April 2002
April 4, 2002 Packing Boxes for Our Soldiers
April 5, 2002 Upcoming WIG Activities
April 7, 2002 Nadia Matar's Response to Akiva Eldar
April 9, 2002 The Fall of George W. Bush?
April 11, 2002 Car Convoy to Gush Dan
April 14, 2002 Israel is "Occupied Territory" - By the Arabs!
April 14, 2002 An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
April 15, 2002 Is Occupation Really the Reason for Today's Violence?
April 23, 2002 To Former President Jimmy Carter
April 23, 2002 Israel's Peculiar Position
April 28, 2002 United in Freedom
April 28, 2002 Don't Give Up 1967 Lands, DeLay Tells Israel Lobby
April 28, 2002 Nadia Matar's Letter to Tallie Lipkin-Shahak
April 29, 2002 Nadia Matar's Letter to Mr Ted Koppel
April 29, 2002 An Apology by the Rabin Research Center
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Jerusalem, April 4, 2002
Packing Boxes for Our Soldiers
The following message was forwarded to us by Barbara Silverman
who is the organizer of the "Package from Home Project".
Women in Green call upon all to help Barbara and her friends in their
wonderful project - packing packages to the soldiers.
You are especially needed in the next few days. Details are in Barabara's
e-mail below.
Shabbat Shalom,
Nadia
----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Fiends of Package from Home Project.
Due to the Matzav, our normal number of 2000 packages to be sent out has now
risen to 3400. Therefore, we need to make a special effort this week to
pack the boxes in time for delivery before Yom Haatzmaut.
We plan to pack next Sunday, April 7, Monday, April 8, Tuesday, April 9 and
Thursday April 11th from 1 P.M. to 5 P.M. at the Evelina de Rothschild
School at the corner of Ussishkin and Hagra Sts. (Jerusalem).
Bring your ID or passport to identify yourself.
Please call or e-mail me as soon as possible if you can help us pack during
those times. Early notice will help us to organize our crews. Bring friends.
Tel: 02-623-25-48 or emess@netvision.net.il
Yours,
Barbara
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 5, 2002
Upcoming WIG Activities
OK, Pesach is behind us. The time has come to swing back into
action. Our dear IDF soldiers have been called to emergency
"miluim" (reserve army service)- we, the activists have to also act as if we
are on miluim duty for our People and our Land.
Women in Green will have different activities:
1- KAPOWATCH: strengthening our dear IDF soldiers and
countering the traitors of the extreme Left.
2- continuing our campaign against the creation of an additional
Palestinian state in Eretz Israel - car convoy to Gush Dan.
3- paying shiva calls (with the hope not to have to do this anymore).
1-strengthening our IDF soldiers:
The response to our latest "KAPOWATCH" article has been
unbelievably tremendous. Hundreds of e-mails of support from
Israel and abroad. Tens of Jews and non-Jews wanting to
strengthen our soldiers - whether by physically coming to the
checkpoints or sending donations enabling us to buy goodies and
drinks for our soldiers. You are great!
This coming week the traitors from the extreme leftist group
"Machsomwatch" will not be able to do their "ally-with-the-enemy"
activities thanks to the fact that no Arabs are passing through the
checkpoints. Our soldiers are there in masses; let's hope they stay
there.
But Women in Green will come anyway to the army checkpoints in
order to give chizuk (support)to our soldiers.
ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10th we will meet at 9:30am at the
INBAL (ex-Laromme) hotel from where we will go to various
checkpoints handing out packages of love and goodies. Join us
and -if you wish- bring some food too (closed packages).
2- CAR CONVOY TO GUSH DAN AREA
The campaign against the creation of a Palestinian State is
unfortunately still very needed. The great job our soldiers are doing
will have no effect if at the end of the IDF action, the Israeli
government will sit down with those same murderers and offer them
a Palestinian State in Eretz Yisrael! We are very close to 100,000
signatures against a Palestinian state. Help us get them.
Sign our petition at http://www.womeningreen.org
ON SUNDAY, APRIL 14 Women in Green will gather at 9:00am in
front of the Prime Minister's offices. We will plaster our cars with
placards "EXPEL THE ARAB ENEMY" - and "KOL HAKAVOD TO
TZAHAL". At 9:15 we will leave from there, in a convoy, to the Tel
Aviv area. Specific location will be given on the day itself.
The more cars will join us, the more effect we will make.
A week before Pesach we had a similar convoy for two hours in
the streets of Jerusalem. The response from the street was g-r-e-a-t!
You saw people were yearning for a clear message of strength.
It is interesting to note that many newsreporters came to film us
and interviewed us - but as usual....nothing was shown on tv or in
the written media.
