The Imbalance of Obama

From Barack Obama's UN speech:

Let us leave behind those who thrive on conflict, and those who reject the right of Israel to exist.

If you think this is extracted out-of-context, here's the whole paragraph:

Among Israelis and Palestinians, the future must not belong to those who turn their backs on the prospect of peace. Let us leave behind those who thrive on conflict, and those who reject the right of Israel to exist. The road is hard but the destination is clear – a secure, Jewish state of Israel; and an independent, prosperous Palestine. Understanding that such a peace must come through a just agreement between the parties, America will walk alongside all who are prepared to make that journey.

And yes, he also said this:

...It is time to marginalize those who – even when not resorting to violence – use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as a central principle of politics. For that only gives cover, and sometimes makes excuses, for those who resort to violence.

And this:

...Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained. It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy.

But getting back to that first statement.

Am I to understand (and do you, too) that Obama is setting up to opposite baddies - Jews/Israelis who "thrive on conflict" and Arabs who "reject Israel's right to exist"?  Is that his thinking?

Could there not be Jews who realized that long ago the conflict, i.e., Arab terror seeking to deny Jews national rights anywhere in the Land of Israel, began when Jews were not "occupiers", had not constructed "settlements" and in fact, were residing in those locations Obama and his Arab friends consider not to belong to the Jews like Hebron, Gaza, Shchem and Jerusalem's Old City?

Is Obama a rational human being?  Cannot he not know this history?

So, is Obama imbalanced or unbalanced?

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Rabbi Wolpe's Wallop

Rabbi David Wolpe reviews the new Beinart book.

I left this comment:

So, in writing "It is hard to make a case that many of Israel’s settlements are anything but an impediment to a final resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians", you have a case that explains why, when there were not Jewish communities in Judea&Samaria (Yesha) between 1949-1967 there was no conflict resolution because....? Nu. Why? And after Disengagement we have peace with Gaza? Maybe there's another impediment - one of the Arabs and one of Jews who can't think straight?

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Chalifax or Halalifax?

Thanks to RA:-

The Jon Stewart episode on understanding the Middle East conflict - via Halifa -



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Think Logically

If   this is happening to Christians in Egypt:-

Recent attacks on churches in southern Egypt also illustrate the heat Christians are under. Under Mubarak-era rules, the building of a church or repairs for an existing one required permission from local authorities and the state security agency - a rule not applied to mosques. The rules sought to avoid outbursts of violence from Muslim hard-liners. Since permission was rarely given, Christians at times resorted to building churches in secret, often in parish guesthouses.

On Sept. 30, a Muslim mob attacked a church in southern village of Marynab in Aswan province because they believed the Christians were illegally constructing a new church. Church officials had documents showing they had permission to build a new church to replace a previous, run-down one at the same site.

Even before the attack, Muslim protests prompted priests to turn to security officials, who arranged a meeting with local elders and Salafis. In the face of their demands, the priests agreed to take down a cross and bells on the church, according to church officials. Still, after the Christians erected a dome, the mob attacked, setting the church and nearby homes and shops on fire.

Aswan's governor, Gen. Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, further hiked tensions by telling the media that the church was being built on the site of a guesthouse, suggesting it was illegal.

In response, hundreds of Christians marched in front of the governor's office last week, demanding those behind the attack be prosecuted and families who lost homes be compensated. Christians also protested in Cairo, cutting off a main avenue in the heart of the capital, demanding the governor's ouster, until soldiers dispersed them by force.

Days after the Aswan attack, Muslim villagers in the southern province of Sohag tried to storm Saint Girgis church, shouting "No to church construction," as Christians on rooftops rained stones down on them. The assault was prompted by construction of a church in a guesthouse.

[UPDATE - now 19 dead in riots over Copt church]

and this:-

On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year.

Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented. For the next two weeks, Habib reported to school in the southern Egyptian village of Sheik Fadl every day in her uniform, without the head covering, only to be turned back by teachers.

One day, Habib heard the school loudspeakers echoing her name and teachers with megaphones leading a number of students in chants of "We don't want Ferial here," the teenager told The Associated Press.

Habib's was allowed last week to attend without the scarf, and civil rights advocates say her case is a rare one. But it stokes the fears of Egypt's significant Christian minority that they will become the victims as Islamists grow more assertive after the Feb. 11 toppling of President Hosni Mubarak.

and in Syria:-

SAYDNAYA, Syria — Abu Elias sat beneath the towering stairs leading from the Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya, a church high up in the mountains outside Damascus, where Christians have worshiped for 1,400 years. “We are all scared of what will come next,” he said, turning to a man seated beside him, Robert, an Iraqi refugee who escaped the sectarian strife in his homeland.

