Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Islam is more a political ideology than a religion

One of the reasons that the West treats Islam with kid gloves is because of our understandable desire for world-wide freedom of religion. But when religion becomes more than a personal or community-based belief system and turns into a worldwide political philosophy (and a very bigoted and ugly one, at that) then the free world has no obligation to treat it like a religion, rather it should be treated the way that fascism is treated - with no tolerance.

The latest evidence that Islam is not acting like a religion comes from this latest demand:

Islamic states want permanent seat on UN Security Council
Foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) opened a meeting with a call for a Muslim permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged a greater role for Muslim countries in world affairs and demanded a 'permanent representation for the Islamic world on the UN Security Council'.

'The Islamic world, which represents one fifth of total mankind, cannot remain excluded from the activities of the Security Council which assumes a fundamental role in keeping security and peace in the world,' he said Tuesday.

Notice that they aren't saying that any single Islamic state should be represented.

Notice how they wouldn't support India (which is also seeking membership in the Security Council), even though it has more Muslims than any other nation - because it is not an "Islamic state."

Notice how they put aside all their many political differences in order to push their agenda of increasing Islamic influence on the world.

The West needs to wake up and treat Islam on a geopolitical level the way that it treats all other oppressive and bigoted ideologies. The fig leaf of "religion" should not protect today's Islam.

June 28, 1935-36: The Power of Lies

A sobering article in the June 28, 1935 edition of the Palestine Post:

Everyone knew what was happening in Nazi Germany. Everyone saw the vile Jew-hatred coming from Europe. (In the same edition of the Palestine Post was an article about how cities in Germany were stripping Jews of their citizenship, even before Hitler's national law disenfranchising Jews took effect.) While they may not have imagined genocide, it was very clear that for the foreseeable future Jews would be heavily persecuted in Europe.

Britain could have saved millions of the Jews by just allowing them to go to Palestine (and Cyprus and Trans-Jordan.) So why didn't they?

The reason is simple. They didn't want to upset the Arabs.

And the Palestinian Arab leaders had no qualms about playing up their "fears" that Jews would destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque, that they would "endanger the Arabs existence" - any convenient lie would do.

As can be seen in the Post on June 28, 1936:

Do these complaints sound familiar? They are the same complaints we have heard for the past 70 years. And they are just as absurd as they were then.

And the British weren't stupid. They knew that the Arabs were liars (also the same issue):

But lies are insidious. When someone hears a lie, even if they know it is false, it still affects them. A little bit of us tends to think, "What if it is true?" Or, more commonly, "Both sides are very passionate and I don't know all the facts - probably the truth is somewhere in between."

Couple that with the fact that the Western mind has a very hard time accepting that someone would lie to our faces. Hitler did it in the 30s, and the "relief" that could be felt in the West whenever he claimed that he was finished his expansionism was palpable. And they were always lies.

The Arabs learned very well from Hitler's playbook. A lie, repeated often enough, tends to be believed. And in this case the Arab lies about their "fears" of their future (rather than the Jew-hatred that was truly the source of their being against Jewish immigration) made the British pause and think that perhaps this year isn't the best time to allow Jews to save their lives - maybe next year, maybe after negotiations, maybe when the Arabs stop rioting and things calm down - maybe then we will do the right thing. But until then, it is easier to close our eyes and believe some of the lies coming out of the mouths of vile bigots.

Westerners are fans of fair play, of the adage that "there are two sides to every story." It is very hard to accept that one side is right and that the other side is lying.

Arab lies and British (and world) apathy helped combine to the destruction of European Jewry. And the Arabs have never stopped their campaign of getting rid of any Jews in positions of power in the Middle East, partially through their incessant repitition of anti-Semitic lies to their own people and to the apathetic West.

Each lie affects us all until they are called out and exposed for what they are. It is a moral responsibility to expose each Arab lie about Israel and Jews and show the liars to be the bigoted scum they are.

And it is the height of stupidity to believe the promises of liars.

Muslim male bombers get virgins. What do the women get?

