THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED NOVEMBER 1, 2003
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A QUESTION OF TREASON
Posted by Ken Heller, October 19, 2003. |
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This is an essay by Professor Paul Eidelberg on the 'Geneva Accords' gang. It has been reported that Labor Party leaders Amram Mitzna and Avraham Burg, together with initiator Yossi Beilin, are planning to sign an agreement with the PLO-Palestinian Authority "on behalf" of Israel. The agreement stipulates that the Temple Mount and most of the Old City of Jerusalem will come under Arab control. The Western Wall will remain Israeli, as will Zion and Dung Gates, but the other city gates will be under Arab control. Jews will be permitted, according to the agreement, to "walk freely" from Jaffa Gate to the Jewish Quarter. Furthermore, the cities of Ariel and Efrat, as well as most other Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will be dismantled and evacuated, according to the agreement. All in all, 100,000 Jews would be evacuated from their homes, according to Beilin/Mitzna/Burg. The "agreement" is, of course, illegal, since only the government has the authority to initiate and enter into agreements with foreign entities. Moreover, such an agreement is an attempted coup d'etat. In fact, it is quite possible that the Israelis involved in this agreement have violated the law of treason. I refer to sections 97, 99 and 100 of the Penal Law. Four kinds of acts are prohibited by this law: 1. The category of acts which "impair the sovereignty" of the State of Israel section 97(a); The punishment prescribed in the Penal Law for the first three kinds of acts of treason is death or imprisonment for life. The harshness of the punishment emphasizes the seriousness with which the State of Israel views the crime of treason, which it seeks to prevent by the punishment it imposes upon offenders. Attorney General Eliakim Rubenstein should investigate, or be called upon to investigate, the matter and, if Messrs. Mitzna, Burg, and Beilin have violated the law of treason, they should be indicted and prosecuted. Leaving aside the question of whether Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres is behind this agreement - although this should be determined - what about the position of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon? By this I mean only the following: since the Prime Minister is sworn to uphold the law - and this applies to every Knesset Member and cabinet minister - is he not obligated to query the Attorney General for a legal opinion on the matter in question? If so, and if he fails in this regard, it may then be possible for private citizens of Israel to initiate a suit against the Prime Minister and/or the Mitzna/Burg/Beilin triumvirate before the Supreme Court. By the way, since the Supreme Court is very fond of extending its jurisdiction via the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, should the Government enter into any agreement that requires the evacuation of Jews from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, it should be challenged before the court as a blatant violation of the human dignity and freedom of these Jews. Even though the court will almost certainly dismiss such a suit, it should nonetheless be initiated. In any event, the Labor-Palestinian Authority "agreement" should also be exposed as a violation of basic principles of democracy, since it undermines the ability of the democratically elected government of Israel to fulfill its functions. If this "agreement" goes unchallenged in the courts, the country will sink into unmitigated anarchy. This will lead either to tyranny or to the end of Israel as a viable state.
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THE GENEVA ACCORD - PURE SUBVERSION
Posted by Eliezar Edwards, October 19, 2003. |
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This was written by Zalman Shoval and appeared in Haaretz today. When we were children, we played at "President, Deputy, Secretary" - just like a bunch of frustrated Israeli politicians from the left and academics nostalgic for the gay old days of Oslo, who met last week on the shores of the Dead Sea (a wonderfully appropriate locale for what they were dealing with), and made believe that they were conducting negotiations on the future of the State of Israel. In a meeting with a few representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Fatah, they decided on a document - called "the Geneva Accord" - that is supposedly going to lead to a permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. A fitting headline for the initiative: "Oslo is dead - long live Geneva." With respect to some of the details, a lack of clarity still prevails, but from what has filtered out via the media, the following picture emerges:
On the face of things, there is no need to get upset, either because of the meeting or because of the peculiar initiative it engendered, and perhaps the government spokesmen are mistaken in giving it such exposure. Nor would it be illegitimate, if it were another one of the scores of meetings and discussions that are held in various forums, particularly among academics, in which ideas and proposals are debated. However, in the current case, a random group of people has the gall to conduct negotiations, ostensibly in the name of the State of Israel. In contrast to their Palestinian interlocutors, most of whom have official functions in the top Palestinian echelons, the Israelis represent only themselves. The motives of the Palestinian side, which is linked by its umbilical cord to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, are clear: First we'll let the Israelis make far-reaching concessions and then we'll raise further demands. This is how the "salami method" works, with Israeli help. No wonder, then, that the sides succeeded in reaching agreement. As an American government secretary once said: "When you give the other side everything it wants, there's no difficulty in reaching an agreement." This is not the first time that bodies on the Israeli left have subverted the legitimate government, and it is possible that this confirms once again David Ben-Gurion's observation that we have still not learned to act like a sovereign and law-abiding state. I can remember personally how, after the Madrid conference, in the Washington talks in which I participated as the Israeli ambassador and a permanent member of the delegation, the Palestinians suddenly stopped taking the discussions seriously. In retrospect it turned out that this was because of the initiatives that led to the Oslo agreements. Not only was Yitzhak Shamir's government tricked in this way. This is what the late Yitzhak Rabin wrote to Peres on June 7, 1993: "The contacts known as the `Oslo contacts' in the current situation constitute a danger to the continuation of the peace negotiations." The writer was Israel's ambassador to the United States and a Knesset member during the years 1970-1981 (first on the Mamlachtit list and then on behalf of the Likud), and from 1988 to 1990 on behalf of the Likud. |
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PALESTINIAN TERROR, AMERICAN BLOOD
Posted by Jeff Jacoby, October 19, 2003. |
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Three Americans - John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Martin Linde - were murdered last Wednesday when Arab terrorists in Gaza bombed the diplomatic convoy they were riding in. News accounts immediately described the attack as a first - "an unprecedented deadly attack on a US target in the Palestinian territories," to quote the Associated Press. But Branchizio, Parson, and Linde were not the first Americans to be murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. They were the 49th, 50th, and 51st in the past 10 years alone. A few hours after their deaths, the White House condemned the vicious act of terrorism that had killed them, extended "heartfelt condolences to the families, and promised "to bring the terrorists to justice. The families of the many previous US victims of Palestinian terror might reasonably wonder why there was no such presidential concern when "their" loved ones were massacred. The president did not vow to see justice done, for example, when Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava died, on the eve of what was to be Nava's wedding day, in the bombing of Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel last month. Or when Cleveland native Alan Beer was killed in a Palestinian bus bombing in June. Or when four Americans - Marla Bennett of California, David Gritz of Massachusetts, Benjamin Blutstein of Pennsylvania, and Janis Coulter of New York - lost their lives in the bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria last year. Or when Shoshana Greenbaum, a New Jersey tourist, was among the 15 innocents slaughtered in the horrific Sbarro pizzeria attack of August 2001. Or when, three months earlier, 14-year-old Kobe Mandell of Silver Spring, Md., was one of two boys stoned to death in the cave where Palestinian terrorists found them hiking. Or in April 1995, when Brandeis University student Alisa Flatow was murdered in a Gaza terror attack. Americans have been dying at the hands of Palestinian Arab terrorists for decades, yet the US government and media rarely if ever portray Yasser Arafat and his lieutenants as avowed enemies of the United States. The State Department does not demand the extradition of Palestinian killers of Americans, not even when the killers' identities and whereabouts are known. President Bush has never given the Palestinian Authority the same ultimatum he gave the Taliban in Afghanistan: Hand over the terrorists or be destroyed. Instead he issues incoherent declarations like the one he made on Wednesday - blasting the Palestinian Authority for refusing "to fight terror in all its forms," while assuring Americans that the US is "working closely with the appropriate officials" - i.e., the selfsame Palestinian Authority - to find and prosecute the terrorists responsible for the latest butchery. As if it isn't those very officials who have been aiding and abetting such butchery all along. To hear Bush tell it, the deeper tragedy of terrorist acts like Wednesday's is that they are "an obstacle to achieving the Palestinian people's dream of statehood. What kind of state does Bush imagine would be created by the people who danced for joy on Sept. 11? How long is he going to keep up the pretense that terrorism represents a failure, rather than a core element, of Palestinian governance? Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were quick to distance themselves from the murder of the three Americans. But violence against Americans is routinely celebrated by the PA. "During the war in Iraq, notes Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, "the PA actively endorsed the killing of Americans, and even produced a music video celebrating the deaths of US soldiers that was broadcast repeatedly on official PA TV." (An extensive compendium of anti-American hatred in the Palestinian media is posted at www.pmw.org.il.) For years, sermons preached in Palestinian mosques and aired on Palestinian radio and television have rhapsodized about inflicting pain on the United States. Oh, Allah, destroy America, for she is ruled by Zionist Jews," proclaimed Sheik Ikrima Sabri, the Arafat-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, in one such sermon. "O God, destroy the Jews and their supporters... destroy the United States and its allies," implored Sheik Ibrahim al-Mudayris in another. And from a third, Sheik Ahmed Abu Halabiya: "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country... Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them." A few months ago, Palestinian officials renamed the central square in Jenin after Ali Jafar al-Na'amani, the Iraqi suicide bomber who killed four US Marines at a checkpoint in Najaf on March 29. That" is what Arafat and the Palestinian Authority think of spilled American blood. There is only one rational response to the murder of Branchizio, Parson, and Linde last week: the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, a network of killers masquerading as a government. If that doesn't happen, this much is sure: the 49th, 50th, and 51st Americans to lose their lives to Palestinian terror will not be the last. Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe. Go to http://www.jeffjacoby.com/subscribe.php to subscribe to his mailing list. |
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FAIR IS FAIR
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, October 19, 2003. |
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Dear friends, We are all being punched in the face by 57 Muslim countries who now blame tiny Israel and 8 million Jews for their troubles. Even Egypt, at "peace" with Israel and a recipient of US billions of dollars annually, concurs. The Europeans decided not to react to the outrage. That is, of course, typical. Instead of outrage and strong words, of the kind it occasionally uses against Israel, The New York Times wrote a luke-warm, matter of fact, editorial (oct 18, 2003). Very nice and very civil. To me it amounts to almost nothing. It's called "Islamic Anti-Semitism." Here it is, judge for yourselves. While all these blatant and dangerous developments take place, a group of Israeli ignorant fools decide to give up sovereignty over Temple Mount to the Palestinians in return for a "promise" of "peace" (maybe the same "peace" as with Egypt). Israelis will require a Palestinian visa to go through the Jaffa Gate. Here is what I say: The Jews will agree to give the Palestinians sovereignty over the holiest site for Judaism, if they will provide the Jews with sovereignty over Mecca. How does that sound? It is hard to know what is more alarming - a toxic statement of hatred of Jews by the Malaysian prime minister at an Islamic summit meeting this week or the unanimous applause it engendered from the kings, presidents and emirs in the audience. The words uttered by the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, in a speech to the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference on Thursday were sadly familiar: Jews, he asserted, may be few in number, but they seek to run the world. "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," he said. "They get others to fight and die for them." Muslims are "up against a people who think," he said, adding that the Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others." When Israeli officials noted that such talk brought Hitler to mind, the assembled leaders were mystified. Yemen's foreign minister said he agreed entirely with his Malaysian colleague, adding, "Israelis and Jews control most of the economy and the media in the world." The Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, called the speech "a very, very wise assessment." Even the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said the speech was "very correct." Perhaps the saddest element is just how impotent the representatives of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims feel. When Syed Hamid Albar, Malaysia's foreign minister, sought to contain the controversy, he explained that because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslims feel "sidelined or marginalized," so please understand why they complain about the power of a tiny competing group like the Jews. Sympathy for the Muslims' plight must not be confused with the acceptance of racism. Most Muslims have indeed been shoddily treated - by their own leaders, who gather at feckless summit meetings instead of offering their people what they most need: human rights, education and democracy. The European Union was asked to include a condemnation of Mr. Mahathir's speech in its statement yesterday ending its own summit. It chose not to, adding a worry that displays of anti-Semitism are being met with inexcusable nonchalance.
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BREAKING NEWS: ARAFAT TO RETIRE TO BOYNTON BEACH; CLAIMS LAND HELD
BY JEWISH RETIREES
Posted by Barbara L. Taverna, October 19, 2003. |
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(West Palm Beach)--In a move that has significantly altered the political landscape of the Middle East, PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat last Saturday announced his retirement and quickly moved to Boynton Beach, Florida. Almost immediately, Arafat claimed 58% of the land owned by Coral Lakes, Majestic and Palm Isles. He also laid claim to 42% of the assorted Valencia Communities and 37% of Cascades. Arafat, however, got more than he bargained for when he attempted to occupy the Clubhouse at Coral Lakes. His military incursion was met with fierce resistance by members of the Yiddish Club and Hadassah, who were holding a joint meeting in the MPR. at the time. Reports are still sketchy, but it appears that Arafat and his forces sustained serious casualties and had to abandon their attack when Hadassah members hurled Mah Jongg tiles at the Palestinian terrorists and members of the Yiddish Club hurled epithets, in Yiddish naturally. The European Parliament quickly denounced both the Hadassah and Yiddish group's inflammatory use of Mah Jongg tiles and insults, and decided to consider a proposal to send peacekeeping troops to Coral Lakes to establish "safe zones" for Palestinians. Arafat is going to appear before the General Assembly of the United Nations to urge the passing of Resolution 843, making ALL Jewish settlements in Boynton beach illegal. Hannan Ashwari has been invited by twenty American Universities to discuss the historic right of Palestinians to all the land now held "illegally by the Jews in South Florida." She says that the Palestinians have been forced out by the Jews since the 1940s, and the land rightfully belongs to them. She blames the Jews for converting the Florida swamps and the Ag. Reserve. into settlements, housing senior developments and malls that have destroyed the historic evidence for Muslim/Palestinia existence in Florida since 1000 BCE, 1600 years before Muhammed. Last report sighted Arafat and his guards in the Bed Bath and Beyond store in a Boca shopping center looking for pink flamingo bed sheets. Be on the alert. The Palestinians are known to gravitate to both tennis and shuffleboard courts, and it is well documented that they have a predilection for ceramics, bridge and canasta. Beware their motto. "Today Coral Lakes, Tomorrow the Polo Club."
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YASIR ARAFAT: A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY
Posted by Bary Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, October 19, 2003. |
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Our new book is called "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" (Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0195166892 HB). Yasir Arafat stands as one of the most resilient, recognizable and controversial political figures of modern times. The object of unrelenting suspicion, steady admiration and endless speculation, Arafat has occupied the center stage of Middle East politics for almost four decades. Yasir Arafat is the most comprehensive political biography of this remarkable man. Forged in a tumultuous era of competing traditionalism, radicalism, Arab nationalism, and Islamist forces, the Palestinian movement was almost entirely Arafat's creation, and he became its leader at an early age. Arafat took it through a dizzying series of crises and defeats, often of his own making, yet also ensured that it survived, grew, and gained influence. Disavowing terrorism repeatedly, he also practiced it constantly. Arafat's elusive behavior ensured that radical regimes saw in him a comrade in arms, while moderates backed him as a potential partner in peace. After years of devotion to armed struggle, Arafat made a dramatic agreement with Israel that let him return to his claimed homeland and transformed him into a legitimized ruler. Yet at the moment of decision at the Camp David summit and afterward, when he could have achieved peace and a Palestinian state, he sacrificed the prize he had supposedly sought for the struggle he could not live without. Richly populated with the main events and dominant leaders of the Middle East, this detailed and analytical account by Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin follows Arafat as he moves to Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, and finally to Palestinian-ruled soil. It shows him as he rewrites his origins, experiments with guerrilla war, develops a doctrine of terrorism, fights endless diplomatic battles, and builds a movement, constantly juggling states, factions, and world leaders. Whole generations and a half-dozen U.S. presidents have come and gone over the long course of Arafat's career. But Arafat has outlasted them all, spanning entire eras, with three constants always present: he has always survived, he has constantly seemed imperiled, and he has never achieved his goals. While there has been no substitute for Arafat, the authors conclude, Arafat has been no substitute for a leader who could make peace.
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FORD MONEY STILL
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 17, 2003. |
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My letter to the Ford Foundation: "As if it weren't enough that Henry Ford spent tons of money to promote anti-Semitism and showed high regard for Hitler, does the Ford Foundation now have to compound his sins by funneling millions of dollars to NGOs that spread vicious hatred of Israel and seek to delegitimize the Jewish state - the only safe haven for Jews facing the kind of fate that Henry Ford had in store for them? It is nothing short of scandalous that you helped bankroll these groups at the infamous U.N. conference in Durban. One would have thought that, after Henry Ford's support of Nazi doctrines, the name 'Ford' would no longer be associated with such assaults on Jews." This is part 1 of a 4-part series by Edward Black and published in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13328&intcategoryid=6). It reports that the anti-Israel activists at Durban were funded by the Ford Foundation. WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (JTA) In August 2001, thousands of human rights activists from around the globe gathered in Durban, South Africa, for a United Nations conference that participants hoped would address racial injustice plaguing humanity, from Rwanda to Sri Lanka to the United States. But after more than a year of preparatory conferences held in Iran, Switzerland, Chile, France and Senegal, it became clear to Israeli officials and Jewish organizational leaders that Palestinian non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and their allies, had manipulated the agenda of the U.N. World Conference Against Racism into a focused indictment of Israel as an illegitimate apartheid, colonial and genocidal regime. Moreover, the proposed language of conference resolutions would deny or dilute the Holocaust and espouse an openly anti-Semitic stance. Many Western leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, declined to attend what U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), a member of the American delegation to the conference, termed "a transparent attempt to de-legitimize the moral argument for Israel's existence." As expected, anti-Israel agitation, anti-Zionist propaganda and blatant anti-Semitism permeated the eight-day Durban affair. Posters displaying Nazi icons and Jewish caricatures, anti-Israel protest marches, organized jeering, inciting leaflets and anti-Jewish cartoons were everywhere, as was orchestrated anti-American agitation. A virulent resolution drafted by non-governmental organizations at the Durban conference declared Israel a "racist apartheid state" guilty of "genocide and ethnic cleansing." The spectacle was so noxious that Powell withdrew the American delegation. Who financed a number of the groups at Durban that printed and distributed these materials, purchased advertising and conducted workshops? "No one knew where the money was coming from to fund all these NGOs," remembers Judith Palkovitz of Pittsburgh, Hadassah general secretary and a delegate to Durban. "I assumed it was a foreign group - say Saudi Arabia." When asked, one Jewish communal leader after another, and several State Department officials, also guessed: Saudi Arabia. They were wrong. The Ford Foundation, one of America's largest philanthropic institutions - and arguably the most prestigious - was a multimillion-dollar funder of many human rights NGOs attending Durban. That is the conclusion of a two-month JTA investigation, involving interviews with dozens of individuals in seven countries, as well as a review of more than 9,000 pages of government and organizational documents. Ford - which was endowed with funds donated by Henry and Edsel Ford but no longer maintains any ties to the Ford Motor Company - has long been known as a funder of Palestinian causes. But most observers did not suspect the extent of the foundation's involvement in funding of groups that engage in anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian activities both inside and outside the Middle East. With hundred of millions of dollars being pumped into Mideast NGOs by numerous private foundations here and in Europe, government and communal officials are raising significant questions about transparency, how the money in Palestinian areas is being used and whether funders such as the Ford Foundation are exercising proper controls. Increasingly, federal agencies concerned with fighting terrorism are asking: When money goes in one NGO's pocket, where does it go and whom does it benefit? The Jewish representatives at Durban "didn't understand the efforts, the financing and the organization that went into hijacking the conference," recalls Reva Price, Washington representative of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and a Durban delegate. "We knew we were walking into problems because of what happened in the early meeting in Teheran," Price said. "But we didn't understand how organized the opposition and what a well-financed campaign it was." Many Jewish organizational officials who participated in the long process complained that a key organization responsible for the methodical hijacking of the conference was the Palestinian Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, which operates under the acronym LAW. LAW officials took leadership positions on the Durban conference steering committees, conducted workshops and even sponsored a pre-conference mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip for South African delegates, to convince them that Israel was an apartheid state. "LAW was instrumental in creating the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic focus at Durban," confirmed Andrew Srulevitch, executive director of U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based group that monitors the world organization. But it was not just LAW. The Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO, an umbrella organization of some 90 Palestinian NGOs, as well as many of its constituent groups, diligently became embedded in the conference bureaucracy that created the hostile environment at Durban. PNGO led the move to craft an NGO resolution that would "call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state," including "the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, [and] the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel." Durban was not a one-time investment for the Ford Foundation - a major funder of LAW and PNGO. Indeed, through its Cairo office, Ford has extended more than $35 million in grants to some 272 Arab and Palestinian organizations during the two-year 2000-2001 period alone - the most recent years for which data is available - plus 62 grants to individuals that total more than $1.4 million, according to Ford's Web site, as accessed in mid-October 2003. Since the 1950s, the foundation's Beirut and Cairo offices have awarded more than $193 million to more than 350 Middle East organizations, almost entirely Arab, Islamic or Palestinian. Ford's Web site, at www.fordfound.org, offers detailed information about its Middle East grants. On the site as of mid-October, "Palestine" is frequently mentioned on its Mideast pages, but Israel's name is absent. Moreover, the Web site's shaded map of the geographical region from Egypt to Lebanon and Jordan blanks out over Israel's territory, even though Ford does make grants to both Jewish and Arab organizations in Jerusalem. Initially, despite more than two dozen requests by phone and in writing over a period of several weeks, the Ford Foundation's communications vice president Alex Wilde, deputy media director Thea Lurie and media associate Joe Voeller refused to answer any questions or clarify any issues regarding the foundation's funding of groups engaged in anti-Israeli agitation and anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist activity. However, after this investigation was completed, Wilde did send a six-page written statement, declaring, "We have seen no indication that our grantees in Durban or elsewhere engaged in anti-Semitic speech or activities. The Foundation does not support hate speech of any kind." Wilde added: "Some of our human rights and development grantees have certainly been critical of policies and practices of the Israeli government insofar as these discriminate against Palestinians or otherwise violate their rights, according to internationally agreed human rights standards and international law." "We do not believe that this can be described as 'agitation,' " the statement asserted. Both LAW and PNGO confirmed that their Ford funds were pivotal. "Ford has made it possible for us to do much of our work," a senior LAW official in Jerusalem said in an interview. Since 1997, LAW has been the recipient of three Ford grants, totaling $1.1 million, to engage in "advocacy" and participate at international conferences, according to LAW officials. A Ford Foundation official's check of the charity's confidential computer databases confirmed the information. Reached in Ramallah on her cell phone, PNGO program coordinator Renad Qubaj recalled her coordination of activities in Durban. "In Durban, for sure we published posters saying, 'End the occupation' things like that," Qubaj said, "and we published a study, had a press conference, organized our partners and protest marches." Asked about finances, she added, "Unfortunately we are very dependent on the international funds. Not just PNGO but all the Palestinian NGOs - 90 of them in our group. We get very little money from the Arabs - just needy family cases. Ford is our biggest funder." Allam Jarrar, a member of the 11-person PNGO steering committee network, and one who helped organize the events at Durban, explained that Ford money allows PNGO to have a global scope. "We do lots of international advocacy conferences and regional forums," Jarrar explained in an interview, "and we always try to represent our political view to Europe. We attended some women's conferences [in Europe], plus Durban." "Our biggest donations come, of course, from Ford," Jarrar added. "We have been in partnership with Ford for a long time - a real partnership, a real understanding of our needs. "Of course, when we go to an international conference, we try to get extra funds from one of their special budgets," Jarrar said. "Or sometimes the conferences' organizers, if they have their own Ford Foundation funding, they send us the finances to attend." From 1999 to 2002, PNGO received a series of Ford grants totaling $1.4 million, plus a $270,000 supplement, according to an examination of the Ford Foundation's IRS Form 990 filings, Web site databases and annual reports. PNGO continues to receive at least $350,000 annually from Ford, according to the data. LAW and PNGO were hardly the only Ford-backed groups at Durban. The conference was a major enterprise for the Ford Foundation. In a Ford Web site commentary written prior to Durban, Bradford Smith, Ford's vice president for peace and social justice, wrote that the conference's issues were "at the core of the Ford Foundation's mission since its inception." More than a dozen activist organizations - from Brazil to Sri Lanka - received well over $1 million in Ford grants specifically earmarked for the production of advertising materials, public meetings and advocacy at the Durban conference. "Does all this mobilizing, networking and drafting of statements have real impact on people's lives?" Smith asked in the statement. His answer: Yes, "because for years to come they [Ford grantees] and the foundation will work together to implement the [Durban] Conference Plan of Action." Since the Durban conference, LAW has continued its public crusade against Israel and Zionism, and PNGO, as well as many of its 90 members, continue organizing efforts to try Israeli officials as war criminals, boycott the Jewish state and label Israel a racist, illegitimate state that must be stripped of its Jewish identity. While a number of the Ford-financed organizations at Durban, such as LAW and PNGO, engaged in anti-Israel and anti-Zionist agitation, certainly many did not. Either way, Ford Foundation money, as intended, was a prime mover in the production of the advocacy pamphlets, posters, workshops and other materials at the conference that shaped the overall atmosphere. "I saw the Ford representative at Durban," remembers Palkovitz, the Hadassah delegate, who spotted him in connection with African American reparations issues. "There was no way to miss the anti-Semitism. The Ford guy would have to be blind. It was the most anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stuff you ever saw. "I told the Ford representative I thought it was a mistake because the whole meeting was being hijacked," she related. "He disagreed. He said he believed what the conference was doing was correct." "We are struck," said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, "by the scores of Palestinian NGOs funded by Ford, a number of which have deeply disturbing and troubling records on Israel and Jews." FUNDING HATE Series
Edwin Black is the author of the newly-released "War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race" (Four Walls Eight Windows), which investigates corporate philanthropic involvement in American and Nazi eugenics. In May 2003, he won the American Society of Journalists and Authors' award for best book of the year for his previous book, "IBM and the Holocaust" (Crown Publishing, 2001). |
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B'TSELEM MONITORED
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 17, 2003. |
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B'Tselem considers itself an educator about human rights and their violation by Israel in Yesha. (It ignores the real and extensive violations of human rights by the P.A. against Arabs and Jews and by Israel against the Jews of Yesha.) It is more "openly political" than are other human rights organizations. It not only deals in human rights, it also campaigns against settlement policy, the fence, and "The Occupation." The Israeli Army cooperates with it, citing its reports in trying soldiers for human rights violations. The foreign media falsely portrays the IDF stereotypically as not cooperating on human rights. B'Tselem can be more accurate than the better-known foreign organizations, because it is based in Israel, understands the situation, and has researchers who speak Hebrew and Arabic. B'Tselem does not claim to be influencing the P.A. but only presumably informed Israelis, so it often omits background information. The parties to the violent Arab-Israel conflict reshape B'Tselem's news, to advance their agenda. (Israel rarely utilizes events to make propaganda against the Arabs.) When the less candid and less professional organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Intl., Miftah, and Christian Aid partially quote B'Tselem, and omit the background, they paint an "inaccurate and sensationalized picture of popular dissent within Israel against the government, and distort Israel's human rights record as part of an international campaign of demonization and delegitimation associated with the UN. The less aware foreign audiences are not able to assess these reports that originated with B'Tselem. Thus B'Tselem serves those who seek to delegitimize Israel." (Does it object?) B'Tselem gets funding from Christian Aid, New Israel Fund, and European churches and states. Their contribution to an avowedly political organization that advocates an anti-Israel ideology is subversive (IMRA, 10/5 from NGO Monitor).
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IT'S OFFICIAL: JEWS ARE SMARTER THAN MUSLIMS
Posted by Beth Goodtree, October 17, 2003. |
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You gotta love these anti-Semites. Their hearts are so filled with hatred that it overwhelms the little common sense given to an amoeba and makes them admit to things they would never say if you threatened them with death. It hasn't yet been a month since the leading legal mind in the Arab world admitted that the Hebrew bible was fact. Of course, the man did this to justify suing every Jew in the world for a trillion gazillion dollars. But in his lust and greed and hatred, he overlooked the fact that by admitting the Bible was true and accurate history, we Jews could use him as our chief witness to reclaim the Temple Mount, all of Jerusalem, and parts of Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries. You'd think these haters would learn to keep their mouths shut so we wouldn't know their true agendas. But noooooooo. Along comes Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's Prime Minister and Chairman of the Islamic Conference. In his haste to condemn the Jews, he actually praised them and condemned Muslims and Arabs. Here is some of what he said and what it implies. Quote: "(Jews) survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking." Translation: Jews are smart and Jews (including Zionists) are non-aggressive and non-violent. Quote: "We need guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships for our defence." Translation: We are planning an all-out war on Jews and their western allies. Quote: "For well over half a century we have fought over Palestine. What have we achieved' Nothing. We are worse off than before. If we had paused to think then we could have devised a plan, a strategy that can win us final victory." Translation: We are non-thinking idiots spinning our wheels who have been defeated by a handful of Jews who actually use their brains. And we must change this to finally conquer the Jews. Quote: "The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews." Translation: We are not responsible for our backwardness and lack of civilization. It is all the fault of the Jews and the Europeans. Quote: "We are actually very strong, 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." Translation: Apparently, Dr. Mahathir Mohamed thinks that all Jews are out to eradicate Islam. He also thinks we Jews, small though our numbers may be, are a mighty power. Quote: "It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews." Translation: (Along with the above) Muslims should unite to wipe out the Jews that the Holocaust didn't get. Quote: "The Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage." Translation: I wish this would happen again. Quote: "They invented... human rights and democracy, so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others." Translation: Jews were smart enough to invent human rights and democracy and they are not our equals and persecuting them is perfectly acceptable. Quote: "The Quran tells us that when the enemy sues for peace we must react positively. True the treaty offered is not favourable to us. But we can negotiate. The Prophet did, at Hudaibiyah. And in the end he triumphed." Translation: Sign any peace treaty they offer because we're never going to honor it. It is merely a tactical maneuver towards total conquest of our enemies.
Given the above statements, Dr. Mohamed has made it abundantly clear that Islam is at war with all Jews and Western civilization in general. But, he has also made statements that make him a candidate for prosecution under the "Crimes of Genocide" laws. Also, as chairman of the OIC, he has made such statements official policy and at the very least, the UN should kick them the heck out (they have an office there.) Also, every individual, group and country which fails to condemn Dr. Mohamed's speech is in fact giving their silent support and may thus be complicit in incitement to crimes of genocide. And lastly, I urge everyone to read Dr. Mohamed's speech in full to understand the depth of his vitriol and what he is asking the Islamic world to do. He has just issued a cry to unite and conquer, first the Jews, and then the Western world. He has also stated that signing any peace treaties is merely a tactical move designed to buy time before total conquest. Meanwhile, as of this writing, not a single one of the 52 member countries or their guests back-peddled in the very least on his anti-Semitic statements. There is never going to be a clearer wake-up call that isn't accompanied by blood.
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EU FUMBLES OVER RESPONSE TO MALAYSIAN PM'S REMARKS
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 17, 2003. |
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With friends like Chirac, who needs... This was in Haaretz today. BRUSSELS, Belgium - French President Jacques Chirac blocked the European Union from ending a two-day summit Friday with a harshly worded statement condemning Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's remarks about Jews a day earlier. Backed by Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, officials said, Chirac objected to a few short sentences in a 19-page summit statement deploring Mahathir's comment at an Islamic leaders summit that "Jews rule the world by proxy." Foreign ministers Thursday night had drafted a text that said: "His unacceptable comments hinder all our efforts to further interethnic and religious harmony, and have no place in a decent world. Such false and anti-Semitic remarks are as offensive to Muslims as they are to others." Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters Thursday night Mahathir's remarks were "gravely offensive." But when the paper was handed to EU leaders Friday morning, Chirac said there was no place in an EU declaration for a text of this kind, diplomats said. Other leaders agreed, although the Netherlands wanted the wording to stay in the declaration. The leaders then compromised by having Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the summit host, criticize Mahathir at his closing news conference. The French Embassy in Israel issued a statement saying that Chirac condemned the Malaysian's prime minister's statements about Jews, but that the French President felt that the EU summit statement was not the appropriate place to express this. Officials said the draft text also would be issued as a separate statement and would be posted on the EU presidency website, http://ueitalia2003.it. Berlusconi told reporters Mahathir's comments about Jews undermine efforts to bring different religions closer. "All of our efforts must go toward a dialogue between the Western world and the Islamic world, between Christian religion and Islamic religion," he added. Britain summoned Malaysia's top diplomat in London on Friday to express concern about Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad remark that Jews rule the world, the Foreign Office said. Malaysian High Commissioner Mohammed Dato'Abdul Aziz was summoned Friday morning to meet Minister of State Mike O'Brien "to raise our concerns directly about Prime Minister Mahathir's speech," the Foreign Office said. "It's unfortunate that Mahathir chose to make these remarks which we regard as unacceptable. It's particularly regrettable that some of his positive and welcome messages, such as negotiation being the right path to peace and the futility of terrorism, have been obscured and overshadowed by racist remarks," the Foreign Office said.
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THE GENEVA MISUNDERSTANDING
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 16, 2003. |
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The Israeli Left continues to promote the "Geneva Understandings," the document produced by Yossi Beilin, the Mother Hen of the Oslo Massacres, together with a PLO terrorist leader and two numbskull Swiss professors whose ability to tie their shoes is in doubt. Israel's leftist anti-Zionist daily Haaretz touts the Misunderstandings day after day in banner front page headlines, as if this is a news story as opposed to a leftist media manipulation. Yesterday Haaretz crowed that the Geneva "deal" would require the PLO to consult Israel before doing any digging on the Temple Mount once it was under Palestinian sovereignty. Of course, the PLO has never paid any mind to Jewish sensitivities nor Israeli protests when tearing up the Temple Mount while it has been under ISRAELI sovereignty, but that is no reason why Haaretz should be skeptical! Today Haaretz insists that even if the Misunderstandings are NOT adopted as is, they will form the framework in which all future deals will be made. Israel will be unable to escape and evade them. (I fear Haaretz may be correct.) Haaretz also reports that a leftist law professor associated with the Left (see http://www.cmep.org/Shared%20JER/Haaretz%20jus.htm) has reviewed the document and she insists that there is language in it that implicitly cancels the Palestinian "right of return." So Israel should risk genocide because a leftist Israeli law professor thinks the document makes it illegal for the Palestinians to seek to destroy Israel after they get their state. And if they dare to war against the Jews after they get their state, the law prof plans to sue them. The Left is near-orgasmic over the "fact" that the PLO has proved itself a "peace partner" by agreeing to the Geneva Misunderstandings, and never mind that the Gargoyle of Ramallah has already rejected them because they seem to imply that the Palestinian "right to return" to its war for destroying Israel might somehow be rhetorically compromised in the Misunderstandings. Amram Mitzna, who led the Labor Party to its most massive defeat ever in the last elections, has conscripted himself as marketing agent for the Misunderstandings. Now in fact the Geneva Misunderstandings have already been denounced by the US, by Israel's government, by the Shinui Party of Tommy Lapid, and by Israelis in polls by a margin of at least two to one. (If restricted to Israeli Jews, then by a majority of at least five to one.) The Likud's Zalman Shoval in an Op-Ed calls them mere sedition for its own sake. Natan Sharansky writes a guest Op-Ed in Haaretz and announces that Israeli retention of the Temple Mount should always be placed BEFORE achieving peace! The Geneva Misunderstandings were formulated during "dialogue" in Geneva in which the Palestinians were represented by a PLO terrorist and also by Yossi Beilin, while the Jews had no representation at the negotiations at all. The bottom line is that the Misunderstandings consist of proposals for granting to the PLO everything it wants, including swaths of pre-1967 Israel, and including giving up any demands by Israel that "Palestine" be a democratic state, and in exchange for all that the PLO once again will announce that it will pretend to fight the terrorists. Gosh, now where have we heard THAT before? The main thing that the Geneva Misunderstandings prove is that the Israeli Left is still not weaned from its determination to cut itself off from reality, still lives in fantasy bubbles in which talking it out with nazi terrorists makes them peaceful, and still seeks to lead the country into national suicide, no matter how undemocratically this goal must be pursued. The Left's agenda is to impose on the country the "ideas" of the most extremist leftist 5% of the population, regardless of how the other 95% feel. The Campaign for the Misunderstandings also proves that no matter how incompetent, corrupt and cowardly the Likud is, the only current alternative in the Israeli political arena to it is the Concentration Camps being proffered by the Left. Haaretz has abandoned any pretense to be a newspaper reporting on the Misunderstandings, and is little more than a printed infommercial for them. Yesterday's paper ran as a "news story" on the front page a piece that began: "The political and statecraft initiative now belongs to the Israeli Left, after having been grasped by the Right during the past three years in the war with the Palestinians. Ever since Ariel Sharon's walk on the Temple Mount in September 2000, he and his ministers lost the leadership of public discourse." It went on to declare the Left the champion in the political arena. Gosh, what an objective umpire. And the idea that maybe the Palestinians should prove their intentions for once BEFORE implementing the Misunderstandings, such as by stopping the violence being perpetrated in, say, two or three West Bank cities? Intolerable! An insult and offense against Palestinian sensitivities and pride, thunder the camp guards of Beilingrad! Meanwhile, the previous successes of Yossi Beilin and his band of furry lemmings was on display this week in the fact that a 21st person died yesterday as a result of the suicide bombing of the restaurant in Haifa two weeks back, and also in the fact that it has been revealed that Israeli Arabs, not West Bank savages, were the ones who assisted and planted the suicide bomber in the Haifa restaurant. Of course, Beilin is convinced that once the Geneva Misunderstandings are implemented, such things will no longer be possible and also that the sea near Haifa will turn itself into tasty lemonade. And when has HE ever been wrong about anything?
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DOING IT THE ARAB WAY
Posted by Beth Goodtree, October 16, 2003. |
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Maybe the reason the Arab Palestinians hate Israel and Jews so much is because Israel treats them differently than their Arab brethren. If Israel were to deal with them in the same way, maybe there would be no problem with Arafat and his followers. Therefore, I propose that Israel begin dealing with them in exactly the same way as her Arab neighbors. Let's start with Arafat's people who occupy Lebanon. They have no legal status, are prohibited from practicing dozens of professions, lack any social security, are banned from acquiring real estate, and their freedoms of movement and association are restricted. It must be an acceptable way to deal with them because we have yet to hear a peep from the UN, the EU, Russia or the United States. Nor is Arafat and his gang of terrorists screaming for Lebanon to cut out a piece of herself and give it to them. Israel should follow the Lebanese example. Syria also deals with the Palestinian Arabs in a manner different from Israel. None of them has citizenship, they are denied the right to vote and they do not get Syrian passports. Sounds good to me. There isn't a single complaint from the international community and you never hear of any Palestinian Arabs blowing up busloads of Syrian families. Israel should treat them likewise. Egypt, Libya and Kuwait all have a unique way of handling the Palestinian Arabs. Kuwait expelled tens of thousands of long-term residents in the wake of the 1991 Gulf war. This left the Gazans among them, who carried Egyptian travel documents, with nowhere to go because the Egyptian government denied them entry. In 1995 the Libyan government demonstrated its displeasure at Arafat's peace negotiations with Israel by not renewing the one-year residency visas of some 30,000 Palestinians and began summary deportations. Expelling troublemakers or potential troublemakers is an acceptable practice in other Arab countries. Israel should start implementing this same practice, just as her neighbors have been doing. A good analogy would be if one had termites in their house, you wouldn't give them a portion of your house in exchange for the termites leaving the rest of the house alone. Those termites are never going to leave your house alone so the only option is to get rid of them. Also, Arab countries, as well as the Palestinian Arabs, insist on their territories being Judenrein. There are no impassioned cries of 'crimes against humanity' coming from Kofi Anan or the UN members, so this must be acceptable. Therefore, Israel should do likewise and make its territory 'Islamrein.' No jobs for Moslems, take over their properties, outlaw their religion (like Saudi Arabia does to any religion other than Islam), and use their headstones for urinals and paving blocks. Their mosques can be torn down and recycled into new settlement housing. It should work out fine since the UN never raised a single objection or resolution when it was done to Jews. Meanwhile, the Islamic Conference this week has called for a boycott of all Israeli goods, products, inventions, etc. It would seem only fair that Israel boycott anything Arab. And while Israel is at it, maybe they can help the boycott along a bit. Any new medical breakthroughs, in fact, all Jewish medical assistance should be withheld from Arabs. Maybe we can grandfather in such medical breakthroughs as the polio vaccine for starters. And while at the Islamic Conference, the Malaysian Prime Minister told a summit of Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims should unite, using non-violent means for a "final victory." (Final solution maybe?????) This statement in particular strikes me as ignorant to the point of being tragically humorous. I looked at the latest statistics regarding world religions and the pie chart didn't even include Judaism because there are so few of us. In fact, there are 18 times as many traditional Chinese, (in a country that bans religion), as there are Jews. There's 35% more Juche's than there are Jews - and I never even heard of Juche. (Apparently, Juche is the only government-authorized ideology in North Korea, to the point of excluding all other religions. "Juche" means "self-reliance" in the Korean language. So how does that effect the cost of kim chee?) While I may have suggested that Israel do things 'the Arab way,' for Israel to remain Jewish it could not. Discrimination, stealing, lying, disrespect of others, murder, forced conversion and thievery are all the things which Judaism eschews. To do any of these things would condemn us as individuals and as a people. On the other hand, it speaks volumes about all the Arab/Islamic states that Israel must deal with.
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RACE SPEECH IN MALAYSIA
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 16, 2003. |
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This article is from the Herald Sun. We should all be grateful to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. It is not every day someone so openly and clearly tells the world what he thinks of Jews. Nor shows us the depth of the hatred Islam has for Jews. The Malaysian Prime Minister is not poor, he is not uneducated and he is not powerless. Furthermore, he is not rabble rousing his population in order to divert them from some problem or other. He truly and sincerely believes, based on the most fundamental teachings of Islam, that the Jews are evil and the source of all evil in the world. Now Yingeleh, do you think you can go and try to make peace with him? Think it might be a bit difficult? But Arafat and the Arab marauders in our neighborhood, they of course can become lovers of the Jewish people. MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has urged Muslims to wage war against Jews, saying arrogance would bring about the downfall of the Jewish people. The extraordinary comments prompted accusations in Australia that Dr Mahathir was behaving like Osama bin Laden, inciting terrorism and racial hatred. The controversial Malaysian leader told a major Islamic conference that "the Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule this world by proxy." Dr Mahathir claimed Jewish people "get others to fight and die for them," and said Muslims could fight Jews if they were smart. "We cannot fight them through brawn alone, we must use our brains also," he said at the opening of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Malaysia. "Of late, because of their power and their apparent success they have become arrogant. And arrogant people like angry people will make mistakes. They are already beginning to make mistakes. And they will make more mistakes. There may be windows of opportunity for us now and in the future. We must seize these opportunities." Dr Mahathir's comments drew strong condemnation in Australia from Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd, who accused him of Osama bin Laden-style incitement of terrorism. "Either Mahathir Mohamad has lost the plot completely, or this is a deliberate act of racial incitement," Mr Rudd said. "His comments of late sound more and more like the press statements of Osama bin Laden on the matter of the Jewish community than they do the reasoned statements of an international statesman. Mahathir Mohamad should pull his head in." Dr Mahathir is due to stand down as Malaysia's Prime Minister at the end of this month. Mr Rudd said the resignation could not come soon enough. "The sooner he leaves the political stage the better for this region and the rest of the world," he said. A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer also rejected the comments, saying the Jewish people had made a tremendous contribution to the world over the centuries and had also suffered enormous persecution.
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KILLING AMERICANS IN GAZA
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 16, 2003. |
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Did you see the Arab Palestinians Damage Control team go into action after the Palestinian Arab Muslim Terrorists bombed a convoy of Americans in Gaza? Saeb Erekat said: "Now the Israelis will say that it is dangerous for international troops, observers, whatever to be able to rely on 'Palestinian Authority' security." I cannot imagine why Erekat thinks that either Israelis, American or Europeans would think it would be dangerous for any foreign forces or civilians to be in Gaza, Judea or Samaria. Perhaps he was envisioning the daily murders by Terrorists in Iraq of American soldiers who came to rescue the Iraqis from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein and his murderous sons - as well as all their cronies and co-conspirators. Perhaps he was contemplating the waves of radical Muslim Islamists, pouring into Iraq through Syria - coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya, including the Arab Palestinians and all other Terrorist organizations. I listened to former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Syria, Edward Djerejian current Director of the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Djerejian expressed 'regret' over the killing of Americans by Palestinians in Gaza at the Erez crossing. He expressed his 'regret' in manner typical of James Baker. He indicated it was 'regretful' that, as a result of the killing of Americans by Palestinians, America was now "in the middle". Strangely, it was Arab Muslim Palestinian Terrorists who killed the Americans in the official and recognizable convoy and NOT Israelis - as some Arab Muslims might claim. Israel has always been reluctant to have foreign troops exposed to the kind of Terror Israel experiences daily. The main reason is that the biased U.N. and E.U. would blame the Jews for body bags returning to various airports under the full glare of the Media spin of the BBC and/or CNN implying that it was Israel's fault. For this and other reasons, Israel has always said: "We will fight our own battles." And: "Thank you for your offer of 'peace-keeping forces.' but, no thank you!" In many of my articles, I state plainly that Islam is at War with the West - particularly America and Israel. Nations such as France, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, et al have been flooded with Muslims, causing the Europeans to virtually side with the Muslim Terrorists, lest they start suicide bombings in their host nations. Nothing will stop the march of Islam toward Global Domination - short of a full defeat on the field of battle. Had Islam not been soundly defeated in France at the Battle of Tours in 732 C.E. after they had militarily conquered and expanded into Spain and half of France, all of Europe would today be under strict Muslim Shari'ah law. The armies of the West do not yet have the zeal of the Muslims of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab and/or Muslim countries. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today. The West has not yet begun to fight back with the vigor we had for a brief moment after 9/11. Protecting the American Homeland was a high priority because we felt the Terror attack of 9/11 in our guts. Now it has faded into words and policies until we are vulnerable to being hit again in a serious way. Neither Americans nor Israelis are a war-like people. Both go to war reluctantly and generally end it too quickly before their dedicated enemies are firmly defeated. Neither wishes to rule over others as conquerors but our enemies too often force our hand. We drag ourselves to war, often displaying foolish restraint when we should have gone for the jugular at the first signs of the enemies' plans. We look for good in the enemy, hoping it will surface and conquer the bad or evil inclination within it. We are usually too late, causing needless casualties as we reluctantly prepare for the oncoming war. Some may recall the American foot-dragging by then Chief of Staff Gen. Colin Powell during 1990, who took 6 months to get his act together and engage Saddam Hussein who had invaded Kuwait. Even then he wanted to embargo Iraq rather than fight Saddam. Not all Generals are true warriors. George Patton was a warrior General. Arik Sharon was once a warrior General. Among others, Powell was a pacifist General - then and now. Many of the American Presidents were reluctant warriors who put America and the rest of the Free West in jeopardy such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and, in a strange way, President George Herbert Walker Bush who, along with Powell and James Baker, had first armed and then allowed Saddam and his regime to escape punishment. As for trusting the Arab Muslim Palestinians or any Arab nation, whether called a dictatorship, a kingdom or a democracy - to keep peace treaties with non-Arabs or non-Muslims - they never will. The West will bribe them, cajole them, invite them to their capitals on a red carpet or to a Texas ranch for a cook-out but, in the end, the Muslim Arabs will never be true friends to the West, to the non-Muslim. Some think that the killing of Americans by Arab Palestinians is like crossing the Rubicon or some other 'red line' but, it was there all along. Remember the American hostages in Lebanon and Iran? On October 15th when Americans came to claim the bodies murdered in Gaza and investigate the bombing, they were forced to retreat under a hail of stones, iron bars and anything handy being thrown by the Arab Muslim Palestinian mob shouting in celebration of the Americans' deaths: "Allah Ahkbar" (G-d (Allah) is Great!). The U.S. has sent a team of FBI agents in to investigate the bombing and murdering of Americans. However, they have chosen to headquarter in Tel Aviv and NOT go to the murder site lest they too are attacked by the Arab Palestinian mobs and the Terrorists who make their base in Gaza. Israel wanted to clean out the Terrorists in Gaza a long time ago but were stopped by Bush, Powell and Condelezza Rice. Therefore, they bear some blame for the deaths of Americans by stopping Israel - just as President Bush, Sr. did in 1991 by preventing Israel from taking out Saddam's SCUD missile sites. 39 SCUDs fell in Israel, but one also hit a barracks in Dahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 U.S. Marines, February 25, 1991. I believe this deadly 'hit' is why Bush, Sr. ended the war too early, before eliminating Saddam, his Republican Guard and hidden weapons. It is too coincidental that on the very day the PLO blew up and murdered 3 Americans, President George W. Bush invoked a national security waiver to prevent sanctions from being levied on the PLO for a period of 6 months. Under the Foreign Relations Act of 2003, non-compliance with signed peace accords and continued use of Terrorism and violence would force the President to impose at least one of a menu of sanctions - unless he invokes a presidential waiver contained in the law. This waiver allows the PLO to keep its U.S. offices open and to use its funds in U.S. banks. This Terror is what the Israelis face daily. Since Oslo was signed on the White House lawn under the 'guarantee' of America, 1500 Israelis, including as many as 50 Americans, have been murdered in Terror attacks. Multiply that number by 55 (that would be equal to 82,500 Americans) to understand what that means in terms of the American population. And who is caring for the hundreds or thousands of Israelis wounded, many maimed for life? Remember that Yassir Arafat (who won a Nobel Prize for signing Oslo for peace) said in Johannesburg, South Africa that the Oslo Treaty was like the Hudaibiya Treaty. In the 7th Century Mohammed signed the Hudaibiya Treaty with the various tribes controlling Mecca for 10 years of peace so he and his people could enter Mecca. When he was stronger militarily, he came back, slaughtered all the men of the Jewish Koreish [also spelled Qurayzah] Tribe, sending the women and children into slavery. Then he and his later followers went on to conquer by the sword the rest of the Middle East, Spain and half of France until they were stopped and thrown back. The Muslims of today fervently believe that they are commanded by Islam to conquer any and all lands which Islam had ever controlled. President Bush, it is time to pull away from your daydreams and road maps. They have become nightmares and road traps for the Israelis and the free West. Let the Israelis fight the Arab Muslim Terrorists in a manner common to the region. Peace plans won't work until the Muslims experience a conclusive defeat. Then the victor can finally establish peace as America did with Japan and Germany. But, first the Muslims must know that they cannot defeat either Israel (whom they call the little Satan) or America (whom they call the Great Satan). If they defeat Israel, they will be further emboldened to continue their aim of world domination by conquering America. In the Middle East there is either victory or defeat with nothing in between and no peace until victory is achieved.
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ISLAMISTS CALLED "EXPERTS"
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 16, 2003. |
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"But some experts said the issue of the Bush doctrine merely provided convenient cover for the Administration to hold off on criticizing Israel." That point is elaborated on by "Shibley Telhami, Middle East scholar at the U. of Maryland" (Richard W. Stevenson & Carl Hulse, NY Times, 10/7, A13). A scholar ascertains and analyzes the facts. Prof. Telhami distorts them. He is one of many Islamists brought by the leftists (and often by Saudi donations) into academia. There they subvert American youth in behalf of America's enemies. Some leftist newspapers, such as the Jewish Week make a show of even-handedness by quoting a range of viewpoints. They disregard facts and misrepresent situations, in order to advance their view. It would be as if during the Cold War, the Jewish Week gave its readers a range of opinion, as if to be fair, by including a conservative view of the USSR, a liberal view, and Pravda's view. The inclusion of Pravda, dedicated to dissimulation, makes the discussion less fair. What to do about the USSR should have been debated within the democratic community. The totalitarian view was not legitimate, because it is not honest discourse but war by propaganda. The NY Times goes further. Most of the "experts" it consults are pro-Arab. It rarely brings in dissenting views or gives them enough space to be persuasive. It does not identify its consultants sufficiently for readers to know they are being propagandized unfairly and for appeasement.
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A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE?
