Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 31, 2011

A rosy open thread

But he that dares not grasp the thorn

Should never crave the rose.

Saudi cleric rules that men can marry baby girls "in the cradle"

From the WSJ:

A senior Saudi cleric issued a religious ruling to allow fathers to arrange marriages for their daughters "even if they are in the cradle," setting up a confrontation between government reformers and influential conservative clergy.

Sheik Saleh al-Fawzan, one of the country's most important clerics, issued the ruling after the Justice Ministry said this month it would act to regulate marriages between prepubescent girls and men in the Islamic kingdom.

"Those who are calling for a minimum age for marriage should fear God and not violate his laws or try to legislate things God did not permit" them to legislate, Sheik Fawzan wrote in a fatwa, or religious decree, which was published on his website.

It isn't clear what legal weight Sheik Fawzan's fatwa would have if the Saudi justice ministry proceeds with its plan to outlaw child marriages. Saudi Arabia's legal system isn't codified, but because it is based upon an interpretation of Sharia law, the rulings of senior clerics can be used by individual judges when deciding cases.

..."Scholars have agreed that it was permissible for fathers to marry off their young daughters, even if they are in the cradle," Sheik Fawzan wrote in his fatwa. "But it isn't permissible for their husbands to have sex with them unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men."

He cited the example of the prophet's wife Aisha, who he said was wed at the age of six, but didn't have sex until she was nine.

Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti said in 2009 that it was acceptable for girls aged 10 and above to marry.

How long will it be before some Saudi pervert asks the esteemed cleric whether he is allowed to copulate with his 4 year old bride if he finds a position that does not force the child to bear any weight?

I wonder if they have lavish parties for the enslaved children to celebrate the consummation of these marriages.

This utterly depraved and sick story came out in Arabic over two weeks ago.

US DEA busts Hezbollah weapons smuggling ring

From Now Lebanon:

It was just an undercover operation meant to lead to the arrest of an Iranian drug dealer in Bucharest, Romania. But it developed into one of the largest operations the American Drug Enforcement Agency initiated in the last decade. It ended with the arrest of a Lebanese weapons dealer who claimed he was buying weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, worth $9.5 million for Hezbollah.

The American Drug Enforcement Agency announced last Tuesday that it had arrested Lebanese citizen Bashar Wehbeh in the Republic of Maldives for trying to purchase weapons from two undercover agents who were posing as dealers. As a result of the same operation, Cetin Aksu and Siavosh Henareh, Turkish and Iranian citizens, respectively, were arrested in Romania.

An international network of security institutions from Interpol to the Maldivian, Romanian Turkish, Greek and Malaysian police kept the suspects under surveillance, recorded conversations, intercepted phone calls and e-mails, and, on Monday, arrested the suspects.

...The agents recorded phone calls and conversations, filmed the meetings and kept e-mails in which they negotiated selling to [Hezbollah's] Wehbeh 48 American-made Stinger SAMs, 100 Igla SAMs, 5,000 AK 47 assault rifles, 1,000 M4 rifles and 1,000 Glock handguns for a total price of approximately $9.5 million.

Aksu and Wehbeh signed a written contract in June 2011 in Malaysia.

“During a meeting on June 12, 2011, Wehbeh stated that he was purchasing the weapons on instructions from Hezbollah,” the indictment reads. “On June 28, 2011, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wehbeh and co-conspirators not named as defendants herein caused approximately $50,000 as a down payment for the weapons purchase… to be sent to the [DEA agents].”

The case also shows links between Hezbollah weapons dealers and the drug trade.

The full indictment is here.

Chabad members strike deal to enlist in IDF (updated)

From Israel HaYom:

Leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch ultra-Orthodox movement have brokered an agreement with the Israel Defense Forces to draft male members for full military service. The agreement is to be signed soon, both sides report. The move marks the first time an entire Orthodox Hasidic movement will commit itself to sending its members to the Israeli military.

