Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Egyptian newspapers, TV strike in protest of constitution

Twelve Egyptian newspapers and five TV channels announced that they will go on strike for one day to object to both recently issued constitutional declaration and the draft constitution.

The newspapers will not print on Tuesday and the TV channels will go off-air on Wednesday.

The draft constitution, which was passed on 30 November by the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly and is set to be voted on in a referendum on 15 December, does not include articles against the imprisonment of journalists in cases related to freedom of expression as demanded by journalists.

The Journalists Syndicate's executive council had withdrawn its representatives from the Constituent Assembly in mid-November after its recommendations and suggestions were ignored by the assembly.

Later, the general assembly of the syndicate had threatened on 25 November to stage a strike against the constitutional declaration that president Mohamed Morsi issued on 23 November..

The newspapers that will go on strike on Tuesday include: Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Watan, Al-Tahrir, Al-Wafd, Al-Youm 7, Al-Dostour, Al-Shorouk, Al-Sabah, Al-Ahaly, Al-Ahrar, Al-Fagr and Osbooa.

The TV channels that will go on strike on Wednesday, with blank screens broadcasting in place of content, are: ONTV channels, CBC and Modern channels, Al-Hayat Channels and Dream TV channels.

Already on Monday, Al-Wafd newspaper, Al-Youm 7 newspaper, Al-Watan newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper and Tahrir newspaper shared the same headline “No to dictatorship” with an illustration showing a prisoner made of newspaper sitting in a dark cell.

The draft constitution itself has verbiage supporting freedom of the press, but it is fuzzy because there is always the caveat that the press must adhere to community standards, which could mean anything.

But before you think that these liberal, secular voices are necessarily the "good guys," here is a poster at one of their anti-Morsi rallies (screen shot from here):

Because even among enlightened, secular Egyptians, there is no worse insult than "Jew" or "Zionist."

(Mohamed ElBaradei lost all his credibility in Egypt by telling a German interviewer that many of the Islamists are Holocaust-deniers; now he is being derided as "Mr. Holocaust.")

(h/t PTWatch)

A reminder of the PLO's real goal

Shhhh...don't tell anyone:

Fatah leader Abbas Zaki speaks on Al Jazeera about "the great goal," referring to the goal of destroying Israel.

"The agreement is based on the borders of June 4. While the agreement is on the borders of June 4, the President [Mahmoud Abbas] understands, we understand, and everyone knows that it is impossible to realize the inspiring idea, or the great goal in one stroke. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, if Israel uproots the settlements, 650,000 settlers, if Israel removes the (security) fence - what will be with Israel? Israel will come to an end. If I say that I want to remove it from existence, this will be great, great, [but] it is hard. This is not a [stated] policy. You can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself."

[Al-Jazeera, Sept. 23, 2011]

There are a lot of people today who are so - very - upset over the idea of Jews building houses in their own capital, saying that it dooms the two-state solution. (It doesn't.)

I don't recall a peep from any of them when this was broadcast to millions of Arabs last year on the most popular Arabic news network.

I also don't recall that great statesman Abbas denying (or reprimanding) Zaki's words.

(h/t O)

Palestine Times reports that Hamas plans to repair and activate the Gaza airport, with help from Egypt.

Deputy prime minister Ziad Zaza said that Hamas seeks to open and activate the Gaza International Airport, saying "The government has received Egyptian promises to provide facilities for large Rafah [material transfers] in the coming days, as well as demands by the Egyptian mediator for the reinstatement of Gaza International Airport, and the Gaza seaport."

Zaza claims that the terms of the truce allows unlimited imports of construction materials to Gaza, not just the materials needed for specific NGO projects that Israel had been approving. The construction materials will be imported from Egypt using a planned improved Rafah crossing.

The airport was owned and managed by the PA.

While Israel's legal right to a naval blockade of Gaza is pretty ironclad, I am not sure what avenues Israel can use to stop airplanes flying from Gaza over Egyptian airspace. (Besides bombing the runways.)

Sorry, BDSers. No more grocery shopping for you.

