In an article posted December 7, 2007, on the leftist website www.ahewar.org, [1] 'Aref 'Alwan, an Iraqi author and playwright who resides in London and is the author of 12 novels, [2] states that the Jews have an historic right to Palestine because their presence there preceded the Arab conquest and has continued to this day.
In the article, titled "Do the Jews Have Any Less Right to Palestine than the Arabs?" 'Alwan called on the Arab world to acknowledge the Jews' right to Palestine, because justice demanded it and also because doing so would end the violence and the killing of Arabs, as well as intra-Arab strife. He added that such a move would also open up new avenues for the Arab world that would be more consistent with the values and needs of modern society. 'Alwan writes that the Arab League is to blame for the refusal to recognize the 1947 U.N. partition plan, for starting a war to prevent its implementation, and for the results of that war, which the Arabs call the Nakba (disaster). He points an accusing finger at the Arab regimes, the Arab League, and the educated circles in the Arab world, saying that they had all used the term "nakba" to direct popular consciousness toward a cultural tradition that neither accepts the other side nor recognizes its rights - thereby promoting bigotry, violence and extremism. He also claims that there have been attempts to rewrite Palestinian history, in order to deny any connection between it and the Jewish people.
'Alwan contends that the "Nakba mentality" among Arabs has boomeranged, giving rise to tyrannical rulers, extremist clerics, and religious zealots of every description. In his view, the Arab world will never shed the stigma of terrorism in the West unless it abandons this concept and all that it entails.
To boost his claim that the Jews have an historic right to Palestine, 'Alwan provides an overview of Jewish history in the land of Israel. He questions the validity of the Islamic traditions underpinning the Arab claim to Palestine, Jerusalem, and the TempleMount, and presents evidence that religions that preceded Islam had conducted rituals on the TempleMount.
As an example of the traditional Arab mentality that does not accept the other or recognize his rights, 'Alwan discusses the Arabs' abuse of the Kurds in Iraq and of the Christians in Egypt and Lebanon.
The following are excerpts from the article:
The Nakba: A Great Lie
"When the Salafi mob in Gaza tied the hands and feet of a senior Palestinian official and hurled him, alive, from the 14th floor, I asked myself: What political or religious precepts must have been inculcated into the minds of these young people to make them treat a human life with such shocking cruelty?
"Earlier, I had watched on TV as the bodies of two Israeli soldiers were thrown from the second floor [of a building] in a Palestinian city. Whether or not it was the same Salafi mob behind that incident, [one asks oneself]: What language, [or rather,] what historic linguistic distortion could have erased from the human heart [all] moral sensibilities when dealing with a living and helpless human being?
"Arabs who are averse to such inhuman behavior must help me expose and eliminate the enormous lie that has for 60 years justified, extolled, and supported brutality. [Such behavior] is no longer limited to the expression of unconscious [impulses] by individuals, but constitutes a broad cultural phenomenon, which began in Lebanon, [spread to] Iraq and Palestine, and then [spread] - slowly but surely - to other Arab states as well.
"This enormous lie is what the Arabs called the Nakba - that is, the establishment of two states in Palestine: the state of Israel, which the Jews agreed to accept, and the state of Palestine, which the Arabs rejected.
"In our times, when science, with its accurate instruments, can predict climatic changes that will lead to drought or the movement of tectonic plates that causes earthquakes, it is inconceivable that a modern man can, without making a laughingstock of himself, attribute the destruction of cities ancient or modern to the wrath of Allah. Nevertheless, today, 80% of Arabs claim this to be the case. They are neither embarrassed nor afraid of being laughed at.
"This high percentage includes not only the illiterates who densely populate rural areas, villages, and small and large cities, but also students, teachers, lecturers, graduates of institutions of higher education, scientists, technology experts, physicians, graduates of religious universities such as Al-Azhar, historians, and politicians who have held or are currently holding public office.
"It is those numerous educated elites who have forced the Arab mentality into a narrow, restrictive, and deficient cultural mold, spewing violence, terrorism, and zealotry, and prohibiting innovative thought... All this was done to instill a false sense of oppression in the hearts of the Arabs, and to destroy them with the infectious disease of despair and confusion.
"[This attitude] is rooted in the 1947 Arab League resolution stating that Palestine is a 'stolen' land and that none but a Muslim Arab is entitled to benefit from it as an autonomous [political entity], even if another's historic roots there predate those of the Muslims or the Arabs."
The Nakba Boomerang
"[The upshot] of this confusion in [Arab] mentality is that the lie has boomeranged on the Arabs. [Thus] appeared [on the scene] Saddam Hussein, Hafez Al-Assad, Bashar Al-Assad, Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, Hassan Nasrallah, Nabih Berri, Khaled Mash'al, Isma'il Haniya, and Mahmoud Al-Zahar, whose young [thugs] threw the senior Palestinian official from the 14th floor. Finally, from the foot of the eastern mountains bordering the Middle East came Ahmadinejad, who is committed to preparing the way for the anarchy and destruction that accompanies the advent of the long-awaited Mahdi, who will resolve the Palestinian problem.
"Today, owing to the ideological distortions that have afflicted the Arab popular consciousness since the so-called Nakba, and [also owing] to the lies that have accumulated around this notion, [the label of] 'terrorism' has become attached to Arabs, wherever they are.
"Despite the great political and cultural efforts by large and important Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and some Gulf states to restore Arab ties with the rest of the world, and to curb the culture of terrorism in Arab societies, they have all failed. This is because these attempts to rectify [the situation], from both within and without [the Arab countries], both stemmed from and were a logical extension of the concept of the Nakba.
"This proves that the Arabs have no hope of extricating themselves from the cultural and political challenge of terrorism unless they come up with [new] and different [fundamental] premises, and with an outlook completely free of the fetters of the religious ritual that they have devised in modern times and called the Nakba.
"Although Palestinian senior officials, leaders, educated circles, and public figures, whose patriotism is beyond doubt, have come to terms with the existence of the State of Israel, the aforementioned 80% of Arabs... do not accept this view, and consider it religious apostasy. Leaders of the [Arab] states in the region, and party leaders, inflame sentiment, entrancing them with the drumbeat of extremism.
"With the strident chorus of its secretaries, the Arab League ensures that every car crash in Gaza or the West Bank is interpreted as an Israeli conspiracy against the Arab future. This is because the Arab League... was established as a pan-Arab entity whose main function was to write reports and studies rife with distortions of fact so as to quell the conscience of any Arab who dared think independently and expunge [the concept of] the Nakba from his consciousness. [It has done] this instead of devising creative strategies for cultural and economic development, so as to improve the deteriorating standard of living in the Arab societies."
The Nakba is Rooted in a Culture that Does Not Recognize the Right of the Other
"Why did the partition resolution, which gave a state in Palestine to the Jews and one to the Arabs next to it, become the Nakba - [the star] that rises and sets daily over the Arab lands without emitting even the tiniest ray of light to illuminate the path for their peoples?
"Did the Jews have any less right to Palestine than the Arabs? What historic criteria can be used to determine the precedence of one [nation's] right over that of the other?
"Refusing to recognize the right of the other so as to usurp his rights was a governing principle of the Islamic conquests from the time of 'Omar bin Al-Khattab; during that historical period it was the norm. [But] at the turn of the [20th] century, this principle was abandoned and prohibited, because it sparked wars and [violent] conflict. The international community passed laws restricting the principle of non-acceptance of the other, in the founding principles of the League of Nations in 1919. Subsequently, with the U.N.'s establishment, these laws were developed [further], with appendices and commentary, to adapt them to the current historical era and to express the commonly accepted values of national sovereignty and peoples' right to self-determination.
"But because of their sentimental yearning for the past and zealous adherence to [old] criteria, the Arabs purged their hearts of any inclination to adjust to the spirit of the age. They thus became captives of the principle of non-acceptance of the other and of denying the other [the right] to live, [among] other rights.
"As a result, damage was done to the rights and interests of non-Arab nations and ethnic groups in the Arab lands - among them the Kurds, the Copts, and the Jews. [Thus,] the Arabs still treat the numerous minorities that came under their dominion 1,400 years ago in accordance with the laws from the era of Arab conquest.
"Despite the consequences of denying the other the right to exist, not to mention other rights - that is, [despite] the oppression, conflicts, wars, and instability [resulting from this]... the Arabs have steadfastly clung to their clearly chauvinist position. All problems in the region arising from minorities' increasing awareness of their rights have been dealt with by the Arabs in accordance with [the principle of non-acceptance]... [even] after the emergence of international institutions giving these rights legal validity, in keeping with the mentality and rationale of our time."
Refusing to Accept the Other: The Kurds in Iraq; the Christians in Egypt and Lebanon
The Kurds
"The denial of the Kurds' national rights by the Iraqi government, and the Arab League's support for it, has brought on wars lasting 50 years - that is, three-quarters of the life span of the state that arose in Iraq...
"After fabricating arguments to justify the [1921] combining of the Basra region with the Baghdad region in order to establish a new state in Iraq, British colonialist interests demanded that a large area historically populated by Kurds be added to the new state. [This was done] to satisfy the aspirations of King Faisal bin Al-Hussein [bin Ali Al-Hashemi], who had been proposed as head of state in return for protecting British interests in the region.
"In his persistent refusal to grant the Kurds their rights, from 1988 through 1989 Saddam Hussein murdered approximately 180,000 Kurds, in an organized [genocidal] campaign he called 'Al-Anfal.' He then used mustard gas against one [Kurdish] city (Halabja), killing its residents (5,000 people). The Arab conscience silently acquiesced to this human slaughterhouse, while Arab League secretary-general (Shadhli Al-Qalibi) called the international press coverage of these events 'a colonialist conspiracy against the Arabs and the Iraqi regime.'
"Syrian Kurds are considered second-class citizens, and are banned from using their language or [practicing] their culture in public."
The Christians in Egypt and Lebanon
"The ethnic oppression of the Kurds [in Iraq] was echoed by sectarian extremism against the Copts [in Egypt]. In both cases, the Arabs used the principle of denying the existence of the other so as to strip him of his rights.
"The Copts, who [initially] assimilated Arabs into their society, but who have over time themselves assimilated into Arab society, discover time and again that this assimilated state is but a surface shell, which quickly cracks whenever they demand equality... As a result, Egypt, as a state, is gripped by constant social tensions that keep rising to the surface and threatening to undermine its stability...
"Sectarian extremism in Egypt took the form of an organized party with the 1928 emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the aim of splitting Egyptian society into two mutually hostile and conflicting parts. This was in line with the Arab religious and political principle of denying legitimacy to all non-Muslims or non-Arabs, [a principle practiced] since the Muslim armies reached Egypt in 639 [CE]...
"In Lebanon, the presence of armed Palestinian militias - which was in accordance with the decision of the Arab states - encouraged the formation of Lebanese militias, both Sunni and Shi'ite. Chanting slogans proclaiming Palestinian liberation, they frightened Christians by appearing armed in streets swarming with Lebanese [citizens] and tourists.
"This eventually led to a confrontation with Christian militias, which had also armed themselves out of fear of the pan-Arab slogans and fear for the [preservation of] the rights of the Christian sects.
"Lebanon was engulfed by an ugly 15-year civil war, that ended only after Syria, which had played an ignominious role as instigator [of the hostilities], attained full protectorate status over Lebanese affairs and the Lebanese people - [and this] took on the nature of colonialist hegemony...
"After the Lebanese were liberated from this [Syrian] control, in 2005 the clouds of civil war - albeit of a different kind - reappeared on the Lebanese horizon. The Arab League is making no effort to prevent the eruption [of this civil war] for two main reasons. First, the Syrian regime still supports ethnic tension, in order to regain control of Lebanon; and second, the current majority government, which opposes the renewed Syrian influence, is predominantly Christian...
"We had hoped that the Arab national conscience would recover from the illness afflicting it since the time of the Nakba, and that it would adopt [views] which, if not ahead of their time, would at least be appropriate to our time. But a group of journalists, writers, and several Arab historians guided by the principle of non-acceptance of the other has twisted the facts and concocted a false and gloomy history of the region - thereby trampling these dreams to the ground."
Jews Have a Rich and Ancient History in Palestine
"The Arabs see the Palestinian problem as exceedingly complicated, while it actually appears so only to them - [that is], from the point of view of the Arabs' emotional attitudes and their national and religious philosophy. The Arabs have amassed false claims regarding their exclusive right to the Palestinian land, [and] these are based on phony arguments and on several axioms taken from written and oral sources - most of which they [themselves] created after the Islamic, and which they forbade anyone, Arab or foreigner, from questioning.
"When the Arabs agreed to U.N. arbitration... to resolve the Palestinian problem, it transpired that their axioms clearly contradicted reliable historical documents [that] this new international organization [had in its possession]. As a result, they wasted decades stubbornly defending the validity of their documents, which do not correspond to the officially accepted version of the region's history - which is based on concrete and solid evidence [such as] archaeological findings in the land of Palestine, the holy books of the three monotheistic religions, accounts by Roman, Greek, and Jewish historians... and modern historical research..."
Jewish and Christian Ritual Sites in Jerusalem Predate Muslim Sites
"[A look at] the story of Al-Aqsa is now in order - a site considered holy by Muslim Arabs, who call it 'Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif' [The Noble Sanctuary] and [believe that] it was set aside for them by Allah since the time of Adam.
"[This site] contains several places of worship, including the Dome of the Rock, built by the [Umayyad Caliph] 'Abd Al-Malik bin Marwan in the seventh century CE - that is, 72 years after the Muslim conquests. This religious public gathering place was erected over a prominent [foundation] stone at the peak of 'Mount Moriah.' [Mount Moriah] contains three ancient Jewish public worship sites, as well as [some] Christian sites... The octagonal structure of the Dome of the Rock Mosque was constructed on the site of an ancient Byzantine church, adjoining Solomon's Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
"Since the majority of Muslims claim that the Temple Mount is an Islamic site to which no one else is entitled, they do not acknowledge the presence of Jewish and Christian places of worship predating the Dome of the Rock within its walls...
"The Arabs take great pride in their tolerance of and benign treatment of the Jews and Christians who lived under the Muslim rule since the Muslim conquests. This account is part of the distortions underpinning the edifice of the Arabs' religious and national culture. [Arab] writers and historians keep eulogizing this epoch... while the truth is the opposite of what they claim. [Indeed,] the Pact of 'Omar [compelled] the Jews and the Christians to choose between either abandoning their religion and embracing Islam, or paying the [poll] tax in return for being permitted to reside... and receive protection of life and property in their homeland. [The Pact of 'Omar] allowed them to practice their religion, build new houses of worship, and repair the old ones [only] with the permission of a Muslim ruler, and subject to numerous conditions.
"In subsequent historical periods, the Muslims imposed [additional restrictions] on the members of [these] two religions: They forbade them to raise their voices during prayer; [they forced them] to conduct their prayers and religious ceremonies in closed areas so as not [to disturb] passersby; they forbade them to carry weapons, ride saddled horses, or build houses taller than those of the Muslims. [Christians and Jews] were required to show respect for the Muslims, e.g. by giving up their seat to a Muslim if he wanted it. They were banned from holding government posts or from working in 'sensitive' public places.
"The Koranic verses cursing the Jews and casting doubt on [the veracity of] their Holy Book [the Torah] promulgated a desire among Arabs to set themselves above the Jews who lived in their midst, humiliating and persecuting them even without pretext. In time, this treatment made large numbers of Jews abandon their cities and their land and emigrate... while those who stayed [in Palestine] until the 19th century remained marginalized, living among the Arabs like criminals in a foreign land...
"The Arabs claim that the 'Wailing Wall' has been their property since the Prophet Muhammad tied his horse Al-Buraq to one of its supports when Allah transported him by night from the Holy Mosque in Mecca to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem... Although this night-journey story seems dubious, Arab historiography after the advent of Islam contains such oddities as giving a horse the prerogative of making a wall weighing more than 2,000 tons into Muslim property. This is only one of thousands of examples of tales concocted by zealots, with which they swept away the Arab imagination.
"...When the U.N. resolution on the partition of Palestine was issued on November 29, 1947... the Arabs refused to recognize it. They thereby rejected the state set out by the resolution as the right of the Palestinians and the Arabs, with the aim of establishing legal and historical equity. The Arabs called this resolution the Nakba, while their new states, formed several years before the State of Israel, launched the first war against Israel, in which regular military operations were combined with local attacks by gangs comprising Palestinians and Arabs from Arab regions near and far. [That war] ended in [the Arabs'] defeat. Persisting in their error, the Arabs established refugee camps for the Palestinians who had fled during and after the war...
"Chairman Mahmoud 'Abbas... was the first Palestinian leader to acknowledge that the Christian church in Gaza plundered by Hamas gangs had stood there 'before [we] came to Gaza.' By this he meant 'we the Palestinians' - particularly the current Gaza residents, [the descendants of] Bedouins from the Sinai and the Arabian Peninsula and of others, of unknown origin. [These people were] attracted by the wealth of the new Islamic state that extended from Persia to Southern Ethiopia, and came after the Muslim conquests and set themselves up over the local population - Christians, Jews, Phoenicians, Byzantines, and the remnants of the Sumerians...
Arabs Must Recognize the Jews' Right to Palestine
"In order to prevent more bloodshed among the innocent [population]... and in order to keep the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza, and the West Bank from making [these regions into] a quagmire that will spread to engulf all Arab states and societies, the Arabs must reassess the question of the Nakba and come up with a new, courageous vision for the region and for the future of its residents.
"[This vision] must involve public recognition of the Jews' legitimate right to their state - which is based on historical fact - instead of [recognition] of the writings filled with anger and demagogy produced and formed into an ideology by the confused [Arab] consciousness - a consciousness built upon lies, myths, and distortions stemming from the principle of non-acceptance of the other.
"The most important factor in strengthening such a new vision is [the adoption of] a principle [requiring] official condemnation of all individuals, groups, companies, religious and political parties, and totalitarian regimes that built their glory and hollow leaderships upon the notion of the Nakba, and which are always ready to absorb other false claims and fabrications.