Posted by David Ben-Ariel, October 16, 2003. |
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On Simchat Torah (Festival of the Rejoicing of the Law/Last Great Day) I went up to the Temple Mount with my Bible to pray. Although I do not usually wear a kippa (skull cap), I took one with me. My first challenge was to pass the guards near the Temple Mount entrance; if they saw me with my Bible they would not let me enter. I silently prayed all the way up to the site where God's Temple stood twice, and will be rebuilt for a third and final time, that I would be able to go in. I got past the guards. You say Jewish guards prevent Christians and Jews from exercising their religious right to pray on the Temple Mount? That's right! Only Muslims have unlimited access to Judaism's most holy site. Only the Koran is permitted within. The Tanach (Jewish Scripture, known to much of the world as the "Old Testament") and Christian Scriptures (the New Testament) are forbidden. Yet Israel claims to respect the religious rights of all people. Israel has no law against Christians and Jews praying or reading scriptures on the Temple Mount. However, it does have an unwritten agreement with the Wakf (Muslim religious authorities) prohibiting this. No sign is posted, stating: "Warning! Christian and Jewish prayers are forbidden! Bibles not allowed inside by Muslim religious authorities. Proceed with caution!" I do not accept that Moslems have the authority to forbid me from reading appropriate Psalms or the New Testament account of Jesus celebrating the Water Libation Ceremony (Psalms 120-134, John 7:37). My question was, where should I read those passages? I ended up between the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa mosque, just to the right of the place where Moslems wash their hands and feet. I was on the other side of the raised platform there, if you face the Mosque of Omar. First, I nervously sat and read. Then I put on my black kippa, stood up and started to read for a few minutes until I became distracted by fears of being attacked by the Moslem guards. I sat down, took off my kippa, and continued to read. Then one of the Wakf guards noticed me and asked what I was reading. I replied, "Yes, it's my book." He took it from me and saw that it was a Bible. He demanded to know if I was a Christian or a Jew. When I told him I was a Christian, he asked me why I was wearing a magen David (Star of David). I did not feel obligated to explain that it was a gift from my mother and youngest sister, and told him, "Give back my Bible." He ordered, "You have to leave now!" Again I said, "Give back my Bible." When he refused, I demanded its return more loudly. He raised his fist as if to hit me and warned me not to raise my voice. This attracted the attention of some passing tourists, who gathered around us. I told them, "This thief has stolen my Bible!" The Wakf guard told me to leave again and threatened to hit me. He said he would give me back my Bible outside. Since there was no reason for him to confiscate it in the first place, I told him to return it to me then and there and I would go. At this point he radioed an Israeli policeman, who came running. The Israeli handcuffed my right hand, which I raised and showed to the assembled tourists, saying, "This is Israeli democracy!" I asked the Israeli repeatedly, "What law have I broken?" knowing that I had not broken any law, yet was being treated like a common criminal. I am shocked that Jewish police in the Jewish State help maintain Moslem domination of the Temple Mount by suppressing Christian and Jewish religious rights there. Is it the Temple Mount or the Mosque Mount? An Israeli policeman led me away. I told the bewildered tourists, "This is what happens to a Christian or Jew who wants to read the Bible where the holy Temple stood. This is what happens to Christians and Jews who want to pray where our prophets and patriarchs prayed, and where Jesus and his disciples taught." Why the exclusive religious rights for Moslems? And Israel wants to hand over control of Rachel's Tomb, Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb to Moslem religious authorities?! Are they crazy or what? In the police station at the Western Wall Plaza, the officers wanted to know who else was with me. They were relieved to find that I was alone. (They should have known I was performing a mitzva [religious commandment]). The police said they arrested me for my own protection. I told them they should have arrested the Wakf guard who threatened me! Why not remove, once and for all, the threat of Moslem violence? Why reward Moslem extremists? The police laughed in disbelief when I told them I am a Christian and that my Bible includes the New Testament, which they returned to me. A Druze officer said, "But you must respect other religions." He remained silent when I asked, "Where was their respect for mine?" I explained that our Biblical goal is to enable everyone to come and pray on the mountain where God's Temple stood, and in the Temple when it will be rebuilt. It is prophesied to become a "House of Prayer" for all nations. The police told me I could return to the Temple Mount as a tourist - without my Bible. I said that I do not want to go up there only as a "tourist;" I want to pray there. When they asked me how many times I had been up there, I said "a thousand." They wrote that down in their report. They said I could make a short statement for the record. I said something to this effect: "Is it too much to ask during this 3,000th anniversary of King David's Jerusalem to peacefully read his inspired words on the Temple Mount?" When I left the police compound, one of the policemen told me I did a good thing. Once outside, I was met by some Jews who saw the incident and congratulated me. I pray that this unfortunate encounter will raise awareness of Israel's religious discrimination against Christians and Jews. The situation must change. It will when enough people cry "Basta!" (Italian for "enough!"). May the day soon come when Christians, Jews and Moslems can say: "My House shall be called a house of prayer for all Peoples." (Isaiah 56:7). The Bible says
David Ben-Ariel is a Christian Zionist from Maumee, Ohio. This is a reissue of an article published several years ago. |
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PALESTINIAN ARABS CAN'T BUY LAND IN LEBANON
Posted by Deb Kotz, October 16, 2003. |
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Where is the outcry from the Arab world over this? Where is the condemnation from the UN? This article is called "Lebanon drops legislation allowing Palestinian land ownership" and was written by the Jerusalem Post staff. A bill which would have allowed Palestinians to buy property in Lebanon has been withdrawn, prompting accusations of racism and discrimination, the Arabic Aljazeera network reported. An estimated 390,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon, half of whom live in camps. On Monday any hopes of ever owning their own property were dashed when Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri withdrew draft legislation which would have lifted a ban on Palestinian refugees from owning property in Lebanon. The current legislation forbids the acquisition of real estate by all non-Lebanese persons "who do not possess citizenship issued by a state recognized by Lebanon." "[Berri] withdrew from the agenda the bill presented by 10 deputies which aimed to amend a text banning Palestinians from acquiring real estate," the dean of the house Kabalan Issa al-Khuri told Aljazeera. "This subject is divisive among Lebanese," Berri said. "The acquisition by Palestinians of real estate would damage the Palestinian cause because that way the refugees would remain in Lebanon and never return to Palestine," he added. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri believes that the time was not right to grant Palestinians living in Lebanon such rights, but that the "unjust" ban would one day be lifted, the Arabic network reported.
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A MESSAGE FROM KAARE KRISTIANSEN
Posted by Aryeh Gallin, October 16, 2003. |
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[ Mr. Kristiansen, the former Norwegian Nobel Committee Member who resigned from the Committee in 1994 when it awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, would like to bring to your attention his recent letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman calling on the Committee to publicly apologize for its Arafat award. His message is entitled "Slaughtering The Dove Of Peace" - AG] Oslo, Norway
Yassir Arafat's plot to get rid of his so-called "Palestinian Prime Minister", Mahmoud Abbas, has caused further deterioration in the Middle East crises that previously threatened the realization of the "Road Map". The dove of peace is already on the butcher's block. The unbelievable and cruel paradox is that the butcher who brandishes the axe is the very man who some years ago was awarded the most prestigious peace prize in the world: The Nobel Peace Prize. I am sorry to ascertain that, unfortunately, all the warnings that led to my resignation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee in l994 have come true. Arafat is not a peace loving pacifist but a war-monger and a butcher, an ill fortune, both for his own people and for his neighbors. I have since that time received many requests to take action in order to make the Norwegian Nobel Committee reverse its award and deprive that unworthy terrorist, Arafat, of the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, however, Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel explicitly prohibited this line of action in the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation. However, the present betrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize and its purposes is this time so extreme and so cynical that the Norwegian Nobel Committee is forced, out of consideration for political decency and for its own reputation, to find a way to distance itself from its award of 1994. The only way to obtain this is by publicly deploring the 1994 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Arafat. I hereby urgently ask the Norwegian Nobel Committee and its Chairman to do so. KAARE KRISTIANSEN Former Norwegian Nobel Committee Member;
Mr. Aryeh Gallin is President of the Root & Branch Association, Ltd. and a member of the Foreign Press Association in Israel. |
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TEMPLE MOUNT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PEACE
Posted by Linda Olmert, October 16, 2003. |
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This article was in Ha'aretz today It was written by Natan Sharansky, who is Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence with regard to the Temple Mount. My mother, may she rest in peace, taught me over and over when I was growing up: a person who has no respect for his own heritage can have no real concept of respect for the heritage of anyone else, and certainly can not expect anyone to respect him or her. Since the existence of the Geneva initiative was publicly announced on Sunday, there has been much criticism of the process that led to the agreement. Once again the same gang of Oslo blazers - a gang not even elected by an Israeli public, who instead denounced it and kicked it out of government and centers of influence for its "amazing successes" of the past. Once more the same gang is conducting negotiations on its own and committing Israel to far-reaching and irresponsible concessions. Criticism of the process, although it is correct and justified, is diverting attention from the central and more important contents of the agreement - and primarily from the relinquishing of Jerusalem. I remember a discussion in the Barak government, even before Camp David, in which Yossi Beilin tried to convince us that if we would only reach "some kind of agreement" on the Temple Mount, and give Palestinians the Christian Quarter of the Old City as well, the longed-for peace would come. I asked, why the Christian Quarter? What connection do the Palestinians have to the Christian Quarter? Beilin looked at me in surprise and said, what do you care? That's the Christians' problem. We'll achieve peace and let the Christian world worry about freedom of religion and access to its holy places. At the time I thought that this was a matter of disdain for the values of other nations and cultures. Beilin didn't mind sacrificing Israel's relations with the Christian world and risking the access of millions of Christians to places that are the cradle of their religion, so long as we could achieve the longed-for peace. (That assumed the Palestinians would respect religious freedom the way they respect other human rights). Today, after Camp David, Taba, and now the relinquishing of Temple Mount in the framework of the Geneva accord, I understand that Beilin's gang are not necessarily contemptuous of the values of other nations, they are contemptuous of all values. Of all, except one that is - peace. This gang seems to have forgotten, or hasn't yet understood, that as much as we long and hope for peace, it is not a value that stands by itself. It is an essential condition for the existence of a country that wishes to live, but it isn't the goal. It was not for the sake of peace that the State of Israel was established, and it was not because of peace that millions of Jews gathered here. Nor was it peace for which the Jewish people prayed for thousands of years. The Jewish people prayed for Jerusalem. Because of Jerusalem, the Jewish people returned to Israel from the four corners of the earth, for it they were willing to make all the necessary sacrifices. For that same dream of a thousand generations - "next year in rebuilt Jerusalem." It should be noted that if we totally relinquish every value for the sake of peace, we won't have peace either. Just as in the past, this time, too, the Palestinians will interpret such a relinquishing of what constitutes our very identity as a tremendous weakness that calls for war. The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future. The future of all of us, here. The members of the Hovevei Zion Zionist movement were not religious - they were secular socialists who considered religion a degenerate and sick product of the exile. Despite that they fought with all their might against the Uganda Plan [a 1903 British offer to let the Jews build a homeland in Uganda]. It was clear to them that without a common past, without roots, the Zionist project had no chance of succeeding. Even today we must understand that without Jerusalem and without our historical roots the Zionist project will not be able to survive. Without Jerusalem Israel will become just another Jewish community, one of many in the world, like that of New York, London or Toronto - except more dangerous, less wealthy and less comfortable. It will not be the center of the Jewish world, not the focus of its existence - just one more community. And if that's the case, why continue to live in it? For what? In the name of what?
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ARAFAT DELIVERS "SPECIAL TREAT" To HIS AMERICAN ALLIES
Posted by Voice of Judea, October 15, 2003. |
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GAZA CITY (CNN) -- A bomb went off underneath a convoy carrying U.S. diplomats in Gaza on Wednesday, killing three American members of a security detail and injuring another, U.S. officials said. President Bush blamed Palestinian officials, saying they "should have acted long ago to fight terror in all its forms." Why was Mr. Kurzer the self-hating court Jew so shocked? Suddenly, the "Palestinian" sympathizer who understands Arab terror against Jews, is shocked and upset when it is Americans who are victims. Over one thousand Jews have been murdered by Arafatian terrorists, since the renewal of the latest wave of Arab terror. Now, after 4 Americans are killed there is an uproar? Mr. Bush points an accusing finger at the "poor Palestinians," for not doing enough to fight terrorism? The Americans just don't get it. The "Palestinians"" support terrorism and orchestrate the terrorism. Why in the world would they fight it? They manufacture it. And if anyone should be blamed for not fighting "Palestinian" terrorism, it is the Americans for holding Israel back and the Israelis for paying any attention to the Americans. The best thing that could happen to America and to Israel would be Israel smashing the terrorists and absolutely ignoring world opinion. In the end, the whole world suffers from Arafat's terrorists New peace plan? No thanks. Most Israelis are opposed to an unofficial "peace" plan drafted by left-wing extremist Israelis and "Palestinian" figures, a survey says. The poll of 500 Israelis, published Wednesday in the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, found that 59 percent did not support the proposal, and 69 percent said such discussions should not be held without government approval. Thirty percent of Israelis backed the plan, which calls for the division of Jerusalem. Israeli government officials have slammed the "Swiss initiative," as the plan is being called, as misguided and undemocratic.
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THE PATH TO SURVIVAL
Posted by Kevin Bjornson, October 15, 2003. |
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There is debate concerning two state proposals for the eastern mediterranean area known as Israel/Palestine. First, we should define what is meant by "state." To quote from Gil Guillory (www.strike-the-root.com): "Government is the act or process of governing, especially the control and administration of public policy in a political unit." So, it is clear that government is an act or process, not an entity. Anyone who uses force or the threat of force is a governor. Neither is the "state" an entity; it is rather a particular type of relationship among governors, such that the use of force is organized, and legitimized through a moral code. Force can be organized and legitimized and still not be considered a "state". Only when such an organization has sufficient power to enforce a quasi-monopoly is it considered a "state". Might does not make right, but it does make the wielders of might eligible for membership in the "statehood" club. Legitimacy in this sense is merely in the eye of the beholder, and is not necessarily mean justice or morality in the objective sense. In other words, THE "STATE" IS THE APOTHEOSIS OF A STREET GANG. The principles of justice are not derived from opinion polls, but rather from the facts of reality and human nature. Moral principles are universal, and not dependent upon opinion, whether individual or collective. The natural laws of humans are properties of human nature, which is rational animality. Therefore, no group which organizes force can have moral legitimacy from faith-based opinion, but rather only from the application of logic to experience. If we observe all human societies and how they are organized politically, we may apply logic to extract the common characteristics. This is how the common law, or the law in common to all city-states, was derived in ancient Italy. From the characteristics of this common law, we may apply further logic and arrive at an approximation of the jus naturale of humans. Any creation of a state derived from a unique religious perspective is in violation of jus naturale, because by definition it violates the common denominator principle of common law. People are free to violate the natural laws of humans, just as they are free to drink too much or eat fatty foods. But, this should be a matter of contract only, not justly enforceable outside of that. Only the common law can be legitimately enforced to non-signers of the state contract. If Jews want to have a Jewish state in Israel, that is their right to do so, but it is not rational and not legitimately enforceable against those outside the contract. If a non-signer of the contract with the Jewish state violates the common law, the Jewish state may enforce the common law but not the uniquely Jewish laws. This means, for example, that Sabbath laws should be enforced only to signers of a contract with the Jewish state, and no others. The same logic would apply to an Islamic state. This means that a Jewish state and an Islamic state could, in theory, have a co-dominion in the same geographical area. Neither could legitimately enforce their unique religious codes to non-signers, and could enforce only the common law. In the case of inter-state disputes, a neutral third party should adjudicate, provided it is properly trained in jus naturale. Now, if the purported Islamic state does not recognize the legitimacy
of the Jewish state, and initiates the use of force as in terrorism,
the Jewish state and other interested parties are entitled to
extinguish the Islamic "state". How may this be accomplished according
to natural law?
The combination of expulsion and execution of terrorist sympathizers,
the accelerated execution of terrorist leaders, and the drying up of
funding sources for terrorists, should solve the problem. If Israel
were to move from a mixed economy to free enterprise, this could be
afforded without subsidy from the US "state".
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AL AKHTAR TRUST DESIGNATED AS TERRORIST
Posted by Lise Rubin, October 15, 2003. |
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Treasury Department today announced that it is designating Al Akhtar Trust as a terrorist support organization under Executive Order 13224 and will be requesting that the United Nations list the organization as a terrorist support group. Today's designation freezes any assets of Al Akhtar Trust within the U.S. and prohibits transactions with U.S. nationals. The UN listing will require that all UN Member States take similar actions. "Today's designation strikes at the life blood of terrorists - the money that funds them," Secretary of the Treasury John Snow stated. "Shutting down this organization will cripple yet another source of support for terrorists and possibly help undermine the financial backing of terrorists staging attacks against American troops and Iraqi civilians in Iraq. The activities of Al Akhtar Trust demonstrate the dangerous alliance between corrupted charities and terrorists. There is little more despicable than raising money under the guise of doing good and instead diverting the resources of often well-intentioned donors to supporting acts of terror." Al Akhtar Trust is a Pakistani-based charity known to have provided support to al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. Al Akhtar is carrying on the activities of the previously designated Al Rashid Trust. The organization is also suspected of raising money for jihad in Iraq and is connected to an individual with ties to the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl. This designation builds on ongoing counter-terrorism cooperation with the Pakistani government and comes on the heels of Secretary Snow's recent visit to Islamabad. With today's designation, the U.S. and our international partners have designated 321 individuals and organizations as terrorists and terrorist supporters and have frozen over $136.8 million in terrorist assets and have seized more than $60 million. An accompanying fact sheet included these details:
According to the article, Mr. Memon is a known financier for militant groups in association with the Al-Rashid Trust, which is described in the article as having changed its name to Al AKHTAR TRUST. According to information available to the U.S. government, an individual by the name of Al-Saud Memon is the individual primarily responsible for the AL AKHTAR TRUST's finances and the direction of financial resources and support for the Trust.
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PA PROMOTES THEN CONDEMNS KILLING OF AMERICANS
Posted by Itamar Marcus, October 15, 2003. |
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PMW has been documenting the duplicity of the Palestinian Authority towards the United States for years. In its English statements, the PA presents itself as an American ally, while its Arabic messages incite its people to hate and kill Americans. Never has this hypocrisy been more striking than today, after the Palestinian ambush that targeted and killed three American diplomats in the Gaza Strip. The official PA rushed to condemn the attack -- even as the PA-controlled media continues its relentless campaign of anti-American indoctrination. During the war in Iraq, the PA actively endorsed the killing of Americans, and even produced a music video celebrating the deaths of US soldiers that was broadcast repeatedly on official PA TV. [Click here to view video] In the months before the Iraq war, the official PA daily published calls to Saddam Hussein to turn Iraq into a graveyard for American soldiers. At a pro-Iraq rally they "praised the role of Iraq and the Commander Saddam Hussein, and stressed that Iraq's land will be a graveyard for the American soldiers..." [Al Hayat Al Jadida, Dec. 19, 2002] Since the war, hatred of the USA has continued unabated in the official and tightly-controlled PA media. This morning's political cartoon in the official daily Al Hayat Al Jadida attacks the US for trying to "paint" the entire world American. A recent sermon on official PA TV described the US as "the foremost enemy of the Muslim nation" and compared it to Pharaoh of the Bible saying: "There is no God besides me." [PA TV February 21, 2003] This past Friday, the PA sermon broadcast on official PA TV included the following threats and warnings to the US: "We hear statements by the little American President, oppressive statements. He says Israel has the right to defend itself... These statements carry destruction for America itself... This president sees himself like one who has ascended to the mountaintop and like one expecting someone to push him so that he falls into the abyss, he and his people with him. We warn the American people that this president is dragging them to the abyss... [Allah] take vengeance on Your enemies, our enemies, enemies of religion." [PA TV Sheikh Ibrahim Madiras, Oct. 10, 2003] A recent sermon on official PA TV told Muslim believers to anticipate the destruction of the US: "If we go back 1400 years in time, we find that history is repeating itself, worshippers of Allah. The Prophet Mohammed was besieged by two powers, Persia in the east and Rome in the west. These represent the Soviet Union and America of today. Persia represents Russia in the east, and America stands for Rome in the west. Persia fell first in the east, just as Russia fell first in the east, and America will fall, may it be Allah's will, just as Rome fell..." [Official Sermon PA TV, September 5,2003,Sheikh Ibrahim Madiras.] Clearly, the American diplomats were murdered today by Palestinians fulfilling their role in their war against Americans, as they have been taught by their leaders, through years of hate-mongering and calls for violence against Americans. Itamar Marcus is Director of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), whose website address is http://www.pmw.org.il Examples of the hate-indoctrination PA TV broadcast and hate-America cartoons can be viewed on the PMW website. |
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THOUGHTS ON YOM KIPPUR
Posted by Moshe Burt, October 15, 2003. |
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In the Yom Kippur Mussaf prayers, we recall the majesty of the Kohen Godol and the order of his Avodah - his Service of Hashem in the Beit HaMikdash - and contrast it with the woe which came to us due to our sins and the loss of the Beit HaMikdash and, therefore, the Kohen Godol's Avodah. Eileh Ezk'rah, we recall the poignant and tragic story of the Ten Martyrs, the "10 sages who were brutally put to death to satisfy the anti-Semitic caprice of a Roman ruler." (Artscroll Yom Kippur Machsor, pages 587-593) And from the rear of the Shul came one individual's screaming and wailing as he recited Eileh Ezk'rah and the brutality which befell the martyred Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabbi Yishmael, the Kohen Godol, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Chananya and the others. As I continued my tefillah, I knew who it was; his voice and his cries were distinctive and I knew where we were holding in the Tefillah. But, nonetheless, the moment was deeply poignant. It then occurred to me that the screaming and wailing may not only be in commemoration of the brutalities perpetrated upon these Tzadikim who died Al Kiddush Hashem. The crying and wailing may also commemorate the literally millions of Jewish martyrs who died through nearly two milleneum of pograms, the Inquisition, HaShoah (the Holacaust), the past 55 years of the modern day Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel). It commemorates over 900 dead and thousands wounded who have been savagely brutalized and murdered by the Arabs, the Moslem nation, during their three year war of attrition, their Jihad against us against us called the "Oslo War." In our time, we may not have tear-filled stories of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Yishmael, the Kohen Godol drawing lots out of their agony at having to see the other executed, or having the skin pealed from the face to satisfy the whim of a ruler's lecherous daughter, or of Rabbi Chananya being burned alive wrapped in his Torah scroll - his chest packed with wet wool to slow the process and enhance the pain. We didn't have Rabbi Akiva who had his skin pealed from his flesh with his students looking on, as he recited Sh'ma Yisrael. The stories of death in our time are less poignant, and may not later be commemorated by an intense piyut on Tisha B'av or Yom Kippur, but the pain is as poignant when we think of Rabbi Rana'an, Shalhevet Pass, the Apfelbaums on the eve of their Chassuna, Marla Bennett and the list goes on and on. Thousands, millions have died for NO other reason than the mere fact that they are Jewish. And we must not forget the tragic stories of our POWs; Ron Arad, Zack Baumel and the others, including Jonathan Pollard. Although the individual referred to may not have had the thoughts in mind during the Eileh Ezk'rah, throughout these nearly two millenia that we were dispersed, we lacked a cohesive, unified national entity and leadership capable of acting, with Hashem's help, to defend ourselves. But we now have our State of Israel and a strong and eminently capable military but yet our leaders are handcuffed in a maze of equivocation, appeasement, political Cheshbonot and "correctness." Their perception is that of powerlessness, as if mere grasshoppers, before 250 million Arabs, a Super-Power and the rest of the world. Although we learn that Klal Yisrael is a people not to be reckoned with as with the other nations of the world, our leaders, the "Jerusalem Beltway" good ole boys who are totally devoid of Torah, are begging, are dying for the love, friendship and co-mingling with the rest of the world. And so, as our blood continues to flow in our very streets, and as Israel's politicos are hamstrung without fear and faith in Hashem and as they act based on equivocation, political Cheshbonot and "correctness," in abandonment of our Security, our POWs and in abandonment of Eretz Yisrael, there is what to cry and wail about. I'YH that next Yom Kippur is joyous, one where we have seen the Ge'ula Shlaima and where we are zocha to the Moshiach, the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash and the Kohen Godol's Avodah in the Kodosh HaKodoshim. May we be zocha to see the end of Jewish bleeding and dying, La'asot Nekama B'Goyim, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v'yameinu - speedily, in our time," - IMMEDIATELY - Achshav, Meiyad, Chik Chuk, Etmol!!!
Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and
Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network
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A PEACE OF SWISS CHEESE
Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, October 15, 2003. |
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I knew it. I just knew it. You probably thought that Burg and Beilin accepted defeat and were drowning their sorrows on the Oxford speaking circuit. You should have known by now that "old Leftists never die nor do they fade away." I was sure that neither one of them was doing Teshuva in Safed. They had to be in Europe- in one of the so-called "neutral" countries. I figured that we've already taken the peace train through Spain and Sweden, so that left either Finland or Switzerland. (Note I: The new agreement has been referred to as the Swiss Agreement, Swiss Accords, Geneva Accords, Beilin Plan and Blair Initiative. It's hard to write a proper article without a proper name. So for now, let's just refer to it as "A Peace of Swiss Cheese" - because it stinks, is full of holes, and, like the Swiss flag, bears a cross.) People like Beilin, Burg and Mitzna are attracted to neutral countries because they, too, feign neutrality, open-mindedness and fairness. They, like the countries they are attracted to, appear to be cool, calculating and precise. They exude neither warmth not passion, in fact, they rarely show emotion. When the world is in crisis some counties and individuals pretend to take the moral and intellectual high ground, but then they use it as a cover to opt out of their commitments and responsibilities. Instead, they become opportunists (example: check out the money-laundering, theft and treason records of the European nations that opted out of WWII). It's not that these countries or people are unfeeling, as they feel plenty. It's what they're feeling and why they're afraid to show their feelings that should be of concern to us. (NOTE II: As far as Israel is concerned, "made in Switzerland" is good for Bar Mitzvah gifts like Breitling watches, Caran d'ache writing instruments, and Swiss Army Knives - not for peace agreements.) It's no use engaging the neutral among us in a passionate, theological, philosophical or moral debate. Exposing one's soul to a neutral is an exercise in futility. Simple logic rarely works either. Although these people and countries pretend to play by Western rules, the concept of fair play is too simplistic for their shrewd intellects. They'll disregard the sound reasoning behind all territorial, political, historical and legal proofs with a cluck of the tongue. But simplicity is where truth can be found. And before Israel stumbles any further, I feel that it's my duty to give you a virtual tour of Switzerland, through the eyes of a twelve- year-old girl. Thirty-three years ago my family stepped through the entrance of the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich and I lost any identity crisis that I may have had. It was a frosty reception for the middle of August. The lobby was terribly quiet but dozens of greying heads slowly turned in our direction. There was no doubt that we had entered the German zone of Switzerland. Now I was a rather precocious child and as the clerk at the desk glanced from the name on the reservation to my mother's nose, I couldn't help but whisper to Mom, "You couldn"t have spared us all and undergone a little cosmetic surgery prior to our trip!" My mother laughs hard and loud, in a very Jewish way. It's a contagious sort of laugh, but the Swiss of Zurich don't laugh -I'm not even sure if they yodel. The following morning, we continued to feel a distinct chill in the air, so we ordered hot chocolate with our breakfast. Here's a disturbing little aside...the Swiss drink unsweetened hot chocolate. Now that's a bitter shock for any childs' taste buds and it would set-off alarm bells in the best of us. A few days later we had the audacity to order cokes with our cheese fondue. An appalled, but very consciousness waitress suggested wine or hot tea as an alterative beverage and then went into a lengthy and graphic dissertation about the horrors that can happen to a stomach when cold coke hits sticky cheese. By this time we were all tied-up in knots, so my father suggested that we forgo the fondue and stick with hamburgers. Now, I grew up in a home that took a rather liberal culinary approach to Judaism, and it wasn't uncommon for me to wake-up to a bacon and eggs breakfast. However, when it came to our hamburgers, Mom always bought the very best in ground beef at Irving's Kosher Butcher Shop. So, when the ham (as in pork) burgers arrived at the table topped with swiss cheese, my mother, who by this time was neither laughing nor yodeling, said, "Don't eat that!" (It was an incredible moment of treif.) My father assured us that things would be better once we left Zurich and headed towards Lucerne. He kept speaking about the incredible view from Mt. Pilatus. Of course, when the cable-car finally made it to the top, we could see nothing. We were enveloped in thick, grey fog. My mother, who just happened to be carrying jackets for us, expressed concern over the drizzle. It was a scene to behold as she attempted to get three kids to zip up their coats and put up their hoods in August. There was no other view for the tourists - so we were it. I was so self conscious after our previous three days in Zurich, that I was sure that the sightseers were staring at my Jewish hair (that's what the girls at my prep school used to call it) that was frizzing-up as a result of the humidity, drizzle and struggle with my mother. One woman had the chutzpah to get involved and stroll up to us and say to my mother, "Vee are not shugaar, vee vill not melt." You guessed it, she was an Israeli. That moment endeared me forever to Israel, even before we landed in Lod the next day. (Note III: Beilin and Burg can tell you that Swiss Air's in-flight service is far superior to anything El Al has to offer. But still, it just doesn't feel like home.) We hardly received a warm reception by the Israelis. My father had accidentally left an enormous box of chocolates (compliments of the Nestle Corporation) on the plane. An Israeli sapper slowly and carefully descended the steps. My father, who was sporting a dark tan, ran towards the plane to retrieve the box. He was instantly surrounded by several soldiers, pointing automatic weapons. They escorted my father and the package to an area behind an armed vehicle. None of the soldiers laughed or cracked a smile as he offered them a piece of the contents. You see, the year was 1970 and the times weren't funny then either. Arafat and the growing Arab terrorist enterprise he had founded had been wreaking havoc across Europe with a spate of macabre airline hijackings and terrorist bombings. And, like today, airports across the world were on high alert. Just goes to show you that "there is nothing new under the sun" - The Geneva Accords included. Ellen lives on the Golan Heights with her husband and six children. She is a painter, writer and co-founder of helpingisrael.com. She can be contacted through her website - http://www.artfromzion.com |
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FOREIGN POLICY FREELANCERS
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, October 15, 2003. |
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I refrained so far from alluding to the latest futile attempt of some fringe-left-wingers in Israel to come up with yet another Oslo type plan for fear of giving them more prominence than they deserve. The new plan is called The Geneva Understandings. I do it now because it merits an explanation. This latest attempts by Israeli ex-officials who were dumped big time by the Israeli electorate is destined to find its way to the large Middle East peace proposals dump, where all such past plans are rotting to oblivion. Why? For a very simple reason: The Palestinians continue to teach their children hatred, violence and the destruction of Israel. There is only one way to begin a road to peace: The establishment of Palestinian democracy and acceptance of civil behavior. These come FIRST, not after some conditions are fulfilled (such as the transfer of land, the removal of settlements and the promise of sovereignty over Temple Mount and half Jerusalem). The Palestinians refuse to stop the violence because they believe, not least for the behavior of those Israelis, that time is on their side, which is precisely what this group of naive ex-Israeli politicians also believe, thus encouraging the Palestinian conviction in their chances of winning. Israelis are told by all the defeat mongers that they need to pack their belongings, run away from Judea, Samaria and Gaza (as they did from Lebanon) and enclose themselves in an impossible ghetto in the vicinity of Tel Aviv. Quite the contrary, my friends: The only way to reach peace in a foreseeable future is to convince the Palestinians beyond any doubt that time works against them, not for them, and if it takes a major warfare to prove it to them, that is what Israel needs to do. In short, Israel needs to first win on the battlefield. I know of no example of ex-politicians who dare to undermine a democratically elected government by conducting counter foreign policy negotiations. In fact, in some countries, as in the USA, it is against the law. But remember, as I always mention, Israel is a very special democracy in which its declared enemies are allowed to form political parties and be represented in its Parliament. The Jerusalem Post Editorial, October 13. 2003, said: It is time for Israel to adopt its own version of the Logan Act. [A U.S. citizen who engages in unauthorized correspondence with a foreign government to counteract oficial American foreign policy is subject to a fine or imprisonment.] That Israeli governments rarely speak with one voice in foreign policy is bad enough. That delegations of private citizens and members of the opposition negotiate alternative peace deals with Palestinians - under the auspices of a foreign government, no less - makes a mockery of basic democratic processes. Then again, we are familiar with what some Israelis think about democratic processes. If Beilin, Burg and Mitzna lived in the USA, they would be fined $5000 each for violation of the Logan Act. Here they continue to undermine Israel's policies with impunity.
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A MESSAGE TO SHARON
Posted by Michael Freund, October 15, 2003. |
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[This is an article of mine from today's Jerusalem Post about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's declining popularity and how this might influence Israel's policy towards the Palestinian Authority.] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in political trouble. If you don't think so, just ask the parents of David, an 8-year old Israeli boy. David's parents are beside themselves with worry, because their son lives in constant fear, terrified that he too may fall victim to the " bad guys," as he puts it. David heard about the families that were wiped out entirely in the Haifa massacre last week, the father and daughter who were murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem, and the infant who was slain in her crib in Negohot. Not surprisingly, these horrific events have left an indelible mark on David's young mind, leading him to reconsider just how safe the world is beyond his front door. Compounding his worry is the anxiety he feels that one or both of his parents might be killed, leaving him alone and orphaned, with no one to care for him. That's pretty heavy stuff for an 8-year old. But David, it seems, is not alone. In the past year, I have heard several such stories from friends and acquaintances living in various parts of the country. Parents, teachers and principals all seem at a loss as to how to deal with such cases, which has led to numerous lives being disrupted. A similar level of fear, albeit not as intense, appears to have gripped much of the rest of the country as well. In a poll published in this past Friday's MaarivStop and think about that for a second. Nearly three out of every four Israelis are walking around fearful that they or someone they love might become a victim of terror. You don't need to be a mental health professional to understand what a tremendous psychological burden this amounts to, or what the cumulative impact must be on people's psyches. The pressures of daily life, such as raising a family, holding down a job, and getting by during tough economic times, present their own set of challenges. But add to that a basic, lurking existential fear, and it's a wonder that more Israelis aren't buckling under the pressure. But one thing that is most certainly buckling is Ariel Sharon's popularity. According to the Maariv survey, his approval rating has tumbled to 36%, making him only slightly more popular than various forms of dental surgery. To be fair, Sharon's standing with the public has had its ups and downs over the past couple of years. But even during some of the most difficult periods of the current intifada The decline in his popularity is almost certainly linked to another key question that was included in the poll. Asked if the current government knows how to fight terror, only 34% of Israelis said yes, while 55% said no. It is of course his reputation for being tough on terror that brought Sharon to power and preserved his popularity for much of the past two years. But even that seems to be eroding, as the public loses patience with his inability to quash the Palestinian terror campaign. If, as Sharon said recently, he has every intention of running for office again, then he is unlikely to remain indifferent to these trends in public opinion. Sooner or later, he will have to win back the public's confidence, and the only way to do so at this point is to strike an overwhelming blow against the terrorists. After all, it is the " fear factor" prompted by terror that has brought down two Israeli premiers in the past decade. In May 1992, the murder of 15-year old Helena Rapp by a knife-wielding Palestinian terrorist shortly before the election contributed, at least in part, to the defeat of Yitzhak Shamir. And it was the February-March 1996 suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that helped toss Shimon Peres out of office. With this in mind, and as he confronts a possible coalition crisis with the National Religious Party and Shinui over control of the rabbinical courts, Sharon may at last decide to salvage his premiership by doing what he should have done long ago: dismantling the Palestinian Authority and eliminating the Palestinian terrorist threat once and for all. Of course, he has refrained from doing so thus far, despite the ongoing murder of Israeli citizens. Instead, Sharon has preferred to rely on a mix of tactical military moves while remaining strategically committed to establishing a Palestinian state. But the failure of this approach, and the public's increasing apprehension about it, may leave Sharon with little choice in the matter. He may finally have to give the public what they want, and so truly deserve: a life free of daily Palestinian attacks. As US Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech last Friday to the Heritage Foundation, " Strategies of containment will not assure our security either...here is only one way to protect ourselves against catastrophic terrorist violence, and that is to destroy the terrorists before they can launch further attacks." With an increasing number of Israelis like 10-year old David living in fear for their safety and their future, Sharon may at last be forced to embrace the wisdom in Cheney's approach, and order the inevitable reconquest of the Palestinian-controlled areas. After ten years of Palestinian terror and bloodshed, it is an order that is long overdue. Michael Freund served as Deputy Director of Communications and Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. |
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HOW THE WEST WEAKENS ISRAEL
Posted by David Bedein, October 15, 2003. |
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At a time when the issue of the Palestinian Arab "right of return" is so widely discussed, it must be stressed that it is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that runs the Palestinian Arab refugee camps and determines the "right of return" policies of those camps. As such, the UNRWA is the only UN refugee agency whose purpose is to keep refugees in nomadic tents rather than to facilitate their movement into decent and permanent housing conditions. And fully 95 percent of its budget emanates from the leading democracies in the world. Canada chairs the committee that oversees the RWG (Refugee Working Group) of 38 nations, which in turn oversees the annual distribution of half-a-billion dollars per annum to UNRWA. The U.S. contributes close to one-third of the UNRWA budget. Throughout its 52 years of existence, UNRWA has actively promoted the idea that Arab refugees from the 1948 war and their descendents must have the "right to return" to Arab villages lost in 1948, although these villages no longer exist. In other words, the UN parrots the PLO argument that Israel should resettle (at its own expense) not only Arab "refugees" who actually lived in Israel in 1948 and willingly left, but all these Arabs' descendants. This group totals nearly 4 million people, or ten times the original number who are now on the UNRWA relief roles. The PLO "right of return" committee claims that there are 8 million Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents who should be allowed to exercise their "right of return." Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I traveled to the U.S. and Canada in order to bring the vital data on UNRWA policies to the attention of the staffers and elected officials in the Canadian Parliament, the U.S. Congress, and to an official in the White House. I sought to inform these government officials of UNRWA policies that weave the "right of return" into every aspect of the UNRWA school system and camp life. I also brought data concerning 300 news reports of military training that has taken place in the UNRWA camps over the past three years. This is a clear violation of section #301 of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which forbids U.S. aid to any humanitarian agency that engages in military training. The vast majority of the 23,000 Palestinian Arabs who are hired by UNRWA to run the camps also openly express support for the Hamas terrorist organization. I presented documentation of how Hamas won more than 85 percent of the vote in the UNRWA teachers trade union and in the UNRWA officials trade union elections that were held in June. These elections were widely covered in the Palestinian Arabic language media. Meanwhile, our news agency has learned that the forthcoming GAO report on UNRWA commissioned by the U.S. House International Relations Committee (due to be submitted to Congress on November 1) will disclose U.S. confirmed intelligence reports that each of the Palestinian terrorist organizations actively use UNRWA offices and UNRWA schools as bases for terrorist activity. It will also reveal that at least 10 UNRWA officials have been convicted of murder while perpetrating acts of terror over the past three years. FRUSTRATION WITH SQUALOR. My own concern with this issue reaches back decades. As a social worker in the '70s and '80s, I was keenly aware of the squalor in which Arab refugees lived in the UNRWA camps. I saw their frustration and their rootlessness as they waited to "return." I had the opportunity to interview top officials of UNRWA. I began to see the other side of the coin: the political agenda that made promotion of the "right of return" so important to the Palestinian Arab cause. And it truly came full circle as I interviewed major leaders of the PLO, including Arafat. It's easy to be taken in: poor refugees, having nowhere to go, await the opportunity to simply return to where they came from. This is a basic human right, is it not? Isn't it recognized by General Assembly Resolution 194? Wrong on both counts, although the well-oiled Palestinian Arab propaganda machine would have you believe otherwise. The PA and PLO even have maps by which they "demonstrate" that Israel has open spaces where the refugees might locate easily. Of course, these Palestinian Arab information specialists are careful not to discuss what would happen to Israel with four million hostile Arabs inside -- at least not with liberal sympathizers from the West. These discussions are kept "in-house." At the bare minimum, the demographics would eliminate the Jewish nature of Israel. Violence is nearly inevitable. Either way, the destruction of Israel over time is the deliberate and intended result. If the Arab refugee population was settled, once and for all, outside of Israel, there would be no more "right of return" issue. If the mandate of UNRWA was changed so that generations of "refugees," who have been waiting in limbo, finally had roots -- a permanent home in the Arab lands -- the very core of the plan to dismantle Israel from within would be dissolved. The fact that the Arab states caused the Palestinian Arab refugee problem in the first place has been completely forgotten. Had the Arab states accepted a Jewish state in 1948, Israel would have had to cope with a Jewish state whose population would have been 50 percent Arab at the genesis of the state of Israel. What is also forgotten is that an almost equal number of Jewish refugees had to leave Arab lands where they lived for thousands of years. Israel moved Jewish refugees out of transit camps as soon as possible, into permanent housing. This sharply contrasts with the UN policy to keep Arab refugees in "transit" camps for more than 55 years, under the specious premise and promise of repatriation to Israeli Arab villages that no longer exist. And there is yet another ramification to current UNRWA policies and practices that maintain refugees in a state of perpetual disfranchisement and tell Palestinians their "right to return" is denied to them by Israel: it fuels terrorism. This happens because the UNRWA practices work in concert with Palestinian Authority (read PLO) goals. This has been known as "the festering wound." It is one of the ironies of history that the first entity since Nazi Germany to advocate the right to murder Jews was borne out of a "peace process." Until ten years ago, the idea of the "right of return" had been stressed in the UNWRA schools, but there was no real Arab military presence in the camps to demonstrate support for that idea. And until ten years ago, Israel actively prevented UNRWA schools and UNRWA facilities from demonstrating overt support for return to long forgotten Arab villages. However, since Israel withdrew its troops and civil administration from the areas in the West Bank and Gaza where UNRWA camps are located, the UNRWA staffers who run the camps have enjoyed a new latitude. Almost universally, they are supportive of Arab terrorist organizations. Witness the UNRWA camp union elections, where HAMAS gained control of the UNRWA clerks union and the UNRWA teachers union. UNRWA camps have been transformed into the battleground of an armed insurrection where thousands of UNRWA camp residents brandish their weapons to demonstrate their support for the murder of Israeli Jews, especially those who now live in towns and collective farms that have replaced the 531 Arab villages lost in 1948. Yet the U.S. State Department continues to ignore the fact that for a decade now the Palestinian Arab population has been taught to see a relationship between "right of return" and their divine obligation to murder Jews. The connection simply is not being made between UNRWA and the failure to achieve peace. "To think anew, to act anew," were words spoken by Abraham Lincoln on the morning of his tragic death. The time has come for the decision-makers of the United States and other western democracies to "think anew and to act anew." Will they continue to allow the policies of UNRWA to be sustained? That will be the challenge to the 38 Western democracies who fund UNRWA policies. Unless and until UNWRA policies and practices regarding "right of return" change, there will be no chance for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East. As the policies are halted, there must then be "deconditioning" as a means for true peace in the Middle East. The U.S.-initiated de-Nazification program begun after World War II transformed Germany from a fascist regime into a democratic nation in one generation. This sort of peaceful transformation can be achieved again if Israel is permitted to do a re-education of the Palestinian Arab society that reverses the perspective taught by UNRWA policies. Otherwise, the camps will remain a boiling cauldron ready to explode into anti-Jewish violence. David Bedein is bureau chief of the Israel Resource News Agency (http://israelbehindthenews.com), which provides hands-on coverage for the press "from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza, Gush Etzion, Hebron, Oslo, Bonn, Brussels, the Wye Plantation, Shepherdstown, Washington, Ottawa, Toronto and Vienna." This article appeared on Front Page Magazine (http://www.frontpagemagazine.com) today. |
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HOMELESS PALESTINIANS
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 15, 2003. |
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IDF forces, including tanks and helicopters, are once again operating in Rafiach, searching for arms-smuggling tunnels. The first phase of the operation, in which three tunnels were found and destroyed, lasted from early Friday morning until Saturday night. The second phase began late last night; no deadline has been set for its termination. Intermittent exchanges of fire are being registered. The offensive involves the army's demolition of many buildings and homes in the area, which serve as the end-points and openings for the tunnels. Approximately ten tunnels, 12-14 meters deep, are still in active use for the smuggling of arms and weapons from Egypt to PA-controlled Gaza. The offensive has drawn much criticism from extreme left-wing elements such as Gush Shalom and Meretz MK Zahava Gal'on for the "thousands of Arabs" it has made homeless. However, Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman and HaTzofeh's Danny Shalom report that the entire affair is in fact very lucrative for the Arabs living in the area. Each family whose home serves as an end-point for a tunnel receives $1,000 a month, and homes that are destroyed are rebuilt elsewhere by the Palestinian Authority, with generous compensation thrown in for good measure. The smuggling operation is essentially a family enterprise, report Huberman and Shalom, with several large Gaza families "owning" a piece of the action. They pay families that agree to have a tunnel running from their homes $1,000 each month, and they then sell the weapons that are thus smuggled to the Palestinian Authority. If a tunnel-camouflaging home is destroyed by the IDF, the PA pays generous compensation to the family - and even builds the family a new home in the Tel Sultan neighborhood. Some residents have therefore begun spreading rumors of tunnels in their homes, designed for Israeli ears, so that they can "start all over" with a destroyed home, PA reparations, and a new modern house. Huberman and Shalom, quoting Israeli military sources, report that Iranian elements are actively involved in the arms-smuggling from Egypt. So far in 2003, large quantities of many different types of weapons have been smuggled into Gaza via the tunnels, including dozens of RPG launchers, hundreds of kilograms of explosive material, hundreds of rifles, tens of thousands of bullets, and thousands of magazines. Of late, attempts are being made to smuggle in anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles as well. Some of the tunnels have been found to be as deep as 30 meters underground, in order to evade some of Israel's counter-measures. They are used not only to smuggle arms and weapons, but also precious metals, electric appliances, car parts, and even terrorists. The IDF has uncovered and destroyed 36 tunnels so far in 2003. |
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WHO KILLED 3 U.S. SECURITY GUARDS?
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 15, 2003. |
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By now you've heard or read that 3 U.S. security guards in a diplomatic convoy traveling in the Gaza Strip were killed when a roadside bomb went off. This is an event of major significance because it's the first direct killing of Americans since the latest intifada began 3 years ago. It bodes to tie the U.S. and Israel even closer together in the war against terrorism. Yet, early NY Times and Wash Post web-site stories suggest that it's too early to assign blame or responsibility and perhaps this wasn't a direct attack on a U.S. target. Palestinians already are in full disinformation mode, while the Post and the Times are out to do their best to diffuse responsibility and blur the overall picture. Some Palestinian "sources" say that the bomber may have misidentified the convoy; others are beginning to blame "rogue" elements outside the jurisdiction of "mainstream" terrorist groups. Yet, the fact that this was a deliberate attack on Americans is incontestable. According to Haaretz, JPost and AP, the three-car U.S. convoy of diplomatic and security personnel consisted of black and silver Chevrolet Suburbans, which traveled the same route normally used by U.S. representatives with business in the Gaza Strip. The vehicles' color and make were easily identifiable and unique to U.S. officials. In front was a Palestinian police van acting as escort. A Palestinian taxi driver who saw the whole thing said the Palestinian police vehicle was in front of the 3 big U.S. cars. When U.S. security personnel arrived on the scene shortly after the bombing, they were pelted with stones and rocks by a half dozen Palestinian youths while 200 Palestinians looked on chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great). These people may have had nothing to do with setting off the bomb but their anti-U.S. feelings were more than obvious. The U.S. security team was forced to retreat under a hail of stones. A roadside bomb exploded some time ago near another U.S. vehicle, but that time inflicted no casualties. Initial reports say that Hamas and Islamic Jihad denied involvement. But reported quotes attributed to both groups do not include a categorical denial. Rather, they say their "resistance" is meant to be carried out solely against Israeli occupiers -- a general statement that does not specifically address this incident. Perhaps fuller reporting may yet shed additional light on this part of the story. At least one U.S. official already is satisfied as to the general identity of the perpetrators, their intentions and who was ultimately responsible. He has assigned full blame to Hamas & Co. while holding the Palestinian Authority and specifically Arafat responsible for not preventing this attack. His name is George W. Bush.
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THE USURPERS OF PALESTINE
Posted by Rebecca Wilkin, October 15, 2003. |
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Message: The true "Palestinian" State is Jordan. After the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, in the early 19th century, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 allotted to the Jews a homeland, which consisted of present day Israel, most of present day Jordan, the Sinai, and a small section of Lebanon. The whole of the Middle East was divided into states of which the Jewish homeland was but one. The League of Nations okayed the original grant to the Jews. Then, the Hashemites, who had been driven out of Mecca and Medina by ibn Saud, the forebearer of the modern Saudi royal family, protested. The Hashemite leader, Feisal ibn Hussein was given Syria and Iraq for helping to defeat the Ottoman Turks. So then, up pops Feisal's brother, Abdullah Hussein, wailing that he ALSO helped to defeat the Ottomans. He was supported in his story by the "wonderful" T.E. Lawrence(of Arabia). The British BROKE article 5 of the mandate for a Jewish homeland when they sliced off present day Jordan and gave it to Abdullah ibn Hussein! Originally, the land was allotted to the Jews because it was almost uninhabited. Some of the land had been purchased in the mid nineteenth century by Jews who had paid huge prices to absentee Arab landlords. They did not STEAL the land! Allowances were made between Chaim Weitzmann and Feisal ibn Hussein as to the interests of Arabs living in the area called Palestine, including free exercise of religion. As the land of Israel was developed by the Jews, Arabs moved in from the surrounding areas because of job opportunities. This is where the so-called Palestinians came from...the surrounding countries! In 1947, the land was further partitioned into Arab and Jewish areas. Twice the original mandate was changed in favor of the Arabs. Now, the true usurpers are demanding their own state. Believe me, that will not be enough...because the real problem is not the SIZE of Israel, but the EXISTENCE of Israel. The Arabs have threatened the extinction of the Jews more than once. Is ANYBODY listening?
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EXPERIENCING THE JOY
Posted by Judy Balint, October 15, 2003. |
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This essay was written by Reuven Ben Dov, M.D. Reuven and Adele Ben Dov live in Har Nof, Jerusalem. I have sometimes been accused of over-using the expression "mind-boggled" but what can I do? I live in Yerushayim. Yesterday morning for me was a mind-blowing experience which was the most simcha-yahadut Succot event I have so far been privileged to enjoy. I arrived early enough to get my favourite spot in front of the Kotel at the corner with the ladies section, and which was directly behind the baal tefilla (prayer leader) with the microphone. I have never seen the Kotel and the Rova (Jewish Quarter) so crowded but the total silence during the duchening (blessing of the Priests) was awe-inspiring. Although I would have preferred a Reb Shlomo Hallel, I settled for kavanah at the Kotel, and the opportunity to shake my Lulav near the site of the future Third Temple. Hundreds of cohanim (descendants of the priestly class) pushed through shouting "cohen" and the way immediately opened for these privileged Jews who came from all differerent backgrounds to their place of honour in front of the Kotel. I think we all felt the achdut (unity) of so many Jews davening together, without the trepidation of Yom Kippur, but with the total simcha (joy) of Succot. The tefilla (prayers) concluded with the 40,000 of us shouting Shma and other pasukim (verses) borowed from the end of the Neila (Yom Kippur closing service) and then reciting prayers for the security situation. We slowly dispersed after some of us joined in the happy ring of dancers. I say slowly, because it took some time to exit from the Kotel, as others were trying to enter, or go in to the communal succah for breakfast - another great experience. We continued on with the massive crowds to the Rova for our traditional coffee on the balcony of the Jewish Quarter cafe with its magnificent view of the Temple Mount, followed by the annual talk by former Sefardi Chief Rabbi, Rav Mordechai Eliahu, in the plaza near the Hurva synagogue and a visit to Shorashim, the excellent Judaica shop belonging to the Kempinski brothers. We never leave the Rova without browsing and buying something at the Moriah bookshop with its large collection of books and Judaica. As usual, we met many friends on our wanderings before returning home, via Berman's bakery for their special bread for our combined breakfast/lunch in our own succah. What a day of simcha and thanks to Hashem for allowing us to make aliyah. Allow me to conclude with some info you might want to keep for future years. Birchat Cohanim always takes place on Second Day Chol Hamoed (intermediate festival days). The public tefilla began at 8.15am, Bichat Cohanim at 9.15am,Torah reading at 9.45am, second duchening at 10.15am and concluded at about 10.30am. I forgot to bring my miniature seat which folds up like a walking stick (obtainable at Jerusalem Packs, R.Najara, G.Shaul - very cheap), a sun hat for walking in the Jewish Quarter, and I didn't put my name on my Lulav plastic container which someone took by mistake and left his. May we merit next year, in good health, to have the ultimate simcha, of davening in the Bet haMikdash. TENS OF THOUSANDS AT WESTERN WALL (The report from Arutz 7) Moadim l'simcha, Bsorot Tovot Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times (Gefen,2002) is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com |
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VICTIMS OF ARAB TERROR
Posted by Bryna Berch, October 14, 2003. |
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I found a website that is devoted to helping the victims of Arab terror. The organization is called Victims of Arab Terror International, VAT for short, and its web address is http://www.victimsofarabterror.org The organization is there to give comfort at funerals, come during shiva and visit hospital bedsides. But it has a practical side: it provides attorneys to help with legal problems that confront the victims - as if they didn't have enough zturis. To contribute financially or for further information: In Israel: P.O. Box 32l03 JERUSALEM Tel / Fax 972-2-5821-106 VAT also disseminates facts and pictures about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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EXCERPT FROM "THE ENEMY WITHIN" BY JACOB GUREWICH
Posted by Talya Lapidot, October 14, 2003. |
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This is from Jacob Gurewich's new book: "The Enemy Within" He also wrote "Chronicles of the State of Israel: For Israel's 50th Anniversary." "...I see an Israeli Government pulling out of its membership in the corrupt United Nations, despite the ramifications involved... as a result, I see a United Israeli Nation emerging in the Land of Israel - free of Enemies Within, and free of Arab homicidal murderers... I see a United Israel with full capacity and capability not only to defend itself from a hostile world, but, if necessary to exercise its capacity to deter and/or harshly retaliate without using the axiom, "Let me die with the Philistines" (Judges 16: 30). I hear Nations of the World envying and praising the United Land of Israel (U.L.I.): "Blessed art thou, O land, when thy leaders, the sons of virtuous, and thy warriors and thy people eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness." (Ecclesiastes X: 17)
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THE TRACKS TO THE HUMAN INCINERATORs ARE STILL NOT BLOWN UP
Posted by Evelyn Haze, October 14, 2003. |
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And now they even tattoo the dead with nails and metal slivers
Can you believe Jews in a Jewish state who went to Uganda to save
The tracks to the incinerators are not empty buildings or "roadwraps"
The tracks to the incinerators of Jews and the Twin Towers are tattoos in the minds
Who dallies with the disease is letting the plague infester
The greatest thing to fear are those who deal with those who deal in terrorism.
Respect for a "religion" that is a jihad legion against life and is a death cult
Don't cry over mistakes of the past when they continue on.
