Arab media
Gaza – Ma'an – Hamas will not send any more emissaries to Egypt to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire with Israel, and will wait for Egyptian intelligence chief Umar Sulaiman to compel Israel to accept a truce offered by Hamas, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a political meeting at the Islamic University in Gaza, Zahhar expected Umar Sulaiman to visit Israel soon in a final attempt to secure Israel's cooperation with a ceasefire.
Zahhar also warned that Hamas would not hesitate to strike back if Israel refused to cooperate: "If Israel decides to reject a ceasefire, they will pay a heavy toll because the besieged Gaza Strip's people will have no choice but to defend their lives against the siege," added Zahhar.
Nonetheless, Zahhar's remarks suggested that Hamas' offer for a truce is still on the table despite ongoing Israeli attacks, especially in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed eight people, including a mother and her four young children, in the Gaza Strip on Monday.
However, Zahhar expected optimism that Israel would agree to a ceasefire after haggling about the details of the agreement. The deal will include opening all Gaza Strip's terminals and crossings including Rafah crossing, in case the Egyptian efforts succeeded, he said.
He also explained his view that has Hamas benefited from past ceasefires, especially in 2005.
Zahhar, a founder of Hamas and the former Palestinian foreign minister, is considered to be one of the more hawkish members of the movement's leadership.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
King calls for economic alliance among Muslim countries
Arab media:
AMMAN (JT) - His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday said the Islamic world has the assets, combined resources and geo-economic position that make it “the key to every major economic issue of our time - from creating a green global economy, to energy sustainability”.
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King Abdullah made his remarks in a speech he delivered at the opening ceremony of the 4th World Islamic Economic Forum in Kuwait.
Also yesterday, King Abdullah met with Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah on the sidelines of the forum and discussed bilateral ties, developments at the regional and Arab levels and efforts to push the peace process forward.
He also met with Afghan President Hamed Karzai, head of Bosnian Presidential Council, Haris Silajdzic, and the representative of the Indonesian president, Irman Gusman.
In his speech at the forum, King Abdullah said: “By working together, member states boost prosperity within their group, and compete more effectively worldwide.”
King Abdullah, who returned home late Tuesday, urged the world leaders taking part in the event, along with the officials, world economic experts and more than 400 businesspeople, to create the economic community needed to sustain “our people” against global financial and energy shocks and other challenges, and to determine whether Muslims, not only in Islamic countries, but everywhere in the world, will have access to the economic promise of the 21st century.
His Majesty said the world’s Muslim population is almost one-fifth of humanity, and predominantly young, which gives their countries a significant force for productivity and market growth, adding that with one-quarter of the world’s landmass, Islamic countries are channels to every corner of the global marketplace.
The Monarch said the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Conference have a combined gross domestic product which is only one-fourth of Europe’s, adding which the Muslim world’s share of global trade remains in the single digits.
Stressing the importance to restore the tradition of innovation in the Muslim world, the Monarch said: “Our governments, companies and development leaders must support innovation, with the same deliberate approach that we apply to building infrastructure or attracting investment.”
The King called for creating an environment which supports and encourages young minds to help create a future of true global progress, one that engages all countries and cultures in mutual respect.
The Monarch added that the forum, which brought together leaders from across the spectrum of Muslim society, “recognises the huge role of economic alliances in our era”.
Across the world, regional and transnational communities and partnerships are providing platforms for economic success, he said.
The King added: “We stand on a long Islamic history of enterprise and learning - and we are empowered by the unity, values and purpose of Islam.”
The Monarch also reviewed the Kingdom’s experience in a major initiative on innovation in education.
“Within four years, the return on investment has been phenomenal. New technologies have accelerated, teaching skills have expanded, students have gained knowledge at a world competitive level,” the King said.
“Obviously, the growing pool of talent has near- and long-term benefits for Jordan’s business community. But there are immediate benefits to participating companies, as well - from their local reputation for leadership to knowledge transfer with their global counterparts,” he added.
At their meeting, the King and the Kuwaiti emir emphasised the need for the Palestinians and Israelis to benefit from the atmosphere the Arab and international community are trying to create, paving the way for a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict.
They strongly condemned Israeli violations against the Palestinians and called for an immediate halt to these actions, expansion of settlements and lifting the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, King Abdullah and President Karzai discussed bilateral ties, issues facing the Islamic world, current developments in the Middle East and Afghanistan and efforts to bring about stability and security in both regions.
His Majesty stressed Jordan’s support to Afghanistan’s efforts to entrench stability and security, emphasising Jordan’s keenness to provide all types of support to help the Afghans.
King Abdullah also discussed cooperation with Bosnia’s Silajdzic, particularly in the fields of culture and investments.
Silajdzic invited King Abdullah to visit Bosnia.
Gusman also conveyed to King Abdullah an invitation from the Indonesian president to visit the Asian Muslim country.
King Abdullah also met with Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al Mohammad Al Sabah and looked into means to enhance bilateral cooperation, especially on the investment and economic fields.
Saudis deny Assad to visit kingdom
The Media Line Staff and Jpost.com Staff
Reports that Syrian President Bashar Assad is planning to visit the Saudi kingdom are not true, Saudi Arabia said, in what is seen as a further indication of the tension between Riyadh and Damascus.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the kingdom had not received a request for Assad to visit. However, he dismissed rumors that there was a breach in their relations or that they required outside mediation.
"Our relationship with Syria stands, as well as the direct communication between the two countries, " Faisal told reporters.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Damascus have soured over the past couple of years, primarily over the crisis in Lebanon.
Riyadh accuses Syria of perpetuating the political gridlock in Lebanon, which has been without a president since last November. Syria and Iran support the large opposition bloc in Lebanon.
Also, Syria is seen as being behind the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who had Saudi citizenship.
Saudi Arabia refrained from sending a high-level delegate to the Arab League summit in Damascus last month.
The recent beheading of three Syrian nationals in the Saudi Kingdom further strained these relations. Riyadh denied there were any political motives behind the execution of the Syrians, who were accused of drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, the Qatari-based Al Watan newspaper quoted unnamed Arab leaders as saying "the relations between Syria and other Arab countries are on the verge of a deep abyss."
"Assad himself is responsible for his isolation, because of the destruction he wrought on Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine and because of the alliances he struck with Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas ... Assad's biggest problem is that he refuses to mend the mistakes he made and insists that Lebanon will be seen as a Syrian area. This is something that all Arab states oppose," the unnamed sources told the paper.
The sources warned that so long as Assad remains an ally of Iran and other extremist forces, Arab states would continue to refrain from forging relations with Damascus.
'Hamas stole 60,000 liters of Gaza fuel'
THE JERUSALEM POST
The head of the Palestinian Authority's gas agency confirmed Tuesday that Hamas gunmen had raided the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, stealing at least 60,000 liters of fuel meant for the Gaza power station in order to fill their own vehicles.
The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday that on at least four occasions over the past few weeks, Hamas militiamen confiscated trucks loaded with fuel as they were on their way from Nahal Oz to the city. Eyewitnesses said that the fuel supplies were taken to Hamas-controlled security installations throughout the city.
Gas agency head Mojahed Salam told Israel Radio that his workers were threatened at gunpoint and that he instructed them to obey the orders of the armed men so they wouldn't be harmed.
"They took control of the fuel and fired toward the terminal in order to torpedo the flow of fuel to the Strip and to pressure Egypt into reopening the Rafah border crossing," said Salam.
Also Tuesday, an Egyptian security official said that Egyptian border guards discovered five new underground smuggling tunnels north of the Rafah border crossing.
The official said two tunnels were used to pump fuel to the Gaza Strip due to the severe energy shortages. One of the tunnels was found in a kitchen with a pump connected to a hose running through it.
The tunnels were found early on Monday, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some 50 jerry cans of fuel and another pump were found in the second tunnel which opened into an olive orchard 150 meters from the border.
Meanwhile, under heavy security, Israel transferred a large amount of wheat to the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abu Toameh contributed to this report
The head of the Palestinian Authority's gas agency confirmed Tuesday that Hamas gunmen had raided the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, stealing at least 60,000 liters of fuel meant for the Gaza power station in order to fill their own vehicles.
The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday that on at least four occasions over the past few weeks, Hamas militiamen confiscated trucks loaded with fuel as they were on their way from Nahal Oz to the city. Eyewitnesses said that the fuel supplies were taken to Hamas-controlled security installations throughout the city.
Gas agency head Mojahed Salam told Israel Radio that his workers were threatened at gunpoint and that he instructed them to obey the orders of the armed men so they wouldn't be harmed.
"They took control of the fuel and fired toward the terminal in order to torpedo the flow of fuel to the Strip and to pressure Egypt into reopening the Rafah border crossing," said Salam.
Also Tuesday, an Egyptian security official said that Egyptian border guards discovered five new underground smuggling tunnels north of the Rafah border crossing.
The official said two tunnels were used to pump fuel to the Gaza Strip due to the severe energy shortages. One of the tunnels was found in a kitchen with a pump connected to a hose running through it.
The tunnels were found early on Monday, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some 50 jerry cans of fuel and another pump were found in the second tunnel which opened into an olive orchard 150 meters from the border.
Meanwhile, under heavy security, Israel transferred a large amount of wheat to the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abu Toameh contributed to this report
Zahar: We have 200,000 suicide bombers
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 29, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel may have 200 nuclear warheads, but Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside Israel, Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said on Tuesday.
Zahar, who was speaking to supporters at the Islamic University in Gaza City, said Israel would pay if it rejected the Egyptian initiative for truce with the Palestinians.
"If Israel says no, it will pay a heavy price," he said. "We are a besieged people and we will have to use all our tools to defend ourselves against Israel."
Zahar said he expected Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to brief Israeli leaders next week on Cairo's efforts to achieve a truce.
Once Israel accepted the Egyptian proposal, Zahar said, all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip would be reopened. "The issue of the truce initiative will be determined finally next week," he added. "I believe Israel will accept the initiative, although it will try to drag its feet on some issues."
The Hamas leader pointed out that his movement had accepted a cease-fire with Israel in 2005. "Hamas benefited from that truce and no one can deny this," he said. "Even those who opposed the previous truce have admitted that it was useful."
Zahar criticized Palestinian factions that were opposed to the latest Egyptian initiative, saying some of them had received $1.5 million from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to boycott a Hamas rally against the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis last November.
Hamas would not agree to the presence of EU monitors at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Sinai, as was the case before June 2007, when Hamas took full control of the Strip, Zahar said. In the past, Hamas said it would agree to the return of the monitors on condition that they lived in the Gaza Strip or Egypt and not in Israel.
Zahar's remarks came as representatives of several Palestinian groups began talks in Cairo over the truce proposal.
The Egyptians summoned the representatives in a bid to persuade them to accept the initiative. Among the groups participating in the discussions are Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
An Egyptian diplomat told The Jerusalem Post that all the groups had agreed in principle to the truce. Cairo was optimistic regarding the prospects of achieving a deal as early as next week, especially since Hamas has already agreed to the truce, he said.
The diplomat confirmed that Suleiman was planning to visit Israel next week for talks with government officials on his discussions with the Palestinian groups. "We are very close to achieving an agreement," the diplomat said. "We believe all the parties are interested in a lengthy period of calm."
Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri said Tuesday that a truce with Israel would not be possible unless all the Palestinian groups agreed to it.
"We won't go to a hudna [temporary truce] unless there is a consensus among the Palestinians about it," he said. "We are aware that some groups are opposed to a truce, but don't believe that the major factions would reject a mutual and comprehensive truce that would end the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip."
Comment: Does this not not only describe the culture but also demonstrate where this culture places its values on development?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel may have 200 nuclear warheads, but Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside Israel, Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said on Tuesday.
Zahar, who was speaking to supporters at the Islamic University in Gaza City, said Israel would pay if it rejected the Egyptian initiative for truce with the Palestinians.
"If Israel says no, it will pay a heavy price," he said. "We are a besieged people and we will have to use all our tools to defend ourselves against Israel."
Zahar said he expected Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to brief Israeli leaders next week on Cairo's efforts to achieve a truce.
Once Israel accepted the Egyptian proposal, Zahar said, all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip would be reopened. "The issue of the truce initiative will be determined finally next week," he added. "I believe Israel will accept the initiative, although it will try to drag its feet on some issues."
The Hamas leader pointed out that his movement had accepted a cease-fire with Israel in 2005. "Hamas benefited from that truce and no one can deny this," he said. "Even those who opposed the previous truce have admitted that it was useful."
Zahar criticized Palestinian factions that were opposed to the latest Egyptian initiative, saying some of them had received $1.5 million from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to boycott a Hamas rally against the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis last November.
Hamas would not agree to the presence of EU monitors at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Sinai, as was the case before June 2007, when Hamas took full control of the Strip, Zahar said. In the past, Hamas said it would agree to the return of the monitors on condition that they lived in the Gaza Strip or Egypt and not in Israel.
Zahar's remarks came as representatives of several Palestinian groups began talks in Cairo over the truce proposal.
The Egyptians summoned the representatives in a bid to persuade them to accept the initiative. Among the groups participating in the discussions are Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
An Egyptian diplomat told The Jerusalem Post that all the groups had agreed in principle to the truce. Cairo was optimistic regarding the prospects of achieving a deal as early as next week, especially since Hamas has already agreed to the truce, he said.
The diplomat confirmed that Suleiman was planning to visit Israel next week for talks with government officials on his discussions with the Palestinian groups. "We are very close to achieving an agreement," the diplomat said. "We believe all the parties are interested in a lengthy period of calm."
Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri said Tuesday that a truce with Israel would not be possible unless all the Palestinian groups agreed to it.
"We won't go to a hudna [temporary truce] unless there is a consensus among the Palestinians about it," he said. "We are aware that some groups are opposed to a truce, but don't believe that the major factions would reject a mutual and comprehensive truce that would end the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip."
Comment: Does this not not only describe the culture but also demonstrate where this culture places its values on development?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
"That Hudna"
Arlene Kushner
A correction: When I wrote about the US case against Kadish recently, I indicated that we had friends in Congress, the Pentagon and other places in the US, but that we also had enemies, in State, the Intelligence community, and the Justice department. I had secured my information from what I thought were reliable sources. Now I have heard from Sarah Stern, who heads the lobby group Emet, in Washington DC. She tells me that we have some very good friends in Justice, and that she has personally worked with some of them. I stand corrected and apologize.
~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote last about the proposed ceasefire (technically a hudna) for Gaza and indicated that since Hamas political head Mashaal had referred to it, with honesty, as a "tactic" this clearly wasn't going anywhere. A hudna buys them time to strengthen before they hit us again. Well...that was a foolish assumption on my part, altogether too rational. The news that broke yesterday was that Bush wanted to see us go for that hudna, with it in place before he arrived here in two weeks. There was some notion that this would help the "peace process." And, obviously, helping the peace process is all that really matters.
