The Pre-Conditional Peace

On August 15, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out any "preconditions" ahead of an expected invitation to direct peace talks with the Palestinians that may be based on a complete settlement halt.

But the other side has another opinion:-

Abbas to quit talks if settlements go on

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has threatened to pull out of the planned direct talks with Israel unless it halts illegal settlement construction in the West Bank.

“Settlements and peace are two parallels that don't meet,” acting PA Chief Mahmoud Abbas urged the Middle East Peace Quartet on Sunday, The Jerusalem Post reported.

“If Israel continues with the settlement construction, we will withdraw from the talks,” read a letter delivered to the quartet by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

...Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already re-assured his cabinet that the moratorium will not be renewed, warning that extending the freeze would risk the future of his right-wing coalition cabinet.

Where lies the difference?

Well, precondition are very in:-

The Palestinian Authority is basing its hopes on the Mideast Quartet statement, issued Friday, rather than anything said by American officials, Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmad said Sunday.

...Al-Ahmad, a Fatah Central Committee member, says that if the US does not adhere to the Quartet statement, "Obama’s invitation will not be more than a dinner party. There will not be real negotiations; they might not even be launched."

While Clinton insists that the talks should renew "without preconditions," the Quartet reaffirmed its commitment to previous statements including one on 19 March which called on both sides to adhere to the Road Map and specifically demanded that Israel "freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth."

Abbas had insisted that talks would not resume without an end to settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territory, a request Netanyahu refused as a "precondition."

This seems to be a very pre-conditional peace.


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The Bloggers Deep Within

Journalism is changing.

Not only has the NYTimes, via Ethan Bronner, finally come around to dealing with the Gaza Mall (see below) but mainstream media is embedding in its website stories links not only to definitions but to other bloggers as well.

Here is an excerpt from the NYT Gaza Mall piece:-

For Hamas, and for the Hamas-linked group of local investors behind the enterprise, the two-story mall, with its central air-conditioning and underground parking, has deep symbolic value. It is proof, they say, that despite the Israeli and Egyptian effort to isolate this Palestinian coastal strip, it can develop and thrive. Let the message go out: We will not be defeated.

But symbols are a risky business, and Israel’s fiercest defenders have seized upon the mall for their own purposes as well. Wielding glossy photographs of the new shops, they ask: Is this the land of deprivation that you have heard about? How did they build a mall if no building materials are permitted into Gaza? How badly off can a place be that has just opened up a luxury mall? Those aid flotillas are sailing to the wrong place, they say.

There's Tom Gross in there.

A Danny Ayalon op-ed.

A Jacob Shrybman collection of photographs.

Bloggers deep within a New York Times story.

And interestingly:

“Gaza is not poor in the way outsiders think,” said Nida Wishah, a 22-year-old information technology student who was at the mall one recent afternoon. “You can’t compare our poverty with that of Africa.”

Modest though it is, the mall is a pleasant and cheerful complex, especially for Gaza. Tens of thousands of people have been passing through it, enjoying the air-conditioning, the window shopping and the recent arrival of many Israeli brands...

“This is for the elite,” Mr. Abu Abdu said. “The money you see here belongs to a very few people.”...“It feels civilized here,” said Othman Turkman, 26, who works in conflict resolution and was comparison shopping. “It’s not for everyone, of course.

So, how many "elite" are there?

And how many civilized?


(Kippah tip: SoccerDad)
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Another Poll: 77% Say It Makes No Difference

Peace Index - August, 2010
Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann

Summary of the Findings

• “The whole world is against us.” That is what 56% of the Jewish public believes. A larger majority (77%) thinks it makes no difference what Israel does and how far it may go on the Palestinian issue; the world will continue to be very critical of it. The positions of the Arab public are reversed: a large majority (75%) disagrees with the maxim that the whole world is against Israel, and a majority of 54% sees a connection between Israel’s actions and world criticism.

• Should Israel take world opinion into account? The Jewish public is split almost
evenly on this question: 51% think Israel should consider world opinion when making
foreign policy decisions while 48% think it should not. The picture is quite different when it comes to the United States – a sweeping majority (71%) thinks Israel should take Washington’s positions into account. In the Arab public, a huge majority (85%) thinks Israel should take world opinion into account when making foreign policy decisions and an even larger majority (89%) thinks Israel should be cognizant of U.S. opinion.