Evelyn Hayes is author of "The Eleventh Plague, Twins, because their hearts were softened to accept the unacceptable" and "The Twelfth Plague, Generations, because the lion wears stripes." (Copyright) October 4, 2003. Write haze@rcn.com for permission to print and distribute this poem. |
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MUSLIMS DON'T LET CHRISTIANS PRAY ON TEMPLE MOUNT
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, October 14, 2003. |
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This email was sent by Isralert (isralert@aol.com): So the guy says, "I have a message for my friend in your shul. No, I don't have a seat reserved for the High Holidays. But, I promise, if you let me deliver the message I won't pray." The following story reminded me of that joke. THIS is no joke." The article is called "Christian leader expelled from Temple Mount for praying" and was written by the editorial staff of Jerusalem Newswire (http://www.jnewwire.com), which is an independent Christian-operated news service based in Jerusalem. Israeli police escorted one of the top leaders of the Jerusalem-headquartered international Christian Zionist movement off the Temple Mount Tuesday, on the grounds that he had been silently praying in the area. While Christians and Jews are forbidden from praying on the hill the Bible designates as a site holy to the God of Israel, Muslims are free to worship and preach incitement against Israel from the four mosques straddling the Mount. Accosted while silently praying. Jan Willem van der Hoeven, founder of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and currently director of the International Christian Zionist Center, said he had been walking alone and "speaking to the Lord in his heart," when a policeman demanded to know whether he was praying. "I could have lied and said no," Van der Hoeven told Jerusalem Newswire, "but of course I did not want to and so said yes." According to several eyewitnesses, three policemen had then escorted Van der Hoeven to the police station at the nearby Western Wall Plaza. Police log prayer. Van der Hoeven said when he arrived at the police station the officer in charge asked what he had been praying. He replied that he had been praying for the Messiah to come and bring peace to Israel and to the world. "The police noted my prayer down in their official report," Van der Hoeven said. He had been allowed to leave a short while later. Putting their feet down. The incident took place after Van Der Hoeven led a group of about 40 visiting Christian Zionists onto the Temple Mount, a highlight of their weeklong celebration of the biblical Feast of Tabernacles. Before ascending the hill, which the Bible describes as the place of Messiah's future throne, Van der Hoeven had advised the pilgrims to separate into small groups and walk quietly around inside the walled compound, praying silently. Reminding them of past instances of intolerance shown by the Muslim authorities on the Mount towards Jews and Christians, he urged the group to be "as wise as serpents and harmless as doves," quoting the words of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. "Every place where your feet tread, pray that it will be given back to Israel," he added. On the Mount. Before climbing the ramp to the compound, the pilgrims were instructed to leave all Bibles, Israeli flags and any other apparently provocative items at the security checkpoint. The group entered at the so-called Mughrabi Gate, before spreading out and walking in twos and threes around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Golden Gate. Apart from Van der Hoeven's expulsion, the group reported no other incidents and departed the area after about an hour. Unbridled Islamic incitement. While Christian and Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is not tolerated by the Islamic Authorities, Muslim clerics are free to foment hatred of the Jewish people and the State of Israel in weekly sermons in the mosques on the hill. The Palestinian Authority-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, whose offices are situated inside the compound, has issued rulings upholding the longstanding practice banning the worship of any god other than Allah, the ancient Arabian moon god. "It is forbidden for Muslims to permit non-Muslims to supervise, conduct services or pray in any part of the mosques or underneath them," he has said. Sabri regularly stokes up rage against Israel and the United States while conducting Muslim Friday prayers for the thousands of Arabs freely permitted by Israel to attend the services. Speaking in the Al Aqsa Mosque, Sabri has been recorded saying: "Oh Allah, destroy America! For she is ruled by Zionist Jews!! Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs!! Forgive us, Mohammad, for the acts of these sons of monkeys and pigs, who sought to harm your sanctity!!" Earlier this year, the official PA Radio broadcast live sermons from the Al Aqsa Mosque in which Sabri denounced the "criminal United States" and "rancorous Britain." Sabri has appealed to Muslims everywhere "to stand as one rank, stop the aggression, and cleanse their territories of US military occupation... O Allah, make the plots of the aggressors backfire on them. O Allah, annihilate them to the last man. O Allah, protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from every evil. O Allah, protect Iraq and its people." While Sabri's instatement as Mufti was in violation of the Oslo Accords, Israel has chosen not to make an issue of it.
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THE BATTLE OF BEILINGRAD
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 14, 2003. |
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If Israel is ever destroyed, Yossi Beilin will hold more than his fair share of responsibility for this, second in responsibility probably only to Shimon Peres himself. Yossi Beilin was in many ways the mother hen to the Oslo debacle. He had risen in the Labor Party's machine after completing a "doctorate" in political science at Tel Aviv University. (I am one of those very few who have actually seen his "dissertation", a copy of which is floating around the library at Haifa University. It is a shallow, longwinded story about the potential of the ideologically pure "young guard" in the Labor Party to do really nice things if they take over the party, and it reveals all of the shallow silliness of Beilin, "The Labor Party Intellectual." It is a disgrace that Tel Aviv University awarded a doctorate to its author.) Beilin had organized the illegal and secret "negotiations" with the PLO in Oslo back when any contact with it was illegal in Israel. He was accompanied by two other mediocre Israeli "academics." Beilin accelerated the "talks" after Rabin got elected on a platform of no deals whatsoever with the PLO. Beilin's view was that Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was the source of all the country's problems, and that it must be ended at ALL COSTS, no matter how the PLO behaved, and no matter how many Jews had to get themselves killed along the way to achieve this greater good. It was so overwhelmingly important to get Israel back behind its 1949 Auschwitz borders that nothing else should matter. Certainly PLO terrorism and its intention to use any state it gets to war against Israel did not matter. In a bastardization of a line by Ben-Gurion, Beilin insisted that Israel must fight terror as if there is no "Peace Process" and pursue the "Peace Process" as if there is no terror. In fact Israel pursued both the "Peace Process" AND the war against terror - as if there were no terror, all thanks to Beilin. When the buses started exploding thanks to the West Bank and Gaza having been turned into bomb factories as part of Beilin's grand plan, it was suggested by your humble curmudgeon that a new graveyard be erected for the victims, to be named Beilingrad. After the Oslo Accords produced their inevitable bloodshed, Beilin led the effort for yet another new all-encompassing grand "Accord" to resolve all Middle East issues of conflict through capitulation to the PLO. He led the campaign to turn all of East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Western Wall, over to the PLO and to reconstruct the Berlin Wall in Jerusalem. Beilin unblushingly insisted that the most effective way to retain Jerusalem as Israel's Capital was to turn it into the Capital of "Palestine." When the Oslo "Accords" produced hundreds of murdered Israeli civilians, Beilin coined the expression "sacrifices for peace." And as a result of his political role, Beilin became not only the darling of the leftist Eurotrash and the laughingstock of the Jewish people, but a man despised even within his own Labor Party. As the Labor Party shrank and approached single-digit percentages of the Israeli electorate in its vote-draw, Beilin was dumped by his own party. In last year's Labor Party primaries, he was consigned to political invisibility, this by the same party that had lurched as far Leftwards as it had ever dared, under Amram Mitzna. (Mitzna by the way is backing the Beilin "Understandings.") But even the Labor Party of Mitzna saw Beilin as an embarrassment and blocked him in the primaries from getting a seat in the Knesset. Within days, Beilin announced that he was resigning from the Labor Party and was recruiting himself to rescue the Meretz Party and the 4% of Israeli voters who support it, by joining it to erect a new "Social Democratic" party. Beilin's latest gambit is to "negotiate" publicly on behalf of himself with the PLO and to crayon yet another grand document for total settlement of all outstanding Arab-Israeli issues through surrender to the PLO. Beilin does not represent Israel, does not represent the opposition Labor Party and does not even represent Meretz, whose leaders are embarrassed by the new "peace initiative." Even Ehud Barak, who came close to offering Arafat at Camp David what Beilin now suggests and who turned Israel's northern border over to the Hizbollah, has denounced Beilin for harmful kibbitzing. Nevertheless, Beilin has been meeting in Geneva with a PLO representative and they have produced the "Geneva Understandings," the newest Beilin answer to the Munich capitulations. (Similar grand propositions, including the "Ayalon-Nusseibah Proposal" yet another "plan" by an Israeli Uberleftist and a Palestinian terrorist now being bandied about, are almost identical to Beilin's "Understandings.") Now in fact "Jewish-Arab Peace Dialogues" have been polluting the planet for many years. These are those meetings between Palestinian fascists and Jewish leftists that inevitably end up endorsing all of the Arab positions regarding the Middle East war as a balanced compromise and consequence of the open dialogue. These are dialogues of the deaf and extraordinarily dumb. They are meetings of the mind between Arabs seeking Israel's destruction and Jews seeking Israel's destruction. Nevertheless, the Beilin "Understandings" are suddenly the subject of buzz all over the town. Haaretz, the main Palestinian newspaper published in Hebrew, can barely control its bladder because of its excitement. Its columnists and the Tenured Leftists already are popping champagne corks. Euro-leftists and Egyptians are endorsing the "breakthrough." The Tikkun Editors will no doubt toss another cannabis branch onto their Succah in its honor. The "Understandings" propose a more or less complete capitulation by Israel. They are the old Beilin plan for retreat by Israel to its 1949 borders, complete with turning over East Jerusalem and the Old City to the PLO. The PLO would promise really, really sincerely to let some Jews pray at the Western Wall. Israel would agree to the West Bank and Gaza being ethnically cleansed of Jews in exchange for Israel keeping the neighborhoods of Jerusalem built outside the 1949 "Green Line." AND WHAT EXACTLY would Israel get in exchange? Well, the PLO would promise to really, really try to control the terror, that same old used Buick it has been reselling over and over to Israel for a decade. The PLO would also have to issue some sort of duplicitous statement about how it was sort of willing to give up its demand for the "Right of Return" of anyone claiming to be a Palestinian to pre-1967 Israeli territory, but could add lots of caveats to this "concession." Now the Gargoyle of Ramallah is likely to reject the Beilingrad "Understandings" because of that last clause. For the moment, however, Arafat and his terror crew are applauding the "breakthrough." Their presumption is that they will pocket all of Beilin's proposals for Israeli capitulations as faits accompli and later demand that any new talks begin from the starting point of the Beilin "Understandings" (and from there proceed to new PLO demands and Israeli appeasements). No one seriously thinks that Arafat will agree to any rhetorical renunciation of the right of the Palestinians to destroy Israel through a "Right of Return." Now sauce for the goose should be sauce for the lemming. If Beilin is entitled to make up his own negotiated compromise peace plan as a result of dialogue with himself, why can't I do the same? SO here are the Plaut Understandings, all Ten Points of a new plan to be presented to Ariel Sharon and the cabinet. 1. Israel offers the PLO absolutely nothing. Meanwhile Haaretz and the Left are clicking their tongues this week. You see, Israel is at long last destroying some illegal tunnels from the Gaza town of Rafiah that run into Egypt, through which explosives and arms are smuggled in for Palestinian civics activities. The Left is awful upset, because blowing up those tunnels involves destroying and bulldozing some houses that hide those tunnels. Tch tch tch. Haaretz (Oct 14) demands to know whether it is really worth upsetting the Palestinians and knocking down so many homes in which so many "innocent" Palestinians live simply to shut down a "mere" three tunnels. Translation: Haaretz and the Israeli Left are indifferent (at best) to Israeli children and other civilians being mass murdered by Palestinian using the explosives smuggled in through the tunnels, or to the sufferings of those residents of Negev towns being bombarded by PLO rockets, and so would prefer that these children and other civilians continue to be murdered by the score rather than upset the world by showing on TV the buildings, beneath which the tunnels run, being bulldozed. Of course, prohibiting TV crews from entering Rafiah would also do the trick, but that is a great unthinkable. Now I know a lot of Israeli leftist professors and leftist journalists whose homes could be turned over to any Rafiah residents losing theirs as a result of the tunnel destruction, and into which these "refugees" could be resettled. For peace of course.
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WHY YOU SHOULD NOT DONATE FUNDS TO BERKELEY HILLEL
Posted by Lee Kaplan, October 14, 2003. |
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In a move that could spell nationwide problems for campus Hillels and affect fundraising for the nationwide campus Jewish outreach organization, Leftists at UC Berkeley on the Hillel's student governing board enacted new "by-laws" to remove staunchly pro-Israel groups like DAFKA and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) from operating as a part of Hillel. At this writing and without any prior notice to the majority of students in DAFKA, a pro-active and staunchly pro-Israel campus group at UC Berkeley, the Hillel Jewish Student Union, or governing council of campus Jewish groups, changed the by-laws to not allow any "national" groups from belonging to the Jewish Student Union at Hillel. At least that was the excuse for removing DAFKA as a Hillel campus Jewish organization and for denying the ZOA a right to set up a chapter as well. However, several other Jewish and pro-Israel groups and even a group that supports the effort to divest funds from Israel that also have national affiliations were not similarly removed despite the new "by-laws." DAFKA's website can be viewed at www.dafka.org. The move was designed to remove the only truly active conservative pro-Israel groups that existed or could exist in UC Berkeley Hillel, both DAFKA and the ZOA. Tzedek, one of the groups that is supposedly "progressive" and allowed to remain, has arranged for events in cooperation with the Students For Justice In Palestine (SJP) at UC Berkeley who seek Israel's being dismantled and promote divestment from Israel on US campuses. Hillel has even co-mingled funds in the past with the SJP. SJP insists on its website on "decolonization of all Palestinian lands" which is doublespeak for all of Israel. Their demonstrations on the Cal campus have been frequently violent and anti-Semitic. In the past, DAFKA has complained about Tzedek and voiced concern that the group is a fifth column within Hillel for Leftists to affect Hillel's overall pro-Israel activities for the worse and to provide access to Hillel funds by anti-Israel forces under the guise of being "peace advocates." Tzedek is a national organization within Hillel also but was not removed. Since many "Jewish" Leftists seem to run with the Students For Justice In Palestine as part of the anti-establishment clique at Cal, the question posed by DAFKA in the past was if some from Tzedek were indeed moles in Hillel, although DAFKA has never demanded any other group's ouster from the Jewish Student Union. Tzedek was one of the co-sponsors of the "Refuseniks Panel" held on the Cal campus on March 11, 2003 to bring three Israeli "soldiers" who refused to serve in the occupied territories to the campus to portray an image of mutiny within the Israeli army when their ilk represents less than even one tenth of one percent of the Israeli military and whose members appearing were expatriated Israelis and a Leftist radical professor from Israel now teaching in Berkeley's Center For Middle East Studies who were drafted many years ago but not currently on full duty. Only three "soldiers," all who reside normally in the San Francisco Bay Area and do not currently live in Israel, spoke. Since in Israel enlistments are up and even over age reservists are willing to show up for duty during all the terrorist attacks, DAFKA made efforts to get Hillel to bring other Israeli soldiers to campus from Israel to show the majority point of view but were rebuffed by the professional staff. The "refuseniks" program was professionally filmed then placed permanently on the University's website. Streaming video such as was used is very expensive, usually at least $30 a minute, which Hillel no doubt helped to defray for Tzedek. Or else public tax dollars were used by the University to create a permanent archive. It is of note that the co-sponsors included UC Berkeley's Center For Middle East Studies which has been shown to be financed principally by two Saudi sheiks who fund Al Qaeda, both of whom are defendants in a $1 trillion dollar lawsuit against them by families of the victims of 9/11 and one of whom still has a noted terrorist financier of Al Qaeda on his foundation's board of directors in Saudi Arabia, Abdulrahman bin Ali Jeraisy. And the ubiquitous Students For Justice In Palestine which, as mentioned, advocates Israel's dismantlement is also listed as a co-sponsor with Tzedek. When the director of the Zionist Organization Of America, an organization which opposes a Palestinian terrorist state, was requested by DAFKA student members to be able to come and speak on the Middle East issues last term, the request was initially refused by Berkeley Hillel's Israel coordinator Gordon Gladstone as "a hard sell" on the Berkeley campus. Only after calls to national Hillel headquarters from as far away as Israel from disgruntled Israel supporters, and the resulting bad publicity, did Berkeley Hillel finally relent and allow the ZOA director to speak. In the meantime, UC Berkeley continues to spend money on bringing Israeli Leftists to campus. DAFKA came into existence on a national level as a voice to "take back our campuses with the truth" when students at Cal began complaining at a memorial service on the campus that Hillel's pro-Israel activities on campus were no match for the myriad number of Palestinian radicals there and when I was asked during a service for the Holocaust not to wear a jacket with an Israeli flag on the back because "it upsets the Jews For Palestine" according to Jennifer Mangel, assistant director, under specific directions of Adam Weisberg, the UC Berkeley Hillel executive director. That same day, the Students For Justice In Palestine took over a campus building where the memorial was being held, ruining the event, disrupting classes and assaulting a police officer. Just this last summer, a female student at UC Berkeley taking an Arabic language class who complained that her Arab professor was teaching her class that the Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of Zion, a forgery of a Jewish conspiracy series concocted by the Czar's secret police in 1905 to foment pogroms against the Jews of Russia and used by Hitler to justify the Holocaust, found herself being called a liar and slanderer by one of the faculty on campus, Daniel Boyarin, who frequently demonstrates with Tzedek against Israel. Boyarin has also called former Prime Minister Ehud Barak "a liar" for claiming the PLO was offered a state and honest compensation at the Oslo Accords. Prof. Boyarin seems to use the term "liar" frequently. The University said it would investigate but did not, as the student was never interviewed. In the meantime, Adam Weisberg commented he had complete faith the University was doing all it can for Jewish students. Perhaps he meant if they were Leftists and not too pro-Israel. The student came to DAFKA for help instead. Are the professional staff at Hillel anti-Israel? Not at all. But they do lean toward a Leftist view of the Middle East which the Arab world and its professional propagandists play on and do not allow alternative points of views from all students through Hillel about the Middle East. And they are letting pro-PLO factions in the form of groups like Tzedek particpate in Hillel while trying to stifle freedom of speech from more conservative and staunch supporters of Israel like DAFKA and the ZOA. Tzedek's website contains a link to "an ally," A Jewish Voice For Peace (JVOP), a group which claims it supports Israel but whose website constantly blames Israel for everything wrong in the peace process, calls for divestment and other means to weaken the only democracy and staunchest US ally in the Middle East. It's leader, Mitchell Plitnick, an ex-60's Berkeley radical, in the JVOP newsletter says the Exodus when Jews were given the covenant is a myth and that the First Temple is a myth also. His website previously used to state it was doubtful Jews ever lived in the Holy Land at all in ancient times until DAFKA called attention to it to some Jewish events calendar services such as PlanitJewish.com who now refuse to list JVOP's "Jewish events." Links from the JVOP website link to Palestinian publications and newspapers that run anti-Semitic cartoons and depictions of Jews as animals and other Arab sites linked to by them through subsequent links lead to websites for the terrorist groups Fateh and Al Aksa in Arabic. Another link leads to an Arab newspaper, Alhayat, which frequently runs cartoons of Jews as Animals devouring Palestinians. And the JVOP home page lists connections with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) which, while trying to pass itself off as a "non-violent peace group," actually says on its website they are "Palestinian-led" and advocates "armed struggle" against Israel and whose leaders such as Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf say that a combination of violent and non-violent means should be used to overcome Israel. Terrorists who killed Israelis have entered Israel under ISM's Alternative Tourism Program illegally and been captured in ISM offices. In addition, the ISM points out the positions of Israeli soldiers to armed terrorists, and interferes with anti-terror weapons search and destroy missions by the IDF. Tzedek's links on the Tzedek website to JVOP also enable one to link to organizations that link to Hizbollah, Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade (see sources below to follow the trail). And Berkeley Hillel allows Tzedek, an Hillel campus organization, to affiliate with them and fund programs. Many Jewish students on the Cal campus have complained to DAFKA they avoid Berkeley Hillel for this very reason. DAFKA's information was removed from the Hillel website before any notice was supplied of what was going on or anything submitted to student leaders in writing. Interestingly enough, Hillel itself is a national organization and another pro-Israel group allowed to remain is bAIrPAC, an arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which does most of the pro-Israel lobbying nationwide in the US. A campus Jewish fraternity, AEPi was also allowed to remain even though it is a local chapter of a national organization just as the Berkeley chapter was of DAFKA. In the past, during demonstrations when Palestinian supporters tried detaining students on campus for publicity stunts with "checkpoints" like in the West Bank done by the Israeli army, DAFKA has inspired the ire of such pro-Palestinian groups on the UC Berkeley campus by dressing up as suicide bombers to show the reason why "checkpoints" are necessary to protect Israeli lives from terrorists. It has proven very effective in the media. DAFKA also relies on using the tactics and materials of pro-Palestinian forces on campus with their own materials against them. DAFKA sets up a television set run by a battery on campus and plays tapes of official Palestinian government TV which show official Palestinian mullahs exhorting to kill Jews and Americans, or shows public killings of collaborators by Arafat's people as well as Palestinian textbooks and translations from Arabic to show what Israel is really facing. Different pro-Palestinian factions on the oldest UC campus have tried unsuccessfully to have DAFKA and its students removed, and have objected to the group's display on campus of the Israeli and American flags. Many of Dafka's films have won awards, yet Hillel has repeatedly refused to allow any screenings to take place at Hillel, even one of "Relentless," which was scheduled after the ZOA director spoke and which was advertised to the public. DAFKA gives away free to students on the Cal campus thousands of dollars in videotapes, DVD's and other pro-Israel articles and has never received equal funding from Hillel as groups such as Tzedek despite being a legitimate campus group and being entered into the Jewish Student Union last year by a vote of the membership. The by-laws were specifically altered in hope to silence DAFKA student members on the Cal campus but would deny the same rights to most pro-Israel activist groups wanting a presence among the Jewish student body at Cal. In the past Berkeley Hillel has paid money to bring Leftist "Israelis" to the Cal campus to rail against Israel or professors such as Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco who has defended Syria and who frequently suggests 9/11 was America's fault and has said that "Zionist money is de facto US policy." Marcia Freedman, a Berkeley-based Leftist who tries to pass herself off as a current Israeli and is promoted by Tzedek as a "former Knesset member" she hasn't been in office for over 25 years and left Israel when her stridently lesbian feminist politics lost her an election who is really just another Berkeley activist was paid by Hillel funds last spring for a lecture bashing Israel. As past president of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival she promoted and ran a Palestinian propaganda film, Al Nahkba ("The catastrophe"), the Arab's name for Israel's War Of Independence, accusing Israel of stealing Arab lands and engaging in atrocities instead of telling the real story of a tiny Jewish nation being attacked by six Arab armies merely for existing. Plans are for her being brought back once again with costs borne by Hillel for Tzedek again this semester. Yet requests for more conservative speakers opposed to the "Road Map" as detrimental to Israel's security or in defense of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria have been denied. In fact, no voice is heard by those students who feel a Palestinian state will be just another Iran and only lead to more dead Israelis. Only one voice is being heard and Berkeley Hillel's Leftist oriented students and staff will not tolerate any other. The Hillel mission statement states that it "is committed to Israel's right to exist and flourish as a Jewish State within secure and recognized boundaries" and that there must be "a balanced program that is supportive and inclusive of all Jewish students." If some Jewish students belong to Leftist groups that seek divestment to economically damage Israel or run with those who want Israel dismantled, should they be in Hillel? Perhaps. However, the mission is consistently violated when only one side gets the majority say and particularly when that same side can even try to end the existence of opposing groups. But, then again, this is typical for U.C. Berkeley and has sadly even taken over at Hillel there. Supporters of Israel are urged to voice their objections directly to the executive director at Berkeley Hillel, Adam Weisberg, at 510 845 7793, email: aweisberg@berkeleyhillel.org in the United States. National Hillel headquarters is in Washington D.C. at 202 449 6500 or email info@hillel.org . Sources:
Lee Kaplan is National Director of DAFKA.org (http://www.dafka.org). dafka is a Hebrew word that roughly means "in your face." DAFKA is rapidly becoming known for its accurate and in-your-face journalism. |
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ANOTHER SUICIDE BOMBER AND A QUESTION ABOUT TIME
Posted by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, October 14, 2003. |
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It all happened just on the eve of Yom Kippur! A female suicide bomber detonated herself Saturday afternoon in a packed beach-front Haifa restaurant that served as one of the city's beacons of Arab-Jewish coexistence, murdering 19 innocent people, including four children. It is the biggest atrocity since the Jewish New Year, which just started less than 10 days back. According to press reports it was learnt that just after 2 p.m., as dozens of Arabs and Jews were dining at the popular Maxim restaurant, the suicide bomber, apprentice lawyer Hanadi Jaradat, 27, shouldered her way into the restaurant, detonating herself and spraying the diners with ball bearings and shrapnel. According to press reports, the blast, which eyewitnesses said had "the force of an earthquake," gutted the restaurant entirely. Survivors trying to flee were blocked by overturned tables and the bodies of victims and wounded as they slipped on the gore and food slicking the floor on their way out. The restaurant has been in joint Jewish-Arab ownership for 38 years. Located by the seashore, Maxim was also a favorite haunt of the Maccabi Haifa soccer team, as well as being one of the proud symbols of coexistence in the mixed city. After the last spate of suicide bombings three weeks ago, the Israeli cabinet declared Arafat an "obstacle to peace" who should be "removed" and paved the way for his possible expulsion. Press in the Muslim countries in particular reported that the latest suicide bomb attack was a retaliation of the decision of the Israeli authorities to remove Arafat. If this information is correct, then we can easily draw a conclusion that Yasir Arafat and his pals are being actively involved behind all sorts of terrorism and atrocities in Israel. Although PA authorities also issued a statement condemning the attack but many of the political analysts and observers are terming it as a mere attempt of eye wash. The news in the Muslims world puts Arafat into the position of self-proclamation and he can now be definitely identified as a dangerous terrorist don operating lots of bloody activities in the peaceful land of Israel. I know my comments and words won't be very comfortable for the Palestinian authorities nor for a number of Arab countries which are extending unconditional support to Arafat for reasons best known to them. With the tragic, barbaric and inhuman suicide bomb attack of Haifa, I have every reason to ask a very blunt question to the so-called guardians of world peace, the American President Mr. George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair, who are still battling in Iraq to complete eliminate the devil forces of Saddam Hussain. They are the leaders who are even handling the issue of Iran's Weapon of Mass Destruction with very tough hand. The Bush-Blair duo even did not pay any attention to the decision of the United Nations when they initiated the anti-Saddam operation in Iraq. But, in the Arafat issue, I don't know why, these two leaders in particular and many of the global players are maintaining a very doubtful silence. I know at least the American administration wants to see a peaceful solution of the Middle East issue and would like to see Israel into a complete peace. But how many more dead bodies of innocent people do they exactly want before any realistic actions are taken? I read an article a few months back in some of the magazines. I don't remember the author or the magazine now. But surely still remember the content. The author wrote, "the way international leaders are wasting time in eliminating all sorts of extremist and terrorist forces in the Middle East, it is assumed that they want to establish peace in Israel without any single Jewish inhabitant. Their delay and dilly-dally would only let more and more innocent Jewish people embrace death." The comments are pretty harsh but it is all true. After the Haifa attack, once again the Bush administration issued a blanket condemnation of the terrorist attack, without what has become a routine warning to Israel to reconsider its policies against the Palestinians. The statement also called on the Palestinian Authority to immediately dismantle the terrorist organizations. The European Union, however, took a different tack from the Americans, saying: "There is an immediate need to end the violence and restore negotiations between the two sides." Actually the main obstacle to establishment of peace in the Middle East is ongoing activities of extremists and religious terrorists. These people are using Islam as a mask to justify their evil deeds. They even term their activities as "Islamic Jihad" or holy war. But as a Muslim I know for sure that in Islam there is no room for any sort of terrorism or extremism. Like many other religions, Islam too teaches the path of tolerance and religious co-existence. But it is well assumed that many of the Palestinian leaders are either ignorant on this point or they are not interested in looking into it. They are very much busy in their wild game of killing innocents and destroying the properties of civilians for no valid reason. The Haifa incident is unbearable and intolerable. As a sensible human being we can never show any sort of sympathy to the extremists, whatever religious identity they might wear. As a senior journalist in a Muslim country, I would strongly appeal to the international community to immediately do something very positive in permanently eliminating all such terrorists and their bases in the Middle East. We want to see the people in the Middle East and the People of Israel live in peace. And to ensure that, all sorts of optimum actions should be now considered by the world players. The author is a senior journalist, a political analyst and editor of the Bangladash newspaper, "Weekly Blitz" (www.weeklyblitz.com). His soon-to-be-published book "Confession" investigates the rise of radical Islam in the Muslim countries. |
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WHO STARTED THE 6-DAY WAR?
Posted by Sol Jacobs, October 14, 2003. |
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(1.) The Arab world blames all of its problems on the fact that Israel is in the West Bank and Gaza. (2.) Israel is in those areas because they won a war in 1967. (3.) The Arab world says that Israel STARTED the war and is illegally occupying Arab land, as of 6/67. We can disprove (3.) - the belief that Israel started the war. I submit two items as proof: (1.) The article on the World Net Daily website (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30617) has the facts. (2.) I have compiled and digitized a collection of news reports - source material - from BEFORE the Israeli counter attack on June 5th, 1967. They show that in fact the Arabs were the ones who started the war with many illegal acts such as closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, etc. To download the newspaper clippings as a PDF file, click here. If Israel was forced into war, and it was not an illegal land grab, it will help Israel at the bargaining table.
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NEW YORK TIMES VERSUS "SETTLEMENTS"
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 14, 2003. |
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The NY Times weighed in with its old one-two punch - a news article written like an editorial and an editorial written like a news article - against "settlements" in Yesha (Greg Myre & Steven R. Weisman, 10/3, A8). When is a settlement not a settlement? When it is an Arab settlement. The Times has a tacit arrangement that Arab settlement in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is not to be discussed, however politically motivated and illegally done, whereas Jewish settlement in those historically Jewish areas are to be denounced, however legal and proper. The news item took its allegation of Jewish settlement in Yesha from the radical pro-Arab Haaretz, the daily that it labels "liberal." Haaretz, in turn, got the figures from the radical, pro-Arab Peace Now, which lies about the issue. Peace Now estimates that annual government spending in Yesha on civilian needs was more than $500 million, and on security was more than $900 million. The estimates are stated in the Times' usual simple-minded manner. They are attributed entirely to the presence of Jews in Yesha. However, most of the $500 million would have had to be spent regardless of where those people lived. Their housing and educational costs and much of the cost of infrastructure would have been incurred in Israel, if the people located there. It is misleading, probably deliberately so, to attribute it all to settlement in Yesha. Israel's costs for maintaining the Arabs in Yesha were not stated. How much money was spent giving the Arabs health care, water purification, other utilities, colleges, etc.? If the Arabs were not given those amenities free, and were not allowed into Jewish communities to work, they would not have been able to stay there. No Arabs, no terrorism costs. That the Times does not consider. Alternatively, if Israel had destroyed terrorism by fighting harder, little of the $900 million would have been needed. Alternatively, if the Arabs didn't have targets in Yesha, would could move right up to the Green Line, the P.A. would have been attacking Israel all along the heavily populated Green Line. That would cost Israel more! Foreign Arabs would invade, if Israel didn't have the natural tank trap that Judea-Samaria form. (That is why Egypt supports Oslo/Map.) Money couldn't buy for Israel the early warning posts on the hilltops of the Judean mountains. If Israel pulled out of Yesha, and the air space over it went to the Arabs, Israeli planes hardly could turn around in the air. They would be sitting ducks to artillery on the ground. The cost of defending Israel with Yesha is but a fraction of what it would be without Yesha. Don't expect to find such frank realism in the Times. It is ideologically anti-Zionist and pursues advocacy journalism. The security wall, which I do not believe in, would not be built, if the Arabs had been induced to leave. The authors quote Arafat as calling the wall "racist." Cleve man! He has learned what epithet arouses the liberal conscience. Doesn't have to be true, just has to be uttered. Like a signal to the false anti-racists and to the true anti-Semites, they rise up against the object of the epithet, "racist." That murderous, thieving tyrant and violator of signed agreements, who has people murdered becaue they are Jews or cooperate with Jews, and whose schools teach that Jews are inherently evil, expects that when he calls the Israeli government racist for wanting to wall out the terrorists he sends against its people, civil rights activists will accept his word for it. That shows how little he respects the civil rights movement. Arafat also accuses Israel of building the wall out of a desire to end the peace process. Having launched innumerable terrorist raids on Israelis, having spnt the last few years in a war of aggression against Israel, having refused to negotiate peace, and having indoctrinated his people in unrelenting jihad, Arafat nevertheless accuses Israel of ending the "peace process." What nerve! Favoring the likes of Arafat, if no longer liking the man, himself, the US also opposes the settlement activity and the wall. The US is considering financially punitive measures against Israel, claiming that these Israeli activities impede peace. No mention is made of any financially punitive measures being considered by the US against the P.A., which refuses to make peace and has been making war. How does the US get away with calling itself a friend of Israel? The editorial complains of special subsidies and privileges for Jews in Yesha. It mentions special bypass highways, among other things. Bypass highways are not a privilege. They are a defensive measure against hostile Arab villages and drivers along the older roads. The Arab marauders deserve the complaint. Probably some subsidies are unnecessary or overdone. Some of the Times objections might be convincing, if the Times weren't so driven to oppose any subsidy for Yesha, at all. However, Israel even more than the US, is a country run by subsidy. The government owns most industry, controls most of the rest, regulates almost everything else, and subsidies almost everything. I don't recall the Times, which in this editorial takes a position of civic-mindedness against economic waste, opposing the greater wastes and subsidies of the Left. Haaretz had difficulty in digging out the figures about Yesha finances. They were mingled with related subsidies for border communities and those in the Negev Desert, "where people need to be induced to live either because of risk or limited economic opportunities. This cover-up is part of an unhappy pattern. Look at any government map of Israel, and you will find no border demarcating the occupied territories. Although Israel has never officially annexed the W. bank and Gaza Strip, it has treated them, in many ways, as if it had." Of course there is no border demarcating the Territories (which are not Occupied). Why should there be? Israel always was waiting for a peace treaty with the Arabs to set its final borders in that direction, as it did with Egypt. As if the Times doesn't know that Oslo, which it championed, and Security Council Resolutions require the parties to negotiate final boundaries! Does the Times suppose that Yesha communities are not "border communities" and mostly do not have "to be induced to live (there) either because of risk or limited economic opportunities?" That is no cover-up. The Times just is slinging mud. Not satisfied with disagreeing with Israeli policy, the Times slurs it.
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WE NEED SUCH A REBBE
Posted by Linda Olmert, October 14, 2003. |
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Chag Sameach To Everyone The airwaves (at least here in Israel) are overloaded with reports of the "courageous" former (has been) Oslo architects, along with would be failed Prime Ministerial candidate (Amram Mitzna) etc, who are busy negotiating "peace" yet again. I have a grammatical question: is the plural of "peace" pieces? Because it seems to me that if the former begs a plural, than what you get is the latter! The (dis)honorable gentlemen who seem to have concluded that they did not cause enough damage with the Oslo agreements, were voted out of power by the Israeli public in a way that leaves no doubt. How dare they take it upon themselves to negotiate against the stated policy of the democratically elected government. By continuing to act as if they are in power, as if their negotiations are worth the hot air that they generate, the sub text is that the democratic overwhelming majority of the people here are wrong and stupid! On Israeli radio yesterday, Chaim Zisovitch had the following Hasidic story as commentary:
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POLLARD'S LETTER TO ISRAELI CABINET SECRETARY YISRAEL MAIMON
Posted by Eliezar Edwards, October 14, 2003. |
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Arutz-Sheva (http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com) today published excerpts of a letter written this week by Jonathan Pollard to Israeli Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon. ...I am in receipt of your letter written on behalf of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon... You write: "At the outset, allow me to wish you a happy 49th birthday, and I hope you will celebrate your 50th birthday here in Israel, with us." Mr. Maimon, your birthday wishes to me calls to mind the Hebrew expression, "Laag LaRash," mocking someone in dire straits. The notion of a happy birthday in prison is an oxymoron; and your "hope" that I will be home for my 50th birthday, in the absence of any honest initiative on the part of the Government of Israel, is disingenuous to say the least. You continue: "I regret the fact that you feel that nothing has been done on your behalf. The opposite is true. The Prime Minister is constantly exploring ways and initiatives to bring about your sought-after release." Mr. Maimon, I am embarrassed for you. How can you lie so blatantly and not feel ashamed? My release was promised to Israel by the US as an integral part of the Wye Accords. It has been paid for many times over. Mr. Sharon, himself, is an eyewitness to the US commitment to release me and to the payments in blood Israel has made. There is only one place my release can be obtained and one person who can sign the order. That place is Washington and that person is the President of the United States, Mr. George W. Bush. Since Wye, Mr. Sharon has had no fewer than 8 formal meetings with President Bush and has never once raised the issue of my release with him. You add: "At the same time, I can understand why you would feel this way after 18 years in prison, during which time all attempts to secure your release failed." No, Mr. Maimon, you do not begin to understand how I feel or what I feel, much less what a moment in prison is like; let alone what it feels like to spend 18 years in prison, while the Government I served is not only cavalier about my plight, but also has the audacity to make light of it in insincere statements like this one. The most egregious assault on the truth is your declaration: "With regard to the petition signed by Knesset members: firstly, the Prime Minister added his signature to the petition without hesitation. Secondly, we were asked to return the petition to the Knesset members who initiated it. I assure you that we had no reservations about taking the petition and delivering it to the American administration." The only thing worse than a liar in the Prime Minister's office, is a bad liar. Mr. Maimon, did you really expect me to believe that after the MKs worked so hard to gather all the signatures in time for the Prime Minister's departure to meet with Bush, that they would then turn around and demand that he not take the signed petition with him? In point of fact, the refusal of Mr. Sharon to take the MKs petition to Washington and his unwillingness to deliver it to President Bush is a matter of record. Mr. Sharon, himself, at a recent cabinet meeting tried to justify his failure to deliver the petition by declaring, "Beggars can not make noise." Moreover, during my recent visit with 5 Knesset Members, the initiator of the petition, MK Mickey Eitan, told me he was dumbfounded when Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglass, insisted that he come and pick up the signed petition since Mr. Sharon refused to take it to Washington. I am deeply concerned about what this means for the People of Israel. If you, as the Cabinet Secretary of the Government of Israel, are prepared to falsify a matter of public record in order to cover for Prime Minister Sharon, what other facts and issues are you distorting for him that we, the public, do not yet know about? Your letter continues, "I would furthermore like to emphasize that at meetings held during the Prime Minister's recent visit to Washington, he raised the issue of your release from prison." Indeed, Mr. Maimon! Who did he raise it with? The attendant in the men's room at the White House? Colin Powell's valet? Condoleeza Rice's aide? Obviously, Mr. Maimon, Mr. Sharon's bringing up my name in Washington, with anyone other than the President of the United States, is of no consequence. We have first-hand reports from well-placed and reliable sources that Mr. Sharon has never once brought up my name or the issue of my release in any of his many meetings with President Bush. ...As long as I continue to languish in prison, and my wife and I continue to fight for my release without any support or assistance, legally, financially, medically and morally, from the Government of Israel, then it really makes no difference how much you and Mr. Sharon claim that you doing, no one is fooled. It is not possible to work so hard, for so many years, and to accomplish absolutely nothing. ...I do truly wish that for just one moment you could see yourself through my eyes, that you could read the letter that you wrote to me in my 18th year of incarceration on behalf of the State of Israel and see it through my eyes. May G-d and the People of Israel forgive you and Mr. Sharon.
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DOES THE P.A. PUBLIC SUPPORT TERRORISM?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 13, 2003. |
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Some Israelis wonder whether only Arafat favors the terrorism. They hope so, because if he were removed, then there could be peace. How do they find out? By "... conversations with politically savvy Palestinian (P.A.) spokesmen who know how to 'talk the talk' with reporters and others in their quest to give the impression that peace is just an Israeli concession away" (like the carrot dangled by the teamster in front of his galloping mules). Polls of the Arabs tell a different story. Most Arabs, 70%, realize how bad their economy has become, and know that the P.A. cannot get them many jobs in Israel (while fighting). 58% know they cannot attain prosperity without peace. Contrary to what their propagandists assert, an even higher majority, 77%, nevertheless do not believe that their violence has harmed their interests. (There is some apparent contradiction here. I interpret it as their ranking jihad higher than finances.) Someone was quoted on the radio as saying that "the Palestinian people deserve better than what their leaders have gotten for them." Do they? In what way are they different from their leaders? Do they agree that the Jews are the enemy and Israel the object of future conquest? Yes. Do they approve of their leaders? barbarism towards the enemy? Yes. Do they emigrate so as not to be taught ignorance, bigotry, and fanaticism in P.a. schools? No. For that matter, do masses of Muslims all over the world refuse to send their children to madrassas teaching little but jihad and religion? The P.A. spokesmen tell Western reporters that the Arabs would reward Israel's lifting of security measures by ending their violence against Israel. Only 23% of their people agree. 55% want suicide bombings inside the State of Israel to continue even then, when Israel would have shown (more) goodwill (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 10/3). During the Gulf War I, Kuwait indicated that it would recognize Israel. Once saved from Saddam, however, Kuwait dropped such talk (Dr. Joseph Lerner, IMRA, 10/03). The Arabs offer inducements when in need, and retract them when not. As they say, "Kiss the hand of the enemy, until one can bite it off." Westerners ought to study how the Arabs behave and what they believe, before devising policy towards them. The West is going by ignorant assumptions. There is no such thing as Arab goodwill. Fanatics don't gain affection for enemies.
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THIS IS THE WAY IT REALLY IS
Posted by Mike Levine, October 13, 2003. |
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Shalom, Like you I'm an American. Like you I spent most of my life as a liberal. Unlike you I have lived in Israel for 18 years. I'm a journalist, writing mainly about the Middle (muddle) East, and I watch in consternation as some of my fellow American Jews completely misread, misunderstand, and deny the truth of what is happening here. In your rush to defend and support the people you perceive as the 'underdogs', something Jews have been famous for since time immemorial, you purposely choose to overlook the facts on the ground here. Legally there is no 'occupation.' According to International Law the disputed land belongs to no one as a national entity. Individual pieces of land may be owned by a family (many of whom have no documents to support their claims). This entire area, known as West Bank and Gaza were won in a defensive war, and until and unless a final treaty is negotiated, Israel has every legal right to administer these areas. Unfortunately, the Arabs have done a superb job of re-writing any history or law they find inconvenient, and people like you, eager to be seen as the fair-minded have bought their propaganda lock, stock, and barrel. These same areas were 'occupied' in the very same way by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967 yet that cursed word was never used by anyone, and not a peep was heard from people like you. The PLO came into being fully three years before 1967 for the stated purpose of destroying Israel, not creating a state, not even mentioning any 'occupation.' Their charter, from that day until this, calls for the elimination of the Jewish state, and while their tactics have changed, their goals have not. Why are you totally deaf to all the speeches made by Arafat and his gang in Arabic? Why don't you believe him? No one wanted to believe Hitler either when he promised to eradicate the Jews from the face of the earth. Like you, the German Jews denied this truth, and the majority paid for this blindness with their skins! Perhaps I could support your efforts if I saw that the great majority of Palestinians were against terror, against homicide/suicide bombings of innocents, against the murder of babies sitting in their high chairs in their homes or sleeping in their carriages. Unfortunately, the exact opposite is true. Each and every survey that has been taken by dozens of different organizations on both sides of the issues results in the same count. Somewhere between 70 and 80% of all Palestinians support fully all the terrorist tactics including homicide bombings of buses, cafes, discos, etc. Sure there are some Palestinians who decry such horrific deeds, but not only are they a tragic minority, they are afraid to raise their voices, to demonstrate in the streets. Why? Because the label of collaborator is a Certificate of Certain Death. Peace Now and the like are able to freely express their opposition to Israeli policies, as are you, but you will not find the equivalent on the other side. I have ongoing dialogue with many educated, caring Palestinians who simply don't know how to change the reality, which is that the power structure--the PLO--and Arafat are running the show and will not tolerate a whiff of dissent. You, and the other well-meaning but totally biased Jews, are providing great help to the murderers of our babies, helping to legitimize them in the eyes of the world. What should a non-Jew think when he sees that educated American Jews don't care enough of their own brethren to dig deep for the true facts, preferring to give succor to the worst enemy our people has faced since Hitler, an enemy that stalks us relentlessly day and night in order to murder us because we are Jews. An enemy who has turned down every offer of settlement we have ever made, including the one made by Ehud Barak and Clinton which put on a platter almost everything they asked for. Instead of a counter offer, we got a heated up war! I invite any one of you to spend three months or more in my home, no charge, to see first-hand the reality on the ground. Then, and only then, will you begin to be qualified to state your opposition to the policies (which are, of course, not perfect) of a nation trying every way it knows to prevent it's citizens being slaughtered, while it searches a way to settle the issues, finding no cooperating partner on the other side. It is high time for you to open your eyes. Mike Levine lives in Kibbutz Bahan in Israel. This was written to American liberals. |
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UNRWA SAYS IT WILL SLASH AID TO PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
Posted by Lisa Rubin, October 13, 2003. |
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I read the headline in the Jerusalem Times, the independent Palestinian weekly: "UNRWA says it will slash aid to Palestinian refugees" I thought for a moment that the UN/UNRWA had come to their senses. So I wrote UNRWA a letter: I am very happy to learn that you are cutting back your activities in Israel. My research has proven that there is a direct, linear and positive correlation between money given to the "Palestinians" and increased death, murder, mayhem and terrorism against human beings. In fact, the relationship is so strong that it appears to be a causal factor, i.e. that the money given to the "Palestinians" is actually and directly causing the murder and terrorism. As it turned out, the Jerusalem Times added, "[UNRWA] would have to slash its assistance because donors were not providing the necessary funds. Speaking at a meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, UNRWA's Commissioner-General Peter Hansen said that the lack of response by donors to the emergency appeal the agency made earlier in the year will mean not meeting even half of the refugee's needs. One would have thought that UNRWA or, for that matter, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, would by now have been forced to investigate the implications of aid money furthering terrorism, and understood the reason for the need to slash aid, and most important dismantle the terrorist camps within UNRWA camps. Under the UN charter, NO refugee camp is allowed to serve for military, or worse, terrorist bases - training camps and factions, harboring weapons and terrorists.
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ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO RETALIATE
Posted by Eliezar Edwards, October 13, 2003. |
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This was the Leader on the British publication "The Spectator" (http://www.spectator.co.uk) two days ago. It is pro-Israel! It is a straightforward support of Israel's right to bomb Syria in self defense. No country can be expected to sit idly by while its citizens are slaughtered by suicidal fanatics, as those of Israel are. Moreover, virtually by definition, the fanatics themselves cannot be deterred, since they court death rather than fear it. It follows that only the sponsors of the fanatics can be deterred, for they are usually rather more attached to their own lives than the people they send into so-called battle. Martyrdom is for others, not for them. The European condemnation of Israel for its air raid on Syria in response to the latest suicide-bomb attack in Haifa is therefore unreasonable, unrealistic and offensive in its tone of moral superiority, which is so easy to assume from a safe distance. Israel, like other states, has the right of retaliation, provided it chooses the right targets. Israel's intelligence about the region is generally a great deal better and more accurate than that of most Western states, because, among other reasons, good intelligence is a matter of life and death for it, and it is concentrated on one subject alone. Nothing concentrates the mind like a threat to survival. Syria can hardly play the role of the injured innocent. It has supported groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad for many years, indeed decades. It proves its innocence of the attacks on American soldiers in Iraq by stating that the people of Iraq are quite capable themselves of resisting foreign occupation, and do not need Syrian assistance. Its protestations of a change of heart with regard to terrorism and promises of good behaviour are not to be taken at face value. Not only does Syria have a long history of deception, but the collapse of its former sponsor and patron, the Soviet Union, from which it obtained most of its arms, has left it militarily weak and vulnerable vis-a-vis Israel: and deception and double-dealing are the natural responses of the weak but belligerent. Of course, Israel's own dealings are not without reproach. It is distinctly two-faced about the settlements, on the one hand accepting that they will have to be given up in return for peace, and on the other allowing them to continue to be built. This will have to change. But there is an intrinsic asymmetry between Israel and the Arab states that confront it, and therefore a great moral difference: while Israel is fighting for its very survival, the Arab states are not. At most, regimes of little legitimacy, such as Syria's, are manoeuvring to obtain prestige in the eyes of their own citizens and of the world at large by enmity towards Israel. Nor can the Syrian government plead impotence with regard to the terrorist organisations. The Syrian regime, let it be remembered, has been quite capable for many years of suppressing internal opposition to itself with the utmost brutality, ruthlessness and efficacy, as the citizens of the city of Hama will attest. Thousands of their fellow citizens were slaughtered by the current president's papa. What would the Europeans have the Israelis do when they are subjected to suicide bombers? Turn the other cheek? Almost everyone agrees that Israel will have to make concessions if peace is ever to return to the region. But concessions alone are not enough. The aim of the fanatics is the extinction of Israel, not an accommodation with it. Israeli concessions must therefore be viewed as a necessary but not sufficient condition of the peace: the other necessary condition is that Syria and other Arab states do what it is well within their power to do, namely dismantle and interdict rather than support the terrorist networks. Unfortunately, they are not willing to do this out of sheer good will. This is because the good will simply does not exist. The sponsors of terrorists need another motive, and only Israeli military power can provide such a motive. For it is only when it is made clear that Syria has more, indeed very much more, to lose than to gain from supporting terrorist groups that it will give up doing so. Which should come first, Israeli concessions or Syrian dismantlement of terrorist networks? Israel is in the position of a fiancee who has been beaten by her husband-to-be. It is wiser for such a woman to demand a change in her would-be husband's behaviour before marriage, rather than hope that he will change once she is married to him. Mere promises of reform in such circumstances are rarely kept, and are not to be believed. Israel is quite right, therefore, to retaliate militarily against Syria before offering concessions. It has previously attacked the monkey; now it is time to attack the organ-grinder. The right of states to pre-emption against those who use surrogates to attack them is well recognised, and natural justice demands it. Israeli policy may not have been adroit in the past decade, and its present prime minister is not a man easy to like. But this should not blind us to the fact that for decades much Arab rhetoric has insisted on the destruction of the state of Israel and that countries such as Syria have in practice supported terrorist groups bent on that end. It is this reality that must change.
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THE FENCE
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, October 13, 2003. |
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This article was written by Tashbih Sayyed, who is editor-in-chief of "Pakistan Today" (http://www.paktodaycom). It appeared today on "Israel Insider" (http://www.israelinsider.com). It deserves wide circulation. Evidently the homicide bombing at Maxim restaurant in Haifa that killed 19 more innocent civilians is not going to mute criticism of the security fence. The critics know that the fence is the only option left for Israel to secure itself, but in their crooked wisdom, they think that angering Arabs is not profitable. The world is aware that Israel's efforts to establish peace in the region are religiously frustrated by terrorist groups. But they do not find the courage to challenge the Arab world's blatant backing of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah. And the U.S., Europe and Russia blinded by their geo-political strategic expediencies, refuse to see the dangers of appeasing a radical mind. Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement that the U.S. administration is unhappy about the route of the security fence displays very clearly this shortsighted mentality. Arabs too, will not realize that the death and destruction unleashed on the peaceful Israelis by their "holy warriors" is killing their chances of ever living in peace. I agree with the view, "Feelings of frustration and rage that grip the heart after a terror attack like in Haifa's Maxim restaurant, push aside individual and public powers of reasoning. They lead to a demoralizing conclusion that Israel lacks a Palestinian partner for any resumed peace process, and so it has no choice other than to live by the sword." I have experienced the truth behind this logic many a time. Every time a homicide bomber strikes in Israel, the Arabs in Palestine lose some more support. Every act of terror adds to the list of those who are convinced that so long as Islamist Arabs exist on the historical Palestine land, peace will continue to delude. With every act of barbarism, the view that Muslim Arabs have to be evacuated from Palestine continues to gain currency. Arab radicalism is hurting the cause of Islam too. There is a growing concern in the Muslim world that the Muslim Arabs should not be permitted to hold Islam hostage. They should be forced to rein in their leaders. Radical Islam's hatred for freedoms and civilized values is destroying the image of Muslims everywhere. Muslims want to do something about it. They do not want to remain silent any more. "Just because Islam was born in Arabia, should not be enough to give the Islamists the right to corrupt the message of peace into an evil ideology - Wahhabism," they say. A need is being felt for a fence in the Muslim world too. Muslims also need to erect a fence to emphasize a division between Islam and radical Islamism. Some times a fence becomes the only choice between life and death. China built the wall to keep the barbarians out. Citizens in the big U.S. cities build walls around their houses and install iron and steel grills on their windows to secure their loved ones. Israel too has a right to defend itself by constructing the fence. If there was any doubt, the Haifa bombing should remove it. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, asserting that it was in response to the Israeli government's decision to go ahead with the construction of the security fence. They know perfectly well that it is not Israel but their homicide bombers who have forced Israel to build the fence. Casting terrorism as an Islamic act is criminal. It is the duty of the Muslim Arabs to stand up and condemn the terrorists if they need to be seen as Muslims. Remember, Islam allows neither suicides nor homicide bombings. These Islamic Jihadists, Hamas terrorists and Hizbullah assassins live among them. People know them and recognize them. Their failure to discourage them is a proof that they do not understand Islam. This silence of the "faithful" explains the paramount need for a division between the terrorists and the citizens of Israel. This silence is damaging the interests of the true Muslims. The silence of the "faithful" and the political correctness of the world are complicating an already difficult situation. Israel's experience with the world should be enough to convince any one that the Jewish state stands alone. It has come to realize that the problem is not "occupation" or settlements or the fence. It is much more. That's why Arabs in Palestine did not accept Ehud Barak's generous offer for a peace agreement. Under this offer Israel would have conceded most or all of the land it conquered in 1967. Yasser Arafat rejected it because it did not contain any hope for the total destruction of the Jewish state. Similarly, if the international community was really sincere in establishing peace in the region it would not have insisted on being even handed. It would have demanded of the Arabs to relinquish their policy of seeking the total annihilation of Jewish people. The Haifa bombing has re-enforced the belief that concrete actions are a must to eliminate the daily threats to the lives of the innocent. But any action in this regard has to be very well planned and well thought out. The policy makers in Israel should be aware that Yasser Arafat's removal and the destruction of the terrorist power bases in Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia will definitely force the remnants of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah to unleash the full force of their terror in a last bid to regain control. Other criminals will also try to take advantage of the vacuum created by the removal of the terrorists as it is happening in Iraq. Israel should be prepared not only to deal with all the hell that will break loose but should also be ready to handle the post terror environment. Clouds that thunder do not rain. The premature announcement of Israeli leaders of their decision in principle to get rid of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, did not help the cause of Israelis. It helped the terrorists to build a defensive wall around Arafat. Many analysts who agreed with the principal of getting rid of the terrorist, could not agree with the wisdom of making the decision public. If terror has to be eradicated, it will be wise not to run around screaming of the plan. Just do it. The results will not only inform the politically correct but will also silence them. Israel can begin the process by seeking support of the new Arab government in Palestine headed by Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) in achieving this final solution. Abu Ala's response will go a long way in determining whether the civilized world can trust him or not. The Bush administration should also be asked to demonstrate by its actions, conclusively, that it really understands the real nature of terrorism. If the barbaric hijackers who attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 were terrorists, then the animals who are killing the innocent Israelis are also terrorists. Terrorism is terrorism - a scourge that threatens our civilization anywhere and everywhere. President Bush will have to show the same focus and determination in dealing with the Arab terror in Palestine as he displayed in the immediate aftermath of black Tuesday. For the U.S. president, who divided this world so passionately into two camps - either you are with us or with the terrorists, to call Israel's security barrier a "problem," smacks of hypocrisy. And the White House's suggestion, that the administration "would not rule out" subtracting the money Israel spends on the barrier from its $9 billion loan package, reeks of a double standard. At the end of the day, I'm sure, Israel will have to fight her war alone. For the nations who stood in silence as Adolf Hitler continued with the Holocaust are once again showing their real colors by preaching to treat her at par with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Once again, the humanity is reminded of the fact that the powers that are in the business of seeking gains by appeasing terror are not going to change. They will try their utmost to remain on the right side of Arab powers. Israel should not ignore the fact that anti-Semitism is still alive and kicking. The post Nazi Europe has not been able to shed its anti-Semitism totally. Islamist anti-Semitism finds a very important and critical ally in the post Nazi Europe and a post Stalinist Russia. Let's face the truth: If Israel has to survive, it has to act alone. That's why its decision to go after the terrorist camps in Syria was not only justified but necessary. The world has to know that if nobody else is ready to stand up and challenge the scourge of terror, Israel will.
