Don't Be So Sure There Were No WMD in Iraq
By Rachel Neuwirth

Introduction

The references cited in this article strongly suggest that:

1. WMD did indeed exist inside Iraq before the war.

2. The weapons inspectors were both fooled and bribed to ignore evidence.

3. Massive amounts of WMD were removed to known locations in Syria just prior to the war.

4. Massive numbers of Saddam's audio tapes and paper documents were collected and most remain unavailable and presumably un-translated.

5. U.S. officials refused to investigate a number of likely WMD sites.

6. The U.S. intelligence community, and other branches of this government, are stonewalling the issue.

Readers are urged to review the references and decide for themselves.

Before America went to war to topple Saddam Hussein's regime it was widely believed that he possessed weapons of mass destruction. Today it is widely believed that there were no WMD in Iraq before the war. People of both political parties, the major media, and the intellectual community all appear in strong agreement on that point. Some even charge that the Bush Administration deliberately, and knowingly, misled the nation with false information as a pretext to justify going to war.

The Bush Administration is quietly acknowledging that they made a mistake, albeit not intentional. That admission seems to be the final confirmation that there were no WMD in Iraq. In police work when the accused confesses to making a mistake, it is then assumed that the accusation is true and people consider it to be ‘case closed'.

This widespread belief of no WMD in Iraq is seriously damaging our ability to deal with a growing nuclear threat from Iran. There are those who opposed our toppling mass murderer Saddam Hussein both in 1991 and again in 2003, even after he defied multiple U.N. resolutions and was generally believed to have WMD. Now the ‘peace at any price' crowd is exploiting the widespread belief of ‘no WMD' to undermine our war in Iraq. If we fail in Iraq it greatly weakens our ability to deal with Iran, which will become greatly emboldened and infinitely more dangerous as it eventually goes nuclear.

Opponents of military action to stop Iran claim that the mistake over Iraq means that we cannot trust any claim by the Bush Administration regarding Iran's growing nuclear threat. That logic may be faulty but it will further turn opinion against dealing with Iran, especially with those who are now sour on our war in Iraq - and that is currently a majority of Americans. The opponents of military action persistently argue for more ‘negotiations' as the only way to avoid a nuclear Iran even while Iran is clearly stalling for sufficient time to acquire the bomb.

It is therefore essential that the widespread belief of ‘no WMD in Iraq' be double-checked for accuracy. But how can average citizens, and other non-experts, really know the truth? Unfortunately, too many people refuse to reconsider an issue once their minds are made up. Reconsideration is essential and there is a way to deal with this question, at least indirectly. That way is to list critical unanswered questions and then demand that the proponents of ‘no WMD in Iraq' come up with credible answers. Those who adamantly insist that there were no WMD have a duty to answer the following questions or else admit their assertions remain unproven and conceivably wrong.

Obvious Question

Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and other Democrats, all saw the same intelligence back when Clinton was President and George Tenet headed the CIA. They all claimed Iraq had WMD which threatened America. If there really were no WMD, why are they not held equally accountable for misleading the American people? Shouldn't they be required to reveal the basis for their assertions? George Bush retained Clinton's CIA chief who reportedly assured Bush that it was a "slam dunk" that Saddam Hussein had WMD. Other intelligence services including those of NATO and Israel also believed there were WMD. Why don't the critics attempt to discover the evidence for those conclusions?

What was Saddam Hussein hiding with his elaborate schemes to frustrate the U.N. arms inspectors? Why would Saddam needlessly provoke the U.N. and the U.S. into going to war against him if he had nothing to hide? Why haven't the critics answered this question?

Shortly before the war, it was reported that U.S. satellites spotted truck convoys moving from Iraq to Syria at night. One possible explanation is that Saddam had WMD and removed them before the war. Various reports claim that the Russians helped move convoys and planeloads of materials from Iraq into Syria to at least three heavily guarded locations, identified, at least two years ago, by Debka.com and other news sources.

Inexplicably, there has been no effort to discover what was moved. If WMD were indeed removed in this manner, shouldn't we know it? If it turns out that WMD were removed then the war in Iraq becomes justified and the focus should then shift to Syria. If Saddam Hussein was not allowed to have WMD, why then is Syria, Iran's new ally, allowed to have possible WMD with no inspection? Is there unfinished business relative to Saddam's WMD? Is Syria now able to threaten Israel and U.S. forces in the region with chemical and biological weapons?

Where is Saddam's bio weapons expert known as Doctor Germ? What was her work? Saddam's chemical weapons expert known as "Chemical Ali" was recently sentenced to death. What was he doing prior to the war in 2003? Two of Saddam's sons-in law defected and testified about Saddam's WMD. They were spirited back by Saddam and then promptly killed. What did they reveal to U.S. authorities?

Libya's Colonel Khaddaffi gave up his WMD to the U.S. What weapons did the U.S. recover and ship back to America and who was working on these programs? Did Saddam Hussein sponsor the Libyan WMD program?

Early Reports

Seven months after the war began, an extensive report was published presenting a wealth of information on Iraqi WMD and containing 76 open source citations. It described how and what was hidden and how much of it was moved to Syria and Lebanon. It is ‘a must read'. The following paragraph is excerpted from that report.

"Now, it would be common to ask for the reason the Bush Administration has not revealed that WMDs are in Syria and/or Lebanon. According to Israeli intelligence sources, it is likely because exposure of that would lead to a domino effect where evidence would leak out that Iraq's programs had roles played by Egypt, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. [plus the French, Germans and Russians] Such leaks will enflame the region and especially Iraq, and make things much harder, resulting in a more bloody and costly war and diminishing likelihood that other countries would send forces in.[71] Additionally, people would be skeptic, saying it was a lie so that the war-mongering neo-cons were trying to justify a new conquest. The other side would put enormous pressure to bring the war to Syria-a war we are not yet ready to fight."

Iraqi General Georges Sada

In another intelligence revelation, ex Iraqi General Georges Sada recently published his book, Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied & Survived Saddam Hussein. In it he explains how, just prior to the war, Saddam moved his WMD to Syria, with Russian help. Go to www.amazon.com and search for author Georges Sada. Click on picture of book, "Saddam's Secrets". Scroll down to read reviews.

Reviews from Publishers Weekly:

Reviewer 1: In General Sada's unique position, he was able to observe some of the worst of Saddam's behavior and trickery and confirms in this book not only the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but also the extraordinary lengths that Saddam went to hide these weapons....

Reviewer 2: The author tells how Saddam managed to trick the world into believing he did not have weapons of mass destruction. He goes into detail how Saddam managed to hide all evidence of WMD's and how he managed to move all of them out of Iraq under the noses of the United Nations weapons inspectors. ....

Reviewer 3: Of particular note are tapes of more than 3,000 hours of Saddam Hussein meeting with his war cabinet and millions of pages of documents that contain vital information about Saddam's WMD program and plans for transporting the WMDs out of the country in order to dupe the weapons inspectors.... American and world citizens must demand that these tapes and documents be immediately released, translated, and analyzed in their entirety.

Intelligence Summit Meeting

Hundreds of security experts of diverse backgrounds convened on February 17, 2006 to evaluate Iraqi WMD. The organizers announced that translations of 12 hours of tapes of Saddam Hussein's cabinet meetings would be revealed at the meeting. In it Saddam would be heard talking about Iraq's WMD, its nuclear programs and how he fooled UN inspectors. Ten days before the meeting attendees received messages from inside the administration pressuring them not to attend. "However, these new tapes would have forced the intelligence community to admit that they misled President George W. Bush to state that Iraq had no WMD. Such admission, apparently, was something the intelligence community wanted to avoid by attempting to discredit this conference."

Captured Tapes and Documents

"Who'll Let the Docs Out? Bush wants to release the Saddam files but his [national] intelligence chief [John Negroponte] stalls. By Stephen F. Hayes" 03/20/2006, Volume 011, Issue 25 of the WeeklyStandard.com

Excerpts:

"On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq." Representative Mike Pence said to President Bush, "There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?"

"Bush replied that he wanted the documents released. He turned to [National Security Advisor Stephen] Hadley and asked for an update. Hadley explained that John Negroponte, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, "owns the documents" and that DNI lawyers were deciding how they might be handled.

.......

"Bush told Hadley to expedite the release of the Iraq documents. "This stuff ought to be out. Put this stuff out." The president would reiterate this point before the meeting adjourned. .....

......

"Negroponte never got the message. Or he is choosing to ignore it. He has done nothing to expedite the exploitation of the documents. And he continues to block the growing congressional effort, led by [Rep. Pete] Hoekstra, [the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee] to have the documents released.

‘I found Saddam's WMD bunkers'

Posted By Melanie Phillips On April 19, 2007 @ 9:26 am In Daily Mail |

A devastating expose of criminal incompetence and cover-up by the U.S. government. The first two paragraphs follow.

"It's a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It's also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmers in Saddam's Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam's use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons."

"Dave Gaubatz, however, says you could not be more wrong. Saddam's WMD did exist. He should know because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don't know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost' his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam's WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war."

Media Spin

Another problem with objectively appraising the danger of WMD is exemplified in a recent article that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The headline reads: "Scientist profits on fears of WMD. - Germ-weapons expert wins grants, federal contracts through his warnings of mass-casualty biological attack." Notice how the reader is immediately primed to be suspicious by the use of emotionally charged words such as "...profits on fears..."