• A people that dwells alone? On the question of Israel’s current status in the
international arena, a small majority of the Jewish public thinks Israel is moderately or completely isolated (54%), compared to 46% who say it is not isolated. The picture in the Arab public is the reverse, but not dramatically so: 48% think Israel is isolated while 51% see it as not being isolated.

Schneer Sneers

I am not spending $30 for this book, "THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" by Jonathan Schneer.

Even Tom Segev notes:

The other part, which Schneer neglects to explore, was the genuine admiration many of Britain’s leaders, including Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Balfour himself, felt for the Jews and their history. These men were deeply religious Christian Zionists. They had grown up on the Bible; the Holy Land was their spiritual home. Modern Zionism, they believed, would fulfill a divine promise and resettle the Jews in the land of their ancient fathers.

As part of this context, Schneer expertly analyzes the passionate and fascinating controversy between non-Zionist and Zionist Jews that preceded the Balfour declaration. The Zionists spoke in the name of Jewish nationhood; their Jewish opponents denied that Jews even constituted a separate nation.

But with only one (!) reference to Jabotinsky, and that only in direct connection with the Jewish Legion and not any diplomatic work of Jabotinsky of which there is a record, the book is worthless as an academic source.

As long ago as 1956, Jabo's first biographer, Joseph Schechtman, in Vol. 1, pgs. 250- 253, brings documents and quotations including Weizmann's remark that his diplomacy for the Balfour Declaration was construcrted on the Jewish Legion:

I built on this foundation

Schneer could have argued against this interpretation but to ignore it?

That would be sneering in my book, Mr. Schneer.



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Have You Read Wiesel's "The Dawn"?

I caught this:

Joseph Lowin:. I once had a conversation with your good friend Eliyahu Amikam. During the conversation, he hinted that your early novel, Dawn, a masterpiece of Racinian concision and tautness, might be based on a real event that you had witnessed. He even thought that he himself might be the model for one of the characters in the novel.

Elie Wiesel:. In Le Monde, they called my work Racinian. No, I wrote Dawn before I met him [Eliyahu Amikam]. We were very close, and I, because of him, became very interested in LEHI. You know that the execution of two British sergeants, after the killing by the British of three Jews—Dov Gruner and two others—was at the hands of the Irgun, not LEHI. In any case, I was not there; I came to Israel for the first time in 1949 and stayed only a few months. If I had been in Palestine at the time, I would have joined LEHI, because it had a certain purity and was suffused with poetry. Things happened, but I wrote a different story. I met afterwards somebody who was the head of a squad to punish traitors. He had read Dawn. He said, “What you describe there is so impossible. You really think we spent a whole night discussing these things—philosophy, morality—are you crazy? Come on,” he said. “We got the order. I had to execute somebody. I did it.” I said to him, “I prefer my style.”

Joseph Lowin:. I have just re-read Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet, dealing with a highly intellectual old man who had gone through the Holocaust. To me, Sammler’s actions and thoughts during his experience ring true, and even remind me of Elisha’s dilemma in Dawn. Do you see a filiation? Has Elisha become a literary type, a metaphysical model? The Jew who fights back also thinks?

Elie Wiesel:. First of all, I know Bellow, but I’m not even sure he read Dawn. I do know that he read Night. [In any case] I did not write to teach other people how to write. I wrote for myself, by myself. The one writer who responded to Dawn was Philip Roth, who compared Dawn with [Leon Uris’s] Exodus, praising Dawn, and downgrading Exodus.

Ki Yachol Nuchal!: Haveil Havalim #281: The Summer's End Edition

It's here at RutiMizrachi's blog.

Number 281.


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Ki Yachol Nuchal!: Haveil Havalim #281: The Summer's End Edition

Republican Primary District 5 New York

This is the 5th Congressional District of New York State:



It's my voting district (although my registration is in difficulty despite the fact that I did vote from there).

Gary Ackerman is the Representative.

I don't think he's doing a good job.

In fact, he will not protect my residential rights. He's bad news.

One candidate to replace him is Liz Berney.

See this report of her's and this one on her.

Unfortunately, there's a new guy trying to muscle in.

