Why the Gaza war is the only path to true peace
Many years ago Golda Meir made the now-famous statement that peace would come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel. Recent years have led me to rephrase this as follows: True peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs can gain more from a negotiated peace than they can through terror.
Like many Israeli citizens, I have been truly concerned over the past few years that peace would never come to the region. In the past few days, however, I have come to believe that we are finally on a path that can lead to true peace.
To understand what I mean, and to truly understand the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, we need to look at two recent events that changed the entire landscape of the conflict: The negotiations between Prime Minister Barak and Yaser Arafat ten years ago and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza three years ago.
Prime Minister Barak changed the entire dialog in Israel from the question of whether to give the Palestinians land for peace to the question of how much land to give and under what conditions. His famous offer of 98% of the West Bank and Gaza to create a Palestinian state made clear Israel's willingness to offer land for peace. Similarly, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza changed the dialog in Israel from whether to withdraw from Israeli settlement towns to when and how to do so. It demonstrated without question that Israel was willing to do so and in fact has now done so.
At the same time, however, Prime Minister Barak's negotiations with Yasser Arafat showed the futility in negotiations in which the Palestinians believe that they can get more through terror. With an offer on the table of 98% of the West Bank and Gaza, including all areas primarily occupied by Palestinian villages, the Palestinians chose a second intifada over accepting the offer. Even more so, when the Palestinains were given full control of the Gaza strip three years ago, with promises to withdraw subsequently from the West Bank, they chose not to build a functioning and peaceful society, but rather to fire thousands of rockets at Israeli towns.
These events bring me to the simple conclusion that the Palestinians believe that terror can bring them more than negotiation. The only way to stop this impasse is for Palestinian terror to have such a high price tag that they will choose peace through negotiation.
For three years the Palestinians have been shooting rockets at Israeli towns such as Sderot. Israel has never responded, hoping against hope that world opinion would influence the Palestinians abandon terror and choose peace. But this has not happened, because there was no price tag associated with terror. Why compromise when terror might bring more, with no cost?
Now, however, Israel has attached a price tag to terror. If the Palestinians choose terror, they will pay the price instead of Israeli towns paying the price. This price tag, and only this price tag, brings the hope of a situation in which the Palestinians will choose negotiation over terror.
My hope is that when a cease fire is reached, Israel will make clear that any rockets fired at Israeli towns will bring a continuation of this response. There must be no options other than peace negotiation. Another hope is that the result will be a true two-sided compromise, not a negotiation under which Israel is presumed to give whatever the Palestinians want.
Israel has demonstrated its willingness to compromise and offer land for peace, and to withdraw from land and give it to the Palestinians. Israelis dream of a day that the Palestinians will respond by building a peaceful and productive country of their own. To realize this, terror must be given a high enough price so as not to be an option.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Wall St Journal article: Palestinians Need Israel to Win
OPINION
DECEMBER 29, 2008
Palestinians Need Israel to Win
If Hamas gets away with terror once again, the peace process will be over.
"Operation Peace for Galilee" -- Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon -- failed to convince the international public and even many Israelis that its goal was to promote reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world. In fact, the war had precisely the opposite results, preparing the way for Yasser Arafat's disastrous return to the West Bank and Gaza, and for Hezbollah's ultimate domination of Lebanon. And yet, Israel's current operation in Gaza is essential for creating the conditions that could eventually lead to a two-state solution.
Over the past two decades, a majority of Israelis have shifted from adamant opposition to Palestinian statehood to acknowledging the need for such a state. This transformation represented a historic victory for the Israeli left, which has long advocated Palestinian self-determination. The left's victory, though, remained largely theoretical: The right won the practical argument that no amount of concessions would grant international legitimacy to Israel's right to defend itself.
That was the unavoidable lesson of the failure of the Oslo peace process, which ended in the fall of 2000 with Israel's acceptance of President Bill Clinton's proposal for near-total withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the territories. The Palestinians responded with five years of terror.
...
Gaza is the test case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome of Israel's operation. The issue, rather, is Israel's ability to restore its deterrence power and uphold the principle that its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity.
Without the assurance that they will be allowed to protect their homes and families following withdrawal, Israelis will rightly perceive a two-state solution as an existential threat. They will continue to share the left-wing vision of coexistence with a peaceful Palestinian neighbor in theory, but in reality will heed the right's warnings of Jewish powerlessness.
The Gaza crisis also has implications for Israeli-Syrian negotiations. Here, too, Israelis will be unwilling to cede strategically vital territories -- in this case on the Golan Heights -- in an international environment in which any attempt to defend themselves will be denounced as unjustified aggression. Syria's role in triggering the Gaza conflict only deepens Israeli mistrust. The Damascus office of Hamas, which operates under the aegis of the regime of Bashar al Assad, vetoed the efforts of Hamas leaders in Gaza to extend the cease-fire and insisted on escalating rocket attacks.
In the coming days, the Gaza conflict is likely to intensify with a possible incursion of Israeli ground forces. Israel must be allowed to conclude this operation with a decisive victory over Hamas; the untenable situation of intermittent rocket fire and widespread arms smuggling must not be allowed to resume. This is an opportunity to redress Israel's failure to humble Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and to deal a substantial setback to another jihadist proxy of Iran.
It may also be the last chance to reassure Israelis of the viability of a two-state solution. Given the unfortunate historical resonance, Israel should refrain from calling its current operation, "Peace for Southern Israel." But without Hamas's defeat, there can be no serious progress toward a treaty that both satisfies Palestinian aspirations and allays Israel's fears. At stake in Gaza is nothing less than the future of the peace process.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Israel finally defends its citizens
Hi everyone. Here in Beit Shemesh we heard warplanes, and possibly missile explosions, today right before Shabbat lunch. As of now the news is good -- Israel appears to finally have done something right to defend its citizens against the thousands of rockets that have been fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza.
We're all praying that the Israeli army finish its mission successfully, quickly, with as few casualties as possible.
We're all praying that the Israeli army finish its mission successfully, quickly, with as few casualties as possible.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
NY Times Letter: When Labels Carry Moral Weight
Letters to the Public Editor
Other Voices: When Labels Carry Moral Weight
Published: December 20, 2008
Re “Separating the Terror and the Terrorists” (Dec. 14):
Dear Editor,
Choice of terminology is a moral statement. If morally neutral terminology is used for morally repugnant acts, it reduces the sense of repugnance. And when the same terminology is used for a moral and immoral act, a moral equivalence is created.
The Times and other news media influence the morals of our society. Do you want readers to believe that a terrorist deliberately killing civilians in a coffee shop is morally equivalent to, for example, American soldiers attacking the Nazis to end a world war, who certainly killed some civilians accidentally?
If society is conditioned by the media to treat moral and immoral actions as equivalent regardless of intent, context and goal, the media will have failed, and society will pay the price.
BRUCE DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh, Israel, Dec. 15, 2008
Other Voices: When Labels Carry Moral Weight
Published: December 20, 2008
Re “Separating the Terror and the Terrorists” (Dec. 14):
Dear Editor,
Choice of terminology is a moral statement. If morally neutral terminology is used for morally repugnant acts, it reduces the sense of repugnance. And when the same terminology is used for a moral and immoral act, a moral equivalence is created.
The Times and other news media influence the morals of our society. Do you want readers to believe that a terrorist deliberately killing civilians in a coffee shop is morally equivalent to, for example, American soldiers attacking the Nazis to end a world war, who certainly killed some civilians accidentally?
If society is conditioned by the media to treat moral and immoral actions as equivalent regardless of intent, context and goal, the media will have failed, and society will pay the price.
BRUCE DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh, Israel, Dec. 15, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wall St Journal: Israel's Truce With Hamas Is a Victory for Iran
From today's Wall Street Journal, a clear analysis of today's cease fire. Below is an excerpt, here's a link to the whole article...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383448634286853.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
OPINION
Israel's Truce With Hamas Is a Victory for Iran
By MICHAEL B. OREN
June 19, 2008; Page A13
Proponents of an Israeli-Palestinian accord are praising the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that went into effect this morning. Yet even if the agreement suspends violence temporarily -- though dozens of Hamas rockets struck Israel yesterday -- it represents a historic accomplishment for the jihadist forces most opposed to peace, and defeat for the Palestinians who might still have been Israel's partners.
The roots of this tragedy go back to the summer of 2005 and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The evacuation, intended to free Israel of Gaza's political and strategic burden, was hailed as a victory by Palestinian terrorist groups, above all Hamas.
Hamas proceeded to fire some 1,000 rocket and mortar shells into Israel. Six months later Hamas gunmen, taking advantage of an earlier cease-fire, infiltrated into Israel, killed two soldiers, and captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
Hamas's audacity spurred Hezbollah to mount a similar ambush against Israelis patrolling the Lebanese border, triggering a war in which Israel was once again humbled. Hamas now felt sufficiently emboldened to overthrow Gaza's Fatah-led government, and to declare itself regnant in the Strip. Subsequently, Hamas launched thousands more rocket and mortar salvos against Israel, rendering parts of the country nearly uninhabitable.
... (cut here) ...
The Olmert government will have to go vast lengths to portray this arrangement as anything other than a strategic and moral defeat. Hamas initiated a vicious war against Israel, destroyed and disrupted myriad Israeli lives, and has been rewarded with economic salvation and international prestige.
... (cut here) ...
As the primary sponsor of Hamas, Iran is the cease-fire's ultimate beneficiary. Having already surrounded Israel on three of its borders -- Gaza, Lebanon, Syria -- Iran is poised to penetrate the West Bank. By activating these fronts, Tehran can divert attention from its nuclear program and block any diplomatic effort.
The advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should recognize that fact when applauding quiet at any price. The cost of this truce may well be war.
Mr. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" (Norton, 2008).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383448634286853.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
OPINION
Israel's Truce With Hamas Is a Victory for Iran
By MICHAEL B. OREN
June 19, 2008; Page A13
Proponents of an Israeli-Palestinian accord are praising the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that went into effect this morning. Yet even if the agreement suspends violence temporarily -- though dozens of Hamas rockets struck Israel yesterday -- it represents a historic accomplishment for the jihadist forces most opposed to peace, and defeat for the Palestinians who might still have been Israel's partners.
The roots of this tragedy go back to the summer of 2005 and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The evacuation, intended to free Israel of Gaza's political and strategic burden, was hailed as a victory by Palestinian terrorist groups, above all Hamas.
Hamas proceeded to fire some 1,000 rocket and mortar shells into Israel. Six months later Hamas gunmen, taking advantage of an earlier cease-fire, infiltrated into Israel, killed two soldiers, and captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
Hamas's audacity spurred Hezbollah to mount a similar ambush against Israelis patrolling the Lebanese border, triggering a war in which Israel was once again humbled. Hamas now felt sufficiently emboldened to overthrow Gaza's Fatah-led government, and to declare itself regnant in the Strip. Subsequently, Hamas launched thousands more rocket and mortar salvos against Israel, rendering parts of the country nearly uninhabitable.
... (cut here) ...