The first paragraph reads,

"After helping to lead the Soviet Union's germ-weapons program, Ken Alibek defected to the United States and began warning about the threat of a mass-casualty biological attack. Alibek also has sought to profit from the fear of such weapons of mass destruction, landing federal contracts or grants totaling about $28 million."

The first sentence above acknowledges that Ken Alibeck had good reason to know about the Soviet Union's germ-weapons program and hence he has credibility. But then, as if to immediately undermine his credibility, there follows the insinuation that, ..." Alibek also has sought to profit from the fear ..." This implies a selfish, if not a sinister, motivation. And in support of this insinuation we are told that his company received government contracts or grants, as if that alone was evidence of wrongdoing.

If the LA Times has any proof of wrongdoing by Alibeck let them produce the evidence. Instead, this news implies an accusation without actually making a charge that could expose them to be prosecuted for libel. Honest reporting would require a clear separation between presenting hard facts and offering editorial opinion. Their blatant failure to observe journalistic ethics raises the question of an agenda on the part of the LA Times.

Too many people are imposing their biases and opinions on the WMD issue which makes it much harder to get the full truth and to defend against a future attack.

Bertram Cohen contributed to this article.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/dont_be_so_sure_there_were_no.html at July 04, 2007 - 04:25:26 PM EDT

Ya'alon: Land for peace concept failed
Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST
Jul. 4, 2007

The concept of land for peace is a proven failure in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and any future withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank will create a 'Hamastan' there too, former Chief of Staff Lt. Gen (Res.) Moshe Ya'alon said Wednesday.

The former military chief said that Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip and the creation of "the first Jihadist Arab entity" on Israel's doorstep last month was "the last nail on the coffin" in a string of faulty conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which have been the earmark of Israeli and Western policy for decades.

"The strengthening of Hamas after the Israeli pullout from Gaza and the Hamas takeover of Gaza necessitate a renewed examination of Israeli and international conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which, to my mind, are no longer relevant," Ya'alon said in an address organized by The Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute, on the ramifications of the Hamas takeover of Gaza.

In a succinct address which tore at the most basic premises of Middle East peacemaking, Ya'alon said that the faulty conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict included the notions that the Palestinians wanted - or were able - to establish an independent state on the 1967 borders, that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the creation of two states on the 1967 borders, that land for peace should be the basis for any peace agreement, that peace would bring security, and that the key to stability in the Middle East was the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He argued that the violent Palestinian rejection of the peace offer put forward to them at Camp David seven years ago, which would have awarded them with a Palestinian state on upwards of 95 percent of the West Bank, and the refusal of both Hamas and the more moderate Fatah to recognize the existence of a Jewish State, negated the very essence of Israeli and international policymaking on the conflict - that the Palestinians want an independent Palestinian State alongside Israel on the 1967 borders.

"We are talking about [a Palestinian Authority which is] a gang authority and not a political authority," he said.

Ya'alon said that stabilization in the region did not hinge on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as many Western leaders argue, but on the defeat of Islamic Jihadism, led by the Iranian regime.

"Not only will an Israeli concession not reduce the threat- it will increase it," he said.

"Israeli concessions today will impede not only Israel's interests and those of the West but of moderate Arab regimes in the region," he added.

The hawkish former military chief, who is expected to be a future top contender in the political arena, said that Israel must treat the Hamas-run Gaza Strip as an "enemy entity," and should "disengage" from being the provider of water, electricity, and goods to the volatile coastal strip where 1.4 million Palestinians live.

At the same time, he opined Israel should give the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in the West Bank a chance to establish autonomy, while Israel would be in charge of security in the area.

Ya'alon said that any Israeli military pullout from the West Bank would lead to the creation of a Hamastan there, which he said would threaten both Israel and Jordan.

He added that he opposed the stationing of Jordanian - or any foreign - troops in the West Bank, calling it a fruitless idea which has been ineffective in the past.

Ya'alon's tenure as Israel's top military officer from 2002-2005 was marked by both a successful military crackdown on Palestinian terrorism, and his very overt falling out with then prime minister Ariel Sharon over his opposition to the premier's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

In a separate address, Major General (Res.) Giora Eiland, a former head of the Israel National Security Council said that Israel was missing out on an opportunity following the sudden Hamas takeover of Gaza last month.

Eiland argued that Israel had not used the Hamas conquest of Gaza to pressure the Islamist group to stop Kassam attacks and return Israeli Cpl. Gilad Schalilt now that it was in control of the densely populated coastal strip, and instead was serving the Palestinian interest by releasing Palestinian prisoners, and easing border crossings in the West Bank.

He argued that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders were not interested in reaching a peace agreement since such an accord - even if it were reached - would not be practical given the political realities on the ground, and would only lead to a future escalation of violence.

Replace failing cabinet now

Year elapsed since Lebanon War, yet government has learned nothing
Benjamin Netanyahu

Almost a year has elapsed since that morning when Hizbullah surprised the entire State of Israel by forcing a war on us. All of a sudden a million citizens in the north found themselves under a barrage of missiles and rockets never before experienced by the Israeli home front throughout Israel's history. Almost a year has elapsed since last summer whereby an entire nation witnessed a series of shortcomings by a failed government.


With the outbreak of the war, the cabinet set the right objectives, primarily pushing back the threat of missiles and destroying them, as well as bringing home our abducted soldiers – Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser.


To my regret, the government failed: Our abducted soldiers in the north, just like Gilad Shalit in the south – didn't come home. And Hizbullah? It has already rearmed beyond its capability prior to the war, while it and its patrons – Iran and Syria – blatantly defied UN Resolution 1701. In the south just like on the northern border, a pro Iranian enclave emerged, Hamastan, just as we predicted.


On both fronts there has been no substantive progress in ameliorating home front fortification shortcomings revealed during the war.


A year has elapsed and the feeling among the people is one of deep unease. The country is stuck. Much of the population feels there is currently no leadership and that the leaders are preoccupied with saving their own skin instead of dealing with statesmanship.


Instead of guiding the people to a safe haven, through a sober reading of reality, we are hearing plans for further concessions. In the last seven years Israel erred twice in undertaking unilateral withdrawals – first in Lebanon and later in the Gaza Strip. Unilateral policies did not bring the much yearned for peace any closer, but rather, pushed it further away. These mistakes must not be repeated!


We should recognize a simple basic truth: Power distances war and brings peace closer, while weakness does the exact opposite. The Palestinians and our other neighbors will take the path of coexistence and peace only after understanding that Israel's existence is a fait accompli: That they are facing an incredibly strong nation politically, militarily, economically and socially.



Time for elections

Hence, what is currently needed is a plan of national empowerment that would fortify our defense capabilities and strengthen our international standing by motivating governments and world public opinion to take action against Iran and its satellites.


Yet it seems that with regards to this matter too little is being done in a much too feeble a voice. Iran's president is frequently announcing his plans to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. No one is speaking out, while even Israel's voice sounds somewhat hesitant and weak.


We are in need of a revolution in this area, along with the continuation of economic growth in order to reinforce our vital interests. A strong economy would also ensure a response to Israel's social needs. Only a free economy enables the existence of a state and a modern society. Free market economy alongside social sensitivity is the right answer. And this is our policy.


Any citizen who can join the workforce – let them do so. Because this is the only way that the truly weak – such as the elderly, handicapped and the sick - can really be assisted. The cabinet must promote employment, lower taxes, boost the middle class and provide excellent education to all.


Mutual assistance among citizens should be embraced alongside personal responsibility. The incumbent government is doing none of this. It is fumbling without a policy. It appears that all governmental institutions are atrophied.


A government draws its authority from the people. The roots of this government have dried up. We must return to the people and regain its trust. I believe that in these elections the people will place their trust in the Likud movement, which has proven that it and only it was able to foresee the future through level-headed, sane and responsible policies.


In such a case I will approach all the heads of the Zionist parties in order to establish a national unity government that would take the Likud's path and rise up to the great challenges still ahead of us.

A PALESTINIAN TWO-STEP

by Efraim Karsh



My most memorable meeting with Sari Nusseibeh took place in London in the spring of 1989. I was then a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University's Jafee Center for Strategic Studies, and like many well intentioned Israelis at the time and since, we aspired to lay the ground for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation through secret talks with Palestinian interlocutors, including members of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization, then an outlawed organization in Israel. The group we met was headed by Faisal Husseini, the PLO's most senior official in the disputed territories, flanked by Mr. Nusseibeh, a number of prominent London-based Palestinian Arab academics, and an allegedly well connected Syrian expatriate.

The meeting was pleasant and informative enough, with the courteous British hosts going out of their way to accommodate both sides, yet I was left with a nagging sense of foreboding. I was particularly taken aback when Mr. Nusseibeh, even then widely considered the epitome of Palestinian moderation and a staunch proponent of Arab-Jewish coexistence, turned out to be the most extreme member of the group. Dismissing out of hand the two-state solution -- Israel and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- he instead sang the praise of the "one-state paradigm" -- a standard catchphrase for Israel's destruction -- demanding the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza population into the Jewish state as full-fledged citizens, to be followed by the refugees from the neighboring Arab states and beyond.

