(How is it that the governing body of the 70 million world-wide member
Anglican Communion takes the Hebrew bible far more seriously than most of the 13 million Jews of the world and their religious and temporal organizations?)
Anglican churches in the U.S., Canada, face split over Gays
By Julia Duin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, March 6, 2005
The U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada must cease ordaining homosexuals and conducting blessings of same-sex unions by the year 2008 or withdraw from the worldwide - Anglican Communion, the denomination’s archbishops ruled Feb. 24. 2005. In the meantime, the two churches cannot participate in the governing body of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion, according to a five-page communiqué issued from a conference in Northern Ireland.
“There remains a very real question about whether North American churches are willing to accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion;’ the document said.
“We request the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of
Canada voluntarily withdraw” from the Anglican Consultative Council, which operates the day-to-day functions of the Anglican Communion under Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
The Rev. Jan Nunley, an Episcopal Church spokeswoman, said no decision had been made on whether the U.S. church, represented at the conference in Northern Ireland by Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, would abide by the request. The three U.S. members of the Anglican Consultative Council “will speak with the presiding bishop when he returns from Ireland [...],“ she said.
In the communiqué, 35 archbishops and presiding bishops representing the national churches on six continents gave their US and Canadian members until the summer of 2008 Lambeth Conference to decide whether to split from the world-wide body or adhere to Anglican policy that forbids both actions. The Americans and Canadians also have been summoned to a meeting in Nottingham, England, in June to explain why they departed from Anglican policies in both matters.
The Canadian church began conducting same-sex blessing ceremonies in May 2003 and the US. Episcopal Church in November, 2003 consecrating a homosexual bishop, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, a divorced man living with his male lover.
Bishop Griswold issued a brief statement February 24 admitting that the communiqué “will not please everyone.”…“It is important to keep in mind that it was written with a view to making room for a wide variety of perspectives," he said.
Several Episcopal dioceses, including the Diocese of Washington, have been conducting same-sex blessing ceremonies, although Washington Bishop John B. Chane has asked parishes to refrain from doing so while the matter is being debated in worldwide Anglicanism. However, Anglican bishops during the 1998 Lambeth Conference in England, voted in a statement saying sex between homosexuals is “incompatible with Scripture?" That policy still holds, the communiqué said. The statement is a victory for Anglican conservatives, who oppose the same-sex ceremonies and Bishop Robinson’s consecration.
The Rev. Martyn Minns, the canon at Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Va., who was in Ireland monitoring the meeting, was not willing to use the word “victory" but to describe the bishops’ findings, instead, calling them “a very strong rebuke. “It’s clear that the Americans and Canadians have been suspended for three years while they consider whether to be Anglicans or not," he said.
Several Anglican provinces already have split with the U.S. Episcopal Church over the Robinson matter, and several archbishops from Africa, Southeast Asia and South America have conducted services and offered Episcopal oversight for conservative Episcopal churches in dioceses with liberal bishops.
As to the Arab "Refugee Right of Return"
By Schmuel Katz, The International Jerusalem Post, October, 2003
The story of the Arabs who left the coastal areas of Palestine in the spring of 1948 encapsulates one of the great international frauds of the 20th century. The Arabs are the only declared "refugees" who became refugees by the initiative of their own leaders. The concoction of the monstrous charge that it was the Jews who had driven out the Arabs of Palestine was a strategic decision made by the leaders of the Arab League months after the Arabs' flight.
The Arab "refugees" were not driven out by anyone. The vast majority left at the order or exhortation of their leaders - always with the same reassurance - that it would help the Arab states in the war they were about to launch to destroy the State of Israel. The fabrication can most easily be detected by the simple circumstance that at the time the alleged expulsion of the Arabs by Zionists was in progress, nobody noticed it.
Foreign newspapermen abounded in the country, in daily contact with all sides -and they did in fact write about the flight of the Arabs, but even those most hostile to the Jews saw nothing to suggest that the flight was not voluntary. In the three months that the major part of the flight took place, the London Times, a newspaper most notably hostile to Zionism, published 11 leading articles on the situation in Palestine, in addition to extensive news reports. In none was there even a remote hint that the Zionists were driving Arabs from their homes.
Even more pertinent: No Arab spokesman made such a charge. At the height of the flight, the Palestinian Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, Jamal Husseini, made a long political statement (on April 27) that was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress) the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees.
Why did they leave? Monsignor GeorgeHakim, then Greek Catholic bishop of Galilee, the leading Christian personality in Palestine for many years, told a Beirut newspaper, Soda al-Janub, in the summer of 1948: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly, and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile." The initiative for the flight was indeed no secret. One of the famous American newspapermen of the time, Kenneth Bilby, who had covered Palestine for years, explained the Arab leaders' rationale for the flight in his book New Star in the East, published in 1950: "Let the Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab countries to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea."
There is also the piquant report in the files of the British police at Haifa, of how the leaders of the Jewish community pleaded with the leaders of the Arab community not to leave Haifa, and how the Arabs refused. There is too, in the annals of the UN Security Council, a speech by Jamal Husseini heaping praise on the Arabs of Haifa for refusing to stay put and insisting adamantly on leaving their homes. The British police then kindly provided transport and helped the Haifa Arabs across the Lebanese and Transjordanian borders.
When, four months after the invasion, the prospect of those that fled returning "in a few weeks" had faded, there were some recriminations. Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, said in an interview with the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. "The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem."
The policy adopted inside the country was emphasized by the leaders of the invasion. The prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Said, thundered: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." One of the Arabs who fled later succinctly summarized the story of the refugees in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Difaa: "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."
Later, after the fighting began, many Arab villagers who believed the false rumors of a massacre at the village of Deir Yassin "panicked and fled ignominiously before they were threatened by the progress of the war." So wrote the British general Sir John Glubb, who commanded the Transjordanian army. Throughout the war there were two incidents - at Ramie and Lod - in which a number of Arab civilians were driven out of their homes
by Israeli soldiers. The total number of Arabs, who evacuated, even according to the British Mandate's statistics, could not have been more than 420,000.
This figure conforms roughly also to the figure published from Arab sources, and by the UN. The central, horribly cruel fact is that the Arab states - who had brought about then- plight - denied them residence rights; and the idea was born that they should be left in camps and used as a weapon for Israel's destruction. "The return of the refugees," said president Nasser of Egypt years later, "will mean the end of Israel."
It was in the immediate aftermath of the war that the refugee scam was developed into an international operation. As soon as the UN Disaster Relief Organization started providing - food, shelter, clothing and medical attention to the Arabs who had fled Palestine, a mass of needy Arabs descended on the camps from all over the Arab states. The organization had no machinery for identification; so the arrivals simply signed the register as refugees and, received the free aid.
I
Already in December 1948, the director of the Relief Organization, Sir Rafael Cilento, reported he was feeding 750,000 "refugees." By July 1949 the UN reported a round million. The Red Cross International Committee joined the party. It pressed for the recognition of any destitute Arab in Palestine as a refugee. Thus about 100,000 were added to the list. To add a touch of mordant humor, the Red Cross authority wrote about the additional people that: "It would be senseless to force them to abandon their homes to be able to get food as refugees." So these people stayed at home, received their free services there, and were added to the rolls of the refugees
.
Thus - and by other more expectable means of humanistic falsification we have, in the third generation, a large amorphous mass of Arabs, all of them comfortably lumped together in official UN lists as Arab refugees, described as "victims of Israeli aggression" and demanding the right of "return."
While everybody in Israel has rejected the Arab demand for accepting the return of the "refugees," the government has not rejected the idea that if negotiations for a settlement take place the problem of the refugees will be discussed. Moreover, there has been talk of "compensation" by Israel. There have even been voices suggesting the return of a "symbolic few" of the refugees.
Israel must, from the outset and forever, unequivocally reject such ideas.
Once and for all Israel must remind whoever has to be reminded that the responsibility for the displaced Arabs lies wholly and absolutely on the shoulders of the Arab states. Their utterly unprovoked invasion of the territory of Israel in May 1948 was a crime. Its declared intent was a crime. Six thousand Israel citizens were killed in that war, and thousands of others were injured. It was the Arab states that called on the Arab population to evacuate, all in order to facilitate accomplishment of their evil purpose.
It is a chutzpa of historical dimensions and significance to ask Israel to even discuss giving an inch or paying a penny of the price of the refugee problem. And it is dangerous for any Israeli spokesman to even agree to take part in any discussion of the subject - at any forum or in any context whatsoever. Indeed, the Israeli government should long ago have declared - but even now it is not too late: "We shall not participate in any discussion of the so-called refugee problem. This is a problem the Arab nation must solve for itself in its own spacious territories."
The writer, a co-founder with Menachem Begin of the Herut Party and member of the first Knesset, is a biographer and essayist.
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Gaza is crucial to Israel's security"
On June 19, 1967, in the wake of the Six Day War, the U.S. Secretary of
Defense instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to present their "views,
without regard to political factors, on the minimum territory" that Israel
would be "justified in retaining in order to permit a more effective defense
against possible conventional Arab attack and terrorist raids."