The deal is unique and significant as most Israeli ultra-Orthodox men do not perform military service, preferring instead to focus on their religious studies. The issue is a serious cause of tension between the religious and secular sectors of Israeli society.

The agreement between Chabad and the IDF, which comes after several months of negotiations, allows Chabad yeshiva students to leave the country for one year at the completion of their religious studies. After their year abroad, the students will be required to return to Israel for regular military service of three years.

The agreement stipulates that the men will be drafted and will have to serve a full three-year term even if they were married before beginning their service.

Chabad is concerned about fallout from other ultra-Orthodox groups because of the agreement, said a source with knowledge of the agreement. The IDF, on the other hand, is satisfied, considering the agreement a significant achievement after years of trying to integrate ultra-Orthodox communities into greater Israeli society, and is looking forward to the official support of some of Israel's most highly respected rabbis and Haredi community leaders. “This sets a precedent in the Haredi world,” the source said of the agreement. “For the first time, rabbis will support an agreement that will significantly increase the numbers in the IDF's ranks.”

This is very good news. It can help diffuse the anger that Israelis have towards the Haredim and it can help Chabad members integrate better into Israeli society.

I would be surprised if other chassidic groups follow very soon, though. Chabad is known for being able to live in secular of environments and encourages its members to live in the most remote places on the planet; other haredi groups are quite the opposite.

UPDATE: Chabad denies the deal. (h/t Miriam)

Death toll in Syria up to 136 today, rumors about who is in control (update)

From Al Arabiya:

Syrian forces killed at least 136 civilians and wounded hundreds in major tank assaults on Hama and other cities that began at dawn on Sunday to crush pro-democracy demonstrations, activists said.

“The army and security forces launched an attack on Hama and opened fire on civilians, killing 95 people,” Ammar Qorabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights, told AFP earlier.

He said that elsewhere, “19 people were killed in Deir Ezzor in the east, six more died in Harak in the south and one in Al Bukamal,” also in the east.

Several observers wondered if Mr. Assad was truly in charge of the situation. Some suggested that his brother, Maher, may be leading the assault against pro-democracy protesters. Maher Assad is known for his personal brutality and intolerance of dissent.

Reports have suggested that President Assad’s immediate family is in London, including his wife Asma. Mrs. Assad is particularly popular throughout Syria and internationally because of her humanitarian concerns, social work – and her great beauty.

While speculation increased Sunday afternoon about her husband’s whereabouts and whether he was still in control of Syria, world condemnation of the Syrian brutality slowly started.

The Obama Administration did not directly issue a condemnation from Washington. But a US embassy official in Damascus said on Sunday Syrian authorities had launched a war against their own people by attacking the city of Hama to try to crush pro-democracy demonstrations.

“It is desperate. The authorities think that somehow they can prolong their existence by engaging in full armed warfare on their own citizens,” Press Attache J. J. Harder told Reuters by phone. He described the official Syrian account of the violence as “nonsense.”

If the Assad family knows anything, it is how to hold onto power. I would not bet against Bashir yet.

Germany issued a real condemnation of the Syrian regime.

UPDATE: President Obama said he is "appalled" at the brutality.

More trouble for the PA: Workers plan to strike

This was predictable:

The union of civil servants in the West Bank on Sunday called for an open strike to begin Tuesday in protest over the late payment of salaries.

Union chief Bassam Zakarna dismissed the Palestinian Authority's claims that it could not pay employees' wages on time because of a financial crisis.

"This financial crisis is made up, and the government adopts a policy of blackout to frustrate employees and citizens while the treasury has enough money to pay full salaries," Zakarna said in a statement.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister and Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said Tuesday that the government needed $300 million "urgently" to help ease a cash crisis.

Speaking at an extraordinary meeting of Arab League representatives, Fayyad said the crisis stemmed from the fact that pledged aid had not materialized.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki told AFP that President Mahmoud Abbas had requested the meeting as the PA faced the possibility of being unable to pay the salaries of its employees for July or August.

Zakarna said Fayyad was "trying tactics" as shops were forced to close and the country's economy was "collapsing."

