Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 09, 2005

Bush ignoring Israel in "war on terror" speeches

A disturbing op-ed from Sidney Zion. I believe his conclusions are spot-on - the genteel anti-semites and Israel-haters have managed to separate Israel's war against Islamic terror from that of the rest of the world, giving rise to the thought process that somehow the Palestinian terror is more acceptable and legitimate than the Islamic terror in the rest of the world.

The President's omission of Israel as a country affected by Islamic terror strengthens the positions of the fundamentalist Hamas and Islamic Jihad immensely - any distancing between Israel and America is a huge victory for the Islamofascist propaganda machine. And there is no doubt that this omission is noted and celebrated in Ramallah and Gaza City.

Repeat a lie enough times and people will start to believe it. This has certainly worked here.

Bush's radar skips Israel

President Bush, in back-to-back speeches defending the Iraq war, has crossed Israel off the list of countries hit by Islamic terrorists.

In his address yesterday to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Bush said: "The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on Sept. 11, blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, killed workers in Riyadh and slaughtered guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan."

In Annapolis last week, he listed the same countries, adding the massacre of Iraqi children and their parents, who had just been hit outside an Iraqi hospital.

How could Israel fail to make the President's cut? Especially yesterday, after a suicide bomber killed five and wounded 60 in Netanya on Monday. Not to mention that Israel has been the prime target of terror forever.

Is this an oversight by Israel's greatest friend in the White House? Or could it be an effort to appease the Arab world?

Certainly no oversight. In 11 speeches over the past three months in which Bush has talked about terror, he only mentioned Israel three times - once before Jewish Republicans. Yesterday, he left them out again. "The enemy must be defeated on every battle front, from the streets of Western cities to the mountains of Afghanistan to the tribal regions of Pakistan to the islands of Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa."

If he forgot them last week, he was reminded by the Zionist Organization of America, in a tough press release that was cited by a reporter in the White House briefing the day after the Annapolis speech.

Q. "Why did the President do this, given 1,700 Israel citizens murdered by Islamo-fascists, and 10,000 more maimed by them since 1993?"

Scott McClellan, Bush's spokesman: "There's no stronger friend and supporter of Israel."

Q. "Why did he not mention that with all those other countries?"

McClellan: "I don't think that's the way to look at it."

I think Bush put a blue pencil through Israel, and I think he did it because he's in big trouble with the war and all he can think about is appeasing the Arabs.

He likes to compare himself to Winston Churchill. The President should keep these words of his in mind: "If you feed the crocodiles, you'll be his last meal."

UN wipes Israel off the map

Arutz Sheva reports:

The United Nations held a "Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" last week. A large map of “Palestine,” with Israel literally wiped off the map, featured prominently in the festivities.

The ceremony was held at the UN headquarters in New York and was attended by Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Presidents of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly.

Map of "Palestine" from the Jordan River to the sea, with no mention of the Jewish State.

During the festivities, a map labeled a "map of Palestine” was displayed prominently between UN and PLO flags. The map, with “Palestine” written in Arabic atop it, does not include Israel, a member of the UN for 56 years. The map does not even demarcate the partition lines of November 29, 1947, marking a Jewish state alongside an Arab state. The partition was dictated by the UN General Assembly itself.

Map surrounded by the flags of the UN and PLO.

With the map hanging behind him, Secretary-General Annan addressed the public meeting at UN Headquarters.

Kofi Annan sits at the dais with the map negating the Jewish State's existence in the background (lower left side of photo)

I have yet to hear about any world outrage, or even protest from Israel.

Oy! I've been tagged!

The J-Blogosphere has been buzzing with the "meme" asking people to write what random songs show up on their iPod. WHen I saw it, I didn't expect to be tagged (no one has ever tagged me for anything anyway) but I had it in the back of my mind, wondering if I would embarrass myself by revealing what songs would come up on my iPod Nano that I got as a gift from work and have been playing with for a month or so.

Then Ze'ev from Israel Perspectives raised the stakes and changed the meme into 15 books people have read recently, are currently reading or really like. And then he tagged me, as if I was a literate person!