“He fled Iraq and came here,” said Abu Elias, looking at his friend, who arrived just a year earlier. “Soon, we might find ourselves doing the same.”

then should Jews be wary of what the Arabs of the fomer British Mandate territory of Palestine might do to us?

Think about that.

Logically.

P.S. And check this:

Bulletin of Christian Persecution
August 29 - October 3, 2011

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You've Seen Pat Condell's Latest?

It's here.

Pass it around.

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Rolling to a Disaster

I recently reported on violence initiated by Arabs on Jerusalem's Light Rail project.

The violence happened again:

Security guards employed by Jerusalem's public transportation system used pepper spray on Palestinian light-rail passengers on Wednesday...The incident occurred after Palestinian youths refused to heed the request of a light train conductor, who had asked them to take their feet off the seats of the train. Following their refusal, and a reported ensuing confrontation, light rail security was alerted.

Security guards arriving at the scene then used pepper spray against the Palestinians, and removed them from the train car; police officers called to the scene did not make any arrests.

Wednesday's incident came amid a growing amount of complaints concerning reported friction between Jewish and Palestinian passengers.

It will only increase.

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Education the New York Times (Biased) Way

Susannah L. Griffee is a New York Times intern and a student at New York University.

She was afforded a blog post at The Learning Network at the newspaper to help teachers teach and students to learn.

A photograph of a temporary structure with a teenage girl with an Israeli flag in her hand accompanies the post with this caption:

Palestinians seek to preserve the two-state solution in the face of encroaching Israeli settlements like this one in the West Bank.

With that prejudicial introduction, Ms. Griffee wants teachers to present these question to their pupils in this lesson plan base:

WHO announced Friday that he would seek full United Nations membership for Palestinians through the Security Council?

WHAT are the political issues and challenges surrounding the application?

WHERE is the United Nations General Assembly meeting taking place?

WHERE might land be “swapped” under an Israeli-Palestinian agreement?

WHEN did Israel become a member of the United Nations?

WHY does Palestine want to seek membership in the United Nations now?

HOW will the United States react to the Palestinians’ application?

HOW would Palestinian membership in the United Nations affect negotiations between Palestinians and Israel?

Forget the pupils, do you think the teachers know how to answer those questions properly and correctly? Do you think they have the information to do so? To guide their pupils through the complex maze?

Could not the NYTimes invited two or four inputs so that a plurality of opinion and perspective is provided?

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Looking Back on That 1947 Partition Recommendatiom and Around-about

Who was enthusiastically in favor?

Not them:

December 3, 1947

Anti-partition Demonstrations Break out in Egypt; 30,000 Demonstrate in Baghdad

New demonstrations broke out in Egypt today and violence was reported in at least one city as Arabs in the major centers of the Middle East joined the Palestine Arabs in a protest strike against the U.N. decision in favor of the partitioning of Palestine. At Zagazig, a town about 40 miles north of Cairo, the British Institute was wrecked and gutted by fire after being attacked by 1,000 demonstrators...In Cairo, Premier Mahmoud Nokrashy Pasha told the Parliament that Egypt would "ignore" partition. Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League, told demonstrating students in Cairo that it was their duty to go to Palestine and fight...In Baghdad, 30,000 demonstrators were kept in line by mounted policemen. Recruiting offices were reportedly opened in Beirut for Arabs desiring to fight in Palestine.  According to another report some 20-odd Syrian deputies volunteered for combatant service after the Syrian parliament had voted some $880,000 to raise a "striking force."

Two months earlier:

The ex-mufti of Jerusalem today arrived in Beirut, Lebanon...to attend a meeting, begun yesterday, of the Arab League Council, which will discuss the Palestine problem, among other matters...Sheikh Hassan el Banna, head of the Moslem Brotherhood, had pledged to send 10,000 young Arabs to "save Palestine." In a cable to Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League who is now in Beirut, Banna said that "fighting is the only means of saving Palestine."

By the way, this sounds familiar:

[UN] Israeli representative Aubrey Eban...pointed out that other atrocity stories mentioned by Azzam Pasha had proved to be "imaginary." In addition, he asserted that any suffering of the civilian population was the responsibility of the Arab states who admittedly invaded Palestine.