Some of you already know how infuriated this made me -- this meddling by Bush into our security affairs.
I still suspect that in the end this may go nowhere (and I'll explain a bit about why), but there are now several factors that it's worth examining.
~~~~~~~~~~
The "inspired" notion of Bush, or his advisors, is that Abbas feels constrained with regard to dealing with Israel when Israel is shooting at Palestinians in Gaza -- terrorist Palestinians, but for Abbas that is beside the point. It makes him look as if he's consorting with the enemy. And so stopping the shooting would presumably make it possible for Abbas to negotiate more freely.
Abbas is giving good lip service to this idea of a truce. After meeting with Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, he intoned, "The truce is a national interest of all Palestinians. A truce will alleviate the suffering of our people and pave the way for the reopening of the border crossings."
However, reports Khaled Abu Toameh in the Post, the PA is actually quite anxious about this, because it would be a step towards legitimizing Hamas's takeover of Gaza, something Abbas is trying mightily to reverse. At a minimum, Abbas is insisting that the PA must be present at all opened border crossings, but if the crossings are opened in a deal between Israel and Hamas as part of a truce, exactly where does that leave the PA?
An analysis in Haaretz carried this theme even further, saying that a truce that opened the crossings would render the PA almost irrelevant. According to this thinking, people would get the message that concessions are more likely to be drawn from Israel when there is shooting than when there are negotiations.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is truly ironic, and not at all surprising, that the US government, meddling in Middle Eastern affairs in an attempt to make things better, might, from their perspective, end up making them worse. Were they to push that truce down our throats, in an effort to strengthen Abbas, they might actually make him weaker.
~~~~~~~~~~
Egypt, still working towards that hudna, has invited four terrorist factions to Cairo for meetings in an attempt to convince them to cooperate: Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) .
The serious question as to whether they will all be on board is a major factor getting in the way of what Egypt is attempting to accomplish. At a minimum, these groups are seeking commitments by Israel not to do any operations in Gaza, and to extend the truce to Judea and Samaria within six months.
Problematic, to say the least.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then there is the issue of Egypt's commitment to blocking the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
Head of the IDF Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant is fiercely opposed to a ceasefire, in part because he's convinced smuggling would increase.
He's also concerned about strengthening of the terrorist infrastructure inside of Gaza.
~~~~~~~~~~
Today 15 Kassams and 20 mortars were fired at Israel. A home and a clinic were hit, and five people in Sderot were lightly wounded.
Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "This is not the right time for a ceasefire with Hamas."
~~~~~~~~~~
The comment of Hamas's Mahmoud Zahar, speaking today at Islamic University in Gaza, was that, "If Israel says no, it will pay a heavy price. We are a besieged people and we will have to use all our tools to defend ourselves against Israel...Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside of Israel."
~~~~~~~~~~
And, indeed, we may be in for some tough times.
Head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet today that terror groups are planning a major attack for our 60th Independence Day, next week.
While Hamas may be planning to breach the border between Gaza and Israel, as they did at Rafah not long ago. They would likely aim towards Israel this time because Egypt has gotten very serious about its response to a new attempt to break through at Rafah. And when the Egyptians get serious, they shoot to kill.
~~~~~~~~~~
According to a new report from YNet, a serious blowout has erupted between Israel's chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, and the PA chief negotiator, Ahmed Qurei. Qurei reportedly exploded when Livni presented a map that showed Israel retaining Jerusalem, major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, and the Jordan Valley (essential from a security perspective).
In addition, Qurei is said to be furious because Barak has indicated that there would have to be special security arrangements at a high point in Samaria that directly overlooks the airport.
If this report is accurate, and if the quarrel is even half-way serious, then Bush can forget trying to push Israel into a truce in order to get the PA to negotiate faster. I'm waiting for confirmation.
~~~~~~~~~~
It's very good news being reported by the Post regarding sanctions with teeth against Iran. Apparently the EU is set to blacklist one of Iran's top banks -- a bank through which Iran conducts considerable business.
A correction: When I wrote about the US case against Kadish recently, I indicated that we had friends in Congress, the Pentagon and other places in the US, but that we also had enemies, in State, the Intelligence community, and the Justice department. I had secured my information from what I thought were reliable sources. Now I have heard from Sarah Stern, who heads the lobby group Emet, in Washington DC. She tells me that we have some very good friends in Justice, and that she has personally worked with some of them. I stand corrected and apologize.
~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote last about the proposed ceasefire (technically a hudna) for Gaza and indicated that since Hamas political head Mashaal had referred to it, with honesty, as a "tactic" this clearly wasn't going anywhere. A hudna buys them time to strengthen before they hit us again. Well...that was a foolish assumption on my part, altogether too rational. The news that broke yesterday was that Bush wanted to see us go for that hudna, with it in place before he arrived here in two weeks. There was some notion that this would help the "peace process." And, obviously, helping the peace process is all that really matters.
Some of you already know how infuriated this made me -- this meddling by Bush into our security affairs.
I still suspect that in the end this may go nowhere (and I'll explain a bit about why), but there are now several factors that it's worth examining.
~~~~~~~~~~
The "inspired" notion of Bush, or his advisors, is that Abbas feels constrained with regard to dealing with Israel when Israel is shooting at Palestinians in Gaza -- terrorist Palestinians, but for Abbas that is beside the point. It makes him look as if he's consorting with the enemy. And so stopping the shooting would presumably make it possible for Abbas to negotiate more freely.
Abbas is giving good lip service to this idea of a truce. After meeting with Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, he intoned, "The truce is a national interest of all Palestinians. A truce will alleviate the suffering of our people and pave the way for the reopening of the border crossings."
However, reports Khaled Abu Toameh in the Post, the PA is actually quite anxious about this, because it would be a step towards legitimizing Hamas's takeover of Gaza, something Abbas is trying mightily to reverse. At a minimum, Abbas is insisting that the PA must be present at all opened border crossings, but if the crossings are opened in a deal between Israel and Hamas as part of a truce, exactly where does that leave the PA?
An analysis in Haaretz carried this theme even further, saying that a truce that opened the crossings would render the PA almost irrelevant. According to this thinking, people would get the message that concessions are more likely to be drawn from Israel when there is shooting than when there are negotiations.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is truly ironic, and not at all surprising, that the US government, meddling in Middle Eastern affairs in an attempt to make things better, might, from their perspective, end up making them worse. Were they to push that truce down our throats, in an effort to strengthen Abbas, they might actually make him weaker.
~~~~~~~~~~
Egypt, still working towards that hudna, has invited four terrorist factions to Cairo for meetings in an attempt to convince them to cooperate: Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) .
The serious question as to whether they will all be on board is a major factor getting in the way of what Egypt is attempting to accomplish. At a minimum, these groups are seeking commitments by Israel not to do any operations in Gaza, and to extend the truce to Judea and Samaria within six months.
Problematic, to say the least.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then there is the issue of Egypt's commitment to blocking the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
Head of the IDF Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant is fiercely opposed to a ceasefire, in part because he's convinced smuggling would increase.
He's also concerned about strengthening of the terrorist infrastructure inside of Gaza.
~~~~~~~~~~
Today 15 Kassams and 20 mortars were fired at Israel. A home and a clinic were hit, and five people in Sderot were lightly wounded.
Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "This is not the right time for a ceasefire with Hamas."
~~~~~~~~~~
The comment of Hamas's Mahmoud Zahar, speaking today at Islamic University in Gaza, was that, "If Israel says no, it will pay a heavy price. We are a besieged people and we will have to use all our tools to defend ourselves against Israel...Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside of Israel."
~~~~~~~~~~
And, indeed, we may be in for some tough times.
Head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet today that terror groups are planning a major attack for our 60th Independence Day, next week.
While Hamas may be planning to breach the border between Gaza and Israel, as they did at Rafah not long ago. They would likely aim towards Israel this time because Egypt has gotten very serious about its response to a new attempt to break through at Rafah. And when the Egyptians get serious, they shoot to kill.
~~~~~~~~~~
According to a new report from YNet, a serious blowout has erupted between Israel's chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, and the PA chief negotiator, Ahmed Qurei. Qurei reportedly exploded when Livni presented a map that showed Israel retaining Jerusalem, major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, and the Jordan Valley (essential from a security perspective).
In addition, Qurei is said to be furious because Barak has indicated that there would have to be special security arrangements at a high point in Samaria that directly overlooks the airport.
If this report is accurate, and if the quarrel is even half-way serious, then Bush can forget trying to push Israel into a truce in order to get the PA to negotiate faster. I'm waiting for confirmation.
~~~~~~~~~~
It's very good news being reported by the Post regarding sanctions with teeth against Iran. Apparently the EU is set to blacklist one of Iran's top banks -- a bank through which Iran conducts considerable business.
MK Eitam: Arab MKs Broke a New Record for Treason
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Knesset Member Effie Eitam (National Union-National Religious Party) slammed Arab MK Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra’am-Ta’al) on Monday night after Sarsur compared IDF soldiers to Nazis and claimed Israel was targeting Arab civilians for extermination.
MK Eitam called the Nazi comparison “chilling” and said, "MK Sarsur's desecration of the memory of the
“The Arab MKs have again proven their loyalty to the enemy." -- MK Eitam
Holocaust will never be forgiven, and it will remain a moral stain that will force the Knesset presidency to take appropriate action." The statement by MK Sarsur was the latest in a series of incidents demonstrating that "Arab MKs have broken a new record in traitorous behavior towards the state and the IDF," said Eitam. "The Arab MKs have again proven their loyalty to the enemy," he said, adding that MKs who side with enemy elements, such as Hamas, should be removed from the Knesset as quickly as possible.
On Monday, MK Sarsur compared IDF soldiers to Nazis after five Arab civilians were killed in Gaza during an IDF counter-terrorism operation.
An initial IDF investigation showed that the civilians were not killed by the Israel Air Force strike. Rather, Arab terrorists were carrying a bomb near the family's house that detonated by accident. The IDF later ordered the artillery commander of the Southern Command to investigate Monday's deaths more in depth.
Sarsur said in a press statement, "Every day Israel proves that her army is the Nazis’ chief competitor and that it carries out an ideology of extermination." He blamed Israel for the civilians' deaths, calling the incident a "massacre of a Palestinian family... in the context of new aggression by the occupation army in the northern Gaza Strip."
The Arab MK emphasized, "We have no doubt that Israel is targeting Palestinian civilians for death, for shredding [their bodies], for starvation and for destruction [of their homes]...." Sarsur added that IDF spokesmen are lying when they say that the army doesn't target civilians.
IDF spokesmen said that "additional inquiries are to be carried out, in order to eliminate any possible doubt regarding the accuracy" of the initial conclusions placing the blame at Hamas's doorstep. "By intentionally operating from within heavily populated areas, and using them for cover, the terrorist organization exploits civilians as human shields," the IDF Spokesman's Office added.
The IDF probe comes 24 hours after the incident, while an intensive PA public relations campaign has already mostly succeeded in placing the blame on Israel. On Thursday, donor nations to the PA are scheduled to meet in London, where it is expected that they will severely condemn Israel over Monday's deaths.
Gush Katif Refugees Ask Court to Erase Debts
Avi Tuchmayer
Refugees from destroyed communities in Gush Katif have appealed to the Supreme Court to force the government to enforce a pre-disengagement decision to erase refugees' debts to the World Zionist Organization.
The decision to erase debts incurred by Gush Katif pioneers when they established their communities was made by the Knesset Finance Committee in 2004. As with other areas around the country, Gaza communities benefited from long-term loans from the Jewish Agency in order establish farming infrastructure, but when the Sharon Administration decided to pull out of Gaza, it became clear that local residents would be unable to repay the debts. Because the Finance Committee had supposedly "taken care" of canceling Gush Katif debts to the World Zionist Organization, the Knesset Laws Committee did not enshrine the debt erasure in the 2005 Evacuation – Compensation Law. As a result, Gaza residents were left with little legal protection and saddled with debt for farming equipment and farm land they can no longer access.
According to Anita Tucker, formerly of Netzer Hazani, the debt repayment is an especially sore point for pioneers who built up Jewish Gaza soon after the area was liberated from Egypt during the Six Day War.
"When we came to Gush Katif over 30 years ago, the World Zionist Organization gave a package of benefits to encourage agriculture in development areas. We received various essentials to start a farm. I was a farmer in Gush Katif for 29 years. We were in the process of paying back those initial benefits, when the government threw us out of the land, that it had originally encouraged us to develop."
Three years later, still refugees
Three years after the government forcibly removed Gaza's Jewish residents from their homes, expellees continue to be scattered in a variety of temporary housing arrangements, and most remain without suitable employment options. Most refugees survive on compensation payouts they received at the time of the eviction.
To raise funds to build a new dairy infrastructure in order to create a post-disengagement source of economic stability, some former Gush Katif communities sold shares in Tnuva, Israel's largest dairy product manufacturer. There is now a foreclosure order for approximately 3 million shekels on that money in order to cover the debts the refugees owe to the Zionist organization.
The lawsuit names as defendants the government, World Zionist Organization, the Finance Ministry, the accountant general, the agriculture minister and the Sela Disengagement Authority, and asks the court to force the above-mentioned bodies to enforce the government's decision. They say the plaintiffs' real ability to restore and rebuild their lives has suffered, and due to the huge sums involved (which is more than the sum total of the payout they have received to date), it has impaired their abilities to repair their lives in the future.
Abbas's PA Sentences Man to Death for Fighting Terrorism
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
A Palestinian Authority court in the city of Hevron sentenced a 25-year-old man to death Monday for giving Israel information that led to the elimination of four terrorists. The condemned man, Emad Saad, did not deny the charges.
Samih Staidi, a senior member of the PA's official armed militia, said Saad, himself a former member of the PA forces, would be executed by a firing squad. Staidi expressed satisfaction with the verdict, saying, “Let it be an example to those who sell their homeland and their people.” The court that sentenced Saad is under the control of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah organization. Abbas is currently involved in negotiations with Israel over what is being promoted as a peace agreement; however, Israel has predicated implementation on a concerted PA effort to fight anti-Israel terrorism. Earlier this month, Abbas granted an official award to two Arab terrorists responsible for the deaths of 16 Jews.
The last time the PA officially executed an Arab resident under its jurisdiction for assisting Israel was in 2001; however, dozens of Arabs who were said to have been offering assistance to Israel have been killed by PA lynch mobs or by Fatah and Hamas terrorists in recent years.
'A Slap in the Face to Israel'
In reaction to news of the PA death sentence, the Land of Israel Legal Forum wrote an urgent letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak calling on them to take action to prevent the execution. The Forum's Chairman, Nachi Eyal, wrote that the IDF should be sent into the PA-controlled area of Hevron to forcibly free the condemned man if the PA refuses to lift the sentence.