If he would have asked for 5 books, maybe I could have scraped something together quickly. But, here goes, in no particular order:

Contemporary Halakhic Problems, volumes 1-3, J. David Bleich - I love the subject of halacha in today's society, moral and ethical perspectives. This was the series that started it all. Other similar books by Basil Herring and Fred Rosner are good. I have not yet read the more recent volumes, though.
Six Days of War, Michael Oren - the definitive history of the 1967 Six Day War, with a very good overview of 1948-67 as well in the first chapter.
Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich - a fun true story of some MIT kids who beat the system in Las Vegas playing blackjack.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, JK Rowling - My review was here. The entire series really is great.
Year's Best SF 10, Hartwell and Cramer - I don't have the patience for long SF stories but I love anthologies, and this is one of many I have read, usually on planes during business trips. But if I recall correctly, it included the novella "Sergeant Chip" which was a fantastic story, one of the best SF stories I ever read.
New Voices in Science Fiction, Resnick - Similar to the other SF anthologies but much more variety, and at least two Jewish themed stories including a very cool ba'al teshuva/vampire story called "Lifeblood" by Michael Burstein.
Artscroll Eruvin volumes 1 and 2 - I am trying to make time to at least do the English of the Daf Yomi this cycle, and so far (bli ayin hora" I've been mostly successful. Eruvin is hard though and needs more time than I am giving it. (I know Ze'ev wasn't including sifrei kodesh, but, he didn't explicitly exclude them.)
Bodyguard of Lies, Anthony Cave Brown - an exhaustive yet mostly entertaining description of the British use of deception in World War II, climaxing in the amazing story of how they fooled Hitler into misplacing his troops for D-Day.
Secrets and Lies, Bruce Schneier - a good book to place the problems of computer security in context, with applications beyond the digital world.

This is all I have time for right now, and I am not going to burden anyone else with this meme (since Ze'ev already tagged many others.) I can also claim that if you add the many volumes of books I mentioned it is way more than 15.

Perhaps I'll try to add more later.

Palestinian soccer players to be punished for heinous crime

This article is telling not only for how it shows that Palestinian Arabs have no interest in peace, but also in how Israelis do.

The situation hasn't changed for a hundred years and it will not change in the next hundred, without a significant change in the mindset of the Palestinian Arab leaders.

The naivete of the Peres Center is also interesting.

Sports and politics are two sides of the same coin.

The Palestinian FA plans to punish players under its jurisdiction for participating alongside Israelis in a 'Peace Match' in Barcelona, an official said on Wednesday.

A 'Peace Team' of Israeli and Palestinian players lost 2-1 to Barcelona at the Nou Camp last week in front of 31,820 spectators, including many dignitaries.

'The Palestinian FA will form a committee to investigate the players who participated in the match ... everyone involved will be punished,' senior FA official Jamal Zaqout told Reuters.

'We act in accordance with the attitude of our people who are against normalisation (of relations with Israel) before the end of the occupation,' Zaqout said, referring to Israel's hold over lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war. (And Reuters of course can read his mind that he was only referring to the '67 borders. - EoZ)

Fifteen Israelis, including many internationals and 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank joined up for the match sponsored by Israeli statesman Shimon Peres's Centre for Peace foundation.

A Peres Centre spokeswoman said the Palestinian FA's reaction was 'irresponsible and annoying'.

'The Peres Centre together with its Palestinian partner, the Abu Sukar Centre, received the blessing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and (his senior security adviser) Jibril Rajoub for the match,' spokeswoman Michal Eldar said.

'The match in Barcelona was an unprecedented event in which we managed to convey to the world the message of peace and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians,' she said.

A spokesman for the Israel FA (IFA) said it had approved the participation of its players.

Israel's FA has been generally supportive of its Palestinian counterpart, which became a full FIFA member in 1998.

The IFA helped Palestinian players receive permits to leave Gaza for overseas matches when Israel controlled the coastal territory before pulling out last September.

Pro terror "art" in Berkeley

I missed this classic photo essay from Zombie last month about this art exhibition in the city-funded Berkeley Art Center. It still runs through next week, though. A small sample:

The first painting to catch my eye was this one of what is apparently a young suicide bomber wearing a mask made out of a kaffiyeh. The Arabic words behind him say, over and over, "I will not accept a little" or "I will not accept a pittance," apparently referring to the desire for a Palestinian state that occupies all of modern-day Israel, and not just the West Bank and Gaza. In other words, it is a call for the elimination of Israel, seemingly with suicide bombing as the means for achieving this. (Thanks to evariste for the translation.)

