The recent Israeli Air Force strike on a Hamas police coastguard post illustrated the dual nature of the Palestinian security force operatives,

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

Picture of the Hamas police coast guardsman killed in the Israeli Air Force attack, as it appeared on the website of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military-terrorist wing. The inscription at the bottom reads, "Go in peace, hero" (Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades website, November 14, 2011). His beret bears the insignia of Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority security forces or the coast guard.

General Information

1. On November 14, 2011, in response to the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory the previous day, the Israeli Air Force attacked a Hamas coast guard police post in the northern part of Gaza City, as reported by the Palestinian media. The attack killed Muhammed Zaher al-Kilani, a coast guardsman, and wounded four other Palestinians (Wafa News Agency, November 14, 2011). 2. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military-terrorist wing, issued an official statement of the death of one of their operatives (Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades website, November 14, 2011). Ismail Haniya, head of the de-facto Hamas administration, who attended al-Kilani's funeral, accused Israel of violating the lull in the fighting and said that there was no official lull agreement with Israel, only the Palestinian commitment to the Egyptians (BBC, November 14, 2011).

Brigades website, date, 2011
The final section of the announcement, according to which Muhammad al-Kilani was killed in a strike on the police coast guard post in the Al-Sudaniya district, to the northwest of Gaza City.

Brigades website, date, 2011
The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades flyer announcing the death of the "jihad fighter [al-mujahid]" Muhammad Kilani, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operative (Brigades website, date, 2011)

PALDF website
Fathi Hamad (extreme left), interior minister of the de-facto Hamas administration,
at Ahmed al-Kilani's funeral (PALDF website)

Significance

3. Hamas' police coastguard apparatus was established after Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Many of its operatives also belong to the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and have military-terrorist duties which bear no relation to the naval policing functions. In addition, the coastguard has been involved in operational activities against the IDF unrelated to its stated naval policing functions. Operatives belonging to the naval police guard and Hamas' other security services often have double identities, manifesting the extensive cooperation between them and Hamas' military-terrorist wing.

4. The police coastguard apparatus, in whose post an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operative was recently killed, has been involved in operational activities against the IDF not related to its stated functions, for example: fighting the IDF during operations carried out in the Gaza Strip, placing IEDs, anti-aircraft fire at Israeli Air Force planes, collecting intelligence, providing logistic support for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, ambushing IDF forces, etc. In addition, it formerly also had a suicide bomber unit and was equipped with advanced IEDs, RPGs and mortars1.

5. One of the greatest failures of the Goldstone Report was that it disregarded the double identities of the operatives of the Hamas police and its other security forces. The Report claimed that the police and the other internal security forces (with the exception of the national security apparatus) were civilian in nature. One of the consequences was that the Report claimed that the 248 police cadets killed in Operation Cast Lead were entirely civilian.2 On that basis the Report based its thesis (which Judge Goldstone has since recanted)3 that Israel deliberately attacked the civilian population in the Gaza Strip and was thus guilty of so-called "war crimes" against Palestinian civilians.

6. However, reliable intelligence information, which included the March 2010 Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center response to the Goldstone Report, refuted the Report's thesis. The information proved that a large number Hamas policemen and other internal security forces' operatives also concurrently served in its military-terrorist wing (the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades). As part of their double duties, the operatives were involved in ongoing fighting against the IDF before, during and after Operation Cast Lead. Their names and pictures appeared on memorial posters which explicitly stated that they served in both the security forces and the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.



1 For further information see the March 2010 bulletin "Hamas and the Terrorist Threat from the Gaza Strip: The Main Findings of the Goldstone Report Versus the Factual Findings," at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/g_report_e1.pdf, Page 333, "The Police and Other Internal Security Services Join Hamas’ Military-Terrorist Wing."

2 For further information see the March 2010 response to the Goldstone Report, Part Three Section II.

"That Unity Government"

Arlene Kushner

Various sources -- which differ in some particulars -- seem to concur that there has been a breakthrough with regard to a Fatah-Hamas unity government. After leaders of the two parties meet on Thursday, it is said the agreement will be announced. Reportedly the new government and prime minister will be located in Gaza -- with the prime minister likely coming from Gaza, while the president and parliament will operate out of Ramallah. Elections are slated for May, and Islamic Jihad may participate. Both PA prime minister Salam Fayyad and Ismail Haniyeh, who is prime minister for Hamas, may bow out.

According to Arutz Sheva, which puts it that, Abbas is "going for broke" (gambling all on this move), the unity government will be based on "resistance," a Palestinian Authority state based on the temporary 1949 Armistice Lines and non-recognition of Israel.

Let's see how the world handles this. Yet another issue of major importance to Israel is that of Egypt, which is now again undergoing major street clashes as crowds demonstrate against the ruling military regime. The protests began in Cairo's Tahrir Square but have spread to other places, such as Alexandria.

Essentially, what we are looking at is a battle between the military and Islamic forces for control of the country -- starting with the drafting of a new constitution. Needless to say, which element controls the country will affect Israel's relationship with Egypt at the most basic levels.

Hillel Frisch of the BESA Center says that with regard to this constitution, "In essence, Egypt's soul and identity is at stake." See his cogent explanation of the situation here:

http://www.biu.ac.il/Besa/perspectives155.html

~~~~~~~~~~

When push comes to shove, the military does not treat demonstrators with kid gloves: In the latest clashes two demonstrators were killed and 766 reported injured. Nor will the military voluntarily relinquish control: At present emergency laws are still in place.

Staggered elections are due to begin on November 28, but may be delayed because of the violence. I've read some reports suggesting the possibility of civil war, or "major civil strife," as Frisch puts it.

Another related issue is the question of what is going on in the Sinai. See a JINSA analysis on this:

http://www.jinsa.org/publications/analysis/israel/will-sinai-test-israeli-egyptian-peace

~~~~~~~~~~

Interestingly, in spite of the unrest, the Israel ambassador to Egypt has returned to Cairo, following the September attack on the Israeli Embassy when all staff left the country. But this is Yitzhak Levanon, who, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, is on the cusp of retirement and has gone to Egypt (reportedly via a Turkish airlines flight) to conduct some farewell meetings before he departs.

The new ambassador, Yaakov Amitai, is scheduled to present his credentials in Cairo in December. The Embassy will not be fully staffed until all security arrangements are in place, and this may take somewhat longer.

~~~~~~~~~~

You may encounter reports that Israel is about to enact laws that are "anti-democratic." Do not believe it, even for a second. The laws in question, which have passed a Ministerial Committee on Legislation, concern limiting foreign donations to Israeli NGOs (non-governmental organizations). The legislation, which is supported by the prime minister, still must jump through a number of hoops, such as Knesset readings, before becoming law.

I believe Israel is the only democracy to permit the sort of intervention by foreign governments that currently goes on -- infusions of cash by those governments to support the agendas they wish to advance (but which do not represent the will of the Israeli electorate). The more significant of the two bills has been proposed by two Likud MKs, Ophir Akunis and Tzipi Hotovely and Yisrael Beitenu faction Chair Robert Ilatov. It would ban foreign governments from contributing over 20,000 NIS (shekels) -- at current rates, about $5,400 -- to political NGOs, defined as "organizations seeking to influence the diplomatic or defense agenda of the State of Israel."

~~~~~~~~~~

NGO-Monitor has prepared background information on the situation, to answer questions and allay misunderstandings:

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/ngos_in_israel_background_to_the_debate_and_faqs

"While the level of European and other foreign government funding for Israeli political advocacy NGOs is very large, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive accounting because, for many years, this funding was mostly done in secret. In addition, many Israeli non-profits, in violation of Israeli law, do not submit annual reports to the Registrar of Non-Profits (Rasham Amutot). However, as more information becomes available, particularly after the NGO Transparency Law (February 2011), additional and verifiable information will become available.

"As of November 2011, NGO Monitor’s research reports list 23 Israeli political advocacy NGOs funded by foreign governments, all of which actively oppose, in varying degrees, the policies of the democratically elected government of Israel. A number of powerful groups receive more than 70% of their annual donations from foreign governments. (Emphasis in the original)
"Although most of the foreign government funding is formally designated for 'educating the Israeli public' and 'changing public opinion' (both in violation of the norms on non-interference in other democracies), these Israeli NGOs are very active externally, in the delegitmization and political warfare against Israel. This campaign was crystallized at the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, where 1,500 NGOs adopted a document and plan of action calling for the 'total isolation of Israel.' To achieve this goal, NGOs frequently label Israel an 'apartheid' state, make false allegations of 'war crimes,' promote anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions), and bring lawfare cases against Israeli officials, among other tactics."

~~~~~~~~~~

NGO-Monitor has also provided a list of those Israeli NGOs that receive foreign government donations, either directly or indirectly:

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/foreign_government_funding_for_israeli_political_ngos_

You will note that every single one of these organizations is left wing. There is, by way of example, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which receives 53% of its funds from foreign governments.

As NGO-Monitor notes: "NGOs are meant to represent civil society, not the interests of foreign governments..." Something is very amiss.

