Judge Cites Sodom, Nixes Police

Hillel Fendel Judge Cites Sodom, Nixes Police

Judge Moshe Drori of the Jerusalem District Court castigated the State and police in unusually harsh terms for requesting that Noam Federman be banned from his home. He also criticized the authorities for their destruction of Federman’s home and farm last month, and ruled that the closure of the farm does not apply to Federman and his family. The police had requested, based on criminal charges leveled against Federman of attacking policemen, to have him banned from all of Judea and Samaria.



In his ruling, handed down on Wednesday morning, Judge Drori rejected the request out of hand, saying it was totally unjustified and was in violation of international conventions:



“The State’s request to forbid [Federma from being in Judea and Samaria is marked by grave discrimination,” Drori wrote, “as there is not even one example anywhere in Israeli law indicating a ban on a person living in an entire area of the country merely because of an incident of violence towards policemen in which he was involved.”



Not to mention, Drori added, that “the one who came out of the violence totally bruised on his entire body because of that ‘violence’ was actually [Federma and not the police.”



Barak Doesn't Give Up - and Neither Does Federman

Surprisingly, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided not to take the criticism to heart – and ordered the State Prosecution to file an appeal of the ruling in the Supreme Court. This, despite the fact that previously, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court also rejected the request to have Federman banned from his home.



Federman, for his part, says that in light of the ruling, he plans to turn to the International War Crimes court and sue all those who were involved in the “pogrom.” He said, “We will continue to rebuild the farm until it flowers once again.”



Judge Cites Sodom and Gomorra

Judge Drori cited the evil of Sodom and Gomorra in his ruling: “I would like to note that the State’s representative apparently did not take notice of the Weekly Torah Portion that was read aloud around the time he made his claims. It is written there that G-d decided to overturn Sodom and Gomorra because of their heavy sins. Yet even there, where the sins were 77 times worse than we could imagine, the Creator enabled the Patriarch Abraham to plead for them before He delivered any punishment.”



Referring to the actual destruction of the Federman farm last month, Judge Drori wrote: “The charges against [Federma refer to a specific incident in which a man is told, at 1:30 in the morning, to leave his home. Even if there was violence against the policemen – and I am not determining anything regarding this matter, for I did not see the tapes or hear the witnesses – the circumstances surrounding the eviction and the entirety of events of that night do not render him dangerous…"



'How Would You Act?'

“Let every person decide for himself how he would act if a police officer turns to him at 1:30 in the night and wants to give him papers ordering him out of his house, with his wife and nine young children sleeping in their beds, and their father sees himself responsible for their welfare and safety… The State did not bother to explain why it needed a force of 100 policemen to remove a person from a military zone that had been closed for ten months, with no prior warning or attempt at dialogue… The eviction was not balanced, not reasonable, not right and not appropriate.”



MKs Respond

Some Knesset Members responded with great satisfaction. MK Uri Ariel said it is a “warning sign to the Defense Minister and the police not to repeat similar acts in the future… This is sharp criticism against the Jewish Department of the Shabak [General Security Servi, which was behind the brutal and illegal destruction… It once again turns out that the true lawbreaker is the police, whose political considerations lead it astray.”



MK Aryeh Eldad said, “Justice has come to light. The defense establishment caused a terrible injustice when the Defense Minister hitched up IDF soldiers to his crumbling political wagon. Woe unto the country if its Defense Minister also pulls a similar trick in the disputed house in Hevron.”



Judge Drori - a graduate of Netiv Meir yeshiva high school in Jerusalem - also wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court during World War II was roundly criticized for sending 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese citizens to concentration camps and banning them from living at home. “Would it not be appropriate for us, judges of Israel, to learn from [their mistake?” wrote Drori.

UN General Assembly president calls for boycott of Israel

After his controversial embrace with Iran's Ahmadinejad, UN General Assembly president sparks Jerusalem's ire once more after calling for international boycott on Israel
Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON - Israel filed a formal complaint with the United Nations on Tuesday over statements made by UN General Assembly President, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, who called for an international boycott of Israel after accusing it of being an apartheid regime. D'Escoto went on to decry the


plight of the Palestinians, describing the failure to create a Palestinian state as "the single greatest failure in the history of the United Nations." The United Nations is currently marking its annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which is set on the anniversary of the 1947 date it adopted Resolution 181, calling for the partition of the land under British control into two states – Jewish and Arab.



Over the course of two days the General Assembly will host a series of anti-Israel venues, including exhibits on Palestinian suffering and films comparing Israel to the Nazi regime.



The pinnacle of the event will come in the form of a marathon of discussions, to culminate with the passing of six resolutions against Israel. These include ones calling for the return of the Golan Heights to Syria and the division of Jerusalem.



In his address on Monday d'Escoto said: "Although different, what is being done against the Palestinian people seems to me to be a version of the highest policy of apartheid." D'Escoto said the fact that Palestinians still had no statehood represents the "single greatest failure" of the UN.



The General Assembly president called on international institutions to boycott Israel and sever its financial ties to the world, and for the imposing of sanctions against Jerusalem.



Until last year Israel had usually chosen to abstain from taking part in the annual solidarity day. And so Tuesday saw Ambassador Gabriella Shalev take the podium and ask her colleagues how the day the UN voted on the establishment of the State of Israel had become a day of mourning and grief.


Shalev slammed the UN as being disconnected from reality, calling it an organization "that does not
represent or reflect what is truly happening. The real things happen outside the UN."


Shalev lamented the anti-Israel tone of the United Nations at a time when it is engaged in peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, and said if the discussions were to focus on the Middle East they should also touch on Iran's repeated threats to destroy Israel, Syria's armament of terrorists, Hamas' rocket attacks on Israeli towns and Hizbullah's growing strength.


"We will not allow this lowest common denominator, of bashing Israel, to dictate these discussions," the ambassador said.


Comment: The shameful act of an impotent body of arrogant representatives-the UN. This has become an annual event-any such event for Bosnia, Hungary, Norway? This also demonstrates how we must counter the ongoing revisionist history our enemies present over and over again. Telling our history once, twice is not nearly enough-we need help presenting the truth time and again. Labor intensive? Yes! Emotionally draining? Only if you allow to be so. Let's get back into this fight!

"Lunacy Continued"

Arlene Kushner

The craziness -- some laughable, much deeply malevolent -- simply continues.

Yesterday was "Solidarity with the Palestinian People" day at the UN. Understand, the Palestinian people (such as they may be) are the only ones celebrated by the UN this way. The Kurds, for example, are ignored. This tells us all we need to know about the UN.
Former secretary-general Kofi Annan, marked it as "a day of mourning and a day of grief, and the "inalienable rights of the Palestinian people" were discussed.

"The event is an annual reminder that the UN's real agenda is to delegitimize the birth — and the perseverance — of the state of Israel," says Anne Bayefsky, editor of Eye on the UN.

~~~~~~~~~~

Actually, because of scheduling conflicts, this day of solidarity was marked a few days early. The real day is November 29, which is the day the UN voted the partition of Palestine in 1947. From this followed the official founding of the State of Israel, which -- it might be noted -- was not only founded with UN blessings but also is a full member of the UN today.

~~~~~~~~~~

One sees signs of desperation in the words and acts of several players in the area.

There is, for example, PA president Mahmoud Abbas. This past week he placed ads in several Israeli papers -- Hebrew press and The Jerusalem Post -- reaching out to the Israeli populace to tell them that they would benefit greatly from the Saudi "peace plan," which would bring them peace with the members of the Arab League and not just the PA.

The Saudi "peace plan"? That's the plan that says if we agree to terms that guarantee our destruction, the Arabs will be happy to deal with us. It calls for total return to pre-67 lines (including relinquishment of all of eastern Jerusalem and the Golan), release of all prisoners, and return of refugees.

Abbas has already admitted that there will be no peace deal in 2008, and yet he seems to be grasping at straws in his last days in office (see item below).

At a statement made at the UN (for the above mentioned event), he blamed Israel for blocking the peace process by not going along with the Saudi plan. He spoke about the need for this plan so that there would be 'the return of our land," and I never let such occasions pass without mentioning that it isn't their land and never has been and cannot be "returned" to them. Anyone needing elucidation of this point is invited to contact me.

~~~~~~~~~~

Abbas, reversing himself, has made another statement of political interest: He says that if there is no real progress in dialogue between Fatah and Hamas by the end of the year, he will go to general elections -- presidential and legislative -- in early 2009.

Well, right now there is no dialogue between Fatah and Hamas, because Hamas boycotted a scheduled meeting in protest against PA arrests of Hamas people in Judea and Samaria. How likely is "real progress" in just a bit over a month?

The Arab League is scheduled to meet in Cairo next week to discuss the Fatah-Hamas conflict. Hamas people are angry because they haven't been invited.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are two observations to be made here: With regard to the presidential election, Abbas has now reversed himself. While Hamas has been insisting that he is supposed to leave office in January, he has been claiming that his presidential term runs another year.

The argument arose over the fact that while PA presidential and legislative elections are supposed to run together (at least in theory, every four years), Abbas was elected president in January 2005, a year before the last legislative elections were held, because Arafat had died. Abbas has been saying his term runs until the next legislative elections in 2010. Hamas is saying he has had four years and his term is over.

However, Abbas cannot hold general elections because he doesn't control Gaza and Hamas will not cooperate. All denials to the contrary aside, there are two Palestinian political entities. Abbas's claim consistently has been that a Palestinian state must encompass Judea and Samaria, and Gaza. But if elections are blocked, he is stymied. The scuttlebutt is that in January 2009, Hamas will appoint or elect its own president. It does not see legislative elections (in which it won a majority in 2006) as being called for until 2010, and maintains that Abbas does not have the authority to call for elections without Palestinian Legislative Council approval.

The finger pointing goes on without end: Hamas is saying that Abbas's declaration of intent to hold legislative elections means he wishes to sabotage reconciliation efforts.

So...stay tuned.

~~~~~~~~~~

As to Hamas, it seems they have now accepted an Israeli offer (you read this correctly) with regard to an extension of the "ceasefire." The deal is that if no rockets are fired for 24 hours, Israel will open crossings.
Who is the desperate party here?

According to Hamas sources (which I have not yet seen confirmed by Israeli sources officially), mediation for this deal was done by Egypt after Barak's office contacted Cairo to express readiness to cooperate. And according to Haniyeh, other terror groups are on board with this. But a Kassam and two mortars were launched on Sunday mere hours after Haniyeh's announcement, and another Kassam landed near Ashkelon late yesterday.

Other Hamas sources are saying the "ceasefire," which terminates on December 19, will not be automatically renewed but must be renegotiated (i.e., the renewed quiet is just until the 19th of December). Hamas is looking for increased readiness on Israel's behalf to keep the crossings opened.

~~~~~~~~~~

Whatever the outcome with regard to full implementation of opening of the crossings for bringing in of commercial goods, Barak decided that the crossings would be open yesterday for permitting humanitarian aid to get through: food, medicine and fuel.

~~~~~~~~~~

Abbas is about to get yet another concession from Israel: Just days ago Olmert promised Abbas to release 250 prisoners for the holiday of al-Adha next month.

~~~~~~~~~~

Olmert is in Washington, where he had a final meeting with President Bush. They did the usual routine of praising each other, and lauding the important "peace process."

~~~~~~~~~~

According to a report in Time Magazine, relying on Israeli sources, the US has warned Israel not to launch a major operation in Gaza -- which would jeopardize "peace efforts" -- or to attack Iran in the final days of the Bush administration.

Most troublesome, if it is true.

~~~~~~~~~~

An item that puzzled me even as I wrote about it the other day has been clarified. This concerns King Abdullah of Jordan, who called in Olmert and Barak the other day and, went the original report, asked them to refrain from a major military operation in Gaza, as this would unsettle his kingdom. I struggled with this, saying it was a complete reversal of the previous Jordanian position -- which was that IDF control of Hamas was a good thing because the Islamic radicalism was what would threaten Jordan. Seems, I surmised, that the king has reversed himself, in essence, to appease Hamas, which might be at Jordan's border one day soon.

Well... the clarification is this: King Abdullah was furious that Olmert and Barak reported he was nervous about an operation in Gaza unsettling his kingdom. The reality, it seems, is that he was doing this at the behest of the US. At the same time, Abdullah warned Hamas that if they didn't cool the rocket fire, Israel would invade Gaza.

~~~~~~~~~~

Is there greater lunacy than the continuing push to "negotiate peace" with Syria?

Arch Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar was in Syria on Monday, when he was honored by Syrian president Bashar Assad. Said Assad:

"Kuntar was not merely the most senior prisoner in jail, but is also senior among free men and honoraries. His being here with us and his determination to promote Arab rights, despite everything he's been through, has turned him into a symbol of the struggle for freedom across the Arab world and the whole world.

Of course, letting Kuntar go was madness as well. He told Assad that he brought with him the blessings of the great freedom fighters of Hezbollah, and he later assured the Druze of the Golan that they would soon be under Syrian control again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Syria is refusing to let the IAEA in for another inspection of the site that Israel took out, which almost certainly was a reactor. Another sign of a peaceful nation with which we can deal, yes?

Right now the US and ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, are at odds over the fact that ElBaradei says Syria has the right to assistance from the UN nuclear agency in developing a reactor for producing power. The US maintains, with solid reason, that this is patently ridiculous given the larger context here.

~~~~~~~~~~

An ominous word about Hezbollah. Yesterday Barak announced that Hezbollah now has 42,000 missiles, three times the number it had before the Lebanon War. Some can reach to the south of Israel.

Additionally, head of the research division of Military Intelligence, Yossi Baidatz, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday that Hezbollah was attempting to purchase surface-to-air missiles in order to try to bring down Israeli airplanes flying over Lebanon.

This situation has evolved because Livni proudly promoted resolution 1701 (a reason in and of itself to not vote for her!) that put useless UNFIL forces in place in Lebanon instead of letting us finish the job. And, because Syria (with Iranian assistance, of course) has been doing the re-arming.

Unless we get tough, get real, we will be in considerable trouble. We are in considerable trouble that could have been prevented.

Israel has informed the Lebanese government that now that Hezbollah is part of that government and not a renegade terrorist force, Lebanese government infrastructure is a fair target if we are hit.

It should be noted that Hezbollah now claims several villages in northern Israel, saying they don't abide by the Blue Line -- the line the UN established as the Lebanese-Israeli border. There is no end, you see, in dealing with groups such as this. First it was Shaba Farms (which some actually advocated conceding) and now this.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are reports that Hezbollah, seeking to avoid a strong Israeli response is not planning to directly avenge the assassination in February of Imad Mughniyeh. Instead, they have paid tens of thousands of dollars to Palestinian terror groups to carry out large scale terror attacks against Israel.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel has consented to the presence of 1,000 Palestinian security forces in Bethlehem before Christmas.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gen. James Jones, who is widely expected to become Obama's national security advisor, is touting the idea of NATO forces in Judea and Samaria instead of the IDF -- an admission that the PA cannot handle matters on its own and a very bad idea. More to follow on this in due course.

~~~~~~~~~~
See my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info

Allow Israel Deal with Enemies.

Steven Shamrak
source: theisraelproject.org

A poll of US voters conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research has shown that 72 percent of voting Americans across the political spectrum believe "even with all the problems that America faces at home now, we must still work hard to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons." American voters are clear about what they expect from their new president. They worry about the economy, war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the success of the war on terror. At the same time, they support Israel but do not want the US to interfere in the Jewish state's affairs:

Which TWO of the following should be the top foreign policy priority for the next president? Is it...

57% Ending the war in Iraq
42% Defeating Al Qaeda and the Taliban
42% Restoring global economic growth
19% Bringing peace between Israel and the Palestinians
16% Dealing with the instability of Pakistan
11% Meeting the threat of Putin's Russia

Now, on another subject... Thinking about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East, please tell me whether, in general, you consider yourself to be...

32% a strong supporter of Israel
25% a supporter of Israel
05% a supporter of the Palestinians
01% a strong supporter of the Palestinians

57% - SUPPORT ISRAEL; 06% - SUPPORT PALESTINIANS

No More Evictions of Jews from Jewish Land!

Activists hoping to keep the Peace House in Hevron under Jewish ownership have rejected offers of help from the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha), according to organizer Daniella Weiss. The decision to reject the council's help was made by the forum managing the Peace House and was accepted by all of the relevant nationalist groups, she said. Among the groups that rejected the Yesha Council's attempts to participate were the Land of Israel Faithful, Youth for the Land of Israel, Women in Green, Homesh First, the Jewish Heart (HaLev HaYehudi), and Youth for the Complete Land of Israel.

"They cooperated with the government when we fought the horrible crime of the expulsion from Gush Katif; they are cooperating with the destruction of outposts and the plan to evacuate Migron," Weiss said of the Yesha Council. "The Yesha Council's mission ended with the failure in Gush Katif." (The inability to use human resources and organize proper resistance by the Gaza leadership, if not something more cynical, allowed Olmert's unelected, traitorous government to deport 8,500 Jews from Gaza!)

Freedom of Speech? Israel Way. Three young men who were charged with incitement and rioting during the expulsion from Gaza will be put on trial. The three are the founders of the "National Home' movement, Shai Malka, Ariel Vangruber and Adiel Sharabani. (Only traitors, who advocate the demise of Israel, are allowed to demonstrate in Israel!)