The union leader said government employees were not able to buy goods for the holy month of Ramadan, which begins Monday, and could not pay for their children's university applications.

If the PA starts to see strikes and anti-government demonstrations in August - which Hamas may very well help organize and encourage - it would make the statehood bid at the UN look like a joke. And Ramadan protests, with hungry people in the heat of the summer demanding their money, seem likely to flare up into violence, which would be even more embarrassing before any UN bid.

The PA is by far the largest employer in the West Bank, so if the government workers aren't paid the entire economy very possibly would collapse.

Interestingly, although Fayyad managed to get the Arab League to meet about the PA's financial troubles, I have not seen any indication that any money was actually forthcoming.

Is it possible that Arab leaders are not really keen on this whole unilateral statehood stunt and are trying to undermine it by withholding promised funds? I haven't seen much enthusiasm for the idea in the mainstream Arabic press. This sounds like the type of passive-aggressive move that Arab leaders have used in the past, as they mouth words of support for "Palestine" but do little to help.

Islamists fighting Egyptians in Sinai - 4 civilians killed

From Ma'an:

Five Egyptians were killed on Friday in clashes between Egyptian forces and reported Islamists.

Over 100 masked men wearing black uniforms rallied in the streets of El-Arish, Sheikh Zweid and Rafah, a town on the Gaza border, waving black banners reading "There is no God but Allah."

In El-Arish, the armed men headed to Rifai Square and fired at a statue of the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by Islamists in 1981.

Egyptian soldiers tried to confront the protesters, who then headed to a police station and fired at the building. Police officers returned fire and clashes continued until midnight.

An Egyptian officer and four civilians were killed, including a child. Eighteen others were injured. Police could not control the gunmen, and military back-up was sent to El-Arish.

The army managed to stop the gunmen from breaking into the police station but the masked men moved to the coastline where they continued to clash with the army.

When army reinforcements arrived the gunmen withdrew in groups.

Egyptian security sources told a Ma'an correspondent that the gunmen belonged to a "dangerous extremist group who were responsible for the attacks on the gas pipelines from Egypt to Jordan and Israel, and attacks on police stations after the revolution in Egypt.

"They plan to expel the Egyptian security and establish a tribal regime in northern Sinai."

It appears that these Islamists were behind the latest RPG attack on the Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan on Saturday.

Because the clashes had spread to Rafah, Egypt closed the border from Gaza and 450 were stranded at the Rafah checkpoint.

It can hardly be a coincidence that the Islamists are trying to create a regime adjacent to Hamastan in Gaza. In the past few days there have been a number of apparent Islamist attacks in Gaza as well, including against UNRWA and a firebomb outside a store on Saturday.

Looks like the Arab spring is turning into a very hot Arab summer.

Israel HaYom has more.

Syria attacks Hama with tanks, 100 killed so far (updated)

From Radio New Zealand:

Syrian tanks have stormed the city of Hama killing at least 45 civilians, a leading rights group says.

Earlier, a doctor confirmed that 24 people had been killed and residents reported "intense gunfire" as Syrian forces moved in from several sides.

The doctor also said there are scores of wounded people and a shortage of blood for transfusions.

Speaking in London, Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the latest toll, based on his contacts with Syrian activists, was 45 dead and several more wounded.

Al Arabiya has the death toll at 62. (UPDATE: Its headline now says over a hundred killed.)

Ramadan starts tonight and this offensive is apparently Syria's attempt to stem even bigger protests during that month. Hundreds of thousands had rallied against the Assad regime in Hama last Friday.

UPDATE: Reports say that Syrian forces are shooting and killing anyone who ventures outside.

(h/t Dan for first update)

What a surprise: Iran blames Israel for Norway massacre

From Trend.AZ:

The head of the Iranian military on Saturday accused "the Zionists" of being behind the terrorist attacks in Norway, the Iranian state-owned English-language broadcaster Press TV reported on Saturday, reported dpa.