In subsequent years, Mr. Nusseibeh continued to pay lip service to the two-state solution and consistently questioned the very legitimacy of the state with which he ostensibly wished to make peace. On a few occasions he even let the mask drop, unveiling his true agenda. In the late 1990s, for example, he told an old Oxford friend that "one day, in the near or further future, all this [ Israel and Palestine] will be one binational state. It's just a question of how we get there." In an April 2005 debate at Dartmouth College, Mr. Nusseibeh advocated the creation of a binational state as the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. "We will have spent 100 years killing and fighting each other, doing our best to avoid a one state solution, and we will find ourselves in that exact situation in 40 or 50 years," he argued.

That this advocacy of the destruction of an established member state of the international community has hardly dented Mr. Nusseibeh's "moderate" image can be partly explained by the desperate yearning among Jews and their supporters worldwide for Palestinian and Arab peace partners, dating back to the 1920s and the '30s, despite countless setbacks and disillusionments. It is also a corollary of the narcissist and patronizing mesmerization among educated westerners with the "noble savage" in general, and the westernized native in particular. With his posh Jerusalem high school education, his Oxford and Harvard degrees, and impeccable western demeanor, Mr. Nusseibeh, like cultured Arabs and Muslims before him, represents the ultimate product of the "white man's civilizing mission," a contemporary replica of George Antonius, the Cambridge-educated Syrian political activist who was the toast of British chattering classes in Palestine and beyond during the 1930s.

From the 1940s the same attitude can be seen in America. As the Washington Daily News wrote of a visit to the capital by Ahmad Shukairy, later the first head of the PLO, but at the time a 40-year-old Western educated lawyer: " Mr. Shukairy turned out to be a young lawyer, dressed in a natty blue suit and a little moustache, with his black hair slicked back over a high forehead. He spoke better English than most Americans ... and he is a smoothie."

In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 542 pages, $27.50) has been received with alacrity. The Israeli novelist Amos Oz applauded it for casting "a fresh light on the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy," while for Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic, it was "a deeply admirable book by a deeply admirable man." Though dismissing Mr. Nusseibeh's account of the 1948 war as "grotesque" and regretting his comparison of Israeli prisons to the Soviet gulag, Mr. Wieseltier insisted that "there is nothing mean or heartless in Nusseibeh's writing about Israel," as if his equating the incarceration of lawfully convicted terrorists with the arbitrary detention and extermination of tens of millions of innocent civilians is not mean or heartless enough.

Neither is the gulag diatribe that Mr. Wieseltier took exception to an isolated exception. Quite the contrary, Mr. Nusseibeh misses no opportunity to denigrate and delegitimize Israel through sharp, short, often subtle yet always false readings of history. When describing the building of Jerusalem's Russian colony in the late 19th century, for example, he cannot resist the temptation to note that "the Israelis turned it into a prison." In fact it was the British who turned the compound into a central police station and prison well before the establishment of the state of Israel, which only inherited the facility. Likewise, he ends a description of mid-1940s Palestine with a wholly unrelated aside about the (alleged) "attempts by the Israeli government to shut down Al-Quds University, which I now head." Again, at the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990s, when these territories were transferred to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students.

Or take the terror war waged by the Palestinians since September 2000, which has thus far claimed some 1,130 Israeli lives (equivalent to 45,000 American fatalities, when you adjust for Israel's smaller population) with seven times as many wounded. According to Mr. Nusseibeh, this terrorist spree has been a pretext, rather than a cause, for the erection of the security fence (which he misrepresents as a "twenty-foot-high concrete wall," whereas in reality the wall constitutes less than 5 % of the fence's total length), as if the above death toll is not sufficiently severe to merit this counterterrorism measure. Besides, if the fence was designed to dismember the West Bank and disrupt Palestinian national development (a complete nonsense given that its route runs largely along the pre-1967 "green line"), why did it take Israel some 35 years, after its conquest of the territories, to initiate its erection?

But Mr. Nusseibeh is not someone to be bothered by the facts. His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint. The British foreign secretary who made the famous declaration (in November 1917) on "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was Mr. Arthur James Balfour, not " Lord Alfred Balfour," and the declaration was made in a letter to Lord Rothschild, not to Chaim Weizmann. Lawrence of Arabia had nothing to do with the Anglo-Hashemite correspondence that led to the "Great Arab Revolt" of World War I, and the person with whom the British plotted the revolt was Emir Hussein ibn Ali (later King Hussein of the Hijaz), not his son Emir Faisal (misrepresented by Mr. Nusseibeh as " Sheikh Faisal Hussein"). Neither did the British ever promise Faisal (or Hussein for that matter) the headship of the Arab kingdom that would be established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. General Edmund Allenby did not occupy Palestine with his Mule Corps but rather with the powerful Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the Ottoman potentate Djemal Pasha did not surrender to the British in 1917, as it was only in late September 1918 that Allenby scored his culminating victory, in the Battle of Megiddo. Sheik Izz al-din al-Qassam, the Syrian religious fanatic operating in Palestine in the mid-1930s, was not hanged by the British but killed in action. The Higher Arab Committee (established in 1936) comprised 10, rather than six, members and Jaffa's Arab population in 1948 didn't amount to 200,000 people, but to about a third of this figure. The Dome of the Rock was built by Caliph Abdel Malik ibn Marwan and not Mu'awiya, and Caliph Omar did not capture Jerusalem in 638 C.E. after the bloody conquest of Baghdad and Cairo for the simple reason that both cities were established long after the Muslim capture of Jerusalem. And so on and so forth.

Yet this astounding sloppiness pales in comparison with Mr. Nusseibeh's inability to rein in his deep anti- Israel prejudice. Time and again we hear of the rootless "Russian Jewish upstarts streaming into the country" to dispossess its indigenous population. Readers of Once Upon a Country will never know of the countless Zionist attempts at reconciliation, or the real opportunities for statehood offered to the Palestinians in the decades preceding the 1948 war. Instead, they are treated to an uninterrupted story of the victimization and abuse of the hapless Palestinians by the heartless Zionists who in public spoke peace but in private "spelled out their [expulsive] plans."

If the Arabs reverted to violence, as they occasionally did, it was invariably the Jews' fault. The 1929 massacres, for example, in which some 133 Jews were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors, and hundreds more were wounded, were but "a nasty backlash among Muslims" to Zionist nationalist aspirations regarding the Wailing Wall; just as Arafat's war of terror was a logical reaction to Ariel Sharon's short stroll along Temple Mount. But then, why should Muslims act differently when Jews, who have no valid claim to Palestine, let alone to the Wailing Wall -- "a most likely candidate for being the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions" -- make outrageous demands on this holy Muslim site.

This absurd assertion -- part of a lengthy historical fabrication of Jerusalem's history posted on the homepage of Al-Quds University, an institution headed by Mr. Nusseibeh -- is hardly different from the countless misrepresentations and distortions contained in Once Upon a Country. It is also congruent with the persistent Palestinian denial of the existence of King Solomon's Temple, and by extension the Jewish millennarian attachment to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Small wonder that in 2002 he was appointed PLO Commissioner for Jerusalem affairs by Arafat, who in the Camp David summit of September 2000 had told President Clinton that the Temple had been located in Nablus rather than in Jerusalem. To judge by the gist of Once Upon a Country, Arafat could not have made a better choice.


Professor Efraim Karsh is head of Mediterranean studies at King's College, University of London. A revised paperback edition of his "Islamic Imperialism: A History" will be published this month by Yale University Press.

Advice for Mr. Blair: Stop Patronizing the Palestinians
Gerald M. Steinberg
Vol. 7, No. 6 June 28, 2007



•In taking the position of "international peace envoy" for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Blair will need to change the basic political parameters in order to avoid another catastrophic failure.

•Most importantly, this will require abandoning the widely held images of Palestinian victimization and demonization of Israel. Palestinians must be shown that massive corruption, as well as terror and incitement have unacceptable costs, and that they must take control over their destiny.

•British and European leaders, academics, NGO officials, journalists, clergy, and others who have fostered the patronizing image of Palestinian helplessness and who have turned a blind eye to corruption and terror must also change frameworks. Continued aid must be tied to performance in these key dimensions.

•On this basis, it may be possible for Mr. Blair to encourage the transformation in Palestinian society that will one day create the basis for pragmatic compromise and a stable peace with Israel.


Given the dismal record of many would-be peacemakers in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Tony Blair must realize that the prospects of success as the latest peace envoy are not good. Having spent a great deal time on and in the region as Prime Minister, he must be aware of the obstacles, and the absence of any magic formula for instant peace in this most protracted of ethno-national and religious conflicts. Mr. Blair has seen enough to know that good intentions and simplistic slogans are not enough, and that real peace requires the type of societal transformations that take many years, once it begins.

The brutality of the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the collapse of the remnants of Fatah and the PLO may provide a small foundation from which to begin this transformation among the Palestinians, particular those in the West Bank. But this process will also require a basic change in international policies and perceptions with respect to Palestinians. In particular, the patronizing and ineffective emphasis on Palestinian suffering and helplessness that has dominated actions since 1948 must end. Palestinians must be given the opportunity and the external push to take control over their own destiny, and stop seeing themselves simply as passive victims.

