Nom de Guerre

I continue from the previous posting.

This sentence appeared in the NYTimes yesterday:

"It won't happen by itself, or because someone likes Abu Mazen," he said, using a common name for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.

So, I wrote to the Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, and suggested that a correction be made. My exact words were:

"Abu Mazen is the nom de guerre of Mahmoud Abbas from his days as a terrorist, a leading member of Fatah.

It is 'common' only in that it is common for terrorists to take assumed identities and that is how his fellow terrorists referred to him."

I received this reply:

Dear Yisrael Medad,

The editors do not believe a correction is merited. I raised your concern with Mr. Okrent as well and he agreed there's nothing to correct. Thanks for writing.

Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

Well, after spending some time researching the matter, this was my comback:

Dear Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

I'm sorry that your answer was as it was.

Even the NYTimes itself has termed "Abu Mazen" as a nom de guerre by no less a personage than Steve Erlanger himself. Does the NYT not believe in consistency in its terminology?

In addition, you will find below over two dozen sources from very reputable and professional journals, papers, periodicals and even one Ramallah newsblog all of which support my contention that Abu Mazen is Mahmoud Abbas' nom de guerr from his days as a terrorist including Al Ahram, a Saudi paper, other Arab and Islamic news agencies, Palestinian sources, UPI, AFP, Janes, Slate, National Review and others.

Yisrael Medad
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Here's Steven Erlanger himself:
Peace? West Bank mayor has other worries
Thursday December 30, 2004
...Omar thinks the Palestinian elections are almost worthless. Abbas, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, and his main rival, Mustafa Barghouti, were both told about the land debate here, Omar said.

of course, there may have been other references but I cannot do a full NYT search but maybe search around these dates: March 29; April 1)

The Erlanger story also appeared in the International Herald Tribune.

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an article by Edward Said (who sourely ought have to known, as he was, in addition to being himself a member of the PNC, a professor of English and language)

Archaeology of the road map

All sorts of reasons have been given for the emergence of the road map: that 56 per cent of Israelis back it, that Sharon has finally bowed to international reality, that Bush needs an Arab-Israeli cover for his military adventures elsewhere, that the Palestinians have finally come to their senses and brought forth Abu Mazen (Abbas's much more familiar nom de guerre, as it were), and so on.

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and how about James Zogby, premier Arab publicist:

MR. SLEN: What should we call him? Officially, he’s Mahmoud Abbas.
MR. ZOGBY: He’s Mahmoud Abbas -- that’s his name. And it’s a familiar term. It’s been used as a "nom de guerre" as well. But formally, he’s Abu Mazen. That’s his name.

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Arafat deputy says Palestinians have plan for calm
CAIRO - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Mahmud Abbas, said the Palestinians have a plan to calm the conflit with Israel, in remarks published on Friday.
"We can start by implementing security wherever it is possible, like in Gaza where there are remains of the (Palestinian) security services," Abbas, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen, told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat.

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RAMALLAH - Former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is a polished and moderate politician more admired abroad than at home. Better known by his nom-de-guerre, Abu Mazen, a name taken from his dead first-born son, Abbas quit as Arafat's first-ever premier in September 2003. After barely four months in the job, he walked out after failing to wrest full control of the Palestinian security apparatus from him.

Source: Agence France Presse

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and to the others:-

Only God can save us
The new Palestinian president's visit to the Gaza Strip was not as welcome as he hoped, Serene Assir reports from Gaza

On Tuesday, President Mahmoud Abbas (known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Mazen) arrived in Gaza to hold talks with the armed Palestinian militias, seeking to limit the armed resistance against the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and the illegal settlements. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades spokesmen, however, told Al-Ahram Weekly prior to the president's arrival that they have no intention of letting up until the Israeli occupation ends.

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Analysis: U.S. targets Syria
By Richard Tomkins
UPI White House Correspondent
Published 2/15/2005 5:48 PM
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- U.S.-Syrian relations hit a low Tuesday as Washington withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in the aftermath of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and renewed calls for Syria to withdraw occupation troops from the country.
"Syria is up to it eyeballs in terrorism," said a diplomat, who requested anonymity. "(Syria-supported) Hezbollah is working right now very, very intensively to either discourage or to foil the new process that is taking place between the Israelis and the Palestinians and have even threatened Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas) personally."

Abbas, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, has promised to crack down on attacks on Israel in an effort to move peace talks forward. So far he appears to have achieved some success, but he is walking a tightrope with Palestinian radicals.

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Arafat's successor?
Palestine, Politics, 2/13/1998
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reportedly told US president Bill Clinton that his successor would be Mahmoud Abbas, currently deputy head of the PLO.

"When my time will come, I will be replaced by my brother, Abu Mazen," Arafat was quoted as telling Clinton, using Abass's nom de guerre, during a January 22 meeting at the White House, the London-based Foreign Report said.
==================

"Who is to blame for the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister? The question has been obscured by a smokescreen of recriminations and threats, but the answer is clear enough. Mr Abbas, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen, was forced to relinquish the post created for him only 100 days ago by the man he was intended to replace: Yasser Arafat ...
"By refusing to hand over control of security forces, Mr Arafat never gave his rival a chance to stop Hamas and other terrorist groups sabotaging negotiations with Israel. If, once Abu Mazen has departed from the scene, the simmering Middle East conflict now boils over, the blame will lie at Mr Arafat's door."
Arab News Editorial, Saudi Arabia, September 8
===============
All sorts of reasons have been given for the emergence of the roadmap: that 56 per cent Israelis back it, that Sharon has finally bowed to international reality, that Bush needs an Arab-Israeli cover for his military adventures elsewhere, that the Palestinians have finally come to their senses and brought forth Abu Mazen (Abbas's much more familiar nom de guerre, as it were), and so on.

==============
The welter of conflicting scenarios, bluffs and counter-bluffs, proposals and counter-proposals, seems to be based on a secret document drawn up in October 1995 between Yossi Beilin, then a top aide to then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (and now Israel’s justice minister), and Mahmoud ‘Abbas, commonly known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mazen, who is widely regarded as Arafat’s second-in-command in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Both men were instrumental in the secret "Oslo channel" that led to the Declaration of Principles signed at the White House on September 13, 1993.

===============
Nobody expects prisoners in Israel to be released with the sudden victory of Abu-Mazen, nor for the violence to stop, Abu-Mazen, his nom-de-guerre, who is none-other-then Mahmoud Abbas, who admittedly received just over 60% of the vote, from 60% of the Palestinian populace in the territories alone, I think in-spite of the clear majority in the numbers, of course things could have been very different with other more just factors in place.
==============
As for Abbas himself, the best Palestinians have to say about him is that he's sensible; his opponents, though, vilify him as a corrupt Fatah apparatchik and puppet of Israel and America. Such contempt was apparent near the Israeli Army checkpoint outside Jericho, where a line of Palestinian taxis was delayed for hours during security preparations for Abbas's visit to the city. "The Israelis wouldn't be doing this for Abu Mazen if he wasn't working for them," said one driver, using Abbas's nom de guerre. "F- - - his mother," said another.
===============
Abu Mazen may quit

Two months after his appointment as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas - better known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mazen - faces difficulties that seem to him to be insuperable. Foreign Report has been told by a source close to the beleaguered leader that he is seriously considering quitting his job. This would be a major setback to a stumbling Middle East peace process.

======================
Did Mahmoud Abbas Finance the 1972 Munich Olympic Takeover?
And if he did, does it make him a less trustworthy negotiator in 2003?
By Michael Young
Posted Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 1:11 PM PT


As Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas prepares for a meeting Friday with President George W. Bush, he knows that the U.S. administration, in its evolving cosmography of Palestinian-Israeli relations, believes him to be a real gentleman. Abbas, known by the nom de guerre Abu Mazen, is said to be everything Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, is not: sincere, responsible, and conciliatory.

=====================================
Britain Rebuffs Sharon's Appeal to Boycott ArafatWednesday, 16 July 2003, 10:58 amPress Release: Palestine Media Center - PMC

Britain Rebuffs Israeli PM’s Appeal to Boycott Arafat
Britain rebuffed visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s appeal Monday to cut ties with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Sharon, calling Arafat the “main obstacle” to a revived Middle East peace process, failed to persuade Prime Minister Tony Blair to cut Britain’s ties with the Palestinian president.
“We still have our differences with Britain on a series of issues, including Arafat,” a senior Israeli official said after Blair hosted a private dinner for Sharon, who was on a three-day visit, in London on Monday.
Prior to Sharon's meeting with Straw, an Israeli source told AFP: "The prime minister will say that Arafat remains the major obstacle on the road to peace because of his relentless efforts to undermine the process and Abu Mazen.”
Abu Mazen is the nom-de-guerre of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas.

==========================
The man who at one time seemed the most likely candidate to succeed Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, is now sidelined after falling out of grace with Arafat. Abbas, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, became the first prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.

======================

Bush Speaks with Palestinian Leader Abbas
NewsMax Wires
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush inserted himself personally in the sputtering Middle East peace process on Tuesday, telephoning Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to urge them to stay the course in pursuing proposed steps to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The calls came in the wake of terrorist bombings in Israel and the Palestinian territories that threw new obstacles in front of the so-called "road map" to peace presented by Washington May 1.
White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president told Abbas - who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Mazen - that all parties must take concrete steps to end terrorism and create an environment in which peace would have a chance.
======================
Presidential elections were called after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat passed away on November 11. For some years, Israel saw Mr Arafat as the main obstacle for peace in the Middle East.
Ten candidates, including seven independents, are running for the presidency of the Palestinian National Authority. Fatah, the largest party, chose Abu Mazen as its official candidate.
After Arafat’s death, Mr Mazen (nom de guerre of Mahmoud Abbas) was elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
===================

March 19, 2003, 9:45 a.m.Laundering Abu MazenA Holocaust revisionist, a conspiracy theorist, and a promoter of terrorism.By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Mahmoud Abbas, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, has been tapped by PLO leader Yasser Arafat to be the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.