The Olmert government will have to go vast lengths to portray this arrangement as anything other than a strategic and moral defeat. Hamas initiated a vicious war against Israel, destroyed and disrupted myriad Israeli lives, and has been rewarded with economic salvation and international prestige.
... (cut here) ...
As the primary sponsor of Hamas, Iran is the cease-fire's ultimate beneficiary. Having already surrounded Israel on three of its borders -- Gaza, Lebanon, Syria -- Iran is poised to penetrate the West Bank. By activating these fronts, Tehran can divert attention from its nuclear program and block any diplomatic effort.
The advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should recognize that fact when applauding quiet at any price. The cost of this truce may well be war.
Mr. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" (Norton, 2008).
Monday, June 16, 2008
WSJ: Sharansky: Democracies can't compromise on core values
Great article by Natan Sharansky in the Wall St Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121358021414976189.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
OPINION
Democracies Can't Compromise on Core Values
By NATAN SHARANSKY
June 16, 2008
As the American president embarked on his farewell tour of Europe last week, Der Spiegel, echoing the sentiments of a number of leading newspapers on the Continent, pronounced "Europe happy to see the back of Bush." Virtually everyone seems to believe that George W. Bush's tenure has undermined trans-Atlantic ties.
...
But while Mr. Bush is widely seen by Europeans as a religious cowboy with a Manichean view on the world, Europe's growing rift with America predates the current occupant of the White House. When a French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, declared that his country "cannot accept a politically unipolar world, nor a culturally uniform world, nor the unilateralism of a single hyper power," President Clinton was in the seventh year of his presidency and Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas.
The trans-Atlantic rift is not the function of one president, but the product of deep ideological forces that for generations have worked to shape the divergent views of Americans and Europeans. Foremost among these are different attitudes toward identity in general, and the relationship between identity and democracy in particular.
...
The controversy over whether Muslims should be able to wear a veil in public schools underscores the profound difference in attitudes between America and Europe. In Europe, large majorities support a law banning the veil in public schools. In the U.S., students wear the veil in public schools or state colleges largely without controversy.
At the same time severe limits are placed on the harmless expression of identity in the public square, some European governments refuse to insist that Muslim minorities abide by basic democratic norms. They turn a blind eye toward underage marriage, genital mutilation and honor killings.
The reality is that Muslim identity has grown stronger, has become more fundamentalist, and is increasingly contemptuous of a vapid "European" identity that has little vitality. All this may help explain why studies consistently show that efforts to integrate Muslims into society are much less effective in Europe than in America, where identity is much stronger.
Regardless of who wins in November, the attitudes of Americans toward the role of identity in democratic life are unlikely to change much. Relative to Europe, Americans will surely remain deeply patriotic and much more committed to their faiths.
...
Mr. Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident, is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. He is the author, most recently, of "Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy" (PublicAffairs).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121358021414976189.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
OPINION
Democracies Can't Compromise on Core Values
By NATAN SHARANSKY
June 16, 2008
As the American president embarked on his farewell tour of Europe last week, Der Spiegel, echoing the sentiments of a number of leading newspapers on the Continent, pronounced "Europe happy to see the back of Bush." Virtually everyone seems to believe that George W. Bush's tenure has undermined trans-Atlantic ties.
...
But while Mr. Bush is widely seen by Europeans as a religious cowboy with a Manichean view on the world, Europe's growing rift with America predates the current occupant of the White House. When a French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, declared that his country "cannot accept a politically unipolar world, nor a culturally uniform world, nor the unilateralism of a single hyper power," President Clinton was in the seventh year of his presidency and Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas.
The trans-Atlantic rift is not the function of one president, but the product of deep ideological forces that for generations have worked to shape the divergent views of Americans and Europeans. Foremost among these are different attitudes toward identity in general, and the relationship between identity and democracy in particular.
...
The controversy over whether Muslims should be able to wear a veil in public schools underscores the profound difference in attitudes between America and Europe. In Europe, large majorities support a law banning the veil in public schools. In the U.S., students wear the veil in public schools or state colleges largely without controversy.
At the same time severe limits are placed on the harmless expression of identity in the public square, some European governments refuse to insist that Muslim minorities abide by basic democratic norms. They turn a blind eye toward underage marriage, genital mutilation and honor killings.
The reality is that Muslim identity has grown stronger, has become more fundamentalist, and is increasingly contemptuous of a vapid "European" identity that has little vitality. All this may help explain why studies consistently show that efforts to integrate Muslims into society are much less effective in Europe than in America, where identity is much stronger.
Regardless of who wins in November, the attitudes of Americans toward the role of identity in democratic life are unlikely to change much. Relative to Europe, Americans will surely remain deeply patriotic and much more committed to their faiths.
...
Mr. Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident, is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. He is the author, most recently, of "Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy" (PublicAffairs).
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
New York Times letter about Palestinian choices
Letters
Israel’s Friends and the Path to Peace
Published: May 20, 2008
To the Editor:
Re “For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba,” by Elias Khoury (Op-Ed, May 18):
The biggest similarity between the war in 1948 and the continuing Israeli control of Palestinian towns in the West Bank is that both were the unfortunate choice of the Palestinians.
In 1948, Israel agreed to the United Nations partition plan, and was willing to live as a neighbor to a Palestinian state, but the Arabs chose war. After the war, Arab countries chose to put the Palestinian refugees into refugee camps, while Israel integrated an equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries into Israeli society.
And in 2005, Israel chose to withdraw from Gaza and plan for further evacuation of the West Bank, and the Palestinians chose to use Gaza to fire missiles at Israeli civilians rather than build a productive society. Clearly, Israel cannot transfer control of more territory if that territory will be used to fire missiles at our civilians.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, May 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/l20israel.html
Israel’s Friends and the Path to Peace
Published: May 20, 2008
To the Editor:
Re “For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba,” by Elias Khoury (Op-Ed, May 18):
The biggest similarity between the war in 1948 and the continuing Israeli control of Palestinian towns in the West Bank is that both were the unfortunate choice of the Palestinians.
In 1948, Israel agreed to the United Nations partition plan, and was willing to live as a neighbor to a Palestinian state, but the Arabs chose war. After the war, Arab countries chose to put the Palestinian refugees into refugee camps, while Israel integrated an equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries into Israeli society.
And in 2005, Israel chose to withdraw from Gaza and plan for further evacuation of the West Bank, and the Palestinians chose to use Gaza to fire missiles at Israeli civilians rather than build a productive society. Clearly, Israel cannot transfer control of more territory if that territory will be used to fire missiles at our civilians.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, May 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/l20israel.html
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Wall St Journal article: The Sderot Calculus
Not a letter to the editor, but an article from the Wall St Journal that needs to be read, distributed widely, and thought about. I quote excerpts below, the whole article is at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120398961080492299.html
The Sderot Calculus
February 26, 2008; Page A18
The Israeli town of Sderot lies less than a mile from the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the intifada seven years ago, it has borne the brunt of some 2,500 Kassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists. Only about a dozen of these Kassams have proved lethal, though earlier this month brothers Osher and Rami Twito were seriously injured by one as they walked down a Sderot street on a Saturday evening. Eight-year-old Osher lost a leg.
It is no stretch to say that life in Sderot has become unendurable. Palestinians and their chorus of supporters -- including the 118 countries of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, much of Europe, and the panoply of international aid organizations from the World Bank to the United Nations -- typically reply that life in the Gaza Strip is also unendurable, and that Palestinian casualties greatly exceed Israeli ones. But this argument is fatuous: Conditions in Gaza, in so far as they are shaped by Israel, are a function of conditions in Sderot. No Palestinian Kassams (or other forms of terrorism), no Israeli "siege."
The more vexing question, both morally and strategically, is what Israel ought to do about Gaza. The standard answer is that Israel's response to the Kassams ought to be "proportionate." What does that mean? Does the "proportion" apply to the intention of those firing the Kassams -- to wit, indiscriminate terror against civilian populations? In that case, a "proportionate" Israeli response would involve, perhaps, firing 2,500 artillery shells at random against civilian targets in Gaza.
...
Prudence is an important consideration of statesmanship, but self-respect is vital. And no self-respecting nation can allow the situation in Sderot to continue much longer, a point it is in every civilized country's interest to understand.
On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Gen. John J. Pershing and 10,000 soldiers into Mexico for nearly a year to hunt Villa down, in what was explicitly called a "punitive expedition." Pershing never found Villa, making the effort something of a failure. Then again, Villa's raid would be the last significant foreign attack on continental U.S. soil for 85 years, six months and two days.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120398961080492299.html
The Sderot Calculus
February 26, 2008; Page A18
The Israeli town of Sderot lies less than a mile from the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the intifada seven years ago, it has borne the brunt of some 2,500 Kassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists. Only about a dozen of these Kassams have proved lethal, though earlier this month brothers Osher and Rami Twito were seriously injured by one as they walked down a Sderot street on a Saturday evening. Eight-year-old Osher lost a leg.
It is no stretch to say that life in Sderot has become unendurable. Palestinians and their chorus of supporters -- including the 118 countries of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, much of Europe, and the panoply of international aid organizations from the World Bank to the United Nations -- typically reply that life in the Gaza Strip is also unendurable, and that Palestinian casualties greatly exceed Israeli ones. But this argument is fatuous: Conditions in Gaza, in so far as they are shaped by Israel, are a function of conditions in Sderot. No Palestinian Kassams (or other forms of terrorism), no Israeli "siege."
The more vexing question, both morally and strategically, is what Israel ought to do about Gaza. The standard answer is that Israel's response to the Kassams ought to be "proportionate." What does that mean? Does the "proportion" apply to the intention of those firing the Kassams -- to wit, indiscriminate terror against civilian populations? In that case, a "proportionate" Israeli response would involve, perhaps, firing 2,500 artillery shells at random against civilian targets in Gaza.
...
Prudence is an important consideration of statesmanship, but self-respect is vital. And no self-respecting nation can allow the situation in Sderot to continue much longer, a point it is in every civilized country's interest to understand.
On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Gen. John J. Pershing and 10,000 soldiers into Mexico for nearly a year to hunt Villa down, in what was explicitly called a "punitive expedition." Pershing never found Villa, making the effort something of a failure. Then again, Villa's raid would be the last significant foreign attack on continental U.S. soil for 85 years, six months and two days.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Rocket fire against Sderot
This is a picture of Asher Twito, an 8 year old Israeli boy from Sderot who lost a leg in a rocket attack Saturday night. So far, as of Monday, I've seen no news coverage of the event, no indignation, noone demanding that something be done to eliminate the rocket fire from Gaza that's terrorizing Israeli civilians in Sderot and other nearby towns.
When will anyone in the world stand up and say that rocket fire against civilians has to stop? When will someone make it clear that the Palestinians have to take land that they have and create a peaceful society?
Friday, January 11, 2008
Reuters reports how Palestinians welcome President Bush
Thousands protest in Gaza against "vampire" Bush
Wed Jan 9, 2008 10:06am EST
By Nidal al-MughrabiGAZA, Jan 9 (Reuters) -
Brandishing placards showing George W. Bush as a vampire swigging Muslim blood, thousands of Hamas supporters protested in Gaza on Wednesday against the U.S. president's visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Some 20,000 members of the Islamist group, shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence, set U.S. and Israeli flags alight. Bush was a "butcher" whose first presidential visit to the Holy Land was skewed towards helping Israel, they said.