Here's a close-up of the central figure, with the bomb attached to his waist more clearly visible (which is reminiscent of this photograph of a young Palestinian being groomed to become a suicide bomber).

Next up was this photograph of two mannequin-hands holding a "blood"-soaked globe. You might wonder: what does this have to do with Palestine or Israel? The answer: everything. Because the image of greedy hands grasping a (frequently bloody) globe is one of the most notorious anti-Semitic illustrative themes of the last century. This motif was (and is) often used as an illustration for covers of the anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

(Click on the image to enlarge.)
Here is a classic example from a 1930s-era French-language edition (provided here as a comparison -- it was not part of the exhibit). In most reditions, the hands grasping the bloody globe belong to a greedy Jew who wants to take over the world. I suppose this is the message -- which is widely believed among Palestinian militants -- that the artist who took the photograph wanted to communicate. (Notice also how the position of the continents is identical in both images. Coincidence?)

Read the whole thing.

Iranian president: Islam seeks peace for humanity

This is one of the more unintentionally hilarious news stories around (Hat tip: Judeopundit)

TEHRAN, Dec. 6 (MNA) -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said here on Tuesday that Islam seeks peace, calm and justice for humanity.

Speaking to reporters before leaving for Saudi Arabia to attend an extraordinary summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca, Ahmadinejad stressed that leaders of Islamic states are tasked with envisaging a hopeful future for the current world which suffers from injustice and tension, development of chemical and biological arsenals and aggression. (He didn't mention nuclear weapons. Must have been an oversight. -EoZ)

He said that the OIC could play a significant role in world developments, expressing hope that the upcoming meeting would have positive results for the Islamic and the entire world.

Ahmadinejad added that studying challenges and problems encountered by Muslims worldwide will be high on the agenda of talks.

He noted that the talks should also focus on the decisive role the Islamic world can play in the international community.

Ah yes, a world divided into Muslims with nukes, dhimmis and infidels. How peaceful it would be!

Today's Palestinian Police Phunnies XVII

A heroic effort to arrest terrorists, unfortunately thwarted by the fact that the terrorists didn't want to be arrested. Better luck next time!

Hours after the attack, PA security forces tried unsuccessfully to detain a Jihad terrorist in Jenin. The man, who was not identified, was shot in the shoulder during the attempt to detain him.
Eyewitnesses said scores of Fatah and Islamic Jihad gunmen, backed by many civilians, foiled the attempt to apprehend the terrorist and take him to a prison in Jericho.
Local members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's armed wing, voiced support for the suicide attack, pledging to use force to thwart any attempt by the PA to detain Islamic Jihad officials. The group's commander, Zakariya Zubeidi, was among those who welcomed the attack, saying it was "a natural response to Israeli violations of the truce."
Another attempt to detain Jihad activists in the Balata and Askar refugee camps near Nablus also failed after dozens of gunmen drove back the PA security forces after pelting them with stones.

And I thought that stones were not harmful. Silly me.

Was Netanya a terrorist act? PA not sure

Mahmoud Abbas' pretend "condemnation" of the suicide bombing in Netanya included something unusual - an apparent description of the attack as a terror attack. (The fact that this is unusual speaks volumes by itself.)

From AFP:

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack as an act of "terrorism" and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"We severely condemn this terrorist operation in Netanya," a statement from his office said.

"President Abbas has ordered all the security services to catch whoever is responsible for this attack and bring them to justice."

From AMIN, where we see exactly why Abbas is condemning the attack (and it isn't because innocent Jews got murdered:)

Palestinian presidency spokesman said in a statement that President Abbas “has strongly condemned the terrorist operation which took place in Hasharon shopping mall in Netanya”.

The President issued strict instructions to arrest those involved in and responsible for the operation and bring them to justice.

"These operations against civilians cause the greatest damage to our commitment to the peace process, and the Palestinian National Authority will not show indulgence towards anyone who is found responsible for this operation," the statement said.