From Times of Israel:

The past week has seen one of this year’s biggest buyouts of an Israeli company by a large multinational: NCR, which makes checkout systems for retail, automated teller machines, and cash dispensers and the like, bought Israel-based Retalix, a provider of retail software and services, in a deal valued at about $650 million.

Starting slowly in Israel, where its retail point-of-sale (POS) software manages cash registers in nearly every Israeli supermarket and fast-food outlet, Retalix has slowly expanded and exported its offerings. In 2011, Retalix was ranked among the top four software vendors for grocery retailers and among the top 10 large software vendors to retailers by retail industry publications.

When stores used regular cash registers, they were able to tally totals, make change, and keep track of the income and expenses. The revolution led by Retalix, more than any other company, enables retailers to use the information that comes out of a POS system in so many different ways. For example, retailers can use the information gathered at the POS with a wide range of business intelligence tools — which products are hot, who’s buying what at which times of day, what promotions are having the biggest sales effect.

By linking sales data to a credit or loyalty card, retailers can implement programs that reward shoppers for buying and keep them coming back. And the POS information on what products were sold makes it easier for retailers to keep track of inventory, payments, and expenses. And all of the data is stored securely in the cloud, enabling administrators or management at other outlets of the chain to easily access it for their needs. According to industry analysts, Retalix is a world leader in deploying these software solutions. And NCR, primarily a hardware company, will now be able to offer some of the most advanced POS systems in the world.

(h/t Ishai)

Accepting nominations for the 2012 Hasby Awards!

It's that time again!

The Hasby Awards is the annual, or maybe biennial, recognition of the best specific examples of hasbara (Israel advocacy) during the past year.

Good hasbara, in my opinion, has two components: It is effective in changing people's perceptions of Israel and it reaches a large audience. And, of course, it must reflect the truth.

So think about the best specific videos, events, speeches, articles, graphics, blog-posts, campaigns, demonstrations or any other items that would qualify, and write your nominations in the comments.

With luck, there may even be an awards ceremony!

(I never got around to giving the 2011 awards, but you can see the nominations here.)

US warning Syria on chemical weapons

From the NYT on Saturday:

Western intelligence officials say they are picking up new signs of activity at sites in Syria that are used to store chemical weapons. The officials are uncertain whether Syrian forces might be preparing to use the weapons in a last-ditch effort to save the government, or simply sending a warning to the West about the implications of providing more help to the Syrian rebels.

“It’s in some ways similar to what they’ve done before,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. “But they’re doing some things that suggest they intend to use the weapons. It’s not just moving stuff around. These are different kind of activities.”

The official said, however, that the Syrians had not carried out the most blatant steps toward using the chemical weapons, such as preparing them to be fired by artillery batteries or loaded in bombs to be dropped from warplanes.

Now the US is starting to warn the regime, although not very explicitly:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a "strong warning" Monday to the regime of Bashar al-Assad over the potential use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people.

"This is a red line for the United States," Clinton said after meeting Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. "Once again, we issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behavior is reprehensible. Their actions against their own people have been tragic."

"I'm not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people, but suffice it to say that we're certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur,” she said.

"There is no doubt that there is a line between the horrors that they [the Assad regime] have already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing chemical weapons," Clinton said, without providing further details on the nature of the planned action.

The warning came as The New York Times reported Monday that the Americans and Europeans had sent warnings via intermediaries to the Syrian regime after detecting movement of chemical weapons by the Syrian military in recent days.

"The activity we are seeing suggests some potential chemical weapon preparation," one US official told the daily, which added that the activity over the weekend has set off a flurry of emergency communications among the Western allies.

If the West starts to consider military action, then Syria might decide to start something on the border with Israel itself to muddy the waters.

And what Western nation would want to be perceived as supporting Israel militarily, even as they warn Israel not to retaliate?

But there's more. Wired's Danger Room reports:

Engineers working for the Assad regime in Syria have begun combining the two chemical precursors needed to weaponize sarin gas, an American official with knowledge of the situation tells Danger Room. International observers are now more worried than they've even been that the Damascus government could use its nerve agent stockpile to slaughter its own people.