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MILITANT ISLAM REACHES AMERICA
Posted by Yashiko Sagamori, October 12, 2003. |
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The paperback edition of Daniel Pipes' book, "Militant Islam Reaches America" (W.W.Norton, 2003), has new material. This is the epilogue, "Epilogue: World War IV?" Is the "war on terror" really World War IV? That's what the American strategist Eliot Cohen argues[1] and the term is apt.[2] It captures two points: that the cold war was in fact World War III and that the war on terror is as global, as varied, and as important as prior world wars. Militant Islam distinguishes itself from any other contemporary political movement in the magnitude of its ambitions, seeking not just to influence the adherents of one religion or control one region. Rather, it aspires to unlimited and universal power. Only Islamists have the temerity to challenge the liberal world order in a cosmic battle over the future course of the human experience. This translates into a worldwide battlefield. Of course, a war in which so much is at stake cannot be about mere terrorism, and Cohen notes that "The enemy in this war is not 'terrorism,' but militant Islam." As in world wars II and III, the ultimate enemy is a cohort of powerful ideas that can cause some of the most competent members of society to dedicate themselves to a vision and go so far as willingly sacrifice their lives to speed its attainment. The U.S. government, though usually reluctant to make this point, does allude to it on occasion, as when President George W. Bush states that the enemy is "a fringe form of Islamic extremism"[3] and a "new totalitarian threat."[4] Terrorism, in other words, is just one dimension of a war that has many fronts and takes many forms. Violence is an important symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Other methods might include acts of violence by loners, smuggling, rioting, lawful street demonstrations, raising money, teaching, proselytizing, intimidating, and even running for elected office. These methods complement each other, constituting the sophistication and reach of militant Islam. The battleground includes Muslim-majority countries as well as countries like Argentina where Islam is a minor presence. Militant Islam's varied and persistent offensive is often missed in the focus on Al-Qaeda and other well-developed networks. A look at the daily rhythm of the war makes this clear. Here are some top-of-the-news stories from a random two-week period in late 2002; note that Al-Qaeda-style terrorism makes up just a portion of the general assault: * November 20, Saudi Arabia: An Islamist burns down a McDonald's near Riyadh. * November 20, Nigeria: Muslims rampage in the north, shout "God is great," and attack Christians,[5] leading to 215 deaths, after a Nigerian fashion writer named Isioma Daniel comments on a planned beauty pageant in Nigeria that the Prophet Muhammad "would probably have chosen a wife from among [the contestants]."[6] * November 21, Kuwait: A policeman in a patrol car flags down two American soldiers driving along a desert highway, ostensibly for speeding, then shoots and seriously injures them. * November 21, Lebanon: An Islamist murders an American nurse and missionary, Bonnie Penner, as she opens her clinic for the day. * November 21, Indonesia: Imam Samudra, the self-acknowledged organizer of the Bali attack on October 12 that killed more than 180 people, is seized. * November 21, Israel: A Palestinian Islamist suicide bombs an Israeli bus, killing eleven and injuring dozens. * November 22, France: Police arrest five Islamists, including Redouane Daoud (who escaped from a Dutch detention center in June), and accused them of providing logistical support to Islamists engaged in jihad. * November 24, India: Islamists attack a Hindu temple in Jammu and Kashmir, killing at least twelve people and injuring fifty. * November 24, Pakistan: Security forces arrest three men attempting to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan in a truck carrying hundreds of mortar rounds and antitank rockets hidden under bags of dry fruit. * November 24, Jordan: Islamist rioting in Maan leads to one death and several wounded. * November 25, Nigeria: Mahamoud Shinkafi, the deputy governor of one Nigerian state, announces that "the blood of Isioma Daniel [the fashion writer] can be shed."[7] * November 26, Hong Kong: Three Islamists of South Asian origin appear in court for extradition hearings on charges they sold drugs to raise money to buy missiles for Al-Qaeda. * November 26, Malaysia: Authorities arrest three suspected members of the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiyah, accusing them of planning suicide missions against Western embassies in Singapore. * November 26, United Arab Emirates: A customs officer fires on a U.S. military helicopter but misses. * November 26, France: Prosecutors place five men of Algerian origin under investigation for "criminal association with a terrorist group" connected to shoe bomber Richard C. Reid. * November 27, United States: Prosecutors accuse Jesse Maali in Orlando, Florida, of having financial ties to Middle Eastern organizations that advocate violence. * November 28, Turkey: Parliament approves a government formed by the Justice and Development Party, a watered-down Islamist party. * November 28, Kenya: Islamist suicide bombers kill three Israelis and ten Kenyans in an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa; also, two missiles just miss a commercial Israeli airliner with 271 on board on takeoff from Mombasa. * November 28, Belgium: Police arrest Dyab Abou Jahjah, head of the Arab European League, an Islamist group, on grounds he incited two days of Muslim rioting in Antwerp. * November 29, Pakistan: A pro-Taliban Islamist wins the elections and takes charge in a key province. * November 30, India: In a surge of violence in Kashmir, Islamists kill ten and wound more than twenty in four separate incidents. * December 2, Holland: Four Islamists believed linked to Al-Qaeda go on trial in Rotterdam, charged with planning attacks on U.S. targets in Europe, including the embassy in Paris. * December 3, Germany: A Berlin court case reveals that an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that led the September 11 attacks had the business card of a Saudi diplomat based in Berlin. * December 3, United Kingdom: British authorities in Manchester arrest Hassan Butt, who had claimed to have recruited some two hundred British Muslims to fight for the Taliban. * December 3, Germany: Aeroubi Beandalis, one of four Algerians accused of plotting to blow up a French Christmas market in 2000, admitted to a court in Frankfurt that he was intending to turn pressure cookers into bombs. This range of activities implies that an effective defense cannot be limited to disrupting networks of violence. The forces must include anti-Islamist Muslims as well as non-Muslims, intellectuals as well as special forces, teachers as well as police officers, filmmakers as well as forensic accountants. World War IV, in short, involves many fronts and requires a strategy that looks far beyond counterterrorism. The sooner we understand this, the faster we can win. FOOTNOTES: [1] Eliot A. Cohen, "World War IV," The Wall Street Journal, 20
November 2001.
Daniel Pipes is an expert on the Middle East and Islamic culture. He is a journalist and Director of the Middle East Forum. To see the Daniel Pipes archive, go to http://www.danielpipes.org/ |
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PROMOTING WOMEN TERRORIST
Posted by Itamar Marcus, October 12, 2003. |
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[Last week 19 Israelis were killed by a woman Palestinian suicide terrorist. While the media repeatedly expresses surprise at Palestinian women as suicide bombers, PMW has been documenting how the PA has regularly targeted woman in its promotion and glorification of suicide terrorism. In the following OP-ED published in Friday's Jerusalem Post, PMW director Itamar Marcus traces the history of the PA promotion of woman suicide terrorists.] Observing a society's heroes offers insight into its nature and values. It is therefore distressing to observe how the Palestinian Authority transforms those who kill Jews, including women terrorists, into its heroes and role models, especially for children. Immediately after the first suicide bombing by a woman, Wafa Idris, on January 27, 2002, the PA undertook a very public campaign of indoctrination of its women to see themselves as potential suicide bombers. Female suicide bomber Hanady Jaradat, who murdered 19 last week, is a product of this indoctrination. After the Idris bombing, the official PA structures immediately turned Idris into a heroine and her murder into an act to be emulated. Within days, the PA held a demonstration in her honor with young girls carrying posters with Idris's picture, and the words: "The Fatah Movement... eulogize with great pride the heroic Martyr Wafa Idris." [Al-Ayyam, February 1, 2002]. Articles by women appeared within days throughout the PA media: "Raviha Diyav, of the Palestinian Women Union emphasized that the participation of Idris in the attack shows the determination of the Palestinian women to participate as full partners in the national struggle, alongside her brothers." (Al-Ayyam, February 1, 2002) The PA, seeing that women could more easily get by Israeli security, immediately created a framework for women's terrorist activity: "The purpose of this brigade is to carry out attacks on the Israeli home front. The troop has been named the brigade in honor of the Martyr Wafa Idris." (Al-Quds, March 1, 2002) PA-controlled Palestinian Television immediately joined the promotion. It started broadcasting a musical video clip starring a woman singing to background scenes of extreme violence, who is suddenly transformed from a mere singer into a warrior wearing an army uniform singing of her desire to fall as a Martyr: "You will not be saved, Oh Zionist, from the volcano of my land's stones, I will even willingly fall as a Martyr." (PA TV March 10, 2002) A concert honoring Idris has been broadcast repeatedly, as recently as July 24 this past summer, as a constant reminder - Wafa is the Palestinian heroine: "My sister Wafa... you chose Martyrdom, in death you have brought life to our will." All this promotion led to a string of mostly unsuccessful suicide bombings by women and eventually to the bombing in Jerusalem by Ayat al-Akhras, a 17-year-old girl, whose victims included a teenage girl. The PA then turned these two successful killers into symbols for girls. PA summer camps for girls were named for Idris and Akhras, both last year and this year. This is particularity disturbing as it is natural for children to see another teenager being honored as a role model. Idris has become so popular that even non-terror items appear now in her name: "The Shabiba student movement, 'the Martyr Wafa Idris cell' in the Al-Quds Open University, celebrated the completion of a course in democracy and human rights." (Al-Hayat al-Jadida, August 11, 2002) It is important to note that just as the PA condemned last week's suicide bombing by Hanady Jaradat, it condemned Idris's attack in English while turning her into a heroine in Arabic: "The Palestinian leadership, on Sunday strongly condemned the suicide attack which took place in west Jerusalem..." (WAFA January 27, 2002) Sadly, this campaign to turn female suicide bombers into role models is succeeding. In an interview after the first two suicide bombings by women, young girls on TV debated not the willingness to commit such atrocities but only the age at which it should be done: [19-year-old] Sabrine: "It's true that we're sad about children who have died, but at the same time we must be happy because the Shahids go to paradise. Ayat al-Akhras was 17 when she blew herself up. A girl of 17 is fully aware."
Based on past PA actions, and not its empty condemnations, terrorist and murderer Hanady Jaradat will join the ranks of Idris and Akhras, and become a part of the PA lexicon of killers to be honored, adored and emulated. She will become a new role model for young Walla and Sabrine. And we will soon be hearing about the Hanady Jaradat summer camp for girls, and the new Hanady Jaradat course in democracy and human rights.
Itamar Marcus is Director of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), whose
website address is
http://www.pmw.org.il
This article appeared as a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed, October 9, 2003.
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THE DARK AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, October 12, 2003. |
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Israel has just completed another weapons-tunnel discovery operation on the Rafah border. 'Operation Root Canal' was pretty routine stuff and there were Palestinian casualties. Arafat's spokesperson (I hear the Chairman isn't feeling too well) called the operation a "war crime and a human tragedy." The UN's Kofi Annan didn't mince words either, saying that Israel's "disproportionate use of force in densely populated areas is not compatible with international humanitarian law." But I do have a few questions: By now, we've all heard about the complex system of tunnels that the Palestinians have developed in order to smuggle sophisticated weaponry into Gaza. But why is it that the media rarely speaks about the origins of these tunnels? Do they simply sprout out of nowhere? This is the land of miracles and wonders, but somehow I doubt that these tunnels are spontaneously generated and spew forth AK-47 assault rifles at will. This leaves us with the following feasible options: a) The tunnels and the factories producing the weapons have their origins in Hell. Good Morning, Israel-open your eyes. And you thought Egypt was the land of de nile. That's right, under the watchful eye and dare I say encouragement of the Egyptian authorities, massive amounts of sophisticated weaponry is making its way into the hands of the PA, Hamas Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, Fatah, the Popular Front and every other Palestinian over age of three (including both male and female law, engineering and medical students). If you're cerebral, wheels are already spitting out rationalizations like, 'well... hey, anybody can quietly dig a tunnel under an Egyptian home in the darkness of the night.' Please be aware that these tunnels are not being dug with tablespoons or even the very best shovels that Home Center has to offer. These subterranean passages are dug with sophisticated machinery (the kind that make lots of noise) and the very best in engineering know-how. They have an elaborate support system, elevators, electricity, communications systems and even wood-paneling (you didn't know that those guys behind the masks have a taste for the aesthetic). Perhaps there was a small clause in the 1978 Egyptian-Israeli Camp David Peace Accords that permits Egypt to slowly bleed us via the border at Rafah. Maybe Israel prefers to play-down the Egyptian origins for fear of further endangering the life of Israeli citizen Azzam Azzam, who continues to languish in an Egyptian prison (never mind the lives of every man, women and child in Israel). I don't know - there's so much we don't know. But what I do know is that these passages are indeed another mind-boggling and horrifying wonder, produced exclusively in the Middle East. Tunnels that are dark at both ends. Ellen Horowitz lives on the Golan Heights with her husband and six children. She is a painter, writer and co-founder of helpingisrael.com. She can be contacted through her website http://www.artfromzion.com |
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IT DEPENDS ON WHOSE OX IS BEING GORED
Posted by Ted Belman, October 12, 2003. |
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Pat Robertson interviewed Joel Mowbray on the publication of his book "Dangerous Diplomacy." Pat Robertson: I read your book. When you get through, you say, "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer." I mean, you get through this, and you say, "We've got to blow that thing up." I mean, is it as bad as you say? The State Department reacted. Spokesman Richard Boucher called the remarks -- which Robertson made last week on his nationally televised "700 Club" program -- "despicable" and a senior department official said a protest had been made "at the highest level." In the obvious attempt to discredit Pat Robertson, State and the media attributed the quote to him and not to Mowbray. This is bad enough but my attention was elsewhere. Look at the reaction of State and the strong language. Whatever happened to free speech and the market place of ideas. I couldn't help but smile when I read the remark "That's not the way one expresses an opinion in Washington." But still, my attention was elsewhere. The Nazis vilified and dehumanized the Jews as a matter of state policy and strategy and the holocaust followed. The world was horrified at what the Nazis did, but after the fact. I used to take comfort that the world would never again allow that to happen. Silly me. The Arab governments, as a matter of state policy and strategy vilify and dehumanize the Jews and Israel day in and day out with language as bad and as outrageous as that used by the Nazis. They are even calling for the death of the Jews openly. The Nazis used to obscure their final solution for fear of world opinion. The Arabs have no such concern. And the world does nothing, says nothing, demands nothing. Rather they join cause with the Arabs with more genteel language. President Bush just this weekend is playing host at his ranch to Prince Bandar the Saudi Ambassador. He might just as well be entertaining Goebbels. We choose not to associate with skinheads because of what they represent. No such scruples when it comes the Arabs. One cannot help but to contrast the over reaction by State to a remark that was intended to be figurative with respect to them and the under reaction or non reaction by State and the world to the Arab's vile, anti-Semitic outpourings which are intended literally. I guess it depends on whose ox is being gored. Ted Belman is a major contributors to Israpundit (http://israpundit.com), a website that provides pro-Israel news and essays. This essay appeared on Israpundit. |
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SAUDI ARABIA, AMERICA'S GOOD FRIEND
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 12, 2003. |
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No doubt following the principle that what is good for General Dynamics is good for the USA (State Department), the pinstripes at State and busy turning night into day and savage persecution of anything or anyone not within the Wahhabi, Islamic death cult into enlightened tolerance. The desert savages of Saudi Arabia are the epicenter and financial heart of the Islamic effort to conquer the world. Yet the American State Department sees it in the interest of the people of the United States to actively support the Saudi bandit tribe. After all a good, tailor made, pinstripe suite costs a few pennies. This was an Independent Media Review Analysis digest yesterday. WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The Bush administration has made what officials termed a last-ditch effort to keep Saudi Arabia off a list of leading religious rights violators, a move that could prompt an arms embargo on the kingdom. A senior State Department official was sent to Riyad earlier this week to discuss a draft of a report that detailed major Saudi violations of religious rights. The State Department envoy was said to have sought assurances from the Saudi government that it would change its policy. The State Department was to have relayed its annual International Religious Freedom Report to Congress by Sept. 30. The report was meant to have addressed demands by a panel mandated by Congress to deem Saudi Arabia as a "country of particular concern," a term reserved for a leading violator of religious freedom. Officials now said the State Department report will be delayed until at least mid-November. They cited difficulties in obtaining information as well as bureaucratic delays.
Aryeh Zelasko made aliyah in 1977 and live in Beitar Illit, which is
south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel
Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an
internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel.
The Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA) provides news, polls and
analyses of the Arab media. IMRA's web address is http://www.imra.org.il
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EGYPT'S TREACHEROUS ROLE
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 12, 2003. |
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By now, the world is well aware that Palestinian terrorist groups are not just homegrown but actively nurtured, supported and supplied by Iran, Syria and Lebanon. But it's puzzling why the United States and Israel don't take a stronger stand in identifying a fourth member of this anti-Israel "axis of evil" -- Egypt. The reason for Israel's latest raid into populated areas of the Gaza Strip is that terrorist groups are getting increasing numbers of more lethal weapons smuggled through tunnels acrosss the Egyptian border ("8 Dead as Israelis Sweep Refugee Camp," Washington Post, Oct. 11). Israelis rightly blame the Palestinian Authority for not putting a halt to this activity. But that's only part of the picture. If Egypt were to effectively crack down on smuggling from its side of the border, there would be no need for military measures that put both Israelis and Palestinians at risk. Before 9/11, Saudi support of terrorism was glossed over at a tragic cost in thousands of lives. It is past time that President Hosni Mubarak be held accountable for permitting a terrorism-supply chain to operate with impunity on Egyptian soil. Instead of condemning Israel for acting in self-defense, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan might do better to propose a censure resolution against Egypt, without whose connivance Israeli military incursions wouldn't be necessary in the first place.
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DE-FENCE, OF-FENSE AND THAT FENCE
Jinsa Report #366, October 12, 2003. |
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The Bush Administration this week signaled its acceptance of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which then passed out of the House International Affairs Committee on a 33-2 vote. And, with more than 270 co-sponsors in the House and about 75 in the Senate, final passage seems assured. The Act bans the export to Syria of weapons and items that can be used in weapons programs. It also has a Chinese menu of sanctions, requiring the President to choose two among: banning all US exports to Syria except food and medicine; banning US business investment; restricting the travel of Syrian diplomats in the US; banning Syrian owned or controlled aircraft from landing in the US; reducing diplomatic contact; or freezing Syrian assets in the US. Any or all of which is fine with us. The point, of course, is to ratchet up non-military pressure on the Syrian government to "encourage" it to terminate support for terrorists and terrorism. The US doesn't want to take military action to force a change in Syrian policy or a change in the Syrian government. The clear implication, however, is that if the mandatory and first two selected sanctions don't work, more will be added and if that doesn't work, the military option remains. All of which is fine with us as well. But how is it that the US can use a series of tightening screws against Syria, but Israel can't use a series of tightening screws against the Palestinian Authority? How is it that a "senior Administration spokesman" can say of Israel's raid into Syria, "We have repeatedly told the government of Syria that it is on the wrong side of the war on terror and that it must stop harboring terrorists," but Secretary Powell is still going on about that fence? Why is the Syrian government fair game, but the Palestinian Authority protected by an administration that appears to still believe the PA can be the vehicle for the expression of democratic nationhood by the Palestinian people? Not to minimize the destructive tendencies of Syria, but if anyone is front-runner for the vacant spot in the Axis of Evil, it's Arafat's PA. Behind the cloak of governmental legitimacy, the PA hosts and cooperates with Hamas and Islamic Jihad; has turned refugee camps into bomb factories and young people into bomb delivery systems; operates a vicious propaganda machine designed to dehumanize and delegitimize Jews; produced a cult glorifying blood, death and destruction; and, no less than Saddam did to Iraq, has destroyed any hope of a vibrant Palestinian civic culture under its cudgel. The PA was established to implement the Oslo Accords. It not only failed, but also set in motion the ruination of the Palestinian people and hopes for a modus vivendi with a secure and legitimate Israel. It has to go. The administration should take the same admirable clarity it has applied to Syria and tell the PA "it is on the wrong side of the war" and let Israel determine which screws to tighten and when. The Jinsa Reports are published by the Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs (JINSA). The website address for the reports is http://www.jinsa.org/lists/subscribe.html |
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ISRAEL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
Posted by Israela Goldstein, October 10, 2003. |
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This was an editorial in the Jerusalem Post yesterday. It points out the the international community interprets "international law" on fighting terrorism differently for Israel than it does for other countries. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder wasted no time Sunday in condemning Israel's air strike on a training camp in Syria used by Islamic Jihad. "Violating the sovereignty of a third country," he said on a state visit to Egypt, "cannot be accepted." Then France added its voice: "Unacceptable." Britain: "Unacceptable." Canada: "An escalation." And so on and on. This is not to say the international community (putting the US to one side) forbids Israel from exercising its right of self defense. It is only that they believe that "the fight against terrorism... has to take place within the rules of international law," as the European Union's Javier Solana recently explained. According to these rules, Israel may not impose closures on Palestinian cities because doing so punishes the innocent. For the same reason, Israel may not demolish the homes or deport the families of suicide bombers. It may not imprison terrorist suspects without availing them of the rights given to Israeli citizens. Israel may not follow a policy of targeted assassinations because such action is "extra-judicial." It may not deploy its troops in Palestinian cities or towns to arrest terrorist suspects or shut down bomb factories because this is a form of occupation. It may not build a wall because this involves the theft of Palestinian lands and is racist. It may not build bypass roads for the safety of its settlers because those settlers shouldn't be there in the first place. Israel may not attack terrorist training camps in third countries because this is a violation of sovereignty. It may not overfly third countries without permission to monitor potentially hostile activity. It may not possess nuclear arms. It may not attack hostile countries attempting to build nuclear arms. It may not not meet with Terje Roed-Larsen. All this Israel may not do. It would be helpful if our European and Canadian friends would outline for us exactly what we may do to fight terrorism "within the rules of international law." But we know the answer to that already. Evacuate all settlements. Withdraw to the '48 armistice lines. And resolve, to the satisfaction of the Palestinian Authority, the question of refugees. It is not as if we are categorically opposed to international law. But we are opposed to an interpretation of the law that offers Israel no realistic military recourse. We are opposed to the invoking of international law only against the party attempting to exercise self-defense. And we are opposed to laws that no Western nation would apply to itself were it under sustained terrorist attack. When was the last time the European Council formally condemned the US for targeted killings of al-Qaida leaders? Until they do so, loudly and in unison, we must draw the conclusion that the Jewish state is being singled out principally because it is an easy target. International law has its place. So does our sovereign right of self-defense. Messrs. Schroeder, Solana, de Villepin et al, are entitled to condemn us for violating international law, but only if they are also willing to take meaningful action against terrorism. So far they have not done so. Instead, they continue to engage diplomatically both state (Syria, Iran) and non-state (Hizbullah) terrorist actors. To Israel, they lecture and counsel retreat. No wonder Israelis will no longer "take risks for peace," to use that shopworn phrase. As we walk the tightrope, Europe removes the net, which is why the United States remains the only nation for whom we will dare take risks.
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SAUDI COLLUSION WITH TERRORISTS
Posted by Mike Evans, October 10, 2003. |
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On September 11, 2001, fifteen Saudi's commandeered four commercial airliners. These suicide bombers caused 3,000 tragic deaths without regard to race, color, sex, or religious affiliation. We must meet the terrorist crisis on every front with every weapon in our arsenal. Saudis continue to be linked to funding terrorists and terrorism around the world, but especially in Israel. It's time for those with moral clarity to speak out against our government's continued protection of Saudi Arabia because of oil interests. We must defend Israel and America. The American people have a right to know who their terrorist enemy is. President Bush should not withhold valuable information from us. The classified information regarding Saudi Arabia's involvement in funding terrorists should be declassified. No government that aids and abets the heinous activities of terrorists should be allowed to escape culpability. Please follow the Action Steps below. 1. Add your signature to our electronic petition and become a Defender of Zion! CLICK HERE 2. Forward this message to your family, friends and colleagues and ask them to join you in becoming a Defender of Zion. Consider the following:
Please pray for our President today. The President needs to release the 28-page report that implicates the Saudis in worldwide terrorism. There are some things more important than Saudi oil - the truth, for one! "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free." The truth is this: Not only has the roadmap for peace been sabotaged by the Saudis (who support the Road Map, the division of Jerusalem, and a PLO state), but also the Bush doctrine on terrorism which states that those who "harbor or support terror" are enemies of the United States. We must take the moral high ground, and quit sleeping with the enemy! For Zion's sake, L'shanah Tovah Tikateva... For a good year - May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life. Mike Evans is the founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, whose members are prominent Christian leaders. The website address is http://www.jerusalemprayerteam.org |
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NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 10, 2003. |
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This was written by Paul Sperry who is Washington bureau chief for World Net Daily (http://www.wnd.com). Jews need not apply for Arabic linguist jobs at the FBI. Despite a shortage of Arabic translators, the FBI turned down applications for linguist jobs from nearly 100 Arabic-speaking Jews in New York following the World Trade Center attacks, WorldNetDaily has learned. The FBI's New York office in October 2001 asked a local charity that works with Arab Jews to submit applications for the linguist jobs, which are crucial to anti-terrorism investigations. But not one of the more than 90 applicants was hired, even though some had helped translate Arabic for Israeli radio and TV news stations and the Israeli army before coming to America, the charity's director says. "We sent them a lot of people, and nobody made it to the finish line. Not one person was found eligible for these jobs, which is outrageous," said Doug Balin, director of the Sephardic Bikur Holim, a Jewish social-services agency in Brooklyn, N.Y. A spokesman for the FBI's New York office says headquarters made the final cuts. "Applicants have to go through a series of steps, including thorough background checks, especially those who have lived abroad," says FBI spokesman Jim Margolin. "That's all coordinated centrally." Many of the Jewish applicants lived in Mideast countries, including Israel, Syria, Egypt and Sudan. Were the Sephardim applicants denied because they're Jewish? "Not that I'm aware of," Margolin said. Balin is not so sure. "Maybe the FBI is not hiring Jewish people that often, I don't know," he said, suggesting the FBI fears offending the Muslim community. Another source familiar with the interviewing process says the FBI was concerned that many of the applicants were "too close to Israel," and might lack the objectivity to accurately translate the Arabic recordings and writings of Muslim terrorist suspects under investigation. Indeed, some worked for the Israeli military. However, the head of the New York office recently invited a Muslim cleric to preach to New York agents about Islam's alleged peaceful attributes as part of a bureau-wide Muslim-sensitivity training program. FBI Director Robert Mueller has reached out to several Muslim-rights groups since the Sept. 11 attacks. Balin's assistant, Yola Haber, said that many of the Jewish applicants were "highly qualified" and had passed the bureau's language-proficiency tests. Some had been asked back for second and even third interviews, she says. As Jews who lived in Arab nations, she adds, they understood the idioms and expressions that might escape other translators who aren't from the region. Haber told WorldNetDaily that she met with two agents from the FBI's Manhattan office, Carol Motyka and Marsha K. Parrish, who she says approached her about recruiting Arabic-speaking Jews within weeks of the terrorist attacks. "I'm not making any comment," Motyka said. Parrish was unavailable for comment. Margolin noted that the hiring process is not easy, even though translators don't have to go through the rigorous agent-training program. "The recruitment and hiring process entails a number of steps and is more involved than the applicants might have anticipated," he said in a WorldNetDaily interview. Still, the FBI has been hard-pressed to clear a large backlog of untranslated documents and recorded dialogue in Arabic, information that could produce clues to terrorist plots in the U.S. And like the U.S. Army, it's had to deal with loyalty issues. Many of the translators that both the FBI and military have hired are Arab Muslims. The Army is investigating two Muslim linguists for possible spying at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where captured members of al-Qaida and the Taliban are being held and interrogated. The major security breach at Gitmo comes on the heels of the FBI's own investigation of some of its Muslim agents. Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, an immigrant Muslim, twice refused on religious grounds to tape-record Muslim terrorist suspects, hindering investigations of a bin Laden family-financed bank in New Jersey and Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, recently indicted for his ties to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. A fellow FBI agent, Robert Wright, said Abdel-Hafiz finally explained to him that "a Muslim does not record another Muslim," after first claiming he feared for his life. Other agents said he contacted Arab subjects under investigation without disclosing the contacts to the agents running the cases. Despite his divided loyalties, the FBI subsequently promoted Abdel-Hafiz by assigning him to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, a critical post for intelligence-gathering. Three-fourths of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. After Wright and another agent blew the whistle in the media, however, Adel-Hafiz was put on administrative leave. Then there's the case of Jan Dickerson, a Turkish translator hired by the FBI last November. In screening her for a clearance, the FBI missed her ties to a Turkish organization under investigation by the FBI's own counter-intelligence unit, according to another whistle-blower. The bureau even let her translate the tapes of conversations with a Turkish intelligence officer stationed in Washington who was the target of the probe. Sibel Edmonds, a co-worker who reviewed Dickerson's translations, said Dickerson left out information crucial to the investigation, such as discussion of methods to obtain U.S. military and intelligence secrets. She had marked it as "not important to be translated." Dickerson recently left the FBI and now lives overseas. Balin argues that the Arab Jews it sent to the FBI to apply for translator jobs "would be more likely to be loyal to the United States." "They were against terrorists and against being attacked on these shores [on Sept. 11]," he said, "because they were people who had suffered those kinds of things overseas and were familiar with them, and saw the freedom that America brought to people." "So it's crazy that no one was hired," Balin added.
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HAIFA
Posted by Barry Chamish, October 9, 2003. |
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On October 4/03, a suicide bomberess blew up Maxims restaurant in Haifa. Zev Almog, a reserve officer in the Israeli Navy, 71, and his wife, Ruti, Moshe Almog, their son, and Tomer the 9 year old grandson were all murdered by the terrorist. Galit Almog, the daughter of Zev and Ruti, Orli Almog(Moshe's wife) and two other grandchildren are in the ICU at Rambam Hospital. The other two sons of Zev and Ruti Almog were Navy officers too. Their late daughter was on the infamous DAKAR submarine whose entire crew were killed in the DAKAR submarine of years ago. Zev Almog's nephew is the current General Dror in charge of the Southern units of the IDF. General Almog's brother died in the Yom Kippur war 30 years ago. AN entire family affected by terror and Arab wars. Moshe Almog was the base commander of the Israeli Navy Officers Academy. His uncle is the commander of the IDF's Southern Command. This was the most devastating attack on the IDF's leadership ever but you wouldn't know it by the official reaction to the slaughter. While the Navy fumed and expected to exact a similar cost to the enemy, the government's reaction was to bomb an empty warehouse in Gaza and then upgrade its futilty by bombing rocks in a vacant Syrian wadi. For the twenty dead in Haifa, the 52 mutilated, and the blow to the prestige of the IDF, Sharon eliminated an equal number of Syrian boulders. No one can say the bomber did her deed out of poverty or desperation. She was a well-to-do attorney, chosen by whatever means, for a well coordinated attack on the highest levels of the IDF. She had specific intelligence that could only have come ultimately from the forces of defeat within Israel. In the wake of the worthless air retaliation against Syria's valued limestone, some well-placed people reported the depth of frustration in the Air Force and Navy. One Jerusalem woman wrote me about her nephew who quit his Air Force training course out of disgust and one military insider stuck his neck out and met me for a long talk. Barry Chamish is author of Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin? |
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STALKING THE MARONITES
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, October 10, 2003. |
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In my "Tale of Two Nakbas," I spoke of a pre/non-Arab Lebanese consciousness which also resisted the Arabs' forced Arabization. In the M.E., religious differences frequently mask other differences - i.e. ethnicity, etc. Read this piece by a Lebanese Maronite scholar. It is another example of how the Arabs forced Arabization policies over millions of non-Arabs and their lands over the centuries. This is called "Stalking the Maronites" and it was written by Walid Phares, a professor of Middle East Studies and an expert in terrorism. It appeared in the Jerusalem Post, October 9, 2003. When al-Jazeera reported the October 4 suicide attack against Maxim's restaurant in Haifa, its reporter said "the restaurant is co-owned by an Arab. A number of Arabs were killed in the explosion." At first glance, this is not striking news. It is not the first time Arabs have been killed by istishadis - Islamist suicide bombers. Nor are Israeli Arab casualties particularly remarkable in jihadist operations against Jews. A third of Haifa's population is Arab. Moreover, many pro-Jihad observers have long warned that Muslims and Arabs could become collateral damage in martyrdom strikes. That is what happened, and will continue to happen. This forces al-Jazeera's pundits to find ways of justifying the murders. But the attacked restaurant in southern Haifa was not owned by an "Arab," nor were most of the killed workers "Arabs." And herein lies a deeper story. It turns out that the owner of Maxim's is a Lebanese Christian. George Matar is not an Arab. He is a Maronite from Lebanon whose roots are Aramaic. Many of the workers who were murdered or injured are Lebanese Christian as well. Al-Jazeera - and other Arab media - missed that point, possibly intentionally. For indicating the real ethnic and religious identities of the owners and the workers would open a new chapter in the jihadists' war, both in Israel and in the Middle East. Non Shabbat-observing Haifa Jews eat at various local restaurants. Why would Islamist suicide bombers knowingly target a Lebanese Christian restaurant in Israel, when they could have attacked any culinary establishment? So why did bomber Hanadi Jaradat select this particular eatery? Was she there to kill Jews or Christians, or both? And, how did Abu Charbel - owner George Matar - fall victim to the Islamist war against Israel? INDIVIDUAL CIVILIANS everywhere basically want peace and security, be they Jews, Christians or Muslims. But ideology transforms some of them - like Hanadi Jaradat - into human missiles. We know about the jihadists and their views. But most people know very little about the Christians of Lebanon who have been undone by events in that country. Matar, his family and relatives, including a nephew who died in the blast just several days before his wedding, all came from across the Israel-Lebanon border. A million and a half Lebanese Christians live under Syrian occupation and Hizbullah intimidation. This represents almost half of Lebanon's population. It is the Christian ethnic group which is the older community in Lebanon. Lebanese Maronites are descendants of ancient Aramaics, also known as Phoenicians. As a group, they have resisted the onslaught of the Arab-Islamic conquests for more than 13 centuries. Now, defeated in 1990 after a 15-year war with the PLO, Syria and the Islamists' network, the Christian community has fallen under occupation. In the previous decade, a small number of Christians, along with some Muslims and Druse allied themselves with their Jewish neighbors to the south. In southern Lebanon, they formed an enclave which the world called "Israel's security zone." In May 2000, the Clinton administration and Ehud Barak's government abandoned those "last of the Mohicans" to Hizbullah. More than 6,000 Christian Lebanese crossed the border into Israel in an unprecedented exodus. Ba'athist Syria, Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran and Saudi Wahabi Jihadists claimed victory: The infidels had been driven out of Lebanon. Tomorrow, they hope, the remaining infidels will be driven out of Palestine. Among the thousands of refugees now in the Galilee are men and women who had no other choice but to restart their "infidel" lives south of their homeland. For Matar, that meant opening a restaurant in Haifa. Hizbullah and Palestinian radicals are now stalking Lebanese Christians in exile. Out of Beirut, scores of Khomeinist and pro-Syrian propagandists are calling on the jihadists of the "occupied lands" to strike not only against the Jews, but also against their "agents" who took refuge amongst them. Anti-Maronite hate literature abounds in Syrian-occupied Lebanon, and in cyberworld. Throughout the 1990s jihadists and their allies vilified the Christians of Lebanon. Those living in the south Lebanese security zone were the most abhorred. For they were among the very few Christians who openly allied themselves with the "Zionists." In jihad logic, they were also Zionists, and hence needed be targeted as such. Although many Muslim Arab regional leaders warned against further persecution of Middle East Christians in the wake of September 11, the jihadists to the contrary escalated their war against all "people of the book." The lowest of the people of the book, in the eyes of the intolerant jihadists, are those Lebanese Christians who chose to live in Israel as a free people instead of abiding by Hizbullah's and Syria's diktats in occupied Lebanon. Hence, their fate has merged with Israel's: annihilation by martyrdom operations. The attack on Matar's Maxim restaurant may be understood as a direct result of jihadist intolerance. Middle East jihadists have long chanted "Today Saturday, tomorrow Sunday" - al-yom al sabt wa ghadan al-ahad. This alludes to their war against the Jews first, then followed by the Christians. Thus, in the Haifa operation, the jihadists are showing their impatience. For the soldiers of Osama bin Laden around the world there is only one day from now on: Saturday is Sunday.
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| THE DERSH TAKES ON LEFTIST GUTTER ANTI-SEMITES
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 9, 2003. |
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This was written by Alan M. Dershowitz. It was published in the Harvard Crimson on October 3, 2003 as a Letter to the Editors: Professor Dershowitz 'Rests His Case.' I have proven beyond any doubt that what Norman Finkelstein and Alexander Cockburn have accused me of doing - properly quoting material I first came across in secondary sources to their primary - follows proper citation form and certainly does not constitute plagiarism (News, "Dershowitz Defends Book," Oct. 2). They believe I should have cited the material as follows: "Quoted in Peters." But the Chicago Style Manual specifically says that, "to cite a source from a secondary source ('Quoted in...') is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite." I followed this preferred form, and Finkelstein and Cockburn know that. Why, then, have they attacked me? The answer lies in their documented history of leveling similar attacks on the integrity of many other writers who are either pro-Israel or favor justice for Holocaust survivors. Finkelstein has called Elie Wiesel - whose lifelong devotion to peace and reconciliation earned him the Nobel Peace Prize - a "clown" (See Irish Times, July 1, 2003). He accused Wiesel of lying because Wiesel said that when he was 18 years old "I read The Critique of Pure Reason... in Yiddish." Here is Finkelstein's "gotcha" accusation: "The Critique of Pure Reason was never translated into Yiddish" (The Guardian, July 12, 2000). A fairly unambiguous charge. The only problem is that The Critique of Pure Reason was translated into Yiddish and published in Warsaw in 1929. The Harvard Library has a copy and Wiesel did read it. I have seen no apology from Finkelstein. Nor has Finkelstein apologized for leveling false and disproved charges of "plagiarism," "fraud," "hoax," "hucksterism," "slipshod scholarship," "blackmail," and "profiteering" against some of the world's most distinguished professors and writers, including Stuart Eizenstadt, Burt Neuborne, Gerald Feldman, Sir Martin Gilbert, Richard Overy, Abba Eban, Yehuda Bauer, Daniel Goldhagen and others. (Goldhagen demonstrated that Finkelstein "fabricated" charges against him, as he did with Wiesel and that "he has no credibility." Frankfurter Rundschau, Aug. 18, 1987, cited on www.goldhagen.com). Finkelstein has gone so far as to claim that someone else ghost wrote The Case For Israel for me. When I offered to produce my handwritten drafts - I do not type - he backed away from this fabrication, again without apologizing. In an article in The Financial Times (Aug. 23, 2003), John Authors observed that, "Finkelstein appears to suffer from an almost total lack of self-control. His readers might find him harder to take seriously if they had watched him screaming questions as a heckler at the back of the audience." They might also better understand his motive for attacking pro-Israel writers if they knew that he regularly compares Israel to "the Gestapo." "I can't imagine why Israel's apologists...would be offended by a comparison with the Gestapo." He suggested that [they] should be flattered by the comparison. (Ibid). No wonder Gabriel Schoenfeld, in an article in Commentary labeled Finkelstein's views "crackpot ideas, some of them mirrored almost verbatim in the propaganda put out by neo-Nazis around the world" (Jan. 2001). His academic colleagues and students apparently do not take him seriously, since - by his own admission - "I [Finkelstein] was thrown out of every [university] school in New York" and is "in exile in [DePaul University] in Chicago," where he is "not happy" (Irish Times, July 1, 2003). He doesn't understand why he has had such a "hard time." Well maybe because he has leveled so many false charges against so many people that he has absolutely no credibility. Alexander Cockburn deserves only brief mention, since his charges are all derivative of Finkelstein's. Suffice it to say, that he too makes it a practice to attack prominent Jews who support Israel. His hit list includes the late Irving How, the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone, D-Minn., and Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. When asked whether he believed the "stories" that he reported were "sloshing around the news" involving Israeli complicity in 9/11 and in the Anthrax attack, his response was "I don't know there's enough exterior evidence to determine whether they are true or not." (The New Republic Online 4/8/02). According to Franklin Foer, "Cockburn is the only prominent western journalist to give these slanderous stories any credence." (Ibid). Columnist Jon Margolis, after exposing several false charges made by Cockburn, asserted that "Cockburn has been abusing reality for decades" and that "as an accuser, Joe McCarthy was more responsible" (Washington Watch, May 11, 1998.) In 1984, he was fired from The Village Voice for hiding a $10,000 "grant" he received from an anti-Israel organization (The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 18,1984). These then are my accusers, who themselves now stand accused of including me in their long list of those falsely charged with literary crimes. I will no longer dignify false and empty charges leveled by these serial fabricators. I rest my case. Steven Plaut is an economist, professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." Alan M. Dershowitz is Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School and author of "The Case for Israel." |
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TREASON CALLED PATRIOTISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulmn, October 9, 2003. |
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Israeli Army pilots signed two petitions about terrorist targets in the P.A. A small group, 27 mostly ex-pilots, signed a refusal to attack. Hundreds, all on active combat duty, signed a condemnation of the others and a pledge of faith in the morality and legality of their orders. They know that they take risks or abort missions, to avoid harming Arab non-combatants. One group got publicity. Which group? The handful of traitors. The bigger crime is to the hundreds who take those risks, and to the Israelis killed by hate-filled, terrorist harboring Arabs spared by aborted missions (Voice of Judea, 9/29, e-mail). Those poor, well intentioned but deluded active-duty pilots, have faith in orders based on appeasement of gentiles at the expense of Jewish lives. Yesh Gvul is an Israeli organization that lures or bribes soldiers into mutiny. The Left calls it a patriotic movement, instead of demanding arrests. Leftists prefer to jail Jews who try to set up houses on an empty piece of state-owned land in Samaria, without government permission. (Usually the residents own it.) Yesh Gvul has asked for an investigation into the bombing of the house of a Hamas terrorist, because some civilians died with him. In reaction to that bombing, the government has been using smaller bombs, some of which have allowed terrorists to get away. The Left did not suggest that if the Arabs stop hiding among children, and if they stop engaging in mass murder of Jews, Israel would not have to pursue them. Instead, they complain that these attacks are human rights violations. (They are permitted under international law.) Yesh Gvul told the Attorney General that if he does not investigate the incident as a crime, it would petition the World Court to indict Israel. Prof. Steven Plaut suggests that the Attorney General investigate who finances Yesh Gvul (9/30, e-mail, and later reveals it is a leftist US group). Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides accurate information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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BYPASSING THE WALLS OF ISRAEL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 9, 2003. |
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Hamas (only one of the many Terror organizations who have declared ongoing war against Israel) has claimed that neither cement walls, razor wire nor trenches will stop them from killing Jews in Israel. The Hamas statement is quite accurate in that they do not have to cross these obstacles to get at the Jews. Thanks to the Left Liberals in Politics as well as the Media and the Oslo Conspirators, all the Terrorists necessary to destroy the Jewish State are already within this small country. What's more, they have been primed to hate, kill and offer themselves up as 'Shahids' (martyrs for Islam) since they were children. Leaders in Israel such as Shimon Peres seemed not terribly interested in the teaching of three year olds to hate. When in their youth, they went to summer camp where the sports were crawling under barbed wire, disassembling and re-assembly of AK-47s, sometimes with blindfolds. They also learned to pledge their lives to martyrdom - practicing all through the school year. All of this has been audio and videotaped for Palestinian TV, with Yassir Arafat congratulating the teachers and kissing the children afer they pledged to martyr themselves for Islam. But, Peres, Yossi Beilin and the Oslo Gang always kept an open mind in their appeasement efforts, despite every broken agreement and the ongoing slaughter of Jews. Today we see seemingly intelligent young women strap on 10 kilo of explosives to kill themselves while fulfilling the mission for which they had been primed all their lives. When Arafat repeatedly states that he had "a million martyrs ready to give up their lives," for once he was telling the truth. Hamas is right. The Wall will not stop them because a large Israeli-Arab population is ready to become 'Shahids' when called upon to do so with sufficient religious hysteria. There was a time when the Arabs could have been moved into neighboring Arab countries with vast, empty territories where they could live with their brothers and not the hated Jews. The corrupt Left Liberals always thought Israel should be de-Judaized with the absurd idea that the killers of Europe and the Arab Terrorists would accept a de-Judaized State. Remember after winning the 1967 Six Days War, reuniting Jerusalem, we heard the famous words: "Har Bayit B'Yadeinu!" (The Temple Mount is in our hands!)? But, who can forget when Moshe Dayan - the stealer of antiquities, the flagrant womanizer - decided on his own to hand the Temple Mount over to the Arab Waqf to insure that the epicenter of Judaism would not be in the hands of Jews . Dayan, Rabin, Peres, Beilin and Barak all wanted to divide Jerusalem. They needed the Temple Mount in Arab Muslim hands to accomplish this division. The most self-destructive people of Israel were drawn to the Leftist Labor Party because most uniformly hated their own Jewishness. These aberrant Jews proclaim that they had more in common with Yassir Arafat than with the observant Jews of Israel - or world Jewry for that matter. These creepy people have always used the Jewish people as a parasite which takes its meals from the luckless host. They scheme and chew on the supporting pillars of the Jewish nation as wharf rats chew on the beams of a ship until it is ready to sink. They meet in secret with Israel's worst enemies, protesting that their treachery is merely their effort to bring peace. Since no Arab Muslim has ever wanted peace with the Jews or Christians, clearly the Left behaved in traitorous manner to their own people and their own State. These self-proclaimed 'intellectuals' of the Left proved themselves time and again by enacting the description of suicidal imbeciles. Each time their Arab Muslim friends betrayed them and the Jewish people, they pleaded for another agreement. The Oslo lot took turns tickling Arafat's tape-worm until it danced with puckered delight. In the meantime, as these pretentious imbeciles played the game of "Let's Pretend," they were also playing with the lives Jews and others as well as the State of Israel and the Eternal Capital of Jerusalem. I recall Prime Minister Rabin who characterized those murdered by Terror as "Volunteers or Sacrifices for Peace." For this his followers 'deified' him, ignoring his documented past of cowardice while on active military duty. Shimon Peres and later Ehud Barak wanted to give away the Golan Heights with Peres' famous slogan that: "It is better to build hotels than tanks." And let's not forget Peres' famous line at an international press conference that: "'Jihad' (Islamic Holy War) can be defined as a 'love letter.'" Lest you think Jewish people cannot produce thinking people, I assure you that Israeli universities buzz with creativity and new cures for humanity's ills. It's just that the best and brightest of the Jews will not slog through the mud of deceptive politics to serve the country. But, those incompetents who crawl up the political cliff with bleeding fingers - that's all they have are bloody fingers. Once they reach the 'top' they really believe that they can think and solve problems. There are exceptions but, in the main, the leadership is dull-witted, always late in saying the right thing. The true experts in 'Hasbara' are the Arabs. They lie with elegant impunity and the world accepts the fabrication because Israeli leadership is slow - even ponderous in stating their own case. It has always been that way and it looks like it will remain so. Hamas is correct - they can kill Jews whenever they wish to because they are not only positioned in the heartland of Israel to do so but, they also have Israel's Supreme Court on their side. It is not that the Court Judges are out and out scoundrels but, they were hand-picked because they are Liberal Pacifists during the Labor years for their aberrant Left Liberal thought processes. It would make little difference if Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin or Yossi Sarid would change places with Aharon Barak, Supreme Court Chief Justice. It would be the same mind-set under a different skin. The attack in Haifa on Shabbat October 4th by a young Arab Muslim Palestinian women was successful - despite the tight closure on Judea, Samaria and Gaza. But, there are a million Arab Palestinians inside of Israel, perfectly willing to assist or carry out the deed themselves. Until they are re-united with their brothers and sisters across the Jordan River, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad threat will continue. There will be no peace - period. It doesn't matter whether Israel makes gestures, evacuates the pioneering settlers, allows in hundreds of thousands of Arab Muslim Palestinian workers. Dim-witted Jewish Leaders have taught the Arab Muslims that, regardless of their acts of Terror murdering Jews, sooner or later hundreds of known, convicted Terrorists will be released from prison as an Israeli non-reciprocated 'gesture.' What matters is that the course set by the Arab Muslims is to achieve the total elimination of the Jewish State and the Jews in it. This simple fact has been stated by them so often that it is routinely pushed aside as if it were not relevant or even true. We always hear from either the Leftists or the American President (whoever he may be) that Terror will not stop the Peace Process. What Peace Process? The fact is that there is only 'Process' and absolutely no chance for Peace - because the Arab Muslims declare that they will never change their testicle-driven society nor disavow the instructions of their Koran to drive out all non-believers. Political sycophants play with the word: "Peace" as if it is a guaranteed Nirvana. While people die for real from Terror attacks by Arab Muslims against Israel - these dimwits play word games with no meaning and no end. Israel is building a Wall which really should run along the Jordan River with all the Palestinians on the East Bank of the Jordan River. After all, it is still really Jewish land, stolen by the British to give a 'kingdom' to Abdullah after he was ejected by the Saudis. The Palestinians can still claim victory by inhabiting the Land promised to the Jews in the Balfour Declaration for a Jewish homeland to be closely settled by Jews. As for the Hamas Declaration in the name of all Muslim Arabs that they can bypass the Barriers being built - It is true! Be assured that even the gates through the Wall will sooner or later be abandoned at the instructions of Bush and Powell as another 'gesture' to build the confidence of those Palestinians who are supposed to crave peace. P.S. As a relevant aside: Did you take note of the Bush speech regarding Israel's strike at an empty (supposed) Terror Training camp in Syria? Bush said: "Israel had every right to defend herself" - all the while knowing that he, Powell and Rice only approved the strike because there would be no Terrorists killed in that empty camp. The old American Indian expression, "You speak with a forked tongue Paleface," comes to mind. Emanuel A. Winston is a prominent Middle East analyst and commentator. Many of his articles first appeared on the Gamla (http://www.gamla.org.il/english) and the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies ((http://www.freeman.org/online.htm) websites. |
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YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME BUT YOU CAN'T
FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME
Posted by Ruth Matar, October 9, 2003. |
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The Saudis are masters of the big Big Lie, cleverly designed to obfuscate the truth. In an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, Saudi Minister of Interior Prince Nayef Ibn Abd al-Aziz said Israeli intelligence had carried out the September 11 attacks and that the Zionist-controlled media in America had turned the people there against Saudi Arabia. (An English translation of the interview appeared in a magazine sponsored by the royal family.) In addition, Saudi leaders and writers like to insist that the growing criticism of them by US leaders and public opinion is a result of Zionist propaganda, and that the only real issue between their country and the United States is the Palestinian question. Hence, the Saudi royals and their advisers have decided on a whistle-stop tour, the kind of tour which Harry Truman did before his 1948 successful election. Harry Truman's message was "Elect me." The message of the Saudis is "Trust us, we are your friends and allies." This tour is being led by Prince Bandar, the "US Ambassador and Prince Saud, the Foreign Minister, and their advisors. The Saudis are jetting across the US for face-to-face meetings with Americans in an effort to dispel criticisms that they have been soft on terrorism. In answer to the question as to how 15 of the 19 hi"jackers hailed from Saudi Arabia, the Saudis complained: "It is inherently unfair to allow a group of deviant criminals to taint a whole nation of 16 million." Yes, there certainly are criminals in America, as well. But does the American Government finance criminals to travel to Saudi Arabia? Does it finance the training of American criminals in flight schools so that they should be able to crash planes into high buildings in Riyadh, the Saudi Capital, and kill 3,000 Saudis? There is credible evidence that Saudi US Ambassador Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, gave thousands of dollars, through an intermediary, to two hijackers, who helped crash a plane into the Pentagon in Washington DC and killed 190 people. The Saudi explanation was that this money was a donation to help a sick family member!! But Princess Haifa insists she never met the recipients of her "charitable donation". She doesn't know her own sick family member? The Saudi royal family should at least try to coordinate their fairy-tales! The Saudi whistle-stop "Tour of Lies" may soon come to your community. I have therefore prepared the following list of pertinent questions for you to ask these Mid-East "royals." Don't be impressed by the fact that they call themselves "Princes." There are more than 3,000 such "Princes" in Saudi Arabia! Proposed Questions for Prince Bandar and Prince Saud: Question: Isn't it true that it is a crime to own a Bible in Saudi Arabia, and that people have been jailed for it? Dear Friends: The Saudis have planned their whistle-stop tour of the United States by private jet, with the intent to pull the wool over your eyes. They will be coming to your community to try to convince you that they are friends and allies of the United States. They are traveling throughout America to try to convince you that the Saudi Government does not collaborate in the kidnapping and holding of children of American mothers, who are divorced from their Saudi husbands. They are traveling throughout America to try to convince you that they are tolerant of all religions. They are traveling throughout America to try to make you believe that they are not continuing to fund Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups. They are traveling throughout America to try to persuade you, against all the existing evidence, that they had no part whatsoever in 9/11. Prince Bandar and Prince Saud, and their advisors, are certainly skillful and smooth talkers. Don't let those "Princes" fool you! Please, be not overly impressed with the fact that they are "royalty"! I hope that you are not like US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who says in his autobiography that he can never get over the fact that a poor boy from the Bronx, like himself, is able to play racquetball with a real prince! Is consorting with people like Prince Bandar and Prince Saud, and their advisors, such an honor? Fortunately, Americans are blessed with a great deal of common sense. They believe what President Abraham Lincoln used to say "YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME, BUT YOU CAN'T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME." With Blessings and Love for Israel. For further information on this important topic read: 1. The article "The Saudi Money Trail" in the December 2, 2002 Newsweek magazine, found on the archives in their website www.newsweek.com. 2. Craig Unger's investigative story in the October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair "Why Did Bush Allow Bin Laden Relatives to Leave US After 9/11?" Ruth Matar is co-founder of Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist women's group, based in Jerusalem. To subscribe to the Women in Green list, send a blank email message to: list4-subscribe@womeningreen.org To contribute, go to: https://host5.apollohosting.com/womeningreen/donation.html |
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WOULD FRIEDMAN'S REALPOLITIK WORK?
