By Eugene W. Rostow, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, (1966-1969) and former Dean of the Yale Law School
(Consolidated Articles of April 23, 1990 and October 21, 1991 from The New Republic.).
With varying degrees of seriousness, all American administrations since 1967 have objected to Israeli settlements in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) on the ground that it would make it more difficult to persuade the Arabs to make peace. President Carter decreed that the settlements were "illegal" as well as tactically unwise. President Reagan said the settlements were legal but that they made negotiations less likely. The strength of the argument is hardly self-evident. Jordan occupied the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) for nineteen years, allowed no Jewish settlements and showed no signs of wanting to make peace.
(United Nations) Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, set out criteria for peace-making by the parties (to the conflict); Resolution 338, passed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, makes resolution 242 legally binding and orders the parties to carry out its terms forthwith. Unfortunately, confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those resolutions require.(Since 1967)
Arab states have pretended that the two resolutions are "ambiguous" and can be interpreted to suit their desires. And some Europeans (Russian) and even American officials have cynically allowed Arab spokesman to delude themselves and their people to say nothing of Western public opinion about what the resolutions mean. It is common even for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is "deliberately ambiguous”, as if the parties are, equally free to rely on their own reading of its key provisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs between 1966 and 1969, I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until " a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War not from "the" territories, nor from "all" the territories, but some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from "all" the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the "fragile" and "vulnerable" Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called "secure and recognized" boundaries agreed to by the parties. In negotiating such agreement, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.
Resolution 242 built on the text of the Armistice Agreements of 1949, which provided (except in the case of Lebanon) that the Armistice Demarcation Lines separating the military forces were "not to be construed in any sense" as political or territorial boundaries, and that "no provision" of the Armistice Agreements "shall in any way prejudice the right, claims, and positions" of the parties "in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem.” In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai, which had never been part of the British Mandate. …
Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the occupied areas between Israel and its neighbors entirely to the agreement of the parties in accordance with the principles it sets out. It was, however, negotiated with full realization that the problem of establishing "a secure and recognized" boundary between Israel and Jordan would be the thorniest issue of the peace making process.
The heated question of Israel settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish People to "close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions might require Great Britain to "postpone" or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what is now Jordan. This was done in 1922. But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine, west of the Jordan River, that is in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated, and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the UN Charter, "the Palestine Article," which provides that nothing in the Charter shall be construed… to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments…"
Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose an obstacle to the peace process.
This reading of Resolution 242 has always been the keystone of American policy. In launching a major peace initiative on September 1, 1982, President Reagan said, "I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival since the founding of the state of Israel thirty-four years ago: in the pre-1957 borders, Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again."
Yet some Bush (Sr.) administration statements and actions on the Arab-Israeli question, and especially Secretary of State James Baker's disastrous speech of May 22, 1989 betray(ed) a strong impulse to escape from the Resolutions as they were negotiated, debated, and adopted, an award to the Arabs all the territories between the 1967 lines and the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem. The Bush (Sr.) administration seem(ed) to consider the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to be "foreign" territory to which Israel has no claim. Yet, the Jews have the same right to settle there, as they have to settle in Haifa. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion….
The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem before the State of Israel was created. The Mandate for Palestine differs in one important respect from the other League of Nations mandates, which were trusts for the benefit of the indigenous population. The Palestine Mandate, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish People with Palestine, and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country, " is dedicate to "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
The Mandate qualifies the Jewish right of settlement and political development in Palestine in only one respect. Article 25 gave Great Britain and the League Council discretion to "postpone" or "withhold" the Jewish People's right of settlement in the Trans-Jordanian province of Palestine now the Kingdom of Jordan if they decided that local conditions made such action desirable. With the divided support of the council, the British took that step in 1922.
The Mandate does not, however, permit even a temporary suspension of the Jewish right of settlement in the parts of the Mandate west of the Jordan River. The Armistice Lines of 1949, which are part of the West Bank boundary, represent nothing but the position of the contending armies when the final cease-fire was achieved in the War of Independence. And the Armistice Agreements specifically provide, except in the case of Lebanon, that the demarcation lines can be changed by agreement when the parties move from Armistice to peace. Resolution 242 is based on that provision of the Armistice Agreements and states certain criteria that would justify changes in the demarcation lines when the parties make peace.
Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in 1947, when the British Government resigned as the mandatory power. This is incorrect. A trust never terminates when a trustee dies, resigns, embezzles the trust property or is dismissed. The authority responsible for the trust appoints a new trustee, or otherwise arranges for the fulfillment of its purpose. Thus in the case of the Mandate for German South West Africa, the International Court of Justice found the South African government to be derelict in its duty as the Mandatory power and it was deemed to have resigned. Decades of struggle and diplomacy then resulted in the creation of the new state of Namibia, which has just come into being. In Palestine, the British Mandate ceased to be operative as to the territories of Israel and Jordan when those states were created and recognized by the international community. But its rules apply still to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have not yet been allocated either to Israel or to Jordan or become an independent state. Jordan attempted to annex the West Bank in 1951 but that annexation was never generally recognized, even by the Arab states, and now Jordan has abandoned all its claims to the territory.
The State Department has never denied that under the Mandate "the Jewish people" have the right to settle in the area. Instead, it said that Jewish settlements in the West Bank violate Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the protection of civilians in wartime. Where the territory of one contracting party is occupied by another contracting party, the convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviets before and during the Second World War the mass transfer of people into or out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor or colonization, for example.
Article 49 provides that the occupying power "shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. But the Jewish settlers in the West Bank are volunteers. They have not been "deported" or "transferred" by the government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population the Geneva Convention was designed to prevent. Furthermore, the Convention applies only to "acts by one signatory carried out on the territory of another”. The West Bank is not the territory of a signatory power, but an unallocated part of the British Mandate. It is hard; therefore, to see how even the most literal minded reading of the Convention could make it apply to Jewish settlement in territories of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River. Even if the Convention could be construed to prevent settlements during the period of occupation, it could do no more than suspend, not terminate, the rights conferred by the Mandate. Those rights can be ended only by the establishment and recognition of a new state or the incorporation of the territories into an old one.
As claimants to the territory, the Israelis have denied that they are required to comply with the Geneva Convention but announced that they will do so as a matter of grace. The Israeli courts apply the Convention routinely, sometimes deciding against the Israeli Government. Assuming for the moment the general applicability of the Convention, it could well be considered a violation if the Israelis deported convicts to the area, or encouraged the settlement of people who had no right to live there (Americans for example). But how can the convention be deemed to apply to Jews who have a right to settle in the territories under international law: a legal right assured by treaty and specifically protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter, which provides that nothing in the Charter shall be construed "to alter in any manner rights conferred by existing international instruments.” The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there.
Another principle of international law may affect the problem of the Jewish settlements. Under international law, an occupying power is supposed to apply the prevailing law of the occupied territory at the municipal level unless it interferes with the necessities of security or administration or is "repugnant to elementary conceptions of justice”. From 1949 to 1967 when Jordan was the military occupant of the West Bank, it applied its own laws to prevent any Jews from living in the territory. To suggest that Israel as occupant is required to enforce such Jordanian laws a necessary implication of applying the Convention is simply absurd. When the Allies occupied Germany after the Second World War, the abrogation of the Nuremberg Laws was among their first acts.
The general expectation of international law is that military occupations last a short time, and are succeeded by a state of peace established by treaty or otherwise. In the case of the West Bank, the territory was occupied by Jordan between 1949 and 1967 and has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 ruled that the Arab states and Israel must make peace, and that when " a just and lasting peace is reached in the Middle East, Israel should withdraw from some but not all of the territory it occupied in the course of the 1967 war. The Resolutions leave it to the parties to agree on the terms of peace.
The controversy about Jewish settlements is not, therefore, about legal rights but about the political will to override legal rights. Is the United States prepared to use all its influence in Israel to award the whole of the West Bank to Jordan or to a new Arab state, and force Israel back to its 1967 borders? Throughout Israel's occupation, the Arab countries helped by the United States, have pushed to keep Jews out of the territories so that at a convenient moment, or in a peace negotiation, the claim that the West Bank is "Arab" territory could be made more plausible. Some in Israel favor the settlements for the obverse reason: to reinforce Israel's claim for the fulfillment of the Mandate and of Resolution 242 in a peace treaty that would at least divide the territory.
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
BY NAOMI RAGEN, An excerpt of article from The International Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2003
What is it about the office of prime minister of Israel that turns fearless generals into spineless jellyfish? How is it that people who can read complicated strategic maps and plot the crossing of the Suez Canal under enemy fire suddenly can't negotiate their way across the street without getting run over? We cannot blame the disastrous stewardship of Israel over the last 10 years that has left her people battered, her economy near ruin, her political stature at its nadir on any particular party line.
