The False Dawn of Peace

Now that the old brute’s dead, are his successors any better?

By Steven Stalinsky

With Arafat's death, there has been an unprecedented amount of optimism in the West regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state and the possibility of peace. Yet amongst Palestinian officials there is little talk of such a peace, the continuation of Yasser Arafat's "jihad" against the Jewish state instead being endorsed. (To watch examples of these statements, visit www.memritv.org.)

Some members of the Palestinian establishment close to Arafat are now stating in public that he never really wanted peace, and instead considered the Oslo Accords a strategy to destroy Israel in phases. It was reported on November 21 that Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, discussed a meeting he held with Arafat shortly before the latter's return to Gaza from Tunis. When Atwan criticized the Oslo Accords, Arafat reassured him: "The day will come when you will see thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. I will not live to see this, but you will definitely see it in your lifetime. The Oslo Accords will help bring this about."

The Palestinian ambassador in Iran, Salah Al-Zawawi, explained in an interview on Iranian Al-Alam TV on November 12: "[Arafat] knew that this path is the path of martyrdom and Jihad. He knew that this great cause requires martyrs, not leaders.... He fought the Jihad and we saw him in many battles...if you ask me what will surely be the end of this Zionist entity, I will say to you that this entity will disappear one of these days...It's a matter of time.... Our phased plan, which I already mentioned, is to establish an independent sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital...."

Similiarly, Palestinian analyst Yunis Udeh told London's ANB TV November 11: "When we told him [Arafat] that the road to Oslo would mean the termination of the Palestinian cause, he said, 'I am hammering the first nail in the Zionist coffin.'... I asked him how. He said: 'I will go to Gaza, I will return to Palestine...."

Fatah Supreme Council Member Abu Ali Shahin also hinted in an interview on November 13 on Lebanon's Al-Manar TV that Yasser Arafat considered the Oslo Accords a strategic move to destroy Israel: "Yasser Arafat led a revolution, a revolution of a barrel of gunpowder alongside a barrel of petrol.... But when Yasser Arafat saw that the USSR...collapsed without a single shot being fired.... Arafat understood this great international game. He made a 180-degree turn.... He accepted...Madrid, and after it Oslo...."

Countless Palestinian officials have also spoken about continuing the violent campaign against Israel. Fatah leader Hussein Al-Sheikh told Al-Arabiyya TV on November 11: "The gun Yasser Arafat raised...will be raised by...the Palestinian people, so they continue to believe that the gun is the way to get rid of this occupation, the shortest way to get rid of this occupation. This is Abu Ammar's promise and this is his will, and we will continue to be true to them."

Also on November 11, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader Raid Al-Aidi said on Al-Arabiyya TV, "We call from here to all the heroes...[to] strike this occupier anywhere, with no holds barred. We...will direct our painful blows against this monstrous entity. The Palestinian state will be achieved only by strengthening the resistance.... This occupier understands only the language of gunfire and gunpowder and we will teach this occupier, Allah willing, a lesson as we have taught it in the past, in Tel Aviv, Hadera, and everywhere. We will escalate our blows against this occupier...."

In the same program, Fatah Central Committee member Hani Al-Hassan explained that, "In Fatah we have a rule: the armed struggle sows and the political struggle reaps.... Therefore, when Oslo didn't bring results, the sowing came in the form of the Intifada.... We will see now whether the political situation allows us to reach political results and to bring about a change in our favor. Otherwise, we will go back to sowing."

Quoting former Egyptian president Abd-Al Nasser — "what was taken by force will be restored only by force" — is how the new leader of Fatah, Faruq Al-Qaddumi, described the Palestinian strategy against Israel on Al-Arabiyya TV on November 14. Al-Qaddumi has considerable popularity among the Palestinian street for never accepting Oslo. With his naming as leader of Fatah, Al-Qaddumi is openly challenging Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmad Qureia to be Arafat's successor. As he stated in the interview, "Anyone who thinks that I have abdicated my authority is mistaken."

He explained Fatah's position about Hamas: "The Hamas movement is our friend. It is a...movement of heroes. It is part of the national Palestinian movement. No...Fatah member could possibly harm Hamas." Al-Qaddumi is also close to Hezbollah, and during a meeting with Sheikh Nasrallah on September 4, 2003, they discussed "cohesion between the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance."

At a memorial for Arafat on November 23, Al-Qaddumi explained, "We can not achieve these goals except through continued resistance by all methods and means." He has also called for attacking U.S. interests throughout the world.