And what about the theme of boycott?  Here, from October 1947:

The Arab League Council today decided on measures to strengthen the boycott of "Zionist-made" goods...it was reported tonight from Beirut.  Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, general-secretary of the League, declared that Palestine was the keystone about which had been built the first agreement for military cooperation in the history of the Arab nations....

And here's the left-wing talking in October 1947 (sounds like today's radical progressives?):

There is no danger of an Arab invasion of Palestine in spite of the threats of the neighboring Arab countries, it was reported here today by three leaders of the Histadruth...Abba Khoushi, Joseph Biankower and Don Pines...

Did the Arabs invade before May 15, 1948?

February 5, 1948
British Repulse Arab Attack at Palestine-syria Frontier; Capture Iraqis and Syrians

One Arab was killed and several wounded in a fight between British frontier troops and an Arab unit dressed in military uniform which attempted to cross from Syria into Palestine to attack Jewish settlements in the Mishmar Hayarden area. Two Iraqis and four Syrians were captured in the battle, while the others retreated into Syria.

And this from March 4, 1948

Approximately 5,000 Arabs invaded Palestine from neighboring countries since the adoption of the partition decision by the General assembly, it was reported today in the House of Commons during a debate on the Palestine question in which Foreign Secretary. Ernest Bevin participated.

What else went on that I could recalll to you?  Ah, this:

Nuri Pasha es-Said, ex-Premier of Iraq and President of the Iraq Senate, submitted to the recent meeting of Arab state premiers a plan worked out by British officials providing for the annexation by King Abdullah of Transjordan of the projected Arab part of Palestine, to be set up under United Nations auspices as a separate state, it was learned here.The Arab part of Palestine, under the British plan, would then be used as a British advance base in the Middle East.

Did Jews assert their rights?  Yes.  The Jewish Agency described:-

...the statement made yesterday by Jamal Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, to the opening session of the second part of the London Conference as a "complete disregard of the fundamental facts of history and the present position of the Jews," the Jewish Agency office here today stated that the Arabs need not fear the emergence of a Jewish state.  Maintaining that the Zionists have always taken into account the presence of the Arabs in Palestine, and the fact that it is surrounded on three sides by Arab-speaking countries, the statement declares that Husseini and his friends ignore the attachment of the Jewish people to Palestine and their determination to renew their national life there, and the international recognition given their right to do so. "To call Jews returning to Palestine 'aliens' is to fly in the face of the most patent reality affecting the country's political future," the Agency continued. "The Jews are returning as sons of the country, ready to share it with the Arab inhabitants, but not conceding the latter's exclusive or predominant mastery in it. "The Jewish claim to statcheed is as natural and as elementary as any other peoples'.

There is so much to be reminded of.

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Political Psychology a la The Kabbalah

This past week's Torah portion was B'chukosai, the last section in the book of VaYikra (Lecviticus).

In discussing a verse contained in the portion, at 26:44:-

  וְאַף-גַּם-זֹאת בִּהְיוֹתָם בְּאֶרֶץ אֹיְבֵיהֶם, לֹא-מְאַסְתִּים וְלֹא-גְעַלְתִּים לְכַלֹּתָם--לְהָפֵר בְּרִיתִי, אִתָּם:  כִּי אֲנִי יְ-וָה, אֱלֹה-יהֶם

which translates as:-

And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God

the commentary of the Kabbalah has Rabi Chiya noting in the name of Rav Elazar that he who hates another views himself as despised, as though he were disgusting, a case of reverse projection as it were:

That the affect on one's one psychological balance is perverted.
And this observation is so very applicable to the relationsip the Arabs have seemed to develop vis a vis Zionism. Their hatred for Jews, Jewish nationalism and all that we have accomplished in our homeland despite the hostility, the terror and the interference placed in our path that they have not only adopted the warped self-image of victimhood, which many have noted, but they have turned themselves through this victims imagery into people who so hate and so that it causes them to redouble their efforts to strike out at us.

Abaas was reported to have said that “A human being is not capable of something like that,” and so, an Arab could not have commited that ugly slaughter, which was "despicable, inhuman and immoral", of the five members of the Fogel Family. Disregarding previous acts of similar and even worse incidents, this position taken by the head of the PA is not only in variance with the facts but is indicative of a warped psychotic attitude too prevalent among our enemies.


P.S.

