Wednesday, December 01, 2004

  • Wednesday, December 01, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Jerusalem Newswire November 30, 2004

JERUSALEM - Nearly two-thirds of Israelis believe the post-Arafat Palestinian Authority should be given one last chance to honor its peace obligations, or face a full-scale Israeli military effort to eliminate the scourge of Palestinian Arab terror.

Asked what Israel should do if the new PA leadership continues to espouse Yasser Arafats policy of anti-Jewish terrorism by this time next year, 60 percent of respondents in a new public opinion poll voted for abandoning peace efforts and dealing with the situation militarily.

Nineteen percent believed Israel should continue to seek a diplomatic settlement with the PA, despite its refusal to curb the ongoing Islamic terror.

Showing public disapproval for Prime Minister Ariel Sharons policies, only one-third of Israelis backed the idea of conducting a unilateral withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the face of persistent Palestinian non-compliance.

An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents felt a sovereign Palestinian Arab state ruled by known terrorists would pose an existential or very grave threat to Israel.

The poll was conducted by telephone from November 18-22 among a random sampling of 528 adult Israelis. It was carried out by Maagar Mohot Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting Institute Ltd.
  • Wednesday, December 01, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
EGYPT SAID TO AID PALESTINIAN STRIKES

TEL AVIV [MENL] -- Israel's military has determined that Egypt seeks to weaken Israel through attacks by Palestinian insurgency groups.

Israeli military sources said the assessment was contained in Military Intelligence reports relayed to the General Staff and the Cabinet over the last two months. The sources said MI has determined that Egypt has facilitated the smuggling of weapons and insurgents from the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip for attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

'We are not only talking about weapons,' a senior military source said. 'We are talking about the infiltration of Egyptian and other trainers to help improve the capability of Palestinian terrorist groups and the Palestinian Authority.'

The MI assessment comes amid Israel's effort to launch security cooperation with Egypt. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu Al Gheit and intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman were scheduled to visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Dec. 1.
  • Wednesday, December 01, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ramallah, West Bank, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A Palestinian Information Ministry official denied Tuesday the Palestinian Authority ordered its mass media to stop inciting violence against Israel.

'The news on that subject published by certain Arab and foreign media are completely untrue,' Ahmed Sobh told a local radio in Ramallah.

'The aim of such wrong news is to give the impression to the public in the Arab world that the Palestinian Authority heeds the instructions of Israel instead of achieving the aspirations and ambitions of the Palestinian people,' Sobh said.

Official sources told UPI Monday Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently visited PA media and television operations in Ramallah and Gaza and asked them to stop publishing and airing anti-Israel material.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called on the PA to end incitement and change anti-Israel school curriculums as a condition for resuming peace talks. However, the sources said the PA insisted any action on incitement must be reciprocal.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

  • Tuesday, November 30, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
OSLO (AFP) - Former Norwegian prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital as a first step towards stabilizing the region.

'A Palestinian state must be created, with east Jerusalem as its capital... This would be the first and the best of steps to establish a dialogue with Muslims and Arabs,' said Jagland, currently the head of the Norwegian parliament's foreign affairs committee and one of the leading members of the Labour opposition.

Giving in to suicide bombers is the first step? I guess dismantling Israel is step 2, converting all of Europe to Islam is step 3 and giving Iran nukes is step 4, according to this clown. - EoZ
  • Tuesday, November 30, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Aviation Week & Space Technology reports in its November 29 issue that U. S. intelligence analysts are concerned about the planned launch from Iran, by early 2005, of an Iranian built satellite on an upgraded version of Tehran's largest ballistic missile, the Shahab-3.

The preparations for and launch of one or more Iranian satellite 'is something that needs to be watched closely,' a U. S. government missile analyst familiar with Iranian capabilities told AW&ST.

Such an 'Iranian Sputnik' would elevate the stature of the Iran in the Middle East.

Tehran's satellite launch plans could also be a 'Trojan Horse' to further advance ballistic missile or nuclear warhead related technologies, sources told the magazine. Some of the materials and micro-electronic technologies necessary for Iranian satellite design could also be important for the development of tiny high quality components needed to produce small nuclear weapons, AW&ST reports.

The U. S. intelligence community was taken by surprise in 1998 when a North Korean satellite launch attempt unexpectedly demonstrated a long range North Korean missile capability. U. S. intelligence officials said they do not want to be surprised again, this time by Iran.

Even if they fail initially, Iranian satellite launch attempts would help Iran develop both range and warhead improvements to the Shahab-3 missile under the cover of a civilian space program, AW&ST reports.

If the Iranians are successful with the space launch program, it will have political and technological ramifications in both the U. S. and Middle East. 'It would move the Iranians from the junior varsity into the big leagues,' an analyst told the magazine.