The Palestinian leadership is not alone in stating in public that terrorist attacks against Israel must continue. The Arabic and Iranian press have been particularly vocal. In response to an interviewer's question as to whether the Intifada will continue and grow stronger, Lebanese MP Zaher Al-Khatib said on November 13: "It will escalate and develop technologically. The martyrdom operations are no longer the only kind of operations in Palestine. The martyrdom operations have become a strategy. A strategy doesn't mean that we carry out these operations whenever possible; it means [real] military operations.... There is an infrastructure of resistance that wages battles, enters Ashdod, crosses borders, penetrates military zones, conducts operations as in Ashdod, and so on."

American officials intimately involved in the Oslo Accords now publicly state that more attention should have been paid to the issue of Palestinian incitement, and what the Arabs were saying amongst themselves about peace in Arabic. With Yasser Arafat gone, the U.S. should be paying close attention to his heirs to understand their true intentions.

— Steven Stalinsky is executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

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Ten million dollars for information on Ron Arad

The Born to Freedom Foundation has launched a 10 million dollar campaign to obtain information on missing Israeli Air Force navigator, Captain Ron Arad.

On October 16 1986, Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad bailed out of his plane on a mission in Lebanon and was captured by members of the Iranian-backed Shiite group, Amal. Since then, Ron has been held captive by a various of factions and groups, all of them extremist Shiite groups, backed by Iran.

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France praises Israel's 'restraint'

In a radical departure from years of Parisian critical rhetoric, the French ambassador to Israel, Gerard Araud, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that he thought Israel "has tried to show the utmost restraint" in the course of the conflict with the Palestinians since 2000.

The ambassador even evinced a certain understanding of the deaths of Palestinians during the course of Israeli army activity. "It's unavoidable that in some operations...," he said, leaving that sentence uncompleted. "War is dirty, war is always dirty," he went on, and then added: "Occupation is never clean."

France has been at the forefront of repeated EU appeals to Israel to show greater restraint vis- -vis the Palestinians, and leading French politicians have frequently used far tougher language than employed by the EU.

French President Jacques Chirac, for instance, condemned Israel's killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March as being contrary to international law. Two years ago, then-French foreign minister Hubert V drine said that no solution to the Middle East crisis could be found by "armored vehicles firing" at Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters. V drine had earlier accused Israel of following a "deliberate" and "fatal" policy in seeking to weaken or eliminate the Palestinian Authority and protested the army's "harassment" of Arafat.
...
The Palestinian issue is "not the central problem" for Arab states, he said, most of whose regimes are "so fragile... They all have more pressing problems... being mostly obsessed with their own survival."

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Iran claims Saudis getting nukes from Pakistan

Official Iranian sources are claiming that they have information about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signing an agreement in 2003 in which Pakistan promised to help Saudi Arabia develop nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
The reports are coming out as Iran reached an agreement with the three European powers - the United Kingdom, Germany and France - about a cessation of uranium enrichment and the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of directors issues its report on Iran's nuclear activity.

The Iranian reports emphasize that the nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is at an advanced stage and that for the first time the Saudis have access to nuclear technology.

The international news agency United Press International (UPI) reported that Iranian Prof. Abu Mohammed Asgarkhani claimed in a lecture that Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear arms picked up after it learned about the Pakistani-Saudi deal and the possibility that Saudi Arabia would eventually acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli and Western sources are not attributing much significance to the Saudi ability to develop, even partially, nuclear weapons.

Pakistan owes Saudi Arabia a great deal because Saudi Arabia essentially financed development of the Pakistani bomb. A Saudi representative may have been the only foreigner invited to visit Pakistan's nuclear facilities. Pakistan was also the middleman between Saudi Arabia and China for the purchase of long-range Chinese missiles. Those missiles, based in Saudi Arabia, have meanwhile become obsolete, and the Saudis want to upgrade them. The Americans told the Chinese that would be a violation of an agreement in which the Chinese promised not to sell missiles. The Chinese say it would not be a missile sale, but an upgrade of an existing missile sold a long time ago, but Washington remains opposed to the deal.

The Iranian reports about nuclear dealings between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is apparently motivated by Iran's interest in pointing out that other countries in the region are involved in military nuclear development and that they are not coming under international criticism because they are friends of the U.S.

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Hamas and other terrorists reject truce; story buried

When a Hamas spokesman says to the Western press that Hamas might possibly consider perhaps thinking about a temporary cease fire with Israel, it gets headlines throughout the world. When they reiterate their desire to destroy Israel, even the Israeli press buries it in the last paragraph of a story not related to the topic. - EoZ

In Damascus, Abbas held talks with the leaders of three Palestinian radical groups to discuss the possibility of reaching a cease-fire with Israel and the upcoming presidential election in the PA.