Please let us know by e-mail if you will be joining next week.
At the end of our drive we will stop in a central location in one of
the Gush Dan cities and will sign up passers-by on our petition.
We would like to try to be back in Jerusalem around 3:00pm.
3- Shiva calls
Since the beginning of the Oslo war, Women in Green have tried to
go to all shivas to pay our condolences. Unfortunately, lately, it has
become a full-time job and impossible to go to all families.
There are other organizations dealing solely with that important job.
Women in Green has therefore decided to at least go to the shivas
in Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza).
ON MONDAY morning, APRIL 8 we will go to pay a shiva call in
ELON MOREH where the Gavish family was murdered.
Anyone interested in joining, please e-mail us.
Shabbat shalom,
Nadia
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Jerusalem, April 7, 2002
Following the Ha'aretz article by Akiva Eldar is Nadia's response to
Akiva Eldar
Jerusalem, April 4, 2002
A NAZI BY ANY OTHER NAME
By Akiva Eldar
[Ha'aretz - Tel Aviv - 4 April 2002]: The Israeli liberal left was quick
to join the chorus of protests against Nobel Literature laureate Jose
Saramago for drawing a comparison between the situation in Ramallah and the
Auschwitz death camp. Gentiles who liken Jews to Nazis or to collaborators
with the Nazis are denounced - justly so - as anti-Semites. Some even wrote
that Saramago had made Israelis fair play for assailants with his comments.
On the other hand, Israeli left-wing liberals find nothing wrong with
co-signing a "covenant" with a Jew like Brigadier General (res.) Effi
Eitam, who called the Palestinians a "cancer in the body of the nation."
The fact that the Nazis were especially fond of this metaphor is probably
not lost on the general.
By the same token, the women members of "Kapowatch" - the response of the
rightist Women in Green to "Machsomwatch," which was set up to observe the
behavior of Israeli soldiers at checkpoints in the West Bank - know what a
"kapo" is. The kapos were Jews who acted as police for the Nazis in the
death camps (although in the end most of them were also murdered).
And what crime did the women who watch the checkpoints commit to be thus
branded? "They are a group of traitors from the extreme left," wrote Nadia
Matar, the leader of Women in Green to her colleagues last week. She urged
them to stand up against "the anti-Israeli organization that supports the
enemy under the guise of being a human rights organization that wants to
ensure that the soldiers are nice to the Arabs."
Matar reports that she and Yael from the settlement of Tekoa and Jacqueline
from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo visited an army checkpoint north of
Bethlehem early one morning to boost the morale of the soldiers and offer
them refreshments. "At 7 o'clock the traitors from the left arrived," Matar
wrote. "I had asked Jacqueline to bring a camera and I started to follow
the women and photograph them. They asked me who I was and I replied, `We
are from KapoWatch, we are photographing Jewish traitors. We are adding
your names to the black list of collaborators with the Arab enemy, so that
when the time comes you will be placed on trial for crimes against the
Jewish people on its soil.'"
If KapoWatch members don't understand they are emulating Samarago, they
would do well to have a look at a book by former Knesset Speaker Dov
Shilansky, "In a Jewish Jail: From the Diary of a Political Prisoner." On
page 18 Shilansky, who was a member of the National Military Organization
(Irgun, led by Menachem Begin) and afterward a Herut and Likud MK, writes
about the Jewish collaborators: "Everyone murdered, including the Jews in
the service of the Germans, and nearly every Jew who wore a ribbon of a
deputy Kapo on his hand murdered, with only a few exceptions."
In his book "The Seventh Million" Tom Segev reports how Holocaust survivors
lynched former Kapos. On January 9, 1946, the daily Hatzofeh, the organ of
the religious Zionist movement, called on the authorized institutions "to
liquidate these people."
Jews, it seems, are allowed everything. That includes the liberty of
likening Jews to Israel's worst enemies, while at the same time whining
about those who liken Jews to Israel's worst enemies. They can foment a
disturbance against the playing of Wagner as an encore to those in the
audience who want to stay and hear it. They can also shrug off as a
"technical mistake" an army officer's order to write numbers on the arms of
Palestinian prisoners.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is the translation of the Hebrew answer Nadia wrote
to Ha'aretz and to Akiva Eldar
Akiva Eldar is "shocked" that we call the Machsomwatch women
"traitors" and "Kapos".
When the Nobel Laureate Saramago compared what is happening
now in Ramallah to what happened then in Aushwitz, a public
outrage was rightfully expressed all over the world and by the Left
and the Right in Israel.
