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).

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

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

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

Western fictions, Arab realities

Not a letter to the editor of mine, but rather an interesting Op/Ed piece from the LA Times:

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

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

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.

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

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

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...

How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam
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

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.

Article about Neturei Karta

Not a letter, and not something I wrote, but worth spreading...

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

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."

...

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

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.

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

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."

...

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.

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 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.

NY Times letter 2006 Sep 23: Whose Burden in the Mideast?

Whose Burden in the Mideast?

To the Editor:

Re “A Real Test for the Palestinians’’ (editorial, Sept. 18):

The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in 2000, operating under the assumption that Israel will concede one-sidedly and unendingly under the threat of terror, resulted not in peace but in an intifada.

President Bush has been clear that he supports peace talks, but only when terror is off the table and all are operating in the true search for peaceful coexistence.

Hamas’s refusal to renounce terror is consistent with its taking control of Gaza a year ago and using it only as a launching pad for missiles.

It must renounce terror and show commitment to peaceful coexistence before negotiations can hope to be successful.

Bruce Dov Krulwich

Beit Shemesh, Israel, Sept. 18, 2006

NYT letter (not mine): Who Is to Blame for Gazans’ Plight?

The letter below isn't mine, but it's so on the mark that I wanted to post it here:

Who Is to Blame for Gazans’ Plight? (3 Letters)
Published: September 15, 2006

To the Editor:
Re “As Parents Go Unpaid, Gaza Children Go Hungry” (front page, Sept. 14):

While I feel sympathy for the children who suffer needlessly in Gaza, their parents’ generation needs to understand that actions have consequences.

If the electorate wants a government run by a party that is sworn to destroy Israel (the formative Palestinian state’s major source of financing), it shouldn’t be surprised when Israel cuts off financing in response.

One of the most powerful features of a democracy is that the electorate can get what it wants. One of the most dangerous features of a democracy is that the electorate gets what it asks for, whether or not it’s what it wants or even deserves.

Jeremy M. Posner

What would you do?

Sometimes a cartoon can say something better than words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub_6uJxlDcg

Bottom line: If the Palestinians don't stop terror, Israel has no choice but to repsond.

Spread the link around!

Who made the West Bank what it is?

It's important for everyone to remember who made the West Bank what it is. Who put the Palestinians into refugee camps? Who decided not to create a Palestinian state? Who could have built up a modern economy and didn't?

The answer is simple: Jordan. And in Gaza it was Egypt. They're the ones who controled this area from 1948 to 1967. They put the refugees into refugee camps instead of building towns and cities. They kept them dirt poor instead of building an economy.

And most of all, they kept the territory without making a Palestinian state.

Everything that the Palestinians claim to want now, a state on the West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital, could have been created by Jordan. And they didn't do it.

Israel spent those years building the country from nothing to a high-tech and agricultural powerhouse. Israel spent the early year building housing and towns for Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Israel spent those years doing all the things that Jordan could have done in the West Bank (or Egypt in Gaza).

So when you see horrible pictures from the West Bank, blame Jordan. Blame the Arabs themselves. And think about why they're not doing anything about it to this day.

Remember 9/11, remember who we're dealing with

As 9/11 approaches, we need to remember that it wasn't a lone event, it was part of a global trend in Arab terror. This is the same trend that Israel is fighting to this day.

The video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vOJCQr1Now shows Palestinains celebrating when the World Trade Center fell. As 9/11 approaches, watch it, remember it, and remember who it is that we're dealing with here.

If you're on Hezbollah's side, you're on the side of the celebrators in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vOJCQr1Now

Just imagine if the Lebanon war hadn't been needed...

Every day there's talk on CNN and in the American media blaming Israel for devastation in Lebanon, anger in the Arab world, troups in Lebanon and Gaza, and all the Arab world's troubles. I think that we need to keep a few things in mind, and be sure to remind others of these few simple facts:

1. If, after Israel withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza, the Arabs had built peaceful lives there, Israel would have stayed out, and in fact would probably have withdrew from more territory (legislation currently on hold because of Lebanon).

2. If Hamas hadn't kidnapped soldiers from Gaza, and Hezbollah hadn't kidnapped soldiers from Lebanon, and if both hadn't fired almost a thousand missiles into Israeli towns with no Israeli response, there would have been no war.

3. If, the day after the war started, Hamas and Hezbollah had said "OK, it's not worth a war, here are your soldiers back, we'll stop firing missiles, just don't attack us" then the war would not have happened.

4. If, a week or so into the war when it was clear that their infrastructure was being hurt, they had said "OK, we'll give you back the soldiers and stop firing missiles," most of the damage would not have been done.

5. If, right now, Hamas would disavow terror and accept co-existance with Israel, money would flow into the Palestinian Autonomy from Israel, the US, and the World Bank.

Of course, once we're thinking along these lines:

6. If the Arabs had accepted the 1947 UN partition plan, there would be no problems today

7. If Jordan and Egypt had built Palestinian countries in the West Bank and Gaza, instead of keeping the Palestinians in refugee camps for 19 years, the Palestinians might have a normal society today.

The world cannot afford to forget that terrorists are responsible for the consequences of terror.

The illogic of the "disparity" issue in the Lebanon war

To make a point, imagine the following scene: A thousand Arab terrorists carrying grenades run towards a crowded Israeli shopping center. Or maybe towards Times Square. A thousand Israeli (or New York) policemen are standing near the mall with their sidearms.