From OpinionJournal's Best of the Web:

Girls Gone Wild
Fundamentalist Muslim mythology has it that terrorist 'martyrs' are greeted in heaven by 72 virgins. With Palestinian Arabs increasingly making use of female suicide bombers, we've often wondered what they get in heaven. Now we have the answer, thanks to a report in London's Sunday Telegraph from an Israeli prison:

One of the inmates, Ayat Allah Kamil, 20, from Kabatya, told me why she had wanted to become a martyr: 'Because of my religion. I'm very religious. For the holy war [jihad] there's no difference between men and women shaid [martyrs].'

According to the Koran, male martyrs are welcomed to Paradise by 72 beautiful virgins. Ayat, as with many of the women she is incarcerated with, believes that a woman martyr 'will be the chief of the 72 virgins, the fairest of the fair.'

That is to say, the highest aspiration for a fundamentalist Palestinian girl is murder, suicide and prostitution. Has there ever been a more depraved culture?

"We deserve a state"
JERUSALEM - The upcoming disengagement will allow the Palestinians to show the world they deserve an independent state, Palestinian Authority National Security Advisor Jibril Rajoub said at a conference in Jerusalem Monday.

“Gaza will be a model for the Palestinian state,” Rajoub said in the session, organized by The Media Line news agency at Jerusalem’s American Colony hotel.

Other greatest hits from Rajoub include: "The Israelis may have killed the Israelis in Taba."
and
"The blood of Arafat will chase the Jews forever, the same as Christ's blood"

By Dr. Alex Grobman

What irony! While there are so many reasons for American and Israeli Jews to feel threatened by Arab politicians and religious leaders, they act as if they are not. Arabs, who for the most part could count on Jews to be their friends, continue to act as if Jews are their mortal enemies.

Arabs have been hostile to Jews in Israel for over 100 years. Najib Azouri, a Christian Arab, wrote in 1905 that the Arab nations and Israel were destined to fight until one of them wins. The most recent indication that Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state was in Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ mentioning the right of return during the 15 May 2005 Naqba (catastrophe) ceremony. Harvard psychiatrist Kenneth Levin gives psychological reasons for this. One is that reality is too painful to accept; another is believing peace will come if Jews make concessions, which also makes Jews feel they are in control of the situation. Another example of self-delusion is that Palestinians and Jews have the same goals, which led them to be taken in over and over again by Yasser Arafat.

Political correctness also plays a role since Jews might be accused of racism if they were to challenge Arabs. Clearly, many Jews who are the wronged people in this conflict believe they are in the wrong.

I have often wondered how people translate information into knowledge. During the Shoah, there was no historical precedent for the systematic, bureaucratically administered, mass murder of the Jews of Europe. Even when information became available, it took time to assimilate the dimensions of what was happening. Marie Syrkin, a Labor Zionist leader and editor of the Jewish Frontier, explained how American Jews, including Jewish journalists who since 1933 had been actively involved in the fight against Nazi persecution, were not psychologically prepared to accept the truth:

“Today when genocide, gas-chamber and massextermination are the small coin of language, it is hard to reconstruct the more innocent state of mind when American Jews, like the Jews in Europe’s ghettos, could not immediately grasp that the ascending series of Nazi persecutions had reached this apex.” Further, she asked: “If such was the psychological unreadiness of sophisticated publicists whose ‘concerns’ had been to expose each new phase of the Nazi terror, what could be expected from a less informed general public?”

Given our recent experiences with the Nazis, however, why has it been difficult for so many Israeli and American Jews to recognize that the attacks against Israel by Arab religious and political leaders constitute a threat to our very existence as a people and as a nation? How many Israelis have to be killed or maimed by homicide bombings. How often do Jews have to be portrayed in the Arab media and in sermons as Satan, sons of apes and pigs, and as a cancer? How often do Israelis have to have their connection to Jewish holy sites refuted and the Holocaust denied, before we acknowledge the true extent of Arab enmity and their real objectives in dealing with the Jewish Question?

Arab hostility to Jews in the Land of Israel is, after all, not a new phenomenon. In March 1899, Zadok Kahn, Arab Mayor of Jerusalem, responded to Zionist overtures with a suggestion that “the Jews would do better to go somewhere else.” In 1905, Najib Azouri, a Christian Arab who worked as the assistant to the governor of the sanjaq (district) of Jerusalem, was the first Arab publicist to predict that Arab and Jewish national movements would end up in serious conflict with each other. In the introduction to his book, Le Reveil de la Nation Arabe dans l’Asie Turque (The Awakening of the Arab Nation in Turkish Asia), Azouri warned that these two movements, the emerging Arab nation and the “latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute ‘the ancient kingdom of Israel’ are destined to fight each other until one of them wins. The fate of the world will depend on the final result of this struggle between two peoples representing two contrary principles.”