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He is favourite to take the mantle of Yasser Arafat, but Mahmoud Abbas must still face the hard men of Gaza and the West Bank, writes Ed O'Loughlin in Ramallah.
Electoral razzmatazz, Western-style, has yet to catch on in the Palestinian territories. At a campaign rally in Ramallah on Tuesday Mahmoud Abbas, the runaway favourite to win the Palestinian Authority chairmanship this weekend, had to make do with the drummers of the Al Am'ari scout troop and a public address system playing patriotic songs.
Nor have those around Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen, his nom de guerre) quite worked out the modern spin-craft of keeping supporters "on-message".
"Sharon, Abu Mazen will dig your grave!" chanted one group of fist-pumping young men, referring to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. They clambered on to each others' shoulders and pushed their way to the front of the crowded hall. "With our blood we will redeem you, oh Palestine!"
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December 29, 2004
Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) At It Again
That is, of course, not true. I use it to make a point about the likely winner of the Palestinian election. Some guy named Ted running for office may not alarm you. You may - knowing how entertainers like to get involved in politics - mistake the name for a former Saturday Night Live cast member. However, if you recognize the full name as the real name of the domestic terrorist called the UnaBomber, that would concern you. The same scenario is true for Mahmoud Abbas, who went by the name Abu Mazen when he was a terrorist. In Palestine he runs for office as Abbas, in Israel they remember him as Abu Mazen. I think I'll use that name when refering to him from now on too.
================
Hamas, Islamic Jihad agree to
conditional ceasefire, says Israel
Harinder Mishra
Jerusalem, January 23
In a major boost to peace prospects in the Middle East, leading militant factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad have agreed to a conditional ceasefire for about a month after talks with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
“As far as we understand, there is an agreement between (Abbas) and the heads of Hamas and Islamic Jihad for a ceasefire for a certain period ... about a month,” Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israel Radio today.
The two militant factions have agreed to the ceasefire in return for a future role in the Palestinian Authority, Mofaz said.
Palestinian sources did not confirm the development immediately. They said that Abu Mazen (Abbas’ nom de guerre) is still holding talks with other Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip.
==========
Arafat officially asks Abbas to be his prime minister
RAMALLAH: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday officially asked his moderate PLO deputy Mahmud Abbas to become prime minister a day after parliament approved the creation of the post, a top Arafat aide said here.

Nabil Abu Rudeina told reporters that presidential secretary Tayeb Abdelrahim had asked Abbas on the veteran leader’s behalf to take the job of prime minister sharing power with the head of the Palestinian Authority.

“Arafat called Abu Mazen today to officially ask him to begin his duty as prime minister,” Abu Rudeina said, using Abbas’s nom de guerre. He did not comment on Abbas’s response.
===================
Abbas, 69, a polished, moderate PLO veteran who served four rocky months last year as Arafat’s prime minister before quitting in frustration, was once a Washington favorite.
He attended the June 2003 summit in Aqaba, Jordan, that launched the US-sponsored “road map” for peace and was invited to the White House for talks with Bush the following month.
But Abbas, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, made little headway toward a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has now claimed more than 4,500 lives since 2000.

================
Fork in the Road Map

By Clifford D. May
Scripps Howard News Service
May 8, 2003
Today, Mahmoud Abbas, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen, is the new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. His challenge, like Ben-Gurian's more than half a century ago, is to establish “a monopoly on the use of force” in the territories under his control.

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I am aware of William Safire's column on May 18, 2003
but nevertheless, I think I have made a rational, logical and supportive case for terming Abu Mazen a terrorist nom de guerre.

How Common

This sentence appeared in the New York Times of today:

"It won't happen by itself, or because someone likes Abu Mazen," he said, using a common name for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.

Common? Ah, com'on.

Abu Mazen is the nom de guerre of Mahmoud Abbas from his days as a terrorist, a leading member of Fatah.

It is "common" only in that it is common for terrorists to take assumed identities and that is how his fellow terrorists referred to him.

But this is a common NYT error, or, shall we say, bias. Palestinians are never really terrorists, as is commonly known.

Memoirs Minus

The Commentator, the campus newspaper of Yeshiva University, published my letter responding to a semi-memoir of Yitz Greenberg, Rabbi and Doctor (Ph.D.), on the period of the 1960s at YU.

Here it is:

R. Irving Greenberg's memoir is remarkable for avoiding any real discussion of Israel and Zionism during the time he spent there. As a student at YU between 1964-1969, my memories are of very lively but admittedly small Zionist groups (Bnei Akiva and Betar), conflict with administration over Yom HaAtzmaut celebrations and most notably, the Lord Caradon affair.

That the Rav had to intervene in the last-mentioned item and then felt obliged to go on campus radio, was no small matter. R. Yitz has some 'holes' that need mending.

P.S. And who recalls the Lord Caradon affair?

Oh, Oh, Oona

The Jerusalem Post had a front page story which told of a "whiff of anti-Semitism" that MP Oona King is smelling in her Bethnall Green election campaign on April 29.
That smell, or is it stench,is, in its own way, a bit of tit for tat.

On June 19, 2003 , MP King compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the Nazis' creation of the Warsaw ghetto. Gaza, she insisted, was "the same in nature", if not in extent. The building a wall around Arabs, King insisted, "is building a political ghetto." After visiting the area, while she recognized the danger of Arab terror, she was "more surprised perhaps by the everyday terror that Palestinians live" she said. As a Jew, she announced, "I hoped I would never live to see the day I was ashamed of the actions of the Jewish state."

As an observer of resurgent British anti-Semitism, I would like to convey to MP King my shame at the kind of behavior she is now suffering, despite the irony of it all in that her opponent, George Galloway, was one of the most outspoken defenders of Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime.

And by the way, there's a Palestinian angle to it all.

Letter in Jerusalem Post

Here's my letter that appeared in The Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2005:

Sharon and 'Time'

Sir, – Uri Dan is correct that Ariel Sharon technically won his libel suit against Time in that the court noted that what the magazine had published was false ("From Zero to hero," April 21). Nevertheless, Dan is a bit sloppy himself in failing to alert his readers that the final judgment was an acquittal.

The federal jury was addressed by the judge, Abraham Sofaer, who explained with care the subtleties of the actual malice standard. The jury subsequently found that, first, the statement at issue was defamatory; second, that it was false – but third that Time did not act with actual malice in publishing it. Sharon failed to gain financial remuneration.

The important consequence of the trial was the undercutting of the unethical journalistic standard of quoting from unidentified sources.

Whose Crusade?

Eva Green opines that the new movie in which she stars, "Kingdom of Heaven", is one "with substance", one that will "wake up people in America...to be more tolerant, more open towards the Arab people."

One, then, can only attempt to remind her that in this past century the historic Jewish Jerusalem, from the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives, has been ravaged and destroyed by Arabs in an effort to obliterate a history, a culture and a future. Archeological remains and ancient synagogues, artifacts representing three-thousand years of presence, have been targeted for physical obliteration in a different type of crusade.

However Hollywood presents events of the 12th century, we hope that Ms. Green's political message will not pass any test of time.

My Full Sympathy and Empathy

Colm Toibin has my full sympathy and I surely identify with his feelings about Tara, an historical site in Ireland. In a guest column in the New York Times, "A Road Runs Through Tara", published on April 25, 2005, Toibin writes eloquently of the importance of such locations.

As I view the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, I, too, recall the site's "precious heritage", its "special status as a symbol of former strength and glory" and the "grandeur that lies in its commanding position". Not only does the
Temple Mount possess a "lovely old dreaminess" of two temples but it asserts the promise of a renewed future for all mankind.

But the Temple Mount has been assaulted, on the one hand, by the construction of buildings by a rival religion, Islam, that seeks to supplant its past and, on the other, by a government policy that restricts entrance to its precincts by Jews and denies any religious actions therein by them.

I hope Toibin and his band of Irishmen succeed in their campaign as we continue ours.

Friedman: One "He" vs. "They"

Thomas Friedman had a particularly nasty op-ed published yesterday.

While praising democratic values, he seems quite unattuned to his own rather outrageous undemocractic behavior.

Viewing Jewish religious nationalists a "threat", he discards all pretense of any liberal, humanistic outlook and asserts "they killed Mr. Rabin for getting in their way and have threatened to do the same to Mr. Sharon". He ominously concludes "some of these settlers will not go down quietly".

Who are "they"?

Are "they" all kippa-wearing youngsters? Is this a blanket condemnation that in itself may lead assertive left-wingers or even, perhaps, the police in Israel, to act in ways that would recall anti-semitic societies? And how does one "put down" such a threat?

Friedman should clarify and apologize.

And I received this letter from Eve Harow:-

Thomas Friedman says that "one of the criticisms leveled at Ariel Sharon over his decision to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza is that he has never fully spelled out the reasons for his epiphany".

Although that is true, it is Sharon's anti-democractic behavior that is more worrying.

Elected on an anti-unilateral disngagement platform, he reneged on his commitment to abide by an internal Likud party poll, which he lost. He then fired two ministers before they could vote against his plan in order to gain an artificial cabinet majority he wouldn't have otherwise achieved. He had the army's chief-of-staff, Moshe Ayalon, who had expressed reservations about the plan, fired.

Sharon has, since then, spoke of civil war, intimating, just as Friedman does in his article, that his opponents pose a real threat while the danger stems foremost from his own disengagement plan.

And no one has asked the hardest question - least of all the media. What happens when the terror continues, using Gaza has an international base?

Why bother - Sharon wouldn't answer that, either.

President Bush, Why Not?

The New York Times reports that Israel will be releasing 9 Jordanian prisoners. Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is quoted as saying, "We want to improve and strengthen the relations between Israel and Jordan".

Wouldn't a similar American gesture be appropriate at this time? In granting Jonathan Pollard clemency, President George W. Bush would, in permitting him after 18 years to go free, marry and move to Israel, would not only improve ties and relations with Israel but would surely be doing an act of moral justice in the deepest sense.

Not So Difficult to Find a Reason

In HaAretz, a report notes that:-

"The IDF's rules of engagement along the Philadelphi route have not been altered for the period of calm. According to IDF sources, the rules of engagement along the route have remained unchanged due to the need to continue to prevent smuggling across the border.

"The soldiers, therefore, acted in accordance with their directives, but military sources said Sunday night that the commander of the force had been mistaken in his considerations and that it was plain to see that the five youths had been unarmed and shots to their legs would have sufficed.

"The soldiers acted as if they were involved in a confrontation with an armed cell, and there was no justification for this," a military source said. "There was no reason for an incident like this to have ended in the death of three youths."

Well, I can find a justification. They won't have to shoot ever again, at all, because the youths who support terror and criminal activity in aid of terror won't dare to do what they did again. And if they do, they'll have to know that being involved in this type of activity which is intended to kill and maim Israelis, will result, necessarily, perhaps, in their own deaths.

Even Worse?

Hamas, this Gazan claims, is worse even than Israel.

Proof Positive

Reuters posted this article which provides us proof positive that all along they knew that "militants" was a term that described very violent individuals, persons who carry weapons and kill people.

So, why then use "militants" when 'gunmen', 'gangsters' or even 'terrorists' are words that so much better rivet one's attention?

Who Gets to Be "Civil" and "Rebellious"?

The Left in Israel always presume that ipso facto, they are right and the Right is wrong. It's not only double standards. They really don't read what they write or listen to what they themselves say.

