Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 03, 2007

A video, some pictures and a link

From The Jawa Report - Happy Chanukah!

Also check out The CAIR Bears at The Rude News (h/t Jihad Watch)

Scare bear

Sharia Bear

And many more!

NancyKay Shapiro brings us another Chanukah treat: (h/t Eye on the World)

On a more serious note, see Augean Stables on Humiliation and Apartheid.

How stupid can the Israeli leadership be?

From YNet:

It is regretful that the Arab nations had formerly rejected the idea of a bi-national state. I can only pray that they now realize that in lieu of fighting we can build a brighter future in two separate, independent states," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Monday at a Knesset ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the UN vote to partition British-mandate Palestine

So now Tzipi is saying that the ideal solution in the past would be a bi-national state - something rejected by most Zionists as well as the Arabs? Is she now more wise than Israel's founders? What is she smoking?

"The state of Palestine will serve as a homeland for the Palestinian people; providing the single comprehensive answer to their national aspirations."

This must be a continuation of her prayer, because there is nothing concrete to support such a position. If a Palestinian Arab state would solve the problems, why exactly must it encompass every square millimeter of the territories? Livni is making it sound like the existence of a state is the important thing, but hasn't she yet realized that the PalArabs are far more hung up on getting 100% of their demands and not a state they can have tomorrow? Hasn't she been listening to their rejection of Israel as a Jewish state and their insistence on the bogus "right" to "return"?

Here was the Peel Commission proposal for two states back in 1937. This plan was accepted (albeit reluctantly) by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. The Jews accepted it even though it included essentially no sites holy to Jews, even though it was far less than had been promised by the Balfour Declaration, even though it was just a tiny sliver of a state, indefensible and non-contiguous.

So why did the Jews accept such a flawed solution? As Chaim Weizmann put it, the Jews would be foolish not to accept partition even if the Jewish state was the size of a tablecloth. Their goal then was to gain a state in any way possible.

The Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, have shown no desire to gain a state, despite what Tzipi fervently prays for. They desire to gain an end to the Jewish state. Once that goal is reached, their own independence is far less important, and it seems more likely that they would immediately become absorbed into Jordan and Syria (or, as Hamas wants, into a Islamic caliphate.)

To even imagine that a Palestinian Arab state alone would make Arabs happy and peaceful is the apex of replacing facts with fantasy.

Similarly:

Labor Chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that creating two states for two people in Israel is inevitable: "We have to admit that there is no way around it… it is the only reality possible."

What exactly makes it "the only reality possible?" Because he, with his amazingly stupid Taba offer, made it so! If the Israeli leadership had stuck to its guns and made it clear that the entire West Bank would always remain under Israeli sovereignty with some other accommodation for PalArabs, whether it is self-rule or a confederation with Jordan or whatever, then that would become the reality - not the "inevitable" creation of a hostile, terror-supporting state that juts into Israeli territory.

It is mind-blowing how the current Israeli leadership has so little faith in the righteousness of its own cause; not only are they in deep personal despair but they have turned this despair into a national policy. How can the leaders of a great state lead when they don't believe in their own cause, in their own people, in their own nation?

Sometimes, there is no solution, and the best you can do is do the best you can do. Creating "solutions" out of exhaustion or despair is not what leaders are supposed to do.

And leading their people into a suicidal "solution" is not leadership.

EU helps Hamas score political victory

Over the past couple of weeks Hamas has been insisting that Hajj pilgrims go to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, while Abbas' government arranged for safe passage through Israel. Hamas' intentions is to assert authority over the Rafah border, only negotiate with Egypt concerning its operations, and bypass the EU and Israel as per the Rafah agreement brokered Apparently, Hamas has won:

The Egyptian authorities on Monday allowed the passage of 700 Hajj pilgrims from the Gaza Strip into the Egyptian territories en route to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

... Now, the Gazan pilgrims will head to Saudi Arabia in tandem with the West Bank pilgrims.

The first group of pilgrims crossed the Rafah crossing on foot, standing in line up as the Egyptian security called them by name individually as they crossed.

Hamas leader, Sheikh Salim Salamah, says he hopes the rest of the pilgrims will be permitted to cross through the Egyptian border.

Over the past few days, there has been disagreement between the Gaza-based de facto government, and the West Bank-based caretaker government over which crossing the Gaza pilgrims should leave through. The caretaker government was insisting that the pilgrims leave through the Erez and Al-Uja crossings.

As I have mentioned in the past, the Rafah crossing is supposed to be closed. Only the EU-BAM observers in Rafah are supposed to be able to facilitate opening that border, and it must be operated by the PA, not Hamas. Egypt knows this and so does Hamas. Most importantly, so does the EU.

They are once again complicit in strengthening Hamas politically and weakening Abbas.

Fatah moves closer to Hamas, away from Fayyad

A little-noticed political fight in the PA is the one between supporters of "prime minister" Salaam Fayyad and the Fatah leadership:

The Palestinian Authority security forces here have launched an investigation to determine who is behind leaflets that were distributed over the weekend and which describe PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad and his cabinet ministers as "traitors."

Many of the leaflets, which were distributed on the streets of several West Bank cities, were collected by Palestinian policemen loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Despite the fact that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades denied any connection to the leaflets, PA officials here told The Jerusalem Post that they have no doubt that some members of the group were behind the latest threat.
The officials added that they also did not rule out the possibility that top Fatah operatives who were strongly opposed to Fayad's government and Abbas's policies were also linked to the leaflets.
The threats against Fayad have prompted the PA to beef up security around him and other senior members of his cabinet. "We are taking these threats very seriously," a PA security official told the Post. "We have launched an investigation and soon we will discover who's behind the leaflets."

The leaflets accused the Fayad government of collaboration with the Israelis and Americans against armed Palestinian groups that are operating against Israel. They also lashed out at Fayad for allegedly ordering the PA security forces to use force to disperse demonstrations in protest against last week's peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
Abbas, who still hasn't returned to Ramallah after the Annapolis conference, is expected to meet with senior Fatah officials later this week to discuss their demands regarding the Fayad government.
Some of the officials, including a number of Abbas's closest aides, have expressed concern over Fayad's growing influence and the possibility that he might challenge Abbas's authority. Fayad has also come under fire for refusing to channel funds to many Fatah supporters.

Meanwhile...

...PA officials confirmed that Hamas and Fatah representatives were scheduled to meet in Cairo soon for talks on ways of ending their differences.

So Hamas and Fatah are trying again to unify even while Fatah is breaking with Abbas, their leader, over Fayyad who actually sometimes tries to reduce the support that the PA gives to Fatah terrorists (who are usually PA policemen anyway.)

Sounds like these guys are perfectly ready to implement their roadmap obligations!

Joseph Massad thinks the gay movement is colonialist

This article by James Kirchick is too funny:

Of all the absurd claims expressed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his recent address at Columbia University, his assertion that homosexuality does not exist in his country is the most ridiculous....