Ten days later, the Joint Chiefs presented a report which concluded that
Israel needed to retain substantial portions of the Golan Heights, and
Judea-Samaria, and all of Gaza. With regard to Gaza, the Joint Chiefs
wrote:
"By occupying the Gaza Strip, Israel would trade approximately 45 miles of
hostile border for eight. Configured as it is, the strip serves as a salient for introduction of Arab subversion and terrorism, and its retention would be to Israel' s military advantage."
Throughout history, foreign armies have used Gaza as a springboard for
invading the Land of Israel, from Pharoah Sethos I in the 13th century BCE,
to Napoleon in 1799. The British army, under Allenby, used it as an
invasion route in 1917.
In 1948, Egypt used Gaza as its route to invade the newborn State of Israel.
Advancing through Gaza, the Egyptians soon reached Yavneh, just fifteen
miles from Tel Aviv. Several Jewish towns in Gaza, including Nitzanim, Yad
Mordechai, and Kfar Darom, were destroyed by the Egyptians and not rebuilt
until after Israel recaptured the area in 1967.
What prominent Israelis have said about Gaza:
* Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in 2002: "Netzarim [a Jewish town in
Gaza] is the same as Negba and Tel Aviv; evacuating Netzarim will only
encourage terrorism and increase the pressure upon us." (Arutz 7, Nov. 25,
2003)
* Then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said in 1988: "To just get up and
leave Gaza would be a mistake and a scandal. It would create a chaotic
situation, a situation like Lebanon; I don't suggest we take such a step."
(Israel Army Radio's "Good Evening, Israel" program, March 22, 1988)
* Yitzhak Rabin's Minister of Housing and Construction, Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer, said in 1993: "I wish I could believe that pulling out of Gaza
would solve the problems. But this won't solve anything and is only running
away from the problem which we have to face." (Jerusalem Post, March 9,
1993)
* In 1971, Yisrael Galili, a minister in the cabinet of Golda Meir's Labor
Party government, said that Gaza was "critical for Israel's security and
could never be given up." The Labor government began building fourteen
Jewish communities in Gaza. (Jerusalem Report, July 14, 2003)
The Jewish presence in Gaza dates back to biblical times:
Gaza has been a part of the Land of Israel since biblical times. The
borders of Israel specified in Genesis 15 clearly include Gaza, and it is
described in Joshua 15:47 and Judges 1:18 as part of the inheritance of the
tribe of Judah, and in Kings it is included in the areas ruled by King
Solomon. The area came under foreign occupation during some periods, but the Jewish king Yochanan, brother of Judah the Maccabee, recaptured Gaza in 145 CE and sent Jews to rebuild the community there.
Throughout the centuries, there was a large Jewish presence in Gaza in
fact, it was the largest Jewish community in the country at the time of the
Muslim invasion (7th century CE). Medieval Christian visitors to the region
mentioned the presence of the Jewish community in Gaza including Giorgio
Gucci of Florence (1384), Bertandon de la Brooquiere (1432), Felix Fabri (14
83), and George Sandys (1611). So did Jewish travelers, such as Benjamin of
Tudela and Meshullam of Voltera (1481).
The medieval Jewish communities of Gaza included many famous rabbinical
authorities, among them Rabbi Yisrael Najara, author of the 16th-century
hymn Kah Ribbon Olam, which to this day is sung at Shabbat tables throughout
the Jewish world, and the kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Azoulai, author of the
famous book Hessed L'Avraham. Writing about the question of whether or not
there living in Gaza fulfills the biblical requirement [mitzvah] to live in
the Land of Israel, the famous sage Rabbi Yaakov Emden, in his book Mor
Uketziya, wrote: "Gaza and its environs are absolutely considered part of
the Land of Israel, without a doubt. There is no doubt that it is a mitzvah
to live there, as in any part of the Land of Israel."
The Jews of Gaza were forced to leave the area when Napoleon's army marched
through in 1799, but they later returned. The Jewish community in Gaza was
destroyed during the British bombardment in 1917, but later it was rebuilt
again. When Palestinian Arab threatened to slaughter the Jews of Gaza
during the 1929 pogroms, the British ruling authorities forced the Jews to
leave. But in 1946, the Jews returned, establishing the town of Kfar Darom
in the Gaza Strip, which lasted until 1948, when Egypt occupied the area.
Rewarding terrorists is wrong -- and dangerous:
During the past three years, Palestinian Arab terrorists have carried out
tens of thousands of terrorist attacks against Israel, murdering nearly
1,000 Israelis and maiming many more. The terrorists demand, among other
things, that Israel withdraw from Gaza and expel the Jewish residents.
Terrorists, like all criminals, deserve to be punished for their crimes, not
rewarded. For Israel to withdraw from Gaza and expel the Jewish residents
would be to reward the terrorists. It would also encourage more terrorism,
by demonstrating to the terrorists that additional violence may bring about
additional Israeli concessions.
An Israeli withdrawal means creating a terrorist state in Gaza:
The Palestinian Authority regime currently administers parts of Gaza but
does has not have sovereignty, because of the presence of the Israeli Army.
The PA does not control the borders, does not control sea access to Gaza,
and does not have a full-fledged army. If Israel withdraws from the area,
the PA will be able to establish a sovereign state.
Such a state would certainly be a terrorist state, to judge by how the PA
has treated terrorists until now. It has not disarmed or outlawed terrorist
groups; it has not shut down their bomb factories; it has not closed down
the terrorists' training camps. It has rewarded terrorists with jobs in the
PA police force. In short, the PA has actively collaborated with and
sheltered terrorists. Moreover, the PA itself has sponsored thousands of
terrorist attacks against Israel.
The PA has also created an entire culture of glorification of terrorism and
anti-Jewish hatred in its official media, schools, summer camps, sermons by
PA-appointed clergy, and speeches by PA representatives. PA school
textbooks teach that Jews are "evil racists."
Creating a Palestinian Arab state in Gaza would not lead to peace:
Establishing a state in Gaza would not satisfy the Palestinian Arabs' goals.
The aim of a Palestinian Arab state would not be to live in peace next to
Israel, but to serve as a spring board for terrorism and invasions aimed at
annihilating the Jewish State. The PA makes no secret of its goal; the
official maps on PA letterhead, in PA schoolbooks and atlases, and even on
the patch worn on the uniforms of PA policemen show all of Israel not
just the disputed territories labeled "Palestine."
A Palestinian Arab state in Gaza would be an anti-American dictatorship:
The last thing the world needs now is yet another totalitarian,
anti-American terrorist state. Yet that is exactly what a Palestinian Arab
state in Gaza would be, judging by the behavior of the PA during the ten
years since it was created. The PA is a brutal Muslim dictatorship that
tortures dissidents, silences newspaper that deviate from the PA line, and
persecutes Christians. The official PA media actively incite hatred against
America, and the PA maintains warm relations with the most anti-American
regimes in the world, including Iran, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea.
Zionist Organization of America
www.zoa.org
Morton A. Klein, National President
(But I’m not so sure about the 70 male virgins waiting in heaven)
By Abraham Rabinovich, The Washington Times, February 1, 2004
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian mother of two small children, who killed four Israelis by blowing herself up at a border crossing, carried out the suicide bombing to atone for having committed adultery. The attack two weeks ago marked the first time the militant group Hamas had used a female bomber, part of an evolving belief that women who are disgraced by sexual activity outside marriage can "purify" themselves by becoming "martyrs, Israeli
security officials said.
The officials, who closely monitor the evolving ideology of the Islamic militant organization, spoke to reporters in the wake of the Jan. 14 attack by 22-year-old Reem Raiyshi. Raiyshi left her 18-month-old daughter, Doha, and her 3-year-old son, Obedia, and blew herself up at the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, killing three soldiers and a private Israeli security guard.
The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot first reported that the woman was compelled to carry out the attack as atonement for betraying her husband with another man. According to the report, based on Israeli military sources, Raiyshi's husband is a Hamas operative who urged her to carry out the suicide mission. The Associated Press, citing Israeli security officials, reported on Jan. 19 that Raiyshi was an adulteress forced to carry out the attack to restore her family's honor. It is not uncommon for Palestinian women accused of adultery or of having sex before marriage, to be killed by their families trying to rid themselves of perceived disgrace.
The officials told AP on condition of anonymity that Raiyshi's illicit lover recruited her, giving her the suicide bomb belt. Palestinian security officials said her husband drove her to Erez to carry out the attack. After the bombing, Raiyshi's family refused to speak to reporters, a rarity in these cases, and did not set up a mourning tent for her. Her brother-in-law, Yousef Awad, said the bomber and her husband had had a huge argument with the family two months ago and had not been seen since. He refused to elaborate.
Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin told reporters in the Gaza Strip on Jan. 19 that the militant group would look to women to step up and fulfill their "obligations." He suggested male bombers were increasingly being held back by Israeli security measures.
By Jerome S. Kaufman
“Our enemies asked for war and war is what they got", President G.W. Bush
Walter Mitty, as usual, took over my dreams the very night President GW gave his State of the Union Address. But, President Bush's lean, fit, body suddenly had an Ariel Sharon head with Sharon saying the words "Israel" or "Israeli people" where President Bush would have said the "United States" or "American people". Some of the quotes of the speech follow below. Maybe you can make the image and word changes of my dream? It makes a very comforting illusion.