"In his first words Bush talked about Israel, its security, its democracy and the right of America and Israel to defend themselves," senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters at the rally.
"He did not talk about settlements or the assaults against our people." In Jerusalem, Jewish families waved Israeli and American flags and cheered Bush, who hopes his visit will invigorate efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he leaves office.
Protesters in Gaza, which Hamas seized in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces, waved green Hamas flags as well as posters with pictures of Bush as a vampire drinking from a cup marked "Muslim blood".
Hamas said tens of thousands attended the protest while witnesses put the number at about 20,000.
Hamas refuses to recognise Israel and has vowed to undermine Abbas's efforts to make peace with the Jewish state in exchange for an independent Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank. Its control of the Gaza Strip is likely to complicate any accord.
Six weeks ago, Olmert and Abbas agreed at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch peace negotations but talks have been paralysed by a row over Israeli settlement activity.Many Palestinians are deeply sceptical about the chances for peace. Bush will not visit Gaza during the trip.
Israeli has stepped up raids into Gaza since Annapolis in response to rocket fire from militants. Some Hamas officials say they expect Bush to approve tougher reprisals.
Earlier, gunmen who said they were from a previously unknown Islamist group called "Army of the Nation" told a news conference they would try to kill Bush during his visit. It was unclear how much of a threat they posed.
The group said it adopted al Qaeda-style ideology but had no official ties with the group against which Bush has waged war.
(Writing by Rebecca Harrison; Editing by Robert Woodward)
Wed Jan 9, 2008 10:06am EST
By Nidal al-MughrabiGAZA, Jan 9 (Reuters) -
Brandishing placards showing George W. Bush as a vampire swigging Muslim blood, thousands of Hamas supporters protested in Gaza on Wednesday against the U.S. president's visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Some 20,000 members of the Islamist group, shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence, set U.S. and Israeli flags alight. Bush was a "butcher" whose first presidential visit to the Holy Land was skewed towards helping Israel, they said.
"In his first words Bush talked about Israel, its security, its democracy and the right of America and Israel to defend themselves," senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters at the rally.
"He did not talk about settlements or the assaults against our people." In Jerusalem, Jewish families waved Israeli and American flags and cheered Bush, who hopes his visit will invigorate efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he leaves office.
Protesters in Gaza, which Hamas seized in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces, waved green Hamas flags as well as posters with pictures of Bush as a vampire drinking from a cup marked "Muslim blood".
Hamas said tens of thousands attended the protest while witnesses put the number at about 20,000.
Hamas refuses to recognise Israel and has vowed to undermine Abbas's efforts to make peace with the Jewish state in exchange for an independent Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank. Its control of the Gaza Strip is likely to complicate any accord.
Six weeks ago, Olmert and Abbas agreed at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch peace negotations but talks have been paralysed by a row over Israeli settlement activity.Many Palestinians are deeply sceptical about the chances for peace. Bush will not visit Gaza during the trip.
Israeli has stepped up raids into Gaza since Annapolis in response to rocket fire from militants. Some Hamas officials say they expect Bush to approve tougher reprisals.
Earlier, gunmen who said they were from a previously unknown Islamist group called "Army of the Nation" told a news conference they would try to kill Bush during his visit. It was unclear how much of a threat they posed.
The group said it adopted al Qaeda-style ideology but had no official ties with the group against which Bush has waged war.
(Writing by Rebecca Harrison; Editing by Robert Woodward)
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Wall St Journal: On the Jewish Question
This is not a letter of mine, but rather an excellent article that I think is a clear representation of an issue that most people don't want to admit, and is unfortunately prophetic in terms of the meetings in Anapolis:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119604260214503526.html
COMMENTARY
On the Jewish Question
By BERNARD LEWIS
November 26, 2007; Page A21
Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow's Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is the conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.
A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli contribution to the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse. These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.
Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the size of Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose -- to destroy Israel. Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.
Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University Press, 2004).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119604260214503526.html
COMMENTARY
On the Jewish Question
By BERNARD LEWIS
November 26, 2007; Page A21
Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow's Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is the conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.
A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli contribution to the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse. These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.
Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the size of Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose -- to destroy Israel. Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.
Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Friday, November 09, 2007
NY Times letter about Middle East peace
The following letter was published in the New York Times on Nov 9, in regard to David Brooks' Nov 6 column titled "Present at the Creation."
Letters
So Much to Juggle in the Middle East
Published: November 9, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “Present at the Creation” (column, Nov. 6):
David Brooks probably reflects the thinking of political leaders and thinkers, but misses the pain felt by Israelis on the subject: We want peace desperately, and will do anything to move toward a life without rockets being shot at us. But such a path doesn’t appear to exist.
Two years ago, Israel did what should have been the first step on a definite path to peace: we withdrew from Gaza, without any promise of anything in return. Plans were put in place about subsequent withdrawals from West Bank areas. But instead of bringing peace, it brought thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into the nearby Israeli civilian town of Sderot.
Rockets are not peace. The Palestinians have made it clear that Israeli withdrawals bring rockets.
The Israeli government has a duty to its citizens not to invite more rockets. If America or anyone else can persuade the Palestinians to stop the rockets and commit to peace without violence, Israelis will be more than happy to take steps toward peace. But it must be true peace, not peace with rockets.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, Nov. 6, 2007
Letters
So Much to Juggle in the Middle East
Published: November 9, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “Present at the Creation” (column, Nov. 6):
David Brooks probably reflects the thinking of political leaders and thinkers, but misses the pain felt by Israelis on the subject: We want peace desperately, and will do anything to move toward a life without rockets being shot at us. But such a path doesn’t appear to exist.
Two years ago, Israel did what should have been the first step on a definite path to peace: we withdrew from Gaza, without any promise of anything in return. Plans were put in place about subsequent withdrawals from West Bank areas. But instead of bringing peace, it brought thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into the nearby Israeli civilian town of Sderot.
Rockets are not peace. The Palestinians have made it clear that Israeli withdrawals bring rockets.
The Israeli government has a duty to its citizens not to invite more rockets. If America or anyone else can persuade the Palestinians to stop the rockets and commit to peace without violence, Israelis will be more than happy to take steps toward peace. But it must be true peace, not peace with rockets.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, Nov. 6, 2007
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Jerusalem Post letter: Humanism and G-d (Sep 7, 2007)
Humanism & God
Sir, - I found it disturbing to read "Why serve God?" (Letters, August 31), whose writer felt that a religious worldview that focuses exclusively on serving the Creator is "utterly irreconcilable" with "our own" humanistic purposes.
I don't think it's hard to understand that a Creator's Will would include humanistic initiatives and interpersonal values. Just because some rabbis focus on ritual does not mean that Judaism does not value hesed, care for others, just as much. I suggest it's worth exploring religion broadly before dismissing it, and not stopping after the headlines.
DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh
Sir, - I found it disturbing to read "Why serve God?" (Letters, August 31), whose writer felt that a religious worldview that focuses exclusively on serving the Creator is "utterly irreconcilable" with "our own" humanistic purposes.
I don't think it's hard to understand that a Creator's Will would include humanistic initiatives and interpersonal values. Just because some rabbis focus on ritual does not mean that Judaism does not value hesed, care for others, just as much. I suggest it's worth exploring religion broadly before dismissing it, and not stopping after the headlines.
DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh
Friday, August 24, 2007
Letter to CNN from Israel Director of Christian Friends of Israeli Communities
This letter was not written by me, rather it was written by Sondra Oster Baras, who appeared in CNN's recent piece titled "G-d's Jewish Warriors." I'll let the letter speak for itself.
To: CNN producer Jen Christensen
From: Sondra Oster Baras
Director, Israel Office
Christian Friends of Israeli Communities
Dear Jen,
Well, I saw it last night. Your portrayal of me was fair. Myonly comment was that I never said I had a calling from G-d to dowhat I do. I don't have that kind of direct line, although manyof my Christian friends believe they do. What I said is that iswas my calling -- meant in a far more secular way. I also saidthat it is something I believe G-d wants me to be doing.
However, all that is minor compared to what I believe is theincredibly slanted presentation you made. There have beenexactly 4 Jewish terrorist incidents or attempted incidents andyou devoted half the program to them, discussing each one indetail. The people who support these are a fringe minority androundly condemned by 98% of the settlement movement. People likeChanan Porat and myself are the representative, and yet you gavefar more time to Yehuda Etzion and David HaIvri and the otherswho support this position. If you gave similar time to everysingle Arab terrorist attack, the show would go on for days ifnot years. Is that fair?
There is a great difference between believing that what you aredoing is right and just according to your faith and taking thatfaith to crusader proportions, which we absolutely won't do.
Also, the legality of the settlements issue was so incrediblybiased. Eugene Rostow, undersecretary of State wrote a seminalarticle defending their legality in the 80's, as did the IsraeliSupreme Court -- yet not a mention was made of that perspective.This is not just about the conflict between Torah law anddemocracy and international law. International law itself can beseen from two different perspectives and that is exactly howMenachem Begin saw it. And, as a former attorney myself, that isexactly how I see it. Why was that not discussed?
And since when is Gershon Gorenberg the international expert onall of this? He comes from a clearly biased position, and yet hewas placed in the position of the reasoned intellectual on theissue. As were the other "experts" and historians you quoted.Why did you not quote a single legal or historical expert on theother side? If you needed help finding some, I would have beenglad to help.
Jen, I am disappointed in you and the others. But I am notsurprised. Please pass this on to Andy and Jody and anyone elseinvolved. I just do not have their e-mail addresses with me -- Iam currently in LA. I plan on writing a detailed letterevaluating and analyzing the program when I get back to the USand will send it to you as well as to others. If you'd like todiscuss this in person, I am on my cellphone -- .
However, all that being said, I am glad I participated if only toensure that at least a small part of the program included sanecommentary. How said that this is how we need to see CNN.
Shalom,
Sondra Oster Baras
Director, Israel Office
Christian Friends of Israeli Communities
To: CNN producer Jen Christensen
From: Sondra Oster Baras
Director, Israel Office
Christian Friends of Israeli Communities
Dear Jen,
Well, I saw it last night. Your portrayal of me was fair. Myonly comment was that I never said I had a calling from G-d to dowhat I do. I don't have that kind of direct line, although manyof my Christian friends believe they do. What I said is that iswas my calling -- meant in a far more secular way. I also saidthat it is something I believe G-d wants me to be doing.
However, all that is minor compared to what I believe is theincredibly slanted presentation you made. There have beenexactly 4 Jewish terrorist incidents or attempted incidents andyou devoted half the program to them, discussing each one indetail. The people who support these are a fringe minority androundly condemned by 98% of the settlement movement. People likeChanan Porat and myself are the representative, and yet you gavefar more time to Yehuda Etzion and David HaIvri and the otherswho support this position. If you gave similar time to everysingle Arab terrorist attack, the show would go on for days ifnot years. Is that fair?