Because his comparison was despicable and a sheer lie:
he compared the victim, the assaulted one - the State of Israel - to
the Nazis. Instead of saying the truth: today it is the Palestinian
Authority and all other Arab terror groups who are impersonating
the Nazis.
The Arab terrorists - inspired by the PA's bestseller Mein Kampf -
are today's Nazis with the same old goal: eliminating any Jewish
entity in the Land of Israel, no matter what its borders are.
And davka Israel now impersonates the role the Allied Forces,
Britain and the USA, had during WWII - fighting evil.
Let's remember that the Allied Forces brought peace back to
Europe only after they completely destroyed the Nazi Beast and its
entire infrastructure. Not one author in Europe would have dared to
label the war that Allied Forces were waging against Hitler as
"nazi" acts!
When the Arab suicide bombers blow themselves up in our
pizzashops, in our disco's, in our hotels and in our streets - tearing
apart Jewish bodies, burning Jewish babies, mutilating Jewish
corpses, annihilating entire Jewish families - THEY are the Nazis
who brought Aushwitz to Israel.
I already mentioned in my weekly radioshow - in a moment of
cynicism - that there really is no need for the Israeli youth to go to
Poland anymore to visit the camps in order to understand what the
Shoah was about. [Every year hundreds of Jewish youth from Israel
and the Diaspora go to Poland to visit Aushwitz and Treblinka and
to understand what the Holocaust was about N.M.] There is a
Shoah right here in Israel, by modern-day Nazis against Jews in
Israel and one can simply take a ride up and down Jaffa Street in
Jerusalem, visiting all the sites of suicide bombings to
understand what a Shoah against the Jewish People looks like.
The difference with then is that now we are blessed to have our own
State and our own army that is there to defend Jewish lives.
And yes, anybody collaborating with the modern-day Nazis against
our IDf soldiers, against Israel, should be labeled KAPO.
In fact, maybe that term is too mild to label people like Machsom
watch and other leftists traitors.
Let's remember that many Kapos during the Holocaust were
forced to do what they were asked to do for fear of being killed by
the Nazis. Here in Israel, people like Machsom watch and other
extreme leftist activists and groups (like Neta Golan, Uri Avneri, let
alone Shimon Peres and all other Oslo criminals who gave the
Arab-Nazi enemy weapons, ammunition and cities of refuge) are
"Kapos of their own free will".
Let's indeed hope that the day will come and justice will be
achieved - and all Oslo criminals who have so much Jewish blood
on their hands, will be brought to trial for crimes against the Jewish
people in its Land.
****************
Comic addition:
Akiva Eldar's article is always accompanied by caricatures of the
people he discusses. Ha'aretz drew the most horrible caricature of
Nadia, basically making her look like an old grouch - looking like MK
Yael Dayan with a green cap on.
Nadia has sent Ha'aretz a picture of herself so that in the future
they will know what she looks like and wrote:
"Included is a picture of mine because obviously you do not know
who I am. You have drawn MK Yael Dayan with a green hat on and
with my name under it. MK Yael Dayan might be very upset to see
her caricature with a green hat on and Nadia Matar's name under
her face. In fact she might sue you for trying to make her look like
a proud Jew!!
So please, in the future, draw the picture of the right person. You
should know that only Jews who love their land and their fellow
Jews have the honor of wearing a Women in Green cap!!"
Nadia Matar
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Jerusalem, April 9, 2002
The Fall of George W. Bush?
By: Jan Wilhem van der Hoeven, Director - International Christian Zionist
Center
You began so well, praying in the Washington D.C. Cathedral with all your
people, seeking the favour of God - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -
in your Nation's fight against the terrifying scourge of terror. You set
out with courage and great determination to root out this terror, announcing
that the war would be long and hard, and not necessarily confined to
Afghanistan.
And now you, who gave the world such a shining example of moral
determination, are telling your most faithful and trusted ally in the whole
world - the tiny nation of Israel that has suffered more from the scourge of
terror than any other Nation on earth - that they should not take "as much
time as it takes" to deal with the violence that has ravaged this country
and people for decades.
How can you not see the preposterousness of this hypocrisy? How can your
spokesmen and government ministers have anything but deep understanding for
Israel's painstaking military campaign against terror so close to their
cities, a campaign that up to this point has caused far less civilian
casualties than your air-force's ruthless months-long bombing in
Afghanistan? I am not criticizing you for having dealt with terror
forcefully when you and your people suffered the consequences of it; what I
am appalled at is your double standard in relation to your ally Israel, a
double standard many of your courageous senators and congressmen have also
recently spoken out against in deep concern.