Abbas met with a Hamas delegation led by the movement's leader, Khaled Mashaal. He also held separate talks with Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah.

Abbas also met with Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, another Damascus-based group that is strongly opposed to the Oslo Accords.

The leaders of the three groups refused to comment on the results of their talks with Abbas. Mashaal walked in and out of the meeting at Abbas's hotel without being seen by reporters.

However, Palestinian sources in Damascus said the three urged Abbas to work towards establishing a national unity leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would consist of representatives of all the Palestinian factions.

According to the sources, the groups rejected Abbas's demand for a temporary truce with Israel ahead of the January 9 election, insisting that they would pursue the fight against Israel.

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Israeli Arab Charged With Spying for Iran

An Israeli Arab has been arrested on charges of spying for Iran, a police spokesman said Tuesday, underscoring growing Israeli-Iranian tensions.

Authorities believe Mohammed Ghanam came into contact with Iranian agents during one of his frequent trips to Saudi Arabia, where he facilitated the visits of Muslim pilgrims from Israel, police spokesman Gil Kleiman said.

'We suspect that it was there that he met people from Iranian intelligence,' Kleiman said.

A police statement said Ghanam had been introduced to an Iranian agent named Abu Osma in August 2003. The statement said the introduction was carried out by Nabil Mahzouma, an activist from the militant Islamic Jihad group whom Ghanam met in 1973 while serving a term in an Israeli prison for assaulting a soldier and stealing his weapon.

The police statement said Osma promised to pay Ghanam for enlisting young Israeli Arabs to carry out anti-Israeli missions after undergoing training in Jordan.

'In his interrogation ... Ghanam said he understood that the purpose of recruiting the young people was to carry out terror attacks, but he claimed that Osma did not specify the place or framework of the attacks,' the statement said.

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Hezbollah working to reach unconventional capabilities

Classified report obtained by NRG Maariv reveals. Defense officials also concerned Palestinian terror groups might try to perpetrate WMD attacks.
Eitan Rabin

The Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah is working vigorously to achieve unconventional capabilities, a classified report obtained by NRG Maariv reveals.
“Just as they managed to obtain and use an unmanned aerial vehicle, they are planning to use other types of weapons”, a senior defense official said.

In addition, the defense establishment is concerned Palestinian terror groups might try to perpetrate biological and chemical attacks, despite recent statements made by Hamas leaders regarding a possible cease-fire

“The terror groups are becoming more and more sophisticated and are trying to execute ‘quality attacks’”, the source said.

According to the official, information that has recently reached Israel indicates that al-Qaeda may also be in the advanced planning stages of an attack in an Israeli city or against Israeli targets abroad.

One of the scenarios that is being examined is the inclusion of unconventional substances in the explosive charges made by the terrorists, in order to create what is known as “dirty bomb”, which contains radioactive material in small quantities.

“Any terrorist in the world can buy unconventional weapons or substances and smuggle them into the territories. The arms trade is flourishing”, the source added.

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How Lies Became Established Truths

Toledo Jewish News December 2004 Issue

by

Yuval Zaliouk

How Lies Became Established Truths

The Say/Don’t Say Dictionary

One of the major achievements of Arab Palestinian propaganda is the establishment of false terminology which is now accepted as the world’s common vernacular. The tendentious world media is responsible for the daily promulgating of Arab propaganda.

Is there any wonder that the general public is now using false terminology as if it were the truth?

Expressions such as ‘occupied territories,’ ‘illegal settlements,’ ‘settlers,’ ‘West Bank,’ and many other such terms are now taken for granted, despite the fact that they are all manufactured expressions without any legal or factual base.

In order to help set the record straight, here is my initial contribution of a dictionary. It behooves every one of us to learn the correct terminology, erase the falsehoods from memory, and start using only the correct language.

Arab spokesmen and their media collaborators never fail or slip when presenting their side, why should we, Jews, fail in presenting ours, the real truths?

The space in this article is too limited for detailed explanation of each term in the dictionary. If any of the terms or the rationale behind them is not completely clear to you, please do not hesitate to contact me by email. Also, if you wish to contribute to the dictionary, please send your entries to me. I will gladly insert them for future use.