~~~~~~~~~~

Giving a CNN interview today, Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared that Iran will be "unstoppable" in a year. Time, he said, is running out. Should Iran become a nuclear nation, it would result in nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey seeking nuclear arms, thus starting a “countdown” to terrorists getting nuclear materials.

~~~~~~~~~~

Then see this by Tzachi Hanegbi, former head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who says, "Accepting a nuclear Iran would cause much more danger to Israel than the anticipated damage from any action designed to harm nuclear program."

Hanegbi presents a series of indisputable facts:

"Today no one disputes the fact that Iran has acquired the necessary know-how to enrich uranium for an atomic bomb.

"There is also no doubt that Iran has developed the ability to launch long-range missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.

"Even the biggest skeptics concede that if the moves designed to stop Iran fail, it will be able to fire missiles with nuclear warheads at any target in the Middle East and beyond in just a few years.

"The second fact concerns the dangers of Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel...From the dismal failure of the international community’s campaign against the nuclearization of Iran, and its refusal to take significant steps beyond economic sanctions, one can only conclude that the threat cannot be contained by the world.

"...for Israel, it is a very serious development. The leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have made it publicly clear that they would not leave Iran alone in the 'nuclear club.'

"The nuclear arms race in the Middle East will leave Israel under a nuclear threat growing with time, dictating limits and restraints too difficult to deal with as we face terrorist threats and provocations from other countries.

"In fact, it will leave Israel with no qualitative edge against its neighbors. To that, we should add other possible dangers: nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extreme terrorist groups...

"...The third fact that everyone should face directly, without self-delusion, is the absolute failure of diplomatic attempts to divert Iran from progressing toward acquiring a nuclear weapon...

"An analysis of reasons for this failure is not important now...

"The important thing is the bottom line: In the unequal race between the stammering international community and a determined fanatical state, the Iranian runner will be the first to cut the tape at the finish line..."

~~~~~~~~~~

He then looks at the Israeli dilemma regarding what to do. Conceding that there are issues meant only for discussion behind closed doors and far too sensitive to be analyzed in an article, he goes on to say,

"All I would allow myself to say is that I totally reject the apocalyptic scenarios published in recent days. To the best of my knowledge, based on constant dealings with the Iranian issue in the most intimate possible way over seven consecutive years, I think that coming to terms with a nuclear Iran would cause much more danger and harm to Israel than the anticipated damage from any action designed to harm Iran’s nuclear program.

"Because of my familiarity with the political scene in the US, I believe that the warnings about a 'destruction of relations with the United States' have no basis. The leader of the US understands well that it has no right to undermine Israel’s right of self-defense against a strategic threat. This is true of the Obama administration as well as of any other administration, if there is a new one, following the US election in November 2012.

"I agree with those who recommend waiting for a US decision on whether to raise its hands and concede defeat in the wake of continued Iranian defiance, or to raise up a US Air Force attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

"However, the waiting period should be limited..."