"The State of Israel, which aids the Palestinian Authority in many varied ways, can make it clear to [Abbas] that this [death sentence] crosses a red line of incomprehensible cruelty and of uncultured behavior," Eyal wrote.
Noting that the execution of Arabs who assist Israel was characteristic of the rule of the late arch-terrorist and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Eyal added that it also proves that "whosoever gives the Palestinian Authority any credit and transfers weapons and armored vehicles to it behaves irresponsibly."
In March, the Israeli government implemented a series of "goodwill gestures" that included delivering dozens of APCs to Fatah-controlled PA militias in Judea and Samaria.
"Execution of someone for cooperating with the State of Israel is a stinging slap in the face to Israel," Eyal explained in his letter to Olmert and Barak, "It is your moral obligation to make it clear to [Abbas], in whose hands approval of the sentence rests, that authorization of the sentence will be be treated extremely seriously by Israel."
Abbas Rejects Meeting With Diplomats Who Honor Israel's Independence Day
Meanwhile, PA officials said Monday that Abbas would not meet with foreign leaders and diplomats who visit Israel in honor of the country’s 60th Independence Day. At that time, they said, the PA will be commemorating the "Nakba", or “Disaster,” as it refers to the creation of the modern state of Israel.
PA sources said visiting diplomats should “show sensitivity to the Palestinian people’s feelings” and realize that the PA will be mourning the creation of the state of Israel, not celebrating it.
15 Kadima MKs Oppose Olmert's Golan Withdrawal Stance
Hillel Fendel
The majority of the Knesset faction of Kadima - Israel's largest party and political home of the Prime Minister and most of the more influential Cabinet ministers - opposes a giveaway of the Golan Heights.
The results of an internal party poll to this effect were published on the Kadima party website. The site emphasizes that the results are "fluid," as they are dependent on the precise nature of an agreement that might be signed with Syria. Prime Minister Olmert has not denied reports of last week that he transmitted a message to Syria stating he would be willing to give up the entire Golan in exchange for peace with the North Korean ally.
"Do You Favor Significant Withdrawal?"
The party's 29 MKs were asked whether they would support a "significant withdrawal" from the Golan Heights. This term was defined as either the uprooting of all or most of the 33 Jewish towns there, or their transfer to Syrian sovereignty with a measure of Israeli autonomy.
Fifteen of the 29 MKs said they are totally against a "significant withdrawal." These included ten members of the Knesset Golan lobby - Ruchama Avraham Belila, Eli Aflalo, Tzachi HaNegbi, Yoel Hasson, David Tal, Marina Solodkin, Ze'ev Elkin, Ronit Tirosh, Michael Nudelman, and Shai Hermesh - as well as Yaakov Edry, Sha'ul Mofaz, Avraham Hirschson, Ze'ev Boim, and Otniel Shneller. This number includes four Cabinet ministers (Mofaz, Boim, Edry and Belila).
Transportation Minister Mofaz told reporters in Washington on Monday that surrendering the Golan to the Iranian ally would mean giving Iran control of the high ground overlooking much of northern Israel. The former Defense Minister, who met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, is visiting Washington as part of the American-Israeli strategic dialogue that takes place every six months.
The position of two Kadima MKs - Minister Gideon Ezra and Amira Dotan - is not clear. Ezra has gone on record as saying that there is no point in talking with Syria at present.
Twelve Kadima MKs say they favor a "significant withdrawal" from the Golan in exchange for peace with the country the US terms a "terrorism sponsor." They are Olmert, Ministers Livni, Dichter, Sheetrit, Ramon, and Bar-On, and Shlomo Mula, Dalia Itzik, Menachem Ben-Sasson, Yitzchak Ben-Yisrael, Yochanan Plesner, and Majli Whbee.
Syria Shelled Israel from the Golan
Syria controlled the Golan for 19 years, beginning in 1948, and used it to systematically shell and attack the Jewish towns towns below. 140 Israelis were killed in these attacks, many more were injured, and heavy property damage was also inflicted.
Israel liberated the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War, thus freeing northern Israel of the Syrian threat. Israel soon realized that the Golan was vital not only militarily, but also in terms of water, history, and more. The Golan was officially annexed to Israel in 1981, and over the years, 33 Jewish communities were built, including the full-fledged town of Katzrin. Today, over 17,000 Jewish residents live in the Golan and the slopes of strategically-vital Mt. Hermon. In addition, 19,000 Druze and 2,000 Muslims live there as well.
History to Repeat?
It is noteworthy that when Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert first floated the idea of a Disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron, many of their Likud party members opposed it. As time passed and political circumstances changed, however, their opinions did as well.
Sderot Residents Protest Non-Stop Rockets
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Following a day of enemy rocket barrages from Gaza, hundreds of residents of the southern city of Sderot took to the streets in an angry spontaneous demonstration Monday night. They protested against the government's failure to stop the Palestinian Authority attacks on them. Attacks continued Tuesday morning, with PA rockets and mortars slamming into a home in Sderot and hitting a medical clinic in a kibbutz, among other targets. During their Monday protest, residents blocked the main entrance to Sderot and burned tires. The demonstration dispersed after a short time without incident.
PA terrorists fired 19 rockets at towns in the western Negev on Monday. Several people suffered shock, and kibbutzim (cooperative communities) in the area reported some damage to property. One rocket slammed into a local highway.
No Halt to Attacks
By Tuesday morning, Arab terrorists resumed their attacks on Israel. By 9:00 am at least ten rockets had fallen throughout the western Negev and several mortar shells landed in a kibbutz adjacent to Gaza.
Four Kassam rockets slammed into Sderot and its environs, with one hitting a house in the city and causing severe damage. Several people suffered from shock as a result of the attacks. One mortar shell fired by PA terrorists struck a medical clinic on a kibbutz in the Eshkol Region, causing slight damage to the reinforced structure.
One rocket exploded near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar HaNegev region, causing no injuries or damage. Four other rockets fell in the same vicinity, causing slight property damage.
Fatah, led by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and the Islamic Jihad both claimed to be behind the Tuesday morning barrage.
Fatah, led by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and the Islamic Jihad both claimed to be behind the Tuesday morning barrage.
Exactly one year ago, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that the Israeli government "will not avoid the necessary steps to protect the residents of the South [and] cannot continue to ignore the Kassam launching and infiltration attempts of terrorist cells."
In other PA attacks, Arabs threw rocks at an Israeli vehicle on Monday night north of the Pisgat Zeev neighborhood of Jerusalem. No injuries were reported in the attack, but the vehicle sustained
damage. A similar rock-throwing incident too place the same night near the town of Kfar Tapuach, in Samaria. One vehicle was damaged and no injuries were reported.
In overnight IDF operations, soldiers apprehended 21 wanted terrorists in Judea and Samaria, including three who were caught in Tulkarm, six near Shechem, two in Kalkilya, adjacent to Kfar Saba, one in Ramallah and nine in the Hevron area. Still at large are two terrorists who escaped from a PA prison in Jericho Sunday night. Border Police also arrested approximately 300 PA residents who were found in pre-1967 Israel without work permits on Monday.
An Ethical Basis for War Against Political Islam: Part 4
Bill Warner
Jihad
The dualistic ethical system of the Islamic Trilogy prepares the foundation of jihad with one set of ethics for Muslims and another set of ethics for the kafirs. So, there are two ways to deal with the kafirs. One is to think of them as inferiors but act in a kindly way. The other is jihad.
Jihad is a unique word. Its actual meaning is struggle or effort. Islam speaks of two types-the lesser jihad and the greater jihad. The greater jihad is spiritual effort or internal struggle, to stop smoking, for example, or control one's greed. Only 3% of the Hadith Bukhari recorded about jihad refer to the greater jihad. The rest, 97%, of the Hadith about jihad are about war.
The Fundamentals of Jihad
The following hadith summarizes all the key elements of jihad. (Notice that only the fourth item, the Day of Resurrection, is purely religious in nature). It tells us that the whole world must submit to Islam; kafirs are the enemy simply by not being Muslims. To achieve this dominance, Islam may use terror and violence. It may use psychological warfare, fear, and theft. It may take the spoils of war from kafirs. Violence and terror are made sacred by the Koran. Peace comes only with submission to Islam.
Bukhari 1,7,331 Mohammed: "I have been given five things which were not given to any one else before me:
Allah made me victorious by awe, by His frightening my enemies for a distance of one month's journey.
The earth has been made for me and for my followers a place for praying and a place to perform rituals; therefore, anyone of my followers can pray wherever the time of a prayer is due.
The spoils of war has been made lawful for me yet it was not lawful for anyone else before me.
I have been given the right of intercession on the Day of Resurrection.
Every prophet used to be sent to his nation only but I have been sent to all mankind."
The story of the Trilogy culminates in the dominance of political Islam. The Trilogy teaches that Islam is the perfect political system and is destined to rule the entire world. The governments and constitutions of the world must all submit to political Islam. If the political systems of the kafirs do not submit, then force, jihad, may be used. All jihad is defensive, since refusing to submit to Islam is an offense against Allah. All Muslims must support the political action of jihad. This may take several forms-fighting, proselytizing or contributing money.
The Trilogy lays out the complete strategy, tactics, and vision of political Islam and jihad. Much of the Trilogy is about how Mohammed dealt with those people who disagreed with him. Violent political action with a religious motivation was taken against kafirs. Under Islam, their only political freedom was to submit. This legal inferiority is sacred, eternal and universal.
Duality of ethics was the basis for Mohammed's greatest single innovation-jihad. Jihad is dual ethics with sacred violence. The key religious element of the dual ethics is that Allah sanctifies violence for complete domination. The kafirs must submit to Islam.
In Mecca, Mohammed demonstrated the initial practice of jihad when Islam was weak: persuasion and conversion. When he moved to Medina, he demonstrated how jihad worked when Islam was strong: using immigration against inhabitants, creating political power by struggling against the host, dominating other religions, using violence, sowing division among the tribes, and establishing a government.
Jihad is civilizational war for two reasons. First, jihad uses every aspect of civilization as an element of war. Violence, education, fear, psychology, sociology, sex, population, immigration, public relations, corruption and religion are all used in jihad. Military force and terror are the smallest aspects of jihad. The second reason that jihad is civilizational war is that the purpose of jihad is to annihilate every aspect of the non-Islamic civilization. Art, history, law, dress, manners, names, education, customs, government, foreign policy, economics, and every other detail must become Islamic.
The greatest error in understanding jihad is to think of military force and terror. Jihad does not have to fit the Geneva Convention's rules. A jihadist is a civilian in the army of Allah and can move back and forth from soldier to citizen. Giving money to an Islamic "charity" is jihad. Writing a letter to the editor about how well Islam treats women is jihad. Having eight children is jihad.
The Koran could not be more clear-every Muslim is to be a jihadist. Jihad is laid out in all three of the Trilogy texts. There is no Islam without jihad.
Islam has been waging civilizational war for centuries. Before the Muslims arrived, Egypt and North Africa and the southern coast of the Mediterranean were Christian. There was a Buddhist monastery in Alexandria Egypt. Turkey was Buddhist and Christian. Persia-now Iran-was Zoroastrian. The Hindu culture covered an area of the world twice as large as it is now. Languages disappeared to be replace by Arabic.
When Napoleon invaded Egypt, he discovered that the Muslim population knew nothing about the pyramids or temples. The 5,000 year old culture of the Pharaohs had been annihilated. There is no longer a population of Buddhists in Afghanistan. Baghdad was once home to the oldest community of Jews in the world, brought there as Babylonian captives, today it is estimated that there are no more than a few dozen old, sick and infirm Jews left in Iraq. All cultures living within the borders of Islam are annihilated. People either leave, convert or die. There are no exceptions.
Once jihad has conquered a civilization, there is never another revolution. Even if the form of government changes, it remains Muslim. The only time Islam has left an occupied territory has been because it was forced out by military might.
Rape as Warfare
Mohammed encouraged the rape of female captives after battles. This is reported in the Sira and Hadith and approved in the Koran. In jihad it is not considered rape to have forced sex with a woman as long as she is a kafir captive or slave. This is true even if she is married. In the Muslim world, the act is only rape when committed against a Muslim. Again, the dual ethics of Islam prevail.
Bukhari 3,34,431 One of the captives was a beautiful Jewess, Safiya. Dihya had her first, but she was given to Mohammed next.
4:24 Also forbidden to you are married women unless they are your slaves or captives.
Rape was one of Mohammed's tactics of conquest because it worked. Forced sex with women whose protectors had been killed was considered supreme domination. It was also a humiliation to the women's male relatives and husbands who had not been killed. If a woman is captured, raped and absorbed into the captor's environment, her helplessness renders her totally compliant and her submission is complete. To protect her children from slavery, many widows and rape victims readily agreed to conversion and their children were raised as Muslims.
Forced sex is far more than rape in political Islam. It is a method of war, a tactical strike which is not a crime because it is jihad. It is not a sin. It is practiced against the kafir and is sanctioned in the Trilogy of the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith.
Jihad
The dualistic ethical system of the Islamic Trilogy prepares the foundation of jihad with one set of ethics for Muslims and another set of ethics for the kafirs. So, there are two ways to deal with the kafirs. One is to think of them as inferiors but act in a kindly way. The other is jihad.
Jihad is a unique word. Its actual meaning is struggle or effort. Islam speaks of two types-the lesser jihad and the greater jihad. The greater jihad is spiritual effort or internal struggle, to stop smoking, for example, or control one's greed. Only 3% of the Hadith Bukhari recorded about jihad refer to the greater jihad. The rest, 97%, of the Hadith about jihad are about war.
The Fundamentals of Jihad
The following hadith summarizes all the key elements of jihad. (Notice that only the fourth item, the Day of Resurrection, is purely religious in nature). It tells us that the whole world must submit to Islam; kafirs are the enemy simply by not being Muslims. To achieve this dominance, Islam may use terror and violence. It may use psychological warfare, fear, and theft. It may take the spoils of war from kafirs. Violence and terror are made sacred by the Koran. Peace comes only with submission to Islam.
Bukhari 1,7,331 Mohammed: "I have been given five things which were not given to any one else before me:
Allah made me victorious by awe, by His frightening my enemies for a distance of one month's journey.
The earth has been made for me and for my followers a place for praying and a place to perform rituals; therefore, anyone of my followers can pray wherever the time of a prayer is due.
The spoils of war has been made lawful for me yet it was not lawful for anyone else before me.
I have been given the right of intercession on the Day of Resurrection.
Every prophet used to be sent to his nation only but I have been sent to all mankind."
The story of the Trilogy culminates in the dominance of political Islam. The Trilogy teaches that Islam is the perfect political system and is destined to rule the entire world. The governments and constitutions of the world must all submit to political Islam. If the political systems of the kafirs do not submit, then force, jihad, may be used. All jihad is defensive, since refusing to submit to Islam is an offense against Allah. All Muslims must support the political action of jihad. This may take several forms-fighting, proselytizing or contributing money.