There is a great difference between believing that what you aredoing is right and just according to your faith and taking thatfaith to crusader proportions, which we absolutely won't do.
Also, the legality of the settlements issue was so incrediblybiased. Eugene Rostow, undersecretary of State wrote a seminalarticle defending their legality in the 80's, as did the IsraeliSupreme Court -- yet not a mention was made of that perspective.This is not just about the conflict between Torah law anddemocracy and international law. International law itself can beseen from two different perspectives and that is exactly howMenachem Begin saw it. And, as a former attorney myself, that isexactly how I see it. Why was that not discussed?
And since when is Gershon Gorenberg the international expert onall of this? He comes from a clearly biased position, and yet hewas placed in the position of the reasoned intellectual on theissue. As were the other "experts" and historians you quoted.Why did you not quote a single legal or historical expert on theother side? If you needed help finding some, I would have beenglad to help.
Jen, I am disappointed in you and the others. But I am notsurprised. Please pass this on to Andy and Jody and anyone elseinvolved. I just do not have their e-mail addresses with me -- Iam currently in LA. I plan on writing a detailed letterevaluating and analyzing the program when I get back to the USand will send it to you as well as to others. If you'd like todiscuss this in person, I am on my cellphone -- .
However, all that being said, I am glad I participated if only toensure that at least a small part of the program included sanecommentary. How said that this is how we need to see CNN.
Shalom,
Sondra Oster Baras
Director, Israel Office
Christian Friends of Israeli Communities
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Western fictions, Arab realities
Not a letter to the editor of mine, but rather an interesting Op/Ed piece from the LA Times:
We want a peaceful, democratic Mideast, but are we the only ones?
June 19, 2007
I HAVE BEEN scouring EBay for the last couple of days, hoping to snag a one-of-a-kind item. But, alas, it hasn't turned up yet. I'm looking for the late Yasser Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize. It was looted from Arafat's Gaza compound by the victorious forces of Hamas, a jihadist group backed by Iran and Syria that has routed the once-mighty forces of Fatah from power in Gaza. According to the Jerusalem Post, a Fatah spokesman said: "They stole all the widow's clothes and shoes."
The widow in question would be Suha Arafat, Arafat's photo-op wife. Who can blame the looters for wanting to grab as much of her swag as possible? First of all, she wasn't using it. Suha hasn't been to Gaza for years. And her favorite shoe designer is Christian Louboutin, whose wares can fetch about $1,000 a pair, which is more than many Palestinians make in a year.
But it's that peace prize, won by Arafat and Shimon Peres for agreeing to the 1993 Oslo accords, that really captures the lunacy of it all. It's the perfect reminder for everyone, myself included, of the Arabs' refusal to yield to idealism, hope or good intentions — and the West's refusal to recognize reality.
"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing," former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser once said. But from the U.S. point of view, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Maybe they just don't want what we're selling?
For example, in 2005, Israel simply gave Gaza to the Palestinians. According to the "international community's" land-for-peace mantra, a peaceful society should have sprouted like a stalk from Jack's magic beans. Instead, nearly 49% of the Palestinian people voted for a band of Islamic fanatics — even the European Union calls them terrorists, not that it matters much — dedicated to the destruction of Israel. But the diplomacy-uber-alles crowd has long been immune to contrary evidence. Remember when Arafat fanned the second intifada in spite of a generous peace offer from the Israelis and brokered by President Clinton? Members of the Nobel committee openly talked of revoking the peace prize — from Peres.
And now, the editors of the New York Times, President Bush and the leaders of the EU all say that this is the moment for Israel to offer more concessions to Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas. So much for the fresh-from-Iraq cliche that it's pointless to choose sides in a civil war.
Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, lamented, "Once again, extremists carrying guns have prevented progress against the wishes of the majority who seek a peaceful two-state solution." But how do you square this with the fact that Hamas, the party promising the destruction of Israel, won the Palestinian elections in 2005? Meanwhile, the leaders of Fatah — the "moderates" — had not long ago set the standard for Israel-hatred themselves.
The great irony is that Hamas now labels members of Fatah as Jewish "collaborators," a designation that apparently justifies even the execution of wounded Fatah prisoners in hospitals.
The German foreign ministry went so far as to suggest that the triumph of Hamas — and the hardships it will cause civilians — are clear grounds for increasing aid to Gaza. It seems that if you choose terrorism, either at the ballot box or in the streets, the Europeans, like the good hands at Allstate, will be there to pay for the mess.
But there's another, perhaps more important, lesson to be drawn from the Hamas ascendancy. The Bush administration pushed for democracy in the Palestinian territories, and it got what it wished for — in spades. The assumption behind the push for democracy in Gaza and in Iraq is that Arabs can be trusted to handle political freedom. The Democrats who demand an immediate pullout from Iraq also hope that with democracy, the Iraqis will be able to figure out their problems themselves via some euphemistic "political solution." That is unless the antiwar Democrats are really advocating turning all of Mesopotamia into one giant Gaza Strip, the far more likely result of U.S. withdrawal.
For many disciples of the "international peace process," it's a matter of faith that the Palestinians just have to want peace, because how else can you have a peace process? For many supporters of the Bush Doctrine, Iraqis have to want democracy, because if they don't, what's the point of having a freedom agenda? But what if these are just beloved Western fictions? We see a well-lighted path to the good life: democracy, tolerance, rule of law, markets. But what if the Arab world just isn't interested in our path? As a believer in the freedom agenda, that's what scares me most.
jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
Western fictions, Arab realities
We want a peaceful, democratic Mideast, but are we the only ones?
June 19, 2007
I HAVE BEEN scouring EBay for the last couple of days, hoping to snag a one-of-a-kind item. But, alas, it hasn't turned up yet. I'm looking for the late Yasser Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize. It was looted from Arafat's Gaza compound by the victorious forces of Hamas, a jihadist group backed by Iran and Syria that has routed the once-mighty forces of Fatah from power in Gaza. According to the Jerusalem Post, a Fatah spokesman said: "They stole all the widow's clothes and shoes."
The widow in question would be Suha Arafat, Arafat's photo-op wife. Who can blame the looters for wanting to grab as much of her swag as possible? First of all, she wasn't using it. Suha hasn't been to Gaza for years. And her favorite shoe designer is Christian Louboutin, whose wares can fetch about $1,000 a pair, which is more than many Palestinians make in a year.
But it's that peace prize, won by Arafat and Shimon Peres for agreeing to the 1993 Oslo accords, that really captures the lunacy of it all. It's the perfect reminder for everyone, myself included, of the Arabs' refusal to yield to idealism, hope or good intentions — and the West's refusal to recognize reality.
"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing," former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser once said. But from the U.S. point of view, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Maybe they just don't want what we're selling?
For example, in 2005, Israel simply gave Gaza to the Palestinians. According to the "international community's" land-for-peace mantra, a peaceful society should have sprouted like a stalk from Jack's magic beans. Instead, nearly 49% of the Palestinian people voted for a band of Islamic fanatics — even the European Union calls them terrorists, not that it matters much — dedicated to the destruction of Israel. But the diplomacy-uber-alles crowd has long been immune to contrary evidence. Remember when Arafat fanned the second intifada in spite of a generous peace offer from the Israelis and brokered by President Clinton? Members of the Nobel committee openly talked of revoking the peace prize — from Peres.
And now, the editors of the New York Times, President Bush and the leaders of the EU all say that this is the moment for Israel to offer more concessions to Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas. So much for the fresh-from-Iraq cliche that it's pointless to choose sides in a civil war.
Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, lamented, "Once again, extremists carrying guns have prevented progress against the wishes of the majority who seek a peaceful two-state solution." But how do you square this with the fact that Hamas, the party promising the destruction of Israel, won the Palestinian elections in 2005? Meanwhile, the leaders of Fatah — the "moderates" — had not long ago set the standard for Israel-hatred themselves.
The great irony is that Hamas now labels members of Fatah as Jewish "collaborators," a designation that apparently justifies even the execution of wounded Fatah prisoners in hospitals.
The German foreign ministry went so far as to suggest that the triumph of Hamas — and the hardships it will cause civilians — are clear grounds for increasing aid to Gaza. It seems that if you choose terrorism, either at the ballot box or in the streets, the Europeans, like the good hands at Allstate, will be there to pay for the mess.
But there's another, perhaps more important, lesson to be drawn from the Hamas ascendancy. The Bush administration pushed for democracy in the Palestinian territories, and it got what it wished for — in spades. The assumption behind the push for democracy in Gaza and in Iraq is that Arabs can be trusted to handle political freedom. The Democrats who demand an immediate pullout from Iraq also hope that with democracy, the Iraqis will be able to figure out their problems themselves via some euphemistic "political solution." That is unless the antiwar Democrats are really advocating turning all of Mesopotamia into one giant Gaza Strip, the far more likely result of U.S. withdrawal.
For many disciples of the "international peace process," it's a matter of faith that the Palestinians just have to want peace, because how else can you have a peace process? For many supporters of the Bush Doctrine, Iraqis have to want democracy, because if they don't, what's the point of having a freedom agenda? But what if these are just beloved Western fictions? We see a well-lighted path to the good life: democracy, tolerance, rule of law, markets. But what if the Arab world just isn't interested in our path? As a believer in the freedom agenda, that's what scares me most.
jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
Thursday, April 26, 2007
New York Times letter: West Bank Settlers (April 26, 2007)
Printed in the New York Times, April 26, 2007:
West Bank Settlers (2 Letters)
Published: April 26, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “Settlers’ Defiance Reflects Postwar Israeli Changes” (front page, April 22):
Two years ago Israel decided to withdraw from Gaza in an attempt to take a step forward toward peace. The failure of that attempt, and the fact that the withdrawal has led to more than a thousand Palestinian rockets and countless resulting deaths, are not political issues but a historical reality.
If the Palestinians want peace, they need to respond peacefully to Israeli attempts to make peace. If they continue to shoot rockets out of areas from which Israel withdraws, they will be proving that disengagement cannot succeed in bringing peace.
It’s their choice, and the consequences are their fault.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, April 22, 2007
West Bank Settlers (2 Letters)
Published: April 26, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “Settlers’ Defiance Reflects Postwar Israeli Changes” (front page, April 22):
Two years ago Israel decided to withdraw from Gaza in an attempt to take a step forward toward peace. The failure of that attempt, and the fact that the withdrawal has led to more than a thousand Palestinian rockets and countless resulting deaths, are not political issues but a historical reality.
If the Palestinians want peace, they need to respond peacefully to Israeli attempts to make peace. If they continue to shoot rockets out of areas from which Israel withdraws, they will be proving that disengagement cannot succeed in bringing peace.
It’s their choice, and the consequences are their fault.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, April 22, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Passover and modern day Israel
I admit to some concern about posting this, because I'm very nervous about long-term Jewish alliance with highly-conservative American politicians and leaders. That said, at the current point in time it does appear that conservative thinkers have a more accurate grasp of what's happening in Israel.
With that introduction, here's an excerpt from an article in The Conservative Voice:
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/23703.html
"Progressives" Against the Exodus
March 23, 2007 01:34 PM EST
Why did Moses have to stop and take notice of that burning bush? Couldn't he have simply walked past it and not have engaged in conversation?
