February 2005
An Appeal To Continue With Oleg
The Altalena Affair
Democracy in the Middle East?
Israel Has Not Learned the Lesson of the Holocaust!
Good News, Yes?
The peacemongers are back
Disengagement - Never in the Land of Israel
Arafat's Jesus
Look who's 'representing' Israel
Sowing terror
A Ship on Oily Waters
Upcoming Activities
$390mn to Abu Mazen Defies US Global Policy
Israel's Auschwitz borders
Disengagement or Disaster
Our World: Legitimizing Abbas
Social Secutiry for Arab Terrorists
Letter to Sharon
Upcoming Activities
Column One: The incitement of ideas
"Hast Thou Murdered and also Inherited?"
Upcoming Activities
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An Appeal To Continue With Oleg
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Those of you familiar with the cartoons by the gifted cartoonist
Oleg, recognize that he is a valuable asset for our Cause. Our
struggle is for the minds and souls of everyone who supports the
Jewish People's rightful claim to their Biblical Holy Land. A
cartoon is far more effective than any words that may be used in
even the best of articles. However, the expenses involved in
providing these cartoons are great, and we need your help if we
are to continue publishing them each week, both in the local and
international editions of the Jerusalem Post.
We pay Oleg each month the amount of $875 for five cartoons,
which he draws exclusively for us. Thus, the costs involved
amount to $10,500 each year. In addition, we pay the Jerusalem
Post for advertising these cartoons, and the explanatory
commentary. That sum is $2,900 each month or a total of $34,800
each year. Because these cartoons are of mutual advantage, the
Jerusalem Post gives our organization a most favorable rate. We
also send these cartoons to each Member of the Israeli Knesset,
to the U.S. President, the U.S. Vice President, the U.S. Secretary
of State, and each Member of the U.S. Congress. In addition, we
send these cartoons and their commentary to the local and
international media, and to the tens of thousands who subscribe
to our email list.
We cannot continue to bear the costs of the above payments. It
is therefore incumbent upon us to appeal to our supporters in
order to continue publishing these Oleg cartoons.
Those who file U.S. tax returns will be able to claim these
donations. You can make your checks payable to the Central
Fund For Israel and send it to the said Central Fund at 980
Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10018. You can
tell them that it is for the Women in Green "Oleg Appeal". You
can also mail your donation directly to Women in Green, POB
7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel, and indicate that your donation is
for the "Oleg Appeal". Or, you can go to our website
www.womeningreen.org and make your donation by credit card.
You will get a receipt for each donation.
By promoting the nationalistic message that Oleg so effectively
conveys, you are directly involved in working for the survival of
Israel. May you be blessed for responding to this important
appeal.
Jerusalem, January 30, 2005 Ruth and Nadia Matar
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The Altalena Affair
By Prof. Yehuda Lapidot
The Altalena, purchased by Irgun members abroad, was
originally intended to reach Israel on May 15, 1948, loaded with
fighters and military equipment. Weapons purchase and
organizational matters took longer than expected, however, and
the sailing was postponed for several weeks. Meanwhile, on June
1st, an agreement had been signed for the absorption of the
Irgun into the IDF and one of the clauses stated that the Irgun
had to cease all independent arms acquisition activities.
Consequently, representatives of the Israel Government were
informed about the ship and its sailing schedule.
The Irgun headquarters in Paris did their best to keep the
Altalena's preparations for departure a secret, but it was difficult
to conceal the movement of 940 fighters and the loading of a
large quantity of arms and ammunition. It was feared that if the
plans were discovered, attempts might be made to sabotage the
Altalena at sea. For this reason, when it raised anchor on June
11th, no cable was sent to the Irgun command in Israel, for fear
that it would fall into the wrong hands. These precautionary
measures proved fruitless, however, and the following day Radio
London reported that the Altalena had sailed from Port-de-Bouc
(France) in the direction of Israel with 1,000 Jewish volunteers
and a large quantity of weapons on board.
It should be recalled that the first truce had begun on June 11th.
When the Irgun leaders in Israel learned through the broadcast of
the embarkation of the vessel, they feared that this breach of the
truce conditions (i.e., the ban on bringing military equipment and
fighters into the country) would be revealed. Menachem Begin
decided therefore to postpone the arrival of the ship, and the
Irgun staff secretary, Zippora Levi-Kessel, sent a wireless
message to the Altalena to stay put and await orders. A similar
cable was sent to Shmuel Katz (member of the General
Headquarters), who was then in Paris, but contact with the ship
was poor and the message was not understood.
On June 15th, Begin and his comrades held a meeting with
government representatives, at which Begin announced that the
ship had sailed without his knowledge and that he wanted to hold
consultations on how to proceed. In his diary for June 16th,
David Ben-Gurion wrote the following about the meeting:
Yisrael [Galili] and Skolnik [Levi Eshkol] met yesterday with
Begin. Tomorrow or the next day their ship is due to arrive: 4,500
tons, bringing 800-900 men, 5,000 rifles, 250 Bren guns, 5 million
bullets, 50 Bazoukas, 10 Bren carriers. Zipstein (director of Tel
Aviv port) assumes that at night it will be possible to unload it all.
I believe we should not endanger Tel Aviv port. They should not
be sent back. They should be disembarked at an unknown shore.
Galili informed Begin of Ben-Gurion's consent to the landing of
the ship, adding a request that it be done as fast as possible.
Zippora Levi-Kessel then wirelessed the vessel to come in at full
speed. The following day, a working meeting was held between
Irgun representatives and Ministry of Defence personnel. While
the Irgun proposed directing the Altalena to Tel Aviv beach,
Ministry of Defence representatives claimed that the Kfar Vitkin
beach was preferable, since it would be easier to evade UN
observers there. The ship was therefore instructed to make for
Kfar Vitkin.
Whilst there was agreement on the anchoring place of the
Altalena, there were differences of opinion about the allocation of
the cargo. Ben-Gurion agreed to Begin's initial request that 20%
of the weapons be despatched to the Jerusalem Battalion. His
second request, however, that the remainder be transferred to
the IDF to equip the newly-incorporated Irgun battalions, was
rejected by the Government representatives, who interpreted the
request as a demand to reinforce an 'army within an army'. This
was far from Begin's intention; rather, he saw it as a question of
honor that the fighters enlist in the IDF fully-equipped.
The Altalena reached Kfar Vitkin in the late afternoon of Sunday,
June 20th. Among the Irgun members waiting on the shore was
Menachem Begin, who greeted the arrivals with great emotion.
After the passengers had disembarked, members of the fishing
village of Michmoret helped unload the cargo of military
equipment. Concomitantly with the events at Kfar Vitkin, the
government had convened in Tel Aviv for its weekly meeting.
Ben-Gurion reported on the meetings which had preceded the
arrival of the Altalena, and was adamant in his demand that Begin
surrender and hand over of all the weapons:
We must decide whether to hand over power to Begin or to
order him to cease his separate activities. If he does not do so,
we will open fire! Otherwise, we must decide to disperse our own
army.
The debate ended in a resolution to empower the army to use
force if necessary to overcome the Irgun and to confiscate the
ship and its cargo. Implementation of this decision was assigned
to the Alexandroni Brigade, commanded by Dan Even (Epstein),
which the following day surrounded the Kfar Vitkin area. Dan
Even issued the following ultimatum:
To: M. Begin
By special order from the Chief of the General Staff of the
Israel Defence Forces, I am empowered to confiscate the
weapons and military materials which have arrived on the Israeli
coast in the area of my jurisdiction in the name of the Israel
Government. I have been authorized to demand that you hand
over the weapons to me for safekeeping and to inform you that
you should establish contact with the supreme command. You
are required to carry out this order immediately.
If you do not agree to carry out this order, I shall use all the
means at my disposal in order to implement the order and to
requisition the weapons which have reached shore and transfer
them from private possession into the possession of the Israel
government.
I wish to inform you that the entire area is surrounded by fully
armed military units and armored cars, and all roads are blocked.
I hold you fully responsible for any consequences in the event
of your refusal to carry out this order.
The immigrants - unarmed - will be permitted to travel to the
camps in accordance with your arrangements. You have ten
minutes to give me your answer.
D.E., Brigade Commander
The ultimatum, and in particular the demand for an answer within
ten minutes, was insulting and unrealistic. It was made,
according to Even "in order not to give the Irgun commander
time for lengthy considerations and to gain the advantage of
surprise." Begin refused to respond to the ultimatum, and all
attempts at mediation failed. Begin's failure to respond was a
blow to Even's prestige, and a clash was now inevitable. Fighting
ensued and there were a number of casualties. In order to
prevent further bloodshed, the Kfar Vitkin settlers initiated
negotiations between Yaakov Meridor (Begin's deputy) and Dan
Even, which ended in a general ceasefire and the transfer of the
weapons on shore to the local IDF commander.
Begin had meanwhile boarded the Altalena, which was now
heading for Tel Aviv. He hoped that it would be possible to enter
into a dialogue with the Provisional Government and to unload
the remaining weapons peacefully. But this was not the case.
Ben-Gurion ordered Yigael Yadin (acting Chief of Staff) to
concentrate large forces on the Tel Aviv beach and to take the
ship by force. Heavy guns were transferred to the area and at
four in the afternoon, Ben-Gurion ordered the shelling of the
Altalena. One of the shells hit the ship, which began to burn.
