David Warren joins the chorus of voices that rejects the Roadmap calling it a road to war.

Check it out. Hat tip to Zogby

The Jihad of Avram Bornstein

The Jihad of Avram Bornstein

Review of Avram Bornstein, "Crossing the Green Line between the West Bank and Israel," University of Pennsylvania Press)

Perhaps the fastest way to make sense of this book by Avram Bornstein...is to pay attention to how he uses quotation marks. The book routinely refers to Israel as an apartheid regime, with no quotation marks. And it routinely refers to Palestinian "terrorism" with them...

Somewhat better news:

House amends bill supporting Palestinian state

The House International Relations Committee on Wednesday adopted an amendment to the fiscal 2004-2005 State Department authorization bill that expressed support for a terror-free, democratic Palestinian state.

The amendment, known as the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Enhancement Act of 2003, formalizes language in President Bush's June 24 speech on the Middle East, in which he said a peaceful Palestinian state is in Israel's interest but that the state must abandon forever the use of terror. The amendment urged Bush not to recognize a Palestinian state until the Palestinians have achieved the goals laid out in his speech.

The amendment, offered by Henry Hyde (R-Illinois), Tom Lantos (D-California), and Gary Ackerman (D-New York) also effectively codifies the concerns that over 300 House members expressed in a letter sent to President Bush, which insisted that the road-map peace process remain a performance, not time-table based initiative.

The amendment seeks to prohibit aid to a future Palestinian state unless the President deems that the PA is free from terror. It next goes to a full vote of the House.

The Latest

Rumor of pending legislation barring campus criticism of Israel sweeping Arab and left-wing media.

Arab newspapers for weeks have been running stories about rumored new legislation by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a member of the GOP congressional leadership and a strong backer of the government in Israel, that would “prohibit” criticism of Israel on college campuses.

Syria Can't Keep Its Hands Out of the Pot

Once again we are reminded that Syria does more than just harbor terrorists. It trains them.

It turns out, as Jane's reports, that the two suicide bombers in Tel Aviv were not only British citizens but also met and then were sent to train around Damascus, either by al-Qaeda or the Hizbullah.

Bad timing, what with Powell in the region and all.

FURTHER PROOF OF A JEWISH CONSPIRACY BEHIND THE WAR - OR, "RAIDERS OF THE LOST TALMUD"

Pointed out via Instapundit, Blissful Knowledge nails down one more "Jewish conspiracy"

Check out this fascinating piece in today's NYT about a search in Iraq:

In one huge room in the flooded basement of the building, American soldiers from MET Alpha, the "mobile exploitation team" that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months, found maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991. Another map of Israel highlighted what the Iraqis thought were the locations at which their Scud missiles had struck in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. The strikes were designated by yellow-and-red paper flowers placed atop the pinpointed Israeli neighborhoods.
Team members floated out of the room a perfect mock-up of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, as well as mock-ups of downtown Jerusalem and official Israeli buildings in very fine detail. They also collected a satellite picture of Dimona, Israel's nuclear complex, and a female mannequin dressed in an Israeli Air Force uniform, standing in front of a list of Israeli officers' ranks and insignia.
Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a "top secret" intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a "holy warrior" to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations "sanctions situation." But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time.

As Best of the Web points out, this would seem to further disprove commonly-heard claims that Saddam was unlikely to cooperate with Islamic fundamentalists (or that such cooperation would only come about due to the Bush Administration's threats of war; note the May 2001 date). But why were they searching this building in the first place?

What began today as a hunt for an ancient Jewish text at secret police headquarters here wound up unearthing a trove of Iraqi intelligence documents and maps relating to Israel as well as offers of sales of uranium and other nuclear materials to Iraq.
...The search began this morning when 16 soldiers from MET Alpha teamed up with members of the Iraqi National Congress, a leading opposition group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, to search for what an intelligence source had described as one of the most ancient copies of the Talmud in existence, dating from the seventh century. The Talmud is a book of oral law, with rabbinical commentaries and interpretations.
A former senior official of the Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein's secret police, had told the opposition group a few days earlier that he had hidden the ancient Jewish book in the basement of his headquarters. The building had been badly damaged by coalition bombing, said the man, who is now working for the Iraqi National Congress, but he was still willing to take a group there to recover it. MET Alpha hesitated. Its mission was hunting for proof of unconventional weapons in Iraq, not saving cultural and religious treasures. But Col. Richard R. McPhee, its commander, decided that the historic Talmud was too valuable to leave behind.

Can't you see the narrative taking hold? First, the story was that the U.S. military guarded the oil wells while neglecting the National Museum, thus encouraging looting and the loss of Iraqi cultural treasures. Add to that the story that while doing those things, the U.S. was also searching for an ancient copy of the Talmud. (That crazed Jewish neoconservative cabal is at it again...)Somewhere, Noam Chomsky is writing his next book.
(Yes, the links in the previous paragraph will take you to debunkings of those Baghdad-style urban legends, not to the initial peddling of those stories. Think of it as the next generation of Fisking. And as always, technicalities of factual and temporal discrepancies will be easily surmounted in formulating the narrative.)

How "Palestinians" demonstrate their burning desire for peace

In an article entitled "Nussaibeh pressured to scrap peace statement signed with former Shin Bet chief", JPost reports today (May 7, 2003) as follows:

The PLO's top representative in Jerusalem, Dr. Sari Nussaibeh, is under mounting pressure from Palestinian hardliners to scrap his joint peace initiative with former Shin Bet security service chief Ami Ayalon.

Nussaibeh and Ayalon signed a statement of principles last year calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The statement has been strongly criticized by many Palestinians because it ignores the refugees' right to return to their former villages inside Israel.
...
Earlier this week, representatives of various Palestinian political factions held an emergency meeting in Ramallah to discuss the Nussaibeh-Ayalon initiative. At the meeting, speakers condemned the peace plan, describing it as a "suspicious" move that contradicts the national positions of the Palestinians.

A statement issued at the end of the meeting by the National and Islamic Forces, a coalition of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other political factions, said the plan was aimed at "dealing a blow to the PLO's political program by giving up the sacred right of return."

The Nussaibeh-Ayalon plan is far from sufficient to secure Israel's basic needs, for it entails returning to the June 4, 1967, borders and evacuating all the Jewish communities in Yesha. But even this plan, because it requires that the Arabs forego the "right of return" fiction, is too much for the Arabs of Yesha, and not just any "Arabs of Yesha" but for the "coatlition of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other political factions" (isn't that everybody?)

Under these circumstances, what meaning does the vaunted Roadmap have?

In this context, a reference to the issue of the "Palestinian" security forces warrants reiteration (the issue was mentioned in an earlier IsraPundit piece). In an article entitled "Abbas appoints Dahlan as acting Interior Minister", JPost reports today (May 7, 2003) that

Arafat wants to keep control of the security services and therefore created the new National Security Council, headed by himself, which is not under the control of the interior minister.

The Americans had demanded that the PA reduce its many security services to three agencies under the control of the Interior Minister, but Arafat insisted on keeping five security bodies, placing three under his direct control and leaving only the Preventive Security and the Civilian Police under the control of the Interior Minister.

So far, Aratrash has got away with this violation of the Roadmap, just as he got away with a lifetime as a terrorist. What does that tell us about the way the Arabs in Yesha are welcoming peace?

In a second related news story, AP reports today (May 7, 2003) that

[I]n an interview broadcast late Tuesday on Palestine television, new Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said he could not drop the Palestinian demand [the "right of return"].

Abbas, a refugee himself, said, "The refugees issue is for the final status. Keep it there and we will discuss it.

"Why would I drop the right of return for refugees? It is not my right to drop it."

If, as abu Mazen says, the "right of return" is not his "right to drop", then what is there to discuss now or ever???

Is the Quartet willfully blind or outright evil?

Saudi Arabia: The pendulum swings

If you want to know what is going on read this article in Asia Times

KARACHI - The road map for peace in the Middle East envisages as a final destination an independent Palestinian state. But along the way, it will also certainly call for the curtailment of organizations such as Hamas and the Islamic Jehad, which in turn will put pressure on the main sponsor of these groups, Saudi Arabia.

Over the past few months, sections of the Saudi media, some circles of the royal family and the clergy and intellectuals have speculated that after Iraq, the US is determined to bring Saudi Arabia to heel.

[...] Political analysts believe that this development has deep significance. Washington has already compelled Syria to sever its links with the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian organizations. But Saudi Arabia's case is different. Being the most holy land of Muslims around the world, it would be difficult for the US to deal with Saudi Arabia as it has with Syria - with threats of war.

Nevertheless, the US has already mounted pressure on Saudi Arabia to sever its financial ties with Hamas and other Palestinian groups. It is a demand which the US knows will be hard for the country to accept, let alone implement.

It is an open secret that apart from the state treasury, mosque collections, personal funds of Saudi princes and individual donations by rich Saudi sheiks are the main source of finance for the Palestinian intifada. Once the US troops leave Saudi Arabia, the religious segment of Saudi society can be expected to be more outspoken. MORE

Why Peace Can’t Work

Arnold Beichman (originally in NRO)characterises the criminal pedagogy of Isreal's peace partners, taking off from the magisterial piece by Sofaer which IsraPundit refered to already in its time.

"The latest issue of Commentary magazine leads with an article by Abraham Sofaer about the dicey future of Arab-Israeli negotiations. It is a sober recital by the State Department's former legal adviser of the obstacles that stand in the way of a permanent peace. In his article, Sofaer describes the Palestine educational system as "an abomination." He writes:

Palestinian children are taught mendacious versions of their own history as well as of Jewish culture, history and beliefs. Generations have been fed on propaganda that denies the legitimacy of the state of Israel while simultaneously glorifying intolerance, fanaticism and "martyrdom."

And not only Palestinian children but children in Syrian schools from fourth grade up are taught:

Zionism is really a form of colonialism similar to Nazism. Zionism endangers the Arab world and prevents its unification. Israel, an aggressive and expansionist enemy, is responsible for the backwardness of the Arab world. When they grow up they must engage in jihad against Israel and seek martyrdom — meaning, of course, suicide attacks. Real peace with Israel would be treason. Arab leaders who negotiate with Israel are spies and traitors. Even outside of Israel, Jews are a menace and should be exterminated.

If the above sentences sounds incredible half-a-century after the Holocaust, let me quote in translation from a textbook called Islamic Education for the Tenth Grade, 1999-2000, page 116:

The logic of justice obligates the application of the single verdict [on the Jews] from which there is no escape; namely, that their criminal intentions be turned against them and that they be exterminated. The duty of Muslims of our time is to pull themselves together, unite their ranks, and wage war on their enemy until Allah hands down his judgment on them and us.

What needs saying is that no peace is possible between the two adversaries — road map or no — so long as the Arab nations insist, as they have been doing for generations, on teaching their children that hatred of Jews and suicide bombing is serving Allah. If the Arabs leaders were looking forward to a peaceful, negotiable resolution of the half-century conflict would Syrian school textbooks be peddling anti-Semitism?

From textbook brain-washing to the "real world": In an interview published November 10, 1974, in the Washington Post, Yasser Arafat told Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist: The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediators...We don't want peace; we want victory. Peace for us means Israel's destruction and nothing else.

That is what Arafat and his new Cabinet members believed yesterday, believe today, and will continue to believe in the unforeseeable future. Would Arafat today repudiate his quote? And if he did, who would believe him? In fact, could any Arab leader today repudiate Arafat's words?

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, with or without "road maps," with or without U.S. mediation, promise only retreat and the eventual disappearance of Israel because the demands on Israel will never end. After all, what can you expect when First Lady Suha Arafat publicly accuses Israel of polluting air and water with "toxic gases" so as to cause cancer among Palestinian women and children. Mrs. Arafat's husband and Palestine Authority official were at that moment engaging in "peace" negotiations with these well poisoners.

Is Bashar al-Assad, the new Syrian dictator, going to repudiate the anti-Israeli racism imparted to three generations of schoolchildren? Is he going to tell them everything's changed: No more jihad; that making peace with Israel is in accord with Allah's teachings? His Baathist dictatorship rests on the enduring enmity between Syria and Israel. Sofaer quotes al-Assad as saying, "Even if peace is accomplished Israel will not be a legitimate state."

Not until Egypt President Anwar Sadat made the first move after the 1973 Yom Kippur War did peace loom as a distinct Middle East possibility. Sadat was rewarded for his efforts with a return by Israel of the Sinai, three times the size of Israel, and a few years later by his assassination in 1981. And there have been three assassination attempts against Sadat's successor, President Hosni Mubarak.

Arab intransigence is the insoluble important question and it will not change. After all, the Palestinians' annual "Palestine Prize for Culture" was recently presented to Abu Daoud for his recent memoir in which he detailed how he masterminded the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. .

George Santayana once said: "All problems are divided into two classes, soluble questions, which are trivial and important questions which are insoluble."

(Arnold Beichman, a Hoover Institution research fellow, is a columnist for the Washington Times. All emphases added)

Arab dailies angry at Israel

Good for laughs. Arabic newspapers have lashed Israel as it celebrates its 55th anniversary of independence, as well as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for sending congratulations. They also continue to criticise the United States' actions in Iraq. An assortment of camel dung passing for journalism.

Message from PM Ariel Sharon to the Diaspora Communities on the Occasion of the State of Israel's 55th Independence Day



On the occasion of Yom Ha'atzmaut, it is my great pleasure and privilege to send you greetings from Jerusalem, the eternal and undivided capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Fifty-five years ago, the State of Israel was forged in struggle. Since then, we have built an independent Jewish democracy, making great strides in fields such as medicine, technology, agriculture and the arts while simultaneously fighting for our existence. Our cities have flourished, and we have absorbed millions of immigrants - from 102 countries - who conduct their lives in Hebrew, the ancient language of the Bible. From these accomplishments we derive the strength and resilience to persevere, even in the face of challenge and adversity.

The future of the Jewish people rests on our combined shoulders. With our common history, heritage and mission as our guide, we are certain to achieve even greater heights in the future. I call upon each of you to personally take part in the Zionist enterprise - by making Aliyah and joining us here. Aliyah is vital to the continued existence, growth and prosperity of Israel. Together, we will succeed in bringing peace and security to our nation and homeland.

Mazal Tov and Chag Sameach.

Ariel Sharon

On the Road Again

Iraqis reclaim homes from Palestinian refugees

Some of these poor Palestinains sorely miss the handouts for killing Israelis that were part of Saddam's welfare program!

After nearly a lifetime, Ahmed Issa is a refugee again.

Just a child when his parents arrived in Iraq from what was called Palestine in 1948, the former sweets maker has relied on charity of the Iraqi government, which gave him and thousands of other Palestinian refugees free housing and other benefits.

The subsidies never lifted them above poverty, yet were enough to make a life in an adopted country.

Saddam Hussein forced thousands of mostly poor Iraqis to give up their homes to Palestinians. And now, since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces April 9, hundreds of Iraqis who have waited a generation to reclaim homes commandeered by Saddam's Baath party, have begun knocking on their old doors, some with assault rifles in hand, to evict Palestinians with no place else to go.

As a result, Issa has taken up residence in a former Baath party building in a Baghdad neighborhood of brick apartment buildings and trash-strewn streets that is the center of the Palestinian diaspora in Iraq.

The building was once a high school; the room Issa shares with his wife and four grown children was a classroom.

A tent city has sprung up on a soccer field four blocks away to accommodate 285 other Palestinian families who have lost homes in a month of score-settling with the Baath government. About 1,000 Palestinians in all have lost their homes.

"Iraqis always envied us because they heard Saddam was helping us, was protecting us, was paying for us," Issa said. "It was really nothing, just a speech."

Many Arab leaders welcomed Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948, extending them charity and speaking out internationally on their behalf.

Saddam, whose pan-Arab-nationalist Baath party took over in 1968, did more, casting himself as an example in the Arab world, creating a civilian militia he said was dedicated to retaking Jerusalem and harboring at least two Palestinians the United States considered to be terrorists.

During the current uprising against Israel, he funneled payments to the families of Palestinians killed in the violence, including suicide bombers.

"He used the Palestinians for his own political purposes, and they are as a result associated with Saddam's rule," said Peter Bouckaert, a senior researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"The coalition as the occupying force is responsible for the protection of the civilian population, and this goes for the Palestinians," he said. "The problem is the Palestinians have no place to go. No one wants to take them."

Many Palestinians settled here in homes built under Abdul Karim Kasim, an army officer who overthrew the monarchy in 1958. Those accommodations changed after the Baath party took power and began making Iraqis an offer they could not safely refuse: give up homes to Palestinians in return for paltry rents from the government.

There are no precise figures on how many Palestinians live in Iraq; estimates range from 40,000 to twice that, most of whom live in Baghdad.

Nearly all are sons and daughters of the original Palestinian refugees. Khalid Yusef Moussa, 40, a house painter, is one.

Moussa, his wife and four small children share a tent on a soccer field since his home's former owner knocked on his door in the New Baghdad neighborhood a day after U.S. troops entered the city. They asked him to leave immediately. Moussa had lived there for 13 years.

"I blame America," he said. "At least Saddam gave us a home, some security. I am hoping to leave this place now and head back to Palestine."

Good fences make good neighbors--Robert Frost

ISRAEL’S ARAB MINORITY: Feeling economically isolated, Israeli Arabs reach out to Jews

[...]For some Israeli Arabs, however, the reality of the fence is motivating them to try to mend fences with the Jewish majority: As Israel celebrates its 55th birthday this week, some Israeli Arabs appear to have rediscovered their Israeli identity.

Two and a half years ago, days after the Palestinian intifada began, residents rampaged at the entrance to Umm el-Fahm, cutting the major Wadi Ara traffic artery and assaulting drivers who appeared Jewish.

Since then, Jews have avoided Umm el-Fahm, not patronizing its restaurants, discount furniture stores and olive oil shops. In fact, Israeli Jews largely avoid Arab areas anywhere in the Galilee since the October 2000 riots.

With an upsurge of terror attacks along the Wadi Ara road and in the neighboring Jewish towns of Afula and Hadera, local Arabs also have cut down on visits to their Jewish neighbors, avoiding the unpleasantness of feeling like suspects. As a result, the two populations are growing further apart.

Some Israeli politicians have suggested that as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians, Umm el-Fahm should be handed over to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for West Bank settlements that would be annexed to Israel.

That set alarm bells in Umm el-Fahm ringing nervously. Though the strength of the Islamic Movement has made Umm el-Fahm nearly synonymous in recent years with anti-Israel radicalism, most residents — like the vast majority of Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens — would prefer to be a minority in the Jewish state than to live under the Palestinian Authority.

Thus, even though the new fence cuts them off from their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank, many Israeli Arabs welcomed it. Perhaps, they said, it means the government didn’t really consider turning them over to the Palestinian Authority after all.

There is a general consensus here that the fence is a good idea, said Kassem Zeid, a retired journalist, at his home in the eastern suburbs of Umm el-Fahm.

Kassem still fears that the idea of a future territorial exchange between Israel and Palestine may be revived. That’s why he and a group of some 20 friends are working on a new campaign designed to mend relations with the Jews.

The group meets once a month in a private residence to work out the details.

Eventually they want to call a news conference under the title “Umm el-Fahm greets its Jewish neighbors.” [more]

Job opening?

Senior Hamas Activist Killed In Explosion Near Shechem

A senior Hamas activist, Amin Menzlaui, died this morning in an explosion in a village near Shechem. The IDF had no comment on the event but Palestinian sources suggested that it was most likely a ‘work accident’ that took place while working with explosives.

Israel news: links to 10 articles

UC Berkeley program funded by Saudis with links to terrorism


Middle Eastern Studies Program accepted significant funds from groups linked to terrorism

UC Berkeley administrators ignored reports yesterday that a campus Middle Eastern studies program has accepted significant funds from groups and individuals linked to terrorism by the US State Department.

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies runs two programs whose stated missions are to increase “understanding of Islam and of Muslim peoples and cultures in the United States and around the world.” But those programs are funded by a Saudi businessman and a member of the Saudi royal family who the State Department maintains are responsible for funneling money to groups that sponsor terrorism.

The center’s Sultan Program is named for and funded by Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud, the second deputy prime minister of Saudi Arabia. Al Saud has been implicated as having a direct hand in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and is currently a defendant in the $1 trillion class action lawsuit filed by the families of the attacks’ victims.

“At best, Prince Sultan (al Saud) was grossly negligent in the oversight and administration of charitable funds, knowing they would be used to sponsor international terrorism, but turning a blind eye,” states the brief filed by the victims’ attorneys. “At worst, Prince Sultan directly aided and abetted and materially sponsored al Qaeda and international terrorism.”

Al Saud, also the Saudi minister of defense, chairs the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, charged with reviewing and granting aid requests from Islamic organizations. Since Al Saud has administered charitable giving for the kingdom, it has funded organizations the federal government and UN have acknowledged aid and abet terrorism. They include the International Islamic Relief Organization, al-Haramain, Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth.

Al Saud was publicly thanked for his contributions to the International Islamic Relief Organization by the organization’s secretary general just 10 months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

That organization has been connected with the funding of al Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It has also been directly linked with the 1993 World Trade Center Bombings, plots to assassinate former President Clinton and the Pope, as well as plans to destroy the Lincoln Tunnel and Brooklyn Bridge. It is headed by Mohammed Khalifa, Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law who the federal government has branded a principal leader of global terrorism.

“Beginning with the Gulf War, Prince Sultan took radical stands against western countries and publicly supported and funded several Islamic charities that were sponsoring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda operations,” the brief states.

Al Saud is among the primary defendants in the case which alleges the named defendants’ financial and material support “are what allowed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 to occur.”

University administrators declined to comment on the connections between the center’s benefactors and terrorism. But the vice chair of the center did acknowledge the programs receive funding from Al Saud and another organization with ties to terrorism. Vice Chair Emily Gottreich said the majority of the center’s funding comes from the US Department of Education, but university officials refused to turn budget documents to the Patriot yesterday.[more]

How the West is being misinformed - an example based on Intifada II

Synopsis

Over the years, anti-Israel propaganda has scored two major victories: it has infected Western thinking with anti-Israel notions (e.g., the existence of a "Palestinian nation" with "inalienable rights"), and it has impsosed its terminology as the basis of Western discourse (e.g., "occupied territories", "illegal settlements").

The object of this article is to provide one example, culled from the British Telegraph, to illustrate the insidious ways in which Western media are biassing the minds of people against Israel. The example refers to the way the Telegraph presents Intifada II, with no reference either to the Israeli narrative or to facts known to all. The Telegraph has been chosen because it may be classified among the less biassed of the European media outlets.

In laying out the "alternative view" about Intifada II, this article includes the perspective given in Bodansky's book, The High Cost of Peace. The article concludes with the implication vis-a-vis the Roadmap.

Links to CAMERA and Honest Reporting, as well as selected other references, are given at the article's end; the links provide both analyses and numerous examples of anti-Israel distortions by the media.


...And now, the detials

In what perports to be an objective resource for researching the Middle East, the Telegraph states about the way Intifada II broke out [bold font added]:

28 September 2000
Violence flares in the Old City of Jerusalem after a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque complex by the Israeli Likud leader Ariel Sharon. Mr Sharon is unpopular with Palestinians because of his role in the massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He has also been heavily involved in the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

The second Intifada begins
The following six days see Palestinian protests against the visit and a brutal military response by Israel in which 58 Palestinians are killed. Gun battles erupt between Palestinian police and Israeli armed forces as the violence escalates into a full scale Palestinian uprising.

Readers of this site probably know all too well that the allegations in this Telegraph piece are ludicrous (to be fair, the Telegraph did get the date, September 28, right...). What is most troubling, however, is the fact that the Israeli perspective on the story is not even mentioned, let alone given equal presentation. For the record, therefore, here is the Israeli viewpoint about Intifada II.

First, let us refer to the Mitchell Report of May 4, 2001. Even this virulently anti-Israel document concludes quite unequivocally that:

The Sharon visit did not cause the Al-Aksa Intifada.

Mitchell Bard's "Myths and Facts" adds the following information on this particular point:

Internal Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami permitted Sharon to go to the Temple Mount - Judaism’s holiest place - only after calling Palestinian security chief Jabril Rajoub and receiving his assurance that if Sharon did not enter the mosques, no problems would arise. The need to protect Sharon arose when Rajoub later said that the Palestinian police would do nothing to prevent violence during the visit.

Sharon did not attempt to enter any mosques and his 34 minute visit to the Temple Mount was conducted during normal hours when the area is open to tourists. Palestinian youths - eventually numbering around 1,500 - shouted slogans in an attempt to inflame the situation. Some 1,500 Israeli police were present at the scene to forestall violence.

There were limited disturbances during Sharon's visit, mostly involving stone throwing. During the remainder of the day, outbreaks of stone throwing continued on the Temple Mount and in the vicinity, leaving 28 Israeli policemen injured, three of whom were hospitalized. There are no accounts of Palestinian injuries on that day. Significant and orchestrated violence was initiated by Palestinians the following day following Friday prayers.

Well, if it was not Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, what did ignite Intifada II?

Before we examine the tangled web that provides the answer, one should note the extraordinary skill of anti-Israel propaganda, aided and abetted by the the willing collaborators in mainstream media. While the picture, as will be presented below, is complex, the Arabs adopted a simple line, so well suited to the mentality of a Sesame Street world: "Sharon did it".

On December 28, 2000, Israel presented a well-documented statement to the SHARM EL-SHEIKH FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE which looked into the situation of Intifada II. The government of Israel stated:

118. The immediate catalyst for the violence of late September 2000 was the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations on 25 July 2000 and the widespread appreciation in the international community of Palestinian responsibility for the impasse. The violence was part of a planned campaign by the Palestinian leadership to recapture the diplomatic initiative. As Abu-Ali Mustafa, a member of the Palestinian Authority, stated on 23 July 2000, even before the final breakdown of the Camp David negotiations:

"The issues of Jerusalem, the refugees and sovereignty are one and will be finalised on the ground and not in negotiations. At this point it is important to prepare Palestinian society for the challenge of the next step because we will inevitably find ourselves in a violent confrontation with Israel in order to create new facts on the ground. ... I believe that the situation in the future will be more violent than the Intifada."

119. As this statement indicates, there was, within senior figures in the Palestinian leadership, a clear view, even in the very midst of the Camp David negotiations, that a violent confrontation with Israel was necessary "in order to create new facts on the ground". Violence was part of the agenda - notwithstanding all the commitments to the contrary in the agreements concluded since September 1993. The Palestinian dilemma, even prior to Camp David, was whether to engage with Israel in a serious attempt to address the issues that divided the two sides or to pursue a strategy which would lay the groundwork for a violent confrontation aimed at creating "new facts on the ground".

Mitchell Bard adds:

Imad Faluji, the Palestinian Authority Communications Minister, admitted months after Sharon's visit that the violence had been planned in July, far in advance of Sharon's "provocation." "It [the uprising] had been planned since Chairman Arafat's return from Camp David, when he turned the tables on the former U.S. president and rejected the American conditions."

The violence started before Sharon's September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount. The day before, for example, an Israeli soldier was killed at the Netzarim Junction. The next day in the West Bank city of Kalkilya, a Palestinian police officer working with Israeli police on a joint patrol opened fire and killed his Israeli counterpart.

To this point, the evidence presented indicates that Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount had nothing to do with Intifada II; rather, the riots broke out as part of Arafat's well-crafted strategy to extort from Israel what could not be extorted at the negotiation table.

The complete picture, however, is even more complex. The most comprehensive elucidation is given by Yossef Bodansky in his book,

Yossef Bodansky. The High Cost of Peace. New York: Random House (Forum), 2002. See especially Ch 15-19.

(Among his credentials, Bodansky includes: director of the Congressional Task force on Terrorism; director of research, International Strategic Studies Association; senior consultant for the US Departments of Defense and State; senior editor of publications and author of eight books.)

As gleaned from Bodansky’s book, the background to Intifada II is the following (in order to enable readers to verify the statements made below, I have included numbers in prentheses, which refer to the pages in Bodansky's book).

During the first half of the year 2000, Arafat reviewed his strategy, noting, in particular, the unilateral Israeli retreat from Lebanon in May, 2000 (p. 306). Arafat had already come to a decision to renew the terrorist war against Israel, appointing Dahlan and Barghouti to make the necessary preparations in Gaza and Judea/Samaria, respectively. For example, what was supposed to be a "Palestinian police force" was re-organized in military formations with military training; this had been accomplished by April 2000, five months prior to Intifada II.

Later in 2000, Arafat and other Arab leaders perceived other weakness in Israeli society, e.g., a split between Barak and the military establishment, severe economic problems, and internal Leftist pressure for concessions. The conclusion was that inflicting further casualties on Israel would bring her to heel, especially if an armed conflict were accompanied by the usual petro-blackmail against the West; the evident Clinton pressure on Israel contributed to this assessment (pp. 348-350).

Arafat's short-term objectives were to use Israel's weakness in order to foment a "war of independence" or a regional war (aided by Iraq), from which a "Palestinian" state would arise (p. 307).

