that it upscales in a linear fashion, and can be added on to existing water treatment plants. "This is the first time you can use the same plant you normally use, and just change the way you are operating it," says Perlmuter. "You will achieve a higher recovery rate - if the normal water recovery is 70-85%, we are talking about more than 90%."
Let's hope that the same technology will increase the chances that long-lasting peace in the region will finally be achieved - up to 100%.
http://www.israel21c.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7181:nato-aids-water-bridge-between-israel-jordan-and-the-us&catid=58:environment&Itemid=101
UN charges Israel with war crimes
Sep. 16, 2009
E.B. SOLOMONT, Jerusalem Post correspondent in NEW YORK , THE JERUSALEM POST
A United Nations probe of last year's conflict in Gaza concluded Tuesday that both sides were guilty of committing war crimes, including the violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. In a 575-page report, the fact-finding mission, headed by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone, found that "Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during last year's Operation Cast Lead, which targeted Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza.
Based on numerous public hearings and testimony from experts and victims in Gaza and Geneva, the report also found that "Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes," including firing rockets into civilian areas in southern Israel.
"There should be no impunity for international crimes that are committed," Goldstone told reporters at a news conference in New York. "It's very important that justice should be done."
Appointed by the Human Rights Council in April, the mission was charged with investigating 36 specific incidents in Gaza and others in the West Bank and Israel. In all, the mission conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 10,000 documents and viewed 12,000 photos and videos.
Among its main findings, the mission said Israel imposed a blockade around Gaza that amounted to "collective punishment," and further carried out a "systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip." More than 1,400 people were killed during the military operation, and houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and public buildings were destroyed.
The report portrayed a military operation that used disproportionate force aimed at civilians, amounting to "direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcomes," including the targeting of a mosque during prayer time that killed 15 people. A "direct and intentional" attack on Al Qud's hospital as well as shelling in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood - where shells hit a house in which civilians were forced to congregate - constituted a war crime, the report found.
"Taking into account the ability to plan, the means to execute plans with the most developed technology available and statements by the Israeli military that almost no errors occurred, the Mission finds that the incidents and patterns of events considered in the report are the result of deliberate planning and policy decisions," investigators wrote.
On the Palestinian side, the report concluded that repeated rocket and mortar attacks into southern Israel by Palestinians constituted "war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity" because they did not distinguish between military and civilian targets.
"Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population," the report found.
Among its recommendations, investigators said the Security Council should require Israel to launch an investigation into the conflict within three months. An independent body should be set up to monitor the progress of such an investigation and subsequent prosecutions, and if no progress is made within six months, the Council should refer the situation to International Criminal Court prosecutors. A similar effort should be undertaken on the Palestinian side, with the independent body reporting to the Security Council on progress there.
"We've received a copy of Judge Goldstone's report regarding the alleged human rights allegations during the Gaza conflict," a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "As the report is lengthy, and the issues it address are complex, the findings will take time to digest and we are reviewing it carefully."
United States Ambassador Susan Rice was appointed president of the Security Council during the month of September.
Goldstone, who is Jewish, said he has strong ties to Israel and noted his attempt to maintain objectivity during the probe.
"Speaking from that point of view, it's obviously a great disappointment to me, putting it mildly, that Israelis have behaved in the way described in the report," he told reporters.
Earlier this year, the Israeli army denied wrongdoing during the war. Since then it has opened a serious of separate investigations, which Goldstone said were insufficient.
"The Israeli investigations have been conducted secretly by the military," which "relied only on the evidence given to them by their own soldiers," he said, comparing that strategy to a "domestic police force in Manhattan investigating murders by only speaking to murderers."
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804580161&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
E.B. SOLOMONT, Jerusalem Post correspondent in NEW YORK , THE JERUSALEM POST
A United Nations probe of last year's conflict in Gaza concluded Tuesday that both sides were guilty of committing war crimes, including the violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. In a 575-page report, the fact-finding mission, headed by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone, found that "Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during last year's Operation Cast Lead, which targeted Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza.
Based on numerous public hearings and testimony from experts and victims in Gaza and Geneva, the report also found that "Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes," including firing rockets into civilian areas in southern Israel.
"There should be no impunity for international crimes that are committed," Goldstone told reporters at a news conference in New York. "It's very important that justice should be done."
Appointed by the Human Rights Council in April, the mission was charged with investigating 36 specific incidents in Gaza and others in the West Bank and Israel. In all, the mission conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 10,000 documents and viewed 12,000 photos and videos.
Among its main findings, the mission said Israel imposed a blockade around Gaza that amounted to "collective punishment," and further carried out a "systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip." More than 1,400 people were killed during the military operation, and houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and public buildings were destroyed.
The report portrayed a military operation that used disproportionate force aimed at civilians, amounting to "direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcomes," including the targeting of a mosque during prayer time that killed 15 people. A "direct and intentional" attack on Al Qud's hospital as well as shelling in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood - where shells hit a house in which civilians were forced to congregate - constituted a war crime, the report found.
"Taking into account the ability to plan, the means to execute plans with the most developed technology available and statements by the Israeli military that almost no errors occurred, the Mission finds that the incidents and patterns of events considered in the report are the result of deliberate planning and policy decisions," investigators wrote.
On the Palestinian side, the report concluded that repeated rocket and mortar attacks into southern Israel by Palestinians constituted "war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity" because they did not distinguish between military and civilian targets.
"Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population," the report found.
Among its recommendations, investigators said the Security Council should require Israel to launch an investigation into the conflict within three months. An independent body should be set up to monitor the progress of such an investigation and subsequent prosecutions, and if no progress is made within six months, the Council should refer the situation to International Criminal Court prosecutors. A similar effort should be undertaken on the Palestinian side, with the independent body reporting to the Security Council on progress there.
"We've received a copy of Judge Goldstone's report regarding the alleged human rights allegations during the Gaza conflict," a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "As the report is lengthy, and the issues it address are complex, the findings will take time to digest and we are reviewing it carefully."
United States Ambassador Susan Rice was appointed president of the Security Council during the month of September.
Goldstone, who is Jewish, said he has strong ties to Israel and noted his attempt to maintain objectivity during the probe.
"Speaking from that point of view, it's obviously a great disappointment to me, putting it mildly, that Israelis have behaved in the way described in the report," he told reporters.
Earlier this year, the Israeli army denied wrongdoing during the war. Since then it has opened a serious of separate investigations, which Goldstone said were insufficient.
"The Israeli investigations have been conducted secretly by the military," which "relied only on the evidence given to them by their own soldiers," he said, comparing that strategy to a "domestic police force in Manhattan investigating murders by only speaking to murderers."
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804580161&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Listen Up
Barry Rubin
One remarkable thing about watching the Middle East is how what’s celebrated as brilliant in Europe or America is errant nonsense.
Writing such stuff makes people successful and gives them an audience of millions. What they say is so ridiculous that one wants to laugh, yet so totally accepted as true in Washington and European capitals that the laughter would be laughed at. The article to which I refer is by Jacob Weisberg in the June 22 Newsweek, entitled, "A Friend in Need: Barack gets tough on Bibi." It is far more terrible because Weisberg is neither leftist nor anti-Israel but has simply imbibed what "everyone says."
Let me quickly add that while I don't know Weisberg personally, I'm confident in saying he has no serious training in the Middle East, speaks neither Arabic nor Hebrew, spends little time researching the region, and has no real qualification for making the judgments he does. Here's the theme: Israelis are so stupid about their country, situation, and region on the life-and-death issues which they have been dealing with for decades that they must be saved in spite of themselves by people who have no knowledge or experience on any of these things. No other country in the world is so frequently told this kind of thing which I hear all the time from Europeans, too.
Is it so hard to comprehend that our views and behavior are based on years of experience and study? That we know best how to save ourselves and have been doing a far better job of it, against tremendous odds and unhelpful kibbitzers, than many others? That heeding their prescriptions would be disastrous, in fact have already proven so? After all, the tragic history of the last 20 years has largely resulted from listening to the same advice he gives now.
When one tries to explain these things in conversations, however, you can see their eyes go blank and their ears close up.
Weisberg’s article follows this pattern. The United States, he says (and these are main elements in the rhetoric among supporters of the Obama administration and several European governments) must show Israel "tough love," lean "harder on Jews and the Arabs to get serious about a deal," and stop "fostering Israeli illusions that there [is] an alternative to trading land for peace."
All three of these arguments are based on false premises.
Tough love: This derives from the late 1980s and early 1990s when the left side of the Israeli spectrum was pushing the land-for-peace and negotiate with the PLO arguments against their rivals on the right. A little U.S. pressure, they argued, would help get talks going.
A lot has happened since then, however, notably the 1992-2000 Oslo process. This proved to the vast majority of Israelis that the Palestinian leadership (and Syria, too, for that matter) wasn’t ready or interested in peace. Disillusioned, a lot of these people supported Ariel Sharon and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the results of which (Hamas takeover, rocket fire) made them even more disenchanted.
That's why the Labour party which invented the land-for-peace argument in the first place and made the Oslo agreement and offered a two-state solution in 2000 is now in a coalition government with the Likud party. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not a "right-wing" or "hard-line" leader but someone who speaks for the national consensus, a consensus based on education through painful, bloody experience.
Israel also faces a more hostile Europe, an Iran racing toward nuclear weapons, an intransigent and incompetent Palestinian Authority, plus Hamas and Hizballah.
Today the last thing Israelis need or want is pressure to make more concessions to the Palestinians. They’ve already made a lot; these didn’t lead anywhere good. What Israel needs today is not "tough love" but real support.
Push "harder on Jews and the Arabs to get serious about a deal": The false assumption here is that getting an agreement, any agreement, is a desperate need of the two sides and of the region as a whole.
In fact, Israel is doing very well without any comprehensive peace agreement. The economy is doing fine; morale is high; security improved. Moreover, this concept pays no attention to the idea that a deal can be a bad one, inherently instable and leading to more violence.
It never enters the minds of these people that a "peace" agreement that was broken or had dangerous provisions (giving up strategic territory; east Jerusalem; empowering a radical regime in a next-door Palestinian state; opening the door to foreign Arab or Iranian armies entering; bringing in millions of Palestinian Arabs to Israel) could leave Israel far worse off.
As for the Palestinian leadership, far from being desperate for a deal it is desperate to avoid one on anything other than its own unrealistic terms.
Stop "fostering Israeli illusions that there [is] an alternative to trading land for peace." This one makes me laugh. Everyone in Israel knows that there can be no comprehensive agreement without trading land for peace. The question is, however, whether any comprehensive agreement on decent terms is possible at this time.
In addition, the question is also which land. Israel has focused on three to five percent of the West Bank that is strategically important and has large concentrations of Israeli population.
Finally, if someone doesn't understand that the barrier to peace is the Palestinians and not Israel, any advice they give Israel is going to be worthless.
As for those giving advice, here’s what we’ve seen in the last six months from those who want to "save" others by imposing their own vision:
--The idea that stopping construction on Jewish settlements would bring some Arab concession has already proven wrong.
--The idea that engagement with Iran would work has already proven wrong.
--The idea that the United States could successfully engage Syria in a set of mutual compromises has already proven wrong.
--The idea that an Obama charm offensive would bring higher levels of Arab support has already proven wrong. And that's just in six months!