Here is the dictionary:

Don’t Say… Instead, Say…

Israel’s 1967 borders Israel’s 1949 Armistice Lines

Colonialism Return to our Jewish Homeland

Cycle of Violence Defense from Terrorism

Green Lines 1949 Armistice Lines

Haram el Sharif Temple Mount, or Mount Zion

Intifadah The Oslo War (The War brought about

as a result of the failed 1993 Oslo

Accords

Israel’s Occupation of Israel’s Liberation of

Jewish Settlements Jewish villages, towns, or communities

Militants, insurgents Terrorists

Occupied Territories Liberated, as in Liberated from Jordan

And Egypt, or Disputed Territories

Palestine Land of Israel, Holy Land, or Zion

Palestinians Arab/Palestinians, Arabs

Palestinian Lands Privately Owned properties (different

from Public or Government Lands

without sovereignty)

Palestinian Territories Jewish, or Disputed, Territories

Return Palestinian Territories Surrender, Give-up, Hand-over, Jewish

or disputed. territories

Settlers Jewish, or Israeli residents

The Wall The Defensive or Protective Fence,

or Barrier

West Bank Judea and Samaria

Please practice and internalize.

Yuval Zaliouk

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When rules go out the window and near-torture is self-defence

Al-Qaeda fights outside the Geneva Conventions and so is not protected by them, writes Ted Lapkin.

To borrow from Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, the International Committee of the Red Cross is like any other human rights group, only more so.

For all its public image of impartiality, the Red Cross can play hardball politics with the best of them when it sees fit.

The leaked Red Cross report that accuses the United States of maltreating al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees must be read with a critical eye. According to The New York Times, the Red Cross complained that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were subjected to 'solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions'.

While certainly unpleasant, do such practices really meet the legal definition of torture? It seems that even the Red Cross has its doubts, hence its use of the term 'tantamount to torture' in its leaked report.

The United Nations Convention against Torture defines torture rather narrowly, describing it as the intentional infliction of 'severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental' for political or military reasons. It is questionable whether measures cited in the leaked document would meet the 'severe pain or suffering' standard.
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It is true that article 16 of the convention requires that states which are party to it 'shall undertake to prevent' lesser acts 'of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment'. But international legal language is precise. An obligation to 'undertake to prevent' is not the same as an absolute prohibition.

While lesser categories of coercion should not be routine, they should be available to intelligence authorities in case of a classic 'ticking bomb' scenario. If inflicting mild discomfort on a captured al-Qaeda operative could prevent a mass-casualty terrorist attack, would that be a greater offence against morality than allowing the slaughter of innocents to proceed?

The Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War goes well beyond the convention against torture to impose a blanket prohibition on any sort of pressure during questioning. In fact, the Geneva Convention imposes such severe limitations on interrogators that it would outlaw routine investigative procedures used every day by Australian police.

But that point is really academic, because the text of the conventions makes them inapplicable to the conflict with al-Qaeda. Human rights advocacy groups may not like it, but the letter of international law is not always consistent with their political agendas.

These are not simply hypothetical dilemmas that are the stuff of law school classrooms or philosophy seminars. We live in a time when these are real-world questions with real-world consequences. A case in point: last July, when the Chicago Tribune reported that 'recent information from Guantanamo has derailed plans for attacks during the Athens Olympics next month and possibly forestalled at least a dozen attacks elsewhere'.

The laws of war essentially propose a contract to combatants: if you observe these rules of civilised warfare, then you will be treated in a civilised manner. The conditional nature of legitimate combatant status is reflected in the text of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. A common article two of those conventions states that parties to the treaty are under no legal obligation to apply their terms to non-parties who do not themselves abide by the law of armed conflict.

The men detained at Guantanamo were captured on the battlefield while fighting for organisations that systematically violated the most basic tenets of the law of war. Captured al-Qaeda fighters were drawn from the ranks of an organisation that sees the deliberate destruction of women, children and the elderly as a legitimate tactic. From flying hijacked airliners into office buildings to bombing commuter trains in Madrid, Osama bin Laden's minions have committed every war crime on the books.

The Taliban were also serial transgressors against the law of war. At a press conference in early 2002, the US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, explained why Washington declined to recognise Taliban fighters as legal combatants: 'The Taliban did not wear distinctive signs, insignias, symbols or uniforms ... To the contrary, far from seeking to distinguish themselves from the civilian population of Afghanistan, they sought to blend in with civilian non-combatants, hiding in mosques and populated areas. They [were] not organised in military units, as such, with identifiable chains of command; indeed, al-Qaeda forces made up portions of their forces.'

The Guantanamo Bay detainees are illegal combatants whose actions placed them beyond the pale of international law. To afford them the privileges and protections of the Geneva Conventions, despite their crimes, would provide reward where retribution is warranted.

