Scandals, Scandals, Scandals!
The President was removed due to rape charges...
Will the public really learn the truth? The accusers were many
The Prime Minister has been repeatedly accused of corruption.
From his days as Mayor of Jerusalem until now.
The Current President is thought by many Israeli's to have been involved in PM Rabin's murder. If not true, why did he not bring charges against his accuser's?
If he did not bring charges, why did the authorities not reopen the murder case.
They have the "guilty" person in jail.
The appearance of the cover ups and abuse of power is legendary...
Amona...do you know about Amona?
Do you know what Olmert did to his own people...to Jews...to Israeli's?
If you are Jewish and care about Israel and don't know about Amona, it will serve as proof of the current censorship of the Olmert Government. If Olmert is actually in charge. It is possible that he has simply sold out or is being blackmailed.
The black mailing may just be - comply or lose office, or worse.
The simple appearance of impropriety is enough for this Sharon lackey to step down.
Israel needs to be led by a PM and government that puts the "Country" of Israel's interest before the rest of the world's.
If that means weaning off US money and loan guarantee's...then so be it.
Israel remains a strategic location for Western interest and influence in the region.
Israel is a world leader in many industries.
Israel needs to elect a Party and PM that represent the actual views of the population. Israel need to change the Judicial system to a more Western style with some added checks and balances.
People in the Knesset with violent anti-Israel views and actions need to be removed.
Israel need Manhigut Yehudit!
Moishe Feiglin can lead and the party will lead based on the correct values with
Israel First!
Check them out!
May 30, 2008
Germany - The Ultimate Racist Society
"The German Federation of Internal Medicine awarded Doctor Hans-Joachim Sewering the Guenther-Budelmann medal, its highest honor."
"Dr. Sewering was a member of the Nazi SS and witnesses have accused him of involvement in the intentional starvation and drugging of over 900 mentally and physically disabled patients during World War II."
This was done by a "reputable" Medical Association in Germany.
This was not done a sole racist descendent.
Germany remains a blight on the world and should has been divided up post WW2
to save the rest of the world from having to deal with their murderous racism.
What do you think?
"Dr. Sewering was a member of the Nazi SS and witnesses have accused him of involvement in the intentional starvation and drugging of over 900 mentally and physically disabled patients during World War II."
This was done by a "reputable" Medical Association in Germany.
This was not done a sole racist descendent.
Germany remains a blight on the world and should has been divided up post WW2
to save the rest of the world from having to deal with their murderous racism.
What do you think?
May 27, 2008
Grooving at the Sea of Galilee
From its humble beginnings 32 years ago as a modest folk music festival geared primarily to the English speaking community in Israel, Jacob's Ladder has evolved into a three-day bluegrass, country, blues and world music extravaganza that appeals to thousands of both Anglos and Israelis, from teenagers to 60+ old timers.
The latest edition of Jacob's Ladder was held last weekend at its permanent home of Kibbutz Nof Ginosar along the Sea of Galilee just north of Tiberias. The musical line up featured a number of international acts including last year's headliners, The Abrams Brothers, one of the country music scene's preeminent banjo and fiddle-playing bluegrass acts. The Canadian-born Abrams Brothers - consisting of dad, two brothers, a cousin and two world-class banjo players from the US - had the younger set swooning.
Other star performers who came from overseas to perform at this year's festival included Pete Morton, a British ex-punk rocker who turned to raucous guitar driven folk after hearing a Buffy Sainte-Marie record some 30 years ago; North Carolina-based "quirky folk singer and poet" Utah Greene; singer songwriter Sonia Rutstein, who goes by the stage name of SONiA (yes, correct spelling) and blends world music, folk, pop and Middle Eastern rhythms in English, Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew; and TRiAD, a rather weak three piece who performed oddly arranged interpretations of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Locally grown talent at Jacob's Ladder included Avital Raz, who studied Indian classical music in Varanasi for five years and performs an eclectic mix of folk pop with Indian undertones; Sandy Cash, whose humorous ditties always make us smile (the song about a truck that accidentally dumps a load of Viagra in the local water supply is an all-time classic); Tal Koreneberg's Bodhran band, perhaps Israel's only double bagpipe jammers playing Irish, Celtic and Scottish folk tunes; and my personal favorite, Iyam who got the crowd dancing to a mix of Hebrew and English reggae and rap.
Jacob's Ladder is more than just music, however. There are tai chi sessions, a clown workshop for the kids, a chai zulafor the cool set to chill out; and lots of country, line and square dancing. My wife Jody has been going to a monthly "contra" dancing in Jerusalem to which I've steadfastly refused to attend, on the grounds that I "don't like anything with steps." Jody dragged me into the first session at Jacob's Ladder and before long I was hooked. What fun!
Despite a crowd in the thousands, Jacob's Ladder never feels oppressive. There are three main stages and, other than Friday night when everyone spreads a sheet on the grass and grooves to the main acts, activities are pretty loose. Some people take a dip in the pool, others browse the arts and crafts area. The lobby of the hotel is always happening with impromptu jam sessions into the wee hours of the night.
Politeness and honesty are an unspoken rule of thumb. You can leave your stuff anywhere and no one will take it. If someone sits in your chair, there are no arguments when you return. Smoking is the exception rather than the rule. There is a laid back, free flowing feeling to the whole event that serves as an antidote, however brief, to the stresses of day to day living in Israel. In short, we love it.
Over the years, Jacob's Ladder has become less Anglo and more Israeli. That's in part due to the Israeli-born children of the original attendees who have grown up at Jacob's Ladder and seem to know all the Israeli and Irish dances by heart (the mosh pit to the side of the main stage was grooving big time Friday night - even I plunged into the midst of the "scene"). There is also a fair representation of Israeli adults who enjoy the music and casual scene.
The overwhelming secular nature of Jacob's Ladder has also changed in recent years. An increasing number of Orthodox families now attend the festival. The kippa-wearing crowd has its own minyan by the lake Friday night and seems to find no contradiction between Shabbat observance and listening to great music.
Attendees can buy "scrip" in advance so that food purchases can be made without spending real shekels over the weekend. We ate a "proper" Shabbat dinner in the Nof Ginosar dining hall which has one of the better buffets I've eaten at a kibbutz hotel.
Our friends call us a bit spoiled. While nearly everyone camps - the grounds of the kibbutz guest house are covered by a sea of tents - we booked a simple but functional room in the pundak, a country style inn with nice pinewood furniture, where we could sleep on a real bed and take a real shower. Despite several derisive comments on our refusal to rough it, that didn't stop our friends from using our bathroom and fridge.
At the end of the weekend, as the music died down and the afternoon sun began to wane, we wandered down to the Kinneret, pulled a couple of plastic chairs down to the rocky beach and dangled our feet in the cool water. It was a perfect end to a fabulous weekend.
Will we be back? Undoubtedly. We've already booked our room for 2009...
Israel can lead the way in renewable energy
By Karin Kloosterman
A star-studded cast of environment academics, policy makers and clean technology experts graced the campus of Tel Aviv University last week to kick off the country's first conference on renewable energy.
Renewable Energy and Beyond, was the title of the conference, but its benign name more closely resembled a call to arms: The conference's most eminent guest, climate change evangelist Al Gore stood up on the podium last Tuesday night and warned the Israeli and international audience about the life-threatening dangers of climate change.
Painting a bleak future -- if we don't act within the next 10 years it might be too late, said Gore, who was also in town to collect a prestigious $1 million Dan David Prize, housed at the Tel Aviv University campus, for his work on educating the world about the dangers of global warming.
However, Israel with its cleantech know-how and geographical position, he encouraged, could lead the way by developing effective cleantech and solar energy solutions, he said: "What we need is sufficient political will. But as the people of Israel know, sufficient political will is a renewable resource," said Gore.
Last Wednesday, prominent guests from around the world met for nuts and bolts seminars on renewable energy under topics such as geopolitics, opportunities in the business sector, R&D challenges, and lastly on Israel's road to energy independence.
Opening the conference the previous night, Gore said: "Why should not Israel play the leading role in this historic shift to renewable energy? Israel can, and Israel should. The people of Israel stand in my moral imagination as guardians of the proposition that we as human beings are answerable to moral duties, that there are ethical laws that should guide our decisions and choices.
"At this moment in history when, for the first time, all of the people of this earth have to make a clear, seemingly difficult but really quite simple moral judgment about our future, the people of Israel can lead the way to a renewable future," he said.
On Wednesday, international guests at Tel Aviv University included Harvard's climate change expert Michael B. McElroy, who spoke about the potential of solar and wind energy as an opportunity for alternative energy. There was Michael Idelchik, the VP for advanced technologies at General Electric, who talked about energy technologies of the future, and Prof. Yogi Goswami from the University of South Florida, who explored solar energy opportunities, and feasibility around the world.
Also mixing in the crowd was Israeli Isaac Berzin, a super-star in the US for his work with algae for biofuel. As one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2008, Berzin was recently recognized for his work in the US company GreenFuel which he founded, and his leadership role in the global movement to end the world's dependence on oil.
Now back in Israel to live, Berzin will remain consulting GreenFuel, and told ISRAEL21c that he plans on building a GreenFuel-type project in Israel, but 10 times larger. "The center of excellence is already here," said Berzin, who is now a senior fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzylia, where he is establishing an Institute for Alternative Energy Policy. He currently lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.
And Tel Aviv University, playing host to the event, had some of its own Israeli research news to report. Prof. Avi Kribus, from the School of Mechanical Engineering, showcased some of Israel's best solar, fuel conservation and biofuel projects.
"Israel for a long time has been a leader in solar energy," said Kribus. "Clearly we do not have resources like the United States or Spain, but we do have renewable resources like motivation, energy and brainpower which we will continue to use to create renewable energy," concluded Kribus.
May 22, 2008
The Solution: Dubai: By Moshe Feiglin
Iyar, 5768
May, ‘08
Very often, people in high places perpetuate a problem so that they can continue to reap its benefits (usually money and power). The same is true for the “Palestinian problem.” The problem no longer exists; it has a solution. But Bush comes to the Middle East, Peres talks about Peace, Livni about the two-state solution, while Olmert proposes outrageous solutions to the virtual problem – no matter what the price. Everybody continues to reap the full array of benefits from the problem that has faded away.
After the Six Day War, Israel generously bestowed financial ties, knowledge and modernity upon the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The “Palestinian problem” was born. When we drove ourselves out of much of Yesha, we simultaneously dried up the Palestinian paradise, leaving the “Palestinians” subject to the rule of terrorist gangs. 80% of Gazans are now begging to leave. In Judea and Samaria 60% of the Arabs would prefer to live elsewhere.
The solution for the “Palestinian problem” has a name: Dubai. The oil sheikhdom is currently home to 25% of the world’s construction cranes. The tallest tower in the world – three times the height of the Empire State Building - is now being built there. These are just a few examples of the amazing economic boom called Dubai. The finest of the Palestinian elite already lives there – engineers, teachers and doctors. The sons of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority call Dubai home. The professions that they learned from the Israelis are very needed in Dubai. And not only there.
Many European states and Canada, as well, urgently need immigrants. That may be hard for us to understand. Israel has the highest fertility rate in the Western world. But in many western states, the average family has less than two children. They do not have people to care for their large, aging populations. They do not have people to drive buses, work in factories, build buildings – in short, they do not have people to keep their countries working. Canada has changed its immigration laws to give preference to those with selected trades – the things that the “Palestinians” learned from Israel.
In short, all that we need to do to solve the Kassam problem is to allow the Gazans to leave and then to annex Gaza to Israel. It is that simple. They want to leave, the world wants them and we want to return to all parts of our land. Can it be that the entire reason that there is still a problem is because somebody is deliberately perpetuating it?
(Over the past few weeks, Moshe Feiglin has proposed the Dubai solution for Israel’s Arabs in newspapers and television appearances. So far, the proposal has met with 100% success. Not one Arab or leftist with whom Moshe has debated over the airwaves has managed to make a reasonable stand against the idea.
This article appeared in the Makor Rishon newspaper.)
May, ‘08
Very often, people in high places perpetuate a problem so that they can continue to reap its benefits (usually money and power). The same is true for the “Palestinian problem.” The problem no longer exists; it has a solution. But Bush comes to the Middle East, Peres talks about Peace, Livni about the two-state solution, while Olmert proposes outrageous solutions to the virtual problem – no matter what the price. Everybody continues to reap the full array of benefits from the problem that has faded away.
After the Six Day War, Israel generously bestowed financial ties, knowledge and modernity upon the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The “Palestinian problem” was born. When we drove ourselves out of much of Yesha, we simultaneously dried up the Palestinian paradise, leaving the “Palestinians” subject to the rule of terrorist gangs. 80% of Gazans are now begging to leave. In Judea and Samaria 60% of the Arabs would prefer to live elsewhere.
The solution for the “Palestinian problem” has a name: Dubai. The oil sheikhdom is currently home to 25% of the world’s construction cranes. The tallest tower in the world – three times the height of the Empire State Building - is now being built there. These are just a few examples of the amazing economic boom called Dubai. The finest of the Palestinian elite already lives there – engineers, teachers and doctors. The sons of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority call Dubai home. The professions that they learned from the Israelis are very needed in Dubai. And not only there.