The rampant corruption and failed leadership in Palestinian society is, to a large degree, a product of the massive welfare system in effect since the Israeli defeat of the 1948 Arab invasion, and the refugees that resulted. At that time, "temporary" camps and housing were created under control of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) . Rather than work to end their refugee status, as in many similar situations of warfare and displacement, (and following Israel's example of integrating hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who fled violence in Arab countries), this situation was deliberately and cynically perpetuated. The objective was blatantly political - as long as refugees and camps existed, the goal of reversing the UN partition resolution and the establishment of Israel remained alive. In this central respect, nothing has changed in almost 60 years.

Beyond the massive economic cost of maintaining this situation (UNRWA spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year ), more damage is caused by perpetuating the image of Palestinian victimization. The Arab defeat in the 1967 war led to the reinforcement of this image, as well as further increases in welfare funding through other aid and development frameworks through European governments, major churches, and powerful via pro-Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Although the PLO was founded in 1964, and came to be accepted as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people", its leaders limited their activities to the political and military struggle against Israel. Yassir Arafat showed no interest in building civil society or ending the dependence and victimization. On the contrary, for decades, he was a major contributor to this syndrome.

The international community, and particularly European governments, perpetuated and widened this process , handing over additional funds, often in bags of cash handed directly to Arafat and his cronies. Officials in London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Oslo, Bern, Stockholm, Rome and elsewhere, ignored the obvious evidence of massive corruption and the lack of interest in building institutions or providing services (the report written much later by the EU's watchdog agency OLAF remains a tightly guarded secret, making a mockery of European calls for transparency).

The core reason for allowing huge amounts of European tax revenues to disappear among Palestinian officials was paternalism. European leaders did not expect anything better from Arafat and Fatah, and did not try or condition aid to fundamental changes. After the 1993 Oslo peace framework established the Palestinian Authority and the refugee camps in this territory ceased to exist, the image of victims and helpless refugees continued, and the corruption increased, abetted by the donors.

In parallel, the "Palestinian cause" and the prevalent image of helpless victims was perpetuated among self-proclaimed human rights groups and other NGOs, in the media, in churches, on university campuses, and among politicians . In Britain, powerful groups such as War on Want, Christian Aid, and others held rallies for the Palestinians, collected funds, and demonized Israel through boycott and divestment campaigns. European leaders continued to embrace Arafat until his death, long after his personal corruption and failed leadership was revealed and many Palestinians distanced themselves. By the same token, Palestinians were not expected to behave by the ordinary rules of moral and civilized behavior, or to respect human rights . And no terror attack, including bus bombings and suicide bombers in cafes, was considered repulsive enough by officials in Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch to change in this neo-colonialist image of Palestinian victimhood.

Given this dismal condition, Mr. Blair would be well advised to avoid more of the same - more victimization and sympathy for "Palestinian suffering". A sharp cut-off of all international aid would worsen the situation, but the terms of this assistance should be radically altered. Palestinians must be told that the aid will decrease annually, and that they will have no alternative but to use this assistance to become self-sufficient and to demand effective leaders. And this aid should no longer be used to perpetuate the political and ideological war against Israel being waged, in large part, through the manipulated images of passive Palestinian victimhood.

This in itself will be a very difficult challenge for Mr. Blair and his staff. They will encounter stiff resistance from both Palestinian and European officials in UNRWA, the powerful development agencies such as DFID, the pro-Palestinians NGOs that receive this funding, and elsewhere and who know no other approach. Most importantly, if this is to succeed, Palestinians must be taught to take responsibility for their own situation, rather than appealing for international assistance, both economic and political, whenever they are in difficulty. In this process, more Palestinians will come to realize that support for terror and suicide bombers, and the preaching of incitement in schools, mosques and the media, has an unacceptable cost. And along with Mr. Blair, they will also understand that the decades of war with Israel must finally end through difficult compromises on the Palestinian side as well. Without leaders and society capable of such compromises, nothing else will succeed.

* * *

Prof. Gerald Steinberg heads the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University, and is the Executive Director of www.NGO-Monitor.org.

Think Again: Democracy and media manipulation

Jonathan Rosenblum,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Jun. 28, 2007

Surprisingly, a recent panel on Israel Radio at Haifa University did not draw the media attention it deserved.

At that panel, Hanan Naveh, the chief editor on the Israel Broadcasting Authority's news desk at the time of the withdrawal from Lebanon, boasted that "three broadcasters - Carmela Menashe, Shelly Yacimovich, and I - pushed the withdrawal from Lebanon in every way possible ... [W]e took it upon ourselves as a mission - possibly not stated - to get the IDF out of Lebanon." He explained that three of the news editors had sons in Lebanon and were determined to bring them home.

Even in retrospect, Naveh was totally unapologetic. "I'm not apologizing ... It came from the guts because of the boys in Lebanon ... I'm very proud that we had a part in getting our sons out of Lebanon," he said.

Similar confessions of media mobilization on behalf of a particular political agenda, and a similar lack of embarrassment when the the preferred policies come a cropper, are an Israeli commonplace. Veteran IBA News anchor Haim Yavin once bragged, for instance, "Without the Israeli press, the intifada would not have led to Oslo."
Free speech and a free press are fundamental to democracy. They help guarantee a well-informed citizenry upon which democracy depends by ensuring that crucial facts are not hidden from the public and that there is a robust debate on the issues facing the country.

BUT FOSTERING public debate and transparency is not how most Israeli journalists view their role. Rather, they see their task as making sure that the public reaches the proper conclusions. That is particularly true of those in public broadcasting, which holds a near monopoly over the air waves - a power of which the broadcasters are acutely aware.

Those caught in morning traffic jams are "captive - they are ours," according to Naveh. At the same Haifa conference, Army Radio's Razi Barkai noted the power of the morning radio to set the national news agenda for the rest of the day.
That monopoly power over the air waves is frequently abused, even to the point of outright fraud. In one IBA telecast, more than a minute was edited out of a speech by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to make it appear he was waving and smiling in response to chants of "Death to the Arabs" by some Betar Jerusalem fans. Long after the Shamgar Commission investigating the Rabin assassination determined that the infamous Eyal swearing-in ceremony was a hoax staged by agent provocateur Avishai Raviv and the IBA film crew, the IBA continued to air the clip as an example of the right-wing incitement prior to the Rabin assassination. And the producer of the clip remained on the IBA payroll.

THE QUALITY of national decision-making has been profoundly affected for the worse by our mobilized press. Last summer's war and the devastating impact of Hizbullah's missiles caught the Israeli public largely by surprise because the press had hidden the dangers of the withdrawal from Lebanon from public view. Having led the charge for withdrawal, the press then deliberately played down Hizbullah's missile build-up in southern Lebanon.

The national debate over the Gaza withdrawal was similarly impoverished, as the press took to heart Channel 2's Amnon Abromovitch's advice to protect prime minister Ariel Sharon like a precious "etrog." Sharon was never forced to lay out the strategic assumptions behind withdrawal, and was allowed to portray all opponents of withdrawal as solely motivated by a Greater Israel theology. As a consequence, serious security concerns were largely ignored. When Shin Bet head Avi Dichter warned, for instance, that the trickle of arms into Gaza would become a mighty river after withdrawal, his testimony was relegated to the back pages.

IMMEDIATELY after Naveh's confession, Justice (ret.) Dalia Dorner, the president of the Israel Press Council, urged journalists to continue to show courage in exercising their power to "determine the daily agenda." She, in effect, held Naveh up as a role-model. Her only caveat was that journalists should not create a "hostile public opinion," which might adversely affect freedom of speech. In other words, continue to lead the people, but don't be so obvious about it that you get caught.

Dorner completely missed the ways that the exercise of monopoly power by a handful of editors and broadcasters is inimical to the core justification for free speech and a free press - i.e., free and open debate. She assumed that the editors of the morning news shows should utilize "their ability to influence public opinion" and encouraged them to continue doing so.

THAT IS hardly surprising. Israeli Supreme Court justices share with the media elites a certain arrogant assurance of their own wisdom and their mandate to impose the fruits of that wisdom on their fellow citizens.

Both have a problem grasping the basic premise of representative democracy - in the words of Judge Richard Posner, one of America's most respected legal academics and appellate judges - the idea that the determination of public policy should be made "by governmental figures who stand for election at relatively short intervals and are thus accountable to the citizenry."

Just as the journalists view their monopoly position as a mandate to tell the public what to think, so do the justices view their positions as granting them the right to determine all public norms. They even claim the right to pass down their monopoly power to hand-picked successors. That attitude endangers Israeli democracy without even the redeeming virtue of having led to wiser public policy.

Goodwill? Good Grief!
By Cal Thomas -Townhall - 6.28.7

Sometimes, for those who pay attention, the stars align and produce spectacular effects in the cosmos and on earth. A similar effect can occasionally be produced through journalism.

On June 26, the Washington Post featured three stories on its World News page that should teach a lesson to anyone who wishes to pay attention. The top story was headlined, "Olmert Makes ŒGesture of Goodwill': At Summit in Egypt, Israeli Leader Pledges to Seek Release of 250 Palestinian Prisoners."


Palestinians hold framed pictures of men held in Israeli prisons during a protest demanding their release outside the Red Cross office in Gaza City, Monday June 25, 2007. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was expected to address the issue of releasing Palestinian prisoners with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an effort to bolster him in the West Bank, at a summit in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, Monday. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Related Media:
Dore Gold, Tony Woodlief.

Hiding behind the Veil

The story just below featured this headline: "Israeli Soldier, on Tape, Pleads for Prisoner Swap: A Year After Capture, (Gilad) Shalit Says He Needs To Be Hospitalized."

The third story's headline was "Hope Dims For Imminent Release of BBC Reporter."
Is Olmert self-deluded, or merely dumb, when he promises to engage in one more in a long list of "goodwill gestures" that have produced no reciprocity from Israel's enemies? I'm leaning toward the latter.

When Israel has previously released prisoners who were captured because many of them had killed, or tried to kill, Israelis, many returned to the company of their jihadist brothers and plotted to kill again. On occasion, Israel might have received one kidnapped Israeli soldier or civilian hostage in return for freeing hundreds of prisoners, but mostly it got nothing.

During Olmert's visit to Washington last week, I asked a "senior Israeli official" if he had tried to persuade Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to eliminate the outrageous programming on Palestinian TV, which regularly glorifies suicide bombers and calls for the killing of Jews and the elimination of Israel. The official, who requested anonymity as a condition for speaking, said, "I have made the request before" but without results. If Abbas will not order the cessation of anti-Semitic programming on the TV station he controls, what makes Olmert think the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners will make him more agreeable to anything intended to ensure Israel's survival?

In a telephone interview, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told me, "Abbas doesn't have what it takes by himself" to stabilize the West Bank and that Jordan, along with Egypt, must serve as part of an "external scaffolding" in partnership with Israel to counter Hamas in the West Bank. Netanyahu opposes Olmert's prisoner release idea, saying, "This is a wrong, harmful message that will not strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It will only weaken it." In Washington meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Netanyahu said a division of the Jordanian military should be deployed in the West Bank in order to bring law and order to the area. Netanyahu described Palestinian society to me as "dysfunctional" and said something must be done to "control the mobs."
Israel has made man goodwill gestures, and after each one Israel has become more vulnerable. How about a goodwill gesture from the Palestinian side, such as foreswearing violence and living up to their promises?

What is wrong with Israel's leadership, and much of the leadership in the West, that it believes peace is only a matter of finding the right formula to satisfy the Palestinian side and the Arab states that seek Israel's destruction? Israel's enemies (who are mostly America's enemies, too) care nothing about goodwill, reciprocity, equality or a two-state solution to the turmoil. They want a one-state solution, which is the replacement of Israel with a Palestinian state.
Can anyone credibly argue otherwise? Is there any substance to such an argument, beyond wishful thinking?

Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently appeared before the Parliament Liaison Committee. Though he was speaking of Iraq, his remarks could apply to the threat to Israel. Blair argued that the West needs to free itself of the habit of mind that believes the violence we see in Iraq and elsewhere is created by the United States, Great Britain, and Coalition forces. He said, "We think we are creating this problem; we are not creating it, it is being created for us."

Perhaps Blair should move to Israel and run for prime minister there. He gets it; Olmert doesn't.

Right On!: Whatever happened to the 'Spirit of Entebbe'?

Michael Freund, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 26, 2007

Once upon a time, and it truly seems like it was a very long time ago, the State of Israel knew how to take swift and decisive action in order to protect its citizens and punish its foes.

I know, dear reader, that may be hard for you to believe, particularly in light of recent events. After all, Israel has spent much of the past decade in retreat, ignominiously capitulating to terrorism and turning over vast swathes of territory to Palestinian control.

With Cpl. Gilad Schalit being held captive by Palestinians in Gaza for the past year, and the residents of Sderot and the Western Negev dodging Kassam rockets on a daily basis, it is easy to forget that words such as heroism, daring and bravery once exemplified our government's approach towards combating terror.

None of these qualities were on display the other day at Sharm e-Sheikh, of course, where Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saw fit to heap concession after concession on the ineffectual and increasingly irrelevant Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
After agreeing to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the Abbas-led regime, and to strengthen the armed Fatah gangs loyal to him, the premier presented his Palestinian counterpart with an unexpected parting gift.

"As a gesture of goodwill to the Palestinians," Olmert declared, "I decided today that I'll bring to the Israeli government at its next meeting a recommendation to release 250 prisoners from Fatah without blood on their hands."

Then, in what passes for Israeli resolve and determination these days, the premier insisted that the Fatah terrorists would be freed, but only if "they sign commitments not to become involved again in terrorism." Phew. And I thought they would be let go for nothing.

Apparently, it didn't dawn on the Prime Minister to link the release of Palestinian terrorists with freedom for Gilad Schalit, or to condition any further movement on the diplomatic front with progress towards his return home.

Instead, the fact that a young Israeli Jew serving his country was abducted 12 months ago by a group of thugs was treated as if it was a pesky and tiresome nuisance, rather than a substantive and fundamental matter of principle.

In light of the Prime Minister's sorry display, it is especially important that we recall the anniversary of an important event that took place just over three decades ago this week, one which offers us a potent and timely reminder of just how terrorism should truly be fought.

IT WAS 31 years ago today, on June 27, 1976, that armed gunmen from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, together with some German accomplices, hijacked Air France flight 139, diverting it to Libya and then on to the city of Entebbe, in Idi Amin's Uganda.

As the world looked on, the terrorists proceeded to separate out the Jewish and Israeli passengers, threatening to kill them if Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails were not set free.

Back then, however, Israel was not yet in the habit of yielding to terrorist demands. No international summits were convened at Sharm e-Sheikh, no "gestures" were made to the terrorists, nor were any tax receipts transferred into their coffers.
Instead, Israel reacted precisely as it should have, by launching a stunning military raid on July 4, 1976, freeing virtually all the captives and bringing the situation to a sudden and dramatic end.

In one fell swoop, Israel had underlined its role as the sovereign defender of Jews everywhere. An entire generation was inspired to believe that the Jewish people were determined to defend themselves whatever the consequences might be.

THE RESCUE at Entebbe was also a powerful symbol for the entire free world. It showed that with a little courage and resolve, and a healthy dose of military force, the scourge of international terror could be defeated.
For years afterwards, it was the "Spirit of Entebbe" which guided this country, and which deterred its enemies from once again thinking that Jews and Israelis were fair game.
Looking back, it is hard to believe how much has changed since then. In just three decades, Israel has gone from being a country which frees hostages to one that frees terrorists. Instead of refusing to negotiate with the bad guys, we now offer them unilateral concessions while getting nothing in return.

In times such as these, we must seek to revive the "Spirit of Entebbe" and infuse it into our national life. Jewish lives were once considered precious enough to warrant risking international condemnation over saving them in a distant land. That must again become a pillar of Israeli security policy.

By refraining from taking the steps necessary to protect itself for fear of how the world will react, Israel is effectively placing greater importance on international public opinion than on the lives and well-being of its citizens. That calculus is not only morally warped, but short-sighted and dangerous too.

As Entebbe so clearly demonstrated, winning the war against terrorists comes not when one yields to them, but when the terrorists themselves are forced to yield.
Only by regaining the spirit of triumph and fortitude that was embodied at Entebbe, and by hitting back at our foes, can Israel possibly hope to dissuade them from committing further atrocities and outrages.

And the sooner our government adopts this basic and self-evident approach, the safer all of us will be.

Dear President Bush,

One year ago, three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Efforts to free them have been in vain; even the International Red Cross has not been able to see the abducted.

Today, Israel has the opportunity to call for the return of one of those soldiers, Gilad Shalit, in exchange for
250 terrorists. It has been publicized that your administration is pressuring Israel to release those terrorists with disregard for Shalit' s possible return.

In other words, Mr. Bush, you are putting the 'bolstering' of Mr. Abbas - a man whose history has shown involvement in terrorism - as more important than the freedom of an ailing 20-year-old who deserves to be returned to his family and country!!

THE WORLDWIDE ENEMY OF FREEDOM AND MORALITY IS BOLSTERED BY SUCH COWARDICE ON THE PART OF A GREAT COUNTRY LIKE THE U.S. AND WILL ENDANGER US IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE OF SUCH ACTIONS. THIS IS UNCONSCIONABLE!!! I URGE THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
TO TAKE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND AND STAND WITH ISRAEL IN DEMANDING THE RELEASE OF THE KIDNAPPED SOLDIER, GILAD SHALIT!!

Sincerely,
Hannah

JINSA Report #676
Contrarians

Contrarians. We've been called that before. While much of the American Jewish community approves of President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert's decision to fund and support Abu Mazen as "the President of all the Palestinians," we are disappointed at many levels.

First, Abu Mazen may be the President of all the Palestinians, but he has/had a legislature ted by the freely elected Hamas. For the U.S. to now say that we accept the results of the Presidential election but not the result of the legislative election is poor policy.

Second, Abu Mazen did nothing to change the culture of corruption he actively helped Yasser Arafat develop during the Oslo years. How could the Palestinians be the world's largest per capita aid recipients - according to the Wall Street Journal, "the PA has so far received more foreign aid than all of Europe received under the Marshall Plan" - and still have 30 percent of its people dependent on food aid from outside ? For the U.S. to agree to provide more money with less control is poor policy.

Third, two American generals tried their hand at training Palestinian forces to protect themselves - if not to protect the people they were supposed to serve. We never liked the mission those generals were given, but we had assumed they wouldn't fail. They failed; utterly failed. The Fatah soldiers trained by American officers did not protect the civilians. They did not protect the institutions of the PA . They did not protect their wounded comrades, some of whom Hamas shot in their hospital beds while others were tossed out of buildings. The men our generals trained turned and ran ignominiously. For the U.S. to provide more arms with less control is poor policy.