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 9, 2003. |
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More "helpful" suggestions from Tom Friedman, Israel's Iago. I sent this to the N.Y. Times Letters To The Editor. In a dazzling leap into Realpolitik, columnist Thomas L. Friedman would mortgage Israeli lives to the tender mercies of Yasir Arafat, court Iran's ayatollahs, and "sup a little" with Syria's Bashar al-Assad - all in the cause of shoring up U.S. efforts to stabilize and democratize Iraq (op-ed page, Oct. 9). The problem with this kind of sophomoric Machiavelism is that it's already been tried many times - with invariably counter-productive results. Autocrats are emboldened and strengthened by such overtures, which they regard as signs of weakness and appeasement. Progress in Iraq is proceeding faster than alarmist media reports suggest. The last thing freedom-loving Iraqis need after getting rid of their tyrant is to see the world's only superpower playing footsie with the other bullies in their neighborhood.
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THE SALVOS
Posted by Gerald Honigman, October 8, 2003. |
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This was sent to friends in the UK, the USA and Israel by someone who lives in Australia. This is what he wrote. Dear Friends, We all know the not-so-hidden political agenda and latent anti-Semitism of charities such as UK Christian Aid, War against Want and others. By contrast, the Salvation Army (at least in Australia) was always an organisation which earned the respect of people from all walks of life. It was known to look for the good in all, and was willing to help every human being without question. Fairness was its hallmark. Traditionally - despite the evangelical nature of the organisation - Jews gave generously to the Salvos' annual door-knock appeal. In our house, when there was used clothing to be disposed of, the Salvos were the first to come to mind. That's why it saddened me greatly to receive the following from a Christian friend in the UK. "The War Cry" is the magazine of the Salvation Army.
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TOMORROW WAS A HOLIDAY
Posted by Beth Goodtree, October 8, 2003. |
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First off let me apologize for the grammar. Prognosticatory pieces are so rare that there is as yet no "AP Style Handbook for the Futures Imperfect." Be that as it may have yet to be - depending on your placement along the timeline, I took a brief sojourn into tomorrow?s headlines. Not a pretty picture, even if I had remembered to get the winning lottery numbers. There is an old joke that goes like this. "Yasser Arafat will die on a Jewish holiday because any day he dies will automatically be a holiday for all Jews." I decided to test the truth of this. I was not so concerned about the means of his death, but the aftermath, so I took a little jaunt along one of the timelines when Arafat dies (free will obviating that there is more than one possible outcome). Here is what I found. In scenario #1, Arafat died (willen haven died?) of causes that could not be legally or forensically tied to some Zionist conspiracy. Jews the world over were celebrating, not his death, but the possibility of a real peace. These celebrations lasted maybe eight hours tops. Long enough for the other 999,999,999 Muslims and Arabs to get their act together. Then came the backlash. It was on a global scale and made Kristallnacht look like a tea party. Everywhere, Muslims and Arabs were blaming Jews for the 'premature' death of Yasser Arafat (as if he was too young to die of old age). Riots, burnings, home invasions on a massive scale (especially in France) were common, as were stonings. Jewish businesses were trashed and looted, Jewish school children were dragged through the streets and beaten. CNN reported that 'Palestinian Activists' took to the streets to express their grief. The BBC showed file footage of a Jewish family celebrating a wedding with much dancing, laughing and handing out of treats, implying that this was the way that Jews treated the death of Arafat. The New York Times had a banner headline that read: "Last Victim of Intifadah" and showed Arafat's picture alongside some file photos of the IDF bulldozing a house. Seeing all this made me so heartsick that I quickly zapped back to my own time and decided to try again. I reset the controls and was whisked back into a slightly different future. This next future showed the same misplaced grief and rage directed at Jews, but it also showed something else. The head of the beast wasn't Yasser Arafat; he was merely the public persona. Even though he had died, the beast itself was still alive and kicking. It turns out (willen haven turned out?) that Arafat was merely a very expensive front for a pan-Arab agenda that wanted to make the Middle East Judenrein. Behind the 'behind-the-scenes' people, were the same players, controlling all the same terror groups, pulling all the purse strings. There was a period of chaos, death and destruction as each group angled for position. Hamas and Hezbollah vied with each other for the blessings of the common people. Fatah and Islamic Jihad competed to show who could blow up the most Israelis. At first, the streets were filled with angry Arabs blaming the Jews for Arafat's demise. Rapidly that to changed to Arab fighting Arab for control of the Palestinian piggy bank. The mayhem and blood that ensued was too much so I zipped back to my own time, again forgetting to write down the winning lottery numbers. I decided to give my little time trip one more try; maybe there would be one nice possible outcome. This time round, there was still the 'Blame-the-Jews' mentality, but there wasn't such a power vacuum. Certain groups had already been planning for such a contingency. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and a host of other splinter factions were united under the Hezbollah banner. Then Hezbollah, with the backing of Iran and Syria, gave Israel an ultimatum. Surrender and or die. Saudi Arabia had its American-made missiles and jets on Israel's borders, Iran had nuclear-capable warheads, and even Pakistan got in on the act with her newly tested long-range missiles. The UN, with France leading the chorus, blamed Israel, and George Bush, being in an election year, wisely kept his mouth shut and straddled the security fence. Since I could see where this was heading, I got out of there quickly. But I learned several important lessons. First, no matter how bad things can get, at some point a sewer can look like the top of the Eiffel Tower. Second, hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Third, whenever an utterly cruel tyrant dies, there are always a few more waiting in the wings. And lastly, always check tomorrow's lottery numbers, so that the next time I have to buy ear swabs I'll be able to afford the kind that actually have some cotton on the tips and not those no-frills-designed-by-Attilla-the-Hun your-money-back-if-you-don't-bleed ear scrapers. Beth Goodtree writes political commentary, sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically, always worth reading. |
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REFLECTIONS ON YOM KIPPUR
Posted by Linda Olmert, October 8, 2003. |
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This week here in Israel, in addition to the soul-searching of Yom Kippur, in addition to mourning the slaughterd in Haifa, we once again, as every year, reopened the old wounds of the Yom Kippur War. There isn't much of a scab, so with very little effort, the wound bleeds freely. And in addition to the songs of the era, another song is played over and over on the radio. The song is written with the voice of the generation conceived and born in the winter of 1973-1974. It speaks of parents who stood over the cribs (cots) of their babies and made a vow: "You promised us a dove with an olive branch; you promised peace, here at home; and you told us that promises were meant to be kept." Even though the melody is haunting, the words are seductively naive, misleading , and dangerous. They perpetrate the misconception that it is all in our hands: we just have to give up enough, compromise enough. And if this is true, the words imply that the other side is blameless. As Mark Steyn says (see below): "For six decades, nothing the Palestinians have done has made sense if the objective is to secure a state of their own. But, if the objective is to kill Jews, it all makes perfect sense. That's why, in West Bank towns, you see no evidence of nationalist fervor, only of Jew-killing fervor" When they leave us no choice but war, we die. When we blind ourselves to reality and court peace, making unthinkable concessions, we die. Over 60 years ago Jabotinsky said that we must be a nation "proud, generous, and fierce." We had the pride after 2000 years of persecution and humiliation to build one of the most modern countries in the world from a wasteland. We have the generosity to share with anyone who has the inclination, our know how, our abundance, and our values. It seems, that if we can not also learn to be fierce, we will keep dying. This essay by Mark Steyn is called "Palestinian death cult." It first appeared on the Jewish World Review website (http://www.jewishworldreview.com). One of the most enduring vignettes of the Great War is the story of its first Christmas December 1914 when Germans and British put up banners to wish the other the season's greetings, sang "Silent Night" in both languages, and eventually scrambled up from their opposing trenches to play a Christmas Day football match in No Man's Land and share German beer and English plum jam. After Christmas, they went back to killing each other. The many films, books, and plays inspired by that No Man's Land truce are all convinced of the story's central truth that our common humanity transcends the temporary hell of war. When the politicians and generals have done with us, those who are left will live in peace, playing footsie, singing songs, as they did for a moment in the midst of carnage. Now cross to Haifa on Saturday, when 19 diners were killed in a busy restaurant by a 23-year-old female suicide-bomber, her hair attractively tied in a western-style ponytail, to judge from the detached head she left as her calling card. Try to find the common humanity between the participants in this war. Try to imagine the two sides kicking a ball around, swapping songs. The only place in the modern Middle East where Arabs and Jews coexist is in Israel, especially in Haifa. The restaurant young Hanadi Jaradat blew apart had been owned by an Arab family and a Jewish family for 40 years. It would be interesting to know whether it was targeted for that very reason, in the same way that, in Northern Ireland, the IRA took to killing the caterers and cleaners who worked at army bases. But the intifada is too primal for anything that thought out. It's more likely that once Miss Jaradat had slipped into Israel proper through a gap in the unfinished security fence the European Union and Colin Powell so deplore any target would do. She was busting to blow. The Palestinian death cult negates all the assumptions of western sentimental pacifism: If only the vengeful old generals got out of the way, there'd be no war. But such common humanity as one can find on the West Bank resides, if only in their cynicism, in the leadership: old Arafat may shower glory and honor on his youthful martyrs but he's human enough to keep his own kid in Paris, well away from the suicide-bomber belts. It's hard to picture Saeb Erekat or Hanan Ashrawi or any of the other aging terror apologists who hog the airwaves at CNN and the BBC celebrating the death of their own loved ones the way Miss Jaradat's brother did. "We are receiving congratulations from people," said Thaher Jaradat. "Why should we cry? It is like her wedding day, the happiest day for her." I spent a short time on the West Bank earlier this spring. I would have spent longer, but to be honest it creeped me out, and I was happy to scram across the Allenby Bridge and on through Jordan to Iraq. Say what you like about the Sunni Triangle and RPG Alley, but I never once felt I was in a wholly diseased environment. On the West Bank, almost all the humdrum transactions of daily life take place in a culture that glorifies depravity: you walk down a street named after a suicide bomber to drop your child in a school that celebrates suicide-bombing and then pick up some groceries in a corner store whose walls are plastered with portraits of suicide bombers. Nothing good grows in toxic soil. You cannot have a real peace with such people; you cannot even have the cold peace that exists between Israel and Jordan, where King Abdullah, host of the Arab-American-Israeli summit at the start of the road map, did not dare display the flag of the Zionist Entity, lest it provoke his subjects. The problem is not the security fence, but the psychological fence a chasm really that separates a sizable proportion of the Palestinian population from all Jews. AT THE time of that summit, I supported the road map because it seemed to me the best thing to be done was to thrust a state upon the Palestinians as quickly as possible. The present neither-one-thing-nor-the-other Palestinian Authority gives Arafat and company all the advantages of controlling their own territory with none of the responsibilities. Its anomalous status enshrines the Palestinians' victim status and means Israel gets a far worse press internationally than if it were dealing with a sovereign state. But the main reason for conjuring up a Palestinian state would be to call their bluff. For six decades, nothing the Palestinians have done has made sense if the objective is to secure a state of their own. But, if the objective is to kill Jews, it all makes perfect sense. That's why, in West Bank towns, you see no evidence of nationalist fervor, only of Jew-killing fervor. The Arab League's decision three decades ago to anoint a murder organization as the sole legitimate repository of Palestinian aspirations was perhaps the critical move in the terrorist annexation of whatever legitimacy this cause once had. Today Arafat is received by the UN as a head of state, subsidized by the EU and, under Oslo, physically installed in a pseudo-presidential compound. Yet he shows absolutely no desire to run anything other than a murder operation. Ten years ago, the Palestinian Authority was given powers that fell somewhere between those of the Province of Quebec and the Irish Free State. In 1922 in Dublin, the shrewder chaps recognized that the dynamic in the situation would only move one way: once you proved you could run an all-but-fully-independent state, the all-buts would quickly fade away, as one by one they all did. Not in the Palestinian Authority. Arafat is a head of state in no hurry to get a state to head: having to attend to trade and highways and so forth only cuts into his core business. That may be all the more reason to burden him with it. But the bloody toll of Saturday's bombing reminds us that there's another consideration. Before the Iraq war, I didn't give a hoot about WMD or any of the other lines peddled by Blair and Bush when they were auditioning justifications at the UN. The only reason for getting rid of Saddam was that America couldn't afford not to get rid of him: it was necessary to prick the Middle Eastern terrorist bubble, of which he was the most successful manifestation. There's a similar calculation to be made here: if America is serious about confronting Middle Eastern terrorism, it's hard to see what possible interest it has in rewarding the Arafat squat with nationhood. Indeed, just as toppling Saddam pour encourager les autres is all the reason you need, so the fact that the sewer regimes of Araby use the Palestinian question as a catch-all excuse for their own failures ought to be the only reason you need for not buying into it. The Palestinian Authority is part of America's war on terror in exactly the way Saddam was: whether or not there are any specific links to al-Qaida is irrelevant; it's part of the same murky waters. Unfortunately, few members of the Bush administration and no members of the British government recognize that. So there will be more suicide bombings, and more condemnations of Israel's fence. Mark Steyn is senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc. and the author, most recently, of "The Face of the Tiger," a new book on the world post-Sept. 11. |
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GANDHI, EICHMANN AND ISRAEL'S FINAL ROAD MAP
Posted by Arieh Zaritsky, October 8, 2003. |
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Chaverim, Are we lawbreakers or law-enforcing Jews? Read this essay and judge. It is by Louis Rene Beres, Professor of International Law at Purdue University. It's called "Gandhi, Eichmann and Israel's Final Road Map" and it appeared in "The Jewish Press" Octover 3, 2003. Not all that long ago, in the more openly twisted days of Rabin and Peres, everything in Israel began to be turned on its head. As Israelis who had been practicing the most peaceable forms of civil disobedience against national suicide were thrown into jail, citizens and citizen-soldiers who agreed to "follow orders" supporting Oslo surrenders were lauded as patriots. What was most perplexing of all, especially in this democracy, was that the manifestly peaceful demonstrations against Oslo were designed only to protect Israel from a genocidal war while the government "orders" being followed to support Oslo were propelling the Jewish State TOWARD genocide and war. These facts were assuredly obvious then; they are even more obvious today. In their own time, Mohandas Gandhi was regarded by the British authorities as a lawbreaker, and Adolph Eichmann, of course, by the German nation, as an exemplary German, one who was deeply committed to the law. Today the "civilized" world understandably acknowledges that Gandhian civil disobedience was authentically law-enforcing while Eichmann's obedience was incontestably law-breaking. What has happened, with the passage of time, is a gradual reawakening of the ancient idea of a Higher Law, of a True Law that is timeless, immutable, and universal. Such Higher Law is always the perpetual standard against which all particular commands, statutes and norms must be measured. When there is a contradiction between what is perpetual and what is momentary, it is necessarily the momentary expectations that must be subordinated. We know now that Gandhi was certainly not a criminal and that Eichmann was certainly not law-abiding. We also know now that governments which choose to elevate politically-driven needs of the moment over jurisprudentially-supported principles of perpetuity are never entirely democratic. Such governments may opt to call themselves fully democratic, but this self-naming is, at least in part, a convenient fiction - one that exploits language to disguise intimidation and sometimes even brute force. In the time of Rabin and Peres, the situation regarding criminality and law-enforcement in Israel was an expression of such fiction. What is more, this situation was remarkably ironic. After all, what we witnessed then was a Jewish State - the institutionalized surviving remnant of a people destroyed by those reflexively "following orders" - denouncing those who chose to disobey for reasons of Jewish survival and celebrating those who chose to follow orders that would inevitably undermine Jewish survival. In the Jewish State led by Rabin and Peres, the Gandhis were criminals and the Eichmanns were law-enforcers. Sadly, in the present Jewish State led by Sharon, a similar inversion of law and justice may now be at hand. The precipitating issue will be the terrible failure of Oslo and the impending catastrophe of the "Road Map." Under Sharon, Israel must now take careful note: Every state, including Israel, has the right to set limits to public protest and civil disobedience. But no state in the world, including Israel, has the right to deprive its citizens of the most minimal forms of free expression or to order its police and army to assist in such deprivation. This point is underscored by the increasingly dire security circumstances in present- day Israel, conditions wherein the Sharon government could soon feel compelled, following the Rabin and Peres precedent, to violate the INTERNATIONAL BILL OF RIGHTS with respect to Jewish citizens who take seriously their obligation to disobey. This same government (a) could also likely seek to reward those Jewish citizens who fail in this obligation and (b) would likely limit its response to Palestinian terrorists who already make a daily mockery of Israeli justice and a graveyard of Israeli bodies. There are, of course, important differences between the system protested by Gandhi and the system soon to be challenged by anti-appeasement Israelis. Similarly, there are very great differences between those who were following orders of the Third Reich and those who are currently following orders of the government of Israel. No sane scholar would fail to note these factual and moral differences. Yet, the pattern of British colonialism objected to by Gandhi was certainly no more sinister or nefarious than the Road Map pattern of government concessions leading directly to impending destruction of the Jewish State. The net effect of those in Israel who choose obedience to authority in all cases involving the Road Map may also be genocide and war. There is, in the Israeli case, no mens rea, no criminal intent. Each side clearly "means well," but the final consequence of banal compliance in these matters could just as surely be another Final Solution of the Jewish Question. No, Gandhi was not a criminal and Eichmann was not a law-abiding soldier. Gandhi, understanding the difference between true law and contrivances of law, was a genuinely law-abiding figure. As for Eichmann, his pattern of unquestioning obedience represented the very antithesis of true law and the very essence of criminality. These conclusions will not be startling to anyone, least of all to citizens and citizen-soldiers of a Jewish State. What will be startling to many is the unanticipated awareness that Israel's heroic anti-appeasement activists would constitute Israel's truly law-abiding citizens while those Israelis who follow "loyally" to implement the Sharon government's Road Map policy would be Israel's true law-breakers.
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THE ISRAELI AMBASSADOR'S SPEECH AT THE U,N.
Posted by Richard A. Wing, October 8, 2003. |
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I feel this speech by Dan Gillerman is so good, it should be given wider publicity! It would make an excellent "Readers Blog Ed" or even a "Featured Story." Syria demands U.N. Security Council condemn Israeli attack on terror
camp near Damascus
UNITED NATIONS (AP): Syria urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn an Israeli airstrike on a purported terrorist camp near Damascus on Sunday, while Israel defended the attack and accused its neighbor of harboring terrorists. Syria's United Nations ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, said the strike was blatant military aggression, telling an emergency meeting of the 15-member council that "Arabs and many people across the globe feel that Israel is above the law." A Syrian draft resolution condemning the attack calls for Israel to stop committing acts that could threaten regional security or expose "the already deteriorating situation in the region to dire consequences." The Israeli raid on what it claimed was an Islamic Jihad training base came in retaliation to a suicide bombing carried out by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad on Saturday. The bombing, at a restaurant in the Israeli coastal city of Haifa, killed 19 people and the bomber. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, said the attack inside Syria was a defensive response and did not violate international law. He accused Syria of providing "safe harbor, training facilities, funding, logistical support" to terrorist groups. "Syrian complicity and responsibility for suicide bombings is as blatant as it is repugnant. The membership of this arch sponsor of terrorism on this council is an unbearable contradiction and an embarrassment to the United Nations," Gillerman said. Gillerman expressed anger about the timing of the meeting called at Syria's request because it came just before the holiest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. "For Syria to ask a debate in this council is comparable only to the Taliban calling for such a debate after 9-11, it would be laughable if it was not so sad," he said. The meeting was adjourned after delegates said they needed time to consult with their governments. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, who holds the Security Council presidency for October, did not schedule the next meeting on the Syrian draft. Gillerman said he did not expect the United States to support Syria's resolution. Negroponte did not comment on the possibility. Negroponte repeated U.S. calls from earlier in the day that both sides keep from heightening tensions in the region, and did not condemn the Israeli attack. He echoed Israel's claim that Syria is harboring terrorists. "The United States believes that Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism," Negroponte said. "We believe it is in Syria's interest, and in the broader interest of Middle East peace, for Syria to stop harboring and supporting the groups that perpetrate acts such as the one that occurred yesterday." Other council diplomats condemned both Israel's airstrike in Syria and the bombing in Haifa. Britain, the leading U.S. ally in the Security Council, was more critical of Israel. Britain's Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said, "Israel's action today is unacceptable and represents an escalation." "Israel should not allow its justified anger at continuing terrorism to lead to actions that undermine both the peace process and we believe Israel's own interests," he said. Jones Parry, however, also sounded a sympathetic note for Israel, saying the council must recognize that terrorists are still being allowed to attack it. Pakistan's Ambassador Munir Akram and Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, U.N. ambassador from France, called Israel's attack a violation of international law. "We urge the council to speedily adopt the decision to condemn this military aggression and to uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic," Akram said. Many diplomats also called on all sides to return to negotiations led by the so-called Quartet the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations and stick to the U.S-drafted "road map" peace plan. "We need to break the vicious cycle of violence and counterviolence," said Germany's Ambassador Gunter Pleuger. "There is no alternative to the road map." Before the meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the Israeli airstrike, and a statement from his office said the U.N. chief was concerned that the "escalation of an already tense and difficult situation has the potential to broaden the scope of current conflicts in the Middle East." Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa had called for the Security Council meeting in a complaint to Annan and the president of the Security Council, currently the United States. _____________________________________________________
The Council President: I give the floor to the representative of Israel. Mr. Gillerman (Israel): First, let me congratulate you, Sir, (US Amb. Negroponte) on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council. Let me also express to you my regret that your first meeting should be of this nature and take place on this day. This meeting of the Security Council is being convened within hours of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. I deeply regret that the Council could not meet after this most important religious day so as to allow Israel to participate fully in the debate. I will, unfortunately, have to leave this meeting after I make my statement in order to observe this holy day. Yesterday, a Palestinian suicide bomber entered a crowded beachfront restaurant in the port city of Haifa, murdering 19 innocent civilians and wounding at least 60 others. The restaurant - a symbol of Arab-Israeli coexistence, as is the city of Haifa - was frequented by Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel alike, and among the victims were four Israeli Arabs, three children and a little baby girl. Five victims were members of the same family and three were members of another family. Whole families were wiped out by that horrendous act, taking place on the Jewish sabbath on a quiet, peaceful beachfront in the city of Haifa. Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization that operates freely from Palestinian Authority territory and has headquarters in Damascus, Syria, proudly claimed responsibility for this massacre. Islamic Jihad is an organization committed to the destruction of Israel through holy war and which engages in the deliberate and widespread murder of innocents to that end. It opposes moderate Arab Governments and actively supports terrorist attacks against Western targets. There could not be a more obvious example of a terrorist organization. The massacre in Haifa is the latest of over 40 terrorist atrocities committed by Islamic Jihad in the past few years. Among the attacks perpetrated by that organization were the massacre of 21 teenagers at a discotheque in Tel Aviv on 2 June 2001; the bombing of 5 June 2002 at the Meggido Junction, which killed 18 Israelis; the bombing of a commuter bus on 21 October 2002, which killed 14 Israelis; the attack on a shopping mall in the Israeli town of Afula on 19 May 2003, in which three civilians were killed and over 70 wounded; and the attack on 30 March 2003, in which a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a cafe in Netanya, wounding 58 civilians. The encouragement, safe harbour, training facilities, funding and logistical support offered by Syria to a variety of notorious terrorist organizations is a matter of public knowledge. Among the many terrorists group that operate and benefit from the auspices of the Syrian dictatorship are Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It is well known that the Secretary General of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Abdallah Shallah, is one of several terrorist leaders who operate freely in Damascus and receive immunity and support from the Assad regime. Allow me to briefly detail, for the benefit of Council, the extent of support that Syria, as well as the regime in Iran, afford to terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, which are engaged in the deliberate massacre of innocent civilians. Safe harbour and training facilities are provided throughout Syria for terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hizbollah, both in separate facilities and in Syrian army bases. The Ein Saheb base, which was targeted in Israel's measured defensive operation today, is just one of those facilities sponsored by Syria and Iran. Recruits at camps such as Ein Saheb come from Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other terrorist groups. They are taught how to assemble bombs, conduct kidnapping, prepare suicide belts, gather intelligence and establish terrorist cells. Some have also received aviation instruction. Recruits training at those camps are slated to return to Palestinian Authority territory and other areas to set up cells and conduct terrorist operations. Syria has itself facilitated and directed acts of terrorism by coordination and briefings via phone and Internet and by calling activists to Damascus for consultations and briefings. Three such operatives - Tarek Az Aldin, Ali Saffuri and Taabat Mardawi - have been identified under investigation as specifically designated liaisons for relaying instructions between officials in Damascus and terrorist cells in the West Bank and Gaza. Mr. Mardawi himself has admitted involvement in many attacks, including a bus bombing in Haifa in May 2001, a suicide attack at a restaurant in Kiryat Motzkin in August of that year and an attack on a bus near Nazareth in March 2002. Another example comes from an intelligence report provided by the Head of the Palestinian Preventative Security Apparatus on 31 October 2001, which asserts that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah were meeting in Damascus "in order to increase their joint acitivity ... with the aid of Iranian money." Instructions are also given to halt terrorist activity when it suits Syrian or Iranian interests to avoid the spotlight, such as following the terrorist attacks of 11 September in the United States. It is very strange that Syria decided to be in the spotlight today and actually put itself in the dock on this very day, after these actions. Iran, through the use of the Syrian and Palestinian banking systems, sustains a systematic money transfer system, and large sums of money have been transferred to Islamic Jihad as well as other terrorists organizations through Damascus for the planning and perpetration of attacks. Mr. Shallah himself, the Secretary-General of Islamic Jihad, is known to have transferred funds in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from Damascus to the individual accounts of Islamic Jihad operatives such as Bassani ak-Saadi, who is responsible for Islamic Jihad financing in Jenin. Syria uses its State-run media and official institutions to glorify and encourage suicide bombings against civilians in restaurants, schools, commuter buses and shopping malls. To mention but a few examples, Radio Damascus - far from being a free radio - in a broadcast on 9 May 2002 lauded "the wonderful and special suicide attacks which were executed by some of the sons of the Palestinian nation." In another State-run announcement on 1 January 2002, Damascus Radio declared, "The entire world knows that Syria, its political leadership and its Arab people...have turned Syrian Arab soil into a training camp, a safe haven and an arms depot for the Palestinian revolutionaries." And on 13 May 2002, President Bashar Assad himself announced in reference to so-called acts of resistance "If I was not President of Syria I wouldn't hesitate to participate in them." This was not said by Osama bin Laden or by Saddam Hussain, but by a President of a State that is a member of this Council. Syria has also played host to a number of conferences in which senior terrorist operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other organizations meet. Syria has facilitated the transfer of arms to Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad by allowing the transfer of sophisticated weapons from Iran to Hizbollah through Syrian territory. Hizbollah, itself a vicious terrorist organization, has then sought to smuggle those arms to Palestinian terrorist groups, as was evidenced in the Karine A arms shipment and similar incidents. These are just a few examples of the extent and nature of the involvement of the Syrian regime in the deliberate murder of innocent civilians. Each and every one of these acts constitutes a grave violation of international law and Security Council resolutions, as well as a threat to international peace and security. There are few better exhibits of State sponsorship of terrorism than the one provided by the Syrian regime. Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter - which in act of the highest hypocrisy Syria itself voted for - makes absolutely clear that States must prevent acts of terrorism and refrain from any form of financing, support, safe harbour for or toleration of terrorist groups. Syrian complicity in and responsibility for suicide bombings are as blatant as they are repugnant. The membership of this arch-sponsor of terrorism in the Council is an unbearable contradiction and an embarrassment to the United Nations. For Syria to ask for a Council debate is comparable only to the Taliban calling for such a debate. It would be laughable, if it was not so sad. And yet, members of the Council and the United Nations can hardly be surprised at this shameless act of hypocrisy by the Syrian regime. This is the same regime that speaks so often of occupation while it brutally occupies the neighbouring territory of Lebanon. It is the same regime that speaks of international law and human rights while it subjugates its people under a repressive and primitive dictatorship, violating countless international obligations. It is the same regime that supported the Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq in violation of Security Council resolutions and that to this day facilitates the infiltration of terrorists to attack civilian and military targets in Iraqi territory. And it is this same despotic regime that speaks so freely of double standards at the United Nations. Syria would do well to take a hard look at the mirror and count itself fortunate that it has not yet, for unfortunate reasons, been the subject of concerted international action as part of the global campaign against terrorism - not yet. The Syrian delegate speaks a great deal about socalled resistance. Perhaps he can tell us precisely, without his familiar diplomatic word games and misrepresentations, how exactly the murder of children and babies in a restaurant is an act of legitimate resistance. Or perhaps he could tell us how the Syrians themselves have dealt with resistance, such as in the case of Hama, in which some 10,000 Syrian civilians were murdered by the Syrian armed forces. Israel's measured defensive response to the horrific suicide bombings against a terrorist training facility in Syria is a clear act of self-defence in accordance with Article 51 of the Charter. Those actions come after Israel has exercised tremendous restraint despite countless acts of terrorism that have claimed hundreds of innocent lives, for which Syria bears direct and criminal responsibility. It comes after Israel and the international community as a whole have repeatedly called on Syria to end its support of terrorism and finally comply with international law. And it is designed to prevent further armed attacks against Israeli civilians in which Syria is complicit, with a view to encouraging Syria to resolve its dispute through bilateral negotiations in accordance with Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), as it is legally required to do. This is not a hypothetical question. Many States members of the Organization and of the Council have been faced with terrorism of far less intensity and have responded with far less restraint and far less concern for human life. And yet the Security Council has not seen fit to scrutinize their conduct. Indeed, on certain occasions the Council has specifically endorsed such defensive measures. If there is a double standard in this Organization, it is that while some States are afforded the right to protect their citizens, Israel too often is sent the message that its citizens are not worthy of protection. If there is a double standard, it is that some States are able to support terrorism with impunity, while those defending against it are called to account. If there is a double standard, it is Syria sitting at the Council table and raising one hand to vote against terror and the other to perpetrate and initiate terror around the world. For the sake of peace and the reputation of the Council, let there be no such double standard today. In the face of the rejectionism, aggression and terrorist sponsorship of the Syrian regime, together with Iran and the Palestinian Authority, what would the international community have us do? Like any State faced with such a critical and prolonged threat, Israel must exercise its inherent right and obligation to defend its citizens. What can we tell the Arab and Israeli mothers of children murdered in this weekend's attack in Haifa? Should we say, "We could have prevented the death of your son or daughter. We could have stopped a terrorist from walking into your town, your school, your home, your bedroom - but our hands were tied?" Israel remains committed to a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict and is ready to make painful compromises to that end. But no peace can come while terrorism prospers. No negotiations can bring progress, while our citizens die on the streets. Today, on the very eve of the Day of Atonement and the thirtieth anniversary of the Egyptian-Syrian aggression that initiated the Yom Kippur War, we call on members of the Council to come to the aid of the victims of terrorism, not of its sponsors. Syria deserves no support for its complicity in murder, and the Council would commit an unforgivable act of moral blindness were it to act otherwise. The time has come for the Council, which adopted resolution 1373 (2002), and which has been at the forefront of the global counter-terrorism campaign, to hold to account a brutal dictatorship that is world-renowned for adopting terrorism as its primary tool. The world is watching. And today, more than on any other day, God is watching too.
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DERSHOWITZ AND THE CASE AGAINST JORDAN
Posted by Eliezer Edwards, October 8, 2003. |
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This essay by Alan M. Dershowitz on Jordan was in the Jerusalem Post yesterday. Mr. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard. His latest book is "The Case for Israel." Here he contrasts Israel and Jordan. He asks "why Jordan, which by any standard of fair judgment is less democratic, more oppressive, and far more racist, gets a pass while Israel is subject to so much vilification." I have to say I am much less pleased by Jordan's behaviour towards Israel than Dershowitz is. But here again, I guess things are relative. Jordan behaves better than Saudi Arabia or Syria by a long shot. Jordan is the West's favorite Arab nation. And for good reason, since it is the best of a generally bad lot. Most westerners admired King Hussein, adore his best-selling widow Queen Noor, and respect his son, King Abdullah. US President George W. Bush recently, and appropriately, praised King Abdullah for his devotion to peace in the region. No one has to write "The Case for Jordan," as I have had to write "The Case for Israel." But any fair comparison between the Middle East's most reviled and condemned nation, Israel, and its most praised nation, Jordan, starkly reveals the invidious double standard applied to Israel. A few largely unknown facts about Jordan: *Jordan has a law on its books explicitly prohibiting any Jew from becoming a citizen, or any Jordanian from selling land to a Jew. It has refused to amend this law despite repeated demands. Why do Americans not know the case against Jordan? Because it is in no one's interest to make it. Jordan is an ally of the United States (at least some of the time). It is a peace partner with Israel (at least now). It is the best of the Arab states in the Middle East, but "best" is a comparative term with a relatively low basis for comparison. Why then am I making the case against Jordan? Simply to demonstrate the double standard so widely employed in judging Israel. Nothing justifies this double standard. Yes, Israel receives American aid, but so does Jordan (as well as Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and other Arab states). Indeed Jordan receives, on a per capita basis, more actual aid than Israel, if aid is defined as receiving assistance in return for nothing. Israel earns its aid by giving back an enormous amount especially in the area of military intelligence and technology. The aid given to Jordan is entirely a one-way street that goes primarily into propping up its minority monarchy and preventing its Palestinian majority from taking over. Israel, as a democracy, needs no aid to prevent internal upheaval. So this case against Jordan is really part of the case for Israel. It invites fair-minded people to ask why Jordan, which by any standard of fair judgment is less democratic, more oppressive, and far more racist, gets a pass while Israel is subject to so much vilification. Having made the case against Jordan, let me add that I, too, admired King Hussein, whom I had the pleasure of meeting. I, too, respect his son King Abdullah, who recently met with Bush and restated his commitment to a peaceful two-state solution. But I must insist and the world must insist on a single standard of judgment and criticism with regard to all nations. By any such standard, Israel deserves less criticism and more praise than Jordan.
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ISRAEL'S "FRIENDS" AT THE UN AND AT HOME
Posted by Richard H. Shulman , October 8, 2003. |
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As the Oslo/Map process falls from its own weight, UN official Roed-Larsen suggests "a bold acceleration of the road-map process." This is "... more of the same. It perfectly encapsulates the tragic farce of the UN's approach" - keep at what doesn't work. Roed-Larsen calls for "significant Israeli concessions." That "sounds like this message to Israel: If you are being attacked, it is because you are not conceding enough to your attackers. If only you made a properly large down-payment for the expected reward for not slaughtering your citizens, the terrorism would stop. Mr. Roed-Larsen: We've been down this road before. Time and again, Israel has been told: You go first and demonstrate 'goodwill' and you will be rewarded for it. And so Israel withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon, and is now living with Hizbullah's rockets pointed at its cities. So Israel armed the P.A., withdrew from Palestinian (Arab) towns - and was rewarded with three years of terrorism." (Intl. Jer. Post, 9/26, Ed..) Concessions don't work. Her friendly" neighbors also weigh in at the UN. Jordan (a recidivist aggressor) calls for an end "to the killing of civilians" by both sides and for international monitoring of the Road Map. Reuters explains that the Map "has bogged down over Israeli demands that the P.A. crack down on militants" and over P.A. "suspicions that Israel would give nothing in return." The Foreign Minister of S. Arabia (another aggressor) alleges that the P.A. "went as far as they could, including declaring a six-week truce," but that Israel "met all that with provocative measures, including political assassinations, building of the security wall..." (NY Times, 9/30, A7). Who is S. Arabia to condemn alleged Israeli violations? It violates the terms under which the US sells it warplanes. The P.A. is responsible for the slaying of civilians on both sides. It calls for, commits, and condones terrorism against Israeli civilians. The P.A. harbors terrorists in civilian areas, so when Israel pursues them, some civilians get hurt. International law holds wartime troops who station themselves in civilian areas responsible for civilian casualties. The Arabs constantly violate international law, though they constantly and falsely accuse Israel of doing so. The Map did not bog down over Israeli demands for a P.A. crackdown on terrorists (not militant). The crackdown on terrorists IS the first requirement of the Map, itself! Since the P.A. didn't crack down, it violated and bogged the Map down. Having agreed to the map, the P.A. had no right to cease observance on mere suspicion. The Arabs expect international monitoring to dishonestly favor them. The article missed a bigger point. The P.A. is not entitled to something in return for cracking down on terrorism. Terrorism is not a right, but a crime against humanity. When and if Israel compensates the P.A. for ceasing terrorism, it would be affirming that terrorism is not a crime but an Arab right. The Arabs would be paid for not terrorizing. That means they would be paid for having been terrorist. The biggest point is the wrongfulness of treating the two sides as equivalent. One side is a sovereign state with rights; the other is a terrorist regime committing crimes against humanity. Israel never should have negotiated with the Arabs, it should have wiped out the gunmen and sent their trouble-making people packing. I say "trouble-making," for their whole people are indoctrinated in intolerance, hatred, deceit, and violence. We have to return to Biblical concepts of an evil people, to fairly describe the Arabs, especially Arafat's Arabs. The Saudi foreign Minister exemplifies the Arab trait of deceitfulness, in claiming that the P.A. went as far as it could, in compliance with the Map, by declaring a truce, but Israel assassinated political leaders. The Map called for crushing terrorism, not declaring a truce. The P.A. declared a truce, but did not adhere to it. It also abused the truce's staying of the Israeli hand to develop better weapons and to rearm for renewed warfare. After enough Arab truce violations, Israel resumed its pro-active defense, including the Wall. Israel did not attack P.A. leaders who specialize in politics, but those who organize terrorism. Meantime, back in Israel, the Left campaigns against settlements. Why does the Left - or perhaps now just the Far Left - want Israel to abandon all the Jewish communities of Yesha? It thinks that such appeasement would entice a peace agreement from the Arabs. Those leftist Jews have decided what the Arabs would settle for: Yesha. Their assumption is mistaken. The Arabs would indeed accept an abandoned Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. They have said, however, that they would use those Territories as the stepping-stone to the conquest of Israel. The Left also argues on military grounds, claiming that Yesha is difficult to defend. The reverse is true. Israel would be difficult to defend without the defensible borders and strategic depth that Yesha affords. Yesha is Israel's outer defensive wall. Yesha, itself, would be easy to defend if Israel smashed the P.A. forces and discouraged the Arabs from staying. At least Israel should arm the Jewish communities there, so they could defend themselves from major attack. The Left also argues on economic grounds, writes Ariel Natan Pasko of FrontPageMagazine.com. Labor MK Yael Dayan contends that the settlements cost a great deal, at the expense of the poor. Mr. Pasko asks what has MK Dayan done to help the poor? She tries to impoverish Yesha Israelis by forcing them out of their homes. The Left has failed to consider how many billions of dollars it would cost for the Jews of Yesha to rebuild in Israel. They would incur the same running expenses for education, health care, pension, etc. in Israel as in Yesha. The Left wastes much money that could lift people from poverty. Pasko cites the example of leftists benefiting from, government subsidies of theaters and other cultural activities. (Non-subsidized theaters are more popular.) Worse, the government spent billions of dollars to pay the Kibbutz movement's debts. Haaretz estimates that NIS 45 billion was spent on "settlements" since 1967. Most of that was for basic infrastructure, which would have had to be spent within the Green Line, if those Israelis did not build beyond it. The Left has returned to a fourth means of attack on Jewish Yesha: censorship. When some rabbis criticized the Road Map because of the terrorism it supports, Far Left politicians urged the Attorney General to indict them. When some Israelis protested against government expulsion of Jews from Gilad Farms in Judea-Samaria, Labor politicians called it a revolt and something to "endanger the existence of the State of Israel." Hysteria or demagoguery? What endangers Israel is the hundreds killed and thousands injured from terrorism, which was nurtured and permitted by leftist policy, such as the Oslo Accords. The Left's real opinion about the existence of the State of Israel was shown at a rally, where leftists booed at the Israeli national anthem. When the Jerusalem Post suggested that Israel kill Arafat and as many Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as soon as possible, another Meretz MK urged the Attorney General to indict the editor for "incitement to murder." The Left equates anti-terrorism with murder, when it should be equating terrorism with murder. The Left does not believe in freedom of speech (9/26, e-mail from Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/29) And both Israel's Leftists and her neighbors make it seem a PLO state is inevitable. Constant and ubiquitous assertions that it is may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This chorus depresses opposition. But a PLO state is NOT inevitable. Imagine how little inevitability would attach if: (1) Enough people denied its inevitability and denounced its prospect; and (2) Israel took steps to thwart it. Among those steps would be destruction of the P.A. forces, dissolution of the P.A., denial of Yesha Arab access to Israel and to Jewish communities of Yesha, and annexation of Yesha territory not developed by Arabs or which have been developed by Jews! In other words, the fate of Israel is up to the children of Israel. Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides accurate information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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THE SECRET OF BELMONTE
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 8, 2003. |
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For a change, and for Succos, a happy story. It appeared first in the Jewish Press (http://www.jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=2912) Most Jewish prayer books show the 23rd psalm on a page just before the finish of Friday evening prayers, which is to say just before the Sabbath meal. It is in some ways a strange thing to be read at this point, with its talk about walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and similar thoughts not exactly conducive to the Sabbath atmosphere. The explanation is very simple. The psalm was recited by the Anusim - the Marranos or secret Jews of Spain and Portugal - before each Sabbath meal. They were risking their very lives by celebrating Shabbat, for there was a very real danger that the Inquisitions informants might spot them. They prepared themselves psychologically for imminent discovery and arrest by reciting the psalm. Later it was introduced into prayer books around the world as part of Sabbath preparation, among both Sephardim and Ashkenazim. I contemplate this as I try to catch my breath from the long climb up the mountain of Belmonte. It is about a four-hour drive from Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, in the eastern mountainous region not far from the Spanish border. I spent the week in Lisbon at the university, having been invited to substitute- teach a class for a local professor who is ill, and then headed for Shabbat in the hills. The area around Belmonte is a region of castles and fortifications from the Middle Ages, one in particular built by the Templar Knights as an outpost in their skirmishes with the Moors. It is an area that held a large Jewish population before the Jews expulsion from the Iberian peninsula. Five years after the Catholic monarchs of Spain dispatched Columbus to the New World and expelled their Jews, the king of Portugal was in need of a bride. The daughter of the Spanish crown was available to him - but at a price. He had to agree to expel Portugal`s Jews. While many Jews left, many others stayed on, going through the motions of being Christians. Portugal was more relaxed about such things than Spain, at least at first. It was an open secret that many of the "New Christians" were practicing Judaism behind closed doors. But the toleration, such as it was, did not last for long. The Portuguese royal family suffered one of its regular royal genetic crises - i.e., the line was left without a male heir - and Spain gobbled up the kingdom, bringing the Inquisition in with its rule. Belmonte is a remote village of about 1,200 souls, high in the Serra da Estrela mountains. It is best known for being the ancestral home of Pedro Cabral, the valiant discoverer of Brazil, and his aristocratic family. The Cabral manor house still stands, as does the castle to which the nobility could escape in times of danger, located at the pinnacle of the mountain. Nearby are the remains of an old pillory, once used for those found guilty of moral offenses, an innovation whose reintroduction into modern society I have often imagined. Exactly eleven years ago, on the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of Jews from Spain, a bizarre event took place. Five hundred years after going into hiding, the Jewish community of Belmonte emerged into the open. The Jews of Belmonte had lived as secret Jews, not for a month or two but for five whole centuries. For half a millennium they had hidden their identify from curious eyes and busybodies, keeping traditions quietly alive, passing down from generation to generation the prayers whose Hebrew they could no longer read or understand. They refused to eat meat because there was no kosher butcher available. They married only with other secret Jews, usually second or third cousins from within the Belmonte community. They celebrated Passover with special devotion, and anyone not attending a seder was shunned and ostracized. There were, of course, things that could not be done. The deceased had to be buried in the town`s Catholic cemetery lest they give themselves away. Circumcision was particularly dangerous, and over time they had to abandon it. The women of the town were the crucial figures in preserving Jewish tradition. They managed without a synagogue, with no Torah scroll, with no prayer books. The Anusim of Belmonte, those coerced into pretending to have abandoned their Jewishness, scratched out a living in the impoverished hills of underdeveloped Portugal, which is only now catching up with the rest of Western Europe. Even today, most of the local Jews are peddlers and small merchants, buying and selling clothing in neighboring villages. Most cannot read and write in Hebrew, and some cannot read and write in Portuguese. One told me that he dropped out of school, never to return, after a teacher accused him of murdering Jesus. The Jews of Belmonte dress like the locals. Some of their older women wear head- to-toe black "babushka" peasant dresses and scarves, somewhat like those worn in Iran but with faces unveiled. There are between 150 and 200 Jews in the town - the largest community of crypto-Jews in Portugal, the largest Portuguese Jewish community today outside the two main cities of Lisbon and Porto. Shortly after emerging from the shadows into daylight in 1992, a new synagogue was built in the Jewish quarter of Belmonte, financed with contributions from a Moroccan Jewish businessman. Eleven years ago they came out into the open. Curiously, they still commonly refer to themselves as crypto-Jews, perhaps out of force of habit. Journey to Belmonte It is the last Shabbat of the Jewish year, the final one before Rosh Hashanah. I have made a serious planning error. There are only two hotels in the entire town, one whose rates are twice that of the other, and I book the cheaper one. It turns out the synagogue is at the very top of the mountain, perhaps a hundred yards from the ruins of the Cabral fortress. My hotel is all the way at the very bottom of the mountain. I climb the mountain with Uri, my research associate from Haifa, who has made the trip with me, and we stop every few minutes to catch our breath. There are no foreign tourists to be seen anywhere in the entire town; the few tourists roaming about are all native Portuguese. Uri was born in Romania before moving as a child to Israel, and his Romanian, which turns out to be surprisingly similar to Portuguese, has rescued us from more than one potential dilemma. Rabbi Elisha Salas is expecting us for Shabbat services. The Chilean-born Salas had been an accountant before moving to Israel and studying for the rabbinate. After his ordination, he moved to Efrat in Judea. He "commutes" from there to Belmonte, where he serves as the rabbi, and also works with the synagogue in Porto. His life is not easy. On a shoestring of a budget, he takes the four-hour bus back and forth between Belmonte and Porto, to give classes, teach Hebrew, and kasher kitchens. His newest project is supervising the building of a local Portuguese kosher winery in nearby Covilha. There are unique local halachic issues that must be addressed. While a Jewish cemetery has been open since 1992, an old woman has asked to be buried alongside her husband who died when burials were still done in the Catholic cemetery. What should be done? While the children of the community - and some of the adult males - have been circumcised openly since 1992, others have not, the reasons for their reluctance perhaps understandable. We have been practicing Judaism for five centuries, they insist, and no one can tell us we are not Jewish today, circumcised or not. Despite the history of Jewish suffering in Iberia, Portugal seems surprisingly free of open animosity toward Jews. Rabbi Salas says he has never been insulted while walking the streets of various cities and villages in obviously Jewish garb. To the contrary, he is often accosted by people who claim to be descendants of Marranos. Together with ex- New Yorker Michael Freund, a columnist at the Jerusalem Post, he has established an organization called Amishav, or Return of My People (www.elishamai@amishav.org.il), which seeks to keep Judaism alive in Portugal. Among its projects is a campaign to redeem posthumously the reputation of the Portuguese Dreyfus, Captain Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto, an officer in the Portuguese army in the first half of the twentieth century who was viciously slandered and maligned. He had been an activist in convincing descendants of Marranos to return openly to Judaism. The story of the community is told in a large stone plaque in Hebrew at the entrance to the synagogue. Next to it is a reproduction of a stone with Hebrew carvings recovered from a medieval synagogue in a neighboring village, the original being in a museum. "Shabbat Shalom," we are greeted as we enter the synagogue, panting from the climb. The acting cantor, a young man born in the town, speaks English quite well, to our relief. He likes to adapt Israeli tunes to the prayers, and Lecha Dodi is sung to the Israeli tune of Yerushalayim shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold). Rabbi Salas gives his sermon in Portuguese, which he has somehow picked up, adapting his native Chilean Spanish for the purposes. He welcomes Uri and me and he introduces us to the congregation as having arrived from Mt. Carmel, the mountain of the Prophet Elijah. Understanding nods and smiles answer. I ask him to tell them that Belmonte might just be a tougher mountain to climb than the Carmel. We have made another mistake. Ascending the mountain in daylight is one thing. But getting back to the hotel in the dark is another. It is the week before Rosh Hashanah, which means there is no moon in the evening. The shortcut through the trees is as black as the Egyptian Plague. The only way "home" is to hike a roundabout route on lit roads, for about three miles. Shabbat morning. We climb the mountain on foot in the cool early morning air. There are almost thirty men already at prayer, with a group of women upstairs. Most of the congregation members daven without a prayer book, or use one that has transliterations of the prayers into Portuguese. Most of the older men seem to know the prayers by heart. Only a few can read Hebrew script freely and even fewer understand what the letters mean. Rabbi Salas has caught me off guard. He calls me up for the Maftir. I am embarrassed to say how long it has been since I have recited the haftara in a Sabbath service, and I am unprepared, afraid to make a mess in front of the congregation. The rabbi will not let me beg off. Fortunately, I spent recent months working with my son preparing his own haftara for his bar mitzvah, so at least the trop signs are fresh in my mind. Somehow I get through it without disgracing myself too badly. The congregation is mesmerized. I am not sure if they have heard Ashkenazi melodies before for reciting the haftara, but I am almost certain they have never heard a heavy American accent in Hebrew chant. While their Hebrew skills are in their infancy, they know how to sing many Hebrew songs. The blank stares they show when listening to us speak with the rabbi in Hebrew turn instantly into full comprehension and enthusiasm when we wish them Next Year in Jerusalem. That they know how to say, and sing, in Hebrew. And they sing scores of other Israeli tunes over kiddish - the words to some of which I myself do not remember . While Belmonte attracts quite a few visitors, many are secular Israelis or Americans who pass through Friday night and drive off the next morning, violating the Sabbath to the chagrin of the locals. The rabbi tells us they are pleased with us for having stuck things out to the end of Shabbos, including yet another climb up the mountain. As havdala time approaches, we know that at least we can soon get down the mountain other than by foot. After havdala I try an experiment. While everyone is wishing one another shavua tov - a good week in Hebrew - I wish the locals a geeta voch - a good week in Yiddish. The stare at me nonplussed. We are very sorry, says one in broken English, but I am afraid we do not understand American. Shabbos over, we walk Rabbi Elisha (as everyone in the community seems to call him) to his simple apartment, where Uri labors to fix some problems the rabbi has been having with his computer. While Uri works, the doorbell rings every few minutes - local Jews coming by to pick up assorted items that Rabbi Elisha has ordered for them: a kiddush cup, a new tallis, a Hebrew phonics book. ******** Joao Pinto Delgado was a Portuguese Marrano poet who lived in the sixteenth century. He is best known for his long poem about Queen Esther and her saga. In that poem he writes: "How can I, after contemplating such heavenly splendors, see your poor displays of pomp and ceremony and be impressed or dazzled? How can they deserve my praise? How should I fear your power, which is small compared to that of the Lord who is master of all? Belmonte is simple, humble and modest. It is also timeless, incomprehensible and awe- inspiring. It is the expression of Jewish survival and determination, of the deep Jewish awareness of the Eternal and Unseen, before which pales any manifestation of earthly pomp and transitory glory. For five centuries, that has been Belmonte`s secret. Steven Plaut is a professor at Haifa University. His book "The Scout" is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at steven_plaut@yahoo.com. |