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=245160

~~~~~~~~~~

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.


See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner@netvision.net.il

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Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad in Philippines Asks Mujahideen Worldwide For Help Waging Jihad; Swears Allegiance To Al-Qaeda

Just read a bit of this to understand the lies and the lengths to which the global enemy will go to enroll
terrorists. In brief, the goal of the radicalists is the destruction of the West and the creation of a worldwide
caliphate with sharia law for all. Google 'caliphate' and 'sharia' and learn what we are facing.

In the Catholic Philippines, the Abu Sayyeff terrorists want to their own Islamic state rather than integration.
Do we believe that the U.S, is doing to the Muslims there what it is being accused of? ( Having a caretaker from
the Philippines since my accident I have had firsthand reports about the radicalist threat to her country.)

This is the radicalist pattern: the plan is to immigrate into a Western country, demand the right to observe their own
religion (that would be fine), but to gradually establish their customs and demand that others yield to their
needs.

This happened in Hamtramck, Michigan where Muslims demanded the right to have prayers
announced 5 times daily from their mosque - from 6 a.m. to 10.p.m. - with a microphone. Although non-
Muslims objected, they were overruled. Google that city (Muslim prayer) and also Islamberg, N.Y. to understand what
is happening right in the U.S.

CG Special Dispatch No. 4295—Jihad & Terrorism Threat Monitor
Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad in Philippines Asks Mujahideen Worldwide For Help Waging Jihad; Swears Allegiance To Al-Qaeda

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM.)

Note to media and government: For a full copy of this report, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to media@memri.org. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.

4295a.jpg

Recently, two videos by the Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad in the Philippines group were posted on the Shumoukh Al-Islam jihadi forum. In the first, three minutes in length and posted November 7, 2011, a masked man, "Abu Jihad Al-Luzuni," apparently a Filipino, accused the U.S. of occupying the Philippines, and of torturing, scattering, and killing Muslims. He went on to swear allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri and to other Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups.

In the second, posted November 8, "Abu 'Abdallah Al-Faris Al-Mulatham" ("Abu 'Abdallah the Masked Knight") called on the mujahideen worldwide to rush to the aid of their Muslim brothers in the Philippines, who he claims are being killed and robbed by the American occupiers, and to help the mujahideen there with money, reinforcements, knowledge, and training. Abu 'Abdallah also swore allegiance to jihadi chiefs worldwide, first and foremost to Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad 'Omar and to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri. The video was 11 minutes long and was produced by Al-Yarmouk Media.

To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5830.htm.

To view this report, you must be a paying member of the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project (JTTM). For membership information, send an email to jttmsubs@memri.org with "Membership" in the subject line.



Special Dispatch No. 4994—Tunisia/Palestinians/Hamas/Inter-Arab Relations
Hamadi Al-Jabali, Tunisian PM Candidate and Secretary-General of Al-Nahda Party: The Sixth Caliphate Is Coming

3203a.JPG

Tunisian prime ministerial candidate Hamadi Al-Jabali, who is secretary-general of Tunisia's Islamist Al-Nahda Party, is thought likely to become the country's first democratically elected premier. On November 13, 2011, he spoke at a rally in the coastal city of Sousse, where he said, "Brothers, you are witnessing a divine, historic moment: a new era in civilization, Allah willing, the sixth caliphate!"

Also speaking at the rally was Palestinian Legislative Council member from Hamas Houda Naim; in her speech, she praised the Tunisian people's revolution, and expressed hope that the liberation of Tunisia would lead to the liberation of Palestine. According to a report, this is the first time "in known memory" that a member of Hamas has addressed the Tunisian public.

The following are excerpts from Al-Jabali's address at the rally; the clip was posted on the Internet on November 13, 2011:

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3203.htm.

3203b.JPG

To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5829.htm.



Special Dispatch No. 4293—Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor/South Asia Studies Project/Afghanistan/U.S. and the Arab & Muslim World/Taliban
New Taliban Video Urges Muslim Youth To Join the Fidayeen – i.e. Suicide Bombers – And Says: 'A Handful of Mujahideen Fighters Have Forced American-Led Occupation Forces To Flee Afghanistan'

Note to media and government: For a full copy of this report, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to media@memri.org. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.

sd_4293_1.jpg

A Pashtu-language video released by the Taliban on a jihadist internet forum urges Muslim youth to join the Taliban suicide bombers and mujahideen in order to drown the enemy in Afghanistan.

A narrator in the background, who dominates more than half of the video, relates the story of the invasion of Afghanistan by various aggressors, including the Soviet Union and the U.S.-led NATO forces. The video shows how during these invasions, a small group of brave Afghans rose up, armed themselves, and inflicted a humiliating defeat on the invaders.

To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5828.htm.

To view this report, you must be a paying member of the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project (JTTM). For membership information, send an email to jttmsubs@memri.org with "Membership" in the subject line.



Special Dispatch No. 4292—Pakistan/South Asia Studies Project
Allegations That Pakistani Politician Imran Khan's Rise Supported by ISI; Pakistani Writer: Khan 'May Finally Be More Like Sayyed Qutb' Whose Ideas Are Espoused By Al-Qaeda

4292a.jpg
Imran Khan addresses a hugely successful rally in Lahore on October 30 (Image courtesy: Roznama Jang, October 31, 2011)

Following Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's hugely successful October 30, 2011 political rally, there has been a series of reports in the Pakistani media examining the personal life and beliefs of Khan and the political challenges he faces.

Khan held his rally in Lahore, the capital of the most influential Pakistani province of Punjab, where the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party is in power.

The PML-N politicians, who fear a political threat from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, have criticized the Pakistani military and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for their support of Khan. Neutral observers in Pakistan believe that Khan's PTI, which so far has been largely a one-man party, is not capable of holding successful political rallies on this scale without some support from the Pakistani intelligence apparatus.

To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5827.htm.

Who’s destroying antiquities?

David M. Weinberg

Jews from around the world will celebrate their ancient heritage in Hebron this weekend, when the Torah portion known as "Chaye Sarah" is read in synagogues. The portion recounts Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpela (Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hebron as a family burial ground. According to the Bible, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives were buried in the cave. But now that the Palestinian Authority has been admitted to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a “member state,” the Palestinian Authority plans to ask the organization to declare several sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the Cave of Machpela, as international heritage sites belonging to Palestine, not Israel.

Furthermore, the authority plans to sue Israel for “stealing Palestinian antiquities.”

“We will take Israel to court for systematically destroying and forging Arab and Islamic culture in Jerusalem,” said Hatem Abdel Qader, former Palestinian Authority Jerusalem affairs minister, after the UNESCO vote.

Palestinian Authority Tourism Minister Khuloud Daibes alleges that Israel’s renovations of Jerusalem’s Old City walls and its intention to replace the crumbling Mughrabi Bridge at the southern entrance to the Temple Mount are hostile attempts to “change the Islamic and Arabic character of the city.”

If this weren’t so funny, it would be outrageous. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Israel minted the international gold standard for unimpeded religious worship in Jerusalem, and for painstaking preservation of Muslim and Christian holy sites and archaeological sites across Israel. In civilized and professional circles, Israel is recognized as having contributed enormously to the excavation, study and preservation of Holy Land historical sites and relics.

By contrast, there is no Arab or Islamic country in the Middle East where Christians or Jews can truly freely operate religious institutions. Under Palestinian Authority and Hamas rule, Christians in the West Bank and Gaza have been hounded, terrorized and driven out. Christian Bethlehem is, effectively, no more. The Church of the Nativity was defiled by Palestinian Muslim terrorists, who turned it into an armed refuge in 2002. Churches in Gaza have been bombed and burned. Can you imagine how the churches of Jerusalem might fare under Palestinian rule?

Meanwhile, Jewish synagogues and holy sites in Jericho, Nablus and Gush Katif were torched to the ground while Palestinian police looked on.

In 1996, Palestinian mobs assaulted Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, and Palestinian policemen on the scene shot and wounded the Israeli soldiers guarding the tomb. Ever since, the site has been sheathed in high concrete barriers, turning it into a Fort Knox-like encampment. Then a Palestinian mob led by Palestinian policemen assaulted Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, torched the synagogue inside, and opened fire on Israeli troops at the site, killing six Israeli soldiers.

In 2000, Palestinian mobs once again attacked. They killed one Israeli soldier and destroyed the building. Palestinian forces again took part. The Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho with its unique Byzantine-era mosaic floor was also torched. Today, Israelis have only sporadic access to the site.

As for Gush Katif, the wild Palestinian mob destruction of all the synagogues there is just too fresh and painful a wound to talk about ...

Under Palestinian rule, Tulul Abu el Alayiq, near Wadi Qelt and Jericho, has been left to decay. This is an important archaeological site where Hasmonian kings and Herod built their winter palaces. The nearby Naaran synagogue -- perhaps the earliest synagogue in Israel -- is threatened by Palestinian real estate developers who are building practically atop the site. Israeli archaeologists who have managed to visit there say that the Palestinian Authority has let the place rot.

The authority has also allowed villagers to encroach upon the important synagogue remains in Eshtemoa in the southern Mount Hebron area. Neither Israeli archaeologists nor Israeli worshippers and tourists have access to the site (which is located in Area B), despite the fact that the Oslo Accords supposedly guaranteed this.

It is important to note that these three sites are specified by name in the appendices to the Oslo Accords, and defined as historical and religious sites which the Palestinian Authority is supposed to preserve, and to which they are supposed to provide access for Israelis.

Unfortunately, the Palestinians learned from the Jordanians. Before 1967 Jews were not allowed to visit their holy places in Jerusalem at all; thousands of Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives were desecrated and the tombstones used to pave streets and latrines; and the synagogues of Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter were dynamited.

The greatest crime of all -- an antiquities crime of historic proportions -- has been committed over recent years by the Palestinian Wakf on the Temple Mount. In 1999, the Wakf dug out hundreds of truckloads of dirt from caverns known as Solomon’s Stables beneath the upper plaza (more than 1,600 square meters in area and 15 meters deep) without any archaeological supervision or records. Thousands of tons of earth rich in archaeological remains, from all periods of the Temple Mount, were haphazardly dumped into the Kidron Valley and the city garbage dump at El-Azaria. The Wakf also destroyed stonework done by Jewish artisans 2,000 years ago in the underground “double passageway.”

Thousands of years of layered history -- Jewish history, of course -- were gouged out the ground with heavy machinery and shoveled out of sight. UNESCO didn’t even burp.