The U.S. doesn’t know why the Syrian military made the move, which began in the middle of last week and is taking place in central Syria.

All that’s certain is that the arms have now been prepped to be used, should Assad order it.

“Physically, they’ve gotten to the point where the can load it up on a plane and drop it,” the official adds.

Sarin gas has two main chemical components — isopropanol, popularly known as rubbing alcohol, and methylphosphonyl difluoride. The Assad government has more than 500 metric tons of these precursors, which it ordinarily stores separately, in so-called “binary” form, in order to prevent an accidental release of nerve gas.

Last week, that changed. The Syrian military began combining some of the binaries. “They didn’t do it on the whole arsenal, just a modest quantity,” the official says. “We’re not sure what’s the intent.”

Jeffrey Goldberg adds another dimension from the Israeli side:

The U.S. is not the only country worried about the possible use of chemical weapons. Intelligence officials in two countries told me recently that the Israeli government has twice come to the Jordanian government with a plan to take out many of Syria's chemical weapons sites. According to these two officials, Israel has been seeking Jordan's "permission" to bomb these sites, but the Jordanians have so far declined to grant such permission.

Of course, Israel can attack these sites without Jordanian approval (in 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor), but one official told me that the Israelis are concerned about the possible repercussions of such an attack on Jordan. "A number of sites are not far from the border," he said, further explaining: "The Jordanians have to be very careful about provoking the regime and they assume the Syrians would suspect Jordanian complicity in an Israeli attack." Intelligence sources told me that Israeli drones are patrolling the skies over the Jordan-Syria border, and that both American and Israeli drones are keeping watch over suspected Syrian chemical weapons sites.

He went on to provide context of the Israeli request: "You know the Israelis -- sometimes they want to bomb right away. But they were told that from the Jordanian perspective, the time was not right." The Israeli requests were made in the last two months, communicated by Mossad intermediaries dispatched by Prime Minister Netanyahu's office, according to these sources. (I asked the Israeli embassy in Washington for comment on this, but received no answer.)

There are a lot of moving pieces around Syria now.

(h/t Yoel, Josh Block)

Another huge Monday linkdump

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Palestinians: Abbas's Classic Thug Extortion Trick

"This is a classic case of diplomatic terrorism. If you don't hand over the money, their friend here is really, really mad, and they're only just managing to hold him back. And the world fell for it."

Why Hamas and Islamic Jihad Supported Abbas's Statehood Bid by Khaled Abu Toameh

"Hamas and Islamic Jihad celebrated because they think that the UN has paved the way for the establishment of an Islamist state within the pre-1967 lines. Like many Palestinians, the two Islamist states are confident that the countdown for the creation of an Iranian-backed entity in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem has begun.
The Palestinian Islamists's message to the Palestinians is: "Let Mahmoud Abbas take now whatever he can because we know that in the future these lands will be under our control."

‘We now have a state, Abbas declares, returning triumphant to Ramallah

President tells crowd of thousands ‘We won’ and dedicates victory to Arafat and martyrs
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Palestine,” Abbas added. “The world has said ‘no’ to aggression, settlements and occupation.”
Abbas dedicated the “achievement to the Palestinian prisoners and martyrs who dedicated their blood throughout the long national struggle.”

How Israel's Ceasefire Terms Are a Security Disaster

“The elimination of this cordon sanitaire, which protects the security fence, and therefore the country, will not only leave Israel more vulnerable to attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, but also invite "publicity stunts" by adversarial non-governmental organizations under the direction of Hamas leaders, such as, for example, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM organizes riots and demonstrations, staging them for television cameras to make Israel look as if it is attacking Arabs, when in reality, Israel is responding to Arab attacks -- a detail the media usually leave out.”

PM says Palestinian incitement against Israel reflects root of the conflict
‘This is not a dispute over land, but a denial of the existence of the state of Israel,’ Netanyahu tells ministers
PMO: Special Briefing on Incitement in the Palestinian Authority
Presentation as a: VIDEO or PowerPoint

Israel to hold back NIS 450 million in tax revenues to PA

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz confirmed that he would hold back NIS 450 million to offset a NIS 800 million debt owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation.