"This must be done, so that a modern Arab face is turned to the world - [a face reflecting] ethical values that will not allow any Arab, under any pretext, to oppress his son or his brother who differs from him in religion, ethnicity, or ideology."
[1] www.ahewar.org (formerly www.rezgar.com ), December 7, 2007.
[2] 'Aref 'Alwan is the first Arab author to publish his novels on the Internet. His doing so was the subject of his January 20, 2005 interview in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
British fear US commander is beating the drum for Iran strikes
Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.
# Frontline: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies. The outbreak of Iraq's worst violence in 18 months last week with fighting in Basra and the daily bombardment of the Green Zone diplomatic enclave, demonstrated that although the Sunni Muslim insurgency is dramatically diminished, Shia forces remain in a strong position to destabilise the country.
"Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on the American effort in Iraq," a British official said. "Iran is waging a war in Iraq. The idea that America can't fight a war on two fronts is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves," he said.
"Petraeus has put emphasis on America having to fight the battle on behalf of Iraq. In his report he can frame it in terms of our soldiers killed and diplomats dead in attacks on the Green Zone."
Tension between Washington and Tehran is already high over Iran's covert nuclear programme. The Bush administration has not ruled out military strikes.
In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran, Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leadership. "The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said. "All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."
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The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week triggered top-level warnings over Iran's strength in Iraq.
Gen Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will answer questions from American political leaders at the US Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to London to brief Gordon Brown.
The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq must have a double goal.
"The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq," wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan.
There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians across the bitter divide on Iraq. "Iran is the bull in the china shop," said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military."
British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.
# Frontline: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies. The outbreak of Iraq's worst violence in 18 months last week with fighting in Basra and the daily bombardment of the Green Zone diplomatic enclave, demonstrated that although the Sunni Muslim insurgency is dramatically diminished, Shia forces remain in a strong position to destabilise the country.
"Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on the American effort in Iraq," a British official said. "Iran is waging a war in Iraq. The idea that America can't fight a war on two fronts is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves," he said.
"Petraeus has put emphasis on America having to fight the battle on behalf of Iraq. In his report he can frame it in terms of our soldiers killed and diplomats dead in attacks on the Green Zone."
Tension between Washington and Tehran is already high over Iran's covert nuclear programme. The Bush administration has not ruled out military strikes.
In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran, Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leadership. "The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said. "All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."
advertisement
The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week triggered top-level warnings over Iran's strength in Iraq.
Gen Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will answer questions from American political leaders at the US Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to London to brief Gordon Brown.
The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq must have a double goal.
"The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq," wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan.
There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians across the bitter divide on Iraq. "Iran is the bull in the china shop," said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military."
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Can Israel withstand US pressure?
ed Belman
Recently we hear that Olmert offered to cede the Golan to Syria and I commented The Golan is safe for now. For now, because ultimately the US will be pressuring Israel to do the deal.
As Ami Isseroff points out in Territorial Integrity: American Middle East policy and what it means for Israel, it has always been US policy to force Israel to trade land for peace forever.
Pres. Johnson wrote on May 3rd ‘67, “the United States is firmly committed to the support of the political independence and territorial integrity of all the nations of the area”. When this was uttered, it served as a balm for Israel as its enemies made ready to attack. After the war it proved to be a double-edged sword. True, that Res 242 promised withdrawal from “territories”, not “all territories” to secure borders but the resolution also prohibited the acquisition of territory by force. Nevertheless it was the US that insisted omitting the word “all” or “the”. This policy was reinforced in Bush’s letter in connection with the Gaza Disengagement wherein he said it was “unrealistic” to expect Israel to give up the settlement blocks. The import of these letters was discussed recently in Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S. Now it appears that Both Rice and Bush refused to talk about ‘67 borders in Abbas’ recent visit.
To accomplish this goal the US proceeded to make Israel dependent on it for military supply and diplomatic support in order to gain influence on Israel. Recently, in keeping with this policy, Rice advised Israel that the US would not send extra supplies to Israel but would keep them in the US.
Now keeping Israel dependent on the US would have no leverage value unless there was a threat to Israel providing the push. So the US did nothing about the Arab demonization of Israel and even supported Arafat as a means to terrorized Israelis. And the US has been building up Egypt’s military capacity to threaten Israel. Get the picture.
There are two factors that remain obstacles to US plans. The determination of most Israelis to not cede all the land required or to divide Jerusalem, is one. The other is the Arab rejectionist camp of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas who reject peace with Israel.
Obviously the US can’t deliver now. It has always wanted to prevent Israel from putting facts on the ground in the meantime, thus the settlement freeze demands. In my opinion the US also instructed Israel to allow Arabs to build in order to keep the pressure on Israel to withdraw.
The Saudi Plan that the US embraced and insisted be included in the Roadmap, held out the prospect of normalization with Israel but not until Israel withdraws. Once Israel withdraws, the US has no way to deliver on this. Israel should be insisting that arrangements with and recognition by the Arabs states be processed in parallel not sequentially. No sign of that happening.
As Isseroff points out in the above linked article which is a must read,
Peace in return for Israeli withdrawal would be a fair bargain, if it is really peace. Unfortunately, we should be well aware that the United States does not possess either the will or the means to guarantee continued peace after Israeli withdrawal, and on the other hand, pressures in the United States are growing to get any kind of settlement and call it “peace.”
Acute analysts will note that if Israel ever does return all of the conquered territories, then Israel would be of no further use in American attempts to ingratiate itself with the Arabs. At the same time, America would have very little leverage with the Arabs unless it pressed Israel for further concessions. Without doubt, there are those in the US diplomatic corps who would not be averse to exerting such pressure.
Israeli politicians therefore have to think ahead to what American policy might be two days after the peace treaty is signed, when some Arab states, or Muslim groups, inevitably, nonetheless declare their objections to the presence of Israel in the Middle East. From the Israeli point, we will have no more territory to concede, but that may not necessarily be the American view. After all, in the early 50s, the US was behind a plan to get Israel to make concessions to Egypt in the Negev.
Israel should abrogate the peace process. I realize that the US won’t take it lying down.
The ‘peace process’ is in need of a paradigm shift.
Let’s hope.
Recently we hear that Olmert offered to cede the Golan to Syria and I commented The Golan is safe for now. For now, because ultimately the US will be pressuring Israel to do the deal.
As Ami Isseroff points out in Territorial Integrity: American Middle East policy and what it means for Israel, it has always been US policy to force Israel to trade land for peace forever.
Pres. Johnson wrote on May 3rd ‘67, “the United States is firmly committed to the support of the political independence and territorial integrity of all the nations of the area”. When this was uttered, it served as a balm for Israel as its enemies made ready to attack. After the war it proved to be a double-edged sword. True, that Res 242 promised withdrawal from “territories”, not “all territories” to secure borders but the resolution also prohibited the acquisition of territory by force. Nevertheless it was the US that insisted omitting the word “all” or “the”. This policy was reinforced in Bush’s letter in connection with the Gaza Disengagement wherein he said it was “unrealistic” to expect Israel to give up the settlement blocks. The import of these letters was discussed recently in Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S. Now it appears that Both Rice and Bush refused to talk about ‘67 borders in Abbas’ recent visit.
To accomplish this goal the US proceeded to make Israel dependent on it for military supply and diplomatic support in order to gain influence on Israel. Recently, in keeping with this policy, Rice advised Israel that the US would not send extra supplies to Israel but would keep them in the US.
Now keeping Israel dependent on the US would have no leverage value unless there was a threat to Israel providing the push. So the US did nothing about the Arab demonization of Israel and even supported Arafat as a means to terrorized Israelis. And the US has been building up Egypt’s military capacity to threaten Israel. Get the picture.
There are two factors that remain obstacles to US plans. The determination of most Israelis to not cede all the land required or to divide Jerusalem, is one. The other is the Arab rejectionist camp of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas who reject peace with Israel.
Obviously the US can’t deliver now. It has always wanted to prevent Israel from putting facts on the ground in the meantime, thus the settlement freeze demands. In my opinion the US also instructed Israel to allow Arabs to build in order to keep the pressure on Israel to withdraw.
The Saudi Plan that the US embraced and insisted be included in the Roadmap, held out the prospect of normalization with Israel but not until Israel withdraws. Once Israel withdraws, the US has no way to deliver on this. Israel should be insisting that arrangements with and recognition by the Arabs states be processed in parallel not sequentially. No sign of that happening.
As Isseroff points out in the above linked article which is a must read,
Peace in return for Israeli withdrawal would be a fair bargain, if it is really peace. Unfortunately, we should be well aware that the United States does not possess either the will or the means to guarantee continued peace after Israeli withdrawal, and on the other hand, pressures in the United States are growing to get any kind of settlement and call it “peace.”
Acute analysts will note that if Israel ever does return all of the conquered territories, then Israel would be of no further use in American attempts to ingratiate itself with the Arabs. At the same time, America would have very little leverage with the Arabs unless it pressed Israel for further concessions. Without doubt, there are those in the US diplomatic corps who would not be averse to exerting such pressure.
Israeli politicians therefore have to think ahead to what American policy might be two days after the peace treaty is signed, when some Arab states, or Muslim groups, inevitably, nonetheless declare their objections to the presence of Israel in the Middle East. From the Israeli point, we will have no more territory to concede, but that may not necessarily be the American view. After all, in the early 50s, the US was behind a plan to get Israel to make concessions to Egypt in the Negev.
Israel should abrogate the peace process. I realize that the US won’t take it lying down.
The ‘peace process’ is in need of a paradigm shift.
Let’s hope.
Another Obama foreign policy advisor
Gabriel Schoenfeld reports on the latest Obama foreign policy adviser who
turns out not to like Israel very much. Add Joseph Cirincione to the list
that includes Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Merrill McPeak, Zbigniew
Brzezinski , and his spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright. (Obama, of course,
loves Israel; he's just unlucky with his advisers). Last September, in response to reports that the site in Syria that Israel
bombed was a potential nuclear facility being established with the help of
North Korea, Cirincione insisted that the site was no such thing. "This
story is nonsense," Obama's adviser on nuclear threats told Foreign Policy
magazine's blog.
And not just ordinary nonsense. According to Cirincione, the reports were
the product of two nefarious, agenda-driven groups: (1) Bush administration
hardliners seeking to derail "the U.S.-North Korean agreement" and (2)
Israelis who "want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria."
As with Samantha Power, the number one problem with Obama taking advice from
Cirincione is not his view of Israel; it's that he's a fool. As Schoenfeld
notes, the fact of North Korean involvement in the development of a Syrian
plutonium plant appears indisputable; indeed, the evidence now includes
videos taken inside the facility before it was destroyed. Yet Cirincione
dismissed the reports out-of-hand because he didn't like the implications,
including the adverse implications for Israel's longstanding enemy, Syria.
In essence, Cirincione committed precisely the offense he accused the Bush
administration and the Israelis of -- reaching a conclusion of fact based on
an agenda, rather than the evidence.
It's rather frightening to think that Obama has turned for advice on nuclear
matters to someone this grotesquely paranoid about our government and about
the Israelis.
turns out not to like Israel very much. Add Joseph Cirincione to the list
that includes Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Merrill McPeak, Zbigniew
Brzezinski , and his spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright. (Obama, of course,
loves Israel; he's just unlucky with his advisers). Last September, in response to reports that the site in Syria that Israel
bombed was a potential nuclear facility being established with the help of
North Korea, Cirincione insisted that the site was no such thing. "This
story is nonsense," Obama's adviser on nuclear threats told Foreign Policy
magazine's blog.
And not just ordinary nonsense. According to Cirincione, the reports were
the product of two nefarious, agenda-driven groups: (1) Bush administration
hardliners seeking to derail "the U.S.-North Korean agreement" and (2)
Israelis who "want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria."
As with Samantha Power, the number one problem with Obama taking advice from
Cirincione is not his view of Israel; it's that he's a fool. As Schoenfeld
notes, the fact of North Korean involvement in the development of a Syrian
plutonium plant appears indisputable; indeed, the evidence now includes
videos taken inside the facility before it was destroyed. Yet Cirincione
dismissed the reports out-of-hand because he didn't like the implications,
including the adverse implications for Israel's longstanding enemy, Syria.
In essence, Cirincione committed precisely the offense he accused the Bush
administration and the Israelis of -- reaching a conclusion of fact based on
an agenda, rather than the evidence.
It's rather frightening to think that Obama has turned for advice on nuclear
matters to someone this grotesquely paranoid about our government and about
the Israelis.
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Luckiest Jews In The World
Caroline B. Glick
I just published a collection of my essays in English. Each time I am asked if I am also releasing the volume in Hebrew I feel a pain deep inside me when I answer that no, right now, my publisher is only interested in an English edition. Indeed it is a shame because I wrote most of the essays in Hebrew as well.
Writing in Hebrew is a qualitatively different experience than writing in English. Hebrew is a more compact language than English. It has fewer words and the words it has are denser and more flexible than English words. A 1,200-word essay in Hebrew will be 1,800 words in English. This is a mechanical difference. But there are deeper distinctions as well. One level beyond the mechanics is the multiple meanings of Hebrew words. The density of meaning in Hebrew is a writer's dream. Nearly anyone can imbue a seemingly simple sentence with multiple, generally complementary meanings simply by choosing a specific verb, verb form, noun or adjective. These double, triple and even quadruple meanings of one word are a source of unbounded joy for a writer. To take just one example, the Hebrew word "shevet" means returning and it also means sitting. And it is also a homonym for club – as in billy club – and for tribe.
In 2005, the IDF named the operation expelling the Israeli residents of Gaza and Northern Samaria "Shevet Achim," or returning or sitting with brothers. But it also sounded like it was making a distinction between tribesmen and brothers. And it also sounded like "clubbing brothers."
As this one example demonstrates, one joyful consequence of the unique density of the Hebrew language is that satirical irony comes easily to even the most dour and unpoetic writers.
For a Jew, knowing, speaking and writing Hebrew is an intimate experience. This is particularly so for those of us whose mother tongue is not Hebrew – because as the secrets of the language slowly reveal themselves to us we feel we are discovering ourselves.
Hebrew encapsulates the entirety of the Jewish story. Modern Hebrew in particular is an eclectic amalgamation of classical Hebrew, Yiddishisms, and expressions from the Sephardic Diaspora experience. Greek, Roman, Aramaic, Turkish, Arabic and English expressions meld seamlessly into the stream of words. It is not simply that it is the language of the Bible. Hebrew is also an expression of the unique culture of a small, proud, often besieged, often conquered and permeable people.
Its power to explain that cultural experience and that historical baggage is something that often leaves a newly initiated member of the Hebrew-speaking world gasping in a mixture of disbelief and relief. It is unbelievable that a language can be so immediately and unselfconsciously expressive of feelings that have traversed millennia. Understanding its power as a tool of expressing the Jewish condition is one of the most gratifying discoveries a Jew can make.
But the experience of speaking in Hebrew and of living in Hebrew is incomplete when it is not experienced in Israel. It is one thing to pray in a synagogue in Hebrew or even to speak regular Hebrew outside of Israel. The former is a spiritual duty and a communal experience. The latter is a social or educational experience. But speaking Hebrew in Israel is a complete experience. Hebrew localizes the Jewishness, Judaism and Jews. It anchors us to the Land of Israel. Taken together, the Hebrew language and the Land of Israel stabilize a tradition and make the Jewish people whole.
I write all of this as a means of explaining why a Jew in the Diaspora, particularly the United States, would want to live in Israel. Leaving America is difficult on several levels. In my own experience, it involved physically separating from my entire family. It also involved cutting myself off from my language – English – and immersing myself completely in a tongue I had yet to master. Beyond that, it meant leaving a country that had done only good for me and for the generations of my family who fled to America from the pogroms in Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century.
As someone who loves me told me 17 years ago as I packed my bags for an unknowable future, "People don't emigrate away from America. They beg to come to its shores."
But would it be right to characterize leaving America as an act of ingratitude? Do Jews have to reject America in order to go to Israel? No, we don't.
Coming to Israel is not rejecting America. It is embracing a choice to become whole in a way that life outside of Israel cannot provide. That doesn't mean life cannot be fulfilling for a Jew outside of Israel. Millions of Jews can attest to the fact. It certainly doesn't mean that life in Israel is easier or safer or more lucrative than life is elsewhere.
Israel is a troublesome, hard, often irritating place. It is a young country that belongs to an ancient, eternal people who are all imperfect. Some Israelis, particularly those who today occupy the seats of power, are weak and irresponsible and often corrupt and self-serving.
Israelis have quick fuses. Among other things, this distinctively Israeli rush to anger makes being stuck in rush hour traffic a bit like dancing a waltz in the middle of a shooting range. Then too, service is not a concept that most Israelis – particularly in service professions – are even vaguely familiar with.
Beyond the general fallibility of Israelis, there are the wars and the hatred and the terror that make up so much of life in Israel. Being surrounded by enemies and living in the midst of jihad-crazed Arab states is like sitting on the edge of a volcano. And rather than acknowledge the danger and contend with it, Israelis – frustratingly and dangerously – more often than not blame one another for the heat while ignoring its source.
Yet once a Jew catches the Zionist bug, none of that is important. Once a Jew allows himself or herself to feel the pull of our heritage, of our language and our land, the frustration, danger and hardship of living in Israel seems like second nature – as natural as breathing in and out.
I recently moved to a home on the edge of a valley filled with forests and carpeted by wildflowers. Every day I hike for an hour or two along the trails below. A few days ago, as I walked late at night, I considered the dark and silent hills surrounding me and felt safe. They were liberated in 1948.
As I stood for a moment, I thought to myself, "These hills have already been conquered for you, by people better than yourself. Now it is your job to keep them safe for the next generation. And it will be the next generation's responsibility to keep them safe for the following one."
The thought filled me with a sense of privilege and peace.
People ask me all the time why I insist on living in Israel. Usually I just shrug my shoulders and smile. I, a woman who makes my living from words, find myself speechless when challenged with this simple question.
