THINK-ISRAEL
THINK-ISRAEL features essays and commentaries that provide context for current events in Israel. The war Islam is waging against Israel and the West is a top priority. We report on global anti-Semitism, Islamism and creeping Sharia.We aim to make sense of what's going on.  
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   We are told that there is a difference between extremist Islam and peaceloving normal Islam.
   Judging by their behavior, Muslims are anti-West, anti-Democracy, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Hindu. Muslims are involved in 25 of some 30 conflicts going on in the world: in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, East Timor, India, Indonesia (2 provinces), Kashmir, Kazakastan, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Russia-Chechnya, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan.
   Doesn't this mean that extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare?

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.
     "For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."   (PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.) [The Palestinian leadership, including Ahmed Shukar and Yasir Arafat, has openly admitted Palestinian "peoplehood" is a fraud; read this.]

It should be remembered that in 1918, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France were handed >5,000,000 square miles to divvy up and 99+% was given to the Arabs to create countries that did not exist previously. <1% was given as a Mandate for the re-establishment of a state for the Jews on both banks of the Jordan River. In 1921, to appease the Arabs once again, another three quarters of that <1% was given to a fictitious state called Trans-Jordan. (Jack Berger, May 31, 2004.)

The total for all the 22 Arab League countries is 6,145,389 square miles (SM). By comparison, all 50 states of the United States have a total of 3,787,318 SM. Israel has 8,463 SM, about one-sixth of that of the State of Michigan. Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are Muslim but not Arab and are not included.
     World Arab population: 300 million; World Jewish population: 13.6 million; Israel's Jewish population: 5.4 million. (reference: Dr. Wilbert Simkovitz,
http://dehai.org/archives/dehai_news_archive/ apr04/0223.htmldehai.org/archives/dehai_news_archive/apr04/0223.html)

"It has no heart. It has no spine. Its mouth serves as its anus. It has a diffuse net of nerves instead of a brain. Is it a jelly fish or an Israeli politician? Pick one. Whichever one you picked, you were right." (Eliezar Edwards, June 20, 2005)

To Israeli Secularists: You want a normal country, like everybody else? I will tell you how. Forget ads featuring bikini-clad hotsies. Forget promoting "alternative" life styles. The secret is to adopt the right attitude. A normal country doesn't give up an inch of land that belongs to it. A normal country doesn't let its citizens go hungry while it feeds its enemy and gives them medical care. A normal country doesn't let foreigners take over its holy sites — Hebron, the Temple Mount, Joseph's Tomb. Looking at what counts, it's the religious Jews of Samaria and Judea and the Golan that are acting normal, not you. (Eliezar Edwards, March 20, 2008)

Some 900,000 Jews left behind $300 billion in assets when they were forced to flee for their lives from the Arab countries in the 1940s. They hold deeds for five times Israel's size. (Independent Media Centre, Winnipeg)

A Palestinian State? You want that? OK. BUT not in Israel. No way. Not now. Not ever. Put this Arab state in Dubai or Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or Libya or Syria. Make it big. Fill it with the Po' Arab "refugees". And with the Arabs of Gaza and Samaria and Judea (AKA West Bank). And treasonous Arabs who have Israeli citizenship. Build a big fence around it. Let them learn to develop the infrastructure of a state. Or let them destroy themselves, if that's what they prefer. If they ever become civilized, then it's time to consider letting them join the human race. (Eliezar Edwards, August, 2008) [For an early excellent solution, read Eli E. Hertz, "The U.S. Congress in 1922," here.]

"The sudden frequency of highly-publicized verbal attacks on Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria is not a coincidence," [Yesha Council head Danny] Dayan said. "This is a well-orchestrated attempt to demonize an entire community for political purposes, while using the worst tools available to the inciter: distortion of facts, generalization, blatant lies, and preaching hate, ... video clips used by multiple media outlets were later proven to have been taken out of context. (Arutz-7, December 8, 2008)

What is ironic is that Israel belongs exclusively to the Jews by International Law. (Google Think-Israel for articles by Howard Grief, Yoram Shifftan, etc., for the legal basis of Israel's ownership of Israel and the Territories.) So why do the Arabs insist the land is theirs? Because the Jews have been so crazy for peace, they have been willing to share, to give up pieces of their tiny country, for a piece of paper. The Arabs created a phony people in 1964, called the "Palestinians" and blanketed the world with the mantra that they were the Palestinians and Palestine was theirs. There has not ever been a country or a state called Palestine. There have been Palestinians. During the British Mandate — from 1922 to 1948 — the Jews called where they lived Palestine. They played music in the Palestine Philharmonic. They read the Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post.) As the Palestine Brigade, they fought in the British Army in World War 2. The Arabs also fought hard — for Hitler (Eliezar Edwards, December, 2008.

"... during the late 1940s, more than 40 million refuges around the world were resettled, except for one people. They remain defined as refugees, wallowing 60 years later in 59 UNRWA refugee camps, financed by $400 million contributed annually by nations of the world to nurture the promise of the "right of return" to Arab neighborhoods and Arab villages from 1948 that no longer exist." (Noam Bedein, Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2009.)

Derived from the Afrikaan words apart (apart) and heid (hood), apartheid is the state policy of racial segregation involving political, legal and economic discrimination based on notions of racial superiority. How one can even begin to compare Israel, the Middle East's only liberal democracy, to such a regime is beyond comprehension.
   Today, in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestinian women, who were once among the most educated and avant-garde in the Arab world, are coerced into wearing the hijab, while in Israel women of all faiths are free from all forms of religious repression. In Israel, homosexuals live free from harassment, while in Iran they are lynched in the public square. In Israel, alleged criminals—including terrorists captured by police—are given due process, while in other Middle Eastern countries they are decapitated or, in the case of terrorists, glorified as martyrs. (Yoram Elron, "The Myth Of Israeli Apartheid" National Post, March 6, 2009)

"Land for Peace" is a medicine based on the wrong diagnosis. The war against Israel is not a territorial conflict and thus can not be solved with territorial concessions. Giving away an area does not help. Hamas cum suis are not fighting for pieces of land but for the total final victory of Islam, to which the rapid destruction of Israel is only a transitional stage. The conflict is jihad, the violent duty of every Muslim. Israel is located on the fault line of the dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb. To Islam, all of Israel is occupied territory and Tel Aviv is as much a "settlement" as was Netzarim. (Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma, "Land for peace doesn't work", Gates of Vienna Blogspot, January 6, 2009)
 

 

HERE'S ONE FOR YOU PUZZLE FANS.

JONATHAN POLLARD NEVER ENDANGERED AMERICA. HE GAVE ISRAEL INFORMATION IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GET ANYWAYS. WHY HAS HE SAT IN JAIL LONGER THAN PEOPLE WHO GOT AMERICANS KILLED. WHO — OR WHAT GROUP — IS KEEPING HIM FROM FREEDOM? AND WHY?

Nationwide White House Call-In for Jonathan Pollard
White House Telephone Numbers: 202-456-1111 OR 1-202-456-1414
White House FAX Numbers: 202-456-2883 or 202-456-2461

From Israel, use 077-566 4305. Callers are charged as if they made a regular local call.


THERE'S A NEW PRESIDENT. THE LAST ONE DIDN'T DO WHAT'S RIGHT. MAYBE THIS ONE WILL. IT'S UP TO US. SO GET BACK TO WORK. KEEP CALLING. AND PRAY.

Every call is tallied by subject matter.
Every time you say "Free Jonathan Pollard" it counts!
Take a minute for Jonathan Pollard and call now!
Click here for the facts.

To write to Jonathan: Jonathan Pollard #09185-016. c/o FCI Butner. POB 1000. Butner, NC. USA 27509-1000

The White House received 30,000 phone calls in support of an executive pardon by President Bush. The shear volume of calls overwhelmed the White House phone bank forcing the White House to expand the number of lines and number of operators. Pollard believes a commutation of his sentence only required Livni asking Bush - Pollard has served 23 years of a lifetime sentence, for helping a friendly nation, Israel. (Janet Lehr, Jan 25, 2009.)

 

FEATURED STORIES

May-June, 2009

READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

May 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
June 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE




March-April, 2009

What we are talking about in the March-April 2009 issue:
EDITORIAL: A THIRD WAY
THE PEACE PROCESS, 2-STATE SOLUTION AND ISRAEL'S IRREVOCABLE RIGHT TO THE LAND (Sultan Knish, Belman, Grief, Beres, Sharpe, Singer, Kedar, Beres)
ISRAELI PROBLEMS (Faitelson, Frantzman, Sapersteins, Sugarman, Thornton, Sherman, Berlyn)
CHARACTER STUDIES OF MUSLIMS (Phares, Zubry, Rubin, Erlich, Hamid)
SHARI'A IS GAINING GROUND GLOBALLY (Plaut, Gaffney, Samson, Guitta, Bawer, Bensman, Rubin, Ibrahim, Pipes, Scruton)
USEFUL IDIOTS, FELLOW TRAVELLORS (Barron, Honest Reporting, Doron, Mossad, Eidelberg, Williams, Rabinowitz and Mayer, Frantzman)
HISTORY SECTION (Kramer, Zamir, Grobman)
BLOG-ED PAGES (March, April)

EDITORIAL: A THIRD WAY

For years there has been a strong though unexamined belief that the Arab refugees who came to be called Palestinians could not live anywhere except in Palestine. And not even in all of Mandated Palestine, which includes the hefty chunk the Brits "gave" to the Jordanian Hashimite King. (Please don't tell me 80% of the Jordanians are "Palestinian." It isn't part of the mythology.) No, they can only live as a people in the small part called Israel. Like the rare orchid that can only be pollinated by a particular type of bee or the snaildarter fish that can only live in the Paint Rock River in East Tennessee, the Po' Palestinians are kept in refugee camps in several Arab countries -- fed, educated and medicated as charity cases -- because UNRWA, their U.N. nanny, asserts they could only take root in their homeland, now called Israel.

Total bullshit, of course. Every other refugee group this century has been resettled and within a few years is well into starting a new life. This group was not allowed to do so. They were sequestered into camps and exploited as victims of Israel. Supposedly Israel was occupying their land -- and that includes the state of Israel. With the help of a sympathetic media they have sold this belief to the world.

To make this work, the actual facts were ignored. Here's one: 95% of them and/or their daddies never came into Palestine until after 1900. Their ranks were swollen by Arabs living near the refugee camps whose standard of living took a big step upward when they declared that they too were refugees. But for many people, especially Bumstead Westerners, it was a Fact that the Palestinian could only thrive in his Homeland and this fact was the foundation of the demand that all the Palestinian refugees, now swollen from a few hundred thousand to several million, must be allowed to live in Israel.

The fact that the Palestinian is not different than the generic Arab in language, religion, taste in food, or social mores hasn't discomforted the Arab and U.N. propagandists. In fact, it is part of the argument that it is important that they be returned to Israel. The tautology is: they are in the refugee camps because they can only live real lives in Israel. It is proof that Israel is their only habitat, because in no other way are they different from other Arabs.

Because they are never examined simultaneously, the single-niche habitable environment "fact" lives comfortably next to some real facts that are totally incompatible. According to their own story, the Arab refugee and the others who call themselves Palestinian are kith and kin. So the same rules of appropriate environment apply to them -- that is, they, too, can only take root in Israel. But except for the display Arabs languishing in the camps, it seems Palestinian arabs can make good lives for themselves elsewhere.

Some of this made the news quite accidently. When Kuwait was liberated in the Gulf War, the Kuwaitis kicked out some 400,000 Palestinians, who had been working in Kuwait and had sided with the invader, Saddam Hussain, to make the Kuwaitis lives miserable. We learned the surprising fact that they constituted some 40% of the people living in Kuwait, owned many of the businesses and had been living there comfortably for well over a decade .

When Jordan took in Arafat and his people years before the Gulf War, they busily began shooting at neighboring Israel, acting as a quasi-government in the areas where they lived, and plotting King Hussein's overthrow. He killed some 10,000 of them to retain his monarchy, and no one thought less of him for doing so.

They massacred Christians during Lebanon's civil war, and set up a state within a state -- they collected 'taxes' and 'protected' businesses; they left garbage collection to others.

Where ever they go in bulk, they become violent and thuggish when the opportunity arises. But the point we are making here is that they can live and thrive outside of Israel.

Other facts have begun filtering out. When the Gazans broke through the barriers to Egypt, many tried to escape and make their way into Egypt. Polls made it clear to those who would hear that a very large number of Palestinians were eager to leave and go live elsewhere. Any elsewhere. Palestinian Arabs have taken available money and happily took off for Europe and America.
 

OVER THE YEARS, THOSE WHO CONTROL THE DOMAIN OF ARGUMENT asserted that it was an either-or. Either there would be a single state of Israel that was no longer Jewish. Or there would be two states, one Jewish which -- thanks to the Jewish State's medical and welfare benefits -- contained a burgeoning Arab minority. The other state (or statelets) -- that was next to, inside of, cutting through and wedged against Israel -- would be totally Arab, with no Jews allowed.

Even so, more and more people began to wonder why apartheid Jordan couldn't be declared as the Palestinian state -- the local Arabs (AKA "Palestinians") were already some 70-80% of the population. Or, considering that the Arabs owned 99.9% of the Middle East, why destroy the single Jewish state that contributes so mightily to advancement in medicine, science and technology, when there's enormous amounts of land where the Palestinians could be relocated? And these thoughts came out, whenever the subject of a Onesie or a Twosie state came up, as shown by unrestricted readers comments to articles in the Jerusalem Post, and even in Haaretz. The Inquiring Mind wanted to know: Why couldn't the Palestinians be transferred to land owned by their oh-so-sympathetic Arab cousins?

Of course, they are sympathetic. Haven't they been telling us that the Arab states can't make peace with Israel, while their po' afflicted Palestinian cousins languished in refugee camps?

Most all of the media weigh in on the side of the "2-state solution." Operationally, the 2-state solution will disSOLVE Israel slowly, long enough for the diplos to declare a victory and get the hell out. The one state solution is more like the instantly-acting Jonestown CoolAid poison. It is hard for the Third Way to be heard, when the No 1 and 2 solutions clog the airwaves.

The third way? Why give up land that belonged to Israel by right of Bible, by history, by devotion, by living there through bad times and worse times throughout the centuries, by international law, by irrevocable trust and by conquest when Israel was attacked by the Arab countries? Why give up the Land and, if Sec-State Rice's doctrine is still doctrine, still need to feed and medicate the Arabs. The Third Way? Keep the land and give up the Arabs

A sensible solution. The Palestinian is capable of viability outside of Israel. He can be transferred to another spot in Arab Land. It would be like moving from Boston to New York. The set-aside land could be 5 times the size of Israel, 10 times its size and it still would be a drop in the bucket of the available land the Arabs control.

But admittedly, there wasn't sufficient mass to congeal such an idea into a SHOUT-IT-OUT fact. Until now. Now, there is a new voice that says loud and clear that a Palestinian can thrive outside of Israel. This new voice is even willing to put his money -- actually, your money, but not let's quibble -- where his mouth is. Who is this man? His name is Barak Hussein Obama, and he has set aside some 20 Million dollars to be used for the "purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs" of the Palestinian arabs of Gaza. So, unlike UNRWA, he doesn't think they are hot-house fleurs that can only thrive on land that belongs to Israel. Admittedly, he hasn't come right out and said that Palestinians are omnihabitable (new word. And, listen up, Mr. Webster, I want the credit for it.) but obviously he wouldn't be wasting our money if the Palestinians couldn't root themselves outside of Israel, or as they quaintly call it, Palestine. Well, they would call it Palestine, if they could pronounce the P.
 

THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE WAS FABRICATED AS A MISSHAPEN GARGOYLE whose only purpose was and is to smash Israel. But why would any Westerner want to destroy the current first-line of defense to protect us from becoming dhimmis?

So, let's all become adherents of the third-way: give the Palestinians a large tract of Land in Arab Land. Fence it in. Help them farm if they wish. Help them set up colleges, if they wish. Spend the money that now goes on wasted business startups and fences in Israel and UNRWA salaries and terrorist training camps on helping the Palestinians truly learn how to run a state. And if they prefer terror and murder and adding nails dipped in rat-poison to their explosives, let them do it to themselves. Their choice.


The Peace Process. Dissolving Israel in a 2-State Solution.

The peace process is back. It's the same old plan from the brain of the State Dep't and the mouth of the Saudis: give up historic and strategic parts of your land, Israel. Let us flood your land with Arabs, and we will normalize relations. It's the same old, except that it has solved one knotty problem. As the diplomats so quaintly put it, Israel has no peace partner. Years ago, she was negotiating with the Arab countries, then with the "Palestinians", and finally with one man: Mahmoud Abbas, who is unlikely to win the next election — should the Palestine Authority decide on having one. Moreover, he has already repudiated the idea of agreeing to Israel's continued existence. If they don't have elections, Hamas will take over, anyways. So the new catchy phrase is: concentrate on establishing a Palestinian State in Biblical Israel with a land bridge to Gaza and the Arab States will normalize relations. It's not clear if they will "normalize relations" as most of the world understands the term — be friendly to your neighbors, exchange ambassadors, trade, visit each other's countries -- or do they mean what seems to be normal for Islam — take over the other country as soon as you can. However it is phrased, splitting off any of Samaria and Judea and Gaza is a violation of Israel's irrevocable right to Mandated Palestine in international law.

 

WHO NEEDS A PALESTINIAN STATE?
by Sultan Knish

  Who needs a Palestinian State, Sultan Knish asks and answers it this way: aside from the Administration in Washington and the European Union, it's "the dictators of a dozen Arab states who agree that the only thing that will fix the region is adding another Arab dictatorship to the place, and subtracting the area's one democracy." That's it in a nutshell. As it is, the diplomats are pressing harder for a state than are the Palestinians themselves. A state doesn't particularly appeal to those Cultists of Death — the fabricated Palestinian people — whose unity derives from their common source of support, charity from various world governments, and the pride they take in their talent for killing.
 READ MORE
 

WHITHER THE "PEACE PROCESS"?
by Ted Belman

  Ted Belman summarizes the latest thinking on the Peace Process -- creating a Palestinian state in Biblical Israel. Israel believes she can hold firm until the Palestinians do what they've committed themselves to but have never honored: stopping their violence. The American Administration believes it can make magic happen: two states in the Middle East, one of them Muslim, "living side by side in peace and security." The Arabs believe they can force Israel to accept the Saudi peace plan that will destroy Israel by flooding it with Palestinians; a Palestinian state is unimportant to them. All ignore that by international resolution, there is "the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine..."anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The land is Jewish — all of it including the West Bank — by irrevocable legal trust conferred by the League of Nations and continued by the United Nations. In 1922 it was also confirmed by a unanimous endorsorsement by both Houses of Congress, So, as Belman writes, "... it lies ill in the mouth for the U.S. to now deny Jews the right to settle the lands. It is the settlement freeze that's illegal, not the settlements."
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THE QUESTION OF THE APPLICABILITY OF THE FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION ON OCCUPATION TO JUDEA, SAMARIA AND GAZA
by Howard Grief

  Howard Grief makes clear why applying rules from the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) to Israel's ownership of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and Gaza rests on dubious and incomplete interpretions of FGC. Briefly, the IDF can not be considered a "hostile army" occupying Judea, Samaria and Gaza because these areas did not belong to Jordan or Egypt. By irrevocable trust, the land belonged to Israel. He also overturns the myth that Israel is an occupier of Arab land, because Mandated Palestine was never Arab land. This is an important paper. We have included appendices on some basic documents that indicate that the Peace Process and the Two-State solution violate Israel's irrevocable right to Mandated Palestine.
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ON TWISTED HIGHWAYS TO "PALESTINE" WHY "OCCUPATION" IS STILL A LIE
by Louis Rene Beres

  Louis Beres provides clearly-stated facts and long-term contextual history that makes it clear that "the so-called 'Palestinian Territories' are not occupied by Israel." They are Israeli. The context enriches the legal discussion on Israeli's right to Mandated Palestine by Howard Grief (see above).
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FORCED TO CONCEDE A BIRTHRIGHT?
by Victor Sharpe

  Victor Sharpe points out in this essay that tearing off pieces of Israeli land supposedly for peace is not new. And the result has been greater Arab hostility, not peace. The objective now is to hack Biblical Israel out of tiny Israel. It has begun by Arabs creating facts on the ground — building illegally in Samaria and Judea -- while the Israeli government devotes its time to harassing the Jews in Samaria and Judea who understand it isn't enough to own the land legally; Jews have to hold the land physically. Sharpe asks, "How long before the majority of politicians in the Knesset finally accept that Jews have returned to their ancestral and Biblical land, a land which presently stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River." Until they themselves are persuaded, how can they communicate the facts to outsiders?
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WHY TIME IS ON ISRAEL'S SIDE: A LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE ON ISRAEL'S SECURITY CHALLENGES
by Max Singer

  Max Singer succinctly summarizes Israel's major political and security problem: "... the Palestinians are determined to destroy Israel, and no concessions or improvements in our treatment of them will induce them to give up their goal." He argues that democracy is globally on the rise, and so long as Israel can continue to keep terror attacks at what he calls "tolerable levels", then within a decade, Israel can count on America to stifle the jihadist threat to the West. I wish he had given voice to how to handle related problems: as long as Israel continues a defensive minimalist policy, the morale of her citizens will continue to drop, while foreign diplomats, seeing Israel as an easy mark, will likely demand more and more concessions from her. Then too, what if, while Israel waits, Iran does just what she says she will. There is also the nightmare possibility that America will become a much weaker country, a weak reed to rely on.
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THE ROLE OF RADICAL ISLAMIC GROUPS IN ISRAEL: IMPLICATIONS FOR ISRAELI-ARAB COEXISTENCE
by Lt.-Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar

  As Mordechai Kedar writes, "The core question is to whom does this country belong? According to the Arab narrative, this has been an Arab Islamic state since the days of Omar, the caliph who conquered the country in the seventh century. According to the Islamic approach, since Islam began in 622 CE, all of history before that time has no meaning or significance." Nor do they accept that modern Israel holds the land because it overcame Arab invasions of Israel. Nevertheless, many of the names of the resident Arabs reflect the fact that they are not native to Israel but came originally from Egypt or Syria or Jordan or Lebanon or Iraq. And not that long ago. It is true that Islam insists that "land can only go one way, to become Islamic, and it can never go the other way," but why ever should we sane Westerners accept this Islam-centric view?
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BASIC THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW PRIME MINISTER
by Louis René Beres

  In this essay, Louse René Beres astutely advices the new prime minister of Israel to move cautiously. Some fundamental questions need to be answered: for example, for Israel's viability, is any form of diplomacy indicated? He notes that in its eagerness for peace, Israel has been too quick to follow directives from the "civilized world." As a result, it has yielded up Israeli land in return for nothing. Yet the Jews continue to hope for a negotiated peace while the Arabs speak plainly and truthfully that it is their "irremediable intention to annihilate the Jewish state." "For both Palestinian insurgents and Iran's president, conflict with Israel is always an all or nothing proposition [...] On the Palestinian and Iranian side, Oslo and 'Road Map' expectations have never been seen as anything more than a cost-effective method of dismantling Israel." If Israel is to survive, it must cast off some of its deepest-held fantasies, peace-seeking strategies and fallacious assumptions because it is dealing with Arab realists who know just what they want. They may on occasion need to slow down and may occasionally agree to negotiate, but they are never deviated from their goal — the destruction of Israel as a prerequisite to attacking the West. There is no middle ground and Israel should not be frittering away valuable time trying for measures — like a demilitarized Palestinian state — that look good but that have no substance. Beres' advice is both obvious and sensible: abrogate the Oslo Accord. It was a terrible and deadly mistake.
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As the previous set of essays report, Israel has a poor record in defending its political integrity. Even though the facts favor Israel, it has maintained a minimalist position. It responds to Arab distortions well past the time the Arab lies have gained ground. This set of essays discuss some additional Israeli problems: some of them internal, some the consequence of not being pro-active, some the result of poor judgment, some the consequence of a Marxist secular elite running many of the country's institutions.

POLITICS OF PALESTINIAN DEMOGRAPHY
by Yakov Faitelson

  Yoram Ettinger, who writes on the assesment of demographic data for Jews and Arabs, says about this essay by Yakov Faitelson: "Faitelson refutes Demographic Fatalism and documents Demographic Optimism. Faitelson highlights critical errors committed by demographic fatalism: understating Jewish fertility rate; overstating Arab fertility rate; ignoring the potency of annual Jewish Aliya (immigration) since 1882; overlooking the high Arab emigration; attributing to Jews West normative European demographic patterns, while Jewish demographics — and Jews in general — have been non-normative; accepting Palestinian Bureau of Statistics numbers without scrutiny, while these numbers have been inflated dramatically." Faitelson's essay is an excellent summary of actual demographic trends in Israel and the Territories.
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USING THE PRESENT TO FABRICATE HISTORY; USING HISTORY TO FABRICATE THE PRESENT
by Seth J. Frantzman

  A major reason Israel has communication problems is that the Arabs do so well fictionalizing history. This goes over well with an ignorant media. It is a truism that we see the present in terms of our history. Seth Frantzman makes the case for the converse: we see historical events in terms of our present biases. "... western slavery is seen as the greatest evil while Muslim slavery, which began earlier and murdered more people, is seen as positive and tolerant, all because we have a common view of the Old South as evil and Modern Islam as tolerant and diverse." Similarly, the PLO's new image as "moderate" is projected backwards. "People forget its role in Lebanon and Jordan, its mass murder of Olympic Athletes or its bombing of synagogues in Europe. People even forget that it was founded long before 1967, along with Fatah, and that its original goal was not the liberation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, but the opposite, only the destruction of Israel inside the Green Line." Part I presents a grotesque example of how the past is imagined as a doppelganger of the present in a book by a Holocaust survivor, who loathes Israel and blames America for the botchup in the Middle East. Part II describes the reality of life in Iraq in the 1920s. Despite our projected-backwards belief bolstering the assertion that modern-day Islam is tolerant, minorities in Muslim countries — Egypt's treatment of the Copts is an egregious example — were and are actively discouraged from maintaining their identities, until in many cases, they dwindle away. Part III gives us insight into at least one reason why Muslim countries are said to be tolerant and benign — their treatment by journalists as amplified in the Main Stream Press.
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PESSACH COMES
by Moshe and Rachel Saperstein

  Moshe Saperstein is in top form, his black humor at split-second timing as he records what he sees as his deteriorating body — which, all things considered, doesn't bother him as much as the soupy-headed ideas of much of the Israeli administration. in one essay, Rachel Saperstein writes of Aryeh Eldad — surgeon, politician and defender of the Jews of Gush Katif, when they were senselessly ripped out of their homes in Gaza — and his father, who she never met. She makes us wish that we too knew both father and son.
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THERE'S ROOM AT THE 'TREE' FOR YOU
by Catriel Sugarman

  Catriel Sugarman provides us with a brief but clear history of the Christian need to convert Jews. In modern times, this urgency has spawned Messianic Judaism. Initially conceived as a ruse to entice Jews into Christianity, it has — as do all social engineeering projects — had unintended consequences. It has mostly attracted Christians, some of whom try to live more or less "Jewish" while they acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, some of whom see themselves as the real Jews and are increasingly hostile to Judaism and some of whom have used it as a half way house to Judaism or Noahidism. It has also helped galvinize Jewish groups such as Jews for Judaism, Chabad and Aish HaTorah to work to stem the tide of Jews moving out of Judaism out of indifference, ignorance or amorphous spiritual longings. To date, missionaries of whatever stripe have been more of a problem in America, but Israel is also being targetted. A fascinating essay.
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THE SYRIAN FOOL'S ERRAND
by Bruce Thornton

  A major problem for the new Israeli administration is an American president who has not shown good instinctive judgment. He appears to have no familiarity with the major problem besetting the globe -- if anything, he has ignored the global Islamic insurgency and put all his eggs in the 'let's reason together' diplomacy basket. In this essay Bruce Thornton points out that Washington's last attempt at engaging Syria in diplomatic talks is but the latest of a long sequence of fool's errands. We've been there, done that. Again and again. It doesn't work. Why? The basic reason is simple but always ignored by diplomats and other fantasists: the Arab countries refuse to have a non-Muslim state in the Middle East. As a result, as Thornton writes, "We in the West assume that the Arab countries really want peace and coexistence with Israel, if only the Palestinian Arabs get their own state and the 'occupation' is ended. So ... we pressure Israel into making concessions and offers, the offers are turned down ..., and then the whole process ends with Israel excoriated on the world stage for her stubborn recalcitrance, and the U.S. condemned for not putting enough pressure on Israel to make a deal." Can diplomacy work? It depends on the objectives. Hitler and Ahmadinejad of Iran have found diplomacy an excellent delaying tactic while building a war machine. It works particularly well when the other side is a western fantasist.
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A REALITY CHECK ABOUT GAZA
by Martin Sherman

  The IDF fought in a disciplined fashion in Gaza, but they were hamstrung by the politicians, who feared a bad press. The IDF wasn't allowed to finish the job -- to destroy the sources and resources that continue to enable the Gazan terrorists to lob missiles at Israeli cities. In consequence, Hamas can, and does, claim victory. As Martin Sherman writes, Israel suffered a "calamitous diplomatic defeat" and "its international standing and image suffered." Sherman suggests the root cause of the poor showing in 2007 in Lebanon and now in Gaza is "a loss of faith in 'Victory' both as valid cognitive concept and as an attainable military objective... the real victor in both campaigns was in fact the myth of the 'The Impossibility of Victory.'" Israel needs to understand it will continue to be harassed by foreign politicians and local arabs until it is willing to "inflict a degrading defeat" on the radical Arabs and by military means make them understand that their "path can — and will — only lead to disgrace and dishonor."
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THE FAITHFUL CHILDREN
by Patricia Berlyn

  In the previous article, Martin Sherman indicated that convincing the politicians to change their belief structure is a major Israeli problem. In this essay, Patricia Berlyn writes of the IDF soldiers, who are disciplined and moral and more than willing to fight for their country. She writes about three of these soldiers and how they behaved during the Gaza campaign. Despite their discipline and compassion, the world press still managed to demonize them. And their politicians made sure they will have to fight again to finish Hamas' war from Gaza.
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These are studies of some Muslims and how they live. Pirates. The ordinary folk that were transformed into a Palestinian people. Moderate terrorists. Islamic clerics and their unusual ideas of how to utilize mosques. And oh yes, a suggestion that the clerics might consider leading the Muslim masses into the modern world.

JIHADI PIRATES ON HIGH SEAS: WHAT'S THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THEM?
by Walid Phares

  An American ship was recently hijacked by Somali pirates. The captain, Richard Phillips, acted heroically in protecting his crew as did the Navy snipers who took out the pirates. As reported in the Main Stream Media (MSM), Prez Obama got the credit. Actually the initiative came from the on-the-scene commander (see here.) while an indecisive Obama was still averaging out the advice from his multiple advisors. Further, the MSM ignored the fact that the pirates were Muslim and Jihadist. Walid Phares explains the significance of the episode thus: " [The pirates are] in fact part of a regional Jihadi apparatus ... [that] is not limited to the pirates but involves hostile forces from the mid Red Sea to East Africa. The Somali pirates are merely one facet of this grand circle."
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BARAKA
by Boris Zubry

  Boris Zubry has drawn on his experiences working in Saudi Arabia in several previous stories. In this one, he writes about a man named Baraka, an illiterate Muslim, a good observer, a philosopher of sorts. In our society he'd be called a homeless person. In his environment, he blends in. In this soliloquy he muses on a life filled with ugliness, abuse and death. Orphaned in Turkey he is routed to Gaza, where he and other immigrants from the Ottoman Empire "the refuse of the great empire, would" he writes, "claim this territory as our own. Who could say back then that they would teach us to hate the Jews more than the Turks?" He has been transformed into a "Palestinian." He has become member of a welfare group supported by the world and a useful weapon to club the Jews, but he is never allowed to be his own person.
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PALESTINIAN MODERATES WANT PEACE — WITH HAMAS, NOT ISRAEL
by Barry Rubin

  Months, if not years, of western and Israeli propaganda went out the window when Smiling Abbas — the Good Terrorist, Israel's 'peace partner' — announced he doesn't accept the Jewish state. Another assertion — that the PLO-PA moderates want to live in peace with Israel — was also punctured, as Barry Rubin demonstrates, when a leader of the moderates, Muhammad Dahlan, made it clear he seeks peace with Hamas, not with Israel. And the two are mutually exclusive.
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THE USE OF MOSQUES FOR MILITARY AND POLITICAL PURPOSES BY HAMAS AND OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND ISLAMIC GROUPS
by Reuven Erlich

  The Western mind doesn't see churches or synagogues as places to store and launch weaponry so it has difficulty believing Muslims have a different attitude towards mosques. Reuven Erlich provides us with detailed evidence that terror groups and their clerics find it acceptable to use the mosque for military purposes. Interestingly enough, this is not a recent innovation. As Erlich notes, "A commonly held view by Muslim religious scholars is that a mosque is more than just a place of worship and can have military and political uses, because in Muslim tradition Muhammad himself used the mosque for such purposes." What needs to be emphasized is that when a mosque is used to store explosives, launch missiles and train terrorists, it can not claim "the special protection afforded houses of worship [by international law] and may become legitimate targets for attack."
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ISLAM SHOULD PROVE IT'S A RELIGION OF PEACE
by Tawfik Hamid

  Geert Wilders' film FITNA links actual footage of violence committed by Islamists to quotes from the Koran. In consequence, Wilders has been accused of hate crime, and disrespect to Islam. Tawfik Hamid cut through the nonsense and asks the right question: "[is the] blame with Mr. Wilders, who simply exposed Islamic radicalism, or with those who promote and engage in this religious extremism." Phased thus, the answer is obvious. Hamid suggests it's time that Muslim scholars reinterpret the Koran to eliminate barbaric practices and the denigrating of other religions. These practices have no place in modern civilization. A fine idea but I'm not holding my breath.
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Sharia is gaining ground. Globally. Making alliances that are non-intuitive — like hooking up with Marxism and extreme Leftists. Making inroads into Europe by playing the downtrodden victim -- although there's some hope that some people have had enough. Making inroads into America by frightening us into redesigning our terror vocabulary Orwell-style. The last essay of the set suggests why it is that Islam is gaining in the West and what we need to do to regain our sense of nationhood.

WHAT IS MARXISM?
by Steven Plaut

  Nowadays, Communism seldom commands front-page headlines and "You're a Communist" has ceased to be a dreaded exclamation of disapprobation, So many a younger American haven't a clue to what Communism is. Marxism, the parent of Communism, unfortunately, is still very much with us and nicely sums up the ideology common to extreme left-wingers, socialists, communists, power-to-the-peoplers, wealth-distributors, welfare-staters, nanny-staters, radical judicial activists, illiberal liberals, identity-politicians and radical theologians. Steven Plaut defines Marxism for us in clear terms. It is particularly necessary, now that the new administration in Washington seems to have embarked on yet another version of Marxism.
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SHARIAH'S BROTHERHOOD
by Frank Gaffney, Jr.