Many European states and Canada, as well, urgently need immigrants. That may be hard for us to understand. Israel has the highest fertility rate in the Western world. But in many western states, the average family has less than two children. They do not have people to care for their large, aging populations. They do not have people to drive buses, work in factories, build buildings – in short, they do not have people to keep their countries working. Canada has changed its immigration laws to give preference to those with selected trades – the things that the “Palestinians” learned from Israel.
In short, all that we need to do to solve the Kassam problem is to allow the Gazans to leave and then to annex Gaza to Israel. It is that simple. They want to leave, the world wants them and we want to return to all parts of our land. Can it be that the entire reason that there is still a problem is because somebody is deliberately perpetuating it?
(Over the past few weeks, Moshe Feiglin has proposed the Dubai solution for Israel’s Arabs in newspapers and television appearances. So far, the proposal has met with 100% success. Not one Arab or leftist with whom Moshe has debated over the airwaves has managed to make a reasonable stand against the idea.
This article appeared in the Makor Rishon newspaper.)
The Ultimate Stalling Tactic - Moshe Feiglin
Now that Olmert’s doctors have not significantly stalled the police investigation into his highly-suspect activities, we must brace ourselves for the prime minister’s next delay gimmick.
What will it be this time? Destroying some settlements? A peace treaty with Hamas? Surrendering the Golan? Olmert has been trying all of that for a long time – thank G-d without much success. It is not so simple to move ahead with peace agreements anymore. The Israeli public has become highly suspicious of “peace” treaties that bring its cities closer and closer to missile range.
No, Olmert likely has a different plan up his sleeve – no less dangerous. If he gets desperate to diffuse the pressure seething around his corruption cases he will simply send the army into Gaza.
Olmert and his ministers have been talking for as long as we can remember about the army incursion that is getting ever closer, about the sand in the hour glass that is almost spent and all the other empty words. Everybody understands that Israel does not have a real military option in Gaza for a very simple reason. We were already there and we ran away. In other words, if Israel does not intend to encourage the Arabs to emigrate from Gaza, to annex the Gaza Strip to sovereign Israel, to build 100 Gush Katifs there and to destroy all those who try to fight against us – then there is no reason for us to enter Gaza. Israel’s current Oslo mentality will not allow it to follow the above route. So until there is belief based leadership in Israel, it does not have a military option to solve the Gaza problem.
If the problem isn’t Gaza, though, but rather the investigations against Olmert, then a military incursion into Gaza becomes a very logical option.
Please take note, dear readers, that there is a very good chance that your sons will be sent to be killed capturing Gaza just to ease up the pressure on the prime minister. After some time goes by, the IDF will retreat from Gaza once more. The missiles will return to Ashkelon, nobody will remember Talansky and nobody will remember our sons who paid with their lives to save Olmert.
Shabbat Shalom,
Moshe Feiglin
May 16, 2008
Israel, Gog, and Magog
So the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of Israel, yet they come to visit on wrong date, the date in the Gregorian calender. Israel celebrated the week prior.
One small sign of the worlds ignorance or a sign of their indifference?
Like the US, Canada and Cuba indifference to the S.S. St Louis.
That indifference basically sentenced the passengers to death
When it comes to Israel the world can't be trusted. I can't think of a single example
when Israel was not brought in by the back door or excluded completely.
Mr Bush is in Israel and seems to have given on his road map. He hopes there is
an independent terrorist state next to Israel for the 120 year Anniversary.
Pastor John Hagee leads the evangelical Christians to embrace the Jews worldwide and to help lead them to their Rapture. This of course includes the part where all Jews must convert to Christianity or be "left out" (DIE). This is of course after the War of Gog and Magog.
Read Yechezkel (Ezekiel) - Chapter 38 http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/16136/showrashi/true/jewish/Chapter-38.htm) from chabad's site.
You figure out the Gog and Magog players...Persia is an easy one.
Is Mr Bush or Mr Putin alluded to?
What do you think?
What needs to be done?
Will giving up more of Jerusalem make it better or worse.
Does anyone have the right to give up any part of Biblical Israel?
Could Pastor John Hagee’s embrace be a Trojan horse?
By Ted Belman
We have been discussing whether the love of evangelicals is a Trojan horse enabling them to proselytize. I asked Rabbi Skobac who leads Jews for Jews in our fight against Jews for Jesus. He says most definitely and promised to send me articles he has written.
This morning I got this email from Ellen Horowitz who is writing a book on the subject.
Here is the cover this month’s issue of Charisma Magazine - The cover story hails missionaries and messianics as heroes “for sharing the love of Jesus in Israel”. This specific issue celebrates Israel’s 60th anniversary.
The publisher of Charisma is Stephen Strang of Strang Communications
Strang is one of the Directors of CUFI (Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel)
He is the publisher of John Hagee’s book, In Defense of Israel, and David Brog’s book, Standing with Israel
He was recognized in Time Magazine as one of “The 25 Most Most Influential Evangelicals in America”
Stephen Strang is a signatory of the recent widely publicized World Evangelical Alliance statement endorsing efforts to evangelize the Jews (that means they want to convert us)
The Biggest irony is that while the current online edition of Charisma Magazine sports a “Come Celebrate Israel’s 60th” banner across the top of their website, the story below reeks of classical antisemitism (and I don’t use that word lightly).
Excerpt from an article written by the editor of Charisma:
In the days of Jesus, rabbis observed a myriad of extra rules that were not in Scripture. Their legalistic code focused on what they could and could not touch. These guys invented the original version of the holier-than-thou religion. They stayed away from women, children, dead bodies, lepers, beggars, sinners, blood, shellfish, pigs and ‘especially’ people of other ethnic backgrounds. They didn’t want ‘unclean’ gentiles to corrupt them.
The Pharisees, especially, were obsessed with hygiene. They had a rule for everything from how to wash dishes to how to stay ceremonially clean after walking in the streets. That’s why they got upset when they saw that Jesus’ disciples didn’t follow the standard Jewish hand-washing ritual.
They asked Jesus: “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands??? You can almost hear their smug, nasal tone. Jesus? reply was blunt. He called His inquisitors hypocrites; then He chastised them for “teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Mark 7:5-7, NASB)…
J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma.
We have been discussing whether the love of evangelicals is a Trojan horse enabling them to proselytize. I asked Rabbi Skobac who leads Jews for Jews in our fight against Jews for Jesus. He says most definitely and promised to send me articles he has written.
This morning I got this email from Ellen Horowitz who is writing a book on the subject.
Here is the cover this month’s issue of Charisma Magazine - The cover story hails missionaries and messianics as heroes “for sharing the love of Jesus in Israel”. This specific issue celebrates Israel’s 60th anniversary.
The publisher of Charisma is Stephen Strang of Strang Communications
Strang is one of the Directors of CUFI (Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel)
He is the publisher of John Hagee’s book, In Defense of Israel, and David Brog’s book, Standing with Israel
He was recognized in Time Magazine as one of “The 25 Most Most Influential Evangelicals in America”
Stephen Strang is a signatory of the recent widely publicized World Evangelical Alliance statement endorsing efforts to evangelize the Jews (that means they want to convert us)
The Biggest irony is that while the current online edition of Charisma Magazine sports a “Come Celebrate Israel’s 60th” banner across the top of their website, the story below reeks of classical antisemitism (and I don’t use that word lightly).
Excerpt from an article written by the editor of Charisma:
In the days of Jesus, rabbis observed a myriad of extra rules that were not in Scripture. Their legalistic code focused on what they could and could not touch. These guys invented the original version of the holier-than-thou religion. They stayed away from women, children, dead bodies, lepers, beggars, sinners, blood, shellfish, pigs and ‘especially’ people of other ethnic backgrounds. They didn’t want ‘unclean’ gentiles to corrupt them.
The Pharisees, especially, were obsessed with hygiene. They had a rule for everything from how to wash dishes to how to stay ceremonially clean after walking in the streets. That’s why they got upset when they saw that Jesus’ disciples didn’t follow the standard Jewish hand-washing ritual.
They asked Jesus: “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands??? You can almost hear their smug, nasal tone. Jesus? reply was blunt. He called His inquisitors hypocrites; then He chastised them for “teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Mark 7:5-7, NASB)…
J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma.
Elect Moishe Feiglin Prime Minister
Our main goal is to make Israel a genuinely Jewish state instead of a secular "state of all its citizens." That means changing just about every facet of the governing of Israeli society. Four fundamental areas that must be changed immediately are:
Family-
Strengthening the traditional family structure through legislation and tax benefits.
Unfortunately, family violence is a problem in Israel. According to statistics, the phenomenon seems to be worsening, or at the very least, more people are willing to openly admit to the problem.
It is obvious that the remedy for family violence is not treatment of its symptoms: the police cannot tackle the root of the problem, and neither can new laws, gun control, the court system or shelters for battered women. The issue must be addressed on the background of the Western concept of family, which stands in stark contrast to traditional Jewish family values. Moreover, raising the issue of family violence on the premise that husband and wife are two separate sides with different or even conflicting objectives -- or that assumes that because they are of equal importance they have no natural affinity toward gender specific roles -- only adds fuel to the fire. The Western values that we have adopted -- permissiveness, competitiveness, feminism, individualism and total openness -- are not only incapable of solving the problem, but are rather its cause.
By adopting Jewish family values, we can extricate our society from the vicious cycle of violence. We must once again view the Jewish family as the foundation of our nation. The Jewish family is an organic unit, a mutually created and momentous work of art, a microcosm of the Holy Temple and a vessel for G-d's Divine Presence. In the Jewish family, husband and wife are two halves of one persona, the expression of one, unified will. The Torah directs the family with strong morals and values. Its invaluable guidance nurtures a happy, serene and unified family.
Belief based leadership for Israel must herald traditional Jewish family values and educate our children to strive to create a healthy Jewish family. Nothing can be more integral to the building of a healthy nation.
Education-
A comprehensive curriculum that includes a daily hour of Jewish heritage, Jewish history and Jewish identity for every Jewish child.
The educational curriculum will reflect Israel's values and ethics. Teacher's salaries will be raised significantly to reflect their honored position as educators toward a moral and ethical way of life on both the national and personal level.
While well versed in Western culture, most Israeli children (and adults) are sorely lacking basic knowledge of their Jewish heritage. Even some of the most basic concepts in Judaism -- concepts for which their ancestors sacrificed their lives -- are foreign to today's average Israeli. Most of the soldiers now being inducted into the Israeli army were never in Jerusalem. Most of the students in Israel are not even familiar with the Shema Yisrael prayer.
Judaism does not belong only to religious Jews! Most of the Jews in Israel define themselves first as Jews and only after that as Israelis. Nevertheless, their children are steadily disengaging from their Jewish roots.
Jewish history, tradition, Jewish heritage and Jewish identity studies are no longer a luxury. They are a vital to our future. Educating Israeli youth about their own heritage in a non-coercive manner will connect them and their parents to their legacy and to Jewish values.
As an important step in this direction, Manhigut Yehudit -- The Jewish Leadership Movement -- proposes to include a daily hour of Jewish heritage studies for every student in Israel's educational curriculum.
Security-
Stopping Oslo and the Road Map. Declaring sovereignty over all areas of the Land of Israel that are in our hands. Learn more
Although most people call it security, but actually, underlying our security problems is the basic question of how we relate to our Land.
Stopping Oslo and the Road Map. Declaring sovereignty over all areas of the Land of Israel that are in our hands
Israel's Army: Attack Your Attackers -- First
Anyone familiar with Israel's cities is used to the sight of soldiers and policemen armed in full battle gear on patrol. But instead of guarding Israel's borders or operating deep in enemy territory, they are diligently guarding Israel's shopping malls, busses and restaurants.
The Israeli army has adopted a bunker mentality, but that is no surprise. Its very name, Israel Defense Forces, leaves no room for doubt. Our army -- successor of the pre-State Haganah ("Defense") military organization -- adopted its name and also its mentality.
Modern Zionism transformed self-defense into a holy value. For the Western- inspired Zionist ideology, only self-defense is legitimate, while attack or conquest are deemed immoral. Finding it impossible to function in such a perverted ideological/moral structure, the IDF adopted the principle that "the best offense is a good defense." This slogan, adopted by the IDF in the years that it was highly motivated, is testimony to the moral quandary in which it found itself when attempting to justify attacking its enemies. But even when the IDF attacked, it was but a tactic within the framework of a strategy of defense.
Until this very day, the state of Israel is submerged in the moral swamp of almost exclusively defense-based strategy.
Zionism and Western Values
One of the major factors shaping Israel's distorted security morals is the 2000 years in which the Jewish People were in exile. During these years, Jews were not even allowed to defend themselves, while initiating attack was out of the question. Generations of Jews lived their lives yearning for a mode of self-defense, engraving this aspiration deep in the Jewish psyche.