Yet while the audience in the Roone Arledge Auditorium and millions of television viewers laughed and booed at the Islamist rube, there was one man--ensconced at Columbia University, no less--who was likely nodding along in agreement. His name is Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, and he legitimizes, with a complex academic posture, the deservedly reviled views on homosexuality espoused by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

According to Massad, a Palestinian Christian and disciple of the late Columbia professor Edward Said, the case for gay rights in the Middle East is an elaborate scheme hatched by activists in the West. Massad posited this thesis in a 2002 article, "Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World," for the academic journal Public Culture, and he has expanded it into a book, Desiring Arabs, published this year by the University of Chicago Press. In it, he writes that such activists constitute the "Gay International" whose "discourse ... produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." The "missionary tasks" of this worldwide conspiracy are part of a broader attempt to legitimize American and Israeli global conquest by undermining the very moral basis of Muslim societies, as the "Orientalist impulse ... continues to guide all branches of the human rights community." Massad's intellectual project is a not-so-tacit apology for the oppression of people who identify openly as homosexual. In so doing, he sides with Islamist regimes over Islamic liberals.

...Massad's thesis rests largely on Queer Theory, a voguish academic theory from the 1990s that stipulates that homosexuality is merely a "social construction" and not an inherent state of being. Massad writes that, "The categories gay and lesbian are not universal at all and can only be universalized by the epistemic, ethical, and political violence unleashed on the rest of the world by the very international human rights advocates whose aim is to defend the very people their intervention is creating (emphasis mine)." Thus, not only are gay rights activists unleashing "epistemic... violence" on Arabs and Muslims who have same-sex relations by claiming them to be homosexual, they are responsible for the "political violence" of the regimes that oppress them. As one illustration of his thesis, Massad chooses the "Queen Boat" incident of May 11, 2001, when a horde of truncheon-wielding Egyptian police officers boarded a Nile River cruise known as the Queen Boat, a floating disco for gay men. Fifty-two men were arrested, and many of them were tortured and sexually humiliated in prison.
...Massad claims that those Arabs who do accept a Western-style homosexual identity "remain a miniscule minority among those men who engage in same-sex relations and who do not identify as 'gay' nor express a need for gay politics." He makes this sweeping assertion--upon which his entire, 418-page book is predicated--without any statistical evidence. Furthermore, he does not consider that the reason why Arab homosexuals may not "express a need for gay politics" might be because they would be killed if they did.

Yes, the academic Left's darling misozionistic Joseph Massad has opinions about gays that are decidedly anti-liberal, so much so that he's written an entire book denying that homosexual Arabs are...gay. They are just another Western imperialistic tool, you see.

The author of the piece above goes further today:

[The phrase “Muslim fags don’t exist”] is attributed to a neighbor of Azedine Berkane, a Muslim immigrant who, in 2002, stabbed Bertrand Delanoe, the gay mayor of Paris. The neighbor justified the attack on the grounds that because Islam is perfect, impure things --- like gays --- don't exist within it. Therefore, by this logic, it is appropriate to kill those who mock Allah's law.

The above quote could also be attributed to Joseph Massad, the very learned, very cosmopolitan, very scholarly professor of Arab politics at Columbia University. He was a hero of that campus's "progressive" community, who championed him as a victim of the right-wing Zionist campaign to "silence" criticism of Israel, during the controversies several years ago about the school's department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC). As I've explained before, his latest opus -- the book that he hopes will get him tenure -- purports to expose gay rights activists as part of a dreaded, imperialist "Gay International," and, to my knowledge, might just be the most pernicious book ever published by a respectable academic press. The writer and political activist Wayne Besen aptly states that Massad is "mainstreaming murder" with his overwrought, cynical theories. One wonders if the ostensibly "progressive" students who rushed to Massad's defense several years ago when the evil Zionists attacked him will warm up to him now that he's written a volume attacking and justifying the oppression of one of the Left's protected victim classes: gays.

It appears that Massad's "scholarship" is not only suspect when talking about Israel.

Massad's tenure review is becoming much more interesting....

Cycle of "peace-process" violence

Israel and the US support the PA buying more weapons and hiring more policemen for Nablus.

Three Nablus policemen murder an Israeli.

Even after this is known, Israel goes ahead and frees 429 more PalArab terror prisoners.

Prisoner terror leader Marwan Barghouti says "thanks!" by calling this release "a joke." (He's right - some 177 Israelis have been murdered since Oslo by terrorists released from Israeli prisons.)

Once again, the "peace process" is bearing fruit.

If you agree with the Arabs that the goal of the process is to destroy Israel.

More oppressive checkpoints stopping Muslim freedom of worship

69 checkpoints are being constructed right now, specifically to stop religious Muslims from "illegally" visiting their holy shrine.

Of course, this is being done by Saudi Arabia:

Makkah police have set up 69 checkpoints on various roads leading to the holy city with the aim of closing every likely entry routes used by the unlicensed and illegally arriving pilgrims.
The Ministry of Haj has discovered 20 dirt roads that provide cover for the illegal and unlicensed pilgrims to sneak into Makkah unnoticed.
The Saudi Geological Survey helped the Haj Ministry and Public Security supplying them with detailed maps to locate the secret entry points and the dirt roads so that the police may set up checkpoints there as well.

Gaza fuel companies refuse Israeli shipments!

From Xinhua (identical item in Arabic in Palestine Press Agency):

Palestinian petrol distribution companies refused to receive the amount of fuel from Israel's Dor company as a form of protesting the Israeli reduced its fuel supplies to Gaza.
Palestinian said on Sunday that most of the service stations in Gaza Strip have run out of fuel, especially the diesel as Israel started to reduce Gaza fuel deliveries.
The Union of petrol stations owners said in a statement that the Gaza Strip needs 350 thousand liters of diesel everyday while Israel wants to allow only 90 thousand liters in.
As for the gasoline, the coastal Strip, where 1.5 million lives, needs 120 thousand liters and Israel wants to send 20 thousand liters. The 350 tons of gas were reduced to 80 tons, the statement added.
"The reduction of fuel is unjustifiable and irresponsible," the union said. "It causes negative effects on all sectors of life, especially on the health and education systems."
The union said the local petrol companies have refused to receive what Israel is sending "in order not to be partners in punishing the Palestinian people because these quantities are insufficient."

A small fact that Xinhua doesn't mention is that the fuel reduction from Israel amounts to only 15% less than usual, not the 75% implied by the Gaza union.

So rather than direct all the fuel they can get to, say, hospitals, the Gaza fuel companies would prefer to see patients die!

Ya think it might be because dead Gaza hospital patients are a potential embarrassment to Israel? Is it even remotely possible that Gaza Arabs prefer to see their own people die rather than pass up a great PR opportunity?

Nah...there must be come other explanation.