And as previous experience with North Korea shows, such a space launch demonstration can have significant impact in a weapons context. 'Something like that from Iran would certainly have a similar effect in the Middle East,' sources told AW&ST.
  • Tuesday, November 30, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
A United Nations committee condemned suicide bombings in Israel.

The resolution from the committee on decolonization, concerning Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights, included an oral amendment expressing “grave concern at the use of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, resulting in extensive loss of life and injury.”

Israeli officials said the language was included at European nations’ behest. “We said that every time the resolutions include condemning Israel for its acts, there’s no mention of the suicide bombers,” an Israeli spokeswoman said. “We’re glad that the Europeans made sure” to condemn suicide bombings in Israel this time. The resolution passed by a vote of 142 to 6, with 15 abstentions.

"Oral amendment"? SOunds like it is not worth the paper it it written on. -EoZ
  • Tuesday, November 30, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Company commanders and division commanders will be able to, as of next year view at the appropriate time intelligence photographs from pilotless aircraft, on a small screen worn on their hands. The micro receivers will replace verbal reports that commanders have received daily via the communicator from the Home Front Headquarters. The Ground Forces Command is expected to soon purchase dozens of these programs, priced at 10,000 dollars each.

The inventor of the program will produce an even larger receiver which will connect to the command's vehicle.

'The commander will be able to view the field at the appropriate time and to direct his forces without needing to rely on verbal reports that can become sometimes problematic', explains Head of the Field Intelligence Department of the weapons unit at the Ground Forces Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Yoni."
  • Tuesday, November 30, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Authorities pursuing traffickers in nuclear weapons technology recently uncovered an audacious scheme to deliver a complete uranium enrichment plant to Libya, documents and interviews show.

The discovery provides fresh evidence of the reach and sophistication of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's global black market in nuclear know-how and equipment. It also exposes a previously undetected South African branch of the Khan network.

Monday, November 29, 2004

  • Monday, November 29, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Summary:

When the IDF updated its military doctrine in 2003, Prof. Asa Kasher, Professor of Professional Ethics at Tel Aviv University, joined me on an ethics committee to craft principles on how to make moral and ethical decisions in Israel's operational campaign against terror.

As we sought to formulate how to fight terror, we understood that the main asymmetry is in the values of the two societies involved in the conflict - in the rules they obey. We are fighting with a people that have totally different values and rules of engagement.


How do we differentiate between terrorists and non-terrorists? Everyone who is directly involved in terror is a legitimate target. Those who are indirectly involved in terror are not a legitimate target.
#

Some asked if the collateral damage was producing future terrorists. We found that because of the level of incitement, the collateral damage only raised public support for terror from 95 to 96 percent.
#

In August 2002 we had all the leadership of Hamas in one room and we knew we needed a 2,000-pound bomb to eliminate all of them. Think about having Osama bin Laden and all the top leadership of al-Qaeda in one house. However, use of a 2,000-pound bomb was not approved - we used a much smaller bomb - and they all got up and ran away.
#

We should do the job at the checkpoints ethically, professionally, and as fast as we can because we have to care about the many times the ambulance is really carrying somebody who needs help.
#

The bottom line is that Israel has to fight terror because terror declared war on us. In the current war Israel has lost over 1,000 people - equivalent to the U.S. suffering 45,000 dead and 300,000 wounded. We can win, but we must do it ethically as the Jewish people, as a democratic state, and as IDF officers who respect our ethical profession."
  • Monday, November 29, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Julie Burchill
Unreservedly pro-Israel, our correspondent reveals how her first visit to the country fulfilled a long emotional and political love affair

WHEN I TOLD people that I was going to Israel this autumn, I noticed that a lot of them had the same reaction. They’d look dubious, then worried, then say: “Ooo. Is it a story?” The implication being that only professional interests could take one to such a hellhole. They also expressed fear for my safety, going as far on the part of one friend (Gentile, never been there) to actually weep, and on the part of my beloved former mother-in-law (Jewish, never been there) to write to me that she would pray every night for my intact return, even though she is an atheist!

I had had it coming, the Big Jew Thing; ever since as a nine-year-old girl in a working-class West Country Stalinist family, I learnt about the Shoah and the Six-Day War at the same time. It must have been that collision, that schism; death, life, struggle, NEVER AGAIN! — how could I ever not believe? Then I learnt the word for what I was; philo-Semite. That so few people have heard of philo-Semitism, whereas everyone has heard of anti-Semitism, says it all, really.