While the Clinton administration pressured Israel to make progressively more and more concessions, Arafat's Intifada was engaged in terrorist acts, such as the Arab assault on May 8 on IDF positions in Rachel's tomb and Ayosh junction. On May 15, 2000, Nabka Day, official PA forces opened fire on Israeli positions all over Judea, Samaria and Gaza, while mobs attacked Israeli positions such as Ayosh junction. On May 18, Arab terrorist groups, including Arafat's Tanzim, called for two "days of rage" (pp. 310-311). These facts alone are sufficient to debunk the Sharon connection to the Intifada, but what makes the proof even more decisive is the fact that the bouts of Arab violence began and ceased in a well-orchestrated manner, indicating a planned operation.

From this phase of the intifada, Arafat learnt that his basic strategy was sound: because of to the media, the Intifada mobilized the world against Israel and led to increased US pressure on Israel. At the same time that Israel was being demoralized - recall the unilateral retreat from concurrent Labanon - Arafat was forging links with Hizbollah in anticipation of the big blow he planned for September (p. 313). Military preparations were also accelerated.

In July, Clinton convened the Camp David summit; in view of Arafat's strategy to gain a state through violence, and to enshrine the right of return in his state's constitution, it is clear why an agreement could not have possibly been reached; indeed, the Summit was discontinued on July 25, 2000 (p. 318). Bodansky's assessment (p. 320):

Arafat had never had a "national agenda" in Western terms. His sacred objective throughout was the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Muslim state in its stead.

Upon his return from Camp David, Arafat accelerated the Intifada preparations, mobilizing his troops and escalating the incitement with Fatwas and calls for jihad (p. 324). Links with Hizbollah, Syria and Iran were also strengthened (p. 326), and links with al Qaeda initiated (p. 328); indeed, on August 21, 2000, Israel announced the arrest of 23 terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda.

In mid-September, well before Sharon's visit to al Aksa on September 28, Arafat issued the order to resume hostilities and escalate them gradually. Ambushes and firing on Israelis became routine. For example, the Nezarim Junction saw Arab violence continually as of September 17; on September 27, Arab terrorists, aided by the PA, used road bombs (p. 351).

And thus, when Sharon visited Temple Mount, with the express consent of the PA, Intifada II was already ongoing, contrary to anti-Israel claims, and in accordance with Arafat’s laid down plan.

Bodansky's thoroughly-documented narrative raises a serious question in relation to the Roadmap. Inasmuch as Arafat is still at the helm, and inasmuch as Arafat still controls five armed terrorist groups, why would one assume that Arafat will cease pursuing his objectives - a Palestinian state through violence, to replace Israel - with the same vigour that led to Intifada II? And in this case, what is the meaning of the Roadmap other than the obliteration of Israel?

This article began with a quotation from the Telegraph's distorted, biassed presentation of Intifada II. For numerous additional examples of anti-Israel distortions by the media, as well as for analyses, see:

1. CAMERA

2. Honest Reporting

3. For an article concerning distortions in Israel's Leftist Ha'Aretz, see IMRA.

4. For an examination of "Why the Media Habitually Side with the Palestinians", see Front Page Mag article by Erick Stakelbeck, January 30, 2003.

5. For an article about Thomas Friedman specifically, see "Fighting Tom Friedman", By Caroline B. Glick.

6. For an article about the media war in general, see a JIA article, 27 January 2003, by Chuck Chriss.

7. For a lifetime research on the topic, check out google under “media and bias and Israel” - over 95,000 links appear.

May 1948 - May 2003





Today is Israel's 55th birthday.

On May 14th, 1948, David Ben Gurion proclaimed Israel's Declaration of Independence, which stated, inter alia:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
...
WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

Israel has lived up to her mandate of being open "for the Ingathering of the Exiles": manifestly, Israel has provided a safe haven for Jews coming from such diverse countries as Ethiopia, the former USSR, and many Arab countries. A democratic lilly in a field of despotic weeds, Israel has also lived up to to her promise to "guarantee freedom", notwithstanding 55 years of constant war. Israel is nothing less than a miracle; may she flourish, prosper and thrive.

Iraqi Documents on Israel Surface on a Cultural Hunt


Judith Miller writes in today's NY TImes:

In one huge room in the flooded basement of the building, American soldiers from MET Alpha, the "mobile exploitation team" that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months, found maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991. Another map of Israel highlighted what the Iraqis thought were the locations at which their Scud missiles had struck in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. The strikes were designated by yellow-and-red paper flowers placed atop the pinpointed Israeli neighborhoods.

Team members floated out of the room a perfect mock-up of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, as well as mock-ups of downtown Jerusalem and official Israeli buildings in very fine detail. They also collected a satellite picture of Dimona, Israel's nuclear complex, and a female mannequin dressed in an Israeli Air Force uniform, standing in front of a list of Israeli officers' ranks and insignia.

Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a "top secret" intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a "holy warrior" to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations "sanctions situation." But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time. [more]

Most Important: Nethanyau On The Map

The following is the last exchange in an interview with Nethanyahu published by today's JPOST and revolving, in the main, around the economic situation.

"Turning to diplomacy, it seems that the road map is gaining momentum. What's your view?

There's no illusion on the government table about who we're dealing with. That's why there's a consensus that we must agree on several things. First, not only the momentary cessation suspension of terror - but real action on the part of the Palestinian Authority against the sources of terror. Second, we have to see that any political process is accompanied by an a priori recognition of the Palestinians of our right to exist as a Jewish state, and the abandonment on their part on this so-called right of return, which means the destruction of Israel. Third, it's important, if those two conditions are met, and if we can engage in a political process, to ensure that the Palestinian entity, whatever its configuration, does not enjoy those powers that can endanger the one and only Jewish state, which means limitations on certain sovereign powers, for example the importation of weapons through third perimeters would be in our hands, and the airspace would be in our hands as well.

These are the principles that I think are agreed upon by the prime minister, by the ministers, and I think will serve us well if we stick to them. And there's no reason not to. I think the American people and administration understand these fears a lot better than they did a year ago. We need these measures to make sure we don't fall in a trap; Oslo was bad enough."

Action: Vote on six crucial issues

The website of Mesora has put up a voting facility concerning six important questions. Your vote is needed. Please visit the site and vote.

Israel Throws Mideast 'Road Map' in Doubt

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threw a U.S.-backed peace plan into doubt Tuesday, saying the Palestinians must drop their demand for Arab refugees' "right of return" to Israel if negotiations are to proceed.

Israel has always objected to the right of return for about 4 million Arabs who fled the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948, but never made renouncing the demand a condition for peace talks before.

The new Mideast plan unveiled by Washington last week says the fate of the refugees will be negotiated in the third and final stage of the so-called "road map." The right of return is a cornerstone of Palestinian policy.

But Sharon told Israel Radio the renunciation by Palestinians "is something Israel insists on and sees it as a condition for continuing the process." The interview marked Israel's Independence Day celebrations.

Israeli officials said the renunciation would have to come before creation of a provisional Palestinian state in the second of the plan's three phases.

The Palestinians already have accepted the road map, which seeks to end 31 months of bloody Mideast violence and lead to a peaceful resolution of the Israel-Arab conflict.

Israel refuses to take blame for the consequences of the two-year war after its creation, when Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish state and about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.

Sharon called the right of return "a recipe for the destruction of Israel," because it would flood Israel with Arabs. Statistics released on the eve of Independence Day showed there are now 5.4 million Jews and 1.3 million Arabs in Israel.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said Sharon is stalling and trying to kill the plan.

"I think the end game here of Mr. Sharon is trying to extend the time until the American election in order to avoid implementation of any the provisions of the road map," Erekat said.

Sharon said that in the coming days, there would be another discussion in Washington over the 15 objections Israel has raised, delaying the start of the process.

Israel demands that before anything else is done, all Palestinian attacks must cease. The United States says steps must be taken in parallel — Palestinians working to stop attacks and Israel easing restrictions and halting Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza.

Sharon confirmed in the radio interview that he had turned down overtures from Syrian President Bashar Assad to resume peace negotiations. He said Syria was trying to ease pressure from the United States to close the offices of extremist Palestinian groups and to stop supporting guerrillas in Lebanon. [more]

Tel Aviv bombing trail leads to Damascus

Here is the non-subscribers portion of Jane's.com [intelligence]

At around 1.00am local time on April 30, Asif Mohammed Hanif, 21, detonated an explosive suicide belt at the entrance to the popular Tel Aviv waterfront café, 'Mike's Place', killing himself and three Israelis. His alleged accomplice, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, is said to have fled the scene after failing to activate another explosive-packed vest. Israeli police immediately launched a nationwide manhunt for Sharif, who at the time of writing remains at large. However, Israeli security sources who spoke to JTIC this weekend have acknowledged that Sharif may already have left the country. Both Hanif and Sharif are almost certainly UK nationals.

The attack was the first time a non-Palestinian has carried out a suicide bombing in Israel.

"Sharif appears to be quite resourceful for a someone planning to commit suicide and who had no getaway plan," a senior Israeli security source said. "After realising that there was a malfunction in his explosive charge he immediately dropped the belt and while running away from the scene he managed to snatch a purse from a citizen, probably to obtain some cash. This is the behavior of a well-trained person, rather than a naive ideologist, who managed to hide and escape in a foreign country," the source claimed.

Israeli Intelligence sources allege that Hanif and Sharif first met one another in Damascus. Hanif, believed to have been activated there, arrived in Damascus for the last time five months ago, while Sharif was alleged to have been activated in the UK and traveled to Syria in March. The men were met in Damascus by Hamas representatives, Israeli intelligence claims, but received training from another group, possibly Hizbullah or Al-Qaeda.

The explosives used in the bombing were also prepared in Syria, Israeli intelligence believes, but were probably brought into Israel by a third party. JTIC has learned that the explosive content of the devices was a rare form of plastic explosive nicknamed 'datasheet'. When flattened into thin leaves and disguised as pages of a book, this form of explosive is completely undetectable by X-ray machines and is difficult to identify even with a trained eye.

The Tel Aviv attack, if shown to have been planned and directed out of Damascus, comes at an inconvenient time for the Syrian government, which is trying to soothe damaged relations with the US. While US Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated that the Syrians have reported shutting down the offices of some terrorist organisations, Israeli intelligence sources have long argued that no such action has in fact been taken.

The traditional Syrian position is that Damascus hosts only the political offices of a number of groups which they deem to be legitimate 'resistance' organisations. However Israel has claimed that Syria's involvement extends to the hosting of offices and training camps for at least six terrorist outfits both on Syrian soil and in Lebanon.

Arafat’s Road Map

Catoonists Cox and Forkum present "Arafat's Road Map"

The mega-historical context for our Map

Robert wistrich, a history scholar, has a very judicious assessment of the global context in which the "mapology" takes its fuller sense. In essence, all depends on the "Arab world" finally deciding between loosing itself in sterile anti-americanism cum anti -semistism and... entering bravely upon the path to modernity. Read it.

A Roadmap to Peace: With Whom?

This Front Page Magazine article says that many arabs in the region simply do not want peace with Israel but instead want to continue terror activities. History is invoked to show this to be the case till now, with the implication that those who do not learn from history will want to relive it

The proposed “roadmap to peace” in the Middle East has an intrinsic unknown. Peace must involve at least two parties. On one side we have the Israelis who are genuinely interested in peace, but who is on the other side? With whom are the Israeli supposed to make peace? Unfortunately, it cannot be the “Palestinians” Arabs because such a “peace” would be meaningless. The “Palestinian” Arabs, under their current political leadership are not a stable, politically independent entity with which a long-term peace can be made. We have witnessed the wrangling between Arafat and his hand picked Prime Minister who is still lacking the necessary authority to make meaningful political commitments. Mahmoud Abbas certainly does not meet the expectations laid out explicitly by President Bush in his speech of June 24, 2002.

To create a new Arab state, irrespective if its borders are permanent or temporary, with sole purpose of having a legitimate partner for tenuous peace negotiations with some local Arabs seems unreasonable. It would be interpreted in the Arab world as a reward for indiscriminant brutal terror, and an encouragement for continued terror against the State of Israel. In any case it is unlikely to eliminate Arab terror. Even if the “Palestinian” leadership changed significantly, which it does not seem to do, and the Arabs in the “disputed territories” eliminated their terrorist organizations to form a genuinely demilitarized state, which does not yet seem in the cards, Israel would remain the target for Arab terror and potential Arab military aggression. Would there have been a difference if Hammas’ headquarter in Gaza were closed and Hammas terrorists arrived then from the UK with British passports and blew themselves up near a nightclub, as it just happened in Tel Aviv?

Arab terror will continue as long as Arab Islamism maintains its grip on the Middle East, even after al-Queda was eradicated by the US, and Iraq was neutralized, at least for a while. Let us remember that many of the recent clashes between the IDF and the Arab terrorists are at the Egyptian border, which is the major conduit of military supplies for the “Palestinian” terror organizations. This flow of arms would not take place without the knowledge and support of the Egyptian leadership. The training of “Palestinian” terrorists in the Baka’a Valley and the supply of military materiel from Lebanon into Gaza would not have occurred without the active support of Iran and Syria. As these lines are written, in spite of US diplomatic pressure, the Syrians are still splitting hairs between terrorists killing Jews (seemingly sanctioned by Syria) and non-Jews. In brief, until the regional conflict between the Arab and Jewish nations is resolved, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, of any kind, might critically restrict Israel’s political maneuverability and military defensive options.

It seems now that even Collin Powell, who initiated the now dysfunctional “Quartet”, which the US State Department incorporated as a decisive element in its recently published “Roadmap,” realizes this. This is the reason for Powell’s current round of talks with the leaders in the surrounding Arab states before coming to discuss his “Roadmap” with the Israelis. The “Quartet” idea was part of Powell’s diplomatic strategy in an attempt to receive the UN’s endorsement to remove Saddam Hussein from power. That attempt failed miserably, as we all saw, and the non-American partners in the “Quartet” proved to be treacherous enemies of the United States in addition to their traditional animosity to the Jewish state.[more]

Half of an excellent article

Yesterday's NY Times almost featured a great article. Scott Atran's "Who wants to be a martyr?" started off with some very important debunking.

As logical as the poverty-breeds-terrorism argument may seem, study after study shows that suicide attackers and their supporters are rarely ignorant or impoverished. Nor are they crazed, cowardly, apathetic or asocial. If terrorist groups relied on such maladjusted people, "they couldn't produce effective and reliable killers," according to Todd Stewart, a retired Air Force general who directs the Ohio State University program in international and domestic security.

This point is not new. Daniel Pipes and others have made this point. Still given the numbers of "experts" asserting that suicide terrorism is the result of despair, it's important that this point be made repeatedly.

Unfortunately, Atran didn't dig nearly deep enough.

How do we combat these masters of manipulation? President Bush and many American politicans maintain that these groups and the people supporting them hate our democracy and freedoms. But poll after poll of the Muslim world shows opinion strongly favoring America's forms of government, personal liberty and education. A University of Michigan political scientist, Mark Tessler, finds Arab attitudes to American culture most favorable among young adults (regardless of their religious feeling) — the same population that recruiters single out.

It is our actions that they don't like: as long ago as 1997, a Defense Department report (in response to the 1996 suicide bombing of Air Force housing at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia) noted that "historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."

Shows of military strength don't seem to dissuade terrorists: witness the failure of Israel's coercive efforts to end the string of Palestinian suicide bombings. Rather, we need to show the Muslim world the side of our culture that they most respect. Our engagement needs to involve interfaith initiatives, not ethnic profiling. America must address grievances, such as the conflict in the Palestinian territories, whose daily images of violence engender global Muslim resentment.

Whereas Pipes notes that there is a need to have an extensive infrastructure behind the suicide terrorists, Atran ignores that. He simply wishes to blame the West for suicide terrorism.

But the terror doesn't happen on a whim. Hatred for the West (and Israel) is not based on our actions, but on who we are. I know that Atran dismisses that because Arabs have a great respect for American freedom. (And Israeli freedom.) But having respect for something doesn't rule out that it can be hated too.

The hatred toward Israel and toward the West that pervades Arab societies in the form of official propaganda. And that propaganda has so little to do with real American and Israeli actions. It is hate plain and simple. (Explain why a Saudi official would claim that Jews use the blood of non-Jews to bake Hamentaschen. It has nothing to do with any occupation.)

In order to give vent to that hatred, the PA has supervised the importation of weapons and explosives. Israel's military offensive has reduced the quantities of arms held by the terrorists as well as the channels of their distribution. Atran is wrong. Israel's efforts have reversed the violence. But the only way to defeat the terror is to stop the arms and stop the hatred.

Going toe-to-toe with Sharon about the Map

JPOST did well to add Sarah Honig to its team. Here she is going toe-to-toe with Israel's great General. And the results are not neccessarily those one would consider the most predictable.

"Ariel Sharon's favorite reply to critics surprised by his determined championship of a Palestinian state is that from his vantage point things look different.

But he already viewed the arena from the elevated prime ministerial perch when he stood over a long row of body bags at the Patt junction not too long ago. At his feet lay the motionless victims of yet another bus bombing on a weekday Jerusalem morning.

"Are these the people," he asked referring to Palestinian terror overlords "to whom you want to give a state?" His pained query was doubtlessly addressed to George W. Bush.

So what's happened since? Has his vantage point inconspicuously and inexplicably shifted? I put this question to a leading Likud politician, one of the very few in his party reputed to be really close to Sharon.

His take is that Sharon hasn't fundamentally changed but has opted for clever tactics to buy us all time. Why appear as the bad guy striving to stymie Bush's attempts to please the Europeans and appease seething Arabs?" (emphasis added).

Read the rest of it to consider whether we do not have here a ''penny-wise, pound-foolish" decision.

Pro-Palestinian 'activists' set up a mock check-point in Amsterdam.

To give it that touch of reality, that these 'activists' would like to deny, someone should have arrived as a mock suicide-bomber or mock sniper.

For Palestinian onlookers it was an emotional experience as it was performed with accuracy and detail, reliving the humiliation and frustration. For onlookers from other nationalities it was a learning experience. Many had no idea that Palestinians where treated so roughly, and felt betrayed by biased media coverage. They felt betrayed as they thought they where well informed. Others who were more informed told activists that they hoped for a fair and just peace. Many pro-Israeli onlookers shrugged angrily at the organizers, unwilling to fathom the bitter pill of confrontation. They chose to turn their backs and walk away.

So, when exactly does this group plan on recreating, for the Dutch, a realistic Palestinian classroom where children are told of the joys of muirdering Jews, or perhaps they can present a mock pizza parlor with realistic body parts of men women and children strewn about after the suicide bomber hits, or perhaps they can put the Dutch on busses and give them the experience of never knowing if the next person on might explode? Maybe they can give the Dutch trhe real experience of having hundreds of millions of neighbors who want nothing more than to wipe their nation off the face of the planet.

Cross-posted at Voice from the Commonwealth

Remembering Democracy's Guardians

Today being Israel's memorial day for the fallen soldeirs and the victims of terrorism, I find it appropriate to post the speech of Moshe Ya'alon, Cheif of the IDF General Staff in its entirety. Not out of respect for him, but for the emotions conveyed by his speechwriters at the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, of which I am a proud Alumnus.

Order of the Day of the IDF Chief of Staff, Lieut. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, for Remembrance Day

IDF Spokesperson 6 May 2003

Soldiers and officers of the Israel Defense Forces,

On Remembrance Day for Israel's fallen, the entire nation embraces in silence and pain, the meaning of its sons and daughters, soldiers of the IDF, who fell in the ongoing campaign for the existence of the State of Israel.

We remember all those who have fallen: their faces, their smile, always young, their activities and circumstances of their death. Their absence is ever present: among families whose longing and pain time cannot cure, among the units and soldiers at the IDF-who hurt the memory of our friends and comrades who fell, among the entire Israeli society where the loss of the best of its sons and daughters is evident in all walks of life and activity.

Even after fifty-five years of independence, our struggle for our basic right to live in peace and security has not ended. This year, these very days, the IDF, its units and soldiers, are still engaged in difficult, complex, and fateful fighting for our survival in this country and the region.

The memory of our friends who fell and their works are beacons for all of us. The Israel Defense Forces, its units and soldiers, will continue relentlessly to operate to assure the life, security and peace for the citizens of Israel and for the State of Israel, as long as required in the fighting that is totally justified.

On Remembrance Day, the IDF inclines its flags in love and pain, salutes the memory of our friends who fell, embraces the bereaved families and carries a prayer that the family of the bereaved will not grow. May the memory of the fallen be blessed.

May their memories be blessed, and may we see and end to this seemingly eternal war.

And Glory

Andrew Dodge who blogs at Sasha and Andrew's Rountable wrote a book And Glory that you might find interesting.

Mike's Place Update

Trust Fund For Victims Of The Terror Attack

We Have Set Up A Fund In Order To Raise Money For The Victims Of The Attack. This Fund Will Provide Assistance To People Such As Avi And Others Injured In The Attrocious Attack. It Will Also Finance A Memorial Which Will Be Placed Outside The Bar.

Please Give Generously!

You Can Make Money Transfers To The Following Accounts:

Account Name: Gavin Gross (Mikes Place Terror Fund)

Bank: Leumi, Basel Branch

Branch Number: 813

Account Number: 17294/73 (for shekel transfers)

Account Number for foreign currency: 17294/93

Or Mail Cheques In Any Currency To:

Gavin M. Gross.
Rehov Hashla 6/11
Tel Aviv 62283
Israel

All Cheques Will Be Cashed And Transferred To The Trust Fund.

If You Would Like To Discuss The Fund Prior To Transferring Money Please Call

Gavin M. Gross On 00972 54 544 245
Or E-Mail : Gavprop1@Netvision.Net.Il

Best Wishes To You All. Gavin

On Behalf Of The Mikes Place Family And Trust Fund.

....For those in the Toronto area, stay tuned for information on an upcoming benefit concert for the heroic Avi Taviv.

The Nakba and the RoachMap

Sometimes, one short news story encapsulates a complex problem better than a thousands analytical articles. This, I believe, is the case of a JPost article, 6 May 2003, entitled, "Palestinians to mark 55th anniversary of 'nakba' ", by KHALED ABU TOAMEH. The story reports:

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are planning a series of events on Independence Day, which they refer to as their nakba (catastrophe).

Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinians have marked this day with anti-Israel rallies and demonstrations. They have also used the occasion to educate children on the right of all refugees to return to their former villages and towns.
...
A number of Israeli left-wing groups are expected to participate in the events, which are held under the motto, "No Independence without Acceptance of Moral Responsibility and Recognition of the Debt[;] No Independence without a Just Solution of Return, Repatriation, and Restitution."

The events include, among other things, the broadcasting of special programs on Palestinian TV with the aim of raising awareness on the right of return.

Question: Is it possible to create a peaceful state for a population that considers their neighbours' state to constitute "Nakba"? This alone is sufficient to reduce the RoachMap to a risible farce.

Second question: the vast majority of Israelis, and anyone outside of Israel with a view on the matter, understands that the so-called "right of return" is a code terms for the extermination of Israel. How can there be any peace negotiations with an entity like the PA, the TV of which incites "with the aim of raising awareness on the right of return"?

And if anyone doubts the intentions of some segments of the Left to see Israel utterly destroyed, note the passage, A number of Israeli left-wing groups are expected to participate in the events, which are held under the motto, "No Independence without Acceptance of Moral Responsibility and Recognition of the Debt[;] No Independence without a Just Solution of Return, Repatriation, and Restitution."

Palestinians face their blood debt

This editorial in The Arizona Republic cuts right to the essence of the problem with peace in the ME

Keep your eye on this picture .

It will tell you all you need to know about the Middle East peace process. For there can be no peace so long as this picture remains so.

If Yasser Arafat, longtime leader of the Palestinian people, and Mahmoud Abbas, new prime minister of the Palestinian Parliament, continue to be photographed beaming in the company of each other, peace is doomed.

For if Abbas is genuine, if he truly abhors terror and dedicates himself to eradicating it, he must fight Arafat.

There is no other way. The road map to Middle East peace goes first through war, a war of Palestinians, their civil war.

Arafat will ultimately side with the terrorists, because he is one.

For years he has charmed the camera with his avuncular smile and big, open arms. But he is a killer of untold men, women and children, a founding father of a Palestinian society that is known for two things, its nurtured sense of grievance and its fanatic embrace of murder.

Arafat's launch of the second Intifada was a crime so heinous that one should never believe he can reform. He has not. He will not.

For six months I have told some Palestinian-Americans I admire that there will be no Palestinian state until there is a Palestinian civil war. And they've told me I'm crazy.

But terrorism has rooted itself deeply in the territories. Those who murder to effect political change do not slip comfortably into the dialogue and diplomacy of state. When they are pushed, they will kill. So they must be crushed.

The Palestinians now face their blood debt. They have so nurtured the pathology of martyrdom in their own communities that they must spill their own blood to be rid of it.

That happens only when enough of them understand they have nothing at the moment to offer Israel. When you talk to Palestinians, they want to catalogue the crimes of the Israeli Defense Forces, tell you about the humiliation of roadblocks and the madness of Ariel Sharon.

But so long as they obsess over the Israelis and the land they inhabit, the status quo remains. And the status quo does not stop Israel from educating its children, developing new industries, enjoying the historic trend of rising wealth. The status quo for Palestinians is rot - one more generation of children who waste their minds and waste their lives.

Nothing changes until the Palestinians realize the contours of the mind are more important than the contours of the land. Then they will do the terrible work ahead of destroying their terrorists and bringing something to the table that is tangible and of consequence.

Real security. Real peace. The beginnings of a deal and the cornerstone of a state.

The Palestinians who do that will be the first to see their children prosper.

Israel and The New Anti-Semitism

There's a really fascinating article in Dissent by Shalom Lappin that traces the origins of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on the left. It's lengthy, but a worthwhile read. He's a key paragraph:

A large part of the contemporary European left has inherited the liberal and revolutionary antipathy toward a Jewish collectivity, with Israel becoming the focus of this attitude. While acculturated Jewish intellectuals and progressive Jewish activists are held in high esteem, a Jewish country is treated as an illegitimate entity not worthy of a people whose history should have taught them the folly of nationalism. The current intifada is regarded as decisively exposing the bankruptcy not so much of a policy of occupation and settlement, but of the very idea of a Jewish polity, which could not but do otherwise than commit such misdeeds. These underlying attitudes are clearly expressed in Perry Anderson's extended editorial article "Scurrying towards Bethlehem" (New Left Review, July-August, 2001). Anderson is at pains to show Zionism as a nationalist movement begotten in the sin of collaboration with European colonialism and sustained by continuing involvement with American imperialism. He envisages the de-Zionization of Israel as a necessary condition for a reasonable solution to the conflict. Interestingly, the fact that Arab nationalism and the various states that emerged from it were also deeply involved with European colonialist ventures plays no part in his story. Moreover, he does not regard Palestinian nationalism in particular and Arab nationalism in general as problematic phenomena. The former is understood solely as the engine of a progressive movement for national liberation. It seems, then, that the reasonable demands for graduation to a postnationalist politics and for a critique of historical myths apply exclusively to Israeli Jews. Palestinians and other Arab nationalists are exempt from these requirements as their national movements are inherently progressive, even if occasionally misguided in their formulations.

Read it all

The “What” and the “Why” of the Road Map

The end game is what counts, the rest is diversion

The “What”

The Map has the primateur of the Quartet, suggesting that the members of the quartet are in agreement, where no agreement exists. At best the Map is an acknowledgement of what each side wants for their client states without reconciling the contradictory wants.

It also suggests that it is a joint effort when it is not. The US is obviously in control and has acted all along, like it is their Map, although prepared in consultation with the others. The others don’t share this view but can’t do otherwise but go along. The US thus released the Map at a time of their choosing, presented it themselves and will be solely responsible to make it happen.

The Map imposes certain requirements on Israel without its consent and puts in play certain principles that the Arabs want to argue, to the detriment of Israel.

Refugees

Take the issue of the refugees. The Israelis would prefer that it is not an issue. Putting it on the Map is in itself, a huge victory for the Arabs. To start with Res. 242 provides for “a just settlement of the refugee problem”. At the time of its passing the refugee problem included both Jewish and Arab refugees. This resolution was not binding. In the Oslo Accords, this resolution was accepted as a basis for negotiations. In Bush’s vision speech he said that we must resolve “the plight and future of Palestinian refugees”. This is a reformulation of Resolution 242 and omits reference to Jewish refugees and identifies the refugees as Palestinian as opposed to Arab.. One is left to wonder how this will colour negotiations.

The Map calls for a settlement in accordance with Bush’s June speech but goes further,

The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967, based on the foundations of the Madrid Conference, the principle of land for peace, UNSCRs 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously reached by the parties, and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah – endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit – calling for acceptance of Israel as a neighbour living in peace and security, in the context of a comprehensive settlement.

The only thing that is missing is the kitchen sink. None of these additional guidelines give Israel anything. They are all there for the benefit of the Arab’s and greatly impact Israel’s position. The Saudi Peace Plan demands a fair solution for the Palestinian refugees. The Map also requires “an agreed, just, fair, and realistic solution to the refugee issue”

Israel is demanding that the Palestinians forego the right of return at the outset of the process, but the Palestinians will have none of it. First of all by referring to the “right of return” such right is given legitimacy where in reality, no right exists. That’s unfortunate. By just having the refugee issue on the table, it implies that Israel has a role and a responsibility to provide a solution. Why? Israel should be denying any such responsibility but its too late. So Israel is the loser by the Map because they are forced to be responsible for a solution to the refugee problem and Jewish refugees are omitted.

Settlements

Next, the settlements. Res 242 made no mention of the settlements but did authorize Israel to remain in occupation until an agreement was reached. There is nothing in international law that prohibits the establishment of settlements. Oslo also does not prohibit settlements. Yet without Israel’s agreement, the Map has much to say about settlements. It requires Israel “freeze all settlement activity, including the "natural growth" of existing settlements.” and to “immediately dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001”. So not all issues are to be negotiated. The Arabs can still insist on the “right of return” but Israel can not insist that settlements are to continue until an agreement is reached. One more condition imposed on Israel without their consent. By what right?

Palestine

Finally, the Palestinian state. Not even Oslo promised a state. Israel has never agreed to this before. This is one more issue that is decided and imposed before negotiations start. Not only is there to be a state, but also it must be “sovereign, independent, democratic and viable” and Israel is responsible to make it so. This rules out restrictions on the military activities of the new state.

In effect then Bush has forced four (including Jerusalem) major outcomes on Israel. Do not get overly concerned with sequence or parralellism. Do not take comfort in his pronouncements that all issues are to be negotiated. Focus on the fact that the key issues have been imposed. Only the details are left to negotiate.

The “Why”

The US has obviously decided to force a settlement of the conflict along the ’67 lines. This has always been their position. It is saying to Israel you can’t have more and it saying to the Arabs, that in exchange for the US pushing Israel that far, you have to make peace with it. Effectively it is endorsing the Saudi Peace Plan. There is very little left to negotiate. The big things have been decided and only the details are left to negotiate. The US will not let anything stand in its way on its quest to end the conflict. The guiding principle is what will bring peace to the ME. No historical fact, no rights, no law, no claim to justice and nothing else matters but achieving a peaceful ME. Both Israel and the Arabs are not permitted to fight for more.

Bush is even prepared to pursue the Roadmap while terror and incitement continue notwithstanding that the Roadmap says otherwise. Nothing will deter him. He is committed.. He accepts the fact that some Arabs will continue in their quest to defeat Israel. But this is the real world and many countries are subject to terror. What matters is that the other Arab countries make peace with Israel thereby settling a 100-year-old conflict with the exception of a little terror here and there.

They know that they have to fight terror and its supporters both in the territories and in Iran and Syria and are prepared to do so. Sooner or later, as needs be.

As for Sharon, “What must he be thinking?”

As for Arafat and certain Arab countries, they don’t want to accept Israel and so are resisting the Roadmap. As for the Congressmen and Senators, their famous letter is just demanding an end to terror first but they accept the two state solution. Only the Christian Coalition and the ZOA and Benny Alon and his supporters are against the two state solution.

Bush will no doubt focus on ending terror in the next two years rather than on forcing Israel to move while terror exists. This is so as to not hurt his political support. But he will continue to work toward the two state solution and the ’67 lines and a shared Jerusalem.

Abbas claims Palestinian road map advances

He may claim that but here is what Martin Kimel notes about that statement

CNN Bias Watch. Read this sentence from "Abbas claims Palestinian road map advances":

Final, permanent borders are to be in place by the end of 2005 after an international conference, which would settle long-standing disputes such as the status of Jerusalem -- where both sides want to have their capitals.

Maybe someone should tell CNN that Israel already has its capital in Jerusalem. This may some like a trivial point to some, but it's not. The failure to recognize that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel -- even if you want the Palestinians to be able to share Jerusalem -- is to delegitimize the Jewish state.

9 links (articles) to news from Israel

Joseph's Challenge

Below, Joseph chides us contributors for not looking enough at the opposition. So he introduces us to an article at the Israeli Policy Forum (IPF) website. Though he calls the article "thoughtful," I respectfully disagree. It is ripe for a fisking.

Before I start, though, it's necessary to remember that in 1997 IPF commissioned a poll that purported to show that American Jews favored "moderate" pressure being applied to Israel to make then-PM Netanyahu more flexible. At the time the issue was the Hebron Accord, for which Israel got American approval to determine unilaterally what would be an acceptable size of land to be turned over to the PA. Clinton (and Albright) betrayed that promise and sided with Arafat when he complained that the size of the land Netanyahu had decided to give was "insulting." The Washington Post and New York Times were, of course, all too happy to write articles on how a pro-Israel group was supporting pressure on Israel.

Remember at the time Arafat was still a "partner for peace." This begs the question: when did IPF change its view of Arafat? If they didn't see that Arafat was incapable of making peace in advance of July 2000, why should we accept their view that the change to Abu Mazen represents "nothing short of a minor earthquake" and that Mazen himself "represents at least a solid prospect for a credible negotiating partner."

True Abu Mazen is not Arafat and may not have the quantities of blood on his hands that Arafat does, but that doesn't mean that he is clean or even close to it. In America or Europe a Holocaust denier is considered beyond the pale politically. Only when it comes to Israel does a Holocaust denier - and one who earned his PhD denying the Holocaust - become a "moderate" or a "peace partner." It also doesn't mean that he is a "solid prospect"; just a better one than Arafat. Of course that's sort of like saying that the Baltimore Orioles have a better chance of winning the World Series than the Detroit Tigers do. But that doesn't mean that either has a credible chance of doing so.

Enough with the ad hominem stuff, let's get to the serious stuff...

IPF brings up three objections to the road map and dismisses them all.

Criticism One: The roadmap is lopsided in favor of the Palestinians.

IPF's rebuttal (in part)

It is ludicrous to claim this is lopsided in favor of the Palestinians when they have to do the vast majority of the initial work. Plus, as Bush has made clear, if the violence doesn’t stop, the process will never move forward. Withdrawals and concessions won’t be expected of Israel if the Palestinians don’t do their utmost to end terrorism. And if terrorism resumes in this performance-based program, the process stops. Unlike the Oslo process, there are built-in penalties for the absence of compliance. To quote the text, “Non-compliance with obligations will impede progress.”

My critique: Starting with the last first, IPF claims: "Unlike the Oslo process, there are built-in penalties for the absence of compliance. To quote the text, 'Non-compliance with obligations will impede progress.'” Did I miss something? What exactly is the penalty here? And what if, like Oslo, the Quartet deems the PA to be in compliance against Israeli claims? What then? Israel will be held as the non-complier.

Look at this past weekend when America called for Israel to give more freedom to the PA. Did the PA do anything to earn it? Sorry but I don't see how this is supposed to reassure me.

But the bigger problem is that the PA is asked to abide its ten year old commitments. In return Israel is asked to do things that were never part of a previous agreement. Most noticeably Israel is asked to withdraw from certain areas. "Settlement" building was never expressly prohibited by the Oslo Accords except in certain specific areas of Gaza. So in return for finally keeping a ten year old commitment, Israel is asked to do more than it committed to? That's why the agreement favors the PA.

In addition, Judge Abraham Sofaer, former legal adviser to the State Department, points out in Commentary (and as republished in OpinionJournal) the timetable in the Road Map is so accelerated that there will be pressure to certify the PA in compliance in order to get to the Israel obligations even if the the PA still hasn't met its commitments.

Criticism Two: The roadmap is an international, Quartet creation, one that deviates from the Bush vision of June 24, 2002.

IPF's rebuttal (in part)

Wrong. This document belongs to none other than George W. Bush. When opponents of the initiative warn that it doesn’t “stick to the Bush vision” it’s a monumental slight to a President that has assumed personal property of the roadmap. Through successive drafts of this document, the Bush administration insisted on improvements that provided additional security safeguards for Israel.

The proper degree of international participation is essential in this process. Arab pressure on the Palestinian Authority can only help them combat the terrorists within, and one failure of the Oslo Accords was that multi-lateral initiatives addressing regional issues between Arabs and Israelis were left on the backburner. The roadmap learns from this failure by making the neighboring Arabs part of the process.

My critique: This is classic misdirection. First of all while claiming that the Road Map is American and not European, IPF then argues that international participation is necessary. Second it doesn't address the problem that the Road Map contradicts the President's speech of last June. (The speech itself contained contradictory elements that are hard to resolve.)

Last June President Bush called for a PA that was free from terror. Yet as IPF noted, the President considers Abu Mazen "a mand dedicated to peace," despite his funding of the Munich Olympic massacre, his Holocaust denial and his recent statements condoning the killing of civilians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Mohammed Dahlan is even more implicated in terror. It's one thing to say that these guys aren't perfect but we have to deal with them; it's another to whitewash their records and change them into latter day Gandhis.

Criticism Three: The roadmap is a prize for terror, and doesn’t punish Arafat enough.

IPF's rebuttal:

There is no prize for terror in a process that goes nowhere without an end to violence. Arafat has been punished rather than rewarded by the international community's shoving a prime minister down his throat, the greatest political defeat he has ever suffered. Involving an Abu Mazen-led government in the roadmap process will show Palestinians that a pragmatic, non-violent strategy that recognizes Israel’s grievances is beneficial, while Arafat’s terror-oriented strategy leads them nowhere.

The promotion of Abu Mazen is only the first step out the door for Arafat, a move that 50% of Palestinians see as “an erosion in Arafat's status and authority,” according to PSR.

It's true that Abu Mazen's appointment as Prime Minister represents “an erosion in Arafat's status and authority,” but is it significant. Robert Satloff doesn't think so. After agreeing with Abu Mazen on Abu Mazen's role, there were pictures of Arafat smiling. If Arafat's happy, that suggests that he feels that he's pulled another one over on the purposely naive international community.
Finally, the IPF offers one last general critique:

Critics that focus on the details of the roadmap are wrongheaded because they treat the roadmap as if it were a final peace treaty. The roadmap is just what its title says – a guide. It is not an imposed solution, but rather a framework for returning the parties to the negotiating table through the cessation of violence.

This is not entirely true. When the roadmap calls for an eventual end to "settlements" this is problematic. It is in fact anticipating an end to the process. The PA, at the very least, believes that settlements include Maale Adumim, French Hill, Gush Etzion and Gilo. I don't believe that most Israelis believe this to be the case. During the Oslo years the PA has justified violence against Israeli civilians by claiming that the existence of settlements is a form of violence or a violation of Oslo. As long as there was no clause - and to my knowledge there is none - that specifies that Israel need not return fully to its 1967 "Auschwitz" borders, this too is a recipe for disaster.
And if the IPF thinks that only right wingers it can dismiss question the Road Map, it should read what former Oslophile, Barry Rubin, writes about it.

Letter to Pres. Bush

Dear Mr Bush

I urge you to use America's influence to insist upon the following reasonable precondition to the implementation of the Quartet's "roadmap". How can one reasonably negotiate anything if there is nothing about which to negotiate other than the destruction and elimination of the State of Israel?

NO roadmap without prior declaration of peace from the Arabs and Israel's inalienable right to exist in peace and harmony.

In Iraq there is a golden opportunity to get a peace deal between that country and Israel which will forever bring a major state of peace to the world. The defunct oil pipeline running from Iraq to the Mediterranean could get up and running with immense benefit to Iraq, Jordan and Israel as well as to nations importing oil from Iraq and avoiding some of the overcrowding of the gulf, and decreasing shipping costs.

6.5 million people are surrounded by 250 MILLION hostiles. It only makes common sense that confidence building measures must be initiated from the Arab side.

Israel could provide immense benefit to the primitive Arab nations bringing them and their agricultural infrastructure into the 20th if not the 21st century! They MUST be made to see that.

Sincerely,

Dr David Bornstein

Joseph Farah takes some swipes at the Roadmap

Joseph Farah, Editor of World Net Daily, takes issue with Arafat, Abu Mazen, the PA and others in his latest piece: Roadmap to nowhere

The Road Map Again

Dr Manhattan has penned a new piece entitled A Circular Road Map in the blog Blissful Knowledge. Check it out.

ISRAEL REMEMBRANCE DAY

In commemoration watch this beautiful video from TheJewishExchange

The Doomed Map

"The wars waged against Israel – five, excluding the Oslo War - have been based on the Arab world´s desire to eliminate Israel from the map. These wars have been waged by the Arab states and it is from these states that the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) fell into Israeli hands, after yet another war of Arab aggression in 1967. The premise that lands can be "returned" to the "palestinians" is of course a fallacy, since they were never theirs. It is also a false premise to believe that peace may be achieved by rewarding the aggressor. In most accepted historical norms, it is in fact the aggressor - the Arabs in this case - who must give up land for peace. Indeed, there is no historic precedent of the victor, as Israel was in 1967, giving land to the vanquished. Such a strategy is bound to fail, as it does not include any consequences for aggression. It is almost like saying to the Arabs that they have nothing to loose by perpetually attacking Israel, as they will always get back what they lost - and probably more."

The writer is undergraduate student of chemistry. His writing on the fraudulent map would easily entitle him to a diploma in historical reasoning.

The case for Kurdistan

Parallels to Arab/Jew conflict

Gerald Honigman, a prominent writer and lecturer living in the USA, writes in the Kurdish Media

[...] The mere suggestion that Pan-Arabs or Arab nationalism has problems with Jewish nationalism/Zionism for at least some of the same reasons it has had similar problems elsewhere--Berber North Africa, Lebanon, Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan, the Sudan, etc.--can elicit harsh rebuke.. In the classroom, however, such subjects are more often than not simply not dealt with at all. Rare is the classroom, for example, that gets into a discussion of the "other side" of the Middle East refugee problem, the one half of Israel’S Jews who fled Arab/Muslim lands as a result of the war Arabs launched against the nascent Jewish State. Even more rare is the class that puts the 1947 partition plan for Palestine into the broader context of another partition going on at the very same time between Hindus and Muslims over the Indian subcontinent. The double standard frequently reigns supreme, and while students are often left with the impression that one national movement holds a monopoly on evil and injustice, the other is in line for imminent canonization.

Not surprisingly, therefore, revealing and provocative subjects such as Arab treatment of the Kurds have, until recently, simply been ignored. It took Addams’S gassing of them a little over a decade ago in Desert Storm to finally get some interest aroused...but not much. Yet these same voices, mostly silent on the decades’ old subjugation and slaughter of Kurds, loudly protest that Arab nationalism has been eternally wronged because it has manifested itself to date--largely via conquest and forced organization of other peoples and their lands--on "only" twenty-two states, including one on over 80% of the original Mandate for Palestine issued to Britain on April 25, 1920 and today known as Jordan. Some thirty million proud, much abused, and beleaguered people--still not in possession of one state let alone two dozen others--are thus simply disregarded in a grotesque display of moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy by the very same circles promoting an Reflation state. What’S even worse, outside of academia, an Arabs-dominated State Department perpetuates this problem for its own largely oil-tainted reasons. And most of the media engages in this double standard as well. More

This is a great polemic and great history. Many are the parallels.

Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars
and Israel Independence Day

6-7 May 2003 - 4-5 Iyar 5763




Thanks to Imshin for the link.

The limits of diplomacy

Is the topic of a book-review from Ha'aretz regarding a new book about Israel's foriegn policy in 1958-1959.

The article discusses the Israel's realization of the limits of diplomacy throughb portions of history, but I believe this quote speaks volumes:

his volume, rich in material and skillfully edited, clearly illustrates the limits of diplomacy: The attempt to persuade the other side of the justice of your case frequently does not dovetail with the other side's broader, and contrasting, interests. In joint talks, Western representatives tried to console Israel's leaders by pointing out that their country's standing in the West was getting stronger. However, the moral encouragement contrasted starkly with the bitter reality of an absence of guarantees for Israel's security and for limited quantities of weapons, supplied in a miserly fashion. Had these guarantees been given, they might have deterred and prevented Israel's future wars.

U.S. Gives Chrétien a Mulligan for Terrorist-Friendly Agenda

Michelle Malkin

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien recently vacationed in the Dominican Republic, where he teed off with former U.S. president Bill Clinton in the Soft-on-Terror Masters Tournament.

While Chrétien golfs, his fellow countryman and favorite accused terrorist Ahmad Said Khadr still is on the loose.

Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen, is considered by intelligence officials to be the highest-ranking Canadian within Osama bin Laden's inner circle. He studied computer science at the University of Ottawa and worked for an Ottawa-based Islamic charity, Human Concern International, which Chrétien's government generously subsidized.

Khadr is suspected of diverting charity funds to bin Laden and other jihadists, and of serving as a chief terrorist recruiter. Known as al-Kanadi (Arabic for "the Canadian"), Khadr previously had been in custody in Pakistan for the 1995 bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad that killed 17 people.

As I've noted before (and it is especially worth repeating in light of attempts by some high-ranking U.S. diplomats to make amends with Canada), our so-called friend and supposed war-on-terror partner Chrétien was instrumental in securing Khadr's freedom. More

We know. We know.

"Peace" with Terrorism: The U.S. Solution

US: Ongoing terror will not derail two-state process

The U.S. says we must have "Peace" even with Terror, does this make any sense to you?

I was struck by something the other day that wasn't new but flew in the face of reason.

After the attack on Tel Aviv the U.S. State Department released a statement that basically said:

"terror won't stop peace"

I thought to myself does that make any sense?

To me that makes no sense at all how can the U.S. State Department get away with saying that?

This we all know is of course not a new line but it is very telling to examine it for what it says about humanity and the importantce of Israeli life from the view of the U.S. State Department.

They are saying no matter how many Jews get killed and how much terrorism there is we have our own agenda for you, we want "peace" (does he mean "pieces"?), some sort of abstract notion that includes violence.

The U.S. State Department has discovered how we can have Peace with Terrorism, brilliant and I'll have the brooklyn bridge as well!

The question is what is this "Peace" they seem to want so badly even when there is no True Peace.
It clearly allows terror and violence so it must mean something else to someone else other then the normal english definition.

Maybe he holds to the Left's non-violent protesters violent protests ideology of "Peace with Terrorism."

We are being led by sadists or in this case would that be masochists?

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Sign the Petition to Oppose the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state in Israel

Read the 23 reasons to oppose the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state in Yesha

Join in the Coast to Coast Protest of NPR's Biased Coverage of Israel

Participate in the Historic American Jewish and Christian Zionist Convention in Washington

Celebrate Israel at 55

Don’t buy it

The State Department is trying to sell us a crock

In my article, The Road Map; Its all Bullshit, I set out all the things we were told the new administration in the territories was all about, only to conclude that it was all bullshit. Old wine in new bottles. It wasn’t anything that they said it was or should be.

Now we are being sold another crock, namely that it was in our interest to make goodwill gestures, make humanitarian gestures, pull back troops, release money etc., all on the theory that we have to help the new government get established.

Why so? The case has yet to be debated, let alone made.

The way I see it, Israel is winning its war on terror just judging by the decrease in the attempted acts and in the decrease in the percentage, which are successful. Now is not the time to ease up, now is the time to keep going.

The Pals can continue to fight and continue to be crushed. Or they can work to clean up their act. Why must Israel give them an incentive to act in their own best interests. All the restrictions Israel has place on them are there to reduce terror. It is up to them to reduce this terror to get these restrictions lifted rather than for us to lift restrictions to induce them to reduce terror. That’s crazy.

Furthermore if they were serious about fighting terror they would work with Israel to crush the terror. They would cooperate. They would tell Israel who to go after and work with us. Instead this weak government, in will and in strength, wants Israel to stop so they can proceed alone. That’s crazy.

It is their problem if they are weak. It is up to them to make it strong. It has nothing to do with Israel and is not Israel’s responsibility. Besides for Israel to pull back in no way makes them strong. It just makes Israel weak. The government will become strong by their accomplishment.

Besides, Israel doesn’t like the government as it now stands. Why should Israel work to strengthen it?

Now what is meant by “confidence building measures”. It seems that Israel is to hold out promise of success by them in order to induce them to negotiate with it. Israel has to convince them that the process is in their interest so that they will have the confidence to pursue it. Wrong again. Israel should be doing the opposite. It should be giving them messages upon messages that terror has not worked and that they will be lucky to get anything if the terror goes on. We should increase the stakes not reduce them. They must know that they have lost and that Israel has won. They must know that they are weak and that Israel is strong.

The Road Map is designed to make them equal partners and to establish moral equivalence and to strengthen their negotiating position and give them “observers” that can help them. Why should Israel cooperate in having its hair shorn . Israel is not asleep as Samson was. Israel should not allow its stronger position to be undermined. Israel has earned the right to negotiate from strength.

As for the money transfers “let them go drink in the Mediterranean. They caused us great loss and we should keep it in compensation. They have many benefactors we have one.

Don’t buy this crock.

Italian Muslims Support Benny Elon plan

As-salamu `alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

The Bush administration ressurect that same Clintonian nightmare which - starting from 1995 - has already caused plenty of innocent blood to be shed. Basically, it goes on refusing to recognize that the Arab-Palestinian State has already been existing for more than fifty years, and is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Against the tragedy of the 'Road Map', in which Sharon risks to become a carbon-copy of Peres for Oslo II, we heartily support the only rational solution: Benny Elon's genuine two-state solution.

Wa-s-salamu `alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community

Against Road Block to Peace
As-salamu `alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Here is the astonishing text of the so-called "Road Map", a manifesto of human blindness which could produce - if Allah Ta'ala does not prevent them - new massacres and carnages of innocent human beings.

May Allah Ta'ala protect us all against the evil of those who dreams that establishing a PLO-run state on the West bank of the Jordan River may bring peace and prosperity to the world.

Allah Ta'ala says what means: "And many a township have We destroyed while it was given to wrong-doing, so that it lies in ruins up to this day, and also many a deserted well and lofty castles! Have they not travelled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind." (al-Hajj, 45-46)

Wa-s-salamu `alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community

Flawed At The Core

Did not we read enough denunciations of the dastrdly Map? I still think you will want to read this laconic,sharp and well-aimed anti-road map manifesto,given its source and style.(Emphasis mine throughout):

"It is wrong, it is demeaning, it is pure folly for the Israeli government to discuss the so-called road map with its perpetrators. Its fancy name does not lend charm to the obnoxious fact that it is a diktat such as is handed by a triumphant victor to his enemy defeated in war.

Israel has not been defeated in war and yet the road map contains the terms for its surrender. Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security chief, described it as "not subject to negotiation." British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the most active public promoter of this essentially anti-Israel document, said loftily that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "evidently does not understand that there is no room for discussion."

Already, while the war in Iraq was in progress, Blair was proclaiming passionately that implementing the road map was just as important as winning the war in Iraq. No less.

For Mr. Blair this may well be true. His support for the US going to war, and Britain's participation on the battlefield were opposed from the outset by an evidently large majority of his fellow countrymen. He consequently may have been risking a vote of no confidence in parliament. A move on his part, therefore, which would hamper, hurt or cripple Israel would counteract that charge, and, in the climate of anti-Semitism prevailing in Britain today, surely win much commendation.

Moreover, nobody can deny the permanence of at least a soupcon of vengefulness toward Israel in the British establishment ever since our tiny state was born, in defiance of the repressive Attlee-Bevin government in 1948.

No wonder the Palestinian Authority, undoubtedly briefed by the Saudis who contributed to the contents of the "map" jumped for joy at its coming, and at the prospect of a silenced Israel being ordered to submit unconditionally to a program which contains what are essentially the Arab demands.

The euphoria was enhanced by the Palestinians' realization that all their crimes, the murder of hundreds of Jews, and the thousands maimed for life, was to be repaid by landing them a great historic victory over Israel.

The PA, in celebrating, at once issued a threat of violence to Israel if it did not accept the complete road map. Rice's remarks in particular (speaking on behalf of the Quartet) bore an eerie sense of deja vu: It emerges that Israel has been given precisely the same treatment as Czechoslovakia at Munich on September 29 1938.

While the deliberations were going on among the four statesmen who made the Munich Pact, which was to decide Czechoslovakia's future, the Czech diplomats, headed by Hubert Masarik, waited in an anteroom.

Finally, they were called in and told that the four statesmen had decided on Czechoslovakia's future. They were also told (as later reported by Masarik) that no response or declaration was required from them; and, in fact, that the four statesmen "regarded the agreement as accepted."

As for the contents of the road map, far from heralding a new vision it will be found that its core is exactly the same as that of its predecessors among them the Rogers Plan, the Kissinger strategies, the Carter campaign, the Reagan notes, James Baker's Madrid agenda, the Clinton timetable, and the Mitchell Plan.

Indeed, from a waggish source has come the Yiddish comment on the road map: the same yenta, only with a different veil.

ALL THESE plans are flawed to the core. They are founded in a gigantic hoax, perhaps the hoax of the 20th century.

The Arabs do not want or intend to make peace with Israel. They could have had peace and a state instantly in 1947. That is what the UN offered them. They refused it.

At any time between 1947 and 1967, when the areas in question Judea, Samaria and Gaza were actually in Arab hands, cooperation among the Arab states could have brought about a state, and peace, had they wanted it.

In 1967, after Israel's stunning victory, Israel made the no less stunning offer to hand back the captured territories in return for peace. This too was refused.

After the Arabs had waged two major wars against Israel and blazoned to the world the message that their war aim was the "annihilation" of the Jewish state what possible reason was left for the nations of the world to assume that, of all things, the Arabs were longing for peace with living Israel?

Since then, and never more fiercely than today, what is the Arab-Muslim message, coming out of every Arab radio station, every Arab television channel, booming out of every Muslim mosque, and, most significantly, every Arab school textbook?

The claim of the Arabs that the whole Land, "from the river to the sea" belongs to them, and that Israel took it from them and introduced its settlers has led to the demonization of the settlers.

The Jews who have settled in Judea, Samaria and in the Gaza district are utterly and immaculately legal. They are legal in the strictest interpretation of international law, and they are legitimate by the strictest test of historical right not to mention their civic residential rights.

Any attempt from outside to move them would be a threefold crime, first of all against the Jewish people. The end of the road map chapter should thus be: President George W. Bush breaks off the unholy liaison with his ugly bedfellows, persuades Blair to cool down the passion of British anti-Semitism, and orders Colin Powell to think afresh.

The road map itself can be left by the roadside.

(The writer, a co-founder of Herut and member of the first Knesset, is a biographer and essayist).

Is the ISM Helping Terrorists Again

The pattern is beginning to become clear: the International Solidarity Movement, so vaunted among many anti-Zionist and Human-Right's circles, is a full-fledged supporter of terrorism.

Today's acknowledgement by ISM member Raphael Cohen that the group met with the two British suicide bombers before they went on to strike Tel Aviv is just another striking connection to a web of terror spun by this supposed peace organization.

Another example was portrayed in the film "Jeremy Hardy Vs. The Israeli Army." In the film you see the ISM walking up to a roadblock, and harass the soldiers. Funny thing is that I recognized on of the soldiers--a very close friend of mine, Yonah Binstock--who relayed me the story of the events. Turns out that there were high warnings of two suicide bombers that day, and the soldiers were so distracted by the multinationals that the bombers slipped past. More blood on the ISM's hands.

And then New Voices Magazine, a Jewish magazine for aspiring writers, published a story called "STUPID IS AS STUPID DOODLES," basically vindicating the ISM and laying the blame on Rachel Corrie's death on the IDF. I must admit that I had first thought the magazine had some potential, but, other than Daniela Gerson who is one of the editors, it would basically be a magazine for Jews Against the Occupation.

The ISM must be given no respect, no support, and no condolences as long as they actively support terrorists.

Steve Plaut Blog


In my last post concerning the revivified email fed Steve Plaut Blog, I did not give a good address. Here is the address: http://stevenplaut.blogspot.com

Powell, Rumsfeld defend Syria trip after Gingrich blast

From what I have read, the "official" reports point to an optimism that is scorned by the public statements of the terror groups, thus in fact suggesting that Gingrich, out of office, is able to express truths that need to be stated rather than playing nonsensical games of treating the public to utter nonsense. The so-called retort from the Powell/Rumsfield camp diverts the issue by saying Gingrich is saying nasty things about Bush! childish answer at best.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has defended his trip to Syria against criticism from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, saying yesterday that it was a necessary trip ordered by President Bush.

Gingrich called the trip ludicrous. If so, Powell said, Gingrich was calling the president ludicrous, too.

Also yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld denied that Gingrich was speaking for him when he blasted Powell in an April 22 speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

In that speech, Gingrich lambasted the State Department, saying that its Middle East policy ''will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory'' in the Iraq war.

Powell returned Saturday from a trip to the region that included a three-hour meeting in Damascus with President Bashar Assad.

Gingrich said that to meet ''with a terrorist-supporting, secret-police-wielding dictator is ludicrous.''

Powell fired back at the Georgia Republican, saying that ''he's accusing the president of a ludicrous act.''

''Mr. Gingrich was taking a broad swipe and a shot at the policies of the president of the United States,'' the secretary of state said. ''He was allegedly doing it because he has some dissatisfaction with the way the State Department runs. But he missed the State Department and hit the president.'' [more]

A PLO Counselor's Break with Reality

Some solid truths posted by Martin Kimel to clear the smoke and mirrors

Of all of the many serious flaws of the “Road Map,” perhaps the most grave is that it is based on the premise that peace can be imposed on the parties, even when it is unclear that enough Palestinians truly accept the existence of a Jewish state and are willing to live in peace with Israel. It is therefore disheartening to read the articles of “moderates” such as PLO counselor Ghaleb Darabya, whose recent piece in the Washington Post demonstrates a near total break with reality and failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing whatever on the part of the Palestinians. Such blindness does not bode well for the prospects of peace. My comments, in italics, follow excerpts of Darabya's May 3 article, “Following the `Road Map' to Freedom”:


We have waited more than 35 years for the attainment of our rights, equality and self-determination. We are the only people on the face of the earth who continue to live under a foreign colonial occupation.