Israeli archaeological students are still sifting through this precious rubble, and have found numerous antiquities from the First and Second Temple periods, including stone weights for weighing silver, and a First Temple period bulla (seal impression) containing ancient Hebrew writing which may have belonged to a well-known family of priests mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah. Other findings are from the late period of the Kings of Judea (7th and 8th centuries BCE), including about 1,000 ancient coins, jewelry made of various materials, stone and glass squares from floor and wall mosaics, and many other items.

The Wakf has also allowed the destruction of Christian relics on the Temple Mount, including the Crusader pillars of the 13th-century Grammar Dome in the southwestern corner of the Mount, and the Crusader-era Chain Gate. According to the 1978 Law of Antiquities, it is forbidden to perform any "alteration, repair or addition to an antiquity located on the site," but that hasn’t stopped the Wakf from sanctioning the haphazard addition of concrete and stone to these architectural relics, drilling holes into them, spray-painting them, chopping through them for electricity cables, and more.

There is little doubt that Palestinian authorities are conducting this assault on the Temple Mount so as to erase any vestige of archeological evidence for Jewish (and Christian) history. "In Arabic, this practice is known as ‘tams al-ma'alem,’ which means ‘erasing the signs’ in the sense of destroying the relics of all cultures that preceded Islam,” asserts Dr. Mordechai Kedar of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

And now the Palestinian Authority is going to sue Israel for antiquities theft? Inconceivable! Such chutzpah.

Study says Iran textbooks urge martyrdom

Thomas Wagner, AP Writer
From AP. By THOMAS WAGNER. AP Writer. LONDON (AP) - Textbooks used in Iran's schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the ...
February 8, 2007
Note: I posted this old story to demonstrate we knew this a long time ago-yet, sanctions and actions were never taken to stop this kind of teaching-is it any wonder why Iran can control its peoples' support?

LONDON --Textbooks used in Iran's schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam, a new study says.

An Iranian human rights activist, Ghazal Omid, praised the findings, saying they prove hard-liners in Iran are using the books to turn children into "ticking bombs."

However, a U.S. academic who specializes in Iran and Islam, and a former Iranian teacher said they believe the textbooks are a reflection of Iran's history and its deep suspicions of the West, not an effort to turn students into terrorists. The books emphasize the teachings of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and repeatedly refer to the United States as the "Great Satan" and to Israel as "the regime that occupies Jerusalem," said the study by the Israel-based Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace.

Omid, who fled Iran and wrote "Living in Hell," an autobiography about her experiences there, urged changes to textbooks in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

"I am an Iranian, a practicing Muslim woman, who sees it as her responsibility to stand up to hard-line Muslims who use Islam to brainwash children of that faith, in particular Iranian children, who the Iranian government is turning into ticking bombs," she said.

Omid, who lives in Canada, spoke at a news conference in London on Wednesday with study author Aron Groiss, director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace.

Calls to Iranian officials for comment were not immediately answered.

The study analyzed 95 textbooks and 20 teacher's guides used at Iran's state-run schools. Groiss said the curriculum "reflects Iran's belligerent intentions which should sound the alarm to anyone who is committed to peace and stability in the world."

The study noted, however, that Western culture "is not rejected in principle" in the books and that the attitude to other religions is generally "not hostile." The books include discussion sections on respecting other religions and don't say people should be forced to convert to Islam.

Shireen T. Hunter, a specialist on Islam and Iran at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, said it was a mistake to portray Iranian textbooks as manuals for creating terrorists.

"In some ways, they simply reflect the deep distrust of Third World countries about the policies and motivations of the great powers, which they see as neocolonialist," she said.

"When such textbooks promote martyrdom they are referring to the sacrifices needed to defend Iran against foreign enemies as Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war."

In Tehran, Mostafa Mirzaian, an Iranian freelance political researcher who worked as a high school teacher in Iran in the 1980s, agreed.

"It is natural that a government, formed after an anti-West revolution and an eight-year war with Iraq, inserts such items in school textbooks," he said.

"But it has no remarkable effect. You saw when American wrestlers came to Iran for a competition in January; Iranian teenagers warmly welcomed them. Also, you don't see any attacks on the 25,000-member Jewish community in Iran."

Textbooks used in Iranian elementary schools included stories and poems that hailed martyrs such as those who died in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Groiss said. Another picture book for 10-year-olds provides a basic acquaintance with weaponry, explosives and military tactics, he said.

The study quotes one passage from a book for 10th graders as saying: "During the eight years of Holy Defense (the Iran-Iraq war), more than 500,000 school students were sent to the fronts. 36,000 martyrs, thousands of missing-in-action, invalids and liberated (prisoners of war) of this sacrificing section were offered to the Islamic Revolution."

A passage from a book for eighth graders says God gives "eternal Paradise to anyone who becomes a martyr in the cause of God. He considers martyrdom a great victory."

The United States is referred to as the "Great Satan," the "World Devourer" and the "Arrogant One" in the books, and Israel is shown on maps as "Occupied Palestine."

The study is the latest to call for textbook reform in the Islamic world. Such efforts are under way or planned in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait to remove slurs against non-Muslims or promotions of extremism and terrorism. Israeli textbooks have undergone revisions since the 1990s to remove anti-Arab bias and present a more balanced account of Palestinian views and aspirations.

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AP writer Nasser Karimi contributed to this story from Tehran, Iran.

The Suicidal Passion

Ruth R. Wisse
November 21, 2011, Vol. 17, No. 10
It now seems that one Jew is worth more than 1,000 Arabs—the rate of exchange established not by Israel, but by Hamas, and celebrated on the Arab street. The “prisoner swap” of more than a thousand Arab prisoners for the single Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped five years ago and held in captivity for just this purpose, represents a gap between two civilizations that has been widening for over six decades with no signs of contraction in sight.

Arab leaders do not yet acknowledge that they sealed the doom of their societies in 1948 when they organized their politics against the Jewish state rather than toward the improvement of their countries. Like a great many autocrats, dictators, tyrants, and antiliberal rulers before them, the founders of the Arab League in 1945 found it convenient to mobilize against the Jews and against the competitive way of life they represent. Whereas Europeans were jolted by revelations of what came to be known as the Holocaust into awareness of the ruin anti-Semitism had wrought, Arab leaders saw in the Jews the same political opportunities that had enticed Germany. Anti-Semitism was the European ideology most eagerly imported and adapted to the Middle East. Victims of this process have been slow to realize its debilitating effects. “What if Arabs had recognized the State of Israel in 1948?” asks Abdulateef Al-Mulhim in a recent column in Arab News: “Would the Arab world have been more stable, more democratic, and more advanced?” His affirmative answer emphasizes how much better off the Palestinians and their fellow Arabs, as well as non-Arab Muslims, would have been had some Arab leaders not used the Palestinians “for their own agenda to suppress their own people and to stay in power.” The Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh censures Fatah and Hamas for depriving thousands of Palestinians “in the two Palestinian states in the West Bank and Gaza Strip” of the individual liberties that flourish across the border in Israel. The Israel News channel YNet quotes a Syrian publicist as saying, “Our government shoots at us; Israel works to return even rotted bones. Maybe the problem is with us.” (He is referring to earlier prisoner exchanges where hundreds of Arab prisoners were traded for the corpses of Israeli soldiers.) Not until these sentiments prevail will Arab citizens begin to enjoy the opportunities Israelis take for granted.
Anti-Semitism, or the organization of politics against the Jews, is at once the most protean and the most misunderstood force in modern politics. Because it works through misdirection, most people associate it with Jews who are its target, rather than with anti-Semites who are its perpetrators. But whether aimed at the Jews in their dispersion or in their homeland, anti-Semitism and its offshoot anti-Zionism are about the Jews only in the way that fox hunting is about foxes. Those who organize their hunt around the fox consider it the best animal to hunt. Important as it may be to identify those features in the swift little animal that make it the chosen target of those giving chase, any analysis of fox hunting must concentrate on the hunters—their motivations, strategies, implements, goals, and perceived gains. Fox hunting stops when there is a change in hunters, not in foxes. So, too, with anti-Semitism. Only changes in the implicated countries can arrest the political process their leadership promotes.
What is anti-Semitism?
There are many versions of the joke that originated in the First World War about the police chief who tells his deputy to round up all Jews and bicyclists. His deputy asks, “Why the bicyclists?” How quickly you get the joke depends on how comfortable you are with the idea of rounding up Jews. Aggression against Jews has become so commonplace it seems to require no explanation. This is how Anthony Julius sums it up in Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England:
[Perhaps] a repertoire of attitudes, myths, and defamations in circulation at any given time. It is a kind of discursive swamp, a resource on which religious and political movements, writers and artists, demagogues, and the variously disaffected, all draw, without ever draining. It is not a political philosophy, or anything close to one. It is not a conception of the world; it is merely an idée fixe—a hatred, dressed up as a conviction .  .  . a protean, unstable combination of received ideas, compounded by malice.
Because he is tracking a historical process from 12th-century blood libels to today’s anti-Zionist rallies, Julius tries to account for all the varieties of prejudice and discrimination in what historian Robert Wistrich calls the “lethal obsession.” The great historian Salo Baron called it “the dislike of the unlike.”
But I prefer to distinguish anti-Semitism from mere intolerance. Many other groups are subject to prejudice and discrimination. American clubs and schools that formerly excluded Jews also excluded blacks and Asians. Other “middleman minorities,” like Koreans or overseas Chinese, have been attacked as intruders once their welcome ran out. Other peoples have been singled out for “bullying”—a current preoccupation of the Anti-Defamation League. The function of the Jews in international politics is quite different in scale and kind. Anti-Semitism is a political instrument—a strategy, an ideology, sometimes a movement that organizes politics against the Jews.
The ideology of anti-Semitism arose in Germany in the last third of the 19th century among competing schemes for organizing modern societies. It grew in tandem with democracy—that is, with the need to win rather than assume the allegiance of subjects or citizens. Wilhelm Marr, who founded the League of Anti-Semites in 1879, distinguished his political movement from the religiously based anti-Jewish animosities that had preceded it. We should take him at his word, since his explanation defied Christian and Muslim teachings, which touted their superiority to Judaism. Marr preached the opposite. “The Jews are unstoppable!” They had fought against the Western world for almost two millennia and were now poised to conquer the continent. France was already Judaized. Germany was about to be skinned alive. As Marr wrote,
We have among us a flexible, tenacious, intelligent, foreign tribe that knows how to bring abstract reality into play in many ways. Not individual Jews, but the Jewish spirit and Jewish consciousness have overpowered the world.