Eric Cantor:

Speaking to thousands of pro-Israel activists assembled in Washington for the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Cantor said..."What kind of culture leads one to do that? Sadly, it is a culture infused with resentment and hatred...It is this culture that underlies the Palestinians' and the broader Arab world's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

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The Letters In Response To Abbas in the NYTimes

(UPDATE with second batch of letters, see below)

First, my letter that was not published:

Mahmoud Abbas' recollection of history is problematic for understanding the Arab - Israel conflict. In noting the UN 1947 recommendation to partition the Palestine Mandate ("The Long Overdue Palestinian State", May 17), he errs twice.


The country was defined by international law, set by the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations, as "a national home for the Jewish people". In defining the residents of that country, the word Arab does not appear at all but rather "non-Jews". Any Arab claim to the country is one of residence, of civil rights not of sovereignty. Moreover, Abbas neglects to reveal to his readers that the Arabs of the Mandate territory rejected that recommendation and chose to declare war of the Jewish state that was to arise. Those who know not history, cannot proceed to any future.

And the ones that were in - The Mideast Conflict, Past and Present
Published: May 17, 2011

With due respect to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (“The Long Overdue Palestinian State,” Op-Ed, May 17), let’s not rewrite history in an effort to shift blame.

The Palestinians rejected statehood in 1947 and instead supported an Arab war to exterminate the Jewish state. The Palestinians rejected another golden opportunity for statehood in the 2000 Camp David peace talks, instead opting for “intifada.”

The Fatah faction that Mr. Abbas leads has now joined a “unity” alliance with Hamas, the same terrorist organization that dedicates itself in its charter to the destruction of Israel.

Yet Mr. Abbas asserts, “The State of Palestine intends to be a peace-loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law.” He adds that “once admitted to the United Nations, our state stands ready to negotiate all core issues of the conflict with Israel.” If you buy that one, I’ve got some unicorns for sale.

Mr. Abbas, don’t ask for a state based on the promise that Palestinians will negotiate the terms for peace some day in the future. Your alliance with Hamas speaks far louder than your words.

JOHN C. LANDA Jr.
Houston, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

While I fully support Mahmoud Abbas in his “call on all friendly, peace-loving nations to join us in realizing our national aspirations by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border,” I take issue with his use of history as justification.

Historians will never agree on what really happened between 1947 and 1948, and arguing over it only perpetuates mistrust and bad feelings between Arabs and Jews. The sense of victimhood on all sides is our biggest obstacle to progress.

After 63 years, it no longer matters who is to blame for our predicament. It only matters that today Palestinians feel disenfranchised and oppressed, and Israelis feel embattled and isolated. What we all need is reconciliation, trust and cooperation. The real struggle is not between Arabs and Jews, left and right, or oppressors and oppressed, but between courage and fear.

DAVID P. SCHWARTZ
Director of Resource Development
The Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development
Raanana , Israel, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

While reading the Op-Ed article by Mahmoud Abbas, juxtaposed with the article outlining Benjamin Netanyahu’s anticipated message to President Obama and Congress this week and next (“Israel Leader Outlines Points of Negotiation Before U.S. Trip,” news article, May 17), I was struck by the fact that Mr. Abbas outlines a plan for Palestinian statehood that abides by international law, while Mr. Netanyahu defends continuing the occupation of Jerusalem and maintaining settlements in the West Bank, both of which are against international law.

While I support a home for the Jewish people if it is defined within the 1967 borders, what Mr. Netanyahu is offering is nothing but a continuation of the illegal occupation of 44 years. By clinging to this hard-line position, he is jeopardizing any prospects for peace for Israel and the Palestinians.

I hope that President Obama and Congress will join the world community in demanding justice for the Palestinian people and security for both nations.

HANAN WATSON
New York, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

Mahmoud Abbas writes: “In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened.”

Excuse me?

As reported by The New York Times on May 17, 1948: “The invasion armies of five Arab nations hammered away with air and artillery attacks today at outlying Jewish settlements in Palestine.”

A careful review of the history of that time demonstrates unequivocally that Israel was invaded on all fronts by five Arab nations in an effort to destroy Israel, the United Nations partition plan notwithstanding. “Intervened” my foot.

Mr. Abbas rewrites history. He is not a serious partner for negotiations.

SHELDON M. FINKELSTEIN
Newark, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

Given the history of expulsions, persecutions and genocide that our ancestors endured in Christian Europe, we Jews should be among the loudest supporters of Palestinian statehood. Do we really expect the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants to forgo their “right of return” after 60-plus years, when Israel claimed a Jewish “right of return” after 2,000 years?

Unfortunately, many American Jewish organizations have long supported whatever policy emanated out of Israel.