Israel's latest "land grab" against Syria - Rothschild bought 15K acres!

Maariv (Hebrew only) reports that Baron Rothschild purchased thousands of acres of Syrian land in the 1920s that may today legally belong to the Jewish National Fund.

Rothschild's real estate company, named Pika or Pekka, bought the lands and the ownership of most of that land was transfered in 1957 to the JNF. About 59,000 dunams (15,000 acres) were purchased - 6,000 in the Golan Heights and 53,000 in the plains of Haran, 35 kilometers from Damascus and near Bashir Assad's palace (according to Palestine Today's report.) Taxes were paid on the land at least until 1942. If I am reading the article correctly, the Syrian Waqf in the 1940s tried to claim that this was Islamic land that was not legally allowed to be sold, and now Israeli lawyers are studying the matter to see if they still have any legal claim on the land.

It's great knowing that Nablus is secure

The centerpiece of the Palestinian Authority's facade of bringing law and order to the West Bank was it's much heralded crackdown on crime in Nablus. A measure of how successful it was came two weeks ago:

US consul general Jacob Wallace on Wednesday praised the Palestinians for restoring security to the streets of Nablus, and announced a 1.3-million-dollar aid package to the West Bank city.
"The recent actions by the Palestinian Authority have resulted in significant improvements on the streets of Nablus," the consulate in Jerusalem quoted Wallace as saying during a visit to the flashpoint city.

It is no exaggeration to say that Nablus was one of the reasons that the meeting in Annapolis managed to occur, as it appeared that the PA was following the Roadmap in its responsibilities to dismantle all terror organizations (which was an Oslo requirement way before it was on the roadmap.)

Now that Annapolis is over, what does Nablus look like today?

Palestinian children peer at militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades during a rally, commemorating killed comrades in the West Bank city of Nablus, November 30, 2007.

The militants were allowed to hold the demonstration by the security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the condition they did not fire their weapons.

You see- Abbas did put his foot down!

And don't worry...it's safe enough for a baby!

So have no fear - Nablus is as safe as it ever was, and now it is up to the Israelis to happily give up strategic land to the courageous leaders of the PA who cannot even dismantle the terror organization that they nominally lead - and who tolerate a rally of terrorists in their showpiece town only two weeks after pretending they had cleaned it up.

Friday links

The Volokh Conspiracy has a magazine-length article about the history of UNRWA. (h/t Soccer Dad)

Jewish Current Issues on Sharansky and Annapolis (h/t Atlas)

Meryl Yourish on Hamas and PA's intentions towards Israel

Athens, Jerusalem and Auschwitz at Commentary (h/t Daled Amos)

Teddy bear update - thousands call for death of teacher

From BBC:

Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after children in her class named a teddy bear Muhammad.

She was sentenced to 15 days for insulting religion, and she will then be deported.

The Foreign Office was in contact with Sudan's government overnight and is due to repeat demands for her release.

The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the sentence as too lenient.

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

Marchers chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".

Sharia law - the model of tolerance.

(For those wondering, the word under "Mohammed" on the bear is Mohammed in Arabic.)

"Land without a people for a people without a land"

One of early Zionism's slogans that took hold of the imagination of the proponents of a Jewish state was "A land without a people for a people without a land." Coined by Israel Zangwill, it evoked a desolate, empty desert where the industrious Jews could build a modern state.

Israel-bashers are fond of using this quote as proof of early Zionist mendacity, ignoring the 400,000 Arabs that lived in Palestine at the beginning of modern Zionism. To an extent they are right - certainly there were people there - but the slogan was more accurate than they claim.

Firstly, while there were people there, they weren't "a people" - Arabs at the time identified with the Arab people as a whole, or often as a part of southern Syria, but Palestinian Arab nationalism did not appear until after the phrase was coined, in no small part as a direct reaction to Zionism itself.

Secondly, it is hard to claim that the land was anything but sparsely populated, considering that today some ten million people manage to fit in that same space. In other words, the claim that pre-state Zionism was displacing the existing Arab population is simply a lie, as the aim of Zionism was to build and grow in places where no one was living.

And thirdly, it is patently obvious that the Jews were a people without a land, except for those bigots who deny Jewish peoplehood to begin with.

For all the outrage that the slogan causes in Arab circles for being immoral and inflammatory, though, it was used by the Arab League delegate to the UN yesterday trying to give it a PalArab twist:

YAHYA A. MAHMASSANI, Permanent Observer for the League of Arab States, reading out a message from the Secretary-General of the League, Amre Moussa, stressed the Committee’s vital role. The International Day of Solidarity coincided with the ninetieth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which had paved the way for the expansionist Zionist policy, thereby creating a land without people and people without a land -– the source of the conflict that lasted to the current day.

The bigotry and hypocrisy of the Arab states is neatly on display here:

* He dismisses millions of Jews living in Israel nowadays as being effectively nonexistent, invisibly living in a "land without people." Similarly, he denies the fact of Jewish peoplehood.

* He dates the beginnings of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem as 1917, not 1948, showing that in the Arab League's opinion it is the very existence of Jewish national aspiration that is the problem, not the establishment of the State nor the flight of the original refugees.

* He defines the "source" of the conflict to 1917, ignoring that the Arab violence against Jews predated Balfour and that practically all of the attacks would be one-way for decades after that. In other words, in his mind the existence of Jews in Palestine was inherently provocative to the extent that the poor Arabs, who seem to exist without free will, had no choice but to start massacring them.

And, without intending to,

* He subconsciously admits that there were no Palestinian Arab people existing before 1917.

In this case of Arabs attempting to turn the tables on Zionists by using their language, it only proves their own hypocrisy and bigotry.

Dan the Man

Aussie Dave at Israellycool, where I guest-blog, has dug up the transcript and video (starting at 1:35) of Dan Gillerman's speech to the UN yesterday on the occasion of the Annual Day of Solidarity for the Haters of Jewish Nationalism. (It certainly isn't a day of solidarity with Palestinian Arabs because none of the nations celebrating have any interest in allowing Palestinian Arabs the right to become full citizens of any other nation.)

Here's the speech, with Dave's highlights in red (I could not find the original UN transcript):

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

I know these words evoke a different voice and a different precedent. But with all seriousness, Happy Birthday. On this day, 60 years ago, the Jewish State was born out of the historic 1947 General Assembly session, where two extraordinary gifts were given to humanity: the gift of a modern state for the Jewish people and the gift of Israel to the world.

I have just come from a commemorative ceremony at Lake Success, where that United Nations, met 60 years ago. You see, throughout history, nations traditionally have been created through war and conquest. Israel, however, was created by UN decree and by the nations of the world. To be there today – representing my Government and my People – was indeed a joyous occasion. So, I wish you all, a Happy Birthday.