  Given Pres. Obama's new policy of showing Islam unreserved (and perhaps undeserved) respect, the command centers of current-day Islamism are having an easier time in attempting to make Sharia law universal. In the latest scheme, the United Nations is urged to criminalize Islamophobia. Islamophobia is an odd term — it doesn't mean an irrational fear of Islam. It means in practice any word or deed that will upset a Muslim. "The demand that no criticism of Islam be permitted is the preeminent feature of the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts in the West." As Frank Gaffney, Jr. points out "the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam ... concludes with the caveat that, 'All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shariah.' Translation: Liberties enshrined in the UN's foundational Universal Declaration of Human Rights are largely rendered null and void." You are urged to contact the White House and speak against this threat to American freedom of speech.
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WARFARE THROUGH MISUSE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Elizabeth Samson

  Previous articles on Lawfare -- waging war by using the muscle of the legal system -- have focussed on specific cases and countries. In this article, Elizabeth Samson points out lawfare has acquired a global reach, using three legal manipulations: involving the International courts; "misus[ing] legal terminology to manipulate international institutions and the public"; and the "prosecution of foreign nationals in domestic courts for military and civilian action." Consequently, as she points out, "...the rule of law, a weapon designed to subdue dictators and tyrants is now being misused to empower the very same, and being manipulated to subvert real justice and indisputable truth. That is not the purpose the law is designed to serve." Lawfare is a particularly effective tool for Islamists to use because as Samson writes, "Lawfare is exponentially effective because one lawsuit can silence thousands who have neither the time nor the financial resources to challenge well-funded terror financiers or the vast machine of the international judicial system."
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SHARIA'S INROADS AROUND THE WORLD
by Olivier Guitta

  Olivier Guitta reviews the latest inroads Sharia law is making globally. In Pakistan, Sharia law has been imposed in the Swat valley. In Europe, it has made significant advances in the judiciary of several countries — Italy, France and Denmark — where the courts have ignored the laws of the land and have ruled in accordance with Islamic law. In England, many Englishmen are enthusiastically in favor of adopting portions of Sharia law. They may eventually find that just as it's impossible to be a little pregnant, it is impossible to adopt a portion of sharia law.
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EUROPE'S RIGHT TURN
by Bruce Bawer

  Bruce Bawer, an American who has lived in Europe for many years, is an astute observer of western Europe's changing political and social mores. Once proud of putting their socialist idealism into welfare practice, Europeans are finding that they can no longer afford the huge influx of Muslims living on their benevolence while attempting to subvert them to Sharia law. As one consequence, their socialized health and education systems are broken. As another, political alliances are in turmoil: while many voters are reacting to the deterioration of their countries by turning politically to the right, the entrenched political establishments are reacting by ignoring the Muslim threat and focussing on demonizing right-wing politicians. The U.S.A. should take warning.
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IRAN SETTING UP SHOP SOUTH OF THE BORDER
by Todd Bensman

  Iran doesn't just rant and polish her nuclear skills. It looks like she's taking advantage of a naive administration in Washington to infiltrate into Mexico. It's possible, of course, that Iran is lonely and just wants to chat with a fellow oil-producer. But we know that Muslims — Hezbollah included — come in from Mexico, blending in with the Mexican illegals, and occasionally leaving prayer mats at the border. It will certainly be nice for the Iranians to have America ignore them while they explore business opportunities with Mexican politicos and maybe even important Mexicans like the ones that run the drug cartels.
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NAIVETE KILLS
by Barry Rubin

  Barry Rubin writes of the arrogance and self-delusion of the ignorant reporter. He writes, "It never ceases to amaze me that people who know nothing about the Middle East, in this case Roger Cohen but many other names come to mind, can suddenly proclaim themselves experts and make the most elementary errors involving the lives of other people. It also never ceases to amaze me that people can visit a country, especially a dictatorship, be wined and dined, handed a line and believe it so thoroughly that their mind is closed ever after." They return and praise dictators, explain how justified the terrorists are and whitewash the Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, too often, they write for influential newspapers that help certify they are to be taken seriously. They act in this generation as the notorious Walter Duranty did in the 1920-30s when he assured New York Times readers the Soviet dictatorship — which was busy starving millions of Kulaks — wa benevolent, doing a fine job and was just right for the Russian people. Rubin suggests reasons why "the gap between reality and perception [is] so much wider on the Middle East than on other subjects or areas of the world."
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TEXTBOOK LIES ABOUT ISLAM
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Raymond Ibrahim discusses the treatment of Islam and Muslims in textbooks used to educate our children, noting that "key subjects like jihad, Islamic law, [and] the status of women are whitewashed." Textbooks mislead "by projecting Western interpretations onto Islam." As Ibrahim writes, "... necessary knowledge is not merely ignored, but not even acknowledged as real in the first place. When American universities [or high schools] fail to teach Islamic doctrine and history accurately, a flawed epistemology permeates society at large. And since new students and new professors come from this already conditioned - towards - Islam society, not only do they not question the lack of accurate knowledge and education; they perpetuate it." So it is that while textbooks in Muslim countries openly teach hatred and hostility for non-Muslims, or infidels,..." in this country, "the government is now pushing to ban Arabic words connotative of Islamic ideology from formal analysis..." Ibrahim asks, "if children are sheltered from ugly truths today, how can they ever be expected to confront them as adults tomorrow?"
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THE VOICE OF AMERICA SILENCED ON RADICAL ISLAM
by Daniel Pipes

  It is a telling point that almost 8 years after 9/11 we still don't have agreed-upon terminology to label the Muslims who declared war against the West, America and Israel in particular. In fact, as Daniel Pipes makes frighteningly clear, the situation has deteriorated from an inability to decide whether all Islam was resurgent or only a small percentage — say 150 to 200 million Muslims — was on the rampage. Now, in both England and U.S.A., the trend among our leaders is never to use terrorist and Muslim or Islamist and fundamentalist in the same breathe. In Orwellian fashion, we will soon have no vocabulary or only a neutered vocabulary to name the enemy. This is the thinking in the Administration in Washington, the State Department, Homeland Security, the National Counter Terrorism Center, and many in the media. Islamic terrorism is now considered as 'anti-Islamic activity', as if the ones suffering are the Muslims, not us.
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ISLAM AND THE WEST: LINES OF DEMARCATION
by Roger Scruton

  In this thoughtful essay, Roger Scruton asks why radical Islam is so successful in the war they initiated against the west. True, they are dedicated to jihad, and confident they will succeed, but a major reason for their gain is that, unfortunately, the West is not confident. Scruton fears we may be at a point "in which the legitimate claims of our own culture and inheritance will be ignored or downplayed in an attempt to prove our peaceful intentions." Scuton undertakes to "spell out some of the critical features of the Western inheritance which must be understood and defended in our current confrontation." He stresses that we can not succumb to the debilitating belief that we are to blame for Islam's behavior. "... our enemies' hatred of us is entirely unjustified; and ... their implacable enmity cannot be defused by our breast-beating." An important essay. Read it carefully.
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What shall we call the people who help resurgent Islam, sometimes unknowingly, but more often out of some conviction that makes them think their activities are the right thing to do? Fellow travellors? Useful idiots? Lobotimized peaceniks? They are overrepresented in the universities and the media. But they also pop up in American Jewish organizations and synagogues.

FOLLOWING THE HERD
by Barbara Barron

  In the last issue of Think-Israel, Steven Plaut discussed the politicization of the Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal. In this essay, Barbara Barron writes of other professional journals in England that have succumbed to one-sided politics, publishing inaccurate and unprofessional pro-Palestinian articles that indulge in attributing all Palestinian ills to the machinations of the Zionist entity. As Barron points out: "The deliberate use of a professional body's publication to promulgate personal political views, especially when many of these are based upon lies and misconceptions, is unethical as well as immoral. Any professional body which actively encourages this by publishing it is in gross dereliction of its duty."
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EXPOSED: HOW PALESTINIAN FIXERS MANIPULATE THEIR MEDIA BOSSES
by Honest Reporting Staff

  There's a problem when foreign journalists need to depend on locals to translate and smooth the way, especially when the locals have a third-world political agenda and no sense of fairness or professional ethics. The locals "can be selective with the information they feed the journalist or, at worst, mistranslate the words of the interview subjects." In Israel and the Territories, far too often the Arab fixers and translators "encourage journalists to report exclusively on the 'evils' of the Israeli occupation, rather than on the lack of democratic freedoms or human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza." This becomes the 'news' fed to the newpaper's readers. This essay by Honest Reporting Staff presents a case study of one such betweener -- Nidal Rafa, who is both committed to the Palestinian 'cause' and a presumably-impartial employee of CNN and NPR. She was often the gatekeeper for what got through to the final reader; and she didn't let professional standards and ethics stand in the way of obscuring the facts in favor of the image she wanted to project. She was finally outed when she indulged in an unprofessional tirade during a talk given by Danny Ayalon, Israel's ex-ambassador to the United States -- and this was caught on tape..
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POISONING THE AMERICAN MIND
by Daniel Doron

  This is an interesting case study on NPR's anti-Israel stance by Daniel Doron. NPR promotes the notion that Palestinian Arabs are a noble folk with a noble mission — to win back their homeland, occupied by Israel, who has no business being in the Middle East. They aren't indoctrinated with hate; no, of course not. The Palestinians resort to terrorism because they are weak and poor and have few resources. Israel is excoriated if — despite trying to avoid the human shields the terrorists cynically use — they hit one child. The Arabs, of course, are given a free pass, no matter how many Jewish children they deliberately kill. A noble mission is a powerful excuse. Just as interesting is the indignation shown by those who deny NPR's obvious bias. Doron records one such letter and his response.
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WHO WAS IT THAT DEMOLISHED THE WORLD TRADE CENTER (WTC)?
by Ron Mossad

  Ron Mossad takes on the conspiracy theorists who are sure it was the Jooz that attacked the World Trade Center. This time it's a chemistry teacher that's sure nano-thermite was the method used to ignite the buildings to a high enough heat to destroy the structure. What remains a mystery is how, when the culprits are known — the Saudis who learned to fly a plane but not how to land it — and the planes crashing into the building were witnessed by anyone owning a TV set, it is still the Jews who are blamed. But why stop there? In conspiracy-think, there was no Holocaust. Or it was greatly exaggerated. And the recent stock market and housing market crash? Maybe you think it was the politicians who forced the banks to lend to people who couldn't afford the homes they bought. Maybe you think it's groups like ACORN that used "the people" to persuade the politicians to insist the banks make risky loans. Maybe you think it was the bankers who saw a way to make a lot of money. The conspiracy theorists know better — they know it's the Jews.
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A METAPOLITICAL VIEW OF USEFUL IDIOTS
by Professor Paul Eidelberg

  For the last 30-35 years, Israel's leaders have pursued a monomaniacal policy of "land for peace," despite the fact that the Arabs continue to say openly — and demonstrate — that they wish to destroy Israel, not make peace. When Israel showed the Arab countries she could rebuff direct attack, they started following a phased peace-and-war strategy -- taking over in stages. Unfortunately, Israel's wrongheaded policy is reinforced by useful idiots in the Administration in Washington, who believe that, unlike all who have previously tried their hand at a two-state solution, they will succeed. They won't.
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OBAMA AS MUSLIM APOLOGIST: AMERICA "ENRICHED" BY ISLAM
by PauL L. Williams with Michael Travis

  Dr. Paul Williams takes issue with Pres. Obama's attempt to rewrite history when he said that over the centuries "the United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans." In fact, no Muslim was in the army as late as World War 1 and less than 5000 lived here as late as 1975. His assertion that America "is not and never will be at war with Islam" ignories that even in Washington's time, American ships were harassed by the Barbary pirates, an earlier version of today's Somali pirates. The larger issue, of course, is whether Americans "must deny their heritage as a people for the sake of globalism, multiculturalism, and a New World Order."
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U. PENN HILLEL WORKING WITH HAMAS-SUPPORTING MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION (MSA)
by Beila Rabinowitz and William Mayer

  Arab student venomous hostility to Jewish students became a front-page issue in 2002 when, at San Francisco State University, they physicaly attacked a group of Jewish students from Hillel, which, ironically, was marching around singing about the joys of peace. But apparently many Jews still refuse to accept that they have been selected as attackable objects of hate by the Muslims. Beila Rabinowitz and William Mayer chronicle a recent example at U Penn, where Hillel has partnered with Muslim Student Association (MSA), a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, to promote Shari'a law. They should look at Muslim websites, which make it clear that living with Jews in love and peace is not a Muslim goal. By participating in these "sham dialogues" the Jews don't persuade the Arabs to become peaceful. They do lose their self-respect.
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IS SELF-HATE A GOD OF THE JEWS?
by Seth J. Frantzman

  After reading so many books and articles by self-effacing Jews whose hearts go out to the Palestinians, never to the Jews, Seth Frantzman wonders if there aren't really two Judaisms, "one of Jews and the other of 'the Jews'." The first group practices the Jewish religion; the second talks about "being Jewish" and "what Jews should do." They distort the meaning of Jewish symbols and Jewish holidays to gain sympathy for the Palestinians and other causes, always for a group other than the Jews. Frantzman prefers actual, authentic Judaism, where one is instructed to kill one's intractable enemies, to the practise of the Jews in name only, who define "every cause as a 'duty' of Jews and who ceaselessly heap scorn and hate on other Jews because they believe those Jews reflect badly on them."
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History. These events took place after World War II and are part of the story of the creation of Israel.

WAVES OF FREEDOM
by Steve Kramer

  Steve Kramer writes of the years just after World War 2 when the survivors of the Holocaust were still languishing in temporary quarters in camps in Europe. The drive was on to bring these survivors to Palestine, despite the illegal and immoral ban the British had placed on Jewish immigration. The English had received the Mandate for Palestine to help Jews build their homeland. They did not honor their mandate, even when Hitler's policy of exterminating Jews made Palestine a desperately-needed haven. They encouraged Arab immigration and made bringing in Jews a hanging offense. After the War, ten American boats were retrofitted to transport civilians to Palestine. Kramer tells the story of one of these ships, HaTikvah. and the American volunteers, Jews and non-Jews, who manned it.
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ESPIONAGE AND THE ZIONIST ENDEAVOR
by Meir Zamir

  What a Eric Ambler plot for a novel! It is 1948 and a secret and very large arms deal between a Swiss company and Egyptian and Jordanian envoys is finalized in the office of the British minister of state for foreign affairs, with Ethopia acting as beard for arms that will actually be shipped to various Arab states. If all goes well, there'd be no chance of survival for the soon-to-be-born state of Israel. Fortunately, French intelligence and the Swiss Government learn of the "Swiss-Ethiopian" arms sale, and it falls through. This isn't fiction; it happened. Meir Zamir traces the ramifications of the transaction for us, with the Hagana and France pitted against England and the Arab states. Subplots include England engineering a crisis in Syria to oust France, France planting a mole in the British Legation in Beirut and the Hagana seizing British diplomatic mail en route to the port of Haifa. It is a fascinating detailed look at a real-life spy thriller with duped diplomats, blackmailable leaders, spies, moles and duplicitous British politicians who schemed to divide Palestine among the Arab countries, not help it become a Jewish state. The underlying theme is the contrast between the actual manipulations by the colonial powers and their official position of neutrality in the Arab-Israel confllict. Scene 1 was soon followed by the invasion of the fledgling state of Israel by the neighboring Arab countries.
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REMEMBERING THE MASSACRE OF THE HADASSAH CONVOY APRIL 13, 1948
by Dr. Alex Grobman

  Alex Grobman recalls the last days of the Mandate period. Jews fought against the British to take the land already granted them and fought side by side with the British against the Germans. They also provided experts in fighting local medical problems — blood diseases, jaundice, dysentery, exotic fevers and an abundance of disease-carrying insects and poisonous snakes. The local Arabs, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, an associate of Adolph Hitler, violently attacked both Jew and Brit. Grobman focuses on the day they ambushed a convoy of non-combatant Jews and massacred most of them, while the Brits, who had promised safe passage, watched and did nothing.
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READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

March 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
April 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE




January-February, 2009

What we are talking about in the January-February 2009 issue:

PART I: STAGES OF THE GLOBAL MUSLIM TAKEOVER
WHAT THE END-POINT OF A MUSLIM TAKE-OVER LOOKS LIKE (Sultan Knish, Fighel, Guitta, Tibi, Inbar and Kedar, Khalaji, Rubin)
MUSLIM SOCIETY (Ibrahim, jasser, Emerson, Hertz, PeoplesCube, Mirza )
ENGLAND ON THE TAKEOVER SCALE (Fjordman, Silverberg, Hove, Plaut, Ceren, Bat Yeor, Wilders)
FOISTING MUSLIM IDEOLOGY ON AMERICA (Shorrosh, Shaidle, McLaughlin, Stillwell, Emerson, Pearl, Shulman, Sacks, Merkley)  
PART II: ISRAEL BEARS THE BRUNT
INSTITUTIONAL ANTI-SEMITISM (Levin, Berlyn, Cotler, Eye on the UN, Tossavainen, Ross, Steinberg, Cravatts, Gerstenfeld, MacEoin, Spiegel Staff)
GAZA, HAMAS AND THE GAZA INVASION (Frantzman, Surbeck, McCarthy, Eastman, Harari, Rosett, McLeod, Cohen, Carmon et al, Feder)
THE START OF THE CURRENT GAZA PROBLEM: EXPELLING THE GAZA JEWS (Saperstein, Lerner, Shulman)
WE NEED NEW THINKING: TIRED NON-SOLUTIONS AND SOME NEW POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS (Grief, Eidelberg, Bingham, Dann, Leder and Greenfield, No Sharia, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, Sultan Knish, Basch, Shoher, Warren, Freund)
HISTORY SECTION (Sharpe, Hertz, Krakow)
BLOG-ED PAGES (January, February)

PART I: STAGES OF THE GLOBAL MUSLIM TAKEOVER:

We are encouraged to view the various terrorist groups as independents — each with its own set of grievances. But maybe the cartoon riots served an unintended purpose — showing us a commonality. As the essays suggest, the goal is the same. The differences are a function of how far the Islamists have succeeded in infiltrating and overcoming a particular country.

David Meir-Levi lists the 10 stages in how to take over a country "peacefully." He considers Bangladesh at Stage 9, the EU and UK at stage 7 ready to move into 8, the USA at around Stages 4 or 5.
— (www.FrontPageMag.com, April 26, 2006). Considering how far along once-Great Britain has come, perhaps its ranking should be upgraded.

  1. Infiltrate quietly, settling in small numbers near or among the locals' towns and villages.

  2. Establish friendly relations, and convince others of the virtues of Islam.

  3. Participate in community activities and provide charity for the poor and generosity to all, while encouraging the immigration of other Muslims.

  4. Get converts and supporters from the rank and file of the local population, particularly from the poor and disenfranchised of the host society, via the multiple mosques and madrasas and charitable and human rights groups. (Today, in the case of the US and EU, converts come in great numbers from the ranks of criminals, especially imprisoned African-Americans.)

  5. Agitate for greater and broader rights and considerations for Muslims, and for protection against real or imagined "Islamophobia".

  6. Organize a political party to push for changes in law to permit Muslim-only enclaves and for laws that formalize the host society's accommodation of Muslim religious needs.

  7. Institute the divide-and-conquer strategy of making pacts with some anti-establishment or minority government groups, legal (as has been done in the USA with Green Party, National Lawyers Guild) or illegal (KKK, Aryan Nation) so they will help in the following stages.

  8. Once you have the power base (some 10-15 percent of the population), then use violence, strikes, street riots, assassination, intimidation and bribery of government officials to destabilize the government.

  9. If the host country's government response to the violence is not effective, then there is a de facto green light to start full-blown terrorism which will topple the government and allow Muslim leaders to move up the power ladder with the help of the anti-establishment groups. Once in power, Muslim leaders can use their influence over the agitating Muslim population to quell the violence, thus pretending that they are helping restore order even as they themselves orchestrate the violence.

  10. Abandon the erstwhile anti-establishment allies and reign supreme; establish Shari'a, and declare the state to be a new Muslim nation where Shari'a is law and non-Moslems are dhimmi.
 

The first article in this set explains why the attempt to co-exist with Islam is never static. The other articles examine what the end-point of a Muslim Take-Over looks like — the Muslim countries of the Middle East provide us with excellent examples. Use a big enough magnifying glass and there are many inter-state differences. But there's a sameness that overrides the differences: a lack of democracy, a lack of human and civil rights, a lack of respect for women, an intolerance for differing points of view, ugly treatment of non-Muslims and barbaric punishments for what the rest of the world would regard as non-crimes or crimes worthy only of minimal punishment. In sum, whether voiced openly or when actions do the speaking, there's a willingness to be guided by Mohammad's unrevised teachings.
     Perhaps most shocking is Saudi Arabia's godfather role in maintaining terrorist groups. Most disheartening — Turkey has a long history of secularization at least in its government and judiciary but with the election of a strong Islamist party, it seems to be sliding back into the orthodoxy practiced by all the other Muslim countries.

 

LIVING WITH CANCER, LIVING WITH ISLAM
by Sultan Knish

  A corollary to seeking accommodation with Islam is the belief that if we fulfill their current demands, Muslim demands for furthering Islam will stop. The situation will become static. It will have reached equilibrium. This is never true. It can't be true, because the thrust of resurgent Islam is what it has always been when not kept down — to become our overlords. Sultan Knish compares this ambition to the growth of a cancer — you can only stop it by drastic measures.
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THE SAUDI CONNECTION TO THE MUMBAI MASSACRES: STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS FOR ISRAEL
by Col. (res.) Jonathan Fighel

  Our friends the Saudis don't get the credit they deserve for playing both ends against the middle and paying off everybody. This essay by Jonathan Fighel examines one of their recent spectacular successes — the slaughter in Mumbai of non-Muslims staying at well-known tourist hotels and Jews staying at the out-of-the-way Chabad house. The deed was done by a local Muslim terrorist group in Mumbai. But the money for the months of training it took to carry out the task faultlessly came largely from the Saudis; their sense of righteousness came from the Saudi-promoted reading of the Koran; and their group coherence came from Saudi techniques of social engineering, which develop social networks for group solidarity and responsiveness to Saudi ideology. As Fighel points out, "The bottom line is that we are seeing the same pattern of global jihad-oriented groups starting to be active in Gaza." Global jihad takes advantage of local hostilities and emotions, but its motive power comes from a well-financed promotion of Islamic ideology.
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HOMEGROWN THREAT AGAINST SAUDI ARABIA
by Olivier Guitta

  Olivier Guitta writes how Wahhabi teachings about hate have come home to Saudi Arabia to roost and kill. This should have been clear right after 9/11. All but a couple of the terrorists were Saudis. They grew up in Saudi Arabia. They got their early education in Wahhabi mosques in Saudi Arabia. Now they wish to rid their homeland of foreign influences. To visualize their brainwashing a couple of decades ago, look at the pictures of young Palestinian Arabs blowing themselves up because they can kill a few Jews that way. Look at the toddlers being taught to hate the Jews and how to murder them. Conversely, we can project what the newer generation will do when they are older. England is already seeing what Wahhabi mosque education can teach in designing a successful bombing. Maybe we in America should start paying more attention to what the kiddies are learning from the Wahhabi mullahs in American mosques.
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ISLAMISTS APPROACH EUROPE: TURKEY'S ISLAMIST DANGER
by Bassam Tibi

  Bassam Tibi talks about the changes in Turkish society and in its attitude towards Europe since the Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi (AKP) came into power. Tibi points out that AKP aims at "... a creeping Islamization that culminates in a Shari'a (Islamic law) state not compatible with a secular, democratic order." And it favors Islamization of Europe. Ironically, AKP is backed by both the U.S.A. and the European Union. Consequently, "in Turkey, the West loses its true friends: liberal Muslims."
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EGYPT IS NOT GOING TO STOP THE SMUGGLING INTO GAZA
by Efraim Inbar and Mordechai Kedar

  It is only in contrast to blatantly anti-semitic, totally off-the-wall countries like Iran that Egypt can be considered a moderate country. It has a veneer of modernity and civility and secularism — if you discount the barbarism with which it treats its religious minorities such as the Christian Copts. And, despite a peace treaty with Israel whereby it regained all the land it lost when it invaded Israel, Egypt can not be considered a good neighbor. Instead, it plays a two-faced game that is overtly helpful or neutral or statemanlike but in actuality is hostile towards Israel. Smuggling by the Gaza arabs through tunnels that exit in Egypt is a case in point. As Efraim Inbar tells us, "Egyptian behavior is intriguing and cunning," designed to keep Israel off-balance and engaged in conflict with Hamas.
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EGYPT'S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND IRAN
by Mehdi Khalaji

  Viewing the Muslim world as engaging in a bitter contest between Shi'ites and Sunnis may be a reasonable generalization for the long run but it's is a poor predictor of local and special-purpose political ties. Shi'ite Iran has long supported Sunni Hamas, which was established by the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood (MB), an organization that has a strong base in Egypt. And Iran helped shape Islamist revivalism in Egypt. Conversely, the fundamentalist MB has helped structure Iran's rigid Islamic ideology, making it the glue in which all of Iran's political, economic and social institutions are set. Mehdi Khalaji examines the ambivalent relationship between MB and Iran, both of which see the West as the enemy they are determined to conquer. Add to the mix the fact that MB has a good chance of governing Egypt when Mubarak dies; add in Iran's bonding with Hamas; add that both Iran and MB are successfully expanding. It could be an explosive mix.
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AN OPENING TO IRAN? THEY'VE SOLD US THIS RUG BEFORE
by Michael Rubin

  Michael Rubin traces the history of how we have tried over the years to reduce Iran's hostility by diplomatic means. He points out that Obama's announced willingness to talk without preconditions with Iran is not new. "Washington and Tehran have never stopped talking; indeed, many of Obama's supposedly bold initiatives have been tried before, often with disastrous results." As example, when the Iranians held our men hostage, Carter's pleas to the Iranians to sit and talk encouraged Iran to make ever more outrageous demands. "In fact, Obama's inattention to timing and target replicates Carter's failure. His outreach to Ahmadinejad" might well make Ahmadinejad a hero and winner of the forthcoming election. Hardly a wish come true.
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The previous set of essays looked at examples of states deeply steeped in the compleat Islamic view of how the world should behave in all aspects of life. The essays in the next set of essays look at Muslim society generically: how it is anchored in Koranic teachings and how it functions today, whether it be in control of the government or embedded in a larger society.

ISLAM, WAR, AND DECEIT: A SYNTHESIS
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Raymond Ibrahim has previously written about the Islamic view that waging war against infidels is a continuous process, with only a single acceptable endpoint. He was distressed that the connection between Koranic doctrine and the deceitfulness with which Islam wages war is ignored in the West. (See here.) In this essay, he explores in detail the importance the Koran itself bestows on the use of deceit in war and how seriously modern-day Islamic practioners of war and apologists for Islam take this instruction. As Ibrahim concludes: "...any Muslim who closely observes Sharia law — the definition of a Muslim — ... will always have a 'divinely sanctioned' right to deceive, until 'all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah.'"
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THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN UNDER ISLAMISM: TIME FOR MUSLIMS TO SHED THE DENIAL
by M. Zuhdi Jasser

  "Wife seeks divorce. Husband beheads her." We'd expect this to be a sensational, long-running news story, with reporters obsessively exploring every facet. Did the husband's religion really gave him permission to murder his wife? Was he was the "moderate Muslim" he claimed to be? It didn't happen. M. Zuhdi Jasser explores an important issue this 'non-story' highlights: denial in both the Main Street Media and in the American Muslim community. As a reader of the story sarcastically commented, "There we go again, wanting to impose our culture on someone else."
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'MODERATE' MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CLERIC IS ANYTHING BUT
by Steve Emerson

  Steve Emerson writes of Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a man who can speedily organize mobs when they are needed, a man noted for his organizational and leadership abilities, a man with a ferocious hatred of Jews. Despite his connections to terrorist financing and his fatwas that encourage using women suicide-murderers and murdering homosexuals and apostates, he has a cadre of prominent apologists who insist he's a moderate Muslim — and this lie is often repeated as fact in the Main Stream Media. Of course, within the Muslim milieu, his extremist statements may be moderate. (For additional information on his position in the Muslim Brotherhood, read this and this.)
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PALESTINIAN ARAB CHILDREN DYING TO KILL: PURPOSELY SACRIFICING CHILDREN
by Eli E. Hertz

  Brainwashing is retooling someone's belief system. In a recent example, it's been found the Israelis had to brainwash their soldiers in order to get them to expel fellow Jews from their homes in Gush Katif, Gaza in the summer of 2005. It doesn't seem the right way to describe what the Palestinian Arabs are doing to their children. As Eli Hertz writes, the children are taught from toddler-age to hate and to desire to kill fellow human beings. Maybe we need a new word: the Arabs braindirty their children, so they grow from little monsters to big monsters, with little sense of humanity or decency. This is truly child abuse.
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OMS - OFFENDED MUSLIM SYNDROME AND SELF-HELP SUPPORT GROUPS
by Red Square of People's Cube

  The People's Cube is a very funny website that makes some very serious points. This article highlights the Islamists' talent for playing victim while making pests of themselves. The ability of the Muslim to be offended by almost anything is also noted and cures are thoughtfully provided.
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WALKING AWAY FROM ISLAM
Front Page Magazine interviews Dr. Syed Kamran Mirza

  Dr. Mirza was born into a family of devout Muslims in Bangladesh and received a religious education, which didn't include a translation from the Arabic. In this interview, he talks about the events that initially shook his faith but it wasn't until he began studying the Qur'an that he rejected Islam. Speaking about the many terror groups and their ever-changing names, he says, "... their ultimate connection is of course their giant umbrella organization of modern day Islamic Jihad called Al-Qaeda — which is well connected to Islam and Qur'anic teachings." We should take seriously his assertion that Islamic terrorism "...is a more dangerous and deadlier phenomenon than communism." He makes the point that it is not a winning strategy to appease the Muslims or to babble that "[t]errorists are not real Muslims, Islam is a religion of peace." "Remember," he reminds us, "Muslims do believe strongly that Allah is working behind their ulterior plan of converting the entire earth under the fold of Islam; they call it peace or surrender."
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England is one of the many countries in Europe that are excellent examples of countries coming very close to the brink. People such as Aude Signoles — a political scientist, an expert on Palestinian communities and decidedly pro-Palestinian — fear that Europe is growing less sympathetic to the Arabs. "Europe fears an Islamist threat, whether internal or external, and this has begun to change the overall views on the Israel-Palestine conflict." Most observers, however, believe that Europe must make a strong assertion of its own identity and very soon, or it will be overwhelmed by Islam within a few years. These essays explore the theme. Several focus on what's happening to Geert Wilders. Is this the start of a reaction to the Muslim takeover or just another indicator that it's happening?

MULTICULTURALISM, SELF-INFLICTED DEFEAT OF THE WEST AND THE TRIUMPH OF ISLAM
by Fjordman

  Fjordman is one of the great essayists of our time, providing us with reasoned analyses of trends others do not perceive until long after he has discussed them. This essay is somewhat different. Oh, he definitely makes the case that Britain is fast being Islamicized, perhaps irretrivably, by the Muslims — and America may not be far behind. But the tone is clearly not dispassionate. He mourns for the England that was and regrets what England — as well as all of Europe — is allowing itself to become.
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THE BANALITY OF EVIL
by Mark Silverberg

  In this essay, Mark Silverberg gives us a good sense of the ominous anti-semitic environment in which English Jews now live. David Dastych, who sent Think-Israel this article wrote, "This is an excellent article showing how dangerous is an anti-Semitism of today and how indulgent are the media and societies of Europe towards islamist radicalism and terrorism. Euroarabia is more and more a reality than a theoretical notion. The anti-Semitic excesses in Europe are nothing but a prognostic of a great danger the Western civilisation is facing now and will be facing in the years to come."
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THE CUT-AND-OMIT TV NEWS
by Odd Sverre Hove

  This essay is a case study of the biased pro-Arab news coverage in Middle East reporting by a particular Norwegian T.V. station, Dagsrevyen. Odd Sverre Hove describes how Dagsrevyen presented the start of the second Intifada in 2000 and the lynching of Israeli reservists in Ramallah, and how, because essential facts were omitted, both accounts differed from the reality. Sad to say, Hove is accurately describing the "normal" state of TV coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict not only by Dagsrevyen but by most TV news stations in Europe — and for any time period.
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THE LANCET'S MISDIAGNOSIS OF GAZA
by Steven Plaut

  In England, the increase in both insensitive anti-semitism and "sensitivity" to Muslim desires go hand in hand with a corruption in standards of many of England's institutions. Medical journals would seem unlikely candidates for politicizing issues but they, too, have been affected. The leading British medical journal, the Lancet has disregarded scholarly standards for several years now and happily pimps for the Arab cause against both Israel and America. They recently issued a defective monograph on Gaza and Arab health. It has reminded Steven Plaut of some earlier excesses by the Lancet.
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I'M GOING TO MISS WESTMINSTER ABBEY
by Omri Ceren

  Fjordman's essay provided us with a keen summary of how sharia law is gaining power in England and Mark Silverberg focused on the concomitant rise of anti-semitism. This essay by Omri Ceren recounts some significant details that highlight how rapidly England is changing. the Muslims are demanding special treatment almost as fast as officials in the police, the church, the schools and in parliament are picking up the pace in satisfying their demands. The situation is well beyond the amusing bits we've heard about: abolishing piggy banks because Muslims don't eat pork; not allowing Brits to eat lunch openly during Ramadan because their Muslims coworkers are fasting; and changing educational standards to accomodate Muslim students. The much diminished pride in England's Christian and democratic roots is too weak to withstand a resurgent and often violent Islam. The English are responding by adopting practices that arise from Islamic ideology, including a rapidly-growing overt and even violent hatred of the Jews.
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GEERT WILDERS AND THE FIGHT FOR EUROPE
by Bat Yeor

  We should all take to heart Bat Yeor's right-on-target analysis of what the persecution of Geert Wilders really signifies: "In its efforts to defend the 'true image' of Islam and combat its defamation, the Organization [of the Islamic Conference (OIC) ] has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish "Islamophobia" and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC's view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless 'dialogues.' It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations' own leftist parties."
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WHAT I PLANNED TO SAY IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS
by Geert Wilders

  What is happening to Geert Wilders, a film maker and a member of the Dutch parliament — Holland is a country traditionally tolerant of deviant life styles — epitomizes the Orwellian world we seem to be living in. Wilders mades a film that is billed as "controversial." It may be distasteful, impolitic, impolite, but how controversial can it be when it is mostly citations from the Koran appropriate to film strips of actual (not reconstructed) events? (See the film here.) He was chastized because he — not the Koran, not Muslim terrorists — is committing a hate crime! What happened to him is a smaller-scale version of what the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is pushing through the UN — namely that any criticism of Islam is to be treated as a hate crime, while Muslims and their friends will be allowed to continue to foam at the mouth vilifying all other religions. Wilders was then not allowed entry into England. This is the speech he would have given there.
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These next essays chronicle some institutions and groups that provide a home for foisting Muslim ideology onto America. The pressure is more subtle than in countries where Islamic ideology has sway. In his new book, Robert Spencer calls it Stealth Jihad, an apt term, which, as he writes, is subverting America without guns or bombs. Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood are sources of money, ideology and organizational tools; and the Saudis, in particular, can pay for a lot of help. We look now at Middle East Studies programs and the media, churches and disaffected Jews. To add to our problems, governmental organizations help introduce Islamic ideology — the Treasury Department giving courses in Sharia banking, as an example (see previous issues). The essay on the U.S. Army War College and Hamas is about another infiltration. And the prisons have for years proven to be a ever-renewable source of converts to Islam.

Some oddities about the associations that Islamists have formed are hard to explain. The joining together of white Marxists, black liberation theologists and Islamists, who still view slavery as acceptable, is real but not explicable in strict ideological terms. Homosexuals march for Palestinians and feminists excuse the treatment of women in Arab countries, but neither of these groups thrive in Koran-dominated countries.