Let’s have a little humility and readiness to listen, please, from those who would play with the lives of other people.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Originally Posted at GLORIA Center
One remarkable thing about watching the Middle East is how what’s celebrated as brilliant in Europe or America is errant nonsense.
Writing such stuff makes people successful and gives them an audience of millions. What they say is so ridiculous that one wants to laugh, yet so totally accepted as true in Washington and European capitals that the laughter would be laughed at. The article to which I refer is by Jacob Weisberg in the June 22 Newsweek, entitled, "A Friend in Need: Barack gets tough on Bibi." It is far more terrible because Weisberg is neither leftist nor anti-Israel but has simply imbibed what "everyone says."
Let me quickly add that while I don't know Weisberg personally, I'm confident in saying he has no serious training in the Middle East, speaks neither Arabic nor Hebrew, spends little time researching the region, and has no real qualification for making the judgments he does. Here's the theme: Israelis are so stupid about their country, situation, and region on the life-and-death issues which they have been dealing with for decades that they must be saved in spite of themselves by people who have no knowledge or experience on any of these things. No other country in the world is so frequently told this kind of thing which I hear all the time from Europeans, too.
Is it so hard to comprehend that our views and behavior are based on years of experience and study? That we know best how to save ourselves and have been doing a far better job of it, against tremendous odds and unhelpful kibbitzers, than many others? That heeding their prescriptions would be disastrous, in fact have already proven so? After all, the tragic history of the last 20 years has largely resulted from listening to the same advice he gives now.
When one tries to explain these things in conversations, however, you can see their eyes go blank and their ears close up.
Weisberg’s article follows this pattern. The United States, he says (and these are main elements in the rhetoric among supporters of the Obama administration and several European governments) must show Israel "tough love," lean "harder on Jews and the Arabs to get serious about a deal," and stop "fostering Israeli illusions that there [is] an alternative to trading land for peace."
All three of these arguments are based on false premises.
Tough love: This derives from the late 1980s and early 1990s when the left side of the Israeli spectrum was pushing the land-for-peace and negotiate with the PLO arguments against their rivals on the right. A little U.S. pressure, they argued, would help get talks going.
A lot has happened since then, however, notably the 1992-2000 Oslo process. This proved to the vast majority of Israelis that the Palestinian leadership (and Syria, too, for that matter) wasn’t ready or interested in peace. Disillusioned, a lot of these people supported Ariel Sharon and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the results of which (Hamas takeover, rocket fire) made them even more disenchanted.
That's why the Labour party which invented the land-for-peace argument in the first place and made the Oslo agreement and offered a two-state solution in 2000 is now in a coalition government with the Likud party. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not a "right-wing" or "hard-line" leader but someone who speaks for the national consensus, a consensus based on education through painful, bloody experience.
Israel also faces a more hostile Europe, an Iran racing toward nuclear weapons, an intransigent and incompetent Palestinian Authority, plus Hamas and Hizballah.
Today the last thing Israelis need or want is pressure to make more concessions to the Palestinians. They’ve already made a lot; these didn’t lead anywhere good. What Israel needs today is not "tough love" but real support.
Push "harder on Jews and the Arabs to get serious about a deal": The false assumption here is that getting an agreement, any agreement, is a desperate need of the two sides and of the region as a whole.
In fact, Israel is doing very well without any comprehensive peace agreement. The economy is doing fine; morale is high; security improved. Moreover, this concept pays no attention to the idea that a deal can be a bad one, inherently instable and leading to more violence.
It never enters the minds of these people that a "peace" agreement that was broken or had dangerous provisions (giving up strategic territory; east Jerusalem; empowering a radical regime in a next-door Palestinian state; opening the door to foreign Arab or Iranian armies entering; bringing in millions of Palestinian Arabs to Israel) could leave Israel far worse off.
As for the Palestinian leadership, far from being desperate for a deal it is desperate to avoid one on anything other than its own unrealistic terms.
Stop "fostering Israeli illusions that there [is] an alternative to trading land for peace." This one makes me laugh. Everyone in Israel knows that there can be no comprehensive agreement without trading land for peace. The question is, however, whether any comprehensive agreement on decent terms is possible at this time.
In addition, the question is also which land. Israel has focused on three to five percent of the West Bank that is strategically important and has large concentrations of Israeli population.
Finally, if someone doesn't understand that the barrier to peace is the Palestinians and not Israel, any advice they give Israel is going to be worthless.
As for those giving advice, here’s what we’ve seen in the last six months from those who want to "save" others by imposing their own vision:
--The idea that stopping construction on Jewish settlements would bring some Arab concession has already proven wrong.
--The idea that engagement with Iran would work has already proven wrong.
--The idea that the United States could successfully engage Syria in a set of mutual compromises has already proven wrong.
--The idea that an Obama charm offensive would bring higher levels of Arab support has already proven wrong. And that's just in six months!
Let’s have a little humility and readiness to listen, please, from those who would play with the lives of other people.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Originally Posted at GLORIA Center
Netanyahu calls for tougher sanctions now on Iran
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday the time had come for tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. "I believe that now is the time to start harsh sanctions against Iran -- if not now then when? These harsh sanctions can be effective," Netanyahu was quoted by a parliamentary official as telling a legislative committee.
"I believe that the international community can act effectively," he said, according to the official, who briefed reporters on Netanyahu's remarks to parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
"The Iranian regime is weak, the Iranian people would not rally around the regime if they felt for the first time that there was a danger to their regime -- and this would be a new situation," Netanyahu said.
His comments appeared to signal -- amid wide speculation that Israel could opt to attack Iranian nuclear facilities -- that it had not given up on international diplomacy to curb Tehran's atomic ambitions.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. It has agreed to start talks on October 1 with world powers on the dispute. Israel is widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging a policy of engagement toward Iran, has suggested it may face harsher international sanctions if it does not accept good-faith talks by the end of September.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Richard Williams)
"I believe that the international community can act effectively," he said, according to the official, who briefed reporters on Netanyahu's remarks to parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
"The Iranian regime is weak, the Iranian people would not rally around the regime if they felt for the first time that there was a danger to their regime -- and this would be a new situation," Netanyahu said.
His comments appeared to signal -- amid wide speculation that Israel could opt to attack Iranian nuclear facilities -- that it had not given up on international diplomacy to curb Tehran's atomic ambitions.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. It has agreed to start talks on October 1 with world powers on the dispute. Israel is widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging a policy of engagement toward Iran, has suggested it may face harsher international sanctions if it does not accept good-faith talks by the end of September.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Richard Williams)
Remembering the Munich Massacre
Maayana Miskin
A7 News
Israel commemorated the Munich Massacre of 1972 on Monday in a state ceremony attended by politicians, athletes and relatives of the fallen. Eleven Israel coaches and athletes and one German policeman were killed in the attack. "An entire country held its breath and watched, transfixed, as the El Al plane from Munich landed in our national airport, and out came the surviving athletes, silent and stunned, standing next to their friends who returned in coffins,” said Minister of Sport Limor Livnat, who spoke as the official government representative at the ceremony.
"The memory of the 11 athletes murdered in Munich is the pillar of fire leading the great camp of the children of light to overwhelming victory in their war against the children of darkness,” she said.
Michal Shahar, whose father Kehat Shorr was among those murdered in the attack, spoke on behalf of the bereaved families. Former Olympic swimmer Yoav Bruck spoke in the name of Israel's athletes.
Tzvi Varshaviack, Chairman of the Israeli Olympic Committee, said in a speech, “Thirty-seven years have passed since that black day, and it remains impossible to forget. Since then, Israeli athletes have continued to represent the state of Israel with pride and to make remarkable achievements. We will not let terrorism defeat us,” he said.
The memory of those slain in Munich remains in the Olympic Committee's consciousness, he added. “We will do whatever we can to perpetuate their memories,” he said.
Norman Borlaug: The man who fed the world.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574410701828211352.html
On the day Norman Borlaug was awarded its Peace Prize for 1970, the Nobel Committee observed of the Iowa-born plant scientist that "more than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world." The committee might have added that more than any other single person Borlaug showed that nature is no match for human ingenuity in setting the real limits to growth. Borlaug, who died Saturday at 95, came of age in the Great Depression, the last period of widespread hunger in U.S. history. The Depression was over by the time Borlaug began his famous experiments, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, with wheat varieties in Mexico in the 1940s. But the specter of global starvation loomed even larger, as advances in medicine and hygiene contributed to population growth without corresponding increases in the means of feeding so many.
Borlaug solved that challenge by developing genetically unique strains of "semidwarf" wheat, and later rice, that raised food yields as much as sixfold. The result was that a country like India was able to feed its own people as its population grew from 500 million in the mid-1960s, when Borlaug's "Green Revolution" began to take effect, to the current 1.16 billion. Today, famines—whether in Zimbabwe, Darfur or North Korea—are politically induced events, not true natural disasters.
In later life, Borlaug was criticized by self-described "greens" whose hostility to technology put them athwart the revolution he had set in motion. Borlaug fired back, warning in these pages that fear-mongering by environmental extremists against synthetic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers and genetically modified foods would again put millions at risk of starvation while damaging the very biodiversity those extremists claimed to protect. In saving so many, Borlaug showed that a genuine green movement doesn't pit man against the Earth, but rather applies human intelligence to exploit the Earth's resources to improve life for everyone.
On the day Norman Borlaug was awarded its Peace Prize for 1970, the Nobel Committee observed of the Iowa-born plant scientist that "more than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world." The committee might have added that more than any other single person Borlaug showed that nature is no match for human ingenuity in setting the real limits to growth. Borlaug, who died Saturday at 95, came of age in the Great Depression, the last period of widespread hunger in U.S. history. The Depression was over by the time Borlaug began his famous experiments, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, with wheat varieties in Mexico in the 1940s. But the specter of global starvation loomed even larger, as advances in medicine and hygiene contributed to population growth without corresponding increases in the means of feeding so many.
Borlaug solved that challenge by developing genetically unique strains of "semidwarf" wheat, and later rice, that raised food yields as much as sixfold. The result was that a country like India was able to feed its own people as its population grew from 500 million in the mid-1960s, when Borlaug's "Green Revolution" began to take effect, to the current 1.16 billion. Today, famines—whether in Zimbabwe, Darfur or North Korea—are politically induced events, not true natural disasters.
In later life, Borlaug was criticized by self-described "greens" whose hostility to technology put them athwart the revolution he had set in motion. Borlaug fired back, warning in these pages that fear-mongering by environmental extremists against synthetic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers and genetically modified foods would again put millions at risk of starvation while damaging the very biodiversity those extremists claimed to protect. In saving so many, Borlaug showed that a genuine green movement doesn't pit man against the Earth, but rather applies human intelligence to exploit the Earth's resources to improve life for everyone.
PA to tell Mitchell: No talks without settlement freeze
Special US envoy to Middle East scheduled to meet Netanyahu, Abbas Tuesday to discuss disputed issues, including Israeli settlement freeze, construction in east Jerusalem. Israeli official: Only after meetings will we know if Netanyahu-Abbas-Obama meeting will take place
Roni Sofer and Ali Waked
YNET News
Palestinian Authority officials are expected to tell special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell that the PA will not resume its negotiations with Israel unless the Jewish state commits to halting all construction in the West Bank. Mitchell, who has already met with President Shimon Peres during his current visit to the region, is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday morning before heading to Ramallah for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Authority would not agree to anything less than a complete West Bank construction freeze in exchange for the relaunching of talks with Israel.