An even greater influence on the Israeli defense-only maxim is Western (Christian) influence. Modern Zionism is a product of the19th century European Jewish Haskalah movement (the "intellectual" movement called The "Enlightenment" that encouraged the largely religious Jews of Europe to study secular subjects and to abandon religious life style). Inspired by the Western/Christian culture of its times, Haskalah promoted Christian values in an attempt to enable Jews to integrate more successfully into European society.
Turning the Other (Israeli) Cheek
Christianity holds pacifism in high regard, calling upon its adherents to "turn the other cheek" when encountering aggression. This principle made aliyah to Israel with the Socialist, Haskalah -- informed new immigrants who founded the State and defined its security culture. Thus, self-defense and turning the other cheek became super-values of Israeli society. These principles -- recognizing the enemy's motives, justifying his aggression, sacrificing soldier's lives so as not to harm hostile enemy civilians, the willingness to retreat, forgive and to extend the other cheek -- became so much a part of Israel's psyche that even the national camp unwittingly adopted some of these values.
Christianity is a religion of the individual and not of nations. The Western nations never intended to base their national lives on the values of Christian morality. The Jewish People, though, forever strive to lead moral lives -- as individuals and also as a nation. Abandoning its own heritage, the Zionist leadership perversely adopted Christian morals and values on a national level. For the first time in history, a nation is attempting to realize Christian values and to live its national life accordingly. That nation is the Jewish nation in the state of Israel, in our generation.
Facing a cruel enemy, we arm ourselves with the perverted and false Christian standards for war. Not surprisingly, we find ourselves continuously battered and turning the other cheek.
Divine Morals
Return to Jewish values, return to ourselves and return to the Land of Israel means return to Divine morals. Our sages expressed Divine security morals in the adage, "If someone plans to attack you, be sure to attack him first." (Sanhedrin 72).
It is imperative that we return to the life-giving values of the Torah. Our security culture must be motivated by the principle that potential aggressors will be attacked before they have any chance to cause us harm. The battle must move from within our cities to enemy territory. An aggressive security stance is not only necessary, but also Jewishly moral. When this principle is applied in our security culture, we will, with G-d's help, see a genuine change for the better in Israel's security
Defeating Terror: The Jewish Road Map
Terror and the accompanying sense of suicidal despair to which Israel's government has surrendered is a tactical problem that needs an urgent solution. Terror forces us to take a long and hard look at our interaction with the non-Jews living in Israel, as well as the non-Jewish nations of the world.
"It's not enough to fight terrorism", explain the spokesmen of the Left. "You have to fight its motivation, to dry out the swamp in which it develops". In this, they are definitely right. A good political program should remove the Arab motivation to fight against us.
Motivated By Hope, Not Despair
What is the Arab motivation to fight us? The Left claims that the Arabs are motivated by despair. They have nothing to lose, and consequently they are committing suicide. Until now, no one has seriously attempted to challenge this argument. The national camp has accepted as axiomatic the basic assumptions of the Left -- that the Arab despair is due to both a lack of national self-determination and to their economic plight. Thus, granting self-determination to the Arabs and improving their economic conditions would arouse their sense of hope, eliminate despair, and remove their motivation to fight.
However, this argument fails to fit the facts: prior to the Oslo Agreements there were no suicide bombers. Indeed the appearance of the suicide bombers was after the Oslo Agreements, Israel's tremendous concessions, and the hopes they engendered.
The Arabs in Israel have never sought self-determination. There is not and there has never been such a thing as a Palestinian nation. There has never been a Palestinian state, and there is no cultural difference between an Arab living in Shechem or one in Damascus -- not in language, religion, or customs.
The Arabs in the Land of Israel had no independent national aspirations before the advent of modern Zionism. Even afterwards, the Arab national aspiration focused solely on the territory in which the Jews lived. The national Arab movement never focused its aspirations on the Land of Israel but on the State of Israel. It directed its claims solely against those regions that the Jews attempted to hold. The Arab nationalist movement in Israel initiated the War of Independence before Israel conquered Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and before the right of Arabs to return to their former homes was relevant. Their purpose was clear: To prevent the Jews from establishing their own State in a parcel of land far smaller than that bounded by the "green line".
The Arabs of the Land of Israel never had any national claims regarding Judea, Samaria and Gaza when these areas were controlled by the Jordanian Arab Legion and by the Egyptians. The PLO was established before the Six Day War and focused its national aspirations within the borders of the "green line", on the territory held by the Jews after Israel's War of Independence. It was only after the Six Day War, when Yesha and Jerusalem were liberated by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), that the situation totally changed: the stolen Palestinian homeland was no longer the coastal plain but apparently only the mountain region. Why? Because the Jews were holding it.
There is no positive national Arab motivation. They have no desire to return to a "homeland" in order to realize their "Palestinian" nationalism. The moment any Arab army, whether of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, or Egypt, holds any territory in the Land of Israel, Palestinian nationalism vanishes without trace. The motivation of the Arabs of the Land of Israel is negative -- they simply don't want Jews to be there.
No one has ever accused British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin of being pro-Jewish, but his 1947 analysis has been proven correct:
"To the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. To the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine".
If the Arab motivation is negative, this does not mean that the Arab violence is due to despair. On the contrary, it is motivated by hope. The Arabs cannot be in despair because they never held any land in Israel. Rather, they are full of hope for what seems to them to be the realization of their dream: to eliminate Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.
The more the Jews abandoned their national aspirations in the Land of Israel, the greater the Arab's thirst for murder and their motivation to fight. Suicide bombings occurred only after the State of Israel recognized the existence of the "Palestinian nation", their legitimate aspirations, and their right to establish a state in the Land of Israel. Fostering their hope was the source of the violence. Eliminating the Arabs' hope of driving us out of our country will restore calm.
We are defining the desirable situation vis a vis the Arabs as a state of calm, and not peace. The reason is that the fundamental hostility of the Arabs cannot be eliminated, because of their Islamic culture. In addition, the Jewish interpretation of the word "peace" means far more than non-belligerency and it is preferable for us to realistically define the interim goals of our political program. True peace will only come when the whole world recognizes its Creator, and the special role assigned to His chosen people and the Holy Land.
Extending Israeli Sovereignty Over Yesha
Almost forty years have passed since we liberated Israel's heartland in the Six Day War. Every day that has passed without our imposing Israeli sovereignty over all of Yesha, and without concentrating our major development and settlement efforts in this region, has aroused hopes among our enemies. Every time we froze settlement efforts the Arabs rewarded us with murderous attacks. Every time we uprooted settlements, we intensified the blood bath. The Arabs saw that the Jewish hold on the Land of Israel was weakening and took it as a reason to fight.
A simple examination of terrorism since the establishment of the State of Israel leads us to an unambiguous conclusion: when Israel displays no signs of defeatism, the level of terror is far lower. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the number of terror victims has skyrocketed, greatly exceeding the number of Israelis victimized by terror from the establishment of the State of Israel and until the accords were signed.
The political program of the belief-based leadership -- "The Jewish Road Map" must not be founded on destroying Arab despair but on destroying Arab hope. Their hope of expelling us will be destroyed when we make it clear that we will always maintain our hold over all parts of the Land of Israel. Eliminating the Arabs' hope for our destruction will eliminate terrorism.
Response to Terrorism
The IDF will be ordered to respond very strongly to any acts of terror that may occur until the Arabs recognize the new reality. Based on the precedent of the pre-State Jewish settlements, Jewish settlements will be built immediately in any region from which terror originates. As soon as the Arabs realize that the Jews are going to stay in the country forever -- and that they will be expelled for attacks upon Jews -- the terror will vanish.
Justice
Electoral reform to ensure that Supreme Court justices are elected by representatives of the people and reflect their values. Learn more
Moshe Feiglin, what is your security strategy
My security platform is based first and foremost on the justice of our cause. As soon as we lost our feeling of justice, we brought terror and additional security threats upon ourselves. Once, my reserve army unit was able to keep order in all of Shechem. Today, all the elite units put together cannot do so, because we do not believe that we are right.
I believe that true Jewish leadership can significantly reduce the amount of forces needed for security because we will once again make our enemies feel threatened. Israel's security policy must be aggressive (as when Begin attacked Iraq's nuclear reactor ), and not a policy of defensive walls, separation fences, bullet proof vehicles and Arrow missiles.
We must strive for a standing army that is strictly voluntary. If something is threatening our country, we must attack and not relay existential dangers to the coming generations because we feared to deal with them.
I believe that true Jewish leadership can significantly reduce the amount of forces needed for security because we will once again make our enemies feel threatened. Israel's security policy must be aggressive (as when Begin attacked Iraq's nuclear reactor ), and not a policy of defensive walls, separation fences, bullet proof vehicles and Arrow missiles.
We must strive for a standing army that is strictly voluntary. If something is threatening our country, we must attack and not relay existential dangers to the coming generations because we feared to deal with them.
As a secular Israeli, why should I vote for a religious Jew?
Moshe Feiglin:
The truth is that the concepts "religious" and "secular" are no longer relevant, and I only use them as a last resort. I do not define myself as "religious," and Judaism is not a religion.
I think that you should vote for a believing Jew to lead our country, and that if you don't, our country will continue to disintegrate -- no matter how good the intentions of whatever other leader is chosen. Without a perspective of faith in G-d, it is impossible to face the challenges of Israeli reality. Without faith, there is no real answer to the simple question of what are we doing here and why shouldn't we move to Uganda or New Zealand?
I am not asking you to change your lifestyle. I am simply offering you leadership services of a different kind -- leadership that is grounded in 4,000 years of history and not just in the past 50 years. I am offering leadership with vision and the courage to make our vision reality.
The truth is that the concepts "religious" and "secular" are no longer relevant, and I only use them as a last resort. I do not define myself as "religious," and Judaism is not a religion.
I think that you should vote for a believing Jew to lead our country, and that if you don't, our country will continue to disintegrate -- no matter how good the intentions of whatever other leader is chosen. Without a perspective of faith in G-d, it is impossible to face the challenges of Israeli reality. Without faith, there is no real answer to the simple question of what are we doing here and why shouldn't we move to Uganda or New Zealand?
I am not asking you to change your lifestyle. I am simply offering you leadership services of a different kind -- leadership that is grounded in 4,000 years of history and not just in the past 50 years. I am offering leadership with vision and the courage to make our vision reality.
The Rule of Law and Other Troubles
For all of those waiting to see Olmert forced out of office, I suggest that you don't hold your breath. Olmert is a product of his times and surroundings. His corruption is not a meteor that exploded here with no warning. It is more like the tip of a very slippery iceberg that reaches into the depths and cannot easily be removed and forgotten.
The corruption from which Israel suffers is based on its culture of "the rule of law." The law should be nothing more than a tool, designed to keep the peace and define the limits of what is permissible and what is prohibited. The law is meant to reflect - not shape - a national culture. It is meant to direct our public lives according to the values dictated by our culture and traditions. In a normal situation, the law does not "rule." What does rule is justice and morality. The law is designed to help society define its unique expression of justice and morality.
In Israel, justice and morality have disappeared from our national lives. In their stead, we have the "rule of law." "The rule of law" is abused to justify every abomination and to make every outrage legitimate. Because, after all, there is nothing worse than opposing "the law."
This is a unique strain of fascism - an odious form of idol worship. The "rule of law" idol was implanted in the brains of the soldiers who carried out the Expulsion from Gush Katif. Their natural Jewish morals were neutralized by "the rule of law", held in much higher esteem than any other values (obeying G-d's commandments, for example).
And who is the prime minister of the state of "the rule of law?" A seasoned lawyer, of course. A small-time criminal acts against the law. A medium criminal evades the law, while a big-time criminal commits his crime by means of the law. Our current prime minister is a medium criminal. He just may manage to prove that he didn't break the law, after all.
May 15, 2008
Nakba - 2006
Okay so a cartoon from just two years ago is NOT a Golden Oldie. It was posted in 2006. But again this year, the Palestinians celebrated Nakba (the "look at us, we're victims" holiday) that is held on every Israeli Independence Day. They did so in interviews, demonstrations, newspaper pieces, and of course, by a major missile attack launched against us from Hamas-run Gaza. Well, I've decided to join the annual celebrations.
I plan to run this cartoon every year to mark Nakba, the catastrophe that the Palestinians continue to create for themselves.
Your thoughts?
-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973
May 13, 2008
This Means War!
By Ted Belman
Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, is now in control of Lebanon.
What is painfully obvious is that the vacuum created by retreat, is quickly filled by Iran through her proxies. So Israel’s retreat from Gaza enabled the takeover by Hamas. Israel’s retreat from Lebanon enabled the takeover by Hezbollah. Similarly a retreat from Iraq by US forces will enable Iran’s proxy to takeover.