He's James Milano.

If you check his site, not only is there little on Israel (well, actually nothing that I found except a news item on Ackerman) but you'll notice he neglects to mention there that he lives outside the district and is a Democrat. That would be misleading in my book and something a politican should never do.

So, on primary day, think hard about Liz.

And to be clear, the above was definitely not a paid political endorsement or promotion but rather a public information item.

Demography - Finally in MSM

What I have been writing about, taking the lead from good work from many people, has hit the Mainstream Media: the demography issue ain't what it's made up to be.

Here's from the Newsweek demography report:

a growing number of right-wing Israelis are now asserting that the demographic balance in Greater Israel is more favorable to Jews than previously
thought...it's also the result of a revisionist arithmetic designed to show that
Palestinians actually number far less in the West Bank than the official figure of 2.5 million—and that they are growing more slowly than the traditional projections.

The main purveyor of this new math is Yoram Ettinger, a retired diplomat and a staunch believer in Israel's right to all of Judea and Samaria, the biblical term for the West Bank. Ettinger is not a demographer by training; he holds degrees in business administration and accounting. But he spent the past several years poring over data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and other sources, and he discovered what he says are miscalculations in (among other things) the Palestinian birthrate and migration figures (officials at the PCBS did not respond to a request for comment). He concludes that Israel could maintain a long-term Jewish majority of 67 percent if it annexed the West Bank, compared with the traditional projection of parity between Jews and Arabs within a few years of annexation. That means the occupation, in his view, may never have to end.

...Ettinger makes three broad points: that Palestinians have substantially inflated their numbers in the West Bank by, for example, continuing to count people long after they've taken up residence abroad; that the Palestinian fertility rate both in the West Bank and in Israel has been declining faster than projected; and that Jewish births have
grown significantly over the past 15 years, thanks mainly to the large
influx of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union (but also as a result of a moderately rising Jewish fertility rate). "The demographic trend is Jewish," Ettinger concludes. "Anyone claiming that Israel must concede geography in order to secure demography is either mistaken or misleading."

But how accurate is Ettinger's data? Sergio DellaPergola, a professor at Jerusalem's
Hebrew University and perhaps Israel's most oft-cited demographer, concedes some
points to Ettinger—for instance his discovery that the Palestinian figures included an assumption since 2001 of 45,000 net immigration annually, which has not materialized. But on the big issues, Ettinger is either overstating the significance of Palestinian miscalculations or misrepresenting data to substantiate his political viewpoint, according to DellaPergola. Take the Palestinian birthrate, for example. The decline over the past 20 years has been substantial—from about seven children per family to between four and five children. But population growth is a function of more than just birth rate—a matter that Ettinger's presentation leaves out...DellaPergola says, the rate of growth among Palestinians is still about twice what it is among Jews.

When you include Gazans in the count (the idea that Israel would somehow be allowed to enfranchise Palestinians of the West Bank while leaving Gazans hard up would never pass muster with the international community that enfranchisement is meant to placate), Palestinians are already approaching the 50 percent mark, according to DellaPergola—a troubling figure for Israelis who want to believe they can both annex the Palestinian territories and retain Israel's Jewish character. But even if Ettinger's numbers are right, the implications aren't much different. "My argument is that even a 60-40 division between Jews and Arabs or a 65-35 division gives you a binational state in which you cannot continue to control all the instruments of power," DellaPergola says.

Turns out the new math is a lot like the old math.

Okay, so now we can argue based on real figures, finally.

Threats Should Be Met With Threats

New Pal. threat:-

The Palestinians will pull out of direct peace talks due to start with Israel next month if the Israeli government announces new settlement building, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Friday.

Saeb Erekat said any new Israeli building work on lands the Palestinians seek for a state would cause the Palestinians to withdraw from talks which the United States is set to mediate.

"If the Israeli government decides to announce new tenders on Sept. 26, then we won't be able to continue with the talks," Erekat said after a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee in Ramallah.

I think Israel should reply with its own "threat":

if the Pal. negotiating position is that no Jews can dwell in the proposed new state called "Palestine", then (a) no talks; (b) Israel will reconsider the residency of Arabs in Israel.