". We will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people."
" … The country has many challenges. We will not deny. We will not ignore and we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses (Knessets), to other presidents and other generations. We will confront them with focus and clarity and courage."
"As we fight this war, we will remember where it began -- here, in our own country. This government is taking unprecedented measures to protect our people and defend our homeland."
"In the Middle East, we will continue to seek peace between a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine" (Phew! That was really a great part of the dream since I did not have to worry about a Palestinian State anymore what with "democratic and " Palestinian" being an oxymoron)
". We have the terrorists on the run. We're keeping them on the run. One by one, they are learning the meaning of American justice." (Evidently Sharon gave up on making truces with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah having noticed that Bush did not make truces with the Taliban and Al Qaeda)
"Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. . Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men -- free people will set the course of history. (Applause.)
".. Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others. (Applause.) Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people." (Applause.)
"We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all."
"Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers."
We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know -- we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.
May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
But, then I woke up and realized it was just another one of my Walter Mitty dreams - a damn lie with Ariel Sharon going back to his large body and not substituting the words "Israel and Israeli people" for "United States and American people" at all.
And, I will never understand why this simple transition is so difficult.
(Now if the Israelis would only allow Economics Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get rid of the repressive elements of the Histadrut Labor Union and wrench Israel into the 21sst century of economics)
(A most thoughtful article by Saul Singer, Jerusalem Post International Jan. 9, 2004)
During the impressionable year after my 15th birthday, I lived on a kibbutz - Kissufim, to be exact, now in the news because of its proximity to the Gaza Strip, but then just a typical collective community enjoying the arid beauty of the northern Negev. Then, over a quarter of a century ago, the kibbutz existed in its original form. Most of the children slept in children's houses, rather than in their parents' homes a few, steps away. The dining room was a hub of activity, morning, noon, and night. I remember the bottoms of my feet strengthening
from walking around barefoot, the smell of Eucalyptus trees and tractors, and considering the bicycle a form of high-speed transportation.
A week ago, the United Kibbutz Movement, the largest group of kibbutzim, met to officially bless the dissolution of the original collectivist ideal into a construct I dubbed "renewed" kibbutzim. In a "renewed" kibbutz, members will own their own houses, be able to work outside the kibbutz, and receive differential salaries according to their contribution to the collective economy. Children's houses went by the wayside long ago, in favor of parents raising children in their own homes.
It is easy to sneer at the demise of the kibbutz as one more nail in the coffin of socialism. That it surely is, both because the kibbutz was socialism in its purest form and because the conditions afforded that experiment could not have been more favorable. The kibbutzim survived for years under the umbrella of a largely socialized system and so were able to enjoy government benefits without suffocating under the general collapse of a fully planned economy.
The irony is, that if our economy had gone further and faster in the free market direction and was growing at a nice clip then the kibbutzim might be thriving today. The richer a kibbutz is the more it can afford to stick to socialism.
But the kibbutz was not just an economic experiment but also a social one. When I lived on a kibbutz, I thought it was smart to give kids some distance, however small, from their parents. I saw how it produced kids who tended to appreciate their parents more, and had less need to go through the normal adolescent rebellion against them.
Yet the children's houses were scrapped long ago, irrespective of the economic woes that scuttled other sacred beliefs. What this shows is the power of human nature, and the futility of social and economic systems that try to reshape that nature rather than take advantage of it.
Another irony was that the kibbutz, a system designed to eliminate materialism and competition, produced opposite results. Kibbutzniks were often extremely competitive, to their credit, whether in sports or the military. And it is hard to escape the materialism of the classic kibbutz obsession over whether one member had a better television, or somehow benefited from a wealthy uncle, and so on.
Though there are religious kibbutzim, it is no coincidence that most are archly secular, because the kibbutz philosophy was ultimately very un-Jewish. Judaism, its ultra-Orthodox offshoot notwithstanding, is the most respectful of human nature of the three Abrahamic religions. Other religions deal with human vices by going to the opposite extreme, thereby turning asceticism, pacifism, and abstinence into ideals. The attempt to tame materialistic instincts by creating pure equality is of the same cloth.
The question is often asked why the Bible not only begins with stories rather than laws, but with such unsavory descriptions of the Patriarchs that we recall so prominently in the daily prayers. We remind ourselves that we are descended from Jacob, who manipulated his brother and fooled his father in order to obtain the birthright, to mention one among many unsavory incidents. Maybe the purpose of this is not to forget our ancestors’ foibles but to confirm that there is no perfection in humanity, that the ideal is not perfection, but to manage imperfection? Kari Marx was a Jewish anti-Semite who wrote that "Money... is the Jew's real God." As a socialist, he was right to see Judaism as the enemy because capitalism is based on a very Jewish idea: adapting the problematic sides of human nature for good.
Judaism does not try to ban alcohol, sex, or competition, but to co-opt and channel them. Wine becomes part of hallowing the Sabbath, as doe’s sex with one's spouse. Capitalism channels human traits like ambition and greed in a way that does not prevent their abuse, but also produces critical byproducts, such as the ultimate elimination of poverty. Capitalism even contains within it the potential of increasing freedom from competition. The record shows that richer societies are more charitable, allow for many non-material luxuries rare in poor societies such as high literacy, support for the arts, and cleaning up the environmental mess created by an economy's industrial phase.
I had a good kibbutz experience, and I know many people whose lives have been similarly enriched. The kibbutz would be a sad thing to lose. But I would rather lose the kibbutz than squash human nature.
(Now if the Israelis allow Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get rid of the repressive elements of the Histadrut Labor Union and wrench Israel into the 21st century of economics)
(A most thoughtful article by Saul Singer, Jerusalem Post International Jan. 9, 2004)
During the impressionable year after my 15th birthday, I lived on a kibbutz - Kissufim, to be exact, now in the news because of its proximity to the Gaza Strip, but then just a typical collective community enjoying the arid beauty of the northern Negev. Then, over a quarter of a century ago, the kibbutz existed in its original form. Most of the children slept in children's houses, rather than in their parents' homes a few, steps away. The dining room was a hub of activity, morning, noon, and night. I remember the bottoms of my feet strengthening
from walking around barefoot, the smell of Eucalyptus trees and tractors, and considering the bicycle a form of high-speed transportation.
A week ago, the United Kibbutz Movement, the largest group of kibbutzim, met to officially bless the dissolution of the original collectivist ideal into a construct I dubbed "renewed" kibbutzim. In a "renewed" kibbutz, members will own their own houses, be able to work outside the kibbutz, and receive differential salaries according to their contribution to the collective economy. Children's houses went by the wayside long ago, in favor of parents raising children in their own homes.
It is easy to sneer at the demise of the kibbutz as one more nail in the coffin of socialism. That it surely is, both because the kibbutz was socialism in its purest form and because the conditions afforded that experiment could not have been more favorable. The kibbutzim survived for years under the umbrella of a largely socialized system and so were able to enjoy government benefits without suffocating under the general collapse of a fully planned economy.
The irony is, that if our economy had gone further and faster in the free market direction and was growing at a nice clip then the kibbutzim might be thriving today. The richer a kibbutz is the more it can afford to stick to socialism. But the kibbutz was not just an economic experiment but also a social one. When I lived on a kibbutz, I thought it was smart to give kids some distance, however small, from their parents. I saw how it produced kids who tended to appreciate their parents more, and had less need to go through the normal adolescent rebellion against them.
Yet the children's houses were scrapped long ago, irrespective of the economic woes that scuttled other sacred beliefs. What this shows is the power of human nature, and the futility of social and economic systems that try to reshape that nature rather than take advantage of it.
Another irony was that the kibbutz, a system designed to eliminate materialism and competition, produced opposite results. Kibbutzniks were often extremely competitive, to their credit, whether in sports or the military. And it is hard to escape the materialism of the classic kibbutz obsession over whether one member had a better television, or somehow benefited from a wealthy uncle, and so on.
Though there are religious kibbutzim, it is no coincidence that most are archly secular, because the kibbutz philosophy was ultimately very un-Jewish. Judaism, its ultra-Orthodox offshoot notwithstanding, is the most respectful of human nature of the three Abrahamic religions. Other religions deal with human vices by going to the opposite extreme, thereby turning asceticism, pacifism, and abstinence into ideals. The attempt to tame materialistic instincts by creating pure equality is of the same cloth.
The question is often asked why the Bible not only begins with stories rather than laws, but with such unsavory descriptions of the Patriarchs that we recall so prominently in the daily prayers. We remind ourselves that we are descended from Jacob, who manipulated his brother and fooled his father in order to obtain the birthright, to mention one among many unsavory incidents. Maybe the purpose of this is not to forget our ancestors’ foibles but to confirm that there is no perfection in humanity, that the ideal is not perfection, but to manage imperfection? Kari Marx was a Jewish anti-Semite who wrote that "Money... is the Jew's real God." As a socialist, he was right to see Judaism as the enemy because capitalism is based on a very Jewish idea: adapting the problematic sides of human nature for good.