The Washington Times reports,
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Ramallah-based Hamas political activist and editor, said militant groups across the Middle East are gaining power at the expense of U.S.-backed regimes, just as Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon. It’s going to happen in 2009 in Jordan and it’s going to happen in 2010 in Egypt,”
In Countering Iran, Reuel Marc Gerecht acknowledges this but points out,
President Bush’s surge caught the Iranians off-guard and turned what had been a winning situation for Iran in Iraq–multiple Shiite parties dependent upon Iranian aid and good will in a savage battle against Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda–into a potentially huge defeat for Tehran. Barring a strike by President Bush against Iran’s nuclear sites before January 2009, Iraq is the only arena where the administration is capable of moving effectively against Tehran.
and concludes
The tide may have turned for good against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, with potentially huge ramifications for hearts and minds throughout the Sunni Arab world. The clerics in Tehran could be dealt out of the inner circles of Iraqi Shia politics. With continued progress in Iraq, the next administration would be in a position to turn its full attention to thwarting Iran elsewhere in the region–and to preventing the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons.
I am not so hopeful. The US must stay in Iraq until such time as Iran has been defanged. I have argued for years now that this is a regional war and that the US can’t win in Iraq without punishing and perhaps defeating Iran.
So now we must emphasize that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is also a regional conflict and that both Israel and the US must approach it as such. This time around both S. Arabia, Jordan and Egypt feel threatened by Iran and the Muslim brotherhood so they too will be willing allies.
Thus within a year there will be a regional war. Israel will be tasked with defeating Hezbollah and Hamas. Victory will not come easily or cheaply. The US will be tasked with destroying Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the Mullahs and the nuclear facilities in Iran.
Victory should be the goal. Then the US should divide Iran, separating the areas with Kurds and joining it to a new sate Kurdistan. It should also separate the area on the east where the Azeries live. Finally, the eastern area of Syria where the Kurds live should be ceded to Kurdistan. The rest of Syria should go to Turkey in exchange for Turkey agreeing to ceding eastern Turkey where the Kurds live to Kurdistan.
A redrawing of the Middle East map in this way will mean the end of the Iranian influence. The enlarged Turkey and the newly crated Kurdistan will cement US dominance in the region.
Forget about the peace process. Nobody wants it to progress until such time as Iran is taken out of the equation.
Ron Breiman, formerly President of the PSI, asks How should we deal with Hamas? argues “We should neither boost it nor topple it. We should work in a way that weakens it, without toppling it.”
He is also against a large scale operation.
“Some believe that a wide-scale military operation aimed at toppling the Hamas regime is needed. Yet they do not think about the price of such operation in terms of both Israeli and Palestinian lives, as well as the diplomatic and immoral errors inherent in such operation: namely, the current government in Israel may end up turning IDF casualties into the silver platter for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The risk inherent in handing over Gaza to the control of the Palestinian Authority is greater than the risk posed by Hamas.”
I agree with him. We should only destroy them if the result is that we get to annex Judea and Samaria.
Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, is now in control of Lebanon.
What is painfully obvious is that the vacuum created by retreat, is quickly filled by Iran through her proxies. So Israel’s retreat from Gaza enabled the takeover by Hamas. Israel’s retreat from Lebanon enabled the takeover by Hezbollah. Similarly a retreat from Iraq by US forces will enable Iran’s proxy to takeover.
The Washington Times reports,
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Ramallah-based Hamas political activist and editor, said militant groups across the Middle East are gaining power at the expense of U.S.-backed regimes, just as Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon. It’s going to happen in 2009 in Jordan and it’s going to happen in 2010 in Egypt,”
In Countering Iran, Reuel Marc Gerecht acknowledges this but points out,
President Bush’s surge caught the Iranians off-guard and turned what had been a winning situation for Iran in Iraq–multiple Shiite parties dependent upon Iranian aid and good will in a savage battle against Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda–into a potentially huge defeat for Tehran. Barring a strike by President Bush against Iran’s nuclear sites before January 2009, Iraq is the only arena where the administration is capable of moving effectively against Tehran.
and concludes
The tide may have turned for good against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, with potentially huge ramifications for hearts and minds throughout the Sunni Arab world. The clerics in Tehran could be dealt out of the inner circles of Iraqi Shia politics. With continued progress in Iraq, the next administration would be in a position to turn its full attention to thwarting Iran elsewhere in the region–and to preventing the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons.
I am not so hopeful. The US must stay in Iraq until such time as Iran has been defanged. I have argued for years now that this is a regional war and that the US can’t win in Iraq without punishing and perhaps defeating Iran.
So now we must emphasize that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is also a regional conflict and that both Israel and the US must approach it as such. This time around both S. Arabia, Jordan and Egypt feel threatened by Iran and the Muslim brotherhood so they too will be willing allies.
Thus within a year there will be a regional war. Israel will be tasked with defeating Hezbollah and Hamas. Victory will not come easily or cheaply. The US will be tasked with destroying Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the Mullahs and the nuclear facilities in Iran.
Victory should be the goal. Then the US should divide Iran, separating the areas with Kurds and joining it to a new sate Kurdistan. It should also separate the area on the east where the Azeries live. Finally, the eastern area of Syria where the Kurds live should be ceded to Kurdistan. The rest of Syria should go to Turkey in exchange for Turkey agreeing to ceding eastern Turkey where the Kurds live to Kurdistan.
A redrawing of the Middle East map in this way will mean the end of the Iranian influence. The enlarged Turkey and the newly crated Kurdistan will cement US dominance in the region.
Forget about the peace process. Nobody wants it to progress until such time as Iran is taken out of the equation.
Ron Breiman, formerly President of the PSI, asks How should we deal with Hamas? argues “We should neither boost it nor topple it. We should work in a way that weakens it, without toppling it.”
He is also against a large scale operation.
“Some believe that a wide-scale military operation aimed at toppling the Hamas regime is needed. Yet they do not think about the price of such operation in terms of both Israeli and Palestinian lives, as well as the diplomatic and immoral errors inherent in such operation: namely, the current government in Israel may end up turning IDF casualties into the silver platter for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The risk inherent in handing over Gaza to the control of the Palestinian Authority is greater than the risk posed by Hamas.”
I agree with him. We should only destroy them if the result is that we get to annex Judea and Samaria.
May 12, 2008
Good, Evil and Israel's 60th Birthday
The period that follows the holiday of Pesach is arguably the most emotionally charged time period on the Jewish calendar. Each year, within the space of a few days, we collectively re-experience the horrors of the Holocaust, the trepidation, pain and triumph of Israel's wars and the joy of her re-birth.
Sometimes, it is difficult to make order out of all the highs and lows. How should we relate to the Holocaust? Clearly, we must remember, but the question is not if we remember, but how we remember; to what conclusion does the collective remembrance lead us?
"What is your message to the groups that you guide here?" I once asked a young tour guide at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"I tell them that a little Nazi hides in each and every one of us - that it could happen to anybody," she answered without pause.
"There is no Nazi hiding inside me," I said to the guide. "In the Holocaust, there were good people and there were bad people. The Jews represented the ultimate good, and the ultimate evil tried to exterminate us."
If the guide's post-modern conclusion - that there is no good side and bad side in the Holocaust and that all of us, including the Nazi storm troopers, are victims - reflects the position of Yad Vashem, then despite its important archival work (and actually because of its important archival work) Yad Vashem is the most glorious institution for Holocaust denial in the entire world.
How should we relate to Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers?
In truth, we have created confusion with Memorial Day identical to the confusion created by Yad Vashem. Nothing is left of the heroism of the brave fighters who have fallen. Memorial Day has become a day of tears over death that no longer shines with the glory of giving one's individual life so that the nation as a whole may live. It is no wonder that we have added the terror victims to the list of those to be remembered on Memorial Day, and then those soldiers killed in training accidents and IDF traffic accidents. They too, will never return, and what is the difference how they were killed or for what purpose they died?
And so, the significance of Memorial Day is diluted. Today, it has become a day of denial. Because if the death of a soldier in combat has no national significance, it, too, becomes a merely personal issue - quickly forgotten.
This is not just a matter of semantics. The lives of our soldiers have become very cheap in this era of watered-down memory. Our sons are sent to die in the alleys of Gaza so that Israel can conquer it from the bad terrorists and hand it over to the good terrorists. Our soldiers are killed as they attempt to capture the same terrorists that other soldiers have already risked their lives to capture and that Israel's government has released. Nothing is more than just another sad personal saga - with no heroes and no evil.
And last but not least - Independence Day. When I first saw the billboard announcing Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations, I mistakenly thought that it was an ad for Coca Cola. That is the first association I had with the graphics on the illustration. It took me a few seconds to understand my mistake.
But on second thought - maybe I wasn't mistaken after all.
Moshe Feiglin
Pime Minister Harper's Speech for Israel's 60TH
Toronto, May 8, 2008
Thank you for your warm welcome. Thank you Ivan for your kind introduction. Consul General Gissin, Minister Jim Flaherty, Leader of the Opposition John Tory, colleagues from the federal and provincial legislatures, members of the United Jewish Appeal Federation, ladies and gentlemen, I am truly honoured to be part of tonight’s celebration marking the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.
All of my life, Israel has been a symbol – a symbol of the triumph of hope and faith. After 1945, our battered world desperately needed to be lifted out of post-war darkness and despair. After so much pain and suffering, humanity needed comfort and optimism. After so much death and destruction, we needed renewal – the renewal of the dream of a better and more civilized world. In short, we needed to be inspired. It was the people who had suffered who most provided that inspiration. By their example, they led the world back to the light. From shattered Europe and other countries near and far, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made their way home. Their pilgrimage was the culmination of a two-thousand-year-old dream; it is a tribute to the unquenchable human aspiration for freedom, and a testament to the indomitable spirit of the Jewish people.
In the sixty years that followed, Israel blossomed into one of the most successful countries on earth; a land of ingenuity and enterprise, an oasis of agricultural genius, a wellspring of fine art and high culture, a model of democracy. Israel truly is the “miracle in the desert.”
But the source of Israel’s strength and success, in my view, is its commitment to the universal values of all civilized peoples: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Soon I hope to have the opportunity to travel to Israel to see the “miracle” with my own eyes; to see how millions of people from all over the earth, with their countless different languages and traditions, came together to build a modern, prosperous, vibrant, democratic country. It is a pilgrimage I have wanted to make for a long time, but my determination to do so was redoubled this spring after I visited Auschwitz. I want to see first-hand what the survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants have accomplished, for theirs is truly an achievement of resilience and renewal unsurpassed in human history. I also want to go to deliver in person the message of Canada’s unshakable support for Israel.
Unfortunately, Israel at 60 remains a country under threat – threatened by those groups and regimes who deny to this day its right to exist. And why? Make no mistake; look beyond the thinly-veiled rationalizations: because they hate Israel, just as they hate the Jewish people. Our government believes that those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada, because, as the last world war showed, hate-fuelled bigotry against some is ultimately a threat to us all, and must be resisted wherever it may lurk.
In this ongoing battle, Canada stands side-by-side with the State of Israel, our friend and ally in the democratic family of nations. We have stood with Israel even when it has not been popular to do so, and we will continue to stand with Israel, just as I have always said we would.
I know that we all hope and pray that someday freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law will be a reality for all the peoples of the Middle East.
Enshrining these values is the best way to assure lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The foundations for a peaceful future are there. At the individual level, throughout the holy land, people of all faiths only want what all of us want: a safe place to live, a fair opportunity to get ahead, a good life for their children, a future for their grandchildren. So as we gather tonight to celebrate the first 60 years of the State of Israel, let us resolve as Canadians to do whatever we can to support Israelis and their neighbours in their quest for a better future.
There will be many challenges along the way, but considering how far Israel has come in such a short time, in the face of such seemingly insurmountable odds, I can foresee no dark force, no matter how strong, that could succeed in dimming the light of freedom and democracy that shines from within Israel.
Thank you very much.
Happy 60th anniversary.
Shalom.
Ted Belman
Will Europe Resist Islamization?
By Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
April 3, 2008
Some analysts of Islam in Western Europe argue that the continent cannot escape its Eurabian fate; that the trend lines of the past half-century will continue until Muslims become a majority population and Islamic law (the Shari‘a) reigns.
I disagree, arguing that there is another route the continent might take, one of resistance to Islamification and a reassertion of traditional ways. Indigenous Europeans – who make up 95 percent of the population – can insist on their historic customs and mores. Were they to do so, nothing would be in their way and no one could stop them.
Indeed, Europeans are visibly showing signs of impatience with creeping Shari‘a. The legislation in France that prohibits hijabs from public school classrooms signals the reluctance to accept Islamic ways, as are related efforts to ban burqas, mosques, and minarets. Throughout Western Europe, anti-immigrant parties are generally increasing in popularity.
That resistance took a new turn last week, with two dramatic events. First, on March 22, Pope Benedict XVI himself baptized, confirmed, and gave the Eucharist to Magdi Allam, 56, a prominent Egyptian-born Muslim long living in Italy, where he is a top editor at the Corriere della Sera newspaper and a well-known author. Allam took the middle name Cristiano. The ceremony converting him to the Catholic religion could not have been higher profile, occurring at a nighttime service at St. Peter's Basilica on the eve of Easter Sunday, with exhaustive coverage from the Vatican and many other television stations.