Now I want to come to you with a warning in the name of the same God of
Israel, the Lord Who, in His mercy and favour as He promised in His word,
has brought His people back to His land that He promised them as an
everlasting possession".
Mr. President, if you continue this hypocritical way, forcing Israel to stop
her fight against terror whereas you allowed your army all the time it
needed to finish the job, then from this day onwards - unless you turn from
this ungodly way - your presidency will bear the mark of Cain in relation to
God's people that has been so battered and bloodied by the same terror you
promised before God to fight with all your might.
May God forgive you for this sinning against His people, the apple of His
eye, against your presidency, and against your own nation's security, for if
you continue on this disastrous road it will surely bring God's retributive
response. May this not have to happen, I pray.
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 11, 2002
Dear Friends,
Just a reminder about Sunday's CAR CONVOY to Gush Dan:
ON SUNDAY, APRIL 14 Women in Green will gather at 9:00am in
front of the Prime Minister's offices. We will plaster our cars with
placards "EXPEL THE ARAB ENEMY" - and "KOL HAKAVOD TO
TZAHAL". At 9:15 we will leave from there, in a convoy, to the Tel
Aviv area. Specific location will be given on the day itself.
The more cars will join us, the more effect we will make.
Please let us know by e-mail if you will be joining next week.
At the end of our drive we will stop in a central location in one of
the Gush Dan cities and will sign up passers-by on our petition against
another Palestinian state.
We would like to try to be back in Jerusalem around 3:00pm.
Nadia and Ruth
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 14, 2002
The following will appear in the "Jerusalem Post" as a public service by
Women In Green on Friday, April 19, 2002.
Israel is "Occupied Territory" - By the Arabs!
The Arab claim that the country was theirs and was taken away from them by
the Jews is completely false and without historic basis.
Over 90% of the Arabs, according to Joan Peters' carefully documented book
"From Time Immemorial", recently migrated to Israel, only after Diaspora
Jews returned to their homeland as pioneers and miraculously rebuilt it.
Mark Twain, in his travels throughout Palestine in the middle of the 19th
Century, confirmed the fact that the land was then barren, desolate and
sparsely populated.
Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., i.e. two thousand years BEFORE the
rise of Islam, and long before there was any Arab nation. Palestine was the
homeland of the Jewish People since biblical times. Since then, it has been
"occupied" more than 15 times. Among such occupiers were the Egyptians, the
Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Ottoman Turks.
The longest occupiers of the Holy Land who ruled on and off for 400 years -
between 1517 and 1917 - were the Ottoman Turks. They were followed by the
British who ruled under a mandate of the League of Nations (later the U.N.)
to create a Homeland for the Jewish People
Jews have had prior dominion over the land of Israel for one thousand years
prior to their expulsion by the conquering Roman Empire. Moreover, Jews
have had a continuous presence in this Land for over 3,300 years.
Christians of the world: STOP BEING DECEIVED BY THE ARAB BIG LIE TECHNIQUE!
Arafat, a murderer and terrorist, and the most EVIL leader since Hitler, has
mastered this technique. He and his followers have become adept in
rewriting history, and by continuous repetition, their lies have come to be
believed.
Arabs are not, descendants of the Canaanites, nor of the Philistines, nor of
any other ancient people who formerly lived in this land. Unfortunately,
because of heavy oil deposits in Arab countries, many nations dependent on
oil act out of self-interest and are silent with regard to the gross Arab
distortions of history.
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Jerusalem, April 14, 2002
The following appeared in the "Jerusalem Post" on Friday, April 12, 2002.
An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
Dear Secretary Powell:
As Jerusalem-based ministries representing millions of Christians from many
lands, we commend the manner in which America has opened up its storehouse
of goodness and military might to help the world stand against the menace
of global terrorism. President Bush has done well in making this battle
the number one priority of his Administraiton and in declaring, "either you
are with us or you are against us."
And yet, as you arrive in a land battered by this very same scourge of
terror, you have ordered the closest of allies, Israel, to stand down and
retreat from the battle.
The tentacles of Palestinian terrorism run from Teheran to Ramallah to
Islamic charities on American soil. Its depravity knows no bounds,
invading the sanctity of Christian and Jewish holy places and observances,
and demanding even the sacrifice of innocent children. And as has been
exposed for all to see, it thrives under the rule of PLO leader Yasser
Arafat -- the dean of all international terrorists.
Mr. Powell, the world needs America's advanced weaponry, intelligence
assets and economic strength to wage the battle against gloval terrorism.
But most of all it needs Washington's clear moral leadership.
Many leaders in Europe and elsewhere sadly appear to have lost their way,
unable to discern the true evil nature of Palestinian terrorism and to
respond appropriately.