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FROM DAMASCUS TO RAMALLAH
Posted by Michael Freund, October 8, 2003. |
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What a difference an airstrike can make. Israel's daring attack this past Sunday against a Palestinian terrorist training camp on the outskirts of Damascus was one of the most encouraging signs to emerge from the Middle East in a good, long time. After years of ineffectual and unimaginative efforts to counter anti-Israel terror, the government chose to hit the terrorists where they least expected it: in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, right under the nose of Bashar al-Assad and his dictatorial regime. The attack was a slap in the face to the Syrian autocrat, and a well-deserved one at that, underlining his regime's continued support for an array of terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Coming at a time when the US Congress is considering the Syria Accountability Act, a bill that would empower the president to impose sanctions on Damascus for its sponsorship of terror, the Israeli airstrike is bound to reinforce the need for this important piece of legislation. Sunday's raid also laid bare the failure of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's Syria policy, which has thus far relied on diplomacy to persuade Assad to desist from harboring terrorist groups. It was less than 5 months ago, in May 2003, that Powell visited Syria and politely asked Assad to close down the terrorist network operating in his country. That request, as Sunday's attack made clear, was about as effective as asking the Taliban in Afghanistan to turn over Osama Bin-Laden. It fell on deaf ears, for the simple reason that Bashar Assad is not someone who can be reasoned with. As Deputy Defense Minister Zev Boim told Israel Radio on Sunday, Damascus remains the headquarters for Islamic Jihad and Hamas, where the two groups plan their strategy and issue instructions to their members in the territories to carry out terrorist acts. And, Boim noted, the Islamic Jihad cell in Jenin, which was responsible for this past Saturday's massacre of 19 Israelis in Haifa, maintains regular and ongoing contact with the leadership in Damascus. Hence, for all intents and purposes, Powell's approach has proven entirely unsuccessful. More importantly, though, the airstrike demonstrated that Israel is prepared to cross an international frontier, infringing upon its neighbor's sovereignty when the safety and security of its citizens is at stake. In other words, it showed that Israel has not forsaken the will to live, and that it is ready to put aside concerns over international condemnation, and strike hard at those who seek its destruction. But the attack outside Damascus was not the only one which Israel carried out that day. A second operation, which took place in Gaza, showed that the old, outmoded way of thinking is still very much alive in Israel's defense establishment. Hours after the suicide bombing in Haifa, Israeli airforce jets reportedly targeted a house in Gaza, firing missiles at a compound that Yasser Arafat is said to use when he visits the city. But that house was as empty as the thinking behind its destruction, because Arafat is safely holed up in Ramallah, and is not known to have visited the Gaza compound in nearly two years. According to the media, the house was likely targeted to 'send a signal' to Arafat, as though such a course of action has never been tried before. But the time for signals is over. Arafat and his minions are beyond signals, far beyond. If anything, the targeting of one of their empty compounds sends precisely the wrong message, suggesting that Israel is unwilling or unable to hit them directly, so it does the next best thing by taking out their weekend retreat. But the message Israel needs to be sending Arafat and the entire leadership of the Palestinian Authority is the same as the one which it sent to Islamic Jihad on Sunday, namely that they are not safe anywhere. There is no 'out of bounds' in this war, and there can be no sanctuaries for terror, regardless of whether they are in Ramallah, Damascus or Gaza. The only way to get rid of terrorism is not to 'isolate' it, or ostensibly make it 'irrelevant', but to eliminate its practitioners, the terrorists themselves. And that includes Yasser Arafat too. If Sunday's air raid near Damascus turns out to have been a one time occurrence, or a blip on the counter-terror radar screen, then its impact will last only as long as the smoke billowing over the terrorists' training camp. But if it heralds a new strategy in Israel's war on terror, one in which it adopts bolder and more forceful measures which ultimately result in the elimination of the Palestinian Authority itself, then it just might prove to be the turning point we have all been hoping, and praying, for. The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. |
| SECURITY FIRST Posted by Girish Kurtkoti, October 8, 2003. |
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As a person who is concerned about the safety and continuity of American values and ideals, I believe that a certain degree of racial and religious profiling should be accepted and implemented here in the U.S. President Bush continues to call it the "War on Terror" when it should really be labeled "The War on Militant Islam." If we are to prevent another 9/11 or want to avoid the daily attacks suffered by Jews in Israel and Hindus in India, we need to correctly recognize the enemy. Our counter-terrorism departments should focus almost exclusively on Muslims and Islamic institutions because that is the population and vehicle through which our lives are threatened. For example, every person who looks Middle-Eastern should be thoroughly checked at airports and other venues where there is a high concentration of people. We have to accept that some stereotypes are actually based on fact and not myth. I personally would not feel the least bit slighted if I was forced to undergo more strenuous security measures that my Caucasian, African, or Oriental counterparts. It's just a reality that this is where our threat comes from and I'm more concerned about being correct than politically correct. Until we fix the problem, we need to ensure our safety firstand that may mean a temporary subjection to heightened scrutiny. Girish Kurtkoti lives in Brecksville, Ohio. |
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OFFICIAL PA TV: ISRAEL WILL BE DESTROYED THROUGH VIOLENCE
Posted by Itamar Marcus, October 8, 2003. |
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Introduction: While the Palestinian Authority (PA) gives lip service in English to condemning PA terrorism, in Arabic its official TV continues to promote and glorify violence, presenting it this openly last week as the means to destroy of Israel. PA TV started re-broadcasting a short clip that reaffirms the fundamental PLO- PA message, that the goal and end result of Palestinian violence will be Israel's destruction. In this visually powerful clip, the PA conquest of Israel is depicted by visual symbols accompanied by verbal messages in song. The Visual depicts three stages. Stage 1- A heart is dripping blood beneath a formation in the shape of Israel, symbolizing pain, loss or sacrifice because of or linked to Israel's existence. Stage 2- Arms grasping stones sprout from the land all over Israel, symbolizing violent attacks throughout Israel. Stage 3- The PA flag appears, covers all of Israel and then rests above Israel, symbolizing the PA conquest of all of Israel. The words sung while the PA flag hovers over Israel, include: "Allah Akbar! [Allah is Great] Oh, the young ones,
This video was broadcast twice on PA TV the week of Sept. 29-30 2003. (PA TV is owned and totally controlled by the Palestinian Authority.) It can be seen on the PMW website. Itamar Marcus is Director of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), whose website address is http://www.pmw.org.il |
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FORKED TONGUES
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, October 8, 2003. |
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Dear friends, How many times do I have to repeat to you the fact that the Palestinians lie to the western media. They say one thing to us and to you, and the opposite in Arabic to their own people. So, here it is again: 1. The Palestinian Charter is in force and it calls for the complete annihilation of the State of Israel, the entire state, not just the disputed territories. 2. The incitement for murder of Israelis (and Jews) continues daily on all Palestinian media. Do not ask me why Israel allows it! 3. In every mosque, every Friday, throughout Judea, Samaria, Gaza and also elsewhere in the Arab world, the calls for killing Israelis by suicide "shaheeds" continue uninterrupted. The conflict is not about the return of the disputed territories. For the Palestinians the entire Israel is not even disputed, it is theirs without compromise. That is why the Barak offer in Camp David was refused by Arafat, as many such opportunities before. Here is the Jerusalem Post's Editorial on the subject. It's entitled "Unequivocal Condemnation,"I find it shocking. You will too! On Sunday, as Israelis prepared themselves for Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, the names of the 19 dead from the massacre in Haifa's Maxim restaurant were being read on the radio, as were the times of their funerals. Two families were all but wiped out, including grandparents, parents, and children in the attack, carried out by a woman suicide bomber from Jenin. Also on Sunday, European Union Ambassador Giancarlo Chevallard laid a wreath at the site of the bombing. Yasser Arafat and a slew of Palestinian officials condemned the attack, which, as Arafat put it, "subjects the higher interests of the Palestinian people to the most serious dangers and labels our people with the stain of terror." Let us state at the outset that we take the horror of European officials in response to terrorism at face value. Yet if hypocrisy is, as the dictionary says, "an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction," the European and Palestinian reactions to this latest atrocity belong, to different degrees, in the same category. It is by now well established that the Palestinian Authority with all its men under arms and multiple security forces that efficiently quash dissent is not lifting a finger to prevent terrorism. But this is just the beginning. The PA, in the same breath that it condemns terrorism in English and Hebrew, continues to encourage it with abandon in Arabic to the Palestinian people. On September 21, Al-Ayam reported on a soccer tournament an event that in a normal society might be a welcome opportunity to provide a semblance of normality for a people living under harsh circumstances. Yet no less than 13 PA officials, led by close Arafat adviser and media figure Saeb Erekat, used the event to deliver a powerful political message: We honor suicide bombers. The event was given the sporty title, "The Shahids [Martyrs] Tournament, of the Path of the Palestinian National Struggle for Palestinian Institutions, 2003." Each of the 24 competing teams was named for another leader in the PA's pantheon of terrorism, including: Yihye Ayash ("the Engineer"), Hamas's most prominent mastermind of suicide bombings; Dalal Mughrabi, a woman terrorist who hijacked a bus killing 36 in 1978; Raid Carmi, chief of Fatah's suicide bomber wing, the Al Aqsa Brigades, and so on. The trophy was presented by Erekat on behalf of Arafat, after the officials led the crowd in standing for a "moment of pride in memory of the spirit of the martyrs," the newspaper reported. At the same time, official PA television continues to broadcast the message that Israel all of Israel will be destroyed through the terrorist offensive that it continues to glorify. Last week, the PA began to rebroadcast a clip produced last October showing a beating heart, dripping with blood, which is suspended from a map of Israel. The evocative graphics are accompanied by the refrain: "Allah is Great / Oh, the young ones / Shake the earth, raise the stones / You will not be saved, Oh Zionist / From the volcano of my county's stones. / You are the target of my eyes" (see Palestinian Media Watch, http://www.pmw.org.il, for full translations and video clips). To call what the "moderate" Palestinian leadership is doing hypocrisy is to understate, since that term implies greater effort to hide the truth. In this case, the truth is broadcast through print media and airwaves, hidden only behind the thin barrier of the Arab language. In Europe's case, however, there is only so much that can be explained away as willful ignorance or naivete. European governments know two things full well. First, that Arafat and his government are not only failing to fight terrorism, but are providing a diplomatic cover and propaganda encouragement for it. Second, that Europe is Arafat's last and only important friend in the world, and if key European capitals suddenly decided to expose Arafat's ruse and end all contact with him, the path of support for terrorism would no longer be a viable one. Arafat provides an umbrella for terrorism, Europe an umbrella for Arafat. It's time to put an end to both charades. Mr. Zaliouk sends his "Truth Provider" columns by email. Contact him at ynz@netvision.net.il |
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HITTING AN EMPTY CAMP
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 8, 2003. |
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Vital questions arise from the Israeli warplane strike on a Palestinian Jihad Islami-Hamas training camp, Ein Sahab, [also spelled: Ayn Tzahab] in Syria, 10 miles NW of Damascus. As the first news of the strike came over the wires, I had the uncomfortable thought that Israel had, as in the past since Oslo, hit empty buildings - a false show of hitting their known Terrorist tormentors. I thought that Prime Minister Sharon had sought and received 'permission' from Bush, Powell and Rice to 'stage a show' for his electorate while sending a message to Bashar Al Assad from the White House to back off. That is what would be called 'staged diplomacy' in Washington. Islamic Jihad, speaking from Syrian-controlled Beirut, Lebanon, stated that "all their bases were in Palestinian 'Occupied' territory and none in Syria." Other reports coming from the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) stated that "the base Ein Sahab that was hit was deserted, except for a simple watchman who was slightly injured." Israel's Ambassador to the U.N., Daniel Gillerman, stated that "the base had been used by a mix of terrorists in bomb-making and other training...that from there the trained Terrorists were then filtered into the 'west bank and Gaza' to set up networks." Gillerman made a cogent and forceful statement in from of the U.N. Security Council as to Syria's past and present involvement in Terror against Israel. He was most impressive, although given the record of the U.N.'s biased votes against Israel, they will most likely vote some form of condemnation of Israel's strike. As this is written, the U.S. is threatening to veto any such condemnation but that may be a ploy to weaken the language so America can allow it to pass without her veto. One question now is, Was Israel given permission by the Bush Administration to hit a deserted training base? We all recall the numerous times that Israel, under Barak and now Sharon hit empty police stations and other buildings which were deliberately evacuated for the incoming strike. If the Camp in Syria was active, there would have been many more casualties than one lightly injured watchman. Clearly, the American satellites would have seen activity as would Israel's OFEK satellite. If the strike was based on poor intelligence, that could be merely bad luck or possibly deliberate misinformation by the U.S. who tracks such places with great accuracy. If the strike was allowed by Washington so that Sharon could show the Israeli people that he was doing something dramatic to keep his job, then he should be retired from office. A Prime Minister so tied to a short leash to Washington's Administration and politics is not a fit defender or leader for the State of Israel who lives in such a dangerous neighborhood. These doubts must be put to rest immediately and not through one of Israel's infamous investigations that is designed to take years and fade from attention. For reasons that have yet to be exposed, Washington's State Department has been working very diligently to let Syria off the hook as being a State sponsor of Terror. The latest ploy is to get Syria to station some troops at road checkpoints in an effort to stop Terrorists of all kinds from entering Iraq, including Al Qaeda, Iraqi, Arab Palestinians, home-grown Syrians, and others. The propaganda being pumped out of the State Department to the networks is: "See, Syria is helping us a lot." This is about as phony as it gets since all know the Syrian border is deliberately porous and checkpoints on known roads will not stop Terrorist infiltration. In fact, it is quite likely that Syria is aiding and abetting such Terrorist interlinking and interdiction into Iraq. One can only be reminded of when, during the 1991 Gulf War, Desert Storm, when former President George Herbert Walker Bush, James Baker and Colin Powell enlisted Syria into a fake coalition where the Syrians were financially induced to send some troops into Kuwait. They arrived without weapons and were stationed far away from the front lines. For that show, they received several Billion Dollars of American taxpayers' money, plus the 100 Soviet-made aircraft which Saddam sent to Iran, who crated them for transfer to Syria. (Iran could not absorb Soviet aircraft into an Air Force mostly bought from America and Europe.) Who in Washington has been Syria's secret protector for years? This deserves an investigation by Congress, the FBI and the CIA. Syria has been protected at the highest levels of Government, including the Terrorist suicide truck bomb when 241 American Marines were murdered in Beirut, Lebanon during 1983 with Syrian involvement. Underlying this Syrian/Washington connection is the old and still alive plan to take Syria off of the State Department's list of States? Sponsoring Terrorism. This would then allow the U.S. to "gift" Syria $20-40 Billion dollars worth of American military equipment (just as has been done for Egypt who has received $50 Billion of American taxpayers' money). That money would go from the U.S. Treasury straight to the armament manufacturers with the U.S. taxpayers picking up the tab. This very suspicious connection with Syria has never been investigated by Congress so, the very dirty game of money transfer diplomacy goes on and on. Clearly, the fight against Global Terrorism is very selective. Most Terrorists seem to have protectors who tie the hands of those who really wish to and have the capability to eliminate them - like Israel. The Bush Administration is straddling two roads and stumbling on both. Sadly, I guess Israel has to wait for a massive 9/11 type event before, like Samson, she pulls down the pillars of Terror. The same goes for America under Bush. We must wait for the inevitable next 'BIG' one before we abandon pinpoint bombing and fight Terror in the nations that incubate and fund Terror such as Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even Egypt who funnels weapons through tunnels into Gaza to the Arab Palestinian Terrorists. Emanuel A. Winston is a prominent Middle East analyst and commentator. Many of his articles first appeared on the Gamla (http://www.gamla.org.il/english) and the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies ((http://www.freeman.org/online.htm) websites. |
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NEW BEGINNINGS
Posted by Yonatan Chesler, October 7, 2003. |
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The Jewish Calendar started a New Year about two weeks ago, and yesterday was the end of the beginning and a new beginning. Between the Jewish Calendar and the school calendar, this is an appropriate time for me; and tomorrow marks my one year anniversary in Israel. Last year at this time, I travelled around the world, climbing the world's tallest mountain (Mauna Kea, taller than Everest/Sagarmatha from sea floor to summit and yes, I'm counting it!), been to Japan, ran through Bankok's airport, and landed in Tel Aviv. In Arad I learned a few phrases in Russian and danced amidst the bonfires of Lag B'Omer with Ethiopians and was stuffed to the gills by Argentineans and graced with incredible kindness, hospitality and warmth at the Avney's. I spent four miserably cold days in the Negev and now look back fondly. I swam in the frigid waters of Eilat and thawed in the warmth of the memory of my father, who visited Masada 6 years before me. I met 'long lost cousins' in the Galilee whose closest connection is a great-great-grandparent and they took me in as their own. With their borrowed car I drove within a few kilometers of the Syrian border, site of many attacks by a modern enemy and shortly thereafter visited Gamla, the site attacked by an ancient one. I received a gas mask at the outset of the American war in Iraq and portrayed 'public enemy number 1', Osama Bin Laden, for Purim. I went to 2-for-1 pizza too often, and to classes at WUJS not enough. I didn't appreciate the desert enough when I was there. I met with Bedouin who are struggling with the cultural changes that the West took centuries to adapt to, and observed them dealing with the same in a matter of a few generations. I went to the Armenian museum and was shocked to learn of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turks a mere 30 years before the Holocaust. I met many people coming here for the same reasons I did, for the love of a People, to Build, to Grow, to Hope, to Pray, to Love, to Connect. I met people who had no better place to go, escaping economic collapse and persecution to come here. I met Israelis cheered and warmed by my enthusiasm for the Ideals; and others for whom Zionism is a dream deferred or dead, who think I'm insane for coming here, for coming now. From the highest peak at the beginning, I went to the lowest point on earth shortly thereafter. Israel reached a nadir as well with the worst financial situation in many peoples' memories, the fewest tourists since the early 1950's, an unemployment rate hovering percariously around 11 percent, and a relentless campaign of terror called 'militant action' by al-Jazeera's English news edition called CNN or BBC. I despaired as I heard of charedim throwing rocks at Jews driving the Bar-Ilan highway on Shabbat, at the polar opposites of fundamentalists on both sides of the spectrum. I cheered as I saw Jews from all walks of life sing out in unison, "l'hiyot am chofshi, be'artenu eretz zion, b'yrushalayim" (to be a free people in our own land). I danced in a Tel Aviv disco at a fundraiser for Israel's Women's Rugby Team. I enjoyed watching the most proudly secular Israeli kiss a mezuzah walking out a door, or wishing a friend a Shabbat Shalom, named Moshe (Moses) or Shlomo (Solomon) or Sarah or Dina. I walked around the walls of the Old City and prayed at the Kotel during Tisha b'Av, the day commemorating the destruction of both the First and Second Temples. I have been to the Temple Mount and the Tunnels that run along Herod's retaining wall below. I got chills as the meaningless jumble of words became recognizable phrases during religious services. I had a Shabbat in a Charedi community in the Gush. I went to a small settlement for lunch, halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho. Braver than that, I've gone time and again for a simple cup of coffee with friends, and wondered if it would be an act that would end my life. I've watched in horror and mourned bombings of buses and cafes and restaurants in Haifa and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I heard the sirens and regrettably the fell voice of war as a homicide bomber blew up a cafe I'd been at only hours before. I went to the site and was in such shock and horror I can only begin to cry about it now. I saw... (break) I saw Evil yet defiantly in the midst of it I saw people hugging, helping, giving, fighting back not with angry words or demonstrations or bombs but with prayers and Love. I've been stopped by the police so often I decided to volunteer with them (if ya can't beat em...), and contributed to the safeguarding of my community. I've learned how to shoot a carbine in self-defense. Speaking of weaponry, I told a lovely couple I hoped to shoot them again later (intending to say, to see you again - lirot and lir'oht are homonyms in Hebrew) and called someone chamora and not chamuda (donkey instead of dearie), amidst other amusing grammatical mistakes. I've been stopped by a couple who in their best Hebrew asked if I spoke English. I have shared Shabbats and Birthdays and Anniversaries and Holidays with wonderful friends. They're too many to name and I fear leaving anyone out because they are all such the most amazing and beautiful people, and I truly have been blessed to have them come into my life. I fell in love with a land and its peoples and its search for unity and community and identity and validation and acceptance and Peace. I fell in love with the language, and the challenge in communicating. I fell in love with the selflessness with which people give, with how many volunteer organizations there are, with the runner who stopped by the seriously injured biker and while the ambulance took him to the hospital, the runner took the bike to the injured man's wife with news of his injury. I fell in love with the sound of children's voices playing at nights and on weekends, and the adorable children of the Wolf family, recently returned to Israel from West Hartford, of all places! I fell in love with how important family is here. I fell in love with Jerusalem and its soldiers and sabras and olim (immigrants) and ovdim (workers) and spiritual intensity that makes you feel not that life happens to you or around you but here goes through you. I fell in love with the feeling that I am not outside the Pale, here, and although a small part, a necessary part, continuing a remarkable journey that started almost four *millenia* ago when one man had the notion of the unity of everything. I made aliyah; as Courageous Esther did centuries before me, I cast my lot with my People. My presence and identification here are powerful, but as I re-discovered on Rosh HaShana and Yom HaKippurim, it's not enough. I have to participate as well. For what does G-d require of you? Only that you do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your G-d. Wishing you all on your journeys and paths a wonderful year filled with happiness and health and peace. Thank you for sharing my journey with me, This essay is from a member of the group of essayists recording present-day life in Israel. The initial publication, "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" by Judy Lash Balint is available from www.israelbooks.com.To subscribe to the Jerusalem Diaries group, send an email to: jerusalemdiaries-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |
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ONLY THOSE WITH BELIEFS CAN DEFEAT THOSE WITH BELIEFS
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 7, 2003. |
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This is an article by Dennis Prager, that appeared today. What Mr. Prager is describing is at times called decadence. Decadent societies are eventually plundered by the lean and hungry. Maybe someone can explain to me why the thought of Europe being plundered and destroyed by the Arab hoards brings a broad grin to my face. As both supporters and opponents of President Bush acknowledge, America is largely going it alone in the war against Islamic terror and tyranny. Until a month ago - yes, one month ago - the European Union would not even label Hamas a terrorist group. There are many explanations for the lack of support for America in this war, a war of civilizations just as much as the wars against communism and Nazism were wars of civilizations. But the overriding reason is that America has far more believers - in religion and in their country - than any other nation in the industrialized world. Faith in religion and in America also explains much of the ideological division within America itself. President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice are deeply religious, and the vast majority of deeply religious Americans support this administration and its foreign policy. Of course, some of the president's supporters aren't religious and some of his opponents claim to be religious, but these phenomena can be also explained by the question of faith. Virtually all the non-religious supporters of President Bush's war on the Islamist threat to liberty have a deep faith in the United States and in its mission to preserve liberty. Religion is by no means the only form faith can take. Fervent believers have existed among communists and Nazis. They exist today among animal-rights advocates, environmentalists and countless other ideologies. But in the modern West, hundreds of millions of people have no such faith in anything. They do not passionately believe in their country or in religion. Their highest values are tolerance, health, pleasure and not judging good and evil. They are deeply afraid of fervent believers in anything. And they especially fear American believers - i.e., believers in the Bible and in America. That is why they commonly equate fundamentalist Christians with fundamentalist Muslims and that is why they so hate George W. Bush, the believer in the biblical God and in an American mission. As for the religious opponents of the president and his war against Islamic terror, they themselves will tell you that they do not share the true believers' faith. The Christian supporters of the president overwhelmingly believe that the Bible is the word of God, while the religious opponents of the president generally regard the Bible as a human document. Faith is therefore the dividing line even among believers in the same religion. That explains why most Christians who believe in the divinity of Scripture are closer on almost every moral and social position with Jews who believe in the divinity of Scripture than they are with theologically and politically liberal Christians. We cannot defeat the Islamist threat without the same degree of faith fanatical Muslims have. That is why most Europeans have capitulated to the anti-liberty Muslims in their midst and to the Muslims in the Middle East who seek to annihilate Israel, the state in their midst that venerates liberty. But in Israel, the Islamists have come upon an enemy many of whose people believe in their religion as deeply as the Islamists do in theirs. This is a major reason Israel is isolated along with America as the Islamists' main enemy. America and Israel have believers. The defeat of one or the other will render the Islamists' goal - a Muslim world governed by Islamic laws - probable, if not inevitable. That is why this battle is a battle of civilizations. One civilization believes in liberty and one does not. The problem is that the civilization that has liberty has not produced anywhere the depth of belief in liberty that the opponents of liberty have produced. That is why most Europeans (and their supporters in America on the Left) see dying or killing for almost anything as pointless. When you don't believe in anything except not dying, you don't really believe in anything. For this reason, European civilization is in peril. The great question mark is America. America is already in the midst of a civil war, thankfully still non-violent. It is between those who fervently believe in America and in Judeo-Christian revelation and those who fervently believe in neither. If the former win, the Islamic totalitarian threat, like the totalitarian threats before it, will be vanquished. If the latter win - as represented by the Left, many Democratic Party leaders, pacifists, the cultural elite and academia - liberty will have been nothing more than an aberration that lasted a few hundred years. Aryeh Zelasko is an American who made aliyah and lives in Jerusalem. Dennis Prager is an articulate essayist and a popular nationally syndicated radio talk show host. |
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THE GENERAL COMMAND: EGO VS. COMPETENCE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 7, 2003. |
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Ariel Sharon did not belong to the reigning clique in the Israeli Army. After winning promotions because of atypical and outstanding success, he aroused the resentment of colleagues who did belong to that clique. They tried to prevent his rise by restricting his opportunities for further success. Thus they tried to keep him from active command in wars they, themselves lacked the imagination to win. This sabotage of the country in the course of hampering Sharon's career occurred during the Yom Kippur War (and the Lebanon War and investigation commission). Chief of Staff David Elazar once secretly delayed a helicopter sent to fetch Gen. Sharon to a staff meeting. Gen. Elazar lost his temper when he heard of some initiative by Sharon that was saving the battle. Elazar passed over Sharon, for launching a counter-offensive, despite his having fresh troops and better knowledge of the battlefield, in favor of a tired, depleted division commanded by Gen. Eden who did not know the terrain. Sharon, aware that the Egyptians were ready for them with missile-bearing infantry, suggested a night attack on that infantry. He was not heeded, and Israel lost half a division. Nor did Gen. Eden let other divisions support the decimated one. Eden. lied that he was about the cross the Canal. When Defense Minister Moshe Dayan finally authorized Sharon to cross the Canal, which his rivals had been unable to do, he did it successfully. Upon hearing of it, Gen. Elazar demanded that Sharon "vacate all the area he conquered!" While Gen. Elazar and his clique pursued their rivalry, Israeli troops were getting killed. Although Sharon followed orders, the other generals tried to dismiss him for breaching them. The Army resumed passivity, thereby prolonging the war and casualties (and the opportunity for foreign pressure). This defensive posture helped lead to a taste for ceasefires and Oslo-like agreements. PM Rabin was not truthful when he claimed that he made the Oslo agreement from a feeling of national strength. (He is said to have worried that unless he resolved the Arab-Israel conflict, Israel would have to face weapons of mass-destruction. He didn't realize that the Arabs want conquest, not peace, especially the PLO and the jihadists.) Personal jealousy and fear of being outshined is one reason for the Israeli army performing below capability. Another is lack of professionalism. Many high-ranking officers are time-servers. Officers' courses are brief and extension courses "don't approach the thoroughness of the American army, where every second lieutenant in the Marines has to study at least four years in W. Point." Dr. Uri Milstein, whose iconoclastic research into the archives produced all these findings, learned that Israeli military officers have not mastered military theory. They rely too much on experience (but they haven't had a major war, lately, to provide new experience). A thorough grounding in military theory would enable them better to adapt to new circumstances for which their experience did not prepare them. The Israeli Air Force is different. Pilots must study for several years. In general, the IDF resists reform. The IDF deals with Milstein's criticism by denial and ad hominem attacks (MEPF from Miriam Gardner, 9/12 from American Yated Neeman). [ed note: For those who read Hebrew, you can read Mr. Milstein's article at http://www.faz.co.il/story_1722] Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides accurate information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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UNSUNG HEROES
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, October 7, 2003. |
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Margy Pezdirtz hails from Oklahoma, USA. She and her husband David, both not Jewish, decided to join us here in Israel in our hour of need. They rented an apartment in Jerusalem and are now part of us and our fate. It was a great privilege for me to get to know them last week. I wish all Jewish people in America will feel and do the same, even if just for a short visit. Here is a touching piece Margy wrote about Israel's Unsung Heroes. Israel's true heroes, those who deserve, but do not get the attention of the world, nor the Israeli, media. Unlike the 27 refusenick ex-pilots, these true heroes face the daily risk of being exploded, yet they carry on with their duties. How about assigning those retired pilots with the job of security guards in shopping malls, or with sitting in a cockpit of an Israeli public bus? My attention was drawn to it when I passed it. I don't know why particularly. Maybe it was the pretty green color they are using so much of now. Or maybe it was the advertising on the side. I'm not sure. But I noticed it and suddenly I was so aware of the importance these buses are to the city of Jerusalem and the country of Israel. The traffic light turned red and I was sitting there waiting my turn when that same bus pulled up beside me. Now I had time to look at the bus and the driver as I waited on the light to change signaling my turn to go. The bus was empty, all but the driver. I was a little puzzled by that since it was 10:30 Friday morning. Shabbat would be here in just a few hours. Usually the buses are full and harried at this time. But this is the Shabbat immediately preceding Yom Kippur and there are many terrorist warnings out. Perhaps that is why the buses are so empty today. Not being a native of the land, it is sometimes hard to know exactly what the reason is, but the drivers continue to drive and the buses continue to run. I looked at the driver and waved. He smiled and waved back. I don't know him and will probably never see him again. Perhaps someday I'll be angry with him as he pulls out in front of me and cuts me off in traffic. But, that will be okay. You see, something happened this morning. As I looked into the face of that driver, I suddenly realized what a hero he truly is. I'm sure if you asked him, he would be shocked at the question. Nevertheless, he is a hero as are all of the bus drivers and the security guards and the police men and women in this country of Israel, surrounded on all sides by enemies. Personally, I wanted to roll down my window and say "thank you", "thank you for continuing with your job , "thank you for caring enough about this land that you continue to work", "thank you for continuing to transport people who have no other means of transportation". I wondered what it was like for that driver, and all of the other drivers, knowing that at the next bus stop they may very well be taking on a crazed passenger who is going to kill them, or at least try. I wondered if they think about that? Is there a fear? What about their wives and children that they kiss goodbye each morning as they leave for work and possibly the last day of their lives? The light changed and I drove on to continue my preparations for Shabbat and I noticed even more buses. Suddenly, they seemed to be everywhere and most of them were empty. I did see a few with a scant number of passengers, but on the whole, they were mostly empty. Still, they made their routes with the same fervor. Now that I was more aware of the buses, I was also more aware of the bus stops. They, too, were empty. A few of them had security guards standing there - I wasn't sure if they were waiting on a bus or protecting a bus. At any rate, these unsung heroes were in my mind and my heart. In the last two years, since 9/11, there has been a tremendous awareness of the "unsung heroes" in America in the form of firemen, police officers, port authority personnel and emergency medical people. True, they are heros in all lands. But so are these unnoticed bus drivers, and security guards and police personnel. Innocent, honest people going about doing their work. As I write this, my mind switches to those 22 want-to-be-hero- pilots that have signed a letter refusing to bomb "innocent civilians" in terrorist occupied areas. How can they do this? I hope there is never another bus bombing, but if there is, I hope the Israeli government takes those 22 people by the ear and makes them sit Shiva with the families of those who are ripped apart and destroyed. Those pilots are not heros, they are a disgrace. Those terrorist bombers are not heros, they are murderers. You want to see a hero? Next time you are stopped at a traffic light beside a bus, looking into the driver's face. You'll see a hero! Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. Mr. Zaliouk sends his "Truth Provider" columns by email. Contact him at ynz@netvision.net.il |
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LET RIGHT BE DONE
Posted by David Ben-Ariel, October 7, 2003. |
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As is evident within the many heartfelt letters to the Jerusalem Post from concerned readers worldwide, Israel continues to lose the war of attrition waged against them by militant Muslims - BY CHOICE. If the political and religious "leaders" of Israel had just a pinch of the sound-minded, clear-headed, down-to-earth biblical sense that the abovementioned possess, Israel could WIN THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM immediately! Israel would do well to begin this process of redemption by lifting the fascist ban against publications by rabbi and former parliament member, Meir Kahane. RABBI KAHANE HAS BEEN PROVEN RIGHT, TIME AND AGAIN, and testifies against the Jewish kapos of compromise, the Jewish accomplices to murder, the Hellenist stooges of the German-Jesuit EU eager to launch their new crusade, occupy Jerusalem and install their UN "Governor." And Israel ought immediately lift the cruel ban against my entry for speaking and writing the plain truth and shining the spotlight upon Jerusalem's abomination of desolation - a Temple Mount without a Temple! We're assured "Zion shall be redeemed with justice." Meanwhile, LET RIGHT BE DONE! David Ben-Ariel is author of "Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall." |
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US DIPLOMACY AFTER HAIFA
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 7, 2003. |
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This is in response to a New York Times article. The Times rightly opines that calculated acts of mass murder by Palestinians are "the greatest single obstacle" to Palestinian statehood ("A Turn for the Worse in the Mideast" editorial, Oct.7). But when it comes to how Israel should deal with such threats, the Times wants it to turn the other cheek and withdraw unilaterally from the West Bank - even in the absence of any real Palestinian crackdown on terrorist groups. In criticising Israel's bombing of a site deep inside Syria, the same editorial disingenuously describes it as a target that Israel "says" was a Palestinian terrorist training camp, casting doubt on Israel's veracity. But what about U.S. officials who publicly have verified I srael's version, based on U.S. intelligence? Are only Syria and Islamic Jihad to be believed? Furthermore, in sounding the alarm about Israel's decision to reach beyond Palestinian areas in hunting down terrorists, the editorial argues that this makes the U.S. role in the Mideast "more problematic." Actually, it will have just the opposite effect of helping Washington to squeeze Damascus a bit harder against harboring and supporting terrorists who not only want to kill Israelis, but also American GIs in Iraq.
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STRIKING SYRIA
Posted by David Bedein, October 6, 2003. |
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While the people of Israel were in the midst of preparations for the solemn fast of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, this year's observance of Yom Kippur has been overshadowed by nostalgic memories of the Yom Kippur War. The Yom Kippur War occurred exactly thirty years ago, when Yom Kippur also fell on October 6th. In the midst of the nostalgic strategic discussions from thirty years ago, Arab terrorists struck at a Haifa restaurant, while Arab terror groups based in Syria, funded by Saudi Arabia, took to the airwaves to take credit for the murder of 19 more Israeli citizens - five of whom were Israeli Arabs. In Israel, it is as if the Yom Kippur War occurred yesterday. Debate continues to rage in the Israeli media as to whether Israel did the right thing by not abiding by the Moshe Dayan doctrine of carrying out a pre-emptive strike against enemy positions in the Arab countries, a policy that had been effect since the genesis of 1967 War. Who can forget the Israeli air strikes in 1967 that broke the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran? Or the air strikes against PLO training camps that followed the Munich Olympic massacre in 1972? Or the Israeli intelligence pursuit of Arab terrorists all over the world after the Munich attack? This time, after a hiatus of 20 years, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) invoked the dormant Dayan doctrine, as the Israeli Air Force struck the Ain Saheb Arab terror training base, 15 kilometers northwest of Damascus in Syria, on early Sunday, less than 24 hours after the Haifa attack. The Canada-based Middle East News Line confirmed with Western intelligence sources that the Ain Saheb base has been used by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for training of their members. It would seem that this is the first stage of the renewal of the dormant Dayan doctrine, which was in effect between 1967 and 1973: To hit Arab terrorists at the source of their support: in the neighboring Arab states who remain in a state of war with Israel since 1948. Syria is the first target to be hit, and Saudi Arabia may be next in line. Over the past two months, IDF intelligence has been declassifying and publicizing an unprecedented amount of data concerning the current conventional and non-conventional military threat now being mounted by Saudi Arabia against the Jewish state. Last week, the Israel Ministry of Public Security disclosed sensitive documents seized at the Palestinian Authority's Orient House two years ago that showed Saudi Arabia was officially offering financial incentives for the families of Palestinian Arab suicide bombers. The Saudi government gave $25,000 to each family from special allocations distributed by the Palestinian Authority at the Orient House. Israel informed the U.S. government about the Saudi government's support for Palestinian terror groups back in April of 2002. However, at the request of the U.S. State Department, Israel had waited until now to disclose the documents to the public at large. In terms of IDF Commander-in-Chief Moshe Ya'alon's shared data with the media, it contends that al-Qaeda tried to recruit Saudi pilots for attacks in Israel [from nearby Tabuk]. Israel has complained to the U.S. that the presence of the American-supplied jets at Tabuk contravene promises America has made over the years about how they would be deployed at the time that they were sold by the USA to the Saudis. The Saudis have now said they will deploy the planes as they wish and America has so far opted to remain silent. Ya'alon asserted that the al-Qaeda terrorist network tried to recruit Saudi Arabian Air Force pilots to carry out a suicide attack in Israel, similar to those carried out in the United States on September 11, 2001, using either F-15 jets or civilian aircraft. Speaking at a conference at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Ya'alon said, "Leadership, whether it's in Damascus or Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard garrisons in Lebanon who support Palestinian terror cells here...should be held accountable. Ya'alon also stated that since the U.S.-led war in Iraq, "We are concerned by the deployment of Saudi planes in Tabuk, and from the information on al-Qaeda, and demand that the matter be investigated." The Saudis confirmed Yaalon's assertion. "We do not have F-16s, but rather F-15s, stationed in Tabuk, and we will keep them there because they are deployed inside our territory," Prince Khaled said to the Saudi based Arab News Agency. The U.S. intelligence community has made similar discoveries concerning Saudi Arabia's terror involvement. Middle East News Line, relying on CIA reports, noted that the Saudis have been named as a leading financier of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. A CIA report on threats in Iraq has identified Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria as the leading supporters of the Sunni insurgency against the U.S. military. The report asserted that the three countries have contributed insurgents and funding to a range of groups, including al-Qaeda and Hizbullah. The report was disclosed by Kurdish sources in Iraq to the London-based Al Hayat daily. Al Hayat, owned by members of the Saudi royal family, reported in Auguest that the CIA report cites the activities of major Islamic insurgency groups in Iraq and their state sponsors. The CIA report marked the first time that Saudi Arabia was specifically identified as a supporter of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. It's about time that Israel took action against Syria. If Saudi Arabia continues its present course of action, military action may be necessary there next. David Bedein is bureau chief of the Israel Resource News Agency (http://israelbehindthenews.com), which provides hands-on coverage for the press "from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza, Gush Etzion, Hebron, Oslo, Bonn, Brussels, the Wye Plantation, Shepherdstown, Washington, Ottawa, Toronto and Vienna." This article appeared on Front Page Magazine (http://www.frontpagemagazine.com) today. |
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THE WASHINGTON POST STILL CAN'T PROPERLY DEFINE THE INTIFADA
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 5, 2003. |
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Letter to the Washington Post: John Ward Anderson, in his report on Israel's bombing of a terrorist training camp in Syria after a member of Islamic Jihad killed 19 Israelis in Haifa and injured scores of others, persists in describing the intifada as an "uprising against Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip." This is patently FALSE. Here's why: It's factually untrue because when the intifada began in the latter part of 2000, Israel no longer occupied most Palestinian population centers. The Israeli withdrawal was so extensive that practially all Palestinians lived under Palestinian rule! It was only after the Passover massacre that Israel went back into the West Bank to hit at the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. By then, scores of Israelis had been killed. But once the Oslo process got going in 1993, Israel gradually relinquished control to the Palestinian Authority over Palestinian cities. And, of course, in 2000-2001, Barak and Clinton offered Arafat a state in all of the Gaza Strip, 97 percent of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem - a proposal Arafat flatly rejected but which would have permanently ended any remnant of Israeli occupation. So how do you let John Ward Anderson get away with writing that the "uprising" is against "occupation." Furthermore, this is not an uprising in any real sense of the words because the Palestinians already were well under way to getting rid of Israel's presence in the West Bank. In effect, there was nobody really to rise up against; they already had autonomy and sovereignty was about to be handed to them as well. So in no way can you justify calling the intifada an uprising. It is a three-year terror war aimed almost exclusively at killing innocent civilians. Why continue to distort basic language and the real meaning of words? And why let John Ward Anderson get away with a glib, but totally misleading summation, of the intifada's cost in lives - 870 Israeli fatalities versus 2,400 on the Palestinian side - when the Israeli toll includes mainly innocent civilians, while the Palestinian toll includes mainly suicide bombers, snipers, shooters, rocket-firing and other assorted terrorists. Why not, to give a true picture, break down each total in number of innocents and number of combatants? Why indeed unless Anderson and the Post have their own agenda and are determined to puts their spin and bias into supposedly factual news reports?
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A YAMIN ISRAEL STATEMENT
Posted by Professor Paul Eidelberg, October 5, 2003. |
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Bearing in mind the slaughter of Jews in Haifa yesterday, don't be deceived or mollified by Israel's attack on a terrorist base in Syria, for which Prime Minister Sharon probably received permission from Washington. The problem is much closer to home, namely, the PLO-Palestinian terrorist bases in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. It will take a great more courage to wipe out that terrorist network. Only then would the Sharon Government be worthy of the confidence of the Jewish people. Let's not forget that more than 800 Jews have been murdered under Sharon's premiership - some three times the number of those who became sacrifices for "Peace" and "PR" under his four predecessors. Professor Eidelberg is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy. |
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ISLAM HAS DECLARED WAR WITH EVERYONE!
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 5, 2003. |
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2:20 PM October 4 Saturday. SHABBAT LUNCH IN HAIFA. HOMICIDE BOMBER BLOWS UP MAXIM'S, AN ISRAELI-ARAB RESTAURANT IN HAIFA. 19 KILLED, INCLUDING 3 CHILDREN AND 1 BABY. FIVE PEOPLE WERE KILLED IN EACH OF TWO FAMILIES ALONE, FROM GRANDPARENTS TO GRANDCHILDREN. 4 ARABS WERE ALSO VICTIMS. 60 WOUNDED - MANY CRITICALLY - MANY MORE CHILDREN WOUNDED. ISLAMIC JIHAD CLAIMS CREDIT. 10:30 AM October 5 FOX NEWS REPORTS. IN THE DESERT OF SYRIA 10 MILES NW OF DAMASCUS, ISRAEL ATTACKED THE EIN SAHAR CAMP TERROR TRAINING CAMP WHERE ISLAMIC JIHAD, HAMAS and OTHER TERRORISTS TRAINED - INJURING ONE MAN. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN 30 YEARS ISRAEL HAS ATTACKED SYRIA SINCE THE SYRIANS ATTACKED ISRAEL IN THE YOM KIPPUR WAR OF 1973. Grizzly pieces of flesh that were once people who laughed, cried, had families, dreamed dreams and all that was left of them was seared flesh. This was once again the work of Arabs, sometimes called Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians, Hezb'Allah, Iranians, Al Aksa Brigades, Fatah, Iraqis. This day it was a 29 year old woman lawyer in training. From their very young to their very old, Muslim Arabs are taught to hate and kill the infidel (non-believer or non-Muslim. This is a vicious, murderous culture, driven by forces so perniciously evil that it is hard for the mind of man in western civilizations to conceive. These radical Islamists followed the pagan moon god of Zin, later called Allah, in an effort to compete with and absorb the G-d of the Jews and even the Jew who the Christians accepted as their lord. Once, in ancient times, the Hebrew tribes led by Abraham, Isaac, Joseph and Moses were instructed by G-d to wipe out the pagan tribes who practiced human sacrifice. Their instructions in G-d's Torah were clear: Leave none alive for they will come back as a plague. So they did. It wasn't just Saddam Hussein, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Hafez al Assad, Amin al Husseini (Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler's friend) - or even Yassir Arafat. It is the entire population who hates Jews, enjoys killing - who believe that all non-Muslims can and must be either converted to Islam or killed. These are people from the seed of rotten stock. These people have been invading each other and all others for 1381 years, since Mohammed first created Islam in 622 C.E. When they are under control of greater powers whom they fear, they are submissive - if not law-abiding. When the boot is off their necks, they quickly rise up and revert to what they have always been - murderers who claim to be superior to all others through Islam and Allah. This evil civilization cannot be reasoned with nor will they adhere to written agreements of accommodation and peace. Even their Koran teaches them to make false treaties when necessary and then break them as soon as they are strong enough to attack all those whom they call enemies. Arafat often refers to Oslo as like the Hudaibiya Treaty Mohammed signed with the Koreish (or Qurayzah)Tribe for peace. Two years later when he was stronger, he returned, slaughtered the men, sold the women and children into slavery. After frequent Muslim Arab Terror attacks, Israel has been scraping up body parts from walls and streets for years. America experienced her first taste of such Arab Terror on 9/11/01. In a recently published book, entitled: "One Thousand Years for Revenge" by Peter Lance, he describes a chilling aftermath of 9/11. He was taken one night by Chief Fire Marshall Louis Garcia to a place called Memorial Park. Inside there were eight enormous refrigerator trailers. These trailers were draped in purple and black mourning crepe, surrounded by flowers. Visitors had written their goodbyes on the sides of the trailers. Inside were the partial remains of those who were slaughtered by the 15 Saudis and 4 Egyptians suicide bombers. Like Israel, now America also had grizzly pieces of burnt flesh to bury - or no bodies at all because most were vaporized by the heat of the hijacked planes jet fuel and the collapse to dust of the Twin Towers. 3000 humans now are just memories because the Arab Muslims hated America and were 'faithfully' following the diktats of Islam. Israel is fighting Terror daily. Since the Oslo Accords were signed September 13, 1993 over 1500 men, women and children have been murdered. Multiply by 55 and you will discover that the ratio equivalent to the American population is 82,500. Can we comprehend that? What would America do if her casualties were that high - in that proportion? Just since the Rosh HaShanah War of 2000 there have been 887 Israelis (48,785 in American terms) murdered in acts of Arab Muslim Terrorism, carried out by forces the Palestinian Authority pledged to disarm and dismantle more than a decade ago. The 19 innocents murdered on Saturday would equal 1,049 Americans. In addition to the fatalities, more than 6000 people have been wounded in Terror attacks - many maimed for life just over the past 3 years. This results from 18,877 successful Terror attacks. This is an average of 17.6 attacks per day over 3 years. Security forces have prevented an even greater number of attacks. Among the nearly 19,000 successful attacks were 128 homicide bombings by Arab Muslim Palestinians. Security forces apprehended an additional 179 "suicide" bombers before they could carry out their attacks. The economic cost of this last 3 years war has cost the Israeli economy 75 NIS ($16.8 Billion American dollars). That is $4.7 Billion dollars in lost revenue annually, plus military and police expenditures of Billions of dollars to secure the Israeli public from internal attacks, coupled with medical and national insurance costs to victims and their families. This does not include the insane costs of the fence Israel is now required to erect to prevent terrorists from infiltrating into Israel. Israel is slowly approaching the realization that, no matter what they do, there will be no peace with Arab Muslims - be they Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, etc. This is a pagan culture of people who revel in death. They enjoy killing as if it lifts them to a level of honor instead of the primitive culture they know themselves to be. HaShem (G-d) obviously knew what was necessary when He instructed the Hebrew tribes to destroy all the pagan tribes who engaged in human sacrifice then and now. This is a cursed people who afflict the human race with a barbarism that never seems to end. Regrettably, we often see Arabists in many countries, making common cause with this killing society. We find them in Europe, Africa, America and even Israel. There is no atrocity hideous enough for these fellow-travelers of Arab oil wealth to break off their support. Sadly, there are Jews who are politely called Left Liberals but who have attached themselves to a vision of appeasing these killers and, in doing so, have themselves become co-conspirators for the dead Jews and the unidentifiable pieces of flesh scraped off the walls and pavements. For them, I can only wish that at the end of their lives, may they be interred in the sewers of Gaza so they may be near the Arabs they so lovingly support. Civilization is building walls of different kinds to keep out the Muslims in whatever country they may be. In an act of expensive desperation, Israel is building cement walls to keep out the barbarous Terrorist Arab Muslims. In America, the borders are being tightened and Arabs who overstay their visa time are being deported. Nuclear power plants are being guarded against Arab Muslim attacks. Pilots of passenger aircraft are being armed against potential radical Muslim terrorists who could hijack their aircraft and crash it into buildings. Americans deny that Arabs are being racially profiled, but that's what is happening. Immigrants or visitors entering America are scanned at airports, but the Middle Easteners are really scrutinized. One day, the slogan: "No Arabs = No Terror" will become part of the Free World's philosophy for survival. In Europe, particularly France, Germany, England and Belgium have become epicenters for a critical mass of Muslim terrorists who use the very willing Muslims already present in the millions for assistance and cover. The Europeans do virtually nothing about this growing threat. In America - only after 9/11 - have authorities taken action against the Arab/Muslim threat of sleeper cells allowed in by the Arab threat of the Arabist U.S. State Department. This is an institution that has dedicated itself to assisting radical Arab nations who flood America with radical Islamists. The U.S. State Department has yet to be investigated for having pressured the FBI and CIA to curtail their investigations of Arab/Muslims lest they offend Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, et al. Islam, denials notwithstanding, has declared war on all Free Western civilizations that are defined by them as non-believers or infidels. Christianity and Judaism are their main targets but all other religions are viewed as their enemies. No act of Terror is considered too barbaric to advance the cause of world domination by Islam. Be it blowing up a city with a nuclear weapon, spreading deadly germs or poisoning the water supply, all are acceptable. Israel is fighting Terror above and way beyond the scale of the horrific 9/11 Muslim attacks against America but, America, that is the Bush Administration has tied Israel's arms behind her - lest she win and insult the 'honor' of the oil maggots and Muslim nations. Israel knows she can never live safely with Arabs in her cities ready to blow themselves up in a restaurant, school, bus, market - or anywhere people peacefully congregate. America is learning that painful lesson in Iraq as the people they rescued from Saddam Hussein kill American soldiers in gratitude. America is discovering Muslims in her military are more loyal to the Terrorist ideal and are first and foremost Islamists -ready to betray and kill Americans. There is growing evidence that Islamic moles have penetrated American Military, Intelligence, the U.S. State Department and some others in the U.S. political system. (More on this in a future article.) Islam has always been at some level of war against the West but, now it is starting to reach its peak. For Israel and America, it is time to deport those dedicated enemies back to their own people and their own lands. This is what you can expect: The Arab Palestinians will dance in the streets over their successful atrocity. President George W. Bush will offer condolences and - along with Secretary of State Colin Powell - will advise Israeli restraint. Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will call U.S. National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice and inquire as to what action he will be allowed to take in order to placate the Israeli electorate. However, please note news item of October 5th Israeli attack against Islamic Jihad Terror Training Ein Sahar Camp in Syria, which definitely is a necessary act of deterrence and just retaliation. No doubt, the U.N. will strongly condemn this attack just as they did when Israel took out Saddam's nuclear reactor in 1981 at Osirak. The U.N.'s Secretary General Kofi Annan will state that U.N. troops, along with E.U. (European Union) and NATO must be allowed to separate the 'combatants' - thereby apportioning equal blame and moral equivalency. Emanuel A. Winston is a prominent Middle East analyst and commentator. Many of his articles first appeared on the Gamla (http://www.gamla.org.il/english) and the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies ((http://www.freeman.org/online.htm) websites. |
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BUT REALLY NOW, HOW DO WE KNOW UNTIL WE TRY IT?