In a progressive view, Moses became a radical Egyptophobe who publicly denounced the terrible conduct of the Egyptian taskmasters, slave owners and, worse, he discredited the words of Pharaoh. Moses exposed Pharaoh and embarrassingly demonstrated that he was not a "moderate". But in spite of a mountain of evidence, the progressive view insisted that Pharaoh's political leadership was just fine. Moses’ view was marginalized and seen as alarmist and extremist.
The “progressive” slaves hated Moses' freedom campaign because they saw it as disruptive to Egypt, and a justification for anti-Jewish protests. The progressive intellectual slaves proclaimed Moses to be a stupid stutterer who couldn't even pronounce basic words. Although all the documents of Egypt consistently pressed for the annihilation of the Jews, the progressives argued that Pharaoh was really benign and had recognized the existence and rights of the Nation of Israel -- it was only for political reasons that Pharaoh couldn't publicly state his recognition.
Two professors from the prestigious Nile University published research which indicated suspicion that the Israelite nation was not politically supportive of Egyptian attitudes and was organizing to achieve its own goals. Progressive slaves quickly argued in favor of continued Jewish enslavement.
...
Pharaoh preached that he wasn't anti Semitic -- after all, he was a Semite; so how could he be called anti-Semitic? Pharaoh was just “anti-Israel”. He just didn't want the Jews to go off and become their own people in their own land. The fact that he made it legal to kill, murder, and abuse the Israelites was just a minor detail which human rights groups would choose to ignore.
...
How different are things today? The official progressive position is that Israel must work at becoming loved. They are to accept Hamas and its non-recognition of Israel's existence Palestinian Unity Government. Israel is expected to make more high risk concessions and accept more security restrictions. As Pharaoh of old, the new "PA Unity Government pharaoh" wants the same: to make the lives of the Jews more vulnerable with very few rights to self protection, fewer rights to self-preservation, and basically a renewed enslavement.
Progressive, which means "to progress", needs to be renamed, perhaps more accurately, "recessive". For all who consider what the Jews have brought to this world to be of great value, had the so-called "progressive" ideology prevailed, the whole world would have all remained in a plague of darkness.
With that introduction, here's an excerpt from an article in The Conservative Voice:
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/23703.html
"Progressives" Against the Exodus
March 23, 2007 01:34 PM EST
Why did Moses have to stop and take notice of that burning bush? Couldn't he have simply walked past it and not have engaged in conversation?
In a progressive view, Moses became a radical Egyptophobe who publicly denounced the terrible conduct of the Egyptian taskmasters, slave owners and, worse, he discredited the words of Pharaoh. Moses exposed Pharaoh and embarrassingly demonstrated that he was not a "moderate". But in spite of a mountain of evidence, the progressive view insisted that Pharaoh's political leadership was just fine. Moses’ view was marginalized and seen as alarmist and extremist.
The “progressive” slaves hated Moses' freedom campaign because they saw it as disruptive to Egypt, and a justification for anti-Jewish protests. The progressive intellectual slaves proclaimed Moses to be a stupid stutterer who couldn't even pronounce basic words. Although all the documents of Egypt consistently pressed for the annihilation of the Jews, the progressives argued that Pharaoh was really benign and had recognized the existence and rights of the Nation of Israel -- it was only for political reasons that Pharaoh couldn't publicly state his recognition.
Two professors from the prestigious Nile University published research which indicated suspicion that the Israelite nation was not politically supportive of Egyptian attitudes and was organizing to achieve its own goals. Progressive slaves quickly argued in favor of continued Jewish enslavement.
...
Pharaoh preached that he wasn't anti Semitic -- after all, he was a Semite; so how could he be called anti-Semitic? Pharaoh was just “anti-Israel”. He just didn't want the Jews to go off and become their own people in their own land. The fact that he made it legal to kill, murder, and abuse the Israelites was just a minor detail which human rights groups would choose to ignore.
...
How different are things today? The official progressive position is that Israel must work at becoming loved. They are to accept Hamas and its non-recognition of Israel's existence Palestinian Unity Government. Israel is expected to make more high risk concessions and accept more security restrictions. As Pharaoh of old, the new "PA Unity Government pharaoh" wants the same: to make the lives of the Jews more vulnerable with very few rights to self protection, fewer rights to self-preservation, and basically a renewed enslavement.
Progressive, which means "to progress", needs to be renamed, perhaps more accurately, "recessive". For all who consider what the Jews have brought to this world to be of great value, had the so-called "progressive" ideology prevailed, the whole world would have all remained in a plague of darkness.
Friday, March 23, 2007
LA Times letter: Palestinians OK coalition
Dear Editor,
Re "Palestinians OK coalition," March 18:
If the head of the new Palestinian coalition government affirms its continuing use of terrorism against Israeli civilians, then this new government is inherently not interested in peace. If the Western world gives economic aid to the new Palestinian government, it will be complicit in the subsequent terrorism.
If, however, the Western world continues to insist on the Palestinians disavowing terror, it will have a chance of bringing true peace to the region.
BRUCE DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh, Israel
Re "Palestinians OK coalition," March 18:
If the head of the new Palestinian coalition government affirms its continuing use of terrorism against Israeli civilians, then this new government is inherently not interested in peace. If the Western world gives economic aid to the new Palestinian government, it will be complicit in the subsequent terrorism.
If, however, the Western world continues to insist on the Palestinians disavowing terror, it will have a chance of bringing true peace to the region.
BRUCE DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh, Israel
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Washington Times: Islamicization of Antwerp
Not written by me, but well worth reading...
Islamicization of Antwerp
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Paul Belien
March 14, 2007
The decisive battle against Islamic extremists will not be fought in Iraq, but in Europe. It is not in Baghdad but in cities like Antwerp, Belgium, where the future of the West will be decided.
I recently met Marij Uijt den Bogaard, a 49-year-old woman who deserves America's support at least as much as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Ms. Uijt den Bogaard was an Antwerp civil servant in the 1990s, who spent many years working in the immigrant neighborhoods of Antwerp. There she noticed how radical Islamists began to take over. "They work according to a well-defined plan," she says.
Click here to read more...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070313-090315-9588r.htm
Islamicization of Antwerp
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Paul Belien
March 14, 2007
The decisive battle against Islamic extremists will not be fought in Iraq, but in Europe. It is not in Baghdad but in cities like Antwerp, Belgium, where the future of the West will be decided.
I recently met Marij Uijt den Bogaard, a 49-year-old woman who deserves America's support at least as much as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Ms. Uijt den Bogaard was an Antwerp civil servant in the 1990s, who spent many years working in the immigrant neighborhoods of Antwerp. There she noticed how radical Islamists began to take over. "They work according to a well-defined plan," she says.
Click here to read more...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070313-090315-9588r.htm
Thursday, March 08, 2007
From UK Times: Is it racist to condemn fanaticism?
Not written by me, but I'm posting it here anyway, it's an important read...
March 07, 2007
Phyllis Chesler
Once I was held captive in Kabul. I was the bride of a charming, seductive and Westernised Afghan Muslim whom I met at an American college. The purdah I experienced was relatively posh but the sequestered all-female life was not my cup of chai — nor was the male hostility to veiled, partly veiled and unveiled women in public.
When we landed in Kabul, an airport official smoothly confiscated my US passport. “Don’t worry, it’s just a formality,” my husband assured me. I never saw that passport again. I later learnt that this was routinely done to foreign wives — perhaps to make it impossible for them to leave. Overnight, my husband became a stranger. The man with whom I had discussed Camus, Dostoevsky, Tennessee Williams and the Italian cinema became a stranger. He treated me the same way his father and elder brother treated their wives: distantly, with a hint of disdain and embarrassment.
In our two years together, my future husband had never once mentioned that his father had three wives and 21 children. Nor did he tell me that I would be expected to live as if I had been reared as an Afghan woman. I was supposed to lead a largely indoor life among women, to go out only with a male escort and to spend my days waiting for my husband to return or visiting female relatives, or having new (and very fashionable) clothes made.
In America, my husband was proud that I was a natural-born rebel and free thinker. In Afghanistan, my criticism of the treatment of women and of the poor rendered him suspect, vulnerable. He mocked my horrified reactions. But I knew what my eyes and ears told me. I saw how poor women in chadaris were forced to sit at the back of the bus and had to keep yielding their place on line in the bazaar to any man.
I saw how polygamous, arranged marriages and child brides led to chronic female suffering and to rivalry between co-wives and half-brothers; how the subordination and sequestration of women led to a profound estrangement between the sexes — one that led to wife-beating, marital rape and to a rampant but hotly denied male “prison”-like homosexuality and pederasty; how frustrated, neglected and uneducated women tormented their daughter-in-laws and female servants; how women were not allowed to pray in mosques or visit male doctors (their husbands described the symptoms in their absence).
Individual Afghans were enchantingly courteous — but the Afghanistan I knew was a bastion of illiteracy, poverty, treachery and preventable diseases. It was also a police state, a feudal monarchy and a theocracy, rank with fear and paranoia. Afghanistan had never been colonised. My relatives said: “Not even the British could occupy us.” Thus I was forced to conclude that Afghan barbarism was of their own making and could not be attributed to Western imperialism.
Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs” are absolutely, not relatively, evil. Long before al-Qaeda beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and Nicholas Berg in Iraq, I understood that it was dangerous for a Westerner, especially a woman, to live in a Muslim country. In retrospect, I believe my so-called Western feminism was forged in that most beautiful and treacherous of Eastern countries.
Nevertheless, Western intellectual-ideologues, including feminists, have demonised me as a reactionary and racist “Islamophobe” for arguing that Islam, not Israel, is the largest practitioner of both sexual and religious apartheid in the world and that if Westerners do not stand up to this apartheid, morally, economically and militarily, we will not only have the blood of innocents on our hands; we will also be overrun by Sharia in the West. I have been heckled, menaced, never-invited, or disinvited for such heretical ideas — and for denouncing the epidemic of Muslim-on-Muslim violence for which tiny Israel is routinely, unbelievably scapegoated.
However, my views have found favour with the bravest and most enlightened people alive. Leading secular Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents — from Egypt, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria and exiles from Europe and North America — assembled for the landmark Islamic Summit Conference in Florida and invited me to chair the opening panel on Monday.
According to the chair of the meeting, Ibn Warraq: “What we need now is an age of enlightenment in the Islamic world. Without critical examination of Islam, it will remain dogmatic, fanatical and intolerant and will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality, originality and truth.” The conference issued a declaration calling for such a new “Enlightenment”. The declaration views “Islamophobia” as a false allegation, sees a “noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine” and “demands the release of Islam from its captivity to the ambitions of power-hungry men”.
Now is the time for Western intellectuals who claim to be antiracists and committed to human rights to stand with these dissidents. To do so requires that we adopt a universal standard of human rights and abandon our loyalty to multicultural relativism, which justifies, even romanticises, indigenous Islamist barbarism, totalitarian terrorism and the persecution of women, religious minorities, homosexuals and intellectuals. Our abject refusal to judge between civilisation and barbarism, and between enlightened rationalism and theocratic fundamentalism, endangers and condemns the victims of Islamic tyranny.