Judaism does not try to ban alcohol, sex, or competition, but to co-opt and channel them. Wine becomes part of hallowing the Sabbath, as doe’s sex with one's spouse. Capitalism channels human traits like ambition and greed in a way that does not prevent their abuse, but also produces critical byproducts, such as the ultimate elimination of poverty. Capitalism even contains within it the potential of increasing freedom from competition. The record shows that richer societies are more charitable, allow for many non-material luxuries rare in poor societies such as high literacy, support for the arts, and cleaning up the environmental mess created by an economy's industrial phase.
I had a good kibbutz experience, and I know many people whose lives have been similarly enriched. The kibbutz would be a sad thing to lose. But I would rather lose the kibbutz than squash human nature. ##
These two astute elder statesmen come up with a genuine peace concept attempting to rescue Israel, Jordan, the United States and the rest of the civilized world from the guaranteed catastrophe of the US State Dept. “Roadmap” and the “Geneva Initiative” of Israel’s four discarded political Dwarfs - Beilin, Burg, Mizna and Lipkin-Shahak
Also see previous entries in Israel Commentary relative to this issue:
A Breath of Fresh Air - Dec. 29, 2003
Geneva Initiative Unmasked Dec. 12, 2003
Israel’s Fence - Nov. 24, 2003
Looking over the Horizon
From the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz
By Moshe Arens
The Likud ministers who have recently presented various versions of Israeli unilateral withdrawals, unilateral moves or unilateral separation schemes from the Palestinian population are right about one thing: There is almost no chance of reaching a settlement with the Palestinian Authority, regardless of who the prime minister, selected by Chairman Yasser Arafat, will be. But their conclusion - that Israel therefore should now withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria and uproot the settlements there - is way off. It is myopic vision at its utmost.
The peace process with the Palestinians is being held hostage by the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Brigades and other groups and movements with various exotic names. It has been proven time and again that there can be no useful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians as long as acts of terror continue. This was the underlying assumption of Prime Minister Sharon's policy when he first took office. The principle was incorporated in the U.S.-sponsored road map: The first step on the road to peace must be the dismantling of the infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism. That step has not been taken by Arafat, nor by Abu Mazen, nor will it be taken by Abu Ala, or by any of his successors. For the simple reason that, even if they were willing to take on this task (and that is highly doubtful), they are eminently incapable of accomplishing it.
Under these circumstances, staging a unilateral Israeli withdrawal, which means moving the IDF out of areas it entered during operation Defensive Shield to combat Palestinian terrorism, means leaving those areas under terrorist control and bringing terrorism back to the doorstep of Israel's cities. In other words, a return to the days of the massacres at the Dolphinarium and the Park Hotel.
The belief that the fence currently being built can serve as adequate protection and make unnecessary the presence of the IDF in the areas beyond the fence is an illusion. Israelis will not be able to live peaceably as long as terrorists reign in the areas across the fence. It's just too close for comfort.
The inescapable conclusion is that a partner for negotiating a settlement with Israel must be someone that is willing to take on the terrorists and is capable of subduing them. In the absence of such a partner, that mission remains in the hands of the IDF and the Shin Bet security service, which have been doing a creditable job of this difficult and unpleasant task.
Israel has a neighbor to the east, which has demonstrated over the years both the determination and the ability to suppress terrorism. It is Jordan. Arafat and the PLO were close to taking over Jordan, when they were driven out by King Hussein in "black" September of 1970. That was the real origin of the demand for a "second" Palestinian state. In the years that followed, the Jordanians have shown themselves very effective in suppressing terrorism. In that area they evidently can be relied upon.
It is therefore not idle speculation to consider Jordan as the eventual partner for a settlement of the outstanding issues between Israel and the Palestinians. There is little question regarding the legitimacy of Jordan in that role. Seventy percent of its population is of Palestinian origin, its queen is Palestinian, Judea and Samaria were annexed to Jordan in 1949 and Jordanian citizenship was bestowed on the population there. The most difficult issues, Jerusalem and territorial compromise, would be easier to handle in such a framework. Jordan already has a capital, in Amman, and does not need a second one, and the territories of Judea and Samaria are contiguous to Jordan geographically.
There is only one fly in the ointment. The Jordanians are concerned that the absorption of additional Palestinians, who have been radicalized by the PLO in the past decades, could destabilize the kingdom. They don't need that kind of headache.
Is this likely to change in the years to come, and what can Israel do to bring about such a change? Israel should strengthen its relations with Jordan in the battle against terrorism and contribute to the growth of the Jordanian economy. The U.S. and the European Union should be encouraged to make large-scale investments in the Jordanian economy so as to strengthen and stabilize the present regime. The time may come when a prosperous Jordan will feel sufficiently strong and confident to assume the role of representing Palestinian interests in negotiations with Israel. It is such thoughts, rather than unilateral moves, that should be occupying the minds of Likud ministers.##
December 21, 2003
Dear Yitzchak
I just wonder how much following Shaul Mofaz has. I have a suspicion he may be the man that gets in, avoiding the enmity between Sharon and Netanyahu and bypassing Olmert who I learned to dislike quite easily upon one of his appearances here. He seems the ultimate opportunist.
Be well and careful,
Jerry
This morning I was fortunate enough to receive, in reply, this tremendous analysis of the inner workings of the current Israeli political scene. Those that read the pages in our web page should have no doubts as to who I pray wins this political struggle that, in the end, may well determine the continued existence of the Jewish State.
December 28, 2003
Jerry Shalom,
Mofaz is in a delicate political position. The reason is that he is not a Member of the Knesset and he is only serving as a Minister at the request of Sharon. That means that according to the Israeli law, in case that Sharon has to resign before his tenure ends then Mofaz is not playing in the battle of succession. It will be mainly between Netanyahu and Olmert. Also, Mofaz can be asked to resign at any time from his position by the PM and in 2 weeks to be forgotten by the public opinion. That is why he has to play a very delicate political game between Sharon and Netanyahu. Mofaz interest is that if Sharon resigns then to have general elections so that he could run to become MK and to nominate himself to leadership of the Likud and the country.
On the other hand, Olmert's interest is not to have general elections in case that Sharon resigns. He is still too weak in the Likud and in the general public opinion. In case that Sharon resigns and there no general elections are called, then the cabinet will appoint one of its members that is also an MK to the position of PM. Now, Olmert is a very close friend of Lapid (Chairman of SHINUI) and he is also close with Peres (he served as chairman of Peres' 80th birthday celebration). That is why Olmert is working behind scenes (maybe also with the help of Sharon) to make a new unity government with Labour party. He could count on their votes in the cabinet in case that Sharon resigns.
Now, Netanyahu is working to oppose Olmert and Netanyahu's interest is closer to the interest of Mofaz and Shalom these days and that is why they are cooperating these days. I also hear that Livnat is cooperating together with them and that means that they are quite strong opposition to Olmert and thus to Sharon as well. But the game is very delicate. No one wants to go to the battle at a premature time.
Hope I did not make it too complicated.
Best wishes,
Yitzchak
NETANYAHU: DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM NOT WITH PA ARABS, BUT WITH ISRAELI-ARABS
"The chronology is not peace, economic prosperity, security," Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said this morning at the much-touted Herzliya Conference, "as some still feel. I hold that the order is precisely the opposite: First security must be stabilized, using the means I described, then economic prosperity, and then peace. Because otherwise, every peace agreement is hostage to suicide terrorists."
Netanyahu, who served as Israel's Prime Minister from 1996-99, spoke at the beginning of the second day of the conference organized by the Institute of Policy and Strategy of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. The three-day event is designed to bring together the country's military, political, academic, and economic brass, and has become the most influential forum of its nature on contemporary Israeli policy.
Netanyahu said that a demographic problem exists - but not with the "Arabs of Palestine, but rather the Arabs of Israel." He said that there is essentially no demographic problem with the Arabs of the PA, in that they are already under PA control, "even if the army sometimes goes into the cities." However, Netanyahu said, "regarding the Israeli-Arabs, who will remain Israeli citizens, here we have a problem... In our Declaration of Independence, we say that our raison d'etre is that we are a Jewish state, and this means that we must guarantee a Jewish majority. But we are also a democracy..." He said that if the Arabs become a minority of 40%, the State will cease to be Jewish - but if we remain with 20%, or even less, but with tough and violent relations, then this harms the State's democratic nature. "We therefore need a policy that will first of all guarantee a Jewish majority - I say this with no hesitation, as a liberal, a democrat, and a Jewish patriot - ... and one that will balance between these two needs."
Regarding the future borders, Netanyahu said that Israel must protect its vital security interests: "What connection is there between their right to self-definition and their ability to station themselves on hills near Ben Gurion International Airport and shoot down a landing plane?
There is no connection. I therefore say that any peace agreement has to be built on two elements: The entire Palestinian population, or almost all of it, must be under self-rule of the Palestinians, and not Israeli; and Israel must maintain its control over the entry of arms and fighters into those areas."
Netanyahu said that there is no reason for despair, and that the situation has improved both economically and security-wise since last year.
The Finance Minister spoke of the importance of the counter-terrorism partition fence from many standpoints, including "economics, defense, demography, and as something that advances peace... Last night I signed an order releasing 700 million more shekels for the construction of the partition."