Here's a letter of mine that appeared in the Jerusalem Post of Wednesday, April 6:-

Whose norms?

Sir, - Nachman Shai foresees a new normalcy, one in which there is room for a "spirit of [...] civil rebellion" such as in the fight for medications and the students' battle ("The coming new normalcy," April 3). According to Shai, in adopting the disengagement, Israel has "created this reality, and will need to live by its new rules."

Can we assume that civil rebellion would also be acceptable to prevent the disengagement plan, which many feel will not bring us a new reality but simply will renew the old normalcy of security problems, including Arab terror, a weakened Israel, threatened water resources and a diluted Zionist spirit?

Or are the "new rules" only to be set by Shai and fellow disengagement supporters?

In Concert

Although I haven't be trumpeting my opinion, one of the major
problems the anti-disengagementists have faced is what is
described below, or what was the situation until this notice.

There has been a major lack of strategic thinking, lack of ability
or unwillingness to coordinate and not dominate, lack of open
avenues for receiving creative ideas, lack of proper spokesperson
activities and organization, lack of understanding how best to spend
money, how to shape the campaign, reliance on "professional"
outsiders, weak communication links, separation of the political from
the activist, etc., etc.

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Right-Wing Organizations Committed to Unity
Monday, April 4, 2005 / 24 Adar 5765

(IsraelNN.com) Right wing organizations, including the Yesha Council and Cities’ Action Committees met today and reached an understanding, an agreement and commitment to work in concert towards preventing the implementation of the Gaza Disengagement Plan.

Following last week’s Knesset defeat of the Referendum Bill, the last political hurdle in the way of the implementation of the plan was lifted, giving the prime minister all the political and legal backing required to move ahead towards the implementation phase, grassroots activists realize the time has come for ‘in-the-streets’ opposition.

Opponents to the government plan admit the defeat was a significant one, but vow they will continue the battle which will now focus on grassroots efforts to stop the planned destruction of some 25 communities in Gaza and northern Shomron.

Well, Why Not Jerusalem?

Member of the Palestinian National Council Muhammad Muqbel was in the
Ziryab restaurant when gunmen of the Fatah's Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades
shot it up. His reaction as recorded by Steve Erlanger, New York Times correspondent?

"You want to act tough, go to Jerusalem!"
("Militants' Wild West Night Leaves West Bank Town Dismayed", April 1).

This, then, is the true face of Israel's "partner for peace": violence, terror,
ill-disciplined security forces and public figures for whom Israel will always be the target.

For them, "Jerusalem" will be the symbol for Israel's disintegration.

Too Explicit

Well, if we are getting "explicit", as it's Israel that's doing the stripping here, can we not have some good music from the good ol' US of A?

Or is it that Ariel Sharon is stripping Israel of its security, its Zionism and its future?

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28/03/2005
PM: We can't expect explicit U.S. okay to build in settlements
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

"We can't expect to receive explicit American agreement to build freely in the settlements," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at Sunday's cabinet meeting. The large blocs of settlement in the West Bank "will remain in Israel's hands and will fall within the (separation) fence, and we made this position clear to the Americans. This is our position, even if they express reservations," he said.

The U.S. administration makes a distinction between his position that the blocs will remain in Israeli hands after the final status agreement, and the issues of continuing construction in the settlements at the present phase, Sharon said.

"The Americans always expressed criticism about construction in the settlements, and they have done so now, too. The publicity (about the plan to connect Ma'aleh Adumim to Jerusalem - A.B.) put them in a very difficult spot," he said.

Time for Slogans

Here's a start.

Can you add your own anti-disengagement slogan?


If Not Katif, It's the Kassams.
The Katif Bloc Blocks the Kassams.
Don't Strip Gaza from Its Jews.
Don't Strip the Jews from Gaza.
Don't Uproot. Let the Gaza Jews Grow.
Uprooting Farmers is Against Nature.

A Matter of Interpretation

The following news item from the Arutz 7 English news site and the phrase therein, "taking into account", reminds me of one of Menachem Begin's quips.

When asked that in the first Camp David accords there was a recognition of "legitimate Palestinian rights", and that phrase was in opposition to his own long-held ideological position, he replied to his critics saying that having a state isn't one of those rights.

A simple matter of interpretation.


(IsraelNN.com) US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says Washington’s position on Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria is clear. In an interview with Israel Radio, Rice said Israel and the US agreed on April 14th last year that final status negotiations with the Arabs must take into account demographic realities on the ground, which include major Israeli population centers.

“The American view is that while we will not prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations… the existing major Israeli population centers will have to be taken into account in any final status negotiations,” Rice said.

Publication Ban

Due to a court-ordered ban on the publication of a certain news item,
it is nigh impossible to get any details about an incident that appeared
earlier on Thursday on three Israeli web sites, including YNet, regarding a possible police-initiated operation against the Yesha Council recalling a similar event a decade ago when a GSS provocateur was used to besmirch the anti-government
protests.

Hopefully, details will be forthcoming soon.

Approaches were made to foreign news agencies to utilize their
contacts and achieve the right to publish which in Israel's state
of selective non-democracy is most difficult.

It seems that about 6 weeks ago, the operations unit hired people to help distribute fliers, banners, etc. One guy wasn't very good - lazy, late, etc. So they told him they were firing him.

He then says "I live in Lod and I can get explosives so we can blow up the disengagement process". The unit head tells Pinchas, Pinchas tells the police, they set up a sting at Lod Wednesday at midnight. All show up, he's arrested and the next morning Yesha sends out a press notice. I saw it on Ynet and Maariv.

Next thing they know, after making inquiries, that there's a court-ordered
publication ban.

Was there an agent provocateur?

A Rejected Letter

I received this posting from Michael Caines of the prestegious Times Literary Supplement:

"The Editor thanks you for your letter, but regrets that he is unable to
publish it."

And here is what was rejected:-

In his review of ADVENTURES IN EGYPT AND NUBIA, on the travels of
William John Bankes ("Take walk, make no book"), Mick Imlah
writes that Bankes traveled also "in Syria, including modern Jordan and
Palestine". This description is misleading.

Palestine always included both modern Israel and Jordan. All maps of
the area portray Palestine as stretching east and west of the Jordan
River. Indeed, the original geography of the League of Nations Mandate,
granted to Great Britian in 1922, spanned from the Mediterranean Sea to
the Iraqi Desert. Jordan was administered, until 1946, as part of the
Palestine Mandate.

To avoid mentioning Israel, if done consciously, is to completely miss
the compass.

Now you know why it was rejected, right?

That Amazing Bubblegum

This news item from Japan got me thinking - but not what you're thinking.

Chewing gum can 'enhance breasts'

A chewing gum which the makers say can help enhance the size, shape and tone of the breasts has proved to be a big hit in Japan. B2Up says its Bust-Up gum, when chewed three or four times a day, can also help improve circulation, reduce stress and fight ageing.

The gum works by slowly releasing compounds contained in an extract from a plant called Pueraria mirifica.

In theory, this helps to keep the muscle tissue in good order.

The plant's underground tubers contain a number of chemicals called phytoestrogens - natural compounds which mimic the effects of the female sex hormone oestrogen.

These include miroestrol and deoxymiroestrol, which are believed to exert a particularly strong effect, as they are very close in chemical structure to oestradiol, the main human oestrogen.

B2Up says that it is the effect of these two chemicals, coupled with a third phytooestrogen isoflavone, which makes its gum so effective.

It cites tests carried out by Thailand's Chulalongkorn University which found Pueraria mirifica therapy was able to enhance breast size by 80%.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4361563.stm
==========

So, what was I really thinking?

Well, the chewing gum recalled to me when Pals. tried to pillory Israel,
claiming that Israel was causing trouble by handing out chewing gum to unsuspecting Arabs.

The two stories appear below but I am sure that a majority of those who read the Japanese report and thought it just plain silly, are more than willing to believe the Pal. version and probably did when it first made headlines then.

1.
Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger
by Robert S. Wistrich
Anti-Semitic Falsehoods: From Food Poisoners to Child Molesters

The examples of anti-Semitic falsehoods are truly numberless and consistently outrageous. Thus, Israel is repeatedly alleged by Egyptian (and Jordanian) news sources to be distributing drug-laced chewing gum and candy, intended to make women sexually corrupt and to kill children
http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=503&pid=1201

2.
Raphael Israeli Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints April 15, 2004
An Epidemic on the West Bank

On the morning of March 21, 1983, one week before Pesach, in a high school in the town of Arrabeh in the Jenin area of the West Bank, Palestinian girls (between the ages of 15 and 17) were sitting in several classrooms when they suddenly began to faint, one after the other. They were taken to hospital and checked, but no medical reason was found for their fainting. Yet they had fainted, so a search began in order to find the reason. Then other girls of the same age began fainting in other villages on the West Bank, in Bethlehem, and afterwards in Hebron and Halhul, Tulkarem and Nablus. Over a period of a few days approximately 1,000 girls ended up in hospital at the same time, seemingly victims of an epidemic. Since all this occurred just before Pesach, the motif of blood libel and mass poisoning was raised. The rumors began that it was the Israelis who had poisoned the girls.

In 1997 the Palestinians exposed yet another Israeli "plot to suppress Arab population growth." They claimed to have tested packets of strawberry-flavored bubble gum which were found to be spiked with sex hormones and sold at low prices near schoolhouses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was claimed that the gum aroused irresistible sexual appetites in women, then it sterilized them. According to Palestinian Supply Minister Abdel Aziz Shaheen, it was capable of "completely destroying the genetic system of young boys," as well. In this case, Palestinians allege, Israel came with chewing gum laced with progesterone, one of the two hormones of femaleness. The hormone, they say inaccurately, drives women wild with desire and serves as a contraceptive, too -- corrupting Arab women while ensuring they cannot reproduce. The story was reminiscent of a furor over Israeli chewing gum a year earlier in Egypt. The story grew with the retelling. Shaheen contended that the gum was sold "only at the gates of primary schools or kindergartens," because Israelis "want to destroy our genetic system" by giving sex hormones to children before their bodies can cope with them. By the time the story reached Hebron in the West Bank, local health official Mahmoud Batarna claimed to have captured 200 tons of gum. The Washington Post commissioned a test of allegedly contaminated chewing gum provided by Palestinian health officials. Dan Gibson, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at Hebrew University and a member of the left-wing lobby group Peace Now, said that, using a mass spectrometer capable of detecting as little as a microgram of progesterone, he found none in the gum.

http://www.ourjerusalem.com/opinion/story/opinion20040825a.html

There's a Reason for Empty Horizons

In a report on the newly approved contruction plans of Maaleh Adumim in the New York Times, reporter Greg Myre describes for us the town's panoramic view, noting that

"to the west is the skyline of Jerusalem, and to the east are stark desert hills dotted with Palestinian villages",

("Israel to Expand Largest West Bank Settlement", Marc. 22).
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/international/middleeast/22mideast.html

The eastward view would have also included Jewish villages if not for the aggression of the Arabs in 1947-1948.