(As Soccer Dad noted, Abbas is quite capable of condemning a terror attack on moral grounds when he wants to. However, it is too much to ask him to actually pretend to be upset when Jews get killed.)

At any rate, he was careful to use the word "terror" this time.

But apparently the PA's International Press Center didn't get the memo, because they consistently put the word "terror" in scare quotes:

Israeli security sources said that the "Israel defense Forces" along with the secret services have started a campaign of multifarious activities to undermine the infrastructure of what they designated as "terrorism". And they added that the attention will be focused on the leaders of the Islamic Jihad.

The sources added they saw every prospect of long-lasting activities of such a kind.

Shaul Mofaz came out from the consultation session with all his recommendations ratified by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

The most important recommendations implied: a large-scale military operation in the north of the West Bank; placing Gaza Strip and the West Bank under a watertight curfew; and resuming the extra-judicial assassination against the Palestinian Factions' operatives.

Talks around operating the safe passage were frozen until further notice. In addition the VIP cards of the PNA senior officials were canceled.

Sharon said that these procedures will remain in effect until the Palestinian side proves a serious crack-down on the "terrorism".

He also, arrogantly, held Abbas responsible for the attack, arguing that he was engrossed by the elections instead of fighting "terrorism".

In its comment on the Islamic Jihad operation, Hamas said that the responsibility of the operation rest squarely at the Israeli shoulders, for the Israeli breaches of the truce and escalations were, as it is always, the reason behind the Palestinian retaliation.

Notice the complete absence of quotes when relaying the Hamas statement.

It sure seems as if the Palestinian Authority agrees with Hamas!

It appears that international pressure can make the PA pretend to act like they are a part of the human race, but in the end, they will choose blowing up Jews over accepting Jews having their own country any day of the week.

There really was once a Palestinian Arab state - sort of

A little-known footnote in history that could be an accurate indicator of how any future Palestinian Arab state would be:

In 1948, the Arab League was upset at King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan for his territorial designs on the West Bank. Under their prodding, the notoriously anti-semitic ex-Mufti of Jerusalem set up his own "government" in Gaza in September 1948.

Abdullah was adamantly opposed to this "Gaza Government" and the issue caused a major rift between Transjordan and the rest of the Arab world.

The actual wishes of Palestinian Arabs do not seem to have entered the equation for either party! (click all pictures to enlarge)

The democratic nature of the nascent nation was soon apparent...

Also look at King Abdullah's objection - that creating a Palestinian state was like accepting Partition! (Note also the article in the middle!)

And what is a country without a flag?

Tensions mounted between Transjordan and Iraq over this issue:

Alas, as soon as Israel launched an counter-offensive against Egypt later in 1948, the Gaza government ministers (who no doubt had a great love of the land) fled bravely to Cairo. And then their ministers started quitting, one by one. By March, the "government" was in tatters:

The New York Post published an interesting analysis on the situation back in October 1948:

Rift in the Arab Front

Abdullah and the British Are Isolated
in the Middle East

By OBSERVER

Behind the Arab front there is a rift. The Arab League has set up a government in Gaza comprised of the followers of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem. Abdullah of Transjordan has not recognized this government. Hilmi Pasha, who commanded the Arab forces on the Jerusalem front, was elected head of the Gaza government. Abdullah then stripped Hilmi Pasha of his authority as commander on the Jerusalem front and placed the Old City of Jerusalem under a new commander. The Gaza government is on the territory occupied by the Egyptian army.

Abdullah’s legion has done more fighting than the forces of any other Arab state on Palestinian soil. Abdullah hoped to have the entire country for himself, but since Israel successfully defended its territory, he now counts on the annexation of at least the Arab part of the country to Transjordan. His rival is the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem. They are carrying on an old feud.

* * *

The British planned that Abdullah’s legion—their own creation—should conquer all of Palestine for Abdullah, which means for them. So they supplied him with officers, money, ammunition and even spies.

The ex-Mufti planned that Abdullah should conquer the country for him. His own “Army of Liberation” under Kaukaji proved to be good only on the run.