Mr. President,

Late last night, I returned from Annapolis. It was a memorable occasion, with representatives from over 40 nations – chiefly among them moderate states of the Arab and Muslim world – committed to supporting the bilateral process between Israel and the Palestinians. The air in Annapolis was filled with the hope that by working together we can realize a peaceful and better tomorrow. I have no doubt that this sense of optimism was felt by all those in attendance.

Yet, back here in New York, standing before this august Assembly – in a place so distant from Annapolis in body, mind, and soul – I cannot help but wonder whether today’s debate will contribute to the spirit, promise, and hope of Annapolis.

After all, this Assembly hall is also the birthplace of the annual 21 resolutions defaming Israel – with a litany of predetermined, impractical, and completely biased conclusions – that have only given the Palestinians a fictitious sense of reality and a discourse of rights without responsibilities, both of which render the United Nations completely incapable of playing a meaningful role in addressing the conflict.

Today – 29 of November – is perhaps the greatest example of how this Assembly continues to stifle hope and faith for peace in our region. According to the calendar of the United Nations, today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which by definition precludes Israel.

Let me be clear: Palestinian self-determination is a cause Israel wholeheartedly supports. Indeed, at the Annapolis meeting, just two days ago, my Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Olmert said “we will find the right way, as part of an international effort in which we will participate, to assist these Palestinians in finding a proper framework for their future, in the Palestinian state which will be established in the territories agreed upon between us”.

Over the years, however, the proceedings held in this Hall and at UN centers around the world have corrupted the cause of Palestinian self-determination and transformed it into a denigration and defamation of the Jewish state.

I have been listening carefully to the statements delivered this afternoon. They all focused on Israel, and I know many will focus on Israel later.

The narrative is the same: it is unjust, draining, grossly erroneous, misleading, and – I dare say – viciously boring. It is sadly, yet again, déjà vu, all over again.

The penchant for blaming Israel for the repeated Palestinian failures is so widespread and contagious that the absurdity of it goes completely unnoticed. And today reminds us why: the Palestinian addiction to the culture of victimhood is fed by this world body and specifically many of its Member States – as we just witnessed – who day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, use this international forum for their rhetorical theatrics. Broadway might have been on strike, but the theater on the East River is always open for business.

It is time to close the gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric in this Hall now, forever, once and for all.

For us – for Jews and for Israelis – today is not a bitter day at all. We are not downtrodden or haunted by vanquished dreams. Today is a day of great victory and success – victory over oppression and tyranny, and success over the painful tragedies and suffering of Jewish history. Today, we celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people and our eternal bond to the land of Israel, where after so many years of yearning and longing in exile we merited the return to our homeland.

The joy felt on 29 November 1947 is recounted by Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated writers, and a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature:

“There was dancing and weeping … Bottles of fruit drink, beer and wine passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, strangers hugged each other in streets and kissed each other with tears, … frenzied revelers … waved the flag of the state that had not been established yet, but tonight, over there in Lake Success, it had been decided that it had the right to be established”.

Travel to any city in Israel, and you will no doubt find a street named for this very day – כ”ט בנובמבר – the 29th of November – a testament to its importance and significance to our people.

In fact, I live in Tel-Aviv, just yards from a street named after the 29th of November, and my eldest grandson, Ron, as born on this very day nine years ago. It is on his behalf and on behalf of all children of Israel and the children of the region that I stand before you here today.

Distinguished Excellencies, think of the past 60 years, and consider Israel’s many contributions to the world in the fields of science and technology, medicine, art, and culture. A country that has discovered ways to stop deserts from receding; a country that has engineered critical advancements in medicine, cures for illnesses and limbs for the disabled; a country that has endowed the world with rich treasures of art and culture, through its Nobel Laureates, poets, artists, and writers.

Think about where the world would be today without the State of Israel – and I know some in this Hall perversely dream about such a question. But Israel is here to stay, to flourish, and to continue contributing to the advancement of man, progress, and human civilization.

It is then the greatest insult to us, to history, and to this Assembly that while Israel celebrates, others at the United Nations mourn.

Some Member States will note my delegation’s absence from past 29th of November proceedings. We stopped addressing this session because some Member States hijacked and abused the forum for their own political interests and turned it into yet another venue to demonize Israel. We cannot allow that to happen any longer. Today is our day.

It is high time for Israel and for all those committed to peace in our region, to reclaim this day for what it truly means: the peaceful coexistence of two independent states in the region, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, living side-by-side in peace and security, each fulfilling the national aspirations of its respective people.

Mr. President,

In this regard, it is all the more bewildering that of late the Jewish character of the State of Israel has been called into question. Last week, as Israelis and Palestinians set out for Annapolis, a veteran Palestinian negotiator said “the Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity”.

The resolution that gives the 29th of November significance – General Assembly resolution 181 – speaks of the creation of the “Jewish State” no less than 25 times. Even before that, the notion of a Jewish state in the land of Israel was cemented in the 1922 League of Nations British Mandate on Palestine, which put into effect the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to establish a national home for the Jewish people.

The Arab refusal to recognize the existence of our Jewish state has been at the core of the Palestinians’ inability to achieve a state of their own. When the Jews accepted the UN partition plan, the Arabs made a fateful – and indeed fatal – choice to reject it and invade the newly borne Jewish state, rather than coexist with it.

Had the Arabs accepted the UN’s decision, there would have been two states, one Jewish and one Arab, all this time, for the past 60 years. Had the Arabs not rejected the decision, my Palestinian colleague who spoke earlier would have represented a Member State, not just as an Observer entity.

The wrong choices did not end in 1947. We saw them again in 1967, 1973, 2000, and 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip only to have the Palestinians bring the Hamas terrorists to power. The wrong choices of the Palestinians continue until this very day, when, on average, Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip fire rockets at Israel every three hours.

For their brutal violence, arrogance, and intransigence, Israel has paid an enormous price: with the lives of our people – the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism: men, women, and children, young and old, doctors and lawyers, artists and scientists, all who would have contributed so greatly to life in Israel and to the betterment of the entire world.

The terrorism we still see today stems from an innate refusal to recognize Israel, a refusal to recognize the Jewish state, and a refusal to recognize the value of our lives. So long as there is a denial of the existential issues, I fear, there can never be an agreement on the territorial ones.

Mr. President,

Annapolis – I hope and believe – represents a new wind of change. Moderate Arab and Muslim states today recognize that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the cause of instability in our region and that the conflict can and will end. They also recognize that the real dangers come directly from Islamic extremism and its champion Iran, who sponsors terrorism around the globe, tries to attain nuclear weapons, denies the Holocaust while preparing for the next one, relentlessly defying the will of the international community.

The Coalition for Peace, which the world saw assembled in Annapolis just two days ago, will support the process between Israel and the Palestinians. But it is also a coalition that will hopefully counter and confront the extremists in Teheran.