The Arab world is too blinded by hatred to concede that Arafat is the one
responsible for deliberately enflaming the region and bringing it to the
precipice of disaster.
Ordinary Palestinians have never been offered a real chance to rid
themselves of the greatest source of their suffering -- Arafat's corrupt
and callous regime.
And Israelis have been unjustly forced to show restraint in the face of a
brutal terror campaign and to act according to a standard required of no
other nation on earth.
This is an open and urgen appear for the Bush Administration to provide the
moral leadership which is so badly needed in this world today, lest the
march of suicide bombers spread outward and the anti-Semitic rage now
loosed in streets far and wide sweep us toward another tragedy for the
Jewish people.
Defend Israel's right and duty to combat and crush terrorism -- to not only
save the lives of its own citizens, but also as part of a broader effort to
deliver the Palestinian people from the clutches of an irredeemable ruler.
The Arabs will benefit, America will benefit, the whole world will benefit.
Bridges for Peace
Tel: 972-2-624-5004
info@bridgesforpeace.com
Christian Friends of Israel
Tel: 972-2-626-4172
cfi@cfijerusalem.org
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
Tel: 972-2-539-9700
icej@icej.org
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 15, 2002
Is Occupation Really The Reason For Today's Violence?
By: Jan Wilhem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
Is there then no one among you "courageous and objective reporting
journalists or diplomats for that matter, who can muster enough honesty to
ask the needed, maybe difficult, but certainly intelligent questions to
those Arab spokespersons who falsely claim that all the gruesome terror 'is
only' in response to the illegal occupation by Israel or the territories!
I always wait for one truly independent journalist to ask: but why does
Israel occupy your territory? Was it not in response to your aggression at
the outset of the Six-Day war that forced Israel to deal in six days with
that aggression, an aggression which announced aim was the destruction and
dismantling of the state of Israel?
Is it not precisely because you never wanted to accept a sovereign Jewish
state - however small - as the piece allotted to them by the United Nations
partition plan - that Israel today occupies 'your land'. Is it not true
that Israel is still occupying 'your lands'because up to this day it is YOU,
not them, who refuse to live in peace and dignity with your home come brother?
Is it not abundantly clear for all those who have the intelligence and
honesty to be informed of the facts that you are still occupied by Israel
not because Israel wanted it, but because you failed again and again to take
hold of Israel's outstretched hand that offered you peace and nearly all the
territories - as then lately and under the auspices of President Clinton -
if you would only stop your terror and designs to dismantle the Jewish
State?
How dare you then suggest that terror has any justification or relation to
Israel's occupation of 'your lands'? Why are the journalists and
politicians who are often so ready to ask the difficult and critical
questions to Israeli spokespersons hardly ever capable of asking these most
simple and straightforward questions to the Arab spokespersons?
What binds them or prevents them to do so? Of whom or what are they afraid?
Is it because they want to be seen 'in with their colleagues' and the
critical line that many of them have chosen to adopt towards Israel? Hungry
for their colleagues and their superior's approval? Is their no one with
fortitude of character to be really truthful and objective? Is there no one
among you who, that whatever the cost to himself and his popularity dares to
say it as it is?
Would Britain's journalists have had any sympathy and understanding for
Argentineans who would have sent their suicide bombers all over England
exploding themselves in undergrounds, shops, restaurants, buses, market
places and Christmas dinner parties claiming only to do so because Britain
occupied 'their Falkland Islands'. Would the journalists of this world have
accepted with equal understanding such claims and excuses for similar
horrifying
and indiscriminate massacres and uncontrolled lynching of British soldier's by
Argentinean "freedom fighters," that we have experienced of late at the
hands of
Palestinian terrorists here in Israel? I wonder!
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Jerusalem, April 23, 2002
To Former President Jimmy Carter:
Having grown up in an anti-semitic household, it is no wonder
that you today reflect such patent prejudices, in your latest diatribe, which
your late brother more openly exhibited. Under the guise of pretending to
be objective, these hateful pro-Arab sentiments are disguised but shine
through. May the Lord repay you for your animosity towards HIS chosen
people.
Michael Levi Matar,
Administrator, Women In Green,
Jerusalem, Israel
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Jerusalem, April 23, 2002
Israel's Peculiar Position
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)
The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are
forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is
no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey
threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia
threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal
refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.
Arnold
Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any
committed by the Nazis.
Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But
when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the
Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should
Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he
would
have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to
save the Jews.
No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth
the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world
when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia.
But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America
because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was
slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings,
and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely
because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We
can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to
imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their
Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to
America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so
will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 28, 2002
United in Freedom
America must stand with Israel against Arab tyranny and terror.