Vision of Hypocritical Minds. U.S. President George W. Bush declared in farewell talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday that the vision of a Palestinian state remained alive, despite failure: "I believe that vision is alive and needs to be worked on." (How many more years of suffering and political pretence of "worked ons" must Jews endure to convince delusional leadership that Israel's enemies do not want peace?)

Food for Thought: When Jewish people are finally able to shake off the slave mentality developed during the last two millennia, the world will see a shining country, free of terrorising neighbours. This Jewish state will then be the world's spiritual and technological leader. - Steven Shamrak

It is Time to Stop Worry and Start to Act. Iran said it test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missile with a range close to 2,000 km (1,200 miles), almost as far as another Iranian missile, Shahab 3. That would enable it to reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf. (Development of an Atom bomb and testing of long-range missiles - the message is clear - Israel is the target! The Iranians have been quite frank about it.)

European anti-Semitism still Flourishing. Dozens of demonstrators rallied at Oxford University to protest against the visit by President Shimon Peres. During the speech he made there, demonstrators held signs reading ''Free Palestine'' and shouted anti-Israeli slogans. (They don't just hate this traitor of the Jewish people. They just love to hate Jews!) with the Hidden Decay of Fascism. Sweden refuses to extradite a Danish neo-Nazi, saying that he has not committed any crime under Swedish law.

Blind 'Peace' is Like a Bad Marriage. President Shimon Peres told Diaspora Jewish leaders at the annual General Assembly of the United Jewish Committees, "making peace is a little bit like marriage [and] you have to close your eyes and accept what is possible to accept." His audience laughed and applauded. ( It is due to 'bad marriages', which should not have occurred in the first place, that we have such a high divorce rate. But the ugliest part is that they all, the so-called Jewish 'leadership', applauded this stupidity!)

Quote of the Week: "Whenever the [peace] process stalls, there will be those who will pull out the Saudi plan, and the Saudis have an interest in pushing this out there now, to put on a 'constructive face' with which to greet the new US president." - unnamed Senior Jerusalem officials - Isn't it time, after 60 years of suffering from Islamic terror, to start implementing a Jewish peace plan and free our land of enemies?

Delusional Summarization of Lies. Although the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have yielded no agreements on core issues, US Secretary of State Rice has decided that a departmental panel will "summarize" their transcripts and hand them over to her successors.

Successful Business of Arab Countries. Police seized 82 kilos of heroin at the Jordanian border a week ago, in the biggest drug bust in the country's history. Two Arabs, aged 57 and 19, were caught carrying three large bags. (Heroin, hashish and marijuana are the major export products of the Islamic world! Oil was made by nature and is extracted by Western companies.)

'Racist' anti-Racist UN Conference. Israel had made a final decision not to participate in a U.N. forum on racism and urged other countries to boycott what she termed an "anti-Israel tribunal." In 2001 Israel and the United States walked out of the first conference in Durban, South Africa, in protest over draft texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid. The United Nations said it regretted the decision. (The UN never regrets when Israel is deliberately excluded from participating in many UN sponsored conferences, committees etc& The UN is not a racist organization it is just an anti-Semitic one!)

Another Hamas Joke. Hamas is still committed to the temporary ceasefire with Israel, senior Hamas member Mahmoud Zahar has announced. The announcement came shortly after Gaza terrorists fired rockets at Israeli towns in the western Negev. ( The key word "temporary". It does not permit Israel to carry out counter-terrorism operations in Gaza, but it allows Hamas to get ready to attack Israel at any time!)

Jewish Knight? Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth II has given Israeli President Shimon Peres an honorary knighthood. The palace says the royal presented the Israeli head of state with the Order of St. Michael and St. George today. ( Has he defended or betrayed the virtue of the Jewish people? As it is the latter, why has the traitor been rewarded with a knighthood of non-Jewish orders!)

West Bank Outburst - Result of Pathetic Policy.

source: DEBKAfile

On one day, Tuesday Nov. 11, there were 30 Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers and border police officers on the West Bank, leaving four injured, including two policemen and an army platoon commander. The security situation plummeted from last month after Israel units were prohibited from posting snipers to defend them against Palestinian attacks. The prohibition came down from the office of prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak. It was quickly picked up by the Palestinians, who realized that the IDF's hands were tied.

By Tuesday, Palestinian terror peaked. They hurled firebombs and rocks at two border police bases in Abu Dis in southern Jerusalem and Atarot at the northern end of the capital and hit four IDF patrols. At Tekoa, southeast of Bethlehem, flying rocks pinned down a military force for hours until it was relieved by reinforcements. Rocks and bottle bombs hit at least 14 passing cars, seriously damaging some of them. Rioting Palestinians in Hebron and its vicinity hurled six firebombs, blocked main junctions with burning tires and set fire to a Jewish-owned wheat-field.

According to security sources, if this goes on and the government sticks to its policy of non-response, there is nothing to stop the Palestinian gangs from moving on to firearms. The US-trained PA security forces, funded by US taxpayers, keep to the main towns and do not venture outside. Palestinian terrorists have therefore won the freedom to terrorize most parts of the West Bank.

A disarmed Palestinian state?

AMITAI ETZIONI , THE JERUSALEM POST

During an off-the-record meeting in Washington, DC on November 10, one of Obama's senior foreign policy advisers stated that pushing a two-state solution on Israel and the Palestinians had to take place with great urgency, as it was the best way to turn around the Middle East (which he defined as including Afghanistan and Pakistan). Three elements of the plan the United States is to push are well known (no refugee return, a divided Jerusalem, and redrawn 1967 borders), but the fourth is much less often explored. Namely that the Palestinian state be disarmed and that US or NATO troops be stationed along the Jordan River. I suggest that this fourth condition is a dangerous trap, despite the fact that such troops played a very salutary role in the DMZ in Korean and - during the Cold War - in Germany. Before I proceed I should note that I am free to quote what was said at the meeting, but not to mention who said what or the name of the organization that hosted the meeting. I should also note that the same ideas are found in a new book America and the World, wholly composed of interviews with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, conducted by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. In the book, both interviewees agreed that "They [Israel and the Palestinians] need a heavier hand by the United States than we have traditionally practiced." Brzezinski suggests "an American line along the Jordan River," and Scowcroft favors putting a "NATO peacekeeping force" on the West Bank.

HOW CAN I count the ways the fourth condition is a dangerous trap? First of all, while the first three conditions are almost impossible to reverse once in place, the fourth one can be changed by a simple act of Congress or an order by a future American president, or - the current one. Abba Eban once compared a United Nations force stationed on the Israeli-Egyptian border, which was removed just before Nasser attacked Israel, as an umbrella that is folded when it rains. The new umbrella is not much more reliable.

Second, the American troops in Iraq, and the NATO ones in Afghanistan, are unable to stop terrorist bombs and rocket attacks in those parts. There is no reason to hold that they would do better in the West Bank. Third, there are very few precedents for demilitarized states - by force.

A two-state solution means to practically everyone involved, except a few foreign policy mavens, two sovereign states. A sovereign state is free to import all the arms and troops it wants. One second after the Palestinian state is declared, many in the Arab world, Iran, and surely in Europe, not to mention Russia and China, will hold that "obviously" the new free state cannot be prevented from arming itself, whatever it says on some parchment or treaty. And if this not allowed, whatever therapeutic effects the creation of a Palestinian state may engender will be about the same size as the ending of the Israeli occupation of Gaza had - either too small to measure or a negative one.

A strong case for a two-state solution has been made, but it better be based on the Palestinians developing their own effective forces and an Israeli presence on the Jordan River. Neither can rely on the United States, beleaguered as it is, or conflict- and casualty-averse NATO to show the staying power for peacekeeping which neither mustered in Kosovo, Bosnia, or Haiti, and which they have never provided in Sudan and the Congo.

There is a new dawn in America, but when the sun rises in Washington, it is often close to sunset in the Middle East.

The writer is Professor of International Relations at The George Washington University. For more discussion, see his book: Security First (Yale, 2007) or www.securityfirstbook.com
comnet@gwu.edu
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Israel's Kindness Hurts Shalit

Maayana Miskin Israel's Kindness Hurts Shalit

Chaim Glick, the General Manager of Bar Ilan University and a former senior Prison Services official, warned Monday that Israel's treatment of terrorist prisoners is making it more difficult to release kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Shalit has been held captive by Hamas-allied terrorists in Gaza for more than 880 days. Speaking at a gathering held at the university on behalf of Shalit, Glick said, “The main reason we have not succeeded in bringing back Shalit is the good conditions granted to prisoners in Israel convicted of security-related offenses.” Murderers and terrorists in Israeli prisons often have little reason to seek release, he said.