The fact is, Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, although on different points on the political spectrum, have all fallen equally into the same incomprehensible patterns of self-destructive leadership. All share equally in the ongoing disaster that is the stewardship of our precious Jewish homeland, the State of Israel.
It was Rabin who invented the Orwellian doublespeak of terror victims as "sacrifices for Peace." It was Barak who continued to absorb terror attacks with a stiff upper lip, saying they wouldn't "deter him from pursuing peace”. And now it is Sharon who tells us that lack of reciprocity on the Palestinian side "won't budge" him from blindly ripping up settlements in exchange for nothing. And he says it as if ifs a good thing, a brave thing he's doing, instead of utter stupidity.
I would have thought that if Israelis had learned anything at all from the wave of terror following Oslo it might have been the simple concept that when you sign an agreement and keep your end, you have to insist that the other side do the same and be held accountable for violations. Otherwise, what you have is capitulation and defeat, and the abandonment of your people to mass murder. ...
But what sort of double talk is that? Is terrorism some sort of rootless boogieman?
Worldwide Islamic Terrorism (excerpted from article by FLAME)
Are the U.S., Israel and other nations fighting the same enemy?
The world is being victimized by an epidemic of terrorism—from the September II attacks, the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and suicide bombers in Israel, to murderous kidnappings in the Philippines, a nightclub bombing in Bali, the deadly guerrilla takeover of a Moscow opera house, and the fatal hotel bombing in Kenya. Is there a connection among these far-flung terrorist acts?
What are the facts?
Radical Islam is the common denominator.
Four Al Qaeda conspirators were recently convicted of the deadly bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Suspects linked to Osama bin Laden bombed the USS Cole in 2001. That same year, the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines kidnapped and beheaded Christian missionaries. A group called Jamaah Islamiah committed the Bali nightclub massacre in October 2002, which killed more than 200 innocent victims. In late 2002, an Islamic Chechen guerrilla group seized a packed Moscow opera house, causing the deaths of more than 100 people.
But clearly, Israelis and Jews are primary targets of these terrorists. Last November, Muslims bombed an Israeli hotel in Kenya, killing 13. In Israel itself, the Islamic groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbollah have murdered more than 800 civilians and injured over 4,000 in the last two years—a devastation in that tiny country equal to having more than 35,000 U.S. citizens killed and 230,000 wounded.
These worldwide terrorist acts have two glaring elements in common. First, all were committed by radical Islamists - groups that advocate overthrowing Western democratic governments and replacing them with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Second, all these groups believe that killing innocent people in terrorist acts is a legitimate way to achieve their goals.
What does radical Islam really want? Despite the nationalistic focus or some of these terrorist groups, they all share dedication to a common purpose: carrying out a jihad, or holy war, to rid the world of "infidels," such as Christians, Jews and Hindus, and the establishment of a world- wide Islamic order. Of course, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden makes no secret of his murderous global design: To create worldwide Islamic rule by killing or subjugating non-Muslims, especially Jews and Christians.
Why does radical Islam use terrorism? To most of the world, the idea of purposeful killing innocent people—even for a noble cause—is unthinkable.
Likewise, the notion of suicide bombers: Most of the world s religions consider human life to be God s most precious gift, not to be sacrificed, except to save others. The jihadis believe otherwise. They justify heartless, cold-blooded killing of innocent women and children on behalf of Allah. They entice youngsters to commit suicide, to become "martyrs”, with the promise of sensual pleasures in the hereafter.
What can be done?
When our leaders tell us we are threatened by terrorism, they only tell half the story. Terrorism is clearly dangerous to our people and anathema to our social, religious and democratic values. Yet terrorism is not a goal in itself—it is a vicious tactic of warfare, used to achieve totalitarian ends. Indeed, if we declare our enemy to be terrorism, we fail to see our real enemy. The enemy is militant Islam, which uses terrorism to destroy democratic institutions and deny our basic freedoms. It is a tool being used ruthlessly to supplant our civilization with religious fundamentalism—to impose upon us a world order based on orthodox Islam, with its harsh rules of behavior, intolerance of diversity, subjugation of women and totalitarian political rule.
It s time we speak out: Radical Islam-not just the tactic of terrorism-threatens our country, the state of Israel and other democratic nations. It is also time for moderate Muslims and their imams to raise their voices ... and unequivocally condemn he violent aims of their brethren.
Finally, it’s time to fight back: We cannot pretend that we don’t know who is responsible for today’s deadly terrorist attacks, and we cannot suffer them passively. Just as the U.S. is responding aggressively to the threat of terrorism so must Israel respond, since its people are being killed and maimed by terror attacks on a daily basis. Above all and for everyone s good, militant Islam must be fought and defeated through a united effort by all civilized nations.
FLAME Facts and Logic About the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359, San Francisco, CA 94159
Ambassador Bauer brought tears to the eyes of 350 participants, from all over the U.S., in the Zionist Organization of American lobbying mission in Washington D.C. June 18, 2003:
Quoting from the Jewish Bible: the Book of The Prophet, Joel, Chapter 4
The Judgment of the Nations
“For in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I am going to gather all the nations and take them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; there I intend to put them on trial for all they have done to Israel, my people and my heritage. For they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land among themselves. They have cast lots for my people; they have bartered the boys for prostitutes, have sold the girls for wine and drunk it." …
The days of Yahweh
Sun and moon grow dark. The stars lose their brilliance. Yahweh roars from Zion, makes his voice heard from Jerusalem. Heaven and earth tremble.
But Yahweh will be a shelter for his people, a stronghold for the sons of Israel.
“You will learn then that I am Yahweh your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be a holy place, no alien will ever pass through it again.”
Gary Bauer, President of American Values and Republican Party contender for the U.S. Presidential nomination year 2000.
Israel To Permit Weapons Smuggling Route From Egypt To Northern Gaza?
Aaron Lerner Date: 23 June 2003
Israel Television Channel One Mabat News reported this evening that while
there has been a dispute between Israel and the Palestinians regarding an
Israeli security presence on the main North-South highway that links the
southern portion of the Gaza Strip with the central and northern portion,
that Israel has already assured the Palestinians that the security presence
they want will be "unseen".
This would mean that while Israel would like to have forces in the area to
try to prevent the slaughter of Israelis making their way to and from
Israeli communities in the Gaza Strip that Israel has no intention to have
any contact with the Palestinian traffic.
The removal of any Israeli controls should help streamline the distribution
of weapons and explosives from Egypt to the entire Gaza Strip. To date Egypt
has declined to make any serious effort to prevent smuggling from Egypt to
the southern end of the Gaza Strip via tunnels that cross under the border.
While Egypt continues to enjoy considerable praise from America for its
efforts to arrange for a temporary cease-fire during which Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, Fatah Tanzim, etc. can prepare, without Israeli interference, for
renewed battle, it has yet to be called on to make the most obvious
contribution it could make for peace: close down the terror tunnels.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il
Dennis Prager comes up with a brilliant solution – perhaps the only one?
By Dennis Prager, The Washington Times, June 16-22, 2003
Like the proverbial broken record, some of us have been saying for years that only one thing can bring peace to the Middle East: a Palestinian civil war. It should now be as obvious as anything can be that this is the case. A significant percentage of Palestinians do not want peace with Israel; they want peace without an Israel. If, these individuals and groups are not fought by those Palestinians who want peace with Israel, peace is impossible.
The need for Palestinians to fight one another in order to make a state is hardly unique. Many states, including the United States and, to a lesser extent, Israel, as, have had to fight civil wars in order to survive. If the American government had not been prepared to fight a civil war, there would be no United States as we know it, and slavery in America would not have been abolished. Likewise, the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, killed fellow Jews who resisted his call to put down their arms and accept the Israeli government.
The questions for the Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen are therefore as stark and as difficult. Does he have the courage and leadership qualities to be the Palestinians' Lincoln or Ben Gurion? Does he have enough support among Palestinians, who in every poll over the last years have supported terror and the destruction of Israel, to engage in political and military battle with fellow
Palestinians?
Can he neutralize Yasser Arafat, who encourages the Palestinian terror groups?
And, if the Palestinian prime minister does take on Hamas and other terrorist groups, can he avoid being assassinated by fellow Palestinians who want Israel destroyed? Could he survive an almost inevitable assassination plot organized by the Iranian regime, the major supporter of those that seek Israel’s destruction?
We do not know the answers to these questions. But we will know them soon. Because, without a positive answer to each, peace is not possible. We are at one of those rare and important moments in history when anyone who wants to can see the roots of a world conflict with perfect clarity.
The only reason there has not been peace between Israel and its Palestinian and other Arab neighbors since 1948 is the refusal of most Arabs and large numbers of Muslims elsewhere to accept the existence of a Jewish state in Israel.