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of Iran's armed forces, Hassan Firouzabadi, said in a statement: "The Zionists are behind the terrorist attacks in Norway, as they fuel rightist sentiments, foster terrorism and use world people as their toys in pursuit of their objectives."

"The world should be on alert of the Zionist regime attempts to create deviation within Christianity and spread Christian Zionism," the general added in the statement carried by Press TV.

Iranian officials frequently accuse Israel, referred to as "the Zionists", of being behind any incident with an anti-Islamic background.

I'm shocked! - that it took a full week before Iran said this. Hamas and Hezbollah handily beat them to the punch, by five days!

The Ayatollahs are getting slow.

Samir Kuntar reportedly injured in explosion

From Ya Libnan:

An explosion caused by a bomb or grenade killed a person in the Dahiyeh suburb of southern Beirut, An-Nahar newspaper reported on Saturday .

Hezbollah immediately imposed a security cordon around the site of the explosion, which the paper said occurred in the tenth floor of a building in the Al-Nasr Complex of the area.

An-Nahar also reported that the security forces were unable to enter the site.

Update : The person that was killed was a Hezbollah member

update 2: Samir Kuntar, a terrorist released by Israel three years ago, was reportedly injured in a blast in one of the buildings.

Kuntar, of course, is one of the most loathsome terrorists in history.

It is a shame he isn't the one who got killed.

Notice that in a newspaper in the country where many consider Kuntar a hero, they have no problem calling him a terrorist without Reuters-style scare quotes.

Anti-BDS hot chocolate in Australia

From The Australian:

A GROUP of prominent Australians met for a hot chocolate last night in a peaceful protest against violence in front of a Jewish business that was recently targeted as part of an anti-Israel boycott.

Labor MP Michael Danby, Australian Workers Union secretary Paul Howes, former Labor Party president Warren Mundine, comedian Sandy Gutman, aka Austen Tayshus, and journalist Jana Wendt were among those who spoke out against a violent protest on July 1 outside the Max Brenner chocolate shop in Melbourne in which three police officers were hurt and 19 protesters arrested.

Mr Danby, who organised last night's meeting and is one of three Jewish federal MPs, said the violent protest had been a reminder to him of the need for vigilance against anti-Semitism, and it was worrying that Greens senator Lee Rhiannon was a vocal supporter of the boycott.

"The impetus was an ugly, violent demonstration in Melbourne and Senator Rhiannon's determination to take this boycott further," he said. "She would like to see it introduced into the Senate and into politics.

"We remember the precedence of the 1930s; my father came from Germany, and (at) any sign of this kind of behaviour we have to draw a line in the sand."

Ian in the comments notes who some of them are:

Warren Mundine - Aboriginal leader and former national president of the Labor party, who has promoted the legacy of William Cooper who was declared “Righteous among the Nations” in 2008

Austen Tayshus – Comedian who volunteered during the Yom Kippur War.

Paul Howes - Australian Workers Union secretary, former socialist who saw the error of his ways on a trip to Cuba.

Jana Wendt – Journalist "As the daughter of refugees whose lives were critically affected by both fascism and communism, I'm grateful for what Australia has to offer,”

There was a similar counter-protest by MPs on July 19th:

Why peace is impossible, reason #2671

A most interesting piece in Dissent magazine by Michael Walzer:

In a “solidarity” march for an independent Palestinian state earlier in July, roughly 90 percent of the marchers were Israeli Jews, but all the flags were Palestinian. Israeli flags were banned at the insistence of the Palestinians, who said that they wouldn’t join the march unless their flags were the only ones carried. In the event, not many of them joined anyway. The Israelis agreed to the ban (though many of my friends were unhappy about it), arguing that their flag had become the symbol of occupation and oppression. But that was only true because the settlers and their far-right supporters always march with the flag, while the Left has given it up. And that may help explain why leftist demonstrations and marches are so small these days.