He said that under the present circumstances, we can't proceed diplomatically with the PA because "we have no partners on the other side." He said that a true peace partner must drop all its intentions to destroy Israel, "what they call the right of return or the liberation of occupied Palestine... What's important is not what they [the PA Arabs] say in Geneva, but what they say in Jenin, and in Kalkilye, and in Ramallah. We see that they [are far from that point] - from their education, their textbooks, their marketplace talk, their public dialogue - they have not dropped their plans [to destroy Israel]; on the contrary, they are encouraging it... The second test of a partner must be that they neutralize their tools of destruction - terrorism." Netanyahu said that he does not believe that a moderate PA leadership can arise under the current conditions of hatred and daily incitement, and that therefore Israel "must first take steps to destroy terrorism and bring about a societal interest in stability, and only then will a moderate leadership be able to arise."
Netanyahu had strong criticism of all the new plans being spouted by Likud ministers with no coordination with the Prime Minister. "The multiplicity of plans causes damage to Israel," he said.
Both Gen. Amos Gilad and Gen. (res.) Oren Shachor expressed opposition today to unilateral gestures by Israel. "Even if the war lasts until 2020," Shachor said, "we must not withdraw unilaterally." Gen. Shachor headed the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria and was a senior member of the Israeli negotiating team with the PA under the Rabin and Peres governments, while Gen. Gilad is head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic Desk.
By Yossi Klein Halevi
Excerpted from an article in International Jerusalem Post, Nov. 7, 2003
Reading the initiative's 26-page document is a surreal experience. The document fearlessly penetrates the most intractable issues of the Palestinian-Israeli abyss. Jerusalem? Here's a color-coded map of how the city of conflict will be transformed into the city of peace. Refugee return? There's no dilemma that men of goodwill can't resolve. The Temple Mount? Give us a real problem.
The only hitch is that it's a monumental act of self-deception. Which is precisely what makes it such a worthy successor to the pre-Yom Kippur conceptzia that it supposedly negates. The conceptual sin of the Geneva Israelis - Yossi Beilin, Avraham Burg, Amram Mitzna, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak - is to assume that we can still negotiate a comprehensive peace with this generation of PLO leaders, and that they will abide by their commitments. That sin emerges from the Left's refusal to concede the enormity of the Palestinian betrayal of peace, and to cling instead to the cowardly claim that both sides are responsible for the failure of Oslo.
Cowardly, because the notion allows left-wingers to avoid admitting just how wrong they were about peace with the PLO. That failure wasn't just a lapse in judgment about Yasser Arafat's character; it was a failure to comprehend the depth of Arab rejectionism of Israel's being. Not surprisingly, the initiative itself contains Oslo-sized loopholes waiting to be abused. The fact that disagreement has already begun over interpretation of the document is the inevitable result of negotiating with Arafat's regime. While Israeli negotiators insisted they had won a Palestinian renunciation of the right of return, Palestinian negotiators were telling their people that they had done no such thing.
The supposed historic breakthrough of the Geneva Initiative is simply that it doesn't mention the right of return. In other words, the Palestinians have refused once again to renounce their goal of demographically destroying Israel. And so while Israelis are expected to repudiate their right of return to post-1967 borders in the most tangible way, by physically uprooting settlements, Palestinians won't even offer a verbal repudiation of the right of return to pre-1967 Israel.
By Uri Ulitzur, The International Jerusalem Post, November 7, 2003
The "vision of a Palestinian state" is something we have already tried. In the years since Oslo, particularly the last three, we have seen what the Palestinians intend to do with the tools of independence and statehood, if they are given them. They already had a state-in-the-making, and they used it to build a huge terrorist base and a society mobilized and incited to hate Israel.
The Palestinian Authority did nothing to promote its own people's economy and welfare. It used all the tools of government in its hands in order to cultivate the terrorist capabilities of many systems and organizations, and in order to educate masses of people from kindergarten to old age towards war, hatred, and suicide terrorism. If the PA has been a swamp of terrorism, corruption and incitement, then the Palestinian state will be a whole lake. It will grow a center of international terrorism, and will be totally mobilized towards war over the next phase of "liberating Palestine."
This also has objective reasons: the Palestinian state - the one from the Bush vision or the Beilin dream - is a dwarf country, territorially splintered, and devoid of any economic infrastructures or resources. You cannot squeeze two states into our tiny land, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. There is hardly room here for one state; you have to be blind not to see that.
Why are there so many blind people among us, some of whom are intelligent and wise in every other area - because we are living under terror. Terror is a first rate cause of political blindness and of the phenomenon of hallucinations and illusions. Terror distorts its victims' judgment, it makes them feel as if they share the guilt, develop dependency on the aggressor, and have baseless faith that a simple solution to the situation is hiding around the nearest corner. Every terrorist knows that, and all terrorism is built on that.
Therefore, the first step of any political plan has to be defeating terrorism. It is not a security but a political matter. It is a pre-condition for the very existence of political judgment. No political plan has any hope unless it is preceded by a decisive defeat of terrorism, not just militarily but conceptually no peaceful solution has any chance unless every child in Gaza and every analyst in every news media in the world knows that terrorism has been militarily defeated and caused the Palestinian people only harm, and that every person and every organization that engaged in terrorism has disappeared from the political map.
And this solution is not hiding around the nearest corner. It is far away, and the path to it is strewn with obstacles, mines, internal divisions and pain. It requires the courage to say: No, my friends - there is no political horizon right now and no negotiating table, because there is terrorism.
The idea that a political solution can appear instead of defeating terrorism is the illusion that keeps the political horizon infinitely distant. The road cannot be shortened. A political solution will come only after terror is defeated. That is the first step in a three-phase political plan. The second phase is a long interim period during which Palestinian self-rule will be established under Israeli responsibility; the third phase is a region-wide permanent settlement, in which not only Israel but also Egypt and Jordan will be required to allocate land towards resolving the Palestinian problem.
I am sure that is the solution that will come at the end of the process, but the process might last 50 years. Therefore the question that matters to our own lives, and our main role towards a solution, is the first phase: defeating terrorism - unequivocally, without compromise and without illusions.
The writer, former bureau chief of the Prime Minister's Office, is editor of Nekuda monthly of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
HOWARD DEAN PROMISED THAT IF HE IS ELECTED PRESIDENT, THE UNITED STATES WILL NO LONGER SUPPORT ISRAEL THE WAY IT HAS IN THE PAST UNDER BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS.
IN HIS OWN WORDS HE WILL INSIST THAT THE UNITED STATES BE "EVEN HANDED." THIS IS A TERM REGULARLY EMPLOYED BY ARAFAT AND HIS COTERIE OF ADHERENTS THAT MEANS TO BE ANTI-ISRAEL!!
GOVERNOR DEAN MADE THESE COMMENTS ON CNN, SEPTEMBER 10, 2003 ON THE WOLF BLITZER SHOW. HE HAS REPEATED THOSE WORDS SINCE.
IF THIS WERE NOT ENOUGH, GOVERNOR DEAN ON THAT SAME SHOW
CHARACTERIZED THE HAMAS TERRORISTS AS "SOLDIERS".
FOR THE FIRST TIME WE HAVE SOMEONE RUNNING FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WHO IS CALLING TERRORISTS SOLDIERS.
(Of course these comments put Dean in "good" company i.e. Al Sharpton who I am sure feels the same way) Jsk
By Isi Leibler, The Internet Jerusalem Post, Dec. 2, 2003
Have we really begun losing the plot? In the old days, when we witnessed apparent bungles we would convince ourselves that we were not privy to all the facts and time would show that our leaders were in reality playing a smart game. Today we no longer suffer such delusions. Take the Geneva Accord, which amounts to a vastly inferior version of the Oslo disaster.
The initiative was launched by the same failed politicians who inflicted Oslo upon us and were decisively rejected by their constituents. In a normal society they would have been universally condemned and probably prosecuted for undermining their democratically elected government at a time of war.
Imagine the inconceivable scenario of a Belgian government financing a right-wing politician to promote policies opposed by the Swiss government. Yet the Swiss launched a full-blown festival to celebrate the signing with hundreds of journalists, rock stars, Hollywood actors, politicians and former president Jimmy Carter being flown gratis to Geneva.
The Israeli media also had a fest. Viewing the Ilana Dayan TV program, which presented film clips of Beilin's negotiations with the Palestinians, is a surrealistic experience. We see Beilin nonchalantly agreeing to cede Efrat to the Palestinians and his assistant, Lord Levy's son, handing over other areas of Jewish settlement. Instead of telling the Swiss to stop interfering in our internal affairs and being more explicit about the outrageous behavior of the failed politicians, our prime minister decided to play down the entire issue.
But then, lo and behold, President Moshe Katsav hosted a meeting with Beilin and the Palestinians. He praised them for indulging in dialogue and gently admonished them for failing to promote their project through the government. This kindergarten political spiel was of course ignored, but understandably the media highlighted the photo opportunities of Katsav holding court with Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo. Could one visualize the Queen of England holding chat sessions and being photographed with a former minister conducting negotiations with the Argentineans during the Falklands War?
In the light of this, it is somewhat bizarre to express disappointment that the Americans, who initially disassociated themselves from Geneva, are now sending official observers and praise Beilin's "constructive peace initiatives." One might even consider it somewhat churlish to criticize Colin Powell for literally following the example of the president of Israel.