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Resumption, Relaunch, Whatever - It's a Gang-Up

Following the previous post on the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, we have an item on the two being invited to a relaunch.

And here is what Sec'y of State Hillary Clinton said on the subject:

...I’ve invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Abbas to meet on September 2nd in Washington, D.C. to re-launch direct negotiations to resolve all final status issues, which we believe can be completed within one year.

President Obama has invited President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan to attend in view of their critical role in this effort. Their continued leadership and commitment to peace will be essential to our success. The President will hold bilateral meetings with the four leaders followed by a dinner with them on September 1st. The Quartet Representative Tony Blair has also been invited to the dinner in view of his important work to help Palestinians build the institutions of their future state, an effort which must continue during the negotiations...

...I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times, and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region.

As we have said before, these negotiations should take place without preconditions and be characterized by good faith and a commitment to their success, which will bring a better future to all of the people of the region.

No preconditions is not bad but George Mitchell tries desperately to explain away the time lost:

QUESTION: Can you tell us what was the turning point here? What was it that got the – that overcame the final snags to get them to come back to direct talks?

MR. MITCHELL: We believe it’s the recognition by the parties themselves, by their leaders...that the only way that can be achieved is through direct negotiations between the parties in which the United States will be an active and sustained participant, and with the full support of our many friends and allies around the world, including, of course, specifically, the Quartet.

QUESTION: But what was it that got them to – I mean, you’ve been trying to do this for months now.

MR. MITCHELL: Yeah.

QUESTION: And why – so why – how is it that today, you’ve gotten to this point, whereas three days ago, you weren’t at this point?

MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. I think it’s the cumulative result of the efforts made over that time and the recognition by the parties that this is the right time. We will be active participants and there is broad support, as you know, by members of the Quartet and others around the world. But in the end, these decisions will be made by the parties themselves.

That's a ganging up on Israel, if you ask me.

And the essence?

QUESTION: Could you talk about the sequencing of the talks? Will they discuss territory, refugees, or Jerusalem first, or will this all be in parallel?

MR. MITCHELL: All permanent status issues will be on the table. It will be for the parties themselves to decide the manner by which they should be addressed.

I like this question, though:

QUESTION: It took you about nine months to get to the point where these guys were willing to sit down and talk to each other. What makes you think that you can get them to agree to peace in one year?

But you are all concerned about any reference to continued construction suspension, right?

Here it is:

QUESTION: Senator, is re-launching the direct negotiations without preconditions means that we are re-launching the direct negotiations without terms and references?

MR. MITCHELL: Only the parties can determine terms of reference and basis for negotiations, and they will do so when they meet and discuss these matters. As you know, both we and the Quartet have previously said that the negotiations should be without preconditions.

QUESTION: ...the second question is whether Israel is expected to continue the freeze. Do you think that they’ll continue the freeze? Do you think the Palestinians will continue their boycott of settler goods?

MR. MITCHELL: The parties themselves will determine the basis on which they will proceed in the discussions, in response to your first question. In response to the second, our position on settlements is well-known and remains unchanged. We’ve always made clear that the parties should promote an environment that is conducive to negotiations. And as the Secretary said in her statement a few moments ago, it’s important that actions by all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it.

MR. CROWLEY: Charlie.

QUESTION: Senator, just to follow up on that and a previous question, your position is well-known on settlements, but the Israelis, when they’ve chosen to, have ignored it and gone ahead with settlement construction as they’ve seen fit to do. Do you have any understanding from them that they will not do that this time?...

MR. MITCHELL: With respect to the first question, let’s be clear that the declaration of the moratorium itself last November was a significant action, which has had a significant effect on new housing construction starts in the West Bank. And as I said, our position on settlements is well-known, remains unchanged, and we expect both parties to promote an environment conducive to negotiations.

Conducive?

If it was indeed conducive, why did it take Abbas 9 months to agree to soemthing he had done previously - talk face-to-face?

And read Barry Rubin's observations.


UPDATE

From Yossi Beilin:

...Netanyahu did not come to power to divide Jerusalem or find a solution to the Palestinian refugees.”

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Forget Those Ten Months; Here Comes One Year

After 9 months into that ten-month construction suspension, we're now looking at a one-year time limit during which you can bet the demand will be a continuation of a building freeze:-

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce Friday that Israel and the Palestinians will return to direct negotiations...The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, have agreed to place a one-year time limit on the talks, these officials said.