Fourth, Abu Mazen at the height of his capability (and this is not it) was not a partner in the establishment of a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis. He was willing to discuss day-to-day security and economic policy for the territories, and believed ings were counterproductive to Palestinian goals (though not necessarily bad in and of themselves). At the same time, he was entirely committed to Arafat's three-point program: an independent Palestinian State with its borders undefined; Jerusalem as the capital; the so-called "right of return" of the original 1948 Palestinian refugees and their descendants to places inside Israel from which they claim to have come. If he couldn't accept the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty then, for the U.S. to believe he can and will while under siege from people better trained, better armed and more ideologically committed than he, is poor policy.

Fifth, Abu Mazen has already indicated that he wants to talk to Hamas about the future. Since they won and he lost, it is safe to assume that Fatah will move toward the Hamas position rather than assume Hamas will move toward the Fatah position.

America has already lowered the bar of expectations of Fatah responsibility to the ground. As Fatah becomes more like Hamas in order to survive, the only way for the U.S. to lower the bar further would be to dig a hole. For the U.S. to begin digging is poor policy.

Radical Islam's 'End-Game'


A friend of mine said recently, "We shouldn't even be there. Let them kill each other. I mean, that would solve the problem. Right?"

I thought about that statement as I read the news coming out of the Gaza Strip. As Hamas and al-Fatah literally battle to the death for supremacy in their region, it is crucial that we take the time - right now - to understand what it is they're fighting about. The truth is our lives depend on it.

To look at the situations in Iraq and Gaza as separate conflicts is to view them in a naive and overly simplistic way. True, the battles taking place in Gaza are more akin to a civil war, if in fact a civil war can take place without a recognized country to govern. And the battles taking place in Iraq are almost completely instigated at the hands of al Qaeda terrorists hell-bent on creating chaos with violence while destroying any chance of democracy in that nation. But what the less visionary among us are deficient in understanding and neglectful or deceitful in not addressing is the reason they are fighting, their goal, their end-game.

Many anti-war activists and members of the American Fifth Column insist that the reason radical Islamist terrorists -- insurgents or militants as they like to call them -- have taken to jihad against the United States and the West is because of the encroachment of our culture into the 7th Century Middle Eastern culture in which they exist. They point to Osama bin Laden's 1996 fatwa against the US and the West citing the presence of Western military personnel and installations as the catalyst for al Qaeda's Islamofascist aggression.

While these points may very well be the justification used by the cadre of terrorist organizations originating throughout the Middle East for attacks against the West, it doesn't explain their propensity for Arab on Arab, Muslim on Muslim violence. It doesn't explain the original catalyst for the conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims and it certainly doesn't address the Islamofascists' goals.

The specifics surrounding the original cause for conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims are disputed by both camps. But both factions concede that it stems from a disagreement over the direct succession to Mohammed, to the Caliph. This subject requires more space than can be afforded here. What can be addressed here is the "end-game."

That Islamofascist aggression advanced through the use of terrorism is taking place around the world against members of every faith other than Islam is a testimony to the fact that radical fundamentalist Islamists are engaged in an intentional conflict of global conquest. Terrorist attacks in the name of Islam have taken place in Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Spain, Britain, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Somalia, Algeria, Sudan, South America and the United States - to cite a short list - against, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and even conformist and non-fundamentalist Islamists.

When one examines the facts and logistics of Islamofascist aggression - both in history and modern times - it is hard to argue that the basis for this aggression is Western influence on the Islamic culture. If this were the sole reason for Islamofascist aggression there would be no excuse for attacks in the name of Islam on the Hindus or Buddhists or in any nation that doesn't embrace Western values such as Thailand, Somalia or most of Indonesia. Yet, the slaughter of innocents in the name of Islam does take place against these people and in these non-Westernized regions.

By acknowledging these facts - and they are indisputable - we can dismiss the argument that the US and the West have brought the wrath of Islamofascism upon ourselves, which is the basis for the argument used by the anti-war movement, the American Fifth Column and disingenuous and opportunistic politicians.

What, then, is the catalyst for Islamofascist aggression and what could be so powerful as to produce legions of suicide bombers and those willing to die, without reservation, for their cause?

While the many elements of this subject are complex, together they indicate an overall agenda that is not.

In almost every declaration and action of the Islamofascist, from Osama bin Laden to Hassan Nasrallah, Ayman al Zawahri to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the goal is the same: the successful establishment of a global Islamic state - or caliphate - ruled under sharia law. This notion is not a supposition on my part. Rather, it is an accurate observation, based on understanding and acknowledging the actions taken and the words used by each of these fascist leaders (note the correct usage of the word fascist).

In his 1996 fatwa, Osama bin Laden proclaimed, "...O you horses (soldiers) of Allah ride and march on. This is the time of hardship so be tough. And know that your gathering and co-operation in order to liberate the sanctities of Islam is the right step toward unifying the word of the Ummah under the banner of 'No God but Allah'...Our Lord, shatter their gathering, divide them among themselves, shaken the earth under their feet and give us control over them..."

It should be noted that to bin Laden, the Ummah is considered a figurative nation comprised of all Muslims and all Islamic nations.

In 2000 bin Laden declared, "...Afghanistan is the only country in the world that has the Shari'ah. Therefore, it is compulsory upon Muslims all over the world to help Afghanistan. And to make hijra to this land, because it is from this land that we will dispatch our armies to smash all kuffar all over the world."

In October of 2005, during his address to the United Nations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, "From the beginning of time, humanity has longed for the day when justice, peace, equality and compassion envelop the world."

And in a speech to Friday prayer leaders he said, "Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi."

It should be noted here that Ahmadinejad believes - as do most Shi'ites - that the 12th Imam (or Muhammad al-Mahdi), according to their interpretation of the Quran, will bring "peace and justice on earth" by establishing Islam throughout the world. This equivalent of the "second coming" would take place when the world has fallen into chaos and civil war emerges between the human race for no reason.

If we are to take the leaders of the Islamofascist movement at their word - and the leaders of the United States and the West have been delinquent in accepting the declarations of fascists in the past, so much so that world war has ensued - we can only surmise that the battles taking place between Sunni and Shi'ite factions in Iraq, Gaza and elsewhere in the world are for dominance in what they perceive as an inevitable global Islamic Caliphate.

It is crucial that the United States government - and all the governments of the West - dispense with the political infighting that currently holds hostage national unity and the collective will, so we can defend ourselves from the inevitable full-scale confrontation with an emboldened and strengthening Islamofascist movement. The first step to achieving this unity is an honest, comprehensive understanding of the enemy. The education to achieve that end must begin immediately.

Make no mistake. We are essentially re-visiting the ominous days of 1938. It took everything that the freedom loving people of the world could muster to vanquish evil then. This time we may not be so lucky. This time the forces of evil will have nuclear capability.

By Frank Salvato
cnsnews.com

Our World: Grounded in fantasy


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Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 19, 2007

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Iran and its client state Syria have a strategic vision for the Middle East. They wish to take over Lebanon. They wish to destroy Israel. They wish to defeat the US in Iraq. They wish to drive the US and NATO from Afghanistan. They wish to dominate the region by driving the rest of the Arab world to its jihad-supporting knees. Then they wish to apply their vision to the rest of the world.

Today, Syria and Iran are ardently advancing their strategic vision for the world through a deliberate strategy of victory by a thousand cuts. Last week's Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip; Sunday's reopening of the Lebanese front against Israel with the Syrian-ordered rocket attacks on Kiryat Shemona; the now five-week old Syrian ordered low-intensity warfare against Lebanon's pro-Western Siniora government; last week's attack on the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra; the recent intensification of terrorism in Afghanistan and Iran's move to further destabilize the country by violently deporting 100,000 Afghan refugees back to the war-torn country - all of these are moves to advance this clear Iranian-Syrian strategy.

And all these moves have taken place against the backdrop of Syria's refashioning of its military in the image of Hizbullah on steroids and Iran's relentless, unopposed progress in its nuclear weapons program.

For their part, both the US and Israel also have a strategic vision. Unfortunately, it is grounded in fantasy.

WASHINGTON and Jerusalem wish to solve all the problems of the region and the world by establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. While Israel now faces Iranian proxies on two fronts, in their meeting at the White House today US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will gush about their support for Palestinian statehood. Creepily echoing LSD king Timothy Leary, they will tune out this reality as they drone on about the opportunities that Gaza's transformation into a base for global jihad afford to the notion that promoting the Fatah terrorist organization's control over Judea and Samaria can make the world a better, safer, happier place.

Today Bush and Olmert will announce their full support for Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's new government. The US will intensify General Keith Dayton's training and arming of Fatah forces. Israel will give Fatah $700 million. The Europeans and the rest of the international community will give the "moderate, secular" terror group still more money and guns and love. The US will likely also demand that Olmert order the IDF to give Fatah terrorists free reign in Judea and Samaria.

Olmert and Bush claim that by backing Abbas militarily, financially and politically they will be setting up an "alternative Palestine" which will rival Hamas's jihadist Palestine. As this notion has it, envious of the good fortune of their brethren in Judea and Samaria, Gazans will overthrow Hamas and the course will be set for peace - replete with the ethnic cleansing of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem of all Jewish presence.