It is not only a Palestinian state that is long overdue, as the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rightly claims, but also a declaration of independence by American Jews that we will no longer be silent supporters of the Israeli policies of occupation that so clearly violate not only common sense, but also the ethical values of Judaism.

JACOB BENDER
New York, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

How heartening that Mahmoud Abbas declares that the State of Palestine that he hopes for will be a “peace-loving nation.” Now his task is to somehow square that with his embrace of Hamas, solemnly pledged to Israel’s destruction, as a partner in the formation of such a state’s government.

Mr. Abbas’s words remind me of another declaration of hope for “peace for our time” — by Neville Chamberlain in 1938.

(Rabbi) AVI SHAFRAN
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, May 17, 2011

________________________

P.S. More on the Abbas op-ed:

JoshuaPundit, Honest Reporting, CAMERA, Israelly Cool and others have piled on!


UPDATED - Second Batch

Round 2: More Reaction to Abbas’s View of History


To the Editor:
Re “The Long Overdue Palestinian State” (Op-Ed, May 17):

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, has written one of the most delusional Op-Ed articles ever published.

The only “nakba,” or catastrophe, the Palestinian people should be observing is the reality that had they accepted the United Nations declaration of a Palestinian state in 1948, they could have been enjoying the fruits of a vigorous, prosperous, democratic state for the past 63 years (like their neighbors in Israel) instead of committing themselves to death by suicide bombings and economic chaos.

HOWARD B. WEBER
President, Coalition for Israel
New York, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

Mahmoud Abbas’s Op-Ed article is a repeat of old ideas that can never lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. His article, written just before the arrival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the United States, repeats an old, one-sided, specious history of Arabs and Jews without even offering a modicum of Arab responsibility.

Mr. Abbas does not make any attempt at conciliation. Instead he commemorates “another year of our expulsion — which we call the nakba, or catastrophe.”

It would have been helpful and evenhanded, for example, if he had mentioned how Jewish residents were forced from Arab countries in the Middle East — either by government policy or violence against them — after the United Nations recognized Israel.

Settlers are fair game for Mr. Abbas’s criticism. Many Israelis disapprove of the settlements. But settlers are not terrorists killing innocent people, whereas within the Palestinian movement there are recognized and officially supported terrorists and terrorist organizations.

His rendition of Arab-Jewish history is so one-sided that any fair-minded reader must conclude that Mr. Abbas is more interested in grandstanding than in recognizing a homeland for the Jewish people alongside a peaceful homeland for the Palestinians.

MARTIN H. SOKOL
Great Neck, N.Y., May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

We should support the creation of a Palestinian state because it is in America’s national interest.

Since 1948, the Palestinians have endured repression and occupation by Israel. Not enough people are speaking up on behalf of the ordinary Palestinians and their suffering. Instead, using a broad brush, we paint them all as radicals. The majority of Palestinians just want their freedom and to lead a normal life.

The Israeli occupation is morally wrong and against international law. American support for Israel hurts our image and our interests in the region. Israel should acknowledge the horrors it has visited upon the Palestinians. And, most important, it must end the occupation.

MAHMOUD M. AWAD
Flat Rock, Mich., May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

I am surprised that you gave space and dignity to Mahmoud Abbas’s Op-Ed article. He talks about friendly, peace-loving nations, when his own people have, to this day, no intention of living in either friendship or peace with Israel.

Mr. Abbas’s article is full of selective myopia. He admits nothing of the multiple intifadas or the thousands of rockets launched against Israel.

Israel left Gaza as a peace gesture toward the Arabs. Jews in Israel would like nothing better than to live in peace with their neighbors. But they do not yet have any feeling of trust that the Palestinians will do the same — or even wish to.

THEO KLEWANSKY
Boca Raton, Fla., May 17, 2011


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So Ironic, No?

Found at the late (not-very-great "peace activist") Vittorio Arrigoni's Facebook page:-

Isn't that ironic?

It was Islamic terrorism that got him in the end.


(k/t = DK)
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"The History of the Conflict As Flat Atlas"

I opened up the Gallaria section (culture, arts, books, etc.) of Haaretz of yesterday, Thursday. One reason why web editions are insufficient since the web version doesn't have the article (yet?).  I found an article on this book:

Atlas Of The Conflict: Israel-Palestine by Malkit Shoshan

which is an

...atlas of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict maps the processes and mechanisms behind the modification of the country during the last 100 years...the atlas also provides lessons on a broader front, particularly in connection with disputes over former colonial territories and natural resources.