President Obama is expected to invite both leaders to Washington in early September to start the negotiations, which will cover thorny issues like the borders of a new Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem, security guarantees for Israel and right of return for Palestinian refugees.

A "state"?

A "right" of return?

Jerusalem's "status"?

And for all that we get "security guarantees"? Like after the disengagement?


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The Tzfat Wall Toad

Credit: Eddie Mimon

Here's Comes The Violence

Gee, I haven't received an invitation...yet.

(Kippah Tip: Here)

When Settlers Attack

Where:
The Palestine Center
2425 Virginia Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037
202.338.1290
202.333.7742 (fax)
info@thejerusalemfund.org

When:
Sep 15 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

"When Settlers Attack: Understanding Settler Violence
against Palestine's Civilians"

with

Mr. Yousef Munayyer
Executive Director, The Palestine Center

Wednesday, 15 September 2010
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
The Palestine Center

The Palestine Center presents an analysis of settler violence in the West Bank. We ask what type of violence occurs, who is most vulnerable and most targeted, where the violence is concentrated and what motivates it. We will present the results of an analysis spanning over 1000 events of settler violence, as well as trends in the violence over time, to better understand how these attacks affect Palestinians.

What's the ideological background to this?

Here:

It is easy to say that settler violence is a result of Israeli occupation and it's illegal settlements. That's because it is. But settler violence against Palestinian civilians is a daily event in the occupied West Bank and it deserves more acute attention.

Many Palestinians have had their lives affected by settler violence. More often than not, the victims are the most vulnerable in society...Many Palestinian civilians have been attacked by militant Israeli settlers and these attacks are on the rise. The Palestine Center initiated a research project to understand patterns of settler violence and we have coded over 1000 incidents of settler violence from January 2009 until today that will be part of an analysis presented here at the Center on September 15th.

Settler violence is varied, sometimes we see personal attacks, sometimes we see attacks on property like the uprooting of trees or arson. But the truly under-reported aspect of settler violence is the frequency with which it takes place. We hear about every single one of the rockets that come out of Gaza but rarely do we hear about the regular occurrences of settler violence in the West Bank. Statistically speaking, attacks take place every day.

I will be the last to pooh-pooh the problem.

And I will not take the very easy and correct way out: 95% of this "violence" done by "militants" is either a direct reaction to or and result of Arab violence done to person and property of Jews.

I will condemn, again, the so-called "price-tag" policy. It is immoral, criminal, wrong and counterproductive, in that order. I have tried to stem its spread.

But if the purpose of the above deliberation is overarching against the entire Jewish population of Judea and Samaria - Munayyer's research is in political repression and ethnic cleansing and he insists that there exists "an infrastructure of apartheid"-, I would suggest that those who live in glass houses not be too quick to throw stones. The Arab population has a long way to go to reach a proper level of behavior and attitude.

This conference might be verbal violence galore.

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What, O's Not Jewish?

_


Dry Bones.



-

How The Media Mediates Itself

From AP Standards Center issues staff advisory on covering New York City mosque
and I was wondering how that would play vis-a-vis Israel:

Associated Press Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production Tom Kent sent the following note to the staff about covering the New York City mosque story and then discussed the guidance and reaction in a Facebook entry headlined "Behind the News: Describing the proposed NYC mosque."

Aug. 19, 2010

Colleagues,

Here is some guidance on covering the NYC mosque story, with assists from Chad Roedemeier in the NYC bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington...Associated Press writers Tom Hays in New York and Anne Flaherty in Washington contributed to this report:

1. We should continue to avoid the phrase "ground zero mosque" or "mosque at ground zero" on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground zero, or two blocks away...We can refer to the project as a mosque, or as a proposed Islamic center that includes a mosque.

So, is the Temple Mount to be the "Temple Mount"?

Is a Jewish community not a "settlement"?

Is a "militant" a terrorist?

Read the whole thing.



(Kippah tip: LA)

Gush Katif A Mistake?

"The tragic mistake was settling Gaza in the first place", writes Hillel Shuval.