Israel showed at Camp David in 2000 that it would do everything except commit suicide for real peace with the Palestinians. Yet precisely when Israel offered a Palestinian state on 95 percent of the West Bank, Palestinians resumed blowing up Israelis wherever Israelis live, eat, travel, pray and work. It was clear to all but those who hate Israel that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians wanted Israel destroyed more than they wanted a state. And now, once again, Israel is making clear its willingness to do just about anything for peace — this time under a right-wing prime minister.
It is time for the world to see the 55-year-old truth that Israel wants peace while its enemies want Israel destroyed... unless the Palestinians are willing to
fight their terrorists. Nothing will demonstrate that Palestinians are willing to live alongside Israel as much as their willingness to fight fellow Palestinians.
For those who claim "war never solves anything," a mantra of such ignorance that only the well educated believe it, the Palestinians can provide another example of how war, or at least a willingness to wage war, can solve a great deal. Just as the Nazi atrocities were ended only by war, so, too, the Palestinians will have a state and enjoy peace and freedom only by declaring, and if need be fighting, a war - a civil war. For their sake and the world's sake, let us pray they wage it. ##
Dennis Prager hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show based in Los Angeles.
(Once again, the facts get in the way of Arab propagandist Jim Zogby and his pollster brother, John. Their numbers are grossly inflated, as might have been anticipated; in their attempt to exaggerate the importance of the Arab vote to American politicians and other decision makers. The American Arab population is, in fact, about 1/3 Arab claims.)
More Arabs move to area
The Detroit News June 14, 2002 by David Shepardson
DEARBORN — Metro Detroit is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans and Arab immigrants, newly released U.S. Census figures show. Dearborn's Arab population more than doubled by 2002 to become 30 percent of the city's population. Home to more Arab Americans than any other Michigan City, Dearborn saw its population of Arab Americans, as well as Arab residents who aren't American citizens, jump from 14,000 to 29,344.
Metro Detroit's Arab-American population jumped 56 percent in the last decade, according to newly released figures by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2000, 92,328 people reported primary Arab ancestry, up from 59,029 in 1990. But the new figures, which come from the long-form census questionnaire that went to one in six households in 2000, only furthers the debate between demographers and community leaders on the accuracy of the count.
Arab-American leaders and some demographers argue the census still far undercounts Arabs, especially recent immigrants. "These numbers are bizarre. They are so low," said James Zogby, president of the American Arab Institute in Washington. John Zogby, a New York pollster, attributes what he calls an undercount to confusion by immigrants and their suspicion of government. But he noted that the new census numbers reinforce his belief that although southern California has a larger number of Arabs and Arab Americans,
Metro Detroit has a higher percentage.
"There is no doubt that Metro Detroit has the highest- density community of Arab
Americans in the country, "said John Zogby, who estimates there are more than
400,000 Arabs in Michigan. James Zogby and the Arab American Institute estimate the Arab population in the United States is at least 3 million. But, the United States Census Department puts the Arab population at 1.25 million, up from 940,000 in 1990.
Just in case you wonder what your Senator does all day long – below is a statement sheet I stumbled upon for those involved in an appeal in one of the Russell Senate Office Bldg. Conference Rooms.
STATEMENT PROVIDED BY STEVE BRADY, SR., HEADSMAN OF THE
NORTHERN CHEYENNE CRAZY DOG SOCIETY, BOARD MEMBER OF THE
MEDICINE WHEEL COALITION FOR SACRED SITES OF NORTH AMERICA,
CO-CHAIR OF NORTHERN CHEYENNE SAND CREEK MASSACRE SITE
COMMITTEE, MEMBER OF NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH, AND BOARD
MEMBER OF NORTHERN CHEYENNE CULTURAL COMMISSSION BEFORE
THE U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS ON JUNE 18™, 2003,
REGARDING NATIVE AMERICAN SACRED PLACES, SPECIFICALLY ON THE
ISSUE OF CONSULTATION ON USE AND MAINTENANCE OF NATIVE
AMERICAN SACRED PLACES.
First of all I would like to thank the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for allowing me to provide testimony this morning on the issue of consultation on use and maintenance of Native American sacred places. I have been directly involved in the protection of several sacred sites for the purpose of perpetual ceremonial access and use by traditional Native American practitioner and spiritual leaders and they include the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain in the Bighorn National Forest in north central Wyoming, the Bear Lodge (commonly referred to as Devils Tower), a National Monument under the National Park Service in northeastern Wyoming, and Noah vose' (commonly referred to as Bear Butte) in western South Dakota, among others.
Hillary Clinton’s book may be flying off the bookseller’s shelve. But it will never match the still extremely popular, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, especially among the Arabs and bigots of the world.
The Protocols Come to America
Compiled by American Jewish Historical Society
At the turn of the century, the Russian Czar's secret police forged a
document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to
outline a plan for Jewish world domination. The Russians claimed that the
radical Jewish intelligentsia gathered in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress
in Seal, Switzerland, wrote the Protocols. The document "showed" how a Jewish
cabal was fomenting terror, causing famine and promoting war. Publication
of the Protocols sparked anti-Jewish pogroms in Kiev and Kishineff.
While the Protocols were whispered about in anti-Semitic circles in
the United States, they did not reach American shores in English
translation until 1917. A Russian monarchist émigré, Boris Brasol, translated the
Protocols into English and passed a copy to the State Department,
hoping to persuade the United States government to withhold recognition of the
Soviet regime. He was convinced that the Bolsheviks were in the pay of
American Jewish bankers of German background - Jacob Schiff and Felix Warburg in particular - who had financed the Czar's overthrow to advance German interests in World War I.
An American Army Intelligence officer in Brooklyn, Hams Ayres Houghton, MD,
obtained Brasol's translation of the Protocols and became convinced of their
authenticity. An ardent anti-Semite and anticommunist, Houghton had the
authority to act on his fantasies. According to historian Robert Singerman,
writing in the journal of the American Jewish Historical Society, Houghton "ordered one of his subordinates to investigate any Jew as long as he
was prominent" for signs at subversion.
In 1918, Houghton passed a copy of the Protocols to Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, chair of a government committee investigating a scandal in American wartime aircraft manufacture. Houghton was certain that "Jewish International Bankers" had caused the manufacturing problems, but Justice Hughes scoffed at the idea and denied the authenticity of the Protocols.
At first, the American Jewish community made no formal response to
the typescript versions of the Protocols in circulation. They believed it
best not to give them publicity. In 1920, however, a version was published
in England and both Brasol and Houghton planned to bring out annotated
versions in the United States. Brasol found a respectable company named Small, Maynard to publish his version. Putnam and Son publishers agreed to publish Houghton's.
When the American Jewish Committee learned of Putnam's plans, its
president, Louis Marshall, contacted General George H. Putnam directly to
discuss the publication project. Putnam defended it on the grounds of free
speech, but Marshall countered that free speech is only protected if it is not
libelous.
Since there was ample proof that the Protocols were forgeries written
to stir up violence against Jews, it would be irresponsible for Putnam to
publish it without clearly labeling it a fraud. Putnam agreed, and withdrew from
the project.
Undaunted. Houghton found a financial sponsor purchased the plates from
Putnam's, and published the work privately under the pseudonym of Peter
Beckwith. The book sold poorly, however when Small, Maynard published
Brasol's edition, bookstores refused to carry it. Sales were robust by mall
order, but Brasol's hopes of reaching masses of Americans to convince
them that communism was an outgrowth of Zionism were dashed, at least
temporarily.
Resilient in his efforts, Brasol sent a copy of the Protocols to automobile
manufacturer Henry Ford, who was convinced that they were authentic. For the next two years, Ford gave the Protocols wide circulation in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Nothing did more to poison the atmosphere against American Jewry in the years between 1920 and 1922 than Ford's publication of the Protocols.
Apparently, at Ford’s urging, the editor of the Dearborn independent, William
Cameron, reworked the Protocols into a series of articles, "The International
Jew” Cameron described the Protocols as "the most comprehensive program
for world subjugation that has ever come to public knowledge. Cameron believed the Protocols probably did not originate with the Basle Congress, but "may have come to them as part of their ancient Jewish inheritance" The Zionists probably reported to a modem Sanhedrin presided over by a direct descendant of King David. Cameron believed that, at that point, the United States was "very largely in the hands of, or under the influence of, Jewish interests!
Liberalism, jazz and the decline in Christian virtue were all signs, for Cameron that the Jewish conspiracy was on its way to success. According to the blueprint, Jews would cause more wars, famines and revolutions - of which the Bolshevik was only the first - as a means to world domination.