THE MADNESS goes further. Former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg continues uninhibitedly to defame Zionism and Israel and tells the world that our schoolchildren relish killing old men and women. And we complain about European anti-Semitic outpourings!
And the lunatic Right contributes to the ultimate ideological insanity by announcing its support for a purportedly binational state which would grant Arab citizens only limited rights under Jewish sovereignty.
Despite the fact that we remain engaged in a cruel war, the chaos prevails at all levels.
In the space of one month IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon publicly criticized his government; four former GSS chiefs aired their individual political bias and reprimanded the government, encouraging Palestinians to revive their dreams about Israel unraveling because of internal disputes; the Oslo resurrection promoted by Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh was praised by US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; resolutions were submitted in the US Congress promoting the Geneva charade and the Ayalon-Nusseibeh initiative; and a plethora of other independent, opposition and semi-official so-called seminars and other forms of quasi negotiations with Palestinians taking place all over the world without any apparent government frame of reference.
And to top it off: following the endorsement of the Road Map by the Security Council, Kofi Anna condemns us for building a security fence and violating UN resolutions, serving ominous notice of possible future attempts to impose sanctions.
Who is to blame for this anarchy and chaos? Unquestionably, the government. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cannot continue mumbling inanities and ignoring all these independent initiatives. He must cease the zigzags, hinting at "painful sacrifices" and unilateral withdrawals one day and warning the Palestinians that if they do not get their act together they will lose their last chance to ever achieve statehood the next.
It is not because we face a hostile administration that US policy has begun tilting against us. It is, rather, a byproduct of our paralysis and mistaken belief that by doing nothing our problems will be overcome. A warm personal relationship between President George W. Bush and Sharon does not warrant a neglect of Congress and American public opinion. Indeed it would appear that because of its strong support for Israel we have begun taking Congress somewhat for granted.
There is little doubt that our seeming inertia, combined with the absence of a more concerted campaign to promote our position in the US, contributed to the recent disastrous public chastisement of our policies by the administration and the deduction of $300 million from our loan guarantees – to which our government barely responded.
Sharon must realize that if he continues on his present path, Bush will simply drift into making more anti-Israeli gestures to mollify the Europeans.
The premier must provide leadership, make difficult decisions, and talk to the nation. He must begin charting a long-term strategy, despite the realization that there are no quick fixes capable of resolving the complex challenges facing us. And he must involve his cabinet, as this country cannot endure another Napoleonic initiative.
It is also high time for Israelis to demand that their elected leaders behave in a more transparent manner. A true democracy requires public involvement in the political process between elections. If the public is given the opportunity of debating policy options they will assuredly contribute towards achieving a constructive policy and game plan. That will be infinitely preferable to being confronted with ex cathedra government policies launched under pressure and in desperation.
The people of Israel are far more mature than many of our current leaders seem to believe. And democracy ultimately thrives in an environment of accountability, leadership and transparency.
The writer is senior vice president of the World Jewish Congress.
ileibler@netvision.net.il
_________________________________________________
By Jerome S. Kaufman
(Re-printed from the Detroit Jewish News, Nov. 14, 2003 and Arutz Sheva (Israel National News - Oct. 28, 2003)
Confusion and conflict continue to reign supreme over the existence, extent, route and composition of the “Fence” that Israel is now constructing in an attempt at protecting itself against the lethal, painfully effective terrorist destruction and demoralization of its own people.
Why the confusion and conflict? The reason is quite simple - the Israelis themselves and their supporters around the world live in a state of self-induced misinformation and delusion as to the entire scenario. What is the fence for? Is it to protect Israeli citizens? Yes, but will it be effective? Has there ever been a fence of any great length effective against a marauding enemy or an enemy truly dedicated to circumventing or destroying that fence? Was the Maginot Line of the French effective against the invading German blitzkrieg of WW II? Was the Great Wall of China effective against hoards of Mongol invaders? Are the Rio Grande, the border patrol and their fences effective against migrants dedicated to entering the United States?
Does a fence make any military sense? If one has an enemy dedicated to his destruction, does one hide in the cellar like the Jews of the shtetels of Poland and Russia? Was that effective against the Cossacks pounding on the cellar door? Does one build a ghetto along a slender Mediterranean corridor packed with more Jews per square inch than any other place in the world, in order to isolate these Jews from their enemies? Yes, the Germans did that to the Jews of Warsaw and that ghetto wall was very effective. The only problem was that ghetto wall was effective in killing Jews rather than saving them.
And, what if one has the great advantage of overwhelming force and power? Does one follow the rules of engagement that cater to the weaknesses of one’s enemy? Does one create another Lebanese security zone within Israel itself? How effective was that? Does one allow his own power to be neutralized and allow one’s enemy to continue to wreck havoc upon his greater forces or does one use one’s overwhelming force to finally destroy the enemy and stop the killing?
Suppose your declared friends and allies discourage you from using this power. But what about these “friends and “allies? Did the Americans or Europeans use Marquis of Queensborough Rules in WWII destroying Cologne, leveling Berlin or dropping atomic bombs upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do the Arabs use Marquis of Queensborough rules in their endless internecine warfare? Was that the format in Iraq vs. Iran or Iraq vs. Kuwait or Jordan vs. the Palestinian Arabs or Hafez Assad vs. his own citizens in Hama or Saddam Hussein vs. his own Kurds or his own Shiites in Iraq or his own sons-in-law for that matter?
In any case does Israel need an excuse or a dispensation from the rest of the world to protect its own citizens? What does the rabbi say? Is he going to repeat his sermon about tikkun olam when your wives, children and land are bleeding to death and another Holocaust of Jews, but this time in their own land, transpires before our very eyes?
But, in fact, that all begs the question. The real question always remains, whose land is it? Is 5764 years of Jewish history a lie? Because the rest of the world, besmirched in its centuries of anti-Semitism, continues to blame the Jews for every hangnail that surfaces and delights in accepting the gross lie of Arab pre-possession and Israeli “occupation” does that make it true? Should many Jews and many Israelis continue to be so uninformed as to buy into this gross lie? Does any knowledgeable person not know that the “settlements” are on Israeli land and it is the Arabs that are the ‘occupiers.” And does anyone really care if it is a lie or not?
What only matters in practice is the fact that Jesus was misinformed. The meek do not inherit the earth - at least not in our lifetime. Perhaps we should leave that possibility to the Messioch and Jesus Christ and anyone else involved in the First or Second Coming, depending upon one’s religious persuasion. Perhaps the Israelis should use their full power to protect their people right now. Forget creating another ghetto for Jews. Forget the ridiculous hypocrisy of a fence that is itself destructive and ineffective and instead continues to promote and delineate the lethal abomination of a “Palestinian State” invented for a previously non-existent “Palestinian People.”
Sharon Changes Policy -Palestinians Can Murder Some Israelis Without
Response
Aaron Lerner Date: 18 November 2003
Army Radio correspondent Kaveh Shafran reported on the 11:00 PM news
magazine tonight that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made an important
policy change out of a desire to please Washington: Sharon now takes the
position that during a cease-fire period Israel will not react Palestinian terrorists carry out attacks if the attacks are "small". Shafran did not say how many Israelis the Palestinians could murder in a given attack before the attack would no longer qualify for the "no response" status.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
(What other leader or nation would accept a policy like that? Look for Sharon to lose the next elections - not due to the ascent of the Left but rather due to the disgust of his own Party and that of the Israeli people in his inability to protect them from their blood enemies)
(An absolute gem by Sarah Honig, The International Jerusalem Post, Nov. 14, 2003)
What do the following have in common? Unauthorized negotiations with enemy representatives during wartime; a make-believe surrogate government to which fringe radicals appoint themselves; the mobilization of foreign pressure against the country's legitimate leadership; refusal to serve in the IDF or obey politically incorrect orders; paralyzing the economy via wildcat strikes that benefit monopolist unions; maligning legislation to preserve and safeguard the Jewish character of the state and demonizing the notion of a military solution to a violent conflict?
In any of the above, if you dare oppose Leftist dogma, you're denounced as a benighted reactionary or fascist. At the very least, to come out against a righteous pet cause celebre’ is to be perforce decried as anti-democratic and a danger to all that's civilized, enlightened and progressive. The Left unilaterally usurps for itself a monopoly of all that's moral, high-minded, cultured and refined. Coming to grips with this mind-set is key. Without awareness of the stigma automatically attached to whatever doesn't mesh with left-wing doctrinaire truisms, it's impossible to place into proper context the hubris of has-been politicos and their brazen private enterprise diplomacy.
By parading sanctimoniously as guardian of our collective conscience, the Left issues itself a license to subvert. Hence leftists think nothing of accepting funds from foreigners like the French, Belgians or Swiss (who're ostensibly committed to non -interference in the affairs of others) in order to willfully Ideological blinders inhibit them from admitting to anything untoward in their "Geneva Initiative," though it serves foreign interests and undermines the authority of the lawful government, elected by a landslide to further policies diametrically opposed to those they champion.
Despite overwhelming rejection of their platform by the electorate, they see nothing undemocratic in attempting to alter the voters' verdict post-factum with outside sponsorship, convert local opinion to the deceptive perception of ruthless terrorists as reasonable and peace-loving, while portraying their own government as brutish and uncompromising.