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 5, 2003. |
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Since the beginning of the Oslo war process, the mantra of the Oslo Left has always been, "But how do we really know till we try?" When the Labor Party and their fellow travelers proposed turning the West Bank and Gaza Strip over to the PLO, promising the PLO would then seek peace and suppress the terror, that it would live in tranquility, the objections of opponents were snidely dismissed. "How do you KNOW it will not work until you try it," hissed the Left. "No one really KNOWS until it is implemented." Well, it was implemented and now we know. 1300 Israelis were murdered as a direct consequence of the "testing" of the "ideas" of the Left. And counting. Then the Left claimed that if only Israel would offer the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Gaza purged them of their Jewish civilians, along with international recognition of "Palestine", control of East Jerusalem, financial tribute, parts of pre-1967 Israel, and a well-equipped army, then the Palestinians would respond with agreement to make peace. When opponents objected that this was insane and suicidal, the Left caterwauled, "But how do you really KNOW until you try it and make the offer?" Well Israel did, at Camp David II, and now we know. The response was nazi atrocities and escalated war. The Left has been wrong about absolutely everything in the past decade. But it defends its "ideas" and insists that they be further implemented by screaming, "No one KNOWS whether or not it will bring peace until attempted." The latest Leftist program is to make peace by first making the West Bank and Gaza Strip Judenrein. The Palestinians are unwilling to make peace with Israel when any Jewish civilians are living among them and polluting the Arabs with their presence, but if we only expel all these Jewish settlers, then the Palestinians will make peace. Of course, if all the Jewish civilians are expelled from the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians will make war and escalate the nazi terrorism. It is as if someone were to argue in 1939 that after gobbling up Poland, if we only offer Hitler a bit more territory he will no longer desire to conquer all of Europe and will want peace and after all how do we KNOW it will not work until we TRY it and offer him some more territory. If the Palestinians engage in nazi terror because some Jewish civilians live amongst them, the only reasonable conclusion is that they will escalate the terror once these civilians are gone. But I concede that this is inference and not positivist empirical proof. In a strictly scientific sense, we indeed do not KNOW whether expelling the settlers will produce war or peace until it is tried. True, the Left has been wrong about absolutely everything else the past decade. But that is mere inference. And true, no one KNOWS whether arsenic will kill him until he swallows some. Mere inference. Not scientific proof. So you can see the Left's point. Now expelling the settlers to see if that produces Palestinian moderation and peace is not the ONLY idea that has NOT been put to the test through being implemented. There are many other ideas where we simply do not KNOW whether they would work on not, because they have not been implemented. SO I have a hypothetical question for all those Lefties who insist that Israel expel all the Jewish settlers from the West Bank and Gaza to see if that produces peace and tranquility, since without doing so we will not KNOW if it works. To all such Lefties, here is a hypothetical question. Suppose, hypothetically of course, that after each Israeli victim murdered by the Oslo terror, Israel were to hang 30 Israeli leftists from street poles. Would that produce peace and tranquility in the Middle East? I mean, come on now, how can we really KNOW whether or not it would be effective until it is tried? Alternatively, and hypothetically of course, suppose Israel were to respond to a decade of Oslo massacres produced by the Israeli Left by stripping Israeli Far Leftists of their citizenship and deporting them to Syria. Would that produce peace and tranquility? How do we really KNOW whether or not it would until it is tried? The nazi atrocity du jour in Haifa, in which two entire families, one consisting of 3 generations, were wiped out, was the fourth mass murder suicide bombing perpetrated in Haifa by the Oslo Left over the past two years. As in all previous suicide bombing, the perp was a middle class Palestinian yuppie. Despite all the nonsense about Palestinian hardship or poverty feeding the terror, in almost all cases the mass murderers are college students or yuppie professionals. This nazi was a lawyer. (Remember that Yigal Amir was also a law student? Well, maybe we should shut down all the law schools in the Middle East to see if that produces peace? How will we know until we try it?) In fact there is overwhelming proof that membership in the middle class and college education produce Palestinian barbarism and violence, while Palestinian poverty produces moderation and good behavior. The most effective way to STOP mass murders by Palestinian Nazis would be to take all the Palestinian students and middle class yuppies and drive them to subsistence-poverty standards of living. And besides, how would we know THAT would not work until we try it? (BTW: Israel's Jews for a Second Holocaust responded to the Haifa atrocity by racing to Ramallah to serve as human shields, once again, for the Man with the Public Hair on his Face, lest Israel actually try to deport him. Let us note that if these people were to be hurt and killed while Israel is purging Ramallah of its terrorist leaders, the Geneva Convention says Arafat is to blame.) Steven Plaut is an economist and professor of business administration at Haifa University. He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. |
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FREE FEDERMAN
Posted by David Wilder, October 5, 2003. |
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Yesterday, at about 2:15 in the afternoon, a twenty-nine year old female lawyer walked into the Maxim restaurant in Haifa with about ten kilo of explosives strapped onto her body. When she detonated herself, nineteen people were killed and over 60 injured. Among those murdered were five members of the Zar-aviv family from Kibbutz Yagur - Grandmother Bruria, aged 59, her son and his wife, Bezalel and Keren, and their two children, four year old son Liron and his fourteen month old sister Maya. Also wiped out were four members of the Almog family, from Tel Aviv: Father Ze'ev, a senior ranking officer in the IDF, his wife Ruti, their son Moshe, and grandson Tomer. Together with six others, they were annihilated because they were Jews, eating lunch on a Saturday afternoon in a jointly owned Jewish-Arab restaurant, two days before Yom Kippur. Amongst the dead were also four Arabs. This morning, trying to eat breakfast while listening to the news, difficult to do, feeling hungry and nauseas at the same time, former labor defense minister, Binyamin Fuad ben Eliezer was interviewed. Hearing him, I felt even worse. His initial statement was correct, that being that Israel must change its approach to the problem. He continued by saying that we would never reach a situation whereby all Arab [terrorist] organizations (Tanzim, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PA) would agree to a full ceasefire. I can also agree with that. But, then our paths differ. Fuad's conclusion is that we have no choice but to enter into immediate negotiations, despite the continued pogroms against our citizens. And of course, we must finish the 'magic fence,' as fast as possible. Fuad is right, we must change our approach, fast. However, his conclusions are far off the mark. Following Fuad, Kol Yisrael spoke with Minister Benny Elon. He hit the nail on the head. Israel must destroy the palestinian authority. Fences and are useless, terrorists will always find ways around them. Expulsion of Arafat will almost undoubtedly not help and most probably cause Israel harm. The only way to deal with terror is to uproot it at its source, and that source is, today, the PA. This band of thugs and murderers has received world-wide recognition as the legitimate leadership of a future 'palestinian state' (G-d forbid). They have achieved this by spilling gallons of Jewish blood - over 1,100 Jews have been murdered since Oslo was signed, and some 880 in the past 3 years. The PA, along with its top leadership, must be erased from the map. This is one side of the coin. Yet, there is another side too. Several weeks ago long-time Hebron resident and activist Noam Federman was again apprehended. He was not walking down the street, he was not in the middle of trying to kill Arabs, he was not even at home. Rather, he was arrested while presenting an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court. Federman was arrested over a year ago, based on the testimony of one person, tying him to the "Bat-Ayin" group, accused and convicted of attempting to blow up Arabs in East Jerusalem. There is no evidence that Federman had anything to do with those three men, excepting the account of one of them, (who also named tens of others, none of whom were arrested.) For over a year Federman has been detained, held in house arrest. Since then Noam Federman has been fighting an uphill battle to be released. (Recently the date of his trial was set for sometime NEXT JUNE!!!) Federman, a brilliant legal expert with a law degree, came very close to convincing the court that the house arrest detention order, initiated by the Shabak, the Israeli intelligence organization, was illegal, circumventing the judicial system. So, rather than take any chances, the Shabak issued a six month administrative detention order, signed by Defense Minister Shaul Mufaz, arrested him in the middle of his court case, and threw him behind bars in the worst possible conditions. A Supreme Court justice reviewed the detention order and upheld it. However, the details of the "evidence" given to him by the Shabak was "secret" thereby preventing Federman or his lawyer from being able to present any kind of defense. Federman is being held in total isolation is a high-security prison, in a very small cell, and is not receiving certified kosher food. In other words, he is being treated as if he were a mass murderer. This, without having been indicted, stood trial, convicted and sentenced. (It should also be noted that the Shabak is answerable only to the Prime Minister.) Not only right-wing Jews are appalled by the Federman case. Writing in an Israeli daily on September 30, left wing Meretz MK Zahava Galon stated: "Noam Federman should be put on trial or released. Circumventing the law rather than upholding it points to hysteria and bewilderment and does not achieve its purpose." It is totally incomprehensible how Israel can, on the one hand, sit and talk to murderers like Muhammad Dahlan, Abu-This and Abu-That, actually allowing them into Jerusalem, while on the other hand abusing innocent civilians (based on the theory that people are innocent until PROVEN guilty), denying them basic human rights and acceptable judicial recourse. It makes no difference whether one agrees or disagrees with Noam Federman's politics. He deserves the identical civil rights of any other Israeli. And those civil rights are being grossly denied him, causing him and his family indescribable suffering. Noam Federman is not a murderous Arab terrorist - he is an Israeli Jew! Tonight begins the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. The essence of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is, in Hebrew, Tshuva, which literally means repentance. But the root of Tshuva is l'shuv - meaning, to return. On Yom Kippur we attempt to return to our real selves, ourselves without transgression, have asked for and having been granted forgiveness by the L-rd. This allows us to begin the New Year afresh, instilled with purity and a new outlook on life. What better a way could the Israeli government express its sorrow at its own sins committed over the past year by: 1) waging comprehensive war on the Arabs who are killing innocent men, women and children, trying to wipe us out and expel us from our land - a war leading to the full and total destruction of the PA; and 2) by letting Noam Federman go home. FREE FEDERMAN!!! Sign an international on-line petition to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mufaz: CLICK HERE David Wilder is the spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron. Contribute to the Community by writing: The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230. Its email address is: hebronfund@aol.com |
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WAR!
Posted by Beth Goodtree, October 5, 2003. |
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How many bombings make a war? It depends upon whom you ask. But one thing is clear: Never in recorded history has any sovereign nation sustained such a steady and large onslaught of attacks and not declared war. In the case of World War I, all it took was one small bomb to throw the planet into "the war to end all wars." In the case of the United States, two bombings and one crashed plane precipitated the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the overthrowing of both governments. In the latter case, there was no waffling, no appeasement, no consulting other countries on how best to protect Americans. According to Fox News (10/04/03) Israel has sustained 105 genocide bombings since September 29, 2000. And that statistic doesn't include the hundreds upon hundreds of shootings, rocket attacks, home invasions to commit mass murder, knifings, axe murders, etc. Nor does it include the thousands of foiled attempts. While diplomats call the situation in Israel a 'low level' war, there is no such thing. There is either war or there is peace. Almost daily rocket attacks, bombings and shootings are all the symptoms of war in anyone's lexicon. The reason Israel continues to suffer such unrelenting, genocidal attacks on its civilian population is its government's refusal to acknowledge that a state of war exists. This must change if Israel is to survive. Here is what the Israeli government must do: First, the Israeli government declares that due to the unrelenting attacks, it is now in an official state of war. (According to the customs and conventions of war, Israel has had this right for a long time.) Second, in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 2444, (which affirms resolution XXVIII of the 20th International Conference of the Red Cross held at Vienna in 1965), the Arab populations in the disputed areas will be protected as much as possible. To accomplish this, they will be moved out of harm's way (i.e. the lands where the enemy combatants emanate from), to a safe country, since the majority of Arab combatants use the physical structures and territories occupied by said population in which to hide. Wherever possible, civilians will be sent or repatriated to the country of their origin or heritage. Third, the Israeli army will do whatever is necessary to make sure that this war is definitively won, no matter how long this takes. The enemy will be definitively eradicated and any present or future war-making capabilities thoroughly eradicated. Fourth, once the war is finished, any living combatants or collaborators can be tried for war crimes. These crimes, as first outlined in "Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague, IV), October 18, 1907," ARTICLE XXIII, and ratified in subsequent international treaties states (in part), the following which has come to be known as crimes against humanity. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden: (a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons; (Since the beginning of this most recent war of genocide by Arabs against the people of Israel, they have violated almost every section including using bombs with projectiles dipped in rat poison and targeting such non-combatants as infants, children, mothers, and the elderly.) For the Israeli government to pretend that a state of war does not exist is to aid and abet those who would murder defenseless Israeli citizens. And lest the powers-that-be fear that declaring war might enrage the Arab world, not to worry. The Arab world is already enraged by your very and continuing existence. And they prove it on a daily basis, not merely in the relentless onslaughts, but screaming from the tops of mosques, in the Arab classrooms and all over the Arab media. And if the Israeli government is fooling themselves into thinking that the non-Arab world likes them, they must merely review all the anti-Israel UN resolutions. Or perhaps the boycott of Israeli goods. And if the Israeli government erroneously thinks that it's "friend" America has its best interests at heart, I pose the following questions. What friend asks you to allow your civilian population to be scudded without putting up a defense? What friend asks you tolerate an "acceptable level" of genocidal attacks? What friend blackmails its ally by the threat of withholding loan guarantees when said ally tries to implement such benign self-defense measures as a fence? If Israel doesn't declare war and then follow through with what any other country would do to preserve its civilian population, Israel will be destroyed by the peace she has deceived herself into believing she is maintaining. And history will look back upon the current Israeli leaders as being complicit in the murder of thousands of its own people, and the destruction of it's very country. Beth Goodtree writes political commentary, sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically, always worth reading. |
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DEAR SECRETARY OF STATE POWELL
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, October 5, 2003. |
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I read of your most recent criticism of Israel today. You and your State Department (which bucked President Truman's recognition of a newly-reborn Israel in the first place in 1948) don't like Israel's security fence, especially it's possible route. You claim that Israel must stick to the "Green Line" of its 9-mile wide, armistice line-existence. I'll bet you drive further than that just to get to work. And let's not mention the territories our own nation came to possess, control, or manipulate - some thousands of miles away - in the name of our own national security interests. Yet you can't seem to figure out that Israel's 9-mile wide, artificially-imposed existence was a travesty of justice that needed to be finally addressed. The post-'48 armistice lines were never meant to be final borders. Mr. Powell, I realize that your State Department doesn't want the second Arab state that is to be created within the original borders of Palestine as Britain received it on April 25, 1920 (Jordan emerging in 1922 on some 80% of the whole) to be a "bantustan," but whatever the size, shape, etc. that proposed 23rd Arab state might eventually be, it must not come at the expense of security of the sole, miniscule, resurrected state of the Jews. But, then again, your colleagues opposed that resurrection in the first place. And I don't see them supporting a "roadmap" for some thirty million stateless Kurds either. It seems that justice for Arabs takes precedence over justice for everyone else with you folks. So understand the concerns that many of us have. You repeat the Arab call for Israel to return to those pre-Six Day War suicidal lines. Yet you know full well that the very architects of the final version of UN Resolution # 242 - Eugene Rostow, Arthur Goldberg, etc. - had no such plans in mind, despite what Arabs claim today. And they've written extensively about this, as have legal experts such as William O'Brien and others on related issues. While they did not envision Israel holding on to large amounts of territory, they also did not expect a return to the status quo ante bellum given the fact that Israel had just fought a defensive war after being blockaded - a casus belli - at the Straits of Tiran and other hostile acts. And they stressed that any withdrawal must be linked to a total cessation of hostilities (not Arafat's temporary "Peace of the Quraysh" designed, in the Arabs' own words, as a "Trojan Horse") and the creation of secure and recognized borders to replace those fragile lines that your department now insists Israel retreat to. Please don't feed us the line that Israel is prejudicing the outcome of negotiations. You know full well that Arabs still want all of Israel proper (take a look at their websites)...so don't think that we're all stupid and expect them to agree to a permanent compromise over the disputed territories. Disputed, Sir...not "Palestinian" Arab lands. As leading experts have explained, those lands were non-apportioned parts of the Mandate, and all people had the right to settle there. Indeed, scores of thousands of Arabs poured into it and Israel proper from surrounding Arab states because of Jewish capital developing the land. Mr. Powell, you're quite aware that most of Israel's population and industry lies in that narrow waist area bordering Judea and Samaria, the "West Bank." Those lands were not called by that latter name until British imperialism entered the scene in the early 20th century and Transjordan later seized the west bank of the Jordan River in 1948. Jews lived and owned land there until they were massacred by Arabs. Arabs would have never even known of Abraham's tomb in Hebron without the scriptures of the Jews they despise. If Judea must become Judenrein, then should Israel become Arabrein? Think about that a bit, Mr. Powell. I can, unfortunately, build a better case for the latter than you can for the former. Israel has suffered, proportionally, many times over our 9/11.Yet when tragedy hit our own home, you unleashed your famous "Powell Doctrine": massive retaliation against our enemies. B-52s, B-1s, Stealth bombers, cruise missiles, and such along with daisy cutter and bunker-buster bombs did our negotiating for us. And we insisted in toppling the regimes that were responsible and targeted their leaders. When we thought we knew where Saddam was dining, we leveled the place - innocent civilians and all. In short, despite your claims of differences, the hypocrisy and double standards stink...and many red-blooded Americans are among those who smell the stench. Asking Israel to return to the Green Line when you know full well that Arabs have continuously responded that even a total Israeli withdrawal would still not make it "acceptable" is sickening. You're fully aware of the Arabs' "destruction in phases" strategy that they've spoken about since post-'67. Many of us were hoping - despite the continuous influence of Big Oil and other multinational corporations - that the openly anti-Semitic, let alone anti-Zionist, stance of your department could finally be moderated. Your current unfair demands of a beleaguered ally do not bode well for this. I know this will tick you off, but, like it or not, many see an analogy to pre-World War II Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland here. You really don't want to buy "peace for all time " today the way Mr.Chamberlain sacrificed his Czech "friends" to Hitler at Munich, do you? Demanding Israel to forsake necessary minor adjustments - i.e. extending its width from nine to perhaps fifteen or twenty miles - in light of the nature of the rejectionist enemy it faces is unfair, plain and simple. Other nations, including our own, have changed their borders and acquired territories for far less. [To protest the State Department's double standard, write these people. Will they themselves read your stuff? Not likely. But they'll know when massive amounts of mail come in on a subject: Sec.Powell: Secretary@state.gov Gerald A. Honigman has lectured and appeared on TV, talking about foreign policy. He frequently writes on Israel, the Arabs and the Kurds. He lives in Volusia County, Florida. |
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CHALLENGING UNRWA POLICIES THAT SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF RETURN
Posted by David Bedein, October 4, 2003. |
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This week, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I traveled to the US and Canada in order to share vital data on the "right of return" agenda of UNRWA. This UN agency, which runs the Palestinian Arab refugee camps, has for over 50 years actively promoted the premise that refugees will return to Arab villages lost in 1948. It receives 95% of its budget from the leading democracies in the world: Canada chairs the committee that oversees the distribution of funds to UNRWA, while the US contributes close to one third of the UNRWA budget. I brought information about the programs of UNRWA to the attention of the staffers and elected officials in the Canadian Parliament and the US Congress, and to a senior staffer in the White House. My own concern with this issue reaches back decades now. As a social worker in the 70s and 80s, I was keenly aware of the squalor in which Arab refugees lived in the UNRWA camps; I saw their frustration and their rootlessness, as they waited to "return." Once I opened this news agency, and had the opportunity to interview top officials of UNRWA, I began to see the other side of the coin: the political agenda that made promotion of the "right of return" so important to the Palestinian cause. And it truly came full circle as I interviewed major leaders of the PLO, including Arafat. UNRWA policy serves the agenda of the PLO. That agenda has not changed an iota over the years, no matter what "peace plans" the PLO professes to support. The PLO is not concerned with "self determination." The PLO aims to dismantle and replace the State of Israel. This dismantlement is to be accomplished in part through a subversion, utilizing the principle of "right of return": Four million refugees (that is, purported refugees and their children and grandchildren) "going home." It's easy to be taken in: poor refugees, having nowhere to go, await the opportunity to simply return to where they came from. This is a basic human right, is it not? Isn't it recognized by General Assembly Resolution 194? Wrong, on both counts, though the well-oiled Palestinian propaganda machine would have you believe otherwise. The Palestinians even have maps by which they "demonstrate" that Israel has open spaces where the refugees might locate easily. Of course, these Palestinian propagandists are careful not to expose liberal sympathizers from democratic nations to discussions regarding what would happen with four million hostile Arabs inside of Israel. Those discussions are kept "in-house." At the barest minimum the demographics would eliminate the Jewish nature of the state. More likely there would be violence within. Either way, the destruction of Israel is the deliberate and intended result. If the Arab refugee population was settled, once and for all, outside of Israel, there would be no more "right of return" issue. If the mandate of UNRWA was changed so that generations of "refugees," who have been waiting in limbo, finally had permanency, the very core of the plan to dismantle Israel from within would be removed. And there is yet another ramification to current UNRWA policies and practices: Maintaining a population in a state of perpetual disfranchisement, and telling them they have a right to return to a place they lost to Israel and which is denied to them by Israel, fuels terrorism and overt threats to Israel. This happens because the UNRWA practices work in concert with Palestinian Authority (read PLO) goals. It is one of the ironies of history that the first entity since Nazi Germany to advocate the right to murder Jews was borne out of a "peace process." Until ten years ago, the idea of the "right of return" had been stressed in the UNWRA schools, but there was no real Arab military presence in the camps to demonstrate support for that idea. And until ten years ago, Israel actively prevented UNRWA schools and UNRWA facilities from demonstrating overt support for return to (no longer extent) Arab villages. However, since Israel withdrew its troops and civil administration from the areas in the West Bank and Gaza where UNRWA camps are located, UNRWA staffers who run the camps have had a new kind of latitude. Almost universally, they are supportive of Arab terrorist organizations. Witness the UNRWA camp union elections, where HAMAS gained control of the UNRWA clerks union and the UNRWA teachers union. UNRWA camps have been transformed into the battleground of an armed insurrection, where thousands of UNRWA camp residents brandish their weapons, to demonstrate their support for the murder of Jews who now live in Israeli towns and collective farms that have replaced the 531 Arab villages that were lost in 1948. Yet the US state department continues to ignore the fact that for a decade now the Palestinian Arab population has been taught to see a relationship between "right of return" and their divine obligation to go after Jews. The connection simply is not being made between UNRWA and the failure to achieve peace. "To think anew, to act anew," were words spoken by Abraham Lincoln on the morning of his tragic death. The time has come for the decision-makers of the United States and other western democracies to "think anew and to act anew." Will they continue to allow the policies of UNRWA to be sustained? Unless and until UNWRA policies and practices regarding "right of return" change, there will be no chance for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East. As the policies are halted, there must then be "deconditioning," as a prerequisite for true peace in the Middle East. The US-initiated de-Nazification program begun after World War II transformed Germany from a fascist regime into a democratic nation in one generation. This sort of peaceful transformation can be achieved again if Israel is permitted to do a re-education of the Palestinian Arab society that reverses the perspective taught by UNRWA policies. David Bedein is bureau chief of the Israel Resource News Agency (http://israelbehindthenews.com), which provides hands-on coverage for the press "from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza, Gush Etzion, Hebron, Oslo, Bonn, Brussels, the Wye Plantation, Shepherdstown, Washington, Ottawa, Toronto and Vienna." |
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HAIFA TERROR ATTACK PUNCTURES ANOTHER ILLUSION
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 4, 2003. |
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As the three-year Palestinian terror war shows no sign of abating, it has become fashionable in some Palestinian, Israeli and Western "liberal" circles to give up on a two-state solution and opt instead for a single, secular, bi-national, democratic state from the Jordan to the sea. Palestinians used the idea as political blackmail: Either give us a state right away or we'll demand one-man, one-vote rights in all of Palestine. Call it the ultimate "right of return." In Israel and the West, the idea appealed to some suffering from terror fatigue. But the Haifa bombing demonstrated, if more evidence was needed, that total separation is the only practical answer. "Maxim" was a restaurant owned for decades by a Jewish family and an Arab family, a gathering place for Jews and Arabs alike, an ideal poster for the single-nation plan. Yet it became a killing field. Jews and Arabs alike perished in the carnage. So face it. A single Palestinian-Israeli state was not practical in 1947; it isn't today. And it won't be for at least another 100 years, except in the fevered imagination of illusion-spinners on both sides of the divide. Too many Palestinians are still out to kill as many Jews and Israelis as possible. Complete the fence. Quickly. Give no quarter to terrorists. Leave the door open for a two-state solution once Palestinians abandon violence. Anything else lies buried in "Maxim"'s ruins. This also appeared in the Jerusalem Post Letters today. |
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A LETTER TO NOT-SO-DEAR PILOTS
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, October 4, 2003. |
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Dear friends, Sometimes, rarely, a letter comes along that summarizes a public discourse in a most succinct way. The following is one such letter. It picks up the public debate where bias, blindness, stupidity and evil reside, and navigates us through the hurdled maze, the dust, the fog and the sand thrown at us to obscure our clear vision. Dr. Rosenblatt crystallizes the truth, the core, the gist of it all. Israel's actions are NOT illegal, NOT immoral and no, Israel is NOT an "occupier" either. Why? Read on. If for two three days you do not read anything else I send your way but this, I promise not to be angry. Please do me a favor, study this one. Also, please, forward it to all your friends. It is imperative that we do all we can to spread the truth. The writer, Dr. Moshe Rosenblatt, is an Israeli medical surgeon who obviously knows how to wield a scalpel, both on his patients and in the service of truth. It appeared September 30, 2003 in Arutz Sheva (http://www.israelnationalnews.com It is in response to the letter released this past week by a group of IAF pilots to Air Force Command declaring that they refuse to attack targets in the "territories." My Not-So-Dear Pilots, In your letter to the prime minister (and Air Force command) at the start of the new year of 5764, you inform him and all of the people of Israel of your refusal to strike and eliminate Palestinian murderers of Jews out of concern that innocent Palestinian civilians will get hurt as well. Justifying your position, you raise three main claims: 1) it is illegal; 2) it is immoral; and 3) it is all because of our occupation of the territories. I am sorry to disappoint you, but those three claims are fundamentally unfounded. That is to say, Israeli targeted strikes are legal, moral and, in addition to that, Judea, Samaria and Gaza is Jewish land (according to United Nations decision) that was conquered by Arabs, and not the other way around. We shall begin with the legality of the action in question: The Geneva Convention requires combatants of all sides in an armed conflict to wear uniforms and to build military bases away from civilian centers. That is so that the opposing side will be able to distinguish between a combatant and a civilian in battle. But what is to be done when one side decides to disregard international law and fight from within population centers, while wearing civilian clothes? Well, enter any internet search engine and look for "The Fourth Geneva Convention" Part III Section I, Articles 28-29: "CONVENTION (IV) RELATIVE TO THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIAN PERSONS IN TIME OF WAR "Signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949 "PART III
"Art. 28. The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations. "Art. 29. The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may be incurred." In the case of combatants who take refuge within a civilian population, Article 28 stresses to them that the fact that they are hiding among civilians does not make their location immune to attack by the other side. Article 29 goes even further and declares that if civilians are in fact struck down, the fault for their deaths lies not with the attacker, but with the side hiding among them. In other words, the responsibility for the deaths of Palestinian civilians falls not on Israel's shoulders, but on the shoulders of the terrorist organizations. At the same time, the government of Israel does have a legal obligation to protect the residents of the state of Israel. The Geneva Convention does not determine whether a one-ton bomb or a 250 kilogram bomb is to be used; that is a purely military decision. If we believe that in order to eliminate a planner/facilitator/practitioner of terrorist attacks upon us we need to use a one-ton bomb, the calculation of the number of collateral casualties is not for us to make, as the responsibility for their deaths does not fall upon us, but upon he who elected to hide among civilians. This is particularly true when we know that the vast majority of the potential collateral casualties are not "innocent civilians," but rather civilians who provide the terrorists with support out of absolute identification with them. As for the matter of morality, I have no intention of explaining anything here; rather, I will only pose a few small questions to my not-so-dear, "moral" pilots. Tomorrow, when a terrorist that you failed to eliminate (due to your "morality") slaughters a large number of Jews (either by his actions, support or planning), will not the responsibility for the deaths of those Jews (including women and children!) fall on your shoulders? And what will you feel if, among the murdered, are your own wives and children? What will you feel if you remain widowers and bereaved parents because of your "morality?" What will you say to those dearest to you when you go visit them in the cemetery? Are the lives of Arab mothers, who publicly boast of using their wombs as factories for future living bombs, preferable to the lives of your own wives, who seek to bring children into the world for the sake of love and good deeds? Did you consider these questions before you wrote your letter to the prime minister, my not-so-dear pilots? And as for the matter of "occupation": Judea, Samaria and Gaza are territories that were given to the Jewish people at the self-same conference that awarded our neighbors sovereignty over the lands currently under their control - the 1920 San Remo Conference of the League of Nations. Due to the fact that our nation was unable to take control of a state at that time, the territory set aside for the state was handed over temporarily to the British (the British Mandate). Article 6 of that decision (from April 24, 1920) obligated the English to encourage and implement Jewish settlement in all the territory of the Mandate. It need not be pointed out that the Mandate included the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Jews were also allowed to settle on the other side of the Jordan River; however, according to article 25 of the decision, England was allowed to put off Jewish settlement there until a later time. In 1945, when the United Nations was founded (to replace the League of Nations), it was decided that all previous decisions regarding national mandates would remain in force (see article 80 of Section 12 of the UN Charter, which is also easily available through any internet search engine). Therefore, the League of Nations decision "encouraging the close settlement by Jews on the land" throughout the Mandate was still in force under the UN mandate, according to UN resolution. It should be known that UN resolutions, including those of the Security Council, are based either on Chapter Six (which addresses peaceful conflict resolution between states) or Chapter Seven (which addresses the use of force in conflict resolution) of the UN Charter. All resolutions based on Chapter Six are strictly and only considered recommendations. In contrast, the resolutions based on Chapter Seven (such as the resolution calling on Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait) authorize the UN Security Council to use force to implement UN decisions. Since the foundation of the United Nations in 1945, all of the resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict (including the partition decision, as well as 242 and 338) fall under the sixth chapter. Therefore, all of the resolutions related to the Arab-Israeli conflict are merely recommendations and do not obligate either side. David Ben-Gurion, as is known, agreed to the partition. Had the Arabs similarly agreed, then it would have been possible to suggest that the San Remo resolutions were automatically voided. However, not only did the Arabs not agree to the partition, they even attacked us; seven Arab states attacked us, grossly violating UN resolutions. At the end of that war (the 1948 war of independence), the Arabs conquered the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, which were originally set aside for the Jewish people according to international decision. Thus, if it is possible to refer to anyone as an "occupier," it is actually the Arabs and not us. The Jordanians occupied Samaria and Judea, and the Egyptians occupied Gaza. In the Six-Day War of 1967, then, we did not occupy lands of the Arabs, we returned to ourselves the lands that were a priori ours under law and according to international resolution. The resolutions of the 1920 Sen Remo Conference, which were reinforced by the UN Charter in 1945, are the only enforceable decisions on the matter at hand. And, as the San Remo Conference also decided on awarding sovereignty to other nations - such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq - and on their borders, should anyone claim that the San Remo decision regarding Israel's borders be amended, then we have the right to demand renewed discussion of the borders of all the nations around us, based on the principle that all of the borders were fixed at the same conference. Reciprocity is the least we can demand. In addition, it is important to remember that there are no wars throughout the world that were caused by any underlying conflicts, but by the very existence of totalitarian regimes. Democratic leaders must make peace and bring economic prosperity, or else they will be kicked out of office in the next election. In contrast, dictators must make war, in order to justify their actions at home (which is a topic for a separate article). Thus, all of the world's wars, to the last of them, have been between two dictatorships or between a dictatorship and a democracy. Democracies do not go to war with one another, no matter how serious the conflicts between them; it never happened in the past, and will never happen in the future. Furthermore, even if the Palestinians would be willing and able to become democrats, without the conversion of the rest of the Arab states to democracies, it will be impossible to make peace with them. When all of the region's states become democracies, peace with them will be automatic, natural and come about of its own accord. The chance that such an event will take place, however, approaches zero. Therefore, there will be no peace with them, even if we give them our lands, the lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, or anything else they demand. In light of this, we will have to battle the Arabs, including the Palestinian "people," forever - because of them and not because of us. And in those wars, so long as they hide among civilians and receive their support, their civilians will continue to die. No moral or legal responsibility falls on us because of that fact. And you, my not-so-dear pilots, go home and pray that your truly moral colleagues do not follow in your footsteps, and thus save you and your families from the next Palestinian killer. Mr. Zaliouk sends his "Truth Provider" columns by email. Contact him at ynz@netvision.net.il |
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IF PM SHARON WAS ADVISING PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IN 1945
Posted by Ken Heller, October 3, 2003. |
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This is great satire. It comes from the World Satire Network, Dallas, Texas. It appeared on the Isralert net. Washington, D.C.(Reuters) August 6, 1945. A spokesman for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt today announced that a revolutionary new type of bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, this morning at 8:15 AM. In contrast to bombs currently in the American arsenal, which are filled with high explosives, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was filled with the heads of 150,000 matchsticks. The bomb was dropped by an Army Air Corps B-29, flying high over the city. Reports indicate that the bomb crashed through the roof of a home owned by a Japanese gardener, Ameshugena Leftyhana. Although the bomb left a gaping hole in the roof, the fire that it ignited was quickly extinguished, and Mr. Leftyhana was only lightly injured, having sprained his ankle while he ran out of his home. Asked about rumours of the existence of a so-called "atomic bomb," which carries explosive power equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT, FDR's spokesman confirmed the existence of this bomb, but explained that the bomb wasn't used on Hiroshima because the bomb could have injured, or even killed civilians. According to the spokesman for the president, an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima could have killed almost instantaneously an estimated 70,000 people through the massive heat and shockwave, and upwards of 200,000 people by the end of a year as a result of radiation poisoning. The matchstick bomb was used because it was believed to be unlikely to injure innocent civilians. Asked why the matchstick bomb was dropped on Mr. Leftyhana's house, the spokesman explained that Mr. Leftyhana was believed to have participated in the beheading of an American pilot who had bailed out over Leyte Gulf. The spokesman emphasized that the United States took very seriously its responsibility to protect the lives of American servicemen, and this bombing of Hiroshima was designed to send a message to Japan that America will continue its war against Japan until the Emperor recognizes that there can be no military solution to the Japanese-American war. As soon as the Emperor and his advisor, Mr. Tojo took action to stop the attacks by militants rumored to be affiliated with the Imperial Army, there would be peace; Japan's colonial territories would be returned to her and the United States would give back Hawaii to its rightful Japanese owners. Asked what the United States would do if the Emperor declined to take action against radical militants who were carrying out suicide-bombings of American naval vessels, the spokesman replied, "we shall drop two matchstick bombs on the Japanese city, Nagasaki; that will teach them a lesson and bring them back to the negotiating table." A reporter asked "what if even two matchstick bombs don't do the job, what are your plans?" The spokesman replied, "in that unlikely event, we will mount a full-scale invasion of the Japanese islands by three million American troops, of whom we expect one-third will be killed." A stunned silence fell over the reporters in attendance. Helen Thomas rose and said, "Arrigato Kusammack, Mr. Secretary". The spokesman turned to Ms. Thomas and replied, "in 60 years the whole world will be grateful to the United States for serving as a moral example of how to fight a war without killing anyone, at least without killing any of the enemy." In a separate announcement, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Ahmed Shukeiry, announced that the ACLU was bringing suit against the U.S. government for its extra-judicial attempted assassination of Mr. Ameshugena Leftyhana. "Where was due process?" asked Mr. Shukeiry. "Why was Mr. Leftyhana singled out for a 'targeted assassination'? This is not an ethical way to fight a war. When the Japanese allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor, they attacked military personnel in a military area. What right do we have to target an innocent individual - who only snipped off one head - who was merely protesting American occupation of Japanese territories? It is President FDR who is the war criminal, and we shall pursue him to the ends of the earth, or until he resigns and allows a decent American, such as Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, to take office." To subscribe to Isralert, send an email to Isralert@aol.com |
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SIGNIFICANCE OF PERES' BIRTHDAY PARTY
Posted by Morrie Amitay, October 3, 2003. |
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The Peres 80th Birthday bash could be described as superfluous, but pitiful might be a more appropriate adjective. This paean to narcissism and failed policy demonstrated how there are always some individuals who simply cannot face up to reality because it is so ugly. The reality is that Arafat was, and still is, a terrorist. For Peres to state that this incarnation of deceit and evil deserved a Nobel Peace Prize not only renders the award worthless but also exposes a closed mind. As Jerusalem Post columnist Saul Singer succinctly described Peres, "Nothing will shake his belief, not only in Arafat, but in the more fundamental idea that peace is a function of Israeli concessions rather than Arab transformation." One should not overlook Peres' early contributions to Israel's security when he was directed by higher authorities. But later as a politician and Labor Party wheeler-dealer he reinvented himself as a visionary. To put it poetically - "from a schemer to a dreamer." The unwitting Yitzhak Rabin, whom Peres snared into what became "Oslo," had an abiding and almost visceral hatred for Peres whom he described in his memoirs as "a backstabber." In private, he used even more colorful language. But, personalities aside, the birthday event was a celebration of self-delusion. There was the delusion that former President Clinton had acted as a true friend of Israel, that Kofi Annan's U.N. could still be considered a force for good, and that peace" could be bought with more Israeli concessions. It was fitting that Terje Roed Larsen, Special Envoy to the Middle East, who epitomizes the craven European attitude towards terrorism, was there, along with the head of the Israel-bashing National Council of Churches - only two examples from the voluminous guest list. Charitably, it may be said that this self-delusion is based on genuine naivete. I don't doubt Peres really wants for there to be peace in the Middle East. But he still just doesn't get it. Self-delusion when practiced by Israel's Arab adversaries for less well-intentioned reasons has been raised to almost an art form. To put it bluntly, Arab leaders who have reason to fear the truth wouldn't speak it unless under extreme duress. And the old saw - "you can tell he is lying if his lips are moving" - applies not only to Baghdad Bob and Yasser Arafat. It's not that Western politicians do not occasionally lie " but do so less blatantly. We have the definition of a diplomat as being "a gentleman sent abroad to lie for his country." But when habitual lying extends to all segments of a society in a wide variety of circumstances, there is a real problem discerning the truth unless this ingrained behavior is acknowledged. Ask Mohammed who cut down his father's cherry tree and he will swear, "It was the Zionists!" - while still holding the hatchet behind his back. Arab spokesmen can utter the most outrageous falsehoods since the truth is irrelevant to them. It is what they want it to be. Thus, they have no trouble falsifying history. Yasser Arafat, for example, has stated "There was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem." Or - in the Egyptian government-controlled daily al-Akhbar, Americans were recently accused of "cannibalism" - literally. So Palestinian leaders can claim that they are faithfully fulfilling all their obligations under the road map " with straight faces. This disregard for objective facts carries over to reporting in our media. When a Palestinian "eyewitness" tells CNN that Israeli soldiers shot an innocent civilian in the back - these statements are too often taken at face value. Occurrences such as this happen almost daily and are dutifully reported along with Israeli official statements either denying it or saying this matter is under investigation. Gullible Americans reading USA Today, The New York Times, or the Washington Post are constantly fed the most outrageous lies daily because well-meaning but Western-oriented reporters are unable or unwilling to acknowledge that they are dealing with a culture which has little respect for the truth. This inevitably leads to a "both sides" mentality (e.g., Howard Dean) - because we Americans have been taught to believe there are always two sides to every story - and that all witnesses were born equal. Arab boasts, conspiracy theories, and reluctance to assume blame are a self-defeating part of the fabric of Arab society. As Egypt's debacle in the Six-Day War unfolded, its public and even its own military commanders were told that the Israeli Air Force had lost 200 planes and Egyptian armies were marching on Tel-Aviv. Michael Oren's excellent account of the Six-Day War spells this all out in detail - and how King Hussein lost the West Bank as a result. The reality is that the Arab world is still hopelessly backward, led by brutal despots, poverty-stricken, influenced by religious prejudice and sinking further into a morass of self-inflicted wounds. Given this sad situation no wonder there is such a lack of self-esteem in the Arab world - and with it, a reluctance to face the truth. Israel, on the other hand, which prefers to live in the real world, can look to its impressive achievements during its brief history. But the Peres birthday celebration reminds us that there are still some Israelis who prefer to lie to themselves. Who amongst the celebrants had the courage to state the sad truth to the octogenarian Shimon Peres? The truth being that most Palestinians - and certainly their corrupt leadership - do not want only to live peacefully side by side with Israel, but want it to disappear. Fortunately, the vast majority of Israeli citizens have been forced to accept this reality. For this we should be thankful, otherwise the Jewish state would indeed be doomed. Morrie Amitay is a former Executive Director of AIPAC. |
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THE ACHAN LEGACY AND THE YOM KIPPUR WAR
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 3, 2003. |
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It is 35 years since the Labor Party debacle of the Yom Kippur War. Ever since that horrid day in 1973, I have been unable to get through a Yom Kippur without thinking of those traumas. And ever since 1973, I have associated the Yom Kippur War with the Biblical character of Achan. Let me explain. Achan is not a well known character in the Bible and his entire role consists of a few sentences in the Book of Joshua. The Israelite tribes had invaded their promised land, had swiftly defeated Jericho. The Canaanite pagans were shaking in their sandals, and had been in a state of panic ever since the word had reached them of the parting of the Red Sea. They knew their time was up, their goose cooked. The Israelites had received a Divine commitment that they would conquer and defeat the Canaanites. They enjoyed unprecedented strategic advantage. The entire world knew that God was in a strategic alliance with them. Their deterrence was legendary. Their military prowess feared. They could overcome pagan opposition effortlessly, on the basis of their fearful reputation. Until Achan came along. The Divine military commitment was contingent on the Israelites obeying Divine commands regarding what would be done with booty from the vanquished. It belonged to "God," which was to say to the priests and the Tabernacle staffs, for public use. Achan however had helped himself to some of the loot after the conquest of Jericho. His act undermined the entire strategic position of Israel and deterrence of the Israelite tribes. Because of Achan's act, the next battle went badly. When the Israelites attacked Ai, the next town after Jericho, they lost the first battle. While a mere 36 Israelite fighters were killed by the pagans, the very fact that a battle had been lost changed the entire strategic situation irreversibly. It was a development that changed history. To the astonishment of the world, it became evident that the Jews were NOT invincible, that they actually could be defeated in battle. The effect on Jewish morale was no less earth-shaking. Achan's folly had changed the map of the Middle East, raising existential questions about the military capacities of the Jews and ultimately about their survivability and chances of victory. It raised hopes among the pagans that the Almighty just might NOT be protecting the Israelite military flanks after all. It pumped new energy into the enemies of the Jews, feeding their campaign through demonstration of Jewish vulnerability and defeatibility. I was an American graduate student at the Hebrew University in 1973. When the sirens went off, the university emptied out. As a non-Israeli, I was one of the few still walking about the campus. Many other students never returned from the fronts. The modern equivalent of the Folly of Achan was the Labor Party Debacle of October 1973. The Labor Party had run Israel since its birth as its own personal fiefdom. It had imposed a silly socialist command structure on the country based on 19th century economic illiteracy, which had kept the country impoverished and underdeveloped. In 1973 the bulk of Israelis still did not have telephones or televisions. Many still had no kitchen. Some still had no bathroom. The country was shackled by government-established monopolies, tax rates often over 100%, spend-till-you-drop fiscal policy, and regularly shut down by the trade union terrorism of the Histadrut. The same Labor Party had nurtured a blind faith in the capacities of the military. After Israel's military success in the Six Day War, the political leadership was convinced that military deterrence was no longer something in need of maintenance and construction. The country was awash in blind hubris and baseless over-confidence. Mediocre generals and colonels were celebrities and followed by the paparazzi. Newspapers bragged about Israel being stronger than NATO and jokes abounded of single Israelis capable of defeating entire Arab regiments with no effort. The Bar Lev line of fortresses along the Suez Canal was impregnable, impossible to overcome. The politicians undermined and undermaintained the military defenses, thinking them unnecessary. The government agreed to the pinnacle of stupidity, the ceasefire with Egypt in 1970 that allowed the Egyptians to move their forces and missiles right up to the Suez Canal, and so neutralizing Israeli military capability. The army ignored reports about the capabilities of the new "high-tech" anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles flooding into Egypt and Syria. Israeli military intelligence was asleep (as it has also been since the beginning of Oslo regarding Palestinian intentions and behavior), ignoring the Egyptian-Syrian buildup and ignoring all of the warning signs, exhibiting Pearl Harbor stupidity in the summer of 1973. There were 500 poorly equipped Israeli soldiers along the front line against Egypt the day before Yom Kippur. Even when the fighting began. Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan displayed gross incompetence, and later cowardice. The feared calling up the reserves less this "provocation" upset the Americans. Surely single Israelis would chase away entire regiments of Arab tanks, right? They nursed the delusion that this was a skirmish, not a full Egyptian-Syrian-Russian attempt to defeat Israel and wipe it out. 2600 dead Israeli troops and 10,000 maimed were the price paid by the country for the folly of the Labor Party "conception." The Bar Lev line collapsed in hours, joining the Maginot Line in the history of human folly. But it was not the only "conception" imposed on the country by the Labor Party and its allies to prove to be mega-stupidity. The collapse of the pre-1973 hubris led to Achan-like reassessment of Israeli military prowess and survivability by the world. Perhaps Israel could be defeated and destroyed militarily after all. Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan succeeded in re-establishing the Arab belief that Israel could ultimately be erased through armed force and terror. Even more destructive in the long run was the undermining of Israel's own faith in itself and belief in its own power. The blind hubris from before 1973 was replaced by whiny Israeli defeatism and self-doubt, by attempts to attribute the conflict with the Arabs to the evil nature and insensitivity of the Jews, and to seek its resolution through appeasement and self-debasement. This self-doubt reached its height a mere nine years after the Yom Kippur War. While the 1973 War had started as a debacle and had cost the country the lives of a huge segment of its youth cohort, it had ultimately ended with a dazzling military victory, one incidentally orchestrated by Ariel Sharon before his later metamorphosis into a Beilinized appeaser. But the 1982 invasion of Lebanon in the "Peace for Galilee" campaign saw the transformation of the Israeli Left from a rather-naive but basically patriotic group of people nursing delusions into a full fledged movement of self-hatred and anti-Israel radicalism. The Left took to the street to denounce Begin and Sharon as "war criminals" and fascists, and the Left underwent radicalization that transformed it into an anti-Israel anti-Zionist movement, in a manner similar to the morphing of the western campus Left into little more than a movement of anti-Americanism. The more extreme segments engaged in open treason. By the late 1980s the Israeli Left and much of the Israeli Labor Party were in the process of imposing a new Grand Concept on country, one that would prove even more destructive and foolish than the pre-1973 concept of military hubris and overconfidence. It was the Grand Oslo Delusion, the Oslo Pagan Cult, where Israel attempted to disarm Arab savagery and fascism through displays of goodwill gestures, restraint, self-debasement, turning the other cheek when Jewish children are mass murdered, unilateral disarmament, refusal to fight, nurturing Israeli defeatism through lecturing the country that it was THEIR fault that there was war and terror because they were insensitive to the "Other" and trying to "occupy" another "people." The Israeli chattering classes were the most open in embracing treason. The campuses became cesspools of Tenured Traitors openly supporting Arab terror, mutiny and insurrection by leftists in the Israeli military, many openly endorsing the end of Israel's existence as a Jewish state, and a handful endorsing Holocaust Deniers and neonazis around the world in their zeal to delegitimze Zionism. These openly endorsed anti-Semites and "boycotts" of Israel by those overseas seeking the destruction of Israel and its population. The Israeli media became the occupied territories of the Israeli Left, where non-Left opinion is increasingly suppressed and denied access to the media. The country's literary figures conscripted themselves into the Radical Left and increasing support treason and mutiny, such as the air force officers refusing to serve or follow orders until the government implements the political ideas advocated by the most extremist 5% of the country's electorate. Shimon Peres, who did not play a serious role in the 1973 Labor Party debacle (and Rabin was safe from blame in an Ambassador's job in 1973), is likely to go down in history books as the man who did more to destroy his own country than any other. It is still too early to know if he and Yossi Beilin succeeded. They imposed their "Concept" on the country, a concept that proved to be absolutely 100% wrong. On the strength of that "Concept" they converted the West Bank and Gaza into large bases for launching nazi mass murders of Jews, terrorist attacks, and missile and rocket attacks on the Jews. They destroyed Israel's capability of acting militarily and effectively against the savages, lest this upset the White House and the rest of the world. They convinced the world that the Israelis and the Jews had lost their will to survive and resist anti-Semitism. They restored Arab faith in their ability to erase Israel at the point of bayonets. They undermined the will of Israelis to resist anti-Semitic demonization. They refused to subject the PLO to tests of its intentions before arming it, bankrolling it, and importing its stormtroopers into Jewish lands. They created a situation where even Likud governments are shackled by Labor Party faits accompli and are incapable of undoing the mindless follies of the Labor Left. Where the hero of the Suez Canal is afraid to attack the Hizbollah and instead offers wholesale release of Palestinian murderers in order to "buy" back the bodies of three POWs that were murdered by the Hizbollah. Where the same man is afraid to use a bomb that can wipe out the Hamas altogether lest some "innocent" bystanders get hurt. And in doing so, the long-term strategic destruction caused by this new Labor Party "Concept" makes the folly of Achan and the 36 fallen Israelites in the battle of Ai appear as child games. By the way, what ever became of Achan? For his folly, he and his entire household were killed and erased. But his memory is in fact a mixed one and he was in large part redeemed. Tradition has it that before being executed, Achan not only repented for his crimes but went on to write a special prayer. The second paragraph of the Aleinu prayer, which ends every Jewish prayer service and is recited three times each day, is attributed to the very same Achan. Curiously, it is the only part of Jewish prayer in which the concept of "Tikkun Olam" (repairing the world by establishing the rule of God and the defeat of paganism) actually appears. "Tikkun Olam" has long been hijacked by the assimilationist liberals (or "asslibs") among Jews as a code word for leftist "social justice" and political correctness. This no doubt has made Achan roll about in his grave. And as the ultimate silliness, many of those same Reform and "Liberal" synagogues that misdefine all of Judaism as liberal political activism in the name of the hijacked "Tikkun Olam" do not even read Achan's prayer, the only prayer in which Tikkun Olam appears they simply skip over it. Perhaps this is part and parcel of a greater phenomenon. Jewish leftists are wrong about absolutely everything. Jewish liberals almost as often are wrong. But unlike Achan, they NEVER admit being wrong about anything. They never seek repentance or redemption through atoning for their crimes and follies. Steven Plaut is an economist and professor of business administration at Haifa University. He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. |
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SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL
Posted by Mike Evans, October 3, 2003. |
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Next week, I will be in Jerusalem, and will be speaking at a world Jerusalem Summit. Other speakers include: Daniel Pipes, Alan Keyes, Cal Thomas, Richard Perle, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert, and many other leaders. I am working now on the message that I will deliver to this distinguished group. I urgently appeal to you to get this email out to everyone you know. We must defend Israel and America. Saudi Arabia seems intent on destroying both nations by financing the H-bomb (human suicide bomber). If we close our eyes, I fear America will be next. On September 11,2001, fifteen Saudi's commandeered four commercial airliners. (The other four hijackers were not Saudi). America is again in harm's way, and it's time for those with moral clarity to speak out before it's too late. In the early '90's, I warned America that Osama bin Laden would try to attack New York, but the church slept. Isser Harel, the founder of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organization, told me in the '80' that terrorists would strike America's largest city, and the largest structure in that city. (In 1993, bin Laden tried unsuccessfully to bring down the World Trade Towers). Here are a few facts for your consideration:
What should be done to establish the link between Saubdi Arabia and terrorist groups once and for all? The classified information regarding Saudi Arabia's involvement in funding terrorists should be declassified. No government that aids and abets the heinous activities of terrorists should be allowed to escape culpability. Please pray for our President today. The President needs to release the 28-page report that implicates the Saudis in worldwide terrorism. There are some things more important than Saudi oil...the truth, for one! "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free." Former president, George H. W. Bush stated, "What I don't like is demonizing Saudi Arabia... they are not enemies of ours." The truth is this: Not only has the roadmap for peace been sabotaged by the Saudis (who support the Road Map, the division of Jerusalem, and a PLO state), but also the Bush doctrine on terrorism which states that those who "harbor or support terror" are enemies of the United States. We must take the moral high ground, and quit sleeping with the enemy! Mike Evans is the founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, which is based in Euless, Texas. Their website address is http://www.jerusalemprayerteam.org |
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UN-AMERICAN STATE DEPARTMENT, PA NGOS, AND THE FBI
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 3, 2003. |
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The State Department Whitewashes Saudi Arabia. Prof. Paul Eidelberg found this information in a 2003 book, "Sleeping With the Devil" by Baer. The State Dept. knew that bin Laden was born a Saudi, that Saudis blew up the National Guard facility in 1995 and the Khobar barracks in 1996, hijacked a plane in 2000 in conjunction with an Egyptian, and probably were behind the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, the US embassies in Africa, attacks in Chechnya, etc.. Nevertheless, it did not screen Saudi visitors. In issuing tourist visas to all 15 Saudi terrorists who perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks, the State Dept. violated US law. In its 1999 report on terrorism, the State Dept. wrote, "The S. Arabian government, at all levels, continued to reaffirm its commitment to combating terrorism." No, Saudi schools still promote a terrorist ethos. From such schools and mosques came the 15 Saudi hijackers. The Saudi government refused to allow US agents to interrogate their families. S. Arabia planned to run gas and oil pipelines across Afghanistan and through Pakistan. The project would help the Taliban keep power and bin Laden, his haven. Instead of opposing the project, the State Dept. encouraged a US company to participate. The kingdom makes billion dollar contracts with US corporations. "Every deal with the Saudis," writes Baer, "involves rake-offs, commissions theft, bribes, graft." As stated earlier, many former US officials, think tanks, and academic and cultural institutions are on the receiving end of Saudi largesse (Jewish Press, 9/26, p.62). And in return? PA NGOs Balk At Signing Anti-Terrorism Clause. USAID offers P.A. students scholarships for study in the US. The US requires organizations to which it donates money to sign a promise not to transfer money to terrorists or their organizations. About 25 NGOs in the P.A. publicly refused to sign that clause. Their protest movement is growing. Egyptian intellectuals are joining the protest. They denounce "interference" in the affairs of civil society institutions. The protest more than defies US policy. It refutes a fundamental premise about the P.A.. This popular premise is that the P.A. people reject terrorism; only a minority support it. Now we find the entire organizational infrastructure - social workers, psychologists, medical groups, and social welfare organizations - united in support of suicide bombing. They shore up the Road Map and the notion of isolating Arafat so a silent majority would take over and make peace (IMRA, 9/24 from Palestinian Media Watch). Yes, the whole P.A. society is organized for jihad. Its supposed human rights concerns are fronts for promoting jihad, just as are most of its supposed charities. Another factor, however, is that Arabs do not want foreigners to tell them what to do. Since they wish to conquer foreigners, they suppose that the foreigners reciprocate. Conspiratorial, the Arabs assume that whatever the foreigners ask of them must be injurious. The last thing the US needs is to allow P.A. students into the US. They would bring their hatred and violence, and take out knowledge of how to direct that hatred and violence against us and against the West as a whole. FBI TO AWARD PRO-TERRORISTS. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (at best) is a propaganda arm of Arab terrorism. Its lengthy anti-American record includes praise for Hizbullah, as "a Lebanese resistance organization engaged in the legitimate defense of Lebanese land." Hizbullah massacred 241 Americans in Lebanon. (Since Hizbullah has the land, yet continues the war, its purpose must be jihad, not defense. Since it attacks all Israelis, whether civilians or soldiers, its means include terrorism. It also trains Hamas terrorists. It is not legitimate.) The INS has been trying for more than 20 years to deport the Committee's Midwest director, Imad Hamad, for belonging to the terrorist PFLP. Pressure from politicians in Michigan (where there is a concentration of Arabs), stymied its effort. Hamad publicly protested the US arrest of four Arabs in Detroit as part of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell and the prosecution of another for laundering $12 million in fraudulent checks for Al Qaeda. On TV, Mr. Hamad defended a P.A. television program encouraging Arab children to become suicide bombers and to murder Jews and Christians. He called the program "patriotic." The FBI plans to give a good citizenship award to Hamad. ZOA urges the FBI to cancel the award (IMRA, 9/25). FBI Director Rober Mueller previously was criticized for being a speaker at a dinner given by an American propaganda front for terrorism. The Director of the FBI surely should know the difference between Arab organizations here that are devoted primarily to supporting and disguising terrorism and jihad, and ordinary Arab or Muslim organizations. "The President doesn't know," either. Is he influenced by donations and votes? The very freedoms we enjoy are used to paralyze defense against the Arab Muslims, who would deprive us of those freedoms. There seems to be more involved. Director Mueller proves himself unfit for a war on terrorism. We already have found the State Dept. on the other side. Pres. Bush has the PLO trained as snipers and about terrorism, and has protected S. Arabia from most scrutiny. On which side are they?