First, Israel is not a “foreign colonial” occupier. Its claim to the land is Biblical and antedates the founding of Islam by about 2,000 years. There is no mother country to which the Israeli “colonizers” can return. Second, the statement that there are no other people on the planet who consider themselves occupied is ludicrous. What about the Lebanese, who are occupied by Syria; the Tibetans, who are occupied by China; the Chechens, who are occupied by Russia; the Kurds, who are occupied by Turkey; the Basques who are occupied by Spain; the Saharawis, who are occupied by Morocco? The list goes on . . . .


We have tried every possible means to achieve our human and national aspirations. From the first intifada to the Madrid conference to the Oslo peace process to the Wye River memorandum to the Sharm el-Sheikh conference to the Camp David talks, Palestinians have pursued every possible avenue to live in peace and provide the children of our region a promising future.


The violent first intifada is a rather bizarre example of a Palestinian effort to live in peace with Israel. And what about the Palestinians' pledge to resolve their conflict with Israel peacefully, which they made as part of the Oslo accords and then abandoned in favor of negotiation through terrorism after Yehud Barak offered to give up virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza and share sovereignty over Judaism's most holy city? The Palestinian school curriculum that teaches hatred of Jews and that the Israelis are vicious occupiers who have no right to a Jewish state in any part of “Palestine” hardly seems calculated to prepare Palestinian children to live in peace with Israel, either.


The road map envisions a series of steps to be taken in parallel by both parties, with the result being the creation of a Palestinian state on the 22 percent of our historical homeland occupied by Israel since 1967.


Read carefully, this sentence suggests that Israel occupied the other 78 percent of the Palestinians' historical homeland when the Jewish state was founded in 1948. Statements such as this justifiably cause Israelis concern that the more moderate Palestinians secretly share the goal of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad to destroy the Jewish state.


For our part, we Palestinians have begun fulfilling our commitments under Phase I of the road map. . . . [I]n consultation with a wide variety of international legal experts, we drafted a constitution that is acknowledged by American legal scholars to be the most democratic in the region, including Israel, which to this day lacks a constitution.


The Soviet Union had a great constitution on paper. It's how a constitution is implemented that counts, and the Palestinians are just now embarking on the road to democracy. The Israelis, who have a dynamic democracy and legal system based on the rule of law, support this effort. In response to Darabya's dig, it may be worth noting that Britain doesn't have a constitution either.


Third, on March 10, the Palestinian parliament approved an amendment to the Palestinian Basic Law creating the position of prime minister for the first time in our history. On March 19, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, accepted President Yasser Arafat's nomination to fill this position. The international community, including the United States, welcomed these moves. Finally, on Tuesday, 51 of the 85 members of the Palestinian parliament voted confidence in an empowered and credible prime minister and approved his cabinet.


The road map was originally conditioned on Arafat's stepping aside, a requirement Bush imposed after he became convinced that Arafat duplicitously supports terrorism. Despite tremendous pressure from the U.S., Arafat is clinging to power. Indeed, according to press reports, Arafat has set up a national security council to keep security decisions under his influence, in violation of the terms of the Road Map. Calling Abbas "empowered" may be a bit of a stretch.


[Abbas] also said that his government will take steps to disarm all militias.


Hamas and Fatah's own militant group, the Al Aqsa martyrs' Brigade have said that they won't disarm. I hope Abbas succeeds, but many doubt he will be willing to risk a civil war to disarm these groups by force.


Palestinians have enacted these reforms and maintained their commitment to peace while living under full military occupation, with Israeli tanks in our streets, with continued closures denying movement of people, with 163 Israeli checkpoints slicing the West Bank into 300 separate clusters and with 31 checkpoints separating Gaza into three separate Bantustans.


These reforms were forced upon the Palestinians, with Arafat and his corrupt cronies kicking and screaming all the way. The statement that the Pals have “maintained their commitment to peace” would be laughable if it weren't so divorced from reality as to indicate psychosis. Palestinian terrorism forced the Israelis to re-occupy the territories the Israelis had withdrawn from as part of Oslo. There would be few if any roadblocks and checkpoints within these territories if the Palestinians had not lauched their current terrorist war against Israel. Israel, as a sovereign nation, of course has the right to restrict access to Palestinians seeking to enter Israel proper to work, and does so for security reasons.[more]

Lebanon: News from an off-the-beaten-path source

Powell's visit to Syria and Lebanon has been well publicized; for example, the visit constituted a major topic for the Sunday news review of the major TV channels.

But one aspect, the liberation of Lebanon, was totally obscured in the context of the Powell visit, and I had to dig deeply into the Web to get any info at all. Thanks to Daily Alert, however, I found the following report at Channel News Asia:

Hundreds of demonstrators urge Powell to ask for Syrian pullout from Lebanon

US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday stressed American support for an independent Lebanon during his stopover in the capital Beirut, in an allusion to the more than 20,000 Syrian troops in the country.

But that assurance apparently did not convince hundreds of anti-Syrian demonstrators.

They clashed with security forces, as they urged Mr Powell to ask the Syrians to pull out of Lebanon.

The demonstrators marched towards the Foreign Ministry in downtown Beirut carrying banners calling on Syria to withdraw from their country.

Syria is the dominant power in Lebanon, where it maintains thousands of troops and some right-wing Christians oppose their presence.

The protestors clashed with police when they tried to get to the offices of an opposition Christian-owned TV station, which was closed by authorities last year.

One of the protestors who was hurt in the clashes was carried away on a stretcher, while ten others were arrested and two policemen were injured.

Also hoping to catch Mr Powell's eye was a group of Palestinians demonstrating beside a highway leading to the airport.

They were protesting over the US-led war in Iraq which ended Saddam Hussein's regime.

As well as chanting anti-American slogans, they were demanding an end to what they called the US "occupation" of Iraq.

This piece raises the question as to why one could find no such report from AP, Reuters, etc. (Of course, I stand corrected if I'm wrong.)

Also note that the "Palestinians" miss no opportunity to snub the US, even as the rest of the world is recognizing that Iraq has indeed been liberated, and as Saddam's mass graves are being discovered. And why should they not snub the US - they have learnt that regardless of what tantrums they throw, the US will continue to court them and reward them.

Israel, Palestinians Spar Over Peace Plan

JERUSALEM - Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas demanded Sunday that the internationally backed "road map" to peace be implemented immediately, while a senior Bush administration official said definitive action was needed by both Israel and the Palestinians for the plan to succeed.

Assistant Secretary of State William Burns avoided taking sides while speaking to reporters after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, but pushed both sides to adopt the road map.

"That's going to require a restoration of Palestinian efforts against terror," Burns said. "It's also going to require steps taken by all sides."

Burns' comments were part of a diplomatic flurry that suggested Israel and the Palestinians were trying to seize the opportunity presented by the unveiling of the road map — even as violence continued. Since the plan's formal presentation last Wednesday, three Israeli civilians, 20 Palestinians and a British journalist have died.

Palestinian officials said they were trying to set up a meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites). It would be the highest level talks since peace talks fell apart more than two years ago.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan told The Associated Press on Sunday he would lead a Palestinian delegation for security talks with the Israelis on Thursday — the first such meeting between the two sides since August.

The peace plan's first phase calls for a Palestinian crackdown on terror groups and an Israeli freeze on Jewish settlements, among other steps. The plan says the steps must be parallel.

Israel has objected to carrying out its part at the same time as the expected Palestinian crackdown on militants, saying an end to all violence is a precondition for any progress. [more]

Islam in Britain

Times Online article notes that Extremists are preying on disaffected young Muslims

The discovery that a suicide bomber in Israel had a quiet upbringing in suburban Britain is disturbing. For the Israelis, the arrival of two extremists from overseas opens up the awful prospect of a potentially vast new security threat among the Muslim diaspora. For the British authorities, the recruitment of young men from Hounslow and Derby as terrorists bears out the warning, first voiced a decade ago, that Britain has become a haven for Islamist militants. And for the British Muslim community the suicide bombing will deepen fears of alienation and reinforce the association of Islam with terrorism.

The bombing raises questions that must be faced by the security services, politicians and society as a whole as well as by the Muslim community in Britain and those who speak in its name. Why are young British Muslims so susceptible to the siren voices of extremists and self-publicising militants such as Abu Hamza and al-Muhajiroun? Why do they devote so much time to causes overseas — Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and Afghanistan — rather than grievances at home or getting ahead in British society? And why has the younger generation become more alienated than their parents and less integrated into the mainstream than the children of immigrants from India, the Caribbean or East Africa?

Classic revolutionaries have been recruited among the poor and the marginalised. In the case of suicide bombers, however, this is not so. The evidence suggests that Asif Mohammed Hanif and his accomplice Omar Khan Sharif were well brought up, well educated and reasonably well off. Others who have gone out to engage in terrorism overseas have also come from privileged backgrounds — Omar Sheikh, sentenced to death for the brutal murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, attended the London School of Economics. But they were spiritually disaffected, and like the frustrated and underemployed graduates from Middle East universities who form the backbone of al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood, saw in radical Islam a cause. Many British Muslims, and not only extremists, mistakenly believe that Islam is under global threat and that they have a religious duty to defend it — by force if necessary.

Many Muslims, especially Bangladeshis, are noticeably worse off than other minority groups. There are pockets of great poverty in northern former mill towns, where Pakistanis settled a generation ago to work in the textile factories. Britain is a relatively tolerant society, but its liberal values are, almost by definition, offensive to the minority of Muslims who regard their doctrine as an excuse for intolerance. Socialising and socialisation can be far from simple. Women do not go out, and men do not congregate in pubs. Young Muslims have less opportunity to form easy friendships with others of their age. Some meet instead in mosques. And it is there they hear the corrupting message of jihad.

Such a message is cynically spread — sometimes by extremists seeking recruits for overseas causes, sometimes by imams who have been invited from Pakistan to fill posts here and preach a violent message. It falls on fertile ground. Islam has a keen sense of the “umma” or community, which can be distorted by “religious leaders”.

Some in the Muslim mainstream are now, commendably, speaking out against extremism as well as against discrimination and tokenism, but other community leaders remain reluctant to condemn acts of terrorism in a clear and loud voice. These leaders also need to look more closely at those shadowy figures who exploit the prison inmates, the idealistic and under-achieving young to lure them into “martyrdom” in God’s name. Their deeds destroy not only lives abroad but the standing of Islam in Britain

Ariel Sharon's Plan B

This Washington Post articles assumes Sharon wants the Road to fail and that all he need do is sit tight as more terror attacks put the plan on hold. And then Sharon has a fallback plan.

[...] All this might make it appear that President Bush's "personal commitment" to pursue an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will prove as evanescent as his promise of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan or a "vital" United Nations role in Iraq -- particularly as a number of senior administration officials fully share Sharon's views. Yet Bush retains enormous leverage over Sharon. Many Israelis regard him as the most supportive American president in their history and might well turn on their government if it seemed to be thwarting a peace initiative they desperately hope will succeed.

Sharon knows this, too -- which is one reason why, behind the stall, he had readied a more accommodating Plan B. In a visit to Washington three weeks ago, his top aide, Dov Weisglass, quietly laid out a series of possible Israeli concessions to Abu Mazen at a meeting with senior officials from the National Security Council, the State Department, the Pentagon and the vice president's office. They ranged from the humanitarian, such as granting more Palestinians work visas in Israel, to the political, such as releasing a batch of Palestinian prisoners, to the practical facilitation of a Palestinian crackdown -- redeploying Israeli forces from agreed-upon sectors of Gaza, for example, to test whether Abu Mazen's men can keep the peace.

Weisglass's ideas fell well short of Israeli obligations under the road map, but if implemented they would nevertheless be substantial. On settlements, for example, Sharon's envoy rejected the road map's requirement for an early freeze on all construction but said Israel would be willing to take down the dozens of new settlement "outposts" established in the past two years -- a step that, if seriously pursued, probably would force Sharon to break up his current right-wing government and would give Abu Mazen a substantial boost.

Sharon further positioned himself for embrace of a Plan B by granting an interview to Israel's most dovish daily, Haaretz, in which he portrayed himself as an old warrior who has reluctantly chosen to make the sacrifices necessary for peace rather than leave them to the next generation. "I am 75 years old. I feel that my goal and my purpose is to bring this nation to peace and security," he said. The idea of compromises on settlements, he added, "agonizes me. But . . . I feel that the rational necessity to reach a settlement is overcoming my feelings. . . . One has to view things realistically. Eventually there will be a Palestinian state."

So is Sharon now ready to accept the available final settlement? Certainly not; he'd rather see Abu Mazen fail. But he has also decided that if Abu Mazen proves competent and Bush determined, he will strike a deal himself rather than risk fighting a powerful president. Therein lies a slim opportunity [more]

More news from Israel: 20 articles (via links)

A few are repeated in post below but you can cherry pick and get what interests you.

Israel News: ten links to articles

Britain: Nourishing Vipers

Imagine adopting a child out of the gutter and granting him as good a life as anyone can hope for. Imagine that in short order, this adoptee informs you point blank that he intends to force his ways on you, and kill you if you don't accept.

This is no script for an absurd melodrama; it is, in fact, what the Islamists have been doing, and are doing, all over Europe. Britain is the most recent case to demonstrate this script. Following is what the British Telegraph reports in an article entitled, " We have made a paradise for terrorists in our own backyard", May 4, 2003:

Over the past decade, Britain has given refuge to a host of Islamic fundamentalists wanted for terrorism in countries around the world. Before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in 2001, the governments of France, India, Turkey, Israel, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia had all lodged protests about Britain's protection of, and refusal to extradite, known terrorists. Those protests had no effect.

Men such as Abu Qatadar - who instructed both Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacharias Moussaoui, now awaiting trial in America for his part in planning the attacks of September 11 - were allowed to remain in Britain, preaching, and often organising, terror. Qatadar arrived here nearly a decade ago claiming that he was fleeing political persecution. He was a known advocate of suicide bombings, and was wanted in Jordan for involvement in a campaign of terror. He was granted asylum in Britain.
...
Britain has become the headquarters of choice for extremist Islamic preachers, who now have a network of organisations dedicated to sowing pure hatred: hatred of the West, of democracy, and of the values of tolerance and freedom - the very values that give them the freedom to operate here. "Your task against the infidel," says one video distributed by the fundamentalists, "is to kill their children, take their women, destroy their homes."

Successive governments have been warned in the plainest possible terms about the dangers posed by men such as Abu Qatadar, Omar Bakri (who says he "believes in the principle of establishing Islamic law . . . even if this leads to the death of all mankind") and Abu Hamza (the one-eyed sheikh who lost his hand in an explosion, and whom the Yemeni government wants for bomb attacks carried out there). Why were the warnings so resolutely ignored? For resolutely ignored they were.
...
[T]he Government has proscribed al-Qaeda, and made membership of it an arrestable offence, but it is still perfectly legal to belong to al-Muhajiroun - the organisation to which Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif belonged, and which has an ideology at least as militant as al-Qaeda's.
...
[T]he Home Office is still very reluctant to extradite terrorist suspects. Bashir Nafi, who lectures on Islamic history at Birkbeck College, is wanted by US authorities for "conspiracy to murder, maim or injure persons outside the United States". The evidence against him includes transcripts of his telephone calls, in which he allegedly discusses the finances of an organisation whose goal is to create "terror, instability and panic", and which has planned suicide bombings. Mr Nafi has not been extradited from Britain. He has not even been arrested.

The Government has allowed legal complexities to tie up the process of extradition for years. Khalid al Fawwaz has been wanted by the US for his part in the bombing of its embassy in Kenya. The wrangle over whether or not to extradite him to the US had been going on for over four years. He has only just exhausted the appeals process (at a cost of £428,000 - funded by British tax-payers). The Home Secretary, however, has still not decided whether or not he will permit his extradition to America. Despite David Blunkett's allegedly "draconian" Anti-Terrorism Act, the old habits which encourage terrorists to stay and recruit here remain.

It's time for the Western democracies to realize that they have been nourishing vipers in their bosom and change their ways. Abandoning the infamous Roadmap would be a good first step.

The Road to Damascus

Itamar Rabinovich, President of Tel Aviv University, former Israeli Embassador to America, and former Israeli negotatior with Syria writes that America has never had so much leverage over Syria.

He writes about how the US should take advantage of this leverage, both for America and Israel's interests.

Grave Security Lapses Led up to Mike’s Place Attack

Debka is saying that lapses by both British and Israeli security forces may have led up to the bombing at "Mikes Place"
(Note: the usual Debka warning is in effect: take what you read with a few grains of salt).

But on a more positive note, Mike's Place is scheduled to re-open on Yom Ha'atmaut and that Avi Tabib (the heroic security guard) has made an amazingly quick recovery to health!

e tu, Fuad?

Amram Mitzna's resignation is just another blow to the all but defunct Israeli pragmatic left--and may well be the final blow to the dying Labor party. It is with historical irony that the strike came from within.

The long history of Israel's Labor party, back from the days of Mapai and the Alliance, is rife with internal bickering and back-stabbing. David Ben Gurion himself was deposed by the party, thrown out into the desert only to come back riding on the wings of the miniscule Rafi. If even Israel's great elder statesman, the man who did more than any other to ensure the cohesion and independence of the State of Israel, could not fight back the forces within his own party, how could we expect Mitzna to overcome.

True, Mitzna himself was no great elder statesman. I personally thought he lacked the luster and leadership to raise the party from the dead. But he certainly was better than Benyamin Ben-Eliezer, amicably called Fuad, who made it clear from day one that he will fight as an internal opposition within the party. In this case, a purge would have made sense--though I dare say that Mitzna lacked the political capital to carry one out.

In any case, with the Palestinian Authority embroiled in its own regime change, Sharon will not be sitting pretty for the years to come: with no true opposition to his leadership (Fuad is enamored with the man), and no strong unified opposition from Israel's pragmatic left, I fear that he will soon have to face the demons within his own party--which plan on forcing him to betray his promises to Bush's roadmap. While many would like to see that happen--and I too have my serious reservations--Israel cannot risk a split with the US at this critical juncture in geopolitics.

Fuad's ploy has cast all of Israel into a dark and confused time--a time that needs more clarity than any other. Too bad he couldn't get over the fact that, well, he's just not it.

Yehoshua on the 'Right of Return'

With the Palestinian demand for 'Right of Return' back in the news, I dug this out of the MEMRI archive. In the March 31, 2000 issue of Ha'aretz, prominent Israeli leftist A.B. Yehoshua argues against the Palestinian demand. I recommend you to read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts.

On the difference between a 'refugee' and a 'displaced person,' Yehoshua notes:

Those who fled, and those who were expelled, both Jews and Palestinians, cannot accurately be called refugees, but rather displaced persons, for there is an essential difference between the two terms. A refugee is a person who has fled or been expelled from the land of his birth; a displaced person is someone who has fled or been expelled from his home, but remains within the bounds of the territory of his homeland ... the Palestinians did not call their uprooted people displaced persons.

On the contrary Palestinian demand for both a return to homes and a homeland:

...they wanted to go home, literally. Thus, they sentenced themselves to a life of humiliation and poverty; a welfare existence without any basic rights. The refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt were not even granted citizenship, so as not to detract from their clamor to return. But there is no returning home for the displaced persons and refugees of 1948, and there cannot be such a return. There can only be a return to the homeland, and sometimes this may be truly possible.

While he argues for a Palestinian state, Yehosua concludes by saying, "the Palestinian state must be recognized when the time comes as the homeland to which, and only to which, all those defined as Palestinians by the Palestinian constitution will be allowed to return."

Syria cool towards Powell

The NY Times fronts a piece today suggesting Syria beginning to come around to Powell's position. Clearly, closing down an info office is not the same as stopping terror attacks and allowing terrorists to use southern Lebanon for base of operations

Syria has responded coolly to US demands for bringing peace to the region, saying Israel must first end its occupation.

In the first official statement on US Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Damascus, Syria said Arabs had given their all for peace and Washington must put pressure on Israel.

It made no mention of a key demand by Mr Powell - that Syria shuts down the Damascus-based offices of hardline Palestinian groups.

And several militant groups shrugged off Mr Powell's comments and said it was business as usual in their offices.

This is just talk, it's a storm in a cup because we are merely media offices
Abu Jihad Talaat of Islamic Jihad

The statement on Syrian state radio said the talks between President Bashar al-Assad and Mr Powell had been "constructive, frank and positive".

But it added that peace could only be achieved if Israel withdrew from all Arab lands it has occupied since the 1967 war and guaranteed the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Syria said the United States was "capable of deterring the aggressor and putting international efforts on the right track in order to achieve a just and comprehensive peace".

Lebanon has also reportedly rebuffed a US demand that it replaces Hezbollah fighters on the Israeli border with government forces.

An-Nahar newspaper said President Emile Lahoud told Powell on his visit to Beirut that Hezbollah was recognised as a "legal political party" whose guerrilla war helped end Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

There was no confirmation of this from government sources.

Doubts

Several militant Palestinian groups said on Sunday they were operating normally, despite Mr Powell's pressure on Syria and Lebanon to shut down their offices.

"This is just talk, it's a storm in a cup because we are merely media offices," Abu Jihad Talaat of Islamic Jihad told Reuters news agency.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official speaking from Lebanon, said: "The Americans know well that our presence is part of the Palestinian presence in Syria and Lebanon and that it's not voluntary.

"It is forced, because of the occupation of our land and the expulsion of Palestinians (in the 1948 war)."

And Marwan Abou Sami, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the groups had not been officially told to move their offices.

Israeli officials expressed doubts that Syria would crack down on militant groups.

One foreign ministry spokesman told AFP news agency: It's a good step by the United States to try to put an end to this. The future will tell but I have my doubts."

Seeking Peace in the Middle East

A nice discussion that presents interesting remarks and supportive links. The main arguement is that Bush now knows that the Palestinians are going to have to make the first move if there is to be some give and take for negotiations becasue no one can try for peace while terror attacks are going on. And of course Arafat out. Here is a very small extract, the conclusion

Ultimately, there won't be peace until the Palestinians collectively want it. Until now they've claimed to want peace, but the only peace they'd actually accept would come through total victory over Israel. It will only be when they want peace more than victory that peace will become possible. I think it will happen, but not because of this roadmap. It will happen as part of our larger effort to try to straighten out the larger problem of Arab failure over the course of the next 30 years. Until then, the roadmap is a useful way to force the Palestinians to begin to implement reforms, and to keep the Europeans and Russians and UN entertained. But will the "roadmap" process actually lead directly to peace? No; not until other larger events help to manipulate the situation to force the Palestinians to give up the struggle. You can't plan peace unless both sides actually want peace, and right now the Palestinians still don't.[more]

What the opposition thinks

IsraPundit's authors seem to sing from the same hymn-book. This has the disadvantage of not reflecting the broad spectrum of views that are prevalent around us. In a very modest, half-hearted attempt to remedy this situation, I'd like to point to a well-reasoned article IN FAVOUR of the RoachMap that has been posted on the website of the Israel Policy Forum, under the title, "Smearing the Moment".

Gotta know what the competition thinks.

Hezbollah is the "A" Team of terrorism

Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the Manhattan-based American Center for Democracy. She writes in NRO

When Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Syria on Saturday, he will no doubt raise the issue of Hezbollah with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Syrians claim that they have no control over Hezbollah. Besides, Damascus will argue, Hezbollah's terrorist activities are aimed only against Israel, and therefore are justifiable. But Secretary Powell should recall the recent statement of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, made in the run-up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq: "In the past, when the Marines were in Beirut, we screamed 'Death to America!' Today, when the region is being filled with hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, 'Death to America!' was, is, and will stay our slogan."

Syria's support for the Lebanon-based Hezbollah has made it a virtual terrorist powerhouse. Syria not only shelters Hezbollah and transfers Iranian weapons, including thousands of short-range artillery rockets and ballistic missiles, to the group. It also provides them with arms from its own stockpiles and millions of dollars worth of assistance in the form of training facilities and logistical and technological support. This help has, to a large degree, made the Shiite militia's war on Israel possible. In return, Hezbollah officials understandably lavish Damascus with praise. In an interview on Syrian TV in June 2002, Hassan Nasrallah praised Syria for remaining a "safe haven for jihad . . . the geographical and political refuge adopting the resistance movements in the region."

And Syria's support is just the tip of the iceberg. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was right to label Hezbollah as the "A-team" of today's terrorists. By conservative estimates, Hezbollah's international network includes at least 15,000 operatives in cells in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Indonesia, Malaysia, and throughout Africa.

Hezbollah's presence in the lawless tri-border region of South America, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay intersect, is of particular concern. In the mid-1980s, Hezbollah clerics and members of other Islamist organizations began proselytizing, planting operatives from the Middle East, and recruiting new members from among the tri-border region's residents. The jungles in the region were soon filled with terrorist training camps, which continue to turn out well-trained operatives to this day. In addition, Brazilian, Colombian, and Argentinean intelligence sources report that special weekend camps, run by Hezbollah, train children and teenagers in the use of weapons and combat techniques, as well as indoctrinate them with Ayatollah Khomeini's anti-American and anti-Jewish ideologies.

Hezbollah is heavily involved in the illegal drug trade in the tri-border region, as well as in money laundering, drugs-for-arms deals, and straightforward drug trafficking. Hezbollah operatives have developed strong relationships with major narco-terrorist and drug-trafficking organizations from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, and the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru. MORE

Canada was slow to accept this and only recently has banned Hezbollah. Europe has yet to ban them. Hopefully America will eradicate them.

'Shattered Dreams': After Oslo

A book review in The New York Times Book Section that shows the inability of both sides of the Israeli/arab conflict to understand each other.

SHATTERED DREAMS
The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East, 1995-2002.
By Charles Enderlin.
Translated by Susan Fairfield.
Illustrated. 458 pp. New York: Other Press. $28.
I once asked King Hussein of Jordan whether he considered Zionism legitimate. Did he accept that there was any historical basis to the Jews' claim to a portion of Palestine as their homeland? He looked at me as if I were from Mars and ducked the question. Later he told a Jordanian colleague that only a Jew could have posed such a strange question. Perhaps by the time of his death in 1999 he had softened his view. But his reaction still exemplifies that of the vast majority of Arabs today.

Even the many who favor peace with Israel under certain conditions accept its reality but not its legitimacy. On the Israeli side there are similar denials. Ask most Israelis about Palestinian nationalism or the centrality of Jerusalem to Palestinian history and you will get a dismissive wave of the hand and a lecture asserting that there was no Palestinian identity until the Arabs invented it as a weapon to wield against Israel. While covering the conflict, I was struck by how fundamental a gap these perceptions represented. But when the Oslo peace framework was signed by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in 1993, I started to reconsider. When I asked officials on both sides to reconcile their contradictory versions of history, they would do that dismissive hand wave and say the past was no longer their concern. I wanted to believe them.

Following the failure of the Camp David peace summit in 2000 and since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada shortly thereafter, it seemed clear that the process could never succeed without a more fundamental reassessment of competing versions of the past. Reading ''Shattered Dreams,'' by Charles Enderlin, reaffirms that concern. Until the two sides teach their children what it means to have stood in the shoes of their adversaries -- something the Israelis began doing but stopped, and something the Palestinians have never done -- the chance of real peace remains slim.

''Shattered Dreams'' is a deeply reported and scrupulous account of seven key years in the history of the conflict -- from the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November of 1995 to the first election of Ariel Sharon a little over two years ago. Enderlin has been the Jerusalem bureau chief for one of French television's main stations for the past 13 years. He persuaded a number of officials to allow him to interview them on videotape during their negotiations on condition that he not broadcast the tapes before the end of 2001. Later, he interviewed them again, and persuaded many to share notes from secret meetings. From these he produced a documentary that was shown in numerous countries, and on PBS last summer.

This book is a written record of those interviews and notes. When it appeared last year in France, it was a best seller. Fortunately, it has now been translated into English by Susan Fairfield. Unfortunately, ''Shattered Dreams'' has a slightly amateurish feel. It is written entirely in the present tense, which becomes irritating. The story gushes forward with little context or analysis. But this also proves to be a kind of virtue. As Enderlin moves from event to notes to taped interview, you have the refreshing sense that you are not being spun. He is simply seeking to represent reality in its complexity -- the personalities, the accidents of fate, the sins of omission and commission. In fact, despite the book's narrative flaws, it offers the most complete and balanced picture yet of the failure of the Middle East peace process.

The accepted story in the United States is that after several years of halting negotiations, at Camp David the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasir Arafat some 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a reasonable deal on Jerusalem. Arafat balked, made no counteroffer and two months later gave his real response, the violent uprising, complete with suicide bombings. Enderlin's story makes clear that there is truth to this version but, by itself, it will not do. Unless you understand the way Barak ignored the Palestinians in 1999 in a failed effort to cut a deal with the Syrians first; unless you see the accelerated level of Jewish settlement building; unless you grasp the dynamic by which the Israeli right interrupted the peace process, forcing Barak to pull back, you will not have a complete picture. In this book, we learn what was offered at Camp David -- 76 percent of the West Bank -- and how it grew to 92 percent the following January before talks broke down. Errors, misjudgments, false moves and internal tensions -- Israeli, Palestinian and American -- are all part of the sad story.