 

TWENTY-YEAR PLAN FOR USA: ISLAM TARGETS AMERICA
by Dr. Anis Shorrosh

  This is a reposting of an article that first appeared in the May-June 2004 issue. This was the introduction: "It is commonly believed that at the moment, Islamists are focused on ridding the Middle East of Jews and other 'foreigners'. The battle for America is to come later. Dr Anis Shorrosh disagrees. He believes Islamists have already begun an intensive attack on America. This is his checklist of what they have already begun to do."
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MUSLIMS IN AMERICA
by Kathy Shaidle

  This is the start of a series of articles on how far and on how many fronts radical Islam has infiltrated America. It is interesting to compare Kathy Shaidle's Overview to Shorrosh's steps in an Islamic takeover (see above). Viewed as separate events, the trend is easy to ignore. It is only when the various encroachments are put in context does a pattern begin to emerge. In this issue, Shaidle examines the American prisons, where so many prisoners have been recruited into Islam.
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SCARY COURT CASES
by Tom McLaughlin

  Tom Mclauglin discusses two impossible-to-believe current court cases: one against the American, Roger Barnett; the other against the Dutchman, Geert Wilders. In the National Review, Bat Yeor writes that Wilders persecution was an instant of a ever-growing problem — in criminalizing "Islamophobia," Europe is trashing its own culture to appease Islamists (see Bat Yeor's article above). The Barnett case is equally outrageous — illegals running the border are suing Barnett for stopping them. (I wonder how they knew what lawyer to hire and where did they get the money to do so?) Are we playing catch-up with Europe in succumbing to Islamist coercion?
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HAMAS'S ACADEMIC CHEERLEADERS
by Cinnamon Stillwell

  Wouldn't you think that all the Middle Eastern Studies departments still led by the ghost of Edward Said would make some sheepish apology because their wise words and predictions about the Middle East became part of the 9/11 meltdown? Or why don't they just shut up. But judging from Cinnamon Stillwell's citations, they are still out there making bizarre assertions, demonizing Israel, making saints of the Arab murderers. As she says, "The next time one of these 'experts' purports to educate the masses on this most crucial of conflicts, consider the source."
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U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PUBLISHES APOLOGIA FOR HAMAS
by Steve Emerson

  Ever since George Bush declared Islam was a peaceful religion soon after 9/11, we've been in the nightmarish position of promoting the ideas of the enemy who declared war on us. Steve Emerson writes about a particularly bizarre example: our Army War College — those are the people that educate the people in charge of making major decisions in fighting our wars — has just issued a monograph that "is more accurately described as an apologia for Hamas" and that "consistently demonizes Israel and its legitimate defense of national sovereignty under international law." What a far cry from World War 1, when Americans renamed sauerkraut — with its German association — Liberty cabbage.
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DUST OVER CAMPUS LIFE: UCLA AT A CROSSROAD
by Judea Pearl

  A recent "symposium, organized by UCLA's Center for Near East Studies (CNES), was billed as a discussion of human rights in Gaza." It of course was nothing of the sort — it was a prolonged one-sided mendacious rant against Israel. What made it particularly poisonous is, as Judea Pearl notes, that it was written up in the campus newspaper as "Scholars Say Attack on Gaza an Abuse of Human Rights," to which the good name of the University of California was attached..."[emphasis added] This trend of appropriating the power of a passive University will continue to happen as long as Jewish academics are too timid or too imbued with a "live and let live" mentality when they are confronted by a group of agressive pro-Arab academics, who are determined to demonize Israel, Zionism and Judaism. Aside from the tarnished name of the University, which preaches 'free speech' but doesn't make sure it isn't suppressed by intimidation, the other victims were the Jewish students, who saw that their elders were too timid to create a unified front to defend academic freedom — and them. Judea Pearl believes things may be going to change. Let's hope this isn't wishful thinking.
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ANTI-ZIONIST PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES: TWO JOURNALISTS AND AN ACADEMIC
by Richard H. Shulman

  Richard Shulman examines several prop-ed pieces, two from major newspapers and one by an academic in an internet group. The reputation of the newpapers and the academic standing of the writer do much to persuade the reader he is receiving impartial, in-depth information about the particular story. There is some background information, there are the details that make the story interesting and there is a sizing up of the alleged "important issues", all in an easy-to-swallow capsule. There is also, unfortunately, intemperate bias, distortions, omissions and misinformation, which may condition the reader to come to a particular conclusion but, unfortunately, they prevent him from acquiring an understanding of what is really going on.
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THE PREDICTABLE PALESTINIAN PROPAGANDA PLOY
by Leslie Sacks

  Fox News is constantly being demonized by the more leftist press because it doesn't automatically condemn Israel. Yet it too has its staunch pro-Muslim advocates, the dramatic though seldom accurate Geraldo Rivera, and its guru when there's a crisis, Hanan Ashwari. As Leslie Sacks writes, "[Ashwari] harangues the audience with emotional and outrageous untruths, with nary a criticism. The interviewers, it seems, go mute in the face of such passionate, well-spoken English from the West Bank." Surely, there are better ways for Fox to be fair and balanced in its reporting.
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JIMMY CARTER, ISRAEL, THE CHURCH, AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
by Paul Charles Merkley

  Paul Merkley writes that "[a]s an evangelical Christian, Jimmy Carter knows that most fellow-evangelicals regard the coming-into-existence of Israel ... as a proof of the validity of the Word of God..." But over time he has moved away from his stated commitment to this view to a "Palestinian counter-historical narrative — how the Canaanites became the Arabs." "To enter into argument with this counter-history is a hopeless task, as it stands entirely on re-iterated fantasy." Merkley points out that "Carter attributes his reformed perspective" to the urgings of Anwar Sadat, who has written "The assassination of Arab brethren like Goliath, by Jewish sheep-herders like David, is the sort of shameful ignominy that we must yet set aright in the domain of the occupied Palestinian homeland." By now, Carter has gone "...beyond classic replacement theology [God has shifted his promises to the Jews to the Church] to also include the Muslims. He could be considered just another hard-working apologist for the Palestinian Arabs, defaming both Jews and fellow-evangelicals who disagree with him, but given his stature, he has opened up yet "another front of intra-Church conflict."
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PART II: ISRAEL BEARS THE BRUNT

Through no fault of its own, Israel has been thrust into the front lines of fighting back Islamism. It couldn't have happened at a worse time. Her Marxist citizens — who control the media — are so intent on pleading the claims of the Palestinian Arabs to the Land of Israel, they ignore the predictable endpoint: if they are successful, they will be massacred. While the American administration was ambivalent, Israel frittered away the opportunity to solidify her irrevocable claim to all of Israel — including the Territories — and reduce the strength of her enemy's proxies — Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah and friendly Egypt. Now she confronts an American administration which is starting to act as if ideologically committed to a Muslim/Marxist view of the world.

The outline is clear. Israel is not willing to be submerged into Islam. Despite its weak leadership and Marxist media, it hasn't knuckled under. So big non-military guns are trained on it by respectable institutions within the United Nation and/or affiliated with it. The Catholic Church, which never deviated from its fight against Communism, has shown an uncharacteristic timidity in confronting Islam. Europe, which has few allies to help it resist being taken over by Islam, has manifested bizarre behavior. Instead of fighting Islam, it fights a proven ally — Israel. Moreover, Israel has an internal enemy: Marxist Jews embedded in its universities are so cocooned in their ideology, they also fight Jews, not Arabs.

We also discuss the recent war in Gaza and Gaza's overlords, Hamas. We remind the reader that many of the problems are directly traceable to the unfathomable decision to herd the Gaza Jews out of Gaza in the summer of 2005, leaving a unmonitored area for the Palestinian Arabs to do what they wanted. What they did was to toss missiles, lob bombs and do their suicide-murder shtick.

The final sections are on why it's time the Jews asserted what is true: they own the Land of Israel. And that includes the Territories. We discuss some non-solutions and present some solutions that are currently being tossed around in the media and think-tanks.

 

The essays in this set mostly deal with non-Islamic (or putative non-Islamic) institutions that display in-your-face anti-semitism. Institution-sponsored anti-semitism comes from the U.N. and its affiliates. The media and academics are active players as are a minority of the Protestant Evangelicals. And we are hearing again from unmuzzled bishops of the Catholic Church. Shades of Father Coughlin! But, as Kenneth Levin points out, Israel's major problems stem from poor decisions it has made — i.e., accepting the Oslo Accord and sticking to it long after it was obviously not working and then making Gaza judenfrei — to accomodate its enemy at the expense of its own citizens.


 

IS ISRAEL DOOMED
by Kenneth Levin

  Kenneth Levin writes that "[i]n addition to the animosity of the Arab world, Israel is faced with much hostile sentiment in Europe, fed by traditional anti-Semitism, by leftist anti-Americanism and association of Israel with America, by perverse, ahistorical leftist twisting of the Israeli-Arab conflict into Israeli colonialists brutalizing the supposedly indigenous population, and by the European media being house organs for anti-Israel bigotry of all these pedigrees." Add in the hate exhibited by various organs of the United Nations, peace-at-any-price Israelis, radicalized Israeli Arabs, estranged diapora Jews, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the constant barrage of rocket fire. That's a lot of ill-will directed against a tiny country. Yet its major problems seem of its own making: suffering Hezbollah attacks for years and then attacking without real preparation; expelling the Jewish residents of Gaza; and most stupidly, its pretending it had peace partners, when all these partners wanted was to destroy Israel. It needs to get over its "desire to propitiate its enemies, to see salvation in concessions and self-reform and to ignore the nature and the dimensions of the threat." This is a very wise assessment.
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PERVERSE CHILDREN
by Patricia Berlyn

  Patricia Berlyn provides us an insightful look at the "self-hating" Jew. She points out that for these perverse children, "[i]t is not enough for them to cast off a Jewish identity and merge into the mainstream; they must take on the identity of the most Judeophobic elements of that mainstream." Their talent for inventing reasonable-sounding but spurious arguments have provided the Judeophobes and the recently-invented people, the "Palestinians", some of their best material.
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MAKING THE WORLD JUDENSTAATREIN
by Irwin Cotler

  Irwin Cotler describes the rise of a new type of anti-semitism. "... classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations — the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to live — with Israel as the 'collective Jew among the nations.' Judenstaatrein applies to the Jewish state as judenrein does to jews. Cotler describes some characteristics of Judenstaatrein anti-semitism: it is overtly proposed by states; it is unabashedly proclaimed in terror-state proxies: the terror organizations of Hamas, PLO, Hizbullah, etc.; it has the weight of Islamic clerics and media behind it. Classic anti-semitism used the language of racism; this brand uses the benign words of humanism and civil rights. This article suggests that we can no longer pretend that those who want to destroy Israel are not gunning for Jews everywhere. This article needs to be taken seriously.
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PLANNING FOR DURBAN II — A CONFERENCE ON RACISM SCRIPTED BY RACISTS
by Eye on the U.N.

  We present excerpts from Eye on the U.N. Reports on the Planning Committee as recorded by Anne Bayefsky. The President of the Planning Committee is Libya; Iran is a Vice-President and non-countries like the Palestinian Delegation can help set the agenda. The Arab Bloc dominated the discussions, while the delegates from European Union bobbled their heads in agreement. What is disheartening is that the American Administration sat silent while the 'Zionism is Racism', the 'Arabs are victims of islamophobia', 'the Palestinians need protection', and 'the Holocaust might have happened, maybe' themes were locked in so that there can be no discussion about them at Durban II — the media can already write the pronouncements that will be coming out of the April Durban II Conference. It is also disappointing that the American Jewish Committee didn't kick up a storm, just a polite rejoinder. Yeah, that will work.
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THE HOLOCAUST IN ARAB PUBLIC DISCOURSE: HISTORICIZED POLITICS AND POLITICIZED HISTORY
by Mikael Tossavainen

  The Planning Committee for Durban (see above) is dominated by the Arab/Muslim countries that are imposing their views concerning the Holocaust, Zionism and the Arab-Israeli conflict on the documents that will be issued as the opinion of the United Nations. Mikael Tossavainen examines attitudes towards the Holocaust as expressed in the Arab media by Arab scholars, clerics and politicians. The Iranian leadership has frequently issued statements denying the historicity of the Holocaust and/or believing the Jews were responsible for the evil done. This is, of course, well-known. What is not usually recognized is that most of the Arab world, thanks to their leaders, has the same opinion. The result is the paradox that the Arabs and Iranians both deny and praise the Holocaust; they allege that the Zionists created the Holocaust "myth" while asserting that the Holocaust happened but it was a collusion between the Nazis and Zionists. They are sure the Holocaust wasn't as bad as the Jews paint it but the Jews are behaving like Nazis to the Palestinian Arabs. Gifted in fantasy, many of the Arab "thinkers" have created elaborate stories out of whole cloth, such as the theory that the Nazis moved to Israel — which nicely ignores that some Nazis did indeed move to Arab countries. Unlike the Europeans, who are reexamining their history, they seem eons away from examining their complicity in the Holocaust — how the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussein actively encouraged Hitler to murder Jews as the only solution and how he recruited men to fight with the Nazis against the Allies.
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IT'S ALL THE ZIONISTS' FAULT
by Doug Ross

  If you believe the theme of the Doug Ross's photo essay below — that it's all the fault of the Zionists, the JOOZ — you're in good company. People who read the Times (almost any large-sized Times will do) or listen to BBC or CNN do, if they believe their news media. The Mainstream Media are terrified of calling a terrorist a terrorist; and seldom are the words Muslim or Islam written or spoken within 50 words of even the unkindest cut the wordsmiths can think to use — militant. The Media aren't about to put themselves in jeopardy by stating the obvious fact that most of the terror in the world today is created by Muslims. But you gotta blame someone. The Jews are a good choice. They aren't into beheading people who insult them.
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RIGHT OF REPLY: WAR, HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY
by Gerald M. Steinberg

  The New Israel Fund NIF) purports to have Israel's interest in mind. In practice, as Gerald Steinberg points out, much of their funding goes "to the leaders of anti-Israel campaigns in the media, the United Nations and other venues" — and to an active program of covering up some of this questionable support. Supporting Arab minority rights, in practice, has meant funding places such as Adalah, which joins other Arab groups that loudly deny Israel's right to defend itself — to do so is considered bloodthirsty — but they have never condemned Arab missile attacks against Israeli civilians. Steinberg doubts that "this is what most NIF donors expect — particularly those who give through their local Jewish federations."
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'LAWFARE:' ANOTHER WEAPON IN THE JIHAD AGAINST ISRAEL
by Richard L. Cravatts

  Winning in the courtroom isn't exactly like playing poker, where the guy with the most money has a huge advantage — but it doesn't hurt to have the money to sue anyone you want to, however flimsy the grounds. After a while, people will not criticize you for fear of a possible lawsuit. This tactic has been used by Muslims in English and American courts against western media and academic critics and has come to be called Lawfare. As used by U.N.-affiliated non-governmental agencies (NGOs), it is used mostly against Israel. As Richard Cravatts concludes, "In an inverted moral universe where enemies of the Middle East's only democratic state regularly seek its destruction, the tactic of lawfare — with its once-meaningful language of genocide, international human rights, and war crimes — is now being used, by state and non-state actors alike, as an alternate, but equally dangerous, weapon in the unrelenting jihad against Israel."
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CHRISTIAN FRIENDS AND FOES OF ISRAEL
Interview by Manfred Gerstenfeld of David R. Parsons

  In an essay above, Paul Merkley wrote about Jimmy Carter and his changed position from a Christian Evangelical who supported Israel to one who adheres strictly to the Arab position. In this article, David Parson generalizes the concepts and describes both the impact of the Holocaust on theological thinking and the major differences between the binary split between points of view. Parsons says, "As adherents of biblical Zionism, we support political Zionism, as the Jewish people need a homeland and safe haven, but we add the element of divine purpose. This sets us entirely apart from the anti-Israeli camp that believes the election of the Jewish people no longer stands. In their theology the Jews are now fair game for criticism and worse. This is the key distinguishing factor between Christian friends and foes of Israel - whether or not you believe the Jews still have an enduring covenantal relationship with God."
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THE BISHOP AND THE HOLOCAUST
by Denis MacEoin

  Richard Williamson, a bishop of the Catholic Church, who was excommunicated two decades ago, was recently brought back into the fold. Denis MacEoin writes, "As an unbeliever who respects the Church as a bearer of moral values, it shocks me, not only that Williamson has been restored to communion with the Church with the sins of racism and the concealment of genocide on his hands, but that representatives of the Church have tried to put blue sea between the bishop's views and his reinstatement." Judging from the Bishop's recent statements, he isn't rehabilitated; and genocidal assaults against Jews aren't ready to be relegated to the past tense.
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LOSING TOUCH
by SPIEGEL Staff: Stefan Berg, Christoph Schult, Alexander Smoltczyk, Michael Sontheimer and Peter Wensierski

  This article by members of the Spiegel Staff is an excellent summary of the strained relations between the Vatican and Jewry following the Pope's revoking the excommunication of a notorious Holocaust denier. His action compounded the damage done by statement such as the one he issued in January just as the IDF entered the Gaza strip. "War and hatred are not the solution to any problem." He had ignored that Arab terrorists routinely seek out Jewish women and children to murder. He had not spoken out during the years Hamas bombed Israel without retaliation. See here for Rabbi Gerald Skolnik's view of the controversy: "I just Don't Understand... Pope Benedict and Holocaust Denial."
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This set of articles is about Gaza, Hamas in Gaza and the Gaza Invasion. Andrew McCarthy makes the reasonable proposal that what is necessary is that Israel be allowed to finish off the terrorists — the U.N. or the U.S.A or the E.U. routinely stop her before the job can be completed. The hands-on testimony of a soldier who fought in Gaza suggests that there is also the problem that the Israeli leadership forces the IDF to pull its punches, signal its moves and allow Hamas leaders escape paths. The politicians are more interested in good press than in protecting Israel's citizenry by letting the IDF fight to win. Other essays detail the interaction between Hamas and governmental bodies such as UNRWA; between Hamas and other Gaza terror groups; between Hamas and Iran; and between Hamas and the media, which accepts each new lie from Hamas as truth.

THE GAZA WAR 2009: HISTORY AND PERSPECTIVES
by Seth J. Frantzman

  Seth J. Frantzman first presents the background to the recent invasion of Gaza by the IDF. He then discusses the logic and illogic of concepts important in the discourse about the invasion. There is first the difference between the European view that humanity prefers peace to war and the Islamic view that there is to be constant turmoil until the entire world belongs to Islam — this had consequences in the inappropriate solutions the interfering Europeans proposed. Israel's supposed disproportionate force received a lot of media censure; and it is true that relatively few Israelis died from the rocket attacks, but that was not for lack of trying on the part of Hamas. Then there is the media's disproportionate fixation on Israel and its disregard for "more bloody conflicts, rage elsewhere in places such as Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Sudan." As Frantzman writes, "The question should not be why the international community, which is to say western people, care so much about what happens in Gaza, but why they have so rarely cared about what happens to other people in the world."
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ISRAEL, GAZA AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Jean-Jacques Surbeck

  This article was occasioned by a newpaper op-ed piece that falsely asserted that Israel was legally at fault when it invaded Gaza. The article also flaunted a flaming red herring that implied that Israel was reckless in its military action: "Defenders of Israel's military actions sometimes counter that Israel cannot afford to abide by international humanitarian law when it is endangered by a ruthless enemy" is a poor description of Israel's meticulous avoidance of civilian casualties, a difficult job considering that the terrorists waged war from ordinary civilian houses, hospitals and schools. Jean-Jacques Surbeck, an attorney specializing in International Humanitarian Law provides us with the actual legal facts. War crimes there were. Hamas committed them.
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BREAKING THE WILL OF THE PALESTINIANS: NO POLITICAL OR LEGAL PROTECTION FOR HAMAS
by Andrew C. McCarthy

  Andrew McCarthy argues that what Israel needs from America in its fight against Hamas is to be allowed to finish the job of destroying their ability — and even their desire — to terrorize Israel. For America, this means recognizing that the "Palestinians" aren't inflicted with Hamas — they chose Hamas. Hamas doesn't just represent them politically. Hamas represents their aspirations and their ideology. America needs to give up on the "fantasy that the Palestinians are legitimate actors worthy of statehood and its privileges." Neither Hamas or Fatah or any other group seeking power is willing to seek "peaceful coexistence with Israel." Were they to do so, they'd lose the support of the populace. We can also help Israel by making sure the U.S.A. doesn't join the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which were "designed for the benefit of terrorist organizations, national-liberation movements, and third-world tyrannies." We need to understand McCarthy's clear definition of Protocol I and its implications — it attempts to subordinate military actions to inapplicable legal standards. "On the matter of who is a civilian, Protocol I is a humanitarian disaster." Like Lawfare, it can do much harm to Israel, and to us.
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HOW ONE SOLDIER SURVIVED THE WAR IN GAZA
by Joshua Eastman

  Joshua Eastman is a young American who made aliyah, a religious Jew, and, for more than a year, a soldier in the IDF. In this essay, he shares with us his experience participating in the Gaza invasion, his observations and his emotions, from the first tense, rumor-filled days before the invasion through the time he saw action. He writes about the bravery and the pain, the strength he drew from his faith in God and the cold bodily fear he endured every time he "squeezed the trigger, every time a missile landed nearby." He wasn't allowed to fire on civilians but, as he writes, "I saw the twelve year olds with missiles and RPGs strapped to their backs. I saw that it was with sadness and great anger Israeli troops recognized the need to fire on people who crossed the red line, the danger zone which meant they saw us, and knew where we were. Old people mined with bombs, children armed with detonators, tunnels that opened in the ground to swallow our soldiers." This is an awesome essay.
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A VIEW FROM THE TARGET ZONE
by Haim Harari

  Doctor Haim Harari is a trained observer. In this essay he enlarges on the details — the level at which most reporters stop — so we understand what has been happening in Gaza. He makes some important points. While Israel is scourged for every civilian it kills inadvertedly, no one complains that Hamas terrorists routinely target Jewish civilians, especially children. The rockets shoot randomly — so "they could not possibly be aimed at military or strategic targets." At home, Hamas — and Fatah is no different — uses women and children as shields. It's win-win. The world will complain should Israel hits a shield to get at a terrorist and Hamas gains sympathy; and, as is more likely, if Israel doesn't shoot because of the shields, the terrorists are safe. Since 2005, when Hamas took over the Gaza strip completely, it has had the option of constructing a functioning pre-state entity or waging war on Israel. It chose war. ".... rockets were now stored in mosques, schools, hospitals and normal apartment buildings. ... Schools financed by the UN were used in order to launch mortar shells and missiles." Harari also writes of UNRWA, which, almost single-handedly, has perpetuated the Arab refugee problem since 1948. Commenting on the various lies and hoaxes in which Hamas indulges, he says, "That the Hamas murderers use these tactics, lies and methods, is not at all surprising. That the international community, with all its investigative reporters, swallows these lies so eagerly, without exposing them, is something which demands an explanation."
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GAZA BEDFELLOWS: UNRWA AND HAMAS
by Claudia Rosett

  Claudia Rosett puts the essential facts about the Gaza populace bluntly, "In the current violence of Gaza, we are seeing the fruition of one of the most bizarre creations of modern diplomacy: a UN-supported welfare enclave for terrorists." and "Hamas has been running Gaza as a territory reduced to basically two industries: aid and terrorism." Strip out the fantasy that Hamas is mostly a beneficent social services agency. Strip the cunning propaganda that there's something so unique about the "Palestinian" Arabs that, unlike any other group of refugees in the world, they are never to be resettled anywheres but in the land they claim as their own and until then they are entitled to the services of an entire U.N. agency just for them. Strip out diplomat language that tries to hide that the United Nations has been corrupted. And you are left with the essentials Rosett states so well. Instead of being a force to encourage civility and human rights, the U.N. has become another forum for promulgating Arab propaganda and bankrolling terror.
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QANA'S GREEN HELMET GUY NOW WORKING FOR HAMAS?
by Judi McLeod

  The Arabs have acquired a well-deserved reputation for inventing or wildly exaggerating damage they suffer. For months Hamas's leaders were photographed sitting in chambers lit only with candles to prove that Israel was chintzy with supplying Gaza with electricity. It would have been more effective if sunlight hadn't peaked through gaps in the closed curtains. A more complex hoax in Qana in the 2006 Lebanese War was exposed by internet bloggers: in an Arab version of street theatre, Hezbollah personnel rushed from one photographer to the next while holding long-dead children as if they were rushing them to medical care. These photos received extensive exposure on the internet. So it is surprising that one of the more notorious photos from Qana has resurfaced with a new caption — this time the child is said to be a Gazan and its death is attributed to IDF action. Judi McLeod tells us how the latest hoax was discovered and some of the aftermath.
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JIHADIST GROUPS IN GAZA: A DEVELOPING THREAT
by Yoram Cohen

  Just to add another level of complexity, Hamas isn't the only terror group engaging the loyalty of the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and even in the West Bank. Just as we were sure we knew the players — good terrorists (Fatah), bad terrorists (Hamas) — along come newer, maybe even nastier, splinter groups — who share Al-Qaeda's ideology and imitate their style. Yoram Cohen writes about several of the newer groups operating in Gaza. They are all dedicated to restoring the Caliphate and imposing sharia law universally. They regard Hamas "as insufficiently aggressive in conducting terrorist attacks" and target not only Israel but foreigners, Christians and anything that smacks of unIslamish western influence. Once, Hamas was willing to work with them, but now they are winning recruits from Hamas and gaining the loyalty of the locals. So much for the myth of the po' Palestinians, who want peace but have an evil government.
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AN ESCALATING REGIONAL COLD WAR: THE 2009 GAZA WAR
by Yigal Carmon, Yael Yehoshua, Ayelet Savyon and H. Migron

  Yigal Carmon et al put the Gaza Invasion into a larger context: the regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Hamas acting as proxy for Iran. They suggest that the Iran-Saudi conflict is key to understanding the Middle East in the 21st century. The "conflict is rooted in Iran's aspirations to regional hegemony — both geostrategic and religious — which pose a threat to Saudi Arabia" and has been sustained with more or less tension since the Iranian Revolution 30 years ago. "Iran's attempt to position itself as a regional military superpower," and its attempts to extend its power into the Arab world after Saddam Hussein's regime fell are additional irritants. The Iran-Syria-Qatar-Hizbullah Axis is mainly Shi'ite but includes Sunni groups that oppose the Saudis. and it is trying to win over Turkey. The Sunni Saudi-Egypt group is trying to win over some of Iran's Sunni allies. Saudi Arabia complains that Iran is interfering in internal Arab affairs and causing dissension; Iran rebuts that Saudi Arabia and Egypt collaborate with America (AKA The Great Satan). The Gaza War "ended with Hamas defeated on the ground" and thus should count as a victory for the non-Iranian camp; i.e., the Saudi-Egyptian side. But Iran boasts of its help to a victorious Hamas and the pro-Saudi camp "accuses Hamas of serving Iranian and Syrian interests rather than those of the Palestinians." Carmon et al suggest the way the two sides are reacting to Israel is moored in the Iran-Saudi struggle, with Iran denouncing any sort of accomodation with Israel as collaboration, while Saudi Arabia wants to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (on its own terms), to take it off the table.
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GAZA IS THE FACE OF A PALESTINIAN STATE
by Don Feder

  Don Feder in his own inimitable way sums up the facts we know about the Gazan Arabs and their Hamas overlords and the West Bank Arabs and their Fatah/Hamas overlords and draws the right conclusion. This is not a group of people that is ready to set up a state, especially not in Israel's heartland. Not now. Not in the forseeable future. And maybe never.
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Lest we forget, we have essays on the Settlers, those driven from their homes in Gaza by their disaster-wreaking government and those who live in Samaria and Judea and eastern Jerusalem — the Territories — who are threatened with the same fate suffered by the Jews of Gaza.

What we call the Territories is where Abraham and Sarah lived and were buried, where David was crowned King, where the Jews lived in Biblical times. There was no Tel-Aviv.

To briefly review recent history, Jews began settling in the Territories — Gaza, Judea and Samaria (what Jordan called the "West Bank") — after 1967 when Israel was invaded by her Arab neighbors for the second time, fought them back successfully and took back the Territories. Within a few years, the Jews of Gush Katif, Gaza, had developed innovative agricultural techniques and were contributing significantly to Israel's prosperity. By their very presence, they acted as an early warning of impending Arab terrorism. Palestinian Arab terrorism was given a tremendous boost when, in August 2005, the Israeli government exiled the Gazan Jews. Since their expulsion, Gaza has become a safe haven for the Arabs to train various local and foreign terror groups, teach their own children to kill Jews and to manufacture and store huge supplies of deadly armaments.

The Sharon-Olmert Kadima continued to harrass the Jewish settlers, in the unswerving belief that it would be able to give this Land to the Arabs in return for peace. Given the history of gross bureaucratic incompetence — most of the 10,000 Jews from Gaza are yet to be resettled in permanent housing (see Fendel, here) — an Israeli government that booted out some of the more than half-million Jewish "settlers" of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, is unlikely to be able to cope with additional Jewish political refugees in what is left of Israel. Nevertheless, the war against the settlers continues, by stealth, by harassment, by cutting water and electricity from farmers who keep sheep and goats and grow plants, by treating them unfairly in the courts and in the press. This policy is pursued almost as strongly as the Arabs continue to insist by word and by nasty deed that
their objective is to destroy the Jewish State. I for one believe them.

THE GAZA WAR REACHES US
by Moshe and Rachel Saperstein

  Moshe and Rachel Saperstein are essayists who have recorded their experience from the time they lived in Neve Dekalim, Gush Katif, Gaza and since they, with all the other Jews who lived in Gaza, were expelled and given still-temporary housing. Moshe views this war as a pre-election ploy by the Kadima candidates, Barak and Livni, "to erase their wimpish images and be seen as Tough Protectors of the People." The Gaza excursion has no point if Israel leaves without disarming the terrorists, thus allowing them to rebuilt. The Sapersteins live through the sirens, the explosions of missiles and bombs from Gaza, the fear, the overeating of comfort food, the rumors, the interviews with closed-mind reporters, But there's also the miraculous escapes from death and friends. They had felt particularly vulnerable because their temp home is without air raid shelter. Moshe has developed grudging respect for the Government's on-the-fly use of concrete sewer pipes as shelters — which can, at least, withstand shrapnel. Included is the speech Rachel gave at this year's Jerusalem Conference.
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DEMONIZED ISRAELI SETTLERS
by Barbara Lerner

  The inhuman Mumbai terrorists who brutally tortured and massacred foreigners and resident Jews and whose agenda includes imposing Islamic law on the whole world get a better press that the law-abiding, patriotic and gifted citizens of Israel who live in Biblical Israel (the West Bank), who are collectively known as "the Settlers." (pronounced with a sneer in the mainstream media.) In Israel, as Barbara Lerner points out, the government turns "an increasingly blind eye to growing Arab violence against Jews" while routinely taking "... a hyperaggressive, hyperpunitive stance, then responding to nonviolent settler protests with the kind of brutality that would outrage most Americans if the victims were members of any other group anywhere." The settlers do indeed support ideas that the successive suicidal Israeli governments and the pro-Arab "Jewish" groups such as Peace Now do not appreciate. "Settlers claim a right to buy land and live and work on it, anywhere in the Biblical triangle between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean, and between the Red Sea and the Golan Heights, and they act on that right by building and living in communities in places like Hebron, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Amona." How shocking! They wish to live in the Jewish State as Jews! Lerner also reminds the reader that the "Palestinians" are not the natives, the Jews are not the invaders. Anyone who knows his history and geography knows it is the other way around. But it does make sense for Islam and its adherents to attempt to destroy the Settlers — they are a powerful defense against the Islam's war against Israel — and the West.
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A PERSONAL VISIT TO JUDEA
by Richard H. Shulman

  Richard Shulman's visit to Israel included a tour of Judea, where some of the "Settlers" make their home. He describes accurately the discrimination the Settlers encounter from their own government, which favors the Arab in the law courts and in encounters between Arab and Jew. It hardly seems credible that in the Jewish state, the Jews can be intimidated by the local Arabs. But the Arabs have learned that the Israeli government literally lets them get away with murder and, instead, punishes the Jews who fight back. Some of the bigger happenings make the papers — when police came unexpectedly in the middle of the night and destroyed the home of a Jewish activist in Hebron; or when Jewish girls in their teens were thrown in jail to await trial months away for legally protesting the Gaza expulsion. But Arabs hassle Jews, shoot at/stone/beat up Jews and steal their crops, animals and cars all the time and these "incidents" seldom make the news. Shulman describes examples of "Israeli government complicity with terrorism." And of Arab contempt at Jewish attempts of appeasement.
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The Arab states invaded Israel for a second time in 1967. Israel turned the tables and reclaimed Samaria and Judea (Jordan named them the West Bank when it held them from 1948 to 1967) and Gaza. Reclaimed is accurate. The land is Jewish by international law. The Israeli government fears the Jewish state being overwhelmed by a Arab population in the Territories, which has grown, thanks to legal and illegal immigration from the Arab states and generous internal welfare and medical benefits. So the problem is usually stated as an either-or: (1) take over the Territories and become a single state that is likely eventually to lose its Jewish character, given the impressive ability of the Arabs to breed when someone else is footing the bill; or (2) create an (almost certainly hostile) Arab state in the Territories that wedges Israel on both sides and is intertwined with it in Jerusalem. Actually, neither option will bring peace, because the Palestinian Arab leaders, proxies of Iran and Saudi Arabia, continue to plot to destroy Israel, not live in a Jewish State or next to it.

In recent years, more and more people realize there is another solution. Why give up Biblical Israel and still be saddled with and/or surrounded by hostile Arabs? Why not transfer the Palestinian Arabs to some part of the vast domain the Arabs own — and keep the Jewish land?

The essays in this set make the point that new thinking is essential. The first essay is foundation: the Jews own what was Mandated Palestine and no amount of distortion in the media can change that fact. The next essays make clear that mouthing nonsense that peace depends on creating another Palestinian state makes no sense and could lead to a disaster that would have global impact. They examine essential flaws in the argument that the Arab war against the Jews can be swayed by concessionary negotiations and analyze the misrepresentations made about the Jewish settlements. The rest explore solutions that may be unfamiliar and may be incomplete. But they show promise and stimulate thinking. (See also Martin Sherman's proposal here.)

LEGAL RIGHTS AND TITLE OF SOVEREIGNTY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Howard Grief

  We are reprinting the article from the July-August 2005 Issue. The introduction read: "In this essay, Howard Grief brilliantly fulfills his objective 'to set down in a brief, yet clear and precise manner the legal rights and title of sovereignty of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and Palestine under international law.' This paper should be part of your armamentarium for the next time you are told that Resolution XXX of the U.N. guarantees the rights of the Palestinian Arabs to YYY." You can read more about Israel's right to all of Jerusalem and Biblical Israel (AKA West Bank) by reading Howard Grief's articles such as this one. For other essays on international law that states that biblical Israel is a trust in perpetuity for the Jewish people and can not be given away, read Part I of Yoram Shifftan's "A Legal Challenge." and his essay on Gifting. Use the Google box at the top of this page to search on Howard Grief, Yoram Shifftan, legal, mandate and population transfer.
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MONOTHEISTIC PAGANISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
by Professor Paul Eidelberg

  A fairytale of our times is that any two groups can come reason together and work out their differences in civility. In this set of essays, Paul Eidelberg explores differences in attitude toward life, living and religion between Jew and Arab that are irreconcilable. Muslims do not see free-will and striving for human development as coming from God — as part of what it means to be made in His image. As Fackenheim has it, the Muslim God — the underpinning of their approach to life — demands "absolute idolatry." It isn't two views of the same God at all.

Differences in fundamentals lead to differences in life style. Eidelberg points out that we practice democratic diplomacy, "[which] regards negotiation between adversaries as a means of conciliation requiring mutual concessions leading to lasting agreement and peace," whereas the Arab regards diplomacy as warfare that might be disguised with a veneer of friendliness and an apparent willingness to compromise, but it can end only when he gains his objective.

The peace process is a type of negotiation where it is mistakenly assumed the quarrel is over land. It follows that reconciliation can come about if the Jew give up some of his Land for the Arab's promise to discontinue waging war. But, as Eidelberg reminds us, the "21 Arab League countries have 500 times more land than Israel" — they are larger than the U.S.A. Adding all of Israel and the territories won't increase the Arab holdings by a single percentage point. Nor are the Arab leaders interested in the diversified economic prosperity Israel can offer them. "Whereas these bellicose Arabs have no peace of their own to give Israel, peace-loving Jews have no land they can safely and rightly give Arabs." The peace process is a fraudulent ploy to deprive Israel of the small amount of land she has.
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A NEW BROOM
by Walter Bingham

  President Obama has appointed George Mitchell as Middle East envoy to resurrect the dead "peace-process." Mitchell has a reputation for seeming even-handed. In his first hop into the Arab-Israeli arena in 2001, he issued blanded down statements on Arab terrorism while reacting with horror at perfectly legal Israeli settlements. He had faith in the notion that if the Palestinians were given a state, they would become responsible citizens, ensuring Israel's security — a fantasy Hamas in Gaza has securely laid to rest. Walter Bingham is pessimistic that Mitchell's acumen has improved. His activities are unlikely to support Israel's viability, considering the blinkered emphasis his boss places on good relations with Muslims.
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REVIEW OF LORDS OF THE LAND: THE WAR OVER ISRAEL'S SETTLEMENTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, 1967-2007
by Moshe Dann

  Moshe Dann reviews a recent book on the settlements, which expands on the notion — also promoted by Peace Now — that Jewish settlements are the primary cause of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The authors argue the settlements "have undermined the rule of law, have subverted the democratic decision-making process in Israel..." and are illegal in that the land belongs to the Palestinians. The first two arguments are easily refuted: "All Israeli governments have supported settlements — which were permitted by the Oslo Accords, the only negotiated agreement — because they have been a national, bipartisan effort reflecting Israeli consensus and, at least initially, backed by UN and US resolutions." The notion that the Jews stole Palestinian land has been applied to the current settlements but also to the settlements starting in the late 19th century that led to the rebirth of the Jewish state. The Arabs have certainly charged that Israel itself is illegal. Unfortunately for the Arab claim, there never was a Palestine, or for that matter, a Palestinian people.