Marr’s ingenious idea was to cast liberal democracy as an imperialist Jewish plot. While others welcomed liberal democracy’s promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity, he opposed it by attributing its attendant evils to “Jewry,” which “corrupted all society with its views.” He accused the Jews of driving out any kind of idealism, of gaining the upper hand in commerce, infiltrating government, ruling the theater, etc., and leaving other Germans only the hard manual labor that Jews had always despised. These same arguments were soon advanced in Russia in more paranoid style through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabrication that pretended to record the machinations of Jews plotting to take over the world. Europeans had the Protocols only in printed form, which confined it to a literate citizenry. Arab television democratized it for a viewing public. In 2002 Egyptian television produced the series Horseman Without a Horse, which not only recapitulates the thesis of the Protocols, but adds a subplot about malevolent Jews trying to suppress its spread.
The kernel of truth that allowed for Marr’s paranoid analysis was that Jews were highly competitive in all areas—except national politics. Their civilization was founded on a contractual agreement with God that required their obedience to divinely inspired law in return for divine protection. The Jewish way of life that was based on this premise encouraged individual and collective responsibility and promised eventual return to their promised land. Meanwhile Jews turned the disadvantages of “exile” into strategies of adaptation. Wherever they were offered enough freedom to compete on more or less equal terms, Jews did well enough to lend credibility to inflated images of their “power.” But since collective Jewry lacked and never sought precisely the kind of political reach with which they were credited, the disparity between image and reality made them an ideal target for those who really did want to flex their power.
Thus, at a pivotal stage in the process we call modernization, anti-Semitism became the catchall for a politics of grievance and blame. Democracy, which was just then spreading eastward from England and France toward Romania and Russia, put politics in the hands of the people, and people needed explanations for things that were going wrong and assurances of how they could be improved. Autocratic rulers no less than politicians seeking election now felt obliged to account for hardships, offer remedies for crises, discourage rebellion, and encourage the confidence of populations facing all the anxieties of modernity. Anti-Semitism had such advantages over other political movements that some of those movements, like fascism, nationalism, and communism, incorporated elements of anti-Jewish politics as part of their programs.
What anti-Semitism offers
Anti-Semitism releases aggression against a familiar target and offers a simple explanation for complex and occasionally intractable problems (Unemployed? Jews have your jobs. Destitute? Rothschilds have your money. Losing confidence in your country? Jews control your press, the arts, the courts, education, medicine .  .  . ). It uses negative campaigning that provokes no response in kind. Since Jews seek acceptance from those who agitate against them, they have no incentive to wage the kind of countercampaign that we see between rival political parties.
Anti-Semitism drew its demonic images from religious sources, further magnifying suspicion of an already suspect people. And it united otherwise antagonistic or even warring constituencies. Marx singled out the Jews as the evil embodiment of capitalism. Internationalists identified Jewish separatism as the chief impediment to their universal ideals. Nationalists targeted Jews as corrupting aliens. Conservative Christians and, later, Muslims continued to see them as challengers of their faith. Atheists and secularists condemned their retrograde religion. Racial theorists called them agents of impurity. An equal-opportunity instrument of blame, anti-Semitism had as one of its chief advantages the ability to unite political forces that had nothing else in common.
Last but hardly least, folks could anticipate the acquisition of Jewish property, goods, or positions as a tangible by-product of Jewish expulsion or annihilation. The prospect of acquiring Jewish property and possessions was something Nazism offered to all the countries it conquered. Similarly, when Arabs draw their map of “Palestine” to include all of Israel, they especially have their eye on the bounty that Israelis have created as a result of their open, democratic ways. Rather than compete with the Jews, anti-Semitism tries to have it both ways—organizing political resistance to the liberal democracy that profits the Jews, and doing so confident that it can exploit the weakness of those who value individual life too highly to squander it on defensive war. The Jews of Europe, who had never developed independent means of self-defense, never had a chance against their destroyers. Modern Israel is the current test case.
The term “scapegoat” does not begin to do justice to the uses of anti-Semitism in domestic, regional, and international affairs. We do well to note its short-term advantages before identifying the liabilities alluded to above.
How anti-Semitism succeeds
"How did we get to pick up the tab for a bunch of tyrants and terrorists to come to our city to curse us out?” asked the New York taxi driver dropping me off at the United Nations plaza on the opening day of the 66th annual U.N. General Assembly. The police were treating the plaza as the war zone it had become.
According to its charter, the United Nations was created in the wake of the Second World War
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind; to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained; to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
In commitment to these ideals, in 1947 the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab zones that midwifed the birth of Israel half a year later. The Jews were already poised to reclaim their sovereignty after two millennia, but this vote granted them the international sanction to do so within the same decade that had witnessed their greatest national defeat.
Many Arab countries were just then similarly emerging from the loosening grip of European powers. The Arab League was founded in 1945, the same year as the United Nations, its six original members—Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, Syria—soon joined by Yemen, and then by 15 others. The league’s stated goal was to create pan-Arab unity by promoting closer relations between member states. But rather than emulate Israel by settling Palestinian Arabs in their allotted land (possibly in federation with Jordan, which was already largely Palestinian Arab), the Arab League dedicated itself to preventing the existence of a Jewish state. Its first major action was the war against Israel in 1948, and opposition to Israel has remained its indispensable unifier ever since.
It was Arab, not Jewish, leadership that urged all Arabs to flee from Haifa and Jaffa, warning that those who remained in a Jewish state would be treated as renegades. The exploitation of the Palestinians by their fellow Arabs has been noted repeatedly, including in 1976 by Mahmoud Abbas, currently head of the Palestinian Authority: “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe.” In sum, Arab leaders did not oppose Israel because it displaced the Palestinians; they displaced Palestinian Arabs in order to sustain opposition to Israel.
Despite their vast expanses of land, natural resources, financial capacities, and so forth, Arab League members created a refugee time bomb to justify their “resistance” to what the U.N. had wrought.
Had the U.N. lived up to its charter, it would have expelled the belligerents from membership or placed them on probation for contravening its terms. But here is the logic of aggression against Jews: The secretariat and supporting nations would not risk the U.N.’s coherence to protect one of its smallest members against antagonists with huge demographic, market, resource, and political advantages on their side. Ignored as a parochial issue, the Arab war against Israel safely violated the liberal ideals of the United Nations by appearing to oppose only Jews. Arab leaders gained traction domestically by flexing their power against an enemy they knew had no incentive for war and every incentive for accommodation. And opposition to Israel shored up pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism by flaunting contempt for the liberal democratic culture of the West that Israel embodied.
The perpetual Arab war against Israel worked like a charm. In 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established as a temporary measure to help resettle a relatively small group of displaced persons in a century notorious for its many millions of refugees. Only in this single case was a refugee agency made permanent. At Arab insistence, the U.N. cultivated, not an infrastructure for self-government, but a network of refugee institutions and an industry of welfare workers with a stake in maintaining refugee dependency, feeding the grievance of generations by insisting on their “right” of return—as if the Displaced Persons at the end of World War II had been continually maintained as such in the heart of Europe. Scholars Asaf Romirowsky and Nicole Brackman have rightly called UNRWA an “anomaly within the world of refugee relief” for the way it prolonged suffering and anger to become “a weapon to encourage [generations] toward terrorism and intransigence.” The Arab League used the U.N. agency to evade its responsibilities for fellow Arabs, and to foster an Arab protostate that would replace the Jewish one in time.
Arab leaders scored another substantial victory on November 10, 1975, when they won passage of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3379, which called Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The Arab bloc that championed the resolution with Soviet bloc support had waged two unsuccessful wars against Israel in 1967 and 1973. Now the same countries laid the political groundwork for a much larger antidemocratic coalition that would use the U.N. for its own ends.
The anti-Zionist umbrella included countries that functioned in opposition to the human rights principles of the United Nations. Arab rulers who denied the Jews their land accused Jews of denying Arabs theirs. Shifting political language from right to left, they no longer threatened to drive the Jews of Israel into the sea but accused them of the imperialism and racism they actually practiced. Resolution 3379 adopted the anti-Zionist terminology that had been developed by the Soviets in the 1930s (and not incidentally had informed the education of many Arab leaders, like Mahmoud Abbas, who received his Ph.D. in Moscow for a dissertation on connections between Zionism and the Nazis). Since anti-Zionism was the last ideological component of communism left standing when the Soviet Union collapsed, it provided a common terminology for self-defined “progressives” in rallies from Berkeley to Cairo. Anti-Zionism became a permanent feature of the left, including, currently, Occupy Wall Street.
The infamy of the anti-Israel resolution hardly went unnoticed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said, “A great evil has been loosed upon the world.” But nothing was done to stop this evil. Countries that incorporated forms of racism and discrimination in their political and legal systems enjoyed their symbolic political victory over the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Racism, once known as the denial to Jews of their right to exist, was turned against the Jews for claiming the right. Around this banner there formed the coalition against liberal democracies that began taking over one after another of the U.N. committees and programs, culminating in Durban, South Africa, at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. Those who commandeered the Durban conference focused exclusively on Israel, to deflect attention from their own practices of slavery, abuse of women, suppression of minorities, torture of prisoners, autocratic rule, systemic corruption, and various forms of state criminality.
Coalition against liberal democracies
The organization of politics against Israel had moved from the Middle East into the world arena. Outrages became bolder year by year: Cuba, which jails people for circulating the Human Rights Declaration, became vice chair of the U.N. Human Rights Council. Saudi Arabia, which forbids women to drive, was elected to the board of the agency charged with ending discrimination against women. Iran, which sentences adulteresses to death, was elected to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Nuclear-armed North Korea was appointed head of the U.N. Council on Disarmament. Meanwhile, no resolutions were taken against the ongoing Arab slave trade in Sudan or for the rights of women and minorities in places where these were denied.