The "International Jew" series stopped running in 1922, but it was widely quoted. It was not until 1927, after a libel suit and Jewish boycott of Ford products that Henry Ford recanted. In a letter to Louis Marshall, Ford claimed not to have paid any personal attention to the series. Ford professed to being "deeply mortified" to learn that the Protocols were forgeries and that his newspaper had offended Jewish sensibilities.
Nazi Germany adopted the Protocols as a pretext for its war to exterminate European Jewry. The Protocols still circulate in print and on the Internet, inspiring radical fringe groups in their deranged beliefs in Jewish conspiracies. Sadly, each generation must relearn that the Protocols are one of the grossest and most damaging libels in history.
Compiled by American Jewish Historical Society
Kenneth J, Bialkin, President *
Michael Feldberg. PhD, Director and Series Editor
2 Thorton Road, Waltham. MA 02453
Interview of Member of Knesset, Galon,
“I Can't Require Text of Gov't Decision Before Debate”
By Aaron Lerner of IMRA Date: 15 June 2003
IMRA interviewed MK Zahava Galon (Meretz), in Hebrew, on 15 June 2003.
IMRA: I understand that you initiated the call for the Knesset session to
discuss the Cabinet's decision regarding the Roadmap.
Galon: Yes.
IMRA: Have you asked the Prime Minister's Office to provide the Knesset with
an official copy of the 14 Israeli "Remarks" regarding the Roadmap that were
attached to the cabinet decision before the Knesset session to be held this
Monday?
Galon: I haven't asked. I am not able obligate them to do this.
IMRA: As you know, the Prime Minister's Office has yet to release an
official copy of this document. So you are going to have a Knesset debate
without having an official copy of the document.
Galon: Yes. The procedure at the session is that I say what I have to say
and then the Prime Minister is supposed to give a report. This is not
actually a deliberation regarding the documents - unless he himself decides
to bring the documents. But I do not have the standing to demand that he
bring the 14 Remarks. Unfortunately.
IMRA: This is certainly an odd situation.
Galon: Yes. I agree with you.
[The following is the document that the Prime Minister has referred to
frequently in various official pronouncement and has declared to be "red
lines" yet continues to refuse to officially make public:
The Roadmap: Primary Themes of Israel's Remarks
1. Both at the commencement of and during the process, and as a condition to
its continuance. calm will be maintained. The Palestinians will dismantle
the existing security organizations and implement security reforms during
the course of which new organizations will be formed and act to combat
terror, violence and incitement (incitement must cease immediately and the
Palestinian Authority must educate for peace).
These organizations will engage in genuine prevention of terror and violence through arrests, interrogations, prevention and the enforcement of the legal groundwork for investigations, prosecution and punishment. In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas. Islamic Jihad. the Popular Front, the Democratic Front Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure, collection of all illegal weapons and
their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area
and destroyed., cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside
the Palestinian Authority, activation of the full prevention apparatus and
cessation of incitement. There will be no progress to the second phase
without the fulfillment of all above-mentioned conditions relating to the
war against terror.
The security plans to be implemented are the Tenet and Zinni plans. [As in the other mutual frameworks. the Roadmap will not state that Israel must cease violence and incitement against the Palestinians].
2. Full performance will be a condition for progress between phases and for
progress within phases. The first condition for progress will be the
complete cessation of terror, violence and incitement. Progress between
phases will come only following the full implementation of the preceding
phase. Attention will be paid not to timelines, but to performance
benchmarks (timelines will serve only as reference points).
3. The emergence of a new and different leadership in the Palestinian
Authority within the framework of governmental reform. The formation of a
new leadership constitutes a condition for progress to the second phase of
the plan. In this framework, elections will be conducted for the Palestinian
Legislative Council following coordination with Israel.
4. The Monitoring mechanism will be under American management. The chief
verification activity will concentrate upon the creation of another
Palestinian entity and progress in the civil reform process within the
Palestinian Authority. Verification will be performed exclusively on a
professional basis and per issue (economic, legal, financial) without the
existence of a combined or unified mechanism. Substantive decisions will
remain in the hands of both parties.
5. The character of the provisional Palestinian state will be determined
through negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
The provisional state will have provisional borders and certain aspects of
sovereignty, be fully demilitarized with no military forces, but only with
police and internal security forces of limited scope and armaments, be
without the authority to undertake defense alliances or military
cooperation, and Israeli control over the entry and exit of all persons and
cargo, as well as of its air space and electromagnetic spectrum.
6. In connection to both the introductory statements and the final
settlement, declared references must be made to Israel's right to exist as a
Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian
refugees to the State of Israel.
7. End of the process will lead to the end of all claims and not only the
end of the conflict.
8. The future settlement will be reached through agreement and direct
negotiations between the two parties, in accordance with the vision outlined
by President Bush in his 24 June address.
9. There will be no involvement with issues pertaining to the final
settlement. Among issues not to be discussed: settlement in Judea, Samaria
and Gaza (excluding a settlement freeze and illegal outposts), the status of
the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in Jerusalem, and all other
matters whose substance relates to the final settlement.
10. The removal of references other than 242 and 338 (1397, the Saudi
Initiative and the Arab Initiative adopted in Beirut). A settlement based
upon the Roadmap will be an autonomous settlement that derives its validity
therefrom. The only possible reference should be to Resolutions 242 and 338,
and then only as an outline for the conduct of future negotiations on a
permanent settlement.
11. Promotion of the reform process in the Palestinian Authority: a
transitional Palestinian constitution will be composed, a Palestinian legal
infrastructure will be constructed and cooperation with Israel in this field
will be renewed. In the economic sphere: international efforts to
rehabilitate the Palestinian economy will continue. In the financial sphere:
the American-Israeli-Palestinian agreement will be implemented in full as a
condition for the continued transfer of tax revenues.
12. The deployment of IDF forces along the September 2000 lines will be
subject to the stipulation of Article 4 (absolute quiet) and will be carried
out in keeping with changes to be required by the nature of the new
circumstances and needs created thereby. Emphasis will be placed on the
division of responsibilities and civilian authority as in September 2000,
and not on the position of forces on the ground at that time.
13. Subject to security conditions, Israel will work to restore Palestinian
life to normal: promote the economic situation, cultivation of commercial
connections, encouragement and assistance for the activities of recognized
humanitarian agencies. No reference will be made to the Bertini Report as a
binding source document within the framework of the humanitarian issue.
14. Arab states will assist the process through the condemnation of
terrorist activity. No link will be established between the Palestinian
track and other tracks (Syrian-Lebanese). ]
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il, Website: www.imra.org.il
Internation Jeruslem Post June, 2003
Maybe this population growth plus similar ones all over Europe is why the Canadian government and many in Europe have taken on so many anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and yes, anti-American stances.
But … I think it deeper than that – perhaps something called resentment, envy but also fear of violence from these dedicated, relentless zealots. “Maybe if we just leave them alone, they will go away?” Good luck! Woe to those that surrender to the pressure of the bully and his terrorism. His demands become endless. Each surrender begets another demand.
More Muslims than Jews in Canada, International Jerusalem Post, June 8, 2003
Canada's Jewish population rose 3.1 percent over the past decade, from 318,000 in 1991 to 330,000, and now accounts for 1.1 percent of the overall population, according to new census data released by the Canadian government last week. The study also showed that Muslims have now surpassed Jews as the second-largest religious group in the country, climbing by 129 percent from 253,000 to 579,600, with Muslims now accounting for 2 percent of Canada’s population.
(Item below for the critics of Goldhagen’s “Willing Executioners” which described in detail how Hitler had no shortage of willing killers of Jews throughout the nations of Europe. Is it not ironic that it is these same nations that are the sponsors of the so-call Roadmap to peace with the Arabs? Perhaps the Israelis and the USA should beware of allowing their enemies to dictate the terms of anything.)
Belgian complicity Belgian historians are to be given unprecedented access to private and public archives to investigate the complicity of Belgium's authorities in the deportation and death of the country's Jews during World War II.
Official figures show that 30,544 Jews of mixed European nationalities were deported from Belgium to death camps between 1942 and 1944. Only 1,524 survived and at least one-fifth of those who died were children.
Now the government has commissioned historians to "establish the eventual responsibility of the Belgian authorities for the deportation and persecution of the Jews," according— to a report in the London daily, The Guardian. The historians will consider the veracity of claims that the local authorities and police actively collaborated in rounding up Jews for deportation, compiled a national register of Jews which was handed over to the Nazis, enforced the wearing of the yellow Star of David, and scrupulously followed German orders relating to Belgium's Jewish community.
Jewish groups are also said to be pressing for an investigation into the role of the Catholic Church, which stayed silent throughout the deportations, and clarification of the role of certain Jewish by groups, which, they believe, collaborated with the Nazis.