During that period of intra-communal fighting, Jewish communities in that area, such as Kibbutz Bet Ha'Aravah, near Jericho, and Neveh Yaakov and Atarot closer to Jerusalem, were overrun and ethnically cleansed of its Jews.

If the Arabs had accepted the UN partition proposal of compromise, Jews would still have benn living in those areas and others the world now knows as the "West Bank and Gaza". After all, despite the fighting, Arabs live in Israel.

Why is it that a skyline empty of Jews is something "natural"?

How Bad Can "Badly" Be?

The New York Times fails the test of semantic sensitivity again and again.

Its report on the budget vote woes in Israel of Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres
("Peres Says Budget Fight May Imperil Coalition" on Mar. 21) notes that Sharon's party, the Likud, "is badly split over Gaza"

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/21/international/middleeast/21mideast.html?

The use of the adjective "badly" is perjorative and biased.

Many would think that the split is a good development and will halt an unwise decision that endangers the security of Israeli civilians and contribute to an illegal act of banning Jews from living in a portion of their national homeland. Indeed, the majority of the Likud Knesset faction opposes the proposed budget due to their disagreement over the disengagement plan.

"The Likud is split" is enough of a description it would seem.

How Not To Translate

Read this excerpt from the Haaretz site:-

"Ya'alon was speaking to a forum of businesspeople from Haifa and the north.
'The [militant] organizations want the period of calm, but see it as a time to regroup and rearm before the fighting is resumed, without waiving their strategic goals,' the chief of staff said.
'Until I see terror groups disarmed, and [PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] fulfilling his commitments to having only one political entity and one law, I cannot say this war is behind us,' Ya'alon added.
'We must not be intoxicated by the relative calm. We must deal with that which lies ahead and can break out soon if the [terror] infrastructure is not dealt with.'"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/553785.html

He calls them terror groups but in his first quotation, Haaretz would rather him be saying "militant".

I doubt if that is the term he would have used.

This is Haaretz playing at editorial discretion or how to sneak your own political bias into your newspaper.

Peace is Just Around the Corner

Yesterday we learned that Kibbutz Nirim is disputing the right of the country to expropriate 700 dunams of its agricultural land for peace. The real estate is needed for an army camp to be relocated from Gaza.

I know it's hard giving up agricultural land. After all, Gush Katif residents are being asked to give up their agricultural land as well as their homes, their schools, their cemeteries, etc.

But I have news for Nirim residents and their neighbors in the other kibbutzim nearby. Their other agricultural plots are in danger, as well are their homes and schools and industries. No, not from the IDF but from the guys on the other side of the fence who will be raining down Kassams, et al.

Welcome to "peace" comrades!

Denial and/or Backtracking

Seems we have a denial:-

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-mideast-bush.html

Bush said each side needed to make sacrifices in the quest for peace, and raised some eyebrows by saying, 'Israel must withdraw from the settlements.'

McClellan said there was no change in policy, that Bush was referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's overall withdrawal plan.

Bush Comes To Shove - Again

President George W. Bush held a press conference yesterday with Jordan's King Abdullah. Asked about the Arab-Israel conflict, he spoke of the "sacrifices" that both sides will need to make. Getting specific, Bush said, "Israel must withdraw from the settlements, there must be contiguous territory for a Palestinian state...[and]...Palestinians must continue to work hard to fight any terrorist activities within the territories".

Recalling the eternal argumentation over UN Resolution 242 and its lack of the definitive article when describing "territories", did Bush mean "all" the Jewish communities, including those Ariel Sharon told us would be in "blocs"? Does he include, in accordance with longstanidng State Department policy, Jerusalem's eastern neighborhoods, too? Does he know that "contiguous" means cutting Israel in half between the Hebron Hills and the Gaza Coast?

It seems there's a major problem developing.

As for the Palestinians, while Israel gives up real estate, security resources and water, all they have to do is to "work hard"? Are they a car rental firm that needs just to try harder?

Like his father back in 1989, who threatened Israel with the loan credits, has another Bush come to shove?

To Which Wall Do They Refer?

Several radical pro-Palestinian groups sent out this posting:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Angela Godfrey"
To: "Hillel Barak" ; ;
Re: Kofi Annan's Visit this coming Monday
and Tuesday [14 & 15 March 2005]

Kofi Annan will be here ..., including on Tuesday
at Yad Vashem, with the Dutch Prime Minister,
the Belgian Prime Minister, the British Deputy Prime
Minister and others.

During his visit, HE WILL NOT BE VISITING THE WALL.
Neither is there any agenda so far for him to be
briefed by anyone about the Wall.
---------
The Wall?
Which Wall?

Are they referring to the Kotel, the Western Wall, which was the retaining wall of the Second Temple that Arafat declared didn't exist there. The same Wall the British refused to allow Jews to blow the Shofar at after 1930?

Are they concerned for Jewish rights that were denied, trampled upon and refused?

Mazal Tov!

Our second granddaughter was born yesterday, 2 Adar II, in Jerusalem.

She is the second daughter of our second daughter, Tzruya, and her husband Oren, who live in Ofra.

Some People Wanted to Make Sure There's a Real Me

Yisrael Medad 

The "Spokeperson" Speaks

Well, my volunteer position got me another mention.

A spokesman for Yesha, the settlers' council, said: "The report did not surprise us in terms of factual content. All along the council claimed that the government knew what was being done, and we assumed that all that was being done was government-approved from the top down." The spokesman, Yisrael Medad, said the council would go to court and organize demonstrations to stop the dismantling of outposts.

Israeli Investigator Says Financing of Outposts Was Illegal
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/international/middleeast/10mideast.html

Find and Replace With...

What would happen if Blair had replaced N. Ireland with Palestine and IRA with Fatah and Sinn Fein with Abu Abbas in this statement he made today:-


"There is no way we can make any progress in Northern Ireland that includes Sinn Fein unless we can have a complete and total end to violence of whatever kind," Mr Blair said.

He said the entire republican movement, which seeks an end to British rule in the province, could be shut out of the political process.

"There is a stark choice facing republicanism: they can either embrace the democratic and peaceful route or be excluded from the political process," Mr Blair said.

"I hope they now realize that. I think the whole of the island of Ireland does, and it's now up to them to make the right decision."

http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=106946®ion=3

Being Sarcastic

Reading the editorial in today's New York Times entitled "Rules of Engagement", I couldn't avoid writing this letter:-


Your editorial ("Rules of Engagement", Mar. 8) advises that these rules defining the actions of the military in the face of danger from possible hostile forces should be "as close to mistake-proof as possible."

Perhaps the U.S. Army should look to Israel where Ariel Sharon, a former general, when faced with
hostile forces in the Gaza Strip who had been launching missiles and rockets at civilians, who had smuggled their weaponry in through tunnels via a country ostensibly at peace and who exploded themselves as human suicide bombers, decided in his wisdom to adopt a policy of disengagement.

This new rule of combat, to whit, withdrawing, assuming a defensive posture and depending on foreign diplomacy, albeit an amazing turn-of-face by this soldier veteran, may provide a surprising result.

But if the readers conclude that Sharon's disengagement wouldn't work for American troops, then why should it work for Israel?

The "T' Word and the New York Times

For those of you who have been following my blogging, the avoidance by the media, and especially the NYT and the BBC, of the words "terrorist" and "terror" and "terrorism" as terms to describe, in objective fashion, a political and military reality, this column by Daniel Okrent is well-worth waiting for.

However, this sentence I found a bit jarring:

"Settlers": Are they merely settlers when they carry out armed actions against Palestinians?

Actually, Mr. Okrent, they aren't "settlers" if they do or do not carry out armed attacks against Arabs.
============

March 6, 2005
THE PUBLIC EDITOR
The War of the Words: A Dispatch From the Front Lines
By DANIEL OKRENT [edited]

NOTHING provokes as much rage as what many perceive to be The Times's policy on the use of "terrorist," "terrorism" and "terror." There is no policy, actually, but except in the context of Al Qaeda, or in direct quotations, these words, as explosive as what they describe, show up very rarely.

Among pro-Israeli readers (and nonreaders urged to write to me by media watchdog organizations), the controversy over variants of the T-word has become the stand-in for the Israel-Palestine conflict itself. When Israel's targeted assassinations of suspected sponsors of terrorism provoke retaliation, some pro-Palestinian readers argue that any armed response against civilians by such groups as Hamas is morally equivalent. Critics on the other side say The Times's general avoidance of the word "terrorism" is a political decision, and exactly what Hamas wants.

Here's what I want: A path out of this thicket, which is snarled with far more than "terror" and its derivative tendrils. I packed the preceding paragraph with enough verbal knots to secure the QE2, so I'll untangle them one by one.

"Pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian": Adem Carroll of the Islamic Circle of North America has pointed out to me that both epithets represent value judgments. Are Ariel Sharon's policies pro-Israel? Not in the minds of his critics on the Israeli left. Is Mahmoud Abbas's negotiation policy pro-Palestinian? I doubt that supporters of Islamic jihad believe it is.

"Israel-Palestine conflict": I've heard from ardent Zionists who deplore this usage because, they say, "There is no Palestine."

"Targeted assassinations": The Israel Defense Forces use this term; Palestinians believe it implicitly exonerates Israel for the deaths of nearby innocents. The Times tries to avoid it, but an editor's attempt at a substitute on Jan. 27 -"pinpoint killings" - was even more accepting of the Israeli line.

"Settlers": Are they merely settlers when they carry out armed actions against Palestinians?

"Groups such as Hamas": According to the European Union and the United States government, which are both cited regularly by an army of readers, Hamas is a terrorist organization. According to Times deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner: "We use 'terrorist' sparingly because it is a loaded word. Describing the goals or acts of a group often serves readers better than repeating the term 'terrorist.' We make clear that Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel through violence but that it is also a significant political and social force among Palestinians, fielding candidates and running clinics and day care centers." According to many Times critics, that just won't do...

...Hijacking the language proves especially pernicious when government officials deodorize their programs with near-Orwellian euphemism....

...But I think in some instances The Times's earnest effort to avoid bias can desiccate language and dilute meaning. In a January memo to the foreign desk, former Jerusalem bureau chief James Bennet addressed the paper's gingerly use of the word "terrorism."