You can see a preview here.

A propagandist, Yousef Munayyer, of the Palestine Centre of Australia, writes:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict [is about] a people struggling to stay connected to their land. The territorial aspect lies at the heart of every facet of the Palestinian struggle, whether it’s the location of depopulated villages, the border that denotes the boundaries of Jerusalem or the Armistice Line which separates territory recognized as occupied from that which is recognized as Israel...Malkit Shoshan’s contribution, Atlas of the Conflict: Israel-Palestine, is different. Shoshan is an Israeli. Yet, while the contributions of Palestinian historians and geographers may have been motivated by a patriotic yearning, Shoshan’s drive to document these territorial changes comes from a different and still noble origin. The process by which Shoshan put together her atlas was clearly an awakening for her, and those who are unfamiliar with the history and geography of Palestine in the last 100 years will encounter a similar awakening. She goes far beyond the mapping of Palestine’s depopulation from 1947-1949 and includes the history of recent Zionist settlement, the destruction of villages after 1948, the changing maps after various Arab-Israeli wars, maps of settlement patterns in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and occupied Jerusalem, as well as detailed maps of the apartheid wall that runs through Palestinian territory.

Haaretz had one map which is especially viscious in that it purports to show the property ownership.  It has Eretz-Yisrael in the years 1918, 1936, 1947 and 1960.  The land area is mostly red from the northern Negev up through to the Gallilee and then in 1960, the sole area of property owned by non-Jews around Nazereth but extremely small.  Quite striking.

The only thing is that until 1918 and afterwards until 1948, the land was not owned simply by "non-Jews" but by the regime, whether the Ottoman Empire from 1516 or the British after World War I.  Not even Arabs owned more than perhaps as much as 15% privately. 

Portraying the theme of "stealing Arab land" in this way is not only not true but is a total misrepresentation because the visual image is so stark when comparing 1960 to the previous years.  It arouses negative emotions rather than a debate over statistics, tables and facts and their interpretation.


P.S.

Found a typo: it's Saul not Baul.

P.S.

And now read this.


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How To Solve The Israel-Arab Conflict

Maybe "Past Life Regression Therapy"?

PLRT is based on the assumption that our past lives haunt us, and that drawing them forth through hypnosis and exorcising them can help resolve problems in this life.

Here is an amazing description:

Find a quiet place . . . free of distractions.

Adjust the lighting and room temperature.
Adjust clothing . . . footwear . . . eyeglasses. Sit down or lie down . . .
Find a position that is comfortable for you.
Quiet your mind . . . Still your thoughts
Relax your body. . .
Your face . . . your jaw . . . relaxing . . .
Your shoulders . . . your neck . . . relaxed . . .
Your arms . . . your hands . . . feel at peace . . .
Your torso . . . your hips . . . letting go.
Your legs . . . your feet . . . totally relaxed.
Focus on your breathing.
Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose.
Retain the breath as long as is comfortable.
Exhale through the mouth slowly and completely.
Repeat for two more breaths . . . or as is comfortable.
See before you a round magic clock.
It denotes dates and marks time.
It is your clock.
Watch the hands as they slowly begin to move backward . . .
The further back they go ... the faster they move.
You relax and watch time.
Suddenly you feel your soul wanting to stop!
Mentally you think Stop!
The clock begins to slow down ...
Slower and slower until it stops.
You look around.
Is it daytime? evening?
You look at your surroundings . . .
What do you see?
You look down at yourself noticing your attire . . .
...
When you return to present time
please make notes about what you experience
On top of your page put the day, date . .
and don't forget 'time'!
You may also travel to see yourself in a parallel reality
future timeline
other aspects of your soul.

There's a caveat:
 

Past life regression (PLR) is the alleged journeying into one's past lives while hypnotized. While it is true that many patients recall past lives, it is highly probable that their memories are false memories. The memories are from experiences in this life, pure products of the imagination, intentional or unintentional suggestions from the hypnotist, or confabulations.

Some New Age therapists do PLR therapy under the guise of personal growth; others under the guise of healing. As a tool for New Age explorers, there may be little harm in encouraging people to remember what are probably false memories about their living in earlier centuries or for encouraging them to go forward in time and glimpse into the future. But as a method of healing, it must be apparent even to the most superficial of therapists that there are great dangers in encouraging patients to create delusions. Some false memories may be harmless, but others can be devastating. They can increase a person's suffering, as well as destroy loving relationships with family members.