The Trilogy lays out the complete strategy, tactics, and vision of political Islam and jihad. Much of the Trilogy is about how Mohammed dealt with those people who disagreed with him. Violent political action with a religious motivation was taken against kafirs. Under Islam, their only political freedom was to submit. This legal inferiority is sacred, eternal and universal.
Duality of ethics was the basis for Mohammed's greatest single innovation-jihad. Jihad is dual ethics with sacred violence. The key religious element of the dual ethics is that Allah sanctifies violence for complete domination. The kafirs must submit to Islam.
In Mecca, Mohammed demonstrated the initial practice of jihad when Islam was weak: persuasion and conversion. When he moved to Medina, he demonstrated how jihad worked when Islam was strong: using immigration against inhabitants, creating political power by struggling against the host, dominating other religions, using violence, sowing division among the tribes, and establishing a government.
Jihad is civilizational war for two reasons. First, jihad uses every aspect of civilization as an element of war. Violence, education, fear, psychology, sociology, sex, population, immigration, public relations, corruption and religion are all used in jihad. Military force and terror are the smallest aspects of jihad. The second reason that jihad is civilizational war is that the purpose of jihad is to annihilate every aspect of the non-Islamic civilization. Art, history, law, dress, manners, names, education, customs, government, foreign policy, economics, and every other detail must become Islamic.
The greatest error in understanding jihad is to think of military force and terror. Jihad does not have to fit the Geneva Convention's rules. A jihadist is a civilian in the army of Allah and can move back and forth from soldier to citizen. Giving money to an Islamic "charity" is jihad. Writing a letter to the editor about how well Islam treats women is jihad. Having eight children is jihad.
The Koran could not be more clear-every Muslim is to be a jihadist. Jihad is laid out in all three of the Trilogy texts. There is no Islam without jihad.
Islam has been waging civilizational war for centuries. Before the Muslims arrived, Egypt and North Africa and the southern coast of the Mediterranean were Christian. There was a Buddhist monastery in Alexandria Egypt. Turkey was Buddhist and Christian. Persia-now Iran-was Zoroastrian. The Hindu culture covered an area of the world twice as large as it is now. Languages disappeared to be replace by Arabic.
When Napoleon invaded Egypt, he discovered that the Muslim population knew nothing about the pyramids or temples. The 5,000 year old culture of the Pharaohs had been annihilated. There is no longer a population of Buddhists in Afghanistan. Baghdad was once home to the oldest community of Jews in the world, brought there as Babylonian captives, today it is estimated that there are no more than a few dozen old, sick and infirm Jews left in Iraq. All cultures living within the borders of Islam are annihilated. People either leave, convert or die. There are no exceptions.
Once jihad has conquered a civilization, there is never another revolution. Even if the form of government changes, it remains Muslim. The only time Islam has left an occupied territory has been because it was forced out by military might.
Rape as Warfare
Mohammed encouraged the rape of female captives after battles. This is reported in the Sira and Hadith and approved in the Koran. In jihad it is not considered rape to have forced sex with a woman as long as she is a kafir captive or slave. This is true even if she is married. In the Muslim world, the act is only rape when committed against a Muslim. Again, the dual ethics of Islam prevail.
Bukhari 3,34,431 One of the captives was a beautiful Jewess, Safiya. Dihya had her first, but she was given to Mohammed next.
4:24 Also forbidden to you are married women unless they are your slaves or captives.
Rape was one of Mohammed's tactics of conquest because it worked. Forced sex with women whose protectors had been killed was considered supreme domination. It was also a humiliation to the women's male relatives and husbands who had not been killed. If a woman is captured, raped and absorbed into the captor's environment, her helplessness renders her totally compliant and her submission is complete. To protect her children from slavery, many widows and rape victims readily agreed to conversion and their children were raised as Muslims.
Forced sex is far more than rape in political Islam. It is a method of war, a tactical strike which is not a crime because it is jihad. It is not a sin. It is practiced against the kafir and is sanctioned in the Trilogy of the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith.
Iran wants Russian nuke hardware
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran demanded Sunday that Azerbaijan deliver a Russian shipment of nuclear equipment blocked at its border with Iran for the past three weeks.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in his weekly briefing that his country has asked the Azerbaijani ambassador in Iran to get his government "to deliver the shipment as soon as possible."
The blocked nuclear equipment "is in the framework of Iran-Russia cooperation" and there should be "no ban on it," he said about the shipment destined for a Russian-built nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr.
Azerbaijan has said it was seeking more information about the shipment due to fears that it might violate any of the three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran over its failure to halt uranium enrichment.
On Monday, Russian state-run company Atomstroiexport said that one or two trucks carrying the equipment for Iran were stopped two weeks ago at the town of Astara, on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border.
Company spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said officials were holding talks with both Azerbaijan and Iran about the incident. She said the shipment contained "heat-isolating equipment" essential to the plant's operation but that the holdup was not likely to delay the start-up of the plant.
Iran is paying Russia more than $1 billion to build the light-water reactor at Bushehr.
Construction has been held up in recent months by disputes between Tehran and Moscow over payments and a schedule for shipping nuclear fuel.
Russia delivered the final shipment of uranium fuel in January, and Tehran has said it was hoping the plant would begin operations by summer.
The United States initially opposed Russia's building Bushehr, but later softened its position after Iran agreed to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia to ensure it does not extract plutonium from it that could be used to make atomic bombs.
Washington and Moscow have also said the Russian nuclear fuel supply means Iran no longer needs to continue its uranium enrichment program — a process that can provide fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Editor's Notes: Stopping Iran
David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POSTApr. 24, 2008
The consensus among Israel's political and military leaders as we near our 60th anniversary of independence is that modern Israel has never been as threatened as it is today. Given the wars of survival it had to fight in its first quarter century, that's a profoundly troubling assessment.
Although Syria has all of Israel within missile range, Hizbullah has rearmed and the quantities of weaponry flowing into Gaza risk turning a major irritant into a grave concern, the key focus of potentially devastating confrontation is the Islamist regime in Iran - itself, of course, the key state player behind Hizbullah and the Gaza Islamic radicals.
One might be tempted to disregard the annihilatory rhetoric from Teheran were it not accompanied by the relentless drive for a nuclear bomb. One might seek to downplay the nuclear drive were it not for the rhetoric. But the combination of Iran's incitement to genocide and its determined acquisition of the tools to carry out the deed has created a consensus in leadership here - not absolute unanimity, but certainly a strong majority view - that Israel's future well-being necessitates the thwarting of this Iranian regime's nuclear aspirations.
The widespread belief among Israel's leaders as recently as Israel's 59th birthday was that, one way or another, the Bush administration would halt the mullahs - either by galvanizing concerted, biting international sanctions or by force. Some of Israel's most highly placed officials, only too aware of the negligible impact sanctions were having on Iran, indeed, believed until a few months ago that the US might be resorting to military action right about now - late spring to early summer of 2008.
That the sanctions are not hurting Iran is plainly still the case, notably with oil prices at $100 a barrel compared to $25 just a few short years ago. Every small rise in oil prices yields hundreds of millions of dollars for the Iranian exchequer. Thus the quadrupling in price massively outweighs the limited impact of international sanctions - sanctions that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain described in his interview with The Jerusalem Post last month as "remarkable" in their weakness.
But the notion of a Bush presidency's resort to military action was shattered by the US National Intelligence Estimate late last year that highlighted an asserted halt in the Iranian nuclear weapons program dating back to 2003.
That report prompted a hurried visit to the US by leading Israeli intelligence personnel. Misgivings over its thrust have been expressed by the man under whose watch it was compiled, Michael McConnell. And it may be that a revised document is issued a few months from now.
But the effect of the NIE was to deny the Bush administration legitimacy for military action. President Bush, it has been belatedly accepted in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, will almost certainly not hit Iran.
The sense in Israel is that McCain recognizes the gravity of the Iranian threat, and that if he is elected, Israel will not be left alone to meet a global challenge that much of the globe refuses to internalize, in which Israel is only the most directly and urgently affected.
The belief, further, is that the US, if all else fails, could set back Iran's nuclear program by two to five years by striking at several dozen key targets in a daylong air offensive.
There is no such assessment as regards a Democratic president. Indeed, there is concern that a Democratic administration would neither use military action against Iran nor support Israel in so doing. This constitutes a major complication for Israel since the IAF would need to overfly Iraq if it felt it had no alternative but to act.
Israel does believe that it, too, has the military capabilities to set back the Iranian program by two or more years, but such intervention would be more complex for Israel than for the US, and its feasibility depends on a safe and efficient route to and from the target areas.
THE PLETHORA of assessments in recent years as to when, precisely, Iran will attain the capability to build one or more nuclear devices has led to derision in some quarters, with critics accusing intelligence analysts of crying wolf as landmark dates came and went and the Iranian program was still plainly incomplete.
In truth, Iran has had to grapple with various unexpected difficulties. But it is now able to surmount such obstacles, and by most estimates, including that of the NIE, will have enough enriched uranium for a bomb in 2009-2010. It will also have the surface-to-surface missile capability to deliver such a bomb anywhere in Israel and, assuming continued steady progress on its solid-fuel missiles, across Europe too.
Iran's strikingly undeterred progress is, ironically, being made despite President Bush's explicit determination to prevent judgment day weapons reaching regimes that cannot be trusted not to use them. It is being made despite the heightened awareness, after 9/11, of the degree of ruthlessness to which Islamic extremists will sink. And it is being made in contrast to the success that the international community had been having in curbing proliferation with the likes of Ukraine, South Africa and Libya.
Iran has been emboldened by the spinelessness of the international response to its program and to the accompanying threats it has made. And it has been emboldened by the faltering handling of North Korea's program, which has encouraged it to believe that it faces no immediate danger even as it proceeds to defy the international community.
The sense in Israel is not that time has already run out, but that time is certainly running short. There is a strong body of opinion, in the political, military and intelligence echelons, that Damascus offers a potential means to deter Iran: If Israel can seriously engage Syria, and ultimately weaken the Syrian-Iranian alliance, a lonelier Iran may be less inclined to risk a full-speed-ahead approach to the nuclear program, and could potentially suspend some of its activity.
It is at least partially in this context that intermittent comments by the prime minister, defense minister and others about a desire for a dialogue with Syria should be understood. A peace treaty with Syria, of course, would involve relinquishing the Golan Heights. But those who favor the attempt at a dialogue believe viable terms could be reached as regards Israel's security on that front, and that given the alternatives, an accommodation with Syria that curbs Iran is well worth exploring.
But the Bush administration is opposed to Israel's legitimating of an axis-of-evil state, Syria, via direct negotiations. To date, evidently, Israel has been disinclined to defy that opposition. In the light of the Iranian threat, runs the counterargument, Israel should be making plain that it cannot hold to a Washington veto on talks with Damascus.
SOME YEARS ago, Israeli intelligence received word of a North Korean shipment heading to Iran with material related to the nuclear drive. In turn, it alerted its British counterparts, and the ship was intercepted. It turned out to be carrying a cargo of relevance not to the bombmaking program, as Israel had believed, but rather to the second-stage Iranian missile program, the delivery system that brings Europe into range. In other words, Israel had alerted a European ally to a shipment that turned out to constitute no direct threat to Israel at all, but a very potent threat to Europe.
Such specific intelligence contributions, together with Israel's credible information on the overall Iranian program, have gradually helped persuade key international players of the extent of the Iranian danger. Senior Israeli intelligence officials have frequently briefed prominent allied leaders in intricate detail. Nonetheless, the inadequate international response, immensely exacerbated by the shock of the NIE, has left Israel feeling more keenly than ever that if Iran is to be stopped, it may fall to us to do so.
Because of the speed of Iran's progress toward it goal, and the complexities of a military strike over Iraq if this is deemed necessary, however, the narrow timetable for action can be readily discerned. If Iran is able to proceed with the program for another year, runs the thinking here, it will then be able to declare that it is a nuclear power. And if the Democrats win the US presidency, they may neither act against Iran nor enable Israel to do so via Iraq.
At some point in the months after Israel marks its 60th anniversary of independence, therefore, the government may have to take a decision that many leaders here consider to be the most significant the modern state has ever had to make. Does this government have the wisdom to make the right choices - to judge correctly whether military intervention is premature and irresponsible or critical to Israel's very survival? We may all find out fairly soon.
There is little doubt that Iran, if attacked by Israel, would hit back - with missile fire, with terrorism. Scenarios predict possible war with Syria and with Lebanon, and upsurges of violence on other fronts, too. Some speak of dozens of fatalities. Others are much bleaker.
But the alternative, runs some of the thinking, would be far worse. Iran, if it goes nuclear, might fire on Israel. And it might not. It might be deterred. And it might not. It might think it could get away with supplying a nuclear device to a third party to use against Israel. And it might not.
But, as a particularly well-informed Israeli put it to me last week, "One nuclear missile on Tel Aviv, and it's over." Then he added: "Did we all gather here after the Holocaust to be wiped out by one bomb?"
DESTROY IRAN'S NUKES TO SAVE OUR CITIES
Alasdair Palmer
Daily Telegraph-UK, April 27, 2008
One of the most terrifying possibilities the world faces is that al-Qa'eda, or some other Islamist group, gets hold of a nuclear bomb. Islamist terrorists are certainly trying to obtain one: Osama bin Laden has issued a document entitled The Nuclear Bomb of Islam, which insists it is "the duty" of Muslims to acquire a nuclear bomb in order to use "as much force as possible to terrorise the enemies of God"….
A 10 kiloton nuclear bomb would be a relatively small one by today's standards, but a 10 kiloton explosion in a city would mean that, from the centre of the blast for a distance of one third of a mile, every structure above ground level would be obliterated and every person would be killed instantly. For the next third of a mile, the city would look like the weird moonscape which Berlin had become by the end of World War Two, after almost a year of Allied bombing raids. And for a third of mile beyond that circle of hell, buildings and people would burn, both with flames and the effects of radiation.
To consider that outcome is to realise that it must be prevented. But how? Deterrence—the threat that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in our country, we will retaliate in kind on yours—has so far prevented nuclear war between nations. The only time nuclear bombs have been used, it was against a country without the capacity to retaliate.
Deterrence, however, depends on your enemy having cities and a population that can be threatened with obliteration. The problem is that terrorist organisations have neither. They are simply groups of individuals with no responsibility for, and no control over, a state or its population. Deterrence breaks down as a consequence….
Which means that the over-arching aim of the civilised world must be to ensure that they cannot get hold of a nuclear bomb, because that is the only way we can protect ourselves against nuclear terrorism…. Nuclear bombs are still, mercifully, beyond the capacity of terrorist groups to engineer for themselves: a terrorist organisation would have to get one from a government.