There was danger that the fire would spread to the holds which
contained explosives, and the captain ordered all aboard to
abandon ship. People jumped into the water, whilst their
comrades on shore set out to meet them on rafts. Although the
captain flew the white flag of surrender, automatic fire continued
to be directed at the unarmed survivors. Begin, who was on deck,
agreed to leave the ship only after the last of the wounded had
been evacuated.
Sixteen Irgun fighters were killed in the confrontation with the
army; six were killed in the Kfar Vitkin area and ten on Tel Aviv
beach. Three IDF soldiers were killed: two at Kfar Vitkin and one
in Tel Aviv.
After the shelling of the Altalena, more than 200 Irgun fighters
were arrested on Ben-Gurion's orders. Most of them were
released several weeks later, with the exception of five senior
commanders (Moshe Hason, Eliyahu Lankin, Yaakov Meridor,
Bezalel Amitzur and Hillel Kook), who were detained for more
than two months. (They were released, thanks to public pressure,
on August 27, 1948).
Years later, on the eve of the Six-Day War, in June 1967 (after
Ben-Gurion had retired from political activity and Levi Eshkol
was Prime Minister), Menachem Begin joined a delegation which
visited Sde Boker to ask David Ben-Gurion to return and accept
the premiership again. After that meeting, Ben-Gurion said that if
he had then known Begin as he did now, the face of history
would have been different.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Altalena.html
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DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Dear Friends,
American President George W. Bush has often stated that the
most important goal of his presidency is to bring democracy to
the Middle East.
In this connection it is important to realize that the Middle East is
made up of twenty-two countries containing nearly five million
square miles and a hundred and forty-four million people.
The State of Israel with about five million Jews would fit twice
into Lake Michigan in the United States.
Amongst the first two countries to "benefit" from President
Bush's desire to spread democracy in the Middle East are Iraq
and Israel.
IRAQ: By the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was a
spent force. After World War I, Britain and France redrew the
map of the Middle East to suit their own ends, creating largely
artificial countries. Britain "created" Iraq in the 1920s by
cobbling together 3 Ottoman provinces, centered in Mosul,
Baghdad and Basra. This never before nation "Iraq" has in no
way experienced democracy heretofore. The United States
arranged a first time election in Iraq on January 30 for
"democracy". Eight million of a potential thirteen million "Iraqis"
came out to vote. Whether they voted for electricity, clean water,
jobs, and most of all, a greater chance to stay alive, or for
democracy as Americans understand it, is not at all clear.
Iraq has enormous oil deposits. It has great oil fields in Mosul. It
has oil rich areas around Basra at the end of the Persian Gulf,
and in other areas.
Iraq is all Muslim. 44% are Sunnis and 63% are Shiites, and they
are continually at each other's throats. The American army is
dangerously caught in the middle of this Muslim fratricide. Since
the war began in March 19, 2003, 4,278 Americans have been
killed and 10,502 Americans have been wounded. So far, the Iraq
war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House
Office of Management and Budget.
Do the Iraqis appreciate Americas sacrifice? Some Iraqis want
America to stop what they call the "occupation" and go home,
and others want the Americans to stay as a protective shield.
Some are happy that the U.S. toppled the cruel dictator Saddam
Hussein. Some are still his loyalists, and together with foreign
fighters (Syrians and Palestinians) are fighting and killing
American soldiers.
The question is, will Iraq ever become a self-sustaining
reasonably self-governing nation? Does it have a capacity to be
democratic? That still remains to be revealed.
Israel in contrast to Iraq is a very ancient country. The Holy Land
was given to the Jewish People thousands of years ago by the G-
d of Israel. The rights of the Jewish People to the Promised Land
are repeated many times in the Judeo-Christian Bible. For the
last 2,000 years the Jews lived in exile, but they have returned,
and are still returning, to live as
G-d's chosen People in G-d's chosen Land. According to the
Prophet Amos (9:15), they are never to be uprooted again.
For many years Israel was admired as the only democracy in the
Middle East. It seems that now President Bush is attempting to
bring democracy to the Arab states, but allows a corrupt dictator,
Ariel Sharon, to deprive the Jewish People of their precious
democracy.
Let us not forget that it was Ariel Sharon who first brought the
idea of a state for the Palestinians to President Bush and not vice
versa. It would certainly be difficult for George W. Bush to reject
such a generous geo-political gesture, since he feels it is
important to placate the Arab world. This, however, does not
excuse George W. Bush, as a believing Christian for going
against G-d's Word and insisting on creating a state carved out of
the Holy Land for the so-called "Palestinians".
Last Monday, the new United States Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice told a town hall meeting at the State
Department: "I don't think any of us doubt that without a
Palestinian state that is viable that can represent the aspirations
of the Palestinian people, that there really isn't going to be a
peace for either the Palestinian people or for the Israelis".
She also stated that Israel must withdraw from more than Gaza
and Samaria. She said the disengagement from Gush Katif and
Northern Shomron is fine, but only as a first step towards a full-
fledged PLO state.
Since we are talking about the so-called "Palestinian" people, let
us look at the facts regarding these so-called "Palestinians".
Prior to the 1967 Six Day War, no such people ever existed in the
history of mankind. At the end of the Six Day War, all those
Arabs - Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, et al - who were in what
is called the West Bank and Gaza, suddenly became
"Palestinians". There has never been a "Palestinian" people.
There has never been nor is there presently a "Palestinian"
language. These people are Arabs, pure and simple, whose
origin is in the Arab countries surrounding the little nation of
Israel. It is all a hoax. It is all a fraud. In fact, the greatest fraud
of the 20th Century!
Last Sunday, the new nation of "Iraq" supposedly voted for
democracy in large numbers. On the very same day, there was a
massive anti-pullout protest here in Jerusalem, the largest
protest rally ever held in Israel. Jews just don't find it
"democratic" or fair to once again be deported from their homes.
Some of the people now living in Gush Katif are Holocaust
survivors who lived in Yamit, were expelled from their homes,
and now face the same threat after rebuilding their homes once
more, this time in Gush Katif.
In spite of the massive rally surrounding the Knesset, the corrupt
dictator Sharon is going full steam ahead with his Deportation-
Disengagement Plan of Jews by Jews.
Believe me, dear friends, he's very serious about winning his
battle against his own Jewish People.
He has ordered that a Border Guard Police Base near Beit Horon,
in the Binyamin region - northwest of Jerusalem - be turned into
an expulsion training school. Thousands of border guardsmen
will be trained there to carry out the mission of removing close to
9,000 Jews from their homes in Northern Samaria and Gush Katif.
No fewer than 18,000 policemen will take the course in the
coming months.
As part of the training, half of the police group pretends to be
settlers wearing t-shirts. The other half are the evacuators who
will wear protective gear. These police are trained in hand to
hand combat (with women and children?).
Every day there is another shocking story in the newspapers.
Today it is revealed, that the evacuators plan to use "salt" bullets
instead of rubber bullets. "Salt" bullets are designed to dispense
salt when they make a wound, causing unbearable pain. The
objective is to make the wounded person completely disabled.
I believe that this plan may have been deliberately made public to
scare the Jewish People from coming to the aid of their brethren
in Gush Katif and the Shomron.
President George W. Bush toppled the Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein to give democracy a chance in Iraq.
On the other hand, President Bush is helping a corrupt dictator
and thereby depriving the Jewish People of democracy.
Dear Friends: I can just hear you saying - but you yourself asked
us to vote for Bush and not for Kerry! I still maintain that John
Kerry would have been much worse for Israel. Even so, I must
confess that many of my Christian friends wrote me that they
could not bring themselves to vote for George W. Bush because
of his plan to divide the Holy Land. They were therefore just
planning to stay home.
Why then did I encourage people to vote for George W. Bush?
Because I felt, and it has now been proven true, that his main
constituency are the Evangelical Christian Zionists. They are the
ones who actually put him in the White House for a second term.
We have lost hope of convincing Prime Minister Sharon to
abandon his evil plan. Anonymous spokespersons in his
government gleefully promise to break the bones of settlers who
resist evacuation! Vice Premier Ehud Olmert recommends
chopping off the hands of those who resist! This is democracy?
I do think that we have a chance with President Bush. I believe
that if he feels that his very own constituency, who put him over
the top, is unhappy about the Road Map-Disengagement Plan, he
might not want to be a partner thereto.
I keep thinking that a giant rally at the National Mall in
Washington, DC, with thousands of us expressing our opposition
to the dismemberment of the Holy Land, would convince
President Bush, as a believing Christian, not to go against the
eternal Word of the G-d of Israel. The division of the Holy Land
will not only be a victory of the moon god Allah, it would be
perceived by the Arabs as a victory of Islamic terrorism over the
G-d of our Judeo-Christian Bible. This would affect not only
Israel, but all of the Judeo-Christian Western civilization.
Dear Friends, please let me know if this is a feasible idea.
Meanwhile, in addition to writing your government
representatives, order a copy of the very effective film about the
Deportation of Jews by Jews on DVD, for $10 (covers cost only
so as to not profit from Jewish misery) by writing to:
Yedidim of Israel
5517 NW 23rd Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73127
Phone: (405) 943-3326
E-mail: javyedidimis@aol.com
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
P.S. If you want proof that the Holy Land belongs to the Jews,
look at the Map of the territories of the Twelve Tribes, as given in
the Book of Joshua, at the bottom of the following web page:
www.shechem.org/machon/schwarz/palestine/division.html
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Israel Has Not Learned the Lesson of the Holocaust!