Hey fellow liberals, it’s time to let the facts get in your way

"Within their excuses and rationalizations for the Hamas regime’s abhorrent actions – such as the targeting of Israeli civilians and the employment of Palestinian human shields – ran a familiar argument: That all means are justified, since the Jewish State is legally and morally illegitimate."

Hamas: State needs armed struggle with Israel By Khaled Abu Toameh
Osama Hamdan says Palestinian state without an armed struggle against Israel is an illusion, won't add anything for Palestinians.

"A Palestinian state without an armed struggle against Israel is an illusion and won’t add anything for the Palestinians, top Hamas official Osama Hamdan was quoted Sunday as saying."

Haniyeh to EU: Remove Hamas from terror organization list
‘We have no problem with Jews worldwide,’ claims Gaza’s Islamist PM, calls Israel the world’s biggest terrorist state

CIF Watch: The Guardian approved malice of Joseph Massad

‘Comment is Free’ editors have granted space to Hamas members on several occasions, so it is not surprising that they published a piece by an ideological extremist who has characterized Jews as “supremacists”, a term popularized by Gilad Atzmon and David Duke. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of lies and the degree of malice in his CiF polemic are both staggering.

BBC Watch: Undiluted propaganda from the BBC’s Jon Donnison

"Once again, Donnison absolves the Palestinians of all responsibility, framing them solely as passive victims of Israeli actions.
"Donnison manages to produce a ‘report’ which does a pretty good impression of being taken straight from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign propaganda handbook rather than anything approaching the standard of informative, accurate and impartial reporting which the BBC is committed to providing for its audiences."

BBC whitewashes Jenny Tonge

"To describe Jenny Tonge as a “frequent critic of Israel” is therefore akin to portraying the BNP’s Nick Griffin as having a passing interest in demography.
It is incomprehensible why the BBC should choose to highlight Tonge’s malicious fringe agenda – whilst whitewashing her shameful racism in the process."

Anshel Pfeffer and Haaretz Publish Hamas Disinformation After it Has Been Exposed

"The correction of the piece was made after it had already been widely publicized in English and circulated to readers worldwide, all the while ignoring the public information about the false accusation against Israel of culpability for Sadallah’s death that was available for at least five days prior to the publication of Pfeffer’s original column."

Jew-hating United Church members pretending to be self-hating Jews

"Independent Jewish Voices' claim that they are members of the United Church who
happen to be Jews is about as valid as someone who says they are a Sunni Muslim who happens to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church."

Hungary holds landmark anti-Nazi protest, after far-right lawmaker called to ‘screen Jews’ as security risks
Budapest rally is ‘the most important demonstration since Hungary became a democracy,’ says Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel director

Egypt won’t enter rink with Israel

Sports Minister Amer Farouq threatened to pull funding from roller hockey club if it played against Jewish state
"The Egyptian national roller hockey team on Friday boycotted a world championship game against Israel, reportedly on orders of Sports Minister Amer Farouq, who said he didn’t recognize Israel as a state, Israel Sports 5 reported on Sunday."

Tel Aviv Bus Attack Heroes Feted for Saving Lives
Security staff from the Ministry of Justice in Tel Aviv received awards Sunday for saving lives, and capturing a terrorist.

Alanis Morissette lands in Israel
Canadian chanteuse set to perform her first gig in Israel since 2000

"Morissette decided to expedite her arrival so that her family could enjoy a few days in Israel, including a visit to Jerusalem’s Old City."

Iron Dome sparks interest from potential buyers around world

"South Korea, Singapore reportedly in talks to purchase the missile defense system following impressive interception rate in last conflict with Hamas Clinton: The Iron Dome system knocked rockets out of the sky like never before."