Glick explained the benefits granted to terrorists, and said they go beyond what Israel is required to provide under international law. Terrorists are given newspapers and access to cable television, are allowed to see their families and hold their children, are given meat and fish and special holiday meals, and are allowed to study for a university degree with Open University. They are given a stipend by Hamas and other terrorist groups, and are allowed to use the money to buy candy and other goods in the prison canteen.

Glick called on Israel to stop providing prisoners with anything more than basic living conditions. Stopping the “policy of pampering and luxury for security prisoners” would put pressure on Hamas to release Shalit in exchange for terrorist prisoners, he said.

Israel has held talks with Hamas via Egyptian intermediaries, but the terrorist group has refused to compromise on its demands and has even asked for more. The group demands the release of all female and minor terrorists held in Israeli jails in addition to more than 1,000 terrorists, some of them the masterminds of fatal attacks. Hamas insists that Shalit is being treated well, but has not allowed international aid workers to see him or speak to him and has not released photos or video clips that would prove their claim.

72% of Israelis say society corrupt

Shelly Paz , THE JERUSALEM POST

Seventy-two percent of Israelis rate corruption in Israel as high or very high, according to the Corruption Index for 2008 annual poll, published Monday.

The poll was released ahead of the Sderot Conference, which will take place Tuesday and Wednesday at the city's Sapir College and will examine social, educational, economic, political and security issues in society. The survey found a 10%-20% growth in public perception of corruption. Participants ranked stealing the public's money for private use, receiving money or benefits illegally, and appointing unskilled employees or relatives to public positions, as the most corrupt acts.

Of those surveyed, 92% said stealing the public's money for private use was the most corrupt, in comparison to 78% in 2007 and 83% in 2006.

Appointing relatives to public positions for which they are not qualified was also denounced by 92% of participants as most corrupt, while 91% decried receiving money or benefits in exchange for promoting personal issues.

The institutions that Israelis considered most corrupt were governmental offices (46%), the Knesset (44%), the local councils (37%), manpower companies (33%), the media (30%), the police (29%), the Histadrut Labor Federation and the worker unions (27%).

According to 73% of participants, the governmental level of corruption is much higher than it was in the past, compared to 69% who felt this way in 2007 and 68% in 2006.

Only 1% of Israelis rated governmental corruption as low or very low.

The survey was carried out by Maagar Mochot Research Institute in November among 543 Israelis over the age of 18, in Hebrew, Arabic and Russian.
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Extortion in God’s name

No precedent for Shas-style political extortion in Jewish history
Ariana Melamed

Fifty percent of the population is not represented among its ranks. This party, in the upcoming elections and until the Messiah arrives, will not allow any woman to independently speak her mind in parliament. A million and a half new immigrants also have no representation among the bunch of men Shas sends to the Knesset. This party also never had, and certainly never will have, an Arab representative, even though it regularly cries “discrimination.” And what about secular Israelis? Those are asses, as Rabbi Ovadia said just recently, referring to secular teachers – and this is one of his kindest statements regarding those who do not vote for his party.


Shas is a sectarian, belligerent, and whiny organization that shamelessly ignores the principles of true representative democracy; yet this did not prevent Knesset Member Yakov Margi to inform his supporters and the media that Kadima of all parties is the one that is closed of to “non-whites” and that Kadima’s PR consultants spread hatred, just like, you know, those people in Europe, during an era MK Margi doesn’t know too much about.


The Nazis did not compare Jews to mice, by the way. This was actually a powerful anti-Nazi image created by a Jewish illustrator, Art Spiegelman, in his ingenious comic book. I have no doubt that MK Margi never read it.


Yet these are the people who demand the education portfolio in the next government: People who hold on to views according to which it isn’t at all clear whether one can vote for a party headed by a woman. People whose willingness to join the Israeli job market is inversely related to their desire to despise, show contempt, and disparage the large secular community, whose taxes pay the salaries of Shas’ dark and separatist education system – where they teach a new generation why and how women, seculars, new immigrants, Arabs, and anyone who isn’t a Shasnik are disqualified in their eyes.


Orderly doctrine

The cheeky, false, and hurtful statement made by MK Margi is the latest escalation in a struggle that anyone who finds democracy dear to his heart must support – in words, deeds, with serious intentions and in the public arena. This struggle did not start in the current elections. On the night Ehud Barak was elected prime minister, in May 1999, hundreds of his supporters yelled “just not Shas,” yet he nonetheless chose it as a coalition partner.


The extortion campaign led by its elected representatives eventually saw the government crumble, and it is doubtful whether anyone still remembers the one righteous soul in that Sodom-like administration, Education Minister Yossi Sarid, who refused to delegate more and more powers to Deputy Education Minister Meshulam Nahari. Barak preferred to see Meretz quit the government, and continued the regular campaign of government flattery towards Rabbi Ovadia and his elected representatives.


Ever since then, who knows how many Shas Knesset members found their way to prison, and how many insults were hurled by them towards the seculars – and how many billions of shekels all of this cost those asses, the seculars.


The problem with statements such as the one uttered by MK Margi is not the fact that it was made in the heat of an election campaign. Rather, it is part of an orderly doctrine of an organization whose final objective – forgive this expression – is the establishment of a religious state in Israel. If you push them into a corner, all of Shas’ Knesset members will admit that, God willing, this is exactly what they envision.


With such goal, almost everything is allowed – aside from having women in the Knesset of course. It becomes okay to compare Kadima to the Nazis, and it is certainly okay to do so while completely distorting history. Because over the course of history, which is not seriously studied in Shas’ education system, and even in the history of the Jewish people, which Shas followers study in a partial and biased manner, there is not even one case where Jews formed a party and used the political system in order to extort other Jews. This only happened once: Ever since Shas has been playing in the democratic theater, doing so without much interference or protest.

"First Things First"

Arlene Kushner

I'm tabling other issues today to discuss what I see as priorities:

First, a return to the issue of Beit HaShalom in Hevron: important because the media's highly politicized distortions in the matter have been considerable. I have learned that what I reported yesterday -- regarding the fact that the High Court did not say Beit HaShalom MUST be evacuated -- is indeed true. This is from Elyakim Haetzni -- an attorney and former MK, resident in Kiryat Arba -- who is the father of attorney Nadav Haetzni, who is representing the Jewish community of Hevron.

Elyakim's key point, with all of the legalities, is that the police -- who in Judea and Samaria report to the State -- are conducting themselves in a different manner than would be the case if something similar were happening in Tel Aviv.

When there is a charge by an ostensible owner of a building (in this case the Arab who sold the building) that there are squatters in his building, normally, unless the absolute preponderance of evidence is with the ostensible owner (which certainly is not the case here), the police decline to be involved, advising the purported owner to seek legal action or handle it himself. Here, the police have directly insinuated themselves into what is going on.

~~~~~~~~~~

A brief sequence of events:

The building was purchased in 2004 by the Jewish community for close to $1 million, via an intermediary, from Palestinian Faiz Rajabi. That intermediary then paid Rajabi to arrange for renovations on the building in preparation for occupancy.

Rajabi, upon discovering -- when they took occupancy just over 18 months ago -- that the new owners of the building were Jews (which put him in a bad place with the PA), denied having sold his building to them. He went to the police. The new owners, however, had not only solid paper documentation, but also a video documenting the sale. When the video was shown to him, he changed his story and admitted he had sold it but said he had then immediately cancelled the transaction. He did not make his case at that point with the police.

~~~~~~~~~~

About a year ago, the State reversed itself when high ranking officials for the State Attorney's office decided that some of the papers connected to the sale -- which had been submitted by the new owners -- were forgeries. This is critical, because this is what we read about now: the implication being that the Jewish community presented false papers for a sale that never really occurred. An eviction order was issued.

This is where the story gets really strange. The State Attorney's office declared the papers "confidential" and refused for a period of time to submit them to a handwriting expert on behalf of the Jewish community, even though they had given the papers to the police in the first place.

Finally they permitted Dr. Mordechai Vardi to study the documents. His professional opinion is at the heart of matters here:

Dr. Vardi said the suspected forgeries were "auto-forgeries." That is, the signatures of the seller in question really were his signatures, but changed by him so that he would be able to claim they weren't. Said Vardi: "This is a conspicuous indication of a fictitious forgery. Such is the case before us; the [police] investigators' expert did not seem to realize it." These deliberate forgeries, he said, were committed so there would be an "exit hatch."

What is more, payment was made by the buyers in stages from 2004 to 2005, and in each instance Rajabi issued a receipt. Even the police acknowledged that Rajabi's signatures on the receipts were legitimate. Thus, his argument that he cancelled the deal immediately after signing on to it is demolished -- over the course of a year he accepted payments for his property.

~~~~~~~~~~

Given the above, one might think that the matter would have been closed. The fact that is not makes it blatantly clear that we're dealing here with politics and not just law. The government of Israel is not interested in a strengthening community in Hevron, since it would hope ultimately to turn all of Judea over to the PA, including Judaism's second holiest city.