He continues:

I also pointed out that according to Halachic authorities, Gush Katif was never considered part of historic Eretz Yisrael...the withdrawal from Gush Katif was not a “tragedy.” The decision to settle there in the first place was the tragic mistake.

Mistake?

In 1970 when Kfar Darom was reestablished?

In 1946 when Kfar Darom was Kfar Darom was founded on land purchased in 1930.

In 1625, whem Israel Najara died and was buried in Gaza's cemetery?

A "Miss Hamas" Contestant?

Psst.

Here's a Miss Israel contender:





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New Battledress Code: "no showers, no skirts and no makeup"

Well, it's been a long time coming. Do we always have to wait so long for our "date"?


Gaza aid flotilla to set sail from Lebanon with all-women crew


And it'll be tough out there on the high seas:

A ship bearing aid for Gaza is preparing to leave Tripoli in Lebanon this weekend in the latest attempt to defy the Israeli blockade - with only women on board.

...Israel says it is concerned a flotilla from Lebanon, with whom it has ongoing hostility, will smuggle weapons to Gaza. Israel`s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, has warned that Israel reserves the right to use `necessary measures` in line with international law to stop the ship.

But al-Haj says the mission is purely humanitarian. `Our goal is to arrive in Gaza,` she said. `It is the responsibility of the government to deal with the politics. We are not political.`

She said that once news of the flotilla was out organisers were inundated with requests to join the voyage, with more than 400 from the US alone. At least 10 Americans will be on board.

The boat has been stocked with medical instruments and medicines to take to the Palestinians.

In preparation for the voyage the participants gathered at a hotel in Beirut to discuss their plans. The logistics are many: minimal grooming, strict food rationing, and limited water supply.

`There will be no showers, no skirts and no makeup,` al-Haj told the group...

No mascara? That could poke eyes out.

No lipstick? That could be slippery.

No powder? That could clog lungs.

This is a non-violent effort, girls.


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A Jew in Trouble; A Jewess in Trouble

In Florida:

Jeff Greene, a...billionaire...popped up out of nowhere earlier this year, prepared to “spend what it takes” to grab the Democratic nomination in the U.S. Senate race in Florida to go to Washington and do for America what he has done for his bank account.

...Being the rich candidate is not without its burdens. For one, there’s the matter of that yacht, the Summerwind. Greene might see himself as an upstanding family man, but his yacht is bad, bad, bad. It’s an embarrassing, headline-making connection — the Levi Johnston of boats.

The government of Belize says Summerwind tore up a part of a national coral reef with its anchor, but Greene denies knowing anything about it. The yacht went to Cuba, apparently breaking the American embargo. Greene says that was just for emergency repairs, and, anyway, he spent the downtime visiting Cuban synagogues.

Well, they probably needed a minyan and he was rushing.

_____________________________


In Peru:

American Ordered to Return to Prison in Peru

A Peruvian court said Wednesday that it had struck down a decision granting parole to Lori Berenson, the New Yorker imprisoned in the 1990s on charges of collaborating with a Marxist revolutionary group...the Peruvian court said it voided her parole because there were discrepancies in the addresses Ms. Berenson had provided for her planned residence.

...The Justice Ministry said in a statement that the court’s decision reversing her parole could not be appealed.

...Ms. Berenson’s parents, Rhoda and Mark, said their daughter’s parole had been “annulled on a technicality” that they hoped could be sorted out.

...She was initially arrested in 1995 in Peru while enmeshed with members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a group that became known internationally in 1996 when it raided the Japanese Embassy in Lima and took hundreds of diplomats and senior government officials hostage.

In an appearance before court officials on Monday, Ms. Berenson acknowledged collaborating with the Túpac Amaru group but said she had never killed anyone or took part in violent actions.

“If my participation contributed to societal violence I am very sorry for this,” she said at the televised hearing.

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The "Greater Schmuck Theory"

Found on the Internet:-

Personally, I’ve always marveled at the Palestinian’s insistence upon of innocence via “the Greater Schmuck theory” – which states roughly as follows: “I am woefully incompetent, although malicious, therefore I can’t be held accountable.”

While these mortars may have “only” killed limited numbers of people, they have traumatized many, many more – and that is what they are intended to do. For some reason, we never argue that point. As though we accept that terrorism is measured solely by body-count.

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