I hope that the winds of Annapolis will blow to the north, to this very Hall. For there could be no better time for the nations of the world – and in particular the moderate Arab and Muslim states in this Hall today – to show their commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian process. And there could be no better place than here at the United Nations –where for decades Israel has been discriminated against and singled out, contrary to the fundamental principles of the UN Charter – for Members States to tell Israel and the Palestinians that they support our dialogue.

Mr. President,

Allow me to take you back once more to sixty years ago, to 2 October 1947, when David Ben-Gurion, founding father and first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, two months prior to the General Assembly’s historic vote, said in Jerusalem:

“We will not surrender our right to free Aliyah, to rebuild our shattered Homeland, to claim statehood. If we are attacked, we will fight back. But we will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish cooperation gainful to both. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for the common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals”.

Mr. President, sixty years later, today here, Israel’s message to the Arab nations and the Palestinians has not changed. Shoulder to shoulder for the common good. Now, more than ever, with the winds of change blowing strong from Annapolis, to New York, to the Middle East, to all corners of the earth.

Thank You.

November 30, 1947: The first post-Partition massacre

In the weeks leading up to the UN Partition vote, the Arabs of Palestine were on their best behavior. There were very few terror attacks against Jews in November, and the last major attack I could find was in late August.

But immediately after they lost the partition vote, it was like the pent-up hatred all exploded at once.

The first victims were on a bus to Jerusalem. Some were killed instantly from a grenade hurled into the bus; one of the injured passengers was murdered as he tried to tend to his injured wife. Another victim was on her way to Jerusalem to get married.

Others were killed that day as well, and many hundreds more - men, women and children - were to be brutally murdered in the coming months.

The reasons for the hate have not changed a bit from then to today. They were not murdered because of "occupation" or "refugees" or any of the dozens of other justifications that have been since used to minimize the horror of these unabashed terror attacks.

Their "crimes" were simply because they were Jews with the desire to live in their own nation, at peace with their neighbors. What the world recognized instinctively in 1947 - that Jews deserve the right to self-determination - was to be tested by a massive temper tantrum of Arab supremacists who were willing to attempt a second genocide against the Jews rather than face what they consider "humiliation."

And, yes, the proper word for someone who considers another people's lives less important than Arab honor is an Arab supremacist.

Gaza Hajj update

As I have previously blogged, the PA and Israel arranged for thousands of Gaza Hajj pilgrims to travel in buses through Israel to the West Bank where they will go on to perform Hajj in the apartheid-like Muslim-only city of Mecca. Hamas seems to be blocking the pilgrims, saying that they will open the Rafah crossing to Egypt and have the pilgrims go that way, so Israel wouldn't be involved.

The only problem is, Egypt does not open the Rafah crossings without the EU's permission, and the EU cannot open it while Hamas is in charge. (The EU's Rafah mission remains on the EU payroll, doing absolutely nothing, and it hasn't even updated its website with any news about the Rafah crossing.)

Now, Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is planning to embarrass Egypt into opening Rafah by demolishing the wall near the crossing and forcing Egypt to directly stop the pilgrims from going to Egypt - or forcing Egypt to let them through. PPA says that Hamas plans to demonstrate on Friday and demolish the wall on Saturday. Whether this is true or not, Hamas is clearly playing political games with their devout Muslim population.

I have no idea why the English-language media has not picked up on this story even though it is over a week old now.

From AP:

British teacher Gillian Gibbons was convicted of insulting Islam for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, one of her defense lawyers said Thursday.

Ali Mohammed Ajab, of Gibbons' defense team, said she was found guilty of "insulting the faith of Muslims in Sudan" under Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal code, a lighter conviction than the original charge of inciting religious hatred. ...

"It's a very fair verdict, she could have had six months and lashes and a fine, and she only got 15 days and deportation," said Robert Boulos of the Unity High School, confirming there would be no appeal. He noted that she would only spend 10 days in prison, having already served five.

"We are very sad about her deportation because she was such a good teacher," he said, adding that with the current tension over the case it was probably safer for her to leave the country.

You mean, Shari'a law cannot protect a middle-aged woman?

Olmert learning lying lessons from Arafat

The Jersualem Post reported:

Israel's sovereignty over the Temple Mount is not up for discussion, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday, a day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem was key to an agreement with Israel.

What occurred in Annapolis and Washington over the last two days had no bearing on the situation on the Temple Mount, Olmert said.

But today a Palestinian Arab negotiator said Olmert has already given away the Temple Mount:

"What Olmert said (regarding the Mount) is absolutely false. I think he's not yet ready to tell the Israeli public and is waiting for the right time and he fears his coalition with religious extremists will fall apart if he announces it now," said a senior Palestinian negotiator Thursady on condition his name be withheld.

The chief Palestinian negotiator said in months leading up to Annapolis the Palestinian team was "surprised" by Olmert's willingness to give up the Mount.

"We had intense debates on many topics, which remain open and unsettled, but the Harem Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) is not a sticking point. The Israelis didn't argue with us. We were pleasantly surprised Olmert didn't debate about giving the lower section of the Mount either, which was a sticking point in the past."

According to the chief Palestinian negotiator, Olmert agreed to evacuate the Mount but not to turn it over to the Palestinians alone. The negotiator said both sides agreed the Temple Mount would be given to joint Egypt, Jordan and Palestinian Authority control.

And:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert informed American Jewish leaders Monday that Jews outside of Israel have no right to intervene in any decision regarding the status of Jerusalem.

Olmert declared at a news conference Monday following his meeting with leaders of U.S. Jewish communities that "the government of Israel has a sovereign right to negotiate anything on behalf of Israel," making it clear that Jews outside of Israel had no right to participate in decisions about the future of Jerusalem. The prime minister told reporters that the issue had "been determined long ago."

But:

Ehud Olmert said he respects the input of U.S. Jews and they should make their opinions heard on Jerusalem.

"He said what he has always said. He urged people: 'Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you don’t have a right to speak out about Jerusalem,' " Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, reported after the meeting. "He reiterated the right of people to speak out."

Olmert's statements has become about as believable as the average Palestinian Arab leader. Lying is now habitual with the man who is actively planning to give away ancient Jewish land to people who fervently want to destroy Israel.

November 29, 1947

It is not an exaggeration to say that the world was riveted by the events in New York State in November of 1947.

On November 25, after two months of negotiations, the Ad-Hoc Committee of the UN in Lake Success voted to put Partition before the General Assembly by a vote of 25-13, with 17 abstentions. While only a simple majority was needed for its motion, a two-thirds majority was needed in the GA to pass partition, and the Committee vote was just short of that number.

The following days saw intense negotiation on both sides, but on November 29th, the General Assembly in Flushing Meadow voted overwhelmingly for partition:

The Jews were overjoyed. In Jerusalem, outside the Jewish Agency building, the "Jewish flag" was unfurled and "Mrs. Goldie Myerson" (soon to be better known as Golda Meir) addressed the crowd, "extending the hand of peace and friendship to the Arabs."