BY JOHN MCCAIN
The Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 26, 2002
There will always be an Israel. The terrorist onslaught against her people
represents not progress towards a refoundation of historic Palestine but a
plunge into an abyss of moral decay perpetrated in the name of the
Palestinian people by their own leaders. There will always be an Israel,
because the Israeli people will defend their homeland against murderers who
pose as martyrs, and will never accept justice imposed on them by leaders
who send children to kill their children.
There will always be an Israel, strong and free, because Israel, and her
supporters in this country, will never allow the depravity of her enemies
to obscure the moral clarity that inspired her founding, 54 years ago last
week, as the homeland of a people who understood evil long before Americans
saw its more recent expression on September 11.
Terrorism is terrorism, whether in the form of professional killers who
crash civilian aircraft into buildings or amateur murderers undistinguished
by anything other than their willingness to take innocent lives.
A political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is the best
answer to Israeli insecurity, of course. But no moral nation--neither
Israel nor America--can allow terrorists to chart the political course of
its people. No freedom-loving nation can tolerate a terrorist state on its
border. And no great nation can abandon the obligations of moral clarity
for the convenience of situational ethics.
If we are serious about the values we in America and Israel live by, and
the opportunities we would like all people in the Middle East to enjoy, we
can allow terrorists no role in the political process.
Indeed, we must work to spread our values in the Middle East, first by
opposing tyranny in the Arab world. The celebration of freedom in the
streets of liberated Baghdad will serve as a counterpoint to the
state-directed Arab media's distortion of the Palestinian conflict. It will
be a reminder to other Arab tyrants that the United States is a natural
ally of Arab people who aspire to freedom. Freeing Arabs from repression by
tyrannical regimes is the priority of neither Yasser Arafat nor the
dictators he counts as his allies. But bringing liberty's blessings to Arab
peoples will do much more to improve their lives than will their jihad
against Israel.
Unfortunately, when it comes to advocating freedom and opportunity in the
Arab world, our values know few champions. In the monarchies and
dictatorships of the Middle East, cynicism is the essence of statecraft.
Americans find ourselves handicapped in our Middle East diplomacy by a
native regard for moral clarity.
It is our fidelity to the values Arab leaders reject that makes it
unmistakably clear to Americans who destroyed the peace process begun in
Oslo. The authors of that disaster were the Palestinians themselves--and
the Arab leaders who encouraged or accepted Yasser Arafat's rejection of
the sweeping settlement offered by former Prime Minister Barak at Camp
David, and provided rhetorical and material support for the ensuing
intifada waged by suicide bombers.
I don't think our cultural differences with Arab states are so vast that a
common recognition of what constitutes real peace and a just settlement is
unattainable. I think Arab leaders know exactly what it will take to
achieve real peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and that what they
currently offer serves only to perpetuate the conflict.
Telethons and poems glorifying suicide bombers are not steps toward peace.
Cash payments to the families of suicide bombers are not steps toward
peace. Communiqués glorifying the murder of innocents are not steps toward
peace. All of this is evil, pure and simple.
It is not peace, but fear of each other that motivates Arab dictators, and
fear of their own populations, whose resentments toward Israel and America
have been inflamed for generations to distract them from grievances against
their own rulers for the economic and political inequities they are
expected to endure permanently.
It is the unenlightened rule of Arab dictators, not the plight of the
Palestinians, that condemns the Arab world to the civilizational crisis in
which it finds itself. Which Middle Eastern nation grants its Arab citizens
the most political freedom? Israel. Which countries' leaders have the blood
of innocents on their hands but hear nothing about it from the Arab League?
Iraq, Syria, and Sudan, for starters. Which country has the most egregious
record of occupying another today? Syria, in Lebanon. In which countries do
Palestinian refugees suffer without rights and the most basic freedoms?
Other than Israel, only Jordan has treated these people with any dignity.
Which nation in the region has matched its payments to the families of
Palestinian murderers with money for health care, education, and other
development in the territories? Not one.
How Arab leaders can abide their own hypocrisy is one question. Why they
expect us to do so is a better one.
Arab leaders recoil in mock indignation from any suggestion that they have
a responsibility to discourage Palestinian treachery. Instead, they demand
that the United States pressure the government of Israel into forsaking its
obligation to defend its citizens from terrorism that Arab governments
celebrate and support.
I'm also distressed that some of our European allies are dismissing
Israel's legitimate security concerns. In some quarters, Jews are once
again threatened with attacks on their institutions. We are witnessing once
again the torching of European synagogues. All world leaders must condemn,
in the strongest terms, such despicable behavior.