FATAH FORCES barely raised a finger to prevent their defeat in Gaza in spite of the massive quantities of US arms they received and the military training they underwent at the hands of US General Keith Dayton. Bush, Olmert and all proponents of the notion of strengthening Fatah in Judea and Samaria refuse to answer one simple question: Why would a handover of Judea and Samaria to Abbas's Fatah produce a better outcome than Israel's 2005 handover of Gaza to Abbas's Fatah?

They refuse to answer this question because they know full well that the answer is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the outcome can be better. They know full well that since replacing Yasser Arafat as head of the PA in 2004, Abbas refused to take any effective action against Hamas. They know that he refused to take action to prevent Hamas's rise to power in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. They know that the guns the US transferred to Fatah in Gaza were surrendered to Hamas without a fight last week. They know that the billions of dollars of international and Israeli assistance to Fatah over the past 14 years never were used to advance the cause of peace. They know that that money was diverted into the pockets of Fatah strongmen and utilized to build terror militias in which Hamas members were invited to serve. They know that Fatah built a terror superstructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza which enabled operational cooperation between Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror cells.

SO WHY embrace the fantasy that things can be different now, in Judea and Samaria? Rather than provide rational arguments to defend their view that Hamas's takeover of Gaza is an opportunity for peace, proponents of peace fantasies as strategic wisdom explain vacuously that peace is the best alternative to jihad. They whine that those who point out that Israel now borders Iran in Lebanon and Gaza have nothing positive to say.

To meet the growing threat in Gaza, they argue that Europeans, or maybe Egyptians and Jordanians can be deployed at the international border with Egypt to stem the weapons and terror personnel flow into Gaza. To meet the growing threat in Lebanon, Olmert pleads for more UN troops.

Both views ignore the obvious: Gaza has been transformed into an Iranian-sponsored base for global jihad because Egypt has allowed it to be so transformed. Assisted by its Syrian-sponsored Palestinian allies, Hizbullah has rebuilt its arsenals and reasserted its control in southern Lebanon because UN forces in southern Lebanon have done nothing to prevent it from doing so.

No country on earth will volunteer to fight Hamas and its jihadist allies in Gaza. No government on earth will voluntarily deploy its forces to counter Hizbullah and Iran in south Lebanon. This is why - until they fled - European monitors at the Rafah terminal were a joke. This is why Spanish troops in UNIFIL devote their time in Lebanon to teaching villagers Spanish.

SO WHY are Bush and Olmert set to embrace Fatah and Abbas today? Why are they abjectly refusing to come to terms with the strategic reality of the Iranian-Syrian onslaught? Why are they insisting that the establishment of a Palestinian state is their strategic goal and doing everything they can to pretend that their goal has not been repeatedly proven absurd?

Well, why should they? As far as Bush is concerned, no American politician has ever paid a price for advancing the cause of peace processes that strengthen terrorists and hostile Arab states at Israel's expense. Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton had Arafat over to visit the White House more often than any other foreign leader and ignored global jihad even when its forces bombed US embassies and warships. And today Clinton receives plaudits for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

By denying that the war against Israel is related to the war in Iraq; by ignoring the strategic links between all the Iranian and Syrian sponsored theaters of war, Bush views gambling with Israel's security as a win-win situation. He will be applauded as a champion of peace and if the chips go down on Israel, well, it won't be Americans being bombed.

OLMERT LOOKS to his left and sees president-elect Shimon Peres. Peres, the architect of the Oslo process which placed Israel's national security in the hands of the PLO, has been rewarded for his role in imperiling his country by his similarly morally challenged political colleagues who just bestowed him with Israel's highest office.

Olmert looks to his left and his sees incoming defense minister Ehud Barak. In 2000, then prime minister Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon, and enabled Iran's assertion of control over southern Lebanon through its Hizbullah proxy. In so doing, Barak set the conditions for last summer's war, and quite likely, for this summer's war.

By offering Arafat Gaza, 95 percent of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem at Camp David, Barak showed such enormous weakness that he all but invited the Palestinian terror war which Arafat began planning the day he rejected Barak's offer.

For his failure, Barak has been rewarded by his Labor Party, which elected him its new chairman on the basis of his vast "experience," and by the media which has embraced him as a "professional" defense minister.

Olmert looks to his right and he sees how the media portrays Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon as alarmists for claiming that Israel cannot abide by an Iranian-proxy Hamas state on its border. He sees that Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu supported Peres's candidacy as president and have joined their fortunes to Olmert's in a bid to block elections which will bring the Right to power.

ISRAEL HAS arguably never faced a more dangerous strategic environment than it faces today. Yet it is not without good options. It can retake control over the Gaza-Sinai border. It can renew its previously successful tactic of killing Hamas terrorists. It can continue its successful campaign of keeping terrorists down in Judea and Samaria, and it can continue preparing for war in the north. All of these options can be sold to the Left.

But today both Bush and Olmert will reject these options in favor of mindless peace process prattle. They will reject reality as they uphold Abbas as a credible leader and shower him with praise, money and arms. Their political fortunes will be utmost in their minds as they do this. And they will be guaranteeing war that will claim the lives of an unknown number of Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Bush and Olmert should know that when the time for reckoning comes they will not be able to claim, along with Peres and Barak that their hands did not shed this blood. Reality has warned them of their folly. But in their low, dishonest opportunism, they have chosen to ignore reality and amuse themselves with fantasies and photo-ops.

We are pleased to present Alex Arndt. He is working as a Research Associate and Web Editor for the Knowing Israel - a study tour project that helps to expose young European journalists to Israel's diversity and unique situation (http://www.knowing-israel.org/).

He is a PhD candidate at the University of Potsdam. In addition, he has been working for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, especially for the Post-Holocaust Anti-Semitism program, with translation, research, and briefings on European Anti-Semitism, with a special focus on Germany. He has also contributed with book reviews to the Jewish Political Studies Review. He holds two Master degrees from German and American universities in the fields of History and Cultural Studies.


Interview with Alex Arndt

WTW: Does Europe really know what is going on here in Israel?

Alex: The impression is that Europe does not understand Israel that well, there are a number of reasons and people have already written about this. I’d like to mention just three of these reasons. Western Europe, actually all of Europe with the exception of the old Yugoslavia has not experienced war in the last 60 years. Therefore, the public does not live in a society or a culture where you have to think about war. Nor do they have to plan for the next time someone is going to attack you. This is completely out of the mind of people in Europe, therefore the journalists and sometimes the European public tends to underestimate Israel’s situation. Another thing, Europe is a very post-nationalist society. Europeans, after all these wars that were fought for European identity, race and whatever crazy beliefs they feel that nationalism is a thing of the past which makes them a bit hesitant to embrace things like a Jewish identity many different kinds of things, like religion, cultural and ethnic, there are so many different things that form a Jewish identity, people just do not understand. Thirdly, there is this past of anti-Semitism in Europe which makes it a difficult subject to claim that a people they feel, at least subconsciously, that the wars in Europe and elsewhere has been responsible for the Jewish people looking for a state of their own. Although many do not want to admit it, they do say, “What you people are doing is what the Nazis did to you.” This inversion of holocaust themes are put upon Israel, I think, speaks of some sub-conscious feeling of guilt that one tries to project on Israel. Therefore I think many things come together and make the Europeans to be very hesitant to embrace Israel.

WTW: At the JCPA we monitored the French riots, and at that time there was a Muslim leader in Germany who said we do not have to learn German ; Germany is an Islamic country. Did you hear that remark?

Alex: I think I remember hearing something like that but I don’t think this is something that causes the German people a lot of controversy at the moment. The people still believe and hope that this is really only a problem due to a lack of integration for Muslim immigrants into European society. Many parties are asking, “How can we integrate them? What can we do?” The problem is due to some crazies and then one tries to get rid of them. For example, one man had to leave Germany because he was just a hate monger. I think the majority of the German people have their problems with integration but I think more because it is a problem of difficulty in integrating not because they think Islam is going to conquer Europe.

WTW: So Germans feel secure; there is such an influx of Muslims into Europe altogether. We know, for instance, that in France the police were told not to go into the neighborhoods where the Muslims were living because it was ' occupied territory'. This then is not a prevalent attitude in Germany; Germans do not fear that the Muslims are going to take over?

Alex: Not at all. I think that there are some scandals, last year there was this problem with an opera; it had a strange interpretation of Mozart’s interpretation of religious leaders like Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed was to be beheaded on stage and they cancelled the show; they were afraid of Muslims attacking the opera. The thing is that no one ever proved that the Muslims intended to do so. It was like preemptive surrender-people were afraid-this was rather an example of political correctness rather than really a threat there because there was no proof that the Muslims would have acted that strongly. The debate asks are we overreacting, are we Islamophobic, or are we failing to integrate those people properly? I think there is not a belief that Muslims are taking over Europe. Also, the French riots were perceived in Germany (apart from the far right) as a social problem. For example, those people have no jobs, they have no income, they are frustrated, they are young, they are not feeling integrated into the French society; therefore, they go out and burn cars. Basically you would have the same thing in Germany if we had problems with Muslim immigrants, Germans look for the cause in social problems not so much that there might be some ideology that is completely averse to Western values.