Similar hopes for peace with the Arabs came from Zionist leaders all over, and was crystallized by this Palestine post editorial:

The Arabs were crestfallen. They had tried to do a last-minute maneuver to scuttle the vote by proposing a "canton" system - a single state where the Jews and Arabs would be separated. Somehow, nobody today refers to this proposal as "apartheid:"

An Egyptian newspaper came out, paradoxically, in favor of partition - but reading further one can see why:

The newspaper felt that by accepting partition now, the Arabs would be in a much better position to crush the Jewish state when it would actually come into existence.

The Arab Higher Committee put the defeat in the particular Arab context of an honor/shame society:

"You are standing at a cross road; it will be either a noble and free life or shame and humiliation forever. The matter is now in your hands alone. If you make the required sacrifice for the sake of your country you will win, but if you are mean and treacherous you will be stained with shame and humiliation."

Unwittingly, the Arabs were already setting themselves up for their "naqba" - they had pre-defined the existence of a Jewish state as an unpardonable affront to their dignity. In the Arab world, nothing is worse than being humiliated, and death is far preferable.

All that they say to the West today about "justice" and "settlements" are just empty words to mask what their true intentions are - to erase decades of humiliation. Nothing is more important. All the volumes of scholarly papers and articles, all the legal maneuvers and speeches, all the pretenses of grudgingly accepting Israel - all of it is a smokescreen to mask what the AHC chairman articulated on their behalf that day, that the very existence of a Jewish state is the definition of shame and humiliation.

This is before there was a single Arab battlefield loss, before there was a single Arab refugee. It is not the humiliation of defeat but the humiliation of Jews controlling land in the Middle East.

The events of recent weeks have shown this to be true, sixty years later. Even though the UN and the world explicitly stated that this was to be a Jewish state, the most "moderate" of Arab negotiators cannot accept that simple fact today. All their empty words about peace cannot erase what Arabs feel, deep down.

The only reason they pretend to accept Israel today is because they assume that they will be able to destroy it demographically tomorrow with the consciously hostile "right to return." To truly accept a Jewish state in the birthplace of the Jews is as abhorrent and unthinkable to the Arabs today as it was in November, 1947.

And no amount of photo-ops or joint statements can change that.

Treppenwitz hits another home run

One of the best writers in the JBlogopshere has another stellar post.

Read it.

Erekat tells a good joke. Really!

There was a post-Annapolis meeting at the Brookings Institution today, and Saeb Erekat, one of the speakers, made a pretty good joke. Paraphrased from the Foreign Policy blog:

An Israeli and a Palestinian are watching a Western. In the movie, a cowboy is riding bareback on a particularly wild horse. The Israeli says to the Palestinian, "I'll bet you 10 shekels he falls." The Palestinian replies immediately, "I'll bet you he doesn't."

The cowboy falls, and the Palestinian forks over 10 shekels. The Israeli, feeling that famous Israeli guilt, refuses them. Then he admits, "I've seen this movie before."

The Palestinian replies, "So have I. But I thought he would learn from his mistake."

Iranian blogger in the doghouse

From Radio Free Europe:

November 28, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Iranian authorities have detained a blogger after he published details about the reported use of bomb-sniffing dogs in President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's security detail.

The Persian-language website gooya.com says Reza Valizadeh was the object of a complaint from the president's office. He was detained on November 26, but his whereabouts are unknown. Iran's judiciary has neither confirmed nor denied Valizadeh's arrest.

Valizadeh wrote on his blog that Ahmadinejad's security staff purchased four dogs in Germany for 150 million toumans each (about $150,000).

He reported that the canines were deployed to sniff out possible explosives on November 14, before Ahmadinejad's appearance at an annual press exhibition. The sweep left exhibition visitors standing outside the venue for several hours.

He also said the price of the dogs and their appearance in public evoked surprise and criticism. Some strict Shi'ite interpretations of the Koran regard dogs as unclean, and dog ownership is controversial in Shi'a-dominated Iran.

The British daily "The Guardian" reported on November 20 that the use of dogs in the protection of an Iranian head of state could be unprecedented in the 28-year history of Iran's Islamic republic.

Valizadeh quoted an unnamed official as saying the decision to deploy the bomb-sniffing dogs was made by the security team, and was outside the authority of the president.

Valizadeh's arrest comes two days after dozens of Iranian journalists and intellectuals issued a statement to protest the jailing of journalists who are critical of the Iranian government.

Yet more on Gaza's "humanitarian crisis"

WAFA, the official PA "news" agency, says:

Agriculture Ministry declared Wednesday that the efforts, were exerted to export the strawberry and flowers of Gaza Strip to Arab and European countries, succeeded despite the Israeli siege imposed.

Succeeded "despite" the siege?

The ministry said in its statement that “such a success in exporting flowers and strawberry came as a result of Premier Salam Fayyad and Agriculture Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash’s efforts with their Israeli counterparts in Israel and Rome in the 34 Conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome”.

So even though Israel allowed the exports, the "moderate" PA "news" agency still makes it sound like Israel was dead-set against it and only the heroic efforts of Fatah managed to help the Gaza farmers.

And where was Hamas in all this?
Ma'an (Arabic) fills in the missing pieces:

According to the Israeli official, Israel prevented the rest of the trucks from crossing after a Palestinian mortar shelling the crossing during the export process.

So Israel arranged for Gaza farmers to export berries and flowers, and Gaza terrorists shot mortars at the crossing to stop them.

Now, whose fault is the Gaza mess again?

More Gaza Hajj news

Palestine Press Agency and Ma'an, both in Arabic, report that Israel will allow some 2400 Gazan pilgrims to cross the Erez crossing early next month, take buses to the West Bank and then travel on to Mecca for Hajj.

Hamas disagrees, saying that the pilgrims will go through Rafah to Egypt and then go on to Mecca from there. Hamas does not want any Gazans to leave Gaza through Israel because that implies that Hamas is not in control of the Gaza borders.

So Hamas and Fatah's Muslim leaders seem less interested in allowing their people to go to Hajj than the dhimmi Jews of the Zionist entity. As usual, playing politics with their people's lives is the major hallmark of Arab leaders.

Arab roadmap logic

Palestine Today (Arabic) quotes AFP (I cannot find the AFP article, auto-translate cleaned up a bit):

An Arab official who participated in the Annapolis conference yesterday told Agence France Presse that the Arab participants at the meeting "were all disappointed," after the announcement by President George Bush of "common understanding" reached between the Palestinians and Israelis to launch negotiations on the final settlement of the Palestinian issue.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "The mutual understanding announced by President Bush (was that the) application of any peace agreement requires the implementation of the first phase of the road map, the dismantling of terrorist networks in the Palestinian territories, which means to engage in war with Hamas."