As in France, the Belgian authorities have been reluctant to investigate the role of their officials, many of whom enthusiastically complied with the occupying Nazis and then went on to hold senior positions within the political and bureaucratic classes after the war.
The subject was taboo," says Jose Gotovitch, director of the Study and Documentation Center on War and Contemporary Society, the institute charged with carrying out the inquiry. “We needed the example of France to act. Pressure [to ignore the past] was very strong. Belgium's image during the war was even angelic."
Individuals in Belgium were tried for crimes, but an inquiry that was held
after the war did not examine the issue of deportations. More recently, an official
inquiry confined itself to the question financial compensation for Belgian
Jews whose property was confiscated. But Gotovitch noted that many of the officials accused of complicity in the deportation of Jews are dead when such an inquiry is finally possible. ##
by Michael Freund The Jerusalem Post, June 11, 2003
There is a story making its way around the Internet, as such stories
inevitably do, about a recent encounter which took place between US
President George W. Bush and one of his former Yale university classmates on
the eve of the president's much-publicized visit to the Auschwitz death camp
in Poland.In tones alternating between respect and outright veneration, the author tells us to have no fear, because the president assured him personally that he would not harm Israel's security.
"There he was--the most powerful man in the world--telling me once, then
reassuring me again, that Israel's security is of utmost importance to him",
notes the e-mail's author. And, lest we doubt the president's commitment, our faithful correspondent nforms us that Bush's pledge "was sealed with two firm hugs".
Not one, you see, but two.
Well, that certainly makes me feel better.
After all, it has barely been a week since Bush flew in to the Middle East
and forced Israel into submission, compelling the Jewish people to agree to
divide their land, create a terrorist state next door and forego the right
to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction.
Bush also embraced Palestinian prime minister and renowned Holocaust-denier
Abu Mazen as a man of peace, refused to compel the Arab states to normalize
relations with Israel, and effectively demanded that thousands of Jews be
thrown out of their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza against their will.
So, I guess it's a good thing that Israel's security is "of utmost importance" to him. Otherwise, we might really have reason to be worried. But worry we should, because by all indications, Bush has now decided to adopt the approach of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who continued to court the Palestinians even as they violated their commitments and carried out acts of terror against the Jewish state, all the while twisting Israel's arm to refrain from protecting its national interests.
It is interesting to note that before he was elected, Bush was singing a very different tune. He went to great lengths to differentiate himself from Clinton's policy on the Middle East peace process, which often seemed to stress speed over substance.
On May 22, 2000, in an address to AIPAC, Bush took a swipe at the
Clinton-Gore team, saying, "In recent times, Washington has tried to make
Israel conform to its own plans and timetables. This is not the path to
peace."
Subsequently, in October 2000, in his third presidential debate with Al
Gore, Bush again attacked Clinton, stressing that "the next leader needs to
be patient. We can't put the Middle East peace process on our timetable.
It's got to be on the timetable of the people that we're trying to bring to
the peace table. We can't dictate the terms of peace."
Yet now, just two-and-a-half years later, that is exactly what Bush is
attempting to do. In laying out the road map leading to the creation of a
Palestinian state, Bush has sought both to impose a series of timetables as
well as to dictate the outcome of the process.
In other words, he's become George W. Clinton, only without the intern.
And so, we now find ourselves once again confronting an awfully similar
scenario, one in which Israel is forced to make concessions even as the
Palestinians persist in killing Jews.
Indeed, in the first three days following Bush's June 4 summit in Aqaba,
there were a total of 24 Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis,
including shootings, bombings and rocket attacks.
Then, this past Sunday, five Israelis were murdered in yet another
post-Aqaba measure of the Palestinian commitment to peace.
And so how did the Bush team react to this new spasm of Palestinian
violence? Why, by turning up the pressure on Israel, of course.
The Sharon government's sudden decision on Monday to start dismantling
Jewish outposts in the territories reportedly came about only after America
demanded immediate action on the issue. Within hours, the bulldozers were
unleashed, and Jewish homes were under assault.
It is safe to assume that the lack of an Israeli military response to the
recent spate of Palestinian attacks is also the result of Washington's
diktat, since the Jewish right to self-defense was apparently not considered
worthy of inclusion in the road map.
At first glance, it is difficult to comprehend the Bush team's infatuation
with the new Palestinian premier. Since assuming his post, Mahmoud Abbas
(a.k.a. Abu Mazen) hasn't shut down a single terrorist training camp, he has
not confiscated any illegal weapons, and he has failed to halt anti-US and
anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media.
Not one terrorist group has been disarmed or disbanded, and no Palestinian
terrorists have been arrested or detained by the security forces under Abbas' control. And, in a press conference held Monday in Ramallah, Abbas openly ruled out the possibility of confrontation with terrorist groups such as Hamas andIslamic Jihad, saying only that he would use "dialogue" in his dealings with them. Nevertheless, despite Abbas' dismal record, Bush and his aides continue to deny reality, overlooking the Palestinian leader's failure to do more than just offer up a few platitudes about peace.
Nowhere was this willful obfuscation more on display than in US Secretary of
State Colin Powell's interview on Fox News Sunday, where he said, "We've
made our choice. We are going to be supporting Prime Minister Abbas."
And so, it doesn't really seem to matter whether or not Abbas lives up to
his end of the bargain. Either way, the Bush team will not hold him
accountable, because, as Powell so clearly stated, "We've made our choice."
This, too, is a throwback to the Clinton era, when Washington purposefully
made a choice to overlook PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's complicity in terror,
just because it conflicted with their vision for resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
But as the decade since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords so amply
demonstrated, such an approach is not only short-sighted, it can be deadly
too, for it sends the Palestinians a dangerous message, leading them to
believe that they can murder Israelis with impunity.
On a flight to South America this past Monday, Colin Powell told reporters
that regardless of the recent attacks on Israel, "we can't let the
terrorists win." What he fails to realize is that by following in Clinton's footsteps, and pressing for the establishment of a Palestinian state, that is precisely
what he and his boss in the White House are doing.
The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in
the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
How terribly frightening and depressing that the survival of a whole nation, a whole people, depends upon the poorly determined decisions of a handful of inept politicians.
Misreading The Map
BY HERB KEINON, The International Jerusalem Post, June 6, 2003
Behind the cabinet's historic decision last week to adopt the American road map lurk failures of intelligence and teamwork The unmistakable "music" coming out of the Prime Minister's Office in the weeks leading up to last Sunday's cabinet acceptance of the road map was that the Bush administration understood Israel and would support its position. True, President George W. Bush made comments in the White House Rose Garden in mid-March about the map being the practical implementation of his Middle East vision speech of June 24, but this was largely chalked up here as either pandering to the Arabs before the war in Iraq, or trying to throw a bone to ally Tony Blair.
The message that won the day inside the Prime Minister's Office was that of Sharon's all-powerful bureau chief Dov Weisglass: "Don't worry, the Americans understand us. The Americans are with us." As a result, Israel tried to ignore the map, concentrating instead on Bush's "vision." Weisglass's insistence that the White House understood Israel's positions led to strain with Ephraim Halevy, head of the National Security Council, who warned in internal meetings that Israel was on a collision course with the US over the plan.
Halevy, however, was effectively sidelined on this issue. And then, lo and behold, the country woke up last Sunday to headlines that the Bush administration is indeed pressing Israel to bring the road map to the cabinet, and that Jerusalem's long-discussed reservations would not be included.
The Americans may have understood Israel's position, but they didn't necessarily agree. Rather than incorporate Israel's reservations in the text, or provide side letters that would have anchored Israel's position, the White House released a statement saying it shares Israel's view that these are "real concerns," and "will address them fully and seriously in the implementation of the road map." Whatever that means?
The point is that the country was presented with one picture of Washington's position, and woke up to another. And this is not the first time with this administration. Prior to the January elections, Sharon and his staff had the electorate believing the loan guarantees and financial aid Israel needed from the US were in the bag. Reality, however, was somewhat different. Instead of $8 billion in loan guarantees, Israel got $9 billion, and instead of $4 billion in aid, Israel received $1 billion.
The same misreading of American intentions was reflected in the overly rosy scenarios painted here for the "day after" Iraq. The PM's office would have had us believe the war would change all parameters, reduce pressure on Israel, make it easier to get rid of Yasser Arafat, and even perhaps sweep the road map off the table. But none of this happened.
Which makes one wonder about some of the government's other major assumptions. At a press briefing on Sunday following the cabinet meeting, two senior government officials speaking off the record said it is dear to the Americans that serious moves by the Palestinians to tackle terror are preconditions to any significant Israeli action on the road map. When reminded that the language of the map states that the steps should be taken in parallel, the thrust of the reply was: "Don't worry, the Americans are with us on
this."