He also denied reports of a possible three-way meeting between Netanyahu, Abbas and US President Barack Obama ahead of the UN General Assembly session in New York.
The Palestinians hope Mitchell's visit will jumpstart the peace negotiations based on "an international understanding that the settlements pose an obstacle to peace."
'Enable normal living'
The Palestinian cabinet on Monday called on Obama to continue pressuring Israel on the settlements, work towards bringing an end to the arrest of Palestinians within PA-ruled territory and demand that Israel lift its siege on Gaza, the Ma'an news agency reported.
Netanyahu, for his part, is expected to ask Mitchell to exclude east Jerusalem from the demand to halt settlement construction, and also expects the Americans and Palestinians to agree to the continuation of West Bank building projects that are already underway to accommodate natural growth.
"I told the Americans we would consider cutting down on construction. We shall balance the will to make a gesture in order to promote negotiations and a peace process, and the need to enable normal living for the residents of Judea and Samaria. Cutting down on construction will be for a limited period and we have not reached an agreement with the Americans on the time span," the PM told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday morning.
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An official in Jerusalem said, "Only after Mitchell meets Abbas will we know whether the Netanyahu-Abbas-Obama meeting will take place and whether or not there is a real chance of resuming dialogue with the PA."
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Authority was pursuing its plan to establish a de facto Palestinian State within two years.
"We must begin building government institutions now, and not wait until after we declare a Palestinian state," he said.
Attila Somfalvi contributed to the report
Monday, September 14, 2009
Contradictory gov't policies affect West Bank children
Plan to fund armored transport, new schools for West Bank students thwarted by Defense Ministry
Yael Branovsky
YNET News
The moratorium on building in West Bank settlements is already having an effect on pupils in the West Bank. A discussion held Monday in the Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child revealed that the contradictory policies of the Defense and Education Ministries have blocked budget allocation to armored transportation for pupils living in the West Bank as well as expansion of educational institutions there.
The Education Ministry is claiming that the Defense Ministry has thwarted the building of day care centers and schools in the West Bank.
During Monday’s discussion, Education Ministry representative, Shai Rimsky, said, “Because the Defense Ministry does not recognize certain settlements, the Education Ministry cannot allocate funds for the building of educational institutions. Ultimately, the children suffer.”
According to data from the Knesset Research and Information Center, 75% of building requests submitted in 2009 were given the green light by the Education Ministry prior to receiving necessary and relevant documentation in each case.
Shomron Regional Council Mayor Gershon Mesika said that due to the contradictory policies in the two governmental ministries, 2,450 pupils have not been studying under normal conditions since the start of the school year.
“They are studying in leaky trailers without air conditioning. They can’t stay more than one hour in class. They feel like second class (kids),” said Mesika.
Maaleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel added that the Education Ministry are not the only ones to have encountered problems with the Defense Ministry. According to him, the Welfare Bureau also cannot pass budgets for the West Bank. As a result, there is not budget for funding social workers and day care centers in the region.
“Recently, 35 Ethiopian immigrant families, 220 people, have been absorbed in our city. There is no budget to centralize the absorption process or for employing specialized social workers. The Welfare Bureau does not pass budgets. Since the building freeze, the municipality has no income,” added Kashriel.
Representatives of the Defense Ministry did not attend the committee discussion.
Chairman of the committee, MK Danny Danon (Likud), placed the blame on Defense Minister Ehud Barak of “promoting a political agenda” at the expense of West Bank children.
“The fact that the Defense Ministry did not send a representative to the discussion is a disrespect to this Knesset committee. The children in Judea and Samaria are no less important than the children of foreign workers for whom the State has arranged (proper) educational facilities. The committee calls upon the Prime Minister’s Office to provide a special budget for education in Judea and Samaria.”
Chairperson of the Lobby for Children and Youth at Risk, MK Orly Levi (Yisrael Beiteinu) joined in the criticism leveled at the Defense Ministry, accusing it of denigrating the Knesset’s work.
“The committee is obligated to help the children Judea and Samaria. It is not right that children there feel like second class in the State of Israel,” commented Levi.
The Thirteenth Palestinian Government
Ambassador Blog
Edward Walkwe
From the earliest days, once the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat forced the United States back in 1978 to take an active role in resolving the Palestinian problem, we have largely focused our efforts on security and the key final status issues like borders and Jerusalem. President Bush embraced the policy of a two state solution, but aside from some discussions in the context of the Autonomy negotiations and in the Oslo process years ago, there has been very little focus on what the Palestinian State will look like, how it will be organized and what are the premises on which it will be based. Presumably, these are questions that the Palestinians will have to answer in due course. But, it is very hard for me to imagine that Israel, or for that matter the United States, is a disinterested party. Will the Palestinian state look like Gaza under Hamas? If that is the expectation then it is not very likely that negotiations on the final status, even if started, would ever result in an agreement.
What we have all known for a long time is that Israel will not accept a hostile, independent state in the West Bank and Gaza and nor should it. If there was ever any doubt of this, all we need to do is to examine the Israeli and US reaction to Hamas' rule over Gaza. The Israelis will have to know who their neighbors are and will have to have a high degree of confidence that once a Palestinian state is established, it will not become a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Without a substantial degree of mutual confidence, issues like security, settlements, borders, Jerusalem and refugees cannot be resolved. This is not only a question of lines on a map. It is also a question of intentions.
Certainly, the Palestinian record thus far does not fill one with confidence. The divided polity, the clinging to rhetoric instead of reality, the record of corruption in the Palestinian National Authority, and failure to govern effectively even in areas where the Authority has sway, creates the expectation of failure, instability, and continued hostility toward Israel as the path of least resistance. Palestinians have been reluctant to take on the hard issues of coming to grips with their internal differences using the excuse that with the Israelis hovering over every decision and intervening at will, the Palestinians cannot determine their own vision or begin the construction of their own state. They have been unwilling to take the difficult steps of forging a common Palestinian vision and policy in the absence of the concrete governmental structure of a State in being - until now.
Now the Palestinian National Authority is advancing a new approach in its program of the thirteenth government entitled "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State" published in August 2009. This is a document that has received little notice in the media, but which lays out a picture of a Palestinian state that could, if implemented, enable a constructive process of peace making. The document includes a forward by Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister that sets out the objectives of the Government for the next two years as a "full commitment to this state-building endeavor" and emphasizes that such a program is "critical" to the "creation of the independent state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital." Fayyad's formulation in his cover letter is interesting since it is not found in the document itself. He refers to "East" Jerualem - the document consistently refers to "Jerusalem" without any modifier. The document itself has problems such as repeated references to UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which established the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees to their homes based on their free choice. However, the document assigns responsibility of dealing with the refugees to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and not to the Palestinian Authority or its government.
The agenda that the program of the 13th government has set out is surprisingly detailed, which is unusual for political documents that have to appeal to a broad constituency. What is even more surprising is the level of self-criticism that is implied by the document. Repeated references to the need for auditing government functions would appear to be in response to the heavy criticism of the Authority as being corrupt. It would also tend to indicate that over the 17 years that the Palestinian Authority has been in existence, virtually no reforms have taken place, no strategic plan has been developed, no consensus on goals and vision has been reached, and that there has been little or no effort to establish the foundation for a viable Palestinian state. A lot of the credit for this dysfunctional history has to be laid at the feet of Yasser Arafat whose style of governing was divide, conquer and never decide.
While one could nit-pick the program. Certainly there are aspects that will cause heartburn particularly within the Palestinian community, but also among some Israelis. Furthermore, there is a long distance between statements of intention and facts on the ground. It remains to be seen if Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad can deliver on the vision and reform. But it is virtually certain, in my view, that without such an effort on the part of the Palestinians, there will be no peace agreement, no Palestinian state, and no respite from terrorism. The program's success is, as Prime Minister Fayyad says, essential if a peace agreement is to be reached. The program is predicated on and designed to help achieve the unification of the Palestinian polity, without which I do not give the peace process a snowball's chance of succeeding. This is the very first time that we have seen a concrete, rational, official Palestinian projection of what a Palestinian state might look like and how it could sustain peace as a democracy based on the rule of law. That has been an important missing ingredient in all the past efforts to concoct a peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. We should give Salam Fayyad our full support and help him make his vision real.
http://www.ambassadorblog.com/2009/09/the-thirteenth-palestinian-government-.html
Edward Walkwe
From the earliest days, once the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat forced the United States back in 1978 to take an active role in resolving the Palestinian problem, we have largely focused our efforts on security and the key final status issues like borders and Jerusalem. President Bush embraced the policy of a two state solution, but aside from some discussions in the context of the Autonomy negotiations and in the Oslo process years ago, there has been very little focus on what the Palestinian State will look like, how it will be organized and what are the premises on which it will be based. Presumably, these are questions that the Palestinians will have to answer in due course. But, it is very hard for me to imagine that Israel, or for that matter the United States, is a disinterested party. Will the Palestinian state look like Gaza under Hamas? If that is the expectation then it is not very likely that negotiations on the final status, even if started, would ever result in an agreement.
What we have all known for a long time is that Israel will not accept a hostile, independent state in the West Bank and Gaza and nor should it. If there was ever any doubt of this, all we need to do is to examine the Israeli and US reaction to Hamas' rule over Gaza. The Israelis will have to know who their neighbors are and will have to have a high degree of confidence that once a Palestinian state is established, it will not become a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Without a substantial degree of mutual confidence, issues like security, settlements, borders, Jerusalem and refugees cannot be resolved. This is not only a question of lines on a map. It is also a question of intentions.
Certainly, the Palestinian record thus far does not fill one with confidence. The divided polity, the clinging to rhetoric instead of reality, the record of corruption in the Palestinian National Authority, and failure to govern effectively even in areas where the Authority has sway, creates the expectation of failure, instability, and continued hostility toward Israel as the path of least resistance. Palestinians have been reluctant to take on the hard issues of coming to grips with their internal differences using the excuse that with the Israelis hovering over every decision and intervening at will, the Palestinians cannot determine their own vision or begin the construction of their own state. They have been unwilling to take the difficult steps of forging a common Palestinian vision and policy in the absence of the concrete governmental structure of a State in being - until now.
Now the Palestinian National Authority is advancing a new approach in its program of the thirteenth government entitled "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State" published in August 2009. This is a document that has received little notice in the media, but which lays out a picture of a Palestinian state that could, if implemented, enable a constructive process of peace making. The document includes a forward by Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister that sets out the objectives of the Government for the next two years as a "full commitment to this state-building endeavor" and emphasizes that such a program is "critical" to the "creation of the independent state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital." Fayyad's formulation in his cover letter is interesting since it is not found in the document itself. He refers to "East" Jerualem - the document consistently refers to "Jerusalem" without any modifier. The document itself has problems such as repeated references to UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which established the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees to their homes based on their free choice. However, the document assigns responsibility of dealing with the refugees to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and not to the Palestinian Authority or its government.