Historically, from the 1500's, the entire Middle East belonged to the Ottomans. The area that is now Israel, Jordan and the Territories was underpopulated, unsanitary, dirt poor, with no economic resources. It was as neglected — in David Gelernter's words (Weekly Standard, 19Jan09) — "as a rat-ridden empty lot in a burnt-out neighborhood in the middle of nowhere, in the suburbs of nothing. The Jews gradually got possession of an arid stony wasteland ... complete with the odd picturesque, crumbling, dirty town; and they loved it. They turned it into a gleaming, thriving modern nation, not only a military but an intellectual powerhouse." During the Mandate period it was assigned to become a Jewish state, just as the rest of the Middle East was to become an Arab state. Immigrants who had poured in from nearby places and with various ethnic backgrounds were declared to be a people — the Palestinian people — by Arafat in 1964. Their sole purpose was to serve as claimants to Jewish land. I am always amazed when Israeli leftists such as the authors of the book under review are willing to distort the facts to support the Arabs' attempt to destroy Israel. Do they believe they are immune from rampaging Arabs, should the Arabs succeed?
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IS A TWO-STATE SOLUTION A ROADMAP TO DISASTER?
by Frederic Leder and Ricky Greenfield

  Frederic Leder and Richy Greenfield warn Israeli Jews they need to shed some habits learned over two thousand years living in various hostile environments as the underdog and powerless. Jews survived by "using compromise to buy another day or postpone imminent destruction." The environment may still be hostile, but their knee-jerk defensive posture of accomodation has to go, if they wish to survive. The two-state solution which will give Israel's heartland to a noxious, angry people desirous of destroying Israel, is deadly. Israel has first to secure its borders boldly by itself — and that means holding the land from the Mediterranian Sea to the Jordan River. When this is established, she can deal with the secondary problem of how to handle the Arabs within.
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A LIKELY SCENARIO FOR THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
by No Sharia

  In a series of articles, No Sharia has been evolving a detailed plan to fight Sharia in Europe. In this essay, he asks the unthinkable: under what circumstances would Israel be forced into a strategy that could be called Mutual Assured Destruction In The Middle East. He makes the case that given the indifference — if not downright hostility — of so many countries, Israel may be forced into a position where the unthinkable becomes a possibility.
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ZIONISM AND WHY BILL MOYERS IS RIGHT ABOUT THE JEWS
by Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

  This is an updated version of the Sigmund, Carl and Alfred 2006 article entitled "Idiots Guide to Zionism" and was in part "inspired" by Bill Moyers' risible preaching that Jewish violence is a genetic affliction. Click here and here for background on Moyers' remarks.) Zionism has always been about redeeming the Jewish homeland and is part of the daily prayers. This essay talks about the concept as formulated by the Zionists who started coming back to Eretz Yisrael in the late 1800's. As one of the authors' citations point out: "In creating the modern State of Israel, the refugees from a smoldering Europe went on to build a modern, democratic state, with world class educational facilities, institutions and a vibrant economy. The Israelis did in 50 years what the obscenely oil rich Arab nations could not do in 2,000 — make the desert bloom."
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HOUSEBREAKING ISLAM
by Sultan Knish

As a reader of this article by Sultan Knish wrote: " An outstanding take on how the West needs to deal with the Islamic invasion by blogger Sultan Knish. His clear and unambiguous analogy of training a dog with a newspaper and teaching Muslims their limits in Western society is a gem." Yes, indeed.
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MORE ACCURACY AND DEPTH NEEDED
by David Basch

  David Basch proposes that any scheme that means Jews withdrawing from its land is wrong. It may seem necessary in order to separate from the Arabs. But it also "creates Jewish refugees and enable the Arab enemy to transform Israel's eastern territories into Gaza platforms for rocketing Israel's nearby cities." A better strategy is the one advocated by Meir Kahane. Basch suggests that, rather than reflexively labeling Kahane a racist, we should acknowledge that Kahane "recognized early the since proven implacable nature of the Arab enemy and advocated their relocation while retaining the strategic Jewish territories..." In sum, "Israel's survival depend[s] wholly on Israel's strength rather than on insane reeducation programs for these enemies of Israel ... Reeducation is no more a doable program with the Arabs than it would have been for the Nazis. The latter required total defeat to accomplish and no one should imagine the reality is different for Israel's enemies."
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THE CASE FOR JUDEA
by Obediah Shoher

  Obediah Shoher's book Samson Blinded: A Machievellian Perspective On the Middle East Conflict is as claimed: machievellian. His ideas most certainly are not conventional. But considering that conventional political thinkers continue to waste time promoting nice-sounding but disasterous ideas — like creating a bloodthirsty Palestinian State in Israel's heartland — this book is worth exploring for new ideas. In each segment, Shoher's astute observations become the basis for non-dithering procedures to solve some currently sticky problem confronting Israel. In one section of his book, he suggests making Jordan, where Palestinian Arabs are 75% of the population, the Palestinian Arab state. In the segment we present here, Shoher has observed that a religious state can make politically incorrect laws that would be frowned on in a democratic or socialist or dictatorial secular state. From this he argues that the split between the religious Jews and the secularists could be eased by creating a religious state named Judea in Judea and Samaria.
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WHEN DEALING WITH PUNKS, THERE'S NO TIME TO BE A LIBERAL
by David Warren

  When Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York City, he decreed that ignoring graffiti, small vandalism and petty theft would hence not be ignored by the police. It seemed initially a silly focus, given the city's very large problems. But it worked wonders. In this essay David Warren makes much the same point in reference to Gaza: "...the leading cause of anti-social behaviour is permission. People, and young punks especially, will do things that even they know are malicious because no one will stop them." He writes of the synergy between Hamas, the punks who control Gaza, and UNRWA staff, local Arabs, often Hamas members, who aid Hamas and enable terrorism by generously lending them UNRWA facilities and equipment. UNRWA controls a network of camps in the Territories and in the neighboring Arab countries where successive generation of refugees are provided with an education, medical care, room and board but no jobs. It is no wonder that in Gaza alone, the population is 7 times as large as it was 60 years ago — although it is likely some of the growth is because local Arabs signed up as refugees because the benefits are so good. The "refugees" are raised to believe that they can not live permanently anywhere but in Palestine, which Israel is occupying — so becoming a murderer for the cause is an easy step.
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REBUILD GUSH KATIF
by Michael Freund

  Michael Freund writes, "With Israeli forces back in Gaza, now is the time to right the historical wrong of Ariel Sharon's 2005 Disengagement plan and to reconstitute the exiled Jewish communities of Gush Katif." This would say to the Jihadists: - "... The more you try to kill us, the more we will rebuild. For every Palestinian act of destruction, Israel will undertake an act of reconstruction. For every rocket that has been fired against us, let another Jew return to Gaza to rebuild." For the Arabs who are fed on the beauty of death, seeing their actions result in more Jews thriving in Gaza may be a greater threat than just killing them.
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HISTORY SECTION

GAZA'S RICH JEWISH HISTORY
by Victor Sharpe

  Victor Sharpe provides us with some little-advertised facts about Gaza and its role in Jewish history. The association didn't end with Samson's getting his hair and strength clipped. Jewish communities in Gaza were periodically destroyed but Jews came back there over the centuries, during which a succession of foreign powers captured and ruled over Gaza — the latest takeover by Hamas was only made possible because of the folly of the Sharon-Olmert government. Contrariwise, there is no historic association between modern-day Palestinian arabs and the ancient Philistines. The Philistines had disappeared well before Islam came to the area the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians claim as their homeland.
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PALESTINE IS A GEOGRAPHICAL AREA, NOT A NATIONALITY
by Eli E. Hertz

  Eli Hertz points out that Palestine is the name applied from time to time to a geographic area. There is not now and there never was a Palestinian nation. There is not now and there never was a Palestinian country. There is not now and there never was a Palestinian state. The Palestinians are Arabs, 95% of whom — or their great-granddaddies — entered "Palestine" after 1900 for economic opportunities. Hertz recounts some recent history of Philistia.
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THE BLOCKADE: HOW THE BRITISH PREVENTED RESCUE
by David Krakow

  The anniversary of the sinking of the Struma is the 24th of February. David Krakow writes about the attempt by Jews to flee the Holocaust by setting out in a boat, the Struma, to try to run the British blockade and reach Palestine. "British obstruction of rescue ranged from the official level — pressures exerted on the governments of countries through which the Jews had to pass — to an army of intelligence agents who pointed out the 'fugitives' to RAF and Royal Navy reconnaissance and interdiction, even in international waters." Krakow concludes, "It was a long time ago, but some of us can recall that we then quoted Giuseppe Mazzini: 'Without a country of your own you have neither name, voice, nor rights, nor admission as brothers in the fellowship of peoples. You are the bastards of humanity.'"
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READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

January 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
February 2009 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE




November-December, 2008


What we are talking about this issue:

WE DEDICATE THIS ISSUE TO THE NEW ADMINISTRATION
THE MUSLIM WORLD VIEW (Ibrahim, Plaut, Rubin, Shapiro, Sharpe, Johnson, Glazov, Salih, Memri, Imani)
THOUGHTS ON A NUCLEAR IRAN AND AN ENUCLEATED ISRAEL (Phillips and Brookes, Epstein, Rosett, Imani)
GAZA AND GUSH KATIF (Mark, Elders of Ziyon, Eidelberg, Weiner and Bell, Plaut, Eidelberg, Glick, Tucker, Sapersteins)
ISLAM AT THE U.N. (Sprayregen, Jacoby, Zaidi, Loconte, Bayefsky)
ISLAM IN EUROPE (Coughlan, Fjordman)
ISLAM IN AMERICA (Imm, Lappen, Ehrenfeld and Abady, Goldstein)
HELPING THE MUSLIM CAUSE VOLUNTARILY OR UNWITTINGLY (Shulman, Merkley, Berlyn, Pipes, Shafran, Glick, Rubin)
HISTORY (Green, Gannon, Tsiddon-Chatto)

WE DEDICATE THIS ISSUE

TO the new administration in Washington, which is coming in all shiny and convinced they can do what has never been done before: talk radical Islam out of its mission: global jihad. It is odd they feel that way, seeing that so many of them — Hillary included — have been round the block with the administrations that failed to convince the Arabs that regional peace was more important than destroying Israel and conquering the West. It's scary that the new guys are listening to some uneducatable anti-Semites like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Jimmy Carter, the talking-book versions of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Like the White Knight in Alice In Wonderland Prez-Elect Obama has a mission: to "reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular." It's not one many American's would see as top priority — the economy, their jobs, unchecked illegal immigration, their shrinking retirement money and the rapidly developing list of unstable countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons would likely top their list. Nevertheless, as part of this campaign, he is out to find the Moderate Muslim Majority, the Reasonable Muslims, the Muslims who are interested in mutual respect and a partnership of peace and goodwill. He is undeterred by evidence as old as Mohammad's exploits and as new as yesterday when Arabs rallied for the po' Palestinians in Gaza but never raised one poster against the missiles the Gazan Arabs have fired on the Jews or even against the inhuman behavior of the Muslim terrorists in Mumbai.

The new guys kinda sound like Warren Austin, American Ambassador to the U.N. during the 1948 debates on creating a Jewish state. Listening to the Arab and Jewish representatives disagree, he plaintively moaned, "Gentlemen, can't we settle this in a true Christian spirit."

We hope the information in this issue will penetrate the thick layer of optimistic ignorance — and dogma — with which the new guys and the refurbished old guys are entering the fray.

The essays in this first set discuss some facets of the Muslim world view and why Islam is resistent to notions of equality among nations and between individuals. They make clear why a return to the hopes and assumptions at the time when the Oslo Accord had just started to bud and before its poisonous fruit had blossomed is a bad idea: experience has taught us concessions by Israel is not the way to peace because the argument isn't over land. It's a religious quarrel started and maintained by resurgent Islam. the Arabs want complete possession of the Middle East — for starters.

AN ANALYSIS OF AL-QA'IDA'S WORLDVIEW: RECIPROCAL TREATMENT OR RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION?
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Raymond Ibrahim asks whether al-Qaeda hates America for intrinsic religious reasons or because America has injured Islam in some fashion. Osama bin Ladin is consistent when speaking to the West in always blaming the West for inflicting some injury that he must repay. "The West attacks Muslims — for oil, Israel, land, or 'Crusader' hatred — and al-Qa'ida retaliates on behalf of Muslims." It is doubtful, however, that the West could ever pay its debt, especially because the religion of Islam insists its members have the obligation to make Shari'a law supreme everywhere in the world — and this is the message al-Qaeda always preaches to Muslims. As an example of his double talk, in offering the West a long-term truce, Bin Ladin claimed, "For we are the umma that Allah has forbidden from double-crossing and lying." There is no such fair-minded concept in Islam; in fact, it preaches "the need for deception in warfare." In other words, to the West al-Qaeda preaches that it practices defensive Jihad; to the Muslims, it preaches offensive Jihad. As Ibrahim makes clear in conclusion, the core problem isn't really Al-Qaeda; it is the insatiable demand of the religion to which Al-Qaeda is loyal that all non-Muslims must subjugate themselves to Islam. Ironing out small wrinkles between the West and Islam can not affect Islam's foundation doctrines.
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THE RETURN OF THE BAD OLD MIDDLE EAST
by Steven Plaut

  Steven Plaut argues it is time to "abandon the campaign of peace through make-believe that has governed efforts at resolving the conflict since late 1992." It is time to drop the earnest but erroneous assertions that ignited Arab bellicosity. It is time to accept the truth: conciliatory gestures by Israel are seen by the Arabs as weakness to be exploited. Giving Israeli land to the Arabs — who already have 99.9% of the Middle East — encourages war, not peace. The usual tools of reconciliation — education, improved economics, a "let's reason together" spirit — just don't work, however much we wish they would. Putting an Arab state in the heart of Israel is a prescription for genocide, not peace.
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DON'T FLATTER YOUR ENEMIES, PROTECT YOUR FRIEND
by Barry Rubin

  Barry Rubin has some sage advice for the Washington neophytes on how to succeed in the Muslim world. It's where "Harvard Law School meets the law of the jungle." Striving for popularity is not a winning strategy. Obama may be starting from scratch but the entire Middle East is deeply scarred from previous attempts at accord that were fueled by hope but that ignored a basic reality: "there are no concessions that will make an American president popular in a meaningful way among Middle Easterners." Just ask the Israelis. They've been trying the concessions route for years. It doesn't work.
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ENOUGH OF RADICAL ISLAM
by Ben Shapiro

  Ben Shapiro makes an important point. We are not fighting terrorism. We are fighting terrorists, specifically, Islamic terrorists. We should start treating them as the enemy, rather than a recalcitrant client who, sooner or later, will recognize how much he could benefit from our social services. Islam is NOT a religion of peace. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are NOT our allies. "Appealing to the United Nations, run by thugs and dictators ranging from Putin to Chavez to Ahmadinejad, is an exercise in pathetic futility. Evil countries don't suddenly decide to abandon their evil goals — they are forced to do so by pressure and circumstance."
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DHIMMITUDE FOR DUMMIES
by Victor Sharpe

  As the title promises, this essay gives us insight into who and what a dhimmi is. Dhimmi, Victor Sharpe writes, "is the word that describes the parlous state of those who refused to convert to Islam and became the subjugated, non-Muslims who were forced to accept a restrictive and humiliating subordination to a superior Islamic power and live as second class citizens in order to avoid enslavement or death." Sharpe clarifies the connection between dhimmitude and jihad. In discussing the Islamist striving for global dominance, he makes clear why Muslims are immune to "Western notions of peaceful co-existence.between states, human rights and liberal democracy."
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AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW BOSTOM
by Alan Johnson

  Andrew Bostom has become a major proponent of the view that Islamic anti-Semitism is not new but is part of the Islamic belief that the Muslim is just naturally superior to all other people and the infidal must be made conscious of his inferiority at all times. More to the point, "there was a specific anti-Jewish animus, which comes from the foundational texts". This article is the record of an interview conducted by Alan Johnson, in which Bostom discusses some of the anti-Semitic themes from early Islam, diatribes that are still in use. "...general anti non-Muslim motifs ... are complemented by, or in some cases superseded by, specific antisemitic motifs." Bostom also points out that jihad is, and has always been, persistent open-ended religious warfare and there is no canonical basis for the apologetic proposition that jihad is an inner spiritual battle. Considering how much effort has gone into marketing the notion that Islam is a religion of peace, it is ironic that "the violent extremists have the sacred texts on their side, and that the very idea of a pluralist democratic mainstream Islam, while greatly to be desired, is something of a myth."
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ALLAH'S WHITE FACES
Interview with Abul Kasem by Jamie Glazov

  Muslims are quick to accuse Israel of practicing apartheid — even though this is easily disproven — but ignore the blatent racism prevalent in their own countries. Abul Kasem cites sources indicating that this racism goes back to Mohammad's concept of Allah. "It is clear from the exegesis of these verses that Allah likes white people and dislikes the black people, so much so, in fact, that even when a Black Muslim is entitled to enter Islamic Paradise, he will not enter it until Allah has turned him into a white person." Muslims rank above non-Muslims. Of the Muslims, the white Arab is considered to have the best pedigree. Kasem concludes, "Islamic racism is endemic. It emanates straight from the Qur'an, Sunna, and Sharia. The Muslims of black complexion will never be equal with the white Arabs. The concept of Islamic ummah, regardless of color and ethnic origin, is simply not true."
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THE RACIST, ARAB-SUPREMACIST NATURE OF ISLAM AND NON-ARAB MUSLIMS
by Mumin Salih

  Mumin Salih writes how non-Arab converts to Islam become more devoted to an Arab lifestyle than to their own culture. He suggests that "the claims of the non-Arab Muslims to be convinced of Islam are false claims that hide the uncomfortable reality that they believe in Islam because they take the Arabs' word for it." Many of the comments to the original article would confirm this conclusion — e.g., "To the convert, the arabic language and the sands of Arabia becomes sacred. He develops a contempt for his own culture which he starts regarding as inferior. Though the arabs call the shots and are biased towards the non arab muslims, the non arab muslim's slavery and devotion to Islam indeed defies logic..."
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SYRIAN JIHADIST SCHOLAR ABU BASIR AL-TARTUSI: SHEIKH YOUSEF AL-QARADHAWI IS AN APOSTATE
a Memri report

  Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is a major leader in the Muslim Brotherhood (e.g., see Fjordman's February 2008 article.). In reading this essay, note that the Syrian scholar abu Basir Al-Tartusi is not upset that Al-Qaradhawi has, for may years, plotted — with great success — to overthrow law and religion in Western countries, replacing them with Shari'a law and Muslim ideas of 'proper' behavior. As this Memri Report makes clear: Al-Qaradhawi's crime — or it sin? — is that he is willing to nuance his actions to fit the situation instead of confronting the situation head on. But both Al-Tartusi and Al-Qaradhawi share the same goals. In a larger sense, this essay illustrates the fundamental error in the assertion that if a Muslim terrorist group becomes the government, it will become more involved in running its country than in killing off Israel and/or infiltrating Western countries. What really happens is that some more adamant, more virile terrorist group, which refuses to mask intent with fine phrases, will win popularity and gain support.
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ISLAMISM IS TO RELIGION AS SADISM IS TO HUMAN
by Amil Imani

  Amil Imani writes with love of his native land, Iran, and with anger at what it has become since radical Islam gained control. In this essay, he points out that "[i]n free democracies, governments are accountable to the people and serve at the people's pleasure. In Islamic theocracy, governments are accountable only to Allah and the people must serve at the pleasure of the government. And one can see the result of Islamic total or partial rule in eighteen or so countries which rank among the highest nations of the world on every index of misery." Islamic propagandists proclaim that Islam is a peaceful religion, when, in actuality, "Islam is violent, oppressive, racist, and irrational at its very core." Imani sounds the alarm that Islam is has grown rapidly in Europe, where Muslims form de facto states within states. It can happen here.
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THOUGHTS ON A NUCLEAR IRAN AND AN ENUCLEATED ISRAEL

No one is happy Iran is becoming nuclear — except Iran and North Korea and maybe the countries that are selling components to Iran like China and Russia and maybe .... Meantime it's all talk and nada is happening.

Before the election, we were told Obama would behave differently than Bush — which made for an inconsistency: Bush policy is often characterized as a catastrophe: bludgeoning and blundering about negotiating with Iran. To be different does Obama have to whisper sweet nothings? On the other hand, Obama wants to sit and talk but plans to stand firm on his objectives — which implies Bush was a kitten and his problem was he didn't stand firm. So what advice is President Obama getting from his experts?

After 18 months of cogitation, the Brookings Institute came up with this bit of philosophy as stated by Richard Haass "Terrorism is not something you eradicate. Like disease, it is a part of our lives." [and here I thought we are steadily doing very well eradicating diseases.] Martin Indyk, Director of their Saban Center had this sage advice, "... the most important balance that needs to be restored is between the use of force and the use of diplomacy. ...there needs to be greater emphasis on diplomatic tools." [Since diplomacy has previously been successful in gaining Israeli concessions — and squeezing Israel is a large part of the new plan to handle Iran — it should do splendidly when talking to Iran, no?] Even the New York Times didn't give them a rousing cheer; their Ethan Bronner concluded, "The Middle East is rich in awkward realities. Still, whether or not this plan will succeed, much of it will probably be attempted." If true, with the backing of these worthies, Obama's policy will call for hacking the Golan Heights from Israel while bringing Hamas into the Palestinian Authority [or is "bringing into" diplomatese for "taking control of"?]

George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace advices us to set a deadline on negotiations, and if Iran refuses to talk [nothing here about doing, just talking], then "we seek tougher sanctions." We don't threaten military action UNLESS we have proof Iran is developing nuclear weapons [what would that be? A registered letter invitation from the Mad Iranian announcing he's throwing a bomb-coming-out party? Wow, if this doesn't scare Iran, wot will? See Martin Sieff for a summary of the Brookings/CFR Mideast Strategy.] Sad to say, even Israeli experts don't come to grips with the question: If Iran keeps stalling for time while working towards a bomb, do we have a cut-off point? Ephraim Asculai and Emily Landau of the Institute for National Security Studies suggest "Engaging Iran is the Means, Not the Solution". They believe negotiations "must be preceded by strong economic measures and military threats." Even assuming that mild statements about using the military will work, Brookings has already ruled out military pressure. More to the point, what negotiation model works with an announced enemy that wants Israel dead and the West subservient and believes it is winning? Iran knows that increasing its nuclear strength increases its diplomatic strength, and talking prolongs the time it has in which to accomplish its mission.

"More diplomacy", "Stiffer sanctions?" . "More concessions from Israel" To Abbas? To Hamas? To Iran? It looks like Prez Obama and the State Department establishment will talk and squack. But who will do? We don't even plan to talk to groups in Iran who are anti-government. Just face to face, head honcho to head honcho, without preconditions. Meantime, of course, Iran's power in the region expands. She has a firm grip on Syria. She supports Hezbullah, Hamas and other terrorist groups willing to do and die. Moreover, we plan to leave Iraq, which gives it over to Iranian control — at best, they'll rule through a puppet Iraqi government. It is a no-brainer that Iran's influence will fill the vacuum created by the vacuous talk about the power of talking. But hey, 'Let us sit and reason together' is such an uplifting phrase, it should keep America passive, until events overtake diplomacy.

Most people understand Iran would send bombs to wipe out Israel even if it means wiping out a few million Arabs. The mullahs wouldn't wince. The local Arabs who we call Palestinians are useful as an excuse for demonizing Israel but they really aren't regarded with much affection, even in the Arab countries. And Iran is not an Arab country.

As things stand, it is likely that the only Middle East country that America plans to take on is Israel, its only friend in the entire region. The major plan is to force Israel to give up land that is hers by international law.[Google Think-Israel for articles by Howard Grief, Yoram Shifftan, etc., for the legal basis of Israel's ownership of Israel and the territories.] Making Israel concede land and benefits to the Arabs have traditionally provided us with our greatest diplomatic success stories. Of course, it never lasts long because the Arabs keep pushing for more.

Given the foreign policy advisors Obama has raised up from under the bus, we probably can predict what will become the bottom line for the new Administration. It probably goes something like this: Never mind that the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran will have enough for a single bomb by the end of 2009, Brookings says Iran is 2-3 years away from the bomb, so there's no urgency. Anyways, we can keep America safe even if we do nothing to prevent the development of the bomb. What's the worst that can happen? Suppose Iran actually bumps off Israel. No problem. We will destroy her the next day. Of course we'll have to do without a steady flow of oil from the region for a bit. No pipes. No workers. No engineers. No managers. Well, we'll tap our reserves. We'll drill. We'll ethenolize our gas. We'll do something. What about the worry that the winds will blow irradiated particles into the neighboring Arab countries and into Europe? Ah well, that would be nasty. But don't worry. It won't come to that. Iran will see reason. She'll have a revolution. She'll blow herself up. We'll give her some bribes she won't be able to refuse.

HOW MUCH CAN ISRAEL RELY ON THE GOOD JUDGMENT OF THE WESTERN DIPLOMATS? In fact, how much are Western diplomats willing to stake on their being right about the best policy to have toward Iran? That's the crux of the problem. Like a bunch of Alzheimers' patients, the various administrators/diplomats/government officials keep forgetting that they've been negotiating fruitlesslessly for years. And the only outcome has been that Iran is getting closer to the bomb.

Right now their only risk is that while Obama and Amad the Jihad Man are scarfing down felafels, Iran might shoot off a deadly missile at Israel. Remember in 1941 Japan was allied with Germany and they bombed Pearl Harbor while the Japanese diplomats were in America. Japan wanted to take over Dutch East Indies and they were in America trying to soften America's position — while reassuring us of the goodwill of the Japanese emperor.

So let's ensure this isn't a chess game, where the worst that can happen — for them — is to forgo the accolades because they guessed wrong. So to ensure they are really serious, let's give them a real stake.

Remember what they said about the Peace Process? Israelis were eager for peace, but not sure this was the way to achieve it. Rabin insisted Israel would have to make painful sacrifices for peace. Only the Israelis seemed to be the ones to make the sacrifice. Well, let's democratize it. This time, let's let the reassuring advocates join the fun.

It is time the new players in power showed they truly understand the possible outcomes of what they will propose. It is time that they show that they are willing to risk something besides more Jewish lives. This is a Reader's Comment from the Daisy Stern website, December 31, 2008 that says it well. Jack wrote:

Does Obama think there will be peace if Israel capitulates to Arab demands and returns to the 1949 Armistice lines and allows millions of "refugees'" descendants into Israel. Let him give us his wife and daughters as hostages, not to do anything heroic, of course, just to live quietly in a luxury apartment in a pleasant town on a peaceful border, someplace like Kfar Sava, Modiin or Jerusalem. Let them attend our schools and ride the buses with us and eat in pizza parlors and restaurants with us and sit in outdoor cafes with us. Let us see them every day to assure us that he is sincere in his conviction that we will have peace. And if Dhimmi Carter believes also that we can have peace if we give up "Apartheid," let him send us his grandchildren as hostages also. Same goes for James "F----the-Jews" Baker and Martin Indyk and all the others who want to "save Israel from itself." Same goes for "Rabbi" Eric Yoffe, who excoriates Israel for causing the Arabs to hate us (Jews) by not making sufficient concessions and then opposes sending Reform youth to Israel because it's too dangerous. "I'm sure it will work. You try it." That doesn't make it. Whoever wants to impose a "solution" on us, send us your children and grandchildren.

YES, A NUCLEAR IRAN IS UNACCEPTABLE: A MEMO TO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA
by James Phillips and Peter Brookes

  James Phillips and Peter Brookes go well beyond the Brookings Report in taking into account that the U.N. is ineffectual if not downright supportive of Iran; that attempts to negotiate a diplomatic deal with Iran represent the triumph of wishful thinking over past experience; that there exist Iranian opposition groups and they should all be encouraged; and that a military force stands ready. They make the important point that letting Iran proceed will set off nuclear arms race throughout the "already volatile" Middle East. They suggest no meetings until the Iranians agree "to end their nuclear weapons efforts in a verifiable manner based on intrusive international inspections." The essay stops short of answering: what if Iran refuses?
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IRAN AND THE BOMB: THE CIA WAS WRONG (AGAIN)
by Edward Jay Epstein

  Edward Jay Epstein reviews the recent sorry history of America's intelligence agencies. Relying in large measure on CIA estimates, in 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) strongly denied Iran's nuclear capability. NIE said: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Unfortunately, the CIA had ignored some important aspects of what it takes to make a nuclear bomb and how Iran was doing. In 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had accumulated evidence that Iran's nuclear program had never stopped and was quietly proceeding. Unfortunately, too many people prefer to continue to want to believe we have lots of time in which to handle Iran.
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IRAN'S BOMB AND AMERICA'S IMPLODING FOREIGN POLICY
by Claudia Rosett

  The U.N. is often cited as the way to handle Iran. After all, it initiated sanctions against Iran some time ago (sanctions that Iran has todate disregarded). Claudia Rosett spells out the reality: far from being treated as a pariah, Iran has a great deal of power at the U.N. and is slated to get more. The United States is also purportedly mulling how best to stop Iran. Again there is the reality that Israel "was willing last year to take the risk of striking Iran's bomb program," and this was vetoed by President Bush. Rosett writes, "Iran has paid no serious penalty for sponsoring the killing of American troops in Iraq, for taking British sailors hostage, for mocking United Nations demands to stop enriching uranium, for backing terrorist groups in Gaza and Lebanon, or for setting up a menacing bridgehead to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in America's own backyard. No measures to date have sufficed to overthrow the mullahs, or even forced them to shut down their uranium centrifuges." Will things change in the future?
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THIRTY YEARS OF LIVING HELL
by Amil Imani

  "For years, U.S. officials say the Islamic Republic of Iran has continued to provide funding, weapons, training, and sanctuary to numerous terrorist groups based in the Middle East and elsewhere, posing a security concern to the international community." As Amil Imani points out, they have for thirty years also conducted a reign of terror in Iran. In this essay, he makes a strong case for us negotiating with the Iranian people "directly with the Iranian people or their legitimate representatives, not its current enemies, the Mullahs, their quisling-like lobbyists and mercenaries in the United States or elsewhere."
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GAZA and GUSH KATIF

The IDF finally went into Gaza to stop the missiles that have been shot at southern Israeli cities for some years now. As would be expected, the media's portrayal of Hamas as innocent victim of Israeli aggression was aided by stories of Arab starvation and Israeli brutality. The facts are that IDF used expensive technology to pinpoint terrorist targets rather than shell the area indiscriminately. This policy was often ignored by the media, but not by the Arabs, who used their women and children to shield the terrorist leaders who were the targets of the Israeli invasion.

While the Israeli government is overly protective of civilian Arabs, it continues to harrass Israeli Jews who rightly see Biblical Israel (Ancient Samaria and Judea, or, as the news media call them, the West Bank) as Jewish and see no reason why it should be turned over to those pseudo-people, the Palestinians. The Government is in the minority that still believes — or acts as if it believes — that Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews can live peacefully in two states, side by side and intertwined. To bring this about, they need to push the half millions Jews now living in Samaria and Judea and the eastern part of Jerusalem out of their homes and businesses. It doesn't seem to faze them that they haven't yet settled the 10,000 Jews they expelled from Gaza in 2005 — Jews like the Sapersteins and Anita Tucker, whose essays appear below.

ISRAEL'S RESPONSE IS DISPROPORTIONATE
by Jonathan Mark

  This is such a satisfactory article. Jonathan Mark agrees with the those who claim that Israel's response to the Arabs shelling Israeli cities over the years has been disproportionate. It's been unbelievably mild. It has been totally insufficient. As one example of what would be a proportionate response, Mark writes, "A proportionate response will begin to remind Jews that there is no peace process like victory, just as Israel's decade of disproportionate restraint and self-doubt has convinced young Palestinians that their victory is inevitable, like Aryan youth in 1933 singing 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me.'"
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FPC REPORT EXPOSES MASSIVE CONTRADICTIONS IN EUROPEAN AID TO PALESTINIANS
Summary by Elders of Ziyon

  There are serious contradictions between the sporadic reports of the large sums the Europeans are giving the Arabs in the territories and the piteous stories of starvation, especially in Gaza. Given the number of Arabs in Gaza and the size of the contributions from EU, UN and America, they should be living high off the hog lamb. Stories of Hamas stealing medicine and food shipments probably help account for the discrepancy. Nor does the enormous amount of housing built by the European Union for the Arabs receive much attention. The last time there was an attempt at a full accounting of the monies to the Arabs in the Territories was in 1994, when the Funding for Peace Coalition (FPC) issued its report. The report can be downloaded from: http://eufunding.org.uk/FPC2004Report.pdf. This is the Summary of the report that appeared on the Elders of Ziyion website at that time.
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TO HAVE PEACE, WIN BIG
by Professor Paul Eidelberg

  This is a compilation of several of Professor Eidelberg's essays on generals and the conduct of war. He quotes General Patton's comment, "The object of war is not to die for your country. It is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his." What would Patton have thought of a country whose leaders are intimidated by the enemy routinely plocking its "soldiers" among civilians? Would he believe that Israel politicos regularly stopped the war for several hours so that Gaza could be supplied with food and other necessities?
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INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE FIGHTING IN GAZA
by Justus Reid Weiner and Avi Bell

  This monograph explores the many international legal issues raised by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict along Gaza's borders, examining both Palestinian Arab behavior and Israel's conduct. Justus Reid Weiner and Avi Bell show that the Palestinian attacks are terrorist attacks under international law and illegal under the Genocide Convention. "In contrast to the illegal Palestinian attacks from Gaza and the international silence that has greeted them, Israeli counter-measures have been both legal and, paradoxically, widely condemned." Weiner and Bell devote space to demolishing the inaccurate and biased criticism that has been levied against Israel, particularly by Richard Falk of the U.N., and define the accurate and legal context for viewing Israel's entry into Gaza. The coverage is extensive, with attention paid to issues such as proportionality, collective punishment, and occupied territory, terms often bandied about by the media in ignorance of their actual definitions. They conclude that "International law requires Israel and other states to take measures to bring Palestinian war criminals and terrorists to justice, to prevent and punish Palestinian genocidal efforts, and to block the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups and those complicit with them."
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THE CURRENT WAR HAS ORIGIN IN GUSH KATIF EXPULSION
by Steven Plaut

  Steven Plaut argues that the current foray into Gaza was one of the tragic consequences of the "catastrophically stupid" expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif, Gaza in 2005. Turning the area over to Hamas gave them the opportunity to convert the territory to bomb factories and terror training grounds. Unfortunately, from the gingerly way the government is conducting the war, it still shows more concern about potential international indignation should the IDF hit a human shield than about the Israeli people. He notes cynically that "[t]he only lesson learned by the Olmert people is that the same arrangements that produced the hundreds of rockets on the Israeli south this week must be repeated in the West Bank."
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FIVE BASIC ARGUMENTS ADDRESSING THE CONCEPT OF A PALESTINIAN STATE
by Professor Paul Eidelberg

  In almost telegraphic style, Professor Eidelberg states important arguments againt creating a third state in Mandated Palestine and a 23rd Arab state in the Middle East. He presents economic, demographic, political, strategic and democratic arguments. Each point can be substantiated and enriched by many of the articles in Think-Israel. Find them by googling terms at the top of the Home page. The legal arguments — not discussed here — are also available. He concludes by asserting that the Arab-Israel conflict can be solved, but not by continuing to attempt to establish a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria.
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INEQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW
by Caroline Glick

  It hardly seems credible that Jews suffer severe discrimination in Israeli law courts. But such is indeed the case. In any legal disagreement involving a Jew and an Arab, the reality is that the Arab has the advantage, even when the evidence supports the Jew. This may be because of Israeli "affirmative action," or because so many of the Courts are manned by Leftists or because of government pressure or because the Government fears Arab riots, but whatever the reason, it is wrong. In addition, the government has given out harsh prison sentences to Right-wing Jews peacefully protesting land give-aways, while ignoring illegal acts by Jewish Leftists. What is true in individual cases is true when large groups are involved. The Beduins are stealing larges tracts of State land in the Negev and this is excused. The Jews of Hebron have legal right to a house they bought — the House of Peace — and they are expelled from it. In this essay, Caroline Glick writes that "Israel has become a society ruled by politicized law enforcement bodies that selectively enforce the law based on an individual's political affiliation and ethnic origin." This is not the way to maintain Israel as a democratic society.
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THE WAR — THE VIEW FROM GUSHKATIFERS NOW IN NETZER HAZANI IN EIN TZURIM
by Anita Tucker

  Many of the expelled Jews from Gush Katif, Gaza settled in the area that the Palestinian Arabs are now attacking with missiles. In Gush Katif, they had concrete homes safe from attack from the Arabs. Now in their new still-temporary homes, they don't have that security of closeby sturdy shelters — another detail the government forget when they gave Gaza over to the Palestinian Arabs. Anita Tucker, once a farmer in Gush Katif, writes how her group of ex-Kush Gatifers, now settled near Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, is coping. They worry about missile attacks and their children missing school. And they battle the intractable bureaucracies of the government, who are good at making poor decisions.
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SEWER PIPES AND THE GAZA WAR
by Moshe and Rachel Saperstein

  Moshe and Rachel Saperstein are essayists who have recorded their experience from the time they lived in Neve Dekalim, Gush Katif, Gaza and since they, with all the other Jews who lived in Gaza, were expelled and given still-temporary housing. In this article, they write of the Gaza War and the inadequate shelters — sewer pipes — to guard them from Arab rockets. As Rachel writes, "Those who flee from Gaza will find Gaza coming to them."
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ISLAM AT THE U.N.

Thanks to their voting as a bloc, the Muslim countries have a strong — and corrupting — influence at the U.N. What started as an organization devoted to humanitarian needs has changed. Many of the member nations have been sucked into the Arab/Muslim obsession. The "world" now agrees that Zionism is racism and a large proportion of General Assembly resolutions are anti-Israel, while real apartheid and terror are ignored. The bloc is now pushing through resolutions that benefit Islam directly, such as the one that will criminalize Islamophobia. Islamophobia translates roughly as anything — word or deed — that a Muslim feels disses Mohammed and Islam.

THE 'ISLAMOPHOBIA' CANARD AFTER MUMBAI
by Joel J. Sprayregen

  Under Arab pressure, the United Nations is in the process of passing a law criminalizing "defamation of religion." In practice, as Joel J. Sprayregen writes, this amounts to rooting out Islamophobia. Islamophobia is not, as you might think, an irrational fear of Islam. It is, as the Muslims see it, anything verbal or written that links Islam to "9/11, terror attacks, honor killings, suicide bombings, beheadings, executions by stoning, persecution of homosexuals, fatwas against authors, death threats to cartoonists, etc. The Organization of the Islamic Conference has decreed that even 'hostile glances' are Islamophobic." It should have little impact on how some of the major news and TV media do business. They have long refused to call an Islamic terrorist a terrorist and routinely omit material that might raise Muslim ire. This self-censorship was highlighted in Mumbai, where the New York Times, was the last to recognize that the massacre was committed by Muslims and that the slaughter at the Chabad House was deliberate, not random.
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UN'S OBSESSION IS GROTESQUE AND ORWELLIAN
by Jeff Jacoby

  Jeff Jacoby describes the U.N.'s obscene preoccupation with demonizing Israel while blithely ignoring the blatently immoral behavior of Israel's Arab neighbors. The U.N. is where Libya once chaired its Commission on Human Rights and Syria, China and Sudan served as members. The membership of the new Human Rights Council includes Cuba, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Zambia. and the General Assembly is chock full of human rights violators. It would seem that Israel must be doing something right to earn the U.N.'s condemnation. "By aligning with Islamists, the U.N. would be supporting the stifling of free speech and the suppression of human rights, and crushing the goal of building tolerant democratic societies."
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THE UNITED ISLAMIST NATIONS
by Supna Zaidi

  In this essay, Supna Zaidi aptly describes the United Nation He notes that "[i]nstead of figuring out how to combat Islamic extremists, the United Nations is worried about offending them." "The OIC nations charge critics of Islamic extremism with 'racism' and 'Islamophobia' to deflect attention from the fact that such violence originates at the hand of Muslim clerics born and bred in their lands. This is because they realize they can't control Islamism, or they tacitly agree with its message." Muslim clerics also export this ideology to the West to radicalize Muslim immigrants abroad, and reform-minded Muslims are usually the first victims." "By aligning with Islamists, the U.N. would be supporting the stifling of free speech and the suppression of human rights, and crushing the goal of building tolerant democratic societies." What a perversion of the lofty goals it was hoped the U.N. would attain!
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HUMAN RIGHTS AT 60: THEY AREN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE
by Joseph Loconte

  It's 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. Sad to say, "More than half of the 47 members of the Human Rights Council, the principal U.N. body charged with promoting human rights, fail to uphold basic democratic freedoms in their own countries." Yet they routinely denounce Israel and America for supposed human rights failures. "The bitter irony is that another form of contempt for human dignity has appeared — and found safe harbor in the multicultural halls of New York and Geneva."
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DANGEROUS UN REVISIONISM AND DEFENSE OF DURBAN II FROM THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
by Anne Bayefsky

  Meticulously planned to create the belief that Israel was a dreadful — if not the worst — example of a racist country, Durban I has instead come to stand as a prime example of Orwellian inversion, where a conference called to examine racism in general became a willing "platform for hatemongers and a cover for human-rights abusers," whose only goal was to demonize Israel. In preparing for the upcoming Durban 2, its supporters are downplaying Durbin 1's targetted viciousness and blaming a couple of NGOs. As Anne Bayefsky writes, "A boycott denies legitimacy to a platform for hatemongers and a cover for human-rights abusers. For states to show leadership against racism and intolerance, they must join Canada and Israel and stay away."
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ISLAM IN EUROPE

The European Union (EU) is the superstructure binding together 27 member states. The Lisbon Treaty is intended to "streamline" EU institutions so that the EU can function more efficiently. The Treaty was signed in Lisbon in December 2007 but needs to be unanimously ratified before it can come into effect. The main holdout is Ireland, whose voters rejected it in a June 2007 referendum. The EU hopes to mollify Ireland's concerns so that the voters will approve the Treaty when the Irish again hold a referendum on it at the end of 2009. As background we reprint Professor Anthony Coughlan's December 2007 article on the Lisbon Treaty below.

Interestingly enough, the Charter of Fundamental Rights is declared to be legally binding but is not presented in the document. On the other hand, the code of Civil Rights will extend EU jurisdiction into areas previously decided by the individual countries.

The Lisbon Treaty would effectively subordinate the national Parliaments of the member countries and put decision making in the hands of the small cohort running the EU.

In Europe, radical Islam is not taking a nibble but all but the dessert. England for justified reasons is already called Englandistan. It's become a major locus of sharia banking. Its politicians are very sensitive — that's the new word for total fear of doing anything that will make Muslims angry — to Muslim concerns, from forcing non-Muslim coworkers to abstain from eating lunch in full view during Ramadan, to eliminating teaching about the Holocaust.

Now, as Fjordman explains, the EU seems ready to hook up with the Arab hegemony. It is drafting legislation that will make Islamophobia a crime. It would appear that Eurobia is closer to becoming a reality.

Having observed the sticky hand of Arab manipulation of the United Nations, it is hard to ignore how easy it will be for Arab paymasters to exert control on the small homogeneous group running the EU. They've been successful at the U.N. — a much larger group with conflicting ideas on most subjects.

THESE BOOTS ARE GONNA WALK ALL OVER YOU
by Professor Anthony Coughlan

  Caligula wished that all the Rome had but one head, the easier to behead everyone. Despite the overwhelming hostility of ordinary Europeans for elitist-controlled unification, the European countries are on the way to becoming a United Europe, making it easier for radical Islam to take over.

Professor Coughlan explains what the Lisbon Treaty does: essentially it recreates the European Union (EU) "in the constitutional form of a supranational European State." It allows a small group of politicians "to act as a State vis-a-vis other States and its own citizens." The major thing that won't change is the name; it will still be called the EU. How comfy!
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THE EURABIA CODE — 2008 UPDATES
by Fjordman

  Fjordman is a major analyst of how Islam is taking over Europe, how the formation of Eurobia — an amalgam of Europe and Arabian countries — is well underway. In this essay, he writes: "What has happened since 2006 is that European leaders are increasingly open about the idea of enlarging the EU to include the Arab world,.." This includes the acceptance of sharia law and making islamophobia a criminal offense. "In essence, the EU is formally surrendering an entire continent to Islam while destroying established national cultures, and is prepared to harass those who disagree with this policy. This constitutes the greatest organized betrayal in Western history, perhaps in human history, yet is hailed as a victory for 'tolerance'"
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ISLAM IN AMERICA

Sharia Banking is making inroads into our Banks with the approval of Governmental agencies. And Sharia Banking can not be separated from Sharia Law. Its proponents now have new platforms from which to proselytize their religion. And Muslims use the law courts to overturn the law — Constitutional Law — hoping to substitute shari'a law in its place.

AIG DEFIES U.S. TAXPAYERS BY PROMOTING SHARIA IN AMERICA
by Jeffrey Imm

  Jeffrey Imm carefully explains what Sharia law is and what is wrong with American International Group (AIG)'s taking USA money to power the substitution of sharia law, which derives its authority from the Quoran, for our system of law, which derives its authority from the U.S. Constitution.
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HUGGING SHARI'A FINANCE AT THE FED
by Alyssa A. Lappen

  Alyssa A. Lappen focuses on the encouragement given Shari'a banking at the Fed. Tim Geithner, current head of the Federal Reserve Bank and Obama's choice for Secretary of the Treasury, has continued the practice of letting "dangerous new Islamic and shari'a-based securities, markets and financial institutions gain business currency." The dangers of terrorist-associations by shari'a banks and shari'a advisors have been ignored. For example, "Shari'a finance advisor Muslim Brother Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo advised Pakistan's tyrannical Zia ul-Haq from 1981 to 1984, and ran the Virginia Islamic Saudi Academy educational program cited in 2008 for using hateful Islamic texts." And together with infiltration of Shari'a banking into the banking community comes hefty propaganda by its proponents at bank-sponsored events for the adoption of Shari'a law — and submission to Allah as "owner" of all material things — as an alternative to individual ownership rights, which is fundamental to our banking system.
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ISLAMIC BANKING. IS TREASURY COMPLICIT?
by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Samuel A. Abady

  Shari'a banking is not ancient practice, but was concocted by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s; its "stated goal was to penetrate the Western finance system, corrupting it from within in hopes of creating a parallel system to re-establish a global Islamic empire governed by Islamic law (Shariah)." A feature of Shari'a banking is the required tithing, which often ends up funding terror groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood's creation, Hamas. Another feature of Shari'a financing is that it forbids loans to proscribed entities that include "industries that use alcohol, and to all Israeli businesses." Currrently, the banking industry is hungry for petrodollars and is encouraging Islamic banking, though as, Rachel Ehrenfeld and Samuel Abady write, it "corrupts our financial system, enables the illegal Arab economic boycott of Israel and entangles government with Islam in violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause."
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"LEGAL JIHAD": HOW ISLAMIST "LAWFARE" IS STIFLING WESTERN FREE SPEECH ON RADICAL ISLAM
by Brooke Goldstein

Lawfare is using the law courts to harass people who write or speak negatively about Islam. It is another technique of intimidation used by Islamists in countries where they are not yet strong enough to be boldly assertive. They use a necessary component of democracy to suppress democracy. It is one aspect of what has been termed creeping sharia. Using an unlimited supply of money and taking advantage of Western tolerance, Muslims and their agents are stealthily attempting to replace western law and culture with Islamic sharia law. Brooke Goldstein provides us with both details and conclusions. It is not a pretty picture but it is important you be aware of how Islamists are using democratic institutions to suppress democracy.
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HELPING THE MUSLIM CAUSE VOLUNTARILY OR UNWITTINGLY

Many institutions do so unwittingly, simply by fuzzing the facts about Islam, some deliberately deny them or leave out significant facts. This is true for much of the media. And it is also in effect when, for example, an institution such as the Holocaust Museum skims overs aspects of Jewish History that would make clear how the Arabs gained a strong foothold in Mandated Palestine.

MUSLIM IN TOLERANT DISGUISE
by Richard H. Shulman

  Richard Shulman takes the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum to task for not sharply and clearly presenting important aspects of Jewish history during and just after the Nazi period. It slides over the injustice done the Jews by the British, who ignored their obligation to support strongly Jewish settlement in the future Jewish homeland. Britain clamped down on Jewish immigration while encouraging Arab influx. "The Museum should have explained that Britain's immigration policy for western Palestine made it an accomplice to Nazi Germany's policy to exterminate the Jews that Britain forced to stay in Europe." The sorry performance of prominent American and Israeli Jews also needs to be aired. What is particularly heinous is that Muslims who softsoap and misinterpret Muslim behavior and intentions are sanctioned as speakers at the Museum and their words are not challenged. As Shulman says, "Punches pulled, truth withheld."
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APPEASEMENT OF WICKEDNESS: THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES AND MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
by Paul C. Merkley

  Paul Merkley writes of various leaders in the World Council of Churches who have been pleased to meet with Hezbollah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Churchmen find them easy to talk to and are not put off by their terrorist activities against Jews or intimidation of Lebanese Christians. WCC leaders pre World War 2 had equally bad judgment. They thought well of Hitler, Mussolini and Chamberlain. And in the Cold War, they never spoke up for Christians suffering in Communist countries. Since 1967 they have been standing "with the Palestinian people in their struggle ..." Hostile towards Israel, they saw nothing wrong in giving Ahmadinejad a dinner and a platform. With each such stunt, the gap between Church leaders and their membership grows. More in keeping with the attitude towards Israel of the majority of the Christian laity was the statement by Malcolm Hedding, director of International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. He said, "We are outraged," he said, "that [Ahmadinejad] was on American soil in the first place, and that Christians met with him at all. We fear that it's an appeasement of wickedness ....After the failure of the churches to speak out in the face of Nazi Germany's anti-Semitism in the 1930s, we dare not be silent again."
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BLOOD LIBEL — PART II
by Patricia Berlyn

  In Part I, Patricia Berlyn wrote about the historic blood libel, where Judeophobics believed Jews killed people to drink their blood or for their matzoh, an odd accusation, considering that the Kashruth laws forbid Jews to imbibe blood. In Part 2, she surveys "contemporary purveyors of the Blood Libel" — some European countries that enable the dissemination of Judeophic lies; Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are "Noxiously obsessed with pressing false charges against Israel, but show little if any concern about Arab aggressions and terrorism..."; and brings us up to date on some individual libelers. If ever there's a prize for libeler of the year, it might go to Clare Short, a member of the British House of Commons. She complained that "Israel undermines the international community's reaction to global warming."
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STILL ASLEEP AFTER MUMBAI
by Daniel Pipes

  Daniel Pipes observes that after highly publicized attacks by Islamists "a twofold pattern emerges: Muslim exultation and Western denial. The "world-wide acceptance of terror among many Muslims" in different groups of Muslims is well-documented by different polls and no longer surprises. Western denial also follows a pattern. "When a sole jihadist strikes, politicians, law enforcement, and media join forces to deny even the fact of terrorism; and when all must concede the terrorist nature of an attack, as in Mumbai, a pedantic establishment twists itself into knots to avoid blaming terrorists." Pipes wonders how big a terrorist attack it will take to "rouse Westerners from their stupor, to name the enemy and fight the war to victory?"
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TERRORIZED TIMES
by Rabbi Avi Shafran

  Rabbi Avi Shafran writes about the New York Times' refusal to use the word terrorist even about the terrorists who attacked Mumbai. The reasons given by the Times to justify their lack of accurate name calling are multiple but seem wide of the mark. So Rabbi Shafran supplies them with a definition. "A terrorist group is a terrorist group, even if it runs a hospital, wins elections, operates a soup kitchen, recycles its plastics and cares for abandoned kittens. And all who choose to support such a group or, by working under its auspices, to empower it are members of a terrorist group and, thereby, accessories to terrorism." And so are the media who misname evil.
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THE 'REALIST' FANTASY
by Caroline Glick

  Britain Channel 4 marked Christmas Day this year by providing Iran's Ahmadinejad a televised opportunity to urge Christians to convert to Islam. Channel 4 saw this as a public service because they felt people didn't get much of a chance to hear him speak for himself. Caroline Glick makes sense of the puzzlement that the network felt this way — Ahmadinejad certainly doesn't seem to suffer from media underexposure. She writes, "As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy 'experts' and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world." Truly a fantasy. But one that has the power to do much harm.
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WHAT THEY SAY ISN'T WHAT YOU HEAR
by Barry Rubin

  Why are so many of us not appalled when the Arabs spew hatred at the Western countries and threaten Israel with annihilation? One reason is that we never get to hear an accurate translation of their actual words. Thanks to self-selected filters such as the New York Times and paid lobbyists such Edward Abington, the virulence is toned down, the words neutered. Then too, the news media often allows their fantasies to interfere with their reporting. Barry Rubin provides us with some trenchant examples of the art of whitewashing Arab hostility.
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HISTORY SECTION.

This set includes an article on the Arab treatment of Jews in Arab lands. The other articles are about England and the nascent Jewish State; specifically, on Britain's pledge to help create a Jewish state on land uniquely connected to the Jewish people, land that became available in World War 1, when the Ottomans lost ownership by being on the losing side. Then, after it received the Mandate in 1922 to help make a Jewish state, England broke her pledge.

It should be pointed out that the Arabs did not "own" the Middle East. (And the Palestinian people had not yet been invented.) The Ottomans had owned it — for some 400 years. Britain "gave" 99.9% of this region of the Ottoman Empire to the Arabs. Then, perhaps feeling this was insufficient, they chopped away the area east of the Jordan river (which was 78% of the land intended as a Jewish Homeland) and "gave" it to its wartime Hashemite ally to administer. This became Transjordan and is now known as Jordan. Jewish National Home was the term introduced by Max Nordau for Jewish State; it was not so in-your-face.

THE FORGOTTEN OPPRESSION OF JEWS UNDER ISLAM AND IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL
by Elliott A. Green

  Elliott Green writes, "Contrary to what many Jews and other people have believed, conditions in Muslim lands were often worse for Jews than in Christendom". They were subject to the extortion tax levied on all infidels, but they were singled out as the enemy and as inferior beings in the Quran and ever after were ranked at the bottom of the social structure, living in fear and humiliation over the centuries. It was particularly poignant to see this in Jerusalem, where, as Chateaubriand wrote, "these legitimate owners of Judea [are] slaves and strangers in their own land." Ignoring history, or perhaps banking on the general ignorance of their readers, writers such as Professors Walt and Mearsheimer speak of the innocent Arabs hounded by the Jews, a neat inversion of reality.
 
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ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO THE LAND
by Sean Gannon

  November 2 marks the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the letter that laid out Britain's intent to help establish a Jewish State. Sean Gannon writes about the Declaration in context of the Arab argument that the Jewish claims have no legitimacy. Its language was later incorporated into the League of Nations' Mandate, which put the land irrevocably in trust for the Jewish people. The Trust was passed on to the League's successor, the United Nations. Googling the search box at the top of Think-Israel's home page for "Howard Grief" and Yoram Shifftan" will provide you with in-depth articles on Israel's ownership of Mandated Palestine.
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BRITAIN IN THE MIDDLE EAST: A BAD CASE OF AMNESIA
by Colonel Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto

  The previous article points out that the Balfour Declaration was Britain's pledge to help establish a Jewish state and its language was incorporated into the League of Nations as a irrevokable trust in 1922. It was in that same year — as Colonel Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto writes — that Britain broke its pledge and adopted a pro-Arab policy, encouraging Arab immigration into mandated Palestine and discouraging Jewish immigration.
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READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

November 2008 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
December 2008 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE




September-October, 2008


What we are talking about this issue:

(1) MEDIA BIAS (McLaughlin, McCarthy, Golem, Feder, Malone, Phillips, Landes, Lipkin, Marquardt-Bigman)

(2) SHARIA INFILTRATION INTO AMERICA
   Promoting Sharia Law: (Dreyfus, Perazzo, Ibrahim)
   Adopting The Right Mind Set: (Frantzman, Mandel, Imm, Lieberberg)

(3) IS IT SMART TO WEAKEN ISRAEL, ESPECIALLY NOW?
   Coexistence isn't possible. (Frantzman, Salzman, Rubin. Spyer)
   Give the Arabs a state in Arab Land. This would also solve the refugee problem (Sharan, Rodban, Singer, Sherman, Grief)

(4) DEALING WITH THE ARAB AND ISRAELI MIND SET.
   Changing the Israeli Mind Set" (Celser, Kaplan, Lewin, Kedar, Shomron, Glick, Lademain)
   Paying attention to the Muslim Mindset (Jayate, Ibrahim, Suseelan )

(5) HISTORY (Elder of Ziyon, Perry)

SECTION 1.  MEDIA BIAS

The historic news is that Barack Obama will be our next president. The news media played a large part in his victory and John McCain's defeat. Some incidents were amplified, repeated everywhere again and again and/or given importance. Often the "meat" was removed, leaving a bland report, as when Rashid Khalidi was described as a professor in a prestigious university — which he is — without mentioning that he continues to be an open and vicious anti-semite. Other incidents were distorted, trivialized or simply not reported. What became obvious is that media reporting has, in large measure, evolved from a 'commentaries on the Op-Ed page, news otherwise' to a commentary-news mush.

If nothing else is certain, at least this election has answered one intriguing philosophical question. The best-known version of the conundrum posed by Bishop Berkeley is: if a tree falls in the forest [and no one hears it], does it make a sound? Or in an updated version: if the newpapers/TV stations ignore a tree, will it ever reach the pulp market? The media can also give an experience-based course on how to grow a twig into a redwood in the time between two commercials.

The articles in this set discuss media bias and publishers of reference material that tamper with the accuracy of the information that we receive.

OBJECTIVE PRETENSE — MEDIA BIAS AND THE ELECTORATE
by Tom McLaughlin

  Tom McLaughlin points out some specific instances of media bias in the presidential campaign. Sarah Palin was ridiculed while gaffes by the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President were ignored. What makes Joe Biden's gaffe about where the duties of the vice-president are defined in the Constitution so telling is that it was barely reported, while the media insisted Palin didn't understand the role of the vice-president.
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THE LOS ANGELES TIMES SUPPRESSES OBAMA'S KHALIDI BASH TAPE
by Andrew C. McCarthy

  Andrew McCarthy tells us about a tape destined to become as famous as Nixon's partially-wiped tape. The real horror of what he discusses is that we now live in a world when A Mad Jihad Man comes to the U.N. with the Good News that he plans to bomb Israel into oblivion, and some Jewish Democrats, leftists, are more concerned that Sarah Palin will attract a large crowd, politically a problem for them. A world where Rashid Khalidi spews insults at his Jewish students, and Columbia puts him on the Selection Committee to nominate an acting head for their Jewish Studies program. A world where Barack Obama participates in a hate-a-Jew fest thrown by AAAN, an activist organization founded by Khalidi and funded by Barack Obama and William Ayers using Woods money — and not one major newspaper is outraged.
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THE WAR AND PEACE REPORT...
by Rachel Golem

  This is broad satire — you might think you were watching Saturday Night Live (SNL), except, of course, SNL would never tackle this subject. Rachel Golem gives us interviews with some well-known figures on the Extreme Left, as they might be done by Amy Goodman, another well-known Marxist.
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OUR ENEMY THE MEDIA
by Don Feder

  The New York Times rightfully identified Sarah Palin as a danger to Barack Obama's campaign. It went after her and John McCain with ruthless determination, while airbrushing negative information about Obama. As Don Feder points out, "The Gray Lady set the tone for the rest of the press." It taught the wolf pack of newpapers — most of the Press was campaigning for Obama — how to attack the Republican candidates. In becoming a partisan, its tactics ranged from ruminating about Sarah Palin's clothes to promulgating rumors about her family inventive enough to make the National Inquirer proud. To get Barack Obama elected, the Times was willing to shed its integrity. What is ludicrous, it yelps that it knows about the separation of news and opinion. As Feder puts it, "For sheer hypocrisy, this is hard to beat. In the real world, The New York Times is to objectivity what Jack the Ripper was to women's rights."
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MEDIA'S PRESIDENTIAL BIAS AND DECLINE
by Michael S. Malone

  Michael Malone has observed that over the years, some of the country's major papers have let "opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page." The networks are no better. "But," he points out, "nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign." The media attack dogs are all on the side of the Democrats. Malone puts the blame on the news editors, the people who assign to the reporters and lay out the news and editorial pages. The reasons for their bias for Obama will surprise you.
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MOVING THE FORWARD BACKWARD
by Moshe Phillips

  The Forward started as a socialist paper, but with the intelligence to translate classics into Yiddish and in other ways teach immigrants how to live as participants in America. After it needed to be written in English to maintain a readership, thanks to poor leadership, it soon could rightfully be labelled as anti-Semitic. Moshe Phillips provides us with some essential information and suggests some changes that would put the Forward on the right track. Between the lines, we can also read the hostility of Leftist ideologues to Judaism.
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THE MUHAMMAD AL-DURA BLOOD LIBEL: A CASE ANALYSIS
An Interview with Richard Landes conducted by Manfred Gerstenfeld

  The Al-Dura Hoax has become the morality play of our time. For years, it was assumed that Israeli soldiers had killed the boy, Muhammad. His death instantly became justification for Arab violence. When it was finally demonstrated that the bullet couldn't have been fired by the soldiers — the geometry precluded such an explanation — the hoax began to fall apart. And became more complex. The photographer, his boss at the TV station, the newpaper managers stonewalled. The mainstream media mostly ignored the significance of the new evidence presented in the court. Richard Landes reviews the story and provides more information on those that started the lie and those who insisted that the lie was true and whose who used the lie to castigate the Jews for their own purposes.
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PAN-ARABISM'S RACISM AND WIKIPEDIA BIAS
compiled and edited by Bernice Lipkin

  By now, it's fairly common knowledge that Wikipedia is fine for some subjects — maybe 'some parts of a subject' would be more accurate — and not for others. As a rule of thumb, distortions will increase the more the subject is politicized. In this case an article in Wikipedia was challenged by an unknown reader and the Wikipedia Editor was taken to task. Another reader supplied reliable references that would counteract the initial Wiki assertions.
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THE WARPED MIRROR: NO PRETENSE OF SCHOLARSHIP
by Petra Marquardt-Bigman

  It is curious that papers like the New York Times practice self-censorship and won't say something nasty but true about Islam while a publisher of an encyclopedia publishes 3-volumes of sloppy and inaccurate anti-Jewish text. Could it be that the Muslims will riot at the slightest criticism and Jews politely request ... — even when the document is noxious? It is of course MacMillan's right to publish what it wishes; and it is our duty to alert the educational community that a once respectable publishing house is selling racist propaganda disguised as a scholarly reference work. Petra Marquardt-Bigman tells us the story.
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SECTION 2. PROMOTING SHARIA; TIME TO RETHINK OURSELVES

(1) The Infiltration of Sharia Law into America by committed groups and by the increased number of financial institutions that want to engage in in Sharia Banking. A banking system that, on the surface, offers loans without interest seems too good to be true. It is candy few in the financial community can resist, because the no-interest-loan allows for an impressive variety of service charges. The real problem is that Sharia Banking demands an increased "sensitivity" to Sharia Law, which applies to all aspects of life. (There is some basic information on Sharia Banking here. The Sharia Finance Watch Section of The Center for Security Policy issues articles on a regular basis at
www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/category/center-for-security-policy/)

(2) Over time, Americans have listened while we were told what was wrong with our family structure, our way of looking at the world, our commitment to a set of values that were disregarded in more dictatorial countries. We were taught to substitute shame for pride in many of our institutions. These essays examine several of these notions and suggest we need to get back on the track that promotes freedom of action and freedom of thought and freedom of speech.

This set of essays is about several ways Sharia Law is infiltrating America. Banking institutions, lawyers and even the governmental agencies are eager to train people in Sharia banking. Blacks have been aggressively targetted for recruitment by jihadists. Converts to Islam work to establish an Islamic state. And Muslim immigrants show strong support for the Sharia law that governed every aspect of their lives in the "old country," the one they came here to get away from.

LEARNING ABOUT SHARIAH LAW IN THE BELLY OF THE A.B.A.
by Marion D.S. Dreyfus

  Marion Dreyfus provides us with an excellent picture of a training session on Shariah-compliant finance (SCF) given to non-Muslim lawyers by a panel of experts. The subject is complicated and Dreyfus made note of important areas that not covered or were sloughed off when the speaker was questioned. The number of deals involving SCF is increasing and she notes, "It was explained that the swelling numbers of deals would make NOT working with SCF 'almost impossible.'" The U.S. Treasury has also recently held a workshop to train U.S. government personnel in SCF.
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BLACK RACISTS RECRUITED TO GUIDE THE JIHAD
by John Perazzo

  In the '50s, we prefaced any not totally rightist opinion with "I'm not a communist BUT ..." In today's climate, dominated by the totally leftist, it's "I'm not a racist, BUT ..." But the spell of intimidation may be cracking. People are noticing that racism is equal-opportunity and some blacks — like some whites — are racist. Once we go past the surface, people like John Perazza, in this essay, are beginning to ask the important questions: WHY and HOW. Perazzo points out that many black racists are reborn Muslims just as black radicals used to be communist. Arafat was trained by the Russians and provided by them with techniques and talking points. Perhaps we will discover that the current generation of the radicalized is being manipulated the same way. After all, as the Muslim terrorists say by their actions: if it works, use it, again and again
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AMERICAN MUSLIMS' PRIORITY PROBLEMS
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Muslims are becoming more vocal in demanding that their environment and working conditions be reconstructed to suit their religious requirements. Raymond Ibrahim wonders why they voluntarily left Muslim countries very much in harmony with their lifestyle to "surround themselves with wine-imbibing, swine-eating libertines. Why?" He suggests they choose — either to stay in "sharia friendly" countries or "prepare to assimilate — that is, compromise — to some degree. It's a simple question of priorities."
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We have been told for a very long time that anybody's values are just as good as ours, yet only a Muslim can understand the Middle East, that you are free to say anything — if it's politically correct and won't offend the sensitive. People with induced low self-esteem are more likely to believe anyone who is completely convinced his is the Way ... And Muslim missionaries don't suffer from uncertainty. Maybe we need to work on strengthening our own beliefs and attitudes.

CAN ISLAM SAVE THE WHITE MAN?
by Seth J. Frantzman

  Call this essay by Seth Frantzman ironic. Call it sarcasm. But it expresses the great truth that what is denigrated by us in our society is admired in Other societies. We compare ourselves to Others and find ourselves lacking in .. (whatever is the fad of the moment). Frantzman uses as paradigm the redneck versus Muslim culture. We've allowed ourselves to be psyched out. It's time to rethink.
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OCCIDENTAL TRUTH
by Daniel Mandel

  Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University has received recent media attention because of his association with President Elect Obama. His hatred of Jews has long been known on his home campus, where he is considered heir to the late Edward Said, the linguist. Said almost single-handedly set the assumptions and presumptions underlying Middle Eastern studies across the country. He was the giver of the received wisdom that the exploitative, racist West could not really understand the Middle East. His influence was strong and, for the most part, inhibited critical assessment of his proclamations. In this essay, Daniel Mandel reviews Ibn Warraq's critique of Said's influential book, Orientalism. As Mandel writes, "Said's theories laid the groundwork for 'post-colonial studies,' the academic discipline whose founding principle is the belief that the West — and everything identified with its intellectual and cultural traditions — is guilty of oppressing and exploiting those foreign cultures that came under its power and influence at one time or another."
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JIHAD AND THE RELATIVIST ENEMY WITHIN
by Jeffrey Imm

  As Jeffrey Imm writes, "In today's America, we now have those who call for relativism regarding the ideology of Islamic supremacy and those organizations supporting Islamic supremacism. Such relativists ask: who are we to challenge other ideas and values? They ask: why should Americans confront such an ideology, instead of engaging with it?" The answer is, of course, we have no choice, no choice that is, if we wish to preserve America's freedom. Resurgent Islam declared war on us, and unless we fight back they will win. That's why "...shrug-shoulder relativism towards the survival of America and defense of its values" is dangerous. "Relativism towards America's values goes from the decadence that such values aren't worth fighting over and ultimately leads to the nihilistic view that our very existence is not worth fighting over." We need to realize this is unacceptable behavior.
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REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES
by Zack Lieberberg

  After Barack Obama said he supports laws that would allow illegal aliens to obtain drivers' licences, one group pointed out that there is one issue almost all Americans agree on: the 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. should not get amnesty, should not get driver's licenses, should not get Social Security benefits, should not get automatic Medicaid healthcare cover and other government benefits. But as Zack Lieberberg writes, we're not willing to actually carry out actions we know we should. Where draconian measures are needed, we are not able to allow ourselves to use them, whether to fight the invasion by aliens, the drug war or the threat from resurgent Islam. The fear is that if strong measures are used, they will be turned against us, and it's not an irrational fear. Lieberberg suggests there is need for a new political party to do what is necessary.
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SECTION 3. IS IT SMART TO WEAKEN ISRAEL, ESPECIALLY NOW?

Israel has much the same problems as we do — invasion by aliens; in Israel they are called Palestinians. The nuclear threat hangs over Israel with even more immediacy than it does over us in America. The media, major mainstream churches, "human rights" groups and many of their own intellectuals have preached that whatever Israel does is wrong and whatever the Arabs do is justified. And the Palestinians have used Israel as a training ground to test explosives and try out new hate literature and propaganda for longer than they waged lihad against us. In addition, major figures in its government seem to be working for the Arabs, even though they draw paychecks from Israel's treasury. And they, like us, are about to deal with a new American president, who promises Change. Israel's level of confidence is not high.

We've been told America policy will shift to a "come let us reason together" approach, where we sit down with the Iranians, the Syrians, Hamas and whatever splinter groups command respect by blowing up people. Simultaneously, the Palestinian-Israeli so-called peace process will be resurrected to try to create a viable Palestinian State in Biblical Israel, whatever the cost to Israel. We ask: is this really the time to weaken Israel, America's only reliable friend in the Middle East? Israel, that has improved or invented or engineered items that improve not only our daily lives but the ability of the West to fight aggression? Is this really the time to weaken the only democracy in the Middle East? Why, when Israel needs to be strong to contribute to the fight against global Jihad, is there pressure on her to give up land? The Palestinians are now demanding not just Samaria and Judea (the West Bank) but significant parts of Jerusalem. Actually the latest trend is for a one-state solution, Arab style. Since the Arabs have told us time and again they want to destroy Israel, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Perhaps we should consider a one-state solution in Israel: a Jewish one-State. The Palestinians can have their state in some part of the vast lands that were given over to the Arabs when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. They can have much more land than is available in Israel. And they'd be among mispocha, literally. Asking the Palestinian Arabs to live in peace with Israel goes against their grain. There's more chance of a successful peace by giving them a state well outside of Israel, where they might find other things to do besides obsessing on their hate of Israel. Evacuating the Arab refugee camps and setting up the refugees in this new country would simultaneously solve the very expensive Arab refugee problem, money that can be used for genuine refugees. Several of the essays consider how to implement this.

Let's get real. Everyone know "peace process" means "force land concessions from Israel." There is no chance that it will lead even to a temporary illusion of peace. It makes no sense to pressure Israel to give up more of its tiny country to appease a group of Arab countries that don't need more land. What they want is for Israel to disappear, so all of the Middle East will be Muslim. Which kind of Muslim and who will be in control are questions they will settle afterwards among themselves, probably in the traditional way — warfare, bloodshed, coercion and enslavement. The so-called Palestinians do not enter into the equation. They will have no more control than they had when Egypt administered Gaza and Jordan controlled Samaria and Judea.

The essays in this Section are in two categories:

(1) In the Palestinian Arab-Israeli conflict, is coexistence — of two states side by side or of the two people in a single state — possible?

(2) An alternative solution. Transfer the Arabs to their own place in some part of Arab-controlled land. These countries claim they can't think of recognition of Israel while their Palestinian cousins suffer. Think how happy they can make their cousins! This will also solve the Arab refugee problem. It likely won't cost more than the current costs of maintaining a large and expanding group of people on the dole. Giving Arabs their own state in some part of the vast land area the Arabs control is simple, doable, and effective. Moreover, it is legal by international law. Taking land from Israel is not legal by international law.

There have been long debates about whether Israel should be cut into two separate states or left as one. The 2-state solution would make Israel the meat in a sandwich where the Palestinians are the bread, say, Hamas pumpernickels in Gaza and the goodguy terrorists in Samaria and Judea. The Palestinian State would need, of course, a wide bridge between its parts, which, incidently, would cut Israel into two separated sections. The alternative visualizes a single state with Israelis and Palestinian Arabs sharing power and responsibilities. The Arabs would greet visiting VIP's from Europe; the Israelis would figure out how to collect the garbage without getting killed.

Few advocates of either case asked whether co-existence was possible? If the question was raised, usually a hitherto unknown mystic streak would emerge and we'd hear about the lions and lambs lying down together. Lunch would be served before anyone could ask: 'who got up?'. Or we'd be reassured that the Palestinians would be so busy building their state, they wouldn't have time for target practice.

These essays ask about coexistence, starting with a fundamental question: Is Coexistence Possible? And — is there any evidence that the Arabs would consider coexistence, except in the trivial case of existing in the same location until they could wipe out the Jews?

COEXISTENCE: THE MYTH
by Seth J. Frantzman

  Seth J. Frantzman asks whether coexistence is possible between two hostile groups. Setting aside movies that fantasize the possibilities, it's hard to come up with an example. As Frantzman puts it, "There has never been coexistence and there never will be. There is only individual coexistence. Communal coexistence does not exist." "Stories such as these usually involve some individual evidence of someone named Mahmud and some other person named Vikram and how they were friends and shopped at each others' stores and that their children played together." As I read this essay, I thought of the Seeds Of Peace program — Jewish-sponsored, of course — where Jewish and Arab children would learn to co-exist. In one sense, it succeeded beautifully — the Jewish Adam Shapiro from Seeds of Peace ran to Ramallah to protect Yasser Arafat, so he'd live to kill more Jews. But I don't think this is what people want, when they talk co-existence.
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SELF-INDUCED NAKBA
by Philip Carl Salzman

  Can two people coexist when A sees itself as the perpetual victim of B — while simultaneously looking forward to conquering B, for it is A's divine right established by Allah to rule over all other people? Not bloody likely! Philip Salzman writes that "Narratives of victimization, such as the Palestinian one, neglect to account for the active Arab response to the Jews and to Jewish immigration. Explaining all by Western imposition robs the Arabs of Palestine of their agency, and infantalizes them." The Arabs were much more active: "Arab opposition to the Jews [was] expressed in riots and pogroms..." Salzman sums Arab behavior this way: "They demanded all or nothing, and got nothing. But they have continued to hold to the rejectionist position, taking an annihilationist stance toward Israel and the Jews. So in reality the self-induced 'Nakba' is self-perpetuating."
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AP BLAMES ISRAEL FOR MAKING PALESTINIANS WANT TO DESTROY IT
by Barry Rubin

  The Associated Press (AP) is not noted for writing comedy. But Professor Rubin has identified a sthtick that would make an interesting situation comedy. The anti-hero, an Arab, keeps trying to kill the Jew. He keeps failing, the Jew not liking this part of the script much. The Arab blames the Jew for having forced him to want to kill the Jew and vows to try harder. Actually, it's not so funny in real life. It's also not funny that AP, a news agency, writes good fiction, when it should stick to fact. It might also translate for its readers Arabic circumlocutions in English; for example, that "Prominent Palestinians are lighting a fire under Israel's feet by proposing a peace in which there would be no separate Palestine and Israel, but a single state with equal rights for all." means terrorist violence, not a plea for coexistence.
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FORWARD TO THE PAST: THE FALL AND RISE OF THE 'ONE-STATE SOLUTION'
by Jonathan Spyer

  This is an important reference that clarifies the history and the intent of the Arabs, who have generally favored a one-state solution. As Jonathan Spyer writes, "Deeply embedded in Palestinian nationalism is the notion that Israeli Jewish identity is analogous to that of communities born of European colonialism, which are not seen as having legitimate claim to self-determination. No reconsidering of this characterization took place during the period of the peace process of the 1990s. Hence, the short period of acceptance of the "two-state solution," was a departure by Palestinian nationalism from its more natural stance, and the current trend of return to the "one-state" option is a return to a position more in keeping with the deep view of the conflict held throughout by this trend."
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There is an alternative solution. It has the advantages of 2-states for two people, without sacrifing one for the other. Give the Arabs their own state in some part of the land the Arabs own. The argument that the Arabs have been in Israel since time immemorial is untenable. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, nor was there ever a State of Palestine. The vast majority of the Arabs now living in Israel and the territories entered into the area after 1900. They came from various places in the region, attracted by the economic opportunities the Jews and the English made possible. There is no tragedy moving them the distance from say New York to Miami, which will still contain them in their own culture, language and religion. The money now spent on sustaining a welfare cult could be better spent on a dowry for them to get a fresh start in their own culture.

It would solve the separation problem without separating the Jews from their ancient holy sites. And it would solve the festering refugee problem that has been perpetuated to create sympathy for the Arab cause. This solution is more realistic than the 1- vs 2-state solutions that occupy the diplomats. it is doable. It would work. And it is legal. (Google Think-Israel for articles by Howard Grief, Yoram Shifftan, etc for the legal basis of Israel's ownership of Israel and the territories.) Taking land from Israel is not legal by international law, because the land is held as an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people. In brief, we should not be trying to turn Samaria and Judea into a state for a group of Arabs who never owned this land, even if they have started calling themselves Palestinians.

Only Israel has ownership of the land.

ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS: WHAT IS THE "REFUGEE" PROBLEM?
by Shlomo Sharan and collaborators

  This is an excellent analysis of the creation the Palestinian "refugees" and how they continue in refugee status decades after they should have and could have been settled into new homes. A secondary objective is to bring to light the "profound and far reaching distortions as well as sheer disregard for historical evidence" by those who use the "refugees" for political propaganda.
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THE ISRAEL RESETTLEMENT FUND
by Gregory Rodban

  This can be considered a minimalist plan for reducing some of the growing Arab population. It doesn't address the growing radicalism of Israeli Arabs, who receive welfare benefits, but don't serve in the Army and don't feel any loyalty to Israel.
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PALESTINE: BUY UP OR SELL OUT?
by David Singer

  The peace process has died many times and has been put back on artificial respirators whenever foreign politicians saw some advantage in it for them. David Singer takes a nibble out of the problem by suggesting Israel buy up the tract of land still designated as "no man's land." He points out that "Israel has now been given a very real window of opportunity to buy up tracts of West Bank land occupied by Arab residents; rather than being forced to sell out Israel's heritage by compensating 700,000 Jewish residents to vacate their West Bank homes to enable the creation of President Bush's new Arabs-only State in the West Bank.
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A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE HUMANITARIAN
by Martin Sherman

  This is a reprint of Martin Sherman's December 2006 essay on how to solve the present hostilities. The introduction read "Conventional political plans that propose resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs by establishing a self-governing Palestinian entity in the territories have been short-lived because they ignore that the Palestinian leadership doesn't want a state; its focus is on destroying Israel. The Jerusalem Summit suggests a new approach — to provide "dowries" to the Palestinians themselves to set them up financially in the neighboring Arab countries. They would be affluent rather than poor refugees. Surprisingly, polls indicate that the majority of the Palestinian Arabs would be willing to emigrate. Martin Sherman of the Jerusalem Summit urges everyone to get involved and publicize the plan."
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SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 242: A VIOLATION OF LAW AND A PATHWAY TO DISASTER
by Howard Grief

  In 1948, Jordan, one of the Arab armies that invaded Israel, conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem, Samaria and Judea. Israel took these areas after the Arabs invaded Israel again in 1967. The U.N. passed a non-binding resolution, 242, when fighting stopped. The Arabs have often falsely claimed that according to Res. 242, Israel was to return to the pre-1967 borders. Howard Grief's comprehensive article explains exactly what Res 242 did and did not assert. And what it was wrong in asserting — i.e., "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" does not apply in that Israel was not the aggressor. It had been threatened by imminent aggression. "In this case it is certainly admissible under international law for the state under imminent attack to keep the territory that was captured from which the planned aggression emanated." More importantly, Grief makes the point that "the Security Council does not have and never had the authority or right to order Israel to withdraw from territories that constituted historical and legal areas of the Jewish National Home and Land of Israel that had been recognized implicitly or explicitly as belonging to the Jewish People in various acts of international law: the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920; the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920; and the Mandate for Palestine, confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 and accepted by the United States in the Anglo-American Treaty on Palestine of December 3, 1924." This land is held in a perpetual trust for the Jewish people (Google Shifftan and Grief for 'trust jewish people' in Think-Israel for amplification.)
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SECTION 4. DEALING WITH THE ARAB AND ISRAELI MINDSETS

In this Section, we examine two other aspects important in bringing Israel up to strength: how to change the Israeli mindset; and why we should start paying attention to the Muslim mind set.

(1) Israel has been under physical and psychological attack for so long that she needs a mental overhaul. These essays point out some of her attitudes and behavior patterns that need changing. She could do with a lot less tolerance for the radical left academics that have detached themselves from a sense of loyalty to Israel. She could recognize that if she gives up the physical remains of her coalescence as a people — the Temple Mount and Hebron — as she gave up the Tomb of Joseph, she is destroying her roots. She could stop going along with the Government's persecution of Rightists in Samaria and Judea — their crime is that they don't want to give up their land to Arabs that will destroy the Jews and once again ruin the land. She could stop being proud that her soldiers are careful of the lives of Arab women and children and start demanding that Israelis who defend the State by living in dangerous areas get support. What's a dangerous area? Anywhere within a 10 mile radius of a group of hostile Arabs. She could stop blaming the settlers for everything that went wrong when the Sharon-Olmert government gave up Gaza. The sentiment seems much like our blaming the Vietnam vets for not winning the war, when they weren't allowed to fight. She could start making restitution for the hell her government put the Gush Katif people through instead of being proud of caring for the Gazan Arabs, who show their thanks by shooting live bullets.

(2) Maybe we should all start seeing Muslims as they see themselves, not as the peaceful critters we pretend they are. We need to connect the dots of Islamic doctrine and Islamic practices.

Changing the Israeli Mind Set

I DON'T LIKE MOST OF YOU RIGHT NOW
by Boris Celser

  A reader that sent in this article wrote, "His awesome insight. I deem it as one of the most outstanding pieces of journalism that I've read lately. it's a deeply moving cry for Israel's survival. It's outstanding for its knowledge, perception of reality, the depth of his love for Israel that his well-known wry humour and harsh criticism may try to conceal. It moves me deeply because I see the situation as he sees it, and it's so painful that it nearly drive me to despair. Words fail me. Thank you Boris."
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POLI SCI LECTURER MENACHEM KLEIN NEVER SAYS DIE TO A "PEACE PROCESS"
by Lee Kaplan

  Lee Kaplan tells us about "Professor Menachem Klein of the Bar-Ilan Political Studies Department, ....[who is] one of those Israelis who helped instigate the Oslo Accords and promoted the 'peace agreement' that led to so many dead Jews in its wake over the last fifteen years." Curiously, the deadly consequences of Oslo seem to have taught him nothing. Listening to the habitual lies the Arabs tell him has not persuaded him they don't really want peace. Instead, he's devoted himself to a monomaniacal pursuit of peace. To maintain his vision, he has to believe he sees what others can't. He has to believe every who doesn't think like him is just too stupid to understand. One clear-eyed view at Arab hostility would destroy his fantasy. So he has to believe that the Arab lust for murder, and their hatred of Jews are just superficial and will go away when there's peace. He does have a gift for explaining away embarrassing facts. It is a gift that is appreciated by a Who's Who of Jew haters, who aren't under a spell of peace — they just want the Arabs to win and they appreciate his help.
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PEACE NOW: A 30-YEAR FRAUD
by Kenneth Levin

  Kenneth Levin writes about Peace Now's history — its beginnings in 1978 with the slogan that "The security of Israel depends on peace, not on territories.", a curious notion, considering how tiny Israel is and how hostile the neighboring Arabs are. Levin tells us that "[t]hose attracted to the organization were people unwilling to reconcile themselves to the reality that Israel's Arab adversaries were in control of deciding whether there would be peace, and that, with few exceptions, their decision ... was against Israel's existence." They believed that only Israel could impose peace or withdraw and peace would enter the vacuum. The corollary was that if peace didn't blossom, it was Israel's fault; she hadn't done enough. From the beginning they were convinced that Jewish settlements — not Arab settlements — in the territories are the chief impediment to peace. One of their more pernicious ideas is that Israel should stop being a Jewish state because that would appease the Arabs."They must yield even their belief in the value of Jewish peoplehood." As events gave the lie to their convictions, they could change their position or hold tight to notions that had been disproven by the Arabs themselves. They chose to ignore reality and began to invent fraudulent claims and openly become propagandists for Arab claims. As Levin puts it, "it was and is a cult that worships at the altar of self-delusion and wishful thinking and that, intoxicated with its airy visions of "peace," was and is prepared to sacrifice anyone who challenges it, no matter what evidence, what realities, he or she invokes in that challenge."
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THE MYTH OF AL-AQSA: HOLINESS OF JERUSALEM TO ISLAM HAS ALWAYS BEEN POLITICALLY MOTIVATED
by Mordechai Kedar

  Mordechai Kedar notes that when "the Prophet Mohammad established Islam, he introduced a minimum of innovations. He employed the hallowed personages, historic legends and sacred sites of Judaism and Christianity." The importance of Islamizing Jerusalem was "to undermine the legitimacy of the older religions, Judaism and Christianity, which consider Jerusalem to be a holy city. Islam is presented as the only legitimate religion, destined to replace the other two, because they had changed and distorted the Word of God, each in its turn." In more recent years "Yasser Arafat, himself a secular person (ask Hamas!), did exactly what the Califs of the Umayyad dynasty did 1300 years ago: He marshaled the holiness of Jerusalem to serve his political ends." Kedar asks, "Must Judaism and Christianity defer to myths related in Islamic texts or envisioned in Mohammad's dreams, long after Jerusalem was established as the ancient, true center of these two religions, which preceded Islam? Should Israel give up on its capital just because some Muslims decided to recycle the political problems of the Umayyads 1250 years after the curtain came down on their role in history?"
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SUKKOT: WHEN TEMPORARY IS GOOD
by Sara Layah Shomron

  The Olmert Gov't has been talking about giving Samaria and Judea to a single person — Abbas — who will soon be replaced by Hamas, UNLESS Israel wants to spill its blood to save this aging terrorist. We were horrified at that idea. Did the Israeli Government not understand that some 500,000 OR MORE (estimates go to 700,000) Jews would be become homeless — refugees in their own country? We wondered why even math-deficient politicians couldn't understand the unbearable overload it would place on their Gov't. Didn't they understand the chaos it would create? Didn't they realize it would give the Arabs a perfect time to attack? While we were thinking about this, the Gov't was making plans to add the Golan to its list of give-aways. Mind you, this is a government that still — 3 and a half years after kicking some 10,000 productive and patriotic Jews out of their homes in Gush Katif — has still not settled them in permanent housing. One of these refugees, Sarah Layah Shomron, writes of the one time of the year that Temporary is good. At Sukkot.
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OLMERT'S PARTING BLOWS
by Caroline Glick

  Perhaps the most egregious of Israel's problems is her political leadership. Caroline Glick discusses Olmert's latest strikes at Israel's security in context. "Why is it, she asks, "that for the past 15 years, at a certain point in their tenures every prime minister aside from Netanyahu has come to the conclusion that Israel must turn over its land to those sworn to its destruction?" It isn't just that they are self-serving, arrogant and often incompetent. They do seem to be acting in the best interests of the Arabs, a stance that wins the approval of Israeli's Leftists. They have seconded Arab claims while harassing those citizens who want to keep Israel intact. They have received nothing in return from their "peace partners" except missiles aimed at their civilian population, yet, optimistically, they continue to forge ahead into disaster. They have never explained the logic of the give-aways; what reasons they have given have been contrary-to-fact. Perhaps there is no rational reason that isn't criminal or self-protective.
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EXPEL THE ARAB INTERLOPERS AND THE ACID THROWERS
by Paul Lademain

  Paul Lademain says in a short essay what this Section has been about. How should the Jews change their ways of thinking and acting? What do the Jews of Israel need to do to become again a proud people in their own land? What should they stop doing? What should they start doing? Read this.
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Paying Attention to Arab Mindset.

The suggestion has often been made that the Israelis as well as other western countries pay attention to the actual Muslim mindset, instead of treating it as a Rorschach test onto which we project our own ideas. To be sure, each Muslim country and region has its own characteristics, just as New Yorkers and Georgians differ in accent, walking speed and maybe charm. But there is a unity we call American. The prototypic Muslim is very much a product of his religion and its doctrines and demands, as set down by Mohammed. Islamic doctrine impacts all aspects of his life, including how he thinks about acts of terror and deceptions.

MOHAMMAD: PROPHET OF TERROR
by Zulfikar Khan

  Zulfikar Khan does a masterful job of presenting Mohammad as he was in the early days of his prophethood, when he was creating the ideals of Islam and the code of behavior that Muslims would ever after follow. He paints a realist portrait of the man, by recounting his actual deeds and the convenient messages from Allah that came just when they were needed to allow Mohammed and his fellow Muslims to mutilate, rape, massacre, kidnap and loot. His early victims were the Jews of Medina, who had befriended him when he was forced to flee Mecca.
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STUDYING THE ISLAMIC WAY OF WAR
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Raymond Ibrahim elaborates on the fact that Islamic war doctrine — unlike those developed by Clausewitz, Sun Tsu, Machiavelli ... — has not been studied. "As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered." We ignore that in war Islamic doctrine says shooting catapaults (today, missiles) where there's non-combatants, deceiving the enemy and breaking peace treaties are all legitimate activities. They are all moral and need not trouble one's conscience. This article should be read together with Suseelan's essay (next item down) on Islamic morality. They explain Islamic concepts we need to understand. We need to know the strong connection between terror activities and Islam's moral code.
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CAN MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISTS BE MORAL?
by Dr. Babu Suseelan

  Dr. Suseelan points out that "Islam rejects differing world views, ethical philosophy and refuses to recognizes changes in moral perspectives which emphasize the interrelatedness of individuals and community and their mutual responsibility for one another." Not only does this limit their perspective but it contributes significantly to their attitude to the non-Muslim. They know "... that non-Muslims are unethical, immoral and inferior and should be oppressed and forced to assume an Islamic identity" for their own good. Therefore, terrorism, criminality or heinous behavior — "forcefully converting infidels or issuing a fatwa against a kafir writing a book critical of Islam. " — can not be immoral. So the answer to the question is: only in their own terms. And there is little chance they will see any other point of view as worthy of consideration.
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SECTION 5. HISTORY

We present two articles, one on the treatment of the Jews in Damascus in 1816, the other about the Balfour Declaration.

THE RICHEST JEW IN DAMASCUS, 1816
by Elder of Ziyon

  A page out of the diary kept by James Silk Buckingham on his travels. He was entertained in Damascus by the local prime minister. The guests included a Jew, described by Buckingham "as the wealthiest and the most powerful of all present", a personage who managed the machinery of government. Yet as a Jew, he was dhimmi. The other guest sat or stood; the Jew sat on the ground.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BALFOUR DECLARATION!
by Ashley Perry

  Balfour Day on November 2 recognizes the dedication of Lord Balfour to the return of the Israelites to their ancient homeland. He helped lay the diplomatic and legal foundations that led to the League of Nations declaring Mandated Palestine in perpetual trust for the Jews. Thanks to Jews who were made uneasy at the thought of Jews being their own boss and to British treachery, the original vision was diluted. But it was a start for the most remarkable nationalist movement in history. Ashley Perry tells us some of the history of the Balfour Declaration and makes clear that the intent of the document was to pave the way to a Jewish State (a homeland was Max Nordau's term for state).
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READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

September 2008 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
October 2008 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE

SPECIAL ISSUE: OCTOBER 2008

Dear Readers

Think-Israel doesn't usually get into US politics. But, frankly, I don't think Obama bodes well for Israel. So we've put out this edition outside of our regular schedule.

I've talked to neighbors, friends, acquaintances, who say they are going to vote for Obama. The reasons they give sum up to 'he is friendly and he seems one of us.' But some would frown thoughtfully as they said it.

I asked: do you know how his economic plan would affect you? do you know about his very far left associates? Do you know his political views before he became a candidate? Do you know about ACORN? Answer: not really.

Thanks to the mainstream media, while most Americans can tell you all about Sarah Palin's clothes budget, they don't know much about Obama except in bits and pieces.

It may be late in the game, but one thing is becoming clear. He isn't just an empty suit. Obama does have a point a view. He is, to speak plainly, on the team that unites the Far Left, the Radical Left, Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Black Liberation theologists, Israel haters and resurgent Islamists. They all preach replacement theology, though they have different ideas of the replacement. But they all want to replace how America works and thinks. They want to replace Israel with a state to be called Palestine. With them in power, we Americans will be free to say anything we want — providing it isn't hateful. And guess who will decide what is hateful?

Obama preaches openness but he hasn't been open about his intentions or his ideology. So we on the Think-Israel staff have composed several essays with information you should have to vote intelligently.

Obama and his Economic Plan

Obama and the Constitution

Obama and Odinga

Obama's Birth Certificate

If you agree these issues are important, please don't delay. Use the next few hours to educate your friends and family. Feel free to send these articles to your email lists. You will find much aditional information on the Think-Israel Blog-Ed pages for recent months.

Thank you

Bernice Lipkin
Managing Editor

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

— by Reverend William Boetcker, in a 1916 pamphlet entitled Lincoln on Limitations




July-August, 2008

What we are talking about this issue:

MUSLIM GLOBAL WAR
The 4 Stages of Appeasement(Sultan Knish)
SECTION 1. MUSLIMS WAGE WAR IN THE FAR EAST:
   The Muslim Jihad in India (Swamy, Sherman, Klinghoffer, Guitta)
SECTION 2. MUSLIMS WAGE WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST:
   Gush Katif (Fendel, Tucker, Saperstein)
   Gaza — Al-Qaeda's new base(Glick, Guitta, Halevi)
   Yet Another State In Mandated Palestine?(Kasnett, Ibrahim, Benzimra, Beres)
   Israel's "Good" Neighbors(Rubin, Spyer, Brown, Imani)
   Iran(Bostom, Sharpe, Eidelberg, Sharon, Peters)
   Israel's Other Problems(Plaut, Winston, Sherman, Eshel, Weiner, Kaplan, Dobrin)
SECTION 3. MUSLIMS WAGE WAR IN THE WEST:
   The New Jews, And How We Must Defend Them(Fitzgerald)
   Sharia Inroads into Government and Banking(Imm, Gaffney)
   Islamic Inroads into the Media and Education Sectors(Cravetts, Glick, Oboler, Van Zile, Emerson, Romirowsky)
   Essays On Survival(Kedar, Margetta)
HISTORY(MacEoin, Karsh, Grobman, Baker)

This issue we discuss some separate but connected themes. We present different facets of the war Islam is waging globally — the major difference being that Islam is more circumspect where it doesn't have the power, and more brutal where it does. Against the West, Islam has made no secret that its first task is to destroy Israel; then it will move on to concentrate on the West. As yet — except for the brutal drama of 9/11 — Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood nibble away at America, at our educational system, at our financial institutions, at our freedom of speech. They work inside a fog of benignity, sprayed by professionals, diplomats and academics working directly or indirectly for Middle East money. In England and Europe, a large influx of Muslim immigrants demand that their way of life become the way of life for their host countries. In the Middle East, "friendly-neutral" Arab/Muslim states and frankly hostile ones see Israel as the only obstacle to their version of Peace Islamica. And in the far East, murder, brutality, and a complete lack of respect for human life predominate the Muslim attack on the East.

Throughout the topics below, there is one note that is repeated, sometimes loudly by overt threat, sometimes softly by implication: Islam has no brakes. It has no peaceful endpoint. It often acts as if it is ready to deal — or the opposite side pretends that accomodation will work. On the contrary, the common experience of all who negotiate has been this: appease it and it will demand more. Diplomatic hacks like Dennis Ross discovered, with feelings of disbelief, that when he thought by being generous (with Israel's land) at Camp David, Arafat was agreeing to peace, Arafat disillusioned him almost immediately by demanding more, never accepting the "final" compromise.

The Blogger Sultan Knish wrote this perspicacious essay of the "Four Stages of Appeasement"

For some nations and individuals, appeasement is a station at the end of the line that they reach right away, after some traumatic cultural or national event, for others it is a journey of stages along the line, stop after stop marking a point at which values and morals are surrendered for ephemeral things until they reach the end of this dark journey and the end of their national existence.

This is the express train of appeasement we now find ourselves riding, wherever we live, we are but another stop on the line, from dusk to darkest night.

Stage 1 - Washington D.C. - Washington D.C. is a relevant present day example, but London in the 30's is just as good of an example. At this stage the appeasement is being carried out by a nation fairly confident in its own power but believing itself overextended and seeking to safeguard its commercial interests is listening to those domestic diplomatic and business interests eager to avoid a fight.

While a world power and perhaps even an empire, at Stage 1 the nation's diplomatic and even business interests have gone native abroad and are no longer protecting its interests, but their own. These forces combined with the lassitude that has taken hold in the nation during its age of prosperity have convinced it that there is more to be gained by transforming its enemies into allies through appeasement. At the heart of this belief is the mistaken idea that these enemies are not genuinely hostile, but are pawns or simply misled. And the participation of these enemies is seemingly needed to maintain the nation's economic power.

This form of appeasement seemingly proceeds from strength, but is in truth a weakness that slowly eats away at the nation revealing the rot within.

Stage 2 - London - While the nation still holds to an illusion of strength and self-sufficiency, it is an illusion that few at home or abroad believe anymore. The nation still has some of its former renown, but less of its capability and virtually none of its former confidence. The international trade empire that once sustained it has become a dependency, a crutch and soon a drain. While its enemies immigrate, a slow trickle of its citizens are beginning to emigrate.

Appeasement here proceeds from the need to save face. While on the surface the nation practices appeasement from strength, in private it practices it from weakness. While the nation is far stronger than it appears, the rot has become so pervasive that this is buried and forgotten. Rule over foreigners has become foreign rule, and there is very little confidence to be had except among its newest immigrants. At this stage you will actually find immigrants more willing to battle for the country, than its native population.

Appeasement here has become a reflex, because its leadership no longer thinks of its strength, but only of maintaining an international trade empire by any means necessary. Strength at this stage is primarily used as a bluff and as a diplomatic counter behind which stands raw naked fear. It is a fear that its enemies can smell and with guile feed upon. At Stage 2 the nation is not quite willing to sacrifice itself yet, but is eager to throw any allies it has into the flames to protect itself for the loss of a nation's faith in itself is accompanied always by acts of faithlessness.

Stage 3 - Jerusalem - The formerly confident nation has had its confidence eroded to the point of engaging in increasingly erratic behavior. Appeasement began on the D.C. and the London track and by the time it reaches the Jerusalem station, it combines the foreign agenda of the business and political elites with a country that has lost the ability to depend on itself.

Appeasement rather than bringing peace, erodes the confidence of a nation, until at each stage it comes to feel helpless and is incapable of a consistent policy toward its enemies. Like a dog that has been promised a treat too often and yet is repeatedly beaten, it whines, begs, lashes out and then begs again. This is the process by which men are made into slaves and nations into ruins.

At this station on the appeasement track, the nation which began by defining terms for its enemies now obsessively watches its enemies for any signs of legitimacy, constantly bemoans their unfaithfulness and rather than acting against them, proceeds to another round of negotiations in the futile certainty that there is no other option.

At Stage 3 on the appeasement track the nation has lost what little self-worth it had in Stage 2 and is floundering and repeating the same insane pattern of appeasement it has become fixated on as the only solution. Meanwhile its business and diplomatic elites are in full fire sale mode as the nation's people cast adrift question their own right to exist.

Stage 4 - Stockholm - By Stage 3 the nation had lost faith in itself and is seriously questioning its right to exist. By Stage 4 the question has already been decided in the negative. The nation now feels that it has no right to exist. Its appeasement is no longer defensive, but a moral act of atonement for its own existence. While such sentiments have existed in the nation's culture even at Stage 1, they were part of the aforementioned rot, they are now the absolute dominant voice.

The nation has come to be convinced of its utter worthlessness and now identifies with its attackers. When it is attacked, it can do nothing but bow its head and ask for more. Its lack of confidence and faith in itself has instead lead it to project its identity on the one source of strength it beholds, its enemies. Taking on the identity of its enemies, the nation at Stage 4 is the city openly wishing to be conquered.

International trade may be good and prosperity may be sufficient, but the nation lives in shame of itself and is only waiting for someone to get around to officially asking it to surrender. This is the terminus of the Appeasement Express, the stop at the end of the line when the passengers get off in darkness. Beyond it lies only the moans of the conquered and the newly fortified walls of the conquerors. There is a reason why Stockholm Syndrome is another name of appeasement's endgame and this is it.

MUSLIM GLOBAL WAR

SECTION 1. MUSLIMS WAGE WAR IN THE FAR EAST: The Muslim Jihad In India

KASHMIR IS THE DEFINING ISSUE OF INDIAN IDENTITY
by Subramanian Swamy

  For those of us who worry about Israel's reluctance to take sufficiently strong measures to protect its citizens from the predations of an enemy that recognizes no red line, this essay is eerie. Substitute Israel for India, Palestinians for Hurriyat and the pack of Arab states for Pakistanis. Both Israel and India know that a sharp response now will save much blood later. But both are reluctant. Both hope for an easy way out. But there is none. Professor Subramanian Swamy spells out the inevitable consequences of not taking action now.
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THE INDIA-ISRAEL IMPERATIVE: INDO-JUDEO COMMONALITIES: THE SYMBOLIC AND THE SUBSTANTIVE
by Martin Sherman

  Martin Sherman presents an analysis of the commonalities between the very large India and the very small Israel, commonalities that encourage their strategic cooperation. Both are democracies in regions that are mainly totalitarian. Both have a common enemy — resurgent Islam. Both would prefer peaceful solutions but are forced continuously to update their military supplies. Sherman records major areas where cooperation benefits both countries.
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INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN: RISE OF JIHAD
by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

  Judith Apter Klinghoffer brings us the text of the prideful boasts and taunts of the Indian Mujahideen who are currently bombing, killing and otherwise terrorizing India. With delight, they promise more of the same.
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INDIA UNDER ISLAMIST THREAT
by Olivier Guitta

  India was partitioned in 1947 and Muslims of India were given their own independent state, Pakistan. The fatal flaw was that Muslims continued to live in India and many of the Muslim youth have been radicalized by Pakistani and Saudi Arabian terror missionaries and trainers. The previous essay chronicled the Song of the Muslim terrorists, the Indian Mujahedeen, that are attacking India. Olivier Guitta presents some of the "exploits" in which they take pride. All for the love of Allah.
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SECTION 2. MUSLIMS WAGE WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST:

The effects of Israel's unbelievable stupidity in expelling Jews and walking away from Gaza continue to widen, not diminish. Muslim terrorists have gained a worry-free expanse in which to train foot soldiers — many of them women and children — and manufacture and store war goods. Pro-Hamas propaganda insists the Palestinians are starving and are without water and electricity. It's not clear why, when Israel presumably cut Gaza loose in August, 2005, it is severely criticized for not supporting Gaza even more than it is. The once productive Jews of Gaza, proud contributors to the Israeli economy and agricultural innovators, are now jobless and still not settled in permanent housing. The government that is supposed to attend to them is too busy working on how to make another half million Jews — the Jews of Samaria and Judea and eastern Jerusalem — homeless and rootless. The soon-to-be-replaced American adminstration has obsessively fixated on cutting Israel in half and placing another Palestinian state inside of Biblical Israel — apparently they see this as Prez Bush's contribution to the world making peace with the Peaceful Religion, Islam. Meantime, the world has not stomped on Iran for baldly stating it plans to nuke Israel, no matter what that does to the people of the region and the region's major commodity: oil. Israel's neighbors, seeing how the wind is blowing, have started cozying up to Muslim terrorist groups. And the erosion of Israeli morale since the Oslo Accords has accentuated Israel's other problems.

Gush Katif. On August 10, 2008, some 3000 expelled Jewish residents of Gush Katif, Gaza, marked the 3rd year of their "disengagement" from their homes and businesses, from their synagogues and youth centers. In all this time, their lives have been marked by governmental ineptitude and viciousness. The Olmert Kadima government — which is now engaged in creating the infrastructure for ejecting up to some half million Jews from Samaria, Judea and Jerusalem — has yet to resettle the initial 10,000 refugees. See the video of their protest at Kisufim:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/exp.aspx/e123365 See also
GushKatifBook, a website that documents the current status of the Gaza refugees.

The Major American Jewish organizations, stubbornly sticking to their initial mistake of approving the Gaza withdrawal, are distinguished only by their absense in helping these displaced Jews. The good news is that the Gush Katif community — noting that the land has gone back to the sand dunes it was before the Jews developed Gaza — is determined to return and rebuild.

THREE YEARS OF HARDSHIP FOR GUSH KATIF EXPELLEES
by Hillel Fendel

  When the Jews were expelled by the Israeli Government from Gush Katif, Gaza three years, many were housed in paper-based trailers that are said to be bio-degradable in that that they would last only some 3 years. The three years are almost up. And 81% of the Jews made refugees by their own government still do not have permanent housing. The good news is — despite heckling by Peace Now — the "government has once again approved construction of new housing for the Jordan Valley community of Maskiot, where Gush Katif expellees from Shirat HaYam are living in temporary quarters." The rest of the picture is not rosy. 50% of the expellees have no jobs, they have had to use their compensation money for everyday expenses and are supported by relatives and friends.
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PRIVILEGE TO YEARN AND LONG FOR A HOME AND HOMELAND
by Anita Tucker

  Anita Tucker is one of the indomitables of the world. Supported by her faith in Torah Judaism, starting with land that was sand, dunes and sand dunes, she saw her sweat equity as a farmer in Gaza come to fruition, provide her family much happiness, and be destroyed by her own government. She longs for her old home and, by the same token, is girding up to rebuild.
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BEHIND THE LOVELY FACE
by Rachel Saperstein

  In this issue, Rachel Saperstein formerly of Gush Katif, Gaza, currently a refugee in her own country, has written two essays. With a couple of strokes, the first profiles Tzippi Livni, gofer for Olmert and flunky for American Sec-State Rice. The second is a tale about two Shlomo's, one her father, the other a cousin and how their lives connected.
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Gaza — Al-Qaeda's new base

IGNORING FAILURE IN GAZA
by Caroline Glick

  Caroline Glick writes of the expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif, Gaza, a mistake that was realized almost instantly when the Palestinian Arabs torched the synagogues, vandelized the greenhouses, shot missiles from Gaza and Hamas took control — it was a mistake that still has not been rectified. Glick points out — comparing "good" Fatah and "bad" Hamas — that (1) "[t]here is little to distinguish between the groups' embrace of terrorism as a means of achieving their aim of destroying Israel. Fatah forces have carried out more attacks against Israel than Hamas has;" and (2) "Israeli society has managed not to discuss why it failed or to learn the lessons stemming from its failure." Three years later, there is still governmental bungling, and no introspection about the "mistakes that led to the withdrawal."
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AL QAEDA'S OPPORTUNISTIC STRATEGY
by Olivier Guitta

  Israel and its local terrorists, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, etc., did not receive much attention from Al-Qaeda, when, on 9/11, Osama Bin Laden reclaimed Saudi Arabia's honor — it had been besmirched by American feet standing on sacred Saudi soil. But, as he became aware that "Palestine" made a good talking point, bin Laden became a Palestinian supporter. Now, as Olivier Guitta points out, al-Qaeda waits for an eruption in the Iran-Israel confrontation, when it will make a major move to reestablish an Islamic Caliphate. Meantime, it has been moving into land areas that surround Israel, particularly in Gaza. So while Israeli's leaders don't seem capable of thinking a day ahead, Al-Qaeda is patiently building bases around Israel. It plans to be very strong and very ready when the time comes.
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AL-QAEDA AFFILIATE - JAISH AL-ISLAM - RECEIVES FORMAL SANCTUARY IN HAMAS-RULED GAZA
by Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah Halevi

  As the previous essay pointed out, terror groups that are al-Qaeda subsidiaries and terrorists who share al-Qaeda goals are infiltrating Gaza. Jonathan Dahoah Halevi writes about one of these groups, Jaish al-islam, now living in Gaza under Hamas jurisdiction. He concludes, "Hamas has established a terror hothouse in Gaza designed to continue the jihad against apostates, pursue the struggle against Israel, secure the overthrow of the Abbas regime in the West Bank, and assist the efforts of the parent movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, in overthrowing the moderate regimes in the Middle East headed by Jordan and Egypt."
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Hello, out there. When will the die-hards admit (1) the world is round; and (2) The Land of Israel belongs ONLY to the Jews. As Eli E. Hertz writes in his latest article on Mandated Palestine: Click here.)