Allam followed up his conversion with a stinging statement in which he argued that beyond "the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive." In other words, the problem is not just Islamism but Islam itself. One commentator, "Spengler" of Asia Times, goes so far as to say that Allam "presents an existential threat to Muslim life" because he "agrees with his former co-religionists in repudiating the degraded culture of the modern West, and offers them something quite different: a religion founded upon love."
Second, on March 27, Geert Wilders, 44, released his long-awaited, 15-minute film, Fitna, which consists of some of the most bellicose verses of the Koran, followed by actions in accord with those verses carried out by Islamists in recent years. The obvious implication is that Islamists are simply acting in accord with their scriptures. In Allam's words, Wilders also argues that "the root of evil is inherent" in Islam.
Unlike Allam and Wilders, I do distinguish between Islam and Islamism, but I believe it imperative that their ideas get a fair hearing, without vituperation or punishment. An honest debate over Islam must take place.
If Allam's conversion was a surprise and Wilders' film had a three-month run-up, in both cases, the aggressive, violent reactions that met prior criticisms of Islam did not take place. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Dutch police contacted imams to gauge reactions at the city's mosques and found, according to police spokesman Arnold Aben, "it's quieter than usual here today. Sort of like a holiday." In Pakistan, a rally against the film attracted only some dozens of protestors.
This relatively constrained reaction points to the fact that Muslim threats sufficed to enforce censorship. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende denounced Fitna and, after 3.6 million visitors had viewed it on the British website LiveLeak.com, the company announced that "Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, … Liveleak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers." (Two days later, however, LiveLeak again posted the film.)
Three similarities bear noting: both Allam (author of a book titled Viva Israele) and Wilders (whose film emphasizes Muslim violence against Jews) stand up for Israel and the Jews; Muslim threats against their lives have forced both for years to live under state-provided round-the-clock police protection; and, more profoundly, the two share a passion for European civilization.
Indeed, Allam and Wilders may represent the vanguard of a Christian/liberal reassertion of European values. It is too soon to predict, but these staunch individuals could provide a crucial boost for those intent on maintaining the continent's historic identity.
Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, is the Taube/Diller Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University during the spring semester.
May 11, 2008
Palestinian Refugees, Invited to leave in 1948
The people are in great need of a "myth" to fill their
consciousness and imagination....
-- Musa Alami, 1948
Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem
in an irresponsible manner.... they have used the Palestine
people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and,
I could say, even criminal.
-- King Hussein of Jordan, 1960
Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees... while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes .... [36]
-- Khaled Al-Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war
The nations of western Europe condemned Israel's position
despite their guarantee of her security.... They understood
that ... their dependence upon sources of energy precluded
their allowing themselves to incur Arab wrath.
-- Al-Haytham Al-Ayubi, Arab Palestinian military strategist, 1974
At the time of the 1948 war, Arabs in Israel were invited by their fellow Arabs -- invited to "leave" while the "invading" Arab armies would purge the land of Jews.1 The invading Arab governments were certain of a quick victory; leaders warned the Arabs in Israel to run for their lives.2
In response, the Jewish Haifa Workers' Council issued an appeal to the Arab residents of Haifa: [See Official British Police Report ]
For years we have lived together in our city, Haifa.... Do not fear: Do not destroy your homes with your own hands ... do not bring upon yourself tragedy by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens.... But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life, and for peace for you and your families."3
While the Haifa pattern appears to have been prevalent, there were exceptions. Arabs in another crucial strategic area, who were "opening fire on the Israelis shortly after surrendering,"4 were "forced" to leave by the defending Jewish army to prevent what former Israeli Premier Itzhak Rabin described as a "hostile and armed populace" from remaining "in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route . . ."5 In his memoirs, Rabin stated that Arab control of the road between the seacoast and Jerusalem had "all but isolated" the "more than ninety thousand Jews in Jerusalem," nearly one-sixth of the new nation's total population.
If Jerusalem fell, the psychological blow to the nascent Jewish state would be more damaging than any inflicted by a score of armed brigades.6
According to a research report by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier.7
After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."] At the same time, Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Command, called for the prevention of the refugees from "return." He stated in the Beirut Telegraph on August 6, 1948: "it is inconceivable that the refugees should be sent back to their homes while they are occupied by the Jews.... It would serve as a first step toward Arab recognition of the state of Israel and Partition."
Arab activist Musa Alami despaired: as he saw the problem, "how can people struggle for their nation, when most of them do not know the meaning of the word? ... The people are in great need of a 'myth' to fill their consciousness and imagination. . . ." According to Alami, ar indoctrination of the "myth" of nationality would create "identity" and "self-respect."8
However, Alami's proposal was confounded by the realities: between 1948 and 1967, the Arab state of Jordan claimed annexation of the territory west of the Jordan River, the "West Bank" area of Palestine -- the same area that would later be forwarded by Arab "moderates" as a "mini-state" for the "Palestinians." Thus, that area was, between 1948 and 1967, called "Arab land," the peoples were Arabs, and yet the "myth" that Musa Alami prescribed-the cause of "Palestine" for the "Palestinians" -- remained unheralded, unadopted by the Arabs during two decades. According to Lord Caradon, "Every Arab assumed the Palestinians [refugees] would go back to Jordan."9
When "Palestine" was referred to by the Arabs, it was viewed in the context of the intrusion of a "Jewish state amidst what the Arabs considered their own exclusive environment or milieu, the 'Arab region.' "10 As the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser "screamed" in 1956, "the imperialists' 'destruction of Palestine' " was "an attack on Arab nationalism," which " 'unites us from the Atlantic to the Gulf.' "11
Ever since the 1967 Israeli victory, however, when the Arabs determined that they couldn't obliterate Israel militarily, they have skillfully waged economic, diplomatic, and propaganda war against Israel. This, Arabs reasoned, would take longer than military victory, but ultimately the result would be the same. Critical to the new tactic, however, was a device designed to whittle away at the sympathies of Israel's allies: what the Arabs envisioned was something that could achieve Israel's shrinking to indefensible size at the same time that she became insolvent.
This program was reviewed in 1971 by Mohamed Heikal,12 then still an important spokesman of Egypt's leadership in his post as editor of the influential, semi-official newspaper Al Ahram. Heikal called for a change of Arab rhetoric -- no more threats of "throwing Israel into the sea" -- and a new political strategy aimed at reducing Israel to indefensible borders and pushing her into diplomatic and economic isolation. He predicted that "total withdrawal" would "pass sentence on the entire state of Israel."
As a more effective means of swaying world opinion, the Arabs adopted humanitarian terminology in support of the "demands" of the "Palestinian refugees," to replace former Arab proclamations of carnage and obliteration. In Egypt, for example, in 1968 "the popularity of the Palestinians was rising," as a result of Israel's 1967 defeat of the Arabs and subsequent 1968 "Israeli air attacks inside Egypt."13] It was as recently as 1970 that Egyptian President Nasser defined "Israel" as the cause of "the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land." Although Nasser thus gave perfunctory recognition to the "Palestinian Arab" allegation, he was in reality preoccupied with the overall basic, pivotal Arab concern. As he continued candidly in the same sentence, Israel was "a permanent threat to the Arab nation."14 Later that year (May 1970), Nasser "formulated his rejection of a Jewish state in Palestine," but once again he stressed the "occupation of our [Pan-Arab] lands," while only secondarily noting: "And we reject its [Israel's] insistence on denying the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people in their country."15 Subsequently the Arabs have increased their recounting of the difficulties and travail of Arab refugees in the "host" countries adjacent to Israel. Photographs and accounts of life in refugee camps, as well as demands for the "legitimate" but unlimited and undefined "rights" of the "Palestinians," have flooded the communications media of the world in a subtle and adroit utilization of the art of professional public relations.16
A prominent Arab Palestinian strategist, AI-Haytham Al-Ayubi, analyzed the efficacy of Arab propaganda tactics in 1974, when he wrote:
The image of Israel as a weak nation surrounded by enemies seeking its annihilation evaporated [after 1967], to be replaced by the image of an aggressive nation challenging world opinion.* 17
[* As Rosemary Sayigh wrote in the Journal of Palestine Studies, "a strongly defined Palestinian identity did not emerge until 1968, two decades after expulsion." It had taken twenty years to establish the "myth" prescribed by Musa Alami.18]
The high visibility of the sad plight of the homeless refugees -- always tragic -- has uniquely attracted the world's compassion.19 In addition, the campaign has provided non-Arabs with moral rationalization for abiding by the Arabs' anti-Israel rules, which are regarded as prerequisites to getting Arab oil and the financial benefits from Arab oil wealth. Millions of dollars have been spent to exploit the Arab refugees and their repatriation as "the heart of the matter," as the primary human problem that must be resolved before any talk of overall peace with Israel.
Reflecting on the oil weapon's influence in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Al-Ayubi shrewdly observed:
The nations of western Europe condemned Israel's position despite their guarantee of her security and territorial integrity. They understood that European interests and their dependence upon sources of energy precluded their allowing themselves to incur Arab wrath.20
Thus Al-Ayubi recommended sham "peace-talks," with the continuation, however, of the "state of 'no peace,'" and he advocated the maintaining of "moral pressure together with carefully-balanced military tension..." for the "success of the new Arab strategy." Because "loss of human life remains a sore point for the enemy," continual "guerrilla" activities can erode Israel's self-confidence and "the faith" of the world in the "Israeli policeman."
Al-Ayubi cited, as an example, "the success of Arab foreign policy maneuvers" in 1973, which was
so total that.... With the exception of the United States and the racist African governments, the entire world took either a neutral or pro-Arab position on the question of legality of restoring the occupied territories through any means -- including the use of military force.
As Al-Ayubi noted, "The basic Arab premise concerning 'the elimination of the results of aggression' remains accepted by the world." Thus the "noose" will be placed around the neck of the "Zionist entity."
But the Arabs' creation of the "myth" of nationality did not create the advantageous situation for the Palestinian Arabs that Musa Alami had hoped for. Instead, the conditions he complained of bitterly were perpetuated: the Arabs "shut the door" of citizenship "in their faces and imprison them in camps."21
Khaled Al-Azm, who was Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war, deplored the Arab tactics and the subsequent exploitation of the refugees, in his 1972 memoirs:
Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees ... while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes .... 22
Propaganda has successfully veered attention away from the Arab world's manipulation of its peoples among the refugee group on the one hand, and the number of those who now in fact possess Arab citizenship in many lands, on the other hand. The one notable exception is Jordan, where the majority of Arab refugees moved,* and where they are entitled to citizenship according to law, "unless they are Jews."23
Palestinian leadership will not let the refugee problem be solved In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that
The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die.
Prittie, "Middle East Refugees," in Michael Curtis et al., eds., The Palestinians:
People, History, Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 71.
Palestinians burn effigy of Canadian minister
January 17, 2001
Reuters
Palestinians burned an effigy of Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley on Thursday in a protest against Canada's offer to accept Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace plan. Hooded gunmen fired into the air during the protest in Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus and hundreds of demonstrators shouted slogans demanding the right of return to former homes. "We refuse resettlement of refugees," they shouted.
Manley told the Toronto Star newspaper in an interview published on January 10, "We are prepared to receive refugees. We are prepared to contribute to an international fund to assist with resettlement in support of a peace agreement." Manley said there had been no discussion on the number of refugees to be resettled outside the Middle East.
Canada heads the multilateral Refugee Working Group, a committee charged with trying to resolve the plight of Palestinian refugees.
---
1. Habib Issa, ed., Al-Hoda, Arabic daily, June 8, 1951, New York; see Economist (London), May 15, 1948, regarding "panic flight"; also see Economist, October 2, 1948, for British eyewitness report of Arab Higher Committee radio "announcements" that were "urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit."
2. Near East Arabic Radio, April 3, 1948: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees to flee from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and that certain leaders . . . make political capital out of their miserable situation . . ." Cited by Anderson et al., "The Arab Refugee Problem and How It Can Be Solved," p. 22; for more regarding Arab responsibility, see Sir Alexander Cadogan, Ambassador of Great Britain to the United Nations, speech to the Security Council, S.C., O.R., 287th meeting, April 23, 1948; also see Harry Stebbens, British Port Officer stationed in Haifa, letter in Evening Standard (London), January 10, 1969.
3. April 28, 1948; according to the Economist (London), October 1, 1948, only "4000 to 6000" of the "62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa" remained there until the time of the war; also see Kenneth Bilby, New Star in the Near East (New York: Doubleday, 1950), pp. 30-31; Lt. Col. Moshe Pearlman, The Army of Israel (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), pp. 116-17; and Major E. O'Ballance, The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 (London, 1956), p. 52.
4. David Shipler, New York Times, October 23, 1979, p. A3. Shipler cites Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, 0 Jerusalem, and Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948.
5. New York Times, October 23, 1979.
6. Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 23, pp. 22-44.
7. Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat, River Without Bridges.- A Study of the Exodus of the 1967Arab Palestinian Refugees (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969), p. 43; on April 27, 1950, the Arab National Committee of Haifa stated in a memorandum to the Arab States: "The removal of the Arab inhabitants ... was voluntary and was carried out at our request ... The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries.... We are very glad to state that the Arabs guarded their honour and traditions with pride and greatness." Cited by J.B. Schechtman, The Arab Refugee Problem (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952), pp. 8-9; also see Al-Zaman, Baghdad journal, April 27, 1950.