"The calculated bombing of students in a university cafeteria, or of families gathered in an ice cream parlor, cries out to be called what it is," he wrote. "I wanted to avoid the political meaning that comes with 'terrorism,' but I couldn't pretend that the word had no usage at all in plain English." Bennet came to believe that "not to use the term began to seem like a political act in itself."

I agree. While some Israelis and their supporters assert that any Palestinian holding a gun is a terrorist, there can be neither factual nor moral certainty that he is. But if the same man fires into a crowd of civilians, he has committed an act of terror, and he is a terrorist. My own definition is simple: an act of political violence committed against purely civilian targets is terrorism; attacks on military targets are not. The deadly October 2000 assault on the American destroyer Cole or the devastating suicide bomb that killed 18 American soldiers and 4 Iraqis in Mosul last December may have been heinous, but these were acts of war, not terrorism. Beheading construction workers in Iraq and bombing a market in Jerusalem are terrorism pure and simple.

Given the word's history as a virtual battle flag over the past several years, it would be tendentious for The Times to require constant use of it, as some of the paper's critics are insisting. But there's something uncomfortably fearful, and inevitably self-defeating, about struggling so hard to avoid it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/weekinreview/06bott.html?pagewanted=print&position&oref=login

Don't They Read Their Own Newspapers

Mahmoud Abbas is quoted by AP (which I found on the web site of the New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
as saying that he cannot assure Israel the security it expects. His exact words: "Nobody can say we hold responsibility for the situation because we do not have a presence in the cities,''.

But that is patently untrue.

All the world's media, electronic and print, have published in the last weeks
dozens of photographs displaying Palestinian Authority personnel walking the
streets of their cities, armed and in uniform.

Will the media take the step of proving him wrong or allow his statement to mislead the public?

But Who Else?

Reporting a car-bomb blast near Shchem (Nablus), Greg Myre, the New York Times reporter, notes
www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/international/middleeast/04mideast.html
that 500 Jewish worshippers "were presumed to be the target [as] Palestinian militants have periodically attacked Jews who visit the site" ("Sharon and His
Party Trade Gibes", Mar. 4).

Logically, "presumed" is perhaps an understatement for who else could serve as a target?

Moreover, persons who attack civilians, especially worshippers at a holy site, should be referred to properly as terrorists.

The site, incidentally, is one protected by the original Oslo accords but has been burned down twice, as has other such locations such as the synagogue in Jericho thus highlighting the difficulty of maintaining any contractual obligation the Palestinians assume.

That is information that should have been contained in the article.

Rice's Reply

I asked an official of the American Consulate here in Jerusalem for an official response to the use of the term "Holy Land" instead of Israel (see yesterday's posting).

I have been informed today by a local State Dept. official that the use by Condoleeza Rice of the term "Holy Land" in that interview was due to the fact that it is a well-known term but that its use should not be considered as indicating any change in official Washington policy regarding Israel.

I would reinterpert that to a 'slip of the tongue' due to too many interviews within too short a time.

As for the other element, that her concern seemed to be for the suffering of the Pals. due to the suicide bombings was perhaps more pronounced than for the actual people killed and maimed by the act of terror, well, that got lost in transatlantic commnication, I guess.

Anti-Disengagement Ideas

(thanks to my wife and Toby Willig)

Here are some ideas that can be used in combatting the planned expulsion of Jews from their homes in the Gaza District, as well the nothern Samarian communities.

1. The final scene from “Fiddler on the Roof”, the Jew trudgingly leaving of Anatevka, should be shown in movie houses as trailers, street corners and the public square. This is intended to instill in the consciousness of Israelis that we are talking about a repeat of some of our worst history in the Exile.


2. Gush Katif will be shut down, police say, in concentric circles.

So, why not prepare a base camp for demonstrators, say 50,000 in number, near Ashkelon and then one morning they all line up, 500 in a row across, and march towards Gaza.

If they are all disciplined, stand in ranks, and march forward as one, row after row, I think the police would have a very hard time stopping them without looking like the British police in India at the Dharasana Salt Depot in Gujarat (remember Attenborough’s film “Gandhi”?).

3. If, G-d forbid, the worse happens, several thousands of Gush Katif residents should band themselves together, declare their desire to remain in a camp near the area and refer to themselves as “Jewish refugees from Gaza”.

They then demand rights and recognition from the UN.

4. Isn’t Sharon violating the framework of Security Council Resolution 242 which makes it clear that only in the framework of a peace agreement will territory be handed over? It reads "termination of all claims or states of belligerency”.

Did Condoleeza Rice Dis-Recognize Israel?

This site http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=50226&src=0
transcribed U.S. Secretary Condoleeza Rice's words yesterday at the London Conference.

To a query from a Mr. MCDONALD regarding Syria, Rice said this, inter alia,:-

"...When the Syrian support insurgents or allow their territory to be used for insurgents, they are frustrating the aspirations of the Iraqi people.
When the Syrians allow their troops and their security forces to operate in Lebanon, they are frustrating the aspirations of those Lebanese people who are in the streets of Lebanon.
When the Syrians support, from their territory and with their activities, terrorist groups who carry out bombings in the Holy Land, they are frustrating the aspirations of the Palestinian people...
This is Syria frustrating the aspirations of people of the Middle East for a better and more democratic life."

Excuse me? But what happened to Israel?
Hello???

Was it too difficult for Ms. Rice to prounounce the name of our country, recognized by the United Nations since 1948?

If there would be a geo-political entity called the "Holy Land" (which there isn't), could then Israel demand a right to its grand vision of the whole and integral Land of Israel?

Or, worse, was Rice attempting to divide Israel into official sovereign Israel in its 1967 borders and the disputed territories where, perhaps, frustrated Palestinians could act against Jews?

In addition, does not Rice know that these bombings, besides frustrating the Palestinian aspirations, just happen to be killing and maiming Israelis (not Holy Landers)?
Has Rice wiped Israel off the State Department gazetteer?

I Write to the London Times

The UK London Times published a letter signed by the Bishops of Winchester, Bath and Wells, Chelmsford, Coventry and Exeter on February 24 (see A below). Lord Carey replied the next day (see B below).

So, I thought I'd write too as I am more than a part of all this, being one of those people "holding up peace" and the rest of the claptrap that is bandied about by these British clergymen.

So, this is what I sent:

"The Bishops' letter (Feb. 24) on Middle East peace not only avoids the issue of Arab-initiated violence of the most horrific kind as Lord Carey of Clifton highlights (Feb. 25), a blood shedding which we have witnessed now yet once again in Tel Aviv, but irrationally places the blame for Palestinian despair of ever seeing "tangible improvements" by pointing an accusing finger at the expansion of Jewish communities, construction of which must be frozen they demand.

"An easy response to these men of the Church would be to ask them to review the Bible, a book that provides a fair case for Jews to be living in Shiloh, Beth El and Hebron. But I would seek their understanding of why I and others am living in thedisputed territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza by pointing out that Arab hostility and despair is unconnected to this activity and predated it.

"Prior to 1967, no so-called "occupation" existed and certainly no "settlements" were extant. Yet, Arabs were practicing terror and the Palestine Liberation Organization had been founded two and half years before the Six Days War provided Israel the opportunity for Jews once again to administer area that the League of Nations had intended to be part and parcel of the Jewish National Home.

"Consequently, any freezing or, worse, dismantlement of these communities will have no bearing on any 'peace'. They are not the cause of Arab terror and therefore cannot solve any problem the Bishops presume exists.

"Would the removal of Arab communities from Israel be considered an option in an effort to achieve peace? Why should Jewish revenant rights be discarded?"
--------
A

Sir, We welcome the Government’s initiative in organising the London conference on the Middle East next week. This is an opportunity to strengthen the Palestinian Authority in making its contribution to peace.
The conference must address why previous initiatives failed.
During the 1990s, Palestinians witnessed a doubling of the settler population, and a deterioration in living standards. The Oslo accords were thwarted by the Palestinian inability to see tangible improvements on the ground.
Popular support is vital to any future peace process, not least because it will negate the militant influence. Tackling Palestinian poverty cannot be divorced from the political process.
In restoring the Palestinian Authority’s capacity to address poverty, the Government should work with indigenous civil society organisations. However, this strategy will count for little unless Israel can also be persuaded to freeze settlement construction and land confiscation.

Yours sincerely,
MICHAEL WINTON:, PETER BATH AND WELLS, JOHN CHELMSFORD, COLIN COVENTRY, MICHAEL EXON:,
Church House,
Great Smith Street,
SW1P 3NZ.

B
The Bishops of Winchester, Bath and Wells, Chelmsford, Coventry and Exeter (letter, February 24) are surely right in observing that the Prime Minister’s conference next week could mark a significant milestone on the long and bloody search for a lasting peace in the Middle East. However, I am surprised that they appear not to recognise that, as well as the problem of the settlements, atrocities against Jewish people have played their part in delaying that peace which is the dream of both Palestinians and Jews.
In the Alexandrian Declaration by religious leaders in the region, which I had the honour of co-chairing two years ago, we stated that “killing innocents in the name of God is a desecration of his Holy Name”. All three religions in the region should observe this and teach it — that is why a religious track to the political process is essential and should not be overlooked.

GEORGE CAREY,
House of Lords

Tit for Tat

In today's Jerusalem Post, Jordan's new ambassador, Ma'aruf Bakhit, wished that the Israelis hear from him words of wisdom.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1109042630002

He wanted that we Israelis should know "one thing" and that one thing is that we must "differentiate between recognizing the right of return and implementing the right of return."

If only I could, I would take out a half page in that journal to ask the Ambassador if he would agree that Israel, too, could ask our neighbor King Abdullah to recognize in principle the right of Israelis to the tribal portions of Reuven, Gad and half of the tribe of Menassheh.

This area not only has Biblical roots, confirmed by archeology but the Talmud also includes this area, Ever HaYarden (TransJordan), as part of the Jewish homeland. Jews lived there, albeit in small numbers, even after the destruction of the Second Temple.

In 1920, the San Remo Conference and in 1922, the Supreme Council of the League of Nations, both institutions whose decisions carry the weight of "international law", awarded to the Jews that same area of the historic Land of Israel to be incorporated into the reconstituted Jewish homeland. Unfortunately, Great Britain excluded the territory from Jewish settlement activities.

However, if reciprocity is a standard of relations between Jordan and Israel, and it indeed should be, well, what Bakhit asks of Israel, Israel should be allowed to ask of Jordan.

Of course, the fact that the geography in question just happens to be where the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is located shouldn't prove to difficult a reality for Bakhit and his King to accept.

Or should it?

Quoted in the New York Times

Interviewed on Thursday, I am quoted in today's NYT story on Israel.

The Yesha Council, the main group representing settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, is leading the organized opposition to the evacuation plan, and it says it rejects violence.