And the puzzle comes back to this — why do these people, above all others, inspire such ludicrous, ceaseless, surreal loathing? Why is it that one of my sweetest, youngest, most educated friends said to me one night, not even drunk: “Come on babe, admit it — don’t you ever EVER think that if the Jews had never existed how much easier life would be?”

Over the years I have pursued the Jewish Enigma and, it must be said, often got it wrong. My marriage to a non-observing Jew in the 1980s ended after a decade, most of which was spent either having very good sex (yay!) or rowing about the Palestinian question (oy!), with the shiksa on the side of the Jews and the Jew having a good old kvetch on behalf of the Palestinians. It was during such rows with my Jewish husband and his Jewish family, for the first time, that I wondered whether it was actually the Jews I really liked most . . . or the Israelis, those SuperJews, on whose behalf I seemed increasingly to be going into battle.

It didn’t take a genius to see that the more Jews stood up for themselves, the less the world liked it, whereas other races were cheered on and drooled over as “freedom fighters”, no matter how bloody their hands got, I reflected. Could it be that anti-Semitism in England in particular was based on the fact that we had gone in the opposite direction to the Jews — from powerful to powerless — and felt great resentment about this fact? After all, they’d had a good deal more than loss of empire to deal with in the 20th century — the loss of one third of world Jewry, for instance.

And Israel is a country the size of Wales, which within the first 25 years of its re-establishment (remember, the Jews were in the countries of the Middle East some seven centuries before the Muslims even existed) — from the Declaration of Independence in 1948 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 — single-handedly fought off murderous attacks from such neighbouring dictatorships as Egypt, Jordan and Syria. (The US, surprisingly, did not begin to aid Israel in any major way until the mid-1970s; the country was founded with arms from the Communist bloc, and the first Government comprised a coalition of the majority Socialist Mapai Party with the Stalinist Mapam Party to the Left and religious and liberal groups to the Right. Beat that for pluralism!)

During the same period, it’s worth noting, the might of the British Armed Forces couldn’t even keep the oddballs and bishop-bashers of the IRA under control, so tied were the hands of our soldiers. It became common in working-class English households during the Seventies to hear Dad, never a great fan of the Jews (“sneaky”, “arrogant”, “cliquey”), say grimly as the latest atrocity from Ulster made itself felt through the medium of the Six O’Clock News: “The Israelis would have that lot sorted out in no time!” In 30 years, the image of the archetype Jew had gone from that of a frail, bullied scholar walking meekly to his doom to that of a big blond brute in a tank bulldozing across the desert, scattering tyrannies before him, STANDING UP FOR HIMSELF!

If the English working class were seeing the Jews in a new and favourable light due to Israel’s military triumphs — small and scrappy, innee, yer Israeli? Bit like us! — it’s fair to say that both the right-wing ruling class and the liberal middle class were shocked senseless by developments. You could see the bafflement on the faces of the most well-meaning of liberals as the mild-mannered, ever-scapegoated People Of The Book morphed into the creators of the Uzi machine gun and the proud owners of a nuclear capacity. (Interestingly, when the Jews put their scientific brilliance to the service of the European powers, no one ever complained, as I remembered. No one ever said: “Ooo, Albert Einstein, don’t do that!”)

What the Jews had done, unique of all the oppressed races of the world, was to come back better than ever.

This was a country founded on socialist principles, by idealists and intellectuals, which could shape-shift at the merest whiff of cordite into a lean, mean, fighting machine that did not allow soldiers to salute their “superiors” yet was deadly effective. It was the only Jewish country in the world, yet surrounded as it was by hate-filled theocracies who had wan-ted Hitler to kill the lot of them, it held secularism to be the most precious cornerstone of its democracy; only in Israel do you find that the most religious Jews, the Haredim, are the most opposed to the existence of the Jewish state — the most extreme of these, the Neturei Karta, even supported the PLO’s charter calling for its destruction. Ultra-religious Jews are not generally drafted into the Israeli Army, and those who are end up in the “Rabbinical Corps”, checking that the kitchens are kosher.

Secular Israel regards them with its characteristic, ceaseless tolerance; but for their part, the men in their side-curls and suits walk alongside young Israeli hotties wearing less on the street than other girls wear on the beach with never a sneer or slur, let alone a stoning. Surrounded on all sides by countries where religion and politics are one, to the point that democracy is considered ungodly, and where the chosen religion spends so much time acting as a tireless curtain-twitching Mrs Grundy, determined above all to curtail the freedom of women, that it has no time to tackle the subjugation and impoverishment of its faithful by their filthy rich rulers, Israel’s cool, clear-eyed take on matters of faith and secularism is a lesson to all of us. Imagine — a country in which the MOST religious are the LEAST nationalistic!