By Nadia Matar
Last week the world marked the sixtieth anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp. The media gave
extensive coverage to all the ceremonies conducted in Israel and
throughout the world. Here in Israel, all the reporters and
commentators focused on a single question: "Did the world learn
the lesson?" Have the Europeans internalized the lessons of the
Holocaust? In light of renewed anti-Semitism, will the world's
leaders make sure not to allow this to happen again?
Not a single reporter or commentator in Israel asked the much
more important question: has *Israel* learned the lesson of the
Holocaust? Have we Jews internalized, and comprehended, all
that we have learned and heard about the Holocaust, so that this
cannot happen again? Anyone who looks at what has been
happening in the State of Israel in recent years, and especially in
the past few months, will reach the sad and unfortunate,
conclusion that it is the political leadership in Israel, which
specifically has not learned that lesson.
If previous governments conducted negotiations with Arabs such
as the arch-murderer Arafat, knowing full well that their hero is
Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the friend of Hitler, may his name be
blotted out, and their bestseller is Mein Kampf - then Israel has
not learned the lesson of the Holocaust.
If Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning a meeting with the
Holocaust denier Abu Mazen - the brains behind the Maalot
massacre and the attack against the Israeli athletes in Munich -
then Israel has not learned the lesson of the Holocaust.
If Israel is planning to release terrorists, and already is rewarding
murderers by ceasing the assassinations of the successors of
the accursed Nazis, those Arab terrorists such as Dahlan, Tirawi,
Abu Shabak,Mohamed Dif, and the list goes on and on - Arabs
infamous for their planning and implementation of the murder of
Jews, men, women, and children - then Israel has not learned the
lesson of the Holocaust.
If Israel is repeating the mistakes made by Chamberlain, who
handed over the Sudetenland to Hitler in the Munich agreement,
in the hope that this would satisfy his appetite - and Israel is
currently planning to hand over additional parts of the homeland
of the Jewish people to Hitler's successors, hoping that this step
will satisfy them and stop their jihad campaign against the
Jewish people - then Israel has not learned the lesson of the
Holocaust.
If Israel is planning to implement, here in Israel, the anti-Semitic
policy of the deportation and transfer of Jews only because they
are Jews, as was done to the Jews in Europe 60 years ago - then
Israel has not learned the lesson of the Holocaust.
As long as Israel does not understand that the Arabs who murder
us daily are the successors of the Nazis, and that their goal is to
finish what Hitler, may his name be blotted out, did not succeed
in completing - that is, the destruction of the Jewish people - then
Israel has not learned the lesson of the Holocaust.
The Prime Minister preaches to others "to remember and not to
forget," but does he himself act in accordance with this
imperative? In the Knesset ceremony last week, Sharon said:
"The Allies knew about the destruction of the Jews. They knew
and did nothing. That same obtuseness was revealed by the
British Mandatory authorities who locked the gates of Eretz Israel
to the Jewish refugees who sought to find a safe haven in Eretz
Israel. [...] The airplanes of the Allies attacked targets close to
Auschwitz, but they refused to bomb the camp itself, where tens
of thousands of Jews were being murdered each day. The sad
and horrible conclusion is that no one cared that Jews were
being murdered."
Isn't his all-too-true statement indicative of terrible hypocrisy?
Sharon's very same words in the Knesset could be used to say
that in the three years since he took office Ariel Sharon has
known that the Arabs are attacking and murdering Jews daily,
throughout Israel and especially in Gush Katif. Sharon knows,
but does nothing. This is the same obtuseness exhibited before
him by the Oslo criminals when they gave weapons, ammunition,
and cities of refuge to Arab murderers. IDF airplanes have,
indeed, been given orders to attack some low-level terrorists here
and there, in order to spread the illusion as if something is being
done, but Sharon refuses to give them the order to, once and for
all, eliminate all the nests of Arab terror, with their leaders,
members, helpers, and supporters. And so, more than one
thousand Jews have been murdered during Sharon's term in
office as Prime Minister. And now Sharon plans to shake the
bloodstained hands of those Arab-Nazis, the murderers of Jews,
and to reward them. The sad and horrible conclusion is that Ariel
Sharon does not care that Jews are being murdered, here in
Israel. How dare he therefore speak of the need "to remember
and not to forget"?
"The memory of the Holocaust is not functioning," Mordechai
Horowitz, the husband of the late Naomi Shemer, wrote in a
booklet he published in 1980. Horowitz compared the State of
Israel to the Jew before the Holocaust who tried with all his might
to assimilate. The following are a few quotations from his said
writing:
"If the Jew encountered signs of rejection from the Christian
environment in his daily life, he tended to accuse himself for this.
He would think that he had not done enough to assimilate into
his surroundings, and he cut off another two centimeters of his
beard and peyot [sidelocks]."
"Just as, prior to the Holocaust, the Jews paid with centimeters
of beard and peyot for entry to European culture, so, too, today
does the State of Israel pay for such admission with square
kilometers of the territory of Eretz Israel."
"The State of Israel finds itself in Holocaust conditions. The PLO
and its leader Yasser Arafat [and today Abu Mazen and Dahlan -
N. M.] are like a declared contractor for the destruction of Jews.
Once again, there are Jews of Haskalah and assimilation whose
vigilance can be anesthetized. The Jews are anesthetized by
means of peace. "Peace" - that is the code word for the Final
Solution of the Jewish problem. "Peace" in the Holocaust of
Israel's Jews is functionally identical to Arbeit macht frei in the
Holocaust of European Jewry: both slogans were intended to
deceive Jews who are weary unto death. Just as many Jews in
the camps believed that the gas chambers were showers, so, too,
many Jews in Israel believe that someone seriously intends to
make real peace with them."
"In order to prevent the next Holocaust, Israelis must allow the
memory of the previous Holocaust to function. Instead of
searching in it for acts of heroism that did not lead anywhere,
they must view it as the culmination of Jewish suffering, that
prods us to an effort and way of life that are capable of bringing
an end to this anguish. This means only one thing: the
spontaneous creation and accumulation of power. This is the
primary lesson of the Holocaust, and if this lesson has not been
learned, then the Germans wasted tons and tons of Zyklon B
(Gas) on us."
In other words, Mordechai Horovitz is saying to us: the State of
Israel must act as a proud and strong Jew who is not afraid to
declare: "The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel in
accordance with the Torah of Israel"; a proud and strong Jew
who is not afraid to fight to the end against those who come to
destroy us. Only in this manner will we show that we have
learned the lesson of the Holocaust. Only in this manner will we
show that the slogan "to remember and not to forget" is not
meaningless.
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GOOD NEWS, YES?
by Eugene Narrett, Phd.
They report that about 8 milllion of potential 13 million "Iraqis"
voted January 30 and, if reasonably accurate, that's an
impressive turnout, far greater than the registered voters in
America confronted by the choice of Bob Dole of Bill Clinton,
say, in 1996. But of course, the people in Mesopotamia have alot
more at stake: murder or living on; electricity more than a few
hours a day; potable water, and so on.
There are numerous interesting details. The word is that a
'moderate Shi'ite' list led by Dr. Alawi won. No doubt the regime
of the Shi'ite mullahs in Iran will try to manipulate it. But perhaps
the influence will work the other way. And then, who knows? Like
Mesopotamia, Iran does, under the name of Persia, have a
lengthy pre-Islamic history, culture and identity.
It also is interesting to hear network discussion of the pressures
this brings on the other Ba'ath party regime, in "Syria," another
of the inter-war British-coined new nations. On FOX a guest even
forthrightly noted that Syria was sponsoring most of the
terrorists and terrorism in "Iraq," and discussion ensued of how
America needed to get tough with, and perhaps push out, the
Asad family despotism. Even "Syria's" occupation of Lebanon
was noted.
So perhaps America is in the process of doing what the British
had the wish but not the will or the power to do, to create a self-
sustaining, reasonably self-governing nation called "Iraq" in
Mesopotamia, unifying the oil fields of the northern province of
Mosul (Kurdistan, center of ancient Ashur = "Assyria") with the
oil rich areas around Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf that
Britain had always intended be its protectorate. And if the Kurds
again don't get their state, well, we will see what happens....
Yet this auditor couldn't help but consider the contrast between
this never-before-in-history nation, "Iraq" set up by the British in
the 1920s and which has brought so much treachery (e.g. its pro-
Nazi coup in 1940) and bloodshed to the world in 80 years, with
the fate of Israel and the Jewish people under the malevolent and
treacherous British Mandate.
The Mandate was declared at San Remo in 1920 and became
legal in 1922, although it was in effect de facto since 1918 when
the Jewish Nili service and Jewish troops gave invaluable help to
General Allenby in driving the Turks from what the whole world
called, after the Roman name, "Palestine." General Allenby
acknowledged that assistance though he later played a small but
key role in betraying the Jewish people and the National Home.
As some readers know, the League of Nations Mandate to Britain
stipulated that Britain would "facilitate Jewish immigration into
"Palestine" [Israel including the West Bank and Jordan], close
settlement of Jews on the Land and establishment of the Jewish
National Home." As many readers know, but all too few citizens
do, indeed few university educated historians know or care to
know as I have seen for decades to our shame, the British
actively betrayed all these essential provisions of their Mandate
for 28 years, until under the pressure of the belated Jewish
Revolt, they packed up in summer 1948, having done everything
they could to inflame a non-existent pan-arab nationalism based
on eradicating the Jews in pre-State Israel. Unifying the Arabs by
enflaming murderous hatred of Jews was the only form of unity
the British could establish for what they'd hoped would be their
large, oil-soaked dependency, managed largely by cousin
America.