Egypt is not at all interested in increasing the British sphere on its border; for many years the entire policy of Egypt has been directed toward getting rid of the British, in Egypt proper, in the Sudan, in the Suez Canal zone. The Egyptians think that if the British should dominate Egypt from the Negev, they would never leave the Suez Canal zone or the Sudan.

Egypt would therefore like to have southern Palestine for itself. Opposition to Zionism is artificially intensified; the Egyptians make war against Israel but they regard the British as their real enemy and Abdullah as a British stooge. Said one of the Egyptian delegates at the Paris Conference, quoted by the United Press correspondent in his dispatch of October 2: “Britain is now considered the Arabs’ number one enemy.”

The entire enterprise fell apart, without ever having governed anybody (but that didn't stop many Arab countries from recognizing it.) The cynical nature of the effort was emphasized in 1950, when the Arab League tried to resurrect the Gaza Government again for purely political gain, as is mentioned in this good overview from the Palestine Post then:

A few notes of interest:

The entire episode was so embarrassingly inept, no Palestinian Arab advocate today ever mentions this as an example of historical Palestinian sovereignty. They prefer the myth of a nation called Palestine to the reality of a short-lived aborted vanity enterprise.
Not once can I find that any of the parties showed the slightest interest in what is best for the Palestinian Arabs that they were pretending to help.
The "government" ran away and abandoned its supposed subjects at the earliest sign of fighting.
Should such a state have succeeded, it would have been just another Arab dictatorship - in this case a theocracy under the Mufti.

Arab pressure on Intel based on another lie

Intel is opening up a state-of-the-art chip manufacturing plant in Kiryat Gat, and the Arabs are mad.

No, Kiryat Gat is not in "occupied" territory. But the Arabs are claiming that it was built on the ruins of a town called Iraq al-Manshieh. They demand:

* Intel abandon its investments in Israel. The company’s proposed expansion site is located on land confiscated from the Palestinian village of Iraq Al-Manshiya.
* Israel forced out the original inhabitants of Iraq Al-Manshiya and the nearby village of Al-Faluja after the 1948 war ended contrary to international law and an armistice agreement sponsored by the UN and which Israel signed.

What really happened is that in the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Egypt and Israel, the Arab residents of Iraq al-Manshiyah and Al-Falujja were given a choice - either stay or evacuate. The pro-Palestinian site Cactus48 has the text of the agreement, although they seem to be incorrect as to whether the agreement was actually part of the Armistice or an adjunct.

At any rate, the implication from the terrorist sympathizers is that Israel forced the residents of Iraq al-Manshiyah to leave. But as is clear from the articles at the time in the Palestine Post, the Arab residents of the area all wanted to leave, the world was quite aware of their situation, the Arab League didn't want to take them in, and in fact the evacuees complained that the evacuations were too slow!

Not only that, but the Jewish community of Gath which Kiryat Gat was named after was not built on top of anything, but was under siege itself during 1948, and was evacuated under Egyptian fire - three months before the state of Israel was declared.

So you may want to email to Intel, the way that Al Oufok wants you to, but to thank them on their smart business decision to continue to create world-class technology in Israel.

As Al Oufok says:

Call and write to :

Craig R Barret, Chairman of the Board
Email : Craig.R.barrett@intel.com
Phone : 480-554-5977

Paul Otelline, President and CEO
Email : Paul.Otellini@intel.com
Phone : 408-765-5551

Please cc your correspondence to alerts@al-awda.org . I'm sure they'll be happy to read your emails!

Iran now embraces negotiation

Amazing how cooperative Iran can be when it is only months away from making the "negotiations" pointless.

TEHRAN, Dec. 5 (MNA) -- Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani said here on Monday that Iran has called for unconditional talks with the European Union.

“Setting conditions for talks will disrupt the process, and I don’t think either of the two sides would want to do that,” he told reporters.

He noted that the preliminary talks would be about the agenda and method of negotiations, in other words, formulating a model for talks.

The nuclear issue is not a complicated matter, he said, adding, “If we all try to reach a logical solution, an appropriate conclusion can be reached over the next few months.[Any guesses as to what that "appropriate conclusion might be? Anyone? - EoZ]

He said, “We are pleased that European states, Russia, China, and member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement have announced their readiness for talks,” adding that Iran regards Europe’s step to resume talks as positive.