Anti-semitism can be as in-your-face as smashing up synagogues. But it can also be sly, sneaky, subtle and sometimes surreal. It must, in my opinion, go some way to explaining why Israeli human rights issues are so obsessively concentrated on, while many Arab and African countries are allowed to treat their citizens with as much subhuman sadism as they wish — the pregnant, raped women so frequently sentenced to death by stoning under Islamic regimes come immediately to mind, but the list is never-ending.

In having one human rights rule for democratic Israel — which can be summed up as “Be perfect or we’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks” — and another for the dictatorships which surround it — “Do what you like to your people, it’s your culture!” — Whitey displays an interestingly sly bit of anti-Semitism which is also rather insulting to the said dictatorships and the people they lord it over. The Jews are seen to be the one ethnic group who “pass” as white; their insistence on making their state a democracy is also seen as a sign of their stubborn refusal to act the savage to Whitey’s civilising influence. In short, the Lord forbid that any ethnic group should ignore the all-important world dominance hierarchy and dare to turn from victim into victor — and that is Israel’s ultimate crime. So why did it never occur to me to actually go to Israel before? After all, since I broke my self-imposed travel embargo a decade ago (didn’t want to have sex with my various husbands, if you’re interested) I’ve been a veritable globetrotter, nipping off to places as far away as the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean at the drop of a luggage tab. Why I would choose to make 12-hour flights to places I had absolutely no interest in while Israel is a mere four hours away, has a climate which makes the Bahamas look like Bradford and everything about it fascinates me, is a mystery to me, but a lot of it probably has to do with inertia, fear and a long-held belief that one should never meet one’s heroes. This was the first time a whole country had been my hero — millions of the f******, all ready to let me down! — so naturally I held back.

Finally, the turn of events led me there. An avalanche of congratulatory e-mail from Jews around the world led to lunch with beautiful Michelle from the Israeli Tourist Board, which led to me and my best friend Nadia Petrovic — the only person I know whose philo-Semitism leaves mine in the shade — boarding an aircraft to Tel Aviv this October.

Even before your baggage goes through airport X-ray machines so huge that it would be possible for a standing adult, barely stooping, to walk through one, everything about going to Israel is larger than life, which is strange considering that it’s a country the size of Wales. Everything from the clothes you need to pack — not many, nothing warm, because it’s always hot and always informal unless you plan to hang around some neurotic, misogynistic Muslim/Catholic “ Holy Place”, in which case, COVER YOURSELF YOU FILTHY DAUGHTER OF A WHORE! — to the reaction you get from your friends — OH NO, YOU'RE GOING TO DIEEEEEE! — is Not Normal.

But that feeling ended, for me, the minute I was settled on the El Al aircraft. Looking around at my fellow passengers, in their various skullcaps, side-curls and crop-tops, I felt an eerie sense of calm, so different from the irritation, nerves and boredom that air travel usually provokes. My favourite bit of the Bible, verse 16, Chapter 1 of The Book of Ruth, came back to me, triumphantly this time after a lifetime of aloneness: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

To be among them, but not of them; to “pass”, of all the outrageous things, when one of the stewardesses (minimal make-up, stern slacks; Israeli girls make the rest of us, even Oriental women, look like inappropriate drag queens, but somehow you can’t hate them because they’re beautiful as they don’t mean to be) speaks to me in Hebrew! I can’t get over this — it’s what I’ve been waiting for since I was nine years old! — but my face falls a little when snub-nosed, baby-blonde Nadia is similarly spoken to; no one could mistake her for one. Bitch. And this is the first of many sad lessons I learn in Israel — that because of the terrible fall-off in tourism since the intifada, Israelis presume that they have no friends abroad any more. They simply presume that every person on an Israeli plane, or in an Israeli hotel, is an Israeli. That was the first thing that broke my heart, there.

But it healed the moment we stepped out of the plane into the sunshine. In Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth’s self-loathing hero remarks of his first visit to Israel something like: “Look! — Jews — Jews everywhere — walking around as if they own the place! WHICH THEY DO!” What was striking to me, though, all through Israel, was the very absence of weight being thrown around.

“Shalom.” They say it, them Jews, every time. It’s their hello, their goodbye, their have-a-nice-day, and they mean it. You hear them say it, you see them do it, and sometimes, just a little bit, got to say it, it makes you hate them — makes you hate their endless belief in the goodness of Mankind, the very Mankind that came so very near to destroying them.

You see it in Jerusalem, where the mosques and churches gleam free. You see it in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, where the Avenue of the Righteous comes before everything else — the Righteous being un-Jews, that is. You see it from the car, being driven from Jerusalem to Eilat, when you ask your Israeli tour guide what is that place over there that looks . . . different? Oh, that’s the Bedouins. That’s the Palestinians. That’s where they cut off people ’s hands and stone women to death, because it’s their culture, and that’s what so much of the “civilised” world wants even more of Israel to be sacrificed unto.

You see it in Ariel Sharon, that alleged hawk of hawks, sending in the Israeli Defence Force to violently evict 8,000 Jews from the Gaza in order to go ONE STEP CLOSER towards peace with a people who want his own people dead. You see it in the beautiful English Jewish journalist Charlotte Halle from Haaretz, the “Tel Aviv Guardian”, married to an Israeli, with a three-year-old son, who only comes near to losing her temper once with me — when I express too much antipathy towards the Palestinians who already want her baby son dead, because he will grow up to be a Jew, and she is prepared to go, as her ceaseless, blameless, shameless people are always prepared to go, for ever a bridge too far.

You see it in Nadia’s eyes when she says, so serenely, in the car after Yad Vashem: “I always knew that lots of people had suffered. But if ever, EVER, anyone says that anyone has ever suffered like the Jews did, you know now that they’re either one of two things. One, they're silly. Or two, they’re just a little bit WICKED.”

You see it in Tel Aviv, on your balcony, your last night in Israel, with Nadia crying back in the room, and you really want to go home and see your husband and she does her son . . . but you really wonder how you will live now, back at home, beyond the wild blue yonder where these people, these F****** PEOPLE, did the thing they did — where they literally created the modern world.

Where they turned a place the size of Wales, which was just another regular barren Arab desert, into a Garden of Eden overnight, or at least over a decade. Where they came straight off the ships from Auschwitz and Belsen and Drancy and simply rolled up their sleeves and shook their heads and said, “Oyyyy . . .”

Where they created Tel Aviv — the first Jewish city in 2,000 years — by simply saying it was so, a few dozen ragged-ass Hebrew re-settlers, standing on some sand in 1909.

Where they don’t even WANT your help, the obdurate, stubborn, stiff-necked f****** —

All seven million of them —
Seven million . . .
So we won, then . . .

Back in the room, Nadia is singing now as she packs.

I’ve been back from Israel less than a week as I start writing this, and my suntan is already fading as my mind and soul shrink back to the size they were before — the size that fits so snugly around The X Factor and Brit Art and Whither the Novel Now and all those cultural Hula Hoops we keep up so frantically to distract ourselves from the big hole in the middle that is us.

Don’t get me wrong — I love my life. This isn’t a cheesy old I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found snow job — I find that such woe-is-me eulogies tend to come from your basic dust-in-the-wind types anyway, who have neither the guts nor the inclination to change their lives but can’t pass up the chance of a little extra whine-time. No, like I said — I love my life. I love my God, my husband, my son Jack, my job, my friends and reality TV. I’m a happy bunny with such a high level of optimism that I frequently wake up in the morning, at the age of 45, feeling almost excited about washing my face and drinking my coffee — a sure sign, according to my shrink friend, of a person in A Happy Place. (Or a cretin.)

And yet, and yet . . . while all other parts of my heart beat properly, I feel that, increasingly, I have a country-sized hole in it. I have always loved my country with a fierce cool pride, knowing our faults, and still thinking “Yeah, we may well be stiff-upper-lipped/stuffed-shirts/sex-maniacs/drunks/po-faced/frivolous/whatever — but what’s the option? Being French — BEING GERMAN? I don’t think so!” No country is perfect, but relatively, I have always felt blessed to be British; generally, when prejudiced push comes to murderous shove, we have always tended to be on the side of the angels.

But increasingly, I don’t feel this. Because, in the face of all the evidence of history, and thus in the face of logic, Britain is slowly but surely ceasing to be Britain and becoming little more than an outpost of the “European Union” — the very name, I feel, echoes the join-us-in-friendship-or-else! promise/threat of an earlier European Unity dream-turned-nightmare. I have many minor gripes against the EU, such as its monstrous levels of corruption and waste.

But mainly I loathe the EU as I believe it to be a massive threat to what remains of the world Jewry which its leader, Germany, did so much to destroy. I cannot trust an organisation which has a belligerent Germany, aided and abetted by his vicious short sidekick, France, at its head — especially when that Germany is increasingly painting itself as the real “victim” of the Second World War. And it’s not just them, it’s us — in 2003 an EU survey claimed that six out of ten Britons believed Israel to be a threat to “world peace”, whatever that is.

Israel is not without its problems — but they are problems which are a result of other countries’ ignorant and destructive instincts and actions rather than its own. Because of this, they will be easier to solve — and, crucially, they make “war-torn” Israel a far better place to be in than peaceful Britain. Israelis can at least see the bombs that go off in their country — whereas ours go off in our minds and hearts, day after day, destroying everything which was once precious to us. I’m bad at languages, but I do have a heartful of soul and pretty soon I’ll have a Hebrew teacher — a female teacher, thankyouverymuch! — who I’ll see once a week. And eventually, I’ll get there.

Once I couldn’t imagine not living — or dying — in England, but as I get older the more I feel the need to walk in the sun; in the blatant, blameless light of confidence, of communal effort, of a cause greater than keeping the European gravy train/hate machine on track. It’s not exactly next year in Jerusalem — but, God willing, five years from now in Tel Aviv will do me just fine.

Sunday, November 28, 2004

  • Sunday, November 28, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
This is the text of a message on dozens of pro-Israeli blogs being posted today. I didn't participate officially because of my vacation, but the message is important. - EoZ

November 29, 2004:

Anniversary of the UN vote on Resolution 181



2004_11_13 - un_resolution_181.jpg


Today is the anniversary of the UN vote on resolution 181, which approved the partition of the western part Palestine into a predominately Jewish state and a predominately Arab state. (It is vital to recall that the UN partition plan referred to western Palestine, to underscore that in 1921 the eastern part was ripped off the Jewish National Home by the British Government and handed over to the then Emir Abdullah.)

The partition plan was approved by 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.

The 33 countries that cast the “Yes” vote were: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussia, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Union of South Africa, USSR, USA, Uruguay, Venezuela. (Among other countries, the list includes the US, the three British Dominions, all the European countries except for Greece and the UK, but including all the Soviet-block countries.)

The 13 countries that chose the Hall of Shame and voted “No” were: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen. (Ten of these are Moslem countries; Greece has the special distinction of being the only European country to have joined the Hall of Shame.)

The ten countries that abstained are: Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia.

On November 30, 1947, the day following the vote, the Palestinian Arabs murdered six Jews in a bus making its way to Jerusalem, and proceeded to murder another Jew in the Tel-Aviv - Jaffa area. This was a prelude to a war that claimed the lives of 6,000 Jews, or 1% of the total Jewish population in 1948. This toll is the per capita equivalent of today’s Canada losing 300,000 lives, or the US losing 3,000,000.

The object of the war, launched by the Arabs in the former Palestine and the armies of Egypt, Tansjordan, Syria and Lebanon (with help from other Arab countries), was to "throw the Jews into the sea". As the partition map indicates, however, rather than annihilate the Jewish population, the Arabs ended up with less territory than they would have gained by peaceful means.

In addition to the bloodshed in nascent Israel, immediately after the UN vote, Arabs attacks their Jewish neighbours in a number of Arab countries, the murders in Syria’s Aleppo being the best known.

Bruised and bleeding, Israel prevailed nonetheless. May our sister-democracy thrive and flourish.

List of participating sites, in alphabetical order of site name

Anti Idiotarian Rottweiler
Arkansas Bushwacker
Armies Of Liberation
Bama Pachyderm
Biurchametz
Blimpish
Blithered
Blog Willy
Blue Rev
Canadian Comment

Cao's Blog
Catholic Friends of Israel
Christian Patriot
Christian Action for Israel
Clarity and Resolve
Crusader War College
Cuanas
Danegerus
Daniel Davis
Flig

Harald Tribune
Heretics Almanac
Hidden Nook
History Nerd
Ice Viking
I Love America
Instant Knowledge News
Israpundit

JPundit
Jersusalem Posts
Leaning Right News
Lindasog
Live Journal
MCNS
Martinipundit
Mererhetoric
Motnews

Mugged By Reality
Mystical Paths
Naebunny
NetWMD
Nice Jewish Boy
Peaktalk
Protect Our Heritage
Reaganesque
Red Tigress

Riteturnonly
Shimshon9
Solomonia
Spitball Defense
Supernatural
Tampa Bay Primer
Techie Vampire
Texasbug
Tex The Pontificator
The Autism homepage

The Conservative
The Seal Club
Wackingday
Who's Your Rabbi
Voxfelisi
Weblog of a Wandering Jew

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
How Not to Promote Democracy
Palestinian elections shouldn’t come before a free society has been built.

By Meyrav Wurmser

Since the death of Yasser Arafat, many in European capitals and within various circles of Washington have called on the Palestinians to hold elections. Former special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross, for example, recently asserted that to avoid a violent competition for power, elections can become "the mechanism for shaping the Palestinians' future and determining Palestinian leadership." Palestinian basic law requires that elections be held 60 days after the death of a Palestinian president. On the surface, elections appear to be a step that will further Palestinian democracy and President Bush's vision of a free and democratic Palestinian society. In reality, however, the election, scheduled for January 9, 2005, would be part of the smoke and mirrors that is Palestinian politics. It would merely dress an enduring dictatorship with democratic robes.