~~~~~~~~~~

At present the High Court has turned this issue back over to a local court for final decision. But neither the State nor the Court has been willing to listen to an audio tape -- with Rajabi, who was not coerced, saying that he sold the house -- that the Jewish community recently submitted in evidence.

~~~~~~~~~~

I've been asked by people how they can help here, and my response is two-fold. One way of helping is by promulgating the truth -- in discussion, in letters to the editor, etc. The other is by keeping the pressure on the government.

~~~~~~~~~~

Forty-nine MKs have now sent a letter to Defense Minister Barak and Public Security Minister Dichter asking them "to avoid evacuating the disputed house in Hebron and to show decency and governmental responsibility.... evacuation of the house should be avoided at least until after the elections."

"We express a sentiment of deep discrimination and injustice which has overshadowed the Beit Hashalom case from the outset. The obscure refusal of the State Prosecution to reexamine the case, in light of the audio recording the settlers obtained, raises difficult emotions."

Elyakim Haetzni tells me that this letter was accompanied by a statement by Justice Turkel, whom I cited yesterday.
~~~~~~~~~~

And then, concerning president-elect Obama: The comments have been coming in with regard to that fact that he's been misjudged and is really pro-Israel. This is said to be so because he has taken Rahm Emanuel on board, and because Al Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, recently released a tape severely criticizing Obama, which is being offered as evidence that the Arabs are not really pleased with him.

I wish matters were that simple.

I would like to cite here Barry Rubin, who is director of the Global Research in International Affairs, from his latest piece, "Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends."

"HOW IMPORTANT is popularity? According to the school enthusiastic about President-elect Barack Obama in the United States, it is everything. One journalist explained that al-Qaida is afraid of Obama because, presumably, he will win away Muslims from supporting radical Islamism. It is written in the Washington Post: 'Even among the followers of radical groups, such as Hamas and the Taliban, Obama has inspired a sense of change and opportunity.'

"That last statement - intended to imply that even extremists like Obama - is worded with a shocking, though unintentional, ambiguity. It is sure true that Hamas, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, and al-Qaida view this 'change' as an 'opportunity.' Unfortunately, they view it as an opportunity for being more aggressive. (emphasis added.)
Here's how Iranian Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami put it, in words typical of the reaction from Iran and these other groups. He sees Obama's slogan of 'change' as a retreat caused by Iran's revolution, which brought down American power, and says the United States is continuing to decline.

For them, Barack [is] the creator of a more popular America and a figure of weakness. Should there be any doubt that his flexibility will be interpreted as retreat, no matter how well-intentioned he is? (emphasis added)

"THE DEBATE in Washington is far away from the debate in the Middle East. In America's capital, the talk is of how the radicals are more moderate than thought, how they will be won over by Obama's charisma and changed American policies. The disconnect between the region and the rationalizers is frightening.

"There is no policy change in Washington that will appease the radicals. And there are no concessions that will make an American president popular in a meaningful way among Middle Easterners. Even more worrisome, such steps are not going to make moderates feel more secure.

"Here the al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri gets it just right. He tells Obama: 'It appears that you don't know anything about the Muslim world and its history... You are neither facing individuals nor organizations, but are facing a jihadi awakening and renaissance which is shaking the pillars of the entire Islamic world; and this is the fact which you and your government and country refuse to recognize and pretend not to see.'" (emphasis added)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404813640&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info

UN to Mourn 60 Years of Israel's Existence

NEW YORK - This Monday, November 24th, the UN will commemorate its annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People with a film depicting Jews as Nazi-equivalents and a public exhibit mourning the sixty years of Israel's existence. "The event is an annual reminder that the UN's real agenda is to delegitimize the birth - and the perseverance - of the state of Israel," said Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN.org.

Monday's observance marks November 29, 1947 - the day that the UN voted to establish a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine - a decision accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. This year's observance is being held a week early due to scheduling conflicts.

As in years past, there will be a formal meeting Monday morning of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a film, an afternoon meeting of the General Assembly on the "Question of Palestine," and the opening of a public exhibit in the entrance to the UN's New York headquarters.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan referred to November 29th as "a day of mourning and a day of grief," and the usual procedure is for UN member state after UN member state to use the opportunity to grieve for the suffering of the Palestinian people at Israeli hands.

The General Assembly is scheduled to adopt another six resolutions condemning only Israel for violations of human rights. The total number of resolutions criticizing Israel expected to be adopted at this fall's General Assembly is 20, as compared to only four resolutions critical of human rights records in any of the remaining 191 UN member nations.

The 2008 installment of what is in essence a repeat of the "Zionism = Racism" allegation, will be the public showing of the film "La Terre Parle Arabe" or "The Land Speaks Arabic." The film draws parallels between the Nazis' final solution and the alleged Zionist design for Palestinians. It is commonly billed with these words: "…the late-19th century Zionists…drew up plans, put them into practice, then…used… force, often brutal."

Here is some of the script for the UN public's edification:

"Christians and Muslims alike…unite in their hatred of Zionism…I preferred to die as a martyr rather than be governed by the Jews …We were against the Jews…The number of Jews increased constantly…The children cried …The Hagana had no mercy, no pity. Zionists! They were Zionists!… The Jews were shooting at us, they were facing us…The Jews yelled "turn around you bastards, you dogs." They machine gunned us…They started killing people who were asleep…[We]…found a poor woman…pregnant. They had killed her and the baby came out of the womb. They started slaughtering them until morning."


The exhibit to be opened at 6 p.m. on Monday in the UN lobby - the public entrance through which school children from across the United States and tourists from around the world pass every day - is entitled "The Palestinians: 60 years of struggle and enduring hope." Bayefsky comments: "The "sixty years" of struggle is telling. It puts a lie to the alleged root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict as an "occupation" that began with the 1967 war. The real complaint is the alleged wrong of the creation of the State of Israel itself." She adds: "The carefully selected word "struggle" also speaks volumes. What the UN glorifies as a struggle is a series of wars launched by Arabs to annihilate the state of Israel beginning in 1948, and the ongoing "struggle" of Palestinian and other Arab terrorists dedicated to the same end."

Past UN Palestinian Solidarity Day observances have included:

* The display of a map in Arabic with the State of Israel missing altogether
* Flying only the flags of "Palestine" and the United Nations, and omitting the flag of the UN member state of Israel
* Opening the day with a moment of silence commemorating the death, among others, of suicide bombers or "all those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people..."
* Exhibits promoting terrorism and the alleged right of return while criticizing a host of non-violent efforts by Israel to prevent terrorism from checkpoints to a security fence - all of which are invariably presented as evil steps taken in a vacuum.

"Anyone hoping to see an Israeli flag flown in addition to a Palestinian one in celebration of the UN partition plan that approved a two-state solution, should not hold their breath," said Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN.org. She continued, "the UN tradition of mourning the creation of the state of Israel continues."

Guest Comment: Here is more evidence of the Islamic takeover. The Islamic voting bloc of the Gen Assembly is powerful enough to annually display and promote a mourning of the creation of the UN's own partition of a portion of Palestine, deviding it between the Arabs and the Jews. Moreover, the display and promotion of the day of mourning is based on lies and a propaganda of hate, including: They machine gunned us…They started killing people who were asleep…[We]…found a poor woman…pregnant. They had killed her and the baby came out of the womb. They started slaughtering them until morning." AND
" "I preferred to die as a martyr rather than be governed by the Jews."

Aggie

'No Need to Evict Hevron Jews'

Hillel Fendel 'No Need to Evict Hevron Jews'

A former Supreme Court justice says that the media misled the public and Defense Minister Ehud Barak into thinking that the Supreme Court has ordered the evacuation of Jews from Peace House in Hevron.

Yaakov Turkel, who served as a Supreme Court Justice for ten years until 2005, says that the ruling in question does not order the State to evict the Jews, but rather allows them to do so. He spoke with Arutz-7's Shimon Cohen and Uzi Baruc he ruling in question was issued a week ago, and gave the Jews living in Peace House – a four-story structure along the road leading from Kiryat Arba into Hevron – three days to leave the building. After that period, the ruling states, “it will be possible to act in accordance with Squatters’ Evacuation Law.”

Turkel emphasizes that, unlike the media reports and announcements by Defense Minister Barak and other public officials, “the ruling does not obligate the State to act to evacuate the Jews, but rather gives them the freedom to decide whether to do so or not.”

The ruling, and the manner in which it was understood by the media and the public, aroused great opposition to the Supreme Court among the nationalist public, as well as great tensions in Hevron in anticipation of an Amona-like clash in the building.

The 20 families that live there, plus many more people who have arrived over the last few days - and especially for this past Sabbath, when the Torah portion of Patriarch Abraham's purchase of Hevron land is read aloud - began making preparations to try and rebuff security forces that may try to evict them.

Ruling States: Jews 'May' - not 'Must' - be Evicted

The Court ruled that the Jewish occupants “may” be removed, despite the fact that they had produced written, audio and video proof that the Arab owner had sold it to them.