8. Musa Alami, "The Lesson of Palestine," The Middle East Journal, October 1949.
9. Lord Caradon, "Cyprus and Palestine," lecture at the University of Chicago, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, February 17, 1976. Similar statement by Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem, p. 113.
10. P.J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (London: Croom Heim, 1978), pp. 256-57.
11. Ibid. p. 234, quoting a speech by Nasser at Suez, July 26, 1956; in 1952, Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, then leader of the Lebanese National Youth Organization "Al Kataeb," wrote: "Why should the refugees stay in Lebanon, and not in Egypt, Iraq and Jordan which claim that they are all Arab and beyond that, Moslem? ... Isn't it for that alone that these so-called nationalist elements are demanding to resettle the refugees in Lebanon because they are themselves Arab and Moslems?" Al-Hoda, Lebanese journal, January 3, 1952, cited in Schechtman, Arab Refugee Problem, p. 84; also see Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, "Quest for an Arab Future," in Arab Journal, 1966-67, vol. 4, nos. 2-4, pp. 23-29.
12. "Mohammed Hassanein Heykal Discusses War and Peace in the Middle East," Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 197 1. Heykal thus joined the Arab chorus heard after the 1967 war.
13. Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 257; also see Mohamed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), p. 56.
14. Interview with Nasser, Le Monde (Paris: February 1970), cited in Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 259.
15. Charles Foltz, interview with Nasser, U.S. News and World Report, May 1970, cited in Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 259; see also Le Monde interview, February 1970.
16. contrary to the popular view ... in the West," a "great many refugees" were living out of camps "in comfortable housing outside," in the beginning of the 1960s according to Fawaz Turki, The Disinherited- Journal of a Palestinian Exile (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p. 41.
17. Al-Haytham A]-Ayubi, "Future Arab Strategy in the Light of the Fourth War," Shuun Filastiniyya (Beirut), October 1974. AI-Ayubi, also called Abu-Hammam, has been military head of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Lieutenant Colonel in the Syrian army, and highly respected strategist on Israel. He perceived the "guerrilla" war against Israel as the ultimately successful one.
18. Rosemary Sayigh, "Sources of Palestinian Nationalism: A Study of a Palestinian Camp in Lebanon," Journal of Palestinian Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 1977, p. 2 1; see also Sayigh, "The Palestinian Identity Among Camp Residents," Journal of Palestinian Studia vol. 6, no. 3, 1977, pp. 3-22.
19. In 1981, the Organization of African Unity's executive secretary, Ambassador Oumarou Garba Youssoupou from Niger, reflected upon why the millions of displaced souls in Africa were not as visible: "We're not getting the publicity because of our culture. No refugee is turned away from the host countries, so we're not dramatic enough for television. We have no drownings, no piratings.... We don't make the news ... .. Aiding Africa's Refugees," by Gertrude Samuels, The New Leader, May 4, 1981.
20. AI-Ayubi, "Future Arab Strategy in the Light of the Fourth War."
21. Musa Alami, "The Lesson of Palestine," The Middle East Journal, October 1949.
22. Khaled Al-Azm, Memoirs [Arabic), 3 vols. (AI-Dar al Muttahida Id-Nashr, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 386-87, cited by Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jewsfrom Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, preliminary edition (Jerusalem: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries [WOJAC], 1975), p. 61.
23. Jordanian National Law, Official Gazette, No. 1171, February 16, 1954, p. 105, Article 3(3). Between 1948 and 1967, 200,000 to 300,000 Arabs moved from the West Bank to the "East Bank," according to Eliyahu Kanovsky, in Jordan, People and Politics in the Middle East, Michael Curtis, ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1971), p. 111.
This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984, a national
bestseller
consciousness and imagination....
-- Musa Alami, 1948
Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem
in an irresponsible manner.... they have used the Palestine
people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and,
I could say, even criminal.
-- King Hussein of Jordan, 1960
Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees... while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes .... [36]
-- Khaled Al-Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war
The nations of western Europe condemned Israel's position
despite their guarantee of her security.... They understood
that ... their dependence upon sources of energy precluded
their allowing themselves to incur Arab wrath.
-- Al-Haytham Al-Ayubi, Arab Palestinian military strategist, 1974
At the time of the 1948 war, Arabs in Israel were invited by their fellow Arabs -- invited to "leave" while the "invading" Arab armies would purge the land of Jews.1 The invading Arab governments were certain of a quick victory; leaders warned the Arabs in Israel to run for their lives.2
In response, the Jewish Haifa Workers' Council issued an appeal to the Arab residents of Haifa: [See Official British Police Report ]
For years we have lived together in our city, Haifa.... Do not fear: Do not destroy your homes with your own hands ... do not bring upon yourself tragedy by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens.... But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life, and for peace for you and your families."3
While the Haifa pattern appears to have been prevalent, there were exceptions. Arabs in another crucial strategic area, who were "opening fire on the Israelis shortly after surrendering,"4 were "forced" to leave by the defending Jewish army to prevent what former Israeli Premier Itzhak Rabin described as a "hostile and armed populace" from remaining "in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route . . ."5 In his memoirs, Rabin stated that Arab control of the road between the seacoast and Jerusalem had "all but isolated" the "more than ninety thousand Jews in Jerusalem," nearly one-sixth of the new nation's total population.
If Jerusalem fell, the psychological blow to the nascent Jewish state would be more damaging than any inflicted by a score of armed brigades.6
According to a research report by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier.7
After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."] At the same time, Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Command, called for the prevention of the refugees from "return." He stated in the Beirut Telegraph on August 6, 1948: "it is inconceivable that the refugees should be sent back to their homes while they are occupied by the Jews.... It would serve as a first step toward Arab recognition of the state of Israel and Partition."
Arab activist Musa Alami despaired: as he saw the problem, "how can people struggle for their nation, when most of them do not know the meaning of the word? ... The people are in great need of a 'myth' to fill their consciousness and imagination. . . ." According to Alami, ar indoctrination of the "myth" of nationality would create "identity" and "self-respect."8
However, Alami's proposal was confounded by the realities: between 1948 and 1967, the Arab state of Jordan claimed annexation of the territory west of the Jordan River, the "West Bank" area of Palestine -- the same area that would later be forwarded by Arab "moderates" as a "mini-state" for the "Palestinians." Thus, that area was, between 1948 and 1967, called "Arab land," the peoples were Arabs, and yet the "myth" that Musa Alami prescribed-the cause of "Palestine" for the "Palestinians" -- remained unheralded, unadopted by the Arabs during two decades. According to Lord Caradon, "Every Arab assumed the Palestinians [refugees] would go back to Jordan."9
When "Palestine" was referred to by the Arabs, it was viewed in the context of the intrusion of a "Jewish state amidst what the Arabs considered their own exclusive environment or milieu, the 'Arab region.' "10 As the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser "screamed" in 1956, "the imperialists' 'destruction of Palestine' " was "an attack on Arab nationalism," which " 'unites us from the Atlantic to the Gulf.' "11
Ever since the 1967 Israeli victory, however, when the Arabs determined that they couldn't obliterate Israel militarily, they have skillfully waged economic, diplomatic, and propaganda war against Israel. This, Arabs reasoned, would take longer than military victory, but ultimately the result would be the same. Critical to the new tactic, however, was a device designed to whittle away at the sympathies of Israel's allies: what the Arabs envisioned was something that could achieve Israel's shrinking to indefensible size at the same time that she became insolvent.
This program was reviewed in 1971 by Mohamed Heikal,12 then still an important spokesman of Egypt's leadership in his post as editor of the influential, semi-official newspaper Al Ahram. Heikal called for a change of Arab rhetoric -- no more threats of "throwing Israel into the sea" -- and a new political strategy aimed at reducing Israel to indefensible borders and pushing her into diplomatic and economic isolation. He predicted that "total withdrawal" would "pass sentence on the entire state of Israel."
As a more effective means of swaying world opinion, the Arabs adopted humanitarian terminology in support of the "demands" of the "Palestinian refugees," to replace former Arab proclamations of carnage and obliteration. In Egypt, for example, in 1968 "the popularity of the Palestinians was rising," as a result of Israel's 1967 defeat of the Arabs and subsequent 1968 "Israeli air attacks inside Egypt."13] It was as recently as 1970 that Egyptian President Nasser defined "Israel" as the cause of "the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land." Although Nasser thus gave perfunctory recognition to the "Palestinian Arab" allegation, he was in reality preoccupied with the overall basic, pivotal Arab concern. As he continued candidly in the same sentence, Israel was "a permanent threat to the Arab nation."14 Later that year (May 1970), Nasser "formulated his rejection of a Jewish state in Palestine," but once again he stressed the "occupation of our [Pan-Arab] lands," while only secondarily noting: "And we reject its [Israel's] insistence on denying the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people in their country."15 Subsequently the Arabs have increased their recounting of the difficulties and travail of Arab refugees in the "host" countries adjacent to Israel. Photographs and accounts of life in refugee camps, as well as demands for the "legitimate" but unlimited and undefined "rights" of the "Palestinians," have flooded the communications media of the world in a subtle and adroit utilization of the art of professional public relations.16
A prominent Arab Palestinian strategist, AI-Haytham Al-Ayubi, analyzed the efficacy of Arab propaganda tactics in 1974, when he wrote:
The image of Israel as a weak nation surrounded by enemies seeking its annihilation evaporated [after 1967], to be replaced by the image of an aggressive nation challenging world opinion.* 17
[* As Rosemary Sayigh wrote in the Journal of Palestine Studies, "a strongly defined Palestinian identity did not emerge until 1968, two decades after expulsion." It had taken twenty years to establish the "myth" prescribed by Musa Alami.18]
The high visibility of the sad plight of the homeless refugees -- always tragic -- has uniquely attracted the world's compassion.19 In addition, the campaign has provided non-Arabs with moral rationalization for abiding by the Arabs' anti-Israel rules, which are regarded as prerequisites to getting Arab oil and the financial benefits from Arab oil wealth. Millions of dollars have been spent to exploit the Arab refugees and their repatriation as "the heart of the matter," as the primary human problem that must be resolved before any talk of overall peace with Israel.
Reflecting on the oil weapon's influence in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Al-Ayubi shrewdly observed:
The nations of western Europe condemned Israel's position despite their guarantee of her security and territorial integrity. They understood that European interests and their dependence upon sources of energy precluded their allowing themselves to incur Arab wrath.20
Thus Al-Ayubi recommended sham "peace-talks," with the continuation, however, of the "state of 'no peace,'" and he advocated the maintaining of "moral pressure together with carefully-balanced military tension..." for the "success of the new Arab strategy." Because "loss of human life remains a sore point for the enemy," continual "guerrilla" activities can erode Israel's self-confidence and "the faith" of the world in the "Israeli policeman."
Al-Ayubi cited, as an example, "the success of Arab foreign policy maneuvers" in 1973, which was
so total that.... With the exception of the United States and the racist African governments, the entire world took either a neutral or pro-Arab position on the question of legality of restoring the occupied territories through any means -- including the use of military force.
As Al-Ayubi noted, "The basic Arab premise concerning 'the elimination of the results of aggression' remains accepted by the world." Thus the "noose" will be placed around the neck of the "Zionist entity."
But the Arabs' creation of the "myth" of nationality did not create the advantageous situation for the Palestinian Arabs that Musa Alami had hoped for. Instead, the conditions he complained of bitterly were perpetuated: the Arabs "shut the door" of citizenship "in their faces and imprison them in camps."21
Khaled Al-Azm, who was Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war, deplored the Arab tactics and the subsequent exploitation of the refugees, in his 1972 memoirs:
Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees ... while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes .... 22
Propaganda has successfully veered attention away from the Arab world's manipulation of its peoples among the refugee group on the one hand, and the number of those who now in fact possess Arab citizenship in many lands, on the other hand. The one notable exception is Jordan, where the majority of Arab refugees moved,* and where they are entitled to citizenship according to law, "unless they are Jews."23
Palestinian leadership will not let the refugee problem be solved In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that
The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die.
Prittie, "Middle East Refugees," in Michael Curtis et al., eds., The Palestinians:
People, History, Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 71.
Palestinians burn effigy of Canadian minister
January 17, 2001
Reuters
Palestinians burned an effigy of Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley on Thursday in a protest against Canada's offer to accept Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace plan. Hooded gunmen fired into the air during the protest in Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus and hundreds of demonstrators shouted slogans demanding the right of return to former homes. "We refuse resettlement of refugees," they shouted.
Manley told the Toronto Star newspaper in an interview published on January 10, "We are prepared to receive refugees. We are prepared to contribute to an international fund to assist with resettlement in support of a peace agreement." Manley said there had been no discussion on the number of refugees to be resettled outside the Middle East.
Canada heads the multilateral Refugee Working Group, a committee charged with trying to resolve the plight of Palestinian refugees.