The agenda that the program of the 13th government has set out is surprisingly detailed, which is unusual for political documents that have to appeal to a broad constituency. What is even more surprising is the level of self-criticism that is implied by the document. Repeated references to the need for auditing government functions would appear to be in response to the heavy criticism of the Authority as being corrupt. It would also tend to indicate that over the 17 years that the Palestinian Authority has been in existence, virtually no reforms have taken place, no strategic plan has been developed, no consensus on goals and vision has been reached, and that there has been little or no effort to establish the foundation for a viable Palestinian state. A lot of the credit for this dysfunctional history has to be laid at the feet of Yasser Arafat whose style of governing was divide, conquer and never decide.
While one could nit-pick the program. Certainly there are aspects that will cause heartburn particularly within the Palestinian community, but also among some Israelis. Furthermore, there is a long distance between statements of intention and facts on the ground. It remains to be seen if Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad can deliver on the vision and reform. But it is virtually certain, in my view, that without such an effort on the part of the Palestinians, there will be no peace agreement, no Palestinian state, and no respite from terrorism. The program's success is, as Prime Minister Fayyad says, essential if a peace agreement is to be reached. The program is predicated on and designed to help achieve the unification of the Palestinian polity, without which I do not give the peace process a snowball's chance of succeeding. This is the very first time that we have seen a concrete, rational, official Palestinian projection of what a Palestinian state might look like and how it could sustain peace as a democracy based on the rule of law. That has been an important missing ingredient in all the past efforts to concoct a peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. We should give Salam Fayyad our full support and help him make his vision real.
http://www.ambassadorblog.com/2009/09/the-thirteenth-palestinian-government-.html
Can Israel Make Peace with the Palestinians?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/can_israel_make_peace_with_the.html
September 13, 2009
By Richard Baehr
Ambassador Alon Pinkas served as Israel's Consul General in New York from 2000 to 2004, capping a two decade career in Israel's foreign ministry, including work for prime ministers from both Labor and Likud governments. I had the privilege of interviewing Ambassador Pinkas when he visited Chicago this week. As opinion polls in Israel suggest that Israelis believe President Obama is not a friend of Israel (4% of Israelis in a recent survey consider him to be pro-Israel), Ambassador Pinkas and other Israelis are visiting various American cities to emphasize the strength and importance of the US Israeli relationship.
Pinkas sees a sharp difference in tone between Obama and his two predecessors- Bill Clinton and George Bush, but does not believe that Obama is hostile to Israel. Israelis were spoiled a bit by what they perceived as an emotional tie between both Bill Clinton and Israel and George Bush and Israel, a connection that seems missing with Obama. Obama has made it clear that he thinks that the perception that the US stands with Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians was a major reason that the peace process was unsuccessful in recent decades. Obama's conclusion, expressed in a meeting with a group of Jewish leaders two months back, is that peace is more likely to be realized if the US President is perceived by both sides as engaged, but not in either side's corner. This approach by Obama runs counter to long held US policy that Israel is more likely to make concessions, if it feels a secure link with the United States. It has also been generally understood policy that if the US is perceived as pressuring Israel, the Arabs and the Palestinians will become more intransigent, waiting for the US to deliver Israel's concessions to them, offering nothing in return.
Pinkas believes that Israelis are nervous about Obama in part because he has been so openly critical of Israel from the outset of his administration. It could be argued that only Honduras has received more public criticism from this Administration. Israelis do not see the advertised even handedness in the President's actions so far. The insistent public demands on Israel -- for a total freeze of settlement activity beyond the green line, have not been matched by similar cajoling or public pressure on the Palestinians or other Arab nations to make gestures towards Israel. In fact, several Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority have now made public statements that if Israel refuses to commit to a total settlement freeze (including natural growth of settlements) that they are unwilling to offer any gestures or even to meet with Israelis to negotiate. Put simply, why would the Palestinians and the Arab states be more pro-Israel than President Obama? If Obama demands a total settlement freeze as a first step, why should they reciprocate with gestures or negotiations before this occurs?
Ambassador Pinkas is very skeptical about the likelihood of a breakthrough in future talks between the Israelis and Palestinians for two major reasons. Pinkas says the history of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians since the commencement of the Oslo process has clarified that there is not now, and there has not been despite a decade and a half of trying, an intersection between the maximum that Israel is able to offer to end the conflict, and the minimum the Palestinians demand. Pinkas calls the gap unbridgeable, at least for now.
He says the history of the negotiations, has been one where Israel, to some extent, negotiates with itself, continually enhancing its offer, with the Palestinians always holding back for more concessions. The Palestinians always rejected Israel's offers as insufficient. Pinkas says Israel made a substantial offer at Camp David in the summer of 2000, enhanced over the next few months as the second intifada began, and broadened again at Taba. The discussions in 2007 and 2008 between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert suggests that Obama's claim that the peace process was not pursued during the prior Administration, is not correct. Serious discussions took place during the last two years of the Bush administration, but as with those during the Clinton years, they proved in the end to be unproductive.
Israel had already left Gaza by 2007, and Olmert offered to Abbas well over 90% of the West Bank, with a land exchange of pre-67 Israeli territory to compensate the Palestinians for three settlement blocks that would be incorporated into Israel. Israel also offered a connector between Gaza and the West Bank, a capitol for the Palestinians in the Jerusalem area, and political sovereignty over neighborhoods in the Old City without any formal political subdivision of the Old City. Pinkas says the recent discussions failed in part, because the best that could be accomplished was a shelf agreement, representing the terms for a final peace agreement, were the Palestinians in a position to complete such a deal. The reality is that PA President Abbas has no political control over Gaza, now run by Hamas after their bloody coup against the PA in the summer of 2007. And Hamas has never shown any willingness to accept Israel as a permanent state in the region (a requirement one would think for a two state solution). Hamas, at best, has offered a defined truce period, in which it would not fire rockets, mortars or missiles at Israel. This split among the Palestinians is Pinkas' second argument for why no peace agreement is likely. Significantly Abbas adopted the same posture as Palestinian negotiators in prior discussions, booking each Israeli offer, and asking for more.
The Israelis have also made some demands in negotiations, in addition to offering concessions -- that the Palestinian state be demilitarized, that Israel be allowed to overfly a Palestinian state, that for a defined period of time, Israel would maintain a small military presence in the Jordan Valley, and that few if any of the people classified as Palestinian refugees by the United Nations (in reality, less than 5% of the so-called refugees ever lived within the boundaries of pre-67 Israel, the rest have all been born outside of Israel) could return to Israel. The legal right of return would not have to be relinquished, but with the exception of a few family reunification admits, Palestinians would return, if they chose, only to the new Palestinian state. Israel sought at Camp David, and has demanded since, that any peace agreement on final status issues- Jerusalem, borders, refugees, had to mean an end to Palestinian claims- in other words, the deal was final, not a stage to further negotiations. Pinkas described the negotiations as similar to those leading to a divorce between the two parties- a separation agreement. At the outset of the Oslo process, Pinkas says there were Israelis who believed that a marriage, a new Benelux could be created. Such hopes have now been dashed, though among the Palestinians, there is now growing clamor for a single multinational state, which given higher Arab birth rates, would over time lead to a larger Arab than Jewish population in the single state, and political control.
Ambassador Pinkas is also not sanguine about multinational action against Iran and its near complete nuclear program. Russia and China have not shown any willingness to agree to stepped-up international sanctions at the United Nations. While Rahm Emanuel talked at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference about the linkage between an Israeli settlement freeze and the US garnering support for a new sanctions regime against Iran, the two issues do not appear to be linked. China and Russia are reluctant to agree to stepped-up sanctions for many reasons, but none of them involve whether additional bedrooms are added to Jewish homes close to the green line or near the Old City.
The Iranians responded coldly to President Obama's early outreach and offer to negotiate at the highest levels, like a hard return of a weak second serve in a tennis match. Now the Iranians seem willing to run out the clock until their nuclear program is operational, agreeing to multi party talks, which Pinkas believes will likely be unproductive. Such talks occurred between European nations and Iran for several years, to no avail. Since US military action, or even the threat of such action, is not taken seriously by Iran, if new (crippling?) sanctions are not coming, and new negotiations resemble those of the prior years, this would seem to suggest there may be only one option left to prevent Iran completing its nuclear weapons program. Pinkas says he sees some signs that some people in the Obama administration may have already accepted that Iran will succeed in becoming a nuclear power, so the new policy that is being developed concerns how to deal with that reality.
A corollary to the Administration's Iran strategy has been an attempt to woo Syria away from the Iranian orbit. Pinkas is not convinced that Syria sees much to gain from shifting its strategic alignment, even if it occurred with an Israeli return of the Golan as a goodie to juice the deal. The Syrian regime has lived off is anti-Israel rhetoric and posture for 60 years. Would the Assad family retain its power if it could no longer rely on deflecting domestic opposition with its anti-Israel campaign? Ambassador Pinkas say it is unclear whether Iran or Syria has more impact on Hezbollah activities in Lebanon, though Iran is clearly the financial provider. Given Syrian interests in Lebanon, the alignment with Iran may offer more to Syria in that country.
Pinkas says both President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made some early mistakes in how they calibrated the US-Israel relationship. Netanyahu may not have realized that the November, 2008 election really did constitute the start of a significant change in many domestic and international approaches by the United States. President Obama may not have understood the reality of the coalition that Prime Minister Netanyahu assembled in order to take office, and how much room that allowed him to meet American demands on settlements. Pinkas was unwilling to accept my suggestion that the early and then constant pressure on Israel may have been specifically orchestrated by Rahm Emanuel as a means to bring down the Netanyahu government, calculating that a wide divide between Israel and its closest ally, would worry Israelis, and lead to a collapse of Netanyahu's coalition, and the ascension in new Israeli elections of a more compliant (to US demands) Israeli leader.
While Pinkas believes that the US Israel relationship remains strong, he clearly sees no reason for optimism on any major international front concerning Israel: negotiations with the Palestinians, the Syrian track, or stopping the Iranian nuclear program. On each of these issues, the Obama administration seems to still believe in its transformational ability to make progress. Time will tell on each count, but the history of the modern state of Israel suggests many more disappointments than achievements in its relationship with its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians.
Richard Baehr is chief political correspondent of American Thinker.
September 13, 2009
By Richard Baehr
Ambassador Alon Pinkas served as Israel's Consul General in New York from 2000 to 2004, capping a two decade career in Israel's foreign ministry, including work for prime ministers from both Labor and Likud governments. I had the privilege of interviewing Ambassador Pinkas when he visited Chicago this week. As opinion polls in Israel suggest that Israelis believe President Obama is not a friend of Israel (4% of Israelis in a recent survey consider him to be pro-Israel), Ambassador Pinkas and other Israelis are visiting various American cities to emphasize the strength and importance of the US Israeli relationship.
Pinkas sees a sharp difference in tone between Obama and his two predecessors- Bill Clinton and George Bush, but does not believe that Obama is hostile to Israel. Israelis were spoiled a bit by what they perceived as an emotional tie between both Bill Clinton and Israel and George Bush and Israel, a connection that seems missing with Obama. Obama has made it clear that he thinks that the perception that the US stands with Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians was a major reason that the peace process was unsuccessful in recent decades. Obama's conclusion, expressed in a meeting with a group of Jewish leaders two months back, is that peace is more likely to be realized if the US President is perceived by both sides as engaged, but not in either side's corner. This approach by Obama runs counter to long held US policy that Israel is more likely to make concessions, if it feels a secure link with the United States. It has also been generally understood policy that if the US is perceived as pressuring Israel, the Arabs and the Palestinians will become more intransigent, waiting for the US to deliver Israel's concessions to them, offering nothing in return.