“When the Defense Minister said he would abide by the Supreme Court ruling ordering the Jews’ eviction,” Turkel said, “this was very much not to my liking, since there was no such order… This misunderstanding has caused the great rift in the religious and right-wing’s trust in the Supreme Court.”

In light of Turkel's statements, it appears that Public Security Minister Avi Dichter of Kadima did not read the ruling. "The ruling is not a recommendation, and we will implement it exactly as written," he said last week, promising that within 30 days, no Jews would be living in the disputed building. "We have no intention of straying from the Supreme Court ruling, which is the law," he said.

Turkel: It Belongs in a Lower Court

Asked how he would have ruled if he had been on the judicial panel, Justice Turkel said, “I would have passed the matter down to the District Court, in light of the complexity of the case and the mutual claims of forgery. The District Court would then review the evidence and decide if an evacuation order should be issued before a final ruling.”

This is in keeping with long-standing practice that the Supreme Court does not rule on matters pertaining to civil disputes between individuals.

Muslim Hate Worse than Nazis'

Aviva Woolf Muslim Hate Worse than Nazis'

Nonie Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel, says that the hatred the Muslims have for Jews is even worse than the hatred the Nazis had for them. "It isn't a societal thing, it's a religious thing," she explains. "It's intrinsic to their lives because it isn't a human command to kill Jews, it's the word of Allah." In an interview with Israel National News' Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel, the activist and author Darwish explains that it is Muslim teaching to kill non-believers in Allah, and that adherents of any other monotheistic religion must become second class citizens.

Daughter of top officer

Darwish is the daughter of a top Egyptian Army officer, Lt. General Mustafa Hafez, who founded the Fedayeen in Gaza - a group that launched murderous raids across Israel's southern border in the 1950's and was the precursor of the PLO. In July 1956, when Nonie was eight years old, her father became the first targeted assassination carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces in response to Fedayeen's attacks.

Darwish is an outspoken critic of the culture she came from. Supported by her husband and children, she dedicates her life to exposing the false accusations against the Jews which the Arab nations are promoting.

'We did 9/11 ourselves'

She explains that after 9/11, she called her friends in the Middle East to understand how something like that could have happened. She was surprised to hear all of them blame a 'Jewish conspiracy' for the deaths of 3,000 people in New York City. "How could my people," she asks, "the Arab and Muslim people, accuse the Jewish people of something we know very well that we did ourselves?"

Although Nonie is no longer Muslim, she still refers to them as her people. Although her relatives in Egypt no longer speak to her, she doesn't see the problem in supporting Israel. "Loving the Israeli people does not mean I hate Arabs; they are my family," she states.

Darwish says that she is very fearful of President-elect Barack Obama and thinks he will only add to the anti-Israel feelings in America. Still, she says: "There is nothing called 'no hope'. If there was no hope, I wouldn't be speaking."

Nonie's organization is called Arabs for Israel (www.arabsforisrael.com).



Her new book "Cruel and Usual Punishment" will be available in January 2009.

You can listen to the complete interview at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/305.

Another banana moment?

With his remarks about the Israeli settlements, Foreign Secretary David Miliband (pictured eating an ice-cream in Damascus) has signalled a sharp deterioration in relations between Britain and Israel. Miliband has urged enforcement of an EU boycott of produce from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, settlements he has called 'illegal'. I asked the Foreign Office for the legal basis of its opinion that the settlements were illegal. It replied that it was the Geneva Convention, which forbade the movement of a population into occupied territory. I asked whether it was basing this on a ruling by any particular body or whether this was merely its own reading of the Geneva Convention. Oh, everyone accepts this is what the Geneva Convention means, came the breezy reply. I then asked what was its legal definition of the 'occupied territories'. 'As defined by UN resolutions – which everyone accepts'— came the even breezier reply.
Is that so.

No it is not. It is in fact a total misrepresentation of international law.

First, Article 2 of the Geneva Convention provides that the agreement applies 'to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a high contracting party', or sovereign territory. Thus the Convention cannot apply to the West Bank, nor to East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for that matter, because these have never been recognized as sovereign territory. As part of Mandatory Palestine, they never belonged to any sovereign state but were occupied and administered illegally by Jordan and Egypt between 1948 and 1967 after the Arab war of aggression against Israel in 1948.

Second, Article 49 of the Geneva Convention provides that an occupying power 'shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.' This was designed to prohibit inhumane practices such as by the Nazis and the Soviets before and during the Second World War in forcibly transferring or deporting people into or out of occupied territories. But the Israeli settlers in the West Bank went there voluntarily. They have not been 'deported' or 'transferred' by the government of Israel. The only force Israel has used is in getting them out of Gaza. So clearly the Geneva Convention does not apply in any sense to the West Bank settlements.

Third, Israel is 'occupying' the West Bank (which on a day-to-day basis is not 'occupied' but ruled by the Palestinians) entirely within its rights under international law, which recognises the right of a country that has been attacked to occupy and retain land that continues to be used for belligerent purposes against it. Which is why the UN's famous Resolution 242 was deliberately drafted to refer to Israel withdrawing from 'territories' rather than all the territories – and then only when the Arabs end their war against Israel.

Fourth, the West Bank is not Palestinian land in any sense. As said before, it was originally part of the British Mandate and then illegally occupied by Jordan. Nor have the settlers occupied individual Palestinians' land, but have mainly built on empty space. I do not condone the actions of some of these settlers against their Arab neighbours, nor their attitudes; and I would like them to leave most of these territories, in Israel's own interests. But the claim that Israel has 'stolen' Palestinian land is simply a lie.

Fifth and most important of all is something that is almost totally overlooked. It is generally assumed that Israel's claim to the West Bank originated in 1967. Not so. Jews lived in many parts of it for centuries – some of these places amongst the holiest of Jewish sites – and were ethnically cleansed from it in the last century by Arab pogroms in places like Hebron. It was in recognition of this, the historic and inalienable connection of the Jews to this land, that the original Mandate for Palestine – which included what is now the West Bank and Gaza – instructed Britain to facilitate 'close settlement' by the Jews in the whole of Mandate Palestine – a commitment which the British proceeded systematically to betray – because of

the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.

As the late Eugene Rostow, the former US Under -Secretary of State for Political Affairs who played a leading role in drafting Resolution 242, repeatedly said, that legal undertaking has never been rescinded. It is still legally binding. The UN charter explicitly stated that nothing in that charter should abrogate any pre-existing international instruments. Far from being illegally settled in the disputed territories, the Jews have every right to be there under international law -- which says specifically they should settle in the West Bank.
As Rostow wrote

...the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion.

The Foreign Office's apparent ignorance of international law derives from its own innate political hostility to Israel and its wholesale endorsement -- along with virtually the entire British intelligentsia -- of the mendacious propaganda of the enemies of Israel and the west. Miliband's remarks have nothing to do with international law, history or the truth, which he has misrepresented and repudiated, but with dirty and shameful politics. It appears that the British government has now decided openly to side with the enemies of Israel – those enemies who really have been thwarting international law for six decades in their war of extermination.

Rice: Peace deal delayed due to political situation in Israel

Bush, Olmert to meet in Washington Monday to discuss Iranian nuclear program, Israel-PA peace talks. PM aide: He wants to leave process in best possible shape
Associated Press

President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, two lame-duck leaders, look to their final meeting to leave a blueprint for fulfilling their ambitious but unrealized Mideast agendas. The White House session Monday evening was expected to focus on Iran's nuclear program and progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.


Just a year ago, Olmert and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, proudly announced the resumption of peace talks after a seven-year hiatus at a summit hosted by Bush in Annapolis, Maryland. The three set an ambitious target of wrapping up a final peace deal by the end of 2008.


Despite frequent negotiating sessions, two trips to the region by Bush and eight more by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the sides have little to show for their efforts and have acknowledged the year-end target will not be met.


"Even though there was not an agreement by the end of the year, it is really largely because of the political situation in Israel," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush back from a summit in Peru.


Still, she tried to sound upbeat about the peace process. "It's in pretty good shape," Rice said.


With his time in power running out, Olmert has become increasingly candid, saying Israel will have to withdraw from almost all the West Bank and parts of east Jerusalem to make peace with the Palestinians. Talk of such concessions was virtually unheard of just a few years ago.


"I know that Mr. Olmert wants to leave to whomever is elected as the next prime minister the peace process in the best shape possible," spokesman Mark Regev said.


Bush, who spent the weekend in Peru at a meeting of Pacific Rim nations, invited Olmert to Washington as part of his final round of talks with world leaders before he leaves office Jan. 20.


Olmert, who announced plans to resign in September amid corruption charges, will step down after a successor is chosen Feb. 10.


'It's a farewell, a double farewell'

With hardline opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu leading in Israeli polls, the future of peace talks appears murky. Netanyahu wants to keep much of the West Bank and all of east Jerusalem - areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war - and believes peace talks should be scaled down to discussions on the Palestinian economy. That approach has been rejected by the Palestinian leadership.