When the governments trying to acquire the technology for making nuclear bombs are known to train and supply Islamist terrorist groups—as Syria and Iran, for example, certainly do—the importance of preventing them obtaining the capacity to make such bombs is overwhelming. That is why the Israelis destroyed Syria's "not for peaceful means" nuclear facility last September, and why the rest of the world acquiesced in the destruction, which broke international law and had no United Nations resolution.
It is also why the US continues to send signals to Iran that it will not oppose, indeed might even join in, any attempt by Israel to hit Iran's fledgling nuclear facilities: sending precisely that signal must have been at least part of the point of last week's very public announcement that the Israeli raid on Syria's putative nuclear bomb factory had been successful.
Governments can perhaps be deterred from leaking nuclear weapons to terrorist groups by the thought of what the Americans would do to them if there were a nuclear explosion in an American city….
Governments, however, are not always able to control all their members….
If Iran builds a nuclear bomb factory, you can be sure that Israel will try to destroy it. You can also be sure that, when it happens, the rest of the world will not object.
Guest Comment: Is there no end to our madness and cowardice? When will we say enough is enough. We are allowing into Iran evey compoenent needed for a nuclear bomb. Wher are our leaders? Where is their courage and the duty to protect us?
Read the second article for the concesus in Israel.
Aggie
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in his weekly briefing that his country has asked the Azerbaijani ambassador in Iran to get his government "to deliver the shipment as soon as possible."
The blocked nuclear equipment "is in the framework of Iran-Russia cooperation" and there should be "no ban on it," he said about the shipment destined for a Russian-built nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr.
Azerbaijan has said it was seeking more information about the shipment due to fears that it might violate any of the three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran over its failure to halt uranium enrichment.
On Monday, Russian state-run company Atomstroiexport said that one or two trucks carrying the equipment for Iran were stopped two weeks ago at the town of Astara, on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border.
Company spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said officials were holding talks with both Azerbaijan and Iran about the incident. She said the shipment contained "heat-isolating equipment" essential to the plant's operation but that the holdup was not likely to delay the start-up of the plant.
Iran is paying Russia more than $1 billion to build the light-water reactor at Bushehr.
Construction has been held up in recent months by disputes between Tehran and Moscow over payments and a schedule for shipping nuclear fuel.
Russia delivered the final shipment of uranium fuel in January, and Tehran has said it was hoping the plant would begin operations by summer.
The United States initially opposed Russia's building Bushehr, but later softened its position after Iran agreed to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia to ensure it does not extract plutonium from it that could be used to make atomic bombs.
Washington and Moscow have also said the Russian nuclear fuel supply means Iran no longer needs to continue its uranium enrichment program — a process that can provide fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
________________________________
Editor's Notes: Stopping Iran
David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POSTApr. 24, 2008
The consensus among Israel's political and military leaders as we near our 60th anniversary of independence is that modern Israel has never been as threatened as it is today. Given the wars of survival it had to fight in its first quarter century, that's a profoundly troubling assessment.
Although Syria has all of Israel within missile range, Hizbullah has rearmed and the quantities of weaponry flowing into Gaza risk turning a major irritant into a grave concern, the key focus of potentially devastating confrontation is the Islamist regime in Iran - itself, of course, the key state player behind Hizbullah and the Gaza Islamic radicals.
One might be tempted to disregard the annihilatory rhetoric from Teheran were it not accompanied by the relentless drive for a nuclear bomb. One might seek to downplay the nuclear drive were it not for the rhetoric. But the combination of Iran's incitement to genocide and its determined acquisition of the tools to carry out the deed has created a consensus in leadership here - not absolute unanimity, but certainly a strong majority view - that Israel's future well-being necessitates the thwarting of this Iranian regime's nuclear aspirations.
The widespread belief among Israel's leaders as recently as Israel's 59th birthday was that, one way or another, the Bush administration would halt the mullahs - either by galvanizing concerted, biting international sanctions or by force. Some of Israel's most highly placed officials, only too aware of the negligible impact sanctions were having on Iran, indeed, believed until a few months ago that the US might be resorting to military action right about now - late spring to early summer of 2008.
That the sanctions are not hurting Iran is plainly still the case, notably with oil prices at $100 a barrel compared to $25 just a few short years ago. Every small rise in oil prices yields hundreds of millions of dollars for the Iranian exchequer. Thus the quadrupling in price massively outweighs the limited impact of international sanctions - sanctions that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain described in his interview with The Jerusalem Post last month as "remarkable" in their weakness.
But the notion of a Bush presidency's resort to military action was shattered by the US National Intelligence Estimate late last year that highlighted an asserted halt in the Iranian nuclear weapons program dating back to 2003.
That report prompted a hurried visit to the US by leading Israeli intelligence personnel. Misgivings over its thrust have been expressed by the man under whose watch it was compiled, Michael McConnell. And it may be that a revised document is issued a few months from now.
But the effect of the NIE was to deny the Bush administration legitimacy for military action. President Bush, it has been belatedly accepted in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, will almost certainly not hit Iran.
The sense in Israel is that McCain recognizes the gravity of the Iranian threat, and that if he is elected, Israel will not be left alone to meet a global challenge that much of the globe refuses to internalize, in which Israel is only the most directly and urgently affected.
The belief, further, is that the US, if all else fails, could set back Iran's nuclear program by two to five years by striking at several dozen key targets in a daylong air offensive.
There is no such assessment as regards a Democratic president. Indeed, there is concern that a Democratic administration would neither use military action against Iran nor support Israel in so doing. This constitutes a major complication for Israel since the IAF would need to overfly Iraq if it felt it had no alternative but to act.
Israel does believe that it, too, has the military capabilities to set back the Iranian program by two or more years, but such intervention would be more complex for Israel than for the US, and its feasibility depends on a safe and efficient route to and from the target areas.
THE PLETHORA of assessments in recent years as to when, precisely, Iran will attain the capability to build one or more nuclear devices has led to derision in some quarters, with critics accusing intelligence analysts of crying wolf as landmark dates came and went and the Iranian program was still plainly incomplete.
In truth, Iran has had to grapple with various unexpected difficulties. But it is now able to surmount such obstacles, and by most estimates, including that of the NIE, will have enough enriched uranium for a bomb in 2009-2010. It will also have the surface-to-surface missile capability to deliver such a bomb anywhere in Israel and, assuming continued steady progress on its solid-fuel missiles, across Europe too.
Iran's strikingly undeterred progress is, ironically, being made despite President Bush's explicit determination to prevent judgment day weapons reaching regimes that cannot be trusted not to use them. It is being made despite the heightened awareness, after 9/11, of the degree of ruthlessness to which Islamic extremists will sink. And it is being made in contrast to the success that the international community had been having in curbing proliferation with the likes of Ukraine, South Africa and Libya.
Iran has been emboldened by the spinelessness of the international response to its program and to the accompanying threats it has made. And it has been emboldened by the faltering handling of North Korea's program, which has encouraged it to believe that it faces no immediate danger even as it proceeds to defy the international community.
The sense in Israel is not that time has already run out, but that time is certainly running short. There is a strong body of opinion, in the political, military and intelligence echelons, that Damascus offers a potential means to deter Iran: If Israel can seriously engage Syria, and ultimately weaken the Syrian-Iranian alliance, a lonelier Iran may be less inclined to risk a full-speed-ahead approach to the nuclear program, and could potentially suspend some of its activity.
It is at least partially in this context that intermittent comments by the prime minister, defense minister and others about a desire for a dialogue with Syria should be understood. A peace treaty with Syria, of course, would involve relinquishing the Golan Heights. But those who favor the attempt at a dialogue believe viable terms could be reached as regards Israel's security on that front, and that given the alternatives, an accommodation with Syria that curbs Iran is well worth exploring.
But the Bush administration is opposed to Israel's legitimating of an axis-of-evil state, Syria, via direct negotiations. To date, evidently, Israel has been disinclined to defy that opposition. In the light of the Iranian threat, runs the counterargument, Israel should be making plain that it cannot hold to a Washington veto on talks with Damascus.
SOME YEARS ago, Israeli intelligence received word of a North Korean shipment heading to Iran with material related to the nuclear drive. In turn, it alerted its British counterparts, and the ship was intercepted. It turned out to be carrying a cargo of relevance not to the bombmaking program, as Israel had believed, but rather to the second-stage Iranian missile program, the delivery system that brings Europe into range. In other words, Israel had alerted a European ally to a shipment that turned out to constitute no direct threat to Israel at all, but a very potent threat to Europe.
Such specific intelligence contributions, together with Israel's credible information on the overall Iranian program, have gradually helped persuade key international players of the extent of the Iranian danger. Senior Israeli intelligence officials have frequently briefed prominent allied leaders in intricate detail. Nonetheless, the inadequate international response, immensely exacerbated by the shock of the NIE, has left Israel feeling more keenly than ever that if Iran is to be stopped, it may fall to us to do so.
Because of the speed of Iran's progress toward it goal, and the complexities of a military strike over Iraq if this is deemed necessary, however, the narrow timetable for action can be readily discerned. If Iran is able to proceed with the program for another year, runs the thinking here, it will then be able to declare that it is a nuclear power. And if the Democrats win the US presidency, they may neither act against Iran nor enable Israel to do so via Iraq.
At some point in the months after Israel marks its 60th anniversary of independence, therefore, the government may have to take a decision that many leaders here consider to be the most significant the modern state has ever had to make. Does this government have the wisdom to make the right choices - to judge correctly whether military intervention is premature and irresponsible or critical to Israel's very survival? We may all find out fairly soon.
There is little doubt that Iran, if attacked by Israel, would hit back - with missile fire, with terrorism. Scenarios predict possible war with Syria and with Lebanon, and upsurges of violence on other fronts, too. Some speak of dozens of fatalities. Others are much bleaker.
But the alternative, runs some of the thinking, would be far worse. Iran, if it goes nuclear, might fire on Israel. And it might not. It might be deterred. And it might not. It might think it could get away with supplying a nuclear device to a third party to use against Israel. And it might not.
But, as a particularly well-informed Israeli put it to me last week, "One nuclear missile on Tel Aviv, and it's over." Then he added: "Did we all gather here after the Holocaust to be wiped out by one bomb?"
DESTROY IRAN'S NUKES TO SAVE OUR CITIES
Alasdair Palmer
Daily Telegraph-UK, April 27, 2008
One of the most terrifying possibilities the world faces is that al-Qa'eda, or some other Islamist group, gets hold of a nuclear bomb. Islamist terrorists are certainly trying to obtain one: Osama bin Laden has issued a document entitled The Nuclear Bomb of Islam, which insists it is "the duty" of Muslims to acquire a nuclear bomb in order to use "as much force as possible to terrorise the enemies of God"….
A 10 kiloton nuclear bomb would be a relatively small one by today's standards, but a 10 kiloton explosion in a city would mean that, from the centre of the blast for a distance of one third of a mile, every structure above ground level would be obliterated and every person would be killed instantly. For the next third of a mile, the city would look like the weird moonscape which Berlin had become by the end of World War Two, after almost a year of Allied bombing raids. And for a third of mile beyond that circle of hell, buildings and people would burn, both with flames and the effects of radiation.
To consider that outcome is to realise that it must be prevented. But how? Deterrence—the threat that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in our country, we will retaliate in kind on yours—has so far prevented nuclear war between nations. The only time nuclear bombs have been used, it was against a country without the capacity to retaliate.
Deterrence, however, depends on your enemy having cities and a population that can be threatened with obliteration. The problem is that terrorist organisations have neither. They are simply groups of individuals with no responsibility for, and no control over, a state or its population. Deterrence breaks down as a consequence….
Which means that the over-arching aim of the civilised world must be to ensure that they cannot get hold of a nuclear bomb, because that is the only way we can protect ourselves against nuclear terrorism…. Nuclear bombs are still, mercifully, beyond the capacity of terrorist groups to engineer for themselves: a terrorist organisation would have to get one from a government.
When the governments trying to acquire the technology for making nuclear bombs are known to train and supply Islamist terrorist groups—as Syria and Iran, for example, certainly do—the importance of preventing them obtaining the capacity to make such bombs is overwhelming. That is why the Israelis destroyed Syria's "not for peaceful means" nuclear facility last September, and why the rest of the world acquiesced in the destruction, which broke international law and had no United Nations resolution.
It is also why the US continues to send signals to Iran that it will not oppose, indeed might even join in, any attempt by Israel to hit Iran's fledgling nuclear facilities: sending precisely that signal must have been at least part of the point of last week's very public announcement that the Israeli raid on Syria's putative nuclear bomb factory had been successful.
Governments can perhaps be deterred from leaking nuclear weapons to terrorist groups by the thought of what the Americans would do to them if there were a nuclear explosion in an American city….
Governments, however, are not always able to control all their members….
If Iran builds a nuclear bomb factory, you can be sure that Israel will try to destroy it. You can also be sure that, when it happens, the rest of the world will not object.
Guest Comment: Is there no end to our madness and cowardice? When will we say enough is enough. We are allowing into Iran evey compoenent needed for a nuclear bomb. Wher are our leaders? Where is their courage and the duty to protect us?
Read the second article for the concesus in Israel.
Aggie
Global Poverty Act (S.2433)-you really support this?
The United States Senate may vote any day on the stealth imposition of what could amount to an $845 BILLION United Nations style global tax on American citizens?
It's called the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), and it is being sponsored by none other than Senator Barack Obama.
According to some conservative sources, this disastrous legislation could eventually force U.S. taxpayers to fork over as much as 0.7 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product -- or $845,000,000,000.00 -- on welfare to third-world countries.
Here's wh Here's what Phyllis Schlafly, conservative activist and founder of Eagle Forum, recently wrote:
"Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act. It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on foreign handouts..." [Emphasis Mine]
Time is of the essence because Senator Joe Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just issued a report on the Global Poverty Act and it was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on Thursday the 24th.
That means that time is of the essence as this potentially massive surrender of your hard-earned tax dollars to the third world may be close to a vote.
That's why we must act now... BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Stop this bill dead in its tracks.
The Senate Shell Game...
Advocates of the Global Poverty Act are claiming that it does not really commit the United States to anything... that it won't really cost anything... that it simply requires the President -- in conjunction with the Secretary of State -- to "develop" strategies to alleviate world poverty.
In fact, Biden's report incredulously states, "implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year..."
Technically he's correct... after all, it doesn't really cost that much to develop and formulate strategies...
But such a cleverly worded contention begs the question: Why formulate or develop a strategy if there is no intention to follow through on that strategy?
And what would it cost to actually follow through on a strategy to alleviate world poverty?
The Global Poverty Act intentionally gives no specific figures but it does contain clues, and those clues are stated repeatedly in the legislation's reliance on the United Nations Millennium Development Goal.
WorldNetDaily.com quotes Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media as saying:
"The bill defines the term 'Millennium Development Goals' as the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration..."
"In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."
As for specific figures... WorldNetDaily.com reports:
"Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims."