The council has arranged huge rallies against the pullout, drawing crowds of 100,000 or more.

But the council says Mr. Sharon's government is trying to vilify settlers by linking them to fringe elements, and it contends that Mr. Sharon is the one guilty of incitement.

"We are disturbed at the way Mr. Sharon and his spinmeisters are moving," said Yisrael Medad, a spokesman for the Yesha Council.

Referring to the threatening letters sent to government officials, he said: "I'd bet my bottom dollar these are from cranks and psychos. Its very troubling the way the atmosphere is being cranked up against us."

"We would like to have 100,000 people calmly sitting down in the highways," he added. "But in the atmosphere Mr. Sharon is creating, I don't know what will happen."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/international/middleeast/20sharon.html

Too bad, though, that my best line was left out. I had said:

"While President Bush is pursuing a policy to establish a democratic Palestinian state,
he may be aiding Sharon in dedemocratizing Israel."

The Missing Question

Can anybody reading this who perhaps saw more TV programs and heard more radio shows than I did help me out?

Did any moderator, host and/or interviewer ask any politician tonight regarding the matter of Omri Sharon's charge sheet this question:-

Why do you think Mazuz waited until after the disengagement vote
to announce that he was pressing criminal charges?

The Presumptive Ariel (Three Bs) Sharon

Ariel Sharon works on presumptions.

Yesterday, he held a press conference for the resident foreign media and insisted that his agreement on Gaza with President Bush at the White House last April provided assurances that Israel would be able to keep some of its large blocks of settlements in the West Bank.

He also insisted that it was his understanding that the United States supported Israel in limiting a right of return for Palestinian refugees to a future Palestinian state.

But the NYTimes's editorial brought him back to political reality.

Entitled "Mr. Sharon and the Settlers"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/opinion/16wed1.html
the editorial zeroed in on three "B"s.

Mr. Sharon has been pragmatic and bold, the paper wrote, "pragmatic in recognizing that
a vast majority of Israelis don't think that hanging on to Gaza is worth the bloodshed; bold
in standing up to the extremists who view Gaza as their birthright, despite the Palestinian majority living there now."

But it is. Even the League of Nations thought so. Jews lived there for centuries. Gaza is part of the historic Land of Israel. What, do we yield to those Dagonite Philistines?

The paper noted that Israel's vice prime minister, Ehud Olmert, put the choice facing Israel starkly. "One cannot help but see that we are dealing with a Palestinian leadership which speaks differently, and, it would appear, also acts differently," he said, referring to Mr. Abbas. "We shall never forgive ourselves if we don't give a chance to a leadership which says it is opposed to terrorism."

The paper insists that "those settlements are also one of the largest barriers to any possibility of peace. "

Birthright - no; Bolder (aka more surrenders) - ; Barriers (certainly).

Mahmud Abbas may seem to be reining in his terrorist supporters but I fear that Sharon is much too presumptive.

What a Difference the Years Make

(this op-ed is up at Arutz 7
http://www.israelnn.com/article.php3?id=4794 )

What a difference 16 years can make.

On May 22, 1989, United States Secretary of State James A. Baker III, then in a confrontational mood with Israel and towards its prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, delivered a speech at the annual AIPAC conference entitled, "Principles and Pragmatism: American Policy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict".

Couched in diplomatic terminology - unlike another remark, one using the f-word, he was later to make about what could be done to Jews in general - this speech nevertheless contained one very memorable line in which Baker demanded that Israelis needed "to lay aside, once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel." As observers noted, Baker squarely had placed the blame on Israel for the Arab-Israel conflict, and seemed to repeat Arab propaganda claims for control of portions of the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

Israel's Leftists, those who referred to themselves as the "peace camp", were ecstatic. Palestinian spokespersons also couldn't find enough microphones to talk into. Finally, in public, America had made it quite clear that the retention of the administered territories was an issue now high on the agenda. Hanan Ashrawi and Sa'eb Erekat were to become frequent visitors at America's Jerusalem Consulate, funds going to Palestinian volunteers were to be increased, and spying on the growth of Judea, Samaria and Gaza communities was a professional accomplishment for which at least one political officer of the consulate won a State Department prize.

Sixteen years later, for some unfathomable reason, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's speech at the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting on February 8 included the sentence: "We in Israel have had to painfully wake up from our dreams." Somehow, I feel this was not unintentional. Sharon saw fit to echo a concept of American diplomacy, that Israel would have to withdraw not only from actual land mass, but, in doing so, would have to express a mea culpa, an acknowledgement of guilt. This would take the form of a confessional act by which Israel would admit it was wrong in presuming that the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza belonged to her because of Arab aggression, and moreover, that Israel was wrong to assume that the territories belonged to her by historical, legal and natural right.

Baker's speech was made in a certain political context. Yasser Arafat had met US conditions for a dialogue by accepting the 'land-for-peace' formula, renouncing terrorism and recognizing Israel's right to exist. When Arafat complained that the US seemed to be looking for new concessions from the Palestinians, rather than insisting that Israel make the same pledges, Baker used the AIPAC forum to placate the Palestinians.

Of course, Arafat never really intended to fulfill any commitment he had made and, in fact, violated all the obligations and responsibilities to which he had agreed. But Israel was consistently reminded and pressured to adopt capitulationist policies, one worse and more enfeebling than the other. Palestinians were not to be tested by their deeds, or lack thereof, and were not even held to their words. Israel, though, was whittled down. That process continues to this day.

If sixteen years makes quite a difference, what are we to make of the Jerusalem Post's revelation that only ten years ago, then-Likud Minister Ariel Sharon approached the Shas mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the day after the Oslo Accords were signed on September 13th, 1993?

The paper informed its readers that Sharon asked the rabbi to support a referendum on Oslo. In seeking a reaction, the Post reported this past Wednesday that Sharon said he is now is of the opinion that "it doesn't matter what happened over ten years ago. Things have changed since then."

Is it things or people?

What is apparent is that what was good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Sharon's stage-managed Sharm show may not be more than a repeat of the long string of failures that Israel has been forced to endure, at the expense of hundreds and hundreds of civilian casualties. Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped President George Bush to remove the Iraqi terrorist regime, but is now lending a hand, and millions of American dollars, to facilitate what could become a most dangerous terror state, supported by Iran through the Hizbullah.

Once again, Israel is required to hand over prisoners, eventually expected to include those who have murdered. Given the fact that America has been quite lax in getting the Palestinians to hand over the killers of three Americans murdered in Gaza last September, maybe the moral values of this administration are different, too.

Sharon's disengagement policy has now evolved into a mutant. The Arabs know that their Kassam missile terror has worked. The IDF had no adequate military response and it was not allowed to repeat a Defensive Shield-like operation in Gaza. No security wall or fence will stop them, as these missiles are improved to reach Sharon's own farm spread and beyond.

Mahmoud Abbas knows well that terror aided his negotiations. Egypt, which did not intervene to halt the smuggling of armaments via the tunnels in Sinai, is now supervising the Palestinian security forces.

Sharon once had a dream. That dream and vision was a strong, resolute Israel. Sharon has now become our nightmare.

Who Will Really Be Paying A Price?

Zev Chefets, in a guest column in the NYTimes, would have us assume that Ariel Sharon has adopted President George Bush as his new mentor, that he seeks to implement Bush's vision of pacifying Palestine by creating for the Arabs yet another state and, in doing so, Chafets believes Sharon is even "ready to die" to make this vision real ("Follow the Leader", Feb. 15) .
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/opinion/15chafets.html?oref=login

What Sharon actually may be doing is allowing for improved Kassam missiles to reach further into Israel, encourage terrorists eventually to restart their violence to gain further Israeli concessions and to bring death and destruction, in cooperation with Hezbulla and other extremist groups.

Will Sharon be willing then to pay the price is his policy fails?

But Why Did Jordan Have to Resign?

The resignation today of CNN's Eason Jordan, the result of blog pressure and the need to regain lost ratings to Fox, recalls another error that networkmade which also involved Fox News Channel.

In May 2002, CNN aired an interview with an Arab suicide bomber's family which was given more prominence and time than one with a relative of his Israeli victims, Sinai Keinan, a one-year old infant and her grandmother. Jordan flew to Israel and announced that "CNN deeply regrets any extra anguish the [Israeli] family has suffered... It was a mistake not to air the full international version...".

An Israel cable company then replaced CNN with Fox for a time as its international news source.

This incident followed an interview CNN's Ted Turner gave to the British Guardian in which he equated suicide bombings and Israel's military response when he said, "I would make the case that both sides are engaged in terrorism." He later apologized, saying that suicide bombings are inexcusable.

Unlike Jordan, though, Turner wasn't required to resign.

Why?

So, No Damage? So What?

I have tried to be relentless on Greg Myre's insistence, or that of his foreign editor in NY, to belittle the shelling of civilians in Gaza.

Below is another example of the "they cause little damage" poohpoohing that the NYTimes practices but that's not quite the point.

This is an enemy that insist upon targeting civilians. If Israel was lambasted and pilloried for its practice of "targeted killings" of terrorists, why not apply the same standards (at the least) of condemnation against these persons instread of referring to them as "militants"?

Why not express your opinion and write to letters@nytimes.com on this issue?

If 100 arrive, they maybe we can have an affect.

=====

"The Palestinians have fired several thousand shells toward the settlements in the last four years, but
casualties and serious damage are rare. The shelling had diminished, though it had not stopped,
since the factions pledged last month to Mr. Abbas to suspend attacks temporarily."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/international/middleeast/11mideast.html?oref=login

Hanan, Mrs. Ashrawi

"Now there is a will and some momentum for peace talks," said Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian legislator to the NYTimes.

And then she added: "It is imperative that they begin as soon as possible. If a political process is not created rapidly, the letdown for Palestinians will be enormous."

Hanan, if we go too fast and too rapidly, Jews will be killed.

Which is the least dangerous option?

Far From Useless

Once again, I find that the New York Times is so off the mark in simple rational thinking that it provides me with an ideal platform for my counterpoints.

In an editorial, "A Welcome Appointment", published on Feburary 8, the paper crosses its fingers as a sign of hope for the outcome of the Sharm el Sheik conference. The writer characterizes Palestinian terror, what I presume he assumes to be a very generous gesture, as "useless attacks".

However, far from useless, it would seem that Israel, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's leadership, has capitulated to it.

Despite vigorous military operations, included the tactic of selective elimination of terror planners in addition to its perpetrators, the Gaza district was not invaded and there was no adequate response to the Kassam missiles. Sharon chose to adopt unilateral disengagement, a diplomatic term for fleeing with one's tail between one's legs and is pursuing a total expulsion of the Jewish civilian population, including from communities in northern Samaria.