Pinkas believes that Israelis are nervous about Obama in part because he has been so openly critical of Israel from the outset of his administration. It could be argued that only Honduras has received more public criticism from this Administration. Israelis do not see the advertised even handedness in the President's actions so far. The insistent public demands on Israel -- for a total freeze of settlement activity beyond the green line, have not been matched by similar cajoling or public pressure on the Palestinians or other Arab nations to make gestures towards Israel. In fact, several Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority have now made public statements that if Israel refuses to commit to a total settlement freeze (including natural growth of settlements) that they are unwilling to offer any gestures or even to meet with Israelis to negotiate. Put simply, why would the Palestinians and the Arab states be more pro-Israel than President Obama? If Obama demands a total settlement freeze as a first step, why should they reciprocate with gestures or negotiations before this occurs?
Ambassador Pinkas is very skeptical about the likelihood of a breakthrough in future talks between the Israelis and Palestinians for two major reasons. Pinkas says the history of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians since the commencement of the Oslo process has clarified that there is not now, and there has not been despite a decade and a half of trying, an intersection between the maximum that Israel is able to offer to end the conflict, and the minimum the Palestinians demand. Pinkas calls the gap unbridgeable, at least for now.
He says the history of the negotiations, has been one where Israel, to some extent, negotiates with itself, continually enhancing its offer, with the Palestinians always holding back for more concessions. The Palestinians always rejected Israel's offers as insufficient. Pinkas says Israel made a substantial offer at Camp David in the summer of 2000, enhanced over the next few months as the second intifada began, and broadened again at Taba. The discussions in 2007 and 2008 between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert suggests that Obama's claim that the peace process was not pursued during the prior Administration, is not correct. Serious discussions took place during the last two years of the Bush administration, but as with those during the Clinton years, they proved in the end to be unproductive.
Israel had already left Gaza by 2007, and Olmert offered to Abbas well over 90% of the West Bank, with a land exchange of pre-67 Israeli territory to compensate the Palestinians for three settlement blocks that would be incorporated into Israel. Israel also offered a connector between Gaza and the West Bank, a capitol for the Palestinians in the Jerusalem area, and political sovereignty over neighborhoods in the Old City without any formal political subdivision of the Old City. Pinkas says the recent discussions failed in part, because the best that could be accomplished was a shelf agreement, representing the terms for a final peace agreement, were the Palestinians in a position to complete such a deal. The reality is that PA President Abbas has no political control over Gaza, now run by Hamas after their bloody coup against the PA in the summer of 2007. And Hamas has never shown any willingness to accept Israel as a permanent state in the region (a requirement one would think for a two state solution). Hamas, at best, has offered a defined truce period, in which it would not fire rockets, mortars or missiles at Israel. This split among the Palestinians is Pinkas' second argument for why no peace agreement is likely. Significantly Abbas adopted the same posture as Palestinian negotiators in prior discussions, booking each Israeli offer, and asking for more.
The Israelis have also made some demands in negotiations, in addition to offering concessions -- that the Palestinian state be demilitarized, that Israel be allowed to overfly a Palestinian state, that for a defined period of time, Israel would maintain a small military presence in the Jordan Valley, and that few if any of the people classified as Palestinian refugees by the United Nations (in reality, less than 5% of the so-called refugees ever lived within the boundaries of pre-67 Israel, the rest have all been born outside of Israel) could return to Israel. The legal right of return would not have to be relinquished, but with the exception of a few family reunification admits, Palestinians would return, if they chose, only to the new Palestinian state. Israel sought at Camp David, and has demanded since, that any peace agreement on final status issues- Jerusalem, borders, refugees, had to mean an end to Palestinian claims- in other words, the deal was final, not a stage to further negotiations. Pinkas described the negotiations as similar to those leading to a divorce between the two parties- a separation agreement. At the outset of the Oslo process, Pinkas says there were Israelis who believed that a marriage, a new Benelux could be created. Such hopes have now been dashed, though among the Palestinians, there is now growing clamor for a single multinational state, which given higher Arab birth rates, would over time lead to a larger Arab than Jewish population in the single state, and political control.
Ambassador Pinkas is also not sanguine about multinational action against Iran and its near complete nuclear program. Russia and China have not shown any willingness to agree to stepped-up international sanctions at the United Nations. While Rahm Emanuel talked at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference about the linkage between an Israeli settlement freeze and the US garnering support for a new sanctions regime against Iran, the two issues do not appear to be linked. China and Russia are reluctant to agree to stepped-up sanctions for many reasons, but none of them involve whether additional bedrooms are added to Jewish homes close to the green line or near the Old City.
The Iranians responded coldly to President Obama's early outreach and offer to negotiate at the highest levels, like a hard return of a weak second serve in a tennis match. Now the Iranians seem willing to run out the clock until their nuclear program is operational, agreeing to multi party talks, which Pinkas believes will likely be unproductive. Such talks occurred between European nations and Iran for several years, to no avail. Since US military action, or even the threat of such action, is not taken seriously by Iran, if new (crippling?) sanctions are not coming, and new negotiations resemble those of the prior years, this would seem to suggest there may be only one option left to prevent Iran completing its nuclear weapons program. Pinkas says he sees some signs that some people in the Obama administration may have already accepted that Iran will succeed in becoming a nuclear power, so the new policy that is being developed concerns how to deal with that reality.
A corollary to the Administration's Iran strategy has been an attempt to woo Syria away from the Iranian orbit. Pinkas is not convinced that Syria sees much to gain from shifting its strategic alignment, even if it occurred with an Israeli return of the Golan as a goodie to juice the deal. The Syrian regime has lived off is anti-Israel rhetoric and posture for 60 years. Would the Assad family retain its power if it could no longer rely on deflecting domestic opposition with its anti-Israel campaign? Ambassador Pinkas say it is unclear whether Iran or Syria has more impact on Hezbollah activities in Lebanon, though Iran is clearly the financial provider. Given Syrian interests in Lebanon, the alignment with Iran may offer more to Syria in that country.
Pinkas says both President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made some early mistakes in how they calibrated the US-Israel relationship. Netanyahu may not have realized that the November, 2008 election really did constitute the start of a significant change in many domestic and international approaches by the United States. President Obama may not have understood the reality of the coalition that Prime Minister Netanyahu assembled in order to take office, and how much room that allowed him to meet American demands on settlements. Pinkas was unwilling to accept my suggestion that the early and then constant pressure on Israel may have been specifically orchestrated by Rahm Emanuel as a means to bring down the Netanyahu government, calculating that a wide divide between Israel and its closest ally, would worry Israelis, and lead to a collapse of Netanyahu's coalition, and the ascension in new Israeli elections of a more compliant (to US demands) Israeli leader.
While Pinkas believes that the US Israel relationship remains strong, he clearly sees no reason for optimism on any major international front concerning Israel: negotiations with the Palestinians, the Syrian track, or stopping the Iranian nuclear program. On each of these issues, the Obama administration seems to still believe in its transformational ability to make progress. Time will tell on each count, but the history of the modern state of Israel suggests many more disappointments than achievements in its relationship with its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians.
Richard Baehr is chief political correspondent of American Thinker.
In the Middle East, fear trumps popularity
Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST
When people are very pessimistic, I say to them: Don't worry our enemies will save us. By that I mean that the enemies of peace, progress and democracy - Islamists and radical Arab nationalists, terrorists, neo-Marxist dictators and silly people in the West alike - are so intransigent, prone to lying and dangerously wrong about society that they will convince and force most people to reject them. Even when thrown lifelines, they reject concessions, turn up their nose at compromise, go too far and become astonishingly illogical.
There are many examples.
The relatively soft approaches of the US and Europe gave Iran a great opportunity. Teheran could have feigned flexibility, pretended cooperation and extolled engagement. This would have forestalled sanctions, while it could still have secretly worked on nuclear weapons.
After all, even after a virtual coup by the most hard-line faction, stolen election, repression, show trials of dissidents and appointment of a wanted terrorist as defense minister (that's a pretty amazing list, isn't it?), the West was still willing to deal with the regime.
Instead, Iran produced an "offer" to negotiate so minimal that even the Europeans rejected it. While this doesn't mean all is well - Russia and China will block and sabotage even moderate sanctions and Western Europeans will oppose really harsh ones - at least Iran's last-minute effort to derail the process altogether will fail.
Imagine what the Iranian regime could have done if the ruling establishment had elected someone less extreme than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then claimed this showed what a moderate democratic state it was running. A charm offensive could have defused the nuclear controversy, sanctions would have been taken off the table, and Iran could have built nuclear weapons at a more sedate pace.
NOW TURN to Lebanon. Hizbullah was riding high there. A new government was going to give them both 30 percent of the cabinet seats and veto power over all government policies. But when the March 14 coalition, which won the elections, presented its own list of ministers, the Syrians and their Hizbullah allies rejected it as insufficiently subservient. This pushed March 14, which had been steadily conceding, so hard that it dug in its heels and rejected these demands. Negotiations will now have to start all over again.
The Syrians could have regained most of their former power over Lebanon - Hizbullah was practically in the driver's seat but that wasn't enough for them.
The same applies to eager US attempts to engage Syria. But the Damascus dictatorship wouldn't give an inch to gain a yard. The Syrians weren't willing even to deescalate terrorism in Iraq for a while. Washington is getting annoyed.
Syria could have wiped out US sanctions, gained good relations with Europe and have the Obama administration turn a blind eye to its terror-sponsoring and subversion throughout the region. Instead, it threw away this opportunity.
The same applies to Hamas. It tried a little to pretend moderation and some Western suckers were swallowing the bait, but it couldn't sustain the pretense very long.
The Palestinian Authority offers an even clearer example. Imagine how much it could have gained by playing along with the US president's desperate desire to help. It could have shown flexibility, professed eagerness to establishing a Palestinian state on something approaching reasonable terms.
Its success would have been tremendous. At the very least, the PA could have easily engineered the biggest US-Israel conflict in history. But from the start PA leader Mahmoud Abbas made it clear that he was asking for everything and giving nothing. Their best chance has thrown away.
One more, historic, example: In late 1990 or early 1991 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could have cut a great deal - part of Kuwait, billions of dollars and the appeasement of Gulf Arab states. Instead, he refused any agreement, kept his army in Kuwait, and suffered a military defeat.
He did the same in the 2000-2003 period when he could have made a good bargain for stopping his nuclear program in exchange for concessions. Instead, he did the opposite: He pretended to keep the program even when he cut back.
IT IS vital to understand why this patterns repeats itself so often. First, these forces really are radical and extremist. They don't want deals; they want total victory, all disputed land, complete dictatorship, expulsion or extinction of their adversaries.
Second, they believe their own propaganda. They think they can win and assume those on the other side are weak and doomed by deity and history.
Third, they are wedded to brutal methods. Terrorism is the tool of people who exult in deliberate violence against civilians and among whom gunmen and their values rise to the top.
Fourth, they fear internal rivals and their own people who they know have been so conditioned by extremism as to reject moderates as traitors. This is obviously less true in Iranian politics but applies to Palestinian politics.
Equally important, if any individual leader in these circles wanted to follow a more moderate policy, he knows rival leaders would use this against him, to destroy his power and perhaps kill him. All these leaders must continue to ride the tiger or be eaten. The fact that they helped give birth to the tiger in the first place won't save them.