No matter how one views this week's cabinet decision, one thing is clear: Israel misread US intentions - and not for the first time.
Which raises a fundamental question: How can there have been such faulty diplomatic intelligence? The obvious place to look is at the embassy in Washington. After month of feuding between Sharon and his then foreign minister Shimon Peres over who should be named ambassador to the US, a compromise candidate was finally agreed upon – Danny Ayalon. Ayalon, Sharon's foreign policy adviser for two years, went to Washington with no ambassadorial experience, and without the personal clout of his predecessors – people such as Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Arens, Zaiman Shoval, Itamar Rabinovich, Simcha Dinitz and Moshe Arad.
The road map started to move in August, a short time after Ayalon arrived. That Sharon was reportedly caught by surprise when Bush presented him with a draft of the plan during his October visit does not speak well of the diplomatic intelligence job the embassy performed. One must also look at the Foreign Ministry. Where was the minister when the plan was first floated, and why was the ministry not working either to nip it in the bud if the government felt it didn't reflect Israel's interests, or at the very least get Israel's reservations incorporated into it? One reason is that back in September, the Foreign Ministry was in the hands of Shimon Peres and his director-general Avi Gil, for whom the map was welcome.
In November, Benjamin Netanyahu took over the Foreign Ministry for a short stint, and immediately called the road map into question, saying it should be pushed off until after the war in Iraq. However, everything Netyanyahu said was viewed in the context of his race against Sharon for the Likud leadership. Much of the heavy work on the map took place from mid October until the second draft was published on December 20. It was during this period that the Quartet members - the US, EU, UN and Russia – along with the Palestinians and other Arab countries, were busy providing input. The Prime Minister's Office and Foreign Ministry, however, were much less involved - with Sharon and Netanyahu engaged instead in an election dog-fight. The result was that Israel's reservations were not incorporated into the December 20 plan, and - despite expectations - were not incorporated afterward either.
The final point in this triangle is the Prime Minister's Office, which has pretty much single-handedly run interference on this issue with Washington. And the person doing the leg work there was Weisglass who traveled to the US on numerous occasions since December to thrash out the road map. A successful lawyer, Weisglass –bureau chief in April 2002. Weisglass's critics ask whether he might have missed some nuances that those with more experience may have picked up. In addition, the internal discussions of the plan took place behind closed doors in the Prime Minister's Office - without the input of the Knesset or the cabinet. In addition, the Prime Minister's Office was operating on certain assumptions that - in retrospect -seem to have been faulty. The first was a tendency to over-play the divisions between the State Department and the White House and a penchant to disregard the clear signals corning from the State Department that it viewed the plan with utmost seriousness.
The second assumption was that the close personal relationship between Sharon and Bush would keep Bush from any arm twisting. It did not. The third assumption was that the Palestinians would not take the reform measures needed to get to the road map's starting gates. And the final mistaken assumption was that if Israel just rode out the Iraqi war - showing restraint and acting "responsibly" – new diplomatic vistas would open up, making the road map irrelevant. Paradoxically, Iraq - and Sharon's reticence in the run up and during the war to enter into a conflict with Bush - kept the government from seriously challenging the road map. Instead, the opposite took place. Saddam Hussein is out of the way, "Iraq" has come and gone, but the road map is being pursued more forcefully now than ever. ##
By Michele Malkin, The Washington Times, June 8, 2003
Do you believe that a "post-September 11 backlash" has resulted in a nationwide wave of violence and bigotry against Muslims in the United States? The hype artists and book-cookers at the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) want you to think so. The group's new report purports to document "a massive increase" of hate crimes targeting Arab-Americans. But in order to concoct a Muslim hate-crime epidemic, the ADC report lumps together faulty citations, dubious anecdotes and grossly over inflated claims.
As an example of a typical post-September 11 campuses hate crime, the ADC report highlights an alleged incident in Tempe, Ariz., where "a Muslim student was pelted with eggs at Arizona State University." From where did the information about the incident come? The ADC refers to a student op-ed piece in the Sept. 17, 2001, edition of the Arizona Daily Wildcat, which attributes the egg-pelting incident to a "National Public Radio report." What the ADC is not telling you: Of two egg-pelting incidents involving ASU students logged by campus police, one was a complete hoax and the other was a non-racial, nonreligious} juvenile prank.
As I reported in a column back in October 2001, ASU student Ahmad Saad Nasim lied to cops about being assaulted and pelted with eggs in a parking lot while assailants screamed "Die, Muslim die." Mr. Nasim confessed to fabricating the attack when cops interviewed him after he attempted a second hate-crime hoax in which he locked himself in a library restroom with the word "Die" written on his forehead, a plastic bag tied over his head and a racist note stuffed in his mouth.
Bin Fitzgerald, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, told me two weeks ago that Mr. Nasim recently pled guilty to two counts of providing false information to police. His punishment? A measly one year's probation, 50 hours of community service and an order to seek psychological counseling.
The other egg-pelting incident at ASU involved two 18-year-olds and two juveniles who threw an egg at an unidentified, 31-year- old ASU student. University spokeswoman Nancy Neff told me police never classified it as a hate crime. No racial or ethnic slurs were allegedly uttered, according to a police account. "It was a bunch of guys on a joy ride," Ms. Neff said.
The ADC researchers' approach to creating the myth of the Muslim hate-crime epidemic is simple: throw in everything plus the kitchen sink. The ADC report trivializes a few truly heinous, violent attacks — such as the post-September 11 murder of Sikh gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi in Mesa, Ariz. — by mixing in unverified reports by schoolchildren who say classmates made fun of their Arabic names, gave them "dirty looks" or pulled off their head coverings. Obnoxious behavior, for sure. But "hate crimes"? The report cites a female student complaining that someone told her to "go back to wherever she came from." I get one or two idiotic e-mails expressing the same sentiment every week. Small-mindedness can sting. But should it be a reportable physical offense?
To further pad the hate crimes report, the ADC decries the "hostile commentary" of Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes, terrorism expert Steven Emerson, syndicated columnists Mona Charen, Jonah Goldberg and Ann Coulter, Washington Post columnists Richard Cohen and Charles Krauthammer, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Weekly Standard, National Review and jewishworidreview.com, not to mention talk radio and the entertainment industry as part of an orchestrated "campaign of racism."
The ADC report suggests that every expression of support for law-enforcement profiling, every analysis of how the Muslim terrorist network has infiltrated American universities, mosques, prisons and charities, and every condemnation of radical Islam, qualifies as "defamation" that leads to widespread anti-Muslim crimes.
Herein lies the real agenda of the ADC and other apologists for Islamic extremism: to liken out-spoken critics to murderers, to equate speech with violence and to exploit victim hood status in a cynical attempt to distract attention from the true sources of terrorism in the United States.
Michelle Malkin is a nationally syndicated columnist
No Real Arab Moderates
BY DAN SCHEUFTAN, The International Jerusalem Post May 30, 2003
If the problem Israel faced with the Arab minority were one of a radical Islamic group laundering money for a terrorist organization in the occupied territories, it would have been simple. The courts could have decided if the evidence presented by the state is incriminating and conclusive, and the state could punish the individuals involved or outlaw the radical group.
The problem, however, is much wider. The democratically elected leadership of the Arabs in Israel, with consistent and overwhelming public support, presents the Jewish majority with a far more fundamental challenge. The challenge is not to a specific policy of one particular government, but to the basic tenets of the State of Israel. This includes the outright rejection of the Jewish nation-state, total identification with Israel's worst enemies, and at least understanding, if not outright sympathy, for the violent means employed by these enemies against the Jewish population.
For decades, Arabs in Israel advocated the establishment of a PLO-led Palestinian state. They marched under the banner of "two states for two peoples." Now that Israel is officially committed to a two-state policy, the cat is out of the bag: They accept the establishment of an Arab state for the Palestinians, but reject a Jewish state alongside it.
A close examination of the universalist slogans they have learned to recite reveals that they propose a mechanism that will first undo the Jewish state (calling it "a state of all its citizens) then change the demographic balance (through the elimination of the Jewish Law of Return and the introduction of the Arab "right of return") to turn the only Jewish nation-state into another enchanting Arab state.When it comes to the rejection of the Jewish nation-state, to the identification with its enemies and to the understanding towards the violence against the Jewish population, there is no real difference between "Islamic radicals" and other so-called "moderates."
All the leaders delegitimize the Jewish state, and only differ when it comes to the brand of the terrorist organization closest to their hearts: Hamas and Ahmed
Yassin for the Islamic movement, and MK Abdul Malik Dahamshe; Tanzim and Yasser Arafat for MKs Ahmed Tibi and Muhammad Barakei; Hizbullah and Nasrallah for MKs Azmi Bishara and Jamal Zkhalka. Another MK, Tateb a-Sana, called a terrorist action in the heart of Tel Aviv "a legitimate struggle."