There are many reasons, of course, for the current weakness of the Left. But its militants might begin to overcome their weakness if they were seen by their fellow citizens to be insisting, with a strong (rather than a bleeding) heart, that solidarity has to be a two-way street. They should say to the Palestinians: we will march with your flag only if you march with ours. And they should say to all Israel: our program, two states for two peoples, offers the best hope of securing the national sovereignty that this flag, which we carry proudly, is supposed to represent.

This is a picture-perfect example of hope running roughshod over reality.

Let's say you are walking down a city street and see someone wearing this pin:

What are the chances that he or she is Palestinian Arab?

The answer - as everyone knows, even Mr. Walzer - is zero. The market for these pins ends at the Green Line.

Let's pretend that the Left actually insists that Palestinian Arabs march with the Israeli flag, that if they really want co-existence they must show it in a tangible way. How would the other side react?

They would flat-out refuse. They would insist that the Israeli flag represents apartheid, and genocide, and ethnic cleansing. Their faces would blanch at the thought of it. They would tell the leftists - sorry, but even if it means we lose your support, we will never hold an Israeli flag unless it is to burn it.

As has been pointed out before, there is no equivalent to the Israeli and Western leftist/peace movement among Palestinian Arabs. There is no voice - at least none that can be seen in the Arabic media - demanding that Mahmoud Abbas make "painful compromises" for peace, no peace rallies, no op-eds demanding a resumption of negotiations. Is there a single Palestinian Arab dissident, willing to go to prison, for demanding Abbas give up anything for peace?

This article inadvertently proves that real peace is impossible. And pretending that it will happen if Israel does X, Y and Z is pure wishful thinking.

(Other posts on why peace is impossible: Here, here, here, here..)

(h/t Zach N)

Syria update: Syrian embassy in US is threatening protesters!

Al Jazeera (via Now Lebanon) reports that nine protesters were killed today - so far.

There are reports of more soldiers defecting from the Syrian army.

Here is an extremely graphic video of a man who had been tortured and killed in Syria.

A bomb struck a major oil pipeline in western Syria.

The biggest rally today seems to be this one in Hama, where you can see hundreds of thousands of people.

And here is a chilling story from Al Arabiya:

Early one Friday morning in late April, Hala Abdulaziz, a 29-year-old interior designer, went online from her apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, to check the latest on protests in her home country of Syria.

Moments later, Hala recognized her father in a video of demonstrators under fire. Two other protestors carried him slung between them as he bled profusely into a shirt she gave him on her last trip to Damascus.

Unable to reach her family over jammed telephone lines, Hala didn’t receive confirmation that her father had died until she saw his name, Abdalgafar Abdulaziz, on a list of people killed on a news program. It was another month and a half before she could get through to her family on the phone.

“The situation is very bad for us,” Hala told Al Arabiya. “I just wanted to talk to my mom, see her, console her, hear from her directly how they are. I had no way of knowing for six weeks.”

In the following month, Hala sought recourse the only way she could from Washington – she sued Bashar Al Assad and members of his regime under an American legal clause that gives US citizens the right to sue foreign governments for torturing or killing their relatives.

That’s when the scare tactics began. As the Federal Bureau of Investigation later learned, employees of the Syrian Embassy in Washington were behind a campaign of intimidation.

“Someone called me, speaking Arabic, and said they would take my daughter in Syria, kill my family, and kill me if I didn’t drop the case,” said Hala. She says her five-year-old daughter, who lives with her mother in Damascus, was seized by authorities for five hours, while two of her brothers were arrested and tortured.

Hala is one of many receiving threats from the embassy, according to Syrian activist Mohammad Abdallah, who served jail time in Syria for political dissidence before moving to the US.

Mr. Abdallah recounted run-ins with embassy employees at protests over the past few months. Employees would film and photograph demonstrators, and threaten to send their names to intelligence officials in Syria to put pressure on their families back home.

“Many activists were receiving threats, so they came together to report them to the authorities. The FBI investigation revealed that the threats were coming from people employed by the embassy… so the embassy was conducting surveillance on American citizens,” said Abdallah.

One activist’s mother was barred from leaving Syria, and others have had family members arrested, prompting some protestors to start covering their faces during demonstrations.