Since said leftists have convinced themselves that they can do no wrong, they'll eagerly seek to impress upon us that their avid courtship of Arafat's stooges is the epitome of Zionist dedication, whereas attachment to the Temple Mount or Rachel's Tomb is atavistic and sinister.
They don't judge the people's choice as binding. It's at most a recommendation, which they aren't obliged to accept. The rules of the democratic game are useful to them so long as they protect and promote their ideology. Everything is measured by this narrow utilitarian yardstick. What corresponds with their slant is democratic and what doesn't is anti-democratic. Adherence to the rules is selective and interest-oriented. Just like Sgt. Bilko's cavalier, anarchic self-serving attitude to ethics. Back in the golden age of TV he flashed his broad smile each week and delivered rousing pep talks touched with a tad of larceny to members of his motley platoon. In one classic episode he reminded his assembled malingerers, sharpies and assorted anathemas of authority that "the end justifies the means, especially if it's our end.
For Yossi Beilin and his platoon too no universally applicable standards exist, only expedient ones. Hence, when the Left is in power, even the slimmest of formal majorities suffices. Yet once the Left is trounced, the will of the majority is deemed tyrannical. Superseding it by imposing the will of the minority becomes the democratic essence, an inalienable right. According to our political Bilkos the majority's self-defense is illegitimate. The democratic ethos is used to crush democratic ethics.
This is the Geneva Initiative's subjective environment. Since leftist ideology is presumed synonymous with virtue, it's also equated with democracy. Anyone at odds with virtue is automatically defined as democracy's villainous foe. If the public isn't receptive to the leftists' message, then its opinion can be overruled and dismissed as too shallow and wrong-headed to decree that terror must be combated, that no negotiations should be conducted under fire, that certain territorial concessions are unacceptable or that tenor-mongers mustn't be rewarded. Sadly, the politically prostrate Left's attempts to bypass the will of the majority are aided and abetted among others by the courts, the media and the academic establishment. The political interest of the above-mentioned is upheld as democracy incarnate. Democracy is portrayed as indistinct from the left-wing agenda.
This liberates the Left from opposition-party constrictions. Even when relegated to the political sidelines, it's inherently entitled to have its way. If it determines that the greater good demands leftist hegemony, then democracy's conventional rules don't apply, never mind the protests of the aggregate of lowbrow fools who comprise the backward majority. Paraphrased in Bilko's immortal words: "Different rules for different fools."
By Yossi Klein Halevi
Excerpted from an article in the International Jerusalem Post, Nov. 7, 2003
Which brings us to the Geneva Initiative:
Reading the initiative's 26-page document is a surreal experience. The document fearlessly penetrates the most intractable issues of the Palestinian-Israeli abyss. Jerusalem? Here's a color-coded map of how the city of conflict will be transformed into the city of peace. Refugee return? There's no dilemma that men of goodwill can't resolve. The Temple Mount? Give us a real problem.
The only hitch is that it's a monumental act of self-deception. Which is precisely what makes it such a worthy successor to the pre-Yom Kippur conceptzia that it supposedly negates. The conceptual sin of the Geneva Israelis - Yossi Beilin, Avraham Burg, Amram Mitzna, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak - is to assume that we can still negotiate a comprehensive peace with this generation of PLO leaders, and that they will abide by their commitments. That sin emerges from the Left's refusal to concede the enormity of the Palestinian betrayal of peace, and to cling instead to the cowardly claim that both sides are responsible for the failure of Oslo.
Cowardly, because the notion allows left-wingers to avoid admitting just how wrong they were about peace with the PLO. That failure wasn't just a lapse in judgment about Yasser Arafat's character; it was a failure to comprehend the depth of Arab rejectionism of Israel's being. Not surprisingly, the initiative itself contains Oslo-sized loopholes waiting to be abused. The fact that disagreement has already begun over interpretation of the document is the inevitable result of negotiating with Arafat's regime. While Israeli negotiators insisted they had won a Palestinian renunciation of the right of return, Palestinian negotiators were telling their people that they had done no such thing.
The supposed historic breakthrough of the Geneva Initiative is simply that it doesn't mention the right of return. In other words, the Palestinians have refused once again to renounce their goal of demographically destroying Israel. And so while Israelis are expected to repudiate their right of return to post-1967 borders in the most tangible way, by physically uprooting settlements, Palestinians won't even offer a verbal repudiation of the right of return to pre-1967 Israel. ...
By Evelyn Gordon, The International Jerusalem Post, November 7, 2003
When the Geneva Initiative" was first unveiled last month, it was immediately clear that it constituted a gross violation of democratic norms: A small band of opposition figures,
(Namely the usual suspects -Yossi Beilin, Avraham Burg, Amram Mitzna, and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak - all failed Israeli politicians with virtually no following within their own Labor Party - jsk)
acting without the elected government's knowledge or consent, had negotiated a draft "peace agreement" with an enemy, with the explicit aim of generating international pressure on future Israeli governments to endorse the concessions contained therein. The full extent of the damage, however, became evident with publication of the document's full text - because a close reading makes it clear that this is an agreement to which no sane government could ever consent.
Even before the publication on October 24, it was known that the Israeli negotiators had conceded almost completely on territorial issues, granting the Palestinians most of east Jerusalem, including Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount; most of the West Bank, including major settlements, such as Efrat and Ariel, that even the most dovish Israeli governments have always insisted on keeping and part of the Negev, as compensation for border adjustments on the West Bank.
It was also evident that the agreement would create a security nightmare in Jerusalem (among other places), subjecting every neighborhood of the city to the fate suffered by Gilo during the current intifada - that of being within easy shooting range of sovereign Palestinian territory. But the territorial concessions are only the tip of the iceberg. There is also, for instance, the fact that all disputes over implementation of the agreement would be resolved by an Implementation and Verification of a Group (IVG) composed of the United
States, the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and various other countries.
While the IVG's exact mechanism is unclear - the details are contained in an annex that has not yet been completed - Article 16 clearly states that if attempts at mediation fail, either side may submit the dispute to an arbitration panel, whose decisions will be binding. In short, this agreement would require Israel to accept the dictates of international arbitrators on even the most sensitive security issues.
Furthermore, the document would mortgage the country's economic future by committing it in advance to pay reparations in an amount that Israel would have little voice in determining. Specifically, it establishes an International Commission composed of Israel, the Palestinian state, the UN, the US, UNRWA, all of Israel's Arab neighbors, the EU, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Japan, the World Bank and Russia - in short, a commission on which Israel is overwhelmingly outnumbered - and instructs it to appoint a panel of experts to estimate the value of Palestinian property lost in 1948.
What is perhaps most astonishing, however, is just how little the Israeli team obtained in exchange for all its concessions. According to chief negotiator Yossi Beilin, the agreement provides Israel with three major achievements.
• The first relates to security. The Palestinian state will be demilitarized, and it will fight terror by disarming militias and arresting terrorists. Considering that the Palestinians have made identical pledges on demilitarization and terror in no less than five previous signed agreements - and that these pledges have been massively violated every time - why another such pledge should be considered an achievement is an enigma.
• Second, claims Beilin, the agreement includes Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. This, it turns out, is simply false-. The agreement merely "recognize(s) Palestine and Israel as the homelands of their respective peoples." Beilin can assert that Israel's "respective people" is the Jewish people, but the plain meaning of the text is that Israel is the homeland of its inhabitants, Jewish and Arab alike in short, a bi-national state.
• Finally, Beilin boasts of a Palestinian concession on the refugees' "right of return." The agreement states that Israel, and Israel alone, will decide how many Palestinian refugees it is willing to accept. This, however, is no concession at all - because as long as Israel remains a sovereign country with control over its own borders, the "right of return" could never be implemented without its consent in any case.
In short, what the Palestinians conceded - the "right" to flood Israel with hundreds of thousands of refugees - was something they never had the power to carry out in the first place. Yet Israel would pay for this nonexistent concession with real territory, real money and real security risks. That may be Beilin's idea of a good deal. But it is hard to imagine a majority of Israelis agreeing with him.
The writer is a veteran journalist and commentator.
By FLAME
Is it a valid demand and how would it affect Middle-East peace?
Three years ago. President Clinton and Ehud Barak, then Prime Minister of Israel, made every effort to achieve final peace between Jews and Arabs. They offered the "Palestinians" 97 per cent of the "West Bank" and Gaza, the eastern part of Jerusalem as their capital, and $30 billion in refugee compensation. But Yasser Arafat did not accept this overly generous offer. He insisted on the "right of return," flooding Israel with as many as five million so-called "refugees." When this outrageous demand was not granted, he broke off negotiations and started his bloody Intifida, the war against Israel, which by now has killed about 2,000 people on both sides and has left many thousands more wounded, many of them crippled for life.
What are the facts?
Who are the so-called "refugees?" On the very day that Israel declared its independence, five Arab-states invaded the nascent Jewish state. In fiery broadcasts and confident of victory, their leaders urged the Arabs to flee the war zone, so as not to impede the invading armies. Once victory was achieved and after all the Jews had been killed or had fled, the Arabs could return, reclaim their property and loot that of the Jews.