One would be hard pressed to find any indication that these sentiments have changed. If anything, Arabs now are even more vocal about their contempt for Israel and their determination to destroy the country. In a 1974 interview with Oriana Fallaci, an Italian author, writer and journalist, Yasser Arafat was asked how long the conflict would continue. He indicated that the Palestinians did not think in these terms: “We are just beginning to get ready for a long, long war, a war that will run for generations. Ours is not the first generation to fight. In the 1920s our fathers were already struggling against Zionist invaders. We will never stop until we can go back home and Israel is destroyed.” When Fallaci questioned Arafat about whether he was seeking peace, he replied: “We don’t want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel’s destruction and nothing else. What you call peace is peace for Israel. For us it is shame and injustice. We shall fight on to victory. Even for decades, for generations if necessary.”

In a November 1992 speech to an Arab youth group in Amman, Jordan, Faisal Husseini, the leading spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization in the disputed territories, declared, “We have not conceded and will not surrender any of the existing commitments that have existed for more than 70 years. We have within our Palestinian and united Arab society the ability to deal with a divided Israeli society. We must force Israeli society to cooperate with our Arab society, and eventually dissolve the ‘Zionist entity.’” During the Oslo period, he asserted that their objective was to establish a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”

At a 15 May 2005 ceremony in Ramallah commemorating the Naqba (Arabic for catastrophe), Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said, “Peace, stability and security in the Middle East” is subject to “achieving a just and agreed solution to the refugees issue.” Zalman Shoval, who twice served as Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., concluded, “the Palestinians, by claiming the ‘right of return’ are still refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”

Kenneth Levin, a clinical psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, offers a plausible answer as to why, in the face of continuous killing of Jews, open declarations to destroy Israel and blatant violations of agreements made with the Jewish state, many Jews still disregard this evidence and cling to the notion that Arabs want peace. Israelis, Levin says, are in “state of chronic siege,” which causes them to seek ways to extricate themselves from this predicament. This has produced “the Oslo approach,” which is based on “wishful thinking divorced from reality.”

Maintaining this position regardless of countervailing evidence and tolerating no debate is textbook “delusional,” according to Levin.

This self-delusion, he says, manifests itself in a number of other ways as well. One is to believe they can actually maintain some kind of control of the situation. By accepting the condemnation of their enemies and appeasing the terrorists, Israelis think they will themselves bring an end to hostilities. If only the Jews would make enough concessions to the Arabs, and stop obsessing about defensible borders and other strategic issues, peace would soon be at hand and such concerns would become irrelevant.

Why do some Israelis respond in this way? Levin suggests that since Jews were historically subjected to so much abuse, elements within the community are so eager to escape this painful experience that they interpret the ostensibly improved conditions under Oslo as proof that the past is behind them.

There is also an element of arrogance to “this self-delusion.” Jews assume a responsibility for something over which they have no control in order to ward off despair. Levin suggests that this is similar to an abused child who feels responsible for his plight and views himself as “bad.” The child maintains “the fantasy that if he becomes good enough,” his father will cease hitting him, his mother will give him attention and whatever other form of abuse he suffered will stop. In the same way, some Israelis are delusional when they assume they can control Arab behavior.

Another myth is to describe Arab intentions as “moderate,” even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

A third assumption is the “fellowship fallacy” - that the Palestinians share Jewish values, goals and positions. Some Israelis have met informally or in public forums with high-level individuals from the territories who are connected to the PLO. The Israelis hear more nuanced statements about the conflict in these discussions than are usually heard from the PLO leadership. These words are then interpreted as reflecting what the PLO would agree to in negotiations with Israel. Such was the case after informal discussions with Faisal Husseini. In October 1989, Husseini proclaimed, “The Palestinian Peace Camp has won, and now leads the PLO and the Palestinian people.”