So rather than bringing 4 or 5 or 8 million Jews from Europe and
the Americas to the Promised Land, making it bloom and
burgeon with productivity, innovation (and gratitude to Britain,
too), the British ruling circles were de facto but major allies of
Hitler in his world-historical project of eradicating the Jewish
people. They continue to be, along with the American State
Department primary players in the crippling of Israel and the
murder of Jews to this day, both directly, through arming and
empowering the Arabs and Muslim hatred of Jews, and
pervasively by undercutting Israel's right to settle and rule ALL of
its historic homeland, at least those parts, Israel and Transjordan
(the Gilead), as set forth in the Mandate.
So while a smidgen of freedom and self-government is created
for a, historically speaking, brand-new state manufactured by
Anglo-American (and French & Russian and German) diplomacy
and treacheries, one of the most ancient nations in the world,
with one of the handful of most ancient sovereignties, languages,
forms of worship and governance, the ancient nation and people
that have shaped the west more than any other and have had
probably the greatest influence on the entire world of all are not
only crippled and imperilled daily, but Judaism, the faith of this
people, continues to be rendered effectively ILLEGAL. How so?
The faith of Judaism is essentially a practice: "we will DO and
[then] we will understand." It is a way (derekh) of living. Much of
its practice requires settling the land, all the land given to Israel
in its covenant with the Creator. All the betrayals of the Mandate,
all the partition plans of the British and UN, all the "Land for
peace" deals of the last 40 years are NOT ONLY POLITICAL
BETRAYALS: they in effect are declarations that the central tenet
of Judaism, settlement of Jews on the Land to practice the
commandments, is unacceptable to the nations of the world.
So kudos to America's plan to create a pluralist and
constitutional "Iraq." Perhaps someday this brand new nation in
Mesopotamia, that previously in its ancient history has been
united only by various empires will even recognize and deal in
friendly fashion with Israel. But how great a contrast is its
creation and support (complete with an American army to fight
terrorists!) with the stance of America, Britain and the rest of "the
world community" to the ancient nation of Israel and its
civilization-forming faith that for a century has been in the
process of being politicked into pariah status and its people
blotted, if not quite from the earth, at least from Europe and their
ancient homeland in the Middle East.
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The peacemongers are back
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 4, 2005
Speaking with State Department personnel on Monday, US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave form to the Palestinian
state that now stands at the center of American Middle East
policy. "The Israelis," she said, "were going to have to recognize
that there was going to have to be land for – contiguous land for
the Palestinian state to exist on."
Contiguous land? Well, how can there be contiguity between
Judea and Samaria on the east and the Gaza Strip on the west
unless Israel is split in two? It's simple geography. Either Israel
will separate two sections of the Palestinian state or the
Palestinian state will divide Israel in two. And now we know
where America stands on the issue.
The contiguity statement also bodes ill for Israeli sovereignty
over Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. After all, Israel's control of
Jerusalem cuts off the Hebron and Bethlehem areas from
Ramallah. And Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley would
cut Jericho off from the rest of the Palestinian cities in Judea and
Samaria.
The most amazing aspect of Rice's statement is that it was made
before Israel and the Palestinians have even begun to negotiate.
Then again, since the so-called road map is the only plan in town,
we already know that America has joined Europe, the UN, Yossi
Beilin and Vice Premier Shimon Peres in believing that at the end
of the day, Israel will enable the establishment of a sovereign
Palestinian state. That state will share borders with Egypt and
Jordan (and after Israel gives the Golan Heights to Syria, with
Syria); will encompass all of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip;
and will have its capital in Jerusalem. In addition, there will be
foreign troops in the areas to prevent Israel from defending itself.
On Tuesday, Rice made clear that now that America has joined
the bandwagon of those calling for Israel's disembowelment, it
should be able to patch up its relations with the EU. In her words,
"This great alliance that has faced very grave threats now faces
really remarkable opportunities in the world."
The first opportunity she mentioned was "the opportunity to
support the parties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to try and
find a two-state solution." It is odd that the US, in trying to patch
up its relations with Europe, has preferred to give in to Europe's
Palestinian fetish over say, building on common interests. As
Robin Shepherd from the Center for International and Strategic
Studies wrote in The Washington Post last week (the article also
appeared in Tuesday's Jerusalem Post), the core of Europe's rift
with America is Europe's emotional and irrational antipathy for
Israel. And, as he warned, "Americans should now be aware that
on one crucial issue, at least [i.e., Israel], it is Europe, and not
America, that needs to clean up its act."
All the same, it is hard to feel too betrayed by America when the
charge to strengthen Palestinian terrorists at the expense of
Israel's national security is being led today – just as it was in
1993 – by the Israeli government.
Thursday, the "security cabinet" – stacked with security geniuses
like Shimon "Arafat's Great" Peres and Haim "Israel is Bad"
Ramon – decided to release 900 Palestinian terrorists from
prison. This is just the latest of the Israeli payoffs to the
democratically elected PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.
And what has Abbas done to deserve such largesse? He has
purportedly reached an agreement with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and
Fatah that involves these terrorist groups temporarily ceasing
their attacks. (This is probably news to the residents of Gush
Katif who had 15 mortars and rockets lobbed at them over the
past few days.) During this temporary cessation of terrorist
attacks, the terrorists will not be disarmed. If they desire, Abbas
told a Russian newspaper this week, they can be integrated into
the Palestinian security services. Those would be the same
security services to which Russia pledged to donate helicopters;
to which Turkey has asked to donate uniforms and guns; which
Rice says America will train; and which President Bush wishes to
finance.
And, if terrorists are dissatisfied with the pace of Israeli
withdrawals or other appeasement measures, Abbas promised
them that they can always go back to murdering Israelis.
In addition to his mollification of terrorists, Abbas announced a
ban on illegal weapons. That would seem a promising move,
except that his announcement has no enforcement mechanism,
is directed against "criminal elements," and makes no mention
whatsoever of gun-toting terrorists.
Abbas has also deployed PA militias in Gaza. But these forces
have been given strict orders to take no action against terrorists.
As to reform of Palestinian institutions, in one of his first "law
enforcement" actions, Abbas instructed the PA's mufti to speed
up the process of executing the 51 Palestinians who have been
sentenced to death by Palestinian "courts." At least seven of
those 51 were convicted of the capital crime of "collaborating"
with Israel.
Then there is the question of economic transparency, which the
US demands Abbas shore up. In an interesting move on this
score, one of the first "economic" issues that the Palestinians
raised this week was their demand to reopen the casino in
Jericho. That particular edifice is the concrete manifestation of
everything that is corrupt about the PA and about the "peace
process" itself. Jibril Rajoub, Muhammad Rashid and Abbas have
all been investors in the casino. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
adviser, Dov Weisglass, has represented casino shareholders.
And the late Yossi Ginnosar, who set up meetings between Omri
Sharon and Yasser Arafat back when Sharon first came into
office four years ago, was both a member of the Board of
Directors of the Peres Peace Center and an investor in the
casino.
Perhaps most indicative of Abbas's intentions is his acceptance
of Iran's invitation to conduct a state visit. This willingness to
truck with global terrorists who are pursuing nuclear weapons
aligns nicely with Abbas's visits to Syria and Lebanon, where he
was mollycoddled by dictators and terror masters while
campaigning for the office he won in a largely uncontested,
highly corrupt election.
It stands, of course, to reason – in the Orwellian world that so
characterizes Israel when it is peace-drunk – that our leaders
would look at all that Abbas has done and say, "Wonderful, let's
give this guy a state!" So here we are. Our army has been
ordered not to protect us, because the Palestinians will do that
for us now. PA security forces will now be deployed in Judea and
Samaria, as well as in Gaza. Wanted Palestinian terrorists – mass
murderers – are free to go back to their homes. Israel won't harm
them. Palestinian terrorists whom Israel caught and imprisoned
will now be released on their own recognizance.
It's all in the interest of peace, after all, and we can rest assured
that they won't return to killing, because they will all be required
to sign declarations promising not to be terrorists anymore.
That's crucial. Let's not forget that the terrorists who carried out
the bombings in Cafe Hillel and outside Tzrifin military base in
September 2003 signed precisely such declarations before they
were released as part of a confidence-building gesture to Abbas.
In addition to rushing to embrace Abbas, Israel is doing
everything it can to shore up Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in
the hope that he will protect us after we run away from Gaza.
Crowned with legitimacy as a peacemaker after he and his
security chief, Omar Suleiman, have spent the better part of two
weeks getting Hamas and Islamic Jihad to agree to absolutely
nothing – according to Hamas chieftain Khaled Mashal – Mubarak
next Tuesday will host a peace party in Sharm e-Sheikh, where
peace-drunk Israeli politicians and media flacks will gush, and
Palestinians will demand that Israel take down the security fence
and the roadblocks and release still more murderers from jail in
order to give them confidence to make "hard steps" toward
peace sometime later on down the line.
In the meantime, because of his vital role in the "peace process,"
Mubarak can safely assume that he will receive no flak from
America for having imprisoned Ayman Nur, the leader of the only
opposition party trying to challenge his one-party rule in Egypt.