Ibn Warraq has written a devastating work that will be out by the summer. It is entitled Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism. Will Western intellectuals also dare to defend the West?
Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York
How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam
Is it racist to condemn fanaticism?
Is it racist to condemn fanaticism?
March 07, 2007
Phyllis Chesler
Once I was held captive in Kabul. I was the bride of a charming, seductive and Westernised Afghan Muslim whom I met at an American college. The purdah I experienced was relatively posh but the sequestered all-female life was not my cup of chai — nor was the male hostility to veiled, partly veiled and unveiled women in public.
When we landed in Kabul, an airport official smoothly confiscated my US passport. “Don’t worry, it’s just a formality,” my husband assured me. I never saw that passport again. I later learnt that this was routinely done to foreign wives — perhaps to make it impossible for them to leave. Overnight, my husband became a stranger. The man with whom I had discussed Camus, Dostoevsky, Tennessee Williams and the Italian cinema became a stranger. He treated me the same way his father and elder brother treated their wives: distantly, with a hint of disdain and embarrassment.
In our two years together, my future husband had never once mentioned that his father had three wives and 21 children. Nor did he tell me that I would be expected to live as if I had been reared as an Afghan woman. I was supposed to lead a largely indoor life among women, to go out only with a male escort and to spend my days waiting for my husband to return or visiting female relatives, or having new (and very fashionable) clothes made.
In America, my husband was proud that I was a natural-born rebel and free thinker. In Afghanistan, my criticism of the treatment of women and of the poor rendered him suspect, vulnerable. He mocked my horrified reactions. But I knew what my eyes and ears told me. I saw how poor women in chadaris were forced to sit at the back of the bus and had to keep yielding their place on line in the bazaar to any man.
I saw how polygamous, arranged marriages and child brides led to chronic female suffering and to rivalry between co-wives and half-brothers; how the subordination and sequestration of women led to a profound estrangement between the sexes — one that led to wife-beating, marital rape and to a rampant but hotly denied male “prison”-like homosexuality and pederasty; how frustrated, neglected and uneducated women tormented their daughter-in-laws and female servants; how women were not allowed to pray in mosques or visit male doctors (their husbands described the symptoms in their absence).
Individual Afghans were enchantingly courteous — but the Afghanistan I knew was a bastion of illiteracy, poverty, treachery and preventable diseases. It was also a police state, a feudal monarchy and a theocracy, rank with fear and paranoia. Afghanistan had never been colonised. My relatives said: “Not even the British could occupy us.” Thus I was forced to conclude that Afghan barbarism was of their own making and could not be attributed to Western imperialism.
Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs” are absolutely, not relatively, evil. Long before al-Qaeda beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and Nicholas Berg in Iraq, I understood that it was dangerous for a Westerner, especially a woman, to live in a Muslim country. In retrospect, I believe my so-called Western feminism was forged in that most beautiful and treacherous of Eastern countries.
Nevertheless, Western intellectual-ideologues, including feminists, have demonised me as a reactionary and racist “Islamophobe” for arguing that Islam, not Israel, is the largest practitioner of both sexual and religious apartheid in the world and that if Westerners do not stand up to this apartheid, morally, economically and militarily, we will not only have the blood of innocents on our hands; we will also be overrun by Sharia in the West. I have been heckled, menaced, never-invited, or disinvited for such heretical ideas — and for denouncing the epidemic of Muslim-on-Muslim violence for which tiny Israel is routinely, unbelievably scapegoated.
However, my views have found favour with the bravest and most enlightened people alive. Leading secular Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents — from Egypt, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria and exiles from Europe and North America — assembled for the landmark Islamic Summit Conference in Florida and invited me to chair the opening panel on Monday.
According to the chair of the meeting, Ibn Warraq: “What we need now is an age of enlightenment in the Islamic world. Without critical examination of Islam, it will remain dogmatic, fanatical and intolerant and will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality, originality and truth.” The conference issued a declaration calling for such a new “Enlightenment”. The declaration views “Islamophobia” as a false allegation, sees a “noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine” and “demands the release of Islam from its captivity to the ambitions of power-hungry men”.
Now is the time for Western intellectuals who claim to be antiracists and committed to human rights to stand with these dissidents. To do so requires that we adopt a universal standard of human rights and abandon our loyalty to multicultural relativism, which justifies, even romanticises, indigenous Islamist barbarism, totalitarian terrorism and the persecution of women, religious minorities, homosexuals and intellectuals. Our abject refusal to judge between civilisation and barbarism, and between enlightened rationalism and theocratic fundamentalism, endangers and condemns the victims of Islamic tyranny.
Ibn Warraq has written a devastating work that will be out by the summer. It is entitled Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism. Will Western intellectuals also dare to defend the West?
Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Unprinted letter on Palestinian truce agreement
The following letter was submitted but not printed:
Dear Editor,
Regarding your article on the Palestinian truce agreement:
The Palestinian treaty's refusal to foreswear violence, honor previous peace agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist is not a "political snare," it's a reflection of an Arab committment to violence that should scare the heck out of the Western world.
The civility of the modern world relies on committment to agreements and a determination to reach agreements through negotiation rather than violence. The Western world so relies on this perspective that it assumes that the rest of the world shares it. The agreement at Mecca demonstrates loud and clear that the Arab world does not share this attitude, and remains in the pre-modern worldview of politics through violence and the destruction of enemies.
If we want peace in the Middle East, and if we want to maintain worldwide civility, the Arab world must disavvow violence and embrace civil discourse.
Dear Editor,
Regarding your article on the Palestinian truce agreement:
The Palestinian treaty's refusal to foreswear violence, honor previous peace agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist is not a "political snare," it's a reflection of an Arab committment to violence that should scare the heck out of the Western world.
The civility of the modern world relies on committment to agreements and a determination to reach agreements through negotiation rather than violence. The Western world so relies on this perspective that it assumes that the rest of the world shares it. The agreement at Mecca demonstrates loud and clear that the Arab world does not share this attitude, and remains in the pre-modern worldview of politics through violence and the destruction of enemies.
If we want peace in the Middle East, and if we want to maintain worldwide civility, the Arab world must disavvow violence and embrace civil discourse.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Article about Neturei Karta
Not a letter, and not something I wrote, but worth spreading...
Ultra-Orthodox Sect Ostracized After Attending Iran Holocaust Conference
By RAVI NESSMAN
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM - For decades, the Jewish community just barely tolerated a small, fiercely anti-Zionist sect as its members traveled the world, denouncing Israel's existence and embracing its enemies.
But when a delegation from Neturei Karta hugged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a conference questioning the Holocaust last month, that was too much.
Now, the ultra-Orthodox group is being ostracized on three continents, denounced by rabbis, banned from synagogues and harassed in the streets.
"They brought shame on the Jewish people," said Rabbi Shimon Weiss, a leader of the Eida Haredit, an umbrella group of anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jews based in Israel. "If they come to a synagogue, they will be kicked out. They disgust us."
In telephone interviews from their home cities in England, the U.S., and Israel, members of the group say they were misunderstood, never denied the Holocaust and were simply trying to protect Jews from Iranian attack if war breaks out in the Middle East.
"We know what we have done, we know the value of what we have done, and we think that in the course of time that will come out clearly," said Rabbi Ahron Cohen, a Neturei Karta member from Manchester, England.
When Cohen returned from Iran, he needed police protection. His house was barraged by hundreds of eggs, his window smashed by a brick and a billiard ball and he continues to be pelted with pebbles, eggs and insults in the street, he said.
Last week, two tires on his Volvo were slashed, he said, and his synagogue has closed its doors to him.
Neturei Karta (Aramaic for "Guardians of the City") was founded nearly 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel, believing only the Messiah could do that. Estimates of the group's size range from a few hundred to a few thousand.
In recent decades its members have shown up to protest at international conferences and pro-Israel rallies, capitalizing on the guaranteed publicity of religious Jews in black hats and beards denouncing Israel.
One acted as Yasser Arafat's adviser on Jewish affairs, and a delegation traveled to Paris in 2004 to pray for the Palestinian leader's health as he lay dying in a hospital. Months later, a group participated in a conference in Lebanon with Hamas and Hezbollah militants.
For years, mainstream Jewish groups, religious and other, tended to dismiss Neturei Karta as eccentrics. Then came the Holocaust conference, where five members of the group rubbed shoulders with delegates who deny the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews.
In photos published around the world, they were shown hugging Ahmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.
Neturei Karta say they never denied the Holocaust or its proportions. They believe Ahmadinejad has been unfairly vilified and that they should be praised for persuading him that his anger should be directed at Israel, not the Jewish people.
"We feel that we have to do what we have to do to save Jewish lives, to protect the Jewish people from, God forbid, catastrophe ... so we have to ignore the unfortunate side effects that happened here," said Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a Neturei Karta rabbi from the New York area who was part of the delegation.
Jewish communities around the world were furious.
An Israeli chief rabbi called for banning Neturei Karta from synagogues. In New York, where several members of the delegation live, hundreds protested against them and they were repeatedly harassed with prank phone calls.
The Satmars, a Hasidic, anti-Zionist group seen by some as their spiritual cousins, lamented in a statement that "the unavenged blood of the millions of Jewish victims cries out in pain and abhorrence, to these reckless outcasts, 'How can you sink so low?'"
The Jewish community in Vienna expelled Moishe Arye Friedman, who traveled with the Tehran delegation but does not belong to Neturei Karta.
"Most Orthodox Jews in the world lost relatives in the Holocaust," said Jonathan Rosenblum, a Jerusalem-based analyst of the religious community. Neturei Karta's action "touches a really, really raw nerve."
Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, said Neturei Karta's trip to Tehran was the last straw.
"They have overstayed their welcome in the community. No one has patience for them," he said. "Their actions are beyond the pale."
AP Correspondent Veronika Oleksyn contributed to this report from Vienna.
Jewish Sect Ostracized Over Iran Meeting
Ultra-Orthodox Sect Ostracized After Attending Iran Holocaust Conference
By RAVI NESSMAN
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM - For decades, the Jewish community just barely tolerated a small, fiercely anti-Zionist sect as its members traveled the world, denouncing Israel's existence and embracing its enemies.
But when a delegation from Neturei Karta hugged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a conference questioning the Holocaust last month, that was too much.
Now, the ultra-Orthodox group is being ostracized on three continents, denounced by rabbis, banned from synagogues and harassed in the streets.
"They brought shame on the Jewish people," said Rabbi Shimon Weiss, a leader of the Eida Haredit, an umbrella group of anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jews based in Israel. "If they come to a synagogue, they will be kicked out. They disgust us."
In telephone interviews from their home cities in England, the U.S., and Israel, members of the group say they were misunderstood, never denied the Holocaust and were simply trying to protect Jews from Iranian attack if war breaks out in the Middle East.
"We know what we have done, we know the value of what we have done, and we think that in the course of time that will come out clearly," said Rabbi Ahron Cohen, a Neturei Karta member from Manchester, England.