US officials are taking the accusations seriously. The State Department summoned Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha to address the complaints earlier in July. As recently as Wednesday this week, Assistant Secretary for the Middle East Jeffrey Feltman said the FBI will continue to investigate the embassy’s actions.

Hala Abdulaziz remains undeterred, though she said the FBI recently started watching her apartment after she reported a suspicious man from the embassy lurking near her home. She says she will continue to demand accountability for the Syrian regime – not just on behalf of her father, but also for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have sacrificed.

“I will not drop the case until Bashar Al Assad is brought to justice.”

Latest Latma (7/29/11)

Some new faces in this one.

Should Israel's policies be dictated by fears of becoming a "pariah"?

In my Twitter exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg yesterday, he pretty much admitted that Israel's giving up the West Bank would very possibly not bring Israel peace anyway. But he fell back to a second argument for Israel's withdrawal from the territory:

I believe, however, that Israel will become a pariah if the Palestinians aren't granted statehood, or the vote in Israel.

My point was that a Palestinian Arab state could exist while Israel still holds onto parts of the territories deemed necessary for security as well as areas that already have large Jewish communities.

But the issue he brought up, that Israel would become a pariah if it didn't act in certain ways, is worth exploring.

What makes Israel unpopular?

I would argue that it has almost nothing to do with Israeli policies. While certain Israeli actions cause Western opinion to temporarily go in one direction or another, the general trend of opinion is independent of Israeli actions.

The Western world liked Israel in 1967 and after Entebbe in 1976. It liked Israel immediately after the peace agreement with Egypt but that disappeared soon after. It liked Israel after the Gaza withdrawal but that disappeared when Israel acted to stop the rockets that still rained down. The world liked Israel a little after the withdrawal from Lebanon but that disappeared as well. It liked Israel after the Oslo agreement was signed but it was silent when suicide bombings flared up in years afterwards. In other words, world opinion is mercurial and the world has a short-term memory, driven by the most recent news.

But underneath the zig-zag chart of world opinion of Israel there is a longer trend against Israel, a trend that is relentlessly downward. We now live in a world where people who seem otherwise intelligent have no problem singling out Israel for perceived crimes that she is far less guilty of than even other Western nations under remotely similar circumstances. (One only has to look at the hysterical reaction to the admittedly problematic "BDS law" while comparing it to the criminal restrictions on freedom of speech in most European countries today, for a recent example.)

What is behind this continuous downtrend of world opinion?

There is, and always will be, a large and hard core set of people who are against Israel's very existence. They hated the idea of a Jewish state before it was born, they hated Israel when it was a tiny struggling nation, they hated it when it won and they hated it when it lost. This core consists of Arabs and the radical hard-Left.

Any reasonable observer can identify that the source of this irrational, seething hate is good old-fashioned anti-semitism. There is no other explanation for the double standards and disproportionate focus on only the Jewish state.

But anti-semitism is declasse. So this hate has been redefined in terms of human rights, of Arab rights, of Israeli aggression, of fairness and justice, of a tiny oppressed underdog against a huge Zionist war machine.

This coalition of Arabs and hard-left Jew-haters has been cynically framing the argument in these terms, consistently, for decades now. But make no mistake - it is a strategy, not a spontaneous expression of digust at supposed Israeli crimes. The PLO (probably in coordination with the Soviets) sketched this strategy out immediately after the Six Day War, and published it in the Palestine National Assembly Political Resolutions in July, 1968:

The enemy consists of three interdependent forces:
a) Israel.
b) World Zionism.
c) World imperialism, under the direction of the United States of America.

Moreover, it is incontestable that world imperialism makes use of the forces of reaction linked with colonialism.

If we are to achieve victory and gain our objectives, we shall have to strike at the enemy wherever he may be, and at the nerve centres of his power. This is to be achieved through the use of military, political and economic weapons and information media, as part of a unified and comprehensive plan designed to sap his strength, scatter his forces, destroy the links between them and undermine their common objectives.