Top Australian company buys into Israeli natural gas
Woodside Petroleum will pay up to $2.5 billion for a 30% stake in the Leviathan offshore
field

"Reuters reported on Monday that Woodside’s agreement also allows the company to be involved in future offshore exploration, via two already extant Israeli offshore petroleum licences. CEO Coleman said that this aspect of the deal was “an exciting opportunity to grow our portfolio in the emerging Eastern Mediterranean basin.”

Plus: Essential Apps When Under Fire

Expert:"Iran behind DDoS attack on US banks"

The first six minutes of this video shows Mike McConnell, former Director of National Intelligence and now working at Booz Hamilton, directly saying that Iran was behind the denial of service attacks that some major US banks suffered last September.

The consensus is that Iran attacked the US in a semi-sophisticated cyber-terrorist attack. (The target is not military, but civilian infrastructure, so any way you look at it, this is terrorism.)

This was apparently already common knowledge in some circles in October:

Iranian hackers renewed a campaign of cyberattacks against U.S. banks this week, targeting Capital One Financial Corp. COF +0.36% and BB&T Corp. BBT +0.07% and openly defying U.S. warnings to halt, U.S. officials and others involved in the investigation into the attacks said.

The attacks, which disrupted the banks' websites, showed the ability of the Iranian group to sustain its cyberassault on the nation's largest banks for a fifth week, even as it announced its plans to attack in advance.

U.S. officials said the attacks against banks, and others against Middle Eastern energy companies, were sponsored by the Iranian government and approved at high levels as part of a low-grade cyberwar that officials warned could lead to retaliation.

Unclear is at what point attacks on individual banks constitute an assault on the overall financial system that would call for a forceful response from the U.S. military, which has formed a "Cyber Command" to help defend government computers and critical civilian networks.

"It is a fair question," said a senior U.S. official. "I am not sure I have the answer to it."

PalArab music video says it all

Seen on Palestine Today:

The translation - which, I understand, is very heavy on "Oh our Gaza, oh our (West) Bank, oh fire, oh volcano... Tel-Aviv is a token... We won, we won, we won" is not very important.

The part that is interesting to me is that the video - already with thousands of views in two days - does not distinguish between rockets towards Israeli civilians, Israeli women running to shelters, the bus bombing in Tel Aviv, dead Gaza babies - and Abbas' UN stunt.

All of those represent "victory."

Think about it. While the West tries mightily to distinguish between the "moderate" Palestinian Arabs who are supposedly aghast at terror and who really want peace, and the "tiny minority of extremists" who love violence, videos like this - which are a dime a dozen - show that there is really no distinction at all.

The goal is the same: the destruction of Israel. Rockets, they believe, further that goal, as do bus bombings.

But so do dead Gaza kids - because they help demonize Israel in the media.

And so does Abbas' UN stunt - because it pressures Israel to give up land.

Those are all tactics. But the goal is the same, whether in ten years or a hundred.

The people who made this video, and those who watch it, don't see any distinction between "moderate" and "extremist." The "moderates" in Ramallah cheered random rocket fire towards Israeli cities no less than the "extremists" in Hamas. The distinction is an artificial construct created by Westerners to justify pressuring Israel to give up more and more in the name of "peace."

The reality, however, is reflected in this video.

(h/t Al Gharqad)

Leila Khaled, one of the most notorious terrorists from the early days of Palestinian Arab nationalism, is set to visit Gaza tomorrow.

Khaled was involved in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Athens in 1969, diverting the Boeing 707 to Damascus and then blowing up the plane after the passengers had been taken off. She also attempted to hijack El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York City in 1970 as part of the Dawson's Field hijackings, carried out by the PFLP, but she was foiled and ended up in a British prison for less than a month, as the British gave her up in a PFLP prisoner exchange.

Israel-haters have latched on to her iconic image, romanticizing her violence (she was caught carrying two hand grenades and her partner shot a member of the flight crew.)

The unrepentant terrorist will arrive from Jordan and enter through Egypt. She will be honored at a number of ceremonies by the PFLP and other terror groups in Gaza.

A match made in hell.

Hamas, Fatah and Israeli priorities (Zvi)

From Zvi:

The following juxtaposition says pretty much everything.