One example concerns the visit of Ariel Sharon, then the leader of the opposition, to the holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, followed by the uprising. Israelis have long argued that the visit was an excuse for an already planned uprising. The Palestinians have said the violence was spontaneous. Enderlin shows that it was the poor judgment of an Israeli deputy police commander -- based on faulty intelligence -- that set off the worst of the violence, which was then taken over by Palestinian leaders seeking to make their mark. Perhaps the biggest problem, the book shows, is the claim over that plaza of the mosques.

This brings one back to competing narratives. There is no neutral name for the plaza. The Muslims call it the Haram al Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, while for the Jews it is the Temple Mount, where the first and second Jewish Temples stood. Palestinians refuse to accept that the spot ever contained the temples, despite near unanimity on the point among archaeologists and historians. Every time the issue came up at Camp David, the Palestinians would say the site was uncompromisingly Muslim. As the top Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, put it to Enderlin, using the Arabic name for Jerusalem: ''For Islam, there was never a Jewish temple at Al Quds.''

At one point in December 2000, an Israeli negotiator actually offered, without Barak's permission, Palestinian sovereignty over the plaza as long as the agreement contained the words ''We know that the Jews maintain they have a religious connection to what they regard as the Temple Mount.'' Incredibly, the Palestinians refused. Middle East peace, then, has foundered on many things -- a cruel occupation, broken promises, violent attacks. But in the end, this book suggests, until there is a mutual acceptance of competing historic and religious claims, a lasting solution will not emerge.

Announcement: NPR

Demonstrations against NPR are being organized all over the US for May 14, 2003. Full information on the rallies is provided on the JAT Protest site. More info on JAT is also available on their site homepage.

The support given to the "Palestinians" by the media in general, and by NPR in particular, is a vital element in the success of the Arab propaganda machine. For this reason, it is important that the anti-NPR demonstrations be well-attended and advertised.

Do your share.

Israel Lobby Lacks the Latitude to Challenge Bush's 'Road Map'

This piece reposted from the LA Times to Agonist, where the url is given for the full (free registration) article

ul Richter, Times Staff Writer

Israel may have never had a better friend in the White House than George W. Bush. But suddenly, that friendship is becoming uncomfortable for the lawmakers and lobbyists who push for Israel's interests in Washington.....

....The deferential tone may not last as the two sides get down to hard bargaining in the months ahead. Yet it shows how much leverage Bush has, at least in the opening rounds of the process.

....the president promised his most important war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that he would do so.
.....
.....House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) called the proposal the "road map to destruction." In a scorching March 12 speech to the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, DeLay said Israelis "don't need to travel the path of weakness as defined by the neo-appeasers."

When AIPAC held its annual policy conference in Washington in March, the atmosphere was hostile to the plan. References by speakers to the road map were met with boos, according to attendees.

But when the White House made it clear recently that it would not rewrite the plan before its release -- rejecting the 14 points a Sharon envoy presented last month -- the tone shifted.

Last week, DeLay emphasized that he supported the president's effort, because he'd been assured "over and over again" that Bush would stick to the approach he laid out in the June speech.

Though some Jewish groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the conservative Zionist Organization of America, have continued to stress their opposition to features of the plan, others, such as AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition, have stressed their support for Bush's effort.

Meanwhile, some more dovish Jewish American groups and prominent individuals have stepped forward to voice support for the road map...

CONTINUED AT:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-roadmap4may04,1,7448 474.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
Logged

The Hated Solution

By Jerome S. Kaufman

Many times, I, a supposed Zionist maven, am asked: “Well, how would you solve Israel’s problems?” The difficult part is that I know the questioner will not like my answer. He or she will simply walk away mumbling incoherent unpleasantries. Solutions that require confrontation rather than uninvolved passivity are not welcome. It is so much easier to simply turn away using some irrational rationalization.

There is also a basic misinformation problem perpetuating the misconception that Israel is on “Palestinian occupied land” and must get off. We have no time for a history lesson but take my word for it: The Israelis are on only a small part of the land that was supposed to be the Jewish homeland by all historical, legal and biblical criteria. But nobody knows that anymore and the Arabs will never buy into it. So, let’s take a more practical tack:

· Even the most dedicated leftist now understands that fundamentalist Arabs do not want the Jews in the Middle East in any way other than as dhimmi, the second-class citizenship the Jews suffered for 2000 years under Arab rule.

· The Arabs will continue to gnaw away at Israel, undermining its existence in every way possible -- through the art of boycotts, the indoctrination of hatred in preschoolers, the hatred that’s generated on the college campuses, the Palestinian-sympathizing attempts at divestment from Israel, the professional Arabists and propagandists deluging the world media and the inroads into the American educational system under the transparent guise of anti-globalization, anti-nuclear energy, anti-global warming, affirmative action and diversity. Do you think these glorious shibboleths are truly in Jewish or Israeli interests?

· Look at the map of Israel. Do you understand its miniscule size? It is basically only 40 miles wide, including Judea and Samaria (West Bank); at Netanya, it is only 9 miles wide and at Tel Aviv not much further. Do you know the topography? Do you know that the hated “settlements” are on the Judean mountain range that protects the Israeli coast from immediate invasion and capitulation?

· Do you comprehend that such a small strip of land cannot possibly accommodate two nations, especially one irrevocably dedicated to the destruction of the other, yet incapable of sustaining its own economy.

Do you think all of the above begs the question? Wrong. All of the above dictates the only answer. Israel must remain so strong and so defensible, the Arabs dare not once again invade Israel because they would be destroyed along with their legendary self-deluding pride.

Did Uncle Sam -- via President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and so many of my heroes --blink and make “friends” with their intractable enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq? Or, did they destroy them and are now dictating a peace that will be in America’s best interests?

Israel cannot afford to deal with its enemies in any other way. The Jewish state, still under attack after 55 years, must deal as the Americans have -- from the universally understood currency - strength.

What about the territories? If you looked at the map of Israel, you must see they must remain under Israeli jurisdiction. Let’s get to specifics. I like the term “municipal authority.” The concept is to give the Arabs complete management over all their civic functions sans Israeli citizenship. Such citizenship was never Israel’s obligation. Israel must insist, through the world bodies, that the huge and wealthy Arab nations take in the supposed refugees and that those who remain in Israel behave themselves. The U.N.-financed, hate-generating “refugee” camps must be disbanded.

What about Israel’s economy? Tourism is dependent upon a vibrant economy and a welcoming secure country. It is Israel’s job to make its streets, markets, schools, nightclubs, etc., safe for its own citizens and its tourists. How preposterous to give that basic national responsibility to the Arabs or the United States! When Israel is safe, there is little question that Jews will flock in from the world over. Why would they remain as a hated minority in France, Argentina and Russia, even Britain? How many more Americans, especially our dedicated religious Jews, would make aliyah?

One other congenital problem: Israel’s economy remains in the throes of a pipedream called socialism. It is dominated by an archaic Histadrut labor union steeped in the original Russian misconception. Despite Israel’s awful times, the Histadrut is about to call a general strike and further cripple the economy. The union is unhappy with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt at bringing Israel into the 21st century incorporating the realism of capitalism. Until this gargantuan change occurs and the Jewish state elects to pay its own bills and removes itself from the American dole, Israel’s future will remain tenuous and will continue to take a very dangerous back seat in the relationship.

See, I told you that you would not like the answer.

Elon to U.S. to challenge Bush vision

Hat tip to Agonist, and also for the comments upon this plan that appear in
Arutz Shevi Seems to me that the terror groups will reject any plan that tries to keep them from exterminating the State of Israel and that the Jordanians have enough Palestinians within their present borders to worry about and they would thus be unhappy with gaining still more. Here is a summing up (via Arutz Sheva)

Elon's plan offers what he calls "the genuine and original two-state solution," proposing that it encompass the full extent of Mandatory Palestine on both sides of the Jordan River. Its six points include the following:
* The Palestinian Authority will be dissolved;
* Israel will put a firm end to Palestinian terrorism by expelling terrorists, collecting weapons, and dismantling terror-hotbed refugee camps;
* The international community will recognize the Hashemite Kingdom as the sole representative of the Palestinians, and will help it economically as it absorbs a limited number of refugees;
* Israel will become sovereign over Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and the Arabs living there will be Jordanian citizens living under a form of autonomy to-be-determined;
* The exchange of Jewish and Arab populations begun in 1948 will be completed, and the international community will help rehabilitate the refugees in their new countries;
* Israel and Jordan-Palestine will declare the conflict ended and will work together as neighbors.

Arutz Sheva: This very conservative Israeli newspaper report on the information above states that Arabs cotinuing to live in Israel will be considered "Jordanian citizens living under a form of autonomy to-be-determined."

The Roadmap to peace?

New Music Video: "Kill Jewish Settlers"


Arutz Shevadiscusses the dissemination of the video and also has a link to the video itself, with subtitles.

New Music Video: "Kill Jewish Settlers"
A popular new music video with outright incitement to murder Jews is being aired on official Palestinian Authority (PA) television. The video features lyrics and footage encouraging attacks specifically upon Jews living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha). Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) translated the movie clip from Arabic.

As images of a Jewish couple and a group of young Jewish girls walking home from school are flashed on the screen, the following background lyrics are heard repeatedly:

"From the mountain of fire [Nablus] came the rebels...
Everywhere there are settlements.
Oh brave Nablus, keep the cauldron ablaze
Pour over the settlements great flames
Foreigners have no place on this land
Foreigners have no place where Shahids [martyrs] were killed."

The music video intertwines scenes of Arab gunmen firing automatic rifles, aerial views of Jewish towns, and shaky camera shots of a Jewish man walking his wife, a group of teenage girls, and a soldier -- all taken from behind, as though the camera were held by someone preparing to ambush the Jews.

The music video with subtitles can be viewed at the following link:
Windows Media Player
[see title link to view via these links]

Quick Time

The Left, the Right and the Jews

In some of our discussions about the ME we make facile references to the Left and the Right. This piece attempts to sort through categories to explain where they come from, and why, and what they seem to be based upon.

[...] Islamic terrorism had its origins in the campaign of the PLO to overthrow the state of Israel. Its initial purpose was to frighten the Jews into leaving Israel and win international recognition of the Palestinian cause. However in recent decades, at the same time as Palestinian terrorism against Israel has intensified, terrorism has been adopted as a favored tactic by a wide spectrum of Islamic groups whose goals include but are not confined to the destruction of the state of Israel. The program of these groups calls for the expulsion of all "foreign" influence from the Muslim world and the adoption of Islamic law as the law of the land in all countries with Muslim majorities. The spread of this movement, which is commonly called "Islamism", is largely due to two factors. One is the establishment of a Muslim theocratic regime in Iran in 1979, the other the cumulative effect of the many billions of dollars of oil money spent by Saudi Arabia to finance the establishment of Islamist schools and other institutions throughout the world. The Saudis have been ardent theocrats since the 18th century, at which time the Saud family began its rise to power in Arabia through its alliance with the Islamist religious movement of Wahhabi. In both Iran and Saudi Arabia, Muslim religious law has the force of secular law, meaning that women must obey Muslim religious restrictions, all teachings contrary to Islam are suppressed and the "hedonistic" culture of the West is banned. The goal of the Islamists is to extend this system elsewhere, and eventually to the entire world.
Medieval in its ideals, violent in its methods and totalitarian in its aspirations, Islamism would appear to constitute a classical example of a right wing movement. Yet that is not how a large segment of the international left perceives it. To the contrary, Osama bin Laden, undoubtedly the best known Islamist in the world today, is seen by many as a popular hero, a fighter for the poor and oppressed, a leader of the resistance against colonialism and imperialism. When the United States moved to retaliate against Bin Laden and his Taliban allies for the September 11 terrorist attacks, leftists in many countries organized demonstrations against the United States government. Islamist terrorists in such Muslim countries as Algeria and Egypt have been portrayed by many leftist analysts as spokesmen for the poor locked in struggle against the corrupt semi-secular regimes which rule these countries. And of course Islamist terrorism against Israelis, which has now reached staggering proportions, has been excused, explained, justified and "understood" by most leftists everywhere in the world. Yet if an Islamist regime were actually to be established in any of the countries in which these leftists live, they would be among its first victims. To what is this seemingly self-defeating behavior on the part of the international left to be attributed?
The short answer is called oil. The entire industrialized world runs on oil, and most of the world's oil reserves are located in countries with Muslim majorities. From this simple fact, which is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, arises two conflicting strategies. One strategy says appease the Muslims so we can get the oil, the other says dominate the Muslims so we can get the oil. Many factors come into play in determining who adopts which strategy, but of these factors undoubtedly the most important is the possession or lack of military force. Those who lack military force must inevitably tend towards a strategy of appeasement. Conversely, the United States, as the country with the strongest military force and the greatest capacity to wield it anywhere in the world, is naturally tempted to pursue a strategy of domination. And as it is the right wing in most countries that feels most comfortable with a militarist policy, while the left generally prefers a policy of conciliation, it is the right wing in the United States, led by the Republican party, that has become most closely identified with the use of military force to secure the oil. It is this fact, more than any other, which inclines the US right to sympathy for Israel, while it is the opposition of the international left to a strategy of force which is primarily responsible for its hostility to Israel.
Because the left opposes the use of force, it must necessarily advocate appeasement of the Muslims, including even the Islamists; and since the Muslims in general and the Islamists in particular are hostile to Israel, the left feels duty bound to be hostile too. And because the US right favors the use of force, it is open to consideration of the Israeli point of view, since Israel has no choice but to oppose Palestinian and Islamic terrorism with the use of force. There is, however, a big difference between Israeli policy, which is basically defensive, and US policy, which is basically offensive. Moreover, the US, and even the US right, is far from wholehearted in its support of Israel. Even Bush has come out in favor of a Palestinian state, which under existing circumstances can have no other function than to serve as a base for intensified attacks on Israel on the part of the semi-secular, neo-Nazis of Fatah and the wholly Islamist terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There is only one way that Israel can overcome these heavy odds, and that is through the democratization of the Muslim world.
Fortunately, the democratization of the Muslim world is one thing which both the US right and the international left claim to want. The big question which stands before the world today is: what is the best way to achieve this goal? There is only one clear and obvious answer to this question and that is: through the defeat and destruction of the Islamist movement. Wherever the Islamists have come to power, they have suppressed competing political tendencies and instituted a regime of rigid thought control. But far from adopting a principled stand against the Islamists, the United States government has actually aided and abetted their cause by showering the Saudi monarchy with billions of dollars in oil money, which the Saudis have used to finance the spread of Islamism and even to provide indirect support for the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden. Opposition to Islamism is really more of a left wing cause than it is a right wing cause. And please recall that the left was not always so inclined to a policy of appeasement and conciliation as it is today. The original leftists, the French republicans, built the finest army in Europe in order to defeat the monarchical forces which were arrayed against them. The Communists too fought wars to defeat their enemies, who included Hitler. If the international left really believed in its own principles and was not merely a lobby for peaceful access to oil, it would stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are fighting the Islamists today, and that includes first and foremost the state of Israel. [more]

Antisemetism across the pond

Zogby in a very interesting blog informs us

"Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House, sparked outrage last night by accusing the Prime Minister of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers".

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Left-wing Labour MP named Lord Levy, Tony Blair's personal envoy on the Middle East, Peter Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who has Jewish ancestry, as three of the leading figures who had influenced Mr Blair's policies on the Middle East."
* * *
"The Prime Minister, Mr Dalyell claimed, was also indirectly influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and Ari Fleischer, the President's press secretary.

"They very much have captured the ear of the President of the United States. I said [to Vanity Fair] I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why," Mr Dalyell said."

Zogby then goes on to tear Dalyell apart. Check it out.

A former "Pro-Palestinian Intellectual" Changes His Mind

I randomly got this piece emailed to me, apparently by a professor who used to be very "pro-palestinan", but then he did some research and found out that he was being misled.

The pice is: Anti-Semitism, Misinformation, And The Whitewashing Of The Palestinian Leadership

Independance Day and Rememberance Day

We need your help

IsraPundit is planning to honour Remberance Day and celebrate Independance Day by doing postings relevant to these days

If you have any pictures, articles, personal stories or the like that would be appropriate please send them to us at us at tedbel@rogers.com . We look froward to your participation.

But we don't want to be unilateralists, Mr Bush

WASHINGTON - If the unilateralist hawks in the administration of President George W Bush were hoping that the easier than expected military victory in Iraq would bring the US public closer to their views, they are likely to be very disappointed by the latest polling. It shows that much of the public appears to be more in tune with the views of "Old Europe" - a moniker applied by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to describe European countries that opposed Washington's rush to attack Iraq - than with those of the neo-conservatives around Rumsfeld.

While three in four US adults say they now believe the war was right, according to the most comprehensive poll to date, strong majorities reject either a more unilateralist or military-oriented role for the United States in the future and continue to see the United Nations as the best mechanism for dealing with international crises.

Moreover, almost two-thirds of a random survey of adults agreed with the assertion, "The US plays the role of world policeman more than it should," and only 12 percent agreed with the notion that "the US should continue to be the pre-eminent world leader in solving international problems". MORE

This poll is very surprising in that it indicates Americans want to use the UN and relate to the EU. They don't like unilateralism.

Opposing the RoachMap

The following letter to the editor was published today (May 3, 2003) on p. B5 of the "Ottawa Citizen":

Mideast terrorism dooms road map plan [headings are assigned by the editor]

Re: Mideast peace plan set in motion, May 1.

The "road map" plan for Middle East peace has now been unveiled, following the Mahmoud Abbas-Yasser Arafat agreement concerning the Palestinian cabinet.

This news was followed by two homicide-bombings in Israel, claiming the lives of four Israelis and wounding more than 70 others. As in previous instances of this kind, terrorist groups affiliated with Mr. Arafat's own party claimed responsibility.

There is little doubt that Mr. Arafat himself is behind the ongoing terrorism. Once again, Mr. Arafat has underscored that regardless of the public relations, he is in charge and his method of choice is terrorism. Thus, it took less than a day to vindicate those who warned against the "road map" plan and against caving in to terrorists.

In his lune 2002 speech, President George W. Bush endorsed the road map on the conditions that the new Palestinian leadership be untainted by terrorism and that Arab violence cease. Recent events have shown that neither condition has been met yet the road map continues relentlessly. This strange policy of rewarding terrorists is bound to embolden dormant Osama bin Ladens to the detriment of all democracies.

The road map, which envisions a Palestinian state Within three years, must be stopped. Autonomy for Arabs in Western Palestine, under Israeli sovereignty, is the only way to safeguard the civil and religious rights of the Arabs in Western Palestine, while ensuring Israel's security.

Puerto Rico's model of autonomy under U.S. sovereignty should replace the road map, the sooner the better.

Joseph Alexander Norland, Ottawa

It is incumbent on Israel’s supporters to oppose the RoachMap at every turn and to offer an alternative. Let us not let Israel down in her hour of need.

Will Bush come to Shove Israel?

Forks in the Middle East road map appearing in Asia Times describes who's for and against the Road Map in the US

WASHINGTON - Will President George W Bush follow in his father's footsteps after a previous military victory against Iraq and exert serious pressure on Israel to implement the "road map" to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that was released by the State Department on Wednesday?

Pushing him to do precisely that will be two powerful world figures - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Secretary of State Colin Powell - who stuck by the president through thick and thin in the runup and conduct of the war in Iraq, continually reminding him of the importance of following up, as his father did, with a major initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (That was a failure-Ted)

State Department and Central Intelligence Agency experts argue that Washington's failure to move on that issue will only stoke the anger and sense of humiliation that has reached new heights in the Arab world as a result of the US military victory. (Nonsense-Ted)

So far, the administration has sided with both its Quartet partners and the Palestinians in insisting that the obligations are mutual and simultaneous. But how hard Bush and key policymakers are prepared to push Sharon remains in question.

Several senior Bush officials and advisers - the same hawks around Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney who led the charge for war against Iraq - are known to sympathize strongly with Sharon's views about the road map, as well as his hopes of retaining at least one-half of the West Bank in any eventual settlement.

Richard Perle, the powerful former chairman of the Defense Policy Board (DPB), has denounced the road map's simultaneity provisions explicitly. His views are believed to reflect those of the director for Mideast affairs on the National Security Council, Elliott Abrams, and the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith.

Other neo-conservative members of the Rumsfeld-appointed DPB, including former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is believed to have been given the green light by senior Pentagon officials for a savage attack on Powell last week, have also spoken out against the plan. They have also attacked the role of the European Union and the United Nations in the process, arguing that they are biased against Israel.

Significantly, Perle, Abrams and Feith, another undersecretary of defense, Dov Zakheim, and Michael Mobbs, a top Justice Department official who now holds a senior post in the occupation authority in Iraq, all signed an ad in the New York Times 11 years ago publicly denouncing Bush's father for pressing then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir into negotiations with Arab states after the first Gulf War. That pressure eventually resulted in the beginning of the Oslo process.

"As friendly as the United States is with many Arab states," they wrote, along with 30 other former senior government officials who called themselves the Committee on US Interests in the Middle East, "when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the United States must be squarely on the side of the Israelis".

In recent weeks, Sharon's US allies among other neo-conservatives and in the Christian Right - a core constituency for Bush - have also spoken out strongly against the road map, as have their publications, including The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal.

The powerful Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, for example, warned that any negotiations with Palestinians would "amount to a covenant with death". "We are absolutely right to stand with Israel, and our opponents are absolutely wrong," declared DeLay in a speech to a Christian Right group earlier this month.

The most powerful Israel lobby groups, the hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, have also flexed their muscle against the road map's simultaneity provisions.

Eight-seven of 100 senators and 297 of 435 representatives have so far signed on to a letter backed by the two groups that urges Bush to demand that the Palestinians stop all violence and demonstrate Abbas' independence and control over the Palestinian Authority before Israel is obliged to do anything, including stop settlement activity.

Even Bush's political advisers, who see an opportunity to make unprecedented inroads on Jewish support for the Democratic Party in 2004, have reportedly warned him against pressing Sharon into major concessions, insisting that the president not only risks reducing historically high approval ratings for his performance among traditionally liberal US Jews, but he may also disappoint his core supporters among Christian Right activists.

In the wake of such a mobilization against the road map, some Jewish activists who support the plan have called on Bush to follow through with it. Earlier this week, 14 major Jewish philanthropists, led by World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman, sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to support it.

Is the MEALAC Department [Columbia University]Balanced?

Columbia University's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture is heralded by other top ranked schools as a department to emulate! Not so, says this article

[brief extract. Read in its entirety]...
In the debate over academic objectivity, Professor Joseph Massad's name appears frequently. He is a favorite target of not only Campus Watch, whose constituents he referred to in his Al-Ahram article as "thought policemen," but he also receives criticism from students and professors on-campus. Although Massad declined to comment for this article, he is usually vocal in expressing his views and does not deny their role in his class.

Students say that on the first day of his Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Society class, Massad warns his students not to expect an even-handed analysis of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, Massad says he does not seek to intimidate students. "My policy is always to have students, whatever their political coloring, to feel comfortable to express their views freely in class," Massad said in an interview with the Electronic Intifada in September 2002.

While Massad's self-admitted bias bothers many students, some find value in his teaching style, subjective as it is. One student reviewer for the Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability, himself half-Israeli, acknowledges that "although it was perhaps the most difficult class to sit through at times, Massad's class is a necessary fixture in the mealac dept. [sic]"

Another student writes that although "I agree with Massad's stance, ... the lack of zionist [sic] voices in the ... reading list and the strict guidelines on paper topics (they steer you towards making Massad's own points) make this class not as thought-provoking as it should be."

Whether students approve of his style or not, no student of his seems oblivious to the fact that Massad offers only one perspective on a complex issue.

However, the question of its academic value remains. Bulliet believes that incorporation of one's own politics into the classroom, however self-aware or unavoidable, is inappropriate. "I don't think it serves a desirable pedagogical role," he said.

Some suggest that a topic as emotional as the Palestinian-Israeli issue requires passionate teaching to match. From this perspective, advocacy teaching portrays the conflict in its true provocative form instead of sterilizing it with academic objectivity.

Conversely, the very fact of the issue's sensitivity demands special consideration from a professor, Bulliet said. He described his preference for an "even-handed stance because the issue is so passionate. There are a few inflammatory issues that necessitate real caution and circumspection when you address them."

Inside the Classroom and Out

"As a department we are principally in charge of two agendas: teaching and scholarship," Dabashi said.

In the debates over the responsibilities of teachers, the line between teaching and scholarship is too often blurred.

Those who portray MEALAC professors as extremists often draw quotes from the professors' written scholarship rather than from anything presented in the classroom. While calling for an even-handed approach to issues in class may uphold certain academic standards, accusing a professor of malpractice for doing the same in his or her writing could be interpreted as censorship.

"[Professors] don't have the same responsibility in writing as they do in a pedagogical role," Bulliet said, "because they may be targeting an off-campus audience." For example, he added, "Khalidi has probably written things that you would not hear him say in class."

Many academics, including Bulliet, believe that what a professor writes for the public or even for the academic world should be kept separate from what he or she teaches in class. Others give more leeway for the mixture of scholarship and pedagogy, saying that it may enter the classroom, but only with sensitivity to students who may disagree.[more]

Britons are new pawns in terrorists’ evil game

Tme to wake up and smell the tea, as this article in Times Online makes clear

THE recruitment of young Britons as bombers in Palestine is a disturbing development in the growth of violent Islamic extremism in the United Kingdom.

The first British man who hoped to become a suicide bomber was Richard Reid, who tried to blow himself up using a bomb hidden in his shoe on an aircraft from France to America. A handful of radical mosques have recruited British youths to fight for Muslim causes célèbres in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kosovo, Bosnia and Yemen.

The rhetoric of the holy men who recruit them is filled with references to young men’s religious duty to avenge for the suffering of Muslims worldwide. The most potent cause is Palestine.

Radical Islamists do not flinch from describing Israel and Jews in an inflammatory language of hatred that has been unacceptable in polite British society for half a century. Shaikh Faisal was jailed after touring Britain telling Muslim boys to master the Kalashnikov so they could kill “filthy” Jews, Hindus and infidels. He preached anti-semitic conspiracy theories about the power of Jewish moneylenders and promised his young followers that martyrs who died in the cause of Islam would go to Heaven and be rewarded with a host of virgins.

Significant numbers of young British Muslims have become battle-hardened in jihads around the world. There is a global movement of radical Islamist fighters who descend upon countries where they perceive their co-religionists to be under threat. Some of these headed even into Iraq to defend Saddam’s regime[more]

The Real CAIR

The Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is leading a witchhunt against the nomination of a very good man, Daniel Pipes, to the board of the U.S. Institute for Peace.

CAIR is not what it seems – not what it pretends to be.

It is not a group fighting for equal rights for Muslim-Americans. It is not a group trying to protect the interests of Muslims in America. It is not a group promoting human rights for anyone.

It is a group whose real mission is changing the very character of America – remaking it in the image of the Islamo-fascists who fund them from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

You will never hear a nice word about America from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It's a hate group. It spends all or most of its time and resources denigrating America, condemning it as a pariah state that exploits and oppresses Muslims.

According to CAIR, America is a terrible place for Muslims. At the same time, CAIR boasts Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America. It makes you wonder: If conditions for Muslims are so bad in America, why is Islam so popular? Why are Muslims flocking from all parts of the world to the United States – this hideous concentration camp for Muslims?

I'll tell you why. Many Muslims have come here and continue to come here to escape the Islamo-fascism of places like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – places about which CAIR never has a bad word to say.

CAIR was late to the party in condemning Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It finally got around to it three months after the fact. Don't expect to hear any CAIR officials condemn suicide bombings by the terrorists in Hamas. The founder of this organization is on record in support of the goals and tactics of Hamas.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he wants the United States to become a Muslim country.

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

Founded in 1994, CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association of Palestine, identified as a "front group" for the terrorist group Hamas, according to Steve Pomerantz, former chief of the FBI's counterterrorism section.

Another ex-FBI counterterrorism chief, Oliver "Buck" Revell, has called the Islamic Association For Palestine – Hooper's former employer – "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants."

CAIR advisory board member Siraj Wahhaj was named by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White on Feb. 2, 1995, as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments," including the World Trade Center in 1993.

How seriously can we take the charges of a group that called the conviction of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers "a travesty of justice"? How seriously can we take a group that called the conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, who conspired to blow up New York City landmarks, a "hate crime"? How seriously should we take a group about which Steven Pomerantz, former FBI chief of counter-terrorism, says: "CAIR, its leaders and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups"?

Very seriously.

But just don't assume the group has any credibility.

The real goal of this group was made clear by its chairman, Omar M. Ahmad, who told a rally of California Muslims in 1998: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

This is the real CAIR. Amazingly, some American people and institutions have fallen for CAIR's ad hominem attacks on Daniel Pipes, a scholar among scholars. No less an establishment enterprise than the Washington Post editorialized last week against Daniel Pipes' nomination. Despite its extremist history, CAIR is making inroads in the media.

It would be tragic if the Senate failed to confirm Pipes because of the rantings and ravings of an extremist group like CAIR.

A short note

The following was posted on the "Palestinian" website, "Jerusalem Times":

[T]he Japanese foreign ministry said in a statement that Japan has offered 22.25 million dollars in grants to help the first Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, establish a Palestinian state in the Middle East. The package is for "humanitarian assistance and state-building efforts by the Palestinians."

The Japanese foreign ministry should have added that it is offering US$ 0.00 to the Israeli victims of the Arab violence, such as the scores who were wounded in the last two homicide bombings.

POWELL VISIT: US to tell Syria to recognize new reality


I am not convinced this duplicitous dictator can change. So many arab leaders in the region use an anti-Israeli stance to take the heat off their own corrupt regimes

MADRID -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, meeting yesterday with Spanish leaders, said he will urge Syria to review its foreign policy after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

As he prepared for his trip to the Middle East today, Powell also urged Israelis and Palestinians to push forward on a new ''road map'' for peace that was unveiled Wednesday.

At a press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, Powell said he will press Syrian President Bashar Assad to recognize ''a new strategic dynamic'' in the Middle East and the ''new and different kind of neighbor'' being developed in Iraq.

''I will encourage them to review these changes and take a look at some of their past policies and see whether those policies seem to be relevant in light of the changed situation,'' Powell said.

Powell, who stopped in Madrid to discuss Spain's role as a mediator and US partner in the region, is scheduled to visit Syria and Lebanon today and tomorrow. In both countries, he plans to discuss the development of a new government in Iraq and the implementation of the Middle East peace plan unveiled by international mediators earlier this week.

The secretary is expected to return to the Middle East in the coming weeks to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

Cooperation from Syria is crucial to the peace process because of the country's historic anti-Israeli policies, its influence in Lebanon, and its links with anti-Israeli groups that are considered terrorists by the US government, including Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Tensions with Damascus were exacerbated during the US-led campaign in Iraq, during which Washington accused the Syrian government of harboring Hussein aides and allowing volunteers to cross its borders to help defend Iraq.

The meetings in Damascus will be the first high-level discussions on the region since the end of Hussein's regime. Although Powell said he expected ''no specific result,'' from the talks, he said: ''We hope to have a full and candid conversation.''

After a lunch with Palacio at a forest palace north of Madrid, the secretary said the stop in the Spanish capital reflects US support of a continued role for Spain as its ally in the Middle East. Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who hosted Powell for dinner at his official residence last night, was the most visible of the handful of European Union leaders supporting President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in their effort to topple Hussein.

''Aznar and President Bush have remained in close touch,'' Powell said. ''And we look forward to continue working with Spain as we rebuild and put a democratic form of government'' in Iraq.

Palacio said Spain will continue supporting the US, financially and administratively, in reconstructing Iraq and its government. She did not disclose how much money the Spanish government would contribute to the efforts, but she highlighted the civil servants and police officers it has committed to help reestablish order following the war.

Palacio used the occasion to once again highlight Madrid's desire to play an important part in the broader Middle East peace process. Spain, a country with deep historic ties to the Arab world, continues to maintain healthy relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan.

Madrid hosted the meeting in 1991, after the first Gulf War, at which Israel met with its Arab neighbors to kickstart the negotiations that helped stabilize the region until violence erupted anew between Israelis and Palestinians in September 2000.

Holding the rotating EU presidency during the first half of 2002, Madrid also served as the site at which the United States, the EU, Russia, and the United Nations -- dubbed the ''quartet'' -- developed the new plan for the Middle East.

Aznar's administration has sought to maintain its involvement in the peace process. ''We are enjoying a moment of enormous hope and enormous satisfaction after a period of skepticism and doubts over the peace process,'' Palacio said.

Despite a Palestinian suicide bombing Wednesday and an Israeli military incursion into Gaza yesterday, Powell said violence should not disrupt the road map to peace.

''We can't let these sorts of incidents immediately contaminate the road map,'' he said.

THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT WORKS TO FOMENT TERRORISM, NOT PEACE

From a fairly new site, Dafka, this piece on the group that Israel will no longer allow into the territories. Note the training instructions from ISM handout for new members. This makes clear the intentions of the ISM.
[brief extract]There are three ways to come to Palestine -- via the Ben Gurion airport - Tel Aviv, via Amman, Jordan or via Egypt. Many people are afraid to come via Tel Aviv because Palestinian sympathizers are being denied entry into the country.

We believe that it's less suspicious if you come through Israel but you have to have a really good story about why you are coming, and must not mention anything about ISM or knowing, liking or planning to visit Palestinians.
You must play it as though your visit is for other, Israel-based reasons, like tourism, religion, visiting an Israeli friend, etc.

So do a little bit of research and put together a story that you'll be able to answer questions about.
For example, if you say you are visiting a friend in Jerusalem, you should have the name and phone number of a real Israeli person.

If you are coming for religious purposes, have a book or two on religion and travel in Israel; have an itinerary, etc.

Once into the country, you can find a shuttle to Jerusalem right outside the
airport doors, to the right. [more]

Israel news: 10 articles (links)

Road map for legitimizing terror
By Israel Harel

Yet another absolutly excellent demonstration of the calamity the Map already is. It is from the Haaretz but, unfortunatly, linkless.

"If political gains are, by definition, the main fruit of victory inthe battlefield, the road map proves the Palestinians - not Israel -have the upper hand in the war of terror that they initiated.

The attack in Tel Aviv - in the early morning hours after HolocaustMemorial Day and after Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was sworn in as the Palestinian Authority's first prime minister - is further proof that Israel does not have enough strength to put an end to that war.

Is it any wonder, then, that the United States is saying to itself: If Israel does not have the determination to put an end to the terror
that is persistently striking it, its best friend must take the initiative to stop the bloodbath that Israel has been unable to halt -due to inhibitions that are characteristic of Jews, who are afraid to take the necessary steps, even when they would lead to the prevention of the continuous murder of Israeli citizens.

In order for the road map to have a chance, it must be pro-Palestinian because the initiative, even after 13 months of killing Jews, continues to be in the hands of the Palestinians.

The road map's main danger is not the harsh demands it makes on Israel but its very publication. The Arabs conclude, and rightly so,
that America is declaring via the map that the terror against the Jews, unlike terror against the citizens of any other country, pays
and is therefore permissible. The road map is also a personal victory for Yasser Arafat, the man who until recently seemed to have fallen,never to rise again.

It can be said that Arafat lost the battle but won the war. What's more, despite the fact that, in principle, his crimes against humanity, particularly in the past two and a half years, are no different from the crimes of Saddam Hussein and all the other war criminals who have butchered civilians, Arafat enjoys immunity like no other leader of mass terror. Perhaps it is because his victims are Jews.

The bulk of his immunity is granted by the Israeli government, which is obligated to act on behalf of the victims who were murdered by his criminal activities. This is because the government, due to characteristic Jewish victims' complexes ("political reasons"), does
not dare charge Arafat with war crimes. If this is the nature of the victims' government, how can we complain against the rehabilitation
provided by European governments whose representatives do not desist from making pilgrimages to visit him.

It is unfortunate that the Israel Defense Forces, unlike the American army in Iraq, did not manage to grant its government the unequivocal victory that would have enabled it to dictate political and security conditions to the Palestinians. Such a victory would also have restrained the international pressure and prevented the need,certainly from the American's point of view, for the road map.

This would also have created a political-psychological atmosphere that would have made it possible to try Arafat for war crimes, along
with the band of terrorists who acted on his behalf, just as the Americans are about to try the war criminals in Iraq and just as the
Allied forces, led by the Americans, tried the German war criminals 57 years ago.

We would also be able to drive home the awareness that the blood of Jewish terror victims is just as red as that of Saddam's victims and, believe it or not, as the blood of the Americans who were murdered in the terror attacks. Just imagine what America would do to Saddam, to bin Laden and their minions when they are caught.

Only after 19 months of rampant terror, following the attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Seder night (March 27, 2002), did Israel
understand that it was the defensive doctrine that everyone praised, thanks to the reduced military casualty figures, that had practically given the terrorists free reign to organize and carry out the mass-fatality attacks.

Even during Operation Defensive Shield, despite its relative success,the job was not finished and the terrorists remained undaunted. The IDF, like the American army in the 1991 Gulf War, halted the war on the verge of victory, while most of the terror infrastructures,
particularly the headquarters and the directive and political leaderships, continued to operate.

Abu Mazen, who is now being told to finish the IDF's job, will smoke out the terrorists with the same vigor, the same efficacy and the
same results as his predecessor to the commitment "to dismantle the terrorists infrastructures" - Arafat.

The United States gave us enough leeway to win this war. President George W. Bush even tried to neutralize Arafat, the patriarch of Arab terror. When we did not meet the performance test due to ourinhibitions and our failings, and the people continued to bleed, the
Americans had to come up with a plan that they, in their mistaken naivete, felt would bring an end to the bloodshed.

And when Israel is ordered to start with "gestures" toward the Palestinians, and later to bear the brunt of the price of implementing the plan, there is no doubt as to who has won the battle. It is no wonder, then, that Arafat's calendar is so full of meetings with foreign ministers. He has been perceived, and rightly so, as the one who has again come out as the political victor in another round of the never-ending terrorist war the Arabs are waging, and will continue to wage, against the existence of the Jewish Zionist state.

Getting off the Map

Caroline Glick is a brave woman, who accompanied the soldiers throughout the Iraq campaign, and is a great journalist and analyst as well. Even Though most of us read quite a quantity of "roadmap" commentary, hers in the JPOST of today's is still a must read. Here is a paragraph coming after acknowledging the great acheivement in Iraq:

"Sadly, the Bush administration is not showing the same leadership in its management of the Palestinians' terrorist war against Israel. Rather, here the situation is comparable to the manner in which the first Bush administration mismanaged its military victory in the Gulf War.(all emphases added)

In 1991, Washington allowed Saddam to retain power and even sided with the dictator when, at the recommendation of then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, the administration enabled Saddam to brutally quell Kurdish and Shi'ite rebellions against his rule in the aftermath of that war.

Limiting its operations to enforcing the "no-fly" zones, the US for a decade allowed Saddam to continue destabilizing the region, amassing prohibited weaponry, terrorizing his citizenry, forging alliances with groups like al-Qaida, and funding Palestinian terrorists.

Here, the US is following a similarly strategically ambivalent and morally questionable policy with regard to its handling of the Palestinian Authority. In orchestrating its policy with the UN, EU, and Russia the other members of the so-called Quartet the administration is subordinating its decision-making power to forces that share none of President George W. Bush's convictions on the necessity of fighting terror and encouraging the spread of democracy in the Arab world.

Lest we have forgotten, it was just last year that the UN's special middle east coordinator, Terje Larsen, ignominiously stood before television cameras in Jenin and insinuated that Israel was guilty of war crimes in the IDF's combat operations against terrorists in the UN-managed Jenin refugee camp.

His remarks came at the same time as the UN Security Council debated its resolution to investigate charges not of Palestinian war crimes after terrorists from the PA murdered 130 Israelis in a single month but rather Israel for moving in to destroy terror cells threatening its citizens.Then too, bringing in the EU ignores the fact that it has been a chief financier of the PA's terrorist war against Israel.

Under the leadership of foreign relations czar Chris Patten and Middle East envoy Miguel Moratinos, the EU has transferred $10 million a month to the PA's coffers. This has gone on continuously in spite of the irrefutable evidence that Israel has presented showing the money is being transferred to Fatah terror cells. When faced with a demand by European parliamentarians to investigate the charges of terror funding, Patten undiplomatically responded that he needed an investigation "like a hole in the head."

In embracing the newly inaugurated regime of Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's deputy of some 40 years, the Bush administration is accepting a myth of a reformed Palestinian Authority. In so doing, it is expending political capital backing a Palestinian leader who shares none of the president's hopes for a reformed PA that can eventually lead to the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state.

Because of the support he enjoys from the Bush administration, Palestinians see Abbas as a US puppet they derisively compare to Hamid Karzai, the US-anointed president of Afghanistan. And yet, in stark contrast to Karzai, Abbas has not committed himself to waging war against terrorism by actively working to destroy terrorist infrastructure in the PA. Rather, like Arafat, he suffices with trite condemnations of terrorism, while continuing to define Israel's actions to destroy these infrastructures as morally indistinguishable from acts of mass murder and mayhem launched against Israeli civilians.

Working with the other members of its discordant Quartet, the Bush administration has now adopted the "Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" as official US Middle East policy. In so doing, the US is undermining its credibility as a nation that fights terrorism by giving a reward to the PA for its almost three-year-old terrorist war against Israel."

Already In Violation, Eh?

According to Ha'aretz, Arafat has wasted no time in staking his own road:

With the swearing-in of the new Palestinian cabinet on Wednesday came a presidential order from Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat for the establishment of a national security council to oversee all the PA's security mechanisms, including the counter-security apparatus, the uniformed police and the civil guard.

In keeping with the definition of powers of the Palestinian government, these security mechanisms are supposed to fall under the authority of PA Interior Minister Mohammed Dahlan. The move violates one of the clauses of the U.S.-backed 'road map' for Middle East peace, which calls for "all Palestinian security organizations [to be] consolidated into three services reporting to an empowered Interior Minister."

The national security council is to include Arafat, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Dahlan, Arafat's personal security adviser Hani al-Hassan, Finance Minister Salam Fayyad and Palestinian national security commander Haj Ismail Jabar. Tawfik a-Tirawi and Faisel Abu Sarah - whose security mechanisms (General Intelligence and Force 17) remain under Arafat and need not answer to Dahlan - will also be on the council.

The establishment of the council and the activities of the General Intelligence and Force 17 security mechanisms go against clauses in the U.S. road map that concern a commitment on the part of Abu Mazen's government to unify all the PA security mechanisms into three divisions, all under the interior minister.

In practice, the establishment of the council empties the new structure of the Palestinian security services of its content and derogates from the ability of Abu Mazen and Dahlan to implement security reforms. In the forum of the council, Arafat is the senior figure and the council's discussions will presumably dictate the PA's security policies.

Deja vu?

Thinking out of the Box.

What box is that? You might ask.

The one imposed on Israel by the world including the US. Restrain yourself until we can work out a settlement where you get out of the occupied territories and agree to borders roughly along the green line. Never mind that your people are being killed and demonized and that your economy is being greatly weakened. Never mind that the Arabs will never accept you and will plot to destroy you. That box.

If you ask any Jew or supporter of Israel if Israel could have any solution it wants, what would it be? We would all answer Israel’s eastern border will coincide with the Jordanian border and that All Arabs within the state of Israel be relocated. Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.

After all we won it fair and square in a defensive war. It is ours. We need it for growth. We need to be in control of our water resources. We need the high ground for defensive purposes. Our biblical roots are there. The reasons are self obvious and too many to mention here.

Our fight is with the Arabs, not the “Palestinians”. We are not trying to work out a border between Israel and the Palestinians but Israel and the other Arab countries. They already have 22 countries and more land and wealth then they know what to do with. The Arabs within these borders can easily be absorbed on these lands with their wealth. These countries should be responsible to absorb them. After all, they started the wars that created them. Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan represents maybe 4% of the total land area.

Israel must make its demands known and show the courage and passion to fight for them.

We will not be alone. The American people will be with us. The debate should shift from where the borders will be to how to get rid of the Arabs within them. Many Road Maps can be drawn up that explore that issue from the extreme of forcible transfer to the balm of inducement to resettle. Or a combination of both. Don’t worry; forcible transfer was approved by the world when Israel forcibly transferred Jews out of the Sinai. Forcible transfer is now intended for the Jews in the territories as soon as the ’67 borders are forced upon us. So if the borders are to be the Jordan River, then it will be the Arabs who will be transferred.

Now let us assume that the Arabs will be mad at us or will be calling for our death and destruction. We’ve seen it all before and are exposed to it daily. So what’s the difference? At least we will have great borders, no demographic problem no water problem, no terrorism etc. What can be bad?

Strategy, not just tactics


From yesterday's Haaretz:

......."What, then, is Sharon's solution to the conflict? A senior security official recently told Eldar of a conversation with Sharon, in which the prime minister said Israel must stick to its guns for the next 30 years, at which time alternative technologies will reduce the need for oil, thus sapping Arab influence on Europe and the world."

With focus and effort that 30 can be reduced to 15.

The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, focused on weaning the U.S. from Middle East oil

Ted Belman was there.

Why is this permitted.

Where is the Canadian Government?

The “Islamic Scholars” section of a Canadian web site for children called Play and Learn contains a biography of terror gang Hizb'Allah’s Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah—with a vicious anti-American, anti-Israel diatribe:

Politically, my primary objective is to see the Islamic revolution in Lebanon brought to fruition. The newly dissolved and recreated Lebanese government, led by men like Hrawi, Berrih, and Jumblatt, is clearly an obstacle in the path to revolution, and I believe that this government has been put together by imperialist Americans hoping to achieve their own ends in the Middle East. The United States and Israel are full partners in a war against the people of the Middle East. Therefore, we must secure their departure from Lebanon as a precursor to Israel's obliteration from existence, and as the first step towards liberating our people from the talons of Western imperialism. Only then may we begin to construct a political system favored by the people based upon the teachings of the holy Quran.

All those who seek peace with Israel are traitors to our cause, including the treasonous Yasir Arafat. We reject the accords signed between Israel and the PLO, just as we have rejected Camp David, the Fahd, Fez, Reagan, Brezhnev, and French-Egyptian plans, and any other plan that offers even tacit recognition of the Zionist entity.

"Land for Peace" is a betrayal of Palestinian blood and of the sacred cause of Palestine. Arafat, just like Israel, America, and the rest of the Western world stand in our way of revolution. So too, the secular government in Lebanon stands in our way. So too the Amal with its Syrian ties and secular orientation. The latter two have gone so far as to combat their kin, the Palestinian refugees in Beirut, during the camp wars of the mid-80's. We stood up for our people then, as we do now, while traitors like the Syrians strive for accords with the Zionists and imperialists.

And this on a Calgary Islam web site considered mainstream

"The peace between the leader of the Muslims in Palestine and the Jews does not mean that the Jews will permanently own the lands which they now possess. ...it is obligatory, when we have the ability, to fight the Jews until they enter into Islâm or give the jizyah (a tax levied tram those who are permitted to live under the protection of a Muslim state) in servility."

"...So all of this is with regards to when one is unable to fight the disbelievers, or unable to make them give the jizyah.... However, when one does have the power to fight Jihâd against them, then what is required is to call them to enter into Islâm, OR BE KILLED, or to pay the jizyah (emphasis mine). In this case it is not permissible to seek peace with them, nor to abandon fighting and the jizyah. Rather, seeking peace is allowed when there is a need or necessity."

Why does our government in Canada permit this.

Radical cleric 'taught'bomb suspects

Two Britons who Israeli authorities say were involved in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv were taught by a spiritual leader from north London, the BBC has learned.

Sheik Omar Bakri, of the fringe radical Muslim group Al-Mahajiroun, said the two men had come to him for instruction.

Three people died and more than 50 were injured in the bombing at a bar Mike's Place on Tuesday.

Israeli police are continuing to search for Omar Khan Sharif, from Derby, who they say tried to carry out a bombing.

I did not know them except on the level as teacher and student
Sheik Omar Bakri

His accomplice, Asif Muhammad Hanif, 21, from London, is thought to have caused the fatal explosion by blowing himself up.

Mr Sharif, 27, is said to have run away when his bomb failed to go off.

Mr Bakri told BBC News: "To be honest with you I knew both of them, but I did not know them except on the level as teacher and student."

The cleric, who founded the fundamentalist group in Britain, was not prepared to condemn the suicide bombing.

"There is no way for me to condemn the self-sacrificing operation that took place in Palestine against occupying forces," he said.

But the Muslim Council of Britain, which says it represents more than 350 Islamic organisations and mosques in the UK, has already criticised comments by Al-Muhajiroun as inflammatory.

Spokesman Iqbal Sacranie said: "Let us be absolutely clear, the loss of innocent life is against the laws of humanity."

BBC social affairs editor Niall Dickson said reports of the men's involvement had shocked the British Muslim community.

"The vast majority will deplore the killing of innocents and be offended that this was done under the banner of Islam," he said.

Condolences

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has condemned the bombing.

The UK's ambassador to Israel, Sherard Cowper-Coles, has pledged "total co-operation" between British and Israeli intelligence services.

And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has offered his condolences to relatives and friends of those killed in the "terrible" suicide bombing.

In Derby, police are continuing to guard Mr Sharif's family home.

The blast came hours after new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas won approval for his cabinet.

Although Israeli television showed British passports said to belong to the pair, the UK Foreign Office said it could not be ruled out that they were fake.

"We are not in a position to confirm the identities," one official said.

"Until the investigation is complete we are not going to be in a position to confirm whether or not they are definitely British."

Israeli ambassador to London Zvi Shtauber said they were making "every effort" to find Mr Sharif.

The explosion did not delay the publication of a peace "roadmap" for the Middle East by international mediators.

The one state solution

The Vision of the Undivided Land of Israel Is Alive and Well!

Nadia Matar, Co-chair Women in Green

Zeev Jabotinsky liked to recall for his listeners and readers, the lesson of the Judgment of Solomon: If one says, "It is all mine," and the other says, ""Half of it is mine," the one who says "Half of it is mine" has lost from the outset. It would appear today that so very many have forgotten this basic principle.

A new and worrying phenomenon has recently emerged. Public figures, who are supposed to represent the national camp, and take a resolute stance regarding the right of the people of Israel to all the Land of Israel, are proposing in media interviews all manner of strange solutions to the Israeli-Arab conflict. All the solutions that they put forth include a willingness to make concessions, of whatever sort, to the Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza District.

I am not speaking only about individuals such as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other central Likud members who, already for some time, have betrayed the platform that they are supposed to represent, and went over to the camp of the extreme left that calls for the establishment of an Arab-Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan. The sickness of pragmatism, the weakness of their ideology, and the loss of faith in the justness of our cause have also overcome some people who are supposed to be more hawkish than the Likud, such as Minister of Social Welfare Zevulun Orlev (NRP) and certain members of Moetset Yesha (the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.)

Minister Orlev surprised his audience in an interview on IDF Radio when he expressed his willingness to waive Israeli sovereignty in areas "A" (areas in Judea, Samaria and Gaza currently occupied by the PA) and for the establishment of a Palestinian state in those areas. Certain members of Moetset Yesha also left us with our mouths gaping in surprise when, a few days ago, they proposed "an alternative political plan to the Road map" that includes the establishment of Israeli and Palestinian cantons, and self-rule for the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza - a sort of "partition" plan that, de facto, resigns itself to the loss of the "A" areas. Although the Moetset Yesha plan calls for overall Israeli sovereignty and Israeli security responsibility; on the ground, their partition plan is already interpreted by the left and the media in Israel as consent by the Council for a broad territorial compromise in the very heart of Eretz Israel, even if this was not their initial intent.

Those public figures who propose concessions in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza must know that with these statements, they lose their standing as the representatives of the national camp, and join the tired, weak, and defeatist camp of the left. As it was stated by the mayor of Efrat, who was one of those who immediately understood the dangers inherent in the partition plan of the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza: "This entire plan is a mistake. The Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza need not become involved with political plans that entail compromise. We must fill the role of those who are 'crazy' about Eretz Israel. If others want to offer compromise plans, let them do so. As for us - our task is to strengthen our possession of the entire Land of Israel."

The ideological national camp must raise its voice in protest against Moetset Yesha'a partition plan or any other talk about concessions that divide Eretz Israel. We must proclaim that the vision of "Erets Yisrael Hashlema" (the undivided Land of Israel) is alive and well, and if some of those supposed to represent this ideology have grown tired, others will come in their place and fill their role.

They shall inform the entire world:
* all of Eretz Israel belongs to the people of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel.
* no Jew is entitled to give away even a single bit of Eretz Israel.
* the murderous PLO Authority, and the other terrorist organizations, must be eliminated, and all their supporters must be expelled.
* the State of Israel must impose Jewish sovereignty over all of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza District, and return to ruling everywhere. "Autonomy" or "self-rule" for the Arabs is not acceptable, neither for ideological reasons, nor for ones of security (controlling the civil life of the Arabs prevents terror and brings security). At the same time, the State of Israel - instead of formulating plans to deport Jews from Eretz Israel - should prepare a program for the repatriation of the Arabs to the Arab countries.
* the State of Israel must continue to realize the Zionist vision of the establishment of Jewish settlements everywhere in the Land of Israel. The fact that we are dwelling today in Elon Moreh does not mean that we have given up on Jewish settlement in Shechem. And the same is true for the other cities that are currently under Arab occupation (Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, and the others).

THE STATE DEPARTMENT GETS IT WRONG ON TERRORISM AGAIN:
“PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM” A DISTORTED PICTURE

People seem to be reading the new annual State Department report on terrorism uncritically. They see that terrorism is (obviously) down in the U.S. compared to 2001 and stop there. See the fantastic Best of the Web doing this yesterday.

The report though is the usual State Department white washing of Arab terror. Saudi Arabia is given its annual pass as is the PA. It is reports like this (and uncritical readings of them) that have contributed to the situation we are currently in.

A main flaw of the reports stems from the fact that it does not report on all terrorism but only “international terrorism” and in some cases the nebulous “significant terrorist incidents”. The definition of "international terrorism" is not applied evenly. A panel determines which attacks were significant according to certain standards but a review of the incidents versus what went on last year what areas are important to the United States. Thus there were four times as many significant terrorist incidents in India in 2003 than in Israel.

The second chart in the introduction (note links are to general sections) reveals that there were no casualties or deaths in North America from international terrorist attacks. An Egyptian attacking the Israeli airline counter at LAX on July 4th and killing 2 people (Jews) is not considered international terrorism by State and seems to appear no where in the report (The FBI eventaully came to view the attack as terrorism). Thus you can see that how the definitions are applied make all the difference. State can report terrorism as up or down depending on it political outlook. A real picture of terrorism does not appear due to State applying its definitions inconsistently.

This same chart indicates that there were 132 deaths resulting from international attacks in 2002 in the Middle East. Later in the report section on Israel the point is made that 370 persons were killed in 2002 by terrorists up from 200 in 2001. Why aren’t these people counted in the previously mentioned statistics? The statistical section lists casualties (injuries and fatalities) in the Middle East as having a 50% increase but indicates that international attacks are at he same level as the previous year. Perhaps the attacks have had an increasing deadliness? This is not discussed. Also note that the last chart in this section indicates that only 1440 Americans were killed (and 90 injured) in international attacks in 2001, the year including the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. This low number is obviously incorrect.

There seems to have been differing views regarding HAMAS by the people writing the report - here are two discriptions from different sections of the report. The truth seems to lie with the first (which seems to be purposely worded to attack the second description):

a) "HAMAS’s bombing of a cafeteria on the Hebrew University campus, which killed nine, including five US citizens, demonstrated its willingness to stage operations in areas frequented by Westerners, including US citizens. "

b) "The group [HAMAS] has not targeted US interests—although some US citizens have been killed in HAMAS operations—and continues to confine its attacks to Israelis inside Israel and the territories. "

Here is an interesting inconsistency in the report dealing with the Passover Attack lin Israel last year. The attack is mentioned three times in the report. Here are the descriptions. The attack took place during a ceremonial religious meal. Notice the different fatality numbers.

1) "On 27 March, a HAMAS homicide bomber entered the crowded restaurant of a hotel in Netanya, Israel, and detonated a bomb, killing 22 persons, including one US citizen, Hannah Rogen."

2) "HAMAS was particularly active, carrying out over 50 attacks, including shootings, suicide bombings, and standoff mortar-and-rocket attacks against civilian and military targets. The group was responsible for the most deadly Palestinian terrorist attack of the year—the suicide bombing of a Passover gathering at a Netanya hotel that killed 29 Israelis, including one dual US-Israeli citizen."

3) "In Netanya, a suicide bomber entered the crowded restaurant of a hotel and detonated the explosive device he was wearing, killing 22 persons including one US citizen and wounding 140 others. The Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) claimed responsibility."

I guess different people at State have different levels of sympathy for the victims and Israel. I have not added up the numbers, but based on the way the report is laid out, State most likely used the incorrect lower fatality number in calculating its statistics.

I have not thoroughly read the report. I am sure a closer reading will turn up other issues.

Palestinian Prime Minister Will Go Nowhere if He Attempts a Solo Act

Some sound advice from Dennis Ross to Minister Abu Mazen [ Mahmoud Abbas] on the challenges he faces (Ted Belman's comments are in bold)

For the first time in Palestinian history, there is a Palestinian prime minister. Though the timing of the appointment can be attributed to the Bush administration's determination not to deal with Yasser Arafat and the pressure of the international community, the idea of having a prime minister came from Palestinian reformers within the territories who were sick of corruption and wanted to see the Palestinians institute a rule of law. (I am not impressed)

These reformers — like legislator Ziad abu Amr and pollster Khalil Shikaki — understood there was no possibility of changing course as long as all power resided with Arafat. In their eyes, Arafat might remain the icon of the Palestinian cause but he could no longer be the arbiter of Palestinian decisions. (They are vastly in the minority)

The result was the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. But whether Abbas will ultimately become the first prime minister of a new, independent Palestinian state will depend on whether he can, in his words, stop the "armed chaos." (I would much prefer if he said stop the terrorism or even the violence , but "armed chaos"?)