Finally, this is the region's political style: Toughness counts; fear is better than popularity. In contrast to Western viewpoints, to concede or compromise shows weakness which means others will walk all over you. Of course, this is precisely how they view the West's sensitivity and apologies. "Confidence-building" measures become contempt-building measures.
Many Western leaders and much of the Western intelligentsia are like people sleeping through a burglary. Not only are their friends trying to wake them up, so are - however inadvertently - their enemies.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804561912&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
When people are very pessimistic, I say to them: Don't worry our enemies will save us. By that I mean that the enemies of peace, progress and democracy - Islamists and radical Arab nationalists, terrorists, neo-Marxist dictators and silly people in the West alike - are so intransigent, prone to lying and dangerously wrong about society that they will convince and force most people to reject them. Even when thrown lifelines, they reject concessions, turn up their nose at compromise, go too far and become astonishingly illogical.
There are many examples.
The relatively soft approaches of the US and Europe gave Iran a great opportunity. Teheran could have feigned flexibility, pretended cooperation and extolled engagement. This would have forestalled sanctions, while it could still have secretly worked on nuclear weapons.
After all, even after a virtual coup by the most hard-line faction, stolen election, repression, show trials of dissidents and appointment of a wanted terrorist as defense minister (that's a pretty amazing list, isn't it?), the West was still willing to deal with the regime.
Instead, Iran produced an "offer" to negotiate so minimal that even the Europeans rejected it. While this doesn't mean all is well - Russia and China will block and sabotage even moderate sanctions and Western Europeans will oppose really harsh ones - at least Iran's last-minute effort to derail the process altogether will fail.
Imagine what the Iranian regime could have done if the ruling establishment had elected someone less extreme than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then claimed this showed what a moderate democratic state it was running. A charm offensive could have defused the nuclear controversy, sanctions would have been taken off the table, and Iran could have built nuclear weapons at a more sedate pace.
NOW TURN to Lebanon. Hizbullah was riding high there. A new government was going to give them both 30 percent of the cabinet seats and veto power over all government policies. But when the March 14 coalition, which won the elections, presented its own list of ministers, the Syrians and their Hizbullah allies rejected it as insufficiently subservient. This pushed March 14, which had been steadily conceding, so hard that it dug in its heels and rejected these demands. Negotiations will now have to start all over again.
The Syrians could have regained most of their former power over Lebanon - Hizbullah was practically in the driver's seat but that wasn't enough for them.
The same applies to eager US attempts to engage Syria. But the Damascus dictatorship wouldn't give an inch to gain a yard. The Syrians weren't willing even to deescalate terrorism in Iraq for a while. Washington is getting annoyed.
Syria could have wiped out US sanctions, gained good relations with Europe and have the Obama administration turn a blind eye to its terror-sponsoring and subversion throughout the region. Instead, it threw away this opportunity.
The same applies to Hamas. It tried a little to pretend moderation and some Western suckers were swallowing the bait, but it couldn't sustain the pretense very long.
The Palestinian Authority offers an even clearer example. Imagine how much it could have gained by playing along with the US president's desperate desire to help. It could have shown flexibility, professed eagerness to establishing a Palestinian state on something approaching reasonable terms.
Its success would have been tremendous. At the very least, the PA could have easily engineered the biggest US-Israel conflict in history. But from the start PA leader Mahmoud Abbas made it clear that he was asking for everything and giving nothing. Their best chance has thrown away.
One more, historic, example: In late 1990 or early 1991 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could have cut a great deal - part of Kuwait, billions of dollars and the appeasement of Gulf Arab states. Instead, he refused any agreement, kept his army in Kuwait, and suffered a military defeat.
He did the same in the 2000-2003 period when he could have made a good bargain for stopping his nuclear program in exchange for concessions. Instead, he did the opposite: He pretended to keep the program even when he cut back.
IT IS vital to understand why this patterns repeats itself so often. First, these forces really are radical and extremist. They don't want deals; they want total victory, all disputed land, complete dictatorship, expulsion or extinction of their adversaries.
Second, they believe their own propaganda. They think they can win and assume those on the other side are weak and doomed by deity and history.
Third, they are wedded to brutal methods. Terrorism is the tool of people who exult in deliberate violence against civilians and among whom gunmen and their values rise to the top.
Fourth, they fear internal rivals and their own people who they know have been so conditioned by extremism as to reject moderates as traitors. This is obviously less true in Iranian politics but applies to Palestinian politics.
Equally important, if any individual leader in these circles wanted to follow a more moderate policy, he knows rival leaders would use this against him, to destroy his power and perhaps kill him. All these leaders must continue to ride the tiger or be eaten. The fact that they helped give birth to the tiger in the first place won't save them.
Finally, this is the region's political style: Toughness counts; fear is better than popularity. In contrast to Western viewpoints, to concede or compromise shows weakness which means others will walk all over you. Of course, this is precisely how they view the West's sensitivity and apologies. "Confidence-building" measures become contempt-building measures.
Many Western leaders and much of the Western intelligentsia are like people sleeping through a burglary. Not only are their friends trying to wake them up, so are - however inadvertently - their enemies.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804561912&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Forget normalization - Saudi Arabia steps up boycott of Israel
Michael Freund , THE JERUSALEM POST
Despite efforts by Washington in recent years to bring about a normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has been steadily intensifying its enforcement of the Arab League boycott of Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned. A review of US Commerce Department data conducted by the Post found that the number of boycott-related and restrictive trade-practice requests received by American companies from Saudi Arabia has increased in each of the past two years, rising from 42 in 2006 to 65 in 2007 to 74 in 2008, signifying a jump of more than 76 percent.
The bulk of these requests were related to the companies' or products' relationship to Israel. Typically, Saudi officials ask foreign suppliers to affirm that any goods exported to the desert kingdom are not manufactured in Israel and do not contain any Israeli-made components.
US law bars American companies from complying with such demands, and requires them to report any boycott-related requests to the federal government.
The Commerce Department figures reflect only those requests that have been officially reported to the US government. Figures for 2009 were not yet available.
Contacted by the Post, a US Treasury Department official confirmed that there was ample evidence that the Saudis continued to enforce the boycott.
According to the official, statistics compiled by a number of US government departments and federal agencies all "indicate that American companies continue to receive boycott requests from Saudi Arabia."
Citing figures collected by the Internal Revenue Service, the official said that of the cases that were reported to the IRS, "55% of the boycott requests from Saudi Arabia led to boycott agreements."
Two months ago, the Treasury Department published a list of eight Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, that it says continue to boycott Israel. The list appeared in the Federal Register, the official journal of the US government.
Washington has been attempting to get Riyadh to improve relations with the Jewish state, without success.
On July 31, after talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal rejected Washington's efforts, telling reporters, "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach has not and, we believe, will not lead to peace."
Saudi Arabia's ongoing enforcement of the boycott also appears to violate repeated promises that it gave to Washington in recent years to drop the trade embargo.
In November 2005, the desert kingdom pledged to abandon the boycott after Washington conditioned Saudi Arabia's entry into the World Trade Organization on such a move. A month later, on December 11, Saudi Arabia was granted WTO membership.
The WTO, which aims to promote free trade, prohibits members from engaging in discriminatory practices such as boycotts or embargoes.
The Saudi boycott of Israeli-made goods is part of the decades-old Arab League effort to isolate and weaken the Jewish state.
The league established an Office for the Boycott of Israel in Damascus in 1951, aimed at overseeing implementation of the economic and trade embargo.
In recent years, enforcement of the boycott has waxed and waned. Some Arab League members, such as Egypt and Jordan, ceased applying it after signing peace treaties with Israel, while others, such as Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia do not enforce it. Other Arab states, such as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, continue to bar entry of goods made in Israel and those containing Israeli-made components.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804562210&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Despite efforts by Washington in recent years to bring about a normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has been steadily intensifying its enforcement of the Arab League boycott of Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned. A review of US Commerce Department data conducted by the Post found that the number of boycott-related and restrictive trade-practice requests received by American companies from Saudi Arabia has increased in each of the past two years, rising from 42 in 2006 to 65 in 2007 to 74 in 2008, signifying a jump of more than 76 percent.
The bulk of these requests were related to the companies' or products' relationship to Israel. Typically, Saudi officials ask foreign suppliers to affirm that any goods exported to the desert kingdom are not manufactured in Israel and do not contain any Israeli-made components.
US law bars American companies from complying with such demands, and requires them to report any boycott-related requests to the federal government.
The Commerce Department figures reflect only those requests that have been officially reported to the US government. Figures for 2009 were not yet available.
Contacted by the Post, a US Treasury Department official confirmed that there was ample evidence that the Saudis continued to enforce the boycott.
According to the official, statistics compiled by a number of US government departments and federal agencies all "indicate that American companies continue to receive boycott requests from Saudi Arabia."
Citing figures collected by the Internal Revenue Service, the official said that of the cases that were reported to the IRS, "55% of the boycott requests from Saudi Arabia led to boycott agreements."
Two months ago, the Treasury Department published a list of eight Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, that it says continue to boycott Israel. The list appeared in the Federal Register, the official journal of the US government.
Washington has been attempting to get Riyadh to improve relations with the Jewish state, without success.
On July 31, after talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal rejected Washington's efforts, telling reporters, "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach has not and, we believe, will not lead to peace."
Saudi Arabia's ongoing enforcement of the boycott also appears to violate repeated promises that it gave to Washington in recent years to drop the trade embargo.
In November 2005, the desert kingdom pledged to abandon the boycott after Washington conditioned Saudi Arabia's entry into the World Trade Organization on such a move. A month later, on December 11, Saudi Arabia was granted WTO membership.
The WTO, which aims to promote free trade, prohibits members from engaging in discriminatory practices such as boycotts or embargoes.
The Saudi boycott of Israeli-made goods is part of the decades-old Arab League effort to isolate and weaken the Jewish state.
The league established an Office for the Boycott of Israel in Damascus in 1951, aimed at overseeing implementation of the economic and trade embargo.
In recent years, enforcement of the boycott has waxed and waned. Some Arab League members, such as Egypt and Jordan, ceased applying it after signing peace treaties with Israel, while others, such as Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia do not enforce it. Other Arab states, such as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, continue to bar entry of goods made in Israel and those containing Israeli-made components.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804562210&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Assaf Ramon to be laid to rest next to his father Ilan
Sep. 14, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
The funeral of Assaf Ramon, who died Sunday afternoon when his Israel Air Force F-16 crashed in the South Hebron Hills, will take place on Monday at 4 p.m. at the military cemetery in Nahalal. He will be buried next to his father, Ilan Ramon, who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster six years ago. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu postponed a meeting with US Mideast envoy George Mitchell until Tuesday in order to attend the funeral.
Ramon, 20, was promoted to the rank of captain after his death.
The cause of the accident was under investigation and was complicated by the extent of the crash scene, but an initial probe indicated that he blacked out during a sharp turn - possibly at 9 Gs - or experienced vertigo. A less likely possibility is that the plane may have had a mechanical failure that Ramon could not solve, but he was not able to report on his condition.
The debris was spread over a large piece of land near the Pnei Hever settlement, east of Hebron, military officials said.