What's important to Hamas
Hamas' Osama Hamdan: Palestinian state without an armed struggle against Israel is worthless

He also reiterated Hamas’s commitment to the armed struggle against Israel. He said that his movement would continue to seek the “liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

What's important to Fatah
Incitement against Israel in PA is getting worse

This section also included a Facebook page of an elementary school in Kalkilya where the sentence “I hate Israel” was written in 16 different languages, and another Facebook page from a high school in Tulkarm that included a picture of Adolf Hitler over the words, “I could have killed all the Jews in the world, but I left some of them so you will know why I killed them.”

What's important to Israel

More than a million people – especially pregnant women and children up to the age of five – die each year of malaria... .

Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have figured out how the most dangerous strain “tricks” the immune system, paving the way for the development of new approaches to cure this acute infection.

Dr. Ron Dzikowski and research student Inbar Avraham revealed for the first time the genetic mechanism that enables a parasite to selectively express one protein while hiding other proteins from the immune system.

By combining bioinformation and genetic methods, the researchers identified a unique DNA sequence found in the regulatory regions of the gene family that encode for these surface proteins."

This is a huge breakthrough in the global war against malaria - brought to you by Israeli researchers.

Any questions?

The truth about E-1

Many articles in the past 48 hours have included breathless statements like this one:

Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said: "If we build in E1 the two-state vision will truly be history ... it is a strategic point that if built, will prevent the Palestinians from having a normal state."

The usual keyword is "viable":

...[E]ven friendly European countries are fed up with Israel’s continuing illegal settlement of areas the Palestinians will need if they are to have a viable state...

Palestinians bitterly oppose the project, as it would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two, north to south, and sever it from Jerusalem, and make the creation of a viable Palestinian state even more problematic.

That announcement included 3,000 new settler homes and sped up plans for building a settlement in an area vital for a viable Palestinian state, connecting the West Bank with East Jerusalem, known as E-1.

Once again, anti-Israel activists repeat a mantra that lazy journalists pick up on and accept as the truth.

And once again, the Israeli government is not helping matters; no one is explaining that the viability of a Palestinian Arab state is not affected by building in E1.

If you are interested in the facts, the JCPA published a good article on this very issue - in 2009:

The E-1 area is a part of the Israeli city of Maale Adumim, located immediately adjacent to Jerusalem. There is an E-1 construction plan that was devised in order to link Maale Adumim and its 36,000 residents to Jerusalem. Every Israeli prime minister since Yitzhak Rabin has supported the plan. The E-1 site covers an area of largely uninhabited, state-owned land.

Without control of the E-1 area, Israel is apprehensive about a Palestinian belt of construction that will threaten Jerusalem from the east, block the city’s development eastward, and undermine Israel’s control of the Jerusalem-Jericho road. This major artery is of paramount strategic importance for Israel in order to transport troops and equipment eastward and northward via the Jordan Rift Valley in time of war.

Contrary to reports, the completion of E-1 would not cut the West Bank in half and undermine Palestinian contiguity. Israel has planned a new road that would allow Palestinian traffic coming from the south to pass eastward of Maale Adumim and continue northward to connect with the cities in the northern West Bank. This Palestinian bypass road would actually reduce the time for Palestinian drivers traveling in a north-south direction who would encounter no Israeli roadblocks.

The main threat to Israel’s future contiguity comes from encroachments on E-1 made by illegal Palestinian construction. Israeli and Palestinian construction in the West Bank has been governed by the legal terms of the Oslo II Interim Agreement from September 28, 1995. The area around E-1 is within Area C, where, according to Oslo II, Israel retained the powers of zoning and planning. As a result, much of the recently completed Palestinian construction there is illegal. In contrast, none of the Oslo Agreements prohibited Israeli settlement activity, though Israel undertook unilateral limitations upon itself in this area in recent years.

Israeli construction of E-1 will not undermine Palestinian contiguity, but were Israel to lose control of E-1, the contiguity of Israel would be severely compromised.