Could there have been any political means other than the organization of politics against the Jewish state for thus hijacking the United Nations and inverting its mandate while ensuring that Western nations continued to foot the bill? I can think of none. In 1991, after 16 years, the United States won repeal of U.N. Resolution 3379—the only General Assembly resolution ever to be revoked. But unlike the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which inspired massive cleanup efforts to contain the damage it had done, the repeal inspired no attempt to alleviate or even moderate the effects of this systematic diffusion of political poison. Demonization of the Jewish state had spread to areas that had never known or known of a Jew. The Arab boycott against the Jews, which began even before the establishment of Israel, was fanned into the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign that lately garnered supporters as diverse as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 218 members of the faculty and students of Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology, under the preposterous excuse of gaining rights for the abused Palestinians. Using the U.N. for their podium, Arab and Muslim leaders and their political allies make the Jews internationally suspect.

In this political climate, it hardly matters whether one is among the prosecutors or defenders of Israel, as long as Israel is in the dock. Many well-meaning people, Jews included, fail to appreciate that the prosecution prevails once it makes Israel the defendant. Some ask naïvely, “But aren’t we allowed to criticize Israel?” or even boast that Israel is being held to a “higher standard,” ignoring that the war against the Jews is won by charging them with the crimes being committed against them. The point of the “trial” is to keep Jews at its center. The United Nations provides an unprecedented stage for accusing Jews in full view of the world, thereby obscuring or reducing scrutiny of the worst actors on the planet. This year, hundreds of delegates and guests enjoyed U.N. hospitality and displayed their hatred of liberal democracy—aka Israel—with the assurance that they would suffer no political cost.

The cabby’s question—why should he be paying for the vilification of his way of life—has now been raised in Congress by the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is urging the United States to spearhead significant reform of what she calls “an anti-Semitic organization.” “What are we paying for?” she asks, citing the bid by Palestinian leadership to gain U.N. recognition for a Palestinian state, in violation of all previous agreements. “So how could we allow even one cent of our dollars to go to this organization that will have in its midst terrorists who want to destroy Israel, and in turn destroy the United States?” More important than this belated attempt to limit the damage is realizing that Ros-Lehtinen is not “standing up for Israel” but making the logical connection between the organization of politics against Israel and the much larger intended targets that “Zionism” represents—the United States foremost among them. Anti-Semitism penetrated the United Nations as it did several democracies of Europe, enjoying the access to the platform that democracy provides, in order to subvert the democratic commitment to human rights. Its perpetrators work by prosecuting “only” the Jews, and when they get away with it, they corrupt the charter beyond repair.

But the point should also be made that shutting down UNWRA is the only way to begin repairing the lives of Palestinian Arabs, and that shutting down the U.N. as it presently functions is America’s best hope for helping to repair the world.

How anti-Semitism fails
The ability of Arab and Muslim leaders to dominate the United Nations while celebrating their contempt for everything it stands for seems to confirm anti-Semitism’s success. Yet caveat emptor—early benefits of organizing politics against the Jews are inevitably outweighed by the ruin that overtakes its practitioners. Why inevitably? Because anti-Semitism attributes real problems to a phony cause. Putting off problems tends to compound them, and aggression fomented against a convenient target cannot be permanently controlled or contained. Strategies of blame may temporarily help justify repression, quell rebellion, camouflage corruption, channel dissatisfaction, and redirect aggression, but societies that resort to them collapse under the weight of their negativity. Palestinians—once considered the ablest Arabs, and perhaps sacrificed by their fellow Arabs for that reason—are now in strong competition with Germans of the last century in the sweepstakes of self-destruction. Jonathan Tobin makes the obvious point: “Rather than ask why Israel is willing to trade so many terrorists for one soldier, the world should be asking why the Palestinians are cheering the release of sociopaths.” What does the trade of one for a thousand say about the relative value Jews and Arabs place on human life, and the effect of those values on building or destroying?

Anti-Semitism’s strategy of inversion—holding Jews responsible for the aggression against them—obscures the domestic repression that is always practiced in its name. Jews are the ostensible but not ultimate casualties of the organization of politics against them. Yasser Arafat used opposition to Israel as the vehicle for a corrupt and vicious dictatorship that could otherwise not have garnered billions of dollars of support. Saudi Arabia expended billions of dollars in mobilizing war against Israel to shore up its image of protecting Islam while sustaining a bigoted and sexist sheikhdom. Recent uprisings against dictatorships in Arab countries demonstrate their woeful unpreparedness for creative self-government, the direct consequence of diverting political energies to keep those dictatorships in power.

Paradoxically, commemoration of the Holocaust, which was presumably intended to help prevent another genocide of the Jews, exacerbated the problem it was meant to alleviate. Holocaust studies equate anti-Semitism with Nazism and see in the defeat of one the demise of the other. The actuality is otherwise. The political features that made anti-Semitism attractive in the past remain replicable and applicable in the present and future. It is they, the replicable features of anti-Semitism, not the Holocaust, that should be at the center of investigation into that mass murder. Without an attempt to identify the critical variables, there is no redemptive lesson in the destruction of European Jewry or in the collapse of Germany or in the failure of the League of Nations to arrest the process. Only by isolating its copycat features, as science does in researching disease, can Holocaust study prevent the same descent into depravity.

No one can know what is unfolding in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and other countries of the Arab League. There is one critical variable that holds the key to their political future: Will their leaders resort to the political instrument that brought about their decline? Will Egypt abrogate or weaken its treaty with Israel, or develop a culture of human rights? Will Turkey join the competition over who stands strongest against Israel and suffer the fate of its rivals? Arab leaders sealed the doom of their societies when they organized politics against the Jewish state. Only new and would-be leaders have the power to undo the failure they reaped.
Ruth R. Wisse, the author most recently of Jews and Power, is Martin Peretz professor of Yiddish literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard.

Netanyahu – the pros and cons

Isi Leibler
November 17, 2011
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=3742

Two months ago at the UN General Assembly, we proudly observed as our Prime Minister employed his golden tongue to promote the case for Israel. It was reminiscent of his previous address to Congress, which evoked repeated bi-partisan standing ovations.

In addition, today, irrespective of the merits of the deal with Hamas, he is applauded by most Israelis for having achieved the release of Gilad Schalit.

Yet ironically, probably no Israeli Prime Minister has ever encountered so much hatred and resentment from both his constituents and much of the media who unrelentingly defame him and his family, failing to even distinguish between his personal and public life. Netanyahu’s critics allege that he has major character deficiencies. He is frequently depicted as a cold hearted person incapable of forming lasting relationships. Some of his former associates accuse him of lacking loyalty and flippantly abandoning his friends and allies whenever it suited him.

They claim that under pressure Netanyahu is indecisive and tends to wilt. That, in lieu of displaying leadership he has a penchant to send trial balloons, only implementing policies when confident he will achieve public acclaim.

In contrast to former ascetic leaders like David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, he is frequently accused of being hedonistic and leading an extravagant lifestyle. The hostile media continuously allege that he frivolously wastes taxpayer’s funds at luxury hotels, despite the fact that it would have been degrading for Israel were its Prime Minister to behave otherwise.

Needless to say, his principal opposition emanates from the far left which depicts him as a cold hearted capitalist and fanatical nationalist, insensitive of others. To this day he is still accused of having created the climate of hatred which led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Yet in reality he correctly predicted that the Oslo Accords were a prescription for disaster.

His government coalition is problematic as exemplified by frequent contradictory statements and public spats between him and his Foreign Minister and the inexcusable delays in important appointments such as the endless deferrals until a permanent ambassador to the UN was selected.

Netanyahu’s former Likud associate, Tzipi Livni the head of Kadima and leader of the opposition, spares no effort in demonizing him.

She condemned him for conceding to the 10 month settlement freeze. Yet subsequently when he refused to renew a further settlement freeze, she accused him of undermining the Israel-US relationship. She blames him, rather than Abbas, for the breakdown in negotiations with the Palestinians. Instead of supporting him against Obama's one-sided pressures, she placed all the blame on him. Despite the severity of the threats currently confronting us, she refused to consider a unity government or even adopt a constructive opposition role.

Needless to say, Netanyahu is far from perfect and some of the weaknesses and criticisms leveled against him may have merit.

But one must balance these deficiencies by taking into account his achievements. Netanyahu’s greatest success is that despite presiding over a solidly right-wing coalition, he has effectively moved the nation towards a centrist position, achieving the broadest consensus amongst the people since the rupture over the Oslo accords.

Whilst continuously accused by his critics of intransigency and taking advantage of every opportunity to prevent Israel from establishing an accommodation with its neighbors, he has in fact displayed even greater flexibility than Yitzhak Rabin. He steered Likud and Israel Beiteinu towards adopting the principle of a two state solution - subject to having a genuine Palestinian peace partner - which, through no fault of his, is currently nowhere on the horizon. This alienated him from the hawkish elements of the coalition who accuse him of capitulating to American pressure.

Netanyahu assumed office as the nation faced one of the most difficult periods in its relationship with its vital ally, the United States. He was confronted with an American president who from the outset was overtly personally offensive towards him, making it clear that he had no confidence in him or in his “right wing” government.

Nevertheless, he succeeded in balancing an extraordinary diplomatic tightrope, refusing to yield on issues crucial to Israel’s security whilst persuading his right-wing coalition partners to accept unprecedented concessions like the 10 month freeze on settlements in order to assuage Obama and avoid further polarizing the relationship between the two countries.

Although he was bitterly criticized for "embarrassing” the US president on his visit to Washington, his refusal to submit to Obama's unexpected bullying, combined with his eloquent presentation to Congress will be regarded in history as having effectively intensified the tide of public opinion in the United States in favor of Israel. It undoubtedly paved the way for the dramatic turnabout by Obama in his pro-Israeli speech at the UN General Assembly and at least, for the time being, the more balanced approach adopted towards Israel.

Whatever Netanyahu does, he will be criticized. To this day, most media commentators continue to castigate him for failing to forestall the Palestinians by launching his own initiative and blame him for Israel’s current isolation. But what could he be expected to do with a nonexistent peace partner who has no intention of compromising one iota and is merely seeking to rack up further concessions without reciprocity?