"[T]he legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years... would amount to $845 billion 'over and above what the U.S. already spends.'"
"The plan passed the House in 2007 'because most members didn't realize what was in it.' Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require."
And, how would the United States pay for this $845 BILLION commitment? According to Kincaid, who published a report on the legislation; "A global tax will clearly be necessary to force American taxpayers to provide the money."
And that $845 BILLION global tax is in addition to our nation's current Foreign Aid programs, which, in 2006, cost American taxpayers about $300 BILLION!
Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act has already passed the House (many Members unfortunately voted in favor of it without carefully noting exactly what was in it) and President Bush may very well sign it!
That's why it must be stopped, and it must be stopped NOW!
Send a fax, phone and e-mail with a messages to President George W. Bush and each and every one of the members of the United States Senate.
Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Demand that our legislators do whatever it takes -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
It Gets Worse!
Here are some of the additional provisions of the Millennium Development Goal:
a "currency transfer tax," that is, a tax imposed on companies and individuals who must exchange dollars for foreign currency;
a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources";
a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy projection -- oil, natural gas, coal";
"fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."
a "standing peace force," meaning a standing United Nations army that might, in time, be large enough to force us to bend to its will;
a "UN arms register of all small arms and light weapons," the beginning of the end of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
the "eradication of poverty" by the "redistribution [of] wealth and land" -- How do you suppose the United Nations expects to "redistribute" the land and the wealth? And what country do you think the third-world majority will go after first?
cancellation of "the debts of developing countries,"
"a fair distribution of the earth's resources."
and "political control of the global economy."
In other words, it's a blueprint for a world government, owned and operated by the United Nations.
One thing is clear: the Millennium Development Goal is a dagger aimed at the heart of America.
While the Global Poverty Act, as presently championed by its Senate supporters, embraces certain aspects of the Millennium Development Goal, one should wonder if some of our legislators also support land and wealth "redistribution."
We must stop this bill dead in its tracks.
We must stop this subversion NOW! Don't let Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act sneak through the Senate.
Go to your server and send your urgent and personalized messages to the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State, and each and every one of the members of the United States Senate.
Let them know you will not tolerate the United Nations style giveaways that are trying to be passed no matter what. Tell them that putting us on the road to give a way our hard earned money to tyrants, kingships and dictators is not any form of a solution to reduce poverty in the world.
Demand that our representative legislators do whatever it takes -- a filibuster if necessary -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
Other Appropriate Entities...
Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs -- a Columbia University economist -- is monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for the United Nations.
In his 2005 report to Kofi Annan -- based on the research of 265 "poverty specialists" -- Sachs criticized the United States for giving only a mere $16.3 billion a year to alleviate global poverty.
He argued that we should spend at least an additional $30 billion a year.
And Sachs has decreed that the only way to force the United States to commit that much money is to IMPOSE A GLOBAL TAX.
Has Senator Obama -- along with the other Senate co-sponsors -- introduced the Global Policy Act at least in partial obedience to Sachs' wishes?
Phyllis Schlafly claims:
"The Global Poverty Act would be a giant step toward the Millennium Goals of global governance and international taxes on Americans. Tell your Senators to kill this un-American bill."
Joe Farah, publisher of WorldNetDaily.com said of this treacherous bill:
"Now comes an even grander proposal by Barack Obama. It's called the Global Poverty Act, that would, in the next decade, transfer at least $845 billion of U.S. taxpayer money overseas. Think of Johnson's failed war on poverty going international -- directed not by Americans but by the United Nations."
And yes, just in case you think the massive amounts of your tax dollars that were wasted under the United Nation's Oil for Food program were an aberration, and that such a thing could not eventually happen on a more massive scale were the Global Poverty Act to sneak through the Senate, Doug Powers, writing for WorldNetDaily.com made this observation:
"Not long ago, Nigeria's 'anti-corruption commission' -- runner-up in the 'oxymoron of the year' competition, second only to 'U.S. Senate Intelligence' -- found that past rulers of Nigeria have stolen or misused billions of dollars. Not to mention the leadership of the Palestinians that the United State helped their lined their pockets like Arafat."
"The commission discovered that the amount of money 'missing' adds up to all the Western aid given to Africa in four decades. Presidential Candidate Obama, as well as Hagel and Cantwell want to throw more at them. Apparently they won't be happy until there are trillions of our tax dollars stolen by crooked leaders and warlords." [Emphasis Mine]
Unfortunately, the Global Poverty Act is still flying under the radar, but not for long.
But there is hope.
We know, and we can expect hope, by stopping this vicious bill -- provided we act RIGHT NOW!
Use the hyperlink below to go to our SECURE SERVER and send your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush and each and every one of the Republican Members of the United States Senate.
Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Demand that our conservative legislators do whatever it takes -- a filibuster if necessary -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
https://www.grasstopsusa.com/globalpovertyactupdate.html
It's called the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), and it is being sponsored by none other than Senator Barack Obama.
According to some conservative sources, this disastrous legislation could eventually force U.S. taxpayers to fork over as much as 0.7 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product -- or $845,000,000,000.00 -- on welfare to third-world countries.
Here's wh Here's what Phyllis Schlafly, conservative activist and founder of Eagle Forum, recently wrote:
"Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act. It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on foreign handouts..." [Emphasis Mine]
Time is of the essence because Senator Joe Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just issued a report on the Global Poverty Act and it was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on Thursday the 24th.
That means that time is of the essence as this potentially massive surrender of your hard-earned tax dollars to the third world may be close to a vote.
That's why we must act now... BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Stop this bill dead in its tracks.
The Senate Shell Game...
Advocates of the Global Poverty Act are claiming that it does not really commit the United States to anything... that it won't really cost anything... that it simply requires the President -- in conjunction with the Secretary of State -- to "develop" strategies to alleviate world poverty.
In fact, Biden's report incredulously states, "implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year..."
Technically he's correct... after all, it doesn't really cost that much to develop and formulate strategies...
But such a cleverly worded contention begs the question: Why formulate or develop a strategy if there is no intention to follow through on that strategy?
And what would it cost to actually follow through on a strategy to alleviate world poverty?
The Global Poverty Act intentionally gives no specific figures but it does contain clues, and those clues are stated repeatedly in the legislation's reliance on the United Nations Millennium Development Goal.
WorldNetDaily.com quotes Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media as saying:
"The bill defines the term 'Millennium Development Goals' as the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration..."
"In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."
As for specific figures... WorldNetDaily.com reports:
"Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims."
"[T]he legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years... would amount to $845 billion 'over and above what the U.S. already spends.'"
"The plan passed the House in 2007 'because most members didn't realize what was in it.' Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require."
And, how would the United States pay for this $845 BILLION commitment? According to Kincaid, who published a report on the legislation; "A global tax will clearly be necessary to force American taxpayers to provide the money."
And that $845 BILLION global tax is in addition to our nation's current Foreign Aid programs, which, in 2006, cost American taxpayers about $300 BILLION!
Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act has already passed the House (many Members unfortunately voted in favor of it without carefully noting exactly what was in it) and President Bush may very well sign it!
That's why it must be stopped, and it must be stopped NOW!
Send a fax, phone and e-mail with a messages to President George W. Bush and each and every one of the members of the United States Senate.
Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Demand that our legislators do whatever it takes -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
It Gets Worse!
Here are some of the additional provisions of the Millennium Development Goal:
a "currency transfer tax," that is, a tax imposed on companies and individuals who must exchange dollars for foreign currency;
a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources";
a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy projection -- oil, natural gas, coal";
"fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."
a "standing peace force," meaning a standing United Nations army that might, in time, be large enough to force us to bend to its will;
a "UN arms register of all small arms and light weapons," the beginning of the end of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
the "eradication of poverty" by the "redistribution [of] wealth and land" -- How do you suppose the United Nations expects to "redistribute" the land and the wealth? And what country do you think the third-world majority will go after first?
cancellation of "the debts of developing countries,"
"a fair distribution of the earth's resources."
and "political control of the global economy."
In other words, it's a blueprint for a world government, owned and operated by the United Nations.
One thing is clear: the Millennium Development Goal is a dagger aimed at the heart of America.
While the Global Poverty Act, as presently championed by its Senate supporters, embraces certain aspects of the Millennium Development Goal, one should wonder if some of our legislators also support land and wealth "redistribution."
We must stop this bill dead in its tracks.
We must stop this subversion NOW! Don't let Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act sneak through the Senate.
Go to your server and send your urgent and personalized messages to the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State, and each and every one of the members of the United States Senate.
Let them know you will not tolerate the United Nations style giveaways that are trying to be passed no matter what. Tell them that putting us on the road to give a way our hard earned money to tyrants, kingships and dictators is not any form of a solution to reduce poverty in the world.
Demand that our representative legislators do whatever it takes -- a filibuster if necessary -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
Other Appropriate Entities...
Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs -- a Columbia University economist -- is monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for the United Nations.
In his 2005 report to Kofi Annan -- based on the research of 265 "poverty specialists" -- Sachs criticized the United States for giving only a mere $16.3 billion a year to alleviate global poverty.
He argued that we should spend at least an additional $30 billion a year.
And Sachs has decreed that the only way to force the United States to commit that much money is to IMPOSE A GLOBAL TAX.
Has Senator Obama -- along with the other Senate co-sponsors -- introduced the Global Policy Act at least in partial obedience to Sachs' wishes?
Phyllis Schlafly claims:
"The Global Poverty Act would be a giant step toward the Millennium Goals of global governance and international taxes on Americans. Tell your Senators to kill this un-American bill."
Joe Farah, publisher of WorldNetDaily.com said of this treacherous bill:
"Now comes an even grander proposal by Barack Obama. It's called the Global Poverty Act, that would, in the next decade, transfer at least $845 billion of U.S. taxpayer money overseas. Think of Johnson's failed war on poverty going international -- directed not by Americans but by the United Nations."
And yes, just in case you think the massive amounts of your tax dollars that were wasted under the United Nation's Oil for Food program were an aberration, and that such a thing could not eventually happen on a more massive scale were the Global Poverty Act to sneak through the Senate, Doug Powers, writing for WorldNetDaily.com made this observation:
"Not long ago, Nigeria's 'anti-corruption commission' -- runner-up in the 'oxymoron of the year' competition, second only to 'U.S. Senate Intelligence' -- found that past rulers of Nigeria have stolen or misused billions of dollars. Not to mention the leadership of the Palestinians that the United State helped their lined their pockets like Arafat."
"The commission discovered that the amount of money 'missing' adds up to all the Western aid given to Africa in four decades. Presidential Candidate Obama, as well as Hagel and Cantwell want to throw more at them. Apparently they won't be happy until there are trillions of our tax dollars stolen by crooked leaders and warlords." [Emphasis Mine]
Unfortunately, the Global Poverty Act is still flying under the radar, but not for long.
But there is hope.
We know, and we can expect hope, by stopping this vicious bill -- provided we act RIGHT NOW!
Use the hyperlink below to go to our SECURE SERVER and send your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush and each and every one of the Republican Members of the United States Senate.
Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Demand that our conservative legislators do whatever it takes -- a filibuster if necessary -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
https://www.grasstopsusa.com/globalpovertyactupdate.html
An Old Newness
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.
Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top. he official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.
What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States.
No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.
Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.
There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.
Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.
The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.
One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries.
Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them.
Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.
Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything has says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.
Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.
We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.
The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.
Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.
Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
Egypt: Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea
Barry Rubin
Egyptian President Husni Mubarak is 80. After over a quarter-century in office he is ready for more. But how much longer will his rule--or regime--continue?
And under him, Egypt has not done so badly, or has it?
Well that depends. He has kept Egypt stable and out of war, no mean feat, and even delivered a bit of economic development, though recently there have been bread riots. But there has been no big improvement. One is reminded of the old Egyptian joke where the president's chauffer explains the difference among his last three bosses. Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952-1970) always turned left; Anwar al-Sadat (1970-1981) always turned right. Mubarak ordered: signal left, signal right, then park.
Has Egypt been parked for the last 27 years? In some respects, yes. Being parked is better than getting run down by a speeding auto, though not better than making steady progress. Rights have been limited and suppression periodic. Yet this falls well short of the police states ruling in Syria and, formerly, Iraq. Corruption is astronomical.
I can't talk about the ambiguity of Mubarak's regime without thinking of that great old Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler song, first recorded by Cab Calloway's orchestra in 1931. It begins: "I don't want you, But I hate to lose you, You've got me in between the devil and the deep blue sea."
For his own people, Israel, and the United States (or the West in general), Mubarak's government is most unsatisfactory in very many ways. Egyptians face mismanagement and limits on freedom. Israel has a peace but a cold one. The United States and the West gets nominal cooperation from Cairo coupled with the government's lavish use of anti-Americanism, radical Arab nationalism, and even Islamist rhetoric to keep the masses mobilized on its side.
Still, what's the alternative: violent instability or a radical Islamist revolution? Or is there a realistic hope of something better, of a moderate democratic state? Here, good intentions or wishful thinking should never be given precedent over realistic appraisal.
In assessing a political situation, one should always remember politics is the art of the possible. Egypt is a country with "too many" people and not enough resources. There are no easy solutions.
"I ought to cross you off my list, But when you come knocking at my door,
Fate seems to give my heart a twist, And I come running back for more," sang Calloway.
After all, that heart-twisting fate involves things like Hamas's takeover, Iraq's internal war, Hizballah's aggression, and Iran's expansionism plus nuclear weapons' drive. We are used to thinking of Egypt as the most important of all Arab countries, and that's still true relatively speaking though far less than a decade or two or three ago.
By the force of realpolitik, the foreigners conclude about Mubarak's regime (Calloway again): "I should hate you, But I guess I love you, You've got me in between the devil and the deep blue sea."
Thus, the West and Israel keep hoping. Maybe Egypt will restrain Hamas in the Gaza Strip and give vigorous backing to a serious peace process. Or possibly Cairo will lead a moderate Arab coalition against the forces of the Iran-Syria led HISH (Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizballah alliance. A Muslim government official recently told me he calls them, the Addams family). After all, these actions are in Egypt's own interests, aren't they?
Egypt's interests, though, are in playing both sides simultaneously to the greatest extent possible. An Egyptian diplomat actually told me not long ago that he had advised Israeli Arabs to pretend to be good citizens and demand to join the army so they could better subvert the country. State-owned Egyptian newspapers blame all the terrorism in Iraq on American conspiracies.
Meanwhile, though, the Muslim Brotherhood is going to top-quality tailors to design its sheep's' clothing so that it can better wolf down Egypt. Credulous, or ill-intentioned, Westerners are all-too-willing to accept that the country's Islamist brothers are really moderates. It's easy to do that, just ignore their program and everything they say in Arabic. Just because they don't like the competition--al-Qaida or Iran--doesn't make them moderates.
There is a decent, moderate, democratic-minded opposition. But it is far too weak and poorly organized. Even the main "reformist" group has now been taken over by the Brotherhood.Who would you bet on in a showdown? No contest.
So what comes next? Gamal Mubarak, the president's 45-year-old son, who is deputy secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party? Perhaps some ex-general turned provincial governor or another official?
In social terms, the country is becoming increasingly "Islamic" according to the more restrictive standards demanded by Islamists. Does that mean a political swing as well? Not necessarily but the danger bears close watching. Egypt is famous for muddling through. That's the most likely outcome but nobody should be too complacent in assuming that's the way things have to be.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online.
Egyptian President Husni Mubarak is 80. After over a quarter-century in office he is ready for more. But how much longer will his rule--or regime--continue?
And under him, Egypt has not done so badly, or has it?
Well that depends. He has kept Egypt stable and out of war, no mean feat, and even delivered a bit of economic development, though recently there have been bread riots. But there has been no big improvement. One is reminded of the old Egyptian joke where the president's chauffer explains the difference among his last three bosses. Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952-1970) always turned left; Anwar al-Sadat (1970-1981) always turned right. Mubarak ordered: signal left, signal right, then park.
Has Egypt been parked for the last 27 years? In some respects, yes. Being parked is better than getting run down by a speeding auto, though not better than making steady progress. Rights have been limited and suppression periodic. Yet this falls well short of the police states ruling in Syria and, formerly, Iraq. Corruption is astronomical.
I can't talk about the ambiguity of Mubarak's regime without thinking of that great old Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler song, first recorded by Cab Calloway's orchestra in 1931. It begins: "I don't want you, But I hate to lose you, You've got me in between the devil and the deep blue sea."
For his own people, Israel, and the United States (or the West in general), Mubarak's government is most unsatisfactory in very many ways. Egyptians face mismanagement and limits on freedom. Israel has a peace but a cold one. The United States and the West gets nominal cooperation from Cairo coupled with the government's lavish use of anti-Americanism, radical Arab nationalism, and even Islamist rhetoric to keep the masses mobilized on its side.
Still, what's the alternative: violent instability or a radical Islamist revolution? Or is there a realistic hope of something better, of a moderate democratic state? Here, good intentions or wishful thinking should never be given precedent over realistic appraisal.
In assessing a political situation, one should always remember politics is the art of the possible. Egypt is a country with "too many" people and not enough resources. There are no easy solutions.
"I ought to cross you off my list, But when you come knocking at my door,
Fate seems to give my heart a twist, And I come running back for more," sang Calloway.
After all, that heart-twisting fate involves things like Hamas's takeover, Iraq's internal war, Hizballah's aggression, and Iran's expansionism plus nuclear weapons' drive. We are used to thinking of Egypt as the most important of all Arab countries, and that's still true relatively speaking though far less than a decade or two or three ago.
By the force of realpolitik, the foreigners conclude about Mubarak's regime (Calloway again): "I should hate you, But I guess I love you, You've got me in between the devil and the deep blue sea."
Thus, the West and Israel keep hoping. Maybe Egypt will restrain Hamas in the Gaza Strip and give vigorous backing to a serious peace process. Or possibly Cairo will lead a moderate Arab coalition against the forces of the Iran-Syria led HISH (Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizballah alliance. A Muslim government official recently told me he calls them, the Addams family). After all, these actions are in Egypt's own interests, aren't they?
Egypt's interests, though, are in playing both sides simultaneously to the greatest extent possible. An Egyptian diplomat actually told me not long ago that he had advised Israeli Arabs to pretend to be good citizens and demand to join the army so they could better subvert the country. State-owned Egyptian newspapers blame all the terrorism in Iraq on American conspiracies.
Meanwhile, though, the Muslim Brotherhood is going to top-quality tailors to design its sheep's' clothing so that it can better wolf down Egypt. Credulous, or ill-intentioned, Westerners are all-too-willing to accept that the country's Islamist brothers are really moderates. It's easy to do that, just ignore their program and everything they say in Arabic. Just because they don't like the competition--al-Qaida or Iran--doesn't make them moderates.
There is a decent, moderate, democratic-minded opposition. But it is far too weak and poorly organized. Even the main "reformist" group has now been taken over by the Brotherhood.Who would you bet on in a showdown? No contest.
So what comes next? Gamal Mubarak, the president's 45-year-old son, who is deputy secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party? Perhaps some ex-general turned provincial governor or another official?
In social terms, the country is becoming increasingly "Islamic" according to the more restrictive standards demanded by Islamists. Does that mean a political swing as well? Not necessarily but the danger bears close watching. Egypt is famous for muddling through. That's the most likely outcome but nobody should be too complacent in assuming that's the way things have to be.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online.
Wall Street Journal Reporters Award Palestinians Entire West Bank, E. Jerusalem
Gilead Ini
There is a conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. This, of course, is obvious. Equally clear is that a significant part of the conflict revolves around disputes over the eventual status of Jerusalem and the location of the borders that will separate the two sides. Israel officially views a united Jerusalem as its eternal capital. Palestinians have demanded that the eastern section of the city become the future capital of an independent Palestine. Israel expects that portions of the West Bank will be incorporated within its final borders. Palestinians often claim the entire West Bank. (These two issues are overshadowed by other, more serious problems, not least of which is Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, embrace of violence and insistence on Israel’s destruction. But Jerusalem and borders are nonetheless major unsolved issues.) There is a conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. This, of course, is obvious. Equally clear is that a significant part of the conflict revolves around disputes over the eventual status of Jerusalem and the location of the borders that will separate the two sides. Israel officially views a united Jerusalem as its eternal capital.
Palestinians have demanded that the eastern section of the city become the future capital of an independent Palestine. Israel expects that portions of the West Bank will be incorporated within its final borders. Palestinians often claim the entire West Bank. (These two issues are overshadowed by other, more serious problems, not least of which is Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, embrace of violence and insistence on Israel’s destruction. But Jerusalem and borders are nonetheless major unsolved issues.)Consequently, every peace plan accepted by the Israelis, Palestinians and international community calls for negotiations in order to resolve the outstanding disputes on Jerusalem and borders. The 2003 Road Map peace plan envisions, in its third and final phase, a "permanent status resolution ... on borders" and a "negotiated resolution on the status of Jerusalem that takes into account the political and religious concerns of both sides." The 1995 interim agreement of the Oslo Accords noted that "It is understood that [permanent status] negotiations shall cover remaining issues, including" Jerusalem and borders, and that "Nothing in this Agreement shall prejudice or preempt the outcome of the negotiations on the permanent status...." The 1993 Declaration of Principles used almost identical language, including a clause which states that "The two parties agreed that the outcome of the permanent status negotiations should not be prejudiced or preempted by agreements reached for the interim period."Enter the Wall Street Journal.
With little concern for prejudging or preempting the outcome of negotiations, the Journal’s news pages have taken to reporting on these final status issues as if they have already been resolved — in accordance with Palestinian demands.
The West Bank
When reporter Cam Simpson reported on March 28 about Israeli building in the West Bank as a whole, he wrote that "Israel is supposed to freeze all Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian West Bank ...." But Israel’s settlement activity is not on land that belongs to the Palestinians. It’s on land the Palestinians claim for a future state. And it’s also in large part on land claimed by Israel. In other words, Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank is, at least to a great degree, on disputed land. Thus, after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer referred in a headline to the West Bank as "Palestinian lands," it subsequently published a correction explaining that "Ownership of many of the West Bank territories now occupied by Palestinians ... is in dispute. A headline on Page One Monday may not have made that clear" (June 12, 2002).But when the problematic language was brought to the attention of a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, the editor defended Simpson’s language, asserting that the West Bank was "predominantly Palestinian," and that peace proposals, including the Clinton Parameters, would have turned up to 97 percent of the West Bank into a Palestinian state.
In fact, the editor added, Israel has "signed on" to the goal of a Palestinian state in the vast majority of the West Bank, since it committed itself to the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements. The editor insisted that calling it the "Palestinian West Bank" does not imply every inch of the territory is undisputed, or that every resident is Palestinian — though 92 percent of the residents are Palestinian.The Oslo Accords, however, said nothing about a Palestinian state; the Road Map was the first internationally-accepted peace plan to call for Palestinian statehood. But the editor’s defense falls short for a number of more substantial reasons. There is a significant difference between describing the West Bank as "predominantly Palestinian," as did the editor, and claiming the territory is "Palestinian," the reporter’s language. The reporter’s description wrongly signals to readers that the Palestinians own, by law or by right, the entire West Bank. The editor’s language, on the other hand, might suggest that a majority of residents of the West Bank are Palestinian, which is true. That is, had the reporter described the West Bank as "predominantly Palestinian" rather than "Palestinian," the passage would have been less misleading. Still, even use of the phrase "predominantly Palestinian" raises questions. As noted above, the phrase could be understood as describing the Palestinians as the majority population in that region; but it could also be understood as suggesting that a vast majority of West Bank land is mostly inhabited by Palestinians, which is far from the truth.
In fact, 98 percent of the Palestinian population live within roughly 40 percent of the West Bank, leaving 60 percent of the West Bank that could be described either as sparsely populated, or even as predominantly Jewish.The newspaper, then, to avoid being guilty of using a double standard, would have to describe the predominantly Jewish Area C of the West Bank as "Israeli." Even more so, it would have to use the adjective "Israeli" when referring to the so-called seam zone (the area between the security fence and the green line) and to the central and northern Jordan Valley, which are dominated by Israeli Jews.The editor’s suggestion that the existence of peace plans which would have allotted much of the West Bank to the Palestinians, and Israel’s past willingness to cede West Bank land to the PA, make the region a priori "Palestinian" is also extremely problematic. Israeli willingness to compromise over disputed land does not make the West Bank inherently or historically Palestinian. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed Israel’s view on this during a May 24th speech before Congress. He said:I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land. ...Painfully, we the people of Israel have learned to change our perspective.
We have to compromise in the name of peace, to give up parts of our promised land in which every hill and valley is saturated with Jewish history and in which our heroes are buried. We have to relinquish part of our dream to leave room for the dream of others, so that all of us can enjoy a better future.Despite being willing to compromise, and certainly until a compromise is reached, Israel still feels it has a valid claim to the West Bank. Only when both sides reach an agreement, and the agreement is carried out, will a (currently undetermined) portion of the West Bank become officially "Palestinian." The idea that previous peace proposals justify labeling the West Bank "Palestinian" is flawed in other ways. Recall that the when Wall Street Journal reporter described the West Bank as being Palestinian, he was referring specifically to land on which Israel is expected to freeze settlement activity — "Israel is supposed to freeze all Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian West Bank," he wrote. But according to the very peace plans the editor cited in defense of calling the land "Palestinian," including the Clinton Parameters, most Israeli settlers — 80 percent of them — live on West Bank land that would be annexed to Israel. Most settlement activity, then, would presumably be on the Israeli West Bank, by the newspaper’s own logic. This section of the article, moreover, implicitly referred to one Israeli settlement in particular, which makes it even more clear that he should not have described the land as "Palestinian." Here is the full paragraph:In addition, Israel is supposed to freeze all Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian West Bank under the peace process. But less than a week after Ms. Rice finished her last mission here this month, [the Israeli political party] Shas took credit for forcing the government to lift a freeze on the expansion of settlements, and promised to push for more Jewish housing in the West Bank.
Although it is not explicitly noted in the story, Shas "forced the government to lift a freeze" on building specifically in the settlement of Givat Ze’ev. As an article in the March 10, 2008 New York Times noted, [Israeli spokesman Mark] Regev said Israel never intended to halt construction in East Jerusalem or in West Bank settlements like Givat Zeev that are in settlement blocs Israel intends to keep under any future agreement with the Palestinians. ..."This should not come as a surprise to anyone," Mr. Regev said of the announcement, "not to the Americans and not to the Palestinians either."The religious Shas Party, a right-leaning coalition partner that has threatened to quit the Olmert government, had demanded an official go-ahead for the construction in Givat Zeev, seeing it as a crucial test of government intentions. Givat Ze’ev is a so-called "consensus settlement," a community that Israelis in general expect will be annexed to Israel as part of a future deal with the Palestinians. And according to Miguel Moratinos, the European Union’s Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process during the Taba negotiations, even the Palestinians at one point had agreed to Israeli annexation of this settlement before eventually retracting their agreement.
So again, since the reporter was implicitly referring to Givat Ze’ev, a Jewish West Bank community that Israel insists it will keep, that would have become part of Israel under the Clinton Parameters (according to an informal map drawn up by former chief Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross), and that even the Palestinians had initially agreed Israel would annex, then by the newspaper’s own logic the passage should have referred to the settlement activity in the Israeli West Bank rather than the Palestinian West Bank.In short, there is no rationale for an ostensibly objective news source to refer to the West Bank in general as "the Palestinian West Bank," especially when referring more specifically to Israeli settlement activity, and most especially when implicitly referring to the community of Givat Ze’ev.Another comment used by the Wall Street Journal editor to defend the partisan language was especially odd. The editor asserted that "Put simply, referring to it as the ‘Palestinian West Bank’ gives our readers instant recognition of why there is controversy...." Quite the opposite is true.
The reference to a "Palestinian West Bank" gives readers the mistaken impression that there is no controversy, and that for no apparent reason Israel is occupying land that supposedly belongs to the Palestinians.
Jerusalem
The "Palestinian West Bank" issue is not the first use of prejudicial language in the news pages of the Journal. A Dec. 19, 2007 report by John McKinnon refers to "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unwillingness to stop the construction of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem...."The Palestinians might see Israeli population centers in eastern Jerusalem as settlements, as might some other countries that wish to promote a certain political position; but the Israelis and others do not regard Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem — including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and other traditionally-Jewish areas that were evacuated when Jordan conquered and occupied eastern Jerusalem (e.g. Neve Ya’akov) — as settlements. If Wall Street Journal journalists want readers to know that some regard Jewish communities in eastern Jerusalem as settlements, they should report just that. And they should also make clear Israel disputes this characterization. But in choosing the language preferred by one side of the dispute, the Wall Street Journal abandons its obligation to be objective. Indeed, after the New York Times described the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev as a settlement, the newspaper ran the following correction:An article on March 28 about pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to retaliate against Palestinians for attacks on Israelis referred imprecisely to Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish neighborhood built in 1984, which was the destination of a bus attacked by a Palestinian suicide bomber. While the Palestinians consider it a settlement, the Israelis say it is part of municipal Jerusalem. (April 2, 2001)The same applies to the Wall Street Journal's extremely prejudicial reference in its March 14, 2008 edition to "Arab East Jerusalem." Much of Arab world certainly regards this area as Arab, just as some regard Israel itself to be Arab, but it is hardly an objective description of the part of Jerusalem that came under Israeli control in 1967. As CAMERA has noted in the past, today there is near parity in the Jewish and Arab population of eastern Jerusalem. And the area has a long tradition of Jewish plurality. According to geographer Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, "In the second half of the nineteenth century and at the end of that century, Jews comprised the majority of the population of the Old City ..." (Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century). Historian Martin Gilbert states that in 1838 there were 6,000 Jews in Jerusalem, compared to 5,000 Muslims and 3,000 Christians (Jerusalem: Rebirth of a City). Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1853 "assessed the Jewish population of Jerusalem in 1844 at 7,120, making them the biggest single religious group in the city." (Terence Prittie, Whose Jerusalem?).