The "Mandate for Palestine," an historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea... an entitlement that remains unaltered. "Any attempt to negate the Jewish people's right to Palestine. Eretz-Israel, and to deny them access and control in the area designated as the Jewish National Home by the League of Nations is a serious infringement of international law.

Those claiming that Jewish settlements in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are illegally occupied, should answer just one simple question: In 1922 Jewish settlements were perfectly legal - What has changed?

Should there be yet another State in Mandated Palestine? No. These essays restate what should be known to all.

THE MYTH OF STOLEN ARAB LAND
by Israel Kasnett

  With this essay by Israel Kasnett, we add to our store of articles on Israel's irrevocable right to Mandated Palestine with information on the view of the Peel Commission of 1937 on the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate. The Commission confirmed the large increase in Arab population in Palestine since 1920. It states: "Jewish immigration and subsequent economic growth in Palestine led to increased Arab immigration from other countries by those seeking economic opportunity."
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SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT IN CONTEXT
by Raymond Ibrahim

  In this essay, Raymond Ibrahim explores the irony of Arabs, when all of today's Muslim countries were taken by bloody conquest, arguing 'humanitarian' justice to regain them Palestine — land the Jews are said to have stolen from them. "Historically," he points out, "the land of Palestine has been conquered, and conquered, and conquered again — by a myriad of peoples, including Hebrews, Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks, and now finally, modern-day Jews." "Even Arabia, home of Islam, was militarily conquered by that religion." Moreover, the Arab concept of justice isn't humanitarian: "Islamic law says it's just, indeed, compulsory, for Muslims to seize the infidels' lands by the sword."
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NO, MR. KOUCHNER, MIDEAST REALITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK
by Salomon Benzimra

  Salomon Benzimra wrote this article to provide a factual rebuttal to ignorance-based outrageous statements made by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs during a TV interview, who insisted that a "viable Palestinian state" must be created. The article also serves as a summary of the official position of the French government towards the "peace process" — it is a needed corrective to the feel-good interpretation of some conciliatory statements made to Israel by President Sarkozy. Benzimra recommends that an intelligent beginning to solving the Arab-Israeli conflict would be "to have the courage to face reality." And a good place to start facing reality would be to use semantics that actually reflect the facts, not invented fantasies.
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THE RAMIFICATIONS OF A PALESTINIAN STATE
by Professor Louis René Beres

  Professor Beres points out that a Palestinian state would have no proper authority under international law. (Under binding international law, Mandated Palestine is held as an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people.) Nor does it conform to the four specific requirements of the 1934 Montevideo Treaty for statehood. Ironically, Arab violence is not a bar to statehood. "In law, all that matters in establishing statehood are certain identifiable demographic, geographic and political facts." Which the projected Palestinian state flunks.
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Israel's "good" neighbors

A MIDDLE EAST STRATEGY FOR THE WEST
by Barry Rubin

  Barry Rubin points out some ineluctable facts that Israel and the West must face if they are to understand Israel's Muslim neighbors. (1) The current jousting is between Arab Nationalism and Islamism — democracy isn't a player. (2) All the various Islamist groups are dangerous. (3) The forces are local in the Middle East; the West is an outsider. He makes sensible recommendations for dealing with the situation.
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DIPLOMACY AND TERROR — SYRIAN-STYLE
by Jonathan Spyer

  The Syrian-Lebanese apparent rapproachment is hailed by many, such as French President Sarkozy, as "historic progress." More accurately, as Jonathan Spyer puts it, "it will represent not the normalization of Syrian-Lebanese relations, but rather the enveloping of Lebanon into the regional alliance led by Iran, of which Syria is a senior member." "The Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah alliance has known how to combine brutal military tactics on the ground with subtle and determined diplomacy." On the other hand, Syrian's diplomatic interactions with Israel has little to do with Israel, much to do with the Syrian desire to appear to offer the West reconciliation. As Spyer says, "When it comes to negotiating with Israel, Assad is keen to take the dowry, while showing little enthusiasm for embracing the bride."
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JORDAN'S LEGAL JIHAD
by Stephen Brown

  In England and America, Muslims have sued writers and publishers for libel, thus interfering de facto and de jure with their freedom of speech. Their vast money resources have forced writers to withdraw well-researched factual anti-jihad essays; leaving the field vacant to be filled with puff pieces and pleasant fantasies about Islam. Stephen Brown describes another version of how Islam tries to stifle debate about Islam. He writes, "a Jordanian court recently summoned twelve European citizens to answer criminal charges of blasphemy and inciting hatred." Critics of Islam face the imposition of a death sentence, "if the charge is blasphemy and it is being tried by a sharia court." This isn't a joke. It isn't sufficient to avoid travelling to Jordan. It means the condemned "libeler" needs to be careful to avoid travelling to any third country — even just a stopover at its airport — that has an extradition treaty with Jordan. It also indicates that Jordan — which is lauded as western-oriented — expects Muslim law to be obeyed by Europeans.
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IS TELLING THE TRUTH ISLAM BASHING?
by Amil Imani

  Islam has a new slick talking point: it asserts that anyone who says anything — anything — against Islam must be suffering from an awful neurosis: islamophobia. Amil Imani doesn't tremble at the thought that he will be called an Islam basher. "If telling the truth about Islam is Islam bashing, then mea culpa." He then calmly points how badly Islam treats everyone that is of a different religion. This isn't just true in "fanatic" Muslim countries. It exists in Egypt, a supposedly civilized state, where children of the Baha'i faith are denied education, where women are denied employment opportunities. It is curious that Islam, so respected by multiculturalists, is itself monoculturalist, respecting no other religion. "Why is it, Imani asks, "that these self-righteous Islamist villains don't bother to prove me wrong? Why don't they document what I say as being false?" Why, indeed.
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IRAN is a special case. It has mouthed the most menacing threats against Israel. It has put its money where its mouth is and is trying to develop a nuclear weapon to strike Israel. The global response has been sanctions, threats to use sanctions, new sanctions, new threats... Iran has cleverly used money shifts and threats of money withdrawal from foreign banks to circumvent sanctions.

Negotiation with Iran only appears to be going on forever. It has an end point: the minute Iran nukes Israel. And/or its proxy, Hezbullah, brings in dirty bombs that do the job. Or it gifts Hamas with a radioactive suitcase.

Some take comfort in believing that if Iran doesn't verbally threaten Israel daily, it doesn't mean it. It does. Many believe we can reason together — when Iran's leaders believe their divine mission is to bring back the Mahdi, the 12th Iman, just as the Sunni Muslims work towards the reestablishment of the Caliphate. Many believe that Iran is rational as we Westerners understand "rational", ergo, they are not going to risk their civilian population and/or their Palestinian Arab correligionists. They forget that Iran cleared mine fields when it fought Iraq from 1980-88 by sending thousands of children into the field to act as human shields and mine triggers. Swapping the lives of their own children to explode land mines was acceptable. Why would they balk at killing off a couple of million Arabs — who aren't even their kin and kith — to make sure Israel is effectively destroyed?

We know there are many dissident groups in Iran who would be happy if if mullah rule was weakened. The groups include dissidents who mostly live outside of Iran and many ordinary people inside Iran — students, cab drivers — as well as groups such as the Jaff Sassani that have kept their identity over the centuries. We've published articles on them and from them through the years. But to recruit them, organize them, moralize them, time-wise, we might as well go back to negotiating. Regime change from the inside is important as an adjunct strategy, but it isn't going to crack open the problem.

So mainly we focus on the military options. Why the military? Because — as even the NIE admits — Iran continues to develop ways to satisfy its nuclear ambitions. (People crowed over the fact that they faked one missile out of 4 fired — but what about the other 3?) Hezbollah grows in power. Hamas becomes better trained by the day. America is training Fatah and giving Egypt sophisticated weaponry. Jordan can be counted on — not to join the Muslim pack until it looks like the Muslims are winning. And Israel hasn't thrown off its inept government and shows signs of simply substituting another set of corrupt and ineffectual politicians at the next election. So it is well past the time when the growing threats all aimed at Israel can be nipped in the bud. All we can do is hope Israel acts before Arab and Iranian strength is fullgrown and ready to be used.

Military action is not a happy choice. But as time passes, thanks to Iranian belligerancy and Israeli government's ineptitude, it may very soon be the only choice. That, or sit in a fog of indecision and denial, waiting to be destroyed.

Let's hope Israel doesn't have to go-it-alone.

SHI'ITE IRAN'S GENOCIDAL JEW HATRED
by Andrew Bostom

  The often-repeated passionately-voiced intent of Shi'ite Iran to destroy Israel in particular and Jews in general is not superficial or recent or "just talk". Tracing the origins of Shi'ite Iran's animosity towards Jews, Andrew Bostom concludes that "[t]he pillars of this continuous modern campaign of annihilationist antisemitism are the motifs from traditional Islamic Jew hatred, including, most significantly, Islamic eschatology. These deep-seated Islamic theological motifs are further conjoined to Holocaust denial, and the development of a nuclear weapons program intended expressly for Israel's eradication."
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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MAKING PEACE
by Victor Sharpe

  Victor Sharpe cogitates about peace and says many wise things. "There is no such thing as making peace. If a nation desires peace with its neighbor, but that neighbor implacably rejects peace, then any imposed peace process from outside is nothing more than a handmaiden to futility or worse." Applying this to Israel, he observes, "Israel's leaders have sought peace above all else and considered its attainment with hostile neighbors as the great panacea. But making peace must never be the goal of a nation when confronted by enemies who look upon peace with contempt." And as Islam gains confidence in its bid to rule the world, it becomes more and more true that "Deterrence, unwavering strength and deterrence, is the only salvation for Israel against the Islamic onslaught just as it is for an equally blinded West increasingly confronted with Islamic terrorism."
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WAR MODELS
by Prof. Paul Eidelberg

  America has aggressively fought wars, not stopping until the adversary's complete surrender — as in World War 2 — and has fought wars with minimalist objectives — as in Vietnam. A democracy with limited war objectives ultimately must fail when the adversary is not accountable to its populace, doesn't mind losing a lot of people and and can outwait the democracy. The democracy has signalled that the war isn't all that important by not going all out, so it is hard to resist calls to stop the war that come from citizens anxious to get onto other matters. Ironically, this means, as Professor Paul Eidelberg writes, that limited wars can end up taking longer and/or resulting in a greater number of deaths. He suggests "If any model is appropriate in dealing with Israel's implacable enemies, it is the model used by the United States against Nazi Germany."
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WE ONLY GET ONE STRIKE
by Moshe Sharon

  Iran intends to annihilate Israel. It is serious. As a Shi'ite Muslim country, it believes the destruction of the Jews will herald in "the dawning of messianic times." It must be stopped. If Israel has to go it alone, she can not farble, fumble or fizz out before the job is completed — as she did in the Second Lebanon War. Moshe Sharon points out why Israel has to get it right in its first strike. Otherwise, it won't be just Iran that retaliates. It will be Iran aided by all the groups that are at the moment stocking up weaponry and training foot soldiers. This includes not only Hizbullah and Syria and Hamas and the PLO but also the many Israeli Arabs, full-fledged citizens of Israel, who have no loyalty to the Jewish state.
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WHAT 'BOMB IRAN' REALLY TAKES
by Ralph Peters

  Moshe Sharon warned in the previous article that an Israeli strike on Iran couldn't be haphazard. Ralph Peters looks at striking Iran should America need to stop Iran's nuclear threat by using a military strike. Like Sharon, he emphasizes the need to be decisive. He lists the specific targets that will need to be taken out to eliminate an Iranian nuclear threat.
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Israel has other problems. The main one seems to be a government run by people who intent on giving away the land to everyone but Jews, while harassing those Jews who object to this policy. This general policy has highly specific consequences. Fighting Israel's enemies eventually will be a lot harder, now that Israel has allowed terrorist organizations in Gaza, Samaria, Judea and Lebanon to build large and efficient bases. Carrying out the demoralizing ejection of patriotic Jews from Gaza was implemented by training the IDF to see the "settlers" as the enemy and the families of Arab terrorists as more worthy of protection than Jews. This made for a psychically weakened IDF when it was called on to fight in Lebanon the next summer. One would think that Israel's media people and academics would see the danger of allowing Israel to be painted as a genocidal occupier and would speak out and tell the world how tolerant and compassionate Israel has been towards her enemies — a veritable suffering Job among nations. Instead it is the same people in the media and universities who amplify the pro-Arab lies and distortions.

THE PEACE SNAKE
by Steven Plaut

  Steven Plaut writes a delightful story about the Peace Snake — how the Peres's of this world feed on our hunger for peace. Simon Peres, Israel's sneakest practitioner of snake-oil peace, together with his talk-alikes, is now vigorously promoting the division of Jerusalem AND giving Samaria and Judea to the Arabs. How else can we have peace with our Arab neighboring countries?    the Palestinians?    Fatah?    Abbas, maybe?    It worked in Gaza, didn't it? Perhaps Plaut's parable will teach some reality.
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IS THE GOVERNMENT THE ENEMY?
by Emanuel A. Winston

  If Israel survives, there's one thing we'll be able to say good about this period — the current Israeli government has established absolute zero. The ultimate low point in politicians. The benchmark that serves as the standard of pathetic, the dev/null of governance, the administration named zilcho. No government can get worse than this and still pretend to function. They used to say in England that the smart son went to University, the active son went into the army, and the nebish went into the ministry. In Israel, the technical and business types go into industry, the logical types go into science; the dedicated go into kollel; and the total misfits become political hacks. Emanuel Winston traces how the Left has used its political power since the Oslo negotiations began. He asks whether the degree of appeasement and secret concessions Israel makes to its enemies together with how much it has reconstituted the police and army as political tools is not treason?
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OUR TERMINAL STUPIDITY
by Martin Sherman

  If the government's actions are not treason, Martin Sherman argues, they have terminal stupidity, and might easily end in ending Israel. With the use of a smattering of common-sense, the consequences of the Oslo Agreement were predictable. What is appalling is that now that Oslo's terrible consequences are glaringly obvious — and it is even more obvious that Israel has not got an Arab peace partner (if ever it did) — the government continues to pursue a 2-state "peace process", aided by Marxist academics and media. It is oblivious to security risks, to the demoralization of its citizens and to the build-up time it has given Israel's enemies. It also hasn't figured out that if the Jews are expelled from Samaria and Judea (known to Jews as Biblical Israel and to Arabs since 1948 as the West Bank), the Arabs will control Israel's water supply, be able to target its airport and control the high ground that looks down on large population centers.
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THE MENTAL PREPARATION FOR THE DISENGAGEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH IN THE IDF
by Gadi Eshel

  We all recognize how excruciating an experience it was for the Jews of Gaza to be expelled from their homes by other Jews. It is now becoming obvious that the government had another destructive task to perform to make the expulsion happen. It had to prepare the IDF, hitherto regarded as an agency for protecting Jews, to carry out this evil ejection, to go against its natural instincts. That the Olmert-Sharon government succeeded brilliantly in reducing a highly-motivated fighting force into a political tool can be seen from the IDF's lackadaisical performance in the Second Lebanon War.
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HIZBULLAH'S TRIUMPH: THE LONG-TERM IMPLICATIONS OF PRISONER EXCHANGES
by Justus Reid Weiner and Diane Morrison

  It's hard not to react with disgust at Israel's willingness to release a large group of Hizbullah terrorists including Samir Kuntar, a monster who cracked open a child's head by smashing her against a rock — in exchange for two dead bodies. Justus Reid Weiner and Diane Morrison go beyond emotion and tell us why this act is harmful to Israel's future health. They point out that a rogue group of terrorists now has the status afforded lawful soldiers. The exchange creates an appalling precedent that encourages further kidnappings, increases the possibility that Israeli captured soldiers will be mistreated or even murdered in custody, and rewards imprisoned terrorists by releasing them early to claim new victims. There is no virtue in Israelis telling themselves they have a higher morality; they have put more Jews in greater jeopardy, including Gilad Shalit, who is still a prisoner of Arab terrorists.
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TEL AVIV U'S CHOMSKY DISCIPLES IN LINGUISTICS LEAVE US SPEECHLESS
by Lee Kaplan

  It's amazing how much damage one man can do — and this a man engaged presumably in peaceful pursuits. A single man, Edward Said corrupted Middle East Studies for decades, enshrining the wrong assumptions about the Middle East and, as we learned on 9/11, leading everyone to the wrong conclusions. Said was a linguist, as is the subject of this essay by Lee Kaplan — Noam Chomsky. His anarchic hate-Israel politics — and maybe even his discredited linguistics — are in full play at Tel-Aviv University, where professors encourage their students to avoid serving in the IDF and otherwise strengthen the Arabs and their fantasy that Israel belongs to them. As one organization has asked: donors, do you know what your money is doing?
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THE SHAME OF DISLOYALTY
by Ralph Dobrin

  "Each military flare-up produces pictures of devastation and dead Arabs — often children — on the television screens of the world ..." Many people, Jews included, are ignorant of the context of these pictures. They aren't aware that the dead were used as human shields by their own relatives. They won't learn from their news sources that many of the awful-looking scenes are hoaxes staged with media collusion. But academics, particularly Jewish academics, don't have the excuse of ignorance. Are they acting this way because of their ideology or some twist in their personality or out of sheer wrongheadedness? Ralph Dobrin suggests it doesn't much matter why they are what they are. What is important is that we all learn to counter their spurious claims with the actual facts. He suggests some reliable sources of information.
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SECTION 3. MUSLIMS WAGE WAR IN THE WEST:

More so in America, less so in Europe, Islamists don granny masks to hide their wolfishness. They have infiltrated our banking institutions offering the monetary rewards of sharia banking and not emphasizing its anchorage in basic sharia law. They have managed to sanitize K12 textbooks so that, despite all evidence to the contrary, future generations will have the conditioned conviction that Islam is a peaceful religion. They have encouraged self-censorship from the press, who won't criticize Muslim activities, because they are aware the Saudis have sufficient money to eventually win any legal battle. They have infiltrated academia and, curiously, have become chummy with leftist multicultural faculty, who ignore that Islam does not approve of any culture but its own. And what is so often ignored, the current surge in anti-semitism isn't a mystery happening ex nihilo — it is a planned achievement, made possible by the liberal use of Middle East oil money. Denying respect to the Jews is but one aspect of Muslim denial of respect to Western democracy and their determination to supplant our system of governance with their complete answer to everything — Sharia law.

The first essay in this section lays out the general problem. The other sections explore various infiltrations.

THE NEW JEWS, AND HOW WE MUST DEFEND THEM
by Hugh Fitzgerald

  Hugh Fitzgerald has written a factual analysis on how Muslims differ from other immigrant groups in Western countries. Other groups strive to participate, to enjoy their new freedom; or they withdraw into their own community structure, with little contact to the larger society. Only the Muslims nibble away at the structure of the host society, often announcing openly that it is inevitable that their law — sharia — supercede the laws of the host country. Increasingly, they demand the larger society accomodate itself to Islam. They are unique in other ways. There is among them a group of unknown size — the silent minority that perhaps does not have supremicist intentions — but they do not protest when the extremists claim to speak for all muslims. They are less likely than other immigrant groups to become more American in later generations; in fact, a goodly number of the younger generations become more militant. Then too, they have taken a major role in fomenting hate and dissension. They benefit from the nonjudgmental attitude of the multicultural Westerner, but they themselves do not see the infidel as praiseworthy or equal. In fact, they are a major source of the recent increase in open, poisonous anti-semitism. Muslim students put up grotesque anti-semitic posters; Muslim professors deny the connection of Jews to Israel. They shamelessly distort, misinterpret and openly lie to blacken Israel's name. Fitzgerald lays out the extent of the problem and makes intelligent suggestions on how to counter the Muslim hostile takeover.
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Sharia Inroads into Government and Banking

JIHAD AND OUTREACH TO ISLAMIC SUPREMACIST GROUPS
by Jeffrey Imm

  How the mighty have fallen! In days of old when local police were often in league with powerful local criminals, the FBI was a shiny example of incorruptibility. Nowadays, their outreach program to the very Islamic groups they need to investigate is, at the very least, bizarre. As Jeffrey Imm writes, "Why would any federal government agency defend outreach to a group whose leaders support Islamic supremacist organizations?" When they fought white supremacists, they "...sought no guidance from white supremacist non-violent organizations in that war." Under the guise of concern for Islamic civil liberties, the FBI practices appeasement and ignores the ideology of the groups it courts. The focus on training FBI agents in sensitivity to Muslim concerns will not make for effective probing investigations — especially not when it is these very same Islamic groups that are training the FBI in how to behave in the presence of a Muslim.
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THE PERILS OF SHARIAH-COMPLIANT FINANCE
by Center for Security Policy

  Sharia banking is based on Islamic law. No interest may be charged but the come-on ignores hefty fees that are charged. More seriously, sharia banking is the string that pulls in the rest of Islamic law — including donating to Islamic charities that end up funding violent jihad. The Center for Security Policy has initiated a campaign to make us aware of the real costs of Sharia Banking. (See also articles by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr, Helena Christofi, and Patrick M. Wood in the November-December 2007 issue.)
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Islamic Inroads into the Education Sector. These essays examine some of the agencies and institutions involved in branding Israel as an illegitimate country while portraying the "Po' Palestinians" as innocent victims. The unquestioning media acceptance of whatever Palestinian proponents say has contributed much to this anti-Israel campaign. It has reached the point that they don't so much report the news as propagandize it, spreading Jew hate globally. Fact suppression also has become common in the publishing business, as publishers refuse to publish books that can get them sued for libel by Arabs. And it's getting hard to get an unpoliticized education in more departments at more universities.

HOW TO GET THE WORLD TO HATE ISRAEL
by Richard L. Cravatts

  When an event or a process defies logic — it couldn't happen but it has — it is often helpful to ask: were this a planned manipulation, how could it have come about. Richard Cravetts sequences a set of propaganda procedures that would explain how Israel came to be seen as an apartheid occupier of another people's land — a statement that is contrary to fact. He does all but ask who might be pushing the buttons. I'd vote for Muslim Brother and/or Saudi Arabia.
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THE MEDIA AND ENDURING NARRATIVE
by Caroline Glick

  Caroline Glick makes clear that pro-Arab media such as BBC consistently mimimizes the grotesque behavior of the Palestinians Arabs, to the point that there are only two known clips taken at the exact moment of the terror attack. And in both cases, the media apologized to the terrorists for showing them. The Arabs, themselves, unlike the Jews, dramatize their "victimhood" by showing their dead, preferably young, chopped up, and bloody. Glick states bluntly that BBC apologized ".. not because the film's images were too gruesome, but because it strayed from the accepted narratives of the Palestinian war against Israel." She highlights the problem inherent in the media-Arab connection: by showing one-sided images and ignoring underlying causes, the media's reinforces the Arab interpretation of events.
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GOOGLE EARTH: A NEW PLATFORM FOR ANTI-ISRAEL PROPAGANDA AND REPLACEMENT GEOGRAPHY
by Andre Oboler

  Andre Oboler writes on Google Earth, which allows pro-Palestinians to post glaringly incorrect "information" on putative Arab pre-ownership of current Israeli towns (they call it "user-generated content"), yet Google claims to "provide critical tools for understanding a story." They are saying "trust me" but they knowing let users post falsehoods under their imprimatur — they don't withdraw the patently false information. It is true that they allow separate user-created overlays from many different sources; it is equally true that the default overlay is Arab propaganda. Moreover, if it continues to take time and legal effort to force Google to make individual changes in an error-riddled map, how can we ever feel secure in what is still displayed? What a shame it is to lose confidence in a once well-regarded information-gathering resource!
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WALKING WITH ANGELS AT THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER
by Dexter Van Zile

  Dexter Van Zile writes, "NCR, the National Catholic Reporter (which has no official ties to the Roman Catholic Church) offers its readers an ideologically-driven narrative of the Middle East conflict that demonizes Israel and excuses and minimizes the behavior of those who seek its destruction. It portrays the state of Israel's history as a trail of blood, bereft of any efforts to make peace with its adversaries. And yes, in the process of offering this distorted narrative, NCR uses Jewish 'self-criticism' as an important source for its remorseless denunciation of Israel..." Van Zile does a masterful job of profiling some of NCR columnists, writers and editors: Robert Fisk, Rosemary Ruether, Neve Gordon and Margot Patterson.
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THE HECKLER'S VETO
by Steve Emerson

  Can the self-censorship in the publishing industry seen in Europe in the wake of the Muslim riots protesting cartoons of Mohammad come to America? Would publishers sacrifice their and their authors' right to free speech for fear of stirring up a "hyper-sensitive Muslim community"? Steve Emerson provides us with a recent example which gives us cause for concern. Random House has virtuously stopped its publication of a novel about Mohammed's 9-year old wife, out of concern for the safety of those involved in the book's publication. (For additional information, see here.) Their concern for Muslim retribution may be realistic, but is contracting our freedom of speech the way to go?
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IN ACADEMIA, HIRING TOKEN JEWS
by Asaf Romirowsky

  Columbia University has taken the lead in showing contempt for Jews while pretending to fair-minded listening to their concerns about Columbia's unscholarly, anti-Jewish Arab professors that continue to receive tenure. In reviewing Rashid Khalidi's taunting of pro-Israel students, it stacked the committee with members well-known to be strongly critical of Israel. To add balance in its Jewish Studies program — Rashid Khalidi was a member of the Search Committee — they selected Yinon Cohen, a Jew in name only. In this essay Asaf Romirowsky writes about other such academic Jews. As he so ably puts it, "[h]iring token Israeli Jews who share their views eliminates debate while providing the illusion of balance."
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We end this Section on a positive note. Here are two essays on survival — they suggest some ways that we in America and in Israel can fight back in the war resurgent Islam has been waging against us.

MIDEAST SURVIVAL GUIDE
by Mordechai Kedar

  Mordechai Kedar has a prescription on how to survive in the Middle East: The patience to outwait and outwit resurgent Islam; an ideology that bolsters our faith in what we need to do and makes us confident as we struggle; and endurance — staying in for the long haul, not quitting at the first sign of trouble. Is it any different for us in America?
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FORMER TERRORIST'S ADVICE FOR FIGHTING JIHAD: THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY
by Rob Margetta

  The first rule of warfare is: know your enemy. We don't. Seven years after 9/11 and we still haven't settled on who or what we're fighting. Is it the blight of poverty, despair, political disenfranchisement? If that's true, all we have to do is cure the ills of the world and terrorism will stop. Put another way, because we can never cure all the world's problems, the anarchistic forms of terror we now are seeing will never stop. We know we aren't fighting terror per se. The term Terror is descriptive of procedures and tactics used by terrorists. Even as we begin to identify that our troubles are caused by Middle Eastern terrorists, we haven't settled on a name that subsumes the local manifestions: Hamas, Hezbullah, Al Fatah, etc. Should we call them Islamists? radical Islam? resurgent Islam? Rob Margetta writes about a recent Senate attempt to come to grips with the nature of the terrorists who have declared us their enemy and how to deal with them.
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HISTORY SECTION: The first essay traces the historical context of what seems a simple word and reaches important conclusions. Of the other essays, two recall the early days of the Jewish State and the origin of the antagonism Israel still confronts. The third is a historical document for the future — it is one of the rare essays by a member of the media not enamoured of Barak Obama.

TACTICAL HUDNA AND ISLAMIST INTOLERANCE
by Denis MacEoin

  In analyzing the historic context that anchors the meaning of the term hudna — whose surface meaning is cease fire during a jihad — Denis MacEoin makes us understand that jihad itself must be continuous because it is designed to spread Islam, which "... holds that a set of rules exists, eternal, divinely ordained, and independent of the will of man, which defines the proper ordering of society. ..." These rules are intended to apply to all governments in the world and they are of course to be defined and controlled by Muslims. All Muslims can agree that Muslims must rule over infidels and this has given motive power for yet another jihad. History also demonstrates the instability and chronic internal war in Muslim governance. The various factions waged war against each other one. Generally the more barbaric ones would take power, only to lose it as another group grew strong and nasty enough to win the people's admiration.
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THE FIGHT OVER '1948'
by Efraim Karsh

  This is a fascinating essay by Efraim Karsh about the long-held assertion by Israeli revisionist historian, Benny Morris, that, well before Israel became a state, Israeli leaders wanted to drive out the Arabs. Examining Morris's documentation, Karsh became aware of "the systematic falsification of evidence aimed at casting Zionism as 'a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement'...." It is only recently that Morris has acknowledged that it is the Arabs who deny the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism, not the reverse. Amusingly, this has "won Mr. Morris the ire of former allies and admirers - such as the notorious duo Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer - who continued to use his academic writings in their Israel-bashing endeavors." But revisionist historians have never needed a close connection between evidence and their politically-charged conclusions.
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INTRODUCTION TO NATIONS UNITED: HOW THE UNITED NATIONS IS UNDERMINING ISRAEL
by Alex Grobman

  Dr. Alex Grobman is a historian who writes on contemporary issues affecting the Jewish community. In his latest book, he focuses on the gross hostility the U.N. has shown toward Israel. This essay is the Introduction to the book. It lays out the context — the centuries-long Jewish attachment to Israel and the Jewish return to reclaim and restore its land, the mission we call Zionism. And it characterizes Anti-Zionism, which, promulgated by obsessive Arab bloc voting in the U.N., became international in scope. As in the rest of the book, the writing is direct and the ideas comprehensive.
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HE VENTURED FORTH TO BRING LIGHT TO THE WORLD
by Gerard Baker

  In this presidential campaign, Obama has generated chuckles flip-flopping and making a fool of himself. To paraphrase Him: Jerusalem is to be undivided (to AIPAC cheers) ... well, actually it should be the capital of Palestine (to Palestinian Arab cheering in Ramallah) ... well of course Jerusalem should remain undivided. We don't want barbed wire running through it, no sirrey. But that's more scary than funny. We have, however, seen two serious humor items. The New Yorker cartoon is farcical and encourages you to flip 180 degree but stay in the box. It says: you got him wrong. He isn't a skinny Marxist-Muslim combo. Au fond he's a ... (you fill in the blanks). This article by Gerard Baker is brilliant satire because it mirrors Obama's view of Himself. Who else, barely out of law school, would devote himself to writing his memoirs a la Jack Kennedy and Profiles of Courage. As ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, an embryonic politico imitated an established pro.
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READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can access any of the articles immediately. To go to the list, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

July 2008 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE
August 2008 BLOG-EDS    READ MORE




May-June, 2008

We celebrate Israel's 60th! Except for the first essay, we examine the Arabs' take on the founding of the Jewish state. They see it as the disaster in which they were forced to flee for their lives. A pathos-filled story. But a phony one. A highly-creative myth. These essays provide us with the truth about the birth of the "Palestinian refugee".

PERFECTION DEMANDED ONLY FROM LITTLE ISRAEL
by Chris Powell

  Starting in the late 1800s there was a surge of settlers into Israel, who, added to the Jews who had never left, slowly reclaimed their homeland. Around the time Israel was granted statehood, it needed to bring in refugees from Arabland and survivers of the European Holocaust. Israel took in people almost guaranteed to hold back development — the elderly, the traumatized, the weak, the demoralized, the unskilled. If that wasn't enough of a handicap, Israel was a poor country with no natural resources — no oil, few minerals, young forests, a poor water supply. And fending off Arab neighbors was a constant distraction. Yet, sixty years later, Israel is in the first-rank in advancing the quality of life for humankind. It has Nobel prize winners, engineers and computer scientists developing and improving global communications; physicians and biologists crafting medical innovations; agriculturalists growing wonderful fruits and vegetables with a scant water supply. During this time, the Arab states have become bloated with spending money but they have scarely moved forward towards modern times. So how is it the miracle of Israel is not appreciated? Chris Powell provides an interesting answer.
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1948, ISRAEL, AND THE PALESTINIANS — THE TRUE STORY
by Efraim Karsh

  Efraim Karsh writes of the beginning of the Arab refugee extravaganza. During the 1948 invasion of Israel by the Arab states, the local Arabs fled. Arab propaganda claimed that they fled because the Jews forced them out. Using newly declassified documents to determine what happened in what is now the State of Israel between 1920 and 1948, Karsh shows that the flight of the Arabs and their consequent resettlement as unwanted refugees in the Arab countries was the result of the Arab leadership instructing their people to leave their homes so the Arab armies could destroy the new state of Israel.
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SELF-MADE NAKBA
by Barry Rubin

  Barry Rubin adduces four reasons why the Arabs rejected partition and attacked the fledgling state of Israel: namely, 1) the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler's buddy, wanted to destroy the Jews, not live next to them; 2) the Arab laity wanted war; 3) the Arab countries envisioned looting and grabbing land; 4) they foresaw an easy victory. They haven't changed much, have they?
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UNRWA: REFUGE OF REJECTIONISM
by Barry Rubin, Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Spyer

  This report, recently released by the GLORIA Center, details how UNRWA, nominally a humanitarian effort to help Palestinian refugees, uses its huge budget to hamper resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and blocks the resettlement of its ever-growing number of charges. Oh, and it also furnishes finances, facilities, and recruits for terrorist groups — but that it does for free.
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THIS IS AN ONEROUS LIFE?
by Steven Shamrak

  Aside from the fact that many of the Arab refugees were locals living near the refugee camps (they actually improved their lives signing up as refugees), their lives are pretty good. It might be boring but they won't starve and they are better educated than Arabs in most of the Arab countries. And for excitement, the various terrorist organizations are there — as UNRWA staff — to inculcate them with an exciting mission: KILL THE JEWS.
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US CONGRESSMEN DEMAND UNRWA REFORM
by Etgar Lefkovits

  Israel Zwick of CN.net gathered these interesting facts from UN official sources: UNHCR handles all the UN-supported refugees and stateless people in the world except the Palestinian arabs; in 2007, UNHCR cared for 32.9 million people in 110 countries. UNHCR requested a total of 1.673 billion — regular budget and supplemental funds — for 2008. Of their clients, the vast majority returned home or were resettled within 5 years. UNRWA's clientele is exclusively Palestinian arab; in 2007, UNRWA cared for 4.5 million people in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. They requested 1.09 billion for 2008. To sum up: to cater to 14% of the number of people that UNHCR cares for, UNRWA's non-supplemental 2008 budget is almost 2/3 of what UNHCR spends for all other UN-supported refugees in the world. UNRWA has resisted resettling clients for some 60 years, insisting that — unlike other refugees — these arabs can not go anywheres except to Israel.

The United States is a major UNRWA sugar daddy. So it is appropriate that it be the one to say: Enough's enough. As Etgar Lefkovits writes, several U.S. Congressmen are demanding reform, pointing out that "UNRWA was actually designed to perpetuate the festering sore of the refugee problem."  READ MORE
 

Thanks to the Sharon-Olmert government, Israel also has refugees. In August 2005, the Jews of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip were made refugees by their own government. They are forced to rely on each other and on Jews with a conscience in Israel and the Diaspora. To date, UNHCR has not contributed a cent to their welfare. Nor has their own government provided them with adequate compensation for the houses and greenhouses and businesses they were forced to leave. They live in shoddy trailers due to disintegrate in the near future and are unemployed or underemployed. This is shameful!