And another, the danger of

'past-life' memories could easily be nothing but a mixture of remembered tales and strong, symbolically colored emotions

Or this

a vivid imagination, a confused memory, fraud, or a combination of the three

Oops.  We have enough of that with the Arabs now.


   
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Oops, There Goes The Conflict

Despite a slight interruption, Michal Govrin, an Israeli author, escaped from a conference of Middle East writers with only good news.

According to Haaretz, in Hebrew only so far,

we've lost our central position as the main conflict in the region.  a lot was spoken about civil war in Algeria, the tesnion between Turkey and Greece and the war between Serbia and Croatia.  on this background, the Arab-Israel conflict was but one of many.

To be fair, I don't know if she is disappointed.

I found this:

Is this barrier going to be "The Wall of The Ghetto?" And for whom: for Palestinians or for Israelis? Will it discourage terrorism, and put a border on hatred, or only instigate more frustration and hatred? Does it establish the grounds for a future recognizable border at the end of occupation? Is this barrier the unavoidable stage of separation needed to delineate property, identity, nationhood? Is it a fatal mistake, or is it a means to one day enable the tearing down of barriers and of fences, as in the year of "Release"?

I climb the Hill, watching this complex space changing, year after year, raising the most challenging question about space: What is the space that will make a place for the complexity of otherness; multilayered enough to enable the co-existence of fully distinct "others?" Facing this question will require not less then a global revolution - in the Muslim Jihad's claims to ownership of the land, in the Christian Western aspirations of dominion over Celestial Jerusalem and terrestrial oil wells, and in the Zionist dream. And maybe there also must be a Jewish dimension of "Release."

I stand on the Hilltop in the midst of an oppressive present moment. I watch this intense space imprinted with history like an Archive of the layered story of Western civilization, with its heights of belief, love and poetry and its abysses of stupidity, fanaticism, jealousy and cruelty. I stand on the Hilltop, in the midst of this amazingly beautiful arena of nature and mankind, and I cannot resist naming it "outrageous hope." Another synonym for "Jerusalem."

Anyway, I've asked her and will wait her reply.

^

Some Problems Have No Solutions

In appearances, I always try to suggest possible avenues to solutions to the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Land of Israel.

The first, of course, is that this is not the Land of Ishmael.

Now, there is this book in the field of Conflict Management:-

Barriers to Peace in the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict
by Prof' Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

From the description:

This book presents a detailed study of the various barriers to settling the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, barriers which in their range and complexity have singled out this conflict as a protracted and ongoing conflict. In addition to pointing out substantive, and tangible barriers, this study highlights psychological, religious and cultural barriers that greatly intensify and exacerbate the difficulties in reaching a settlement. These psychological, religious and cultural barriers have framed the core issues of the conflict – Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and borders – not simply as strongly disputed interests, but as protected, sacred values, rooted in religious belief and historical meta-narratives and not open to compromise.

The force and magnitude of the barriers discussed in this book – in particular their portrayal as protected values – inevitably leads to the conclusion that the likelihood of ending the conflict through a settlement is exceedingly low at present...

Download the Executive Summary.

It's just that some people can't stand the thought that they cannot solve a problem. It's people like those that usually cause the real problems - solutions suggested that don't solve problems but assuage their own persons.

^

What Is The Main Element to the Conflict?

.

Dennis Mitzner, a MA student in Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University, posted this insight and I've extracted a few good points:

Putting aside the many intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are the settlements really the main reason why there is no peace between Israel and the Palestinians? To accept the notion of the omnipotence of the settlements-issue vis-à-vis the peace process is to set a dangerous precedent...

...The constant human rights violations and the rabid anti-Semitism emanating from the Palestinian territories have become non-issues to those — mainly European and American analysts and experts — trying to provide solutions to the conflict.

...Palestinians are given a free pass on hatred that has become one of the main tenets of the forming of a Palestinian national identity. Why does the West cultivate a Palestinian narrative which is defined according to the existence and consequent actions of Israel?

...The PA-run media is airing programs depicting Jews as sons of pigs and monkeys and recently, the seemingly moderate technocrat Saeb Erekat proclaimed that Palestinians will never accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.

...The Obama administration would do well to pursue an aggressive liberal — in the classical sense — agenda to demand that the seemingly eternally oppressed peoples would take responsibility for their actions

...Accepting the notion that the existence of settlements in the West Bank is the main obstacle to peace is indeed patronizing and a dangerous disservice to the Palestinians and their cause. Succumbing to a false narrative will not free Palestinians of their plight, but gives tacit consent to anti-Semitism and Islamic radicalism...The only approach to the conflict must be cultural, because it is the only approach which treats them as a people capable of change.