I spend several months a year away from Israel working. But every time I go away on a long trip, inevitably after three weeks or so, I begin to feel incomplete. I start to long for the smells of Israel. My ears ache to hear Hebrew all around me. I want to go back so I can walk down the streets on Friday afternoons and smile at perfect strangers as we bid each other Shabbat Shalom.
Why do I live in Israel? Because Israel lives in me, as it lives in all Jews. It is who we are. And those of us lucky enough to recognize this truth and embrace it in all its fullness and depth are the luckiest Jews in the world.
Caroline Glick is deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Her Jewish Press-exclusive column appears the last week of each month.
Comments:Caroline Glick's feelings mirror those of so many of us who made aliyah. We have had the best of both worlds and certainly appreciate the similarity between the U.S. and Israel - two free countries.
In my case, I came to an already established family - my children and grandchildren (and now another generation!) More than 100 years ago, my great-grandfather's brother, lived in this territory - not a state - called 'Palestine'. He was a 'Palestinian Jew' as were all Jews living here until, in 1948, they became 'Israelis'. To us, this land has always been Eretz Yisrael based on our history and religion both of which have kept alive the dream of return throughout generations.
Within our own family, paternal grandfather (z"l), a Hassid living in what is today Belarus, was editor of a journal and an author who wrote in Hebrew - with commentaries in Hebrew!! This was more than 85 years ago and his book -considered a classic - is still being published today. It is called the 'Bais Rebbeh' and Grandfather's name was Rabbi Chaim Meir Helman.
We all come from different places but to many of us Israel is our 'headquarters' - a beacon of light for a People who have waited so long for a homeland. Jews the world over have a sense of pride because of this tiny jewel of a country. We must all remember that it is our job to keep it safe. The Hebrew "Sheh-lo ya-noom v'lo yi-shan Shomer Yisrael" - "May the Guardian of Israel neither slumber nor sleep "- surely refers to us as well as to the Creator.
I hope that Caroline's article will help native Israelis who receive this understand us - olim - a bit better. We are here for the right reasons and have much to contribute to the continued growth of the country and the preservation of the free world.
Chana
in beloved Jerusalem
I just published a collection of my essays in English. Each time I am asked if I am also releasing the volume in Hebrew I feel a pain deep inside me when I answer that no, right now, my publisher is only interested in an English edition. Indeed it is a shame because I wrote most of the essays in Hebrew as well.
Writing in Hebrew is a qualitatively different experience than writing in English. Hebrew is a more compact language than English. It has fewer words and the words it has are denser and more flexible than English words. A 1,200-word essay in Hebrew will be 1,800 words in English. This is a mechanical difference. But there are deeper distinctions as well. One level beyond the mechanics is the multiple meanings of Hebrew words. The density of meaning in Hebrew is a writer's dream. Nearly anyone can imbue a seemingly simple sentence with multiple, generally complementary meanings simply by choosing a specific verb, verb form, noun or adjective. These double, triple and even quadruple meanings of one word are a source of unbounded joy for a writer. To take just one example, the Hebrew word "shevet" means returning and it also means sitting. And it is also a homonym for club – as in billy club – and for tribe.
In 2005, the IDF named the operation expelling the Israeli residents of Gaza and Northern Samaria "Shevet Achim," or returning or sitting with brothers. But it also sounded like it was making a distinction between tribesmen and brothers. And it also sounded like "clubbing brothers."
As this one example demonstrates, one joyful consequence of the unique density of the Hebrew language is that satirical irony comes easily to even the most dour and unpoetic writers.
For a Jew, knowing, speaking and writing Hebrew is an intimate experience. This is particularly so for those of us whose mother tongue is not Hebrew – because as the secrets of the language slowly reveal themselves to us we feel we are discovering ourselves.
Hebrew encapsulates the entirety of the Jewish story. Modern Hebrew in particular is an eclectic amalgamation of classical Hebrew, Yiddishisms, and expressions from the Sephardic Diaspora experience. Greek, Roman, Aramaic, Turkish, Arabic and English expressions meld seamlessly into the stream of words. It is not simply that it is the language of the Bible. Hebrew is also an expression of the unique culture of a small, proud, often besieged, often conquered and permeable people.
Its power to explain that cultural experience and that historical baggage is something that often leaves a newly initiated member of the Hebrew-speaking world gasping in a mixture of disbelief and relief. It is unbelievable that a language can be so immediately and unselfconsciously expressive of feelings that have traversed millennia. Understanding its power as a tool of expressing the Jewish condition is one of the most gratifying discoveries a Jew can make.
But the experience of speaking in Hebrew and of living in Hebrew is incomplete when it is not experienced in Israel. It is one thing to pray in a synagogue in Hebrew or even to speak regular Hebrew outside of Israel. The former is a spiritual duty and a communal experience. The latter is a social or educational experience. But speaking Hebrew in Israel is a complete experience. Hebrew localizes the Jewishness, Judaism and Jews. It anchors us to the Land of Israel. Taken together, the Hebrew language and the Land of Israel stabilize a tradition and make the Jewish people whole.
I write all of this as a means of explaining why a Jew in the Diaspora, particularly the United States, would want to live in Israel. Leaving America is difficult on several levels. In my own experience, it involved physically separating from my entire family. It also involved cutting myself off from my language – English – and immersing myself completely in a tongue I had yet to master. Beyond that, it meant leaving a country that had done only good for me and for the generations of my family who fled to America from the pogroms in Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century.
As someone who loves me told me 17 years ago as I packed my bags for an unknowable future, "People don't emigrate away from America. They beg to come to its shores."
But would it be right to characterize leaving America as an act of ingratitude? Do Jews have to reject America in order to go to Israel? No, we don't.
Coming to Israel is not rejecting America. It is embracing a choice to become whole in a way that life outside of Israel cannot provide. That doesn't mean life cannot be fulfilling for a Jew outside of Israel. Millions of Jews can attest to the fact. It certainly doesn't mean that life in Israel is easier or safer or more lucrative than life is elsewhere.
Israel is a troublesome, hard, often irritating place. It is a young country that belongs to an ancient, eternal people who are all imperfect. Some Israelis, particularly those who today occupy the seats of power, are weak and irresponsible and often corrupt and self-serving.
Israelis have quick fuses. Among other things, this distinctively Israeli rush to anger makes being stuck in rush hour traffic a bit like dancing a waltz in the middle of a shooting range. Then too, service is not a concept that most Israelis – particularly in service professions – are even vaguely familiar with.
Beyond the general fallibility of Israelis, there are the wars and the hatred and the terror that make up so much of life in Israel. Being surrounded by enemies and living in the midst of jihad-crazed Arab states is like sitting on the edge of a volcano. And rather than acknowledge the danger and contend with it, Israelis – frustratingly and dangerously – more often than not blame one another for the heat while ignoring its source.
Yet once a Jew catches the Zionist bug, none of that is important. Once a Jew allows himself or herself to feel the pull of our heritage, of our language and our land, the frustration, danger and hardship of living in Israel seems like second nature – as natural as breathing in and out.
I recently moved to a home on the edge of a valley filled with forests and carpeted by wildflowers. Every day I hike for an hour or two along the trails below. A few days ago, as I walked late at night, I considered the dark and silent hills surrounding me and felt safe. They were liberated in 1948.
As I stood for a moment, I thought to myself, "These hills have already been conquered for you, by people better than yourself. Now it is your job to keep them safe for the next generation. And it will be the next generation's responsibility to keep them safe for the following one."
The thought filled me with a sense of privilege and peace.
People ask me all the time why I insist on living in Israel. Usually I just shrug my shoulders and smile. I, a woman who makes my living from words, find myself speechless when challenged with this simple question.
I spend several months a year away from Israel working. But every time I go away on a long trip, inevitably after three weeks or so, I begin to feel incomplete. I start to long for the smells of Israel. My ears ache to hear Hebrew all around me. I want to go back so I can walk down the streets on Friday afternoons and smile at perfect strangers as we bid each other Shabbat Shalom.
Why do I live in Israel? Because Israel lives in me, as it lives in all Jews. It is who we are. And those of us lucky enough to recognize this truth and embrace it in all its fullness and depth are the luckiest Jews in the world.
Caroline Glick is deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Her Jewish Press-exclusive column appears the last week of each month.
Comments:Caroline Glick's feelings mirror those of so many of us who made aliyah. We have had the best of both worlds and certainly appreciate the similarity between the U.S. and Israel - two free countries.
In my case, I came to an already established family - my children and grandchildren (and now another generation!) More than 100 years ago, my great-grandfather's brother, lived in this territory - not a state - called 'Palestine'. He was a 'Palestinian Jew' as were all Jews living here until, in 1948, they became 'Israelis'. To us, this land has always been Eretz Yisrael based on our history and religion both of which have kept alive the dream of return throughout generations.
Within our own family, paternal grandfather (z"l), a Hassid living in what is today Belarus, was editor of a journal and an author who wrote in Hebrew - with commentaries in Hebrew!! This was more than 85 years ago and his book -considered a classic - is still being published today. It is called the 'Bais Rebbeh' and Grandfather's name was Rabbi Chaim Meir Helman.
We all come from different places but to many of us Israel is our 'headquarters' - a beacon of light for a People who have waited so long for a homeland. Jews the world over have a sense of pride because of this tiny jewel of a country. We must all remember that it is our job to keep it safe. The Hebrew "Sheh-lo ya-noom v'lo yi-shan Shomer Yisrael" - "May the Guardian of Israel neither slumber nor sleep "- surely refers to us as well as to the Creator.
I hope that Caroline's article will help native Israelis who receive this understand us - olim - a bit better. We are here for the right reasons and have much to contribute to the continued growth of the country and the preservation of the free world.
Chana
in beloved Jerusalem
THE TELEGRAPH BUTCHERS THE TRUTH ABOUT GAZA
An April 23 Telegraph (UK newspaper) article by Tim Butcher, "A portrait of life and death in Gaza," butchers the truth about Gaza with distortions, prejudicial language and one-sided reporting. According to Butcher, Gaza's economic woes are due to Israel's actions and it's only natural that Gazans would resent Israel. Nowhere does he mention the rampant anti-Israel incitement or any responsibility the Palestinians themselves might have for the lack of jobs and investment in Gaza. He fails to connect Gaza's poor economy with the Gazans' wanton destruction of the multi-million dollar greenhouse industry given to them after the Israeli withdrawal, the extremism and lack of the rule of law that make it unlikely that any large corporations would feel safe investing millions to turn Gaza's beautiful Mediterranean coastline into a tourist destination, or the relentless bombing of Israel from Gaza, which requires Israel to respond militarily and to close its borders to Gaza's workers and goods.
While noting that Gazans are "without a meaningful economy," Mr. Butcher also never broaches the fact that enormous amounts of international aid have been squandered by the Palestinian leadership on weapons and terrorist training camps in Gaza. There is no focus on Hamas ignoring the basic needs of its electorate, in favor of unrelenting rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
Indicative of Butcher's partisan slant, he writes: "The Jewish state insists it fires only at confirmed military targets, but the death toll among Gazan civilians dwarfs the number of civilian Israelis killed."
So, according to Butcher's odd logic, if the Palestinians were successful in murdering more Israeli civilians, and the numbers of civilians killed on both sides were more equal, somehow that would convince him that Israel really does aim at military targets? Does Butcher really see no difference between a Palestinian terrorist deliberately striving to bomb Israeli civilians versus an Israeli soldier deliberately striving to strike only terrorist targets, but inadvertently hitting civilians?
Since Palestinians from Gaza launch rockets at Israeli civilians on a daily basis, it's certainly not for lack of trying that they haven't murdered scores of Israeli civilians. Butcher omits the fact that it is Palestinian war crimes that are responsible for the death of civilians on both sides. Palestinians launch rockets at Israeli civilians from within heavily populated Palestinian civilian areas, knowingly inviting Israeli fire at the launch sites, which will unfortunately sometimes result in death and injuries to innocent Palestinian bystanders.
While noting that Gazans are "without a meaningful economy," Mr. Butcher also never broaches the fact that enormous amounts of international aid have been squandered by the Palestinian leadership on weapons and terrorist training camps in Gaza. There is no focus on Hamas ignoring the basic needs of its electorate, in favor of unrelenting rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
Indicative of Butcher's partisan slant, he writes: "The Jewish state insists it fires only at confirmed military targets, but the death toll among Gazan civilians dwarfs the number of civilian Israelis killed."
So, according to Butcher's odd logic, if the Palestinians were successful in murdering more Israeli civilians, and the numbers of civilians killed on both sides were more equal, somehow that would convince him that Israel really does aim at military targets? Does Butcher really see no difference between a Palestinian terrorist deliberately striving to bomb Israeli civilians versus an Israeli soldier deliberately striving to strike only terrorist targets, but inadvertently hitting civilians?
Since Palestinians from Gaza launch rockets at Israeli civilians on a daily basis, it's certainly not for lack of trying that they haven't murdered scores of Israeli civilians. Butcher omits the fact that it is Palestinian war crimes that are responsible for the death of civilians on both sides. Palestinians launch rockets at Israeli civilians from within heavily populated Palestinian civilian areas, knowingly inviting Israeli fire at the launch sites, which will unfortunately sometimes result in death and injuries to innocent Palestinian bystanders.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Ross Issues Urgent Warning on Iran
Newsmax.com
The U.S. and its allies probably have no more than a year to take action against Iran before that nation acquires nuclear weapons, warns Dennis Ross, an architect of the Mideast peace process.
By 2009, Iran “could be a nuclear power, if not a nuclear weapon state, said Ross, who served as the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush and special Middle East envoy under President Bill Clinton.
If not stopped by next year, Iran will have “crossed the threshold of stockpiling fissionable material,” Ross said in remarks to Toronto’s Shaarei Shomayim Congregation that were reported by the Canadian Jewish News.
“Once they cross that threshold, we’re going to be in a different ball game. We have to approach this with a high degree or urgency. We’re running out of time.”
ANot only did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vow to “wipe Israel off the map,” but former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has stated that it would “take only one bomb” to annihilate Israel, Ross told the gathering.
“Is that their intention?” he asked. “Can you ignore what they say?”
Ross helped the Israelis and Palestinians reach the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, facilitated the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, and also worked on talks between Israel and Syria.
Regarding Iran, he said the country is vulnerable to economic pressure because it derives 85 percent of its export revenue from oil, and squeezing Iran’s oil revenue can push the “not very popular” regime into abandoning its nuclear weapons efforts, according to the Jewish News.
But there are clear signs that the Bush administration will not wait that long and military action is imminent.
As Newsmax reported in mid-April, a leading member of America’s Jewish community disclosed that a military strike on Iran was likely, and said Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East should be seen as preparation for the U.S. attack.
The source also told Newsmax that Israel “is preparing for heavy casualties,” expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution following a U.S. strike.
And Saudi Arabia is reportedly taking emergency steps in preparing to counter any radioactive hazards that may result from an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
The U.S. and its allies probably have no more than a year to take action against Iran before that nation acquires nuclear weapons, warns Dennis Ross, an architect of the Mideast peace process.
By 2009, Iran “could be a nuclear power, if not a nuclear weapon state, said Ross, who served as the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush and special Middle East envoy under President Bill Clinton.
If not stopped by next year, Iran will have “crossed the threshold of stockpiling fissionable material,” Ross said in remarks to Toronto’s Shaarei Shomayim Congregation that were reported by the Canadian Jewish News.
“Once they cross that threshold, we’re going to be in a different ball game. We have to approach this with a high degree or urgency. We’re running out of time.”
ANot only did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vow to “wipe Israel off the map,” but former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has stated that it would “take only one bomb” to annihilate Israel, Ross told the gathering.
“Is that their intention?” he asked. “Can you ignore what they say?”
Ross helped the Israelis and Palestinians reach the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, facilitated the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, and also worked on talks between Israel and Syria.
Regarding Iran, he said the country is vulnerable to economic pressure because it derives 85 percent of its export revenue from oil, and squeezing Iran’s oil revenue can push the “not very popular” regime into abandoning its nuclear weapons efforts, according to the Jewish News.
But there are clear signs that the Bush administration will not wait that long and military action is imminent.
As Newsmax reported in mid-April, a leading member of America’s Jewish community disclosed that a military strike on Iran was likely, and said Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East should be seen as preparation for the U.S. attack.
The source also told Newsmax that Israel “is preparing for heavy casualties,” expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution following a U.S. strike.
And Saudi Arabia is reportedly taking emergency steps in preparing to counter any radioactive hazards that may result from an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Fitzgerald: Rice, in over her head
“A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms "jihad" and "jihadist" by any State Department official.” -- Robert Spencer Without intelligent use of the word "Jihad," a word both accurate and useful (these qualities do not always coincide), a word that demands to be explained, and in that explanation -- the same kind of explanation that the word "dhimmi" calls for, Infidels will be forced to learn certain home truths about the meaning, and menace, of Islam.
By banning use of the word "Jihad," Rice makes much more difficult the intelligent dissemination of information about Islam. She makes more difficult the task of seeing the war of self-defense in all of its dimensions, and furthermore, far from encouraging peace, defined as the absence of open warfare through military means, makes such open warfare through such means more likely, by preventing the United States and other Infidel lands, from working to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam and Jihad. That can only take place, it is clear, once the conflict is understood, and once the most effective instruments of Jihad are grasped, and the monomaniacal emphasis on "terrorism" has come, as it must, to an end. For that emphasis has served to divert attention from the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and most important of all, demographic conquest that, in Western Europe, proceed without Infidel governments taking the kind of minimal measures that, at any other time in history, would long ago have been sensibly undertaken.