Terror can have no better reward.

Missiles, however, fly over walls and security fences. It may be that these weapons will continue to be 'useful' in chasing Israel further.

Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright

''Ch'i 'hu nan hsia pei'' goes the Chinese proverb, translated in 1875 as ''He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.''

The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs interprets the old Asian metaphor as ''Once a dangerous or troublesome venture is begun, the safest course is to carry it through to the end."

So writes William Safire.

Well, that's Arik Sharon to me, as I once wrote of Yitzhak Rabin. They know deep down that they both made a wrong decision but, deep in their psychological morasses, they cannot admit their errors and will just plod, or even push, through the situations they've created just to get it over.

They are reall afraid of the Tiger and we citizens suffer.

Inciteful Humor?

I was writing with someone (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty)
and I referred to a certain writer as a "Fallen-on-the-Head" Leftist.

He wrote back:

Is there any other kind?

To which I replied:

sure, the one with a hole-in-the-head

but that's incitement, is it not?

Guest Letter Writer

My friend, Eve, also feels the need to write a letter to a newspaper and here's one sent to the Jerusalem Post today:-

Sir,

How ironic that on the same day that Rabbi Weiss's article on the lack of perspective of what constitutes a dire problem ("Eliminate the Kiddush Clubs") appears, your lead editorial and a front page article highlight that very same lack of perspective.

The hue and cry over 110 year old Tel Aviv buildings ("Save Sarona") might be better applied to Ahab's palaces, Omri's city of Shomron, Herod's little Temple - all near Sanur in the [northern] Shomron, all slated to be handed to the PA in a few months to meet the fate of Joseph's Tomb. To say nothing of course of the Temple Mount where priceless historical artifacts are destroyed every day.

And yes, Alon Tal of the JNF, it IS a crime to build settlements on Nitzanim beach. Not just because of the havoc it wreaks on the land turtle habitat, but because the request comes due only to the planned travesty of transferring Jews from their homes in Gush Katif.

It may be Sunday morning, but after reading the paper I could use a drink.

Getting Used to It

Get used to the theme of this newspaper headline.

It'll keep repeating itself.

========
Israel Agrees to Release 900 Prisoners; Palestinians Want More

JERUSALEM, Feb. 3 - Israel agreed Thursday to release 900 Palestinian prisoners and to gradually pull back troops from West Bank cities, moves intended to improve the political climate ahead of next week's summit meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
But the Palestinians demanded the release of additional prisoners, including some who are ill and those who have already served long terms for serious offenses. Israel, which is expected to free mostly prisoners serving relatively short sentences, rejected the demand, and the talks broke up late Thursday night without agreement on that issue.

Disclaimer Necessary

I found this disclaimer on a web site.

Maybe all newspapers should carry it?

------

DISCLAIMER

The S******** is a gossip site which publishes rumors and conjecture in addition to accurately reported facts. Information on this site may or may not be true and The S********* makes no warranty as to the validity of any claims.

Ramon Has It Backwards

In the New York Times of February 4, there was a report on negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israeli Minister Haim Ramon, who supports a prisoner release, said, "The issue which most preoccupies the Palestinians...is the prisoner issue," ("Israel Agrees to Release 900 Prisoners; Palestinians Want More").

His motivation, he explained is that the interest of Israel is "to strengthen public support for Abu Mazen." But Ramon has it backwards.

Israel's need is for a peaceful and pacified enemy, a society that realizes that violence is wrong and that it doesn't pay. Schoolbooks full of hate and airwaves loaded with incitement must be eliminated. It was this education and indoctrination which contributed to these prisoners being were they are by encouraging them with religious hero-worship compensation.

Ever since the 1980s, when Israel first released terrorists en masse, they have consistently returned to the making of war. When a major change in Palestinian society has been achieved, only then should prisoners who aided and engaged in attacks on civilians be released.

The One-sidedness of the NYT's History

Greg Myre writes in today's NYTimes that the issue of property rights has been contentious in Israel "since [its] founding in 1948. In the Israeli-Arab war that year, many Palestinian landowners fled or were driven from property that became part of Israel", (Israel Revokes Decision on East Jerusalem Land, February 2).

Myre fails, though, to mention the fact that Jews also fled or were driven from their property that eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as well as Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, as they were in previous hostilities initiated by Arabs, especially in 1929 from Hebron, Gaza City and Shchem (Nablus).

The communities of Neveh Yaakov, Atarot and Bet Ha'Aravah as well as the centuries-old Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion Bloc of four kibbutzim were all overrun in 1948 and ethnically cleansed of Jews.

The community of Kfar Darom in Gaza suffered the same fate.

That war did not produce a singular victim, the so-called "Arab refuggee from Palestine", but created many victims.

Ignoring the integrity of the conflict and the Jewish losses can only complicate possible solutions.

Finding It Everywhere

You can find anti-Israel material everywhere.

For example in a book review in The Times Literary Review. So, I wrote a letter.

Here it is:-

In his review of ADVENTURES IN EGYPT AND NUBIA, on the travels of William John Bankes ("Take walk, make no book"), Mick Imlah writes that Bankes traveled also "in Syria, including modern Jordan and Palestine". This description is misleading.

Palestine always included both modern Israel and Jordan.

All maps of the area portray Palestine as stretching east and west of the Jordan River. Indeed, the original geography of the League of Nations Mandate, granted to Great Britian in 1922, spanned from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iraqi Desert. Jordan was administered, until 1946, as part of the Palestine Mandate.

To avoid mentioning Israel, if done consciously, is to completely miss the compass.

We All Wish We Could Be So Sure

From the NYTimes on the ceremonies at Auschwitz yesterday:

Of all Thursday's speakers, the most impassioned was Merka Shevach, an elderly woman from Bialystok, Poland, who now lives in Israel.
She took the microphone to give an unscheduled, impromptu speech as dusk fell.

"I was here naked as a young girl, I was 16," Ms. Shevach shouted to the crowd. "They brought my family here and burnt them, they stole my name and gave me a number."

She pulled back her sleeve to show the tattoo: 15755.

"Now," she said, "I have a country, I have an army, I have a president, I have a flag and this will never happen again."

IDPs, Getting Used to a New Term

I will expand on this soon but you might as well get used to a new legal term for the residents of Jewish communities in Gaza and Northern Samaria who are scheduled to be expelled from their homes and to have their farms, hothouses, schools, cemeteries and other social institutions either destroyed or physically removed from thm.

It's IDPs which means Internal Displaced Persons.

Yes, there actually is a category like that and even the United Nations utilizes it. Here's how it is described by the Brookings Institute which adminsiters an IDP project:

Over the past decade, tens of millions of people have been forced from their homes by armed conflict, internal strife, and systematic violations of human rights but remain within the borders of their own countries.

The Project on Internal Displacement was created to promote a more effective national, regional and international response to this global problem and to support the work of the Representative to the UN Secretary-General in carrying out the responsibilities of his mandate. The Project is co-directed by Walter Kהlin, the newly appointed Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, and Roberta Cohen, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

(http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/idp/idp.htm)

Reacting

I found a Baruch Kimmerling piece in The Nation and, after dealing with him in the Jerusalem Post, I figured I'd continue the whacking.

Baruch Kimmerling's review, "Israel's Culture of Martyrdom", contains several errors which need correction, I wrote.

In discussing the Kastner affair, he claims that Malkiel Greenwald, Shmuel Tamir and Binyamin Halevi were all members of the Lehi underground. In fact, only Tamir was an anti-British resistance fighter and he belonged to the Irgun. Media professor Elihu Katz's term "medurat hashevet" he puts as "tribal campfire". Kimmerling mistranslates here. The word "shevet" does mean "tribe" but it refers to the basic unit of a youth movement, especially the Scouts. There is nothing sinister in the phrase.

And despite his downplaying of the Arab Mufti's role during the Holocaust and his sympathies for Nazi ideology, not only to he launch a Muslim unit in the Balkans to fight alongside German troops but he had two of his lieutenants parachute into mandated Palestine to poison water sources in 1944 and during the 1936-39 revolt, the Mufti extensively exploited Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic frameworks.

Arik Sharon Should Pay Attention

Leon Trotsky’s slogan in 1918 at Brest-Litovsk, when he made a unilateral agreement with Germany to pull Russia out of the war, was

‘Neither victory nor defeat.’.

What would Sharon's disengagement proposal become known as?

And Why Not?

Back on 7 January, a BBC story I read reported that: "Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and sees it as its exclusive domain...The area is often called Arab East Jerusalem because the majority of its inhabitants are Palestinian."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4153465.stmMay

Given this premise, I ask would, then, would the BBC refer to the Gush Katif area, which is a larger area than East Jerusalem, built on lands that were uninhabited for centuries, as "Israeli" or maybe even "Jewish" because the majority of its inhabitants are Jewish Israelis? And why not?

Sloppy Solidarity

Raymond Deane from Ireland is at solidarity with Palestine. He argued this week (25 January), in a letter to the editor of the Irish Times, against a previous pro-Israel writer, Kevin Myers, who denied a right of return to be accorded Arabs who consider themselves refugees.

He impugns Israel by claiming these refugees are the result of 'ethnic cleansing'. He attempts, too, to justify their right of return by referring to the right Jews claim, to return "after almost 2,000 years, to a country that happens to be inhabited by another people".

Given the restraints of a letter, I was concise.

The foremost international body at the time, the League of Nations, recognized in 1922 the historic right of the Jews to reconstitute their homeland. It is not insignificant that the word "Arab" in reference to the non-Jewish communties to be protected therein is missing, for indeed, it was intended that the Arabs fulfill their nationalist aspirations outside the borders of the Palestine Mandate. And they did, in Jordan.

In 1949, the original United Nations resolution is couched in terms of "Palestine refugees", not "Palestinian". Deane, of course, should know that Jews also became refugees, expelled from their homes in Judea and Samaria, what he would call the West Bank, part of then Palestine. Should not the Jewish communities reestablished after 1967 be considered as conforming to this "right" that Deane demands must be applied solely to Arabs?

As for the 'ethnic cleanising' calumny he bandies about, as any historian can testify, it was the Arabs who initiated this horrific policy by destroying Jewish homes, neighborhoods and villages, such as, for example, Tel Hai in 1920, Hebron, Nablus and Gaza in 1929, Atarot, Neveh Yaakov and Bet Arava in 1948. Arab aggression in 1948 in the attempt to eradicate the nascent state, total ethnic cleansing, failed and this is the reason there are refugees today.

As they did not properly use the right of good neighborliness and the respect of international decisions at the time, why should anyone recognize a "right of return" today?

A Rose By Another Name

Sometimes I think that the British simply can't forget/forgive their Mandate experiences and their periodicals are always open to radical, anti-Zionist ideas.