Initially encouraged by Obama, Abbas developed this tactic of ‘we take you give’, trying to force Israel to extend further concessions without even a hint of reciprocity and then demanding that these become the opening benchmark for subsequent negotiations. It is essentially a strategy designed to dismantle the Jewish state in stages. It is thus ridiculous to blame Netanyahu for not rewarding Palestinian intransigency by making further concessions. He made repeated unconditional offers to negotiate but was rebuffed even after introducing an unprecedented 10 month settlement freeze.

Many Israelis may yearn nostalgically for the days of the warm and dynamic Menachem Begin or the straightforward no-nonsense Yitzhak Rabin. But it was Netanyahu who reunited the nation divided since Oslo, marginalizing extremists on both the left and the right.

He achieved the best possible outcome during the course of one of the most difficult periods in the history of Israel when Islamic radicalism in all our neighboring countries grew exponentially. He did so whilst confronted by a highly problematic US president who until very recently appeased our enemies and put a distance between us and the United States, further compounded by his uncomplimentary remarks in conversation with Sarkozy reflect an ongoing personal animus.

Despite the need for internal economic reforms which are underway, Netanyahu can also take credit for having laid the foundations for an economy which enabled Israel to bypass the recent global economic meltdown.

It is much too early to be conclusive but, notwithstanding the weaknesses and human frailties of our Prime Minister, today most Israelis - including many who have reservations about some of his qualities or consider him either too weak or too extreme - would find it difficult to deny that he stands head and shoulders above any other contender for leadership of the nation during these troubled times.

ileibler@netvision.net.il

The writer’s new website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com

This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post

A Palestinian hero in the media - The woman who aided suicide terrorist who attacked the Sbarro restaurant and killed 15

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik


Since the release of 1027 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last month, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Palestinian Authority leaders, including Abbas, as well as the official PA media have chosen to glorify some of those terrorists who have committed the most lethal attacks against Israel as well as the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.


Among the recently released prisoners was Ahlam Tamimi. She is the terrorist who chose the place and led a suicide bomber to the Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem in August 2001, who murdered 15 people in his attack, 7 of them children. Tamimi has repeatedly stated that she does not regret her involvement in the terror attack. Since her release, Tamimi has appeared in several interviews, in which she has repeated this. A Jordanian website broadcast an interview with her in which, when she was asked if she would participate in or carry out another terror attack, she responded:


"Of course. I don't regret what happened, absolutely not. That is the path; I give myself for the sake of Allah, to Jihad for Allah. I carried out [my mission] and Allah made me successful: You know the number of victims who were killed. All that was thanks to the success from Allah. Do you expect me to abandon what I did, saying [I regret it]? Regret is something that is out of the question. If time could go backwards, I would carry out what I did, in the same manner."


Click to view


Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV also did a lengthy interview with Tamimi in which she described the suicide bomber admiringly:
"It's important to say that I was walking with a spiritual person. Next to him, I sensed a sort of divine aura surrounding us."


Hamas' TV also interviewed the parents of the Sbarro suicide bomber. They both expressed their pride and appreciation of Tamimi and how she helped their son become a Martyr:



"We are proud of Ahlam Tamimi even before our son, by Allah. She fulfilled her obligation and made me proud. We thank Allah and Ahlam Tamimi, who brought him [my son] to this high level."



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Prior to the prisoners' release, the PA official daily printed a long article describing Tamimi's life as a journalist and her becoming a "fighter" in Hamas' military wing Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. Among other things, the article described how Tamimi,
"the dreamy student and conscientious journalist turned into a different sort of woman - she began a race against time to participate in carrying out operations (i.e., terror attacks) in West Jerusalem."

This is not the first time that Ahlam Tamimi has been glorified by PA media.


In a response to Israeli TV's rebroadcast of an interview with Tamimi in which she said that she did not regret planning the bombing even though children were killed and that she had chosen the Sbarro pizza shop as a target because it had a large number of customers, PA TV accused Israeli TV of "inciting against the prisoners."


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Palestinian Media Watch has documented the policy of the PA to glorify terrorists.


The following is the text from the video interview on the Jordanian website ammonnews with Ahlam Tamimi from her parents' home in Jordan following her release:
Interviewer: How did you take the sentence? [15 life sentences]

Tamimi: I'm a Jihad fighter for Allah and a Jihad fighter for Allah is ready for any outcome: either he will die as a Shahid (Martyr), or he will be assassinated, or he will be taken captive; [or] Allah can decree some unknown fate for him - [for instance,] that he will live as a wanted [fugitive].
Interviewer: If you could set the clock back, Ahlam, would you carry out, or take part in, a major operation (i.e., terror attack)?
Tamimi: Of course. I don't regret what happened, absolutely not. That is the path; I give myself for the sake of Allah, to Jihad for Allah. I carried out [my mission] and Allah made me successful: You know the number of victims who were killed. All that was thanks to the success from Allah. Do you expect me to abandon what I did, saying [I regret it]? Regret is something that is out of the question. If time could go backwards, I would carry out what I did, in the same manner.
Interviewer: How would you describe the Israelis?
Tamimi: The Israelis are a nation upon which it was decreed that it would be dispersed over the earth. Allah decreed this upon them, but international conspiracies, the Balfour Declaration, gave them the right to something to which they have no right.
[ammonnews.net accessed Nov. 12, 2011]



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Excerpt of interview with Ahlam Tamimi on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas):

Tamimi: You make a big deal about the Sbarro restaurant (bombing) in which 15 Israelis were killed, but my first operation (i.e., terror attack) was at the King George supermarket (in central Jerusalem). I chose the Sbarro restaurant, but I didn't go in with him (i.e., the terrorist). A few days beforehand, I counted the number of people entering the restaurant, a large number of people would enter this restaurant.
Host: What did you talk about with the Martyrdom-seeker on the way (to the suicide attack)?

Tamimi: It's impossible to describe him with words. We met only on the day of the operation. The [Hamas] brothers changed his entire appearance. He wasn't bearded. He wore jeans and a hat. It's important to say that I was walking with a spiritual person. Next to him, I sensed a sort of divine aura surrounding us. We looked into each other's eyes. I said to him, "There is no God but Allah," and he said, "and Muhammad is Allah's messenger," and he smiled.
Host: We interviewed the parents of the heroic Martyrdom-seeker (i.e., the suicide bomber), Izz A-Din Al-Masri, who blew himself up in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem.
Father of suicide bomber: We are proud of Ahlam Tamimi even before our son, by Allah. She fulfilled her obligation and made me proud. We thank Allah and Ahlam Tamimi, who brought him [my son] to this high level.
Mother of suicide bomber: My son chose his path and his fate, and we do not regret that. Praise Allah, that is an honor for him. What [higher] level could he have asked for? That is the best level in the eyes of his Lord.
Tamimi: I always had an inner conflict whether they were happy with me or not.
Host: How did you conduct yourself [in the interrogation]?
Tamimi: By Allah, you won't believe it, but I was always smiling. I don't know why my smile always angered them.
Host: The judge who sentenced you ordered that you should not be included in any exchange deal.
Tamimi: I say to him - you will die in your anger. I was released, and you remain in your defeat.
I hope that you will be defeated, and may Allah add more defeat to you.

[Al-Aqsa (Hamas) TV, Oct. 24, 2011]

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The following is the official PA daily's article on terrorist Ahlam Tamimi the day before her release:

Headline: "Ahlam Tamimi will not wait 1584 years to be released...!"
"No one at Bir Zeit University would have believed that Ahlam Tamimi could be a member of a radical, top secret military organization such as the Shahid (Martyr) Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas movement's military wing. Likewise, no one knows what caused Ahlam, a spirited young woman... studying journalism at the university in order to realize her aspirations, to become a fighter, even if she herself has said that it was the occupation which drove the Palestinians to resist it in every way... Ahlam was born on Oct. 20, 1980, in the city of Zarka, in Jordan, to a Palestinian family... She returned to Palestine in order to study journalism and communications at Bir Zeit University. She had only one semester left [to complete] when the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., the Palestinian terror campaign, 2000-2005) broke out, with unprecedented violence in the Palestinian territories, as evidenced in the terrible murder policy of the Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon government. Ahlam tried to 'fight' the occupation in her way, focusing on a program which she presented on local television broadcast in Ramallah, which covered the occupation's actions. In her journalistic work, Ahlam encountered the harsh reality and the tragic stories brought about by the occupation, and decided to take another big step. At the same time, her friend from the faculty of journalism and communications, Wael Daghlas of the Al-Qassam Brigades, thought that she was suited to join the Brigades... The dreamy student and conscientious journalist turned into a different sort of woman - she began a race against time to participate in carrying out operations (i.e., terror attacks) in West Jerusalem.

The article goes on to describe her role in the Sbarro attack, and then her arrest and trial:
After a period of training, she carried out her first activity on July 27, 2001, when she carried out surveillance on the streets of western Jerusalem without attracting attention, aided by her modern clothing and pleasant appearance. Her mission was to choose places to carry out bombing operations planned by Abdallah Barghouti, as revenge for every [Israeli] assassination operation. Her most prominent operation was her assistance in carrying out the bombing attack which shocked western Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001 (i.e., the Sbarro restaurant attack), whose ramifications affected regional and world leaders. Ahlam patrolled Jerusalem in her car and set the route which the one who would carry out [the operation], Izz A-Din Al-Masri, would take from Ramallah to Jerusalem. The next day she took the guitar which Abdallah Barghouti had booby-trapped, and joined Izz A-Din Al-Masri. She asked him to carry the guitar over his shoulder. These were moments laden with emotion between them, as she pointed out the place to him and left him to take his final walk while she returned to Ramallah. When she was arrested afterwards, she was tortured and the Israeli court gave her 16 life sentences, meaning 1584 years... Ahlam dealt with the trial with a smile and her words to the judges: 'I don't recognize the legitimacy of this court; I do not wish to present my name or age to you... I present myself to you through my actions, with which you are very familiar... My name is Ahlam, and I shall remain thus until I attain the dream of my Palestinian people to rid this land of you.' She became engaged in prison to another prisoner, her cousin Nizar, who belongs to Fatah; his father is Dr. Samir Shehadeh, a member of the Fatah leadership."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 16, 2011]


PA TV accused Israeli TV of "incitement" for airing old interview with Tamimi:

PA TV News reader: Israeli TV Channel 1, during the first part of the prisoners' exchange, deliberately rebroadcast an interview held in the past in prison with the [now] released female prisoner Ahlam Tamimi to incite against the prisoners.
PA TV shows Israeli Channel 1 TV re-broadcast of interview:

Israeli interviewer: "Who chose Sbarro [restaurant, as the target of the attack]?"