In the speeches quoted above there was no doubt the Arabs’ ultimate goal was the destruction of Israel. The attitude toward Husseini demonstrated the willingness of many Israelis to overestimate words of encouragement and to underestimate the contradictory and inflammatory rhetoric he said to others. This scenario continued under Yasser Arafat, whose guarantees about his yearning for peace would, incredibly, be accepted with greater credibility than his speeches and statements to the Arab media and public, and the racist curricula taught in Palestinian schools about Jews and the need to destroy Israel.

Those who challenge these myths are attacked as racists and bigots for denying the humanity of the Arabs and their feelings and aspirations. Mordecai Bar-On, a founder of Peace Now, suggested that part of the reason for this intolerance and narrow-mindedness toward the Arabs among some Jews and Israelis can be attributed to a lack of education and upbringing, which breeds less tolerance and an inability to understand the “other” and “the complexity of the issues.” This would account, he said, for the Sephardic community’s mistrust of Arab objectives. This distrust could also be found among elements of the Ashkenazi community that were less educated and had a more traditional background.

Levin has done a great service by diagnosing the irrational behavior of many Israelis and Jews who persist in acting out these fantasies. If we are to move beyond this delusion, to accept the situation as it is instead of what we wish it to be, we need to understand the nature of this pathology, which has caused tremendous damage to Israel and the Jewish people.

Teen victims of West Bank shooting attack laid to rest in Jerusalem
Hamas gathers several thousand Gaza fighters and arsenal of Kassams

Terror tunnel uncovered in Gaza - The 20-meter tunnel, which appeared to be freshly dug, had meant to bypass a checkpoint to allow Palestinian terrorists to infiltrate Israeli territory, Israeli military sources said.

The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported over the weekend that PA Civil Affairs Minister Muhammad Dahlan, who is in charge of coordinating the withdrawal with Israel, has invited Hamas leaders to move to Gaza.
"We want to see you among us," Dahlan reportedly told Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and his top aides.
Nayef Hawatmeh and Khaled Abdel Majid, the leaders of two other Syrian-based groups, are also planning to move to the Gaza Strip, the sources revealed.

Nice to see such dividends from "disengagement" and the "cease fire."

June 26, 1936: Ataroth Buries its Dead

As one reads articles about Arab terror against Jews (and the British) in the 1930s, it is hard not to notice eerie parallels to today's Arab terror.

For months in 1936, the Arabs rioted and terrorized the Jews and British in Palestine, ostensibly in protest of the increased Jewish influence and power in the land. There were shootings, bombings, and destruction of Jewish property and businesses, often parallel to the Nazi persecutions of Jews that were happening at the same time. The British did not treat the Arab criminals with kid gloves.

In the details of the murder mentioned in this article and the one following, notice that then as now, the Arab people closed ranks around the terrorists and criminals. They knew that the British would collectively punish entire villages where the terrorists came from and instead of giving up the criminals, the Arab residents would prepare for the punishment by getting rid of the articles the British would confiscate. The nascent hero-worship of Arab terrorists had already started decades before the current Palestinian idolization of murderers. And, as happens today, ordinary Arabs can be counted to support the worst Arab terrorists rather than appear to be on the Jews' (or West's) side.

Without understanding this history of terror-worship, without learning about how the current Arab culture of death pre-dates Israel's existence, one cannot hope to change anything. Superficial words and assumptions that these Arab murderers and their supporters are "just people like us" who will react positively to acts of goodwill and concessions are deadly miscalculations. At no time in history (that I am aware of) can one say that for Arabs, peace was a goal - when it was desired, it was merely a tactic in a war that spans centuries.

Which means that for any true peace to ever happen, the Arab world needs a complete change of culture - one abhorring violence rather than embracing it, one with a true desire for peace rather than a desire for the concessions that it expects will accompany it. Until then, anything that the West does is just a Band-Aid, and more often than not, counterproductive.

Also, in wake of this weeks attempted terror attack against an Israeli hospital by a Palestinian woman who had received treatment there, here is an article from the same issue about how Arab terrorists would try to use Jewish humanity as a means to kill them:

Cross-posted to Palestine Post-ings.

Report: U.S. Government Funds Terrorism-Promotion

Not too surprising, given that Hamas and Al Aqsa have to get their money from somewhere, and the only places they get money from are the US and EU since Saddam's generous terror support dried up....