The real problem for Israel is not that its Arab citizens will dictate their perverted version of self-determination that denies it to the Jewish people, or that Palestinian terrorism will dictate Arafat’s will. Israel is strong enough to prevent both. The problem is that the hostility elected Arab leaders manifest will convince the mainstream of the Jewish majority that the Arabs within are as much an enemy as the Palestinians without.
The dramatic increase in the involvement of Israeli Arabs in terrorist actions inside Israel, and the massive financial assistance to the terrorism-supporting infrastructure the Islamic Movement is suspected of providing, will not help.
The writer is a senior fellow at the National Security Studies Center of the University of Haifa and at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
By Bill O’Reilly, Washington Times June 8, 2003
If personal perfection was the standard for making moral pronouncements no one would be able to make any. And that is the goal of the secularists, a judgment-free society. They believe there is no place in American society for standards of conduct based on moral principles. The secularists want a behavioral free-fire zone, and God, pardon the spiritual reference, help you if you disagree with that.
Bill O'Reilly is a nationally syndicated columnist and talk show host
Slaves to a New System
By Lucas Morel
"We've come a long way from the glory days of the civil rights movement, which culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. These were to
guarantee the full participation of black Americans in the social and political life of a nation that long treated them as strangers in a strange land.
"Unfortunately, the desire for quick results transformed affirmative action from a policy of equal treatment under the law —and punishment for its violation —to a system mandating racial representation. Pressured by calls for 'Black Power!' and white guilt for the sins of the past, government began treating citizens not as individuals with rights but as subjects to whom benefits or burdens were granted according to racial categories. This misplaced priority has masked a quota-driven admissions policy that simply accepts students according to racial percentages in society. [...]
"When asked what the black man wanted, Frederick Douglass consistently replied: 'Give him fair play, and let him alone.' Americans black, white, and in between, should ask no more and no less of their common government."
Lucas Morel, writing on "Equality, Liberty and American Diversity," in the May issue of On Principle
Cardinal Keeler says church committed to its friendship with Jews
By Tracy Early, Catholic News Service
FAIRFIELD, Conn. (CNS) -- Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore told an interreligious group of seminarians that the commitment of the Catholic Church to friendship with Jews would continue regardless of who the next popes may be.
Pope John Paul II has taken notable steps to advance relations, but the new approach of the church is now firmly embedded in its teaching and does not depend on which individual may later be chosen for the papacy, the cardinal said.
The church's teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations is now set forth "at all levels," he said, and has the affirmation of the Second Vatican Council's 1965 declaration "Nostra Aetate," which repudiated all forms of anti-Semitism and called on Catholics to build mutual respect and understanding with Jews.
Cardinal Keeler was the concluding speaker of a June 2-4 institute at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield for Catholic, Protestant and Jewish seminarians.
About 20 male and female seminarians from a dozen institutions, including four men from St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, attended what was the fourth annual institute sponsored by the university's Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding.
Rabbi Joseph H. Ehrenkranz, center director, called Cardinal Keeler, an adviser to the center, "a great leader of the Catholic people and a great leader of the dialogue."
For the seminarians, the cardinal did not present a formal lecture, but recounted some of his experiences in Jewish relations and responded to questions.
He had each student introduce himself or herself at the beginning, and heard that some were studying to become teachers but not planning to seek ordination. When he finished his session with them, he went around to shake hands and speak with each one individually.
In the presentation, the seminarians got a view of important events in Catholic-Jewish relations, over the past two decades particularly, from someone who has played a key role at national and international levels.
Cardinal Keeler told how he as former chairman of the bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs had worked with top Jewish leaders and Catholics such as the late Cardinal John J. O'Connor of New York and the former president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands.
Their ability to work cooperatively with mutual respect, Cardinal Keeler said, enabled them to defuse controversies such as one in 1987 over the pope giving an audience to Kurt Waldheim, then the president of Austria, who was accused of participating in Nazi crimes.
There was "not much understanding" in the Catholic community of why that would be a problem, but it was a major issue for Jews, he said. However, he said that he also pointed out that many Catholics suffered from the Nazis, and Jewish charges about the alleged silence of the church during the Holocaust were "offensive to us."
Recounting other top-level discussions, he said that in the years when the Vatican had not yet entered into diplomatic relations with Israel, Jews were assured that the reservations were not theological but based on human rights concerns. After Israel and the Palestinians entered into the Oslo peace process, the Vatican saw ways those concerns could be addressed, he said.
But, he said, he pointed out that Jewish organizations had been among the strongest opponents of the Vatican having diplomatic relations with the United States.
Adding flavor, Cardinal Keeler gave the seminarians sidebar stories such as one about a Catholic-Jewish group eating lunch at a Rome hotel owned by the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher -- one of very few occasions, he speculated, when a kosher meal was served on plates bearing crusader crosses.
Asked by a Jewish seminarian what he would like the Jewish community to be told about the Catholic Church, Cardinal Keeler said the first thing would be "what the church really teaches about Jewish relations."
Although not every individual Catholic expresses the church's outlook perfectly, the message of "Nostra Aetate" has set the church's official direction, and this is what is taught to future priests in Catholic seminaries, he said.
Cardinal Keeler said that during a recent appearance at a synagogue he talked about "Nostra Aetate," and found its message was "new to the rabbi." So there is still a need to tell people about it, he added.
The cardinal said in response to another question, however, that the theological implications of the "Nostra Aetate" statements about Jews have not been fully worked out.
The relationship of the church to the Jews "transcends our understanding, but we're now trying to explicate it," he said.
But Catholics do not make Jews special targets for conversion in the way some other Christian groups do, he noted.
Cardinal Keeler also asked that Jewish congregations be told about the Catholic Church's commitment to religious freedom. ##
Thanks Ski-Nose, for the Memories
Redacted from Pruden on Politics, The Washington Times, June 8, 2003
Like so many typical Americans, Leslie Townes ( Bob) Hope was an American by choice, coming with his family to Cleveland when he was 4. ("I left England as soon as I found out I wasn't eligible to become king.") He joined a vaudeville troupe as a teenager, once working "third billing to Siamese twins" and sometimes as warm-up for Fatty Arbuckle. He even worked for a while as a newspaper reporter before going to Hollywood just as the movies were entering their golden era.
He and his pal Bing Crosby (who coined the mock insult "Ol' Ski-nose") invented the road movie. Critics panned their slapstick humor decorated with gorgeous babes like Dorothy Lamour and Jane Russell, but the movies earned millions.
After another disappointing night at the Hollywood Academy Awards, Hope once said, "I would have won the Academy Award if not for one thing: my pictures. Academy Award night at my house was called Passover.”
Are they indeed the "root cause” of violence In the Middle East?
One of the enduring myths about the Arab-Israeli conflict is that the "settlements" in Judea/Samaria (often called the "West Bank") are the source of the conflict between the Jews and the so-called "Palestinians." If that problem were solved—in other words, if Israel would turn Judea/Samaria over to the "Palestinians"—peace would prevail and the century-old conflict would be ended.
What are the facts?
Erroneous Assumptions: Various fallacies and erroneous assumptions underlie that belief, so often repeated that even those who are friendly to Israel, even many Jews in Israel and in the United States, have come to accept it. Our government, generally friendly to and supportive of Israel, has bought into the myth of the "settlements;" it has regularly and insistently requested that the "settlements" be abandoned and, one supposes, be turned over lock, stock, and barrel to those who are sworn to destroy Israel.
The very designation of the Jewish inhabitants of Judea/Samaria as "settlers" is inappropriate because it connotes something foreign, intrusive and temporary, something that is purposefully and maliciously imposed.
But that is nonsense of course. Why would the quarter-million Jews who live in Judea/Samaria be any more "intrusive" or any more "illegal" than the more than one million Arabs who live in peace in what is called "Israel proper" or west of the so-called "green line"? Nobody considers their presence as intrusive; nobody talks of them as an obstacle to peace.
Most of us, regrettably perhaps, are too worldly and too "sophisticated" to put much stock in the argument that the territories in question, Judea and Samaria, are indeed the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people that they were promised by God to Abraham and his seed in perpetuity.
Jews have lived in that country without interruption since Biblical times. There is no reason why they shouldn't live there now. Why should Judea/Samaria be the only place in the world (except for such countries as Saudi Arabia) where Jews cannot live?
Legal Aspects: But how about the legal aspect of this matter?