If the task of preventing the next September 11 requires that al-Qaeda captives at Guantanamo Bay be denied their full eight hours of slumber, I certainly won't lose any sleep over it.

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Israel's Morality and the World's Myopia

By Daniel Gordis

Any discussion of the manner in which Israel has conducted its armed conflict with the Palestinians over the past four years demands, first and foremost, clarity about the nature of the conflict and what is at stake. Israel is at war—not against "militants," or against those who would seek to "liberate" the Palestinian people. Israel is engaged in a war for her survival, against well-armed and increasingly well-trained, highly disciplined groups of terrorists, who are wholly up front about their agenda. Their agenda is not the liberation of the "territories" that were captured in June 1967 in a war that Israel did not want. Their agenda, as Hamas and Hizballah (among others) freely admit, is the eradication of the "Zionist entity" from what should be, in their minds, an exclusively Muslim Middle East.

This is not the Chechens against Russia. All the Chechens seek is independence. Were they granted that, there is every reason to expect that Chechen terrorism against Vladimir Putin's Russia would cease. The same is true with the Basques in Spain. But not with Israel. The only way that Israel could bring an end to the terrorists' attempt to destroy any semblance of normalcy for Israeli life would be to cease to exist. Israelis understand that, and they know full well that any other country fighting for its very existence would be enraged at being judged as Israel has been judged, particularly by Europe, in the last four years.

How this War Began

Israelis also remember when this war began—immediately after Ehud Barak called Yasir Arafat's bluff. Barak offered the Palestinian people the state and the independence they had always said their decades-long terrorist campaign had been designed to bring them. But in Barak's agreement, Israel would have continued to exist. And that, in the end, Arafat could not abide. So he, and a multiplicity of loosely aligned terrorist organizations that include, but is not limited to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, Fatah, Force 17, and the El-Aksa Martyrs' Brigade sought to bring Israel to its knees by terrifying an entire population into submission.

It is still said, ludicrously, that Arafat couldn't sign the Camp David package because Barak's deal was not good enough. The West Bank, according to some accounts, would have been divided into three cantons, with Israelis retaining control over passage from one to the other. Perhaps. The picture is unclear. But let us suppose that that claim is true, and that Arafat had genuinely wanted a deal. The most effective thing he could have done would have been to tell the tens of thousands of Palestinians who then had the right to enter Israel to sit on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway and on the highway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. He could have invited CNN, whose presence would have made it impossible for the IDF to use force to disperse the crowds. And Arafat could have put the map of Barak's proposal on the back page of the front section of the New York Times and showed the world why he could not sign. Israel would have been forced to concede, and the maps would have been altered.

No Peace in our Lifetime

But that was not Arafat's agenda. Thus, most Israelis now understand that there will not be peace. Not in our lifetimes, and probably not in the lifetimes of our children. There may be a cessation of hostilities—some years more violent and some years less—but we now know that to live here means to live and to raise our children in a permanent state of war. That sentence, that "fate," has created anguish, despair, sadness, and even hatred in Israeli society. And given that despair, and the offer that was rejected, what is striking is the restraint that Israel has exercised. Who else, knowing that no matter what else we may do, we will always be at war, would exercise such restraint?

In Israel, the Kahanist notion of transferring Palestinian populations out of the disputed territories is still considered racist and out of the question. Shutting off the water or electricity or phones of these populations for months on end, to force them to begin to exert pressure on the terrorists, has never been seriously suggested. Has Israel ever considered eradicating a town after it has knowingly harbored a suicide bomber who then killed dozens of innocent civilians? Nor has Israel chosen to fight the war exclusively from the skies, thus reducing the danger to its own troops. Would any other country, fighting for its life and knowing that the fight will never end, exhibit such moderation?

The World Ignores Israeli Restraint

The world, of course, ignores that restraint. It focuses not on American tactics in Afghanistan or Iraq, or the Russians' war against Chechnya, or the atrocities in the Sudan. Instead, it focuses on the mistakes that, admittedly, have been made by Israel. The conduct of a small minority of soldiers at roadblocks has been reprehensible (and judicial proceedings are under way against many of them). The commandeering of some Arab homes by troops is unquestionably distasteful, though sometimes probably unavoidable. Innocent Palestinians, including children, have been caught in the crossfire, and Israeli troops have sometimes been careless and, occasionally, malevolent. Israelis know that, and most are embarrassed by it.