Israel has proved its willingness to risk its strategic interests by
returning territories captured in war, and living cheek by jowl with a
Palestinian state in exchange for peace and acceptance of Israel's right to
exist by its Arab neighbors. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority he
claims to lead insist on a settlement that would threaten the eventual
extinction of a Jewish state in the Middle East, and accept and support
murder as a means to achieve it. Official sponsorship of Palestinian terror
is a self-induced mockery of the Palestinian leadership's moral authority,
and that of its Nobel Peace Prize-winning chairman.
The Oslo peace process was premised on the notion that Israelis and
Palestinians could live together. I believe it is now time to explore ways
in which they can live apart. It is time to consider alternatives such as
that proposed by former Prime Minister Barak--to erect a security barrier
between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This is not to accept the
hopelessness of a political solution, but to embrace the hope that Israel's
people can live in safety until a Palestinian leadership truly committed to
peace emerges from the chaos and despair inflicted on Palestinians for
generations by leaders who lack the courage and compassion and wisdom to
make a better life for their people.
Friends, I make no claim to wisdom on how to resolve the crisis in the
Middle East. Like you, I look for guidance in the values we share with the
only democracy in the region. I know this: no American leader should be
expected to sell a false peace to our ally, consider Israel's right to
self-defense less legitimate than ours, or insist that Israel negotiate a
political settlement while terrorism remains the Palestinians' preferred
bargaining tool.
The moral clarity you bring to American understanding of Israel's plight is
the most effective antidote to the cynicism and hostility that parade as
Arab diplomacy in the Middle East today. We will defeat terrorism against
America, and we will stand with Israel as she fights the same enemy.
One of the great privileges of my life was the friendship that I developed
with the late Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. I got to know Scoop when I was
the Navy liaison to the Senate in the late '70s. Scoop was and remains the
model of what an American statesman should be.
In 1979, I traveled to Israel with Scoop, where I knew he was considered a
hero. I had no idea how great a hero he was until we landed in Tel Aviv.
When we arrived, we were transferred to a bus big enough to accommodate our
large delegation, as well as the U.S. Ambassador in Israel and several of
his staff. About a hundred yards outside the airport, the bus was
surrounded by a crowd of seven or eight hundred Israelis screaming for
Jackson, waving signs that read "God Bless you, Scoop," "Senator Jackson,
thank you," and dozens of other tributes. For a patriot like Scoop, their
affection for him was nothing less than affection for America.
Scoop understood a deep truth. The bond between America and Israel is not
just a strategic one, though that is important. Today, in the war against
terror, we have no stronger ally than Israel. The more profound tie between
our two countries, however, is a moral one. We are two democracies whose
alliance is forged in our common values. To be proudly pro-American and
pro-Israeli is not to hold conflicting loyalties. As Scoop understood, it
is about defending the principles that both countries hold dear.
And I stand before you today, proudly pro-American and pro-Israel.
Mr. McCain, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Arizona. He delivered this
speech Tuesday at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
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*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 28, 2002
Don't give up 1967 lands, DeLay tells Israel lobby
April 24, 2002
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas
WASHINGTON House Majority Whip Tom DeLay suggested Tuesday that Israel
should not withdraw from territory captured in the 1967 war, and he equated
Israel's struggle against the Palestinians with the U.S. war on terrorism.
DeLay's remarks were the latest example of unflinching support for Israel
among many U.S. conservative Christians. The Texas Republican got a
half-dozen standing ovations from a Washington conference of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the chief pro-Israel lobbying group.
In his speech Tuesday, DeLay called Israel "the lone fountain of liberty"
in the Middle East and said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's
administration is "nothing more than a holding company for terrorist
subsidiaries."
DeLay also suggested that Israel should not return territory despite the
Bush administration's call for an independent Palestinian state in the West
Bank and Gaza.
He pointedly changed the phrase "West Bank" in the text of his speech to
"Judea and Samaria," terms used by those who claim these biblical Jewish
territories should remain part of the modern Jewish state. "I've toured
Judea and Samaria," he said, "and stood on the Golan Heights (captured from
Syria in 1967). I didn't see occupied territory. I saw Israel."
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 28, 2002
The following letter is an answer to Tallie Lipkin-Shahak's column
in Friday's Jerusalem Post.
Hopefully the Jerusalem Post will post it.