King Abdullah, too, can be sure he will pay no price for trying to
prevent Iraq from becoming a democracy.
And herein lies the greatest irony of the peace process. American
supporters of both Bush and Israel are now backing Sharon's
plan to withdraw from Gaza and northern Samaria and Bush's
plan for Palestinian statehood, claiming the world has changed
since Oslo. They promise that Bush is going to cause a
democratic revolution in the Arab world that will change the
entire strategic balance in Israel's favor.
What they don't seem to remember is that the world had also
changed after the fall of the Soviet Union and the 1991 Gulf War.
Then, as now, there was an expectation that the Arabs would be
forced to change the way they treated Israel and America. Then,
as now, the reactionary forces in the region were saved by one
thing – the peace process with Israel. Back in 1992 at Madrid and
in 1993 at Oslo, the Arabs learned that the way to ensure the
longevity of their authoritarian, terror-supporting and jihad-
engendering regimes was by attacking Israel with olive branches.
These earn legitimacy from the Jewish state and gratitude from
the White House. Since peacemakers are of course
indispensable, all thought of democracy must be put aside in the
furtherance of a greater good.
So, here we are again, at the dawn of a new peace process which
will bring no peace; will legitimize terrorists and the authoritarian
regimes that support them; will weaken Israel's democratic
institutions while endangering its citizenry; and will engender
scorn for America and faith in Israel's eventual destruction in the
hearts of millions of people who today waver between support for
freedom and support for terror.
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Disengagement - Never in the Land of Israel
by Rabbi Eliezer Waldman
Thank G-d that we are blessed every few months with the power
of faith and spiritual elevation that can only be experienced by
the assembly of hundreds of thousands of Jews gathering
together to demonstrate their loyalty and devotion towards the
divine process of redemption of the Jewish people in their
homeland. On Sunday night, walking along the wide avenues of
the government compound near the Knesset, surrounded by
hundreds of thousands of my brethren, I became aware of the
meaning of this phenomenon. While being immersed in this
ocean of love and determination to continue the process of
renewal of Jewish life in all of Eretz Yisrael, I was engulfed by a
spiritual sensation which I imagined engulfed the Jewish People
when witnessing the splitting of the Red Sea. This divine miracle
which finally delivered them from the evil Egyptians, ignited their
level of faith to the spiritual heights of song and thanks
expressed in Shirat Hayam. (A Song of Thanksgiving on the
Parting of the Red Sea.)
The multitudes of Jews demonstrating in Jerusalem conveyed a
clear and strong message. It is immoral and unacceptable for
Jews to transfer fellow Jews from their homeland. Jews will
never agree to be uprooted from their homes in Eretz Yisrael.
Such inhumane acts, that were always considered illegal and
immoral when perpetrated against Jews in exile, are certainly
unacceptable in our own homeland. How absurd it is that the
necessity of uprooting Jews from their homes is justified by the
need for peace with our neighbors. This is the peace of being
driven from town to town and from country to country. This is the
peace we endured in exile. This is the peace of the ghetto. We
have not come back home to Eretz Yisrael to be forced again to
flee from town to town. We are continuing to tread on the
classical Zionist path of bringing life to our land and its people
and consequently a blessing to our neighbors. Our enemies are
intent on preventing us from achieving this goal. Their final goal
is the uprooting of the reality of Jewish independence in Eretz
Yisrael, by terror and destruction. Therefore the foremost
responsibility of a Jewish government is to confront this
imminent danger by strengthening and securing our presence in
Eretz Yisrael. Fleeing our enemies and uprooting flourishing
Jewish communities, thereby weakening our position, would
certainly be a criminal breaching of that responsibility.
These thoughts bring me back to the strange feelings I
encountered last week upon hearing the declarations of world
leaders at ceremonies commemorating sixty years since the
liberation of the notorious Auschwitz death camp. On the one
hand, there was a feeling of closure, in that world leaders were
forced to finally admit their guilt and responsibility for the
atrocities committed against the Jewish people. All the more so
since this had to be done in front of Jewish leaders. On the other
hand, I felt a deep frustration at the obvious lack of genuine
repentance, since just six decades later, these same world
powers are twisting the arms of Jewish leaders to accept road
maps that are meant to limit our rights to our homeland. Most of
these nations are continuously supporting the Palestinian
leaders of Arab terror and offering to reward them with the
political power of an independent Arab state to be established
within the Jewish homeland. They still consider Israel a pariah
state, always chiding us not to use exaggerated force when
defending ourselves against murderous terrorist attacks. These
leaders unbelievable lack of sensitivity for past atrocities allowed
them to demand the expulsion of Jews from their towns and
villages in Eretz Yisrael only because they are Jews.
Thank G-d, at these memorial ceremonies, Jewish leaders were
inspired to declare never again, while at the same time,
expressing the painful question have they really learned? With
great anguish and yet grave responsibility, I must put this
question before our leaders have we learned? How can our
leaders even think of uprooting Jews from their homes and
communities in any part of Eretz Yisrael? Are Jewish homes, in
which three generations grew up, to be destroyed? Are
synagogues and yeshivas, bastions of prayer and Torah study,
G-d forbid, to be abandoned to our enemies?
No my friends, all this cannot happen. We are in the midst of the
divine process of Jewish redemption. We are in the process of
engagement, engagement to our land, engagement to our people
and to our G-d, engagement to our destiny. We pray that the G-d
of Israel awaken again the natural instincts of Jewish faith and
survival, that will enlighten the minds of our people to the
realities of Jewish life, and help us overcome the fallacies of our
government.
The multitudes of Jewish hearts at the demonstration in
Jerusalem, overflowing with the faith, love and devotion to our
people and our land, conveyed a message of renewed hope and
determination that burst forward in our national anthem Hatikva,
followed by the eternal truth of the song Am Yisrael Chai! (Israel
continues to live!)
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Arafat's Jesus
by Gerald A. Honigman
Now Jesus, having been born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days
of King Herod..." is how the account of Jesus' birth begins in the
second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Notice, please, the
location is Bethlehem of Judea... not the "West Bank"... not
"Palestine"... but Judea. As the year 2003 began, Greek
Orthodox Metropolitan Irineos, one of the largest land owners in
Israel, sought appointment as Patriarch of Jerusalem. Letters
with his signature on them to Yasser Arafat contained, among
other things, the following: You are aware of the... disgust... all
the Holy Sepulchre fathers feel for the descendants of the
crucifiers of our Lord Jesus... crucifiers of your people... Jewish
conquerors of the Holy Land of Palestine." Irineos claimed that
his 6/17/01 letter, published in Maariv, was a forgery.
Unfortunately, there were many other documents of the same
flavor making the rounds as well.
Irineos's attitude, unfortunately, is not uncommon among many
Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere. Indeed, the above
quote is virtually the same as words often spoken by the Greek
Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem, Hilarion Capucci, a few
decades earlier. So it's safe to assume that many people still
share these beliefs. Some have simply inherited and modified
them from traditional Christian teaching. Others, feeling exposed
and vulnerable themselves living among real or potentially
hostile dominant Muslim populations, seek common ground with
their own off again/on again persecutors by turning the focus on
the all-too-often common demon...the Jew.
Christians played an important role in the nascent Arab
nationalist movement in the late 19th and 20th centuries (does
the name George Habash and the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine sound familiar?), and the above explanation was
certainly one of the main motivating factors. This was not unlike
some Jews seeking to be absorbed under the potentially
protective, inclusive umbrella of various socialist movements in
Christian Europe around the same time.
A few years ago, during the Pope's visit to Israel, the media
reported one of many of Arafat's own frequent comments on this
subject. Speaking of the Apostle Peter, Arafat explained the
"Palestinian" -- i.e. allegedly non-Jewish -- identity of Peter & Co.
The Arabs have constantly tried to portray themselves as the
"originals" in the land. During Christmas time in Bethlehem,this
is especially a favorite topic.
Now for a reality check... There was no country or nation known
as "Palestine" during the time of Jesus. The land was known as
Judaea and its inhabitants were udaeans...Jews. Tacitus and Dio
Cassius were famous Roman historians who wrote extensively
about Judaea's attempt to remain free from the Soviet Union of
its day, the conquering Roman Empire. They lived and wrote
during, or not long after, the two major revolts of the Jews in 66-
73 C.E. and 133-135 C.E. They make no mention of this land being
called "Palestine" or its people "Palestinians." And they knew the
differences between Jews and Arabs as well. Listen to this quote
from Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus. Pay especially close
attention to the last sentence:. Titus was appointed by his father
to complete the subjugation of Judaea... he commanded three
legions in Judaea itself... To these he added the twelfth from
Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria...
amongst his allies were a band of Arabs, formidable in
themselves and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity
usually subsisting between neighboring nations... Notice,
please, that the Romans had no trouble distinguishing between
Jews and Arabs. After the 1st Revolt (see also the contemporary
accounts of the Roman-sponsored Jewish historian, Josephus,
in his extensive Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of the Jews),
Rome issued thousands of Judaea Capta coins which can be
seen in museums all over the world. And notice, please... Judaea
Capta... not "Palaestina Capta." Additionally, to celebrate this
victory, the towering Arch of Titus was erected, displaying
Romans carrying away spoils of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem
that Arabs claim never existed. It stands in Rome to this very day.