The official stressed that the late President Yasser "Arafat has not been able to implement the security part in the road map, how can Abbas do that now?"

So since Abbas is way too weak to enforce security, it should be dropped as a requirement! Israel should just suck it up and be happy about suicide bombers and rockets and the likely Hamas takeover of the West Bank.

Brilliant!

Saudi ambassador tells a whopper of a lie

From JTA (and also PalPress):

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States rejected recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.
"There are 1.5 million civilians in Israel who do not define themselves as Jewish," Adel al-Jubeir told reporters at the U.S.-convened Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Annapolis, Md.
"We do not believe states should define themselves according to religion or ethnicity."

...said the representative of a nation whose official religion is Islam, whose legal system is based on Shari'a, whose king holds the title "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques," and whose constitution starts with:

Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God's Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God's prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.

Article 2
The state's public holidays are Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha. Its calendar is the Hegira calendar.

Article 3
The state's flag shall be as follows:
(a) It shall be green.
(b) Its width shall be equal to two-thirds of it's length.
(c) The words "There is but one God and Mohammed is His Prophet" shall be inscribed in the center with a drawn sword under it. The statute shall define the rules pertaining to it.

The Olmert/Abbas joint statement

From the NYT:

“The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as chairman of the P.L.O. Executive Committee [1] and president of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference, having concluded the following joint understanding.
“We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence[2]; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.
"In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements.
“We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008. For this purpose — [there is a brief break in the audio here] — committee led jointly by the head of the delegation of each party will meet continuously as agreed.
“The Steering Committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party. The first session of the Steering Committee will be held on 12 December 2007. President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a biweekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.
“The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict issued by the Quartet on 30 April 2003 — this is called the road map — and agreed to form an American-Palestinian and Israeli mechanism led by the United States to follow up on the implementation of the road map.
“The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map as judged by the United States.[3]”

[1] Is Abbas there as leader of the PLO or president of the PA? According to his own words, he is not representing the PA government at all! The entire legal question of what his authority exactly is has been bypassed by the organizers of this meeting. One would think that this is pretty important.

[2]Let's look at that PLO logo:

And let's look at that Fatah logo (for which Abbas is also the nominal leader):

Their very symbols are incitement to violence and to the destruction of Israel.

[3]The first sentence of Phase 1 of the Roadmap says "In Phase I, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel." So now the US will determine whether they have done so?

Here is a list of the major terror attacks that occurred Between 1993 and 2000, during the "peaceful" years of Oslo and before the Intifada:

November 7, 1999	Netanya	27 Wounded	Hamas	3 Pipe Bombs
August 10, 1999	Nahshon Junction	6 Wounded	Hamas	Car Plows into Crowd (Twice)
November 6, 1998	Jerusalem	2 Killed, 20 Wounded	Islamic Jihad	2 Suicide Bombers
October 29, 1998	Gush Katif	1 Killed, 8 Wounded	Hamas	Suicide Bomber Attacks School Bus
October 19, 1998	Be'er Sheva	59 Wounded	Hamas	Grenades Thrown at Central Bus Station
October 11, 1998	Hevron	18 Wounded	Hamas	2 Grenades Injure Palestinians and Israelis
August 27, 1998	Tel-Aviv	14 Wounded	Hamas	Bomb In Dumpster
August 20, 1998	Tel Rumeiyda	Rabbi Killed	Hamas	Fire Bomb & Stabbing
September 4, 1997	Jerusalem	4 Killed, 181 Wounded	Hamas	3 Suicide Bombers at Pedestrian Mall
July 30, 1997	Jerusalem	15 Killed, 178 Wounded	Hamas	2 Suicide Bombers at Outdoor Market
March 21, 1997	Tel-Aviv	3 Killed, 48 Wounded	Hamas	Bomb at Restaurant
March 4, 1996	Tel Aviv	20 Killed, 75 Wounded	Islamic Jihad	Suicide Bomber at Mall
March 3, 1996	Jerusalem	19 Killed, 6 Wounded	Hamas	Suicide Bomber on Bus
February 25, 1996	Ashkelon	2 Killed	Hamas	Suicide Bomber at Bus Stop
February 25, 1996	Jerusalem	26 Killed, 80 Wounded	Hamas	2 Suicide Bombers on Bus
July 24, 1995	Ramat Gan	6 Killed, 31 Wounded	Hamas	Suicide Bomber on Bus
June 25, 1995	Neve Dekalim	3 Wounded	Islamic Jihad	Explosives-ladden Cart
April 9, 1995	Gaza	8 Killed, 50 Wounded	Hamas & Islamic Jihad	2 Suicide Bombers
January 22, 1995	Beit Lid Junction	21 Killed, 69 Wounded	Islamic Jihad	2 Suicide Bombers at Bus Stop
December 25, 1994	Jerusalem	13 Wounded	Hamas	Suicide Bomber at Bus Stop
November 11, 1994	Netzarim Junction	3 Killed, 6 Wounded	Islamic Jihad	Suicide Bomber on Bike
October 19, 1994	Tel Aviv	22 Killed, 56 Wounded	Hamas	Suicide Bomber on Bus
October 9, 1994	Jerusalem	2 Killed, 14 Wounded	Hamas	2 Gunmen Open Fire
April 13, 1994	Hadera	5 Killed	Hamas	Suicide Bomber
April 6, 1994	Afula	8 Killed	Hamas	Car Bomb next to Bus

This level of violence was considered "acceptable" by the architects of Oslo, so much so that they were not even part of the calculus as Barak, Arafat and Clinton tried to come up with a final solution. In other words, multiple major terror attacks every year was considered just dandy by the United States and the Barak government.

So is the US qualified to say today that this is an acceptable level of terror that should be rewarded with a state?

The only concrete acts that has reduced terror since Oslo was Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 and the building of the separation fence. No "peace" agreement or accord has done more; on the contrary, they have been consistently counterproductive.

Annapolis is highly likely to continue this trend, with the added problem of a deep extra helping of wishful thinking and willful blindness towards terror attacks and attempts.

Another player in the PalArab extremist sweepstakes

The terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir held an anti-Annapolis rally in Hebron as well as in Nablus, totaling thousands of people.

We don't hear much about Hizb ut-Tahrir in the PalArab territories, but they are a worldwide extremist Muslim organization dedicated to creating a single Islamic state based on Islamic law. (They are also more than a little anti-semitic.) This means that Palestinian Arab statehood is not their goal at all - they make no pretense of wanting a Palestinian Arab state, only a pan-Islamic state that of course involves the destruction of Israel.

The turnout indicates yet again that Mahmoud Abbas has very little influence on his own people, and that Ramallah is pretty much the only Palestinian Arab town that is more secular than Islamist.

Predicatbly, the rallies (which were unauthorized) descended into violence, and a 37-year old Hizb supporter was shot in the heart by those crack Palestinian Arab policemen and killed.