An Israeli watchdog group alleges that American aid to Palestinian universities and cities promotes terrorism.

A report to be released Friday by Palestinian Media Watch singles out the U.S. Agency for International Development, contending that it has ignored new congressional restrictions that the group helped craft last year on aid money. Specifically, the report points to American development assistance in the West Bank and Gaza that funds universities with student chapters of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which have funded roadwork for streets renamed to commemorate suicide bombers and television programming that encourages hatred of Jews.

A USAID spokeswoman yesterday said that procedures are in place to make sure that in-kind donations to Palestinian institutions are not diverted to terrorism. But the report has already drawn attention from Capitol Hill, where Palestinian Media Watch's director, Itamar Marcus, is scheduled to testify Friday before the House International Relations Committee on his findings.

3D Test of Anti-Semitism - Natan Sharansky

A nice test to see if someone is giving legitimate criticism of Israel or just hiding their Jew-hatred behind "anti-Zionism".

When I was a dissident in the former Soviet Union, one of my regular activities was monitoring anti-Semitism, and smuggling out evidence and records of such activity to the West. I believed then that the free world, particularly after the Holocaust, would always be a staunch ally in the struggle against anti-Semitism.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Today, as a minister in the Israeli government in charge of monitoring anti-Semitism, I find myself regularly summoning the ambassadors of West European states to protest anti-Semitic attacks on Jews in their countries and the often meek response of their governments.

Over the past four years, we have witnessed a resurgence of anti- Semitic activity in the democratic world. In Europe, synagogues have been burned, rabbis have been abused in the streets, Jewish children have been physically attacked on the way to school and inside schools, and Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated.

Recognizing the "New Anti-Semitism"

Moreover, the so-called "new anti-Semitism" poses a unique challenge. Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, "new anti-Semitism" is aimed at the Jewish state. Since this anti-Semitism can hide behind the veneer of legitimate criticism of Israel, it is more difficult to expose. Making the task even harder is that this hatred is advanced in the name of values most of us would consider unimpeachable, such as human rights.

Nevertheless, we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test - I call it the "3D" test - to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism.

The first "D" is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.

The second "D" is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross - this is anti-Semitism.

The third "D" is the test of delegitimization: when Israel's fundamental right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world - this too is anti-Semitism.

The Rise of Arab and Islamic Anti-Semitism

I am particularly concerned about the constant and growing stream of anti-Semitic propaganda from the Arab and Muslim world - including propaganda that is genocidal in nature against both Jews and the State of Israel. This should be of grave concern, not only to Israel and Jews but to men and women of good conscience everywhere. Such venom defiles the Middle East and the international climate of discourse, and makes it possible for unabashed Jew-hatred to be expressed with impunity.

Earlier this year, my office published a 150-page report on "Anti- Semitism in the Contemporary Middle East." The study surveys anti- Semitic reporting, editorials, and editorial caricatures in the government- controlled press of Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states. In the more than one hundred editorial cartoons included in this report, Jews and Israelis are invariably represented as poisonous snakes, murderous Nazis, and bloodthirsty Crusaders.

We found that vicious anti-Semitism which expressly calls for massive terrorism and genocide against Jews, Zionists, and the State of Israel is becoming more and more commonplace across the Arab Middle East. Moreover, the borders between anti-Semitism, anti- Americanism, and anti-Westernism have become almost completely blurred. The overwhelming majority of this propaganda is issued from the government-controlled media and from supposedly respectable publishing houses closely tied to the Arab regimes.

There is a direct link between the laxity with which countries have responded - or not responded - to growing Arab/Islamic anti- Semitism and the sharp increase in physical and verbal attacks on Jews and Israelis globally.

I recognize that there have been positive developments in the fight against anti-Semitism over the past year or so. The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has held several meetings on fighting anti-Semitism, and for the first time ever the UN Commission on Human Rights condemned anti-Semitism in three separate resolutions, which were adopted by consensus.

But these important initiatives are not sufficient to combat state-sponsored anti-Semitism, especially of the Arab/Islamic variety described above. For real progress to be made, the free world must be willing to not only publicly and forcefully condemn this anti-Semitism, but also to pursue a policy of linkage against states that support anti- Semitism.