Do we all agree that each policeman's job would be to take out their gun and shoot one of the terrorists? That would be their job, right? To protect the citizens in the mall against the terrorists.

Now, if this situation happened, and the policemen did their job and protected the citizens by shooting the terrorists, there would be a thousand terrorists dead and no citizens or policemen dead. Any dead citizens or policemen is a sign of a policeman that didn't do his job well enough.

Would this disparity be unfair? Would it show aggressive behavior by the policemen? NO! It would show policemen doing their job in a defensive situation.

THIS WAS THE SITUATION IN THE LEBANON WAR.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon and from Gaza, and both were used to fire missiles at Israeli cities. After giving world powers time to stop it, it was the Israeli army's job to stop the missiles. The only question now is whether they did a good enough job.

Disparities in the counts of dead and wounded are no sign of problems on Israel's part, it's a sign of terrorists needing to be stopped. I hope that Americans and Europeans reading this never have to learn this first hand.

The settler issue is a non-issue, Israeli Arabs are the proof

Everyone makes a big deal about Israeli settlers. But this is a complete non-issue.

About 15% of Israel's population is Arabs, most living in Arab towns spread throughout Israel. (Note that I'm talking about Arab citizens in mainstream Israel, not in the West Bank or Gaza.) All have the right to vote, and there are several Arab members of Israeli Parliament, all elected through due process.

Why can't a Palestinian state be started in the West Bank, with Jewish settlements remaining in place similar to Arab towns in Israel? These Jews might choose to leave, or might choose to stay and live within the newly formed Palestinian state as a minority. If Arabs can stay and live in Israel, why can't Jews stay in settlements in the West Bank?

Now, we all know that this will never happen, because the Palestinians will kill them all. But let's admit reality: there's no rational difference between Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Arab towns in mainstream Israel, and Jewish settlers would not receive the same rights in a Palestinian state that Israeli Arabs receive in Israel. This is proven by the fact that the Palestinians insist that Jewish settlements be removed.

Bottom line, this is a theoretical argument, because Israel will forcably move settlers if it would help bring peace, as we did in Gaza. But it's important to realize that the settlers aren't the issue preventing a Palestinian state, the problem is the lack of Palestinian desire to live with a two-state solution, and a lack of Palestinian desire to really build a country.

Anti-Israel anti-semitism

(This is my first blog-only message after posting all my letters to the editor...)

I had an interesting discussion on an on-line forum recently.

I made the statement that Israel wants paece and would do anything for peace, including withdrawing from territory and forcing citizens to move (as we did in Gaza), if the Palestinians would agree to stop terror and accept a two-state reality.

I expected argument. But I didn't expect what I saw.

The primary responses that I received were "oh, so you think you're chosen!" and "what do you expect when you believe you deserve the land because of the Bible?"

I've always heard that anti-Israel sentiment was driven by anti-semitism, but having grown up very mainstreamed in America, I never really believed it. But it's true. When people feel like arguing with Israel, and nothing rational comes to mind, what comes out is pure anti-semitism.

Maybe they don't even realize it. When I pointed it out, they ignored it. But that's what they had written.

So all that we Israel supporters can do it keep making our rational points. Anti-semetic vindictive just means that they have no rational response. And we can hope that some non-anti-semites are reading or listening.

Israel will keep praying for peace, hopefully one day the world will understand.

LA Times letter 2006 August 1: Pointing fingers in the Mideast conflict

Pointing fingers in the Mideast conflict

Re "Israel to Halt Bombing for 48 Hours," July 31

Looking at history, this is yet another repeat of the withdrawal from Lebanon six years ago and the withdrawal from Gaza a year ago. Both led directly to terror because they were not met on the Arab side with a commitment to end terror.

How many more withdrawals does Israel have to carry out before the world realizes that the only way to bring peace is a two-sided commitment to peace? How many flare-ups does the world need to see before we admit the real problem, the lack of commitment to peace on the part of the Arab countries?

BRUCE DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh, Israel

Washington Post letter 2006 August 1: Lebanon and Israel: Is Diplomacy Worth It?

Lebanon and Israel: Is Diplomacy Worth It?

I'm glad that Warren Christopher ["A Time to Act," op-ed, July 28] believes that previous U.S. diplomatic interventions in the Middle East were successful. I grew up in Washington, and I understand that from his Washington perspective, they probably looked successful. But from Israel, where terrorism has never stopped since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza, all previous examples are of failure.

Israel is learning from history. History shows that leaving terrorist infrastructure intact leads to more terrorism in a few years. Every time we fail to learn from that history, we doom ourselves to repeat it. If the Western world continues to put the pressure where it belongs, on Arab terrorists and supporters of terrorism, maybe we can break the historical cycle and have true peace.

BRUCE DOV KRULWICH
Beit Shemesh, Israel

Time magazine Europe letter 2006 August 15: The war that never ends

The war that never ends

Your article "Hate thy neighbor" did an excellent job of summarizing the situation in the Middle East, but the statement that "Bush has showed no interest in [negotiating], and Washington is handicapped by its unwillingness to negotiate with four of the key players" misses the point.

The only way to establish peace in the region is to eliminate terrorism, both by destroying terrorist infrastructure and by ensuring that terrorism is never rewarded. Stopping the violence and forcing negotiations before that is accomplished will put us in the same situation a few years down the road. Preventing Israel from destroying terrorists is not in the interest of peace.

Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel