OPINION: DECLARATIONS
MAY 1, 2010
The Big Alienation
Uncontrolled borders and Washington's lack of self-control.
By PEGGY NOONAN
We are at a remarkable moment. We have an open, 2,000-mile border to our south, and the entity with the power to enforce the law and impose safety and order will not do it. Wall Street collapsed, taking Main Street's money with it, and the government can't really figure out what to do about it because the government itself was deeply implicated in the crash, and both political parties are full of people whose political careers have been made possible by Wall Street contributions. Meanwhile we pass huge laws, bills so comprehensive, omnibus and transformative that no one knows what's in them and no one—literally, no one—knows how exactly they will be executed or interpreted. Citizens search for new laws online, pore over them at night, and come away knowing no more than they did before they typed "dot-gov."
It is not that no one's in control. Washington is full of people who insist they're in control and who go to great lengths to display their power. It's that no one takes responsibility and authority. Washington daily delivers to the people two stark and utterly conflicting messages: "We control everything" and "You're on your own."
All this contributes to a deep and growing alienation between the people of America and the government of America in Washington.
This is not the old, conservative and long-lampooned "I don't trust gummint" attitude of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It's something new, or rather something so much more broadly and fully evolved that it constitutes something new. The right never trusted the government, but now the middle doesn't. I asked a campaigner for Hillary Clinton recently where her sturdy, pantsuited supporters had gone. They didn't seem part of the Obama brigades. "Some of them are at the tea party," she said.
None of this happened overnight. It is, most recently, the result of two wars that were supposed to be cakewalks, Katrina, the crash, and the phenomenon of a federal government that seemed less and less competent attempting to do more and more by passing bigger and bigger laws.
Add to this states on the verge of bankruptcy, the looming debt crisis of the federal government, and the likelihood of ever-rising taxes. Shake it all together, and you have the makings of the big alienation. Alienation is often followed by full-blown antagonism, and antagonism by breakage.
Which brings us to Arizona and its much-criticized attempt to institute a law aimed at controlling its own border with Mexico. It is doing this because the federal government won't, and because Arizonans have a crisis on their hands, areas on the border where criminal behavior flourishes, where there have been kidnappings, murders and gang violence. If the law is abusive, it will be determined quickly enough, in the courts. In keeping with recent tradition, they were reading parts of the law aloud on cable the other night, with bright and sincere people completely disagreeing on the meaning of the words they were reading. No one knows how the law will be executed or interpreted.
Every state and region has its own facts and experience. In New York, legal and illegal immigrants keep the city running: They work hard jobs with brutal hours, rip off no one on Wall Street, and do not crash the economy. They are generally considered among the good guys. I'm not sure New Yorkers can fairly judge the situation in Arizona, nor Arizonans the situation in New York.
But the larger point is that Arizona is moving forward because the government in Washington has completely abdicated its responsibility. For 10 years—at least—through two administrations, Washington deliberately did nothing to ease the crisis on the borders because politicians calculated that an air of mounting crisis would spur mounting support for what Washington thought was appropriate reform—i.e., reform that would help the Democratic and Republican parties.
Both parties resemble Gordon Brown, who is about to lose the prime ministership of Britain. On the campaign trail this week, he was famously questioned by a party voter about his stand on immigration. He gave her the verbal runaround, all boilerplate and shrugs, and later complained to an aide, on an open mic, that he'd been forced into conversation with that "bigoted woman."
He really thought she was a bigot. Because she asked about immigration. Which is, to him, a sign of at least latent racism.
The establishments of the American political parties, and the media, are full of people who think concern about illegal immigration is a mark of racism. If you were Freud you might say, "How odd that's where their minds so quickly go, how strange they're so eager to point an accusing finger. Could they be projecting onto others their own, heavily defended-against inner emotions?" But let's not do Freud, he's too interesting. Maybe they're just smug and sanctimonious.
The American president has the power to control America's borders if he wants to, but George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not and do not want to, and for the same reason, and we all know what it is. The fastest-growing demographic in America is the Hispanic vote, and if either party cracks down on illegal immigration, it risks losing that vote for generations.
But while the Democrats worry about the prospects of the Democrats and the Republicans about the well-being of the Republicans, who worries about America?
No one. Which the American people have noticed, and which adds to the dangerous alienation—actually it's at the heart of the alienation—of the age.
In the past four years, I have argued in this space that nothing can or should be done, no new federal law passed, until the border itself is secure. That is the predicate, the common sense first step. Once existing laws are enforced and the border made peaceful, everyone in the country will be able to breathe easier and consider, without an air of clamor and crisis, what should be done next. What might that be? How about relax, see where we are, and absorb. Pass a small, clear law—say, one granting citizenship to all who serve two years in the armed forces—and then go have a Coke. Not everything has to be settled right away. Only controlling the border has to be settled right away.
Instead, our national establishments deliberately allow the crisis to grow and fester, ignoring public unrest and amusing themselves by damning anyone's attempt to deal with the problem they fear to address.
Why does the federal government do this? Because so many within it are stupid and unimaginative and don't trust the American people. Which of course the American people have noticed.
If the federal government and our political parties were imaginative, they would understand that it is actually in their interests to restore peace and order to the border. It would be a way of demonstrating that our government is still capable of functioning, that it is still to some degree connected to the people's will, that it has the broader interests of the country in mind.
The American people fear they are losing their place and authority in the daily, unwinding drama of American history. They feel increasingly alienated from their government. And alienation, again, is often followed by deep animosity, and animosity by the breaking up of things. If our leaders were farsighted not only for themselves but for the country, they would fix the border.
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IBD Editorials
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=531977
Immigration Is In Chaos After Obama Remark
By DANA MILBANK
Posted 04/30/2010 06:50 PM ET
Air Force One was about seven miles over Appalachia last week when President Obama dropped a bomb on his fellow Democrats.
Senate Democrats had that very day circulated an immigration reform proposal, and the Associated Press, receiving a leaked copy, reported on the "draft legislation."
But as Obama returned to Washington from Illinois Wednesday night, he walked back to the press cabin on the presidential aircraft and, in an impromptu Q&A, essentially declared immigration reform dead. He said "there may not be an appetite" for it.
Obama's retreat — after encouraging senators only weeks ago to take up immigration reform — clotheslined Senate Democrats. Since their proposal had already leaked, they had no choice but to roll out the plan Obama had just doomed.
"I don't know in what context the statement was made last night," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters at Thursday's rollout.
Well, Mr. Leader, the context is fear. As the Arizona abomination makes clear, there is a desperate need for federal immigration action to keep the country from becoming a nation of vigilantes suspicious of anybody with dark skin.
But leaders on both sides have instead run for the hills, called there by the yodels from their respective extremes.
The most tragic case is John McCain, who once nobly led the fight for immigration reform but now, cowering in the face of a conservative primary election threat, supports Arizona's racial profiling plan.
On the Democratic side, Reid has been in an immigration panic. In need of Latino votes in his Senate re-election bid, he suddenly promised he would move immediately to pass immigration reform, then reversed himself, then floated the "framework" with no promise of action.
Obama, meanwhile, afraid of breaking his campaign promise to immigration advocates to take up immigration legislation during his first year, tried to juggle immigration reform and climate change legislation — and now he may wind up with neither.
The lone GOP supporter of immigration and climate change legislation, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has for the moment pulled out of both, justifiably feeling that he's been jerked around by Reid's maneuverings and Obama's mixed signals.
The episode was a reminder of what works and what doesn't about Obama's management style. When he engages forcefully, as he did in the final month of the health care debate, the results are good. But when he hesitates and leaves matters to Congress, the results are poor.
After the extended health care fight kept immigration off the agenda last year, Obama, trying to appease immigration groups, assured them in March that he would get it done this year.
He summoned to the White House Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who had been negotiating in good faith on an immigration proposal.
The two senators, at the president's urging, published an op-ed in the Washington Post on March 19 outlining their plan, and Obama endorsed the idea.
Then, in the absence of forceful leadership from the White House, it all fell apart. Obama called five Republican senators to lobby them on the immigration bill (Schumer and Graham told him they couldn't proceed without a second Republican sponsor) but came up empty.
Reid, meanwhile, went rogue, proposing without consulting Graham to take up immigration before the climate bill—and Graham bolted.
The president could have made a major push for reform (always a difficult prospect in an election year) or he could have told immigration advocates they had to wait until 2011 (which would have antagonized a key voting bloc).
But instead, he left a vacuum. This may sound familiar to those who watched Obama's handling of another thorny issue — the "public option" in the health care debate. He neither made an all-out push (which would have been politically perilous) nor ruled it out (which would have angered liberal groups) — a stance that resulted in months of disarray in Congress.
The immigration vacillation led to Thursday night's humiliation in the Capitol, where Reid and his colleagues unveiled their dead-on-arrival immigration plan.
They played down the rollout as best they could, walking before the cameras at the exact moment Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was announcing his independent run for the Senate.
In questioning, Reid admitted that, without Republican help, "we're not going to have a bill on the floor." The White House, trying to repair the damage, issued a written statement calling the plan "a very important step." For those thirsting for strong leadership, it was too little, too late.
Guest Comment: Alienation: one word or two? Another campaign promise broken by Obama--fixing the broken immigration system.
Every country has the right to determine who will enter, for what purpose, and for what duration. That is the basis of the international visa system and immigration process. There is nothing racist about it; it s a matter of national security, economics, and to some degree family unification and humanitarian concrnes embedded in a refugee system. This is a system of selection, a right of every sovereign nation. At the same time our Constitution an existing laws also assure that those who have entered, albeit without permission, and have accumulated certain equities, may apply for discretionary relief from removal (formerly deportation). Our process can work only if safeguards are in place, including a secure border.
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Best,
Aggie
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Open Letter to Benjamin Netanyahu
25 May 2009
Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister
Prime Minister's Office
3 Kaplan Street Qiriyat Ben-Gurion
PO Box 187
Jerusalem, ISRAEL 91919 pm_eng@pmo.gov.il
Mr. Prime Minister:
My purpose in writing to you and that of my colleague is to thank you for standing strong against the two state “solution” and to give you encouragement to stay the course.
President Obama has set forth, in the most brutal way that, in preference to the people of Israel continuing to live on its ancestral homeland, the United States will accept a nuclear Iran, with all the destabilization that would inevitably result. In effect, President Obama has said that the US might (might) save Israel from lynching but on condition that we drink strychnine. In fact, however, by the end of the two to three year period that his timetable sets for the drinking of strychnine, the lynching will have been completed, God forbid! But we are required to drink it anyway.In fact, I am sure I need not explain to you that every administration since the formulation of the Rogers Plan has followed the same policy. In fact, American policy toward the Zionist enterprise is unchanged since the Balfour Declaration: strong public declarations of support and even demonstrations of unstinting support, coupled with behind-the-scenes duplicity and even treachery. Shmuel Katz has detailed this, and it is neatly set forth in detail with copious citations by Prof. Francisco Gil-White at http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm in Is the US an ally of Israel? A chronological look at the evidence.
Israel has danced around this issue, dealing with it as well as it could and has navigated though better and worse periods. This time, however, looks like “the crunch.” We are to be presented with a diktat backed up by the US, the EU, the UN, Russia and the Arab League together with an ultimatum.
Israel does not have to accede. Israel is not without alternatives or without recourse. Israel is able to go it alone, against the will of the USA, against the will of the “Quartet”, the UN and the Arab League. There are several powerful tools in Israel’s hands.
Israeli military technology. Not many people realize that Israel is the country of innovation in hi-tech munitions and in asymmetrical warfare. Israel is practically in a position to embargo hi-tech weaponry from any country in the world, including the US. The Popeye missile is hardly even the threshold.
Israel’s military technology is very advanced and many of Israel’s technologies and products are unique and superior. The world will not likely boycott them. As the worldwide jihad expands, Israel’s expertise and experience in combating Islamic terror will become a more and more marketable commodity. The non-Islamic world has reason to realize that Israel’s war against Islamic terror is their own war and not colonialist apartheid oppression as it is portrayed. If they do not come to realize it, then they will sink into Islamic domination. There is no reason for Israel to sink with them.
Israeli governments seem chronic in their underestimation of the value to the world of Israeli military technology. The Popeye missile and the unmanned drones are only two. Israeli electronics took apart the best Soviet made anti-aircraft systems in Syria as long ago as 1967, to the shock of the Soviets. Development of Israeli military technology has accelerated since then. Many of those technologies have been acquired in secret by the United States, in some cases via threats and intimidation. Israeli tank sights were acquired by the United States and installed on its Abrams tanks, which are now assembled in Egypt, with Israeli sights. Likewise, intelligence supplied to the United States by Israel has been invaluable. Yet, to Americans, seeing only billions of dollars of “aid” being given to Israel and not seeing that, in fact, the US gets more than its money’s worth, Israel looks like a beggar at the gate.
On the other side, Israel has come to see itself as a welfare dependent, feeling utterly dependent on the American dole. Israel has to insist that acquisition by foreign governments of Israeli arms technology, consultation and training (in urban warfare in Iraq, for example) and other strategic cooperation be done only in public and not secretly. Insisting on legitimacy means refusing to be treated like the “other woman” in order not to offend the Muslim states.
Regrettably, Israel scrapped the Kfir under US pressure and closed Beit Shemesh Engines. But Israel makes its own rocket engines, which function under more extreme conditions than jet aircraft engines. Israel certainly could also make engines for jet aircraft. Doing so in partnership with India alone would create a market large enough to enjoy economies of scale and India is eager for closer cooperation with Israel.
Withstanding international pressures. Israel needs not fear international pressure, even boycotts and sanctions. There are too many other countries in positions similar to Israel’s with regard to Moslem minorities and external defense to isolate Israel for long. India, for one, has growing and developing ties with Israel owing in part to the fact that its history of appeasement of its Moslem minority has not bought it peace and security. It has need of technology sharing and joint projects with Israel and that would likely continue despite international sanctions. China and Japan have also found collaboration with Israel very productive.
An Israel-India Axis. President Obama, in his arrogance, has hectored not only Israel to surrender to Islamic demands, but also India, whom he told that the reason they do not have peace with Pakistan is because India has not surrendered Kashmir. This he could actually say when Pakistan is in grave danger of being taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
In fact, Israel and India are natural allies in many ways and complementary to each other in many ways. The combined resources, brain power, technology and manufacturing capacity would be formidable from the outset. I propose that ties with India be pursued with utmost urgency and that Israeli foreign policy be reoriented immediately to make India the central point, immediately replacing the US and Europe.
Additional states. There are other states that President Obama has already alienated which could be brought into such a grouping. Colombia, with the assistance of Israeli military advisors, is near to victory against Marxist rebels. They have found, even before Obama was sworn into office that his emissaries have been in contact with the rebels with a view to actually taking their side. Colombia has fresh reason to reduce its dependence on the US.
Almost the same story is taking place in Sri Lanka. The complication for Israel is long standing bad blood between Sri Lanka and India. It is conceivable, however, that Israel could be instrumental in mediating that problem to the extent that they could cooperate in formulating and pursuing a new foreign policy orientation . If not, there seems to be no impediment to continuation of good and close bilateral relations.
Taiwan is another pariah state with which Israel might develop important relations. Israel has a choice between Taiwan and China, of course, but China is not averse to doing deals that are inimical to Israel’s vital interests and, if pushed to decide, Israel might consider whether a permanent relationship with Taiwan might not be more advantageous.
Strategic cooperation with India. Within the immediate horizons, Israel and India might do something of utmost importance together. I refer to the twin threats of Iranian nuclear weapons and Pakistani nuclear weapons. The former directly threatens Israel. The latter directly threatens India. If Israel and India help each other, it might be possible to eliminate both. To fly from India might not bring Israel closer to the Iranian nuclear plants but it would have the advantage of not having to cross airspace under American control. I do not have sufficient knowledge to say but I question whether it is necessary at all to use manned aircraft for the purpose when Israel has both ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to do the job.
Nor is it necessary to destroy the nuclear facilities themselves. The suggestion comes from a colleague, formerly a very high level engineer prominent in the F-16 project, that the nuclear facilities cannot function if the infrastructure is knocked out. They are useless without electricity and water and raw materials. I do not know enough to say whether Israel has a good possibility of destroying or disrupting the nuclear facilities but Israel can certainly cripple Iran’s infrastructure, bomb the Majlis and the mullas and the Presidential Palace and even hunt down the scientists involved in the nuclear project.
Of course, the world would be outraged and might even apply serious sanctions against Israel and India. We could withstand those, both Israel and India. It would require considerable economic reorientation and restructuring but it is high time that took place anyway. Both countries would emerge stronger, more independent and more democratic for having done so.
It would involve getting off the global corporate “grid” and developing the local economy independent of the multinational mega-corporations and the corporate “solutions” that only a very few such giant corporations can deliver. They are frequently not the best solutions for the market or for anyone else, but only for the global mega-corporations.
New Zealand’s recent history in agriculture provides an important point of reference. In 1986, the government of New Zealand decided to eliminate all agricultural subsidies over a period of only three years. They did that in the face of dire warnings of economic collapse of the agricultural sector. In the end, only about one percent of New Zealand farms went bankrupt and within only six years, agriculture had become the strongest sector of the New Zealand economy, whereas it had been an economic basket case before 1986. What happened is instructive on many levels.
Because the policies pursued by the New Zealand government had been similar to those pursued by other Western countries, agriculture had come to be dominated by corporations, especially petro-chemical companies. Those companies produce the agricultural chemicals that have become endemic to Western farming and are a central element in what is touted as the “Green Revolution” that supposedly enables the world to increase food production via hybrid seeds, massive chemicalization and heavy mechanization. When subsidies were eliminated, small farmers responded by eliminating the use of agricultural chemicals. Productivity soared such that farm profits increased even as farm prices fell. Agricultural commodities across the board sell for half to two thirds their prices in Western Europe, where agriculture is heavily subsidized. Petrochemical companies sold their farms and the family farm has made a strong come-back in New Zealand.
The government had, in effect, been subsidizing the use of chemicals, which is the corporate solution that had monopolized the attention of the market, of governments, universities and the media for decades. It turned out that the corporate solution could not compete on a level playing field. The petro-chemical corporate “farmers” could not make a profit unless they sold their chemicals twice: once subsumed in the price of the produce and once in the form of governmental subsidies.
One would think that the world should have noticed that the much touted “Green Revolution” is a failure, if not a massive fraud altogether, but that has not happened. The universities, the media, the farmers’ own associations and the world’s governments have all ignored the New Zealand experience. Even New Zealand never mentions it. It does not fit the corporate image and is not what we are encouraged to notice. See, for example, http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=62576&owner=(International%20Herald%20Tribune)&date=20020627153521 New Zealand's aid-free farm boom, By Andrew Johnston (International Herald Tribune), Wednesday, June 26, 2002.
A second case in point: How Cuba Survived the Collapse of the Grid
In 1989, at about the same time as the New Zealand experience was unfolding, Cuba was forced off the Grid by the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Soviet Union had been the supplier of 80% of Cuba’s imports, including energy, and the buyer of 80% of Cuba’s production. That consisted mainly of sugar, tobacco and citrus, all grown by plantation agriculture characterized by monoculture using massive amounts of chemical pesticides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides: the Green Revolution, in brief. Cuba exported almost all of its agricultural production and imported almost all of its food.
When the Soviet empire collapsed, Cuba suddenly had no supplier of petroleum and other imports, and no customers for its produce. That meant no money, which meant very little food and precious little petroleum and that in turn meant nearly no agricultural chemicals. Cuba today uses less than 5% of the amount of agricultural chemicals that it used before 1989.
With no market for its cash crops, the country’s agriculture had to turn from plantation agriculture to local farming and had to do so quickly. Cuba began to grow its own food. There was no gasoline for the tractors but there were a few oxen and there was manpower.
To the credit of the Cuban people, there were no food riots, no looting. Civil order did not break down. Pilfering from community gardens was not extensive enough to become a problem. People got together as communities and began planting food in any available patch of ground. Flat roofs are now vegetable gardens. Out of necessity, they used techniques from outside the “green revolution.” People came from Australia to teach the Cubans “permaculture,” which requires very little water, no chemicals and relatively very little labor. (More on that below.)
Havana, a densely populated city of more than two million, produces 80-85% of its own food. Less crowded cities produce an even higher percentage of theirs. Cuba today exports bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers, which the Cubans have learned to produce. Still, the world adamantly refuses to notice that the green revolution is a failure at best, probably a fraud and possibly a crime.
Israeli agriculture is in dire need of restructuring. I came on aliyah in 1984 and economists already then were pointing out the irrationality of Israeli agriculture’s dependence on resources in very short supply in Israel: energy, water, labor and money. They pointed out, even then, that it was irrational for Israel to subsidize the export of water to Europe in the form of fruits and vegetables. It is even more irrational now and will be impossible should Europe join in sanctions against Israel.
There is a new agricultural technology that eschews monoculture and the massive chemicalization and mechanization that are required for monoculture. It requires no chemicals, very little water, little mechanization and not much labor. It sounds too good to be true but it is true. It is called “permaculture” and I even have a permaculture expert whom I can recommend to give instruction. She in turn has her teachers and there are others. It is a system that is functioning in Israel and it can be seen in operation.
There are other technologies in existence that can free Israel and the world from the grip of Middle East petroleum. One is based on the work of Nikola Tesla which could provide essentially free power to everyone in the world, as Tesla proposed in the 1920’s. Financing for Tesla’s project, however, was thwarted by banking interests committed to petroleum. An American scientist believes he has discovered how Tesla could tap into the static charge of Planet Earth. Israel is the ideal location. He offered it to two different Israeli Ministers of National Infrastructure and both ignored it. I propose that Israel tests it and develops it.
Another is an Israeli project that can transform algae into crude oil, turning petroleum into an agricultural product, requiring only flat land with reliable sunlight (such as desert) near water or any degree of salinity. It is in Israel’s interest that projects such as this be developed and exploited everywhere in the world. With this technology, Australia, for example, could produce as much crude oil as Saudi Arabia. Israel should also give urgent consideration to a water tunnel from the Mediterranean to Dead Sea with hydro-electric and reverse osmosis desalination plants along the way. There are other clean energy sources, such as the energy tower proposed by Zoslowsky, solar ponds, and solar electricity fields. In addition, there is 40 million dollar’s worth of energy in sewage and other wastes that is being pumped out to sea even as you read these words.
Israel should reformulate defense policy and foreign policy doctrine to include aggressive alternative energy research and development, implementation and marketing. That should be a strategic goal. The more the world uses energy other than petroleum from OPEC countries, the more the power of international jihad is weakened and the less money there will be to finance terrorism against Israel.
Getting off the global mega-corporate grid and helping others to get off the grid will create a better society and a better world.
Independence: To the extent that Israel produces our own water, energy and food, we are beyond the reach of monopoly exploitation, foreign bullying, OPEC manipulation, price gouging and shortages.
Economic Benefit: There is cost involved in transport. No mystery. This is one reason for turning to local sources of food and energy. Even transmission of electricity costs energy. Less than 100% of the electricity that enters a transmission cable comes out the other end. The longer the transmission, the more energy is lost. Turbines and generators of all sizes are commercially available. Electric generation, from sewage, wind and solar and the technologies discussed above, can be decentralized to many locations, which would also reduce, by the way, the vulnerability of Israel’s electrical system to hostile action.
Similar benefits are to be had from producing more or even all of our food and other necessities locally.
Democracy and the future of the republic: Contemporary democracy was born in America, a place we both know well. The American Republic grew out of a society of independent farmers; the “peasant tradition.” A “peasant,” in the classic sense, is a small landowner who lives by subsistence agriculture. That is, a “peasant” produces mainly for his own family’s needs and sells the surplus in order to buy what he cannot produce.
The “Okies” were pretty much the end of the peasant tradition in America. It was finally wiped out by the Dust Bowl, farm foreclosures, employment in agribusiness in California and then assimilation into the general society. They were poor but very proud, accustomed to hard work and self-reliance and fiercely independent. They were ready to help one another with joy and alacrity but were always ready to go it alone if need be. Out of such stock and such a culture the Republic originally arose.
By the 1930’s, even before rural electrification, most family farms in America were already on the corporate grid. hey were given over to large scale cash crops and distant markets, which put them on the transport grid and dependence on motor vehicles and petroleum. No longer self-sufficient, they purchased everything from the system (the “grid”). Monoculture meant mechanization of agriculture which in turn meant borrowing large sums from the banks, another grid. Each step meant more acreage devoted to cash crops and less to their own needs. At the same time, government programs were implemented, such as rural electrification, which had the effect of centralizing the economy and making producers more and more dependent on large corporations. Eventually, most Americans came to work for mega-corporations, directly or indirectly. That was not entirely a function of market forces. It was due in greater or lesser part to government policy, which came to be dominated by those same corporations.
The corporate solutions came to be the only ones considered by government or considered by universities, whose research is funded by corporations interested in the outcomes; think tanks, which are staffed by people from government, academe and the executive level of the mega-corporate world; and the media, which depend on corporate advertising for their survival.
This is a process of collectivization. What is a corporation, after all, but a collectivity which is, furthermore, authoritarian and hierarchic? It is not a democratic institution. This process of collectivization has been actively pursued by governments of Western countries for about eighty years and maybe longer. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, Sweden was a rather backward country in the north woods. The economic miracle that transformed Sweden was wrought by small business. Then, during the depression, people turned to the Socialists who made an alliance with big business to control the economy. Socialism is not about social justice and not about equality. Socialism is about power.
There are many ways that government has of promoting collectivization by protecting the large corporations from competition by small business. Many of those ways take the guise of protection of the public from the evils of the big corporations. The effect is to make it so expensive and burdensome to comply with the regulations that only the very large corporations can afford to do business. The labor unions also tend to become part of the “grid.” Unions are collectivities which become hierarchical and authoritarian through anti-democratic rules which government protects from the rank and file because that enables “sweetheart contracts” with the corporate employers by benefitting the labor bosses under the table. We note again that this is frequently not the result of market forces except in the sense that government policy is a marketable “service.”
The same process of promoting dependence on mega-corporations is now proceeding internationally t is called “globalization.” After the fall of Communism, Bulgaria fully privatized. Foreign companies invested in Bulgaria, bought up the most viable industries and moved them out of Bulgaria or simply closed them in order to eliminate the competition. They nearly bankrupted Bulgaria and set her back decades developmentally. What are Bulgarians to do then? The answer globalization gives is that Bulgarians should be free to move to follow the labor market. That is to say, they should be free to cease being Bulgarians in their own country. Likewise for Israelis, that means the solution is to cease being a free people in our own land and to go back into exile among the nations. For Jews, this is national suicide. The more Israel separates itself from the grid, the better. And the sooner the better.
I believe it is the goal of the international elite to control national policy everywhere by means of control of the companies that dominate the local economy. The elite in Israel are fully on board. This represents the globalization of the manner in which conglomerates have historically subordinated state and local governments in America.
One who believes, with Charles Wilson, that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” will be comfortable with globalization: What’s good for General Motors and Siemens and British Petroleum and Mitsubishi, etc. is good for the whole world. Even if one is comfortable with that proposition, however, we know that what applies to “everyone” does not necessarily include the Jews. Jewish survival and Israeli independence cannot depend on the good will of the nations of the world.
I would also call your attention to the way the world’s response to the financial meltdown follows a Third World pattern. The pattern is always to privatize profits and socialize loss. The US government’s “recovery” plan so far follows the Third World pattern. President Obama’s program has even included the use of AIG to launder enormous amounts of money to foreign interests, forcing the US taxpayers to absorb the losses of the global elite. The ultimate goal is quite apparently world government, which will enable the global elite to use to the whole world in the same manner: to generate its profits and absorb its losses at taxpayers’ expense.
The world government is to be controlled by the global elite, of course. In short, this is an economic war which the ruling families of the world are waging. The goal is nothing less than total control of the world’s economic activity by a consortium of their mega-corporations under the auspices of an international government, consisting of officials who cannot be influenced or removed by democratic means and enshrining the supremacy of the super-state over the individual.
That, on a global scale, is the very essence of classic fascism and would be terrible for most people and especially terrible for the Jews. Fascistic world government can be defeated by getting people everywhere to start separating themselves from the mega-corporations’ grid and creating a grid, or grids, of their own.
Thus, getting off the global corporate grid has both a macro aspect and a micro aspect. The Grid’s financial system has been seen to be very fragile, a gigantic Ponzi scheme which cannot survive except by continually expanding. It would not take much in terms of percentage of commerce moving off the Grid to cause it to collapse.
The essential thing is that people not wait for the government to save them. The people have to save themselves. Democracy is do-it-yourself government or it is not democracy. It involves creating networks for doing business with small businesses, creating consumer and credit cooperatives or גמ"חים and doing less and less business through establishment banks, creating labor unions that the members really control and otherwise avoiding dealings with the businesses controlled by the ruling elite as much as possible, and especially getting one’s news from sources they do not control.
Israel can fight back by taking a page from the book of President Obama’s mentor, Saul Alinsky: empower the people. Israel’s goal should be to empower them to take control of their own destinies and their own countries, to create their own system or systems and let the present system collapse. That decentralizes power, both internationally and within each country and each community, and disperses it to the people. It truly would empower the people. It should be a strategic goal for Israel.
America is also ripe for such a movement and I am connected to two organizations, one quite massive, which might be actually eager to take it up and do the work of community organization. Many Israelis are US citizens and we can legitimately take the battle to their home turf. Americans can help Israel by renewing and strengthening democracy in America. The American foreign policy establishment is Israel’s bitter enemy. The American people are not.
What should Israeli policy be? The Alternative, in Brief:
I submit that the alternative policy for Israel boils down to the following:
1. Eliminate the Palestinian Authority because it will never produce the peace that was intended. Its democratic election of Hamas negates the Roadmap. Hamas, in fact, negated the Roadmap and it is a dead letter;
2. Actively destroy all the terrorist organizations, specifically including the PLO and all its constituent groups;
3. Kill all the terrorists, including individual terrorists unaffiliated with a terrorist group;
4. Prosecute everyone who has aided and abetted the enemy, following such foreign precedents as the Post World War II prosecutions of “Tokyo Rose” and “Lord Haw-Haw”; everyone who obstructed justice by cover-up or partiality in the application of law or abused power to pervert state policy; everyone who made decisions based on bribery or other corruption or in service of foreign interest;
5. Redefine citizenship (full for those who serve in the IDF, and only local participation for those who do not) and enforce the law banning parties that deny the nature of Israel as a Jewish state;
6. Annex Judea and Samaria and make it clear that there will never be any authority there other than the State of Israel;
7. Equal enforcement of planning and building laws;
8. Restructure the government to provide for winner-take-all district elections to Knesset and executive appointment of judges with the consent of a special majority of the Knesset;
9. Reformulate defense policy and foreign policy to include aggressive alternative energy research, implementation and marketing;
10. Establish the centrality of Torah to Israeli education, law, policy and strategic planning. Being a Jewish state means embracing Jewish destiny. There is no other source by which to define such purpose and destiny and there is no other purpose for the state that cannot be satisfied in California, Italy, Canada, Australia or many other places. In brief, instill Torah and Jewish self-respect into Israeli education, foreign relations and defense policy.
Israel can expect to meet concerted opposition from the world to these measures. Israel can be expected to be condemned, vilified and loathed. Israel can even expect that there might be sanctions imposed. On the other hand, submission and obsequiousness and “goodwill gestures,” “confidence building measures,” territorial concessions and unconditional unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and Gaza and restraint have gotten us nothing but condemnation, vilification and loathing, deligitimation and calls for our destruction when we defended ourselves. As long as we are still alive, more concessions will be demanded of us. In contrast, Israeli and Jewish prestige and acceptance were never higher than following the Six-Day War when the nations feared and respected Israel.
Israel does not have to grovel before the Powers That Be, nor does Israel have to take it in the neck. If we only make our best efforts and have faith in Hashem, we will be shown what we need to know and we will be given the right tools to win.
Not for nothing are we known as עברים. We have the ability, inherited from our father, Avraham, לעמוד מעבר לכל העלום, עם כל העולם בצד אחד ואנחנו בצד השני. Stand firm.
Very truly yours,
Jack Golbert, Attorney at Law and Advocate
97 Jaffa Road No. 821
Jerusalem, Israel 91280
Professor of Law (Emer.)
Cc: Mr. Uzi Arad
Mr. Daniel Seaman
MK Benny Begin
MK Moshe Ya’alon
No url, email sent to me
Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister
Prime Minister's Office
3 Kaplan Street Qiriyat Ben-Gurion
PO Box 187
Jerusalem, ISRAEL 91919 pm_eng@pmo.gov.il
Mr. Prime Minister:
My purpose in writing to you and that of my colleague is to thank you for standing strong against the two state “solution” and to give you encouragement to stay the course.
President Obama has set forth, in the most brutal way that, in preference to the people of Israel continuing to live on its ancestral homeland, the United States will accept a nuclear Iran, with all the destabilization that would inevitably result. In effect, President Obama has said that the US might (might) save Israel from lynching but on condition that we drink strychnine. In fact, however, by the end of the two to three year period that his timetable sets for the drinking of strychnine, the lynching will have been completed, God forbid! But we are required to drink it anyway.In fact, I am sure I need not explain to you that every administration since the formulation of the Rogers Plan has followed the same policy. In fact, American policy toward the Zionist enterprise is unchanged since the Balfour Declaration: strong public declarations of support and even demonstrations of unstinting support, coupled with behind-the-scenes duplicity and even treachery. Shmuel Katz has detailed this, and it is neatly set forth in detail with copious citations by Prof. Francisco Gil-White at http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm in Is the US an ally of Israel? A chronological look at the evidence.
Israel has danced around this issue, dealing with it as well as it could and has navigated though better and worse periods. This time, however, looks like “the crunch.” We are to be presented with a diktat backed up by the US, the EU, the UN, Russia and the Arab League together with an ultimatum.
Israel does not have to accede. Israel is not without alternatives or without recourse. Israel is able to go it alone, against the will of the USA, against the will of the “Quartet”, the UN and the Arab League. There are several powerful tools in Israel’s hands.
Israeli military technology. Not many people realize that Israel is the country of innovation in hi-tech munitions and in asymmetrical warfare. Israel is practically in a position to embargo hi-tech weaponry from any country in the world, including the US. The Popeye missile is hardly even the threshold.
Israel’s military technology is very advanced and many of Israel’s technologies and products are unique and superior. The world will not likely boycott them. As the worldwide jihad expands, Israel’s expertise and experience in combating Islamic terror will become a more and more marketable commodity. The non-Islamic world has reason to realize that Israel’s war against Islamic terror is their own war and not colonialist apartheid oppression as it is portrayed. If they do not come to realize it, then they will sink into Islamic domination. There is no reason for Israel to sink with them.
Israeli governments seem chronic in their underestimation of the value to the world of Israeli military technology. The Popeye missile and the unmanned drones are only two. Israeli electronics took apart the best Soviet made anti-aircraft systems in Syria as long ago as 1967, to the shock of the Soviets. Development of Israeli military technology has accelerated since then. Many of those technologies have been acquired in secret by the United States, in some cases via threats and intimidation. Israeli tank sights were acquired by the United States and installed on its Abrams tanks, which are now assembled in Egypt, with Israeli sights. Likewise, intelligence supplied to the United States by Israel has been invaluable. Yet, to Americans, seeing only billions of dollars of “aid” being given to Israel and not seeing that, in fact, the US gets more than its money’s worth, Israel looks like a beggar at the gate.
On the other side, Israel has come to see itself as a welfare dependent, feeling utterly dependent on the American dole. Israel has to insist that acquisition by foreign governments of Israeli arms technology, consultation and training (in urban warfare in Iraq, for example) and other strategic cooperation be done only in public and not secretly. Insisting on legitimacy means refusing to be treated like the “other woman” in order not to offend the Muslim states.
Regrettably, Israel scrapped the Kfir under US pressure and closed Beit Shemesh Engines. But Israel makes its own rocket engines, which function under more extreme conditions than jet aircraft engines. Israel certainly could also make engines for jet aircraft. Doing so in partnership with India alone would create a market large enough to enjoy economies of scale and India is eager for closer cooperation with Israel.
Withstanding international pressures. Israel needs not fear international pressure, even boycotts and sanctions. There are too many other countries in positions similar to Israel’s with regard to Moslem minorities and external defense to isolate Israel for long. India, for one, has growing and developing ties with Israel owing in part to the fact that its history of appeasement of its Moslem minority has not bought it peace and security. It has need of technology sharing and joint projects with Israel and that would likely continue despite international sanctions. China and Japan have also found collaboration with Israel very productive.
An Israel-India Axis. President Obama, in his arrogance, has hectored not only Israel to surrender to Islamic demands, but also India, whom he told that the reason they do not have peace with Pakistan is because India has not surrendered Kashmir. This he could actually say when Pakistan is in grave danger of being taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
In fact, Israel and India are natural allies in many ways and complementary to each other in many ways. The combined resources, brain power, technology and manufacturing capacity would be formidable from the outset. I propose that ties with India be pursued with utmost urgency and that Israeli foreign policy be reoriented immediately to make India the central point, immediately replacing the US and Europe.
Additional states. There are other states that President Obama has already alienated which could be brought into such a grouping. Colombia, with the assistance of Israeli military advisors, is near to victory against Marxist rebels. They have found, even before Obama was sworn into office that his emissaries have been in contact with the rebels with a view to actually taking their side. Colombia has fresh reason to reduce its dependence on the US.
Almost the same story is taking place in Sri Lanka. The complication for Israel is long standing bad blood between Sri Lanka and India. It is conceivable, however, that Israel could be instrumental in mediating that problem to the extent that they could cooperate in formulating and pursuing a new foreign policy orientation . If not, there seems to be no impediment to continuation of good and close bilateral relations.
Taiwan is another pariah state with which Israel might develop important relations. Israel has a choice between Taiwan and China, of course, but China is not averse to doing deals that are inimical to Israel’s vital interests and, if pushed to decide, Israel might consider whether a permanent relationship with Taiwan might not be more advantageous.
Strategic cooperation with India. Within the immediate horizons, Israel and India might do something of utmost importance together. I refer to the twin threats of Iranian nuclear weapons and Pakistani nuclear weapons. The former directly threatens Israel. The latter directly threatens India. If Israel and India help each other, it might be possible to eliminate both. To fly from India might not bring Israel closer to the Iranian nuclear plants but it would have the advantage of not having to cross airspace under American control. I do not have sufficient knowledge to say but I question whether it is necessary at all to use manned aircraft for the purpose when Israel has both ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to do the job.
Nor is it necessary to destroy the nuclear facilities themselves. The suggestion comes from a colleague, formerly a very high level engineer prominent in the F-16 project, that the nuclear facilities cannot function if the infrastructure is knocked out. They are useless without electricity and water and raw materials. I do not know enough to say whether Israel has a good possibility of destroying or disrupting the nuclear facilities but Israel can certainly cripple Iran’s infrastructure, bomb the Majlis and the mullas and the Presidential Palace and even hunt down the scientists involved in the nuclear project.
Of course, the world would be outraged and might even apply serious sanctions against Israel and India. We could withstand those, both Israel and India. It would require considerable economic reorientation and restructuring but it is high time that took place anyway. Both countries would emerge stronger, more independent and more democratic for having done so.
It would involve getting off the global corporate “grid” and developing the local economy independent of the multinational mega-corporations and the corporate “solutions” that only a very few such giant corporations can deliver. They are frequently not the best solutions for the market or for anyone else, but only for the global mega-corporations.
New Zealand’s recent history in agriculture provides an important point of reference. In 1986, the government of New Zealand decided to eliminate all agricultural subsidies over a period of only three years. They did that in the face of dire warnings of economic collapse of the agricultural sector. In the end, only about one percent of New Zealand farms went bankrupt and within only six years, agriculture had become the strongest sector of the New Zealand economy, whereas it had been an economic basket case before 1986. What happened is instructive on many levels.
Because the policies pursued by the New Zealand government had been similar to those pursued by other Western countries, agriculture had come to be dominated by corporations, especially petro-chemical companies. Those companies produce the agricultural chemicals that have become endemic to Western farming and are a central element in what is touted as the “Green Revolution” that supposedly enables the world to increase food production via hybrid seeds, massive chemicalization and heavy mechanization. When subsidies were eliminated, small farmers responded by eliminating the use of agricultural chemicals. Productivity soared such that farm profits increased even as farm prices fell. Agricultural commodities across the board sell for half to two thirds their prices in Western Europe, where agriculture is heavily subsidized. Petrochemical companies sold their farms and the family farm has made a strong come-back in New Zealand.
The government had, in effect, been subsidizing the use of chemicals, which is the corporate solution that had monopolized the attention of the market, of governments, universities and the media for decades. It turned out that the corporate solution could not compete on a level playing field. The petro-chemical corporate “farmers” could not make a profit unless they sold their chemicals twice: once subsumed in the price of the produce and once in the form of governmental subsidies.
One would think that the world should have noticed that the much touted “Green Revolution” is a failure, if not a massive fraud altogether, but that has not happened. The universities, the media, the farmers’ own associations and the world’s governments have all ignored the New Zealand experience. Even New Zealand never mentions it. It does not fit the corporate image and is not what we are encouraged to notice. See, for example, http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=62576&owner=(International%20Herald%20Tribune)&date=20020627153521 New Zealand's aid-free farm boom, By Andrew Johnston (International Herald Tribune), Wednesday, June 26, 2002.
A second case in point: How Cuba Survived the Collapse of the Grid
In 1989, at about the same time as the New Zealand experience was unfolding, Cuba was forced off the Grid by the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Soviet Union had been the supplier of 80% of Cuba’s imports, including energy, and the buyer of 80% of Cuba’s production. That consisted mainly of sugar, tobacco and citrus, all grown by plantation agriculture characterized by monoculture using massive amounts of chemical pesticides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides: the Green Revolution, in brief. Cuba exported almost all of its agricultural production and imported almost all of its food.
When the Soviet empire collapsed, Cuba suddenly had no supplier of petroleum and other imports, and no customers for its produce. That meant no money, which meant very little food and precious little petroleum and that in turn meant nearly no agricultural chemicals. Cuba today uses less than 5% of the amount of agricultural chemicals that it used before 1989.
With no market for its cash crops, the country’s agriculture had to turn from plantation agriculture to local farming and had to do so quickly. Cuba began to grow its own food. There was no gasoline for the tractors but there were a few oxen and there was manpower.
To the credit of the Cuban people, there were no food riots, no looting. Civil order did not break down. Pilfering from community gardens was not extensive enough to become a problem. People got together as communities and began planting food in any available patch of ground. Flat roofs are now vegetable gardens. Out of necessity, they used techniques from outside the “green revolution.” People came from Australia to teach the Cubans “permaculture,” which requires very little water, no chemicals and relatively very little labor. (More on that below.)
Havana, a densely populated city of more than two million, produces 80-85% of its own food. Less crowded cities produce an even higher percentage of theirs. Cuba today exports bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers, which the Cubans have learned to produce. Still, the world adamantly refuses to notice that the green revolution is a failure at best, probably a fraud and possibly a crime.
Israeli agriculture is in dire need of restructuring. I came on aliyah in 1984 and economists already then were pointing out the irrationality of Israeli agriculture’s dependence on resources in very short supply in Israel: energy, water, labor and money. They pointed out, even then, that it was irrational for Israel to subsidize the export of water to Europe in the form of fruits and vegetables. It is even more irrational now and will be impossible should Europe join in sanctions against Israel.
There is a new agricultural technology that eschews monoculture and the massive chemicalization and mechanization that are required for monoculture. It requires no chemicals, very little water, little mechanization and not much labor. It sounds too good to be true but it is true. It is called “permaculture” and I even have a permaculture expert whom I can recommend to give instruction. She in turn has her teachers and there are others. It is a system that is functioning in Israel and it can be seen in operation.
There are other technologies in existence that can free Israel and the world from the grip of Middle East petroleum. One is based on the work of Nikola Tesla which could provide essentially free power to everyone in the world, as Tesla proposed in the 1920’s. Financing for Tesla’s project, however, was thwarted by banking interests committed to petroleum. An American scientist believes he has discovered how Tesla could tap into the static charge of Planet Earth. Israel is the ideal location. He offered it to two different Israeli Ministers of National Infrastructure and both ignored it. I propose that Israel tests it and develops it.
Another is an Israeli project that can transform algae into crude oil, turning petroleum into an agricultural product, requiring only flat land with reliable sunlight (such as desert) near water or any degree of salinity. It is in Israel’s interest that projects such as this be developed and exploited everywhere in the world. With this technology, Australia, for example, could produce as much crude oil as Saudi Arabia. Israel should also give urgent consideration to a water tunnel from the Mediterranean to Dead Sea with hydro-electric and reverse osmosis desalination plants along the way. There are other clean energy sources, such as the energy tower proposed by Zoslowsky, solar ponds, and solar electricity fields. In addition, there is 40 million dollar’s worth of energy in sewage and other wastes that is being pumped out to sea even as you read these words.
Israel should reformulate defense policy and foreign policy doctrine to include aggressive alternative energy research and development, implementation and marketing. That should be a strategic goal. The more the world uses energy other than petroleum from OPEC countries, the more the power of international jihad is weakened and the less money there will be to finance terrorism against Israel.
Getting off the global mega-corporate grid and helping others to get off the grid will create a better society and a better world.
Independence: To the extent that Israel produces our own water, energy and food, we are beyond the reach of monopoly exploitation, foreign bullying, OPEC manipulation, price gouging and shortages.
Economic Benefit: There is cost involved in transport. No mystery. This is one reason for turning to local sources of food and energy. Even transmission of electricity costs energy. Less than 100% of the electricity that enters a transmission cable comes out the other end. The longer the transmission, the more energy is lost. Turbines and generators of all sizes are commercially available. Electric generation, from sewage, wind and solar and the technologies discussed above, can be decentralized to many locations, which would also reduce, by the way, the vulnerability of Israel’s electrical system to hostile action.
Similar benefits are to be had from producing more or even all of our food and other necessities locally.
Democracy and the future of the republic: Contemporary democracy was born in America, a place we both know well. The American Republic grew out of a society of independent farmers; the “peasant tradition.” A “peasant,” in the classic sense, is a small landowner who lives by subsistence agriculture. That is, a “peasant” produces mainly for his own family’s needs and sells the surplus in order to buy what he cannot produce.
The “Okies” were pretty much the end of the peasant tradition in America. It was finally wiped out by the Dust Bowl, farm foreclosures, employment in agribusiness in California and then assimilation into the general society. They were poor but very proud, accustomed to hard work and self-reliance and fiercely independent. They were ready to help one another with joy and alacrity but were always ready to go it alone if need be. Out of such stock and such a culture the Republic originally arose.
By the 1930’s, even before rural electrification, most family farms in America were already on the corporate grid. hey were given over to large scale cash crops and distant markets, which put them on the transport grid and dependence on motor vehicles and petroleum. No longer self-sufficient, they purchased everything from the system (the “grid”). Monoculture meant mechanization of agriculture which in turn meant borrowing large sums from the banks, another grid. Each step meant more acreage devoted to cash crops and less to their own needs. At the same time, government programs were implemented, such as rural electrification, which had the effect of centralizing the economy and making producers more and more dependent on large corporations. Eventually, most Americans came to work for mega-corporations, directly or indirectly. That was not entirely a function of market forces. It was due in greater or lesser part to government policy, which came to be dominated by those same corporations.
The corporate solutions came to be the only ones considered by government or considered by universities, whose research is funded by corporations interested in the outcomes; think tanks, which are staffed by people from government, academe and the executive level of the mega-corporate world; and the media, which depend on corporate advertising for their survival.
This is a process of collectivization. What is a corporation, after all, but a collectivity which is, furthermore, authoritarian and hierarchic? It is not a democratic institution. This process of collectivization has been actively pursued by governments of Western countries for about eighty years and maybe longer. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, Sweden was a rather backward country in the north woods. The economic miracle that transformed Sweden was wrought by small business. Then, during the depression, people turned to the Socialists who made an alliance with big business to control the economy. Socialism is not about social justice and not about equality. Socialism is about power.
There are many ways that government has of promoting collectivization by protecting the large corporations from competition by small business. Many of those ways take the guise of protection of the public from the evils of the big corporations. The effect is to make it so expensive and burdensome to comply with the regulations that only the very large corporations can afford to do business. The labor unions also tend to become part of the “grid.” Unions are collectivities which become hierarchical and authoritarian through anti-democratic rules which government protects from the rank and file because that enables “sweetheart contracts” with the corporate employers by benefitting the labor bosses under the table. We note again that this is frequently not the result of market forces except in the sense that government policy is a marketable “service.”
The same process of promoting dependence on mega-corporations is now proceeding internationally t is called “globalization.” After the fall of Communism, Bulgaria fully privatized. Foreign companies invested in Bulgaria, bought up the most viable industries and moved them out of Bulgaria or simply closed them in order to eliminate the competition. They nearly bankrupted Bulgaria and set her back decades developmentally. What are Bulgarians to do then? The answer globalization gives is that Bulgarians should be free to move to follow the labor market. That is to say, they should be free to cease being Bulgarians in their own country. Likewise for Israelis, that means the solution is to cease being a free people in our own land and to go back into exile among the nations. For Jews, this is national suicide. The more Israel separates itself from the grid, the better. And the sooner the better.
I believe it is the goal of the international elite to control national policy everywhere by means of control of the companies that dominate the local economy. The elite in Israel are fully on board. This represents the globalization of the manner in which conglomerates have historically subordinated state and local governments in America.
One who believes, with Charles Wilson, that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” will be comfortable with globalization: What’s good for General Motors and Siemens and British Petroleum and Mitsubishi, etc. is good for the whole world. Even if one is comfortable with that proposition, however, we know that what applies to “everyone” does not necessarily include the Jews. Jewish survival and Israeli independence cannot depend on the good will of the nations of the world.
I would also call your attention to the way the world’s response to the financial meltdown follows a Third World pattern. The pattern is always to privatize profits and socialize loss. The US government’s “recovery” plan so far follows the Third World pattern. President Obama’s program has even included the use of AIG to launder enormous amounts of money to foreign interests, forcing the US taxpayers to absorb the losses of the global elite. The ultimate goal is quite apparently world government, which will enable the global elite to use to the whole world in the same manner: to generate its profits and absorb its losses at taxpayers’ expense.
The world government is to be controlled by the global elite, of course. In short, this is an economic war which the ruling families of the world are waging. The goal is nothing less than total control of the world’s economic activity by a consortium of their mega-corporations under the auspices of an international government, consisting of officials who cannot be influenced or removed by democratic means and enshrining the supremacy of the super-state over the individual.
That, on a global scale, is the very essence of classic fascism and would be terrible for most people and especially terrible for the Jews. Fascistic world government can be defeated by getting people everywhere to start separating themselves from the mega-corporations’ grid and creating a grid, or grids, of their own.
Thus, getting off the global corporate grid has both a macro aspect and a micro aspect. The Grid’s financial system has been seen to be very fragile, a gigantic Ponzi scheme which cannot survive except by continually expanding. It would not take much in terms of percentage of commerce moving off the Grid to cause it to collapse.
The essential thing is that people not wait for the government to save them. The people have to save themselves. Democracy is do-it-yourself government or it is not democracy. It involves creating networks for doing business with small businesses, creating consumer and credit cooperatives or גמ"חים and doing less and less business through establishment banks, creating labor unions that the members really control and otherwise avoiding dealings with the businesses controlled by the ruling elite as much as possible, and especially getting one’s news from sources they do not control.
Israel can fight back by taking a page from the book of President Obama’s mentor, Saul Alinsky: empower the people. Israel’s goal should be to empower them to take control of their own destinies and their own countries, to create their own system or systems and let the present system collapse. That decentralizes power, both internationally and within each country and each community, and disperses it to the people. It truly would empower the people. It should be a strategic goal for Israel.
America is also ripe for such a movement and I am connected to two organizations, one quite massive, which might be actually eager to take it up and do the work of community organization. Many Israelis are US citizens and we can legitimately take the battle to their home turf. Americans can help Israel by renewing and strengthening democracy in America. The American foreign policy establishment is Israel’s bitter enemy. The American people are not.
What should Israeli policy be? The Alternative, in Brief:
I submit that the alternative policy for Israel boils down to the following:
1. Eliminate the Palestinian Authority because it will never produce the peace that was intended. Its democratic election of Hamas negates the Roadmap. Hamas, in fact, negated the Roadmap and it is a dead letter;
2. Actively destroy all the terrorist organizations, specifically including the PLO and all its constituent groups;
3. Kill all the terrorists, including individual terrorists unaffiliated with a terrorist group;
4. Prosecute everyone who has aided and abetted the enemy, following such foreign precedents as the Post World War II prosecutions of “Tokyo Rose” and “Lord Haw-Haw”; everyone who obstructed justice by cover-up or partiality in the application of law or abused power to pervert state policy; everyone who made decisions based on bribery or other corruption or in service of foreign interest;
5. Redefine citizenship (full for those who serve in the IDF, and only local participation for those who do not) and enforce the law banning parties that deny the nature of Israel as a Jewish state;
6. Annex Judea and Samaria and make it clear that there will never be any authority there other than the State of Israel;
7. Equal enforcement of planning and building laws;
8. Restructure the government to provide for winner-take-all district elections to Knesset and executive appointment of judges with the consent of a special majority of the Knesset;
9. Reformulate defense policy and foreign policy to include aggressive alternative energy research, implementation and marketing;
10. Establish the centrality of Torah to Israeli education, law, policy and strategic planning. Being a Jewish state means embracing Jewish destiny. There is no other source by which to define such purpose and destiny and there is no other purpose for the state that cannot be satisfied in California, Italy, Canada, Australia or many other places. In brief, instill Torah and Jewish self-respect into Israeli education, foreign relations and defense policy.
Israel can expect to meet concerted opposition from the world to these measures. Israel can be expected to be condemned, vilified and loathed. Israel can even expect that there might be sanctions imposed. On the other hand, submission and obsequiousness and “goodwill gestures,” “confidence building measures,” territorial concessions and unconditional unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and Gaza and restraint have gotten us nothing but condemnation, vilification and loathing, deligitimation and calls for our destruction when we defended ourselves. As long as we are still alive, more concessions will be demanded of us. In contrast, Israeli and Jewish prestige and acceptance were never higher than following the Six-Day War when the nations feared and respected Israel.
Israel does not have to grovel before the Powers That Be, nor does Israel have to take it in the neck. If we only make our best efforts and have faith in Hashem, we will be shown what we need to know and we will be given the right tools to win.
Not for nothing are we known as עברים. We have the ability, inherited from our father, Avraham, לעמוד מעבר לכל העלום, עם כל העולם בצד אחד ואנחנו בצד השני. Stand firm.
Very truly yours,
Jack Golbert, Attorney at Law and Advocate
97 Jaffa Road No. 821
Jerusalem, Israel 91280
Professor of Law (Emer.)
Cc: Mr. Uzi Arad
Mr. Daniel Seaman
MK Benny Begin
MK Moshe Ya’alon
No url, email sent to me
Real peace cannot be imposed
AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN
30/04/2010 16:05
The foreign minister sets out Israel’s position on the eve of proximity talks with the Palestinians.
The Great British statesman Edmund Burke once said, “Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.” The Palestinians and Syrians are being taught by the international community that their hypocrisy and inflexibility is costing them absolutely nothing. They reject every gesture and demand ever more concessions. In fact, the Palestinians and the Syrians, along with their cohorts in such institutions like the so-called United Nations Human Rights Council, have demonstrated only contempt for the international community.
The Goldstone Commission is a classic example.
By their own admission, the initiative was created by the Organization of Islamic Conference and was passed in the United Nations General Assembly by such serial human-rights abusers as Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Even though few Western nations endorsed the commission and its findings because of its unprofessionalism and rampant bias, there remain the constant attacks on Israel’s right to self-defense against murderous terror. This again reveals to our neighbors the zero cost of their actions and enables them to become even more extreme and violent.
The Palestinian Authority continues to glorify murder by dedicating public squares and streets in memory of terrorists responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent people including foreign nationals. The street on which the new government compound is being built is named after Yihye Ayyash, the chief Palestinian bomb maker who perfected suicide bombing. Last month, in the presence of senior Palestinian officials, a public square was named after Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist responsible for the cold-blooded murder of 37 innocent civilians, including 12 children.
THE INTERNATIONAL stance towards Syria is even more disturbing. Despite US appeals to Syria to distance itself from Iran, President Bashar Assad recently hosted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iranian proxies Hizbullah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal in Damascus. During the summit, Assad announced that Syria’s long-standing alliance with Teheran will be strengthened. Most disturbingly, Syria and Iran, as declared this week by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “are providing Hizbullah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capabilities. Hizbullah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world.”
Furthermore, at the recent Arab League summit in Libya, Assad fully supported Palestinian terrorism “without reluctance or shyness” regarding it as the [ultimate] “solution.”
The world’s silence further undermines the trust and confidence of the Israeli public as to the viability of peace and the commitment of the international community to a fair and balanced process that will further peace and stability in the Middle East.
This silence is reminiscent of Western behavior on the eve of World War II.
In 1925, France and Czechoslovakia signed a Treaty of Mutual Assistance, aimed at deterring Germany. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sought to appease German aggression by pressing Czechoslovkia to concede the Sudetenland to the Nazis. Chamberlain tried to justify the claims by the Sudeten Germans to rejoin Germany and blamed Czech Prime Minister Edvard Benes for his hard-line approach and his unwillingness to compromise for peace. He then demanded that a British mediator be appointed who subsequently forced a solution on Czechoslovakia. Britain and France issued an ultimatum, threatening to withdraw the French commitment to the Franco-Czech defense treaty. In September 1938, Czechoslovakia had no option but to capitulate to the demands of London and Paris. In March 1939, Nazi soldiers entered Prague.
As is well known, Hitler’s aspirations did not end with Czechoslovakia, and the entire world paid a terrible price in tens of millions of lives for appeasing Hitler and enforcing an artificial peace.
ISRAEL WILL not become another Czechoslovakia and will not succumb to international pressure to compromise its vital interests.
On the eve of the start of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians, it is important to remind the international community that the State of Israel has proven time and again that it is prepared to pay a high price for peace with its neighbors.
Since the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979, Israel has withdrawn from territory three times its current size.
As opposed to the narrative of the international community, the settlements have never been an obstacle to peace. On the contrary, the unilateral disengagement from Gush Katif, in which thousands of Jews were evacuated and dozens of communities were destroyed, only yielded increasing Kassam rockets and an extremist Hamas government.
Therefore, real peace cannot be legislated or imposed from the outside; it can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties while developing mutual trust between them.
The writer is the minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister.
30/04/2010 16:05
The foreign minister sets out Israel’s position on the eve of proximity talks with the Palestinians.
The Great British statesman Edmund Burke once said, “Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.” The Palestinians and Syrians are being taught by the international community that their hypocrisy and inflexibility is costing them absolutely nothing. They reject every gesture and demand ever more concessions. In fact, the Palestinians and the Syrians, along with their cohorts in such institutions like the so-called United Nations Human Rights Council, have demonstrated only contempt for the international community.
The Goldstone Commission is a classic example.
By their own admission, the initiative was created by the Organization of Islamic Conference and was passed in the United Nations General Assembly by such serial human-rights abusers as Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Even though few Western nations endorsed the commission and its findings because of its unprofessionalism and rampant bias, there remain the constant attacks on Israel’s right to self-defense against murderous terror. This again reveals to our neighbors the zero cost of their actions and enables them to become even more extreme and violent.
The Palestinian Authority continues to glorify murder by dedicating public squares and streets in memory of terrorists responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent people including foreign nationals. The street on which the new government compound is being built is named after Yihye Ayyash, the chief Palestinian bomb maker who perfected suicide bombing. Last month, in the presence of senior Palestinian officials, a public square was named after Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist responsible for the cold-blooded murder of 37 innocent civilians, including 12 children.
THE INTERNATIONAL stance towards Syria is even more disturbing. Despite US appeals to Syria to distance itself from Iran, President Bashar Assad recently hosted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iranian proxies Hizbullah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal in Damascus. During the summit, Assad announced that Syria’s long-standing alliance with Teheran will be strengthened. Most disturbingly, Syria and Iran, as declared this week by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “are providing Hizbullah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capabilities. Hizbullah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world.”
Furthermore, at the recent Arab League summit in Libya, Assad fully supported Palestinian terrorism “without reluctance or shyness” regarding it as the [ultimate] “solution.”
The world’s silence further undermines the trust and confidence of the Israeli public as to the viability of peace and the commitment of the international community to a fair and balanced process that will further peace and stability in the Middle East.
This silence is reminiscent of Western behavior on the eve of World War II.
In 1925, France and Czechoslovakia signed a Treaty of Mutual Assistance, aimed at deterring Germany. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sought to appease German aggression by pressing Czechoslovkia to concede the Sudetenland to the Nazis. Chamberlain tried to justify the claims by the Sudeten Germans to rejoin Germany and blamed Czech Prime Minister Edvard Benes for his hard-line approach and his unwillingness to compromise for peace. He then demanded that a British mediator be appointed who subsequently forced a solution on Czechoslovakia. Britain and France issued an ultimatum, threatening to withdraw the French commitment to the Franco-Czech defense treaty. In September 1938, Czechoslovakia had no option but to capitulate to the demands of London and Paris. In March 1939, Nazi soldiers entered Prague.
As is well known, Hitler’s aspirations did not end with Czechoslovakia, and the entire world paid a terrible price in tens of millions of lives for appeasing Hitler and enforcing an artificial peace.
ISRAEL WILL not become another Czechoslovakia and will not succumb to international pressure to compromise its vital interests.
On the eve of the start of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians, it is important to remind the international community that the State of Israel has proven time and again that it is prepared to pay a high price for peace with its neighbors.
Since the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979, Israel has withdrawn from territory three times its current size.
As opposed to the narrative of the international community, the settlements have never been an obstacle to peace. On the contrary, the unilateral disengagement from Gush Katif, in which thousands of Jews were evacuated and dozens of communities were destroyed, only yielded increasing Kassam rockets and an extremist Hamas government.
Therefore, real peace cannot be legislated or imposed from the outside; it can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties while developing mutual trust between them.
The writer is the minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister.
Iran: We'll cut off Israel's legs
JPOST.COM STAFF ANDF AP
30/04/2010 20:09
Vice president vows to stand by Damascus if Israel attacks.
Iran on Friday threatened to "cut off Israel's feet" if the latter attacks Syria, AFP reported.
During a visit to Damascus, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said: “We will stand alongside Syria against any [Israeli] threat … If those who have violated Palestinian land want to try anything we will cut off their feet," he said. Rahimi called Syria a "strong country that is ready to confront any threat" and said Iran "will back Syria with all its means and strength."
The Obama administration Thursday warned Iran and Syria that America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakable, and they should understand the consequences of threats to the Jewish state.
In a speech, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Syrian transfers of increasingly sophisticated weaponry, including rockets, to terrorists in southern Lebanon and Gaza could spark new conflict in the Middle East. Additionally, she said a nuclear-armed Iran would profoundly destabilize the region.
"These threats to Israel's security are real, they are growing and they must be addressed," she said in the speech to the American Jewish Committee. The speech was the administration's latest effort to reassure Israel that its ties to the United States remain strong despite tensions that flared last month.
"President Obama noted recently that there has been some of what he called 'noise and distortion' about this administration's approach in the Middle East," Clinton said. "Over the past month, we have attempted to remove any ambiguity. The president and this administration have repeatedly reaffirmed our commitment to Israel's security in word and in deed."
Clinton told the group that Israel is "confronting some of the toughest challenges in her history," particularly from Iran, Syria and groups they support like Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and reaffirmed US determination to get them to change course.
"Transferring weapons to these terrorists, especially longer-range missiles, would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel," she said.
Israel has accused Syria of providing Hizbullah with Scud missiles, which would dramatically increase the group's ability to strike targets in Israel. Syria has denied the charges.
History reminders about Israel
1922 UK Partition of Palestine & 1947 UN General Assembly Partition Plan Facts and figures on Arab & Jewish Refugees after 1948 Arab League Jihad
Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative to the UN in Geneva for the Association for World Education (AWE) and the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ)
The following oral statement was prepared and delivered by DGL for the WUPJ; I was stopped by the Chair (a vice-president) after 2 minutes, 16 seconds - the microphone was cut off at 2 min. 26 sec. (two NGOs soon after were allowed 2 min. 33 sec. and 2 min. 37 sec., respectively). Member and Observer States are never stopped when their delegate exceeds the 3 or 2 minute official limit, sometimes taking twice as long when haranguing Israel; NGOs are usually treated very leniently by the Belgium president. Our two concluding lines, comparing UN treatment of Jewish and Arab Palestinian refugees could have been completed within about 10 seconds (i.e. about 2 min. 25 sec.): They received no international aid, whereas a Palestinian 'refugee' and descendants still do, via UNRWA, if the "normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 or June 1967" - or that of their grandparents or great grandparents. This is unique in the world.
The Secretariat receives 25 copies of all oral statement for the interpreters and others (including the chairman- mine are always checked by someone on the podium). The four lines that I added after hearing the excellent comments on item 7 by the new U.S. ambassador the day before would have required another 20 secs. All this was visible in my text, available to the chair and the secretary. On this we shall make 'no comment'!
* * * * *
For a very detailed WUPJ written statement (prepared by DGL), see below:
* * * * *
WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM
United Nations Human Rights Council -13th session (1-26 March 2010)
Statement: David G. Littman - 36th meeting (Tuesday 9:20am) 23 March 2010
Item 7: Human rights situation in Palestine.... (Self-Determination / Refugees)
[The words in brackets and smaller type were not spoken in the 2¼ minutes allowed]
* * * * *
Sir, under item 7, we wish to refer to the 'Right to self-determination', as well as to the "Rights of Refugees", referred to by the Special Rapporteur, whose Report has been put on a backburner [until the June session at the Palestinian delegate's request (A/HRC/13/53)].
Facts & Figures on 2 Partition Plans for Palestine (1922 and 1947)
Dual Arab and Jewish Refugees Tragedies (after 1948)
Our written statement [* A/HRC/13/NGO/138] contains full facts and figures relating to the British Partition Plan of 1922, by which more than 77% of the 1921 League of Nations designated area of Palestine [120,000 km²] became the Hashemite Emirate of Trans-Jordan, renamed The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1946. Then came the UN General Assembly 1947 Partition Plan, whose aim [under GA Resolution 181 (II)] was to divide the area west of the river Jordan - covering the remaining 23 percent of the original Mandate area - into "independent Arab and Jewish States", with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum administered directly by the United Nations. This UN 'Partition Plan' was categorically refused by all Arab League countries, five of whom then invaded Israel [- a day after its rebirth on 15 May 1948].
[The major part of the Cisjordan area, designated to become an independent Arab State, was occupied during the 1948 war against Israel by the Arab Legion commanded by British General Glubb Pasha and - despite the fact that the Rhodes Agreements with Israel referred only to 'Armistice lines' at the Arab League's insistence - it was annexed and renamed by the British Foreign Office, the 'West Bank' of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Only the UK and Pakistan recognized this Jordanian land grab as legal. Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip but did not annex it, only evacuating it during the 1967 Six Days War.]
The Arab League's defiance of international legality in 1947 led to the Arab and Jewish refugee tragedy that resulted from a unilateral Arab decision to make war in 1947, rather than peace, and it was repeated in 1967 at the Khartoum Arab League Summit Conference:
["No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel, no concessions on the question of Palestinian national rights." (Rejection of UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 Nov.]
There is also the question of a return of, or compensation for, Arab refugees, resulting from the Arab war declared against Israel.
[The refusal by the Arab League, Arab leaders and the Arabs in Palestine to accept a Jewish State in any part of the biblical 'Land of Israel' (Palestine) was the primary reason for the dual tragedy of both Arab and Jewish refugees. The plight of Arab refugees took place during a Jihad war begun by five Member States of the Arab League (and the United Nations), backed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, religious leader of the Arabs of British Mandatory Palestine (1921-1948) and of the Arab Higher Committee (1936-1948). Yet 1.5 million Arabs, Druze, Bedouin and others (20% of Israel's population) are citizens of Israel today.]
However, almost a million Jews were deliberately targeted as a religious group in Arab countries, many of which are now virtually Judenrein (religiously-cleansed of all Jews). Two-thirds of these dispossessed Jews settled in Israel; they and their descendants represent almost 50% of the Jewish population.
[The hardship endured by the great majority of these 900,000 indigenous Jewish refugees from Arab countries has never been examined by UN bodies, or the loss of their inestimable heritage dating back two and three millennium, nor their vast personal and property rights confiscated.]
This great injustice should be addressed at the United Nations, all within the context of an equitable global solution for a peaceful, international recognition of a 2-State solution. A noteworthy document was adopted 2 years ago by the U.S. House of Representatives, which quotes both President Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton on the question of justice for these forgotten Jewish refugees [1 April 2008: U.S. Resolution 185]. A month ago, Israel's Knesset passed a bill aimed at securing compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, as part of the general peace negotiations in the Middle East [23 February 2010].
All delegates should become better informed about the forgotten million Jewish refugees, whose original number from Arab lands were larger than Arab-Palestinian war refugees.
[Gavel by vice-president; speaker expresses surprise: "Excuse me sir?" - then cut off.]
[They received no international aid, whereas a Palestinian 'refugee' and his descendants still do, via UNRWA, if the "normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 or June 1967" - or the domicile of their grandparents or great grandparents. This is unique in the world.]
[Sir, yesterday a bright star shone through the stalactites of our colourful Disney-like ceiling - in this Alliance of Civilizations Room. We wish to endorse and praise the pertinent words and wise recommendations of new U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, on item 7 - by quoting here that biblical proverb: A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. (25:11)]
* * * * *
United Nations
A/HRC/13/NGO/138
General Assembly
Distr.: General
Human Rights Council
19 March 2010
Thirteenth session
English only
Agenda item 7 and 9
Human Rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories
Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, follow-up and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action Written statement* submitted by the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), non-governmental organization on the roster.
The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.
[14 March 2010]
* This written statement is issued, unedited, in the language(s) received from the submitting non-Governmental organization(s)
Palestine Partition Plans (1922 & 1947): Right to the Truth on Refugees
1. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 [II], the second 'Partition Plan' of the Mandatory area of Palestine. The aim was to divide the land west of the river Jordan into "independent Arab and Jewish States" within the remaining area - roughly 23 percent of the designated League of Nations Palestine area of 120,000 km², with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum administered directly by the United Nations.
2. In 1922, all the League of Nations designated area east of the Jordan river (about 77 percent, 94,000 km² of Palestine) was offered to Britain's World War I ally, the Emir Abdullah (exiled by the Saudis from Arabia), thus creating a de facto Hashemite Emirate of Trans-Jordan, which declared its independence in 1946. The major part of the Cisjordan area, designated as an independent Arab State in 1947 was occupied during the 1948 war against Israel by the Arab Legion, commanded by British General John Bagot Glubb ("Glubb Pasha") and became known as the 'West Bank' of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan after the 1949 Rhodes Armistice Agreements with Israel (by Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, while the Iraqi forces withdrew). The Old City of Jerusalem was also annexed by Jordan - all Jews were either killed or expelled and their ancient quarter, synagogues and tombs were all destroyed. Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip.
3. The 1947 UN 'Partition Plan' was categorically refused by all Arab League countries and by the Arab Higher Committee leader, Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Installed in Berlin during World War II, he was received by Hitler on 28 November 1941 to discuss an Arab-Nazi alliance; he then created several Muslim Bosnian divisions (Handschar) to fight with the Waffen SS units and an Arab legion (Arabische Freieitkorps) with the Nazi army. Known for his "ominous role in the extermination of European Jewry" 1, he broadcast to the Arab world in Arabic on Radio Berlin as a loyal ally of Nazi Germany until the war's end: "Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them; this pleases Allah, history, and religion. This saves your honour. Allah is with you."2 (1 March 1944).Denounced as a war criminal, al-Husayni found asylum in Cairo, where he encouraged the Egyptian government to lead the Arab War against a Jewish State.
4. On 24 November 1947, at the Political Committee of the UN General Assembly five days before the vote, Egypt's delegate Heykal Pasha gave a clear warning: "The United Nations ... should not lose sight of the fact that the proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Muslim countries. ... If the United Nations decides to partition Palestine, it might be responsible for very grave disorders and for the massacre of a large number of Jews ... if a Jewish state were established, nobody could prevent disorders. Riots would spread through all the Arab states and might lead to a war between the two races."3
5. On 18 January 1948 the President of the World Jewish Congress Dr. Stephen Wise appealed to U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall to intervene, while his political director Dr. Robert Marcus detailed Amin al-Husayni's Involvement in the bloody June 1941 Baghdad farhud, giving a warning of the menacing situation for Jews in Arab countries.4 The title of a New York Times article (16 May 1948: "Jews in Grave Danger in all Moslem Lands: Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia Face Wrath of Their Foes"), a day after five Arab League armies invaded the newly-proclaimed State of Israel, echoed Heykal Pasha's words and those of the Grand Mufti, repeated in Arabic on Radio Berlin till the end.
Stateless Jews from Arab Countries flee or seek refuge in Israel or elsewhere after 1948
6. During the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Jews -- men, women and children, the young and the old -- were brutally massacred in Arab North Africa and the Middle East (still under French, Italian and British colonial rule), and also in Palestine by lawless gangs after the British conquest in 1918 and during the Mandate period. Some of the most brutal killings took place in Hebron (1929), Iraq (1936 and the Baghdad farhud of 1941), in Syria (1944, 1945, 1947), in Egypt and Libya (1945) and in Aden (1947). These bloody massacres killed and wounded thousands of peaceful Jews before Israel's rebirth.5
7. At that period, about 140,000 Jews lived in Iraq; nearly 60,000 in Yemen and Aden; 40,000 in Syria; 5,000 in Lebanon; 90,000 in Egypt; 40,000 in Libya; 150,000 in Algeria; 120,000 in Tunisia; and nearly 300,000 in Morocco, including Tangiers - a total of almost 950,000 in ten Arab countries, and a further 200,000 or more in Iran and Turkey. Today, scarcely 40,000 out of almost 1,250,000 persons remain from these indigenous Jewish communities dating from biblical times - less than 4,000 in Arab countries, scarcely half of 1% of those in 1948.
8. Pogroms and persecutions and grave fears for their future preceded the mass expulsions and exodus of these indigenous dhimmi Jews, whose ancestors had inhabited these regions from two to three millennia before the successive jihad conquests of Arab invaders from the seventh century. From 1948-1972 more than 650,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries were integrated into the area of 20,000 km2 (7,993 m2 - half the size of Switzerland) of the nascent State of Israel, constantly threatened with destruction by its neighbours. More than 300,000 Jews from these regions found refuge in Europe and the Americas.
9. Today, about half of Israel's roughly 5½ million Jewish population out of a total of over 7 million -- of whom 1½ million or 20% are Arab, Druze and Bedouin Israelis - is composed of these Sephardic and Middle East Jewish refugees and their descendants. They received no humanitarian aid from the United Nations; alone, Israel , aided by Jewish communities worldwide, succeeded in providing for the survival and integration of these stateless and dispossessed Jewish refugees.
Arab Refugees from Palestine: Tragic Result of Arab Refusal of 1947 UN Resolution 181
10. No parallel commitment was made for the integration of the Arab refugees from Palestine, numbering about 550,000 in 1949 - although a first UN estimate indicating 750,000 is cited, rising to a total of from 4 to 6 million today with their descendants. UNRW still defines a "refugee" as a person - "whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 or June 1967"; it also considers all descendants of the 1948 refugees as "refugees". Such a definition does not apply to any other group from the tens of millions worldwide, who became refugees since World War II.
11. Arab countries cover an area of 15 million km2 - about 10% of the world's land surface - and many possess immense oil and gas reserves, yet their leaders did little to alleviate the plight of their Arab brethren from Palestine. A large number still live in UNRWA 'refugee camps' which provide basic health, education and relief and social services, but where hopelessness, frustration and a constant culture of hate is nourished by an ideology of jihad-inspired 'martyrdom bombers.'
12. The Palestinian leadership's defiance of international legality in 1947 was echoed as late as 2003 by Farouq Al-Qaddoumi, then head of the PLO's political bureau and secretary-general of Fatah's Central Committee:: "The problem was created by the United Nations when it decided on a partition resolution."6 In fact, the refugee tragedies resulted from a unilateral decision to make war rather than peace then.
13. Twenty years later, UN Security Council Resolution 242 (22 November 1967) was rejected by the Khartoum Arab League Summit Conference categorically: "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel, no concessions on the questions of Palestinian national rights."
There are Jewish refugees; they have the same rights as others do - President Jimmy Carter (1977)
14. There is also the divisive question of a return of, or compensation for, Arab refugees from the former Mandatory Palestine resulting from attempts to destroy the renascent State of Israel by all and every means. The refusal by the Arab League and all Arab leaders to recognize a Jewish State in any part of the biblical 'Land of Israel' was the basic reason for this dual tragedy of Arab refugees and Jewish refugees. However, the Jews were deliberately targeted as a religious group in Arab countries, many of which, 60 year later, are virtually Judenrein ('cleansed' of Jews), while the Arab refugee tragedy took place during a war begun by five Member States of the Arab League.
15. The transfer of populations on a large scale has been a characteristic of human history, particularly in the Orient - deportations, expropriations and expulsion of dhimmis (Jews, Christians and other indigenous peoples) was a constant factor over a long history of dhimmitude - after the Arab jihad-wars of conquest, expropriation and occupation. This policy continues,7 while a historically-flawed memory systematically spotlights only Arab refugees from a part of Mandatory Palestine as a result of war while forgetting others - particularly dhimmi Jews in their ancestral homeland, expropriated and expelled over the centuries, and their numerous brethren in the Arab-Muslim dar al-Islam. Jews were forbidden to reside in Arabia since the advent of Islam (except for Yemen and a part of the Gulf region), and in the eastern part of Palestine since 1922, when it became the Hashemite Emirate.8
16. The hardship endured by the great majority of these indigenous Jewish refugees from Arab countries has never been examined by UN bodies, nor the loss of their inestimable heritage dating back two and three millennium - nor their vast personal and property rights. This great injustice should be addressed at the United Nations and elsewhere, all within the context of an equitable global solution for a peaceful, international recognition of a two-State solution.9 A noteworthy document - with references to specific references to Jewish refugees by both President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives as Resolution 185 on 1 April 2008.10
17. The major stumbling block to peace in the Middle East remains a total absence of true democratic institutions in the Middle East - above all, the refusal by the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas - to accept the inalienable and legitimate de jure rights and existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish State within a formally agreed area of about 18% of the historic 1921 designated area on both sides of the Jordan river, known as 'Land of Israel' (to Jews) / 'Palestine and Jordan' (to Arabs)
18. It should also be allowed under international law for Jews to live in the whole League of Nations area of Palestine (within both the Arab Kingdom of Jordan and the future Arab State of Palestine), just like Arabs, Druze and other non-Jews do in Israel, either as Israeli citizens or foreign residents.
19. On 23 February 2010 Israel's Knesset passed a bill aimed at securing compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran as part of peace negotiations in the Middle East. Before the vote former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler stated: "We're not speaking about financial compensation or indemnification [only], we're talking about justice for Jews from Arab countries. There have been more than 160 UN resolutions on the matter of refugees; all deal with Palestinian refugees only; there's no justice and no truth if it does not also address the plight of Jews from Arab countries." 10
20. The World Union for Progressive Judaism calls on the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the High Commissioner for Refugees, all competent UN bodies, particularly the Human Rights Council, as well as the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to recognise the equal human rights of all refugees - including all those Jewish refugees, who with their descendants, represent today almost half of the Jewish population of Israel.
Notes:
1. Lucasz Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East (1966), p. 26; see also Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide, 2002/2006), pp. 172, 283, 300.
2. Maurice Perlman, Mufti of Jerusalem. The Story of Haj Amin el Husseini (1947), p. 51.
3. UN Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly, Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question. SR., 25 September to 25 November 1947, p. 185.
4. "This conspiracy is inspired by the Mufti, a notorious war criminal, who participated in the Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews of Europe ... Acts of violence already perpetrated, together with those contemplated, being clearly aimed at the total destruction of the Jews, constitute genocide which under the resolutions of the General Assembly is a crime against humanity." Full details in a full page article by Richard A. Yaffe, 'Arab Pogroms
Endanger 800,000. Outside Palestine: Jews Slain, Homes and Synagogues Burned Down,' PM (World Jewish Congress), 18 January 1948.
5. For one example, see Renzo di Felici, Jews in an Arab Land: Libya, 1835-1970 (1985), pp. 193-94, p. 365, n. 19.
6. Interview with Qaddoumi , published in Kul Al-Arab (Israeli Arab newspaper), 3 January 2003.
7. For documentation, see Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (1985/2010); idem, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimitude: 7th to 20th century (1996/2008); idem, Islam and Dhimmitude.
8. Jordanian Law no.6, §3 of 3 April 1954 (following Mandate Law) reactivated in law no. 7 of 1 April 1963, sect. 2.
9. Malka Hillel Shulewitz (ed.), The Forgotten Millions. The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands (1999 / 2000); Shmuel Trigano (ed.), L'exclusion des Juifs des pays arabes. Aux sources du conflit israélo-arabe ( 2003)
http://www.jimena.org/ http://www.justiceforjews.com/ . http://www.justiceforjews.com/Reg.html
10. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hr110-185
11. Rachelle Kliger, "Israel adds Mideast Jewish refugees to negotiations", Jerusalem Post,2 February 2010; Rebecca Anna Stohl, "Legislation gives refugee status to Jews who fled Arab lands", JP, 23 February 2010.
----------------------------
* This written statement -- with modifications, enlargements and updating -- is based on The Forgotten Refugees. An Exchange of populations by David G. Littman, The National Review Online, (New York, 3 December 2002): www.nationalreview.com/script/asp?ref=/comment/comment-littman120302.asp. (Littman is a representative of the World Union for Progressive Judaism to the United Nations in Geneva)
Nigeria among worst violators of freedom
Group says violence strikes both Muslims, ChristiansDUIN: Churches ride immigration wave
By Julia Duin
Nigeria has risen to the top tier of the world's worst violators of religious freedom, according to an annual report to be released Thursday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The independent bipartisan governmental agency, whose report details abuse in 28 nations, singled out Nigeria for not punishing religiously motivated violence, such as what took place in January when 500 Christians near the city of Jos were hacked to death by Muslims. Calling Nigeria "a tragic case," the USCIRF said its investigators visited Africa's largest country three times over the past year to find out why more than 12,000 Nigerians - Christians and Muslims alike - have died in sectarian violence since 1999.
"Not a single criminal, Muslim or Christian, has been convicted and sentenced in Nigeria's 10 years of religious violence," the report says. "The Nigerian government and judicial system have so far been unwilling or unable to protect either side."
A spokeswoman for the Nigerian Embassy could not be reached for comment.
Other nations named by the commission - which makes policy recommendations to the State Department, Congress and the president - as among the worst violators are China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Eritrea, Iraq and Uzbekistan.
The following are "watch list" countries, which have only slightly better records: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikstan, Turkey and Venezuela.
Saudi Arabia, the report says, continues to circulate "educational materials that instill hate and incite violence throughout the world"; the Iranian government denies all rights to its Baha'i minority; the Egyptian government mistreats Baha'is and Coptic Christians; China restricts all manner of religious activities; and North Korea imprisons even the grandchildren of those caught praying.
There are an estimated 40,000 religious prisoners in North Korea, including 6,000 Christians in the infamous Prison 15 in the country's north. Those prisoners are treated worse than other inmates, the report says, and those who are pregnant are sometimes forced to abort their children or their newborns are killed in the camps.
Those lucky enough to escape into China are often forced back over the border by the Chinese government despite international obligations to help asylum seekers, the religious-freedom panel says. Once back in North Korea, the prisoners suffer even worse tortures.
Since Iran's disputed June 12 election, the report says, religious freedom conditions have sunk to a 30-year low, with the country's Shi'ite rulers imprisoning other Shi'ites as well as Sunni and Sufi Muslims. Of the non-Muslim groups, the nation's 300,000 Baha'is are treated the worst, the report says, with seven of their top leaders in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for the past two years.
Christians, the report adds, also are subject to heavy doses of imprisonment, arrests while attending church services, harassment and the seizure of their belongings to the point that many have fled the country. The year 2009 also saw increases in officially sanctioned anti-Semitic propaganda, with one newspaper sponsoring a Holocaust-denial editorial cartoon contest.
Next door in Iraq, religious minorities such as the Mandaeans - who follow the teachings of John the Baptist - see no future for themselves in the country, and 90 percent of them are said to have been killed or to have fled Iraq.
The numbers of Christians are down by two-thirds from 1.4 million adherents in 2003, the report says, and in February, 10 Christians were killed in Mosul, prompting 4,300 other Christians to flee the city. No perpetrators have been arrested; a chronic problem facing religious minorities in Iraq.
By Julia Duin
Nigeria has risen to the top tier of the world's worst violators of religious freedom, according to an annual report to be released Thursday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The independent bipartisan governmental agency, whose report details abuse in 28 nations, singled out Nigeria for not punishing religiously motivated violence, such as what took place in January when 500 Christians near the city of Jos were hacked to death by Muslims. Calling Nigeria "a tragic case," the USCIRF said its investigators visited Africa's largest country three times over the past year to find out why more than 12,000 Nigerians - Christians and Muslims alike - have died in sectarian violence since 1999.
"Not a single criminal, Muslim or Christian, has been convicted and sentenced in Nigeria's 10 years of religious violence," the report says. "The Nigerian government and judicial system have so far been unwilling or unable to protect either side."
A spokeswoman for the Nigerian Embassy could not be reached for comment.
Other nations named by the commission - which makes policy recommendations to the State Department, Congress and the president - as among the worst violators are China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Eritrea, Iraq and Uzbekistan.
The following are "watch list" countries, which have only slightly better records: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikstan, Turkey and Venezuela.
Saudi Arabia, the report says, continues to circulate "educational materials that instill hate and incite violence throughout the world"; the Iranian government denies all rights to its Baha'i minority; the Egyptian government mistreats Baha'is and Coptic Christians; China restricts all manner of religious activities; and North Korea imprisons even the grandchildren of those caught praying.
There are an estimated 40,000 religious prisoners in North Korea, including 6,000 Christians in the infamous Prison 15 in the country's north. Those prisoners are treated worse than other inmates, the report says, and those who are pregnant are sometimes forced to abort their children or their newborns are killed in the camps.
Those lucky enough to escape into China are often forced back over the border by the Chinese government despite international obligations to help asylum seekers, the religious-freedom panel says. Once back in North Korea, the prisoners suffer even worse tortures.
Since Iran's disputed June 12 election, the report says, religious freedom conditions have sunk to a 30-year low, with the country's Shi'ite rulers imprisoning other Shi'ites as well as Sunni and Sufi Muslims. Of the non-Muslim groups, the nation's 300,000 Baha'is are treated the worst, the report says, with seven of their top leaders in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for the past two years.
Christians, the report adds, also are subject to heavy doses of imprisonment, arrests while attending church services, harassment and the seizure of their belongings to the point that many have fled the country. The year 2009 also saw increases in officially sanctioned anti-Semitic propaganda, with one newspaper sponsoring a Holocaust-denial editorial cartoon contest.
Next door in Iraq, religious minorities such as the Mandaeans - who follow the teachings of John the Baptist - see no future for themselves in the country, and 90 percent of them are said to have been killed or to have fled Iraq.
The numbers of Christians are down by two-thirds from 1.4 million adherents in 2003, the report says, and in February, 10 Christians were killed in Mosul, prompting 4,300 other Christians to flee the city. No perpetrators have been arrested; a chronic problem facing religious minorities in Iraq.
Scuds in Lebanon: Israel’s Déjà Vu, Again and Again
Israel must ignore the international minimizing of the threat. Iraqi Scuds and Egyptian anti-aircraft missiles were once minimized, too.
April 30, 2010
by Lenny Ben-David
Pajamas Media
Sitting on my desk is a mangled chunk of steel, a large piece of shrapnel from a Scud missile that hit a Tel Aviv community center in 1991. It serves to remind me of the terror of the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein fired 39 long-range Scuds at the Tel Aviv and Haifa regions over a six-week period.
Earlier this month, Arab, American, and Israeli sources all confirmed that Syria transferred Scud missiles to Hizbullah forces in Lebanon. Immediately, several commentators and analysts minimized the Scuds’ dangers. From Time: Scuds can be easily tracked and destroyed by the Israeli air force before launching.
The Los Angeles Times editorialized:
[The] large 1950s-era missiles are inaccurate, and Israel has the capacity to intercept them.
The Kuwaiti paper Al-Rai reported:
Hizbullah sources confirmed Thursday that the terror group received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria. … The missiles were claimed to be old and unusable.
American officials hemmed and hawed: maybe the Syrians just “intended” to provide them … perhaps the missiles weren’t “delivered in full” yet.
Déjà vu
The media apparently has long-term memory loss and is incapable of remembering the 1991 Gulf War Scuds crashing down on Israel. But what excuse is there to forget the barrages of Hamas’ Kassam and Katyusha rockets that set off the 2009 Gaza conflagration?
Over a period of eight years, analysts and reporters described the thousands of Kassam rockets fired at Israeli civilians as primitive, inaccurate, homemade, and relatively harmless. They minimized the threats to Israeli citizens, as Jewish children in their playgrounds scurried to bomb shelters or families cowered in “safe rooms” while Kassams — and later, the bigger Katyushas — crashed into their towns.
The “primitive” missiles killed and wounded Israelis.
When Israel’s army finally responded, Israel was condemned with unprecedented opprobrium by governments, the media, the UN, J Street Jews, the self-righteous left, and the bigoted.
A recommendation to Israel: Assume the Scuds are in place and in the hands of a terrorist organization. Take the threat seriously.
Déjà vu, again
Every adult Israeli remembers lugging gas masks everywhere during the 1991 Gulf War. Many sat in long lines of cars leaving Israel’s coastal towns in the late afternoon to ferry families to the relatively safer Jerusalem or Eilat areas. Hearing an ambulance siren today still triggers for many Israelis the memory of the dreaded air raid sirens, scurrying to shelters, and squeezing their smallest children into sealed plastic coops with purified air.
The Scud missiles were supposed to be inaccurate, but at least six hit residential areas in Israel, and their one ton explosive warheads left swaths of devastation. Thousands of homes and businesses were damaged. The lethality of the missile was seen in one case in Saudi Arabia, where a Scud killed 28 U.S. soldiers in Dhahran and wounded more than 100. Moreover, if the Hizbullah Scuds are the “D model” in Syria’s arsenal, then their accuracy is supposed to be pretty good — within 50 meters of the target.
But Scuds do not have to be accurate to be effective. They just need to explode.
They are terror weapons (may one use the word “terror” today?), intended to panic Israel’s civilian population and shut down Israel’s economy. And for several years now, American intelligence has been warning that “a portion” of the hundreds of Syria’s Scuds “may have chemical warheads.”
As Iran’s proxy on the Mediterranean, Hizbullah works closely with Syria and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Hizbullah caught the Israeli navy off-guard during the 2006 war, shooting a sophisticated Iranian-produced missile at an Israeli missile boat and killing four IDF sailors. Israeli defenders were also caught by surprise when Hizbullah unmanned aerial vehicles flew over northern Galilee. In any future combat, the Israeli air force may find itself flying through a thicket of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles provided to Hizbullah by Iran, or covering Lebanon’s airspace while based within Syria’s adjacent territory.
Since the Gulf War, Israel developed the Arrow anti-missile system to intercept weapons such as the Scud or Iran’s more advanced Shehab missile, but a massive barrage of missiles could possibly overwhelm Israel’s defenses. The new Israeli “Iron Dome” system is supposed to block Katyusha missiles such as the ones Hamas and Hizbullah rained down on Israel, but it’s not battle-tested. The United States has provided a high-powered X-band radar station to provide early warning of long-range missile launches.
But who wants to rely on such defensive systems to shoot down missiles falling on your head? Israel must have the ability to preempt.
Lebanon’s army commander, Jean Kahwaji, argued this week that it was impossible that Scuds could have been introduced into the country:
Scud rockets are not like Katyushas that are carried on the shoulder and transferred from one area to another. The rockets are 30 meters long, are carried on large vehicles, and need 40 minutes to prepare for launch.
Considering that Hizbullah has been incorporated into the Lebanese army (some claim the army was integrated into Hizbullah), no one should be surprised by his declaration of innocence. But the Scud missile is 11-12 meters long, not 30 as Kahwaji states. Moreover, Hizbullah smuggled 16-meter-long Zelzal missiles and their launchers into Lebanon in 2006.
In the first days of the 2006 war in Lebanon, the Israeli air force succeeded in destroying 54 of Hizbullah’s mid-range Zelzal missile launchers (approximately half the range and half the warhead of the Scuds). Many of the Zelzals were deployed in civilian neighborhoods.
But the Israeli army and air force could not stop the constant bombardment of other missiles and rockets. Almost 3,800 rockets were launched against Israel, with some 900 hitting Israeli towns, killing 42 civilians and wounding more than 4,200. Today, Hizbullah is reported to possess 40,000 rockets, four times the number it held in 2006. “We are at a point now,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned this week, “where Hizbullah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world.”
Presumably, Hizbullah will hide the Scud launchers better than it concealed the Zelzal launchers.
A recommendation to Israel: Be prepared. Consider preemption. Take the threat seriously.
Déjà vu, once more
Prior to the 1991 war, the Americans promised Israel that in the event of a Scud attack, U.S. aircraft would concentrate on knocking out the Scuds within the first 48 hours. However, as explained by Moshe Arens, who served as Israel’s defense minister at the time:
The problem of hitting mobile launchers was far more difficult than the U.S. had envisioned. Although there was intensive aerial activity directed at hitting the Scud launchers, not a single Scud launcher was hit or immobilized during the five weeks of the Gulf War.
Then the Americans sent over the Patriots. The Patriot was probably the most advanced anti-aircraft missile around at the time, and was advertised as also having anti-missile capability. As it turned out, the Patriot missiles in Israel did not succeed in intercepting a single Scud missile.
Today, senior American officials are not promising to destroy Hizbullah Scuds; they are denying that they’re in Lebanon.
After all, such a deployment would be a serious violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which prohibits the “supply of weapons to any entity in Lebanon without the consent of the Government of Lebanon.” (This raises the question of whether Lebanon’s government, cowering before a resurgent Syria, agreed to the Scud deployment. If so, that makes Lebanon, its military, and infrastructure complicit and fair game in the event of another war.)
But as far as Syria is concerned, the U.S. appears to be rewarding the Assad regime despite the transfer of the Scuds. Washington still intends to send a U.S. ambassador to Damascus as part of the commitment to “engage” Syria.
Denial of the deployment of missiles is an old American tactic in the Middle East. After negotiating a cease-fire along the Suez Canal between Israel and Egypt in 1970, American officials rejected Israeli claims that Egypt was moving anti-aircraft missile batteries to the Canal. This was in violation of the agreement that forbade either side from “changing the military status quo within zones extending 50 kilometers to the east and west of the cease-fire line.” Within weeks, however, Egypt had deployed more than 100 batteries along the Canal, anti-aircraft weaponry that would provide cover for the Egyptian attack on Israeli lines during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Israel was furious about the Egyptian violation. Henry Kissinger reported (The White House Years, Volume 1, page 587) that Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir sent a demarche via Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin with evidence of Egypt’s violations and deployment of missile batteries. Rabin was brought into President Nixon to show him the evidence and to “complain bitterly about the reluctance of our intelligence community to accept Israeli evidence.”
Kissinger continued with words that echo true 40 years later whether applied to the Iranian, Syrian, or Palestinian front:
“There was some merit,” Kissinger wrote, “in Rabin’s complaint of the reluctance of the U.S. intelligence community to find violations. As I explained to the president:
‘Israel, with her survival at stake, cannot afford to take chances. … The nature of the Israelis’ situation is bound to influence their interpretation of ambiguous events. We, on the other hand, have an incentive to minimize such evidence, since the consequences of finding violations are so unpleasant. Violations force us to choose between doing something about them and thus risk the blowup of our initiative; or doing nothing and thus renege on our promises to Israel, posing the threat of her taking military action. Accordingly, we tend to lean over backwards to avoid the conclusion that the Arabs are violating the ceasefire unless the evidence is unambiguous.’”
A recommendation to Israel: Don’t trust U.S. assurances. Take the threat seriously.
Déjà vu, once again
Despite the failure to destroy Iraq’s Scuds in 1991, “the United States was very eager that Israel not intervene in any way.” Moshe Arens recently related. He continued:
So, despite the previous U.S. assurance that Israel would be free to take action if the missile threat could not be eliminated within 48 hours, after 72 hours President Bush called Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Jim Baker called me, insisting that we not take any action, that we not in any way “spoil” the operation that was underway.
“Keeping Israel out of the conflict [was] a central strategic concern of our diplomacy,” says Secretary of State James Baker, according to a 1999 study on U.S.-Israel relations during the Gulf War. The study continued:
The prevailing conventional wisdom among American policymakers was that any direct Israeli action against Iraq or indirect participation with U.S.-led forces would likely fray the multinational coalition. If Israel took military action against Iraq, Arab members of the coalition … would withdraw. This would have both strategic political and military implications for the United States, and also hinder Washington’s operational capabilities in the Gulf.
Compare American policy under Baker 20 years ago with the present, with the American reaction to the looming threats to Israel of a nuclear Iran and Scuds in Lebanon. The U.S. administration is again warning Israel — perhaps even threatening — against undermining their fantasy policy world. Like James Baker, they fear that Israeli actions such as building in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, attacking Hizbullah Scuds, or taking action against Iran’s nuclear threat will have strategic political implications for the United States.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on April 15:
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has assumed a role in the global geostrategic environment that carries great weight. … Comprehensive peace is critical, not just to Israel and not just to the Palestinians and not just to the United States, but to the future of this world we share.
President Obama expressed a similar theme at the Nuclear Security Summit on April 14:
I think that the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the Arab states remains as critical as ever. … It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.
Years ago, a New York senator complained about a president’s “even-handed” policy in the Middle East. “Even-handedness,” he complained, “means the palm of the hand to the Arabs and the back of the hand to the Israelis.”
It appears that for now the U.S. administration recognizes that it went too far with the back of its hand and has publicly rolled back some of the pressure on Israel. Speakers from the president on down have recently praised U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation. But the harm has been done. Confidence in the relationship has been shaken, and the Arabs and Iranians probably believe that United States support for Israel has lessened.
Here’s a recommendation to Israel. Déjà vu is not only hindsight. Use it for 20-20 foresight. Take all threats seriously.
April 30, 2010
by Lenny Ben-David
Pajamas Media
Sitting on my desk is a mangled chunk of steel, a large piece of shrapnel from a Scud missile that hit a Tel Aviv community center in 1991. It serves to remind me of the terror of the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein fired 39 long-range Scuds at the Tel Aviv and Haifa regions over a six-week period.
Earlier this month, Arab, American, and Israeli sources all confirmed that Syria transferred Scud missiles to Hizbullah forces in Lebanon. Immediately, several commentators and analysts minimized the Scuds’ dangers. From Time: Scuds can be easily tracked and destroyed by the Israeli air force before launching.
The Los Angeles Times editorialized:
[The] large 1950s-era missiles are inaccurate, and Israel has the capacity to intercept them.
The Kuwaiti paper Al-Rai reported:
Hizbullah sources confirmed Thursday that the terror group received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria. … The missiles were claimed to be old and unusable.
American officials hemmed and hawed: maybe the Syrians just “intended” to provide them … perhaps the missiles weren’t “delivered in full” yet.
Déjà vu
The media apparently has long-term memory loss and is incapable of remembering the 1991 Gulf War Scuds crashing down on Israel. But what excuse is there to forget the barrages of Hamas’ Kassam and Katyusha rockets that set off the 2009 Gaza conflagration?
Over a period of eight years, analysts and reporters described the thousands of Kassam rockets fired at Israeli civilians as primitive, inaccurate, homemade, and relatively harmless. They minimized the threats to Israeli citizens, as Jewish children in their playgrounds scurried to bomb shelters or families cowered in “safe rooms” while Kassams — and later, the bigger Katyushas — crashed into their towns.
The “primitive” missiles killed and wounded Israelis.
When Israel’s army finally responded, Israel was condemned with unprecedented opprobrium by governments, the media, the UN, J Street Jews, the self-righteous left, and the bigoted.
A recommendation to Israel: Assume the Scuds are in place and in the hands of a terrorist organization. Take the threat seriously.
Déjà vu, again
Every adult Israeli remembers lugging gas masks everywhere during the 1991 Gulf War. Many sat in long lines of cars leaving Israel’s coastal towns in the late afternoon to ferry families to the relatively safer Jerusalem or Eilat areas. Hearing an ambulance siren today still triggers for many Israelis the memory of the dreaded air raid sirens, scurrying to shelters, and squeezing their smallest children into sealed plastic coops with purified air.
The Scud missiles were supposed to be inaccurate, but at least six hit residential areas in Israel, and their one ton explosive warheads left swaths of devastation. Thousands of homes and businesses were damaged. The lethality of the missile was seen in one case in Saudi Arabia, where a Scud killed 28 U.S. soldiers in Dhahran and wounded more than 100. Moreover, if the Hizbullah Scuds are the “D model” in Syria’s arsenal, then their accuracy is supposed to be pretty good — within 50 meters of the target.
But Scuds do not have to be accurate to be effective. They just need to explode.
They are terror weapons (may one use the word “terror” today?), intended to panic Israel’s civilian population and shut down Israel’s economy. And for several years now, American intelligence has been warning that “a portion” of the hundreds of Syria’s Scuds “may have chemical warheads.”
As Iran’s proxy on the Mediterranean, Hizbullah works closely with Syria and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Hizbullah caught the Israeli navy off-guard during the 2006 war, shooting a sophisticated Iranian-produced missile at an Israeli missile boat and killing four IDF sailors. Israeli defenders were also caught by surprise when Hizbullah unmanned aerial vehicles flew over northern Galilee. In any future combat, the Israeli air force may find itself flying through a thicket of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles provided to Hizbullah by Iran, or covering Lebanon’s airspace while based within Syria’s adjacent territory.
Since the Gulf War, Israel developed the Arrow anti-missile system to intercept weapons such as the Scud or Iran’s more advanced Shehab missile, but a massive barrage of missiles could possibly overwhelm Israel’s defenses. The new Israeli “Iron Dome” system is supposed to block Katyusha missiles such as the ones Hamas and Hizbullah rained down on Israel, but it’s not battle-tested. The United States has provided a high-powered X-band radar station to provide early warning of long-range missile launches.
But who wants to rely on such defensive systems to shoot down missiles falling on your head? Israel must have the ability to preempt.
Lebanon’s army commander, Jean Kahwaji, argued this week that it was impossible that Scuds could have been introduced into the country:
Scud rockets are not like Katyushas that are carried on the shoulder and transferred from one area to another. The rockets are 30 meters long, are carried on large vehicles, and need 40 minutes to prepare for launch.
Considering that Hizbullah has been incorporated into the Lebanese army (some claim the army was integrated into Hizbullah), no one should be surprised by his declaration of innocence. But the Scud missile is 11-12 meters long, not 30 as Kahwaji states. Moreover, Hizbullah smuggled 16-meter-long Zelzal missiles and their launchers into Lebanon in 2006.
In the first days of the 2006 war in Lebanon, the Israeli air force succeeded in destroying 54 of Hizbullah’s mid-range Zelzal missile launchers (approximately half the range and half the warhead of the Scuds). Many of the Zelzals were deployed in civilian neighborhoods.
But the Israeli army and air force could not stop the constant bombardment of other missiles and rockets. Almost 3,800 rockets were launched against Israel, with some 900 hitting Israeli towns, killing 42 civilians and wounding more than 4,200. Today, Hizbullah is reported to possess 40,000 rockets, four times the number it held in 2006. “We are at a point now,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned this week, “where Hizbullah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world.”
Presumably, Hizbullah will hide the Scud launchers better than it concealed the Zelzal launchers.
A recommendation to Israel: Be prepared. Consider preemption. Take the threat seriously.
Déjà vu, once more
Prior to the 1991 war, the Americans promised Israel that in the event of a Scud attack, U.S. aircraft would concentrate on knocking out the Scuds within the first 48 hours. However, as explained by Moshe Arens, who served as Israel’s defense minister at the time:
The problem of hitting mobile launchers was far more difficult than the U.S. had envisioned. Although there was intensive aerial activity directed at hitting the Scud launchers, not a single Scud launcher was hit or immobilized during the five weeks of the Gulf War.
Then the Americans sent over the Patriots. The Patriot was probably the most advanced anti-aircraft missile around at the time, and was advertised as also having anti-missile capability. As it turned out, the Patriot missiles in Israel did not succeed in intercepting a single Scud missile.
Today, senior American officials are not promising to destroy Hizbullah Scuds; they are denying that they’re in Lebanon.
After all, such a deployment would be a serious violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which prohibits the “supply of weapons to any entity in Lebanon without the consent of the Government of Lebanon.” (This raises the question of whether Lebanon’s government, cowering before a resurgent Syria, agreed to the Scud deployment. If so, that makes Lebanon, its military, and infrastructure complicit and fair game in the event of another war.)
But as far as Syria is concerned, the U.S. appears to be rewarding the Assad regime despite the transfer of the Scuds. Washington still intends to send a U.S. ambassador to Damascus as part of the commitment to “engage” Syria.
Denial of the deployment of missiles is an old American tactic in the Middle East. After negotiating a cease-fire along the Suez Canal between Israel and Egypt in 1970, American officials rejected Israeli claims that Egypt was moving anti-aircraft missile batteries to the Canal. This was in violation of the agreement that forbade either side from “changing the military status quo within zones extending 50 kilometers to the east and west of the cease-fire line.” Within weeks, however, Egypt had deployed more than 100 batteries along the Canal, anti-aircraft weaponry that would provide cover for the Egyptian attack on Israeli lines during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Israel was furious about the Egyptian violation. Henry Kissinger reported (The White House Years, Volume 1, page 587) that Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir sent a demarche via Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin with evidence of Egypt’s violations and deployment of missile batteries. Rabin was brought into President Nixon to show him the evidence and to “complain bitterly about the reluctance of our intelligence community to accept Israeli evidence.”
Kissinger continued with words that echo true 40 years later whether applied to the Iranian, Syrian, or Palestinian front:
“There was some merit,” Kissinger wrote, “in Rabin’s complaint of the reluctance of the U.S. intelligence community to find violations. As I explained to the president:
‘Israel, with her survival at stake, cannot afford to take chances. … The nature of the Israelis’ situation is bound to influence their interpretation of ambiguous events. We, on the other hand, have an incentive to minimize such evidence, since the consequences of finding violations are so unpleasant. Violations force us to choose between doing something about them and thus risk the blowup of our initiative; or doing nothing and thus renege on our promises to Israel, posing the threat of her taking military action. Accordingly, we tend to lean over backwards to avoid the conclusion that the Arabs are violating the ceasefire unless the evidence is unambiguous.’”
A recommendation to Israel: Don’t trust U.S. assurances. Take the threat seriously.
Déjà vu, once again
Despite the failure to destroy Iraq’s Scuds in 1991, “the United States was very eager that Israel not intervene in any way.” Moshe Arens recently related. He continued:
So, despite the previous U.S. assurance that Israel would be free to take action if the missile threat could not be eliminated within 48 hours, after 72 hours President Bush called Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Jim Baker called me, insisting that we not take any action, that we not in any way “spoil” the operation that was underway.
“Keeping Israel out of the conflict [was] a central strategic concern of our diplomacy,” says Secretary of State James Baker, according to a 1999 study on U.S.-Israel relations during the Gulf War. The study continued:
The prevailing conventional wisdom among American policymakers was that any direct Israeli action against Iraq or indirect participation with U.S.-led forces would likely fray the multinational coalition. If Israel took military action against Iraq, Arab members of the coalition … would withdraw. This would have both strategic political and military implications for the United States, and also hinder Washington’s operational capabilities in the Gulf.
Compare American policy under Baker 20 years ago with the present, with the American reaction to the looming threats to Israel of a nuclear Iran and Scuds in Lebanon. The U.S. administration is again warning Israel — perhaps even threatening — against undermining their fantasy policy world. Like James Baker, they fear that Israeli actions such as building in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, attacking Hizbullah Scuds, or taking action against Iran’s nuclear threat will have strategic political implications for the United States.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on April 15:
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has assumed a role in the global geostrategic environment that carries great weight. … Comprehensive peace is critical, not just to Israel and not just to the Palestinians and not just to the United States, but to the future of this world we share.
President Obama expressed a similar theme at the Nuclear Security Summit on April 14:
I think that the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the Arab states remains as critical as ever. … It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.
Years ago, a New York senator complained about a president’s “even-handed” policy in the Middle East. “Even-handedness,” he complained, “means the palm of the hand to the Arabs and the back of the hand to the Israelis.”
It appears that for now the U.S. administration recognizes that it went too far with the back of its hand and has publicly rolled back some of the pressure on Israel. Speakers from the president on down have recently praised U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation. But the harm has been done. Confidence in the relationship has been shaken, and the Arabs and Iranians probably believe that United States support for Israel has lessened.
Here’s a recommendation to Israel. Déjà vu is not only hindsight. Use it for 20-20 foresight. Take all threats seriously.
Enough Already – Just Move the UN to Iran
The Rosett Report
Last week, when Iran withdrew its candidacy for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, I got messages from a number of folks who were almost sorry to see Iran drop out of the race. That’s not because they like Iran’s regime. It’s because seating Iran on the rotten Human Rights Council would have been an act so grotesque that anyone could grasp the problems with the Council – much as Libya chairing the old Human Rights Commission in 2003 served to discredit that rotten body once and for all.
Well, for all those who were disappointed that Iran’s regime will not become the convenient poster-child for the UN’s travesty of a Human Rights Council, there’s a carnival of cold comfort ahead. The UN’s Economic and Social Council has just elected Iran to a seat on the UN’s women’s rights commission — formally known as the Commission on the Status of Women. This outfit describes itself on its web site as the UN’s “principal global policy making body” for “gender equality and advancement of women.”
As Hot Air notes: “I think Neda would have wanted it this way, don’t you?”
But wait! There’s more. Fox News reporter Joseph Abrams unearthed the bombshell about Iran taking a seat on the women’s rights commission, no thanks to any of the UN’s well-heeled press offices. The UN had quietly buried the announcement in a lengthy press release, under the riveting headline: “In resumed organizational session, Economic and Social Council solidifies plans for forthcoming substantive session, fills vacancies in subsidiary bodies.” (I hope Fox is giving Joe combat pay for reading this stuff). Joe’s article is here, with details about the apparent failure of the U.S. Mission to even challenge Iran’s bid by calling for a vote. Iran was “elected” by “acclamation.”
And, yes! There’s yet more. Entombed about 6,000 syllables deep under the headline of that same press release (pour yourself a stiff drink — here it is) is the information that Iran has also just obtained three other seats.
Iran is one of 16 new members just elected to four-year-terms on the UN’s Commission on Science and Technology for Development. (Maybe they can provide handy tips on capacity-building for nuclear bomb technology in UN-sanctioned developing economies).
Iran is also one of 15 countries just elected to the governing council of the UN settlements agency, or UN-Habitat (another of those countries just elected is Venezuela, ruled by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s close chum, Hugo Chavez … is this part of the project Ahmadinejad and Chavez jointly announced last year to build a “nuclear village?”).
And, for the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, four members were just seated by acclamation — one of them being a candidate from Iran.
Oh, and by the way, Iran also sits on the governing council of the UN Environment Program, and the executive boards of UNICEF, the UN Development Program (last year it chaired the UNDP board), UNICEF and the World Food Program (which has also just elected Cuba and Sudan to three year seats on its board).
On top of all this, it looks like Ahmadinejad may soon be making yet another of his many trips to NY, to dominate the UN’s Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, which opens at UN Headquarters in Manhattan next week.
Not for the first time, the thought occurs that it would be a lot easier to just ship the entire UN — lock, stock and seating arrangements — to Iran. Why should Americans bankroll, dignify and host these abominations?
Last week, when Iran withdrew its candidacy for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, I got messages from a number of folks who were almost sorry to see Iran drop out of the race. That’s not because they like Iran’s regime. It’s because seating Iran on the rotten Human Rights Council would have been an act so grotesque that anyone could grasp the problems with the Council – much as Libya chairing the old Human Rights Commission in 2003 served to discredit that rotten body once and for all.
Well, for all those who were disappointed that Iran’s regime will not become the convenient poster-child for the UN’s travesty of a Human Rights Council, there’s a carnival of cold comfort ahead. The UN’s Economic and Social Council has just elected Iran to a seat on the UN’s women’s rights commission — formally known as the Commission on the Status of Women. This outfit describes itself on its web site as the UN’s “principal global policy making body” for “gender equality and advancement of women.”
As Hot Air notes: “I think Neda would have wanted it this way, don’t you?”
But wait! There’s more. Fox News reporter Joseph Abrams unearthed the bombshell about Iran taking a seat on the women’s rights commission, no thanks to any of the UN’s well-heeled press offices. The UN had quietly buried the announcement in a lengthy press release, under the riveting headline: “In resumed organizational session, Economic and Social Council solidifies plans for forthcoming substantive session, fills vacancies in subsidiary bodies.” (I hope Fox is giving Joe combat pay for reading this stuff). Joe’s article is here, with details about the apparent failure of the U.S. Mission to even challenge Iran’s bid by calling for a vote. Iran was “elected” by “acclamation.”
And, yes! There’s yet more. Entombed about 6,000 syllables deep under the headline of that same press release (pour yourself a stiff drink — here it is) is the information that Iran has also just obtained three other seats.
Iran is one of 16 new members just elected to four-year-terms on the UN’s Commission on Science and Technology for Development. (Maybe they can provide handy tips on capacity-building for nuclear bomb technology in UN-sanctioned developing economies).
Iran is also one of 15 countries just elected to the governing council of the UN settlements agency, or UN-Habitat (another of those countries just elected is Venezuela, ruled by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s close chum, Hugo Chavez … is this part of the project Ahmadinejad and Chavez jointly announced last year to build a “nuclear village?”).
And, for the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, four members were just seated by acclamation — one of them being a candidate from Iran.
Oh, and by the way, Iran also sits on the governing council of the UN Environment Program, and the executive boards of UNICEF, the UN Development Program (last year it chaired the UNDP board), UNICEF and the World Food Program (which has also just elected Cuba and Sudan to three year seats on its board).
On top of all this, it looks like Ahmadinejad may soon be making yet another of his many trips to NY, to dominate the UN’s Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, which opens at UN Headquarters in Manhattan next week.
Not for the first time, the thought occurs that it would be a lot easier to just ship the entire UN — lock, stock and seating arrangements — to Iran. Why should Americans bankroll, dignify and host these abominations?
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