But that the terrorist organizations have chosen to use civilian neighborhoods as their bases is rarely mentioned. No one has dared accuse Israelis of "eye-for-eye" tactics, blowing up buses or wedding halls or restaurants, for such an accusation would be ridiculous. When terrorists fled into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Israeli troops surrounded the church, but didn't storm it. Compare this to the Americans' treatment of mosques in Najaf or Falluja, when their patience with Moqtada Al-Sadr ran out, or what we know would have been the case had Jews been hiding in a church or a synagogue and it had been Palestinians pursuing them. All of this escapes the critical eye of a watchful West.

So, too, does the IDF's consistent determination to do better. The unsuccessful attempt in September 2002 to kill the Hamas chief, Ahmad Yassin, which Yossi Klein Halevi discussed in his piece in this series, had a history. Israel used a half-ton bomb because it acknowledged that in its killing of Hamas chief Salah Shehade two months earlier, it had erred. Then, the IDF chose a one-ton bomb, which did kill Shehade, but which also killed fourteen bystanders, including children. The reaction in Israel was swift, and visceral. Israelis were ashamed and appalled. When Yassin escaped two months later, whatever disappointment was felt that he survived was vastly exceeded by a certain pride that we'd learned, that we had not made the same mistake again, and that despite our desire to kill Yassin, we'd placed the value of innocent life first and foremost. We also noted that the world took no notice of this changed tactic.

In April 2002, when Israel pursued terrorists into the casbah in Jenin, we did so on the ground, in door-to-door fighting, to avoid causing unnecessary collateral casualties. Fourteen of our soldiers were killed in one day. But the world—instead of pointing to the difference between Israel's handling of the battle and what would have happened anywhere else—accused Israel of a massacre. European papers reported the massacre as fact, not as allegation. Kofi Annan, when asked about Israel's denials, responded, "Can Israel be right and the whole world wrong?" But when a UN investigation proved that there had been no massacre, and that Israel had been right, did Annan apologize? Not a word. Did European papers print retractions? By and large, they did not.

Myopia about the Separation Fence

The myopia of the world's judgment of Israel's morality is most obvious with regard to the separation fence currently under construction. As the Israeli political right correctly understands, the fence is a de facto way of ceding land. If the fence were built, and if it worked, there would be no need for Israeli forces to cross and to be a presence in the daily lives of Palestinians. It would, of course, also dramatically cut down on terror. But the world, buying wholesale into a Palestinian disinformation campaign designed to make the building of the fence impossible, refers to the "apartheid fence," rather than to the attacks that led to its construction or the diminution in Israeli military presence that it heralds.

Why, incidentally, do the Palestinians oppose the fence? Because the fence would effectively end much of the conflict (although the Kassam rocket attacks do portend that even the fence will not be a complete solution). And, as we know, the end of the conflict is the last thing that the Palestinians want.

The fence has, unquestionably, caused hardship for Palestinians. Some of that is inevitable, given the way in which the two populations are intermingled across the West Bank and around East Jerusalem. And some of the route was ill planned. But compare the ruling of the International Court of Justice at The Hague with that of the Israeli Supreme Court. The ICJ demanded that Israel remove the wall in its entirety. Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the fence was legitimate in principle, and it agreed with the army that its purpose had been security, not an attempt to steal Palestinian land. But still the court demanded that part of the fence be moved to address the hardships it imposed on the Palestinian population.

The court of international opinion, however, seems not to have noticed the extraordinary phenomenon of the Supreme Court of a country at war ruling in favor of the population seeking to destroy it. Outside observers wrote that "even the Israeli Supreme Court argued that the fence is immoral." But the point was precisely the opposite. Even under conditions of war, conditions that are unlikely to end any time soon, Israel's democratic apparatus continues to function, even to the point of protecting the interests of those waging war on the country in which the court sits. Here, too, Israel placed the interests of innocent (or not-so-innocent) civilians ahead of its own security interests. And this, too, the world has ignored.

Israel's Vigorous Debate about its Conduct of the War

This democratic ethos of Israeli society points to yet another unique dimension of the conflict. In what could not be a more radical difference between Israel and the Palestinian Authority waging war on it, Israel is a country in which a vigorous and open debate about how to balance the needs for security with Jewish humanitarian values continues. Despite my own belief that, in all, our conduct of the war has been restrained, not every Israeli agrees. Some Israeli young men have refused to serve over the Green Line, and recently, several had their military service cut short, with no serious repercussions. A much publicized group of pilots announced that they would no longer fly certain missions that they considered morally problematic. Driving Israel's highways, one can often see protesters holding signs that say "hayalim amitzim lo maftzitzim," or "Brave Pilots Don't Bomb." Whether or not one agrees, we have a right to take pride in a democracy in which such issues are openly debated, where freedom of the press reigns, where the Talmudic tradition of virtually unlimited debate on issues of morality continues.