A long-drawn out battle has the advantage of allowing us to expose world Zionism, its activities, conspiracies, and its complicity with world imperialism and to point out the damage and complications it causes to the interests and the security of many countries, and the threat it constitutes to world peace. This will eventually unmask it, bringing to light the grotesque facts of its true nature, and will isolate it from the centres of power and establish safeguards against its ever reaching them...

An information campaign must be launched that will throw light on the following facts:

a) The true nature of the Palestinian war is that of a battle between a small people, which is the Palestinian people, and Israel, which has the backing of world Zionism and world imperialism.

b) This war will have its effect on the interests of any country that supports lsrael or world Zionism.

c) The hallmark of the Palestinian Arab people is resistance, struggle and liberation, that of the enemy, aggression, usurpation and the disavowal of all values governing decent human relations.

This blueprint has really not changed much since 1968. The goal of these rabid Israel-haters is to divide Israel from the Western world, especially America, by painting Israel as an aggressive bully that is trampling on the rights of a poor but proud people. It is no coincidence that this plan was conceived in the aftermath of a war where combined Arab armies tried unsuccessfully to destroy Israel and when Israel was riding a wave of popularity.

The larger Left, which is not anti-semitic, has over the years slowly adapted these exact talking points as their own. This is not out of malice towards Israel so much as it is because most of their members do not know enough to argue with these points and Israel did a poor job countering them in the same frame of reference. Indeed, Israel has little to apologize for in its human rights record towards the Palestinian Arabs in the territories, and has always sought to solve the problem in the framework of a larger Middle East peace process. The problem is that the hard-left has successfully decoupled the Palestinian Arab issue from the larger Israel-Arab issue (even though even this same PLO document admits that the two are the same.) Israel, a tiny and besieged country that craves peace, has been successfully cast as a big warmongering bully.

This demonization of Israel has been infecting the rhetoric of the Left for a long time now. It is unlikely that Israel can stop it. In fact, there is an easy formula for Israel's enemies keep it alive. Even if Israel accedes to all of the current demands by the PLO, we have seen in the past how easily world opinion can be turned against Israel again - just stage more attacks. Israel's response will almost inevitably and regrettably kill civilians, and all the goodwill gained would evaporate in an instant. It happened in Gaza, it happened in Lebanon, and the lies of Jenin prove that it can happen even if Israel doesn't do anything wrong.

Given this, Israel's media strategy must be to fight the battle using the same language of human rights that has been co-opted by her enemies. It takes time to reframe the argument but that is the only option.

The fact is that a great number of Palestinian Arabs are not under Israeli rule, but living as second-class citizens under Arab rule. Issues like these need to be publicized so that Israel doesn't suffer from the tunnel-vision imposed by those with an agenda that does not accept Israel's right to exist to begin with. It is a regional issue that must be solved in a comprehensive way, and if that is impossible then a detente is the best we can hope for.

It should go without saying that Israel must act morally. The first duty of any sovereign nation is to protect its citizens, and the human rights of Israelis must be protected no less than those of Palestinian Arabs. Israel must safeguard Palestinian Arab rights as much as humanly possible without compromising on the security of Israel's own citizens.

This, not PR, must be he driving force behind Israel's policy and strategy. Major decisions cannot and should not be driven by external pressure. If a Palestinian Arab state can be set up where Israel is not threatened with terror and rockets and continuous demands for more and more concessions even after an agreement, then peace can be here pretty quickly. But short of that, concessions given because of political pressure are usually counterproductive.

One more point. It is worth noting that Western nations, and probably even Arab nations, are far more sympathetic towards Israel than they say publicly. Every nation is keenly aware of its own challenges and the threat of separatists, anarchists and terrorists are shared among most nations. There is a big game going on where states are willing to publicly castigate Israel to mollify the Arab world - with the full knowledge that the US will act as the "bad cop" and ensure that Israel doesn't fall. This is far from ideal, and it might not be sustainable, but it is also not as bad as it sometimes sounds from the media obsession about unrelenting pressure on Israel.