When Cohen returned from Iran, he needed police protection. His house was barraged by hundreds of eggs, his window smashed by a brick and a billiard ball and he continues to be pelted with pebbles, eggs and insults in the street, he said.
Last week, two tires on his Volvo were slashed, he said, and his synagogue has closed its doors to him.
Neturei Karta (Aramaic for "Guardians of the City") was founded nearly 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel, believing only the Messiah could do that. Estimates of the group's size range from a few hundred to a few thousand.
In recent decades its members have shown up to protest at international conferences and pro-Israel rallies, capitalizing on the guaranteed publicity of religious Jews in black hats and beards denouncing Israel.
One acted as Yasser Arafat's adviser on Jewish affairs, and a delegation traveled to Paris in 2004 to pray for the Palestinian leader's health as he lay dying in a hospital. Months later, a group participated in a conference in Lebanon with Hamas and Hezbollah militants.
For years, mainstream Jewish groups, religious and other, tended to dismiss Neturei Karta as eccentrics. Then came the Holocaust conference, where five members of the group rubbed shoulders with delegates who deny the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews.
In photos published around the world, they were shown hugging Ahmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.
Neturei Karta say they never denied the Holocaust or its proportions. They believe Ahmadinejad has been unfairly vilified and that they should be praised for persuading him that his anger should be directed at Israel, not the Jewish people.
"We feel that we have to do what we have to do to save Jewish lives, to protect the Jewish people from, God forbid, catastrophe ... so we have to ignore the unfortunate side effects that happened here," said Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a Neturei Karta rabbi from the New York area who was part of the delegation.
Jewish communities around the world were furious.
An Israeli chief rabbi called for banning Neturei Karta from synagogues. In New York, where several members of the delegation live, hundreds protested against them and they were repeatedly harassed with prank phone calls.
The Satmars, a Hasidic, anti-Zionist group seen by some as their spiritual cousins, lamented in a statement that "the unavenged blood of the millions of Jewish victims cries out in pain and abhorrence, to these reckless outcasts, 'How can you sink so low?'"
The Jewish community in Vienna expelled Moishe Arye Friedman, who traveled with the Tehran delegation but does not belong to Neturei Karta.
"Most Orthodox Jews in the world lost relatives in the Holocaust," said Jonathan Rosenblum, a Jerusalem-based analyst of the religious community. Neturei Karta's action "touches a really, really raw nerve."
Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, said Neturei Karta's trip to Tehran was the last straw.
"They have overstayed their welcome in the community. No one has patience for them," he said. "Their actions are beyond the pale."
AP Correspondent Veronika Oleksyn contributed to this report from Vienna.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
Sunday, January 14, 2007
CNN: Carter Board of Councilors resignations over biased analysis of Israeli actions
Carter Center advisers resign over book
POSTED: 4:56 a.m. EST, January 12, 2007
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter's controversial book and subsequent remarks about the Israel-Palestinian conflict have prompted the resignations of 14 people from an advisory board of the Carter Center, the 25-year-old Atlanta-based humanitarian organization.
The 14 explained their concerns, which reflect an uproar in the U.S. Jewish community over Carter's Mideast stance, in letters sent Thursday to fellow Board of Councilors members and Carter.
"We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position," the letter to Carter said. "This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support."
The letter to the fellow Board of Councilors, with more than 200 members, was brief and less detailed but expressed concern about Carter's book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."
"We are deeply troubled by the president's comments and writings and are submitting the following letter of resignation to the Carter Center," the letter said.
...
The letter to Carter accused him of abandoning his "historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side." Carter's book confused "opinion with fact, subjectivity with objectivity and force for change with partisan advocacy," the letter said.
"Israelis, through deed and public comment, have consistently spoken of a desire to live in peace and make territorial compromise to achieve this status. The Palestinian side has consistently resorted to acts of terror as a national expression and elected parties endorsing the use of terror, the rejection of territorial compromise and of Israel's right to exist. Palestinian leaders have had chances since 1947 to have their own state, including during your own presidency when they snubbed your efforts."
...
Friday, December 29, 2006
Israeli civilians being attacked again!
It's horrible that new Palestinian missile attacks against the Israeli town of Sderot are being ignored. Here's one video about the attacks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtME--96C7c&eurl=
Sderot is a small working-class town in the southern part of Israel, far from any military bases. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza a year and a half ago there have been over 800 missiles fired at Sderot NOT INCLUDING DURING THE LEBANON WAR. 800 missiles! And yet the world ignores this and pretends that the Palestinians want peace.
Other coverage of attacks on Sderot include:
Kids discussing a missile that hit their school:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzewaUU4nM
A movie showing missiles that hit Sderot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1299WiXld4
Another movie about the impact of missiles on Sderot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLjFel4ISm8&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtME--96C7c&eurl=
Sderot is a small working-class town in the southern part of Israel, far from any military bases. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza a year and a half ago there have been over 800 missiles fired at Sderot NOT INCLUDING DURING THE LEBANON WAR. 800 missiles! And yet the world ignores this and pretends that the Palestinians want peace.
Other coverage of attacks on Sderot include:
Kids discussing a missile that hit their school:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzewaUU4nM
A movie showing missiles that hit Sderot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1299WiXld4
Another movie about the impact of missiles on Sderot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLjFel4ISm8&NR
Saturday, December 16, 2006
60 MINUTES special report, in response to Holocaust denials
Just received this, about a 60 MINUTES special this Sunday:
Good afternoon. I wanted to give you a heads-up on a storythat will be running this Sunday, Dec. 17 (7PM ET/PT on CBS)on "60 MINUTES" about a long-secret German archive thathouses a treasure trove of information on 17.5 millionvictims of the Holocaust. The archive, located in the Germantown of Bad Arolsen, is massive (there are 16 miles ofhelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and untilrecently, was off-limits to the public. But after the Germangovernment agreed earlier this year to open the archives,CBS News' Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewishsurvivors who were able to see their own Holocaust records.It's an incredibly moving piece, all the more poigant in thewake of this week's meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran.We're trying to get word out about the story to pople whohave a special interest in this subject. So we were hopingyou'd consider sending out something to your listserveand/or posting something on your website. Furtherinformation will also be available on our website(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml02.shtml), which you're welcome to link to from yours.
Good afternoon. I wanted to give you a heads-up on a storythat will be running this Sunday, Dec. 17 (7PM ET/PT on CBS)on "60 MINUTES" about a long-secret German archive thathouses a treasure trove of information on 17.5 millionvictims of the Holocaust. The archive, located in the Germantown of Bad Arolsen, is massive (there are 16 miles ofhelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and untilrecently, was off-limits to the public. But after the Germangovernment agreed earlier this year to open the archives,CBS News' Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewishsurvivors who were able to see their own Holocaust records.It's an incredibly moving piece, all the more poigant in thewake of this week's meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran.We're trying to get word out about the story to pople whohave a special interest in this subject. So we were hopingyou'd consider sending out something to your listserveand/or posting something on your website. Furtherinformation will also be available on our website(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml02.shtml), which you're welcome to link to from yours.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Israelis help Palestinian kids, Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel
The confluence of these two articles says it all. Israel will keep trying for peaceful co-existance, but it will never work if the Palestinians don't try.
http://members.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29506164.htm
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/regional.asp?dismode=article&artid=408626469
Photos: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/061206/photos_lf/2006_12_06t102910_376x450_us_israel_palestinians_hearts
Israeli Surgeons Repair Young Palestinian Hearts
- Allyn Fisher-Ilan (Reuters/Malaysia Star)
Hala Ketnani, a 10-month-old girl from Gaza, sleeps
beneath an oxygen hood in an Israeli intensive care unit as
she recovers from heart surgery.
Under the private Israeli program "Save a Child's
Heart," doctors at Wolfson Hospital near Tel Aviv repair
congenital heart defects for children like Ketnani from the
Palestinian territories, Iraq, Jordan, and Africa.
More than 1,000 children, about half from Gaza and the
West Bank, have been helped so far.
Shlomo Dror, an Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman, said
about 1,000 Palestinians per month receive medical treatment
in Israel, up from 600 in recent years.
Palestinian Prime Minister Vows Not to Recognize Israel
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-08-palestinian-pm_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
USA Today
http://members.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29506164.htm
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/regional.asp?dismode=article&artid=408626469
Photos: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/061206/photos_lf/2006_12_06t102910_376x450_us_israel_palestinians_hearts
Israeli Surgeons Repair Young Palestinian Hearts
- Allyn Fisher-Ilan (Reuters/Malaysia Star)
Hala Ketnani, a 10-month-old girl from Gaza, sleeps
beneath an oxygen hood in an Israeli intensive care unit as
she recovers from heart surgery.
Under the private Israeli program "Save a Child's
Heart," doctors at Wolfson Hospital near Tel Aviv repair
congenital heart defects for children like Ketnani from the
Palestinian territories, Iraq, Jordan, and Africa.
More than 1,000 children, about half from Gaza and the
West Bank, have been helped so far.
Shlomo Dror, an Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman, said
about 1,000 Palestinians per month receive medical treatment
in Israel, up from 600 in recent years.
Palestinian Prime Minister Vows Not to Recognize Israel
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-08-palestinian-pm_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
USA Today
Making his first visit abroad since the militant group took power in March, Haniyeh blasted U.S. demands that Hamas recognize Israel as a basis for renewed peace talks and before international aid to the Palestinians resumes.
The U.S. "and Zionists ... want us to recognize the usurpation of the Palestinian lands and stop jihad and resistance and accept the agreements reached with the Zionist enemies in the past," Haniyeh told worshippers at Tehran University.
The United States is pressing the Palestinian government to not only recognize Israel, but to renounce violence and form a national unity government with the moderate Fatah party.
"I'm insisting from this podium that these issues won't materialize. We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem," he said.
Ahmed Abdel Rahman, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party, said if Hamas wants to be part of a national unity government, it will need to abide by agreements the PLO has signed in the past. This would imply recognition of Israel.
"I can't criticize him (Haniyeh) when he is talking in the name of Hamas. But if he is speaking as prime minister, he should abide by the national agenda," Abdel Rahman said.
Since Hamas took power in March, direct international aid to the Palestinian government has been largely cut off. Iran has provided the government with $120 million this year, boosting its influence among Palestinians.
Haniyeh arrived in the Iranian capital Thursday for four days of talks with Iranian leaders including hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
...Monday, November 27, 2006
Israel offers concessions yet again in return for peace
Again, we have a message that will be forgotten, so I want to make it clear here.
Israel's Prime Minister is saying, like other PM's before him back to Barak, that everything needed to create a Palestinian state will be done if the Palestinians truly choose peace.
But here's my prediction: They'll choose terror, Israel will have to do something to protect our citizens, then the world will deny that Israel offerred peace.
So here's the article, in CNN of all places.
Israel offers peace concessions to Palestinians
POSTED: 8:05 a.m. EST, November 27, 2006
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered wide-ranging concessions if the Palestinians turn away from violence, saying Monday that they would be able to achieve an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza through real peace talks with Israel.
In what was billed in advance as a major policy speech, Olmert tried to entice the Palestinians to return to long-stalled peace talks with promises of an immediate improvement in their lives: promising to reduce checkpoints, release frozen funds and free prisoners in exchange for a serious Palestinian push for peace.