Already in his speech to the Palestinian legislative council, Abbas denounced terror "by any party and by all its forms" — language Arafat never used. He also declared that weapons must be held only by the Palestinian government (leaving no place for independent militias) and acknowledged that Israelis as well as Palestinians had suffered. (I want deeds not words)

Abbas has begun to chart a new path. His intentions are clear and, having worked closely with him throughout the Oslo process, I know he is determined to act on them. (On what basis? What did he do during the Oslo debacle?) But will he be able to translate them into reality? He faces several obstacles.

The first is Arafat. The chairman will continue to resist any efforts that erode his power and build Abbas'. He will seek to block efforts to confront Hamas, Islamic Jihad or the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade — and, indeed, has already opposed disarming the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

The second are the very groups that continue to carry out terrorism. Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual head of Hamas in Gaza, has already rejected the idea that Hamas will give up its arms or its violent struggle, and there have been two suicide attacks in Israel in the last week.

Abbas' third challenge will be to overcome the impression that he is doing the bidding of Israel or the U.S. — an impression that Arafat has sought to cultivate by spreading the word that Abbas' appointments on security were focused on Israeli, rather than Palestinian, needs.

To overcome these obstacles, Abbas must show that he can deliver for the Palestinians. He must show that life gets better: People and goods can move again. Israeli checkpoints are lifted and controls relaxed. Schools can be reopened. At least some Palestinian prisoners are released. Israeli incursions and targeted killings stop. Unauthorized Israeli settler outposts are closed down, signaling that land that Palestinians considered to be theirs is no longer going to grabbed. (This is utter nonsense. It is axiomatic. If the violence stops, life gets better. Everybody knows it. No one has to satisfy anyone that this will be the result. As for the the outposts and the land, its time the Pals realized that it is not theirs and the longer they wait the less it will be theirs. If they want to fight over it, let's fight. If they want to take their chances on non violence, fine. But they can't expect to get the land as a reward for stopping terror.)

In short, Abbas must show his people that his way works.

The Israeli government must be prepared to cooperate in taking such steps. (Not their responsibility) But it will not do so if it believes that such a relaxation will lead to a renewed wave of suicide killings.

For Abbas to deliver for Palestinians, he must be able to stop or at least profoundly curtail the violence. He must reach concrete understandings with the Israelis on security — what he will do, when he will do it, how and where he will do it.

In turn, he must be assured that the Israeli military won't undercut him. He must be promised where, when and how Israeli controls will be eased.

There is no substitute for reaching such understandings now. It's imperative that both sides interpret things the same way and know they will be held accountable.

Finally, if Abbas is to overcome the obstacles he is certain to face, he will need the help of Arab leaders from neighboring countries. They must publicly support him and back him in any confrontation with violent Palestinian groups. Ultimately, for Abbas to succeed he must take difficult steps, but he must also have the help of the Israelis, the Arabs and the U.S. as he does so.

(The whole idea that Israel must encourage the Palestinians in order to help them end the violence is total bullshit. We are fighting to stop the terror and to get the best deal possible. That means keep as much land as possible. We must change the paradigm. We should not be fighting to give them all they want but to defeat them so we can keep all we want. Don't buy into the State Department's speil.)

.

Resist, Resist, Resist

You can find here: a whole dossier of positions against the debasing and dangerous Map. The following is Haetzni's conclusion of his particularly sharp analysis of the Map's inner logic.

"After two and a half years of the present Intifada, Yasser Arafat can credit himself with having achieved all his war objectives: A Palestinian state within immediate reach, international involvement and supervision, introduction of the United Nations and Europe into the area, military involvement by Jordan and Egypt, elimination of Jewish settlements and release of Israel’s effective hold on most parts of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. It is chilling indeed to realize that we have paid for his achievements with over a thousand Jews murdered and many thousands more wounded in terror attacks since the Oslo Accords were drafted."

Our man in the White House

Bush says it again. (On the USS Abraham Lincoln)

Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country and a target of American justice.

Any person, organization or government that supports, protects or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes. Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world and will be confronted.

How can that not apply to the whole terrorist kit and kaboodal in the territories.

Western Wall Signs Stress Jewish Connection To Temple Mount

Unbeknownst to many the Western or Wailing Wall is not the holiest site to Judaism instead it is the Temple itself where a mosque stands and the Israeli government does not allow Jewish worshippers to go.

Several large signs have been affixed near the entrances to Jerusalem's Western Wall plaza. In addition to the usual guidelines regarding modesty and respect for the sanctity of the holy site, the centrality of the Temple Mount to Judaism and the Jewish people is clearly expressed.

US Congressmen and Senators: No Talk Until Terror Stops

From Israel National News/Arutz-7:

In a dramatic move, 88 U.S. Senators and 313 House Representatives sent a strongly worded letter to U.S. President George Bush objecting to the emphasis being placed on the Road Map plan. The lawmakers noted that Bush appeared to be shifting away from his previous demands for a complete end to terror before negotiations could take place.

Mirroring President Bush's words, the lawmakers wrote that the Palestinians must begin to seriously fight terrorism and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure as a key first step toward renewed negotiations. The US lawmakers even questioned the entire premise of negotiations at this point in time: "As we have learned from recent history, without a new, empowered Palestinian leadership that is finally committed to fighting terror, there is no one with whom to negotiate and no point in making unilateral concessions."

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and John Ensign (R-NV), together with Roy Blunt (R-MO), Steny Hoyer(D-MD), Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Tom Lantos (D-CA) in the House, authored the letter.
The letter adopts Prime Minister Sharon's traditional demand that Palestinian leadership must not be judged by what it says, but by what it does. "While recent political changes in the Palestinian Authority are a positive step," reads the letter, "it is only the start of what is needed... Actions - not just promises - are necessary for real progress."

Please Read This!

The following is a sermon given by Joe McCain, brother of senator John McCain. It came to me through Shoshana Walker's mailing about Israel. This is the full text which I reproduce here for fear that you might be tempted to skip the trip to the url

"NEVER AGAIN"

There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now --
"Can Israel Survive?"

Don't worry about it.

It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most
Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly again. Never.

And if the world doesn't come to understand that, millions of Arabs are
going to die. It's as simple as that.

Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around race
of people have been the Jews. Not just the holocaust of World War II, but
for thousands of years. They have truly been "The Chosen People" in a
terrible and tragic sense.

The Bible story of Egypt's enslavement of the Jews is not just a story, it
is history, if festooned with theological legend and heroic epics.


In 70 A.D. the Romans, which had for a long time tolerated the Jews --even
admired them as 'superior' to other vassals -- tired of their truculent
demands for independence and decided on an early "Solution" to the Jewish
problem. Jerusalem was sacked and reduced to near rubble,
Jewish resistance was pursued and crushed by the implacable
Roman War Machine -- seeMasada. And thus began The Diaspora,
the dispersal of Jews throughout the rest of the world. Their homeland
destroyed, their culture crushed, they looked desperately for the few niches
in a hostile world where they could be safe.

That safety was fragile, and often subject to the whims of moody hosts.
The words 'pogrom', 'ghetto', and 'anti-Semitism' come from this treatment of
the first mono-theistic people. Throughout Europe changing times meant
sometimes tolerance, sometimes even warmth for the Jews, but eventually it
meant hostility, then malevolence.

There is not a country in Europe or Western Asia that at one time or
another has not decided to lash out against the children of Moses, sometimes
by whim,sometimes by manipulation.

Winston Churchill calls Edward I one of England's very greatest kings. It
was under his rule in the late 1200's that Wales and Cornwall were hammered
into the British crown, and Scotland and Ireland were invaded and occupied.
He was also the first European monarch to set up a really effective administrative
bureaucracy, surveyed and censused his kingdom,established laws and political divisions.

But he also embraced the Jews. Actually Edward didn't embrace Jews so much
as he embraced their money.

For the English Jews had acquired wealth -- understandable, because this
people that could not own land or office, could not join most of the
trades and professions, soon found out that money was a very good thing to
accumulate. Much harder to take away than land or a store, was a hidden
sock of gold and silver coins.

Ever resourceful, Edward found a way -- he borrowed money from the Jews to
finance imperial ambitions in Europe, especially France. The loans were
almost certainly not made gladly, but how do you refuse your King?
Especially when he is 'Edward the Hammer'.

Then, rather than pay back the debt, Edward simply expelled the Jews.
Edward was especially inventive -- he did this twice. After a time, he
invited the Jews back to their English homeland, borrowed more money, then
expelled them again.

Most people do not know that Spain was one of the early entrants into The
Renaissance. People from all over the world came to Spain in the late
medieval period. All were welcome -- Arabs, Jews, other Europeans. The
University of Salamanca was one of the great centers of learning in the
world -- scholars of all nations, all fields came to Salamanca to share their
knowledge and their ideas.

But in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella, having driven the last of Moors from
the Spanish Shield, were persuaded by the righteous fundamentalists of the time
to announce "The Act of Purification". A series of steps were taken in
which all Jews and Arabs and other non-Christians were expelled from the
country, or would face the tools and the torches of The Inquisition. From this
cleansing come the Sephardic Jews --- as opposed to the Ashkenazis or
Eastern Europe.

In Eastern Europe, the sporadic violence and brutality against Jews are
common knowledge. 'Fiddler' without the music and the folksy humor. At
times of fury, no accommodation by the Jew was good enough, no profile low
enough, no village poor enough or distant enough.

From these come the near-steady flow of Jews to the United States. And
despite the disdain of the Jews by most 'American' Americans they came to
grab the American Dream with both hands, and contributed everything from
new ideas of enterprise in retail and entertainment to becoming some of our
finest physicians and lawyers. The modern United States, in spite of itself,
IS The United States, in part because of its Jewish blood.

Then the Nazi Holocaust -- the corralling, sorting, orderly eradication of
millions of the people of Moses. Not something that other realms in other
times didn't try to do, by the way, the Germans were just more organized
and had better murder technology.

I stood in the center of Dachau for an entire day, about 15 years ago,
trying to comprehend how this could have happened. I had gone there on a side
trip from Munich, vaguely curious about this Dachau. I soon became engulfed
in the enormity of what had occurred there nestled in this middle and working
class neighborhood.

How could human beings do this to other human beings, hear their cries,
their pleas, their terror, their pain, and continue without apparently even wincing?

I no longer wonder. At some times, some places, ANY sect of the human
race is capable of horrors against their fellow man, whether a member of the
Waffen SS, a Serbian sniper, a Turkish policeman in 1920's Armenia, a
Mississippi Klansman.

Because even in the United States not all was a Rose Garden. For a long
time Jews had quotas in our universities and graduate schools. Only so many
Jews could be in a medical or law school at one time. Jews were disparaged
widely. I remember as a kid Jewish jokes told without a wince -- "Why do
Jews have such big noses?"

Well, now the Jews have a homeland again. A place that is theirs.
And that's the point. It doesn't matter how many times the United States
and European powers try to rein in Israel, if it comes down to survival of its
nation, its people, they will fight like no lioness has ever fought to
save her cubs. They will fight with a ferocity, a determination, and a skill,
that will astound us.

And many will die, mostly their attackers, I believe. If there were a
macabre historical betting parlor, my money would be on the Israelis to be
standing at the end. As we killed the kamikazes and the Wehrmacht soldaten
of World War II, so will the Israelis kill their suicidal attackers, until
there are not enough to torment them.

The irony goes unnoticed -- while we are hammering away to punish those
who brought the horrors of last September here, we restrain the Israelis from
the same retaliation. Not the same thing, of course --
We are We & they are they.

While we mourn and see the at September 11th, we don't notice that Israel
has a September 11th sometimes every day.

We may not notice, but it doesn't make any difference.

And it doesnt make any difference whether you are pro-Israeli or you think
Israel is the bully of the Middle East.

If it comes to where a new holocaust looms -- with or without the concurrence of the United States and Europe -- Israel will lash out without pause or restraint at those who would try to annihilate their country.

Debka Links Two Human Bombs to Syria

From Debka (lets hope Colin does not bring this up when he visits Syria soon, it may sour oour relations and get in the way of Syrian efforts to stop terrorism): "DEBKAfile reveals: Updated findings show Tel Aviv suicide attack was originally planned for Passover by Damascus-based Hamas operations mastermind Imad al-Alamai who works with Hizballah. He was controller of British killer team, one of which spent four months in Damascus preparing operation. His partner flew to Syria through Europe three weeks ago.

Together they passed through Jordan to Allenby Bridge crossing, entering on British passports and driving to Gaza Strip. Their bomb belts contained new type of explosive not seen before by Israeli bomb experts and presumed imported. Al Aqsa Brigades of Arafat’s Fatah and Hamas claimed attack"

Militants Pledge Revenge at Gaza Funerals

Not The Road but Road Rage--perhaps a civil war?

- Islamic militants pledged revenge attacks and shouted their opposition to new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on Friday at a mass funeral for 11 Palestinians killed in an Israeli raid in the Gaza Strip.

Tens of thousands of mourners, including gunmen from the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction, marched from Gaza's main mosque to the city cemetery.

"No, no to Abu Mazen," some in the crowd shouted, using the nom de guerre of the reformist prime minister who has voiced his opposition to militants having weapons and accepted a U.S.-backed "road map" to peace presented on Wednesday.

"Our men will strike Israeli cities," Hamas loudspeakers blared as militants, some of them masked, marched with automatic rifles and mortar launchers in their hands. "Revenge is coming soon."

Twelve Palestinians, including a two-year-old boy, were killed on Thursday when Israeli forces thrust into a Gaza neighborhood in a sweep for wanted militants. The toddler was buried the same day.

Witnesses said six of the dead were civilians, including a 13-year-old boy and a 17-year-old, and six were militants.

Israel launched the incursion a day after a British Muslim suicide bomber blew himself up at a Tel Aviv night club, killing three people. Hamas and the al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israeli security forces continued their search for a second British Muslim who dropped his explosive belt at the scene and fled.

The surge in violence in a 31-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood was a blow to efforts by the "Quartet" of peace mediators -- the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia -- to persuade both sides to begin implementing the "road map."

POWELL DUE IN REGION

Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to begin talks in Israel and the West Bank toward the end of next week on pressing ahead with the peace plan that envisages immediate confidence-building measures and a Palestinian state by 2005.

The "road map" calls on the Palestinians to "undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning attacks on Israelis anywhere."

Israel has said that once that happens, it would be prepared to pull troops out of some of the Palestinian areas they reoccupied last year following a spate of suicide bombings

Yom Hazikaron:Israel's National Memorial Day for The Fallen

This man is selling flags in Tel Aviv. A few weeks before Israeli Independence Day,
people hang flags from their balconies and from their car windows. The words to a popular
Israeli Independence Day song are "kol ha'aretz, degalim, degalim" which means "the whole
county, flags, flags.

The national anthem: Hatikva

David Ben-Gurion declares the
establishment of the State of Israel

see links
Izkor - Memorial to Israel's Fallen (in Hebrew)
In Memory of the Victims of Terror in Israel (in Hebrew)
Remembrance Day/Independence Day - Selected Readings
"The ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly..."

The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
Fascimile of the Declaration of Independence (Hebrew)
The State of Israel Is Born: Headlines from the world press May 1948

Map of Israel within Boundaries and Ceasefire Lines - 2000
Israel at 54 - A Statistical Glimpse
FACTS ABOUT ISRAEL: The State
FACTS ABOUT ISRAEL: History - Independence
History of the IDF: War of Independance

Israel Independence Day

from Naomi Ragen, via e-mail

On April 15, only a few short weeks ago, Lt. Daniel Mandel, the son of Cheryl Mandel, manager of the Etzion Judaica Center, was killed in action during a military operation in Shechem. Here are Cheryl's own words:

A Farewell to Daniel, by Cheryl Mandel

Fifteen and a half years ago, we brought our family to Israel from Canada, because we believed and still do believe that this is the place where Jews should live. We brought our family here because it is our homeland.

We accepted that this is a young country where there were difficulties and we were willing to stand up to the challenges before us. When our eldest son Jonah went into the Army, we felt he was serving his country in the best way he could, and that since his work was dangerous, there might be a price. When our son Daniel went into the Army, we knew and we accepted that there might be a price. Unfortunately, like many other parents of soldiers, we have now paid the price for the security of our nation.

Our son Daniel was a lieutenant in an elite Army unit. He was dedicated to his soldiers, his staff and his Army service, all of which he truly loved. Daniel served in the Army for four years, and was even thinking of staying longer. Maybe I was naive. I was happy for Daniel when he was accepted into Palsar Nachal, an elite reconnaissance unit. I was happy for him when he was accepted to become an officer. I was so proud of him just a few weeks ago, when we attended the ceremony for the completion of his soldiers' training, and I was so proud to see how he had developed as a person, as a man, as a leader.

At the ceremony for Daniel's soldiers, the soldiers themselves and their parents spoke to us so beautifully about Daniel. They appreciated his caring and strong leadership, his commitment to his country.

Then on April 15, thirty six hours before the Passover Seder, the impossible to believe happened to our family. Daniel and his unit were sent to Shechem to capture wanted terrorists. Their mission was a success, but Daniel, the commander of that operation, was killed. In fact, yesterday, Daniel's unit was given a Commendation of Excellence for their handling of the entire mission, even after their commander fell.

The mission gave me a greater appreciation of our army, the Israel Defense Forces, and how they deal with the myriad of emergencies that face our nation. Soldiers know what they're doing. Soldiers know the rules of the game. Daniel had a bulletproof vest, and a bulletproof helmet. He had the right equipment, the right training for this mission. Yet, despite it all, asniper's bullet pierced a small unprotected area above his vest and under his arm. He died a hero.

We had always thought of Daniel as lucky. He won a trip to EuroDisney,and a set of books that he donated to his yeshiva. But in Shechem before Pesach, his luck had run out.

Daniel was a wonderful son, a wonderful brother. Wherever he went, the sun shone and there was laughter.

His positive attitude teaches us that when bad things happen, you can make sure something positive comes out of the tragedy. When bad things happen, people can go up or down. We were determined to go up and make a difference for others.

Our family was determined to be strong, to build ourselves, and help others.

Daniel had wonderful friends, wonderful rabbis, wonderful soldiers and a wonderful family. They have been very supportive to our family throughout this entire tragedy. Daniel had been such an important part of their lives, and they said they would always continue in his footsteps.

We all feel that Daniel will always be here with us. And we're going to be strong for him.

Over the past two years, I have been part of a company of women, called the Raise Your Spirits Summer Stock Company - first performing in JOSEPH and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and most recently in ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court. I was the show's comic relief.

Being in JOSEPH and then in ESTHER prepared me to face the challenges that I now face. Our Raise Your Spirits Company was set up so that the women of Gush Etzion could support one another, help one another, cry together and laugh together.

We have spent the past two years raising the spirits of others who have been hit by tragedy, and now we must do it for ourselves. We will.

Cheryl Mandel
Manager
Etzion Judaica Center
Gush Etzion, Israel
www.judaica.org.il
cheryl@gush-etzion.co.il judaica1@netvision.net.il

Back to "restraint", are we, Colin?

When the Bush administration commenced its term in January, 2001, Israel was engaged in a war of self-defense against the Arafat-engineered Intifada (a forthcoming article will document that the Indifada II was, indeed, Arafat-engineered). Whatever steps Israel took, Powell's reaction was one and the same: Israel must show restraint.

After 9-11, this mantra descended for a while into the realm of silence. Amazingly, it has now resurfaced, even as Israel was subjected to two homicide attacks within days. Ha'Aretz reports today (May 2, 2003) as follows, under the heading, "U.S. urges Israeli 'restraint' after Gaza raid leaves 13 dead":

The United States urged the Israeli military on Thursday to exercise restraint after 13 Palestinians were killed, including a two-year-old toddler in a raid on the Sajayia neighborhood of Gaza City.

"We deeply regret the civilian casualties that occurred today in Gaza," State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said.
...
Nine IDF soldiers were wounded during the course of Thursday's operations.

While recognizing Israel's "right to self-defense" in response to suicide bombings, Prokopowicz said: "We urge the Israeli government to take all appropriate precautions to prevent the death or injury of innocent civilians and damage to civilian and humanitarian infrastructure. This includes exercising restraint in undertaking operations in civilian areas."

What makes this "show restraint" statement more outrageous that the average for State is the fact that it comes on the heels of news reports about civilian causualties inflicted by US troops in Iraq. Even Chirac did not come out with a statement saying, "We urge the US government to take all appropriate precautions to prevent the death or injury of innocent civilians and damage to civilian and humanitarian infrastructure. This includes exercising restraint in undertaking operations in civilian areas."

A second point to underscore is the level of violence coming from the Arabs in Judea/Samaria/Gaza (JSG). Mostly, the biassed mainstream press concentrates on the high-profile operations. But a careful reading of the news shows incessant, omnipresent terrorist acts on the part of the Arabs in JSG. To substantiate this claim, I quote below a series of one-line items from the Flash News posted by Ha'Aretz; the items are quoted from last night’s (May 1, 2003) posting, 8 pm EDT, and cover a period of only eight hours:

00:05 Shots fired at Israeli bus traveling in near Neve Suf, north of Ramallah; no injuries, but damage caused to bus
22:59 IDF troops shoot and kill armed Palestinian who opened fire on their outpost in northern West Bank
22:10 Anti-tank rocket fired at convoy traveling on Karni-Netzarim road in Gaza Strip; no injuries or damage
22:02 Mortar shell fired at settlement in central Gaza Strip; no injuries or damage
21:57 Shots heard next to Hermesh settlement in West Bank; no injuries or damage; IDF troops searching area
18:05 IDF says three brothers who were involved in firing of Qassam rockets into Israel were killed in raid in Gaza
17:36 IDF soldiers seize two Palestinians traveling in taxi near Nablus with 10 kg of explosives in their possession
17:11 2 residents of E. Jerusalem being held by security forces for having been trained in Ramallah to carry out attacks in capital
14:58 Two East Jerusalem residents indicted for attempting to attack Shin Bet security official in Old City
14:07 Hezbollah fires anti-tank shells on northern border; no injuries reported

If you encountered a news item showing that State condemned Hezhollah or the Arabs in JSG for even ONE of these acts, please let me know; I most definitely could find nothing to that effect.

The U.S. and Israel: The Road Ahead

An essay by Abraham D. Sofaer from the May 2003 issue of Commentary provides a very thorough analysis of the failure of the Oslo accords and the "Road Map". (Reprinted at FrontPage Magazine)

Comment by Ted Belman
This article is of extreme importance.

Instead, in the face of the continuing violence, the United States kept pressing Israel to make further concessions, thereby convincing Palestinians that they could go on cheating and killing and still procure the benefits for which they had been negotiating. In the end, it seemed reasonable to suppose that they might even force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza as it had been forced to withdraw from southern Lebanon in the summer of 2000.

But Palestinian violence is a much more serious and difficult problem than even Dennis Ross now admits. It is the product of an environment that fosters, shelters, encourages, and rewards acts aimed at nullifying Israel’s very existence. And that environment is itself the creation not only of the Palestinians, or of the Arabs, but also of the international community—including the United States. To change this situation requires changing not just the actions and attitudes of Palestinians but the policies and practices of others, again including the United States. No recognition of these facts, let alone any acknowledgment of the need to do something about them, has been made part of the road map—which is again why it shares the basic flaw of every Middle East peace plan that has preceded it.

These include
1. Maintaining the refugees in camps under UNWRA rather than forcing their resettlement.
2. Allowing the Palestinian schools which are financed by the UN, to incite to hatred and murder.
3. Not only has the US allowed US groups to raise money for terrorist organizations but the US has continually put pressure on Israel to turn over money to Arafat which would be used to further fund terror.
4. The US has condemned Israel's rightful self defense against terrorism including targeted killings and the like
5. The US has joined the chorus of voices condemning Israel for using excessive force, further preventing Israel from defending itself.
6. The State Department whitewashes and minimizes the extent Arab terror.
7. The US has permitted Iran, Syria and others to sponsor terrorism against Israel with impunity.
8. The US refusal to move its embassy to West Jerusalem puts West Jerusalem up for grabs. Better to openly declare West Jerusalem is Israel's.
9. The US allows the "right of return" to be advanced by not quelching it once and for all. (They even left it in the Road Map rather than making a categorical statement that it is a no go.)
10. Jewish refugees are never mentioned as an offset.
11. State Department mistakenly proceeds on the basis that Res. 242 meant '67 borders with minor adjustments. It should declare that major Israel settlements and defensive settlements are to remain thereby reducing what is left to negotiate. US policy keeps all the settlements in play.
12. The US tolerates and sometime participates in the deligitamation of Israel at the UN and elsewhere.
13. The US permits incitement and antisemetism to emanate from countries and mosqes throughout the world, included in the US, thereby fostering a climate that killing Jews is OK. It is outrageous for the US to be silent in the face of crowds chanting "death to the Jews".
14. The USA tolerates the Arab rejection of Israel and the Egyptian cold peace and the smuggling of weapons from Egypt.
15. America supports the idea that exclusion of Israel is acceptable by not openly embracing Israel as a coalition partner and key alley of the US.
16. The US supports the notion that Palestinian areas should be judenrein. Instead they should argue for not transfering Jews out. The whole debate changes then.

In the democratic West, no one wishes to believe this—it is too awful. And that, too, adds to the magnitude of the threat. By omission as much as by commission, the United States and other democracies have encouraged radical Palestinians and their supporters to cling to their dream of eliminating the Jewish state. They have acquiesced in and thereby promoted the separate and unequal treatment of Israel as a member state of the community of nations. They have truckled to, and pressured Israel to reach an accommodation with, the most radical elements among its adversaries, while subsidizing and turning a blind eye to the culture of violence in which generations of those adversaries have been raised. When it comes to the workings of anti-Semitism, they have chosen not to absorb, and not to act upon, the indelible lessons of history.

Had enough?

Daniel Pipes, via E-Mail (and thus no URL)

Council on Foreign Relations
New York

"Should Washington Actively Promote an Israeli-Palestinian Settlement?"

MARTIN INDYK
Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution

DANIEL PIPES
Director, Middle East Forum

Presider:
CHARLIE ROSE
Executive Producer and Host, Charlie Rose Show

Friday, May 2, 2003
12:45 to 2:15 p.m. (ET)
www.cfr.org

Please join us on the Council on Foreign Relations Website at www.cfr.org for a live webcast. This meeting will be on the record. We invite you to participate by submitting a question via e-mail prior to or during the broadcast to national@cfr.org. Please include your name and affiliation.
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2) Open browser Internet Explorer or Netscape. Type in www.cfr.org and click on the webcast link.

3) Depending on your Internet connection, choose either the 56K video link or the 250K video link to watch the live webcast.

Steven Plaut Blog

Many of you know of the writing of Steven Plaut, a professor at the University of Haifa, who has a great handle on the shortcomings of the 'peace process' and the Israeli left. Many of his articles have appeared in major publications. He produces a huge amount of work (probably 20 or 30 items per week). I had previously set up a blog for him but it never really got off the ground. Now we have it set up so that the blog is on his email list so his text emails should regularly appear on the blog. He is on the ground in Israel, writes very well, and has a deep knowledge of Israeli and international politics.

Israel news: 10 links

Now this didn't take long, did it?

Anyone keeping track of how long ago the Road Map was released/presented? Ha'aretz is already reporting: Arafat sets up national security body in violation of 'road map'

International Law on Borders and Refugees (Ted Belman)

Dr. Robbie Sabel lectures in international law at Hebrew University and is a former legal adviser at the Foreign Ministry.

He argues that there is no need to demand that the Palestinians give up the right of return and declare an end to the conflict

There is a connection between the two demands, but they can be examined separately. The instrument international law provides, as a basis for peace accords and an end to territorial conflict, is defining an agreed border. A mutually agreed frontier has supreme status in international law - an agreed border remains fixed when war breaks out between two sides, even if the agreement that fixed the border expires.

Borders bind all succeeding governments. Even if a country disappears and a new country is established in its place, the new country inherits the borders of the previous country, and new countries inherit former colonial borders. Israel has never declared itself to be the heir of the British Mandate, but in effect it inherited its borders, and peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan explicitly adopted the border of mandate-era Palestine. The border with Lebanon, which was set by the UN, follows the mandate-era border.

There was never an agreed border between Israel and a Palestinian entity, only an armistice line, so the border will have to be determined in negotiations between the two sides.

When a border is delineated it does, by its very nature, end the territorial conflict, and it is not proper to add a theoretical declaration that all conflict is ended.

Countries at peace often continue to have conflicts - it is the nature of human relations. A critical condition in any agreement is that the sides declare that peaceful relations exist between them and that they are committed to avoid using violence.

There's just no point to an "an end of conflict" declaration.

International law does not recognize a "right" of return for Palestinian refugees and Israel should not announce, even indirectly, that it recognizes such a right. On the other hand, there is no point in demanding that the Palestinians give up the "right."

A good peace agreement with the Palestinian state must define a clear and permanent political border, and a commitment to avoid violence. That is the basis which international law lays down and it is the basis that has proved itself in peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.