The 2007 PalArab self-death count is now at 585.

UPDATE: Perhaps I spoke too soon - Hizb also held a rally in Ramallah that was broken up by police.

I saw this picture on the webpage of the Jerusalem Summit, showing how vulnerable Tel Aviv and the entire Dan region would be if Israel abandoned Jewish communities in the West Bank. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

To be fair, it was taken with a telephoto lens. In fact, Tel Aviv is a whopping 10 miles away from Peduel - easily within rocket range.

Luckily, Wikipedia has a much more accurate picture of what Tel Aviv looks like from Peduel, and it hardly makes things look better (click to enlarge):

As the Jerusalem Summit page asks:

How can one reconcile prudent and responsible governance with a willingness to expose such a large population to so great a danger?

Ehud Barak, 2002

After the failure of Camp David and the resultant intifada, Ehud Barak spoke about what went wrong:

Barak today portrays Arafat's behavior at Camp David as a "performance" geared to exacting from the Israelis as many concessions as possible without ever seriously intending to reach a peace settlement or sign an "end to the conflict." "He did not negotiate in good faith, indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying 'no' to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own," he says. Barak continuously shifts between charging Arafat with "lacking the character or will" to make a historic compromise (as did the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977–1979, when he made peace with Israel) and accusing him of secretly planning Israel's demise while he strings along a succession of Israeli and Western leaders and, on the way, hoodwinks "naive journalists"—in Barak's phrase—like [Deborah] Sontag and officials such as former US National Security Council expert Robert Malley (who, with Hussein Agha, published another "revisionist" article on Camp David, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors"^[*]). According to Barak:

What they [Arafat and his colleagues] want is a Palestinian state in all of Palestine. What we see as self-evident, [the need for] two states for two peoples, they reject. Israel is too strong at the moment to defeat, so they formally recognize it. But their game plan is to establish a Palestinian state while always leaving an opening for further "legitimate" demands down the road. For now, they are willing to agree to a temporary truce à la Hudnat Hudaybiyah [a temporary truce that the Prophet Muhammad concluded with the leaders of Mecca during 628–629, which he subsequently unilaterally violated]. They will exploit the tolerance and democracy of Israel first to turn it into "a state for all its citizens," as demanded by the extreme nationalist wing of Israel's Arabs and extremist left-wing Jewish Israelis. Then they will push for a binational state and then, demography and attrition will lead to a state with a Muslim majority and a Jewish minority. This would not necessarily involve kicking out all the Jews. But it would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. This, I believe, is their vision. They may not talk about it often, openly, but this is their vision. Arafat sees himself as a reborn Saladin—the Kurdish Muslim general who defeated the Crusaders in the twelfth century—and Israel as just another, ephemeral Crusader state.

Barak believes that Arafat sees the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants, numbering close to four million, as the main demographic-political tool for subverting the Jewish state.

Arafat, says Barak, believes that Israel "has no right to exist, and he seeks its demise." Barak buttresses this by arguing that Arafat "does not recognize the existence of a Jewish people or nation, only a Jewish religion, because it is mentioned in the Koran and because he remembers seeing, as a kid, Jews praying at the Wailing Wall." This, Barak believes, underlay Arafat's insistence at Camp David (and since) that the Palestinians have sole sovereignty over the Temple Mount compound (Haram al-Sharif—the noble sanctuary) in the southeastern corner of Jerusalem's Old City. Arafat denies that any Jewish temple has ever stood there—and this is a microcosm of his denial of the Jews' historical connection and claim to the Land of Israel/Palestine. Hence, in December 2000, Arafat refused to accept even the vague formulation proposed by Clinton positing Israeli sovereignty over the earth beneath the Temple Mount's surface area.

Barak recalls Clinton telling him that during the Camp David talks he had attended Sunday services and the minister had preached a sermon mentioning Solomon, the king who built the First Temple. Later that evening, he had met Arafat and spoke of the sermon. Arafat had said: "There is nothing there [i.e., no trace of a temple on the Temple Mount]." Clinton responded that "not only the Jews but I, too, believe that under the surface there are remains of Solomon's temple." (At this point one of Clinton's [Jewish] aides whispered to the President that he should tell Arafat that this is his personal opinion, not an official American position.)

Repeatedly during our prolonged interview, conducted in his office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper, Barak shook his head—in bewilderment and sadness—at what he regards as Palestinian, and especially Arafat's, mendacity:

They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie...creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as "the truth."
Speaking of Arab society, Barak recalls: "The deputy director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation once told me that there are societies in which lie detector tests don't work, societies in which lies do not create cognitive dissonance [on which the tests are based]."

Now, Abbas and his colleagues are saying exactly what Arafat said in 2000 - their goals are identical and the 2000 Barak offer is considered "completely unacceptable and out of the question."

It is more than a bit ironic for Ehud Barak to talk about "cognitive dissonance" on the Arab side in 2002 and then to sit at a table with them again, willing to go beyond the Camp David and Taba offers - all in the name of a "peace" that is simply a reward for a six-year intifada.

How to distinguish Islamist from non-Islamist schools

Progressive Muslim M. Zuhdi Jasser writes an article in Family Security Matters about the danger of Islamist schools in the United States, and he includes this guide to tell an Islamist school from a non-Islamist school:

1. How does the school teach American history and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? What is taught about the struggle of our founding fathers against theocracy? Is European Enlightenment ideology taught? Are students encouraged to learn from non-Muslim philosophers especially those who influenced our founding fathers and taught liberty and freedom?

2. Are students taught that sharia is only personal or that it also specifically guides governmental law? Does their answer change whether Muslims are a minority or a majority?

3. Do they view non-Islamic private and public schools as part of a culture of ‘immorality’ and decadence since they are not Islamicized or can non-Islamic schools be morally and equally virtuous?

4. Do they teach their children that ‘being American’ and being ‘free’ is about moral corruption or is being American and free about loving the nation in which they live and sharing equal status before the law regardless of faith tradition?

5. Is complete religious freedom a central part of faith and the practice of religion? In the Islamic school, how are children treated who refuse to participate in school faith practices?

6. Are the children taught Muslim exclusivism with regards to the attainment of paradise in the Hereafter? From that, are the children also taught that government and public institutions must thus be ‘Islamic’ in order for the community as a whole to be able to enter the gates of Heaven?

7. How are student discussions, debate, and intellectual discourses approached regarding American domestic and foreign policy? Do the teachers have a political agenda? Does that agenda demonstrate a dichotomy between Islamist interests and American interests?

8. Is the historical period of Muslim rule of Spain (Andalusia) taught in the context of the history of the world during the Middle Ages or is it looked upon as superior to current day American ideology even after the advances of the Enlightenment?

9. Is the pledge of allegiance administered every day at the beginning of the school day?

From what I can tell, many universities would score fairly poorly on these questions as well.