Whatever the peoples of the West may have lacked in the past -- cars and computers, say -- they did at least forthrightly, uninhibitedly, recognize the nature of Islam, its meaning, its menace. Rice wishes to prevent this, in order to curry favor with Arab states, and possibly in order to prevent having to begin the difficult work (but hardly too difficult) of figuring out the kinds of things that might best work to weaken the Camp of Islamic Jihad. Those ways have all been set out here, over the past few years -- often in great detail. But Rice hasn't time in her datebook. She hasn't space in her brain, to consider how best, how most effectively, how at the least cost, without all the squandering (of men, money, materiel, morale both civilian and military) that the Iraq folly continues to cause, to undo or hold in check the forces of Jihad.
She's in over her head, and not waving, but drowning.
And despite all this, a Jihad Watch commenter said in the wake of this news that "our administration is doing just fine."
The Bush Administration has had nearly seven years to educate itself, and then to help educate those whose duty it is to instruct and to protect, in the nature of Islam, and in the meaning, and instruments, and goals, of Jihad. It has failed completely to do so. In fact, it has chosen to squander men, money, materiel in Iraq, in a venture that, if it might conceivably be justified initially, is so no longer. And that initial justification depends on one's judgment in the Administration's presentation of, and belief in, evidence concerning weapons, and ongoing projects to produce weapons of mass destruction by the regime of Saddam Hussein. For that was the argument presented to Congress -- that and that alone, and not the idiotic bringing of "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in Iraq, or any other such impossible and irrelevant nonsense. Such nonsense stands in the way of the icy exploitation of ethnic and, especially, sectarian fissures that, once openly on display with the removal of the iron hand of Saddam Hussein, could have led, and can still lead -- and indeed inevitably will lead, as soon as the Americans get out of the way -- to a situation that will demand the attention, and the volunteers, and the materiel, and above all the money, of both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and will necessarily cause difficulties within many Muslim countries, including Yemen, Bahrain, Pakistan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia (in the Eastern Province populated by Shi'a), well beyond the immediate and permanent problems that will remain in Iraq.
Having used up -- having squandered -- so much political capital in Iraq, the Administration has failed completely to deal with Iran. And if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, one can thank those who were so convinced that the Iraq Project made sense, though no one has yet been able to utter an articulate paragraph explaining just how the stated desired outcome or goals of the Bush Administration in Iraq would help weaken the Camp of Islamic Jihad or, for example, lessen the threat of the Money Weapon, Da'wa, and demographic conquest in the threatened lands of Western Europe. They haven't explained this, because they can't.
And the unpopularity of the Iraq War, and failure to explain the nature of Jihad, has made it domestically harder to obtain from Congress the support necessary for domestic security measures that make sense, if explained by an administration that had a policy that made sense. But the Iraq policy does not make sense. It makes the very opposite of sense. American forces should leave Iraq, indeed should have started to leave by February or March 2004 (by that time Saddam Hussein had been captured, his sons killed, his chief collaborators captured or killed, and the country scoured for weapons and weapons projects).
But the Bush loyalists, incapable of independent analysis, and still so incapable, saw support for the idiotic Iraq War as a test of wills with those they deem "lefties" (or some such vulgarism). And so they continue to pour this nonsense into the ear of McCain, who if he does not come to understand that the American forces should leave Iraq not because the Total Belief-System of totalitarian Islam is not a great and universal menace, but precisely because it is, will undoubtedly lose the election. And at least one of his potential opponents apparently has views on Islam that rival those of Jimmy Carter, indeed is a Carter in posse waiting to become one in esse.
"Our administration is doing just fine."
"Our" administration could hardly be doing worse.
By banning use of the word "Jihad," Rice makes much more difficult the intelligent dissemination of information about Islam. She makes more difficult the task of seeing the war of self-defense in all of its dimensions, and furthermore, far from encouraging peace, defined as the absence of open warfare through military means, makes such open warfare through such means more likely, by preventing the United States and other Infidel lands, from working to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam and Jihad. That can only take place, it is clear, once the conflict is understood, and once the most effective instruments of Jihad are grasped, and the monomaniacal emphasis on "terrorism" has come, as it must, to an end. For that emphasis has served to divert attention from the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and most important of all, demographic conquest that, in Western Europe, proceed without Infidel governments taking the kind of minimal measures that, at any other time in history, would long ago have been sensibly undertaken.
Whatever the peoples of the West may have lacked in the past -- cars and computers, say -- they did at least forthrightly, uninhibitedly, recognize the nature of Islam, its meaning, its menace. Rice wishes to prevent this, in order to curry favor with Arab states, and possibly in order to prevent having to begin the difficult work (but hardly too difficult) of figuring out the kinds of things that might best work to weaken the Camp of Islamic Jihad. Those ways have all been set out here, over the past few years -- often in great detail. But Rice hasn't time in her datebook. She hasn't space in her brain, to consider how best, how most effectively, how at the least cost, without all the squandering (of men, money, materiel, morale both civilian and military) that the Iraq folly continues to cause, to undo or hold in check the forces of Jihad.
She's in over her head, and not waving, but drowning.
And despite all this, a Jihad Watch commenter said in the wake of this news that "our administration is doing just fine."
The Bush Administration has had nearly seven years to educate itself, and then to help educate those whose duty it is to instruct and to protect, in the nature of Islam, and in the meaning, and instruments, and goals, of Jihad. It has failed completely to do so. In fact, it has chosen to squander men, money, materiel in Iraq, in a venture that, if it might conceivably be justified initially, is so no longer. And that initial justification depends on one's judgment in the Administration's presentation of, and belief in, evidence concerning weapons, and ongoing projects to produce weapons of mass destruction by the regime of Saddam Hussein. For that was the argument presented to Congress -- that and that alone, and not the idiotic bringing of "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in Iraq, or any other such impossible and irrelevant nonsense. Such nonsense stands in the way of the icy exploitation of ethnic and, especially, sectarian fissures that, once openly on display with the removal of the iron hand of Saddam Hussein, could have led, and can still lead -- and indeed inevitably will lead, as soon as the Americans get out of the way -- to a situation that will demand the attention, and the volunteers, and the materiel, and above all the money, of both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and will necessarily cause difficulties within many Muslim countries, including Yemen, Bahrain, Pakistan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia (in the Eastern Province populated by Shi'a), well beyond the immediate and permanent problems that will remain in Iraq.
Having used up -- having squandered -- so much political capital in Iraq, the Administration has failed completely to deal with Iran. And if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, one can thank those who were so convinced that the Iraq Project made sense, though no one has yet been able to utter an articulate paragraph explaining just how the stated desired outcome or goals of the Bush Administration in Iraq would help weaken the Camp of Islamic Jihad or, for example, lessen the threat of the Money Weapon, Da'wa, and demographic conquest in the threatened lands of Western Europe. They haven't explained this, because they can't.
And the unpopularity of the Iraq War, and failure to explain the nature of Jihad, has made it domestically harder to obtain from Congress the support necessary for domestic security measures that make sense, if explained by an administration that had a policy that made sense. But the Iraq policy does not make sense. It makes the very opposite of sense. American forces should leave Iraq, indeed should have started to leave by February or March 2004 (by that time Saddam Hussein had been captured, his sons killed, his chief collaborators captured or killed, and the country scoured for weapons and weapons projects).
But the Bush loyalists, incapable of independent analysis, and still so incapable, saw support for the idiotic Iraq War as a test of wills with those they deem "lefties" (or some such vulgarism). And so they continue to pour this nonsense into the ear of McCain, who if he does not come to understand that the American forces should leave Iraq not because the Total Belief-System of totalitarian Islam is not a great and universal menace, but precisely because it is, will undoubtedly lose the election. And at least one of his potential opponents apparently has views on Islam that rival those of Jimmy Carter, indeed is a Carter in posse waiting to become one in esse.
"Our administration is doing just fine."
"Our" administration could hardly be doing worse.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
How Israel got Trashed
Isi Leibler
April 23, 2008
http://www.leibler.com/article/327
How was it possible? Only 30 years ago, we were still being hailed as the greatest success story of the 20th century. We were regarded as the people who rose from the ashes of the Holocaust and resurrected ourselves into an independent democratic nation, an oasis in a region dominated by tyrannies and despotisms. We were applauded for having successfully resisted the violent efforts of our neighbors to destroy and deny us our right to exist as a sovereign Jewish nation. Yet today, even in Western Europe, we are reviled as the greatest threat to world peace, just behind a rogue state like Iran. What happened? Why and how were we so effectively vanquished in the battlefield of the war of ideas?
In the early days, the Zionist leaders and founding fathers of Israel were at all times conscious that the war of ideas was a critical element in the struggle to establish and retain a Jewish state.
Prior to the Oslo Accords, when Israelis presented their case to the world, they did so with undiluted passion, convinced beyond doubt that justice was on their side. In those days, our diplomatic representatives were recognized as being among the most outstanding in the world. They were invariably dedicated idealists and also capable of articulating the case for Israel with style.
The 1967 Six Day War was a turning point. Until then, as the plucky little country struggling for survival against overwhelming odds, we enjoyed the support of most Western nations. But we were always sensitive to the fact that the world was traditionally more inclined to comfort Jews as victims rather than admiring them as victors.
Indeed, between the Six Day War and the Oslo Accords, the global support we had enjoyed eroded dramatically. That did not happen simply because Arabs had assumed a new underdog role. It was largely a consequence of the attitude of the newly empowered sabra elites, who displayed open contempt for hasbara, arrogantly asserting that military strength was the only factor to be considered. They dismissed the war of ideas as so much hot air.
The Israel sea change occurred at the onset of the Oslo Accords. Land for peace negotiations with the Palestinians bitterly split the nation. Despite all evidence to the contrary, our government became frenetically obsessed in trying to persuade the people that Arafat was a genuine peace partner. In desperation, it began covering up and making excuses for the criminality of the Palestinians. It even resorted to creating false illusions about our "peace partner," highly reminiscent of what we are witnessing today.
In addition, then deputy foreign minister Dr. Yossi Beilin persuaded Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that Diaspora Jews lobbying on behalf of Israel were hindering Israeli negotiations with the Arabs. Rabin brutally told AIPAC and other Jewish groups that their interventions on behalf of Israel were counter productive and instructed them to butt out.
At the same time, the high standard of Israeli diplomats eroded dramatically virtually overnight, as jobs for the boys and seniority rather than merit became the main criteria for key ambassadorial postings. Simultaneously, Beilin engineered early retirement for many old timers in the Foreign Ministry, replacing them with people fully aligned with his approach. The new diplomats were instructed to concentrate on promoting the peace process, explain the need to accommodate the rights of two peoples to the land, and avoid acrimonious debates. As a consequence, Israeli spokesmen tended to avoid confronting Arab lies, and instead conceded that both sides had made mistakes, suggesting that the time had arrived to move forward and avoid dwelling on contentious issues from the past.
It was truly a sea change. From passionately promoting our case, we had turned a full circle. Not only did we recoil from repudiating falsehoods, but when Arab casualties incurred as a consequence of IDF efforts to defend targeted Israeli civilians, the government began instinctively apologizing instead of blaming the murderers.
The final nails on the coffin were struck when Haaretz, the prestigious Israeli daily newspaper, launched an English print and Internet version which inter alia published articles implying that Israel had been born in sin and radically disparaged, even demonized, Israeli policies. Prior to this, mainstream Western media outlets rarely carried such articles.
Haaretz effectively provided the mainstream Western media with a kosher certification to incorporate the most extreme anti-Israeli content. "If Israeli papers can publish this, why should we be less inhibited?" became the standard response of numerous editors when accused of anti-Israeli bias and double standards.
To make matters worse, most foreign embassies in Israel began relying as an authority on the English Haaretz version, and its radical post-Zionist critiques were incorporated into reports dispatched to their governments.
Our global standing plummeted as international public opinion began to regard us as a rogue state. I recollect discussing this with Prime Minister Rabin and his successors, who were all either unwilling or unable to relate to the problem. Their eyes simply glazed over whenever the subject of the war of ideas was raised.
The situation worsened under Ehud Barak's premiership, when cabinet responsibility collapsed and individual ministers began publicly contradicting one another on crucial issues. In contrast, the Arabs and their allies became more disciplined and ensured that their spokesmen all parroted the same falsehoods. Regrettably, other than Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli leaders failed to appreciate the importance of refuting these lies. Soon, the distorted Arab narrative not only received greater global prominence, but became increasingly accepted in many quarters as the true one. Israel's interests were further undermined when Education Minister Yuli Tamir gave greater credence to the falsehood that Israel had been born in sin by agreeing to incorporate the Nakba (the Palestinian day of mourning for the creation of Israel) into the Israeli Arab state school curriculum.
Yet in retrospect, despite this self-inflicted denigration, our government's greatest failure was its reluctance to expose to the world the criminal nature of our Palestinian neighbor, the PA no less than Hamas. To this day, we continue understating the barbaric culture of death and the ongoing anti-Semitic incitement which permeates every sector of society under the jurisdiction of our Palestinian neighbor: mothers joyfully dispatching their own children to Paradise as suicide bombers; schools (even kindergartens), mosques and media inciting to kill Jews; Mahmoud Abbas, our peace partner, providing pensions for families of terrorists; spontaneous street celebrations erupting whenever terrorists succeed in killing Israelis in restaurants or shopping malls. The failure by our government to internationally expose such barbaric behavior reflects its slavish denial of reality.
In fact, despite all the evidence to the contrary, we ourselves still promote the lie that the conflict with the Palestinians is a struggle between two peoples over land. Were that so, we would have achieved a peace settlement many years ago. It is Islamic xenophobia denying the Jewish people the right to sovereignty which remains the root of the conflict. This was even reaffirmed as recently as Annapolis, when Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his determination never to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Over the past few years, matters have sank to an all time low. To pave the way for the unilateral disengagement, Sharon became the first Israeli leader to formally describe the Jewish presence over the Green Line as "the Occupation."
Annapolis was the final straw, when Olmert, desperate to please President Bush and appease the Palestinians, endorsed the Arab narrative on refugees. Feeling empowered, the impotent Mahmoud Abbas refused to concede anything. Just recently, in an interview with a Jordanian newspaper, Abbas brazenly stated that "At this time I am against armed struggle because we cannot achieve it, but things might be different in the coming stages." That the Olmert government failed to even condemn and alert the world after such an outrageous statement by our duplicitous "peace partner," who has described our efforts to protect our civilians from rocket attacks as "worse than the Holocaust," demonstrates the depth of self delusion we have reached and exemplifies why we continue losing the war of ideas.
ileibler@netvision.net.
April 23, 2008
http://www.leibler.com/article/327
How was it possible? Only 30 years ago, we were still being hailed as the greatest success story of the 20th century. We were regarded as the people who rose from the ashes of the Holocaust and resurrected ourselves into an independent democratic nation, an oasis in a region dominated by tyrannies and despotisms. We were applauded for having successfully resisted the violent efforts of our neighbors to destroy and deny us our right to exist as a sovereign Jewish nation. Yet today, even in Western Europe, we are reviled as the greatest threat to world peace, just behind a rogue state like Iran. What happened? Why and how were we so effectively vanquished in the battlefield of the war of ideas?
In the early days, the Zionist leaders and founding fathers of Israel were at all times conscious that the war of ideas was a critical element in the struggle to establish and retain a Jewish state.
Prior to the Oslo Accords, when Israelis presented their case to the world, they did so with undiluted passion, convinced beyond doubt that justice was on their side. In those days, our diplomatic representatives were recognized as being among the most outstanding in the world. They were invariably dedicated idealists and also capable of articulating the case for Israel with style.
The 1967 Six Day War was a turning point. Until then, as the plucky little country struggling for survival against overwhelming odds, we enjoyed the support of most Western nations. But we were always sensitive to the fact that the world was traditionally more inclined to comfort Jews as victims rather than admiring them as victors.
Indeed, between the Six Day War and the Oslo Accords, the global support we had enjoyed eroded dramatically. That did not happen simply because Arabs had assumed a new underdog role. It was largely a consequence of the attitude of the newly empowered sabra elites, who displayed open contempt for hasbara, arrogantly asserting that military strength was the only factor to be considered. They dismissed the war of ideas as so much hot air.
The Israel sea change occurred at the onset of the Oslo Accords. Land for peace negotiations with the Palestinians bitterly split the nation. Despite all evidence to the contrary, our government became frenetically obsessed in trying to persuade the people that Arafat was a genuine peace partner. In desperation, it began covering up and making excuses for the criminality of the Palestinians. It even resorted to creating false illusions about our "peace partner," highly reminiscent of what we are witnessing today.
In addition, then deputy foreign minister Dr. Yossi Beilin persuaded Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that Diaspora Jews lobbying on behalf of Israel were hindering Israeli negotiations with the Arabs. Rabin brutally told AIPAC and other Jewish groups that their interventions on behalf of Israel were counter productive and instructed them to butt out.
At the same time, the high standard of Israeli diplomats eroded dramatically virtually overnight, as jobs for the boys and seniority rather than merit became the main criteria for key ambassadorial postings. Simultaneously, Beilin engineered early retirement for many old timers in the Foreign Ministry, replacing them with people fully aligned with his approach. The new diplomats were instructed to concentrate on promoting the peace process, explain the need to accommodate the rights of two peoples to the land, and avoid acrimonious debates. As a consequence, Israeli spokesmen tended to avoid confronting Arab lies, and instead conceded that both sides had made mistakes, suggesting that the time had arrived to move forward and avoid dwelling on contentious issues from the past.
It was truly a sea change. From passionately promoting our case, we had turned a full circle. Not only did we recoil from repudiating falsehoods, but when Arab casualties incurred as a consequence of IDF efforts to defend targeted Israeli civilians, the government began instinctively apologizing instead of blaming the murderers.
The final nails on the coffin were struck when Haaretz, the prestigious Israeli daily newspaper, launched an English print and Internet version which inter alia published articles implying that Israel had been born in sin and radically disparaged, even demonized, Israeli policies. Prior to this, mainstream Western media outlets rarely carried such articles.
Haaretz effectively provided the mainstream Western media with a kosher certification to incorporate the most extreme anti-Israeli content. "If Israeli papers can publish this, why should we be less inhibited?" became the standard response of numerous editors when accused of anti-Israeli bias and double standards.