Isn't the "West Bank" "occupied territory" and therefore the Jews have no right to be there? But the historic reality is quite different. Very briefly: The Ottoman Empire was the sovereign in the entire area. After World War I, the British were awarded the Mandate over what was then called Palestine; it composed present-day Israel (including Judea/Samaria) and present-day Jordan. Article 6 of the Mandate "encouraged close settlement by the Jews on the land," including the lands of Judea/Samaria and Gaza (Yesha). That was later confirmed by the Balfour Declaration. Britain, for its own imperial reasons, separated 76 percent of the land—that lying beyond the Jordan River—to create the kingdom of Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) and made it inaccessible to Jews.
In 1947, tired of the constant bloodletting between Arabs and Jews, the British threw in the towel and abandoned the Mandate. The UN took over. It devised a plan by which the land west of the Jordan River would be split between the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews, though with heavy heart, accepted the plan. The Arabs virulently rejected if and invaded the nascent Jewish state with the armies of five countries, so as to destroy it at its birth.
Miraculously, the Jews prevailed and the State of Israel was born. When the smoke of battle cleared, Jordan was in possession of the West Bank and Egypt in possession of Gaza. They were the "occupiers" and they proceeded to kill many Jews and to drive out the rest. They systematically destroyed all Jewish holy places and all vestiges of Jewish presence. The area was "judenrein."
In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jews reconquered the territories. The concept that Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria is illegal and that the Jews are occupiers is bizarre. It just has been repeated so often and with such vigor that many people have come to accept it.
How about the "Palestinians," whose patrimony this territory supposedly is and about whose olive trees and orange groves we hear endlessly? There are no such people. They are Arabs—the same people as in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and beyond. Most of them migrated into the territories and to "Israel proper," attracted by Jewish prosperity and industry. The concept of "Palestinians" as applied to Arabs and as a distinct nationality urgently in need of their own twenty-third Arab state, is a fairly new one; it was not invented until after 1948, when the State of Israel was founded.
But here's a thought: How about a deal by which the "settlements" were indeed abandoned and all the Jews were to move to "Israel proper." At the same time, all the Arabs living in Israel would be transferred to Judea/Samaria or to wherever else they wanted to go. That would indeed make Judea/Samaria "judenrein," and what are now Arab lands in Israel would be "arabrein." The Arabs could then live in a fully autonomous area in eastern Israel and peace, one would hope, would descend on the holy land. (GOOD LUCK!)
FLAME Facts and Logic About the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359 • San Francisco, CA 94159
Gerardo Joffe, President
How very sad with only one end in sight.
By Ze'ev B. Begin Ha'aretz (Magazine section) June 2003
The cafes are open, even those that were shattered to pieces. The shopping
malls are packed with people, even the malls that were blown up. People take
the bus to work and thousands of picnickers swarm to the nature sites.
Couples are marrying, children are being born. The majority of the public
agrees with the statements by Israel's defense ministers that the country's
citizens are showing excellent resolve in the face of terrorism. That's not
true.
The logic of terrorism is cruel but simple: inducing governments to change
their positions by intimidating the citizens – hence the yardstick by which
to measure the effectiveness of terrorism. By that yardstick, there is only
one conclusion to be drawn from the Israeli case: The terrorism perpetrated
by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas against Israel has
been a very successful project.
For many years after 1967, Israeli governments and the majority of the
public objected to negotiations with the PLO, opposed the establishment of
an Arab state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, supported
the widening of Israel's borders to include parts of Samaria, Judea and the
Gaza District, insisted on the application of Israel's sovereignty to
greater Jerusalem, and were against the return of the Arab refugees into the
State of Israel.
Those positions have been eroded. Official negotiations with the PLO have been conducted for the past 10 years, the majority of the public does not oppose the establishment of an Arab state west of the Jordan and, moreover, the majority of the Jewish respondents in a March 1999 survey (conducted by Tel Aviv University's Steinmetz Center for Peace) thought that "the Palestinians' demand for an independent state is justified." So justified that last week the government, under Likud leadership, adopted a plan based on the vision of the establishment of an Arab state in the western Land of Israel.
On the Jerusalem question, the Israeli government in 2000 put forward an
official proposal according to which the city would be divided and on the
Temple Mount, Israel would make do with sovereignty over the subterranean
section. Regarding the border issue, the public and its leadership - all the
way to the far ends of the Israeli left - took a resolute position: The 1949
armistice lines demarcate the smallest territory to which Israel can agree.
Not any more. By 1996, high-ranking officials in Israel suggested that the
Gaza Strip be expanded at the expense of the Halutza area in the western
Negev. A look at the map shows that in this area, the proposal is congruent
with the United Nations' partition map of 1947.
So what's left? The last Zionist bastion: opposition to the return of Arab
refugees to the State of Israel. However, the foundations of that bastion,
too, are being undermined. In July, 2000, according to another survey by the
Steinmetz Center, 22 percent of the Jewish respondents supported the idea
"to allow 100,000 refugees to return to their former homes inside the Green
Line, that is, within the State of Israel." In January, 2001, an Israeli
cabinet minister and a member of the delegation to talks with the PLO at
Taba put forward a proposal for "a just solution for the Palestinian
refugees based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194, providing for their
return" [emphasis added - Z.B.B.]. In April, 2003, 32 percent of the Jewish
respondents in a survey agreed to the proposition that "a limited number of
refugees will return to Israeli territory within the framework of family
reunifications." Recently an Israeli jurist recommended (Haaretz, April 14,
2003, Hebrew edition) that Israel adopt the UN's proposed model for peace in
Cyprus, which includes the return of refugees in a quota limited to 10
percent of the population that will absorb them. In the Israeli case, that
would mean more than 500,000 refugees.
During this entire period, the basic positions of Hamas and the PLO remained
intact. Not an iota has been changed. The Palestinian Covenant, which
rejects the right of the Jews to maintain a Jewish state, has not been
annulled, as the chairman of the Palestinian National Council, Salim
Zaanoun, admitted in February, 2001. The demand to realize the refugees'
right of return to their original homes within Israel continues to be put
forward vehemently. The goal remains "Palestine, liberated and Arab," "from
the river to the sea," or, in the words of the late moderate, Faisal
Husseini, "We have to bring about the dissolution of the Zionist entity,
gradually."
How did all this come to pass? How, in the face of the rigid and steadfast
Arab stand, did the positions of the Israeli public and government move
closer to some of the positions of the PLO and Hamas? Since two-thirds of
the Jewish public repeatedly attributes to the Arabs the intention of
destroying Israel, the explanation for this phenomenon does not lie in
eruptions of good will or in a readiness to compromise in response to
reported softening in the position of the enemy. Only one reason can account
for that long-term change of positions: the pressure of terrorism.
The naive desire for "just a little respite" has been shown to be a powerful
agent of erosion. The horrors of repeated murders intimidated the public and
wore it down and induced Israel's governments to abandon their basic policy
guidelines. The only consistent element in the Israeli position has been the
constant retreat from its stated positions on issues that are critical to
the country's future. Evidently, terrorism works.
Submission to violence, under the alluring slogan "Don't be just, be wise,"
is not only morally but also practically flawed. The distress signals sent o
ut by Israel are received loud and clear in Gaza and Jenin, and are also
correctly deciphered. The tactical dispute there does not override the
logical conclusion of the leaders of the terrorist organizations that
violence is drawing them closer, step by step, to the realization of their
goals. That conclusion is not based on the wishful thinking of fired-up
zealots, but on a chain of irrefutable facts. This is how any observer with
eyes in his head would analyze the erasure of clear "red lines" and the
dissolution of solid Israeli positions.
Successful projects are not terminated, and contrary to the rumor that was
floated here about 60 years ago, our neighbors are not dumb. They can teach
us the value of soumud - of clinging to one's land and one's goal. They
adhere to Article 9 of the Palestinian Covenant, which asserts that: "Armed
struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall
strategy, not merely a tactical phase." They are watching and reading and
learning and understanding. They know that the Jews want to live well. Now.
From the knowledge they possess, which by now includes the economic
explanations by members of the Israeli government for their decision to
accept the "road map," despite their initial reluctance to do so, our
neighbors conclude that in order to live well now, the Jews are ready to
continue their retreat, both political and physical. Under these conditions
the prospect for peace is not small. It is nil.
Our peace activists resemble generals. The latter are convinced that the
campaign will be decided after they conquer just another hill, one more
chunk of a commanding terrain, while the former are certain that they need
just one more clandestine meeting in order to bring the ordeal to a happy
end. Following the failure of the Camp David summit in July 2000, Israel's
foreign minister stated that only four additional days were needed to reach
an agreement with the PLO. In January, 2001, upon the failure of the Taba
conference, he took a more sober approach: This time he declared that two
weeks were missing to complete the task.
Neither two weeks nor two months nor two years - because after years of
retreat, we hav