The Need for a Linkage Policy

The effectiveness of a policy based on linkage was powerfully demonstrated a generation ago after a group of dissidents inside the Soviet Union, including myself, decided to form the Helsinki Group in the wake of the Helsinki accords - the very agreement that led to the establishment of the OSCE.

With the help of courageous leaders in the West who were willing to link their relations with the Soviets to their treatment of their own people, the Helsinki Group helped ensure that the Soviets could not take one step in the international arena without their human rights policies becoming an issue. As a result, real progress was made.

I believe that combating anti-Semitism ought to become a much more prominent issue in the bilateral relations between America and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Linkage can be used to marginalize the extremists and to encourage and support those who reject this virulent hatred.

Anti-Semitism is not a threat only to Jews. History has shown us that left unchecked, the forces behind anti-Semitism will imperil all the values and freedoms that civilization holds dear. Never again can the free world afford to sit on the sidelines when anti-Semitism dangerously emerges.

We must not let this happen. We must do everything in our power to fight anti-Semitism. Armed with moral clarity, determination, and a common purpose, this is a fight that we can and will win.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments can force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted, and the new project's success is not guaranteed.

The landmark 5-4 ruling provided the strong affirmation state and local governments had sought for their increasing use of eminent domain for urban revitalization, especially in the Northeast, where many city centers have decayed, and the suburban land supply is dwindling.

[...]Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority Thursday, cited past cases in which the court has interpreted 'public use' to include not only such traditional projects as bridges or highways, but also slum clearance and land redistribution. He concluded that a 'public purpose' such as creating new jobs in a depressed city can also satisfy the Fifth Amendment.

So when are we going to see Rachel Corrie's parents and friends standing in front of bulldozers in American slums?

Or will they argue that a strip mall is more of the public interest than Jews stopping arms-smuggling tunnels and terrorist hideouts?

Perhaps, just perhaps, they can resolve the contradiction by arguing that killing Jews is in fact in the public interest, as the ISM evidently believes.

Wiesenthal Center Letter to United Church of Christ on Divestment

This relates to the last article. It is a good letter being written to people who don't give a damn about the human rights of Jews.

The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ
700 Prospect Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115-1000

Dear Rev. Thomas,

In the name of more than 400,000 member families of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, we express our deep concern and dismay regarding resolutions to be considered at the General Synod that call for the dismantling of Israel’s security barrier, and divestment from companies doing business with Israel.

One of us is writing from Israel, where earlier today a young woman from Gaza, Faha Samir, had permission on a humanitarian medical request to cross into Israel to seek medical treatment. By the grace of G-d, and through a combination of an anti-terror security fence and other protective Israeli measures, she was foiled from what she admitted was her plan – to blow up Soroka Hospital, which offers medical services to Jews and Palestinians alike. Ten kilograms of explosives were wrapped around her body.

Resolution #16 is entitled “Tear Down the Wall.” It boggles the mind that a major denomination could even think of endorsing such a slogan. We cannot fathom what mixture of naivete, lack of a real grasp of the facts on the ground, and wholesale embrace of the Palestinian narrative produced such folly. Temporary walls and strong preventive security measures are saving innocent Israeli lives – Jewish and Arab– every day. Such defenses should be supported and endorsed by those who care about saving lives, and obtaining the peace that will eventually obviate the need for such measures.

As you are well aware, there has been real movement towards that peace for several months. Israelis and Palestinians have talked and negotiated with each other, for the first time in years. Secretary Rice is still in the region, helping the sides hammer out the fine points of agreements. Why would the UCC introduce resolutions against the security barrier and for divestment just now, when the rest of the world is trying so hard to offer encouragement to the fragile talks, and the United States has thrown its full prestige behind making them succeed?

Has the UCC not considered that such resolutions will be dangerously counterproductive? What are its goals? The easing of Israel’s grip on Palestinians? On the cusp of a painful disengagement that has divided Israelis against each other, Prime Minister Sharon is expending his entire political stock to make sure it happens. Does the UCC want to see the release of prisoners? Israel has released over 900, some of whom have already been apprehended in the process of new attacks against Israeli civilians. What effect can these ill-timed resolutions have, if not to embolden the most extreme elements of Palestinian society, and demoralize Israelis who thought they wanted to press on towards peace? Israel should be encouraged and praised for her efforts, not kicked in the teeth.