The London Review of Books is one such base of debasement. Recently, in their issues of 4 November, 16 December 2004 and 6 January 2005, there has been a remarkable exchange of opinions in articles and letters. So, I decided to join in.

And this is what I wrote:-

The discepting antagonists - Jacqueline Rose, Avril Mailer, Avi Shlaim and Asher de Bentolila Tlalim - regarding terrorism in mandate Palestine and the attitudes and actions of members of the Revisionist Betar youth movement have raised not only issues of historical accuracy (for example, Shlaim errs; Aryeh Yitzhaki died in a premature blast while preparing letter-bombs) but moral standards and political expediency, then and today. The argument needs refocusing.

Shlaim befuddles us by claiming that the Arab Revolt of 1936-38 was but "a desperate response" to Zionism supported by Britain. The Arab riots in Jerusalem in 1920, in Jaffa and Jerusalem in 1921, the country-wide attacks which killed 133 in August 1929 and their riots in October 1933 were also "desperate" or, may we assume that Jews returning to their homeland are but to expect that they are legitimate targets for Arab violence?

In the Shlomo Ben-Yosef incident, the immediate trigger to his act was the slaughter of five Jews, one child, three women and the driver, travelling in a taxi between Haifa and Safad on March 28, 1938. One of the females was 17 year-old Alegra Mutzari who was to be married a few days later. She was raped. On April 16 that year, four men were shot by a marauding band of Arabs near Hanita. One of them was a close persoanl friend of the Betar members at Rosh Pinna.

To get beyond the details, however, one must recall that the Jews were divided about the preferred solution to the conflict. Arab opponents of Zionism always had the advantage of working with binationalists, concessionists, anti-Zionists (ultra-orthodox and secular) and other stripes of "peace" activists. That advantage, which continues today, conjoined with the non-sympathy, and even an undercurrent animosity, of too many Gentiles to Jewish nationalism has been manipulated by Arabs.

Far from being "desperate", Arab leaders, from the Mufti El-Husseini to Yasser Arafat, have been confident that their total rejection of Zionism and their violence will be understood and tolerated. They rarely used diplomacy and always resorted to violence, exclusively targeting civilians. Ethnic cleansing was another weapon with Arabs razing Jewish communities such as Tel Hai (1920), Hebron and Beer Tuvia (1929), Atarot, Bet HaArava and the Gush Etzion Bloc (1948) among others. Active support, including mobilzing Muslims for the Nazi Wafffen SS, on behalf of Germany during World War II was ignored by "enlightened" Europe.

It is, then, in this light, or better, shades of darkness, that Rose's twisted thinking is to be considered as well as Shlaim's abject apologia.

All Black

Ian Black wrote on 24 Jan 2005 in the UK Guardian that the horror of Auschwitz is "a grim, incontrovertible reminder of why so many angry Arabs and Muslims feel that Israel is the price Palestinians are still paying for European racism". If anything, though, that "anger" should be seen, on the backdrop of Auschwitz, as an irrational hatred and a perversion of history.

The link between Jews and the geography of their homeland, once called Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but becoming Palestine as a result of the Roman conquest in 135 CE, predated not only the Holocaust but many other centuries of persection in Spain, Europe and Asia. Jews do not merit a state because of what brought about Auschwitz and its sister camps. That state was declared worthy of reconstitution and on that basis, Great Britain was awarded the Mandate to establish that state.

If there is any reminding needed, it is that the Arabs of the Palestine Mandate in no small numbers, and led by their spiritual head, the Mifti Haj Amin, supported the Nazi ideology and policies even to the extent of enlisting in Germany's service and having Muslims mobilized into Wehrmacht units while the Mufti broadcast from Berlin.

Arab suicide bombers are the mutant extensions of the evil force that stoked the crematoria fires of Auschwitz.

HOW CAN ONE NOT REFUSE?

“I believe that in matters intrinsically linked to the rights of man and citizen that cannot be negated, a free man is permitted, and at times, even obligated, to disobey formalistic instructions, if the essence of those matters impairs those rights, on the condition that he is prepared to take the consequences for his act”.

The above statement could have been spoken by Mahatma Gandhi, Bertrand Russell or Martin Luther King, all heroes of enlightened societies everywhere. The words represent the core belief of all non-violent protesters over the decades to come to terms with their consciences even, and especially, at the risk of punishment. I could have found the statement be in any collection of ‘quotable quotes’ but I didn’t. And although spoken by an Israeli, none of the various left-wing refusal groups over the years such as Yesh Gvul and The Courage to Refuse have adopted these words.

Indeed, it would be very surprising for the five high school pupils who recently underwent a military trial, or the pilots who refused to bomb targets they thought irrelevant to Israel’s defense or the soldiers in the Sayeret Matkal who last autumn expressed their unwillingness to serve across the Green Line to discover that it was Menachem Begin who said these words in the Knesset on June 18, 1955.

Genuine refusal, as Begin makes clear, takes into consideration the very real probability that the government of the day will apply all legal and judicial instruments to force the conscientious objector to retreat. No one has promised those who refuse a flower-covered path. While in most cases, that comes much later, ostracism, financial punishment and negation of freedom, including jail, are the usual lot of those who select to oppose government policy

The question, then, is can refusal be justified?

Some claim that civil disobedience campaigns such as that promoted by the Zo Artzeinu group in 1995 was illegitimate because it can be used only in oppressive, non-democratic regimes but has no place in Israel. Israel allows a large margin of protest activity.

This aspect can be now argued with since many, including several outstanding figures of the liberal camp in this country, would say that several fine lines dividing democracy from an oppressive regime have been broken. Despite the fact that the High Court of Justice declined to adjudicate the petition of the ministers fired by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the clamping down on free expression by dismissing ministers even before they voted to assure his cabinet majority, a move that would have be nullified if it had occurred in the directorate of any government or private company, academics such as Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer are extremely uncomfortable with that decision.

Sharon has reneged on his commitment to abide by the internal Likud referendum and ignored his party’s central committee decisions as well as exploiting near-dictatorial moves to fire his opponents. All this provides potential refusers with a moral basis that is very necessary in taking such a step.

Another aspect of a refusal campaign is that of basic human rights. The residents of Gush Katif and Northern Samaria are not terrorists nor criminals. In fact, their contribution to the economy of the state and its defense is immeasurable. They are living in areas the League of Nations decided would be the reconstituted Jewish homeland. Can they be turned out of their homes and factories and educational and social institutions? Is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Article 17 regarding property and Article 18 relating to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to be violated? Are the Gaza residents to be victims of discrimination, treated worse than Arab citizens of the state?

What do really moral people think? Well, here is one opinion: “If I would be obligated to destroy a house in the territories, where women, children and the elderly live, due to the fact that one of its members engaged in terror against Israel, I would refuse. He who was brought up on the ethics of our Prophets must refuse to destroy homes.”

These words were spoken by former MK and Minister Shulamit Aloni, an outstanding human rights activist, as recorded by the Hadashot news daily on February 25, 1990. One could assume that she would be the first to assert that what cannot be done to an Arab should not be visited on a Jew.

Refusing orders is an ancient Jewish custom. The first instance of what we now term civil disobedience seems to be in the Bible, Exodus 1:17: “And the midwives did not do what they were commanded because they feared God”. The Talmud, Sotah 11B, adds that their non-cooperation was based on their caution that what they were asked was an immoral crime. Their refusal was later on rewarded.

The current Attorney-General, Menny Mazuz, who already has expressed empathy for those who refuse orders, should reflect on his predecessor’s outlook. Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney-General 1993-96, wrote in Haaretz, on March 3, 2002, “their refusal [of those opposing Israel’s administration of Yesha – YM] to serve is an act of conscience that is justified and recognized in every democratic regime. History's verdict will be that their refusal was the act that restored our moral backbone”.

Can one, then, refuse not to refuse?

The NYT Gets Sinister

The editorial in today's New York Times, "A Double Blow to Peace" (Jan 15), terms the cutting off of contacts with Palestine Authority officials by Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "a precipitous Israeli overreaction."

Furthermore, Sharon, it claims, is an "unwitting ally" of the terrorism and murder of civilians of "Gaza militants". That description itself is preposterous and sinister.

Sharon, during the period of the elections, indecently restricted Israeli defense measures. The Kassam rockets continued to fall, the shootings from ambushes went on as did attempts to infiltrate Israel through and under fences. Israelis were unprotected and died as Sharon seeks to promote a dangerous policy of disengagement.

There is a limit to what any Israeli politician can ignore.

Mahmud Abbas has the capabilities to end the terror. He does not need Sharon's help or cooperation, for it is his own choice if there is to be peace. If anyone is an ally of the Hamas and Jihad in Gaza, it would appear
to be Abbas, unless he does something to change that.

Two Banks; But One Palestine

The New York Times of January 13 carried a story dealing with the refugees in Jordan who did not participate in the Palestine Authority balloting. I found something wrong and wrote this letter:-

Your correspondent, Hassan M. Fattah, notes that "no Palestinian outside the occupied territories was allowed to vote" in the balloting for Palestine Authority Chairman last week ("Jordan's Guests, Deeply Palestinian and Deeply Skeptical," Jan. 13).

It should be recalled that Arabs residing in the Hashemite Kingdom who consider themselves refugees, and still pine for the former homes west of the Jordan River, are, nevertheless, still located in Palestine.

The bureaucratic decision of Winston Churchill in 1921, formalized two years later, to establish Emir Abdullah as ruler of Trans-Jordan, does not alter the geographic fact that Arab refugees there today may have left their homes in 1948 but not their country.

Hermeneutics and Politics

Probably the first instance of civil disobedience and refusal of a direct orderis Exodus 1:17 -“And the midwives did not do what they were commanded because they feared God”.

The Talmud, Sotah 11B, adds that their non-cooperation was based on their caution that what they were asked was an immoral crime. Their refusal was later on rewarded. This is fairly straightforward.

In fact, they even went beyond the decree to kill the Hebrew babies and did a very good deed in supplying food for the babies and caring for them more than just allowing them to live. And, indeed, Pharaoh first asks them, in the next verse "why have you done this?", instead of what should have been, in the chronological order of events, his question: "why did you not put them to death"?

My hermeneutic reasoning?

Their act caused even Pharaoh to realize his edict was wrong and should have been refused. But to move on from there to feeding and clothing them was something even beyond the grasp of a Pharaoh.

In this campaign for Gush Katif we have not only to stall and stem and halt the evil decree of destruction but we need to go even further on behalf of settling our homeland so that this extra effort will convince our opponents that their original idea of disengagement was wrong.

We need to be two steps ahead which is hard. But it's possible.