...The Israeli interest, one that tends to be ignored by the international community, is to bring E-1 to fruition by establishing contiguity between Jerusalem in the west and Maale Adumim as well as the approaches to the Dead Sea in the east, as part of a security belt of Jewish communities surrounding Israel’s capital. Without control of the E-1 area, Israel is apprehensive about a Palestinian belt of construction that will threaten Jerusalem from the east, block the city’s development eastward, and undermine Israel’s control of the Jerusalem-Jericho road. This major artery is of paramount strategic importance for Israel in order to transport troops and equipment eastward and northward via the Jordan Rift Valley in time of war, and this road is already subject to growing pressure from unchecked Palestinian building.

...With a view toward consolidating Jerusalem’s status as the capital of Israel, successive Israeli governments planned and built a chain of neighborhoods and satellite towns around the city. Maale Adumim to the east, Givat Zeev to the north, and Efrat in the Etzion Bloc to the south were all established back in 1982. Beitar, southwest of Jerusalem, was established in 1990. Surrounding these satellite towns are dozens of additional communities. Israel views these satellite towns as part of a single Jerusalem metropolitan area.2 All Israeli governments have conceived this settlement bloc, akin to the other major settlement blocs established in the West Bank relatively close to the “green line,” as destined to remain within the area of the State of Israel and to be annexed to it in the framework of a permanent peace agreement.3

On April 14, 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush sent a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in this vein. In the letter, Bush declared that the U.S. position was that in any final Israeli-Palestinian arrangement, the demographic reality that was created on the ground since the Six-Day War should be taken into account, and that Israel could not be expected to withdraw totally from all areas of the West Bank.4 Sharon viewed the letter from President Bush as an Israeli achievement that derived from the decision by his government to approve the Gaza-Northern Samaria disengagement plan.

The route of the West Bank separation fence was plotted on the basis of the principle of eventually incorporating the major settlement blocs within Israel. Some 220,000 of the 290,000 settlers reside within these major settlement blocs. In general, Israel’s High Court of Justice has upheld the principle of including the settlement blocs west of the security fence.

...In a Knesset discussion on October 5, 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared: “United Jerusalem would also encompass Maale Adumim as well as Givat Zeev as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty.” Six months previously, in April, Rabin handed over the annexation documents of the E-1 area to Maale Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel.14 On March 13, 1996, Prime Minister Shimon Peres reaffirmed the government’s position that Israel will demand applying Israeli sovereignty over Maale Adumim in the framework of a permanent peace agreement.

...The main threat to Israel’s future contiguity comes from encroachments on E-1 made by illegal Palestinian construction. Israeli and Palestinian construction in the West Bank has been governed by the legal terms of the Oslo II Interim Agreement from September 28, 1995. Oslo II divided the West Bank into three different jurisdictions: Areas A, B, and C. In Area C, according to Oslo II, Israel retained the powers of zoning and planning (Annex III, Protocol Concerning Civil Affairs, Article 27). The area around E-1 is within Area C and much of the recently completed Palestinian construction there did not receive Israeli approval and, as a result, is illegal. In contrast, none of the Oslo Agreements prohibited Israeli settlement activity, which was considered an issue for permanent status negotiations in the future. Despite the absence of an Israeli settlement freeze, Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo II Interim Agreement, which covered the West Bank, nonetheless.

The real issue is not "Palestinian contiguity" - any glance at a map shows that to be a lie, something reporters cannot be bothered to do - but Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs, against all historical evidence, say that Jerusalem is "Palestinian" and an essential part of their hoped-for state. There is actually no reason a Palestinian Arab state must include parts of Jerusalem - right now, the PA is headquartered in Ramallah and functioning normally.

The reason they want Jerusalem is not because of historic or legal ties. It is because they know that Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people and they want to wrench that away. Once they weaken Israel's hold on the holy city they weaken Israel's very existence. All the other arguments are simply obfuscations around that simple fact.

Israelis know this, and so do Palestinian Arabs. The world media has yet not figured out this essential fact though, and parrot the lie that a Palestinian Arab state depends on Jerusalem. It doesn't, any more than Jordan depended on Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967.