As interesting as these points are, two things are overlooked. After acknowledging that Israel inherited the borders of the British mandate and peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan explicitly adopted the border of mandate-era Palestine, he fails to draw the necessary conclusions that these same borders would be Israel's boders as inheritors of the British Mandate. Thus Israel's borders would be the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.

Secondly after writing "There was never an agreed border between Israel and a Palestinian entity, only an armistice line, so the border will have to be determined in negotiations between the two sides", he neglects to say that agreements with respect to borders are between states. As for the idea of an armistance line, it was created at the end of the '48 war and the Palestinians were not a concept at that time. So it is wrong to say there is an armistance line separating Israel from the Palestinians. Until such time as Israel agrees to allow the Palestinians a state and agrees to borders with the new state, its borders are Jordan's borders.

The one qualifier I would add to this is that Jordan relinquished its claims to the territories in favour of the Palestinians. Whether people, as opposed to states, can acquire such rights, I highly doubt. And whether Israel is bound by such declaration is also doubtful.

What's missing from negotiations?

Chaim Herzog (bio) answers the question in a piece titled: The Lost Element in Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations

Take it from me

This woman is brilliant

BECKY JOHNSON is a San Francisco Bay Area Leftist who has been active in Leftist movements for years and is well-known in such circles.A homeless advocate writer and television producer in Santa Cruz, she has written articles on police brutality, welfare, laws affecting ghe poor, and has been active in the anti-war movement. . Her Leftist activism has landed her in jail in the past. A member of the "Free Radio Santa Cruz" radio collective and former show host, she is the granddaughter of Finnish communists and a member of the Green party yet parts company with her Leftist comrades when it comes to her support of Israel. She is not Jewish.

She writes to a friend to a fellow Leftist, fisking a Free Palestine Alliance (FPAS) brochure she received.

I have never seen a better job. READ IT. And while you are at it read her other pieces. She is brilliant as they say in the UK.

Tel Aviv Homicide Bomber Posed as an ISM Activist

From the Telegraph (UK): British bombers posed as peace activists

Israel to take action against Pro-Palestinian Activists

From Ha'aretz: Israel to bar pro-Palestinian activists from entering country

A matter of honour

The US must not be ashamed of its best ally

Our capable ally [Israel] not only supplied us with weaponry for use in Iraq, including Israeli-armored bulldozers and Israeli-made pilotless planes, but, as reported in USA Today, played "a key role in U.S. preparations" for the war, even "helping to train soldiers and Marines for urban warfare, conducting clandestine surveillance missions in the western Iraqi desert and allowing the United States to place combat supplies" within her borders.

We also went to the Israelis for advice on such things as how "to spot a suicide attacker on his way to attack, how to deal with roadblocks, overpowering a suicide bomber," reported the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. That paper reported too that before the start of war Israeli Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz "was summoned for a few consultations" with Washington and "recommended a great increase in the number of soldiers (from 50,000 to a quarter million), to combine air strikes with broad ground operations, to attack Baghdad from many directions and be careful not to wind up in a death trap inside the city. In the end, the Americans are doing precisely that."

One can only guess, then, how many American lives the Israelis are responsible for saving.

Also revealed this week, to U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA.) by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was that the Jewish State played a key role in providing critical initial intelligence that helped locate U.S. Army PFC Jessica Lynch and other American military. This, according to the New York Post and Israeli mass circulation daily, Maariv.

Shamefully, though, we have shunned our ally from manifest participation in our "coalition of the willing." Like a faithless teenage girl afraid to be seen with an unpopular friend, we prefer to associate with Israel out of public view. So rather than welcome our ally to stand beside us openly -- a powerful statement that we will no longer pander to the Arab world's rejection of Israel's existence -- we instead treat that country's friendship as a dirty little secret.

Our failure to behave honorably toward that loyal ally is nothing new

THE DOUBLE ENTENDRE OF ABU MAZEN

Abu Mazen was careful to say that he will confiscate "illegal" weapons,
which sounds good enough.

However, Abu Mazen's call would not include weapons issued by the PA to the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad as per an agreement that the PA reached with both organizations on May 9th, 1995.

While the Voice of Israel Radio had reported at the time that the PA was going to confiscate their weapons, the agreement reached at the time was that the weapons in the hands of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be defined as "legal", so long as they were registered with the Palestinian
Authority. When then-PA minister of Justice Freich Abu Meidan was asked about the dangers of the Hamas or Islamic Jihad using the weapons against Israel, his answer was that he hadgotten "assurances that they would keep their weapons at home".

When Abu Mazen also called for the end of Israeli settlements, something which rings well with the west and with some of those in Israel who advocate the idea of "territories for peace", he also invoked the PLO definition of "illegal" settlements, to include all "illegal" settlements that replaced Arab villages and Arab neighborhoods that were lost in 1948.

Abu Mazen made that clear by specifically mentioning the "right of return" to these villages in the platform that he presented to the PLC...

That definition of "illegal settlements" would include Shderot, Kibbutz Metzer and most of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Abu Mazen's denunciation of "terror" fell far short from calling from a call to Arabs to stop murdering Israelis. Throughout the years, the PLO has never defined its actions as acts of terror.

And when Abu Mazen referred to Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian State, he madespecific reference to all of Holy Jerusalem, and not to the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

We might call this the Abu Mazen Double Entendre - He provides the buzz words for the world to think that he is a reasonable man of peace and compromise, while providing the substance of a message for his people who understand every word of compromise in a totally different context.

A True Leftist Speaks Out

Jewish law:
An albino in G-d's* Garden and a 12 pack of beer, Or why a Finnish/Swedish Bahai raised by Lutherans is writing about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
No extracts. Read this in its entirety

kids will be kids

Terrorism won't stop Road Map says Powell

But I thought the Road Map was to stop Terrorism

MADRID - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday the "road map" for peace in the Middle East should not be disrupted by suicide bombings and retaliatory attacks by Israeli forces.

"We've got to get beyond this period of suicide bombings and retaliatory actions or other defensive actions that are taken, to end the violence and to protect one's society," Powell told a news briefing after a meeting with his Spanish counterpart Ana Palacio.

ISRAEL: From the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea

THE ONE STATE SOLUTION

[...] We're doing what we can to tell the State Department, George Bush, the UN, Arafat and Colin Powell that every grain of sand on that piece of geography between the Mediterranean and Dead Sea belongs to the Jewish people," said the founder and president of the Religious Roundtable, Ed McAteer, who is a member of the coalition along with American Values, headed by Gary Bauer, the Apostolic Congress and Americans for Safe Israel (AFSI).

"Bush is absolutely, 100% wrong on supporting and even talking about an idea called the road map," said McAteer.

According to one campaign planner, the billboard locations, which currently include 60, three-month slots in Colorado, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, were chosen based on their large Evangelical populations and close 2000 presidential election results.

In addition to posting billboards, the coalition has also sent out 12,000 blue and white bumper stickers urging Christian Zionists to pray for Bush to support Israel.

"We're hoping this will be something that will turn the president away from the road map, turn him away from a Palestinian state," said AFSI executive-director Helen Freedman.

The Zionist Organization of America also launched an anti-road map initiative this week. The campaign plans to run full-page ads arguing that the Palestinian leadership hasn't renounced terrorism and the creation of a Palestinian state would jeopardize Israel's security

The complete text to the Roadmap

A PERFORMANCE-BASED ROAD MAP
TO A PERMANENT TWO-STATE SOLUTION TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

Palestine is Not on the Road Map (Originally posted April 24, 2002)

the law of unintended consequences

Why do I say this?

The Road Map is predicated on Mazem and Dahlan ending terror. It won't happen. In part because the terror masters, including Arafat, won't let it happen and in part because Mazem and Dahlan are not prepared to go all the way which will lead to civil war. They only intend to "make an effort".

Contrary to all the optimism being expressed, particularly in Europe, this "achievement" will be still born. Not only that, it will lead to the end of the illusion of a two state solution. No one will try again least of all the US. Bush's vision will turn out to be a mirage. Other plans such as transfer and the Jordanian option will be put on the table.

The reason why I am so sure is that Oslo, Mitchell, Tenet and now the Road Map were all intended to bring about the end of terror. Oslo brought more terror. Tenent and Mitchell were non starters. The Road Map will be, also.

Europe reasoned that the Palestinians must be given "hope" before they will abandon terror. Now that the Road Map is to be released, there is no sign that it will have the intended result. The only thing left for Europe to argue is that we must give in to whatever it takes or there will be no solution even if that means the destruction of the State of Israel. No tears would be shed.

From the point of view of the US, it will abandon attempts to work out a two state solution. It will no doubt table ideas for an alternate solution. This will become a major issue in the upcoming presidential elections.

The present situation is untenable. Containment is too costly in lives and in money. Another tactic is necessary. The separation wall will continue to be built but not along the green line. It will move east to include all major settlements such as Ariel. Expulsions will be commonplace.

A new day is dawning.

Analysis: Road Map or Road Kill

Gerald Steinberg has some insights worth noting and some good news.

[...] However, the exigencies of the Iraq war and Tony Blair's demand for Bush's help in placating the Arab world led Washington to cut a few crucial corners in the process.

The costs are now apparent. Instead of real regime change, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was given the facade of power, while Yasser Arafat used the process and European support to stage another comeback. Abbas is saying the right things about ending attacks and collecting the stockpiles of illegal weapons, but Palestinians are not listening.

In contrast, Arafat repeats the code words and symbols calling for more terror attacks, while the presence of his old friends, such as the EU's perpetual envoy Miguel Moratinos, assure him that nothing has changed.

As a result, the road map has been stalled at the starting gate, and like the "new PA cabinet," the Quartet formed more than a year ago to coordinate strategy among the US, EU, UN, and Russia is a facade. While pretending to act in unison, the discord between Europe and the US on Arab-Israeli policy is as disharmonious as on Iraq.

In addition, the recent upsurge in suicide bombings (in fact, only a small portion of the massive effort designed to demonstrate some remaining capabilities) is a clear demonstration that the second prerequisite of the road map ending terrorism has not even begun.

In this environment, the Bush administration would look foolish pressing the Sharon government to make gestures and concessions to help Abbas (and thus, also Arafat).

Ironically, the road map was delivered just as the State Department released its annual report on global terrorism, highlighting the irrationality of endorsing policies that would create another terrorist state.

As a result of these signs of early failure, and in contrast to the public images and words, the Bush administration seems to be backing away from the road map concept. Instead of coming himself to kick-start the process, Secretary of State Colin Powell has postponed his stop here and in the PA areas, perhaps for a very long time.

Petition to Oppose the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state in Israel

Sign the Petition

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To President George W. Bush and all members of the United States Senate and Congress:

We oppose the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab (Jordan is 70% Palestinian and the land assigned to them by the British Mandate) state in Yesha (Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) within Israel's borders.

Doing so would be a clear violation of your own words in the war on terror and result in a horrific mockery of justice.

Rewarding terrorism will not end terrorism done for rewards.

Sincerely,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sign the Petition

Google: oppose palestinian state

WorldNetDaily: Poll: 71% in US oppose Palestinian state
... TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND Poll: 71% in US oppose Palestinian state Americans
also reject giving aid to Arafat government Posted: February ...
www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31081

WorldNetDaily: Why I oppose Palestinian state
... Why I oppose Palestinian state Posted: April 18, 2002 1:00 am Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com. On April 9, 13 Israeli soldiers ...
www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27274


Israel Forum - Americans Oppose Palestinian State; 71% to 13%
Israel Forum » Israel Discussions » Peace Think Tank
» Americans Oppose Palestinian State; 71% to 13%. ...
www.israelforum.com/board/ showthread.php3?threadid=2566&goto=newpost

Israel Forum - Americans Oppose Palestinian State; 71% to 13%
... index.php3) - Peace Think Tank (http://www.israelforum.com/board/forumdisplay.php3?forumid=14)
-- Americans Oppose Palestinian State; 71% to 13% (http://www ...
www.israelforum.com/board/ printthread.php3?threadid=2566

71% in US oppose Palestinian state - poll By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER
71% in US oppose Palestinian state - poll By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER. Date:
Tue, 18 Feb 2003 12:47:51 EST From: BSaphir . ...
www.io.com/~freeman/updates/670.htm

Why I oppose Palestinian state
Articles from World Press on Arab Israeli Conflict - Why I oppose Palestinian
state. ... Arab-Israeli Conflict - Articles. Why I oppose Palestinian state. ...
www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict/ Articles/Farah-2002-04-18.asp

[Freemanlist] Poll: 61.1% Oppose Palestinian State In Light Of ...
[Freemanlist] Poll: 61.1% Oppose Palestinian State In Light Of Oslo Experience.
Freemanlist@aol.com Freemanlist@aol.com Wed, 5 Mar 2003 10:14:16 EST: ...
mailman.io.com/pipermail/freemanlist/ 2003-March/000200.html

Frum.org - Why I oppose Palestinian State
the middle east. Why I oppose Palestinian State By Josepsh Farah ©
2002 WorldNetDaily.com. On April 9, 13 Israeli soldiers were killed ...
www.frum.org/israel/WhyOpposeState.asp

71% in US oppose Palestinian state - poll
71% in US oppose Palestinian state - poll Elli Wohlgelernter Feb. 18,
2003 Seventy-one percent of Americans believe that the Palestinians ...
www.netanyahu.org/71inusoppals.html

Israel Commentary: Americans Oppose Palestinian State
... February 18, 2003. Americans Oppose Palestinian State. 71% in US oppose Palestinian
state - Poll By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER The Jerusalem Post Feb. 18, 2003

Quotes which related to the "Road Map"

I came across these quotes, which seem do encompass some of the reasons why the new "Road Map" (mapat HaDrachim) is a map to nowhere.
These quotes actually pre-date the "road map", but nevertheless, I believe that they do apply to this situation.

"It is important not to allow ever wider coalition-building to become an end in itself. As we saw in the Gulf War of 1990, international pressures, particularly those exerted from within an alliance, can result in the failure to follow actions through and so leave future problems unresolved." -- Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft, P. 37

"[Not] even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved." -- Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft, P. 246

"Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - 'land for peace' must also bring peace." -- Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft P. 246

"There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no concord."--Homer

Personal loss from latest terrorist attack

Dear Readers,

Sadly, this issue of the IsReally Review is all-too-personal. There was an attack in Tel Aviv late on Tuesday night. I happened not to be there, by chance, because a friend (who happens to be a security guard) asked me to stay in Jerusalem to play at the local Mike's Place Open Jam, instead of going to the one at their branch in Tel Aviv. Some of my friends are now dead, and scores are wounded, including the security guard, "Avi", who saved many lives with his actions.

Less than twelve hours after Abu Mazen entered office as the new Palestinian Prime Minister, a pair British-Muslim homicide bombers affiliated with Mr. Mazen and Mr. Arafat's terrorist machine carried out a homicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The second bomber got away and is wanted.

The location of the attack -- Mike's Place blues bar -- is a popular American style bar-restaurant, frequented by a large mix of Israelis and tourists, mainly from Europe and the U.S. The bar itself is located just a few meters from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, on the beachfront "Herbert Samuel" boardwalk, which is packed with bars frequented by tourists, and has been targetted by terrorists in the recent past. The target could not be a clearer attack on "American interests" ... precisely the kind of attacks that Islamic terrorists have vowed to keep attacking, despite the ongoing peace efforts in the region.

As if in some grotesque "recurring theme" -- it seems that yet another step towards an Israeli-Palestinian agreement would not go forward without exacting the price of Jewish blood, just hours after Israel had ended its national day of mourning for victims of another dark period in Jewish history: the Nazi Holocast.

IsReally, being personally affected by the loss of life and injury caused to scores more in this horrible massacre, has posted relevant stories to the site, and will continue to monitor the progress of recovery. The stories of the heroes and victims of Mike's Place will not go unremembered.

To that end, from the time of the attack and well into the first night afterwards, patrons and friends of those affected met in Tel Aviv and at the local Mike's Place in Jerusalem, gathering mostly for support and comfort. As if to say: this is an awful time, even for those of us who have seen awful things before, but we are together, we live on, and inthat there is always hope.

The test for Abu Mazen is now clear: Stop the terrorists, or lose whatchance you had at achieving a state of lasting peace with Israel. A good first test would be to see how Mr. Mazen and Mr. Dahlan (the new Palestinian security minister) follow-up on this latest carnage. Those responsible, especially those with ties to Mr. Mazen, must be brought to ustice. If they do not, then the most drastic consequences must be exacted upon the Palestinian Terror Authority, its leaders, its murderers, and the terror which it foments. Since 9/11, the Taliban were cast aside. Then Saddam. Arafat and Abu Mazen -- if you fail, you're next.

We remember the fallen, their families, and pray for their full and speedy covery.Shalom

Safire in the NYT

Do you read Safire? Or do you throw away the baby (Safire) with the dirty water (the NYT)? I would rather read Safire,who has a good mind (and who personally knows Sharon). Today's subject is critical:Is a Palestinian civil war the first station on the famous road?

This is the key theme:

"Colin Powell and assorted outsiders can unfold road maps and issue timetables to their heart's content, but progress toward peace with security will be made only when Abbas's government, representing the silent Palestinian majority, wins that civil war — or at least, in Ariel Sharon's first concession, demonstrates "a 100 percent effort" to win it".

Very readable.

What Can We Learn from the Palestine Investment Fund Report?
(Mark Sloman)

The report bearing this title is issued by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs , Institute for Contemporary Affairs.Vol. 2, No. 27 – 1 May 2003. One can - and should - subscribe to this meritorious publication.

Back to this particular report. What can we learn? It could be fun to try and guess how idiotarians it makes look all those who beat up on Israel for the monies it apparently owes(!) the poor Arafatistanis.

Sovereignty - no; autonomy - yes

Synopsis

The official release of the Roadmap represents a spectacular triumph for the Arab propaganda machine. In endorsing the creation of yet another Arab state, the authors of the Roadmap (including the US) had to accept, inter alia:

- That sometime after 1967, a "Palestinian nation" arose mysteriously, like Athena out of Zeus' head, where previously no such nation existed (the famous Resolution 242, for example, makes no reference to a "Palestinian people" or a “Palestinian” anything);

- That this "Palestinian nation", appearing out of the blue, has a right to self-determination and a sovereign state, a right the Kurds have never had, according to the "International community" [TM];

-That the "Palestinian conflict" is the "root cause" of Arab misery and anger, not the absence of democracy, the refusal to modernize socially and economically, and the steadfast rejection of Israel;

- That the Arabs in "Palestine" are willing and able to create and maintain a peaceful sovereign country, contrary to the evidence from “Palestinian” opinion polls and statements made by Arab leaders inside "Palestine" and outside of it;

- That there is no alternative to a sovereign "Palestine".

Many causes have contributed to this triumph of the Arab propaganda machine, such as the power of oil and petrodollars; the willingness of the naive/biassed media to propagate the Arab line; the cowardice of too many Western governments, fearing Islamist terrorism and disruptions in oil supplies; and pressure from the misguided Left (the same entity that opposed the liberation of Iraq and has no problem with the Syrian occupation of Lebanon or the Chinese occupation of Tibet). But the relative inaction of the Israeli government is also a component of the Arab success, particularly inasmuch as (to my knowledge - and I stand corrected if I'm wrong) Israel has never presented an alternative to a sovereign “Palestine”.

The object of this article is, first, to document the extent to which the "no alternative" notion has taken root even among Israel's supporters; and second, to present such an alternative, namely, Arab autonomy in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, under Israeli sovereignty.


... And now, the details

To illustrate that even some Israel's ardent supporters see no alternative to a sovereign Arab state in "Palestine", I refer to David Warren's recent article in the Ottawa Citizen. On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, David Warren staed in an article entiled, Bush's next challenge in nation-building is Palestinian state [bold font added]:

To my own view, Israel's long-term interest is unquestionably to find some workable and enduring peace deal that will be recognized throughout the region; and the larger Arab interest can only be served in the same way. A sovereign, placid Palestinian state seems the inevitable meeting place of the two interests.

In this context, I quote below a passage from a recent Telegraph article by Barbara Amiel, another ardent supporter of Israel. Filed on April 28, 2003, under the heading, Until Israel is recognised, this road map leads us nowhere, Barbara Amiel's article notes:

Like squabbling scholastics, Mr Blair and Westminster will not face the real dilemma. They will quarrel over the Quartet's "evaluation" of "performance on implementation" of the road map's arcania of "obligations in parallel unless otherwise indicated". But this road map is a road map to nowhere. Until there is acceptance of a Jewish state in the Middle East all peace plans are illusory and with real acceptance, any map is unnecessary.

The problem with Amiel's article is that it ends with the justified rejection of the Roadmap, but presents no alternative. This is characteristic of most of the articles that are critical of the Roadmap.

In contrast, when I posted the 23-part series detailing my objections to a sovereign Arab "Palestine", I ended with a reasoned outline of the alternative, namely, the autonomy alternative. The relevant article may be found at the IsraPundit link, or the entire 23-part series may be found as a PDF or ZIP file at an alternative site. For the benefit of new readers, following is an abbreviated presentation of the autonomy alternative.


An alternative to a sovereign "Palestinian" Arab state is autonomy within a sovereign Israel for the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. This will answer Israel's vital security requirements and safeguard the civil and religious rights of the Arabs.


(i) The root cause
The root cause, in my opinion, is the rejection of Israel by the Arabs - leadership and street alike - which, in turn, results from deep seeded hatred for Jews, Zionism and Israel. This hatred has causes of its own, such as the failure of the once mighty Arab/Islamic world to keep up with the advances of Western countries, but further exploration of this issue is not essential at this point of the discussion, because the implications are clear even from this brief review. Inasmuch as this hatred is the prime motivator behind the conduct of both the Arabs in general and the "Palestinian" Arabs in particular, seeking an opportunity to annihilate Israel will be a paramount factor in their future policies.
On this issue of “root causes”, Daniel Pipes has written as follows:

... Rather, the root cause of the conflict remains today what it has always been: the Arab rejection of any sovereign Jewish presence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

The conflict continues into its sixth decade because Arabs expect they can defeat and then destroy the state of Israel.
Israel cannot end this conflict unilaterally, by actions of its own. It can only take steps that will make it more rather than less likely that the Arabs will give up on those expectations.

(ii) Israel’s Requirements
In any final arrangement with the "Palestinian" Arabs, nothing can supersede Israel’s security requirements. In turn, this leads to the conclusion that Israel sovereignty over the entire area of Western "Palestine" cannot be bartered. This obviates the solution envisaged by the “roadmap”, but leaves the door open for other arrangements.


(iii) The Palestinian-Arabs' rights
Referring to the Balfour Declaration and to the text of the League of Nations Mandate over "Palestine", one can accept that the “Palestinian” Arabs do have civil and religious rights that should be respected.


(iv) Specific solutions: Autonomy
If sovereignty is ruled out, then autonomy could still be considered as being congruent with the foregoing requirements. Autonomy would leave the control over security, borders, armed forces, foreign policy, air space, immigration and water firmly in Israeli hand. At the same time it would allow the "Palestinian" Arabs to elect their own parliament, one that would legislate within a prescribed domain and with appropriate qualifications that would obviate human rights abuses. The "Palestinian"-Arabs would have no representation in the Israeli parliament. Education should be delegated to the autonomous authority in a manner that would put an end to the constant incitement against Jews and Israel. The autonomy arrangement must address and remedy the flaws of Oslo, flaws that permitted the PA to wage a continuous war against Israel.

A model of such autonomy can be Puerto Rico, the official site of which describes the system as follows [bold font added]:

Puerto Rico has authority over its internal affairs. United States controls: interstate trade, foreign relations and commerce, customs administration, control of air, land and sea, immigration and emigration, nationality and citizenship, currency, maritime laws, military service, military bases, army, navy and air force, declaration of war, constitutionality of laws, jurisdictions and legal procedures, treaties, radio and television--communications, agriculture, mining and minerals, highways, postal system; social security, and other areas generally controlled by the federal government in the United States. Puerto Rican institutions control internal affairs unless U.S. law is involved, as in matters of public health and pollution. The major differences between Puerto Rico and the 50 states are its local taxation system and exemption from Internal Revenue Code, its lack of voting representation in either house of the U.S. Congress, the ineligibility of Puerto Ricans to vote in presidential elections, and its lack of assignation of some revenues reserved for the states.

Interestingly, autonomy is consistent with the Oslo Accords, which referred to self-government, not to independence.

On the other hand, history also provides examples of autonomy being a nest of hornets rather than a basis for peace; suffice it to mention Nagorno-Karabakh and Kosovo as examples. Thus, autonomy is no panacea, just a possible arrangement that is superior to any other proposal.

The full article (see link above) also discusses (i) population transfer and (ii) Yesha in federation with Jordan, two solutions which to me are inferior to autonomy. The bottom line is this: there are several alternatives to a sovereign "Palestinian"-Arab state in Yesha, and none could possibly be as detrimental to Israel and the West as that which the Roadmap architects are concocting.

Embattled and pressured from all sides, Israel can hardly stand up and denounce the Roadmap in clear, blunt terms. This task falls on the shoulders of Israel’s supporters abroad. Let us raise our voices.

U.S. Groups Seek To Cast Peace 'Map' As a Threat

The Forward here notes a variety of responses to the Roadmap; clearly the map for many is a major security threat for Israel, as this piece notes

Despite American assurances that Israel will not be endangered by President Bush's "road map" to peace — and despite Israel's in-principle acceptance of the road map — several leading American-Jewish organizations are working to cast doubt on the plan and depict it as a threat to Israeli security.

American assurances to Israel under the road map are far more extensive than have been publicly disclosed, the Forward has learned. In a letter expressing understandings about the road map, the United States guarantees that it, not Europe or the United Nations, will oversee the monitoring of Palestinian compliance with the plan on security matters. Senior administration officials also have made a point of assuring Israel and its American supporters in recent weeks that any significant progress toward Palestinian statehood will depend on a cessation of Palestinian terrorism. (Please see related article, Page 17.)

Nonetheless, some leading national Jewish organizations are voicing strong skepticism about the road map, emphasizing the demands and risks they say it imposes on Israel and minimizing its benefits. Several community officials have begun speaking of the plan as a potential "second Oslo," referring to the ill-fated 1993 peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

"We need to be realistic and practical, because we have been down this road before," said the national director of the Anti-Defamation

League, Abraham Foxman, referring to the Oslo agreements.

"We are concerned about many things here," Foxman said. "It's not enough for us to say, 'We're for peace, we're for a road map, and we're for the president's June 24 speech.' How are we going to get there? Who is going to be doing the leading, the monitoring? Who is going to measure performance?"

The critics are not unopposed. A group of prominent Jewish philanthropists sent a letter to congressional leaders this week expressing "concern over recent efforts to sidetrack implementation" of the plan.

To date, however, the voices of the skeptics have had more resonance. Op-ed and letters pages in Jewish weeklies have been filled with warnings of the road map's dangers. The chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, media baron Mortimer Zuckerman, has been openly dismissive of the road map, calling it a "road map to nowhere" in a March column in his U.S. News and World Report.

The Presidents Conference, in its Daily Alert newsletter, a collection of news clippings on the Middle East which is widely circulated via e-mail in the Jewish community, has flooded the community with views of the road map that are almost exclusively critical. During the last week alone, it featured four articles opposing the plan, and not one in support of it.[more]

Martin Kimel on The Road Map

An Immediate Problem with the Road Map (text here). At the outset of "Phase I" -- which has to be the shortest phase in the history of such plans, as it spans "the present to May 2003" -- Israel's leadership is supposed to issue an unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel, as expressed by President Bush, and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere.

But Israel, in good conscience, cannot subscribe to a fully sovereign Palestinian state, which means a militarized state, next door in three years or less. Maybe one day, after trust has been built, but not by 2005. It should stick to principle here; after all, the road map is something being imposed on Israel, not negotiated by Israel.
* * *
Even Bush's prepared statement on the release of the road map can't avoid casting the parties as morally equivalent:

Both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered from the terror and violence, and from the loss of hope in a better future of peace and security.

BRITISH SUICIDE BOMBERS:

Instapundit has this to say about the two suicide bombers with passports from Great Britain

Two British citizens were responsible for the suicide bombing of a pub in Tel Aviv early yesterday that killed three civilians and wounded 46 others.

A hunt was under way for one of the bombers, who did not detonate his charge and was believed to have it still in his possession. He is thought to have fled the scene when he saw his accomplice being blocked by a security guard.

Israeli police released an image of the passport of the dead man, Asif Mohammed Hanif, who detonated his explosives at the door. He was born on 2 August, 1981, in Bhowanj, Pakistan. The passport photograph of the wanted man, Omar Khan Sharif, born on 13 March, 1976, in Derby, was also released.

The security guard was seriously wounded as were another five people.

Reports in Jerusalem said the bombers were members of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah.

The British turned a blind eye to Islamic fundamentalism in Britain for a long time. This is the fruit of that policy.

and The Scotsman, a link used for Instapundit's post, says this (excerpt)[...]In the past, the Iranian-inspired Hezbollah has used foreign nationals in attempted bombings, and police suspect terrorists took advantage of the British passports belonging to Sharif and Hanif in order to slip them into Israel.

Israel Television said the men entered Israel