Where are the Palestinians arguing in their streets for a cessation to the bombings, to the Kassam rockets, to the shootings, so that their lives can be restored to normal? On the security fence, one sees hundreds of instances of graffiti accusing Israel of apartheid-like policies, demanding that the fence be removed. But where are the graffiti calling for an end to the terror that brought the fence in the first place? Or the graffiti that note that, if only Arafat had continued to negotiate, none of this would have happened? That voice, sadly, is not heard.

At this writing, Ariel Sharon is leading an attempt to have Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip and a handful of settlements on the West Bank. And what has been the reaction from Gaza? A barrage of Kassam rocket fire that has killed Israeli children and consumed entire Israeli towns with fear, all designed to make the pullout impossible. Because pulling out of Gaza would show the world that Israel is not interested in holding on to these territories forever, something the Palestinians are desperate for the world not to see. Because pulling out of Gaza would give Israel a more manageable line of defense, which the Palestinians do not want. And because pulling out of Gaza would force the Gazans to recognize that their poverty and their suffering are not the products of Israeli policy, but predated Israel's conquest of the land in 1967 and will follow it as well.

How did Israel seek to counter the Kassam barrages? By Operation "Days of Penitance" in October 2004—again on the ground, again with casualties—and not from the air, which would have been safer, but which would have undoubtedly caused much more collateral damage.

Despite the many complexities of the Israeli-Arab conflict in general, and of the current conflict with the Palestinians in particular, certain basic facts are clear: Israel tried to create a Palestinian state. When that offer was met with a war of terror, Israel tried to build a fence that would keep the terrorists on one side and its soldiers on the other. When the fence was treated as an "apartheid fence," Israel tried to pull out of Gaza, which the Palestinians are now seeking to make impossible. The world calls Israel racist, but the only population that Sharon is considering moving is the Jewish population in Gaza, not the villages that openly harbor the terrorists who seek to kill our children. And all this unfolds within the context of a democratic society that—in keeping with thousands of years of Jewish tradition—passionately argues whether our responses have been too draconian, or insufficiently considerate of the Palestinians (some complicit and some not), who have sadly been caught in the crossfire of a tragedy unleashed by their own leaders.

Israel's Moral Campaign against Terror

Yossi Klein Halevi argues that Israel's victory in this war on terror may some day be seen as one of the greatest victories of Jewish history. That may well be true. But Israel's conduct of this war will also be seen, I suspect, as one of the most moral campaigns against terror, a sickening phenomenon that is likely to grip the Western world to an ever greater extent over the next few years.

Unfortunately, Israel is often a barometer of what the Western world will next face. When Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in June 1981, condemnation was virtually universal. Today, the Western world knows that Israel may have saved the world from disaster. The same is true with the battle against Islamic terror. As the battle spreads, and as Westerners in Britain, France, Spain, and the United States experience ever more terror firsthand, the world will come to admire the restraint and fortitude with which Israel has fought for her life. Ultimately, I believe, Israel's conduct of this war—with all its warts—will be a model toward which much of the currently critical world will one day aspire.

Dr. Daniel Gordis (www.danielgordis.org) is vice president of the Mandel Foundation-Israel and director of its Jerusalem Fellows program. He is the author of several books, including Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel (Three Rivers Press, 2003). His "dispatches" on life in Israel have been widely reprinted in a variety of publications, including the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

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Palestinians ask for $4 billion

All that R&D for Kassam rocket research and shrapnel for bombs costs a pretty penny. -EoZ

The Palestinian Authority will ask donor countries at a meeting in Oslo for about $4 billion over three years to stave off an economic crisis, Palestinian officials in Ramallah said yesterday. The two-day conference opens tomorrow.
They said the Palestinian Authority would seek the money to finance infrastructure projects including air and sea ports, to help with the 2005 budget and to create jobs.

'We need $1.3 to $1.4 billion a year,' Economy Minister Maher al-Masri said. 'We will present our plan to the donor countries and then discussions will start. They will decide how to respond to our plan in a separate meeting in January.'

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Islamic charity called a 'money-laundering clearinghouse' for Hamas

A former FBI terrorism expert told a federal jury Monday that an Islamic institute served as 'a money-laundering clearinghouse' for the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

'It was an important part of the larger Hamas conspiracy,' said Matthew Levitt, director of terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The testimony came in a lawsuit filed by Joyce and Stanley Boim, the parents of an American teenager shot to death by two Hamas militants in Israel eight years ago.