As for Tehran's nuclear program, Israel has identified it as the biggest threat in light of Iran's development of long-range weapons and its president's repeated calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. A report this past week by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was stonewalling attempts to monitor its nuclear activities.


Israel believes Iran will be capable of building a bomb by 2010.


The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of economic penalties against Iran, which insists its nuclear program is peaceful and designed to produce energy. Both the US and Israel say they hope diplomatic pressure resolves the standoff, but have not ruled out military action.


Olmert often speaks of the close personal friendship he has developed with Bush over the past three years. When Bush visited Israel in May, Olmert showered the president with praise, saying, "You're a great person, you're a great leader, and you're a great friend."


Though largely unpopular internationally, Bush is loved in Israel, where he is seen as a staunch defender of the US ally.


"It's a farewell, a double farewell," said Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. "They will try to sum up a period and cement all the understandings and agreements between the US and Israel over the last eight years."


After Monday's meeting, Olmert and his wife, Aliza, will dine with president and first lady Laura Bush at the White House.


The two leaders probably also will discuss the global financial crisis, Israel's indirect peace talks with Syria and the future of arms and aircraft deals to Israel.


During his visit to Washington, Olmert also planned to meet with Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, and congressional and Jewish leaders.


Comment: Of course it is Israel's fault-nothing to do with the ongoing violence or breaking of all previous agreements by the Palestinians-or that they cannot get together themselves-easier to blame the Jews-don't let the door hit you in your a.. as you leave, Ms. rice1

Palestinian police to soon enter Bethlehem

Barak confirms PA police officers to assume security responsibilities in West Bank city by Christmas Day, but overall responsibilities to remain Israel's
Roni Sofer

After already having been deployed in the West Bank cities of Hebron, Jenin and Nablus, Palestinian police are expected to assume security responsibilities in the Bethlehem area by December 25, but the overall responsibilities will remain Israel's, Defense Minister Ehud Barak confirmed during a security meeting at his office over the weekend. The Israeli security establishment is pleased with the success of the Palestinian police's deployment in the West Bank. The officers, who were trained in Jordan, successfully secured two business conferences that were recently held in Bethlehem and Nablus.


The Palestinian officers designated for Bethlehem will apparently be allocated from the forces currently patrolling the outskirts of Hebron. The two special Palestinian police battalions currently number 900 officers.


Talks between the Palestinian Authority and the IDF's Coordination and Liaison Administration on the deployment of the officers in Bethlehem are expected to continue over the next few days.


'Israel will consider expanding their authority'

Israeli defense officials noted this would be another goodwill gesture towards the Palestinian Authority and its president, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. As the Palestinian elections, currently scheduled for January 9th, draw closer, many in Israel fear that Hamas will seize control of the West Bank as it did in Gaza.


Israel, in cooperation with Jordan and the European Union, are investing great efforts in expediting the deployment of Palestinian troops in the region while building up the PA's institutions in an effort to bolster support for Abbas within the Palestinian population.


In stationing forces in Bethlehem the defense minister is responding to an outright request made by the PA. Barak maintains constant contact with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on the issues of troop deployment, economic initiatives and the border with Israel. He has so far responded positively to several Palestinian security initiatives.


Bethlehem is preparing for a much larger Christmas season than previous years. Since early 2008 nearly a million tourists have visited the city, almost twice the number recorded last year. Estimates are that many more will take part in the festivities this year. The tourism boom serves a shared Israeli-Palestinian interest – strengthening the Palestinian economy and strengthening Abbas' men.


"If the Palestinian forces are proven successful in Bethlehem as well, Israel will consider expanding their authority to additional cities," said defense officials.


Barak is expected to inform the Mideast Quartet's envoy, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, of the decision to deploy PA forces in Bethlehem.

"How About This!"

Arlene Kushner

Ze'ev Jabotinsky -- 1880-1940 -- was a giant in Zionist history, standing for the sort of proud Jewish integrity that kept us strong.

He came out of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century as a journalist, who ultimately achieved much acclaim for his writing. The pogroms of Kishnev spurred him to organize Jewish self-defense units and to participate in the sixth Zionist Congress. He promoted the use of Hebrew and the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During WWI, he was instrumental in forming a Jewish Legion. After the war he became a member of the Zionist Executive and a founder of Keren Haysod. Taking issue with the policies of the Zionist Movement, he established the Revisionist Zionist Alliance, which promoted immediate founding of a Jewish state. Within the Revisionist movement developed the Betar youth movement, which taught young people nationalism; the Irgun, the military arm of the movement; and the New Zionist Movement, the political arm. It was the Revisionists who promoted illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine after the British blocked it.

Once Israel was founded, well after Jabotinsky's death, the Revisionist Movement melded into Herut, which was a precursor to today's Likud party.


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Jabotinsky, who has been described as "both a visionary and a warrior," made immeasurable contributions to the Jewish state.

I have thought over the years that he has been much neglected, and I have wondered how many really know about him any more. Thus it gives me pleasure to have this opportunity to write about him.

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And the opportunity? Seems Jabotinsky has a name-sake grandson, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who, just hours ago, stood with Binyamin Netanyahu at Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv to announce that he would be running in the Likud primary next month.

Netanyahu, elated and excited, said, "Things have come full circle. It is a privilege for the Likud to have such a man in its ranks."

Replied Jabotinsky:

"I admit I'm excited. It's a privilege to join the movement. The last time Jabotinsky [his grandfather], Begin [Benny's father, Menachem] and Netanyahu [Binyamin's father, Benzion, still alive at 93] served the Jewish public was in World War II, when they tried to save Europe's Jews from annihilation. Today we are a team again and we want to do everything we can to meet the challenges Israel is facing."

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Arutz Sheva cited Jabotinsky as having said in a Yediot Ahronot interview that Oslo made things "500 times worse."

A "Palestinian" state, he said, "would be the base for the international terror of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah with Iranian funding. If they opt for that we will reach a situation in which instead of 1,400 [Jewish] dead there will be 30,000 dead. They will not hesitate to use chemical weapons against us."

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And how about this, as well: Yaakov Turkel, who served as a justice on Israel's High Court for ten years, until 2005, has given an interview to Arutz Sheva in which he says that the High Court did NOT order the eviction of the residents of Beit HaShalom in Hevron. Rather, the court put it in the hands of the State and gave authorities the freedom to decide whether or not to evict -- it said the State MAY evict.

“When the Defense Minister said he would abide by the Supreme Court ruling ordering the Jews’ eviction,” Turkel said, “this was very much not to my liking, since there was no such order… This misunderstanding has caused the great rift in the religious and right-wing’s trust in the Supreme Court.”

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The question, I would say, is whether Barak knew full well that he didn't have to proceed with eviction but opted to put the onus on the court.

The article cites Public Security Minister Avi Dichter (Kadima) who said last week: "The ruling is not a recommendation, and we will implement it exactly as written [saying in 30 days no Jews would be living in the building]. We have no intention of straying from the Supreme Court ruling, which is the law." Arutz Sheva suggests that Dichter must not have read the ruling.

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I will follow up on this. Justice Turkel puts much of the responsibility for the misunderstanding on the media, which comes as no surprise -- the media is in the main anti-"settler." But why were there no lawyers in the past days who raised this issue? It does change matters.

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As to Hevron, some 20,000 visitors were estimated to have been in the Jewish Quarter of the city over Shabbat because of the Torah portion. Some have remained because of the political situation.

There were a handful of incidents, involving youngsters from the outside, but for the most part things were peaceful.

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There was a report today that officers in the IDF Central Command were worried that when Barak give orders to evacuate Beit HaShalom soldiers and police who live past the Green Line (and figure they may be next) or those with a nationalist orientation may refuse to participate.

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See my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info

Some in Arab World Wary of Clinton

Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 23, 2008; A03

There is possibly no person President-elect Barack Obama considered for secretary of state who is more reliably pro-Israel than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the woman to whom he appears likely to give the job sometime after Thanksgiving. During the Democratic primary campaign, Clinton said the United States could "obliterate" Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel. She said the United States should not negotiate with Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, unless it renounced terrorism. "The United States stands with Israel, now and forever," Clinton told AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, at its conference in June.

Yet Clinton is also the former first lady who famously broke with her husband's administration in 1998 and said Palestinians should have a state of their own. Ten years later, the comment seems unexceptional, but at the time it prompted the White House to make clear she was speaking only for herself.