When, some sixty years later, Emperor Hadrian decided to further
desecrate the site of the destroyed Temple by erecting a pagan
structure there, it was the grandchildren's turn to take on their
mighty conquerors. The result of the struggle of this tiny nation
for its freedom and independence was, perhaps, as predictable
as that which would have occurred had Latvia taken on the
Soviet Union during its heyday of power. Listen next to this quote
from Dio Cassius:. 580,000 men were slain, nearly the whole of
Judaea made desolate. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this
war (the Bar Kochba Revolt). Therefore Hadrian in writing to the
senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by
the emperors, ' I and the legions are in health.' The Emperor was
so enraged at the Jews' struggle for freedom in their own land
that, in the words of the esteemed modern historian, Bernard
Lewis, "Hadrian made a determined attempt to stamp out the
embers not only of the revolt but also of Jewish nationhood and
statehood... obliterating its Jewish identity."
Wishing to end, once and for all, Jewish hopes of independence,
Hadrian renamed the kingdom/state itself (not just the vague
geographic area) from Judaea to "Syria Palaestina" -- Palestine --
after the Jews' historic enemies, the Philistines, a non-Semitic
sea people from the eastern Mediterranean or Aegean area. So,
sorry Yasser and successors...trying to hijack the latter's identity
the way you've done airplanes won't work either. All of this did
not occur until after 135 C.E., with the defeat of Judaea's
charismatic leader, Shimon Bar Kochba. And, as with the
breathtaking discovery of the amazing Dead Sea Scrolls
practically at the very moment of Israel's rebirth almost six
decades ago by an Arab shepherd boy (talk about a sign from
G_d!), Bar Kochba's letters to his troops, his minted coins "For
the Freedom of Israel," and other archaeological treasures were
also soon unearthed.
Palestine became largely "Arab" the same way that most of the
almost two dozen other states that call themselves Arab" today
did... by the conquest, occupation, settlement, and forced
Arabization of other native, non-Arab peoples.and their lands...
Berbers, Copts, Black Africans, Jews, Kurds, and so forth.
Muhammad's and his successors' imperial caliphal armies burst
out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E. and spread in
all directions. The Ottoman Turks were the latest in a long series
of imperial conquerors to rule the land since the Jews fought for
their freedom against Rome. They did so for some four centuries
up until World War I. From the 10th century onwards, the Arabs
lost control of the land themselves. And when the Arabs' own
caliphal empires ruled, it was from Damascus or Baghdad. There
was never an independent entity of Arab Palestine then either.
Never...
During the Mandatory period following the break up of empires
after World War I, the League of Nations PermanentMandates
commission recorded massive waves of Arabs pouring into a
largely depopulated Palestine from surrounding countries to take
advantage of the economic development going on because of the
Jews. Many more entered under cover of darkness and were
never listed. All of these folks were preceded in the 19th century
by many thousands of Egyptians who came with Muhammad Ali
and son Ibrahim Pasha's invading armies and never left... more
Arab settlers in Palestine. Arafat himself was one of them...born
in Cairo. So was Hamas' "patron saint," Sheikh Izzadin al-
Qassam, who was from Latakia, Syria. Now remember that these
are the same folks who complain about Jewish settlers...half of
whom came from those very same "Arab" lands that the likes of
Arafat and the Sheikh did. And so much for the Arafat's Jesus...
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Look who's 'representing' Israel
by Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post Feb 8,2005
As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarked on her
maiden voyage, it was reported that she departed from America
armed with a new policy paper on how to implement the Quartet's
road map produced by the James BakerInstitute for Public Policy
at Rice University.
According to Edward Djerejian, the former US ambassador to
Syria who directs the Baker Center, the paper, with its detailed
recommendations, is a "street map to the road map."
One of the things that make the paper significant is that it bears
former US secretary of state James Baker's name. Not only did
Baker serve under the president's father, he now plays a formal
role in mobilizing international support for Iraqi reconstruction
efforts.
As well, the team that composed the report included senior
policy makers from the US, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt,
Canada and the World Bank.The US was represented by current
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William
Burns as well as by Norman Olsen, the political counselor at the
US embassy in Israel. The PA was represented by security
strongman Jibril Rajoub and by senior aides to Mahmoud Abbas,
Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Qurei. Egypt was represented by
Dictator Hosni Mubarak's senior adviser Osama El Baz and by
General Hossam Khair Allah.
Israel had no official representation. Rather, the Jewish state was
represented by none other than Yossi Beilin's Geneva Accord
crowd. Amnon Lipkin Shahak and Shlomo Brom, signatories to
that subversive agreement where private citizens tried to
abscond with the government's sovereign power to determine
foreign policy by negotiating the scandalously anti-Israel
"accord," participated. They were joined by members of Beilin's
EU-financed think tank, the Economic Cooperation Foundation.
Not surprisingly, the product this team produced and delivered to
Rice is soft on Palestinian terrorism, soft on Palestinian
democratization, and relentlessly harsh toward Israel - its
sovereignty, its right to defend itself, and its ability to claim any
right to retain any of the Israeli communities in Judea and
Samaria.
The document makes no clear statement on the need for the
Palestinians to dismantle terrorist organizations. Indeed, the term
"terror organizations" is absent from the report. Instead, the
Palestinian requirement to combat terrorism is reduced to
demands on Israel to facilitate the training, arming and operation
of the "reformed" Palestinian security services while not
interfering with them in any way.
While the report pays lip service to the need for the PA to reform
its governing institutions, its only clear statement on the end-
product of reform is unabashedly authoritarian. The aim of all the
reforms must be the "consolidat[ion of] Fatah as the main
political player in Palestinian society."
And although the report makes no call for the destruction of
Palestinian terror organizations and bucks up the authoritarian,
corrupt PA, it calls for Israel to be treated with hostility and
suspicion.
The paper calls for the establishment of a multinational force that
will implement the agreements. Implicit in this statement is the
assumption that Israel will be prevented by the presence of this
force from taking any measures to defend itself against attacks.
International border crossings in Gaza and Judea and Samaria,
including the weapons smuggling hub at the Philadephi Corridor
which separates Gaza from Egypt, are to be controlled by the
Palestinians. The report gives Egyptian forces a more prominent
role in implementing the agreements than the IDF.
WHERE THE report's anti-Israel bias is most blatant is in its
discussion of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. The
authors refer to their desire to see "The Palestinian people
establish a viable state in the West Bank and Gaza" and make it
clear that a precondition for the state's viability is that it be
racially pure - entirely cleansed of Jewish communities. At the
same time, they express their desire to "assure that Israel will
continue to exist as the democratic homeland of the Jewish
people and its other citizens." So in the authors' view, Israel is to
be a state of all of its citizens while "Palestine" is to be
Judenrein.
The report calls for the institution of a draconian regime in the
Defense Ministry and the Justice Ministry to effectively prevent
any building activities whatsoever from being conducted in the
Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. This regime, "The
Special Office on Settlement Activities," will be obliged not
simply to act as the enforcer of the attrition of these
communities. The report determines that this body will be
subordinate to the US embassy in Israel - effectively ceding
Israeli sovereignty to the US.
The study even dares to dictate what propaganda moves must be
made by the Israeli government to force the Israeli public to
accept this policy. A close reading makes it clear that the result
of this policy will be the expulsion of more than 400,000 Israeli
Jews from their homes. This is so because the destruction of
Israeli neighborhoods in Jerusalem is implicit in the section's
opening paragraph, which mendaciously claims: "The US
government policy has been based on the principle that there can
be no acquisition of territory by war."
Not only does this sweeping and totally false statement
necessarily include Jerusalem; it can easily be interpreted as
saying that the only borders Israel can legitimately claim are the
UN partition borders from 1947 since much of the land that
makes up the 1949 armistice lines was acquired in war.
Perhaps it is reasonable that officials pushing a plan that would
cause Israel to effectively become the ward of the international
community should not feel limited by the positions of the Israeli
government as it makes its plans - sufficing instead to have Israel
"represented" by radical free agents with Israeli citizenship.
But two questions still arise: Why is the US government sending
its officials to participate in a "working group" which works to
undermine the sovereignty of a US ally; and why is the Israeli
government not taking legal action against private citizens who
travel the world "negotiating" away the sovereign rights of the
state while undermining the prerogatives of the Israeli
government?
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Sowing terror
RACHEL EHRENFELD, THE JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 9, 2005
President George W. Bush is unlikely to achieve his goals of
"eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of
murder" and settling the Arab-Israeli conflict so long as his
administration does not recognize the role Saudi Arabia's
"charities" have had in feeding Palestinian terrorism.
In her January 18 confirmation hearing, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice emphasized that "Arab states must join to
deny any help or solace to those who take the path of violence."
However, at the same time she added: "We didn't understand the
role of nongovernmental organizations [that were] carrying out or
funding terrorist activities. Others didn't understand that in the
Muslim world, like the Saudis."
But according to the former director for transnational threats at
the National Security Council, Lee Wolosky, this is not exactly
the case. "The US government," says Wolosky, "had a clear
understanding prior to 9/11 of the role that Saudi-based
organizations and individuals played in financing terrorism. The
Saudis also had a clear understanding of this, since we told them
about it."
Indeed, Saudi Arabia publicly supported suicide bombing in
Israel. In September 2000, Saudi Arabia conducted two well-
publicized national telethons for the specified purpose of raising
funds for the families of Palestinian terrorists.
When the first telethon raised only $10.8 million for the
"Palestinian martyrs," King Fahd ordered another one, urging
"Saudis, expatriates, and private companies to contribute
generously." The Saudi minister of the interior, Prince Nayef bin
Abd al-Aziz, also called for contributions, proclaiming that this
telethon "is a continuation and assertion of the kingdom's
support [for the intifada]."