“We will try to hold constructive as well as serious talks with the three EU countries (Britain, Germany, and France), and negotiations will continue in order to reach a logical and accessible solution.”

Larijani stressed that the talks would focus on the main points of contention, i.e., assurances that Iran’s nuclear fuel program would not be diverted toward weapons development and Iran’s right to master the complete nuclear fuel cycle on its soil.

“Iran views the future talks as a win-win game,” he said.

“We certainly have a positive view of the talks, otherwise we would never have wasted so much time on them."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Riza Asefi responded to recent Israeli comments that Iran's nuclear program was an unacceptable threat to its security, saying that 'Zionist authorities are well aware that if they make a foolish mistake against Iran, Iran's harsh response will be destructive and determined.'

But, hey, I'm sure that diplomacy will work wonders in defusing the crisis.

Jonathan D. Halevi (News First Class-Hebrew)
On the very day of a suicide bombing in Netanya, it has been reported that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority gave budgetary approval to assistance for the families of suicide bombers.

Each martyr's family will receive a monthly stipend of at least $250 from the PA.

The budget for families of martyrs, prisoners, and the wounded could reach $100 million a year out of an annual budget of over $1 billion.

Your tax dollars at work.

"I believe that this harms Palestinian interests and is another act to sabotage efforts to revive the peace process and to sabotage the Palestinian elections," Erekat said.

Once again, Palestinians say they "condemn" a murderous terror attack - but only in context of how it is counterproductive for their cause, not because it kills innocent people. (As if the most efficient way for Islamic Jihad to sabotage an Arab election is by killing Jews!)

In other words, if killing many innocent Jews would help the Palestinian Arab cause in any way, Erekat would be all for it.

Yesterday I posted how the director of the film "Paradise Now" strenuously tries to distinguish between suicide bombings in Israel and those in Bali, London, Madrid, Iraq, New York, Afghanistan and anywhere else in the world. He said, "Palestine is a different conflict. The Palestinians are being physically oppressed. We face 60 years of occupation. Maybe they use the same methods elsewhere, but to understand anything, you must understand the conflict, not just look to the action."

This is not a unique perspective. The fact that the film has gotten so many awards shows that much of the left, and much of Europe, also subscribes to the notion that Palestinian terror attacks are somehow more justified - and the inescapable conclusion is that they feel that when the victims are Jews, it is somehow more moral. The Palestinian Arab leaders themselves are often quick to condemn attacks such as 9/11 on moral grounds.

Which begs the question - according to the smug genteel Jew-hating intelligentsia of Europe, what could the Palestinians do that would be considered immoral? In other words, once blowing up shoppers in a mall can be justified because of "occupation," what cannot be?

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that a Palestinian terrorist decides to murder a baby girl, gut out her insides and replace it with explosives, sew her back up and throw the baby bomb in the middle of a Jewish kindergarten.

Or let's say that the Palestinian terror leadership decides that while bombing Jews is an effective method of terrorizing Jews, mass raping teenage Jewish girls and boys would also cause Jews to be scared and consider ceding land.

Once the "occupation" justifies terrorism, what does it not justify? There are no red lines anymore, as long as the "greater good" of Jews giving up land to Arabs is the potential result.

Or to put it another way, anyone who considers Palestinian suicide bombings at all justified in any way, shape or form is a completely and thoroughly immoral person, and any moral justifications that they find for their cause is the worst sort of hypocrisy.

And Saeb Erekat is one such person.

Calm down - Iran still months away from nuclear bomb!

Let's see how much further in the sand El-Baradei can stick his head.

IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei on Monday confirmed Israel's assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb.

If Teheran indeed resumed its uranium enrichment in other plants, as threatened, it will take it only 'a few months' to produce a nuclear bomb, El-Baradei told The Independent.

On the other hand, he warned, any attempt to resolve the crisis by non-diplomatic means would 'open a Pandora's box. There would be efforts to isolate Iran; Iran would retaliate; and at the end of the day you have to go back to the negotiating table to find the solution.'

And we all know that a diplomatic Pandora's box would be much worse than hundreds of thousands of dead Jews.

Much better to continue with the effective negotiations that the West has pursued with Iran over the years. There will be a breakthrough, any decade now.