Nadia
To:
The Jerusalem Post 26-4-02
It was amusing reading Tallie Lipkin-Shahak’s
column (Banning songs,burning books, the
Jerusalem Post, April 26,2002). She is surprised at
the recent healthy expression of patriotism which ,
among other things, expresses itself in the public
disdain and banning of Jews who identify
themselves with the Arab enemy, like Yaffa Yarkoni
and Yossi Beilin. Lipkin-Shahak is shocked: “we
are letting hysteria take over”…”how else can you
explain the bloodthirsty and furious reactions to any
expression of a different opinion, any word of
criticism against the government’s policy…”?
Lipkin-Shahak’s hypocrisy is just mind-boggling!
The mild verbal attacks against Yarkoni and Beilin
are nothing compared to the vicious, really
bloodthirsty, often violent witchhunt the Left has
carried out against anyone who dared disagree with
them. Whether it is in the beginning of the State,
when anyone who did not have the famous ‘red
booklet” was ostracized and banned; or later,
Rabbi Kahane HY”D who was almost lynched
whenever he dared to utter a word and who
suffered character assassination by the Israeli
media for “expressing a different opinion”;
or, more recently- the violent stifling of dissent
against anyone who dared to express their
opposition to the Oslo agreements.
Where was Tallie Lipkin-Shahak when Women in
Green, young and old, and other pro-Israel anti-
Oslo activists were brutally beaten and arrested by
Shahal’s policemen during the Rabin-Peres era ?
Our “crime” was that we dared to voice our
premonitions about the ultimate catastrophic
denouement of those agreements.
Where was Tallie Lipkin-Shahak when we were
beaten up by “narrow-minded violent” Merets and
Peace Now activists because we wanted to attend a
lecture , at Hebrew University, by someone with
whom they “viciously” disagreed. Their violence
paid off. The lecture never took place.
One could recount stories of leftwing persecutions
against the right over another 10 pages at least.
It seems Tallie Lipkin-Shahak is living on another
planet. Tallie, come and join us in the real world.
Nadia Matar,
Co-chair Women in Green
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Jerusalem, April 29, 2002
To Mr Ted Koppel
Re: your invitation to Women in Green to participate in the audience of
your show "Nightline."
Women in Green regret that we are unable to take part in the recording of
"Nightline" this coming Friday morning.
Your panel is so lopsided that there is no purpose on our part to assist
you in such an unfair presentation of the situation.
On the Arab side you have 2 Arab terrorists (Saeb Arekat and another PA
person).
On the so-called Israeli side you have Shimon Peres, who is seen by the
majority of the Israeli public as a collaborator with the Arab enemy --
THE architect of the murderous Oslo agreements which legitimized the mass
murderer Arafat, and gave weapons and cities of refuge to killers of Jewish
women, men and children.
We don’t want to dignify such a biased show with our presence.
If, on the other hand, you will have a panel that really represents Israel
and replace Shimon Peres with Zionist Jews like Minister Effi Eitam, or
Minister Uzi Landau, or Minister Limor Livnat, we too will reconsider our
participation.
With love of Israel,
Nadia Matar,
Co-chair Women in Green
*******************************************************
Jerusalem, April 29, 2002
An Apology by the Rabin Research Center
Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) have just achieved an
impressive judicial victory in connection with its libel case against the
Rabin Research Center. This case was the first of its kind in Israel. It
was an action in libel against the use of the Internet for false and
libelous purposes.
The libel case was filed 2 years ago by Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women
in Green's) attorney Avraham Landstein Esq. The complaint accused the
defendant, the Yitzchak Rabin Research Center, of claiming on its website
that the Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) demonstrated at Zion
Square in Jerusalem with signs showing the late Yitzchak Rabin in a Nazi
uniform. Furthermore, in other aspects of its website, it claimed that
Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) was an "extremist"
organization. Women in Green was presented in a manner that one could
easily conclude that we were partly responsible for the murder of Yitzchak
Rabin.
As part of the settlement, in which the district court of Tel Aviv played a
prominent role, the Rabin Research Center was obligated to apologize in
Haaretz and Yediot Achronot. They were further required to announce that
they will no longer continue showing on their website any derogatory
commentary relating to Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green).
The apologies appeared in the aforesaid newspapers Sunday, April 28, 2002.
Their advertisement in Hebrew read as follows:
"In November 1999 there was an English caption under one of the pictures in
the Rabin Research Center's website, connecting Women in Green to the
horrible sign which showed Yitzchak Rabin Z"l in an S.S. uniform. These
signs were part of another demonstration, involving a different group, in
Kikar Zion in Jerusalem. The caption was corrected on November 8, 1999
(without an apology). The Rabin Research Center (now) apologizes for the
mistake.
Furthermore, The Rabin Research Center announces the updating of their
website, including all parts thereof that were connected to the time before
Rabin's assassination (and which heretofore deleteriously referred to the
Women in Green)."
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