To make matters worse, most foreign embassies in Israel began relying as an authority on the English Haaretz version, and its radical post-Zionist critiques were incorporated into reports dispatched to their governments.
Our global standing plummeted as international public opinion began to regard us as a rogue state. I recollect discussing this with Prime Minister Rabin and his successors, who were all either unwilling or unable to relate to the problem. Their eyes simply glazed over whenever the subject of the war of ideas was raised.
The situation worsened under Ehud Barak's premiership, when cabinet responsibility collapsed and individual ministers began publicly contradicting one another on crucial issues. In contrast, the Arabs and their allies became more disciplined and ensured that their spokesmen all parroted the same falsehoods. Regrettably, other than Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli leaders failed to appreciate the importance of refuting these lies. Soon, the distorted Arab narrative not only received greater global prominence, but became increasingly accepted in many quarters as the true one. Israel's interests were further undermined when Education Minister Yuli Tamir gave greater credence to the falsehood that Israel had been born in sin by agreeing to incorporate the Nakba (the Palestinian day of mourning for the creation of Israel) into the Israeli Arab state school curriculum.
Yet in retrospect, despite this self-inflicted denigration, our government's greatest failure was its reluctance to expose to the world the criminal nature of our Palestinian neighbor, the PA no less than Hamas. To this day, we continue understating the barbaric culture of death and the ongoing anti-Semitic incitement which permeates every sector of society under the jurisdiction of our Palestinian neighbor: mothers joyfully dispatching their own children to Paradise as suicide bombers; schools (even kindergartens), mosques and media inciting to kill Jews; Mahmoud Abbas, our peace partner, providing pensions for families of terrorists; spontaneous street celebrations erupting whenever terrorists succeed in killing Israelis in restaurants or shopping malls. The failure by our government to internationally expose such barbaric behavior reflects its slavish denial of reality.
In fact, despite all the evidence to the contrary, we ourselves still promote the lie that the conflict with the Palestinians is a struggle between two peoples over land. Were that so, we would have achieved a peace settlement many years ago. It is Islamic xenophobia denying the Jewish people the right to sovereignty which remains the root of the conflict. This was even reaffirmed as recently as Annapolis, when Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his determination never to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Over the past few years, matters have sank to an all time low. To pave the way for the unilateral disengagement, Sharon became the first Israeli leader to formally describe the Jewish presence over the Green Line as "the Occupation."
Annapolis was the final straw, when Olmert, desperate to please President Bush and appease the Palestinians, endorsed the Arab narrative on refugees. Feeling empowered, the impotent Mahmoud Abbas refused to concede anything. Just recently, in an interview with a Jordanian newspaper, Abbas brazenly stated that "At this time I am against armed struggle because we cannot achieve it, but things might be different in the coming stages." That the Olmert government failed to even condemn and alert the world after such an outrageous statement by our duplicitous "peace partner," who has described our efforts to protect our civilians from rocket attacks as "worse than the Holocaust," demonstrates the depth of self delusion we have reached and exemplifies why we continue losing the war of ideas.
ileibler@netvision.net.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Support for a Palestinian state is Soft & Reluctant
Yoram Ettinger
1. Support – among Israeli Jews – for the proposed Palestinian state (“Two States Solution”) is soft and reluctant, according to a March 31-April 1 poll conducted by the Tel Aviv University Center For Peace Research.
2. The establishment of the proposed Palestinian state is supported by 68%, many of whom – other than the Israel’s traditional Left – subordinate their security and historical concerns to their demographic concern. However, the demographic scare has been debunked by the Bennett Zimmerman-led American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), as summarized below.
3. 55% of Israeli Jews define Judea & Samaria as “Liberated Territory,” compared with 32% who consider it “Occupied Territory,” in defiance of a 15 year old Political-Correctness promoted by Israel’s government, media, academic and k-12 education systems.
4. 57% of Israeli Jews do not accept the “Green Line” as Israel’s border, compared with 23% who accept it.
5. 49%:43% oppose an agreement, which entails painful concessions - a code name for substantial withdrawals.
6. 47%:40% of Israeli Jews consider the 1993 Oslo Accord a mistake.
7. 75% of Israeli Jews don’t believe that negotiation would lead to an agreement with the Palestinians. 75% believe that even if an agreement would be concluded, the Palestinians would not consider it an end to their conflict with Israel.
8. Most Israeli Jews oppose the tangible – potentially lethal - consequences of the “Two State Solution.” Their soft & reluctant support of the “Two State Solution” has been based on unfounded demographic fatalism. It has benefited from the absence of a systematic, full scale educational media campaign, highlighting historical, security and demographic aspects of Judea & Samaria mountain ridges (the “Golan Heights” of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, surrounded by the conflict-ridden, volatile, violent, non-compliant Arab Mideast, which is yet to experience inter-Arab peace).
Happy Passover,
Yoram (website – http://yoramettinger.newsnet.co.il)
The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG)
Key Findings
April 2008
Western taxpayers have provided, since 1994, a multi-billion dollar foreign aid to the PA, based on dramatically inflated Palestinian numbers. President Bush stated that Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert argued that Israeli territorial concessions were required, in order to spare Israel a demographic calamity. Really?
I. AIDRG documents a 1.1MN (46%) inflation in the official number of Palestinians in Gaza, Judea & Samaria (2.7MN and not 3.8MN) and a 53% inflation in the official number of Palestinians in Judea & Samaria alone (1.5MN and not 2.3MN). The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) includes in its census some 400,000 overseas residents, 200,000 Israeli (Jerusalem) Arabs who are also counted as “Green Line” Arabs, ignores about 200,000 emigrants (since 1997), etc. The World Bank documents a 32% gap between the PCBS and the Palestinian Ministry of Education - documented – number of Palestinian births.
II. A long-term 67% Jewish majority on 98.5% of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean (without Gaza). A long-term 60% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River compared with 33% and 8% minority in 1947 and 1900 respectively.
III. Arab fertility rate (within the “Green Line”) has declined 20 year faster than conventionally projected – due to modernity and integration - while Jewish fertility rate is rising.
IV. A 40% rise in annual Jewish births (from 80,400 to 112,000) and a stagnation of annual Arab births (39,000) in the “Green Line” during 1995-2007. Arab-Jewish gap of fertility (number of children per woman) reduced from 6 in 1969 to 0.8 in 2006. Arab fertility rate has declined, in Judea & Samaria, to about 4.5 since its peak (about 8) in the late 1980s.
V. Arab-Jewish fertility rates have converged in Jerusalem – 3.9 children per woman – for the first time since 1948.
VI. Net annual emigration of over 10,000 has characterized Judea & Samaria (mostly) and Gaza Arabs since 1950: 12,000 in 2004, 16,000 in 2005 and 25,000 in 2006.
VII. The Jewish State has benefited from annual Aliya (immigration) since 1882. Repeatedly, since 1948, Israel’s demographic establishment has projected no waves of Aliya.
VIII. Secular Olim (immigrants) from the former Soviet Republics experience fertility increase from the Russian rate of one child per woman toward the average secular Israeli rate of 2.2.
IX. Repeatedly, projections of demographic doom have been refuted by robust Jewish demography between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. For example, Ben Gurion was urged by Israel’s demographers to delay declaration of independence, lest the 600,000 Jews of 1948 become a minority by 1967!
X. There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal, and the demographic trend is Jewish and not Arab. The demographic momentum is shifting from the Arab to the Jewish sector. Demography constitutes a strategic asset, not a liability, for the Jewish State.
1. Support – among Israeli Jews – for the proposed Palestinian state (“Two States Solution”) is soft and reluctant, according to a March 31-April 1 poll conducted by the Tel Aviv University Center For Peace Research.
2. The establishment of the proposed Palestinian state is supported by 68%, many of whom – other than the Israel’s traditional Left – subordinate their security and historical concerns to their demographic concern. However, the demographic scare has been debunked by the Bennett Zimmerman-led American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), as summarized below.
3. 55% of Israeli Jews define Judea & Samaria as “Liberated Territory,” compared with 32% who consider it “Occupied Territory,” in defiance of a 15 year old Political-Correctness promoted by Israel’s government, media, academic and k-12 education systems.
4. 57% of Israeli Jews do not accept the “Green Line” as Israel’s border, compared with 23% who accept it.
5. 49%:43% oppose an agreement, which entails painful concessions - a code name for substantial withdrawals.
6. 47%:40% of Israeli Jews consider the 1993 Oslo Accord a mistake.
7. 75% of Israeli Jews don’t believe that negotiation would lead to an agreement with the Palestinians. 75% believe that even if an agreement would be concluded, the Palestinians would not consider it an end to their conflict with Israel.
8. Most Israeli Jews oppose the tangible – potentially lethal - consequences of the “Two State Solution.” Their soft & reluctant support of the “Two State Solution” has been based on unfounded demographic fatalism. It has benefited from the absence of a systematic, full scale educational media campaign, highlighting historical, security and demographic aspects of Judea & Samaria mountain ridges (the “Golan Heights” of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, surrounded by the conflict-ridden, volatile, violent, non-compliant Arab Mideast, which is yet to experience inter-Arab peace).
Happy Passover,
Yoram (website – http://yoramettinger.newsnet.co.il)
The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG)
Key Findings
April 2008
Western taxpayers have provided, since 1994, a multi-billion dollar foreign aid to the PA, based on dramatically inflated Palestinian numbers. President Bush stated that Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert argued that Israeli territorial concessions were required, in order to spare Israel a demographic calamity. Really?
I. AIDRG documents a 1.1MN (46%) inflation in the official number of Palestinians in Gaza, Judea & Samaria (2.7MN and not 3.8MN) and a 53% inflation in the official number of Palestinians in Judea & Samaria alone (1.5MN and not 2.3MN). The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) includes in its census some 400,000 overseas residents, 200,000 Israeli (Jerusalem) Arabs who are also counted as “Green Line” Arabs, ignores about 200,000 emigrants (since 1997), etc. The World Bank documents a 32% gap between the PCBS and the Palestinian Ministry of Education - documented – number of Palestinian births.
II. A long-term 67% Jewish majority on 98.5% of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean (without Gaza). A long-term 60% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River compared with 33% and 8% minority in 1947 and 1900 respectively.
III. Arab fertility rate (within the “Green Line”) has declined 20 year faster than conventionally projected – due to modernity and integration - while Jewish fertility rate is rising.
IV. A 40% rise in annual Jewish births (from 80,400 to 112,000) and a stagnation of annual Arab births (39,000) in the “Green Line” during 1995-2007. Arab-Jewish gap of fertility (number of children per woman) reduced from 6 in 1969 to 0.8 in 2006. Arab fertility rate has declined, in Judea & Samaria, to about 4.5 since its peak (about 8) in the late 1980s.
V. Arab-Jewish fertility rates have converged in Jerusalem – 3.9 children per woman – for the first time since 1948.
VI. Net annual emigration of over 10,000 has characterized Judea & Samaria (mostly) and Gaza Arabs since 1950: 12,000 in 2004, 16,000 in 2005 and 25,000 in 2006.
VII. The Jewish State has benefited from annual Aliya (immigration) since 1882. Repeatedly, since 1948, Israel’s demographic establishment has projected no waves of Aliya.
VIII. Secular Olim (immigrants) from the former Soviet Republics experience fertility increase from the Russian rate of one child per woman toward the average secular Israeli rate of 2.2.
IX. Repeatedly, projections of demographic doom have been refuted by robust Jewish demography between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. For example, Ben Gurion was urged by Israel’s demographers to delay declaration of independence, lest the 600,000 Jews of 1948 become a minority by 1967!
X. There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal, and the demographic trend is Jewish and not Arab. The demographic momentum is shifting from the Arab to the Jewish sector. Demography constitutes a strategic asset, not a liability, for the Jewish State.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Obama Aesthetic
Thomas Lifson
Barack Obama's campaign has been all about image. The well-dressed, impeccably groomed, and elegantly articulate speaker was able to speak of hope, change, and unity, and for awhile the public bought it. Capitalizing on the huge store of guilt, compassion, and hope for better racial relations among the vast majority of Americans of all races, Obama posed as the man who might heal the wounds of the past. The bonhomie lasted for months, as the press corps, no strangers to their own guilt and hope and leftist inclinations, averted its eyes from those elements of his politics and life story that were discordant with a unifier's mission, and portayed him as almost supernaturally virtuous. Obama long ago learned how to disarm strangers who might find him an unusual or perhaps threatening figure, and as long as the scrutiny didn't get too detailed, the game worked splendidly.
But that was before Hillary Clinton's campaign took him seriously. Before the Clinton war room wizards, past masters of planting stories and themes in friendly media hands, got to work on him. American Thinker and other conservative websites long have been pointing to his Alinskyite past, noting his Senate voting record and his propensity to associate with left wing extremists like Bill Ayers. But until very recently, the major media were content to allow his chosen narrative of centrism and unity to prevail. No messy qualms about actual policies disturbed the aesthetic of hope and optimism and unity.
The press collaboration with Obama's PR became so sickeningly obvious that Saturday Night Live was able to mock it savagely, and receive kudos for puncturing the bubble. With the impetus of scornful laughter haunting them, mainstream journalists began to pay more attention to Obama's dubious associations. Video of Pastor Wright hit ABC, and from there the rest of the mainstream media began to pay attention to discordant notes in his rhetoric of reassurance to middle Amercia.
The ABC News-sponsored debate Wednesday night featured unprecedentedly tough questioning (at least for a liberal) by George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. Obama stumbled in his responses, comparing admitted terror bomber Bill Ayers to United States Senator Tom Coburn, a physician who has delivered thousands of babies. Even more astonishingly, when reminded that capital gains tax increases actually decrease tax revenue while cap gains tax cuts increase them, he actually retreated to the realm of class warfare, insisting that regardless of the consequences, he wants to punish the owners of capital in the name of "fairness."
Welcome the new aesthetic of Barack Obama, the left wing ideologue. The signs have long been there, for those with the eyes to see them.
It is no accident that Obama has become the candidate of the Democrats' left wing fringe, typified by the Daily Kos crowd, despite his continuing efforts to sound a centrist note. The kind of people who are comfortable working with a poster of Che Guevara looking over their shoulders have been attracted to Obama because they read the little signals belying his centrist pose.
Of course, it may be unfair to hold a candidate responsible for all the actions of any of his supporters, but when a campaign itself indulges in the aesthetic of leftism, it may actually mean something. Take the striking posters of the candidate created by left wing artist Shepard Fairey and sold by the online Obama store run by his campaign. The entire run of the Fairey posters has sold out, so popular are they among the leftist cognoscenti whose aesthetic tastes run to nostalgic socialist realism.
Of the Fairey posters, the "Progress" poster is the most interesting. "Progressive" is, of course, the favorite euphemism for the hard left today.
Take a close look at the Obama campaign emblem placed on the "progress" poster. It is placed almost as if it were a medal worn on his lapel. And in place of the ordinary Obama campaign "O" seen on the "Change" poster, the "Progress" poster features a five pointed star in the middle. Look at it close up:
The symbol is almost reminiscent of the Soviet medal the Order of the Red Star [hat tip to reader Mark Roth]:
This is not to suggest that Obama is some Manchurian Candidate controlled by a conspiracy from the vanished USSR, but rather that his campaign is choosing to cultivate a hard left constituency via semiotic means. There is in America a substantial faction of the hard left which waxes nostalgic for the good old days of Soviet art and culture, and members of this group have been cultivated by the Obama campaign.
(source: Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online)
Of course, the smug in-group nostalgia for an evil and murderous ideology is not only repellant to most Americans, it is easily mocked.
Image by Daniel Montrose
Barack Obama has been able to preach racial harmony while attending and donating to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church for two decades. He has been able to masquerade as a centrist while hobnobbing with the radical chic activists and unrepentant terrorists of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He has been able to pose as a centrist while believing in the necessity of punishing owners of capital. But with Hillary Clinton and her minions aggressively pursuing him, and an awakened press chagrinned at giving him a pass for so long, those days may be numbered.
Thomas Lifson is editor and publisher of American Thinker.
Barack Obama's campaign has been all about image. The well-dressed, impeccably groomed, and elegantly articulate speaker was able to speak of hope, change, and unity, and for awhile the public bought it. Capitalizing on the huge store of guilt, compassion, and hope for better racial relations among the vast majority of Americans of all races, Obama posed as the man who might heal the wounds of the past. The bonhomie lasted for months, as the press corps, no strangers to their own guilt and hope and leftist inclinations, averted its eyes from those elements of his politics and life story that were discordant with a unifier's mission, and portayed him as almost supernaturally virtuous. Obama long ago learned how to disarm strangers who might find him an unusual or perhaps threatening figure, and as long as the scrutiny didn't get too detailed, the game worked splendidly.
But that was before Hillary Clinton's campaign took him seriously. Before the Clinton war room wizards, past masters of planting stories and themes in friendly media hands, got to work on him. American Thinker and other conservative websites long have been pointing to his Alinskyite past, noting his Senate voting record and his propensity to associate with left wing extremists like Bill Ayers. But until very recently, the major media were content to allow his chosen narrative of centrism and unity to prevail. No messy qualms about actual policies disturbed the aesthetic of hope and optimism and unity.
The press collaboration with Obama's PR became so sickeningly obvious that Saturday Night Live was able to mock it savagely, and receive kudos for puncturing the bubble. With the impetus of scornful laughter haunting them, mainstream journalists began to pay more attention to Obama's dubious associations. Video of Pastor Wright hit ABC, and from there the rest of the mainstream media began to pay attention to discordant notes in his rhetoric of reassurance to middle Amercia.
The ABC News-sponsored debate Wednesday night featured unprecedentedly tough questioning (at least for a liberal) by George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. Obama stumbled in his responses, comparing admitted terror bomber Bill Ayers to United States Senator Tom Coburn, a physician who has delivered thousands of babies. Even more astonishingly, when reminded that capital gains tax increases actually decrease tax revenue while cap gains tax cuts increase them, he actually retreated to the realm of class warfare, insisting that regardless of the consequences, he wants to punish the owners of capital in the name of "fairness."