"I hold out my hand in peace to our Palestinian neighbors in the hope that it won't be returned empty," Olmert said.
Directly addressing the Palestinians in some of his most conciliatory remarks since winning election in March, Olmert described Israel as willing to make far-reaching concessions if the Palestinians choose peace.
"We, the state of Israel, will agree to the evacuation of many territories and the settlements that we built there. This is extremely difficult for us, like the splitting of the Red Sea. We will do it for real peace," he said.
He said that if the Palestinians establish a new government committed to carrying out the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan and securing the release of a captured Israeli soldier, then he would call for an immediate meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "to have a real, open, honest, serious dialogue between us."
Olmert said that Israel planned to release "many Palestinian prisoners," including those serving long sentences, as a trust-building measure after Palestinian militants freed the captured soldier alive and healthy.
Israel also would ease the checkpoints across the West Bank, improve border terminals in Gaza, release the frozen money to the Palestinians and help develop a plan to rehabilitate their crippled economy, he said.
In exchange, Olmert said Palestinians would have to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to live in peace and security and give up their demands to allow refugees from the 1948 war to return to their homes in what is now Israel.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians were ready to negotiate a final peace deal.
"I believe Mr. Olmert knows he has a partner, and that is President Abbas. He knows that to achieve peace and security for all, we need to shoot for the end game," Erekat said.
As a first step, Erekat said, the two sides need to sustain a fragile new cease-fire along the Israel-Gaza border and also extend it to the West Bank.
"That will open the key to a political horizon," he said.
Olmert's offer came a day after the two sides implemented the cease-fire in Gaza, ending five months of widespread violence there and raising hopes that the agreement would lead to new peace efforts. It also raised the diplomatic stakes ahead of a visit to the region by President Bush. (Watch smoke trails from rocket attacks that threatened the cease-fire )
Relations between Israel and the Palestinians, already low after more than five years of fighting, further plummeted in January when the militant Hamas group won Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Israel cut off ties with the Hamas-led Cabinet and froze the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian government in an effort to pressure Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
Tensions exploded in June when Hamas-linked militants captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid, sparking a wide Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed more than 300 Palestinians, scores of them civilians. The violence also killed five Israelis.
Despite the offensive, Palestinian militants had insisted they would not release Shalit unless Israel freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israel publicly rejected the demand, leaving the two sides in a violent stalemate.
But in recent days, there have been signs of progress, particularly Olmert and Abbas agreeing to the cease-fire in Gaza that took effect Sunday morning, stirring hopes that further agreements could follow.
"The uncompromising extremism of your terror organizations ... haven't brought you closer to achieving the goal that I'm convinced many of you share -- to establish a Palestinian state," Olmert said in his speech at a ceremony commemorating the death of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.
"We cannot change the past and we will not be able to bring back the victims on both sides of the borders," he said. "All that we have in our hands to do today is to stop additional tragedies."
Olmert said that Palestinians stood at a "historic crossroads" and could choose to continue on the path of violence or peace.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians were ready to negotiate a final peace deal.
"I believe Mr. Olmert knows he has a partner, and that is President Abbas. He knows that to achieve peace and security for all, we need to shoot for the end game," Erekat said.
As a first step, Erekat said, the two sides need to sustain a fragile new cease-fire along the Israel-Gaza border and also extend it to the West Bank.
"That will open the key to a political horizon," he said.
Olmert's offer came a day after the two sides implemented the cease-fire in Gaza, ending five months of widespread violence there and raising hopes that the agreement would lead to new peace efforts. It also raised the diplomatic stakes ahead of a visit to the region by President Bush. (Watch smoke trails from rocket attacks that threatened the cease-fire )
Relations between Israel and the Palestinians, already low after more than five years of fighting, further plummeted in January when the militant Hamas group won Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Israel cut off ties with the Hamas-led Cabinet and froze the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian government in an effort to pressure Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
Tensions exploded in June when Hamas-linked militants captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid, sparking a wide Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed more than 300 Palestinians, scores of them civilians. The violence also killed five Israelis.
Despite the offensive, Palestinian militants had insisted they would not release Shalit unless Israel freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israel publicly rejected the demand, leaving the two sides in a violent stalemate.
But in recent days, there have been signs of progress, particularly Olmert and Abbas agreeing to the cease-fire in Gaza that took effect Sunday morning, stirring hopes that further agreements could follow.
"The uncompromising extremism of your terror organizations ... haven't brought you closer to achieving the goal that I'm convinced many of you share -- to establish a Palestinian state," Olmert said in his speech at a ceremony commemorating the death of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.
"We cannot change the past and we will not be able to bring back the victims on both sides of the borders," he said. "All that we have in our hands to do today is to stop additional tragedies."
Olmert said that Palestinians stood at a "historic crossroads" and could choose to continue on the path of violence or peace.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Truce broken by Palestinians before it started
This is the start of another cycle: Israel and Palestinians agree on peace, the Palestinians break the deal, Israel is forced to respond, and the world acts as if Israel broke the peace and forget the Palestinian actions.
So let's not forget thenews as reported after the first day of attempted truce:
13,000 Palestinian security forces maintain cease-fire
POSTED: 1:19 p.m. EST, November 26, 2006
Story Highlights
• 13,000 Palestinian security forces deployed to enforce cease-fire
• Palestinian groups to discuss extending truce to West Bank, Israeli PM says
• Rockets hit Israel after deal takes effect, Israeli officials say
• Hamas spokesman says all Palestinian factions agree to cease-fire
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday ordered 13,000 security forces to deploy near the border to enforce a cease-fire agreement with Israel, sources in Abbas' office told CNN.
The move came hours after Palestinian militants in Gaza apparently launched nearly a dozen rockets toward Israel.
Abbas also called on the Palestinian factions who previously negotiated the cease-fire to meet again to ensure the agreement holds, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters Sunday.
The Israeli leader said his country will not take immediate action in the wake of the violations.
"Israel is a powerful country that can allow itself to show restraint and to give the cease-fire a chance to be fully implemented," Olmert said. (Watch what threatens fragile truce )
Hamas' militant wing and the Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for firing several rockets into Israel after the cease-fire took effect at 6 a.m. (11 p.m. ET Sunday).
In its leaflet, Islamic Jihad said it will "hold our right for resistance as long as Israel continues its aggression."
According to the Israel Defense Forces, only two of the 11 rockets fired from Gaza after 6 a.m. landed inside Israel. Both landed in open fields and did not cause any casualties or damage.
Militants also fired several rockets just before the cease-fire took effect, according to IDF. No one was injured, but a house in Sderot was damaged. (Watch Israelis survey rocket damage )
Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad insisted that all Palestinian factions are "100 percent" behind the cease-fire.
"All of them now, without exception, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah and other factions, they decided to respect the agreement and also to be committed 100 percent to this agreement," Hamad told CNN.
Hamad denied reports that Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel after cease-fire took effect.
"Hamas fired missiles before 6 o'clock, which is the time of the beginning of the cease-fire and they have released a statement [at] 7 o'clock," he said.
"We have contact with all factions now, especially from the prime minister [Ismail Haniyeh], and he asked to stop firing missiles from Gaza."
In addition to talking about implementation of the Gaza cease-fire, the Palestinian factions will discuss expanding the truce to the West Bank, Olmert said.
He said he hopes the meeting will lead to "a serious, real, honest and direct negotiation between myself and [Abbas] so we could make a progress towards a full settlement between Israel and the Palestinians."
Palestinian factions offered the cease-fire proposal to Israel on Saturday, agreeing to stop firing rockets into Israel.
In exchange, Israel agreed to withdraw troops from Gaza and cease military operations, including targeted airstrikes on militants.
Israel Defense Minister Amir Peretz convened a scheduled security meeting to discuss the cease-fire violation earlier in the day. During the meeting Peretz learned of the rocket launches out of Gaza and said every attempt to fire rockets on Israel will be considered a violation of the cease-fire and will be dealt with in "a severe manner," a ministry statement said.
CNN's Avivit Dalgoshen contributed to this report.
So let's not forget the
news as reported after the first day of attempted truce:
13,000 Palestinian security forces maintain cease-fire
POSTED: 1:19 p.m. EST, November 26, 2006
Story Highlights
• 13,000 Palestinian security forces deployed to enforce cease-fire
• Palestinian groups to discuss extending truce to West Bank, Israeli PM says
• Rockets hit Israel after deal takes effect, Israeli officials say
• Hamas spokesman says all Palestinian factions agree to cease-fire
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday ordered 13,000 security forces to deploy near the border to enforce a cease-fire agreement with Israel, sources in Abbas' office told CNN.
The move came hours after Palestinian militants in Gaza apparently launched nearly a dozen rockets toward Israel.
Abbas also called on the Palestinian factions who previously negotiated the cease-fire to meet again to ensure the agreement holds, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters Sunday.
The Israeli leader said his country will not take immediate action in the wake of the violations.
"Israel is a powerful country that can allow itself to show restraint and to give the cease-fire a chance to be fully implemented," Olmert said. (Watch what threatens fragile truce )
Hamas' militant wing and the Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for firing several rockets into Israel after the cease-fire took effect at 6 a.m. (11 p.m. ET Sunday).
In its leaflet, Islamic Jihad said it will "hold our right for resistance as long as Israel continues its aggression."
According to the Israel Defense Forces, only two of the 11 rockets fired from Gaza after 6 a.m. landed inside Israel. Both landed in open fields and did not cause any casualties or damage.
Militants also fired several rockets just before the cease-fire took effect, according to IDF. No one was injured, but a house in Sderot was damaged. (Watch Israelis survey rocket damage )
Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad insisted that all Palestinian factions are "100 percent" behind the cease-fire.
"All of them now, without exception, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah and other factions, they decided to respect the agreement and also to be committed 100 percent to this agreement," Hamad told CNN.
Hamad denied reports that Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel after cease-fire took effect.
"Hamas fired missiles before 6 o'clock, which is the time of the beginning of the cease-fire and they have released a statement [at] 7 o'clock," he said.
"We have contact with all factions now, especially from the prime minister [Ismail Haniyeh], and he asked to stop firing missiles from Gaza."
In addition to talking about implementation of the Gaza cease-fire, the Palestinian factions will discuss expanding the truce to the West Bank, Olmert said.
He said he hopes the meeting will lead to "a serious, real, honest and direct negotiation between myself and [Abbas] so we could make a progress towards a full settlement between Israel and the Palestinians."
Palestinian factions offered the cease-fire proposal to Israel on Saturday, agreeing to stop firing rockets into Israel.
In exchange, Israel agreed to withdraw troops from Gaza and cease military operations, including targeted airstrikes on militants.
Israel Defense Minister Amir Peretz convened a scheduled security meeting to discuss the cease-fire violation earlier in the day. During the meeting Peretz learned of the rocket launches out of Gaza and said every attempt to fire rockets on Israel will be considered a violation of the cease-fire and will be dealt with in "a severe manner," a ministry statement said.
CNN's Avivit Dalgoshen contributed to this report.
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