Ilan Ramon, 48, became the first Israeli in space aboard the Columbia, which exploded during its reentry over Texas in 2003. Ramon was a colonel in the IAF and before joining NASA he held a number of staff positions at the branch's Tel Aviv headquarters.
Assaf Ramon announced his plans to follow in his father's footsteps shortly after the Columbia tragedy. In 2006, he enlisted in the IDF and successfully passed the grueling examinations and trials for the prestigious pilot's course. This past June, he graduated at the top of his class and was chosen as its valedictorian.
On Sunday, Assaf Ramon took off from the Nevatim Air Force base, southeast of Beersheba, in the early afternoon for dogfight training with another plane, flown by a veteran pilot.
The pair managed to practice three dogfights with the single-seater F-16As but then at about 1:45 p.m., as they were flying at around 19,000 feet, the lead pilot lost eye contact with Ramon's plane. He immediately contacted IAF Air Traffic Control, but Ramon's plane had already struck a mountain.
Several months ago, during a routine training flight in an A-4 Skyhawk, Ramon's engine suddenly died. Instead of ejecting, as protocol dictates, Ramon, together with the flight instructor, succeeded in restarting the engine and safely returning to base.
Ramon is survived by his mother, Rona, and three siblings, 19-year-old brother Tal, who is also in the IAF, 17-year-old brother Yiftach, a high school student, and 12-year-old sister Noa.
IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan immediately appointed an officer with the rank of colonel to investigate the accident. A large number of military personnel were deployed near the crash site to recover the remains and to study what had caused the accident. Sunday's flight was Ramon's 47th since graduating the pilot's course in June.
"This is a very difficult day for the IAF, especially considering that this is the second time the Ramon family has been struck by a tragedy," said Brig.-Gen. Yohanan Locker, deputy commander of the air force. "The Ramon family lost Ilan, the first Israeli astronaut, and his son Assaf - both exemplary officers and role models for many people in Israel."
The IAF scrambled several helicopters as well as teams from its Unit 669 heliborne medevac extraction force to the scene of the crash, which took almost an hour to locate. Magen David Adom and Israel Police teams also participated in the initial searches, when there was still hope that Ramon had ejected from the plane.
Based on preliminary findings, Ramon did not have time to report any failure and likely was also unable to eject. However, an eyewitness cited on Channel 10 said that a parachute was discovered among the debris, indicating that he may have tried to eject. The fall to the ground from 19,000 feet likely took a matter of seconds. Ramon had participated in a number of training exercises simulating such conditions.
The last fatal F-16 accident in the air force was in March 2000, when pilot Maj. Yonatan Begin, 30 - the grandson of former prime minister Menachem Begin and son of Minister-without-Portfolio Bennie Begin - and his navigator, Lt. Lior Harari, 23, crashed in the Mediterranean Sea, about 20 km. east of Atlit, at the end of a training mission.
Netanyahu issued a statement on Sunday evening saying the entire nation was "draped in sorrow over the death of Assaf, who fell from the skies, like his father Ilan, of blessed memory.
"This is a horrible tragedy for Rona and the entire Ramon family. It is a tragedy for the people of Israel. I was moved when Ilan, the youngest of the pilots who destroyed the death generator in Iraq, took with him into space a reminder of the destruction of the Holocaust," the prime minister said, referring to a tiny Torah that survived Bergen-Belsen that Ilan Ramon took with him on the ill-fated Columbia mission, and to the fact that in 1981, he took part in the bombing of Iraq's unfinished Osirak nuclear reactor.
"I was again moved deeply when Assaf continued in the path of his father and completed the pilot's course with distinction. The loss of one of these wonderful people, father and son, is a tragedy by itself. The loss of both brings with it unbearable pain. There is no consolation for Rona and the Ramon family, no consolation for the people of Israel. There are only tears."
President Shimon Peres had this to say:
"What happened today is more than a tragedy. In our worst nightmares we could never had imagined such a heart-breaking accident," Peres said in a statement.
He went on to praise both Assaf's father and Assaf himself.
"I knew them both, father and son - Ilan and Assaf, fighters, scholars, courageous men, dreamers… As a family they are a symbol for all that is great in Jewish history, all that is courageous in the Jewish state," the president said.
Herb Keinon and jpost.com staff contributed to this report.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804563180&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Call Obama's bluff
Confronting Obama menace critical for Israel’s future, Bibi's real test
Moshe Dan
YNET News
President Barack Hussein Obama has threatened dire consequences if Israel refuses his demands to prevent Jews from building in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.
His plan is yet another disastrous form of Israeli unilateral withdrawal.
This unprecedented challenge to Israel's sovereignty and strategic needs must be met firmly. At stake are not only simple human needs, but the integrity of the State of Israel and a 60-year old alliance.
Israel is an American ally, not an enemy; a partner in the struggle against terrorism, not a perpetrator. Did Obama forget? Is he confused, or didn't he ever know?
Whose side is he on?
Confronting the Obama menace is difficult, but essential; it's critical for Israel's future.
If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu capitulates, he will undermine Israel's independence and set a dangerous precedent: not if Israel's national and strategic interests will be sacrificed, but when.
That will simply invite even more pressure for Israel to surrender to sworn enemies.
Paradoxically, it's not weakness and appeasement that have deterred Israel's opponents, but a strong defense based on security needs and realistic assessments of consequences.
An imposed dictated "solution" that does not resolve core issues and is unacceptable to those dedicated to violence has never succeeded - ever - without their total and complete destruction.
Policy of defeatism
PM Netanyahu did not accept his job reluctantly; he campaigned for it. He asked Israelis to vote for him and his party because he promised to represent their interests. He formed a coalition that reflects a consensus. He formulated a policy based on the expectations of his supporters.
If he now feels that he cannot fulfill his promises and those expectations, if he cannot stand up to Obama's onslaught, he should retire gracefully and turn over the leadership of the country to someone who can.
Cast in the unenviable role of challenging Obama's policies, Netanyahu must decide between expediency, to satisfy Obama and hope that things will improve, and resolute determination to protect Israel's national interests.
No stranger to this dilemma, Netanyahu understands the limitations and excesses of power. These aren't the choices he'd like, but it's the job he wanted, and for which he was elected.
Now he's on the line, not only for himself, but for all of us. It's what every politician lives for, and dreads. It's the mark of greatness, or mediocrity.
Before making any decisions, Netanyahu must ascertain what will happen when Obama's plan doesn't work out, especially when Hamas and more radical elements take over.
Agreeing to stop Jews from building without any concessions from Palestinians gives away Israel's most valuable asset without gaining a single benefit.
And each surrender makes the next stage of negotiations more difficult. This is a policy of defeatism and despair, not of hope.
Only by standing up to Obama will Netanyahu prove himself equal to the position to which he was elected.
It's show time! Come on, Bibi. Make us proud.
The author, a former assistant professor of History, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem
Dilemma of Palestinian settlement builders -example of BBC bias
Heather Sharp
BBC News, Maale Adumim
"I feel like a slave," says 21-year-old Palestinian Musanna Khalil Mohammed Rabbaye.
"But I have no alternative," he says, as he waits among a group of sun-beaten men in dusty work boots outside the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim. The phrase comes up again and again as the labourers try to explain why they spend their days hammering and shovelling to help build the Jewish settlements eating into the land they want for a future state of Palestine.
Mr Rabbaye wants to be a journalist and is trying to fund his studies.
Jaffar Khalil Kawazba, 24, says he is supporting his 10 brothers and sisters as his father is too ill to work. Fahd Sayara, 40, is trying to fund treatment for his disabled child.
Hossam Hussein, labourer in Maale Adumim
It's a very bad feeling - you can see how we're losing our land, bit by bit
Hossam Hussein
Palestinian labourer
"I'm not the only one. My whole village works in the settlements," says Mr Rabbaye.
"Everything, all the settlements - even most of the Wall - was built by Palestinians," he says, referring to the separation barrier, detested by the Palestinian population, that Israel is building in and around the West Bank.
The settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.
The Palestinian Authority is refusing to negotiate unless Israel heeds US pressure to stop all construction in the settlements.
Israel says it wants to keep building, at the very least to provide homes for the "natural growth" of the 450,000-strong Jewish settler population in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Job shortage
But with about 30% of West Bank Palestinians out of work, and average earnings in the territory little more than half Israel's minimum wage, labouring in the settlements has its appeal for Palestinians.
Some 12,000 Palestinian construction workers get Israeli permits to work in the settlements each year.
Salesman Meir Levi, Maale Adumim
Mr Levi says prices have gone up amid international pressure for a freeze
"We do not condone it, we would like them to stop," says Bassam Khoury, the Palestinian Authority's Economy Minister.
"But as a human being I cannot tell them 'Go hungry' at a time when I am not able to provide them with jobs," he says.
The West Bank economy is heavily reliant on aid, long crippled by checkpoints, roadblocks and other restrictions which Israel says are for its citizens' security.
Mr Khoury says these are largely designed to protect the settlements.
"The first thing we need to do is to stop settlements, stopping settlements will break the shackles the Israelis are putting on the Palestinian economy and as a result we will jumpstart the Palestinian economy and then we can find jobs for those people," he explains.
But the Israelis, who have eased several key checkpoints in recent months as part of a plan to boost what they term "economic peace", accuse the Palestinians of failing to co-operate and attract investment.
And some of the Palestinian workers blame their own leaders. Mr Rabbaye says simply: "Our president should give us jobs."
'Very low wages
The Palestinian workers "will be the first to be hurt" if construction stops, says Israeli salesman Meir Levi, as he leafs through brightly-coloured plans of five-room family villas.
No new projects are being approved, he says, and prices have already gone up 10-15% in the past three months as buyers forecast a squeeze on supply.
Jaffar Khalil Kawazba, Palestinian worker in Maale Adumim
Mr Kawazba says he is supporting 10 siblings with his wages
Mr Levi has worked in construction for about two decades and remembers the days when tens of thousands of workers came from the Gaza Strip and West Bank to build homes right across Israel.
"The salary was very good, they used to build their houses, have cars, make very good progress for their families," he said.
But since the intifada that began in 2000 brought a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, the number of workers allowed into Israel has plummeted, along with the wages they are paid.
"Now the price is very low," he says. "They get paid 150 shekels a day, but I remember in the 1990s I used to pay 200 shekels for a very simple worker".
Several of the labourers I interviewed said they were paid even less - 100 or 110 shekels ($26 or $29) per day - below the Israeli minimum wage of 150 shekels ($40).
Salwa Alenat of Israeli workers' rights organisation Kav LaOved
Ms Alenat is keen to explain to the workers their legal rights
Israeli law has applied to Palestinians working in the settlements since a 2007 Supreme Court decision.
Salwa Alenat, an Israeli-Arab labour activist with the organisation Kav LaOved, says paying less than the minimum wage is illegal - despite the fact that workers are in many cases hired through a chain of subcontractors, sometimes West Bank-based Palestinian companies.
"There is no enforcement. It's like a jungle… the employer can pay whatever he wants, the subcontractor can get whatever he wants, and the workers lose," says Ms Alenat.
Palestinian labourer Musanna Khalil Mohammed Rabbaye
We should go on strike
Musanna Khalil Mohammed Rabbaye
Palestinian labourer
The Israeli authorities say Palestinians have redress through the courts, and that few complaints have been lodged.
But Ms Alenat says they fear losing their jobs and also their work permits, which are often obtained through the contractors.