Clinton's foreign policy views will be scrutinized closely in the weeks ahead, but as her past statements on the Middle East illustrate, she has a considerable track record that provides evidence for several plausible explanations of how she might try to focus U.S. diplomacy.

Arabs, particularly Palestinians, are nervous that Obama seems prepared to give the job of top diplomat to a senator from New York who has spent eight years cultivating her pro-Israel constituency and would continue, they think, a lack of U.S. evenhandedness in refereeing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Because of what they regard as her bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and her initial support for the Iraq war, some see her selection as a sign that Obama intends to conduct a more hawkish foreign policy than he suggested during the campaign.

Other diplomats and foreign policy experts say Clinton would bring to Foggy Bottom one of the leading voices in the Senate for a new U.S. commitment to more aggressive diplomacy. They say she would push hard for a Middle East peace deal, in keeping with the activist approach taken by President Bill Clinton in the final years of his administration.

Some who have worked closely with Hillary Clinton during her years as first lady and as a senator say that these predictions miss the point that she would be looking to fashion practical solutions to the issues of Middle East peace, Iran's nuclear program, Iraq's political future and other problems that would confront her and Obama next year.

"The first thing you need to know about Hillary Clinton is she is a pragmatist -- she wants to know what works," said Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who has traveled with Clinton on fact-finding trips for the Armed Services Committee. "She believes in diplomacy and multilateral solutions but is not averse to using force when that is the only opportunity to protect our national security interests."

What Clinton believes will be somewhat beside the point come Jan. 20: In her new post, she would be vying with other powerful figures -- including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. -- for the president's ear, and she would be responsible for implementing a foreign policy established in the end by Obama.

The biggest determinant for Clinton's success, according to former State Department officials, is the kind of working arrangement she is able to establish with Obama, with whom she had a testy relationship during the primaries that seemed to warm up during the general-election campaign. Many foreign policy experts are privately baffled that Obama would deliver such a key job to someone from outside his close circle of supporters.

"She has a strong physical and intellectual presence that she can project, and she's plenty tough," said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East negotiator who advised six secretaries of state. "What we don't know is: Does she have the negotiator's mind-set? And we know she doesn't yet have the kind of trust and confidence of the president that's critically important."

Leon Billings, who served as chief of staff to Edmund Muskie, the last senator to become secretary of state, said Clinton's "success will be less a function of her own skills and capabilities than how much confidence the president places in her and the extent to which he demands, not just insists, that his inner circle give her the support she will need to do the job that he needs her to do."

Obama's decision to turn to Clinton as his point person on foreign policy is somewhat ironic, given the intensive effort of some of his aides during the campaign to disparage her foreign policy experience. But the reality is that Clinton has immersed herself deeply in foreign affairs since the collapse of the health-care plan she spearheaded in the first two years of her husband's administration.

As first lady, Clinton acquainted herself with the elements of American "soft power," making dozens of trips around the world to promote women's rights and the work of nongovernmental organizations, and to endorse micro-credit as a way of stimulating development in the Third World. Her interest in these issues continues to this day: She recently wrote a letter to the U.N. secretary general calling for greater protections for women and girls after a 13-year-old rape victim was stoned to death in Somalia.

During her recent time in the Senate, Clinton focused more on "hard power" as a member of the Armed Services Committee, gaining knowledge of Iraq, Afghanistan and NATO -- all subjects likely to occupy her attention as secretary of state. She acquired a reputation as someone sympathetic to the needs and concerns of the military while initially supporting President Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although Clinton later came to criticize the conduct of the Iraq war and called for a U.S. withdrawal, her vote in favor of a bill authorizing Bush to go to war became a flash point in her battle with Obama for the Democratic nomination. Obama was a much earlier opponent of the war and used the issue to sow doubts about Clinton's judgment.

Clinton also clashed with Obama over Iran, ridiculing his stated willingness to sit down with Iran's leaders without preconditions. She sought to paint Obama as naive and unprepared for the commander-in-chief job, while Obama's team portrayed his rival as reckless, pointing to her support for a measure calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Many people close to Clinton say that the actual differences between the two are minimal, and that as secretary she would have little problem carrying out his policies. Both have made clear they would like to redeploy forces from Iraq and focus more intensively on the struggle in Afghanistan. Like Obama, Clinton has indicated she would like to see stepped-up diplomacy and engagement with Iran, though not necessarily at the highest levels, to determine whether a deal can be struck to eliminate Tehran's nuclear enrichment program.

"Their arguments were about tactics, not about objectives," said Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel who has consulted with Clinton about the Middle East but emphasized that he was not speaking for her. "Obama will probably launch an initiative toward the Iranians, and it will be very important for his secretary of state to be on board, because she would have to implement that. I think she would be comfortable with that."

Amjad Atallah, who formerly served as a legal adviser for the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with the Israelis, said the prospective Clinton nomination is being watched warily in the Arab world, given her unstinting support for Israel in recent years and hawkish comments on Iran. Some worry that her selection is a possible indicator that Obama may not be as aggressive as Palestinians hope in pushing for a peace deal.

"Nobody has a negative opinion of Senator Clinton, except maybe that her opinions are closer to the neoconservatives than they might wish," Atallah said.

Others close to Obama and Clinton say such fears are misplaced. Obama, they say, is extremely interested in an early push on the Middle East, while Clinton has made clear that she sees much more aggressive U.S. engagement as critical to success in the region. "Whether or not the United States makes progress in helping broker a final agreement, consistent U.S. involvement can lower the level of violence and restore our credibility in the region," she wrote in Foreign Affairs last year.

Clinton would enter the world of diplomacy benefiting from the high esteem for her husband around the world, where many associate Bill Clinton's presidency with aggressive diplomacy in the Middle East and elsewhere. In an interview with a small group of journalists Friday, Javier Solana, the top diplomat for the European Union, said he hoped that Obama would "move very fast" to engage in the Middle East peace process and made clear that he thought Clinton would be an enthusiastic proponent of such an approach.

"The name 'Clinton,' " Solana said, "is well taken, well appreciated."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Yaalon: Tel Aviv a 'Settlement'

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Yaalon: Tel Aviv a 'Settlement'

Ex-IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon came out swinging Saturday night in his new role as Likud politician. Arabs view all Israelis as "settlers," including those in Tel Aviv, he said in his first public political meeting since he announced this past week that he is running for a seat in the Knesset. Media, both in Israel and outside the country, have used the term "settler," often disparagingly, to define Jews living in Judea and Samaria, differentiating them from other Israelis. However, Yaalon pointed out, "Israeli Arabs, with four documents that they wrote over the past two years, are actually rejecting our right to an independent Jewish state. We [al are settlers, as far as they are concerned."



Yaalon was Chief of Staff under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who took the unusual step of not extending his term of office. The primary reason was Yaalon's doubts about the practicality of the "Disengagement" plan that resulted in the destruction of a Jewish presence in the Gaza and northern Samarian regions and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops in Gaza and along the Philadelphi smuggling route.



Yaalon, whose joining the Likud has boosted the party in pre-election polls, declared that the government's approach towards an agreement with the Palestinian Authority is a failure because it aims for a solution to a problem that has not been defined.



"A particular solution is being forced on us," he stated. "We want peace now, food now, everything now, as if this is fast food and fast peace, and along the way we have lost much of our spirit, our power and our deterrence."

We want peace now, food now, everything now, as if this is fast food and fast peace, and along the way we have lost much of our spirit, our power and our deterrence.



He also took a swipe at Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, charging that she has not proven that is a leader. Commenting on her Kadima party's campaign poster stating 'Livni: What's good for the State,' he commented, "I see signs in the street selling spin, trying to defraud us again, with some sort of depiction that I see as lacking any essence.



"When did she actually withstand a test of leadership? She didn't do so during the Second Lebanon War, not during the actual decision-making process and not as regards UN Security Council Resolution 1701."



Jabotinsky's Grandson Joins Likud



The Likud party, which already has taken a commanding lead in pre-election polls, is adding another "star," Zev Jabotinsky, whose grandfather by the same name was one of the leading Zionists before the re-establishment of the Jewish State.



In the past two weeks, Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu has brought in Yaalon, former police chief Asaf Hefetz and former Knesset Member Benny Begin, the son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Several weeks ago, former assistant Chief of Staff Uzi Dayan, who has been behind an ongoing media campaign to win the freedom of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, also joined the Likud.



Polls published before Thursday and Friday give the Likud a certain majority coalition of nationalist and religious parties in the next Knesset. Kadima is barely holding on to its current strength but has done so as the expense of the Labor party's, which has sunk to the point that the party will win as few as eight seats, according to the surveys.