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TWO ITEMS ON LEADERSHIP FROM TODAY'S ARUTZ SHEVA
Posted by Bryna Berch, October 3, 2003. |
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(item 1.) Following the failure of the Israeli government's gestures to Abu Mazen, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon now supports similar gestures to the new PA leadership headed by Abu Ala. Yaalon says that hundreds of terrorists should be freed, including those who took active part in attacks against Israelis, and says that almost all the checkpoints in Yesha should be removed, so as to give a chance to the new PA leadership. Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz and GSS head Avi Dichter oppose these moves, while Prime Minister Sharon's position is not yet known. In July, Israel released several hundred Arab security prisoners, opened roads in Gaza to unchecked Arab traffic, and withdrew IDF forces from Gaza and around Bethlehem - all in an effort to prop up Abu Mazen's government. Abu Mazen resigned approximately a month ago. Abu Mazen's replacement, Ahmed Qurei, also known as Abu Ala, has had difficulty forming a new ruling body, but is finally expected to present it in the coming days. (item 2.) Manhigut Yehudit, the Jewish Leadership movement, a faction of the Likud Party, continues its efforts to "build an alternative leadership." Its most recent newsletter states that in light of recent events, it "expects nothing from the current leadership of the national camp." Last week's terror attack in Negohot, claiming the lives of a seven-month-old baby and a young husband, is "as if the Creator is saying to us, 'You are the ones who released the terrorists who subsequently murdered the soldiers in Tzrifin, you released the terrorists who perpetrated a massacre in Cafe Hillel, you decided to send Sgt. Avihu Keinan on a suicide mission [not literally - ed. note] on the eve of the festival instead of bombing the terrorist's house in Gaza, and you released the terrorist who committed murder in Negohot. So why are you crying out to Me on Rosh HaShana? It's all your own work!'" Explaining that the current leadership "has no clue how to extricate us from the crisis and where to advance" and "is engaged in putting out fires, in personal survival, and in political stratagems," Jewish Leadership is about to begin a month-long campaign to increase its number of members. It notes that three of its members were recently elected to local leadership positions in the Likud. Arutz Sheva provides well-written and accurate coverage of events in Israel. Its website address is http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com |
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LAWMAKERS TOLD OF ALLEGED UN LINKS TO MIDDLE EAST TERROR
Posted by David Bedein, October 3, 2003. |
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This article was written by Lawrence Morahan, CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer. It is archived at http://www.cnsnews.com/ForeignBureaus/archive/200310/FOR20031002a.html (CNSNews.com) - Recently declassified documents by Israeli intelligence links United Nations workers with Middle East terrorist organizations, an Israeli journalist and social worker told Capitol Hill lawmakers Wednesday. David Bedein, bureau chief of the Jerusalem-based Israel Resource News Agency (http://israelbehindthenews.com/#mussarkaful), said he has evidence to show the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is involved in military activity that therefore disqualifies it from receiving U.S. funds. "The UNRWA is directly involved in an educational system and a paramilitary system that encourages the right of return through all means, including violence. The UNRWA, instead of only being a service provider, has become a terror provider," Bedein said. In three years of the latest round of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, the United Nations agency responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza has not let up on its incitement of violence against the Jewish state, Bedein charged. Maher Nasser, the UNRWA liaison at U.N. headquarters in New York said similar charges brought by Bedein in the past have proven to be essentially baseless (http://www.un.org/unrwa/allegations/archives/oldindex.html). Nasser was unaware of the substance of the latest allegations, but he said: "The allegation that the UNRWA is complicit or any of its staff or installations have been compromised by terrorism are absolutely baseless and completely fabricated, or unsubstantiated by facts." Nasser said the agency, which is primarily based in four countries in the Near and Middle East, does its utmost to ensure the neutrality and impartiality of its installations and holds its staff to standards of international staff conduct. "Whenever there have been any accusations about involvement or suspicious activities by anybody, the agency would take those seriously and investigate them," Nasser said. Bedein told CNSNews.com that he would present recently declassified Israeli intelligence documents linking 15 UNRWA officials with Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has listed as a terrorist organization, to staffers of the House International Relations Committee on Wednesday. The Israeli government sent the information to the U.S. Congress as part of a General Accounting Office (GAO) report commissioned by Congress earlier this year, Bedein said. Moreover, in a recent election for the UNRWA trade union, Hamas candidates received 85 percent of the vote, Bedein said, citing Hamas and Palestinian Authority publications. Bedein said he would substantiate his claims with 300 pages of news reporting on the issue, in addition to research his organization conducted in the UNRWA camps. US contributes a third of UNRWA budget The UNRWA was created by the U.N. to provide relief, health and education services to Palestinians who lost their homes and means of livelihood during the Arab-Israeli wars following establishment of the state of Israel in 1949. Today, the UNRWA is the major U.N. humanitarian agency in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. The agency employs 23,000 officials - the majority of whom are teachers responsible for 500,000 children - including 11,000 officials in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As the agency's largest single donor, the United States last year contributed $109 million to the UNRWA's annual budget of about $300 million. In August, the United States authorized an additional special allocation of $26 million to the agency. The House International Relations Committee adopted an amendment by Vice Chairman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) to the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act (http://www.usaid.gov/about/usaidhist.html) that aims to eliminate anti-Semitic messages and references from UNRWA-sponsored education programs for Palestinian refugees. "The UNRWA has a choice - it can either support peace or support terrorism, and its actions must correspond with its words," Smith said in a release (http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/nj04_smith/prunrwa.htm). Tensions between the UNRWA and Israel have been high since soldiers shot and killed one of the agency's British employees, Iain Hook, in November of last year during a gun battle with armed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis said its soldiers mistook a cell phone Hook was using for a weapon. Nasser said Hook was one of eight UNRWA staff members killed in violence in the last three years; the others were Palestinians. According to documents seized by the Israelis during a raid on the Protective Security Service headquarters in Gaza City, Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and institutions in the Gaza Strip are involved in stealing basic food supplies and medicine provided by the UNRWA. The documents showed that PA officials sold food and medicine on the black market since 1996 and that food distributed by the UNRWA to residents of refugee camps in the Gaza Strip wound up in the hands of private merchants, who sold them on the black market. A GAO spokeswoman told CNSNews.com that the congressional report, which was begun in mid-April, was completed and would be made public on Oct. 31 or Nov. 3. Basically, the report will examine to what extent the State Department is complying with the relevant section of the Foreign Assistance Act, which forbids the United States from giving money to any agency engaged in military activity, and what procedures have been established to meet State Department standards for compliance, the spokeswoman said. Since its inception in 1987, the Israel Resource News Agency (http://israelbehindthenews.com) has provided hands-on coverage for the press "from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza, Gush Etzion, Hebron, Oslo, Bonn, Brussels, the Wye Plantation, Shepherdstown, Washington, Ottawa, Toronto and Vienna." |
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THE MEDIA'S MIDEAST RELATIVISM
Posted by Honest Reporting, October 2, 2003. |
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Media coverage of the Mideast conflict is plagued not only by specific episodes of bias, but also by a dangerous set of more subtle, underlying assumptions. To the typical Westerner, the media has generated the following desert mirage:
The problem is that this depiction ignores what Western observers now recognize, after years of Palestinian violence, to lie at the heart of the conflict - a deep political and cultural clash between a free, Western democracy on the one hand, and a dictatorial thugocracy, fueled by radical Islam, on the other. As Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Bret Stephens recently stated: "The principal problem in the Middle East is not the unsettled status of our borders. It is the unsettling nature of Arab regimes - and of the bellicosity, fanaticism, and resentments to which they give rise." In their overarching effort to "remain neutral," the media have settled into a pattern of distorting this objective reality - simultaneously beating Israel over the head with Israel's own organs of democracy, while granting "democratic" legitimacy to a corrupt and dictatorial Palestinian regime. For example, Associated Press recently quoted Yassir Arafat defending his ongoing rule: "(Bush) has to remember that he had been elected by the Americans and he is representing the Americans, and I have been elected by the Palestinians and I am representing the Palestinians." The democratic equivalency claimed by Arafat is absurd, yet AP supplies no qualifying statement such as "Arafat was elected with no legitimate opposition, and his term of office expired years ago." By allowing such a statement to pass without comment, AP flattens key political-cultural differences, and distorts objective reality in favor of the Palestinian regime. Some recent news items further illustrate the problem: On September 30, an Israeli court sentenced three Israeli men to extended prison terms for plotting to bomb a Palestinian school. Newspaper editors and ombudsmen have written scores of articles to justify their refusal to call Palestinian suicide bombers "terrorists" - yet news outlets such as AFP and BBC were quick to label the convicted Israelis a "terrorist network." Striking in its absence was any contrast between Israel's system of justice for controlling extremists, and the utter lack of internal prosecution on the Palestinian side. Consider: On Sept. 27, two Palestinian teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were apprehended by IDF troops near the Egyptian border with a suitcase filled with weapons and ammunition. The teenagers had been sent to pick up the suitcase by an adult who paid them each a small sum of money. [This, a week after a similar incident in Northern Gaza mentioned in a recent HonestReporting communique]. The kids, fortunate to escape alive after being sent on a nighttime stealth mission to an active war zone, were released by the IDF. It goes without saying that the adults responsible for this act will never be tried in a Palestinian court for child abuse, let alone for anti-Israeli terror. This clear indication of a lack of internal Palestinian policing is sorely underreported by the same Western sources that were quick to broadcast the conviction of the Israeli "terrorist network." The result: The media flatten key political-cultural differences, and distort the objective reality in favor of the Palestinian regime. Or consider these recent news items: On September 29, the Israeli State Comptroller submitted his annual internal review of security service and governmental practices. The 400-page report covered a wide range of issues, but the only item emphasized by the world press dealt with occasional lapses in IDF crowd control. The AP report begins as follows: "Israeli soldiers sometimes fire live ammunition at Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of a shortage of non-lethal weapons, according to a state comptroller's report released Tuesday." Buried deep in the story - and shrugged off by the AP reporter - was the comptroller's report of Israeli restraint, i.e. the waiting until nightfall to strike so as to limit casualties. Indeed, countless Israeli anti-terror operations have been called off, delayed, or lessened so as to avoid civilian casualties. Sheik Yassin of Hamas chooses a mosque full of worshippers for public appearances, because, as the LA Times reports, "Yassin's security team believes that the presence of worshipers would deter an Israeli attack." Contrast this with a Palestinian culture that continues to glorify the killing of Israeli civilians. Perhaps a more interesting angle (one wholly ignored by the media) would be to use the comptroller's report to illustrate Israel's democratic process of internal critique and the spirit of safe, open debate - completely unique in the region. This, in stark contrast to a Palestinian society that squelches dissent and open debate. For example, when would-be Palestinian interior minister Nasser Yusuf criticized Arafat in a meeting last week, Arafat cursed at Yusaf, spat in his face, and stormed out of the room. Further, an op-ed in the Washington Post (Sept. 28) points out how the Palestinian press regularly toes the party line at the cost of accuracy: "One of the victims of the Cafe Hillel bombing in Jerusalem on Sept. 9 was a waiter, Shafik Karam, from Beit Hanina, a Palestinian Christian. The Palestinian press does not speak of acts of Palestinian terrorism, even when the terrorism hits Palestinians. The obituary [in El Kuds, the East Jerusalem daily] said Karam, 27, had been 'called by God' as a result of 'an accident at his place of work,' as though a tray had fallen on his head." This lack of an open Palestinian press (and the mass psychological repression it causes) is sorely underreported by the same Western sources that were quick to pick up on the highly critical Israeli comptroller's report. By skewing coverage of matters central to democratic process, the media give the impression of a level playing field. Far from achieving "media objectivity," this instead projects a distorted image of the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a conflict of political cultures to which Western media consumers are increasingly left in the dark.
Honest Reporting has become a leading voice in battling against media bias against Israel when reporting on the Middle East. To submit media critiques, write action@honestreporting.com To donate funds, go to http://honestreporting.com/a/Donate.asp |
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CANDIDATE CLARK
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 2, 2003. |
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Running for President in the Democratic primary, Gen. Clark has suggested that NATO troops patrol Yesha, that the US take a more activist role, that the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians help fashion a solution, and we try to involve Syria and Iran, too (Jewish Week, 9/26, p.36). News for Gen. Clark: the Arabs and Iran already are "involved." They are involved in boycotting, delegitimizing, and paring down Israel. Those jihadists have no constructive purpose; they strive to destroy Israel. To suggest inviting them to mediate Israel's fate is to seal it. Its demise would bring victory to the same jihadists fighting against the US. Perhaps Clark has not noticed, either, that the US is (or should be) in a war on Islamist terrorism. As we've discussed, NATO troops would facilitate stripping defensible borders and strategic depth from Israel, would act to prevent Israeli retaliation for terrorism against Israel, and would come under terrorist fire. The problem has been too active a US role, in the first place. Let Israel deal with the terrorists as it sees fit! The problem would become more tractable. Either Gen. Clark made these proposals out of a Kissinger-like cunning or he has no conception of the Arab-Israel conflict and of the war on terrorism. Arabs believe in the "sanctity" of death. They are not Israel's "partners" but enemies, for heaven's sake! While Islamist fanatics wage war in many parts of the world, apologists (such as Pres. Bush) quote the few passages in the Koran that speak of kindness to strangers. Regardless of those passages, Muslims believe that Islam should dominate the world. Wherever they can, they attack their host nation, in order to force their beliefs upon it. Muslim immigrants flood into Western Europe. They multiply there about three times as fast as their hosts do. The Muslim children often are taught in Saudi-subsidized schools that teach only Islam, hating, and killing. They incubate seditionists in each country. (How come Europe allows schools that don't teach the curriculum?) The bolder the Muslim extremists become, the more powerfully they draw into their orbit the supposedly "peaceful" or moderate Muslims. "...the average Muslim doesn't realize that he carries within him the potential of becoming a murderer for the sake of his religion." (Emanuel Winston, Jewish Press, 9/26, M1) The US has been attacked by the Islamists many times, lost many lives to them, and spent tens of millions of dollars fighting some of them. How shameful that the US has yet to identify the nature of the enemy! This political correctness and political corruption by the President, and this ignorance by the General, are tying our hands and turning us over to the enemy. Some people think that political correctness is merely laughable. No, its excess has come to censor independent thought, shield real bigotry, paralyze Western defense, and even crimp our sense of humor. Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides accurate information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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25 JERUSALEM BUS PASSENGERS TO FILE HIGH COURT PETITION TO ENSURE ISRAELI AIR FORCE CONTINUES TARGETED KILLINGS
Press Release: Shurat Hadin - Israel Law Center, October 2, 2003. |
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Twenty five residents of Jerusalem who rely upon public transportation, including buses, have sent a letter this morning to the Commander of the Israeli Air Force, Dan Chalutz, demanding that the policy of "targeted killings" of terrorist continue. In addition, the letter insists that Air Force pilots utilize appropriate size armaments to effectively carry out their missions. The bus passengers are represented by Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center's Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. In the letter, the bus passengers wrote that the campaign in certain quarters of the Israeli population to stop the "targeted killings," has caused a dangerous erosion in the abilities of the Air Force to fight and in its determination to vigilantly safeguard the lives of Israeli citizens by engaging in these acts of preventive self-defense. The letter's authors stated that recently the Air Force began to use smaller missiles than were required in order to avoid harming local Palestinian residents who might be in close proximity to terrorist targets. As a result, the fugitive terrorists succeeded in escaping and the crucial goal of preventing terror attacks by eliminating the leaders and bomb makers has been defeated. The tragic price that Israeli bus passengers have had to pay for these missed opportunities is in the further murdering of hundreds and the injuring of thousands in terror attacks. In their letter to Commander Dan Chalutz, they write: "Even the strongest oak cannot always remain steadfast in the face of a storm. Unfortunately, if in the past the Air Force utilized everything within its powers to carry out the targeted killing missions, and even employed one ton bombs, today you avoid using the appropriate armaments in order not to harm Palestinian residents. As a result, Israeli residents are paying the tragic cost of this policy with their lives. The bus passengers have threatened that they will take the matter to the High Court of Justice if the Air Force does not confirm that it will continue the policy of "targeted killings." Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, a Jewish legal rights institute, is based in Israel and staffed by some of the country's leading activist attorneys. They provide legal representation and resources to protect Jewish rights and interests in the Israeli, American and European courts. The Center is not affiliated with any political party or government agency. They are a registered, not-for-profit organization. To contact them by email, write: info@israellawcenter.org |
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ALL IN A JERUSALEM MORNING
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, October 2, 2003. |
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It's a sight I never thought I'd see - the student body of an entire yeshiva waiting patiently to ascend the Temple Mount early on a sunny morning between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. For the past three years, with the acquiescence of Israeli authorities, the Temple Mount has been completely off-limits to non-Moslems. The slightly ironic reason given was that Jewish or Christian presence on the Mount might inflame Arab passions and lead to violence. (Er, how would you describe what we've had for the past three years?) A few months ago, the Jerusalem police chief announced that he was satisfied that things would stay calm, and he advised re-opening the site. The first small groups began ascending some six weeks ago with little fanfare and minimal Arab reaction. Inspiring reports from people who had undergone preparations according to halacha and undertaken the trip started to filter through Jerusalem by word of mouth and over the Internet. This morning, while on an errand to place a note in the kotel for someone from abroad, I came across the group from the yeshiva in Maale Adumim. There must have been over one hundred young men, dressed in white shirts and crocheted kippot, who quietly assembled with their teachers outside the Mugrabi Gate, just to the south of the Kotel. The bareheaded police officer on hand gave them a rundown of forbidden activities while on their expedition. No praying, not even quiet moving of the lips; no prayer books allowed. And a police escort would keep them in line. The group was divided into three, with groups of around 30-40 people each allowed up at a time. As the young men disappeared through the green gate at the top of the path, two Arab workers repairing a section of an inner wall that collapsed last week, stopped their work to take in the sight. At the top of the first flight of stairs into the Jewish Quarter, a gaggle of religious high school boys were finishing their breakfast before heading to daven at the Kotel. They too couldn't help noticing the large contingent of white shirts waiting by the Mugrabi Gate. One of them asked the rebbe in charge what they were doing. "They're just acting on the idiotic ideology they have," the young black-hatted teacher spat out. When I asked why he had a problem with the action of the Maale Adumim yeshiva boys, he smiled and told me that "Haredim just don't believe we should be up there." That's the position of Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, himself Haredi. "It's neither correct or smart," for non-Moslems to go up to Har Habayit, Lupolianski asserts. In a bizarre expression of logic, Lupolianski says that the fact that the Wakf, the Moslem religious authority, has not been overly vociferous in their opposition only proves that they and not Israel, are in control of the site. Of course this is the same mayor who told reporters in a pre-election interview that he was "unaware" that Jews had been denied access for the past three years. Things are quiet in the Jewish Quarter. The pre-Sukkot bustle hasn't quite started yet. Stopping for breakfast at my favorite Old City cafe, Menorah, named for its proximity to the life-size solid gold replica of the menorah that will grace the Temple when the time comes, the array of passers-by is astonishing. Arab boys balancing large trays of freshly baked pita on their heads walk in one direction. Pious Jews wearing tefillin pass the other way. An incongruous-looking man in a blue suit walks purposefully by holding a stepladder in one hand and a briefcase in the other. Policewomen sagging under the weight of their ceramic vests stroll on patrol, and the odd tourist looks warily around. I pay a visit to Benny, the former owner of the cafe, who inexplicably has chosen a period with no tourists to open a Judaica store down in the nearby Cardo. Benny jokes that he's the last Jew before the Moslem Quarter - and indeed, the four full-size Israeli flags hanging outside his store are among the few signs of Jewish presence between here and Damascus Gate. Benny and his brother, who runs a jewelry shop a few steps away, are optimistic that the up-coming Sukkot holiday will finally bring some foot traffic to their stores. If you want to make Benny's day, go to his website at www.rozen-cardo.com and order something. Tell him Judy sent you. Judy Balint is the author of "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen,2002), which is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com To subscribe to the Jerusalem Diaries group, send an email to:jerusalemdiaries-subscribe@yahoogroups.com |
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THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY CELEBRATES THE START OF THE FOURTH YEAR OF WAR
Posted by Itamar Marcus, October 2, 2003. |
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The official PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida has published a cartoon this week marking the anniversary of three years of war against Israel. However, it does not describe the day as the end of the third year but writes: "The Palestinian Intifada enters its fourth year." In addition, the cartoon celebrates the Israeli losses and suffering by depicting an Israeli squirming in pain, trapped in the fist of the Palestinian arm. The arm has three full-sized muscles, representing the three years of Israeli suffering, and a fourth small one just beginning to grow. The PA's Arabic message to its own people, celebrating the war and the anticipation of its continuation another year, is in complete contrast to the English-language message to the world that it seeks an end to the violence. Itamar Marcus is Director of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), whose website address is http://www.pmw.org.il |
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TOM FRIEDMAN'S PEACE PLAN
Posted by Leo Rennert, October 2, 2003. |
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To the Editor of the New York Times: Re: "Passions and Interests" by Thomas L. Friedman, op-ed page Oct. 2: Rejecting the road map's call for concurrent steps by both sides, columnist Thomas L. Friedman has come up with a peace plan of his own: Let Israel, without Palestinian reciprocity, proceed to make more concessions, including the dismantling of settlements, so as to gradually create a more propitious climate for eventual peacemaking. If it turns out this still doesn't satisfy the Palestinians, he counsels, Israel at least will have achieved "moral clarity" to defend itself. I would ask Mr. Friedman: For how long would Israel have to turn the other cheek, keep withdrawing from the West Bank and absorb more suicide bombings before you'd blow the whistle on the Palestinians? After three months and another 100 Israeli civilians murdered? After six months and 200 additional fatalities? You say, "It's time for Israel to try that - yes, yet again." Like Lucy in the Peanut cartoon, trust the Palestinians that just this once they finally won't yank the football away. Actually, the "moral clarity" of Israel's position already was achieved when Yasir Arafat torpedoed the Camp David talks and gave the goahead for three years of terrorist attacks. There's no need to throw more Israeli innocents into the maw of Hamas to satisfy Mr. Friedman.
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IS ISRAEL AMERICA'S BANANA REPUBLIC?
Posted by Ruth Matar, October 2, 2003. |
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On September 26, on the eve of Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, an Arab terrorist broke into a home in Negohot, A Jewish Community near Hebron, and shot dead baby girl Shaked Avraham in her rocker, and also murdered a 27 year old man, Eyal Yerberbaum. Arab terrorists have been particularly fond of staging infiltration into Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria on Sabbath and Jewish Holidays. Since the beginning of the current conflict three years ago a total of 39 Israelis were killed and over 60 wounded in such attacks. Shaked is at least the seventh baby under one year of age, to be deliberately murdered in the ongoing Oslo war of terrorism against Israel. On September 9, a 19 year old alleged Hamas member, Ihab Abed Qadaer Abu Salim, exploded himself outside a hitchhiking stop near Tel Aviv, taking eight Israelis with him. Five and a half hours later, his cousin and neighbor, 22 year old Ramez Simi Izzedin Abu Salim, blew himself up in Jerusalem, killing seven. What do these Arab murderers have in common? ALL THREE OF THEM WERE RELEASED FROM JAIL TWO MONTHS AGO BY THE SHARON GOVERNMENT, AFTER STRONG PRESSURE FROM THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. This was supposed to be a confidence building measure to benefit then Prime Minister Abu Mazen and then Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan. Did President Bush ever insist on Al Queda terrorists being released as a confidence building measure towards Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein? The United States has invested more than 100 million this year in the Palestinian security agencies, under the premise that these funds would be allocated to former PA Prime Minister Abu Mazen, and former Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan, neither of whom are any longer in power. The funds have now been diverted to forces loyal to Yasser Arafat. THAT LEAVES USA SECURITY PERSONNEL IN A POSITION OF TRAINING AND ADVISING PLO ARMED FORCES, WHO NOW COORDINATE TERROR ATTACKS THROUGHOUT ISRAEL. The question is: WHY does the Bush Administration continue to bestow large financial grants WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT to the Palestinian Authority and Arafat, the career terrorist, who are the prime movers in this Arab terror? (The International Monitory Fund has reported that Arafat has diverted $900 million to his special account.) WHY does Israel comply with American dictates NOT to remove Arafat, even though the Israeli Cabinet has decided that this must be done? WHY does Israel comply when President Bush compels it not to include Ariel, a city of 22,000 inhabitants, behind the so-called security fence? Why does Ariel have to have a separate security fence with a large OPENING? So as not to annoy the Arabs? So as to make it easier for terrorists to enter? Did you know that the United States has built a high fence, 60 miles long, with plans to add another 260 miles, to more effectively seal its border with Mexico? The U.S. thus has a formidable security barrier at the Mexican border, even though there are no Mexican terrorists intent on exploding bombs on buses in America. WHY does Israel comply with American dictates with regard to Jews living and building in Judea and Samaria, in their own Biblical Homeland? Why does Israel cave in when the U.S. threatens to deduct any settlement spending from the total amount of U.S. loan guarantees? In this regard, I found a very interesting article written by Israel Harel, the former Chairman of the Council that represents Jews living in Judea and Samaria, entitled "Let Jews Live On Homelands." Interestingly enough, USA Today published this article on September 21. I think we should express our appreciation to the editor of USA Today at editor@usatoday.com, for having the moral courage to publish the truth.
Indeed, Israel has become a virtual Banana Republic of the United States. I do blame the Bush Administration for its heavy handed interference in Israeli affairs. But I do put even more blame on the Sharon Government. It is the responsibility of any government, above all, to protect the lives of its own citizens and its own national interest. The Sharon Government has failed miserably on both counts. The key question, unfortunately, that guides the Sharon Government, is not whether the benefit of any particular action - be it protecting its citizens from terror or holding on to its own Biblical Homeland, Judea and Samaria - is worth the price of annoying or distancing the United States. In truth, Israel has become America's Banana Republic. Is this relationship with Israel beneficial for the United States? Absolutely not, neither diplomatically, nor in terms of America's war against terrorism. The United States has declared a global war against terrorism, but like it or not, Israel is on the same globe as America, and thus cannot be made an exception in the fight against terror. Why are there daily murders of American soldiers in Iraq? Where did all the foreign terrorist fighters against American soldiers in Iraq come from? The United States has admitted that many are Palestinian Arabs, making their way to Iraq through surrounding Arab countries. Where did all these suicide bombers in Iraq come from? They took their lead from Palestinian terrorism - the main source of inspiration for terrorism around the world. The Palestinian Arabs boast already well over 100 suicide attacks - and what did the United States do? It granted them the largest possible prize - a State! Unfortunately, to their own detriment, the Americans are proving that terrorism pays off! Dear friends: If we close our eyes to this dangerous situation, we share in the guilt of not preventing a future holocaust. Get in touch with your Congressman and your Senators and most importantly, with President Bush, and express your strong feelings against: * Using American tax payer's money to support Arafat's terrorist organizations, including Fatah, Al Aqsa Martyrs, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. * Interfering in Israeli Government decisions intended to protect its citizens from terror. * Collaborating in making the Jewish Homeland Judenrein. For your information I am including President Bush's phone number which is 202-456-1414. His fax number is 202-456-2461. His email address is president@whitehouse.gov and his snail mail address is President George W. Bush, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500. To get information about how to reach your Senators and Congressman, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Don't delay! The present relationship between the United States and Israel may well turn out to be tragic, not only for Israel, but for the United States as well. With Blessings and Love for Israel Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) is an activist group based in Jerusalem. You can contact them by email by writing to:michael@womeningreen.org Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org To contribute: https://host5.apollohosting.com/womeningreen/donation.html |
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A 500-YEAR ROUND TRIP: Spanish "Hidden Jews" Return To Judaism
Posted by Michael Freund, October 2, 2003. |
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The following is a beautiful article from the new issue of Hadassah Magazine (October 2003, Vol. 85, No. 2) on Amishav, the organization which I head, and our work with descendants of "Anousim" (the Hebrew term used instead of the more derogatory "Marranos") from Spain and Portugal. It was written by Alan M. Tigay and is called "The 500-Year Round Trip." One growing group seeking to come home to Israel is bringing with them an unexpected bonus: Anousim have a devotion to Judaism that many have lost. Maria Villaralla knew that her mother's family had Jewish origins in Spain. "We practiced Jewish tradition as much as we knew," she says. a Ayelet Corona has Jewish roots on both sides and says her mother's family came from a village in the Mexican state of Michoacan where most of the inhabitants "don't mix milk and meat, didn't work on Saturday and leave pebbles on tombstones." Ariela Gomez says her Jewish journey began while she was sleeping. "In my dream," she said, "someone was calling 'Judah of Israel has a message for you.'" That was 10 years ago in her native Chile; her dream reached fulfillment this year when she went to a mikve, the ritual bath. Along the way she discovered evidence of Jewish roots in her family. Each of these stories - much richer than described here - belongs in the annals of the Jewish people, but they are no longer unique. Over the past 15 years or so, descendants of anousim - Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity in Spain and Portugal 500 years ago - have been emerging in Europe and the Americas. Despite five centuries of assimilationist pressures, despite families that typically wanted to hide their origins and despite rejection from mainstream Jewish communities and rabbis, the anousim have kept coming, some returning to Judaism, and some even making their way to Israel to do so. Three years ago I visited a beachhead the anousim had established in the Jewish state. In Efrat, a settlement in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem, Eliyahu Birnbaum, former chief rabbi of Uruguay, and his wife, Renata, were running a religious ulpan for students from the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. Though I saw a class that was much like other conversion courses - people motivated by a spiritual attraction to Judaism as well as those who were marrying Jews - about half the 16 students I met had Jewish roots. At the same time, Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail was running his organization Amishav - dedicated to reaching out to Jewish descendants from India and Afghanistan to Ethiopia and the Latin world - from his Jerusalem living room. He had established a level of visibility within the rabbinate, but still faced obstacles of ignorance and bureaucracy. But as Jewish attention was monopolized by other problems (the intifada began just three months after my visit to Efrat), a quiet revolution took place. On a day in May 2003, Villarama, Corona and Gomez told their stories at the Birnbaums' ulpan - not in Efrat but in Jerusalem. And not just in Jerusalem but in Hechal Shlomo, the headquarters of the chief rabbinate, where Amishav now has its offices. A phenomenon that was literally on the fringes of Jewish life is now in the heart. "This class is double the size of what you saw three years ago," Renata Birnbaum told me. "And we still have the ulpan in Efrat, which has also doubled." The movement of return has reached a critical mass in funding, staffing and the returnees themselves. Internet chat groups now connect Jewish descendants around the world. Where their ancestors went into cellars to perform Jewish rituals in isolation, they can now sit alone at their computers and connect to the Jewish world. "We seek to strengthen the Jewish people spiritually and demographically by reaching out to lost Jews or their descendants and helping them to return," says Michael Freund, once an adviser to former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and now Amishav's executive director. "We also want to educate and to reach out, even to people whose goal does not include conversion." The ulpan in Jerusalem is officially the Conversion and Return Program of the Machon Miriam Institute for Jewish Studies - named for the late Miriam Freund-Rosenthal, Hadassah's national president from 1956 to 1960. In addition to the ulpan, Amishav is now actively involved in outreach in Spain and Portugal. In May it brought together 30 Jewish descendants from small communities of anousim around the Iberian Peninsula for a leadership seminar in Barcelona. "All of the people who attended were known to us or recommended," says Freund, who is the grandson of the ulpan's namesake. "One of our goals is to pry open the Jewish world in terms of their approach to the anousim. The chief rabbi of Barcelona took part, as well as presidents of the Jewish communities of Spain and Barcelona." Later in May, Amishav sent a full-time rabbi to Belmonte, the Portuguese town in which 180 anousim formally returned to Judaism 10 years ago. There are plans for a rabbi and a Jewish studies center in Majorca, where many Jewish descendants live. In addition to raising the awareness of rabbis to the existence of anousim, Freund and other activists are trying to address what has become a contentious issue for some Jewish descendants. Many feel that a conversion ritual is a denial of the obstacles they and their ancestors faced to preserve their Jewishness and prefer a ceremony of "return." History may be on their side. "A ceremony of return is in the rabbinic literature," Freund observes. "It was practiced in Amsterdam 150 years after the expulsion. We want to bring the halakhic literature of the past 500 years to the attention of the dayanim [judges] and the rabbis and we are putting together a handbook for rabbinic court judges." There is also the halakhic question of what to do with descendants who have proof or strong evidence of Jewish roots on their father's side but not their mother's. Freund cites the concept of "zera Yisrael" (seed of Israel), which applies to all descendants of Jews who were coerced into converting. "This status imposes an obligation on us to be welcoming," he says. "My understanding is that there is no practical difference vis-a-vis whether a person of anousim background would trace his or her ancestry through his mother or his father." But just as growing numbers of anousim are making headway in their campaign for acceptance among religious leaders, secular authorities in Israel are putting up obstacles. When I visited the ulpan in May, students and teachers were distressed by a proposal that had just been raised by Interior Minister Avraham Poraz. The ministry, which handles citizenship, has traditionally been run by one of Israel's religious political parties. But Poraz is from the militantly secular Shinui Party, which made substantial gains in the February 2003 election and became a partner in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's governing coalition. Though he said he had no control over the Law of Return, which mandates automatic citizenship for people who convert to Judaism and then come on aliya, Poraz said he would no longer grant automatic citizenship to those who convert inside Israel. One of the concerns he expressed was the possibility of mass conversions by illegal foreign workers who feared deportation. The plan aroused protests from across the religious and political spectrum - from the liberal daily Ha'aretz to the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel to Sharon, who eventually overruled Poraz - and nowhere were the protests more anguished than at Machon Miriam, many of whose students went to great trouble to come to Israel and pursue conversion. "It's absurd what the government wants to do," said 22-year-old Lorena Magalh'es of Brazil. "They think all we're interested in is financial aid, but that doesn't interest me at all. They are making a distinction between people who are 'normal' and those who converted, and halakha doesn't allow a distinction." Michael Freund isn't content to overcome one obstacle. He wants to turn the issue on its head, making the Jewish and Israeli publics not just neutral but encouraging them to look at the return phenomenon as an asset. "We are losing huge numbers, and there are others knocking on our collective door, asking to come in," he says. "They have a devotion to Judaism that many Jews have lost and will inject us with new life and energy."
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ONLY ONE OPTION. LIKE IT OR NOT
Posted by Ken Heller, October 1, 2003. |
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Does anyone believe in the ridiculous formulary of "land for peace?" Is there anyone out there that would disagree with the premise that the Arabs don't want peace with Israel...that they want peace without Israel? Is there anyone out there that would say it is better to lose than win? or that it is better die than live? From time immemorial the Arabs have hated Jews. They always will. It doesn't matter why, it only matters that they do. Unfortunately their hatred is all too well documented manifesting itself in Jewish bloodshed. Assuming that you all know the history of the region going back at least as far as the 20's in Hebron, the Arab (appropriately described in the Bible as the "human beast") has spilled much Jewish blood....and continues to do so today with impunity. The so called "occupied" territories that the Arab always talks about wanting for his homeland is not just Elon Moreh, Efrat, Ofra, and Hebron but also Petah Tikvah, Tel Aviv, Tzfat and Haifa...in other words, all of Israel. That too is well documented. You may simply refer to the PLO Charter that still calls for the total destruction of Israel or read the weekly transcripts of the sermons of their imams and mullahs or stand-in as a visitor in an Arab classroom. Israel's government and people and Jews all over the world must now recognize that after fifty five years of a continuous and brutal war for survival; after continuous acquiescing, capitulating and cajoling the Arab and after negotiating one failed agreement after another over the past decades (agreements which have proven to be nothing more than death traps), it has come time to remove our collective Jewish heads from the sand and implement the last and only realistic, responsible and sensible option left that will guarantee Jews will live in peace...no, not a fence which will do more harm than good and imperil more Jews, but rather TRANSFER of the Arabs. Back in June,1938, even David Ben-Gurion said, "I am for compulsory transfer; I don't see anything immoral in it" A holocaust is going on in Israel my friends...on a smaller scale than in the 30's and 40's...but a holocaust nontheless. Over 1,450 Jews have been murdered since OSLO was signed in 1993, thousands have been seriously wounded and orphaned. Yassir Arafat has spilled the most amount of Jewish blood since Adolf Hitler yet he continues to sit untouched and unpunished in Ramallah. Absurd! You no doubt share my deep sadness, frustration and anger that accompanies every headline that reports of bombs blowing up on buses, in cafes, at Seders, pizza shops, pool rooms, markets, discos along with the many casualties which result. I am sure we share the same dread as we read about the Yeshiva students being shot to death before, during or after Sabbath; of whole families being gunned down in their homes by the Arab killers and of the many mortars and rockets which attack communities in Gaza on a daily basis. Just last Friday, Rosh Hashana eve, a picture was seen on Arutz Sheva of a man carrying the lifeless body of 7 month Shaked Avraham who had been the latest victim of the Arab scourge of terror. Don't you think it is high time that we exercise the only viable option left to us...the transfer of the Arabs from all of Israel? Although the Sharon government has indeed intercepted dozens of homicide bombers no doubt resulting in the saving of hundreds of lives, and has arrested untold numbers of terrorists, the killing continues and really must be stopped totally. The government must do more. There is a phrase circulating in Israel, "Ein Aravim; Ein piguim"...a perfectly logical and sensible formula on which the government must base its new policies. It simply means, "No Arabs, No Terror." It is admittedly very difficult to argue with that philosophy. The solution has been staring us in the face for years. It is beautiful in its simplicity. "No Arabs, No terror." Now it is time to bring that philosophy to fruition. People talk of the "cycle of violence" but I see a "cycle of stupidity" and this is what causes additional great concern. There is no more time for the game of "you shoot me and I shoot you then you shoot me again and I shoot you again and knock down your house." This strategy simply doesn't work. It's foolhardy. Jews still die. Terror continues and it's source must be thoroughly eliminated ....NOW! Not by arresting the terrorists, who we all know will go free as part of ridiculous prisoner swaps or at the behest of the President of the United States, but by transfering the Arabs to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan. There seems to be a lot of empty land in Iraq and we know the Saudis have more than enough land to house their brothers. Terror must disappear from Israel. That means Arabs must disappear from Israel. People on the "Left," people on the "Right," religious and secular, people in Israel and America and South Africa and Europe and Australia,hear these words...It is time to terrorize the terrorists. The Israeli government must begin to realize that Jewish life is paramount over all other priorities and begin to focus with all its resources to work out the logistics of transfer while in the meantime dedicating itself to totally smashing enemy forces in our midst. Cancer must be excised or it will kill. Total transfer of the Arab is the answer! The only answer! The mantra should be heard throughout Israel beginning today and everyday until great pressure is applied to the government to acede to our wishes...our wishes to live. It is the only way... it is indeed the only option left. Rabbi Meir Kahane, hy"d, once asked, "The question is not how can we remove the Arabs, but rather how can we not?
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MUDDLED NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY OF PROFESSOR EDWARD SAID
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 1, 2003. |
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The New York Times utilizes everything for propaganda. Obituaries are no exception. Although most Times exposition is poorly written, it has developed its propaganda into an art form, typified by subtlety. Just as the State Dept. is subtle by playing bait-and-switch with Israel, when it induces Israel into negotiations or pacts with the Arabs and by campaigning for an early step, without revealing the ultimate and fatal final step, the NY Times is subtle both in approving of the State. Dept. methods and in its style of propaganda. The obituary to Prof. Said starts with lies about Said asserted as fact, and then includes critics' points but de-emphasized and dubious about the critics. Generally the Times misses the points of the criticism. For a newspaper that speculates excessively and deals more with opinions than with facts, how seldom it extrapolates from the facts in a logical manner favorable to policies not its own! Is this a matter of strait-jacketed logic or censorship? Now for the text. Said is described as having been the most prominent advocate in the US for Palestinian independence. The Times should put it, "self-determination for Palestinian Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza." The Arabs of Israel already live in an independent state. The Arabs have independence in the eastern 79% of Palestine known now as the Kingdom of Jordan. Independence, however, is not the Arabs' final goal. Conquest of Israel is. Independence in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is a means for attaining that goal. The Times never has been honest about that. To admit that would give away the game. The game is to ascribe a normal motive to a jihadist thrust. If the Times honestly stated that, what decent American reader would support it? To be sure, Said did not directly endorse the final goal, either. He proposed a combined state having all sorts of theoretical virtues. Hardly any prominent Arabs endorse those virtues of tolerance, secularism, and democracy. Therefore, his efforts would put Israel under control of an Arab majority, a majority that is divided mostly between those who would merely repress the Jews there, as they do in much of the Arab world, and those who would expel or murder the Jews there, as they do in the rest of the Arab world, and the few like Said (if he even means it). Said maintained his propaganda line without acknowledging the risk to which he would subject Israelis. That is not an honest approach. The vituperation with which Said engaged in dispute even with admirers, the lies with which he filled his books (one of which I reviewed for about 17 pages - that long, because of its constant false statements of history), and the violence he showed he favored at least symbolically when he threw a stone over the Lebanese border at Israelis, belies his purported tolerance. The Times did not mention the vituperation or the lies, just the stoning. Reporter Richard Bernstein calls Said as "an exemplar of American multiculturalism." He describes the thesis of Said's book, Orientalism, as what I would boil down to Western scholars defining Arab culture negatively because of Western prejudice. The first time that the obituary mentioned the subject dealt with it lightly. The second time, Said's racist view of scholarship became apparent. Mr. Bernstein therefore treated this subject fairly enough, citing enough criticism of Said for a discerning reader to realize that Said just made general and racist accusations, without establishing factual descriptions of Arab culture. In other words, Said was not, himself, a scholar in that field; he was a propagandist. Does the Times do its stated job, if readers have got to be discerning and read between the lines to get at a glimpse of the truth? The obituary credited Said with major influence on university Middle Eastern Studies. I think he had supreme influence. His thesis intimidated genuine scholarship, because, just as the black civil rights movement came to intimidate critics of its excesses as "racist," he got his coterie to use the "racist" club to silence honest study of the Mideast. Actual prejudice could be exposed in a scholarly manner. Said acted in an ad hominem manner and more than against actual prejudice. To the contrary. He was the prejudiced one, the anti-scholar. He foisted his prejudices and racism on the universities. With the leftists rising in power there, and bringing in prejudiced Arabs, thanks to Saudi donations and careless immigration policies, Said prevailed. There is little genuine Mideast scholarship left at the universities, but much anti-Zionist propaganda and anti-Americanism. The universities left the US unprepared for the war by terrorism. Another Times technique is one-sidedness by stating Arab propaganda without hearing the Israeli side and without correcting lies. Thus it quotes Said as calling the Arab refugees "dispossessed" as understanding their terrorism, as accusing the Israelis of continuing unjust dispossession by killing more of the Arabs, and of terrorism by bombing refugee camps, but oh, he repudiates terrorism. One doesn't repudiate terrorism by "understanding it" and demonizing its enemy. He long supported the PLO, which was the premier terrorist organization. The Times described the PLO falsely, too. It alleged that non-members of the PLO, naming the PFLP, were responsible for terrorism. Actually, the PFLP belonged to the PLO. The main PLO group, Arafat's Fatah, commits most P.A. terrorism. The Arabs in what now is Israel tried to dispossess the Jews. Most of those Arabs ran away from Israel before and while it was declaring and winning independence. Most of those Arabs were not chased out. Said was wrong yet again. Yes, Israel kills more of Arafat's Arabs in the war, but not for the Arabs' lack of trying. The slaying of more Arab aggressors than of Israeli victims is not something to be indignant about but to be thankful for. Israel does not bomb refugee camps, it bombs here and there a house harboring terrorists who cannot otherwise be arrested or who are shooting at them. The Arabs commit many war crimes; Israel commits none. If Israel did, we would hear about it, for the world is on the side of his "poor Palestinian" aggressors, and grasps at any excuse to condemn Israel. Arab atrocities match in quality of heinousness those of the Communists and Nazis. Although Israel has been the repeated victim of Arab aggression, including thousands of raids and terrorist attacks besides half a dozen wars, Said called the Palestinian Arabs the victim. He was matching Israel against a fraction of the enemy Arab world, to garner sympathy for that fraction, whereas many Arab countries have been making war on Israel. That was deceitful. There is a discussion about whether he was an extremist, or, because he suggested that Arafat recognize Israel (which supposedly moderate Said unfairly demonized), he was a moderate. The distinction is phony, meant to enable extremists called "moderate" to get concessions from Israel. The Times states as fact that Said grew up in Jerusalem. Then it notes that in 1947, which would be when Edward was 10 years old, his father took the family to "Cairo after the UN divided Jerusalem into Jewish and Arab halves." In 1951, he transferred to US schools. Then what do they mean, he "grew up in Jerusalem?" Did he stop growing up at the age of 10? Nor did he spend his first ten years just in Jerusalem. He visited relatives in Jerusalem but lived in Cairo, for he was Egyptian. In typical Times practice, after having stated certain propositions as fact, i.e., the locale of his childhood as Jerusalem, the article returns to the theme and only this time brings in assertions to the contrary. Psychologically, the Times first establishes its own theory as factual, so that the challenge, presented later, seems like mere dissent. The second time around, the article informs us that an Israeli scholar spent years in research, to show that Said had falsified his autobiography. The scholar "argued" that Said had portrayed himself as having a childhood in Palestine, whereas his childhood home was in Cairo. In his own defense, Said told the Times that he didn't think it was important, for he championed his "people's" case rather than his own. The scholar didn't "argue," he proved. He proved that Said was lying. Since Said was a liar about that, one has to wonder what else he lied about. This note of doubt is not mere rhetoric. Said constantly emphasized his falsified origin, and portrayed himself as a refugee like the others he espouses. Actually, the great apostle of fellow Palestinian independence was an Egyptian, was brought out of the Israel for business reasons. He was not dispossessed, as he maintained for our sympathy. He lived with a silver spoon in his mouth, attending elite schools. He was as phony as his cause. Nor did the UN divide Jerusalem. The UN SUGGESTED that Jerusalem become an internationalized, UNDIVIDED city. When Israel declared independence, the Arab Legion of Transjordan (now Jordan) conquered the Old City and dispossessed its Jews. The New City, with its large Jewish majority, went with Israel. The Times gets these basic facts of history wrong time after time, year after year, in ways that favor the Arabs over Israel. Coincidental? Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides accurate information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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THE PRICE OF THE LEFT
Posted by Michael Freund, October 1, 2003. |
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There was something truly sinister about this past Friday's edition of Haaretz, the paper of record of Israel's left. Although it was the eve of Rosh Hashanah, which is traditionally a time for spiritual introspection and national unity, the editors of Haaretz had other, far less holy thoughts on their minds. After three months and countless hours of investigation by over a dozen of its top journalists, the paper decided to devote an entire special section of its holiday edition to "The price of the settlements." The 40-page (!!) pullout, complete with charts, maps and colorful graphs, was clearly designed with one goal in mind: to persuade the Israeli public that the Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has been one big, costly mistake. Haaretz, of course, has every right to adopt such a position, even if it appears to have more in common with Palestinian nationalism than with Zionism. And, in fact, this has long been the paper's stance, as Editor in Chief Hanoch Marmari himself pointed out in last week's special section. "Since the Six Day War of 1967," Marmori wrote, "Haaretz has published more than 10,000 editorials... Many of them - hundreds - over the years addressed the need to evacuate the settlements in order to make possible the establishment of a viable Palestinian state." Aside from the questionable methodology employed by the newspaper, which compared the cost of providing services in distant, outlying settlements with those offered in the center of the country, there is something far more disturbing at work here. After all, what does it say about the Left's worldview when they begin to place a price tag on minority groups within society? Do they mean to suggest that some groups are "worth" the price involved, while others are not? To appreciate just how chilling this entire approach can be, try replacing the word "settlements" in the Haaretz report with "the elderly," or "Ethiopian immigrants," or "development towns." You would rightly be denounced as heartless or racist or both. It should go without saying that Israeli citizens over the so-called Green Line are entitled to the same array of government services as their fellow citizens living within pre-1967 Israel. But the entire thrust of the Haaretz report seems aimed at singling out the settlers and effectively presenting them as pricey parasites sucking the country dry. The result is the demonization of an entire population group, one that loyally serves in the army, pays its taxes and defends the state. Indeed, the authors of the Haaretz report seem to think that the cost of providing protection to Jewish settlers is the fault of the settlers themselves, rather than of those attacking them. But that's like blaming the victim of a robbery for the high cost of catching criminals. If Palestinian terrorism did not exist, there would be no need to spend billions defending against it. Moreover, if we start applying Haaretz' cost-benefit analyses to other parts of the country, what might one conclude about front-line communities such as Kiryat Shmona in the north or Sderot in the south? Are they "worth" the extra defense budgets they require because they sit near a boundary line adjacent to hostile forces? But, to really grasp the absurdity of all this, just consider an alternative report one could draw up regarding, say, "The Price of the Left." To begin with, one would have to take into account the billions in shekels that have gone to keep the kibbutzim afloat over the years. In March 1996, the government agreed to a 5.9 billion NIS plan to save some 76 kibbutzim from bankruptcy. Under the arrangement, the kibbutzim were allowed to write off most of their debt and reschedule the rest over a generous 20-year period, all at taxpayer expense, no less. This deal came barely 7 years after a December 1989 government rescue plan in which the kibbutzim saw another 1.67 billion NIS written off as well. At the time, the kibbutzim promised not to seek government assistance again in the future. On top of the "price of the kibbutzim," one should also throw in the cost of Israel's failed socialist system, which was established, cultivated and developed by the Left throughout the decades in which it held power. Punitive tax rates of 50% on individual income, endless bureaucratic red tape and archaic labor laws have all served to stifle Israel's entrepreneurial spirit and energies. The Left's economic legacy was on display earlier this week, as the Histadrut labor union shut down government offices while customs agents caused a near-riot at Ben-Gurion International Airport due to the work stoppage. Who knows how many billions have been lost over the years as a result of the Left's mishandling of the economy? And, while we are on the subject, what about the high cost in blood that the Left's failed peace policies have bequeathed the country? It is thanks to the Oslo Accords that Israel has seen over 1,100 of its citizens murdered in the past decade in Palestinian terror attacks, with thousands of others injured. The human toll and economic cost of the Left's diplomatic disaster has been, quite simply, incalculable. By bringing the PLO army to our borders, and giving them guns, the Left has imperiled the future of the State, weakening Israel strategically and subjecting it to carnage and conflict. Add it all together - the kibbutzim, the socialism and Oslo - and the result you get for "The Price of the Left" is a pretty hefty figure, one that almost certainly exceeds the so-called cost of the settlements. So the next time Haaretz decides to reach for their calculators, they might want to stop and consider the wisdom of such an approach. Because the numbers, as they say, just don't add up. The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications and Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. |
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SHIMON PERES
Posted by Professor Ya'akov P. Golbert, October 1, 2003. |
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A correspondent sent me this comment: How stupid Shimon Peres is. The way I sum up Shimon Peres, it doesn't matter how many Jewish babies Arafat murders, Peres is more concerned with showing people he didn't make the biggest blunder in Jewish history, by bring Yasser Terrorfat to Jericho. Even Nevil Chamberlain didn't try to appease Hitler once he realized Hitler deceived him. After Hitler attacked Czecheslovokia, Chamberlain pronouced war on Hitler. You didn't see Chamberlain saying, 'lets give Hitler another chance.' No they pronounced war on him. To show you what an idiot Shimon Peres is, this article by Yedidya Atlas, "Stockholm Revisited," deals with the speech Arafat delivered in Stockholm, Sweden, January 30, 1996, during a secret meeting with Arab diplomats. It was distributed by Arutz Sheva/Channel 7. The article can be found at http://www.iris.org.il/quotes/stockhlm.htm. Mr. Atlas writes: May 10, 1996. The following article is in response to the many letters Arutz-7 National Radio received regarding Yasser Arafat's secret meeting with top Arab diplomats in Stockholm's Grand Hotel on January 30, 1996. Despite the story's independent verification by a number of top investigative journalists and terrorism experts in several countries, there is a campaign afoot to deny its accuracy which appears to be emanating from the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem and the Israeli Embassy in Washington. A year after this speech, Shimon Peres actually wrote the foreword to a book Arafat wrote. Can you believe that. Someone says they will destroy you and you write the foreword in their book. I can't even use the word appeaser to describe Peres. That's too good a word. I answered her this way: You are mistaken ...about Peres. He is not stupid. He is very intelligent. These are not stupid mistakes. It is all quite deliberate. Together with Yrachmiel Elias, Professor Golbert, a practicing attorney in Israel, started the Netzah Yisrael network (http://netzahyisrael.org/netzahyisrael_info.htm). He is interested in developing new institutions of social organization. |
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