Until about 1860, Jerusalem residents lived almost exclusively within the walls of the Old City, in eastern Jerusalem. There has been a Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem for thousands of years: the City of David, the ancient Jewish Quarter, the 2000 year old Jewish cemetery on the Mt. of Olives. The Temple Mount and Western Wall, Judaism’s most sacred religious sites, are located in eastern Jerusalem. And more recently, in the early 1900's, institutions such as Hadassah Hospital (Mt. Scopus) and Hebrew University were built in eastern Jerusalem.A senior editor defended reporter John McKinnon's language by stating only that the using the word "settlement" in reference to Har Homa, a Jerusalem neighborhood built in territory occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, is "accurate," and that the language is "widely used." But the editor gave no explanation at all as to why the newspaper views the language as accurate. Nor did the editor explain who it is that "widely uses" such language or, more importantly, what relevance this has to the newspaper's word choice. There is much partisan language in wide use; but this in no way diminishes the newspaper's obligation to use objective language.For example, between 1975 and 1991, a United Nations General assembly resolution, sponsored mainly by Arab and Muslim states and passed with the help of Soviet-aligned countries and the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, defined Zionism as a form of racism. And although the resolution was revoked in 1991, this assertion is still in wide use among anti-Israel activists.
Despite this, no responsible newspaper, then or now, would refer as fact in the news pages to Zionism as racism. Nor, presumably, would the newspaper look to polls to determine how reporters should refer to immigrants, abortion, the United States or any other government, even if these polls suggest the kind of langauge that is "widely used" by the American or international public.Readers of a prominent and respected newspaper like the Wall Street Journal expect objective reporting. They expect news articles that do not take sides of a major dispute, but rather explain the differing sides. Indeed, they deserve such reporting. So as long as the newspaper insists on using partisan, prejudicial language to describe the West Bank and Jerusalem, readers have good reason to be alarmed and disappointed.
There is a conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. This, of course, is obvious. Equally clear is that a significant part of the conflict revolves around disputes over the eventual status of Jerusalem and the location of the borders that will separate the two sides. Israel officially views a united Jerusalem as its eternal capital. Palestinians have demanded that the eastern section of the city become the future capital of an independent Palestine. Israel expects that portions of the West Bank will be incorporated within its final borders. Palestinians often claim the entire West Bank. (These two issues are overshadowed by other, more serious problems, not least of which is Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, embrace of violence and insistence on Israel’s destruction. But Jerusalem and borders are nonetheless major unsolved issues.) There is a conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. This, of course, is obvious. Equally clear is that a significant part of the conflict revolves around disputes over the eventual status of Jerusalem and the location of the borders that will separate the two sides. Israel officially views a united Jerusalem as its eternal capital.
Palestinians have demanded that the eastern section of the city become the future capital of an independent Palestine. Israel expects that portions of the West Bank will be incorporated within its final borders. Palestinians often claim the entire West Bank. (These two issues are overshadowed by other, more serious problems, not least of which is Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, embrace of violence and insistence on Israel’s destruction. But Jerusalem and borders are nonetheless major unsolved issues.)Consequently, every peace plan accepted by the Israelis, Palestinians and international community calls for negotiations in order to resolve the outstanding disputes on Jerusalem and borders. The 2003 Road Map peace plan envisions, in its third and final phase, a "permanent status resolution ... on borders" and a "negotiated resolution on the status of Jerusalem that takes into account the political and religious concerns of both sides." The 1995 interim agreement of the Oslo Accords noted that "It is understood that [permanent status] negotiations shall cover remaining issues, including" Jerusalem and borders, and that "Nothing in this Agreement shall prejudice or preempt the outcome of the negotiations on the permanent status...." The 1993 Declaration of Principles used almost identical language, including a clause which states that "The two parties agreed that the outcome of the permanent status negotiations should not be prejudiced or preempted by agreements reached for the interim period."Enter the Wall Street Journal.
With little concern for prejudging or preempting the outcome of negotiations, the Journal’s news pages have taken to reporting on these final status issues as if they have already been resolved — in accordance with Palestinian demands.
The West Bank
When reporter Cam Simpson reported on March 28 about Israeli building in the West Bank as a whole, he wrote that "Israel is supposed to freeze all Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian West Bank ...." But Israel’s settlement activity is not on land that belongs to the Palestinians. It’s on land the Palestinians claim for a future state. And it’s also in large part on land claimed by Israel. In other words, Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank is, at least to a great degree, on disputed land. Thus, after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer referred in a headline to the West Bank as "Palestinian lands," it subsequently published a correction explaining that "Ownership of many of the West Bank territories now occupied by Palestinians ... is in dispute. A headline on Page One Monday may not have made that clear" (June 12, 2002).But when the problematic language was brought to the attention of a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, the editor defended Simpson’s language, asserting that the West Bank was "predominantly Palestinian," and that peace proposals, including the Clinton Parameters, would have turned up to 97 percent of the West Bank into a Palestinian state.
In fact, the editor added, Israel has "signed on" to the goal of a Palestinian state in the vast majority of the West Bank, since it committed itself to the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements. The editor insisted that calling it the "Palestinian West Bank" does not imply every inch of the territory is undisputed, or that every resident is Palestinian — though 92 percent of the residents are Palestinian.The Oslo Accords, however, said nothing about a Palestinian state; the Road Map was the first internationally-accepted peace plan to call for Palestinian statehood. But the editor’s defense falls short for a number of more substantial reasons. There is a significant difference between describing the West Bank as "predominantly Palestinian," as did the editor, and claiming the territory is "Palestinian," the reporter’s language. The reporter’s description wrongly signals to readers that the Palestinians own, by law or by right, the entire West Bank. The editor’s language, on the other hand, might suggest that a majority of residents of the West Bank are Palestinian, which is true. That is, had the reporter described the West Bank as "predominantly Palestinian" rather than "Palestinian," the passage would have been less misleading. Still, even use of the phrase "predominantly Palestinian" raises questions. As noted above, the phrase could be understood as describing the Palestinians as the majority population in that region; but it could also be understood as suggesting that a vast majority of West Bank land is mostly inhabited by Palestinians, which is far from the truth.
In fact, 98 percent of the Palestinian population live within roughly 40 percent of the West Bank, leaving 60 percent of the West Bank that could be described either as sparsely populated, or even as predominantly Jewish.The newspaper, then, to avoid being guilty of using a double standard, would have to describe the predominantly Jewish Area C of the West Bank as "Israeli." Even more so, it would have to use the adjective "Israeli" when referring to the so-called seam zone (the area between the security fence and the green line) and to the central and northern Jordan Valley, which are dominated by Israeli Jews.The editor’s suggestion that the existence of peace plans which would have allotted much of the West Bank to the Palestinians, and Israel’s past willingness to cede West Bank land to the PA, make the region a priori "Palestinian" is also extremely problematic. Israeli willingness to compromise over disputed land does not make the West Bank inherently or historically Palestinian. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed Israel’s view on this during a May 24th speech before Congress. He said:I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land. ...Painfully, we the people of Israel have learned to change our perspective.
We have to compromise in the name of peace, to give up parts of our promised land in which every hill and valley is saturated with Jewish history and in which our heroes are buried. We have to relinquish part of our dream to leave room for the dream of others, so that all of us can enjoy a better future.Despite being willing to compromise, and certainly until a compromise is reached, Israel still feels it has a valid claim to the West Bank. Only when both sides reach an agreement, and the agreement is carried out, will a (currently undetermined) portion of the West Bank become officially "Palestinian." The idea that previous peace proposals justify labeling the West Bank "Palestinian" is flawed in other ways. Recall that the when Wall Street Journal reporter described the West Bank as being Palestinian, he was referring specifically to land on which Israel is expected to freeze settlement activity — "Israel is supposed to freeze all Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian West Bank," he wrote. But according to the very peace plans the editor cited in defense of calling the land "Palestinian," including the Clinton Parameters, most Israeli settlers — 80 percent of them — live on West Bank land that would be annexed to Israel. Most settlement activity, then, would presumably be on the Israeli West Bank, by the newspaper’s own logic. This section of the article, moreover, implicitly referred to one Israeli settlement in particular, which makes it even more clear that he should not have described the land as "Palestinian." Here is the full paragraph:In addition, Israel is supposed to freeze all Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian West Bank under the peace process. But less than a week after Ms. Rice finished her last mission here this month, [the Israeli political party] Shas took credit for forcing the government to lift a freeze on the expansion of settlements, and promised to push for more Jewish housing in the West Bank.
Although it is not explicitly noted in the story, Shas "forced the government to lift a freeze" on building specifically in the settlement of Givat Ze’ev. As an article in the March 10, 2008 New York Times noted, [Israeli spokesman Mark] Regev said Israel never intended to halt construction in East Jerusalem or in West Bank settlements like Givat Zeev that are in settlement blocs Israel intends to keep under any future agreement with the Palestinians. ..."This should not come as a surprise to anyone," Mr. Regev said of the announcement, "not to the Americans and not to the Palestinians either."The religious Shas Party, a right-leaning coalition partner that has threatened to quit the Olmert government, had demanded an official go-ahead for the construction in Givat Zeev, seeing it as a crucial test of government intentions. Givat Ze’ev is a so-called "consensus settlement," a community that Israelis in general expect will be annexed to Israel as part of a future deal with the Palestinians. And according to Miguel Moratinos, the European Union’s Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process during the Taba negotiations, even the Palestinians at one point had agreed to Israeli annexation of this settlement before eventually retracting their agreement.
So again, since the reporter was implicitly referring to Givat Ze’ev, a Jewish West Bank community that Israel insists it will keep, that would have become part of Israel under the Clinton Parameters (according to an informal map drawn up by former chief Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross), and that even the Palestinians had initially agreed Israel would annex, then by the newspaper’s own logic the passage should have referred to the settlement activity in the Israeli West Bank rather than the Palestinian West Bank.In short, there is no rationale for an ostensibly objective news source to refer to the West Bank in general as "the Palestinian West Bank," especially when referring more specifically to Israeli settlement activity, and most especially when implicitly referring to the community of Givat Ze’ev.Another comment used by the Wall Street Journal editor to defend the partisan language was especially odd. The editor asserted that "Put simply, referring to it as the ‘Palestinian West Bank’ gives our readers instant recognition of why there is controversy...." Quite the opposite is true.
The reference to a "Palestinian West Bank" gives readers the mistaken impression that there is no controversy, and that for no apparent reason Israel is occupying land that supposedly belongs to the Palestinians.
Jerusalem
The "Palestinian West Bank" issue is not the first use of prejudicial language in the news pages of the Journal. A Dec. 19, 2007 report by John McKinnon refers to "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unwillingness to stop the construction of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem...."The Palestinians might see Israeli population centers in eastern Jerusalem as settlements, as might some other countries that wish to promote a certain political position; but the Israelis and others do not regard Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem — including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and other traditionally-Jewish areas that were evacuated when Jordan conquered and occupied eastern Jerusalem (e.g. Neve Ya’akov) — as settlements. If Wall Street Journal journalists want readers to know that some regard Jewish communities in eastern Jerusalem as settlements, they should report just that. And they should also make clear Israel disputes this characterization. But in choosing the language preferred by one side of the dispute, the Wall Street Journal abandons its obligation to be objective. Indeed, after the New York Times described the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev as a settlement, the newspaper ran the following correction:An article on March 28 about pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to retaliate against Palestinians for attacks on Israelis referred imprecisely to Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish neighborhood built in 1984, which was the destination of a bus attacked by a Palestinian suicide bomber. While the Palestinians consider it a settlement, the Israelis say it is part of municipal Jerusalem. (April 2, 2001)The same applies to the Wall Street Journal's extremely prejudicial reference in its March 14, 2008 edition to "Arab East Jerusalem." Much of Arab world certainly regards this area as Arab, just as some regard Israel itself to be Arab, but it is hardly an objective description of the part of Jerusalem that came under Israeli control in 1967. As CAMERA has noted in the past, today there is near parity in the Jewish and Arab population of eastern Jerusalem. And the area has a long tradition of Jewish plurality. According to geographer Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, "In the second half of the nineteenth century and at the end of that century, Jews comprised the majority of the population of the Old City ..." (Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century). Historian Martin Gilbert states that in 1838 there were 6,000 Jews in Jerusalem, compared to 5,000 Muslims and 3,000 Christians (Jerusalem: Rebirth of a City). Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1853 "assessed the Jewish population of Jerusalem in 1844 at 7,120, making them the biggest single religious group in the city." (Terence Prittie, Whose Jerusalem?).
Until about 1860, Jerusalem residents lived almost exclusively within the walls of the Old City, in eastern Jerusalem. There has been a Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem for thousands of years: the City of David, the ancient Jewish Quarter, the 2000 year old Jewish cemetery on the Mt. of Olives. The Temple Mount and Western Wall, Judaism’s most sacred religious sites, are located in eastern Jerusalem. And more recently, in the early 1900's, institutions such as Hadassah Hospital (Mt. Scopus) and Hebrew University were built in eastern Jerusalem.A senior editor defended reporter John McKinnon's language by stating only that the using the word "settlement" in reference to Har Homa, a Jerusalem neighborhood built in territory occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, is "accurate," and that the language is "widely used." But the editor gave no explanation at all as to why the newspaper views the language as accurate. Nor did the editor explain who it is that "widely uses" such language or, more importantly, what relevance this has to the newspaper's word choice. There is much partisan language in wide use; but this in no way diminishes the newspaper's obligation to use objective language.For example, between 1975 and 1991, a United Nations General assembly resolution, sponsored mainly by Arab and Muslim states and passed with the help of Soviet-aligned countries and the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, defined Zionism as a form of racism. And although the resolution was revoked in 1991, this assertion is still in wide use among anti-Israel activists.
Despite this, no responsible newspaper, then or now, would refer as fact in the news pages to Zionism as racism. Nor, presumably, would the newspaper look to polls to determine how reporters should refer to immigrants, abortion, the United States or any other government, even if these polls suggest the kind of langauge that is "widely used" by the American or international public.Readers of a prominent and respected newspaper like the Wall Street Journal expect objective reporting. They expect news articles that do not take sides of a major dispute, but rather explain the differing sides. Indeed, they deserve such reporting. So as long as the newspaper insists on using partisan, prejudicial language to describe the West Bank and Jerusalem, readers have good reason to be alarmed and disappointed.
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