Welcome the new aesthetic of Barack Obama, the left wing ideologue. The signs have long been there, for those with the eyes to see them.
It is no accident that Obama has become the candidate of the Democrats' left wing fringe, typified by the Daily Kos crowd, despite his continuing efforts to sound a centrist note. The kind of people who are comfortable working with a poster of Che Guevara looking over their shoulders have been attracted to Obama because they read the little signals belying his centrist pose.
Of course, it may be unfair to hold a candidate responsible for all the actions of any of his supporters, but when a campaign itself indulges in the aesthetic of leftism, it may actually mean something. Take the striking posters of the candidate created by left wing artist Shepard Fairey and sold by the online Obama store run by his campaign. The entire run of the Fairey posters has sold out, so popular are they among the leftist cognoscenti whose aesthetic tastes run to nostalgic socialist realism.
Of the Fairey posters, the "Progress" poster is the most interesting. "Progressive" is, of course, the favorite euphemism for the hard left today.
Take a close look at the Obama campaign emblem placed on the "progress" poster. It is placed almost as if it were a medal worn on his lapel. And in place of the ordinary Obama campaign "O" seen on the "Change" poster, the "Progress" poster features a five pointed star in the middle. Look at it close up:
The symbol is almost reminiscent of the Soviet medal the Order of the Red Star [hat tip to reader Mark Roth]:
This is not to suggest that Obama is some Manchurian Candidate controlled by a conspiracy from the vanished USSR, but rather that his campaign is choosing to cultivate a hard left constituency via semiotic means. There is in America a substantial faction of the hard left which waxes nostalgic for the good old days of Soviet art and culture, and members of this group have been cultivated by the Obama campaign.
(source: Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online)
Of course, the smug in-group nostalgia for an evil and murderous ideology is not only repellant to most Americans, it is easily mocked.
Image by Daniel Montrose
Barack Obama has been able to preach racial harmony while attending and donating to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church for two decades. He has been able to masquerade as a centrist while hobnobbing with the radical chic activists and unrepentant terrorists of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He has been able to pose as a centrist while believing in the necessity of punishing owners of capital. But with Hillary Clinton and her minions aggressively pursuing him, and an awakened press chagrinned at giving him a pass for so long, those days may be numbered.
Thomas Lifson is editor and publisher of American Thinker.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel’s takedown of Syrian nuke site
She was afraid it would destabilize the region -- apparently in a way that a nuke in Tel Aviv wouldn't.
And after, the region is such a marvelous model of stability now.. "Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel’s attack on Syrian nuclear site," by Sarah Baxter in the Times (thanks to Pamela):
A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.
Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with “jaw-dropping” evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said.
The Sunday Times revealed two weeks ago that Israeli commandos had seized samples of nuclear material, said to be of North Korean origin, during a daring raid on a Syrian military facility to prove to the Americans that an air attack was essential.
According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.
The nuclear samples seized by ground commandos remain unidentified, but defence and intelligence sources in Washington believe they may have been connected to uranium enrichment.
Ilan Berman, a Middle East expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, said: “The consensus is that Israel struck a nuclear facility and the probability is that it was linked to enriching uranium.”...
And after, the region is such a marvelous model of stability now.. "Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel’s attack on Syrian nuclear site," by Sarah Baxter in the Times (thanks to Pamela):
A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.
Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with “jaw-dropping” evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said.
The Sunday Times revealed two weeks ago that Israeli commandos had seized samples of nuclear material, said to be of North Korean origin, during a daring raid on a Syrian military facility to prove to the Americans that an air attack was essential.
According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.
The nuclear samples seized by ground commandos remain unidentified, but defence and intelligence sources in Washington believe they may have been connected to uranium enrichment.
Ilan Berman, a Middle East expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, said: “The consensus is that Israel struck a nuclear facility and the probability is that it was linked to enriching uranium.”...
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Carter, hold your peace!-His Mideast meddling dangerous
Cliff May
http://www.bostonherald.com | Op-Ed
Let’s be fair to Jimmy Carter. Let’s suppose he isn’t indulging in egotistical grandstanding, that he doesn’t harbor a deep-seated bias against Israel and that the millions of dollars Islamists have provided to his Carter Center haven’t influenced him. Let’s suppose his freelance diplomacy is sincerely in pursuit of the elusive path to peace in the Middle East.
Even so, why in the world would he pay a courtesy call on Khaled Mashaal? Mashaal has claimed responsibility for organizing numerous suicide bombings, slaughtering mostly Israeli civilians but Americans too.. The head of Hamas’ politburo, Mashaal lives not in Hamas-ruled Gaza, from which missiles rain down on Israeli villages daily. Nor does he live in the West Bank, which is controlled, more or less, by Fatah, Hamas’ rival. He resides instead in Syria, a guest of dictator Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s client, who for the past five years has facilitated the flow of al-Qaeda combatants into Iraq.
Those who attempt to appease tyrants are generally suspected of cowardice. More often, I suspect, lack of imagination is the cause. When Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler, he no doubt believed he could reason with him because he also no doubt believed that the Fuhrer - whatever his grievances or ambitions - was also a reasonable man.
What this leaves out is ideology. Hitler’s ideas - odious as they may now seem to you, me and Carter (though certainly not to Mashaal) - inspired millions to fight and die for the glory of the Third Reich. And Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist ideology inspired millions to fight and die for the illusion of a communist utopia.
The ideology of Hamas derives from something more enduring than “Mein Kampf,” “Das Kapital” and the sayings of Chairman Mao. It is rooted in a 1,400-year-old religion. Hamas proudly proclaims that “the Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration.” Hamas leaders promise their followers not just rewards here on Earth but in the next world as well - a selling point neither Nazism nor communism could offer.
Surely, Carter is aware that, as a matter of religious conviction, Meshaal cannot accept Israel’s existence. Hamas believes every inch of Israel and, indeed, of any land ever ruled by Muslims is “an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day,” the charter states. A Muslim can fight to reclaim this endowment or he can fail to fulfill the obligations his faith imposes. To Hamas, there is no third option.
The Hamas charter asserts, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”
Not only do Hamas members oppose a “two-state solution,” they believe that nation-states are un-Islamic. Instead, an Islamic caliphate is to be re-established, an empire that is to expand until the Dar al-Islam, the world ruled by Muslims, consumes the Dar al-Harb, the world in which infidels now hold sway.
“Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad,” Hamas member and Palestinian parliamentarian Yunis al-Asal has pledged.
Does Carter sincerely think he can convince Mashaal to reject such ideas and embrace the Carter Center’s kumbaya mission of “waging peace and building hope?” Does he really believe he can change Mashaal’s mind, much less open his heart?
If so, Carter is as clueless now as he was almost 30 years ago when, on his watch as president, the Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran, seized America’s embassy, held our diplomats hostage and sat back to watch Carter do nothing effective in response.
But let’s be fair to Carter. He alone is not responsible for the rise of Islamism in all its malevolent variations. He is responsible, however, for so profoundly misunderstanding what is happening in the world over so many years.
Iran prefers Obama
Like Hamas, they know a new Carter when they see one. "Iran Avoids Support for US Presidential Hopefuls," from the Fars News Agency (thanks to Marina):
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran said on Monday that it does not back any of the US presidential candidates but does hope the election will bring a change in Washington's foreign policy. "Iran would not support any candidates in the US presidential campaign," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said during his weekly news briefing. "But the nations of the world are fed up with America's warmongering policies and we demand these change."
Earlier in March, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Spanish El Pais newspaper that the real circles of power in America would not allow Senator Barack Obama to enter the White House, adding that he would have no problems if the junior senator from Illinois were to be elected.
Both Democratic Party candidates have called for direct talks with Iran over its differences with the US including its nuclear program which Washington alleges is for military purposes, while Tehran vehemently denies the charge, saying the program is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity....
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran said on Monday that it does not back any of the US presidential candidates but does hope the election will bring a change in Washington's foreign policy. "Iran would not support any candidates in the US presidential campaign," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said during his weekly news briefing. "But the nations of the world are fed up with America's warmongering policies and we demand these change."
Earlier in March, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Spanish El Pais newspaper that the real circles of power in America would not allow Senator Barack Obama to enter the White House, adding that he would have no problems if the junior senator from Illinois were to be elected.
Both Democratic Party candidates have called for direct talks with Iran over its differences with the US including its nuclear program which Washington alleges is for military purposes, while Tehran vehemently denies the charge, saying the program is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity....
Friday, April 18, 2008
Lights Out for Peace Now?
P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/18/2008
What if they gave a Peace Now ceremony and no one came? According to Ari Shavit, a journalist for Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz, that almost happened one evening last week when a white tent went up in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square for an event marking Peace Now’s 30th anniversary.
“This time,” Shavit writes,
hundreds of thousands did not throng to the square, not even tens of thousands or even one thousand. But a handful of decent, devoted Israelis did come…anonymous patriots whose faces furrowed with wrinkles and their hair became white in the years they ran on the hills, stood holding up placards and carrying torches, trying to lessen the killing and injustice, to bring peace closer and keep war away.. In other words, the very small contingent that showed up were mostly people who had gotten on in years. Peace Now’s membership has indeed declined drastically since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, with very little younger cadre arising to replace the movement’s aging veterans.
Shavit, once staunchly on the Left but now with some elements of a centrist outlook, says that Peace Now
bound together (justified) resistance to the occupation of the Palestinians and (invalid) faith that the Palestinians are the allies…. It was captivated by the PLO’s charms, and Oslo’s delusions, and finally became Yasser Arafat’s hostage.
Apart from that little error of being captivated by the charms of terrorists, Peace Now, in Shavit’s telling, got everything else right:
It understood that occupation corrupts, that the settlements were a disaster, that every effort must be made to divide the land between two nation-states…. that in the face of the right wing and settlers, a different Zionism was called for. An educated, rational, enlightened, moral Zionism…. [Peace Now] brought the Israeli center to adopt unmistakably left-wing positions, but could not stop the settlements in time.
If it sounds like “the settlements” are Shavit’s bête noire, indicating how entrenched he still is in the Peace Now outlook—that is indeed the case.
Nowhere in the article does Shavit even suggest which settlements he means—sizable towns like Betar Illit (pop. 35,000) or Maale Adumim (pop. 32,000), both located a few miles from Jerusalem, or Ariel (pop. 18,000), located in West Bank hill country on an invasion route to Israel’s coastal plain? Or does he mean the smaller, sprinkled, often more ideological West Bank settlements? He doesn’t say, and it doesn’t seem to matter to him when “settlements” remains something close to a curse word in his lexicon.
Israelis like Shavit took a position on the settlements—particularly the smaller, more isolated ones—that, without agreeing with it, one can understand: they thought these communities needlessly extended Israeli population into Palestinian-populated areas and threatened to perpetuate the need for Israel to rule these areas.
Apart, though, from the fact that all the territories in question are of security importance to Israel—as has been bitterly evident since the Gaza evacuation—seemingly it would have been possible for liberals like Shavit to take a different view that was both decidedly consonant with their principles and less divisive: that if peace was the ultimate goal, the Palestinian Arabs of the territories should not have found it so objectionable to have Israelis living among them just as Palestinian Arabs live among Israelis in pre-1967 Israel.
Indeed, seemingly from a liberal, tolerant outlook the more ideological settlers’ intense love of the biblical Land of Israel, and desire to live in it, could have been accepted as legitimate values and sentiments.
That, however, is the other pathological aspect of Peace Now that Shavit still does not “get”—and his failure to get it is the other side of the coin of his still overly mild criticism of Peace Now’s proterrorist sympathies.
Shavit knows, of course, about Peace Now’s fierce enmity toward what it thinks of as “the other” camp in Israeli society; it’s just that Shavit goes along with it, as when he writes:
From its outset the Israeli peace movement had not only a political platform but also a genetic code. This code says: The state may have been taken from us but we will forge a new identity as the state's critics. The other may be in power, but we will march to the tribal square and there confront him together.
The language and imagery are martial; somehow the “peace” orientation that was so gentle and conciliatory toward Yasser Arafat and the PLO gets lost here.
What Peace Now, in other words, really introduced into the Israeli mainstream—with such bloody consequences from the Oslo era to the present—was classic Western appeasement: one’s attackers—no matter how savage—are moral people protesting one’s own immorality; the hawkish camp within one’s own society is the true enemy; by bonding with the attackers one defeats this enemy and ushers in peace.
Indeed, one thing Shavit omits to mention in his article is that during Peace Now’s event at Rabin Square the other night a message was read out from Marwan Barghouti—the Palestinian terrorist sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli court in 2004 on five counts of murder.
And what of Shavit’s claim that Peace Now “brought the Israeli center to adopt unmistakably left-wing positions”? It is a self-justifying claim often heard these days from the dwindled ranks of Peace Now and other Israeli leftists, who cite polls finding a majority of Israelis now supporting a Palestinian state west of the Jordan, or the fact that formerly right-wing politicians like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have now become advocates of that cause.
But whether many Israelis now take this stance because of Peace Now’s influence, tiredness, or a fatalistic sense that the United States and the rest of the world are going to push Israel into this concession in any case (or some combination of those), a poll released this week by the Begin-Sadat Center of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University suggests it’s too soon to write off the general Israeli population as Peace Now converts.
The poll, which focused on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on Jerusalem—a compromise over the city being considered a sine qua non of a final settlement entailing the rise of a Palestinian state—found 71 percent of Israelis opposing a deal that would require Israel to hand over Jerusalem’s Old City and Temple Mount to the Palestinians. Sixty-two percent were against Jerusalem’s status being discussed in negotiations at all.
And even if a settlement over the city was reached, 61 percent said there was no or very little chance the Palestinians would stop making demands on Israel regarding Jerusalem, 69 percent said there was no or very little chance that Palestinian terror attacks would cease, and 56 percent said any part of Jerusalem the Palestinians would obtain was likely to serve as a base for such attacks.
It sounds, that is, like the old blend of fealty to basic Jewish values and realism that until the Oslo era kept Peace Now positions on the fringe of Israeli politics.
Evidence, though, that a lot of the change in Israel comes from tiredness is the poll’s further finding that among the majority that opposes concessions on Jerusalem, only one-third would express their opposition in demonstrations and the rest would keep it to the ballot box (when it could well be too late) or conversations with family and friends.
Peace Now’s effect on the Israeli public, in other words, may not have been cognitive change so much as damage to morale, as Peace Now helped mobilize and reinforce those international actors most intent—whether out of blindness or malice—on stripping Israel of its strategic assets and implanting a terror state on the very narrow borders that would be left to it. What the still sensible, realistic Israeli majority appears to need most is leaders who will stand up to the Peace Now tide and reaffirm their values and resolve.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/18/2008
What if they gave a Peace Now ceremony and no one came? According to Ari Shavit, a journalist for Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz, that almost happened one evening last week when a white tent went up in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square for an event marking Peace Now’s 30th anniversary.
“This time,” Shavit writes,
hundreds of thousands did not throng to the square, not even tens of thousands or even one thousand. But a handful of decent, devoted Israelis did come…anonymous patriots whose faces furrowed with wrinkles and their hair became white in the years they ran on the hills, stood holding up placards and carrying torches, trying to lessen the killing and injustice, to bring peace closer and keep war away.. In other words, the very small contingent that showed up were mostly people who had gotten on in years. Peace Now’s membership has indeed declined drastically since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, with very little younger cadre arising to replace the movement’s aging veterans.
Shavit, once staunchly on the Left but now with some elements of a centrist outlook, says that Peace Now
bound together (justified) resistance to the occupation of the Palestinians and (invalid) faith that the Palestinians are the allies…. It was captivated by the PLO’s charms, and Oslo’s delusions, and finally became Yasser Arafat’s hostage.
Apart from that little error of being captivated by the charms of terrorists, Peace Now, in Shavit’s telling, got everything else right:
It understood that occupation corrupts, that the settlements were a disaster, that every effort must be made to divide the land between two nation-states…. that in the face of the right wing and settlers, a different Zionism was called for. An educated, rational, enlightened, moral Zionism…. [Peace Now] brought the Israeli center to adopt unmistakably left-wing positions, but could not stop the settlements in time.
If it sounds like “the settlements” are Shavit’s bête noire, indicating how entrenched he still is in the Peace Now outlook—that is indeed the case.
Nowhere in the article does Shavit even suggest which settlements he means—sizable towns like Betar Illit (pop. 35,000) or Maale Adumim (pop. 32,000), both located a few miles from Jerusalem, or Ariel (pop. 18,000), located in West Bank hill country on an invasion route to Israel’s coastal plain? Or does he mean the smaller, sprinkled, often more ideological West Bank settlements? He doesn’t say, and it doesn’t seem to matter to him when “settlements” remains something close to a curse word in his lexicon.
Israelis like Shavit took a position on the settlements—particularly the smaller, more isolated ones—that, without agreeing with it, one can understand: they thought these communities needlessly extended Israeli population into Palestinian-populated areas and threatened to perpetuate the need for Israel to rule these areas.
Apart, though, from the fact that all the territories in question are of security importance to Israel—as has been bitterly evident since the Gaza evacuation—seemingly it would have been possible for liberals like Shavit to take a different view that was both decidedly consonant with their principles and less divisive: that if peace was the ultimate goal, the Palestinian Arabs of the territories should not have found it so objectionable to have Israelis living among them just as Palestinian Arabs live among Israelis in pre-1967 Israel.
Indeed, seemingly from a liberal, tolerant outlook the more ideological settlers’ intense love of the biblical Land of Israel, and desire to live in it, could have been accepted as legitimate values and sentiments.
That, however, is the other pathological aspect of Peace Now that Shavit still does not “get”—and his failure to get it is the other side of the coin of his still overly mild criticism of Peace Now’s proterrorist sympathies.
Shavit knows, of course, about Peace Now’s fierce enmity toward what it thinks of as “the other” camp in Israeli society; it’s just that Shavit goes along with it, as when he writes:
From its outset the Israeli peace movement had not only a political platform but also a genetic code. This code says: The state may have been taken from us but we will forge a new identity as the state's critics. The other may be in power, but we will march to the tribal square and there confront him together.
The language and imagery are martial; somehow the “peace” orientation that was so gentle and conciliatory toward Yasser Arafat and the PLO gets lost here.
What Peace Now, in other words, really introduced into the Israeli mainstream—with such bloody consequences from the Oslo era to the present—was classic Western appeasement: one’s attackers—no matter how savage—are moral people protesting one’s own immorality; the hawkish camp within one’s own society is the true enemy; by bonding with the attackers one defeats this enemy and ushers in peace.
Indeed, one thing Shavit omits to mention in his article is that during Peace Now’s event at Rabin Square the other night a message was read out from Marwan Barghouti—the Palestinian terrorist sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli court in 2004 on five counts of murder.
And what of Shavit’s claim that Peace Now “brought the Israeli center to adopt unmistakably left-wing positions”? It is a self-justifying claim often heard these days from the dwindled ranks of Peace Now and other Israeli leftists, who cite polls finding a majority of Israelis now supporting a Palestinian state west of the Jordan, or the fact that formerly right-wing politicians like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have now become advocates of that cause.
But whether many Israelis now take this stance because of Peace Now’s influence, tiredness, or a fatalistic sense that the United States and the rest of the world are going to push Israel into this concession in any case (or some combination of those), a poll released this week by the Begin-Sadat Center of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University suggests it’s too soon to write off the general Israeli population as Peace Now converts.
The poll, which focused on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on Jerusalem—a compromise over the city being considered a sine qua non of a final settlement entailing the rise of a Palestinian state—found 71 percent of Israelis opposing a deal that would require Israel to hand over Jerusalem’s Old City and Temple Mount to the Palestinians. Sixty-two percent were against Jerusalem’s status being discussed in negotiations at all.
And even if a settlement over the city was reached, 61 percent said there was no or very little chance the Palestinians would stop making demands on Israel regarding Jerusalem, 69 percent said there was no or very little chance that Palestinian terror attacks would cease, and 56 percent said any part of Jerusalem the Palestinians would obtain was likely to serve as a base for such attacks.
It sounds, that is, like the old blend of fealty to basic Jewish values and realism that until the Oslo era kept Peace Now positions on the fringe of Israeli politics.
Evidence, though, that a lot of the change in Israel comes from tiredness is the poll’s further finding that among the majority that opposes concessions on Jerusalem, only one-third would express their opposition in demonstrations and the rest would keep it to the ballot box (when it could well be too late) or conversations with family and friends.
Peace Now’s effect on the Israeli public, in other words, may not have been cognitive change so much as damage to morale, as Peace Now helped mobilize and reinforce those international actors most intent—whether out of blindness or malice—on stripping Israel of its strategic assets and implanting a terror state on the very narrow borders that would be left to it. What the still sensible, realistic Israeli majority appears to need most is leaders who will stand up to the Peace Now tide and reaffirm their values and resolve.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
Islamic Jihad: Dhimmi Carter wanted to meet with us
But they turned him down -- he was too pro-Israeli for them.
"Islamic Jihad: We Refused Carter’s Request for a Meeting," by Eric Trager at Commentary's Contentions blog:. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has announced that its leadership has refused former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s request for a meeting. According to PIJ’s QudsNews website, Egyptian authorities contacted PIJ Secretary-General Dr. Ramadan Shallah on Carter’s behalf earlier this week, inviting Shallah to meet with Carter in Cairo. Shallah is listed on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, and the reward for information leading to his apprehension is $5 million.
He is also a former associate of Sami Al-Arian at the University of South Florida.
In turning down the request, Shallah declared that Carter is “carrying an American-Israeli agenda,” while PIJ spokesman Daoud Shahab blasted Carter’s criticism of Palestinian rocket attacks during the former president’s visit to Sderot. E-mails and phone calls to the Carter Center press office seeking confirmation of Carter’s outreach to PIJ have not been returned....
Yet Carter’s attempt to meet with PIJ is his most disturbing gambit to date. After all, PIJ is generally considered even more extreme than Hamas. While PIJ shares many of Hamas’ militant features–including its coordination of terrorist activities, calls for Israel’s destruction, and theocratic aims–PIJ lacks Hamas’ social and political significance. It does not have the social welfare network on which Hamas has built its popularity, while PIJ’s refusal to participate in the 2006 parliamentary elections points to its minimal public authority among Palestinians. Carter is therefore unable to argue that PIJ is somehow central to any Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is the very argument he has used to defend his meetings with Hamas officials.
Thanks Dhimmi Watch.
"Islamic Jihad: We Refused Carter’s Request for a Meeting," by Eric Trager at Commentary's Contentions blog:. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has announced that its leadership has refused former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s request for a meeting. According to PIJ’s QudsNews website, Egyptian authorities contacted PIJ Secretary-General Dr. Ramadan Shallah on Carter’s behalf earlier this week, inviting Shallah to meet with Carter in Cairo. Shallah is listed on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, and the reward for information leading to his apprehension is $5 million.
He is also a former associate of Sami Al-Arian at the University of South Florida.
In turning down the request, Shallah declared that Carter is “carrying an American-Israeli agenda,” while PIJ spokesman Daoud Shahab blasted Carter’s criticism of Palestinian rocket attacks during the former president’s visit to Sderot. E-mails and phone calls to the Carter Center press office seeking confirmation of Carter’s outreach to PIJ have not been returned....
Yet Carter’s attempt to meet with PIJ is his most disturbing gambit to date. After all, PIJ is generally considered even more extreme than Hamas. While PIJ shares many of Hamas’ militant features–including its coordination of terrorist activities, calls for Israel’s destruction, and theocratic aims–PIJ lacks Hamas’ social and political significance. It does not have the social welfare network on which Hamas has built its popularity, while PIJ’s refusal to participate in the 2006 parliamentary elections points to its minimal public authority among Palestinians. Carter is therefore unable to argue that PIJ is somehow central to any Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is the very argument he has used to defend his meetings with Hamas officials.
Thanks Dhimmi Watch.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Hizbullah Will Dispatch Israeli Arabs to Attack From Rear in War
Ezra HaLevi
A Syrian newspaper reported that Hizbullah plans to activate masses of Israeli Arab terrorists in the next war.
“A high-ranking Hizbullah official has said the party would launch an offensive on Israel in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 in case the Jewish state wages a new war,” the Iranian Fars News Agency reported in its coverage of the Syrian magazine Al-Hakika’s interview with the unnamed Hizbullah man. Further elaborating, the Hizbullah planner, a member of the group’s religious “Shura Council,” said, "We would not initiate war but in case they wage any war in the future, there will be a counter attack behind the front lines. And for the first time since 1948 in Palestine itself.”
Israeli-Arabs have increasingly involved in terrorist activities. Former MK Azmi Bishara, one of the most senior and prominent Israeli-Arab representatives, fled Israel after an advanced investigation into treason and assistance to Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War. Most recently, an Israeli-Arab from Jerusalem carried out the shooting murder of eight yeshiva students at the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva. His parents subsequently set up a mourning tent adorned with the flags of the Hizbullah.
Hizbullah Snatched Mughniyeh’s Body
The official also revealed that the body of terror chief Imad Mughniyeh was whisked away to Hizbullah custody in Lebanon just minutes after he was killed by a car-bomb in Damascus on February 12. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad contacted Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah and begged him to keep the death of Mughniyeh a secret – but Nasrallah refused.
Hizbullah Training Sunni Terrorists at 'Furious Pace'
Hizbullah is training new terrorists, including Sunni Muslims, "at a furious pace," sending them to Iran for 45-day advanced training, the Christian Science Monitor reported. It quoted a terrorist, named Jawad, who said, "The holy fighters are leaving universities, shops, places of work to go and train." Hizbullah traditionally has been popular among the Shi'ite sect of Islam, and attracting support from the Sunnis would make it an even more powerful force in strife-torn Lebanon.
A local commander told the newspaper that the next war against Israel will be offensive, unlike the Second Lebanon War which he called a defensive battle. The next war will be "fought more in Israel than in Lebanon," Jawad asserted.
Tyranny's enabler
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org:80/
CSP Decision Brief | Apr 14, 2008
Ex-Prez Carter's "dialogue" only bolsters our foes. Jimmy Carter's pathetic need for political rehabilitation following a presidency widely regarded as one of the worst in American history is once again making news. He reportedly will meet this week with Khaled Mashaal, the Syrian-based leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian arm, Hamas – an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Mr. Carter maintains this is no big deal since he has met with Hamas officials before. Indeed, in keeping with his Carter Center's self-appointed status as global election monitor, the former president did officiate in January 2006 when the Brotherhood's terrorists defeated those of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat's longtime crony, Mahmoud Abbas. In point of fact, it seems there is scarcely a serious bad actor on the planet with whom Jimmy Carter has not met. He is a serial tyrant-enabler, the very personification of Rodney King's risible appeal, "Can't we all get along?" Mr. Carter has come to epitomize the notion that "dialogue" is always in order, no matter how odious or dangerous the interlocutor – or the extent to which they or their agendas will benefit from such interactions.
As Barak Obama (whom Carter has all but endorsed) is as wedded as the former President to the idea of condition-free dialogue with tyrants, it is worth reflecting on just a few of the many example's of how this Carteresque practice has produced disastrous results:
In 1979, then-President Carter undermined the Shah of Iran and made possible the Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran and subsequent Islamic revolution. Although the uber-mullah returned the favor with the sacking of Embassy Tehran and seizure of its personnel that assured Carter's would be a one-term presidency, the regime thus born has ever since been a blight on its own people and a state-sponsor of terror and nuclear wannabe that represents an ever-growing menace to its region and the world.
In 1994, Citizen Carter made a mission to Pyongyang at a time when then-President Bill Clinton was first confronting evidence of North Korea's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. The former president's intervention gave rise to a deal that lent invaluable prestige to the regime, perpetuated its hold on power and utterly failed to preclude the North's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.
In 2004, Jimmy Carter ignored abundant evidence of official vote-rigging and election fraud in a Venezuelan referendum, handing victory to Hugo Chavez and clearing the way for the most destabilizing accretion of power in the Western hemisphere since Fidel Castro's communist revolution in Cuba – a model and inspiration for Chavez. In short, thanks in no small measure to Jimmy Carter's proclivities and meddling, the world is a considerably more dangerous place. Following his lead now will make it more so, for three reasons:
First and foremost, "talking" to tyrants legitimates them. Dictators go to great lengths to conjur up the perception of authority and permanence. They are particularly anxious to do so for domestic consumption, to ensure their continued rule. To the extent that outsiders recognize, to say nothing of embrace, them, it enhances their stature at home and validates their misconduct on the world stage.
Second, such efforts generally have the effect of emboldening these thugs. After all, they are being rewarded for bad behavior. The result is predictable: even worse behavior. That can mean redoubled efforts to: acquire nuclear weapons, destabilize their neighbors, raise the price of oil and engage in other activities inimical to U.S. interests.
Third, it is ironic but true that – even as Carter-style enabling of tyrants makes matters worse – it typically encourages in this country the impression that vexing problems with those regimes have been made more tractable. Diplomatic placebos reduce the perceived need and popular support for more effective, albeit more difficult, alternatives.
It is instructive that even an Israeli government known for appeasing terrorists has finally had it with Jimmy Carter. Israel's ceremonial head of state, President Shimon Peres, met with him Sunday for the purpose of publicly denouncing Carter's "activities over the last few years [that have] caused great damage to Israel and the peace process." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his foreign and defense ministers have gone so far as to decline requested meetings with Carter.
The one possible up-side of the latest instance of tyrant-enabling by Jimmy Carter is that it puts in sharp relief an issue that should feature prominently in the 2008 U.S. elections: Do we want to entrust the job of commander-in-chief to someone who believes, as Mr. Carter does, that dialogue with our sworn enemies – notably, Iran, and its vassal, Syria – is a good and necessary step?
This is, of course, the oft-repeated position of Barak Obama and other Democratic opponents of the effort to secure victory in Iraq. Is it the view though of what the former condescendingly calls "ordinary" Americans, people who have generally shown more common sense than the likes of Messrs. Carter and Obama?
In the final analysis, Jimmy Carter will be best remembered by history as a man whose time in and out of high public office was almost unblemished by success. Notwithstanding a Nobel Peace Prize (given by an awards committee avowedly anxious to rebuke President Bush) and assorted good works on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, his role as a tyrant-enabler will be an object of scorn and derision rather than the vindication he so transparently, and desperately, seeks.
CSP Decision Brief | Apr 14, 2008
Ex-Prez Carter's "dialogue" only bolsters our foes. Jimmy Carter's pathetic need for political rehabilitation following a presidency widely regarded as one of the worst in American history is once again making news. He reportedly will meet this week with Khaled Mashaal, the Syrian-based leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian arm, Hamas – an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Mr. Carter maintains this is no big deal since he has met with Hamas officials before. Indeed, in keeping with his Carter Center's self-appointed status as global election monitor, the former president did officiate in January 2006 when the Brotherhood's terrorists defeated those of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat's longtime crony, Mahmoud Abbas. In point of fact, it seems there is scarcely a serious bad actor on the planet with whom Jimmy Carter has not met. He is a serial tyrant-enabler, the very personification of Rodney King's risible appeal, "Can't we all get along?" Mr. Carter has come to epitomize the notion that "dialogue" is always in order, no matter how odious or dangerous the interlocutor – or the extent to which they or their agendas will benefit from such interactions.
As Barak Obama (whom Carter has all but endorsed) is as wedded as the former President to the idea of condition-free dialogue with tyrants, it is worth reflecting on just a few of the many example's of how this Carteresque practice has produced disastrous results:
In 1979, then-President Carter undermined the Shah of Iran and made possible the Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran and subsequent Islamic revolution. Although the uber-mullah returned the favor with the sacking of Embassy Tehran and seizure of its personnel that assured Carter's would be a one-term presidency, the regime thus born has ever since been a blight on its own people and a state-sponsor of terror and nuclear wannabe that represents an ever-growing menace to its region and the world.
In 1994, Citizen Carter made a mission to Pyongyang at a time when then-President Bill Clinton was first confronting evidence of North Korea's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. The former president's intervention gave rise to a deal that lent invaluable prestige to the regime, perpetuated its hold on power and utterly failed to preclude the North's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.
In 2004, Jimmy Carter ignored abundant evidence of official vote-rigging and election fraud in a Venezuelan referendum, handing victory to Hugo Chavez and clearing the way for the most destabilizing accretion of power in the Western hemisphere since Fidel Castro's communist revolution in Cuba – a model and inspiration for Chavez. In short, thanks in no small measure to Jimmy Carter's proclivities and meddling, the world is a considerably more dangerous place. Following his lead now will make it more so, for three reasons:
First and foremost, "talking" to tyrants legitimates them. Dictators go to great lengths to conjur up the perception of authority and permanence. They are particularly anxious to do so for domestic consumption, to ensure their continued rule. To the extent that outsiders recognize, to say nothing of embrace, them, it enhances their stature at home and validates their misconduct on the world stage.
Second, such efforts generally have the effect of emboldening these thugs. After all, they are being rewarded for bad behavior. The result is predictable: even worse behavior. That can mean redoubled efforts to: acquire nuclear weapons, destabilize their neighbors, raise the price of oil and engage in other activities inimical to U.S. interests.
Third, it is ironic but true that – even as Carter-style enabling of tyrants makes matters worse – it typically encourages in this country the impression that vexing problems with those regimes have been made more tractable. Diplomatic placebos reduce the perceived need and popular support for more effective, albeit more difficult, alternatives.
It is instructive that even an Israeli government known for appeasing terrorists has finally had it with Jimmy Carter. Israel's ceremonial head of state, President Shimon Peres, met with him Sunday for the purpose of publicly denouncing Carter's "activities over the last few years [that have] caused great damage to Israel and the peace process." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his foreign and defense ministers have gone so far as to decline requested meetings with Carter.
The one possible up-side of the latest instance of tyrant-enabling by Jimmy Carter is that it puts in sharp relief an issue that should feature prominently in the 2008 U.S. elections: Do we want to entrust the job of commander-in-chief to someone who believes, as Mr. Carter does, that dialogue with our sworn enemies – notably, Iran, and its vassal, Syria – is a good and necessary step?
This is, of course, the oft-repeated position of Barak Obama and other Democratic opponents of the effort to secure victory in Iraq. Is it the view though of what the former condescendingly calls "ordinary" Americans, people who have generally shown more common sense than the likes of Messrs. Carter and Obama?
In the final analysis, Jimmy Carter will be best remembered by history as a man whose time in and out of high public office was almost unblemished by success. Notwithstanding a Nobel Peace Prize (given by an awards committee avowedly anxious to rebuke President Bush) and assorted good works on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, his role as a tyrant-enabler will be an object of scorn and derision rather than the vindication he so transparently, and desperately, seeks.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Jihadists in foiled Tel Aviv poisoning plot had been released in Olmert amnesty
"The terrorists were given amnesty on condition they disarm, refrain from attacks and spend three months in PA detention facilities and another three months confined to Nablus, the northern West Bank city in which they reside."
More on this story. "Pardoned terrorists tried to poison restaurant," by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily:
JERUSALEM – The terrorist cell that planned to poison an Israeli restaurant this month was led by jihadists who were recently granted amnesty by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, WND has learned.
The pardoned terrorists, were directly involved in orchestrating the foiled attack, according to defense sources. They were granted amnesty in October as a stated Israeli gesture to help bolster Palestinian Authority President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The terrorists were given amnesty on condition they disarm, refrain from attacks and spend three months in PA detention facilities and another three months confined to Nablus, the northern West Bank city in which they reside.
Last week, it was released for publication Israel's Shin Bet Security Services arrested two Palestinians from Nablus who worked illegally at the Grill Express, a restaurant in the city of Ramat Gan, which is a sattelite city of Tel Aviv.
Upon interrogation, the two, Aham Rial and Anas Salum, both 21 years old, confessed they were planning to poison the restaurant food with a white, odorless, tasteless deadly poison they said takes effect about five hours after it is ingested.
The Palestinians said they were to receive the poison from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leadership in Nablus. They said they were also asked by the Brigades leadership to find ways to help infiltrate suicide bombers into Israel.
Security officials warned the Brigades leadership in Nablus is still seeking to use Palestinians working illegally inside Israel to perpetuate terrorist attacks. There are tens of thousands of illegal Palestinian workers inside Israel.
According to Israeli defense officials, there is specific information the foiled poison plot was planned by three terrorists from Nablus, two of whom are on Olmert's amnesty list, which restricted the Israel Defense Forces from acting against them.
Nablus is the main stronghold of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing, which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group. The Brigades took responsibility, along with the Islamic Jihad terror organization, for every suicide bombing in Israel in 2005 and 2006 and for thousands of shootings and rocket attacks.
Among the pardoned Brigades leaders involved in the foiled poisoning is Hani Caabe, a senior Brigades leader in the Old City of Nablus. The name of the other pardoned terrorist is being withheld by WND for security purposes at the request of defense officials.
In June, Olmert granted amnesty to 178 Fatah fugitives who pledged their resignation from any so-called paramilitary organizations. In spite of the amnesty deal, many Brigades members openly brandished weapons and were caught carrying out scores of attacks.
Nevertheless, in October Olmert issued amnesty documents to 43 more Fatah terrorists, who were also required to turn in their weapons, spend three months in a PA holding area and restrict their movements for another three months to one city.
Most of the 43 terrorists have yet to keep their side of the deal, defense officials said.
Gee. Didn't see that coming.
.
More on this story. "Pardoned terrorists tried to poison restaurant," by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily:
JERUSALEM – The terrorist cell that planned to poison an Israeli restaurant this month was led by jihadists who were recently granted amnesty by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, WND has learned.
The pardoned terrorists, were directly involved in orchestrating the foiled attack, according to defense sources. They were granted amnesty in October as a stated Israeli gesture to help bolster Palestinian Authority President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The terrorists were given amnesty on condition they disarm, refrain from attacks and spend three months in PA detention facilities and another three months confined to Nablus, the northern West Bank city in which they reside.
Last week, it was released for publication Israel's Shin Bet Security Services arrested two Palestinians from Nablus who worked illegally at the Grill Express, a restaurant in the city of Ramat Gan, which is a sattelite city of Tel Aviv.
Upon interrogation, the two, Aham Rial and Anas Salum, both 21 years old, confessed they were planning to poison the restaurant food with a white, odorless, tasteless deadly poison they said takes effect about five hours after it is ingested.
The Palestinians said they were to receive the poison from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leadership in Nablus. They said they were also asked by the Brigades leadership to find ways to help infiltrate suicide bombers into Israel.
Security officials warned the Brigades leadership in Nablus is still seeking to use Palestinians working illegally inside Israel to perpetuate terrorist attacks. There are tens of thousands of illegal Palestinian workers inside Israel.
According to Israeli defense officials, there is specific information the foiled poison plot was planned by three terrorists from Nablus, two of whom are on Olmert's amnesty list, which restricted the Israel Defense Forces from acting against them.
Nablus is the main stronghold of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing, which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group. The Brigades took responsibility, along with the Islamic Jihad terror organization, for every suicide bombing in Israel in 2005 and 2006 and for thousands of shootings and rocket attacks.
Among the pardoned Brigades leaders involved in the foiled poisoning is Hani Caabe, a senior Brigades leader in the Old City of Nablus. The name of the other pardoned terrorist is being withheld by WND for security purposes at the request of defense officials.
In June, Olmert granted amnesty to 178 Fatah fugitives who pledged their resignation from any so-called paramilitary organizations. In spite of the amnesty deal, many Brigades members openly brandished weapons and were caught carrying out scores of attacks.
Nevertheless, in October Olmert issued amnesty documents to 43 more Fatah terrorists, who were also required to turn in their weapons, spend three months in a PA holding area and restrict their movements for another three months to one city.
Most of the 43 terrorists have yet to keep their side of the deal, defense officials said.
Gee. Didn't see that coming.
.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Israel snubs Carter, declines security help
Adam Entous
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli leaders shunned former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit because of his plans to meet Hamas and Israel's secret service declined to assist U.S. agents guarding him, U.S. sources said on Monday.
"They're not getting support from local security," one of the sources said, on condition of anonymity.
An American source described as "unprecedented" the lack of Shin Bet cooperation with the U.S. Secret Service, which protects all current and former U.S. presidents, as well as Israeli leaders when they visit the United States.
Carter, who brokered Israel's first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt, signed in 1979, met Israel's largely ceremonial president, Shimon Peres, on Sunday. But Israel's political leadership, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, steered clear of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The former U.S. leader has angered the Israeli government over plans to meet Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and for describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as "a system of apartheid" in a 2006 book.
An Israeli security source said the Shin Bet security service provided no protection to Carter during his visit to the Jewish state because no request was made.
Asked about the Israeli account, Carter's delegation, which had previously declined to comment, told Reuters in a statement: "The Carter delegation inquired with both the lead agent of the Secret Service detail (protecting Carter) and the State Department Regional Security Officer and were told unequivocally that an official request for assistance had been made."
American sources close to the matter said the Shin Bet, which helps protect visiting dignitaries and is overseen by Olmert's office, declined to meet the head of Carter's Secret Service detail or provide his team with assistance as is customary during such visits.
PROGRESS WELCOME
Israel and the United States have sought to isolate Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas holds sway in the occupied West Bank and has launched U.S.-backed peace talks with Olmert.
The Bush administration and Israel oppose Carter's planned meeting with Meshaal, whose Islamist group won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 but was boycotted by the West for refusing to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
Carter has defended talks with Hamas as an opportunity to gauge the group's willingness to accept Arab peace overtures.
U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York it would be positive if Carter's talks with Hamas could achieve a breakthrough.
"Anything which will help to produce some political progress ... would be extremely welcome and if Jimmy Carter can achieve that by talking to Hamas, why not?" he said.
Holmes added the United Nations was not in a position to engage in political discussions with Hamas, though U.N. humanitarian officials were in touch with the group at a practical level to carry out aid work in Gaza when necessary.
Carter visited the Israeli border town of Sderot on Monday and said he was "distressed" by cross-border rockets fired by militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
"I think it's a despicable crime for any deliberate effort to be made to kill innocent civilians," Carter said, adding that he hoped a ceasefire would be reached soon.
Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the group's 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel said it rejected Carter's request to meet jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor to Abbas.
Barghouthi was convicted in 2004 of murder by an Israeli court over the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk in attacks by Palestinian militants. He is serving five life sentences.
(Additional reporting by Brenda Gazzar, and Louis Charbonneau in New
.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli leaders shunned former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit because of his plans to meet Hamas and Israel's secret service declined to assist U.S. agents guarding him, U.S. sources said on Monday.
"They're not getting support from local security," one of the sources said, on condition of anonymity.
An American source described as "unprecedented" the lack of Shin Bet cooperation with the U.S. Secret Service, which protects all current and former U.S. presidents, as well as Israeli leaders when they visit the United States.
Carter, who brokered Israel's first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt, signed in 1979, met Israel's largely ceremonial president, Shimon Peres, on Sunday. But Israel's political leadership, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, steered clear of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The former U.S. leader has angered the Israeli government over plans to meet Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and for describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as "a system of apartheid" in a 2006 book.
An Israeli security source said the Shin Bet security service provided no protection to Carter during his visit to the Jewish state because no request was made.
Asked about the Israeli account, Carter's delegation, which had previously declined to comment, told Reuters in a statement: "The Carter delegation inquired with both the lead agent of the Secret Service detail (protecting Carter) and the State Department Regional Security Officer and were told unequivocally that an official request for assistance had been made."
American sources close to the matter said the Shin Bet, which helps protect visiting dignitaries and is overseen by Olmert's office, declined to meet the head of Carter's Secret Service detail or provide his team with assistance as is customary during such visits.
PROGRESS WELCOME
Israel and the United States have sought to isolate Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas holds sway in the occupied West Bank and has launched U.S.-backed peace talks with Olmert.
The Bush administration and Israel oppose Carter's planned meeting with Meshaal, whose Islamist group won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 but was boycotted by the West for refusing to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
Carter has defended talks with Hamas as an opportunity to gauge the group's willingness to accept Arab peace overtures.
U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York it would be positive if Carter's talks with Hamas could achieve a breakthrough.
"Anything which will help to produce some political progress ... would be extremely welcome and if Jimmy Carter can achieve that by talking to Hamas, why not?" he said.
Holmes added the United Nations was not in a position to engage in political discussions with Hamas, though U.N. humanitarian officials were in touch with the group at a practical level to carry out aid work in Gaza when necessary.
Carter visited the Israeli border town of Sderot on Monday and said he was "distressed" by cross-border rockets fired by militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
"I think it's a despicable crime for any deliberate effort to be made to kill innocent civilians," Carter said, adding that he hoped a ceasefire would be reached soon.
Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the group's 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel said it rejected Carter's request to meet jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor to Abbas.
Barghouthi was convicted in 2004 of murder by an Israeli court over the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk in attacks by Palestinian militants. He is serving five life sentences.
(Additional reporting by Brenda Gazzar, and Louis Charbonneau in New
.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Good Terrorist, Bad Terrorist
P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com
4/14/2008
Asked about former president Jimmy Carter’s planned meeting in Damascus with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace.” She also said, “Hamas is a terrorist organization.”
Meanwhile last week, Israel cleared for publication that two West Bank Palestinians had been arrested by Israel’s General Security Service for plotting to poison patrons of a restaurant in Ramat Gan, a city bordering Tel Aviv. The two, who came from the West Bank city of Nablus, had been employees of the restaurant and “had planned to lace dishes served [there] with a powerful toxin without odor or taste, in the hopes of killing as many patrons as possible.… The white substance is virtually undetectable and affects its victims approximately four hours after being ingested.”
The two, Eihab Abu Rial and Anas Salum, also had plans to bring a suicide bomber into Israel.
They were not, however, members of Hamas but rather of Fatah—specifically of its “military wing” the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which recruited them “under the guidance and funding of Hezbollah.”
Rice has had nothing to say publicly about this incident nor about its Fatah provenance. But if Hamas is a terrorist organization and an impediment to peace and hence it is pointless to meet with one of its leaders, what does that make Fatah and why is meeting with its leaders, particularly Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, something Rice does all the time?
It could be replied that Mashaal is known to have masterminded suicide bombings whereas Abbas, at least since becoming PA president, is not known to have directly ordered terrorist attacks. It could also be claimed that Abbas is head of Fatah’s “political wing” and not its “military wing.”
But it could similarly be claimed, for instance, that current Hamas political leader in Gaza and international op-ed writer Ismail Haniyeh is not necessarily giving direct orders for Hamas’s rocket-firing and other terrorism. Indeed, some, like the New York Times and various European officials, consider Haniyeh a “pragmatist” or even a “moderate” who is worth meeting with.
Whether or not Haniyeh is currently directly involved in terror, though, the Bush administration rightly refrains—at least officially and openly—from dealing with him because he is part of Hamas—a terrorist organization.
Somehow, though, the connection between Abbas and the Martyrs Brigades of his Fatah gets finessed out of existence. If, after all, Abbas is a moderate leader eschewing terrorism and favoring peace with Israel, his movement’s involvement in things like trying to mass-poison Israelis and working with a known terrorist organization like Hezbollah should be intolerable to him.
Abbas should at least be denouncing such activities if not moving to eradicate the Martyrs Brigades from his organization. Some, of course, claim that Abbas would be only too glad to do that if it weren’t for his weakness—and that his weakness is what justifies the U.S. continuing to shower him with aid money and train his forces to eventually take over the West Bank.
According to this version of things, it’s not that Abbas wanted, for instance, the recent would-be assassins of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert—members of Fatah and his security apparatus—to be released scot-free from PA prison last September; or wanted the terrorist murderers of two Israeli hikers last December—members of Fatah and his security apparatus—to be allowed to “escape” from PA prison in March; or wants Martyrs Brigades and other Fatah terrorists to keep planning, attempting, and perpetrating terror attacks against Israelis—he wants to put a stop to all this and just needs to be strong enough.
The problem, though, with that assumption is not only that nothing substantiates it but also that Abbas’s own words and actions indicate otherwise. It’s not just, for instance, that Abbas declared to the summit of Islamic countries in Senegal on March 13 that “Our people in Jerusalem are under an ethnic cleansing campaign…. [Palestinians] are facing a campaign of annihilation [by Israel]”; or to the Arab summit in Damascus on March 29 that “Israel pursues its aggression and occupation” and perpetrates “barbaric attacks, causing hundreds of defenseless victims.”
These are not the words—especially not when spoken to such audiences—of someone who regrets his “military wing’s” activities and is sincerely seeking peace.
But Abbas further told the Arab summit in Damascus not only that he favors Fatah-Hamas reconciliation but also that the PA uses its Western aid money to support Hamas, channeling 58 percent of its budget to Gaza and paying the salaries of 777,000 employees there.
In other words, Abbas—the leader whom Rice meets regularly while castigating Carter for planning to meet Mashaal—is not only, like Mashaal, a leader of a terrorist organization, Fatah, but works to strengthen Mashaal’s terrorist organization, Hamas.
How far does America have to sink into this pit of hypocrisy and moral squalor before something constitutes a red light? And if Abbas’s words in Damascus about the aid money—a large part of which comes from the U.S. itself—don’t constitute one, what could?
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
FrontPageMagazine.com
4/14/2008
Asked about former president Jimmy Carter’s planned meeting in Damascus with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace.” She also said, “Hamas is a terrorist organization.”
Meanwhile last week, Israel cleared for publication that two West Bank Palestinians had been arrested by Israel’s General Security Service for plotting to poison patrons of a restaurant in Ramat Gan, a city bordering Tel Aviv. The two, who came from the West Bank city of Nablus, had been employees of the restaurant and “had planned to lace dishes served [there] with a powerful toxin without odor or taste, in the hopes of killing as many patrons as possible.… The white substance is virtually undetectable and affects its victims approximately four hours after being ingested.”
The two, Eihab Abu Rial and Anas Salum, also had plans to bring a suicide bomber into Israel.
They were not, however, members of Hamas but rather of Fatah—specifically of its “military wing” the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which recruited them “under the guidance and funding of Hezbollah.”
Rice has had nothing to say publicly about this incident nor about its Fatah provenance. But if Hamas is a terrorist organization and an impediment to peace and hence it is pointless to meet with one of its leaders, what does that make Fatah and why is meeting with its leaders, particularly Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, something Rice does all the time?
It could be replied that Mashaal is known to have masterminded suicide bombings whereas Abbas, at least since becoming PA president, is not known to have directly ordered terrorist attacks. It could also be claimed that Abbas is head of Fatah’s “political wing” and not its “military wing.”
But it could similarly be claimed, for instance, that current Hamas political leader in Gaza and international op-ed writer Ismail Haniyeh is not necessarily giving direct orders for Hamas’s rocket-firing and other terrorism. Indeed, some, like the New York Times and various European officials, consider Haniyeh a “pragmatist” or even a “moderate” who is worth meeting with.
Whether or not Haniyeh is currently directly involved in terror, though, the Bush administration rightly refrains—at least officially and openly—from dealing with him because he is part of Hamas—a terrorist organization.
Somehow, though, the connection between Abbas and the Martyrs Brigades of his Fatah gets finessed out of existence. If, after all, Abbas is a moderate leader eschewing terrorism and favoring peace with Israel, his movement’s involvement in things like trying to mass-poison Israelis and working with a known terrorist organization like Hezbollah should be intolerable to him.
Abbas should at least be denouncing such activities if not moving to eradicate the Martyrs Brigades from his organization. Some, of course, claim that Abbas would be only too glad to do that if it weren’t for his weakness—and that his weakness is what justifies the U.S. continuing to shower him with aid money and train his forces to eventually take over the West Bank.
According to this version of things, it’s not that Abbas wanted, for instance, the recent would-be assassins of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert—members of Fatah and his security apparatus—to be released scot-free from PA prison last September; or wanted the terrorist murderers of two Israeli hikers last December—members of Fatah and his security apparatus—to be allowed to “escape” from PA prison in March; or wants Martyrs Brigades and other Fatah terrorists to keep planning, attempting, and perpetrating terror attacks against Israelis—he wants to put a stop to all this and just needs to be strong enough.
The problem, though, with that assumption is not only that nothing substantiates it but also that Abbas’s own words and actions indicate otherwise. It’s not just, for instance, that Abbas declared to the summit of Islamic countries in Senegal on March 13 that “Our people in Jerusalem are under an ethnic cleansing campaign…. [Palestinians] are facing a campaign of annihilation [by Israel]”; or to the Arab summit in Damascus on March 29 that “Israel pursues its aggression and occupation” and perpetrates “barbaric attacks, causing hundreds of defenseless victims.”
These are not the words—especially not when spoken to such audiences—of someone who regrets his “military wing’s” activities and is sincerely seeking peace.
But Abbas further told the Arab summit in Damascus not only that he favors Fatah-Hamas reconciliation but also that the PA uses its Western aid money to support Hamas, channeling 58 percent of its budget to Gaza and paying the salaries of 777,000 employees there.
In other words, Abbas—the leader whom Rice meets regularly while castigating Carter for planning to meet Mashaal—is not only, like Mashaal, a leader of a terrorist organization, Fatah, but works to strengthen Mashaal’s terrorist organization, Hamas.
How far does America have to sink into this pit of hypocrisy and moral squalor before something constitutes a red light? And if Abbas’s words in Damascus about the aid money—a large part of which comes from the U.S. itself—don’t constitute one, what could?
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
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