The second telethon's take included donations of $2.7 million
from King Fahd, $1.35 million from Crown Prince Abdullah, and
$800,000 from Defense Minister Prince Sultan – and totaled
$163.3 million. Altogether the two telethons raised, openly and
publicly, $174 million for families of suicide bombers, including
members of Hamas and the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.
In March 2002, the Saudi government English weekly Ain-al-
Yaqeen bragged that the royal family and the Saudi kingdom had
spent billions of dollars "to spread Islam to every corner of the
earth." Their "charities" distributed the money.
According to Ain-al-Yaqeen, the Islamic Center in Brussels,
Belgium, received a total of more than $5 million; the Islamic
Center in Geneva, Switzerland, receives annual support of close
to $7 million; and the biggest Islamic Center in Europe, which the
Saudis built in Madrid, Spain, received close to $8 million in total.
The Saudi kingdom's efforts, under the leadership of King Fahd
bin Abd al-Aziz, "has been astronomical, amounting to many
billions of Saudi Riyals... [resulting in] 210 Islamic centers... more
than 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges... And 2,000 schools for
educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe,
North and South America, Australia and Asia."
These are the same mosques, schools and Islamic centers that
preach the destruction of the US and Israel. Islamic centers in
Spain, England, Germany, Italy and other European countries
have been identified as serving al-Qaida and Hamas.
Likewise, official Palestinian documents discovered by the Israeli
Defense Forces in April 2002 included a list of Saudi donations of
at least $280,000 to Palestinian organizations that the US itself
had linked to Hamas.
On February 2003, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center Web site (www.intelligence.org.il) published additional
captured documents on Saudi money transfers to Hamas and
other terrorist groups. These official Palestinian documents
detailed Saudi contributions to the Islamic Association, a Hamas-
affiliated organization in the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic Association, which identifies itself as a charitable
organization, is dedicated to teaching kindergarteners "to hate
Israel, to wage a 'holy war' against it and to carry out suicide
attack against civilians."
These are only a few examples of the mountains of evidence
provided by the Israelis to the US government. How, then, can
Rice claim neither the US government nor the Saudis knew that
"charitable organizations" were used to fund terrorism?
Expert testimonies since 9/11 in Congress have identified many
other Saudi charities as financing al-Qaida, Hamas and other
Islamist terror organizations. The sheer volume of evidence
presented led to US pressure on the Saudis, who, only after
being attacked by "deviant" al-Qaida members in Riyadh in 2003,
took measures to rein in some of the charities.
"They [the Saudis] just did not do too much about the problem
until later – not until they themselves were hit in May 2003," says
Mr. Wolosky. The 9/11 Commission concurred that, in Saudi
Arabia, "charitable giving... until recently [was] subject to very
limited oversight."
In June 2004, a new Saudi National Commission for Relief and
Charity Work Abroad was belatedly established to oversee all
Saudi charitable donations abroad. However, Saudi support of
the spread of Wahhabism has not diminished.
Even now Saudi state television continues to broadcast
incendiary sermons from Medina to the rest of the world, in
which the likes of Sheikh Saleh Bdeir preach that "the enemies of
Islam, the Jews, Christians, [and] atheists... never cease
attacking the Islamic nation" and exhort their followers to
"confront your enemies... before these enemies become
stronger."
Not surprisingly, Wolosky stresses that "reasonable people
continue to differ on whether [the Saudis] are doing enough now,
and whether the United States is pushing them hard enough."
If the US is to achieve regional security and stability in the Middle
East it is not enough to call on the Saudis to "expand" the
freedom of their people, as the president did in his State of the
Union address. For that, the US administration will have to be
more vigilant in holding the Saudis responsible for spreading
oppressive Wahhabism through the media and its "charities."
The US should also have condemned a statement at an event
honoring Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan, at a Saudi
"counterterrorism conference," of all places, claiming that Osama
bin Laden was "sent by the Jews."
The writer, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed –
and How to Stop It, is director of the American Center for
Democracy.
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A SHIP ON OILY WATERS
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2005
Dear Friends,
I must confess that I have heretofore been an admirer of the new
US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. She seemed to me to
be a perfect role model for women, someone who grew up in very
difficult circumstances, but pulled herself up by her bootstraps,
and reached the very heights of personal achievement. President
George W. Bush nominated her to succeed Colin Powell as US
Secretary of State in November of 2004, and the Senate
confirmed her nomination by a vote of 85 - 13.
Condoleezza Rice was born on November 14, 1954, in
Birmingham, Alabama, the only child of Angelena Rice and the
Reverend John Wesley Rice, Jr., a minister at Westminster
Presbyterian Church.
Birmingham, Alabama, where Condoleezza grew up, is the town
where Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was thrown in jail for
demonstrating without a permit. Where black people had to ride
at the back of the bus. Where black people weren't even allowed
to drink water from public fountains. Where a classmate of
Condoleezza, Denise McNair, was among the four girls killed in
the 1963 bombing of an African-American Baptist church by
white supremacists. But Condoleezza states that growing up
during segregation taught her determination against adversity.
I was very pleased, along with many others, that Colin Powell
was not going to be the US Secretary of State during the second
term of President George W. Bush, as Israeli analysts had
predicted that Condoleezza Rice was going to be friendlier to
Israel than her predecessor. I became somewhat concerned
when I learned that at her Senate confirmation hearing Rice said:
"And, if I am confirmed, I will be especially honored to succeed a
man I so admire - my friend and mentor, Colin Powell. He was a
great and inspirational Secretary of State."
That was the first alarm bell. Colin Powell was the US Secretary
of State, who described Arafat to a US Senate Committee as
follows: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
I became really concerned about Ms. Rice's attitude toward Israel
when I read the newspaper headlines during her recent whirlwind
tour of Europe and the Middle East. For instance, the headline in
The Jerusalem Post of February 7, 2005 read as follows on the
front page:
RICE CALLS ON ISRAEL TO HELP, NOT HINDER, ABBAS.
In private meetings and public declarations, visiting US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel to do everything possible
to support Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and
to refrain from taking steps that would make it more difficult for
him to assert his authority... According to diplomatic officials,
Rice said that Abbas needed to have tangible results to take to
his people....
What exactly does that mean? Should the victim supply the
hangman with the rope? Should Israel be on Abbas' side in the
negotiations? Does Ms. Rice not want a mutual give and take?
Condoleezza also made it clear that the US government was
against settlements. Whose settlements? (According to Joseph
Farah, Arab-American head of World Net Daily, more Arab than
Jewish settlements have been established in the Holy Land since
1948. As a matter of fact, almost twice as many Arab
settlements than Jewish settlements have been built since the
Jewish State was reborn!) Also, Condoleezza insists that the
Disengagement Plan go forward as promised by Sharon.
Altogether, Rice made it clear that she wanted Israel to take steps
to bolster Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
It seems that Rice was not concerned about bolstering Sharon,
who had just encountered a massive non-violent demonstration
of at least 200,000 people who strongly disagreed with his
policies vis a vis the PLO enemy, and his intentions to reward
such terrorists with Biblical covenant land.
Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with Yediot Aharonot, said: "I
am the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and was brought up
on the very moving stories of the Holy Land. They mean a lot to
me. When I first visited Mt. Olives, Lake Kinneret, Jerusalem, I
felt a very deep emotional experience. I already then felt that I am
returning home despite the fact that this was a place that I never
visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel."
Sadly to say, the daughter of a Minister of God is hell-bent on
promoting the expulsion of 8,000 Jews from their Biblical
homeland. During her childhood, Condoleezza must have read
the Judeo-Christian Bible. No doubt she must have come across
the fact in the Book of Joshua that G-d gave Gaza to the Tribe of
Judah. Also, that it is stated in the Book of the prophet Amos,
Chapter 9: 14-15, "I will return the captivity of my people Israel,
and they will rebuild desolate cities and settle them; they will
plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will cultivate gardens
and eat their fruits. I will plant them upon their land and they will
never again be uprooted from their land that I have given them,
said HASHEM your G-d."
I decided to do some research through the Internet to find out
more about Condoleezza Rice. If you, dear friend, have some
extra time, you will be able to find out interesting facts about
Condoleezza Rice, her attitude to the Holy Land, and her past
associations, which are far from reassuring for friends of Israel.
For instance, James Baker of "F__k the Jews" fame, is one of her
good friends. They have many common interests and attitudes.
As Condoleezza Rice embarked on her maiden voyage after her
appointment as US Secretary of State, it was reported that she
departed from America armed with a new policy paper on how to
implement the Quartet's Road Map produced by the JAMES
BAKER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY AT RICE UNIVERSITY.
According to Edward Djerejian, the former US Ambassador to
Syria who directs the Baker Center, the policy paper, with its
detailed recommendations, is a "street map to the Road Map."
The following is part of an article by Caroline Glick, Jerusalem
Post columnist:
"... the team that composed the report included senior policy
makers from the US, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Canada
and the World Bank. The US was represented by current
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William
Burns as well as by Norman Olsen, the political counselor at the
US embassy in Israel. The PA was represented by security
strongman Jibril Rajoub and by senior aides to Mahmoud Abbas,
Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Qurei. Egypt was represented by
Dictator Hosni Mubarak's senior adviser Osama El Baz and by
General Hossam Khair Allah.