They say the Quranic Literacy Institute of suburban Oak Lawn, two Islamic charities and an alleged Hamas fundraiser, Mohammed Salah, bankrolled the purchase of weapons by Hamas and thus are responsible for the death of their 17-year-old son.

He was shot to death while waiting for a bus in the West Bank. The Boims are Americans who moved to Israel in 1985. U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys already has found that Salah, the two charities, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine, helped to finance Hamas and so are liable in the Boim death.

The Boims are suing under a federal law that says Americans who are victims of terrorism abroad can go to court for damages against U.S.-based organizations that raise funds to finance such activities.

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New Fatah head wants Americans to die

TUNIS - The new head of Fatah, the main grouping in the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on Iraqis to defeat the US forces that have invaded their country, and called on Arabs everywhere to tighten their links with the Palestinians.

Speaking to reporters on Monday in Tunis, Fatah leader Faruq Qaddumi said: “We support the Iraqi resistance, and its victories will be those of the Palestinian resistance.”

Qaddumi, who took over as head of Fatah after the death of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on November 11, denied he was interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs, noting the country was under occupation.

“We will always be against occupiers and we support those who fight occupation,” he said.

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Tehran Times: Al Jazeera a Zionist Plot

Al-Jazeera’s Psyops

By Hassan Hanizadeh
The Al-Jazeera network’s recent insult of the Iranian nation was totally unacceptable.

The Arabic network, which broadcasts its programs from the little Arab country Qatar, has recently posted an insulting cartoon about the Islamic Republic of Iran on its English site.

In the cartoon, a cleric, who is the symbol of the Islamic Republic of Iran, indifferently passes by various scenes of the current problems in the Islamic world, but reacts strongly when he sees that the name of the Persian Gulf has been changed to the unacceptable “Arab Gulf”.

Iranian officials made a prompt denunciation of this very amateurish and dishonorable measure, which has its roots in Al-Jazeera officials’ animosity toward Iranians.

The Al-Jazeera network was founded in 1997, ostensibly to create a new movement in the static media of the Arab world, which are mostly government controlled, and was initially welcomed.

Many media experts believed that the new network would create a revolution in the field of information dissemination, particularly in the Arab states on the Persian Gulf.

However, at the same time, rumors arose suggesting that the network was established by U.S. and Israeli agents in order to present a bad image of Islam to the world.

Some regional experts expressed doubts about the allegations though, because the establishment of a media outlet with the aim of promptly informing Arab nations about the latest world news seemed to be a good idea.

But the actions of the network gradually revealed the fact that Al-Jazeera officials, on the orders of Zionist agents, are trying to divide Islamic countries and tarnish the image of Islam.

After Al-Jazeera broadcasted some distorted news reports about Saudi Arabia, tension rose between that country and Qatar, and the two Arab states almost cut off diplomatic relations.

Yet, instead of adopting a defensive stance toward the negative propaganda of the network, Saudi Arabia took an innovative measure and established the Al-Arabiyya network to confront Al-Jazeera.

At the beginning of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera became the tribune of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups in order to give the world the impression that those terrorists represented real Islam.

In addition, since the occupation of Iraq began, ethnic tension has risen and there have been clashes between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, partly due to the efforts of Al-Jazeera.

By broadcasting abhorrent scenes of the beheadings of foreign hostages by the criminal agents of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist group, the network succeeded in increasing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the world, particularly in the West.

Following the advice of U.S. and Israeli experts in psychological operations (psyops), Al-Jazeera took actions which gave Westerners a negative image of Islam and Muslims.

In fact, the Al-Jazeera network was founded at exactly the same time when Iranian President Mohammad Khatami introduced his Dialogue Among Civilizations initiative as a logical strategy to bring the West and the Islamic world closer together.

Of course, the Zionists were not pleased at the idea because they believe that increased proximity between the Islamic world and the West is not in their interests. And that is why they founded the Al-Jazeera network to tarnish the image of true Islam.

Now, after seven years, it has become apparent that the real strategy of the network has been to create divisions between Islamic countries, to give the impression that Islam is a threat to the West, to present a negative image of the real Islam to the world, to isolate Muslims residing in the United States and other Western countries, and to create sectarian divisions between Shias and Sunnis in the Middle East.

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Nobel Peace Prize winner dies, number of terror attacks goes down

The number of attempted terror attacks has dropped since Yasser Arafat died three weeks ago, with Palestinian terror organizations in a 'waiting mode' to see how things develop on the ground, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet Sunday.

Mofaz said that despite the reduction in attempted attacks, the number of alerts remains high, as does the motivation to carry out attacks, including attacks inside the Green line.

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