IT'S NOT GUSH KATIF
by Ann Goldberg

  Ann Goldberg describes a trip taken to visit some expellees from Gush Katif, who are now living in a section of Kibbutz Ein Zurim. The refugees have renamed the area Nezer Hazani, the name of their hometown in Gush Katif in the Gaza strip. If there was a compelling reason for the eviction, the Olmert government never made it clear. What is clear is that the major tangible return Israel got for the expulsion is the constant barrage of missiles coming from the Arab terror community that now inhabits Gush Katif.
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1000 DAYS WITHOUT A HOME
by Dror Vanunu

  The exiled Gush Katif communities has created superb graphics that will in short order fill you in with what's happened to the productive, patriotic and proud Jews that lived in Gush Katif, Gaza. Dror Vanunu reminds us that they need your help now to recover from the trauma inflicted on them by the Sharon-Olmert government. They need your financial and moral support. You need their conviction that the all of Land of Israel belongs to the Children of Israel. You need their spiritual strength. Help them for their sake. Help them for your sake.
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GOODBYE 12, UPWARD AND ONWARD
by Moshe Saperstein

  Moshe Saperstein in his sardonic fashion continues to explore recovering from a trauma inflicted by the petty bureaucrats and gross ideologues that were supposed have his interest at heart. These administrators destroyed his beloved community in Gush Katif, Gaza, and they continue to destroy the country he loves. He began his current set of essays — the Goodbye series — in March 2008. Goodbye 1-4 and 8-10 are to be found in "Gloom, Doom — And Yet..." in the Think-Israel's March-April 2008 issue. Goodbye 11 is on the April 2008 Blog-Ed page. This issue we present essay "Goodbye 12 and onward."
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RAPTORS IN LACHISH; WEDDING IN SUSSIYAH
by Rachel Saperstein

  Two short essays, deceptively simple. Raptors make a stopover in Israel on the way to Europe. On land needed by people who need housing. How do you prioritize? Rephrase the question and the answer changes. In the second essay, we learn how some of the Israeli young are connecting themselves to their people's history. Rachel Saperstein always leaves us with much to think about.
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THE MISTAKES THAT LAUNCHED 3,000 ROCKETS
by Richard A. Baehr

  Richard A. Baehr reminds us that not so long ago Israeli leadership made a disasterous error — forcing all the Jewish Israelis out of the Gaza strip. He recalls all the supposedly sound reasons for vacating the land — demographics, not having to worry about protecting the Gazan Jewish civilians. public relations, peace, and letting the Arabs run their own show. As we know, the actual result was a rain of missiles from Gaza. So why are they dredging up the same old arguments to leave Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank)?
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THE TWO-PRONGED ASSAULT ON RELIGIOUS ZIONISM
by Caroline B. Glick

  Caroline Glick makes clear what many have long suspected — driving Jews from their homes in Gaza had little to do with peace or security and much to do with the hostility the far-left Israeli secularists feels toward religious Zionist Jews because they want to be Jews, not Marxists. The expulsion "...wasn't about peace with the Arabs. It was about cultural supremacy within Israel." In doing so, the secularists demoralized some of Israel's most productive and patriotic citizens; gave the Arab terrorists now in control of Gaza more confidence as well as more unmonitored space in which to assemble and hurl their missiles; and weakened the state of Israel to further military and diplomatic attacks. The irony is that the Left strives to be like everyone but picks wrong and/or inadequate implementations. It is religious Zionism that is revolutionary, nationalistic and above all, normal in its desire to hold onto its own land and live its own version of the good life. Unfortunately, it has acquired another opponent — the non-Zionist Jewish religious establishment, which is comfortable in the attitudes and habits of powerlessness that it developed to survive hostility in the diaspora. Yet, as Glick concludes, "Israel and the Jewish people need Religious Zionism more than anyone will ever admit." [For another facet of the consequences of the Jewish incorporation of the need to keep a low profile, to be politically powerless, see Seth J. Frantzman, "Jews, Power And The Creation Of The Palestinians" below.]
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Jewish leftists academics and professional "humanitarians" seem particularly prone to self-hate. They blame Jews, in particular Israeli Jews, for anything and everything. Arguments defending the Jewish state are never strong enough; arguments defending Arab terrorism can be ridiculously weak but they are solemnly accepted. The last article in this set discusses what may be the root cause of this Jewish self-hate.

THE LIZARD NAMED OZ
by Lee Kaplan

  Lee Kaplan draws us a character sketch of Avraham Oz, a professor of theatre and drama studies and a darling of the Israel-hating press, both at home in Israel and abroad. He can always be counted on to see Jews as bad, their terrorist neighbors as good, or at least as justified in their despicable behavior. "The Arabs keep claiming they are being ethnically cleansed as their population in Gaza and Yesha increases almost exponentially." The Arab choir has a stock set of derogatory phrases to condition people to despise Israel, its army and its citizens. And Oz is one of their lead singers, mouthing their words and specializing in demoralizing his own country.
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HRW'S POLITICIZED CHARACTERIZATION OF THE BEDOUIN ISSUE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
by NGO Monitor

  Human Rights Watch (HRW) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that routinely accuses Israel of war crimes. It can be counted on to overstate, exaggerate, distort and invent atrocities Israel is supposed have committed against the Arabs. When their spokesmen are caught out — as they were in Jenin and Qana — far from being embarrassed, they shrug it off and move on to their next bout of indignation. This essay from the NGO Monitor carefully analyzes the distortions in their report on their latest cause — the "plight" of the Bedouins in the Negev. Clearly, their cause may have changed, but their shoddy research and muddled writeups haven't. What makes HRW different from other vicious anti-Jewish NGOs? Its executive director is a Jew, whose father is a holocaust survivor. It seems to be the only difference.
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JEWS, POWER AND THE CREATION OF THE PALESTINIANS
by Seth J. Frantzman

  Seth Frantzman has written a singular and brilliant essay. He sums up the components and evaluates the essentials of the Jewish attitude against taking political responsibility — an attitude initially conditioned by the need to maintain a non-threatening profile in order to survive in a hostile diaspora. Unfortunately, the Jews internalized the need not to challenge the prevailing political and religious powers. They developed ways of surviving, but achieving independent political power was not one of them. Before Israel became a state, this attitude took the form of denying the virtue of having a Jewish state. In recent years, this has translated into a moral stance by Jewish leftist intellectuals, who created the notion of the indigenous Palestinian and want to give away Israel's birthright, its very identity, to these Palestinians. This would put the Jews right back in the role of an impotent minority group. The leftist Jews see this rootlessness as good; disembodied, so to speak, Jews could concentrate on being a "light unto the world." Unfortunately, it would also put them at the mercy of an irrational majority group intent on destroying Jews — but that doesn't appear to concern the Jewish leftist intellectual.
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These essays provide us with the history and character of the Palestinian Arab and make clear that the vision of two people living side by side in peace will never happen — not while one of them is the Palestinian Arab, a fabricated people designed to usurp Jewish land.

Why shouldn't there be yet another Arab state carved out of land belonging to Israel? Because the West Bank is Biblical Israel. It belongs to the Jews by way of the Bible, by history, by the Palestine Mandate, by international law, by decency and morality. If you insist that land can only be acquired by conquest — because that's how most countries became states — then, OK, Israel conquered the area in 1968, taking it from Jordan, who took it in 1948, when she, together with Israel's other neighbors, invaded the newly-created state of Israel. Before that? It belonged to the Ottomans for some 400 years. Then when the Ottomans had the misfortune to back the wrong side in World War 1, England was entrusted with the territory to help the Jews turn it into a state.

THE INVENTION OF PALESTINE
by Tsafrir Ronen

  Tsafrir Ronen bluntly provides us with some historic facts that are usually ignored by diplomats formulating a fantasy of two people living side by side in peace, when the reality is that one of these people — the Palestinian Arabs — is not an authentic people. They were invented as a way to challenge the Jewish people's return to their land. As Ronen writes, "[t]his is the essence of the Arab propaganda war, which is intended to steal the identity of Eretz Yisrael and to transform it into Palestine, and by such means to turn the Jewish people into occupiers of Eretz Yisrael. That's the whole story." Who says so? The Palestinian Arabs. Their very own leadership says so. Openly. And in print. Read some of their statements in this article.
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CAN WE PLEASE CUT THE QUACKERY?
by Jack Engelhard

  We are often told that Palestinian Arabs really want peace — they are being misled by some of their leaders. It isn't true. The motive force for the Palestinian Arab psychopathy comes from the Arab laity. It comes from the mothers who jump for joy when they learn their children have massacred Jews while blowing themselves up. Jack Engelhard points out they voted for Hamas, they wanted Hamas. Unfortunately, the Israeli Jews aren't stopping their Prime Minister from giving away Jewish land. And, as Engelhard says, "[t]hose of us (like AFSI) who favor a strong Israel, unconditionally, are finding ourselves outnumbered by our own Jewish brothers and sisters who, along with our politicians and media elites, have bought the jihadist narrative."
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DEATH OF A VISION
by Uri Elitzur

  Uri Elitzur asks why the Israelis continue to cling to the two-state solution, especially, when one of the groups, the Palestinian arabs, desires to obliterate the other group, the Jews. "Why, he asks, "do logical people cling to such an unrealistic vision, which has crashed time and again against reality, and always with bloodshed and suffering? The answer is fear and despair. Fear of the Arab population about to drown us in a dark demographic sea, and despair over the State of Israel's ability to rule and control its own fate." He advices Israel to stop being afraid. Recent demographic figures show the Arabs aren't going to become a majority in Israel and the territories now or in the future. What Israel needs to do is to put its own interests first, not try to represent both us and them [the Arabs], both the UN and the International Court of Justice."
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WHAT IS AN IRRECONCILABLE ENEMY? EXAMINING HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH
by Nicholas Guariglia

  The Jihadists of the Middle East have declared us of the West their enemy, and no softsoaping, no bribes, no diplomacy, no appeasement will deter them. Their if-thens are not our if-thens. They aren't just talking nasty. They mean to take over the West, starting with Israel and then going big time. Using a personal experience, Nicholas Guariglia makes us understand what it is to have a group make themselves your irreconcilable enemy "... even if you are unaware of their lethal intent. You are their enemy, and thus they yours, and they, not you, have made it so." Why in the world would we give Hamas, created by the Muslim Brotherhood and which now rules directly or indirectly over the Palestinian Arabs, or Hezbollah, which controls much of Lebanon for the Iranians, more land to use to develop more ways to murder people?
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The diplomats and much of the media continue to try to square the circle, to put a hostile group of Arabs plonk inside of Biblical Israel and label it an independent state, but a dependent state — an independent dependent state (now that's an Obamaism), where Israel continues to be their nanny, providing them with water, electricity, food, jobs and medicine and they continue to do what they do best: murder Jews. In the longer version, this is to continue until enough Arabs pour into Israel to wipe out its Jewish character and probably its Jews. In the fast-forward version, Israel and the Arabs start off by sharing a single state, including any Arab from all over Arab land that claims he's a Palestinian and any Jew that survives. The Jewish character of the State is immediately wiped out.

These essays suggest a third way. Tiny Israel is too small for two states, especially when the Arab group takes joy in massacring Jews. The Arabs own 99.9% of the Middle East. They have the space to place ALL the Arabs who claim to be Palestinian — without cramping. They have the money to settle the Palestinians, especially if the money now spent on the Arab "refugees" is added in. And why should there not be room in the Middle East with its 22 Arab states for a single Jewish State? In fact, when you think about it, the major question is: where should the Palestinian arabs be resettled? That's what this group of essays mostly discusses — that and the need for Israel to stand firm and look out for its own interests for a change.
[See also: Martin Sherman's "A New Paradigm For The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From The Political To The Humanitarian," here.]

REB HOROWITZ AND A TICKING CLOCK
by Dov Kahn

  We are always being told Israel has to make some new painful decision for peace. They can all be summarized as: share Jewish land or give it away; risk your future and the future of your children. And they have all have the same result: no peace and less security. In this essay, Dov Kahn suggests an agonizing decision that differs from the previous peace plans in that it actually could lead to peace. It would at the least make Israel a safer place to live.
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THE SOLUTION: DUBAI
by Moshe Feiglin

  Moshe Feiglin outlines why Dubai would make a good place to resettle the "80% of Gazans [who] are now begging to leave. In Judea and Samaria 60% of the Arabs would prefer to live elsewhere." Dubai is thriving and has a booming economy and gigantic construction projects. It could use the help of the Palestinians. He points out that "all that we need to do to solve the Kassam problem is to allow the Gazans to leave and then to annex Gaza to Israel. It is that simple."
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THE LAST FANATIC
by Rabbi Benny Elon

  Rabbi Benny Elon's Israeli Initiative plan has several components: (1) the refugee camps will be dismantled and the refugees will be absorbed as citizens in various countries; (2) Jordon will replace the PA as the representative of the Palestinian arabs; and (3) Israel will extend its sovereignty over Samaria and Judea (the West Bank). He has advocated this plan for several years and is winning support from both Israelis and Americans. In this essay he encourages you to view some explanatory videos and download software that will aid you in promoting the Israeli Initiative.
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IT'S TIME TO RECONSIDER A FEDERAL ARRANGEMENT
by Israel Zwick

  Israel Zwick bases his plan in part on the minority opinion of the 1947 U.N. Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) which pointed out the area was too small for two independent states. They recommended a Federal State, with Arabs and Jews having "full powers of local self-government". Zwick suggests there be a Federal State that includes Israel, Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights. Arabs in the Territories would be offered financial incentives to relocate. The Arabs within Israel's borders would have a choice: they could become part of their own semi-autonomous government, rather like Puerto Rico vis-à-vis the U.S.A. Or they could choose to be Israeli citizens "with full personal rights, but not national rights" — exactly what was proposed in the original Mandate.
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It is a common — though incorrect — belief that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the linchpin of all the conflicts in the Middle East (ME). Solve it, it is claimed, and all turbulance in the region will evaporate. Not so. At most, the argument provides an excuse for Israel's neighbors so they don't have to come to cordial terms with the Jewish state. The first essay addresses the issue of linkages and lists some nine conflicts that are simultaneously taking place in the region. They may intersect dynamically and to different degrees over time. But they are separate operations. The other essays demonstrate features of the instability and shifting alliances in the ME. For example, even putative friends of Israel and the West, whether they be Moslem secular or Moslem religious, see nothing bizarre in spewing out hate statements against the West, particularly against Jews. Jordan publishes articles and cartoons specializing in Jew-hate. And as Turkey becomes more illiberal politically, the more it views the Koran as the only authority and guide in all matters. Iran has designs on Lebanon, controls Syria and dreams of destroying Israel. Similarly, Al-Qaeda, a "non-state actor" in Martin Kramer's terms, berates Saudi Arabia, has discovered sympathy for the Palestinians and makes plans to nuke America.

THE MYTH OF LINKAGE
by Martin Kramer

  Martin Kramer disassembles the insidious and incorrect notion that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the cause/root/essential condition that keeps the Middle East turbulent. As Walter Reich wrote in a comment to this article: "Martin Kramer's post is a superbly-executed and much-needed act of intellectual hygiene about "linkage" and the "Middle East conflict." It's a corrective — to use a phrase that others, alas, have invented — to "stinkin' thinkin'" about one of the most important dimensions of international affairs.
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THE HATE INDUSTRY: THE JORDANIAN PRESS CONTINUES TO PUBLISH ANTI-SEMITIC ARTICLES
by Dr. Reuven Erlich

  Dr. Reuven Erlich provides us with examples of Jordanian hate publications and cartoons. They are blatently anti-Jewish, with the usual equation of Zionism and Nazism. The same swill is served up in secular Marxist publications as in fundamentalist publications associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. A curious occupation for a country that wouldn't last long were it not propped up by Israel and America.
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TURKEY TURNS BACK TO THE BOOK
by John David Lewis

  Turkey, the most secular of the Muslim countries, is becoming more religious. This is being hailed as "reform." John David Lewis sets us straight. "This is not reform," he writes. "It is a call for a new fundamentalism on the authority of a thirteen-hundred-year-old vicious fairytale, and for a ceaseless struggle against those who would criticize it. Indeed, the use of terror in fighting the enemies of Islam is directly sanctioned by the Koran. ... Any 'interpretation' of Islam that is consistent with the Koran as a revealed, unquestioned authority will end in a reversion to its brute, fundamental meaning: the subordination of women and non-Muslims to dictatorial rule by a clerical elite." Wise words.
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THE IRANIAN ROOTS OF HIZBULLAH
by Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli

  Just as the Muslim Brotherhood created Hamas, so did Iran create Hizbullah. Both are characterized by adherence to fundamentalist Islam. Both are barbaric, with no scruples about jeopardizing their own women and children to protect their soldiers. In this essay Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli describes some of the early history of Hizbullah. He concludes that with Iranian financing, Hezbullah was able to build an educational, political, social welfare and military network and "now serves as an extension of Iran's strategic expansion into the Mediterranean." Moreover, Iran would not have been able to gain entrance into Lebanon "without the collusion or approval of the Syrian regime. Syria is also the main conduit of arms from Iran to Hizbullah."
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AHMADINEJAD'S PAST TELLS IT ALL
by Olivier Guitta

  Olivier Guitta recounts the early history of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's current president. He was — and is — a very pious Muslim. He was — and is — a brutal murderer, one who, like so many nazis, thoroughly enjoyed work when torturing people. Would he be repelled at the idea of killing millions of Jews and Arabs in an atomic blast? Unlikely.
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AMERICA IN ASHES?
by Christopher S. Carson

  While Ahmadinejad is set on erasing Israel no matter what it takes, Osama bin Laden is said to be planning a "nuclear hell storm" in America. Christopher Carson uses information obtained from "Khalid Sheik Mohammed, (KSM), mastermind of 9/11 and chief operating officer of al-Qaeda," to describe how al-Qaeda plans to develop the means to build a nuclear device and bring it to a target. He develops a plausible sequence of events that can, sooner or later, bring the threat of nuclear attack to America. "The question confronting American policy makers is: Are we prepared to stop this threat before it becomes a terrible reality?" Are we?
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The Muslims who see a chance of conquering the world are active in England and Europe. Except for the occasional bombing and the now-routine tire and car burnings, their tactics are gentler than in the Middle East, but just as persistent. Their aim, as always, is to install shari'a law and replace the law of the land. As their numbers grow, they inspire and/or actively help revive Europe's traditional anti-semitism, which, after World War 2, was beginning to wane.

EUROPE SHALL BLEED, ONCE AGAIN
by Amil Imani

  Europeans are generally devoted to the idea of multiculturalism and try to accomodate the alien Muslims, who reciprocate by scheming to impose Islam and control the lives of their unsuspicious hosts. Amil Imani provides us with a list of cities where the percentage of Muslims is disturbingly large. It is a truism that when their numbers grow, Muslims begin demanding that the natives start doing thing the Muslim way. Amin Imani has seen freedom repressed in his native Iran, and is alert to the early warning signs of danger. He believes the longer Europe ignores the danger, the bloodier it will be should Europe decide to fight the sharia takeover in the future.
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EUROPE AND ISRAEL: WORLDS APART?
by Robin Shepherd

  This is a thoughtful article. As Robin Shepherd points out, "Europe's relationship — perhaps relationships might be a more appropriate term — with Israel is multi-layered." And rocky. Trade and technology are blossoming but traditional anti-semitism remains, reinforced by new hostility from a Europe that increasingly has become pacifist, secular and disapproving of nationalism. Leftists, despising Western capitalism, can sympathize with Islam's rejection of western power. For rightists, "[t]he quasi-feudalistic, traditionalist character of much of the Arab world resonates with old right values in a way that 'upstart' Israel never could. There is certainly a sense in which anti-Israelism unites people and ideological viewpoints which feel that they have lost out in the modern world." But nationalism seems to be making a comeback. Shepherd concludes, "It remains to be seen how Israel will fare when one or other of the continent's various potential futures finally comes out on top."
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These next essays discuss the growing anti-semitism in the world

HOW SECURE ARE JEWS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD?
by Dr. Irving Kett

  Irving Kett writes that we Jews must face up to an unpleasant reality about our situation in the world; there is "... a serious worldwide recrudescence of anti-Semitism, the likes of which has not existed since the 1940's." In Europe, which is fast becoming judenfrei, Arab funding and "large scale immigration of fanatic Jew-hating Moslems" have fueled a surge of life-threatening anti-semitism. If that weren't enough, we have rejectionist Jews, "... Israeli academics who are in the forefront of international anti-Zionist, anti-Israel propaganda." It is important that Israel be encouraged to reject foreign aid, so that she is not under obligation to appease the arab terrorists at the cost of her own security.
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ISLAM'S HISTORY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
by Raymond Ibrahim

  Raymond Ibrahim uses data from Andrew Boston's new book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism to decide whether Islam was itself anti-Semitic or did it just take Jew-hate over from European, particularly German, sources. He concludes that "[t]he historical documents make clear that, from day one, Jews and Christians have been systematically treated as second-class citizens, dhimmis, in the regions conquered by Islam." "...far from being a by-product of Western anti-Semitism or the creation of Israel, animosity toward the Jews has a firm doctrinal base tracing back to Islam's most authoritative texts." What makes this hate source [the Koran] particularly troubling is that "... it is not just history, but immutable theology, which transcends time and space and needs to apply today no less than yesterday." In other words, there is no polite way to modulate or change Islamic anti-semitism.
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HOLOCAUST HYPOCRISY
by Brad Macdonald

  Brad Macdonald observes that there is a certain irony in that while Western governments pay lip service and honor the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, they "actively, to one degree or another, condone, even promote, the demise of Jewish statehood", which can surely lead to another holocaust. "...Hitler attempted to destroy the Jews as a race: Today that same anti-Semitic spirit is being directed, subtly, at the Jewish state." The U.N. spends much of its energy and most of its indignation in scolding the State of Israel. The Roman circus it sponsored at Durban in 2001 was advertised as promoting tolerance among nations; instead the only important item on the agenda was throwing Israel to the lions. Bemoaning the previous holocaust and creating conditions for another is hypocrisy and many western countries are guilt of it.
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In America, the under-the-radar battle to impose sharia law continues. Muslims have made massive inroads on the American campus, and are just beginning to use the lower grade classrooms for tutorial sessions on Islam appreciation. They bank on the greed of the bankers to accept Shari'a banking without examining what societal committments shari'a banking demands of us. And we revisit a long ago prominent assassination that is just being reexamined to see if it should have been linked to Muslim terrorists.

THE FIFTH GENERATION WARFARE
by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen

  Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa Lappen give us the very good advice that winning the war against radical Islam requires more than a winning military strategy; it "requires understanding the role of shari'a and the Muslim Brotherhood in developing a global ideological and political movement supported by a parallel 'Islamic' financial system to exploit and undermine Western economies and markets." They set about to educate us on what we need to know about what they rightfully call "financial jihad" so that we can protect ourselves from this insidious route Muslims use to infiltrate our social structure in order to overide our financial system with theirs and to win acceptance for the strings attached to shari'atheir ideas on the status of women; their ideas on how to treat minor infractions of the law; their ideas on which religous group should dominate; ideas that would restrict our political independence and lose us our freedom of action.
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DISTORTED HISTORY LESSONS
by Robert Holland

  There have been sporadic attempts to persuade schoolchildren of the beauty and superiority of Islam by having them role-play being a Muslim, dressing Muslim, praying Muslim, eating food politely according to Muslim etiquette. Now we are discovering that a one-sided flattering view of Islam is being promoted in the classroom by way of common ordinary textbooks. Robert Holland points out that "[m]odern textbooks shy away from presenting a positive picture of Christianity and Judaism as important influences ..." but the same censorship apparently doesn't hold when discussing Islam. The American Textbook Council examined some 10 textbooks and concluded that they "present an incomplete and confected view of Islam that misrepresents its foundations and challenges to international security." Islam is portrayed as tolerant, Christianity as aggressive. Holland suggests that the ideology of multiculturalism contributes to this distorted view of reality. "Its most ardent proponents in academe depict the European-rooted common culture as evil and oppressive and Third World cultures as universally heroic."
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SLAYING GAVE US A FIRST TASTE OF MIDEAST TERROR
by Sasha Issenberg

  In the last issue we presented an article by Andrew McCarthy entitled "When Jihad Came to America" that suggested that the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990 was an early example of Islamic Jihad operating in America. Rabbi Kahane was killed by an Arab who was part of a jihadist cell training for various acts of terror. In this issue, Sasha Issenberg recounts the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. The Arab who shot the then presidential candidate said he did so because Kennedy favored Israel over the Arabs. At the time, the shooting was seen as the act of a loner; it seemed part of the "civil turmoil" of the time. We now understand there was a pattern of well-planned Arab political terrorism outside of the Middle East even before 9/11. It included the killing of the Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics; the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, when an elderly man in a wheelchair was thrown overboard; and the first attack on the World Trade Center. If the assassination had happened today, the various Arab terrorist groups would be on the top of the list of suspects.
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In this issue of Think-Israel, the media section features articles on some specific bizarre behavior in the news and entertainment fields. One of the essays explains why truth in news presentation is important to keep us safe in a world where Jihadists have vowed to conquer us and have explosively shown they are serious. There is also an article that will teach by example how to analyze a speech objectively.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE SMART MEDIA MOGULS GONE
by Burt Prelutsky

  In this essay the witty Burt Prelutsky bemoans the of absence of the old time Hollywood moguls and newspaper publishers whose bottom line was making a profit. Crass? Uncouth? True. But it saved having producers who insisted on producing ideologically-motivated bummers that the public — with good and sensible reasons — rejects. And as far as newspapers go, it doesn't make sense to so slant the news leftward that you lose all objectivity. No wonder so many people have tossed their newspapers in the garbage for the last time and get their news from more reliable sources.
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THE FORWARD TAKES ISRAEL BACKWARD
by P. David Hornik

  The Forward newspaper has the same set of beliefs as Peace Now and other groups that are certain that removing Israeli settlements in Samaria and Judea will hasten their version of the Messiah: the coming of an yet another Arab state in Biblical Israel. Discrediting Jewish settlements is so important to them that they don't mind substituting belief for fact. In this essay David Hornik answers each of their allegations.
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DO LIBERALS KNOW THERE IS EVIL?
by Richard H. Shulman

  Newspapers such as the New York Times don't so much report the news about Israel as act as advocate for the Palestinian Arabs. "... false statements, misleading figures, or omissions that survive readers' correction and are one-sided in favor of the Arabs, in headlines, photographs, news items, and editorials. Too much one way for coincidence." Richard Shulman analyzes the Times' propaganda techniques, how they mislead readers who look to them for objective assessments and for facts set in context. What the Times is doing goes well beyond michief-making when it helps determine foreign policy. Worse, when it keeps us passive while our enemies grow in strength; or, as Shulman puts it, "They turn us into sitting ducks for an Islamist death cult."
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BREAKING DOWN OBAMA'S AIPAC SPEECH
by Sultan Knish

  Sultan Knish doesn't waste his time trying to decide whether Barak Obama meant it when he said blah, blah or when he said aha-ah-blah, blah, the two being completely contradictory. Instead he shows us how to boil down some typical political speeches to extract the meager supply of actual information they contain.
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The History Section this issue has a biography of a remarkable historian and remarkable man. And some events during the time Britain held Mandated Palestine...

JAMES PARKES: A FINAL RECKONING
by Haim Chertok

  James Parkes was an Anglican clergyman and a historian of Jewish history, both ancient and modern. Haim Chertok paints a portrait of his life and provides an assessment of his writings. James Parkes was an unusually gifted historian, who was capable of true love and appreciation of the Jewish people without allowing that to veer him from scrupulous accuracy. He was able, too, to look with clear eyes on Christian treatment of Jews throughout Church history. Chertok writes of Parkes, "For over fifty years, promoting what he had the wit and courage to recognize as the main thing, the overriding purpose of his life — his Christian duty ... to render justice to the Jewish people — he never lost focus or faltered in determination. In the process he became one of the authentic intellectual and ethical heroes of our time."
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TRIPLE CROSS: HOW BRITAIN CREATED THE ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT
by Rachel Neuwirth

  In 1917, Britain was entrusted by the League of Nations to strive to "secure the establishment of the Jewish national home," (national home was Nordau-talk for state.) When the authority of the League was transferred to the U.N., Mandated Palestine continued to be in perpetual trust for the Jewish people and was so written into the the U.N. Charter. [See here and here. ] But it is also true that England, perhaps having senior moments, promised the area to both the local Arabs and the Syrians. Rachel Neuwirth writes of this triple-cross. Under the guise of having the Hashemite Abdullah ibn Hussein administer much of the area, the Brits also helped the Kingdom of (Trans)Jordan eventually come into being. But that's another story.
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READERS' BLOG-EDS

  This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

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March-April, 2008

Next month Israel will be 60 — a youngster as countries go. An anomaly in so many ways. A young country with an ancient history. A Jewish state where many of its elite long only to be "like every other country." A state with a firmer right to its real estate than most others but the only state where people continue to question its right to exist. The tiniest state in the Middle East but the only one with Nobel prize winners in anything but "Peace". The tiniest state in the Middle East but the only one that is a world leader in medicine, scientific innovation, engineering development, agriculture, managing water resources, etc., etc., etc. The only state in the Middle East that allows its academics to advocate its demise in favor of erecting another Arab terror state. The only one that manages to live joyously while worrying that its monomaniac neighbors will again erupt with malice and this time cause devastation. These next essays look at the new state's beginning in 1948 and how it's been harassed by internal enemies — the revisionist historians.

LETTERS FROM JERUSALEM, 1947
by Chedva Margolit; foreword by Steve Kramer

  As Steve Kramer writes in his foreword: "Nothing is more appropriate on the 60th anniversary of Israel's Declaration of Independence than reading the words of a young Jewish wife who left America and came to Israel for love of Eretz Yisrael." This essay is to be treasured.
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WHO DID WHAT FOR ISRAEL IN 1948?
by Norman Berdichevsky

  It is appropriate as we celebrate Israel's 60th to examine some of the received wisdom about those days. Norman Berdichevsky demolishes the myth that the USA was Israel's only friend and made Jewish statehood possible, supplying "money, manpower and arms". While the U.S.A voted for partition, it was primarily Czech arms, East European and Soviet manpower and East Bloc political support that enabled Israel to decisively win the military and diplomatic battles. If you think this reads like the novel 1984 — with flip flopping alliances — you may be right.
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THE 60-YEAR WAR FOR ISRAEL'S HISTORY
by Efraim Karsh

  One sometimes wonders if Israel's Arab enemies aren't overkill — her internal haters do such a good job denigrating Israel's accomplishments, rewriting her history and denying her right to exist as a Jewish state. Efraim Karsh writes of the "new historians ... who systematically rewrote the history of Zionism, warping the saga for Israel's survival." They didn't just reevaluate the facts; in many cases, they invented them or distorted their meaning by omitting key information. Unfortunately, though their tactics have been exposed, the new historians are not yet history.
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This month we celebrated Passover. The first essay reminds us of some real bitter herbs that have historically accompanied the festival. In the second, the Passover seder serves as an allegory for how Jews should be living their lives in Israel today.

BLOOD LIBEL — PART I
by Patricia Berlyn

  We look forward to Passover but it brings with it some baggage we'd like to think was left behind in the Dark Ages — the Blood Libel, the accusation that the Jews killed Christian children for blood for their matzohs. The Jews. Of all people! A people whose religion forbids ingesting blood! As Patricia Berlyn writes, the Libel hasn't died; it lives on in Muslim mythology — the Arabs have taken it up and, as authentic modern-day medievalists, they need no evidence to propagate the lie as literal truth. Abetted by a friendly media, they have concocted other libels centered around the conviction that Jews target children for killing. It seems that the more the Jews attempt to minimize loss of Arab lives, the more grotesque the lies the Arabs invent.
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A PASSOVER STORY FOR ISRAEL TODAY
by Steven Plaut

  Using as parable a tale about a Pesach guest too impatient to wait past the symbolic seder food for the later feast, Steven Plaut makes an important point: Israel had just about defeated the first Arab intifada and there was little sympathy for PLO barbarism, when, in the early 1990s, the Israeli leadership was foolish enough to step onto the slippery slope of the Oslo "Peace" Accords. This commitment has not led to peace or even to an increase of tranquillity. "The Oslo era was accompanied by a massive assault upon Israel's pride, morale and confidence by its own leaders and intellectual elites." Is it too late to bring back "an understanding of Jewish heritage" and the pre-Oslo achievements?
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These essays examine a dysfunctional government: the U.S.A. In the twilight of its power, the Bush administration is pushing Israel to make concessions that will severely weaken — if not destroy — America's only friend in the Middle East.

BUSH-RICE BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO THE JEWISH NATION
by Emanuel A. Winston

  The reasons given for Bush's sudden rush to establish a Palestinian state are (1) to establish a legacy for Bush and (2) to sacrifice Israel for Arab cooperation in extricating the U.S.A. from Iraq. Neither makes sense — in that it is unlikely the Palestinian Arabs will maintain a facade of civility long enough for either to happen. Realistically, you can't make a viable and peacable state from a bunch of hate-filled savages eager to kill and loot, savages led by a bunch of thugs who make a profit from promising peace while collecting the weaponry for another try at eliminating Israel. Emanuel Winston speculates on how the Bush administration proposes to start dismantling Israel.
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YOUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AT WORK ... FOR PALESTINIANS
by Anne Lieberman

  The Arab population in Gaza, Judea and Samaria is reportedly going hungry, with only a trickle of electricity and no clean water. Yet, when it comes to getting foreign funding, the PLO — and its more recent incarnation as the P.A. and Hamas — has been outstandingly successful. It has received billions of dollars from the European Union, the United Nations, Arab and non-Arab countries, non-governmental organizations, church groups and private "charities." And — as Anne Lieberman shows us — the United States government.
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There is the story of the man watching to make sure the workmen didn't steal. He watched them leaving and made sure their wheelbarrows were empty. They were stealing the wheelbarrows. So it is, we worry about dirty bombs and mass explosions — and so we should — but meantime, in the West, we have "isolated" killings of Jewish groups by crazies that just happen to be Muslim, and manipulation of our workplaces, banks, libraries, schools and universities by Sharia-activists. Some stories are dramatic, but many are just small items, Islamic creepage that stays pretty much below the radar.

MURDEROUS MOTHERS: THE HIDDEN FEMALE FACE OF HONOR KILLING
by Phyllis Chesler

  This is the story about an honor killing. It isn't really novel that it happened in America. It isn't even unique that it happened in the U.S.A. and the mother helped slaughter her own daughters. But it is an absorbing story that Phyllis Chesler tells us. As she concludes, the victims "... were American citizens. America was their culture. Their desire to live as Americans, and not as Arab Muslims in Egypt is precisely what doomed them."
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"SHARIA CREEP" AROUND THE WORLD
by Kathy Shaidle

  Kathy Shaidle writes about some small nibbles Sharia-activists are taking out of our democratic structures. They're small, they push the envelop, they encourage our universities and workplaces to be "sensitive" to what are claimed to be Islamic requirements — even if every one else is discomforted. More to the point, they soften us up — each concession we make makes us more compliant, more likely to agree with the next demand request.
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SHILLING FOR SHARIA AT HARVARD
by Hillel Stavis

  Noah Feldman is a respected member of the Harvard Law School Faculty and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Who better to flog Muslim Sharia law, claiming it represents the highest state of "the rule of law"? Hillel Stavis describes Feldman's conclusion this way: "In Feldman's revisionist account, the evolution of Islamic law echoes the Western experience and is compatible with it. To Feldman, Sharia evolves from 'higher law' to 'the rule of law' in a neat conflation of the secular with the holy that places the Islamic code alongside the West's rigorously evolved concept of secular justice." Stavis concludes, "And it can only be a matter of time before the professor, having asserted that Sharia law is desirable, will assure us that its introduction in the United States is inevitable."
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A TALE OF TWO ARCHBISHOPS
by Daniel Mandel

  In Great Britain, the Sharia banking system is courted by the banking community and "sensitivity" to Muslim needs is a top priority in the educational system. Too often, Christian national and religious symbols are banned while Muslim "requests" are respected. Giving legal status to sharia courts means allowing Muslim women to be treated as chattel — not exactly a feature of democracy. Daniel Mandel contrasts the statements of the past and current archbishops of Canterbury to illustrate how high the tide of sharia compliance has reached. "[The previous Archbishop] Carey sees democracy as tender and in need of consolidation; [the current Archbishop] Williams sees it as something rigid and in need of modification." As Mandel points out, "the prevalent reaction, as the events of recent