So the workers keep coming, and the settlements keep growing - though many people believe Maale Adumim will end up in Israel under an eventual peace deal.
"It's hard to describe the feeling, it's a very bad feeling - you can see how we're losing our land, bit by bit," says Hossam Hussein, 26, as he mixes mortar to put the finishing touches to a home with sweeping views from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea hills.
All the workers I spoke to said they wanted a settlement freeze, even if it meant losing their jobs, although none seemed to have a clear alternative plan.
But most did not believe it would happen.
"We should go on strike," said Mr Rabbaye.
But an older labourer quickly interjected: "And then what are you going to live on?"
Comment: I posted this story to once again point out the bias in the story and what we deal with every day. First, the workers are always portrayed as the victim-this story is riddled with such descriptors. Second, notice they have work provided by Israel -no mention of the fact that their own leadership has not seen fit in 60 years to develop any form of infra-structure, has not taken seriously the notion of creating a functioning economy. Now before you critics jump on this statement, do your homework. No, it is not Israel's fault they have not created such an environment-fact is Israel has created economic free zones only to be attacked and murdered. Tell my readers the truth about how the "construction business" really works here-expose the sub-contractors who take advantage of and use their own people to line their own pockets. Perhaps, if the BBC would return to investigative journalism and not begin with a preconceived notion the truth might finally be told. However, we know this is not likely to happen as their reporters then would be barred from access-why not tell the world how thissystem works while you are at it BBC.
BBC News, Maale Adumim
"I feel like a slave," says 21-year-old Palestinian Musanna Khalil Mohammed Rabbaye.
"But I have no alternative," he says, as he waits among a group of sun-beaten men in dusty work boots outside the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim. The phrase comes up again and again as the labourers try to explain why they spend their days hammering and shovelling to help build the Jewish settlements eating into the land they want for a future state of Palestine.
Mr Rabbaye wants to be a journalist and is trying to fund his studies.
Jaffar Khalil Kawazba, 24, says he is supporting his 10 brothers and sisters as his father is too ill to work. Fahd Sayara, 40, is trying to fund treatment for his disabled child.
Hossam Hussein, labourer in Maale Adumim
It's a very bad feeling - you can see how we're losing our land, bit by bit
Hossam Hussein
Palestinian labourer
"I'm not the only one. My whole village works in the settlements," says Mr Rabbaye.
"Everything, all the settlements - even most of the Wall - was built by Palestinians," he says, referring to the separation barrier, detested by the Palestinian population, that Israel is building in and around the West Bank.
The settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.
The Palestinian Authority is refusing to negotiate unless Israel heeds US pressure to stop all construction in the settlements.
Israel says it wants to keep building, at the very least to provide homes for the "natural growth" of the 450,000-strong Jewish settler population in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Job shortage
But with about 30% of West Bank Palestinians out of work, and average earnings in the territory little more than half Israel's minimum wage, labouring in the settlements has its appeal for Palestinians.
Some 12,000 Palestinian construction workers get Israeli permits to work in the settlements each year.
Salesman Meir Levi, Maale Adumim
Mr Levi says prices have gone up amid international pressure for a freeze
"We do not condone it, we would like them to stop," says Bassam Khoury, the Palestinian Authority's Economy Minister.
"But as a human being I cannot tell them 'Go hungry' at a time when I am not able to provide them with jobs," he says.
The West Bank economy is heavily reliant on aid, long crippled by checkpoints, roadblocks and other restrictions which Israel says are for its citizens' security.
Mr Khoury says these are largely designed to protect the settlements.
"The first thing we need to do is to stop settlements, stopping settlements will break the shackles the Israelis are putting on the Palestinian economy and as a result we will jumpstart the Palestinian economy and then we can find jobs for those people," he explains.
But the Israelis, who have eased several key checkpoints in recent months as part of a plan to boost what they term "economic peace", accuse the Palestinians of failing to co-operate and attract investment.
And some of the Palestinian workers blame their own leaders. Mr Rabbaye says simply: "Our president should give us jobs."
'Very low wages
The Palestinian workers "will be the first to be hurt" if construction stops, says Israeli salesman Meir Levi, as he leafs through brightly-coloured plans of five-room family villas.
No new projects are being approved, he says, and prices have already gone up 10-15% in the past three months as buyers forecast a squeeze on supply.
Jaffar Khalil Kawazba, Palestinian worker in Maale Adumim
Mr Kawazba says he is supporting 10 siblings with his wages
Mr Levi has worked in construction for about two decades and remembers the days when tens of thousands of workers came from the Gaza Strip and West Bank to build homes right across Israel.
"The salary was very good, they used to build their houses, have cars, make very good progress for their families," he said.
But since the intifada that began in 2000 brought a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, the number of workers allowed into Israel has plummeted, along with the wages they are paid.
"Now the price is very low," he says. "They get paid 150 shekels a day, but I remember in the 1990s I used to pay 200 shekels for a very simple worker".
Several of the labourers I interviewed said they were paid even less - 100 or 110 shekels ($26 or $29) per day - below the Israeli minimum wage of 150 shekels ($40).
Salwa Alenat of Israeli workers' rights organisation Kav LaOved
Ms Alenat is keen to explain to the workers their legal rights
Israeli law has applied to Palestinians working in the settlements since a 2007 Supreme Court decision.
Salwa Alenat, an Israeli-Arab labour activist with the organisation Kav LaOved, says paying less than the minimum wage is illegal - despite the fact that workers are in many cases hired through a chain of subcontractors, sometimes West Bank-based Palestinian companies.
"There is no enforcement. It's like a jungle… the employer can pay whatever he wants, the subcontractor can get whatever he wants, and the workers lose," says Ms Alenat.
Palestinian labourer Musanna Khalil Mohammed Rabbaye
We should go on strike
Musanna Khalil Mohammed Rabbaye
Palestinian labourer
The Israeli authorities say Palestinians have redress through the courts, and that few complaints have been lodged.
But Ms Alenat says they fear losing their jobs and also their work permits, which are often obtained through the contractors.
So the workers keep coming, and the settlements keep growing - though many people believe Maale Adumim will end up in Israel under an eventual peace deal.
"It's hard to describe the feeling, it's a very bad feeling - you can see how we're losing our land, bit by bit," says Hossam Hussein, 26, as he mixes mortar to put the finishing touches to a home with sweeping views from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea hills.
All the workers I spoke to said they wanted a settlement freeze, even if it meant losing their jobs, although none seemed to have a clear alternative plan.
But most did not believe it would happen.
"We should go on strike," said Mr Rabbaye.
But an older labourer quickly interjected: "And then what are you going to live on?"
Comment: I posted this story to once again point out the bias in the story and what we deal with every day. First, the workers are always portrayed as the victim-this story is riddled with such descriptors. Second, notice they have work provided by Israel -no mention of the fact that their own leadership has not seen fit in 60 years to develop any form of infra-structure, has not taken seriously the notion of creating a functioning economy. Now before you critics jump on this statement, do your homework. No, it is not Israel's fault they have not created such an environment-fact is Israel has created economic free zones only to be attacked and murdered. Tell my readers the truth about how the "construction business" really works here-expose the sub-contractors who take advantage of and use their own people to line their own pockets. Perhaps, if the BBC would return to investigative journalism and not begin with a preconceived notion the truth might finally be told. However, we know this is not likely to happen as their reporters then would be barred from access-why not tell the world how thissystem works while you are at it BBC.
Things to keep in mind
Hanoch Daum
YNET News
Peace Now members must keep in mind where they live. It’s ok to object to the settlements; this is a completely acceptable opinion. However, the manner in which they produce dramas over wholly legitimate neighborhoods, and mostly the manner in which they portray Israel in the world as an illegal outpost machine, is quite annoying.
Minister Hershkowitz told me this week that he intends to approach media outlets and demand that they change their terminology: “Outposts whose permits have not yet been finalized” sounds more logical than “illegal outposts.” After all, we are not dealing with illicit drugs or illegal acts. We are talking about the homes of law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes and serve in combat units, and who got a mortgage from the State, but the official registration of their property – as is the case in countless locations in Israel – has not yet been sorted out.
Peace Now members feel that they do holy work through the snitching unit they deploy across Judea and Samaria. I suggest that they think again.
Let’s be wise
Meanwhile, the settlers must keep in mind that they are not the only ones living in this world. They also must keep in mind that at the end of the day, a rightist prime minister is better for them than any other prime minister (who will not only freeze settlement construction, but also unilaterally withdraw without any reason.)
The settlers must enter the current struggle with a clear insight whereby the attitude of all or nothing won’t help. They need to make, by themselves, the distinction between neighborhoods located in the settlement blocs and remote hills that mostly feature some huts and a goat.
The settlers also have to understand the difference between homes located on State-owned lands that have not yet been approved and homes located on Palestinian land. With all due respect to the Greater Israel vision, robbery is still a severe offence, which is forbidden in respect to non-Jews as well.
Some of what we call outposts are communities just like any other, located in areas where they will stay in Israel’s hands even according to the Geneva Initiative. The settlers must fight for the rights of these communities. There is no reason to evacuate communities just for the hell of it, because of Obama.
But where is the sensitivity, for heaven’s sake? Where is the understanding that there is a dance here that needs to be danced, and that some concessions have to be made? Let’s be wise and give away a little, in order to salvage much more.
Comment: Clarity is crucial. These individuals are Israeli citizens living in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria.
YNET News
Peace Now members must keep in mind where they live. It’s ok to object to the settlements; this is a completely acceptable opinion. However, the manner in which they produce dramas over wholly legitimate neighborhoods, and mostly the manner in which they portray Israel in the world as an illegal outpost machine, is quite annoying.
Minister Hershkowitz told me this week that he intends to approach media outlets and demand that they change their terminology: “Outposts whose permits have not yet been finalized” sounds more logical than “illegal outposts.” After all, we are not dealing with illicit drugs or illegal acts. We are talking about the homes of law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes and serve in combat units, and who got a mortgage from the State, but the official registration of their property – as is the case in countless locations in Israel – has not yet been sorted out.
Peace Now members feel that they do holy work through the snitching unit they deploy across Judea and Samaria. I suggest that they think again.
Let’s be wise
Meanwhile, the settlers must keep in mind that they are not the only ones living in this world. They also must keep in mind that at the end of the day, a rightist prime minister is better for them than any other prime minister (who will not only freeze settlement construction, but also unilaterally withdraw without any reason.)
The settlers must enter the current struggle with a clear insight whereby the attitude of all or nothing won’t help. They need to make, by themselves, the distinction between neighborhoods located in the settlement blocs and remote hills that mostly feature some huts and a goat.
The settlers also have to understand the difference between homes located on State-owned lands that have not yet been approved and homes located on Palestinian land. With all due respect to the Greater Israel vision, robbery is still a severe offence, which is forbidden in respect to non-Jews as well.
Some of what we call outposts are communities just like any other, located in areas where they will stay in Israel’s hands even according to the Geneva Initiative. The settlers must fight for the rights of these communities. There is no reason to evacuate communities just for the hell of it, because of Obama.
But where is the sensitivity, for heaven’s sake? Where is the understanding that there is a dance here that needs to be danced, and that some concessions have to be made? Let’s be wise and give away a little, in order to salvage much more.
Comment: Clarity is crucial. These individuals are Israeli citizens living in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria.
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