Even before Arafat's demise, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Queria (Abu Ala) and the new chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), had divvyed up the chairman's powers amongst themselves. Abu Mazen's appointment as the central figure of the PLO puts him in control of the most powerful body in Palestinian society. The PLO's powers remain superior to the institutions of the PA. In his capacity as the chairman of the PLO, Abu Mazen is responsible for all Palestinian foreign affairs and negotians with Israel. His associate, Abu Ala, continues to be the Palestinian prime minister, a position he held prior to Arafat's death. Since then, however, his powers have been redefined: He now controls all internal affairs of the PA and the mulitplicity of unruly security services. Rawhi Fatooh, a junior political player and the speaker of the parliament, replaced Arafat as the temporary president of the Palestinian Authority until elections are held.

When Arafat was alive, he controlled the powers — and more — now shared by the new triumvirate. He was chairman of the PLO, president of the Palestinian Authority, and head of the largest faction of the PLO, Fatah. It took many years of international pressure to force him to appoint a prime minister. Even when he did, Arafat made certain that his prime minister would remain weak and unable to control any of the security services. A typical example of Arafat's treatment of his revolving prime ministers is the rumor that he slapped Abu Ala across the face several weeks ago. In response, Abu Ala threatened resignation until it became clear that Arafat's health was deteriorating. But the multi-tentacled style of Arafat's reign could not have been maintained by any one of his successors, because they all lack his gravitas. Realizing their unpopularity, they opted to divide and rule.

But the division is not between equals. Abu Mazen and Abu Ala remain the senior partners. They have taken all substantial powers, leaving the position of the president virtually void of real authority. Taking away from the president control over the guns of the security services and the money held in the PA's entangled accounts has reduced his position to that of a glorified debate-club leader. Elections, now deemed by many in Europe and the State Department as the flood gate for Palestinian democracy (and by extension the renewal of the peace-process), only serve to legitimize Abu Ala's and Abu Mazen's unelected and unchecked grip on power.

One could argue that Abu Ala and Abu Mazen could not control the results of an election, that a challenger to their power could win. But these two are attempting to stack the cards in their favor. Even if relatively orderly elections occurred in 60 days, they would not be free and democratic. Abu Mazen, who recently announced his candidacy, is trying to make sure that no one of any real influence will compete against him. Not wishing to look undemocratic, he might find — as Arafat did in the elections of 1996 — a single, unknown, and unpopular candidate to "oppose" him. Even if there is a strong opposing candidate, the lack of a free press, the existence of bodies (such as the PLO) that are more powerful than the elected institution, and an insufficient period for the oppositional candidates to organize, these elections will not accurately reflect the will of the people.

The Bush administration, which remains committed to a vision of a free and democratic Middle East, must be certain not to legitimize oppression by endorsing Palestinian elections now. In the process of building a free and democratic society, elections are the last — not the first — step. Elections should come after limits on governmental institutions are in place and the basic freedoms of individuals have been guaranteed. Western recognition of this masquerade of freedom would only serve to strengthen the undemocratic nature of Palestinian society.

Even if elections will renew hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, peace must not come at the price of liberty. Only a free Palestinian society can confront Arafat's legacy of terror, chaos, corruption, and poverty.
  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Moderate Muslims, Real and Phony
By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 23, 2004

There is good news to report: the idea that “militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution” is finding greater acceptance over time. But there is also bad news, namely growing confusion over who really is a moderate Muslim. This means that the ideological side of the war on terror is making some, but only limited, progress.

The good news: Anti-Islamist Muslims are finding their voice since 9/11. Their numbers include distinguished academics such as Azar Nafisi (Johns Hopkins), Ahmed al-Rahim (formerly of Harvard), Kemal Silay (Indiana), and Bassam Tibi (Göttingen). Important Islamic figures like Ahmed Subhy Mansour and Muhammad Hisham Kabbani are speaking out.

Organizations are coming into existence. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, headed by Zuhdi Jasser, is active in Phoenix, Arizona. The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism appears to be genuinely anti-Islamist, despite my initial doubts about its founder, Kamal Nawash.

Internationally, an important petition posted a month ago by a group of liberal Arabs calls for a treaty banning religious incitement to violence and specifically names “sheikhs of death” (such as Yusuf Al-Qaradawi of Al-Jazeera television), demanding that they be tried before an international court. Over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries rapidly signed this petition.

With time, individual Muslims are finding their voice to condemn Islamist connections to terrorism. Perhaps most outstanding is an article by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, a Saudi journalist in London: “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists,” he writes, “but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. … We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.”