I can sign off on that.

And I left this comment there:-

One other "liberal" consideration: if, for "peace", locations of residency of Jews in Judea and Samaria are to be dismantled and their residents expelled, as is the Pal. position, do not these liberals see that ultimately, in the name of a better peace, Arabs may be required to move out of Israel into this new state of "Palestine"? That way, for sure there'll be no friction or tension. Is that what they want? Total separation? If there are to be no Jews in "Palestine", why not no Arabs in Israel?

- - -

Words of Wisdom

“If the conflict is about the size of Israel, then long and difficult negotiations can eventually resolve the problem. But if the conflict is about the existence of Israel, then serious negotiation is impossible.”

Bernard Lewis


- - -

'The Jews are being scapegoated again', He Writes

And today's must read item:

Israel and the Surrender of the West by Shelby Steele.

Excerpts -

...At every turn "world opinion," like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world's moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation...White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.

...this [is] almost [a] complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations...There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.

...Today the world puts its thumb on the scale for the Palestinians by demonizing the stronger and whiter Israel as essentially a colonial power committed to the "occupation" of a beleaguered Third World people...it is bad manners to be outraged at Hamas's recent attack on a school because it educated girls, or at the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired into Israeli towns—or even at the fact that Hamas is armed and funded by Iran. The world wants independent investigations of Israel, not of Hamas.

One reason for this is that the entire Western world has suffered from a deficit of moral authority for decades now...the irony: In the eyes of a morally compromised Western world, the Israelis looked like the Gestapo.

...The West also lacks the self-assurance to see the Palestinians accurately. Here again it is safer in the white West to see the Palestinians as they advertise themselves—as an "occupied" people denied sovereignty and simple human dignity by a white Western colonizer. The West is simply too vulnerable to the racist stigma to object to this "neo-colonial" characterization.

...We don't want to lose more moral authority than we already have. So we choose not to see certain things that are right in front of us...The problem is not me; it is them. And in my victimization I enjoy a moral and human grandiosity—no matter how smart and modern my enemy is, I have the innocence that defines victims. I may be poor but my hands are clean. Even my backwardness and poverty only reflect a moral superiority, while my enemy's wealth proves his inhumanity.

In other words, my hatred is my self-esteem...this recalcitrance in the Muslim world, this attraction to the consolations of hatred, is one of the world's great problems today—whether in the suburbs of Paris and London, or in Kabul and Karachi, or in Queens, N.Y., and Gaza. The fervor for hatred as deliverance may not define the Muslim world, but it has become a drug that consoles elements of that world in the larger competition with the West. This is the problem we in the West have no easy solution to, and we scapegoat Israel—admonish it to behave better—so as not to feel helpless. We see our own vulnerability there.

(Kippah tip: TG)


- - -

What's Wrong Here?

Palestinians, settlers throw stones at each other in West Bank

Some 50 settlers and Palestinians threw stones at each other in the West Bank village of Asira al-Kabaliya, south of Nablus. IDF troops dispersed the two groups using tear gas.

The IDF said it was likely the settlers had come to cause trouble after some of their fields near the settlement of Yitzhar were set alight.

Aw, you guessed correctly - it was this part:

the settlers had come to cause trouble after some of their fields near the settlement of Yitzhar were set alight

You know that joke about the Arab-Israel conflict as explained by an Arab -

"it started after he hit me back."


- - - - -

You Forgot History, Leslie

One Leslie Brisman, in a NYTimes letter, has a suggestion of how to solve the conflict:

There is another, more visionary path whose time may have come at last: If the government permitted the construction of these apartments but discontinued discriminatory policies in deciding who would occupy them, we could indeed move forward toward a lasting peace...If an eventual Palestinian state and Israel are to coexist, they must do so as neighbors, and a mixed housing complex could be a model of how this could happen...

Leslie, please, did you forget that that's how the conflict actually started?

Jews tried to buy land, construct homes and live among the Arabs starting, in the modern era, from the mid-1800s. But the Arabs basically said "we'll kill you, rape you, burn you, if you try that".

And you know what? That's what they did. Ethnic cleansing, discriminatory residency, terror, forcing the British Mandate to close the gates to immigration on the eve of World War II, etc.

They didn't - and don't- want us among them. They deny it's our national home. They deny the Temple existed.

Nice try.



P.S.

Is this Leslie?