Things didn’t t turn out that way. About 420,000 Arabs followed the call of their leaders and became refugees. About 200,000 accepted the promises of the Israeli authorities that they would not be harmed and that they would become citizens of the new state, with the same rights as the Jews. Hardly any of the original refugees are still alive. But those who claim to be their descendants (who astonishingly now number as many as five million) clamor to "return" to Israel. With the single exception of Jordan, none of their Arab brethren have allowed them to settle in their countries and to become citizens. They have confined them to squalid refugee camps, supported by UNWRA (a dependency of the U.N. and financed mostly by the USA).
Those refugee camps are seething hotbeds of hatred against Israel and are the sources for terrorists and suicide bombers. Is the Palestinian "refugee" problem unique? Migrations of populations are nothing new in world history, especially after major wars. About 15 million Germans were (often brutally) expelled from what became western Poland, from what used to be East Prussia and from the Sudetenland. Millions of Muslims and Hindus, following bloody battles, migrated to India and to what became Pakistan. Other major migrations following the World Wars were those of the French from Algeria, Armenians, Turks, Greeks, Cypriots, Kurds and others. It is only the "Palestinians" who insist on being "repatriated." But more to the point, Israel has absorbed over 600,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and millions of others from all over the world. All of them are productive citizens of their new country.
Since the founding of Israel in 1948, the Arabs have waged unrelenting wars to defeat the Jewish state, but they have been unable to do so by military means. The destruction of Israel, however, remains a cornerstone of the PLO charter, which has never been rescinded. What the Arabs have failed to achieve by force of arms they are now determined to accomplish demographically, by flooding Israel with millions of "Palestinians."
The "right of return" is the one concession that Israel can never grant and can never accept. The world must not forget that Israel was founded for one purpose only, namely to be the home of the Jewish people. Even today, more than twenty per cent of the population of Israel are Arabs, almost all of them hostile and a potential fifth column. Even if only a fraction of those who claim the "right of return" were indeed to come to Israel, Arabs would swamp the country, and Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish state.
'
According to the U.N., only those who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted in their home countries..." are considered "refugees." For instance, the Cubans who fled Castro are considered refugees, but their children and grandchildren living in Miami are not. Only the "Palestinians" have been granted special status by the U.N., by which all of their descendants, for generations to come, are considered "refugees."
The purpose of this special status is to assist in the destruction of Israel. Israel is prepared to pay huge amounts in (unwarranted) compensation to those "refugees." But under no circumstances will it ever or should it ever accept the "right of return." What that would accomplish in one stroke would be the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel will never allow that to happen and the world should not request it either. The problem has to be solved by settling the "refugees" in any or all of the 22 Arab countries. Peace will never come about as long as the Arabs insist on the "right of return"—a "right" that can never and will never be granted.
FLAME Facts and Logic About the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359 • San Francisco, CA 94159
Gerardo Joffe, President
Excerpted from editorial by Saul Singer
The International Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2003
It is by now well established that the Palestinian Authority - with all its men under arms and multiple security forces that efficiently quash dissent is not lifting a finger to prevent terrorism. But this is just the beginning. In the same breath that it condemns terrorism in English and Hebrew, the PA continues to encourage it with abandon in Arabic to the Palestinian people.
On September 21, Al-Ayam reported on a soccer tournament. No fewer than 13 PA officials, led by close Arafat adviser and media figure Saeb Erekat, used the event to deliver a powerful political message: We honor suicide bombers.
The event was given the sporty title, "The Shahids [Martyrs] Tournament, of the Path of the Palestinian National Struggle for Palestinian Institutions, 2003." Each of the 24 competing teams was named for another leader in the PA'S pantheon of terrorism, including:
· Yihye Ayash ("the Engineer"), Hamas's most prominent mastermind of suicide bombings
· Dalal Mughrabi, a woman terrorist who hijacked a bus killing 36 in 1978
· Raid Carmi, chief of Fatah's suicide bomber wing.
Saeb Erekat on behalf of Arafat presented the trophy, after the officials led the crowd in standing for a "moment of pride in memory of the spirit of the martyrs," the newspaper reported. At the same time, official PA television continues to broadcast the message that Israel - all of Israel - will be destroyed through the terrorist offensive that it continues to glorify. Last week, the PA began to re-broadcast a clip produced last October showing a beating heart, dripping with blood, which is suspended from a map of Israel. The evocative graphics are accompanied by the refrain: "Allah is Great/Oh, the young ones/Shake the earth, raise the stones/You will not be saved. Oh Zionist/From the volcano of my county's stones. You are the target of my eyes" (see Palestinian Media Watch, http://www.pmw.org.il, for full translations and video clips).
To call what the "moderate" Palestinian leadership is doing hypocrisy is to understate, since that term implies greater effort to hide the truth. In this case, the truth is broadcast through print media and airwaves, hidden only behind the thin barrier of the Arab language.
By Caroline Glick: Sep. 19, 2003 The Jerusalem Post
Sunday, September 21 Israel's Who's Who were joined by the rich and famous
from around the world at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv to celebrate Shimon
Peres's 80th birthday. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to attend the festival, as is former US president Bill Clinton. Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela are also set to be there.
More than providing the public with yet another display of Peres's narcissism, the gala event will show the yawning gap between the world we occupy and the world occupied by Peres and his friends and supporters. In the world we live in, every promise of peace and a New Middle East has not only been broken, but has blown up in our faces. In the world we live in, the notion that it is either possible or desirable to negotiate a peace deal with the PLO has been rent asunder.
But in the Land of Peres, it is reality, not Peres, that is wrong. It is reality that is doomed to be remembered in history as a failure. It is reality that is to be condemned as not merely inconvenient but as impossible to countenance.
And so it is that 10 years after that first handshake on the lawn of the
White House Rose Garden, Peres defends Yasser Arafat and condemns Israel. In a recent television interview with Fareed Zakaria on MSNBC, the erstwhile foreign minister held up Arafat as a paragon for combating Hamas in 1996, after 60 Israelis were blown to bits in eight days of carnage.
When Zakaria asked him why Arafat stopped combating Hamas, Peres replied
that it was the fault of his successor, Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, according to Peres, was to blame for Arafat not combating Hamas because Netanyahu was not forthcoming enough in negotiations with Peres's Nobel co-laureate.
Never mind that Peres's entire claim that Arafat fought Hamas is a lie.Arafat, ahead of the 1996 general elections in Israel, rounded up, as he was wont to do, several hundred "usual suspects." Less than a week later, and
before the elections had taken place, he had already released more than a
hundred of them. At the same time, Muhammad Dahlan, then head of his
Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip, was actively hiding Hamas
terror chief Muhammad Deif, who had orchestrated the attacks. And Peres knew
this.
The upshot of all that Peres has told us for the past decade is that he
cannot be held responsible for the consequences of his strategies. He must
only be congratulated for the hope he bestowed on us all.
And herein lays the entire problem not just with Peres but with all his
honored guests and supporters. While some continue to blame Israel for the
Palestinian war being fought against the state, others claim to be more
"pragmatic." These people are willing to allow that Arafat is not a partner
in peace, but still protest that Israel must move ahead with the
non-existent peace process, "along the lines of the Camp David proposals."
And so it is that former US Middle East mediator Dennis Ross came to write
an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week protesting the government's
decision to "remove" Arafat. Ross, who was the only Oslo pusher to
acknowledge that Arafat would never cut a peace deal with Israel, explained
that if Israel were to expel Arafat from its heartland, it would have to be in the context of large Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
Like Peres, Ross refuses to acknowledge reality. If Israel were to make
concessions of any kind to the Palestinians as part of its move to expel, arrest, or kill Arafat, these concessions would only go to the unrepentant murderers who'd take his place. Surely Ross knows this. Surely Peres does, too. So the question must be asked. What is it that propels these urbane and cultivated men to such conclusions?
The answer was given three weeks ago by no less of an authority than Ian
Buruma, in no less a venue than The New York Times. There, in an article
titled "How to talk about Israel," Buruma explained, "The Palestinian cause
has become the universal litmus test of liberal credentials." And so it is.
In the wreckage of Oslo it is important to note who its greatest beneficiaries were. The Israelis? Our lives have become a crapshoot. The Palestinians? Their standard of living was decimated by Arafat's kleptocracy, while their children were brainwashed by its jihadist media.
No. The real beneficiaries of the Oslo process were people on the political
Left like Peres and Ross and Annan and Clinton and their peace-activist
friends. At Oslo, where Yasser Arafat and his PLO were crowned in glory and
legitimacy, these men finally found a way to be pro-PLO and "pro-Israel."As long as Israel had a government that favored Arafat and Oslo, they could ignore the fact that Arafat's regime was among the greatest human-rights abusers in the world. They could, as the UN did this week, condemn every
move that Israel takes to defend itself against aggression, never condemn the massacre of Israeli civilians, and still say they were friends of Israel because they believed in peace. They could equate Zionism with racism, as Mandela has, and pretend that they actually cared about the human rights of Jews because they support Oslo. They could keep their place on the liberal A-list without ever having to come to terms with the fact that what they claimed to be supporting and what they actually were advocating were mutually exclusive.
But now that is over. Oslo is dead. The overwhelming majority of Israelis want Arafat to disappear and do not believe that peace can be achiev