Tamimi: "I did. Over nine days I examined the place very carefully and chose it after seeing the large number of visits to this restaurant, the Sbarro restaurant. I didn't want to blow [myself] up, I didn't want to carry out a Martyrdom-seeking operation (i.e., a suicide attack). My mission was just to choose the place and to bring the Martyrdom-seeker (i.e., the suicide bomber). [I made] the general plan of the operation, but carrying it out was entrusted to the Martyrdom-seeker. ... I told him to enter the restaurant, eat a meal, and then after 15 minutes carry out the Martyrdom-seeking operation. During the quarter of an hour I would return the same way that I had arrived. Then I bade him farewell. He went inside, he crossed the road and went to the restaurant, and I went back the way I had come... You have to know something: a Martyrdom-seeker has a very special character, and I was amazed at his great wish to carry out the operation, his great wish to pass over to a different life. How beautiful it is when you make a person - [starts the sentence again] [Suppose] there's a poor person and you give him a lot of money. He will be happy and you yourself will be happy that you realized for him the happy life that he wanted. My job was to realize, for this Martyrdom-seeker, the happy life that he wanted.
Interviewer: Didn't you think about the people who were in the restaurant? The children? The families?
Tamimi: "No."
Tamimi: "I have no regrets, and no Palestinian prisoner regrets what he or she has done. We were defending ourselves. What are we supposed to regret? Should we regret defending ourselves? Should we regret that the Israelis killed one of us so we killed a different one of them? We have no regrets."
Interviewer: Do you know how many children were killed in the restaurant?
Tamimi: Three children were killed in the operation, I think. [Smiles.]
Interviewer: Eight.
Tamimi: Eight?! [Smiles.] Eight.

[PA TV (Fatah), Oct. 23, 2011]

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‘Death Sentence’ Reversed on Israeli Village

David Meir-Levi

On August 2, 2011, the Israeli Supreme Court​ issued a “death sentence” for the Israeli village of Migron. It must be dismantled, its houses demolished, and its families evicted. On Monday, September 5, demolition began and three houses were destroyed. Due to legal petitions, the demolition was postponed pending review of the Court’s procedures. On November 7 the Court reversed its decision and withdrew its “death sentence.”

What happened?

Migron is a small Israeli community situated in the hill country about five miles north-east of Jerusalem. It was established in 2002 as a bedroom community within easy commuting distance from Jerusalem. Today it is home to about 500 people Shortly after Migron’s construction, the Israeli self-styled human rights group, Peace Now, began working with several West Bank Arabs who claimed that their families had for generations owned the land upon which Migron sits. They claimed that this land had been given to them by King Hussein of Jordan. Under King Hussein and his father, King Abdullah, Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, but had no legal basis for Jordanian sovereignty. Therefore Hussein had no legal right to gift West Bank land to anyone since neither he nor the State of Jordan held legal ownership. The Supreme Court chose to ignore this inconvenient bit of legal reality and political history.

Peace Now submitted a petition on behalf of the Arab claimants in October, 2006. Court deliberations and interaction with the State went on for several years. The Migron residents claimed that they purchased the land legally and had bona fide proof of ownership. The Court chose to disregard the whole issue of proof of ownership and handed down a decided in favor of the Arab claimants. The Court ordered the army to remove the Israeli inhabitants and destroy all structures.

In early 2008 Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Baraq accepted the Court’s judgment, but demanded more time so that housing for the inhabitants of Migron could be built elsewhere. Finally, on August 2, 2011, the Court ruled that the State must evacuate Migron by March 31, 2012.

Within a few weeks of that order, the Arab claimants, under the advice of Peace Now, filed a new civil lawsuit in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, demanding that the State compensate them for the years during which Migron existed on what they insisted was their land. The Magistrate’s Court then bethought itself to demand of the Arab claimants their proof of ownership, a simple legal evidentiary procedure. At once the Arabs, who had just successfully claimed in the Supreme Court that the land was theirs, suddenly and without explanation, withdrew their lawsuit from the Magistrate’s court.

In light of the Arab claimants’ refusal to prove ownership, and their sudden and unexplained withdrawal of their claim, the Magistrate’s Court has stopped the demolition of Migron houses, their consensus being that the Arab plaintiffs have no proof of ownership. Needless to say, this is a source of considerable embarrassment for the Supreme Court. The only explanation given is that “The High Court does not debate evidence.” Apparently neither does Peace Now.

This is not the first of such embarrassments for Peace Now. In 2010 Peace Now alleged that the Israeli village of Kiryat Netafim, in the northern West Bank, was built on land privately owned by Arabs, was therefore an illegal settlement, and should be demolished. After examining building plans and ownership documents, the court ruled that Peace Now’s allegations were baseless and the village was legally built on land that the villagers legally owned.

In November, 2006, Peace Now claimed that 86% of the Jerusalem suburb of Ma’aleh Adumim, home to 30,000 Israelis, was built on land seized illegally from local Arabs. Maps and land-use data from the Israeli military, released to the Israeli court in mid-March, 2007, demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court that only 0.5% (one half of one percent) of Ma’aleh Adumim’s land was privately owned by Arabs.

When faced with this rather galactic anomaly, Peace Now refigured its numbers and reduced its estimate to 32.4%, and blamed the army for the error.

So Peace Now erred by a factor of 173 (O.5% vs. 86.4%)!

Peace Now’s willingness to accept Arab complaints at face value even as, time after time, those complaints are proven false, makes Peace Now look inept and unreliable; but it also raises the suspicion that Peace Now is intentionally misrepresenting reality in order to support specious Arab claims, harass Israelis living in communities in the West Bank, and flood Israeli courts with meritless law suits. Such behavior looks very much like lawfare conducted against Israel by an Israeli not-for-profit putative civil rights organization. Such behavior suggests that Peace Now is driven by a powerful and uncompromising anti-Israel ideology, an ideology which trumps fact and logic.

The latter suspicion is supported by the egregious and numerous errors and outright lies of some of its spokespersons.
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Red Magen David, PA, Red Cross Agree: Israel is an "Occupier"

MDA signed a Red Cross document saying it "will ensure that it has no chapters outside the internationaly recognized borders of..Israel."

By Arutz Sheva Staff

There has not been much “understanding” lately between the Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas continues to launch missiles at Israeli cities, towns and kindergartens. The PA continues to refuse international blandishments to get it to the negotiation table and its request for recognition at the UN put paid to whatever remained of the disastrous Oslo Accords. Israel’s Red Magen David Emergency Services (MDA), however, seems in 2005 to have succeeded in reaching an “understanding” with the PA’s Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on how to run emergency rescue services in Judea and Samaria.

But there's a catch - or maybe several.

The “Memorandum of Understanding between Magen David Adom in Israel and Palestine Red Crescent Society,” a copy of which reached Arutz Sheva, includes having Israel called an “occupier” and agrees that “internationally recognized borders” are the line of demarcation for Red Crescent chapters rather than those of Red Magen David. In addition, Israel’s famed Red Star of David is scrapped and exchanged for a Red Crystal.

The memorandum was signed in Geneva on November 28, 2005 by Dr. Noam Yifrach, the Israeli Organization’s chairman and Younis Al-Khatib, President of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, in the presence of official representatives of the ICRC, IFRC and a special representative on the emblem.

As a reward, the Israeli rescue organization was to obtain its long-coveted membership in the International Red Cross. The agreement, on how to operate rescue services, states that its goal is "to pave the way for the membership of both societies in the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, committed to operating in accordance with international humanitarian law."

The existence of the joint International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies enables Moslem countries to avoid having a cross on their rescue vehicles. Israel, wanting neither cross nor crescent, chose the emotion-evoking Red Star of David and functioned independently. It was never accepted into the organization anyway, despite repeated requests, due to Arab opposition.

The year 2005 was cited in Israel as a breakthrough, but at what cost that change in attitude was achieved was not publicized.

Arutz Sheva spoke to Yoni Yisraeli, head of rescue operations for the Shomron Regional Authority, who explained that motivation for joining the IFRC, aside from Israel's natural and often hopeless desire to be part of world bodies, also has a financial aspect.

A $100,000 award for signing the document was part of the deal for each of the local societies, perhaps to be followed by more, and given Magen David Adom's ongoing financial crisis, this must have been tempting, he said.

Except, he added, that the heads of the societies seem to have received that sum for themselves.

And the Red Cross did not give that money for nothing. Below are some direct quotes from the document signed by Israel’s representative - no Oslo-created Areas A,B,C here [Area A is only PA, B is shared, C is only Israeli], just "Palestinian territory". The context makes the definition of those two words clear enough:

“MDA and PRCS will operate in conformity with the legal framework applicable to the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967.”

“MDA and PRCS recognize that PRCS is the authorized national society in the Palestinian territory and that this territory is within the geographical scope of the operational activities and of the competences of PRCS”.

“After the Third Protocol Additional is adopted and by the time MDA is admitted to the …International Red Cross and Red Cresecent societies, MDA will ensure that it has no chapters outside the internationally recognized border of the state of Israel.”

Efrat, Gilo, Maaleh Adumim, Ariel and Kedumim and other Yesha communities, take note.

“Operational activities of one society within the jurisdiction of the other society will be conducted in accordance with the consent provision of resolution 11…”

That seems to say, Israeli ambulances over pre 1967 borders – yes; chapters, no.

"MDA and PRCS will use a distinctive emblem in conformity with the requirements of the Geneva conventions and its Third Additional Protocol.”

The Third Additional Protocol introduces a third symbol, the red crystal, which, to quote the Protocol itself “will make it easier for national societies who do not wish to use the red cross or the red crescent emblems to be recognized and admitted to the Movement. This consolidates the Movement's universality”.

Cross and crescent, yes. Jewish star, no. Sublimely universal.

Oddly, for six years after the agreement, nothing changed visibly. Suddenly, in recent weeks, Israelis were up in arms to see that the Red Star of David symbol had disappeared from Israeli ambulances in Judea and Samaria, to be replaced by an odd symbol that meant nothing to anyone.

Questioners were told that the Star of David is not recognized by the international organization and that the rest of the country’s ambulances would soon follow suit.

A grassroots rebellion saw red Jewish star stickers being pasted on ambulances and volunteers from Judea and Samaria refusing to go to their stations.

That may or may not work, said Yisraeli, but since local authorities are not allowed to own ambulances but must rent them from Red Magen David, the society’s agreements affect everyone.

But what is to become of the requirements of the Memorandum of Understanding? And did the Foreign Ministry know and agree to MDA's relinquishing jurisdiction in Judea and Samaria as well as replacing the Star of David symbol for some pieces of silver? It depends on who is asked and whose interpretation of the document is accepted.

Arutz Sheva did not get any clear answers and the head of MDA was not available for comments. The Knesset is supposed to debate the issue in the near future, said a Shomron Regional Authority source.