---
1. Habib Issa, ed., Al-Hoda, Arabic daily, June 8, 1951, New York; see Economist (London), May 15, 1948, regarding "panic flight"; also see Economist, October 2, 1948, for British eyewitness report of Arab Higher Committee radio "announcements" that were "urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit."
2. Near East Arabic Radio, April 3, 1948: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees to flee from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and that certain leaders . . . make political capital out of their miserable situation . . ." Cited by Anderson et al., "The Arab Refugee Problem and How It Can Be Solved," p. 22; for more regarding Arab responsibility, see Sir Alexander Cadogan, Ambassador of Great Britain to the United Nations, speech to the Security Council, S.C., O.R., 287th meeting, April 23, 1948; also see Harry Stebbens, British Port Officer stationed in Haifa, letter in Evening Standard (London), January 10, 1969.
3. April 28, 1948; according to the Economist (London), October 1, 1948, only "4000 to 6000" of the "62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa" remained there until the time of the war; also see Kenneth Bilby, New Star in the Near East (New York: Doubleday, 1950), pp. 30-31; Lt. Col. Moshe Pearlman, The Army of Israel (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), pp. 116-17; and Major E. O'Ballance, The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 (London, 1956), p. 52.
4. David Shipler, New York Times, October 23, 1979, p. A3. Shipler cites Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, 0 Jerusalem, and Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948.
5. New York Times, October 23, 1979.
6. Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 23, pp. 22-44.
7. Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat, River Without Bridges.- A Study of the Exodus of the 1967Arab Palestinian Refugees (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969), p. 43; on April 27, 1950, the Arab National Committee of Haifa stated in a memorandum to the Arab States: "The removal of the Arab inhabitants ... was voluntary and was carried out at our request ... The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries.... We are very glad to state that the Arabs guarded their honour and traditions with pride and greatness." Cited by J.B. Schechtman, The Arab Refugee Problem (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952), pp. 8-9; also see Al-Zaman, Baghdad journal, April 27, 1950.
8. Musa Alami, "The Lesson of Palestine," The Middle East Journal, October 1949.
9. Lord Caradon, "Cyprus and Palestine," lecture at the University of Chicago, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, February 17, 1976. Similar statement by Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem, p. 113.
10. P.J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (London: Croom Heim, 1978), pp. 256-57.
11. Ibid. p. 234, quoting a speech by Nasser at Suez, July 26, 1956; in 1952, Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, then leader of the Lebanese National Youth Organization "Al Kataeb," wrote: "Why should the refugees stay in Lebanon, and not in Egypt, Iraq and Jordan which claim that they are all Arab and beyond that, Moslem? ... Isn't it for that alone that these so-called nationalist elements are demanding to resettle the refugees in Lebanon because they are themselves Arab and Moslems?" Al-Hoda, Lebanese journal, January 3, 1952, cited in Schechtman, Arab Refugee Problem, p. 84; also see Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, "Quest for an Arab Future," in Arab Journal, 1966-67, vol. 4, nos. 2-4, pp. 23-29.
12. "Mohammed Hassanein Heykal Discusses War and Peace in the Middle East," Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 197 1. Heykal thus joined the Arab chorus heard after the 1967 war.
13. Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 257; also see Mohamed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), p. 56.
14. Interview with Nasser, Le Monde (Paris: February 1970), cited in Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 259.
15. Charles Foltz, interview with Nasser, U.S. News and World Report, May 1970, cited in Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 259; see also Le Monde interview, February 1970.
16. contrary to the popular view ... in the West," a "great many refugees" were living out of camps "in comfortable housing outside," in the beginning of the 1960s according to Fawaz Turki, The Disinherited- Journal of a Palestinian Exile (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p. 41.
17. Al-Haytham A]-Ayubi, "Future Arab Strategy in the Light of the Fourth War," Shuun Filastiniyya (Beirut), October 1974. AI-Ayubi, also called Abu-Hammam, has been military head of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Lieutenant Colonel in the Syrian army, and highly respected strategist on Israel. He perceived the "guerrilla" war against Israel as the ultimately successful one.
18. Rosemary Sayigh, "Sources of Palestinian Nationalism: A Study of a Palestinian Camp in Lebanon," Journal of Palestinian Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 1977, p. 2 1; see also Sayigh, "The Palestinian Identity Among Camp Residents," Journal of Palestinian Studia vol. 6, no. 3, 1977, pp. 3-22.
19. In 1981, the Organization of African Unity's executive secretary, Ambassador Oumarou Garba Youssoupou from Niger, reflected upon why the millions of displaced souls in Africa were not as visible: "We're not getting the publicity because of our culture. No refugee is turned away from the host countries, so we're not dramatic enough for television. We have no drownings, no piratings.... We don't make the news ... .. Aiding Africa's Refugees," by Gertrude Samuels, The New Leader, May 4, 1981.
20. AI-Ayubi, "Future Arab Strategy in the Light of the Fourth War."
21. Musa Alami, "The Lesson of Palestine," The Middle East Journal, October 1949.
22. Khaled Al-Azm, Memoirs [Arabic), 3 vols. (AI-Dar al Muttahida Id-Nashr, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 386-87, cited by Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jewsfrom Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, preliminary edition (Jerusalem: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries [WOJAC], 1975), p. 61.
23. Jordanian National Law, Official Gazette, No. 1171, February 16, 1954, p. 105, Article 3(3). Between 1948 and 1967, 200,000 to 300,000 Arabs moved from the West Bank to the "East Bank," according to Eliyahu Kanovsky, in Jordan, People and Politics in the Middle East, Michael Curtis, ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1971), p. 111.
This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984, a national
bestseller
May 10, 2008
Israel's Predicament at 60: World's worst neighbourhood
Two religiously-identified new states emerged from the shards of the British empire in the aftermath of World War II. Israel, of course, was one; the other was Pakistan.
They make an interesting, if infrequently-compared pair. Pakistan's experience with widespread poverty, near-constant internal turmoil, and external tensions, culminating in its current status as near-rogue state, suggests the perils that Israel avoided, with its stable, liberal political culture, dynamic economy, cutting-edge high-tech sector, lively culture, and impressive social cohesion.
But for all its achievements, the Jewish state lives under a curse that Pakistan and most other polities never face: the threat of elimination. Its remarkable progress over the decades has not liberated it from a multi-pronged peril that includes nearly every means imaginable: weapons of mass destruction, conventional military attack, terrorism, internal subversion, economic blockade, demographic assault, and ideological undermining. No other contemporary state faces such an array of threats; indeed, probably none in history ever has.
The enemies of Israel divide into two main camps: the Left and the Muslims, with the far Right a minor third element. The Left includes a rabid edge (International ANSWER, Noam Chomsky) and a more polite centre (United Nations General Assembly, Canada's Liberal Party, the mainstream media, mainline churches, school textbooks). In the final analysis, however, the Left serves less as a force in its own right than as an auxiliary for the primary anti-Zionist actor, which is the Muslim population. This latter, in turn, can be divided into three distinct groupings.
First come the foreign states: Five armed forces that invaded Israel on its independence in May 1948, and then neighboring armies, air forces, and navies fought in the wars of 1956, 1967, 1970, and 1973. While the conventional threat has somewhat receded, Egypt's U.S.-financed arms build-up presents one danger and the threats from weapons of mass destruction (especially from Iran but also from Syria and potentially from many other states) present an even greater one.
Second come the external Palestinians, those living outside Israel. Sidelined by governments from 1948 until 1967, Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization got their opportunity with the defeat of three states' armed forces in the Six-Day War. Subsequent developments, such as the 1982 Lebanon war and the 1993 Oslo accords, confirmed the centrality of external Palestinians. Today, they drive the conflict, through violence (terrorism, missiles from Gaza) and even more importantly by driving world opinion against Israel via a public relations effort that resonates widely among Muslims and the Left.
Third come the Muslim citizens of Israel, the sleepers in the equation. In 1949, they numbered merely 111,000, or 9 percent of Israel's population but by 2005, they had multiplied ten-fold, to 1,141,000, and to 16 percent of the population. They benefited from Israel's open ways to evolve from a docile and ineffective community into a assertive one that increasingly rejects the Jewish nature of the Israeli state, with potentially profound consequences for that the future identity of that state.
If this long list of perils makes Israel different from all other Western countries, forcing it to protect itself on a daily basis from the ranks of its many foes, its predicament renders Israel oddly similar to other Middle Eastern countries, which likewise face a threat of elimination.
Kuwait, conquered by Iraq, actually disappeared from the face of the earth between August 1990 and February 1991; were it not for an American-led coalition, it would quite certainly never been resurrected. Lebanon has been effectively under Syrian control since 1976 and, should developments warrant formal annexation, Damascus could at will officially incorporate it. Bahrain is occasionally claimed by Tehran to be a part of Iran, most recently in July 2007, when an associate of Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, Iran's supreme leader, claimed that "Bahrain is part of Iran's soil," and insisted that "The principal demand of the Bahraini people today is to return this province … to its mother, Islamic Iran." Jordan's existence as an independent state has always been precarious, in part because it is still seen as a colonial artifice of Winston Churchill, in part because several states (Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia) and the Palestinians see it as fair prey.
That Israel finds itself in this company has several implications. It puts Israel's existential dilemma into perspective: If no country risks elimination outside of the Middle East, this is a nearly routine problem within the region, suggesting that Israel's unsettled status will not be resolved any time soon. This pattern also highlights the Middle East's uniquely cruel, unstable, and fatal political life; the region ranks, clearly, as the world's worst neighborhood. Israel is the child with glasses trying to succeed at school while living in a gang-infested part of town.
The Middle East's deep and wide political sickness points to the error of seeing the Arab-Israeli conflict as the motor force behind its problems. More sensible is to see Israel's plight as the result of the region's toxic politics. Blaming the Middle East's autocracy, radicalism, and violence on Israel is like blaming the diligent school child for the gangs. Conversely, resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict means only solving that conflict, not fixing the region.
If all the members of this imperiled quintet worry about extinction, Israel's troubles are the most complex. Israel having survived countless threats to its existence over the past six decades, and it having done so with its honor intact, offers a reason for its population to celebrate. But the rejoicing cannot last long, for it's right back to the barricades to defend against the next threat.
May 9, 2008
Reform Jews?
I ask my Daughter what makes her Jewish.
Does she connect with Torah? She says no, she finds Torah boring.
This means she has chosen Judasim freely (great), but it also means she does not
feel the obligation.
Or does she? She has heard the Torah through stories since being a small child.
She watches her parents try to follow a Torah based life (little by little),
and she clearly understands what is important in life.
She knows people count more than work and that your job doesn't need to be what defines you! She knows that your family is more important than anything else.
First your immediate family and then extended Jewish & Israeli family.
She knows how important helping others and doing the right thing is.
She knows how important Israel is why it is crucial to make sure it is always there.
She knows...Maybe the Torah will follow.
Since we lost the Second Temple, the Sages decided to replace sacrifices with
Shul based rituals and prayers. Is that enough? Does the Talmud hold the answer....
Maybe, I am still trying to see for myself!
Does she connect with Torah? She says no, she finds Torah boring.
This means she has chosen Judasim freely (great), but it also means she does not
feel the obligation.
Or does she? She has heard the Torah through stories since being a small child.
She watches her parents try to follow a Torah based life (little by little),
and she clearly understands what is important in life.
She knows people count more than work and that your job doesn't need to be what defines you! She knows that your family is more important than anything else.
First your immediate family and then extended Jewish & Israeli family.
She knows how important helping others and doing the right thing is.
She knows how important Israel is why it is crucial to make sure it is always there.
She knows...Maybe the Torah will follow.
Since we lost the Second Temple, the Sages decided to replace sacrifices with
Shul based rituals and prayers. Is that enough? Does the Talmud hold the answer....
Maybe, I am still trying to see for myself!
May 8, 2008
Columbia's Catastrophic "Nakba" Conference
by Mary Madigan
FrontPage Magazine
May 8, 2008
As Israelis look towards the future in their celebration of the nation's 60th birthday, some Palestinians cling to the past by commemorating what they call the "Nakba" or "the catastrophe."
A faculty panel discussion held at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) last month and titled, "60 Years of Nakba—The Catastrophe of Palestine 1948-2008," was one of many similar lamentations held worldwide.
The tone from the outset was grim. Speakers acknowledged that another "Nakba" anniversary was confirmation that combined Palestinian and Arab attempts to eliminate the Jewish state have not succeeded.
Despite this, Columbia's controversial associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, Joseph Massad, was upbeat. According to Massad, the Israelis have won military victories, but the "Palestinian resistance" has successfully rebranded them. Through 60 years of tireless propaganda efforts, the Palestinian term, "Nakba," has replaced "Israel's war of independence"; "apartheid" has replaced "Jewish sovereignty"; the "plight of the Palestinians" has replaced "the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland"; the "Palestinians" has replaced "the non-Jewish community of Palestine." And even in the culinary world, Massad claimed, "Palestinian Maftool" has replaced "Israeli couscous." (Like many of Massad's claims, the couscous issue is debatable. A recent visit to Whole Foods Market proved that Israeli couscous is still the preferred nomenclature.)