WTW: At this point in time in Germany there is no sense that we are in a 'clash of civilizations' or as some have said WW III has already begun, we haven’t recognized it yet? Just to be clear, the perception in Germany is that all the problems associated with Islam can be answered by economic or by social explanations?

Alex: Yes, I think this is the belief by the majority of the politicians and the public. Of course, there is a hope we can have peace. The cartoon incident definitely hit the European psyche hard, like what is going on was the thinking. If you read the German blogoshperes, more and more people are writing op-ed pieces in the major mainstream newspapers in Germany; more and more people are concerned with this development. They are really worried about Iran speeding to have nuclear weapons and the ongoing frustration with all these peace efforts that Europe invests so much money in and seeing, like in Lebanon and in the territories, they see all this money being expended and it is wasted, burned and they see all the violence going on there. I think the number of people concerned about what is going on. The whole idea of the term 'clash of civilizations' has been with us for a long time. This is considered politically incorrect. Therefore people would never try to talk in this manner and they try to avoid this term. They also try to downplay whatever is going on and thus provide analysis on a structure based upon social and economic issues. Also, the apparent failures of the USA with their policies in Iraq helps now to push those who were against the war from the start and who were against the war on terror from the start to say, “this is not about democratizing the Middle East, just leave them alone and the reasons they hate us is because of the way we treat them. The division between these camps is getting sharper.

WTW: You have just completed the first year of this program with three different groups of young reporters. Can you do a pre and post Israeli visit analysis of the program’s impact thus far?

Alex: We are still working on the program's design and we are learning from our mistakes. During our very first tour the Lebanon War broke out and on the other hand all the journalists were gathered together and were eager to go to this place. They brought with them their own values and beliefs and they wanted to go to several hot spots; they had plenty to write about. I think some of the journalists then focused more on the Middle East from then on. On the other hand the situation was very tense in Israel; everyone you talked to was pro war and again there were some journalists who were left with an impression that Israel is in a unique situation. These people did not know too much about Israel before their visit. Being here made it difficult for them to fully understand what is going on. Of course, we exposed them to many different points of view, they met Palestinians and these were not living up to the journalist’s expectations although they were moderate. They were extremely tense I think the journalists were also extremely frustrated from this interaction. There was also this constant reflection from their side that what Israel was doing was disproportionate. Although we tried to expose them to as many people as was possible, Netanyahu, Dore Gold, Carolyn Glick, they had am impression that they were not sure of their messages. This entire time of hard security talk was “too much for them” to digest. Why don’t you just get the job done and then withdraw or calm down? We did our best. If you have - say 5 people of the 9 people on the tour going away with amore profound and deeper knowledge of this situation and what Israel has to go through then I think the program is successful. After the first tour, we decided to change the program. The journalists come with an effective filter. They want to have Palestinians, they want to have Israeli-Arabs; they want to have left-wingers from Israel-we give it to them. We feel that first, this is a Democracy, it is a pluralistic society it is not a one party country who determines who goes to war or if we kill children –it is a pluralistic society and there are so many different opinions out there we should expose them to these different opinions. Now, during the war even the left - wingers were pro war. Even in our second tour, we met through Haaretz, thanks to a Czech ambassador's hospitality one evening-they were all pretty much pro-Zionist. The last tour was the most diversified and most liberal one to date. This is a thin line. I know this. Talking to a post-Zionist professor gives the reporters a completely different picture of Israel than say Dore Gold whom they will meet right after. The idea behind this is to have them have a didactic experience with regards to Israel. Fr example, have them listen to an Arab- Israeli then go for a tour with an Israeli across Israel-have them see Sderot, let them see how the people live and the destruction. Every time, the journalists were able to pick up the problems raised, they understood and came to their own answers and conclusions. They then were able to also expose the next speaker to the issues they witnessed. If this post-Zionist professor says the wall is insignificant, is there only for symbolic reasons, it does not prevent terrorists from infiltrating into Israel therefore it is exaggerated what Israel claims the wall does. Let the reporters hear this. Then take these issues to the next speaker to Uzi Arad and let them talk to him-ask him about the significance of the wall. Is the wall really completely senseless and is it really only for symbolic reasons? He will explain the opposite point of view. Let the reporters get the facts from different sides and try to get their own picture of the truth. The reporters are here for one week, they hardly have time to access the internet. How can they check these 'facts'? I do my best; I constantly am having discussions with them and provide them with some more knowledge. In the end, I hope that if they walk away from this experience, we give them evaluation sheets, they tell us what they liked most, what they found was the most difficult, I am sure, although they are not so sure of the 'defensible borders concept' or the fence, at least they have the knowledge that Israel wants peace. They leave understanding it is more complicated than they expected and they know this cannot be solved over night and that nothing can be solved by European wishful thinking. If this is the result then I think this program is successful.

WTW: This sounds like a wonderful program . Are you interested in taking this to other European countries?

Alex: This program is for European journalists, it is not just for German journalists. We get them from all over Europe, We have them from Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark.

WTW: Thank you for the clarification. You sponsor the program and you have young journalists from all over Europe. Is the issue of our three captured soldiers kept alive in Europe? Do they know that there are Arab members of the Knesset? Do they know it was an Arab Knesset member that suggested our soldiers be kidnapped?

Alex: The issue of the soldiers-they think that Israel acted disproportionately because only three soldiers were kidnapped and a few more killed. The majority of the German politicians supported Israel for the first two weeks-then they started to defect and put pressure on Israel to stop. In the mind of many people it is still felt that, yes, it was three soldiers but killing so many people and bombing Beirut in the manner we did. You have to argue with this interpretation. You have to tell them it is not only about 3 soldiers, but it is about constant exposure to Kassam missiles and they basically raid our border on a regular basis, then they start to realize this situation is more difficult than they first believed. Regarding language, 'occupied territories', I always put together articles by JCPA and Dore Gold’s famous article on ' occupation' to give them a legal background on just what is going on. They learn more about the history of the situation with this tour; most of these young journalists have very little historical understanding of this situation-it is their weakness. They have limited knowledge of Israel’s history. They see only Israel now, they do not know about 1948, the early Zionist movement of the Mufti of Jerusalem, many do not know these things. They do not know the history and, thus, they cannot appreciate how difficult it is to live in this neighborhood. Thus, the first Intifada, the Palestinians are seen as a people who are oppressed and suppressed by Israel. They do not realize that the Palestinians had many offers of peace but chose different direction-one of terror. The idea of the 'settlements' is a hard sell to the journalists. What you have is European pragmatism. I have to be honest here, although there is some sympathy for the Zionist idea and I feel that Judea and Samaria are 'disputed territories', from a pragmatic point of view and realistically point of view, you have this demographic that there is a Palestinian people living in the territories and their numbers are growing. This is an issue and this is what the Europeans realize when they hear and use the term 'occupied'. Europeans still have questions about Israel’s need for security and thus being inside these territories.

WTW: What does Europe think about the issue of 'settlements'?

Alex: So the 'settlement' issue is, you know, the Europeans feel like we should let the Palestinians have their state. Now the obstacle to this is that there is no space for the Palestinians. Now they regard any attempt by Israel to claim any of these disputed territories as her own is something detrimental to the peace process. You can argue that the peace process has failed and that Oslo has failed, and you can try to explain but still there is this issue of five million Palestinians altogether and they have to go somewhere. You can’t deport them; you have to find a solution. They feel the 'settlements', such as Hebron, are really difficult to hold. They are obstacles, you can try to tell them something, you can reason with them, you can tell them Hebron was always a Jewish city, there was a massacre in 1929, Look, right here now, the security regime for the Palestinian regime believe 'settlements' are detrimental to something called 'peace'. You can’t do much right now and you have to think about the future. The Palestinian population is growing, you will have over 10 million of them years ahead of now. Thus, you cannot forever hang on to the idea that you can have 'settlements' where there are more Arabs than Jewish people. You can’t have a democracy or Jewish democracy if there are more Arabs living there. We try to tell the young reporters that Israel can’t go backward, the issue is one of security. Security is a prerequisite for peace and without security, and without a reliable partner you cannot achieve peace.

WTW: Have they ever thought about Arab countries taking in the 'refugees' just as Israel took in 750,000 to 850,000 refugees?

Alex: Yes, we tell them about this, we give them this perspective. Even when we tell them that Israel is a Democracy and that it must put up with neighbors that reluctant to help the Palestinians out of this situation. So what is Israel suppose to do? In Germany we have a saying, “the smarter ones give in” and another saying “Always the smarter one is giving in, the stupid one is winning in the end.” Thus, Israel must find a solution, Israel must, of course, take care of its own interests and provide security for its people.

WTW: This will still be an unequal equation as there will still be Arabs living in Israel and they will multiply; the Palestinian state would be an apartheid state as no others would be allowed to live there. There are already 22 other Arab countries-that is not a fair exchange.

Alex: Yes, sure but they are asking for a state and yet they are not able to structure themselves in the manner that allows them to make a state. You still have the situation that the Europeans think that Israel should give them a state, leave them alone and they will all be happy. Although this is a fallacy, Europeans think this way. What can you do?

WTW: Alex, thank you very much, that is an interesting analysis of Europe’s point of view. Let me finish this by asking you to complete the following sentence-“There will be peace in the Middle East… “left for a time when the messiah comes.”

WTW: Thank you very much Alex, we wish you all the best