Why, then, is the UCC seeking to punish Israel?

When another Protestant denomination recently considered similar resolutions, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, had this to say. “Israelis are already traumatised and feel that the world is against them. This proposal, if it is agreed, would be another knife in the back. Christians who owe so much to the Hebrew Scriptures and to Israel itself should not be among those who attack Israel in such a way.”

The UCC should be concerned with the plight of Palestinians, as should all good people. But the UCC has not heard the pain of Israeli terror victims, or to the larger narrative of the majority of Israelis who are prepared to make concessions for peace, but not at the cost of dismantling their country. While paying lip service to security for the Jewish state, the programs, literature and website of the UCC have shown a decided preference for Palestinian voices and carefully sanitized opinions from the extreme of the Israeli left. We can point to the national tours of Palestinians to local churches. When did the other side ever get a hearing?

These resolutions will work against the cause of peace, and inflict collateral damage upon relations between Jews and the UCC, and the safety and security of Jews around the world. We are in a position to know, as the largest Jewish membership organization on the globe. We have worked in the name of peace with leaders of foreign governments and as a UN recognized NGO. One of us signs this letter between conferring with the Arab League and a meeting with the King of Jordan. We have championed human rights concerns abroad, and pioneered programs of intergroup tolerance at home.

To most people, divestment means South Africa, and its apartheid regime. To link it with an Israeli democracy that guarantees and delivers freedoms of worship and expression to its Arab citizens; where an Arab sits on its Supreme Court; where Jewish and Arab students sit side by side in university classrooms – is a moral outrage, and a declaration of malice to the Jewish people.

Divestment also threatens other Jews throughout the world, or at least outside of the United States. Since the hate-fest at Durban in 2001, we have monitored an explosion of antisemitism and attacks against Jews. They are linearly related to one-sided rhetoric of Israeli brutality and oppression. Around the world, whatever Israel does, Jews are made to pay. Divestment – with its popular link to apartheid – adds an important brick to a growing edifice of the vilification of Jews.

For decades after the Holocaust, American Jews have noticed and appreciated the attempts of church groups – including the UCC – to promote cooperation and good will. Please do not underestimate how damaging the three resolutions will be, how much positive feeling will be dissipated at the upcoming Synod if they pass. Please do not underestimate the depth of feeling American Jews have for the security of Israel and Israelis. While when many openly disagree with particular policies of the Israeli government, American Jews are united in their commitment to the Jewish State’s right to protect the lives and safety of her citizens. They see fairness trampled upon. Inestimable damage will result to the relationship between our communities.

At this critical juncture, the Simon Wiesenthal Center believes that the UCC ought to drop these resolutions in the interests of a fuller peace for all the inhabitants of the Middle East. If in fact UCC is interested in learning of the horrific toll and suffering of Israeli citizens, and the related spike in Islamist-inspired antisemitic violence, our institution stands ready to provide expert testimony for your Synod participants.

We respectfully await your response.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein
Assistant Dean Director, Project Next Step

The Christian West has a marked, and growing, prejudice against the state of Israel that the government of that country ignores at its peril. The latest instance will be laid before the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham tomorrow, in the form of a recommendation that the 38 provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion should consider divesting themselves of holdings in companies that support the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The recommendation stems from a report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict issued last September by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN).

The report is a piece of sanctimonious claptrap whose authors didn't even bother to talk to Ariel Sharon's government. It takes scant account of the trauma to which the second intifada has subjected Israeli civilians and endorses policies, such as the right of return of Palestinian refugees since 1948, that would spell the death of the Jewish state. It has rightly been condemned by, among others, the International Council of Christians and Jews, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Jonathan Sachs, the Chief Rabbi.

If the APJN recommendation is accepted by the consultative council tomorrow, it will be passed to the individual provinces for a decision on implementation. In most cases, they will do nothing. But the American Episcopal Church, which is a member of the Anglican Communion, is considering disinvestment, while the Presbyterian Church (USA) has already embarked on that course. Even where it is shelved, it will serve as a powerful symbol of hostility to Israel.