Massad's concept of victory reframed the event. It was no longer a dirge-like recitation of perpetual victimization, but rather a showcase—a preview of new trends in "resistance" propagandizing.
So what's "in" this season? Using the "renaming" strategy to make the destruction of Israel more palatable to the West was the faculty panel's primary theme. Portraying the only democratic state in the Middle East as a brutal, non-democratic "Jewish supremacist and racist state," as Massad once put it, was the secondary theme.
Sociology professor Lila Abu Lughod described a homeland that was "buried, erased, and rewritten by Israel." She told the audience about her father's return to Israel and how he kept "getting lost because he couldn't read Hebrew, and was afraid to ask." It wasn't clear why, since Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages of Israel and it is legally required for all road signs to be in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. But why let facts stand in the way of a good story?
Given the audience's reaction, comparative literature professor Gil Anidjar seemed to be on hand for comic relief. Anidjar's proclamations, such as "the separation between Jew and Arab, uh, Muslim is indicative of the way we think, and the way we don't think," evoked puzzled looks. But he won laughter and cheers when he concluded a disconnected string of philosophizing with, "but anyway, I digress, uh, I digress…."
Both Massad and assistant professor of Arabic literature Noha Radwan portrayed Palestinian resistance as an artistic, pro-democracy movement seeking only equality with Jews. Massad spoke about challenging Israeli military might "with art, poetry and dance." Radwan claimed that "destroying Israel has never been a part of the Palestinian itinerary." Neither mentioned the most commonly-used weapons of this "resistance": the suicide bombers and the thousands of Kassam rockets relentlessly targeting Israeli civilians.
The word "Hamas" went unspoken until the question and answer period, when a student wearing a kippah brought up the Palestinian terrorist group/government. When the student asked the panelists if they saw a possibility for long term co-existence for Israelis and Palestinians despite calls for Israel's destruction in the Hamas charter, they looked confused, as if he were speaking gibberish. Radwan said that she didn't understand what he was asking. When the student repeated the question, Radwan, seemingly unaware of the hadith that concludes article 7 of the Hamas charter calling specifically for the elimination of Jews, claimed that the Palestinians' goal was only to eliminate the discrimination she alleged exists in the Jewish state, not the Jews themselves. Massad claimed that Israel has already destroyed Palestine and the Palestinians and then added, "whatever the Hamas charter may have said, it is something of a future that has not yet come."
Another student asked the panelists why they were accepting what he called the "Faustian bargain of a two-state solution?" Massad responded that a two-state solution was a "non-starter" because it wouldn't change what he called Israel's "twenty racist laws" and that Palestinians do not have the right of return. He called the Palestinian Authority a "collaborationist authority." The student asked the panel if they were unanimous on this condemnation of a two-state solution. They appeared to be.
Incredibly, while walking out of Schermerhorn auditorium, a student remarked that this was the most polite talk he ever heard Massad give.
So now we know what's "in" this season: old hate wrapped up in a new package. But what's "out?" Apparently, mentioning Sharia law in the Palestinian constitution, Hamas's use of children's shows to recruit toddler-martyrs, the significant Palestinian suffering caused by Hamas's mismanagement and Palestinian infighting, and the massive ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab/Muslim areas of the Middle East. In short, this spring season offers little that's new.
Mary Madigan, publisher of the Exit Zero blog, wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
FrontPage Magazine
May 8, 2008
As Israelis look towards the future in their celebration of the nation's 60th birthday, some Palestinians cling to the past by commemorating what they call the "Nakba" or "the catastrophe."
A faculty panel discussion held at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) last month and titled, "60 Years of Nakba—The Catastrophe of Palestine 1948-2008," was one of many similar lamentations held worldwide.
The tone from the outset was grim. Speakers acknowledged that another "Nakba" anniversary was confirmation that combined Palestinian and Arab attempts to eliminate the Jewish state have not succeeded.
Despite this, Columbia's controversial associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, Joseph Massad, was upbeat. According to Massad, the Israelis have won military victories, but the "Palestinian resistance" has successfully rebranded them. Through 60 years of tireless propaganda efforts, the Palestinian term, "Nakba," has replaced "Israel's war of independence"; "apartheid" has replaced "Jewish sovereignty"; the "plight of the Palestinians" has replaced "the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland"; the "Palestinians" has replaced "the non-Jewish community of Palestine." And even in the culinary world, Massad claimed, "Palestinian Maftool" has replaced "Israeli couscous." (Like many of Massad's claims, the couscous issue is debatable. A recent visit to Whole Foods Market proved that Israeli couscous is still the preferred nomenclature.)
Massad's concept of victory reframed the event. It was no longer a dirge-like recitation of perpetual victimization, but rather a showcase—a preview of new trends in "resistance" propagandizing.
So what's "in" this season? Using the "renaming" strategy to make the destruction of Israel more palatable to the West was the faculty panel's primary theme. Portraying the only democratic state in the Middle East as a brutal, non-democratic "Jewish supremacist and racist state," as Massad once put it, was the secondary theme.
Sociology professor Lila Abu Lughod described a homeland that was "buried, erased, and rewritten by Israel." She told the audience about her father's return to Israel and how he kept "getting lost because he couldn't read Hebrew, and was afraid to ask." It wasn't clear why, since Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages of Israel and it is legally required for all road signs to be in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. But why let facts stand in the way of a good story?
Given the audience's reaction, comparative literature professor Gil Anidjar seemed to be on hand for comic relief. Anidjar's proclamations, such as "the separation between Jew and Arab, uh, Muslim is indicative of the way we think, and the way we don't think," evoked puzzled looks. But he won laughter and cheers when he concluded a disconnected string of philosophizing with, "but anyway, I digress, uh, I digress…."
Both Massad and assistant professor of Arabic literature Noha Radwan portrayed Palestinian resistance as an artistic, pro-democracy movement seeking only equality with Jews. Massad spoke about challenging Israeli military might "with art, poetry and dance." Radwan claimed that "destroying Israel has never been a part of the Palestinian itinerary." Neither mentioned the most commonly-used weapons of this "resistance": the suicide bombers and the thousands of Kassam rockets relentlessly targeting Israeli civilians.
The word "Hamas" went unspoken until the question and answer period, when a student wearing a kippah brought up the Palestinian terrorist group/government. When the student asked the panelists if they saw a possibility for long term co-existence for Israelis and Palestinians despite calls for Israel's destruction in the Hamas charter, they looked confused, as if he were speaking gibberish. Radwan said that she didn't understand what he was asking. When the student repeated the question, Radwan, seemingly unaware of the hadith that concludes article 7 of the Hamas charter calling specifically for the elimination of Jews, claimed that the Palestinians' goal was only to eliminate the discrimination she alleged exists in the Jewish state, not the Jews themselves. Massad claimed that Israel has already destroyed Palestine and the Palestinians and then added, "whatever the Hamas charter may have said, it is something of a future that has not yet come."
Another student asked the panelists why they were accepting what he called the "Faustian bargain of a two-state solution?" Massad responded that a two-state solution was a "non-starter" because it wouldn't change what he called Israel's "twenty racist laws" and that Palestinians do not have the right of return. He called the Palestinian Authority a "collaborationist authority." The student asked the panel if they were unanimous on this condemnation of a two-state solution. They appeared to be.
Incredibly, while walking out of Schermerhorn auditorium, a student remarked that this was the most polite talk he ever heard Massad give.
So now we know what's "in" this season: old hate wrapped up in a new package. But what's "out?" Apparently, mentioning Sharia law in the Palestinian constitution, Hamas's use of children's shows to recruit toddler-martyrs, the significant Palestinian suffering caused by Hamas's mismanagement and Palestinian infighting, and the massive ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab/Muslim areas of the Middle East. In short, this spring season offers little that's new.
Mary Madigan, publisher of the Exit Zero blog, wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
Congressman Kucinich - Nakba - H2522
Here is Mr. Kucinich's statement he made for the congressional record.
See how much truth you can find. It is amazing that anyone that is
"educated" can hold such misguided views.
(My comments in parenthesis)
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, today I join my colleagues in Congress in celebrating Israel’s accomplishments over the past 60 years. I am happy to be co-sponsor of this congratulatory resolution.
However, like many Israelis and Palestinians, I have concerns about Israel’s future,
its stability, its security and the prospect for peaceful coexistence for both Palestinians and Israelis. (What is a Palestinian....etc.)
One of those concerns relates to the ongoing lack of resolution on the dispossession
of Palestinian property and the dislocation of Palestinians after Independence.
It must be remembered that about 700,000 Palestinians became exiled. Much Arab property was appropriated. And about 500 Arab villages were destroyed.
(Mr K makes it sound like Israel forced these people to leave. We all know they left on their own. They were of course advised by the very Governments that turned their backs on them after Israel's war of independence. He also makes no mention of the 800,000 Jews FORCED from Arab lands to make them Judenrein)
On December 11, 1948, the United Nations passed Resolution 194, affording Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes in Israel, or to compensation
for their property should they choose not to return. To this day, the mandate
of U.N. Resolution 194 has not been fulfilled. Unfortunately, this failure remains as one of the most significant barriers to the realization of a two-state negotiated solution.
Article 11 reads:
Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.
(Article 11 mentions "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace".
there are apparently none that want to live in peace. Israel would gladly pay them all to relocate to Jordan where they belong. The truth is they left at the time of war and joined the enemy and are entitled to leave peacefully and no more!)
I am also concerned for those Palestinians who did not flee and who became Israeli citizens after Independence. According to the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, today there exist 20 Israeli laws which explicitly discriminate against the Palestinian minority in Israel, who constitute 20 percent of its
population. In its 2005 Annual Report, the U.S. State Department said that
‘‘[There is] institutionalized legal and societal discrimination against Israel’s [Arab] Christian, Muslim and Druze citizens. The government does not provide Israeli Arabs with the same quality of education, housing, employment and social
services as Jews.’’
(These Arabs deserve the right to a paid relocation also. I would pledge to help)
Finally, Israel has a right to security and a right to defend itself. Accordingly, I am concerned that the 40 year military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem has been and continues to be brutal and unjust and undermines the security of Israel.
(Read the paper Mr K, Israel has been out of Gaza for YEARS, they retain no obligation the Gazans and the UN should step in if they care, oh I forgot they are to scared to send anybody there)
It is a fact that the government of Israel continues to support the construction of settlements on Palestinian land, perpetuating the consequences of dispossession and exile. Additionally, I am concerned that the government of Israel has increased the number of checkpoints which destroy a viable Palestinian economy and a vibrant civil society. I am concerned that the Israeli government has erected a wall, often on Palestinian land, that divides Palestinians from Palestinians, rather than divide
Israel from the West Bank. As stated by Judge Elaraby of the International Court of
Justice in his 2004 Advisory Opinion on the legality of Israel’s separation barrier, ‘‘The fact that occupation is met by armed resistance cannot be used as a pretext to disregard fundamental human rights in the occupied territory.’’
(Israel has the right to defend herself. She should have annexed this land gained in a defensive war. The Arabs know that they need to only win one war to destroy Israel.
There is not now and never has been a "Palestinian people". The displaced Jordainans need to go home. They have no rights in Israel. They are terrorists at this point)
This conundrum of a dialectic of conflict further separates Israelis and Palestinians
alike from hopes for peace. H. Con. Res. 322 eloquently states the many reasons why I celebrate Israel’s accomplishments and I sincerely wish it a bright future.
I only wish to add that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many Israelis and Palestinians as well, Israel’s future will be bright only if it includes an open dialogue with Palestinians, a respect for human rights and international
law, and a society built on coexistence and tolerance. Israelis and Palestinians
deserve to live in peace with justice and I encourage the United States government to help Israel achieve that so the joy of future anniversaries will be unalloyed.
I support the resolution in the spirit of reconciliation to which we must all inevitably turn, to achieve peace and justice with our brothers
and sisters from whom we may be estranged.
(By quoting Leftist, Self Hating, Apologetic Jews as beeing in concert with Mr K..
he makes our point. He refers to a people that don't exist and is delusional in his
2 State solution. A 2 State solution means the end of Israel. A terrorist state on the edge of Israel will just be a lauching site for what the arab countries hope will be the final war to rid the region of Israel.
Mr K is ...well you decide..
He attended Cleveland State University from 1967 to 1970.[5] In 1973, he graduated from Case Western Reserve University with both a BA and an MA in speech and communication
From 1977 to 1979, Kucinich served as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, (nicknamed "the boy mayor of Cleveland") a tumultuous term in which he survived a recall election and was successful in a battle against selling the municipal electric utility before being defeated for reelection by George Voinovich.
However, After Kucinich refused to sell Muni Light, Cleveland's publicly owned electric utility, the Cleveland mafia put out a hit on Kucinich. A hitman from Maryland planned to shoot him in the head during the Columbus Day Parade, but the plot fell apart when Kucinich was hospitalized and missed the event. When the city fell into default shortly thereafter, the mafia leaders called off the contract killer.
(From Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Kucinich
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