Other analysts have followed al-Rashed’s example. Osama El-Ghazali Harb writes from Egypt that “Muslim and Arab intellectuals and opinion leaders must confront and oppose any attempt to excuse the barbaric acts of these [terrorist] groups on the grounds of the suffering endured by Muslims.” From Virginia, Anouar Boukhars holds that “Terrorism is a Muslim problem, and refusal to admit so is indeed troubling.”

The bad news: There are lots of fake-moderates parading about, and they can be difficult to identify, even for someone like me who devotes much attention to this topic. The Council on American-Islamic Relations still wins mainstream support and the Islamic Society of North America still sometimes hoodwinks the U.S. government. The brand-new Progressive Muslim Union wins rave reviews for its alleged moderation from gullible journalists, despite much of its leadership (Salam Al-Marayati, Sarah Eltantawi, Hussein Ibish, Ali Abunimah) being well-known extremists.

Fortunately, the authorities kept both Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf Islam out of the United States, but Khaled Abou El Fadl got through and, worse, received a presidential appointment.

Even anti-terrorist rallies are not always what they seem to be. On Nov. 21, several thousand demonstrators, some of them Muslim, marched under banners proclaiming “Together for Peace and against Terror” in Cologne, Germany. Marchers shouted “No to terror” and politicians made feel-good statements. But the Cologne demonstration, coming soon after the murder of Theo van Gogh on Nov. 2, served as a clever defense operation. The organizer of the event, the Islamist Diyanet Iþleri Türk-Islam Birliði, used it as a smokescreen to fend off pressure for real change. Speeches at the demonstration included no mea culpas or calls for introspection, only apologetics for jihad and invocations of stale and empty slogans such as “Islam means peace.”

This complex, confusing record points to several conclusions:

· Islamists note the urge to find moderate Muslims and are learning how to fake moderation. Over time, their camouflage will undoubtedly further improve.

· Figuring out who’s who is a high priority. It may be obvious that Osama bin Laden is Islamist and Irshad Manji anti-Islamist, but plenty of Muslims are in the murky middle. An unresolved debate has raged for years in Turkey whether the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoðan, is an Islamist or not.

· The task of identifying true moderates cannot be done through guesswork and intuition; for proof, note the U.S. government’s persistent record of supporting Islamists by providing them with legitimacy, education, and (perhaps even) money. I too have made my share of mistakes. What’s needed is serious, sustained research.

  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Let's give these people $20 million...and a state by 2009! - EoZ

As the Palestinian media slowly return to their regular routine following Arafat's death, their well-documented hate promotion and incitement are likewise reappearing. One common theme that has quickly returned due to the war in Iraq is the depiction of the US, verbally and visually, as the cruel and inhuman enemy.

A cartoon in today's official PA daily, Al Hayat al Jadida, shows an American soldier raping a young girl, while the Arab world looks on with amusement and even offers support.


A Palestinian newspaper depicts an American soldier raping a woman as Arabs look on and encourage him.


The most recent Friday sermon on PATV, delivered by Sheik Ibrahim Madiras, depicts the US as the creator of international terror. 'Fallujah is undergoing ethnic cleansing right now: Thousands of shahids [martyrs], hundreds killed every hour... You've seen with your own eyes the terrorism, the terrorism of the United States, who accuses the Palestinian people, the Iraqi people and all Muslims of being terrorists, while creating international terror. The U.S. is the one who creates terror.'



The label on the can says "Exterminator"


In a third example, a vicious cartoons depicts US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the exterminator of Arabs.
  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Azziz Mustafa Salha, 23, one of the Palestinians involved in the Ramallah lynching of two reservists on October 12, 2000, and whose photo, holding up his hands stained with the blood of the two soldiers to the mob standing outside the police station was shown worldwide, was sentenced to life in the Judea Military Court on Sunday.

Reservist Sgt.-Maj. Yosef Avrahami and Corporal Vadim Novesche accidentally strayed into Ramallah after making a wrong turn on the way to their army base.

They were forced out of their vehicle and taken to the local police station, where an angry mob forced their way into the headquarters and, together with PA security officials, attacked and beat them to death. Scores of people participated in the lynch which was broadcasted in grisly detail around the world.

Novesche was thrown out of a second-story window to the mob below and later, Salha stood at the window and proudly showed the crowd his hands covered with the reservists' blood.

According to the charge sheet released by the army on Monday, Salha arrived at the police station and spotted Novesche lying on the ground with a knife protruding out of his back.

He grabbed the knife and stabbed the Israeli to death while holding him in a stranglehold. He then went inside the station and stood at the second floor window showing off his bloodstained hands to the crowd.

Several photographers were beaten by PA officers that day by Palestinians for filming the scene and their cameras and films were destroyed.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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