Mr Sharon is a "power and stockade Zionist" who believes in accomplishing "facts on the ground". His government is not doing nearly enough to advance the moral case for Israel to those Christians who believe that the present-day population has nothing to do with the Jewish aboriginals and therefore has no right to Palestinian land. The further the Holocaust recedes into history, the less Mr Sharon can count on natural sympathy for the Zionist cause. The fact that two Churches in the United States, a country whose support Israel tends to take for granted, are at the forefront of the moves to disinvest is a salutary warning: moral force is just as important as acquiring the latest military gismos from Washington.

This fact cannot be overstated: Israel's "hasbara" has been criminally incompetent. The moral case for Israel is crystal clear and it is botched daily by the people who supposedly "own the media."

There are a number of reasons for this that are not Israel's fault - endemic anti-semitism; the West's guilt over colonialism; the Left's knee-jerk support for the seemingly weaker party in any conflict regardless of the facts, Islam's manipulation of the West's inability to distinguish between the religion of Islam and the fascist political ideology that it also represents, and the media's desire to frame a conflict as "balanced" where a Sharon who gives land for nothing is considered a "hawk" and an Abbas who denies the Holocaust and whose government has yet to show Israel on any map of the Middle East is a "moderate."

Even so, the job of Israel to show its side to the West has failed miserably. Israel already lost the semantic war ("illegal occupation", "settlements", "Palestinian") and it has so far not managed to make much of a dent in presenting its moral case. There are of course some shining exceptions, examples of individual organizations like MEMRI and Honest Reporting who manage to point ou the truth among the deceptions. But from an Israeli government level the incompetence has been stunning, not the least because of self-loathing Israelis who are more than happy to go in front of foreign cameras and tell reporters what they already want to hear.

The number of Israeli government representatives who forcefully and accurately can make Israel's case have been few. Netanyahu was very good when he was Israel's ambassador to the US, and Moshe Arens used to be excellent, as was Sharansky when he was in the government. But it is not enough, and it hurts Israel immensely.

And when it gets to the point that churches, institutions that supposedly are meant to be the leaders in morality, openly support the terrorists and oppose those who want peace and freedom for all, it is clear that Israel has failed at getting her message out.

The PA is finished

The PA is being run by a bunch of wimps who get no respect from anyone. Their days are numbered unless they can figure out a way to actually put some force behind their "peaceful" words.

Oh, and when they say they are against violence, it means against themselves, not against Israelis.

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Gunmen in a refugee camp opened fire Wednesday, disrupting a lecture from the Palestinian prime minister about the need to end violence. The brazen shooting highlighted the difficulty of his task.

'This country needs order, needs quiet,' Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia shouted, repeating a theme he has pressed for weeks. But even as he spoke, gunfire rang out, startling Qureia and putting his bodyguards on high alert.

Associated Press Television News footage showed militants angrily waving their weapons as Qureia's security guards �� their rifles trained on the gunmen �� stood at the windows of the building where the prime minister was speaking in the Balata camp next to the city of Nablus.

'Don't listen to them. Don't be scared, don't let these gunmen run the show,' Qureia implored his audience.

After Qureia's speech, gunmen opened fire again and set off an explosive device about 300 yards from his convoy. No one was injured. Qureia was whisked away.

Beyond ordinary morality

Check out this remarkable article about how Israeli hospitals and doctors treat Arab terrorists, often going above and beyond.
The moral dilemma of treating someone who wants to kill you is beyond my wisdom, but it once again shows the stark contrast between the truly superhuman way that Israeli Jews keep their morality under fire and the subhuman acts that Palestinians routinely practice and support.

June 21, 1938: Why We Need Israel

It is very scary reading the Palestine Post in the 1930s as it watches the rise of Nazism and yet has no idea of the magnitude of the crimes yet to be committed.

Here is a fairly typical article. showing the increasing criminal acts against Jews in Berlin and Vienna in 1938:

On the same front page is this smaller, far more hopeful item, showing Jews who managed to get out of the ovens of Germany to build a new life in Israel. They built a new town on Jewish-owned land with their own hands and escaped the fate of their doomed families in Germany. They even built their own security fence to keep the inevitable Arab terror attacks from reaching them.

This is the story of Israel and anyone who considers this "immoral" hasn't the faintest idea what the word means.