Israel had no official representation. Rather, the Jewish state
was represented by none other than Yossi Beilin's Geneva
Accord crowd. Amnon Lipkin Shahak and Shlomo Brom,
signatories to that subversive agreement where private citizens
tried to abscond with the government's sovereign power to
determine foreign policy by negotiating the scandalously anti-
Israel "accord," participated. They were joined by members of
Beilin's EU-financed think tank, the Economic Cooperation
Foundation.
Not surprisingly, the product this team produced and delivered to
Rice is soft on Palestinian terrorism, soft on Palestinian
democratization, and relentlessly harsh toward Israel - its
sovereignty, its right to defend itself, and its ability to claim any
right to retain any of the Israeli communities in Judea and
Samaria.
The document makes no clear statement on the need for the
Palestinians to dismantle terrorist organizations. Indeed, the term
"terror organizations" is absent from the report. Instead, the
Palestinian requirement to combat terrorism is reduced to
demands on Israel to facilitate the training, arming and operation
of the "reformed" Palestinian security services while not
interfering with them in any way....
But two questions still arise: Why is the US government sending
its officials to participate in a 'working group' which works to
undermine the sovereignty of a US ally; and why is the Israeli
government not taking legal action against private citizens who
travel the world "negotiating" away the sovereign rights of the
state while undermining the prerogatives of the Israeli
government?"
* * *
I have only chosen two items from her background which I feel
cast light on the persona of Condoleezza Rice.
1) Chevron is a San Francisco-based multinational oil firm, one
of the top ten largest oil companies in the world. Condoleezza
Rice served on Chevron's board from 1991 until January 15, 2001,
when she resigned after Bush named her as his top national
security aide. A double-hulled 129,000-ton giant tanker, part of
the international fleet of Chevron, had years before been named
"Condoleezza Rice" in honor of her service to the Chevron oil
company.
Critics complained that the ship served as a giant floating symbol
of the Bush administration's cozy ties to the oil industry. The
tanker's name also raised more serious questions of possible
conflict of interest for Rice, because Chevron does business on
six continents and in 25 countries, and has been sued for alleged
human-rights abuses in Nigeria.
Leaving a wave of controversy in its wake, one of the most
visible reminders of the Bush administration's ties to big oil - the
"Condoleezza Rice" tanker - was quietly renamed the "Altair
Voyager."
2) There has been widespread concern that Rice's expertise is
the Soviet Union and that she is out of her depths in the Middle
East. Actually, she was out of her depths in relation to the Soviet
Union as well. Rice, who claims an expertise in nothing less than
the high-stakes world of global power, has failed spectacularly as
the "expert" who was disastrously wrong in her area of expertise
-- the US relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. President George
H. W. Bush, Rice, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft,
James Baker (then Secretary of State) and then Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Colin Powell approved supporting the
Soviet leader and his vision of a reformed Soviet Union. Dick
Cheney (then Secretary of Defense), Paul Wolfowitz (his deputy),
and Lewis "Scooter" Libbey foresaw the break-up of the USSR
and wanted to speed it along. "Regime change" in Europe and
Asia was what the Cheney crew were after -- with resulting
opportunities for American corporate interests if the US got in on
the action early.
As it turned out, Bush and Rice prevailed. In one famous
incident, Rice physically blocked the door to the Oval Office to
prevent Russian leader Boris Yeltsin from meeting with the
President. The Bush team was slow to grasp the scope of the
changes that were seizing Europe, slow to encourage the
unification of Germany, and slow to give up on the Soviet Union.
A speech Bush gave with Rice's assistance in Kiev became
notorious as the "Chicken Kiev" speech because in it, the US
urged the people of the Ukraine, (then clamoring for
independence), to remain loyal to Moscow. At the same time, the
President balked at giving Gorbachev what he needed -- either at
arms talks, or in terms of foreign aid -- and the Soviet leader's
domestic currency made a nose-dive. Within months, the
Gorbachev era was over. The new post-Soviet Republics broke
away one by one and in Russia, Yeltsin rose to power.
* * *
The above information gleaned from the Internet certainly made
me less starry-eyed about Condoleezza Rice.
Of prime importance to us in Israel is Condoleezza Rice's
apparent antagonism to the Jewish People, and their right to live
in their entire homeland, as spelled out continuously in the Bible.
We must also be aware of her continual attempts to whitewash
Mahmoud Abas (Abu Mazen) and his unsavory past.
The next holocaust train has already left the station and is once
again hurtling towards the abyss. What will change the US policy
favoring the forced deportation of Jews from Gaza and Samaria?
Dear friends, I feel that only a very strong showing of support for
Israel by Jewish and Christian Bible believers, and other
concerned supporters of Israel, will be able to stop this train.
Let us start a list of people who are willing to join a giant rally on
the Washington, DC Mall, most likely in the month of May 2005.
Please email me your name and address if you think this is a
good idea.
We have a wonderful friend in Oklahoma City, Pastor James A.
Vineyard, who is enthusiastic about taking part in this endeavor.
He has sponsored the production of a DVD on "Disengagement."
The DVD which Pastor Vineyard sponsored has interviews made
with Israelis who are to be "deported" from their homes. This is
powerful stuff. As Pastor Vineyard says, he doesn't want to profit
from the troubles of the Jews, so he's only charging $10 for a
copy. In the words of Pastor Vineyard, "The deportation scheme
will be one of the 'ugliest scenes' unfolding for 2005, because
these folks probably will not go peaceably and quietly."
Time is short! Get your copy of the DVD and encourage your
friends to get a copy as well. Plan a social evening in your home,
and invite people in your community to view the DVD as well.
Also, arrange that Synagogues and Churches feature a viewing
of this tape, together with a discussion program. To purchase a
copy of this DVD, email javyedidimis@aol.com or write him at
5517 NW 23rd St., Oklahoma City, OK, 73127.
It is most important, dear friends, that after viewing this DVD, you
express your feelings to President Bush. Send him a fax at 202-
456-2461, or a letter by snail mail to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW,
Washington, DC 20500. In addition, call his office at 202-456-
1414. As I previously mentioned, emails are not as effective, as
they're not printed out, and therefore your opinion may not be
fully brought to the President's attention. Also, contact your
Senators and Congressman in this regard.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
1) SUNDAY, February 13, 2005- at 9:30 am (weather permitting)-
at the entrance to the Central Bus Station- Women in Green will
continue, together with the Chomat Magen activists, to sign up
soldiers on the "I will not give a hand to the crime of uprooting
Jews from their Homeland" Petition.
This past Tuesday, Noam Livnat, brother of Minister of Education
Limor Livnat and head of the Chomat Magen Campaign held a
press conference in Tel Aviv, where he handed 10,000 signatures
of soldiers to Attorney Chaim Misgav. Those signatures were
meant to be given to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of
Staff Bugi Yaalon, but they refused to accept them. Other
participants at the press conference were Boaz Haezni,
Lieutenant in the Reserves, who had already announced that this
summer he will refuse to show up for his reserve military duty,
because he will not give a hand, actively or passively, to the
crime of expelling Jews from Eretz Yisrael. Ronen Almog,
doctorate student at the Haifa Technion and a major in the
Reserves, joined Boaz in his statements and reminded us all that
the purpose of the army is to fight the enemy, not to fight Jewish
brothers. Nadia Matar, Women in Green's co-chair, also
participated in the Press Conference, and described the
atmosphere in the street when signing up soldiers. The support
is tremendous. For every soldier that agrees to sign, at least
another seven say that even though they are scared to sign, they
promise never to give a hand, actively or passively, to Sharon's
despicable plan of ethnic cleansing. Matar also told the
journalists that at least half of the soldiers signing are not
religious. Some of them are Druse soldiers.
Noam Livnat announced that Chomat Magen's purpose is to get
30,000 signatures by Pessach. Women in Green is proud to be
part of this important campaign which ultimately will be THE
campaign that will stop Ariel Sharon from implementing his evil
decree. Join us!
2) That same SUNDAY, at 3:00 P.M.in the afternoon, a new
women's group -KOLA SHEL IMA- will be founded in Tel Aviv, at
the site of the Altalena memorial, between Kikar Herbert Samuel
and Frishman Street. KOLA SHEL IMA is a new Movement
uniting mothers and grandmothers, wives and sisters of soldiers
and other security forces, religious and non-religious, from all
over the country. Their message is: No to another Altalena! No to
Civil War!
A bus will be leaving from Jerusalem. The fee is 30 NIS. For
reservations please call Anita 050-5-777 254.
(The reason that this message is sent at the last minute is
because of the weather, the organizers were not sure the
ceremony would actually take place.)
At the ceremony very interesting people with a moving message
will be speaking:
Yael Sherez-Polakovski, 74 years old, resident of Ramat
Hasharon, was a Palmach fighter when she was 16 years old.
She followed orders and shot at the Altalena. All her life she has
been in trauma because of this action. She feels that Ariel
Sharon is planning another Altelena, and vows to do all in her
power to prevent this. Another speaker will be Yossef Nahmias,
Etzel fighter who was on the Altalena. His brother was part of the
Palmach forces on the beach, and was ordered to shoot at the
Altalena. Knowing that his brother was on the ship, he refused to
shoot. Other speakers are mothers of officers in today's army,
and officers who have already announced they will not
participate in the crime of uprooting Jews. Palmach and Etzel
fighters from the past, officers, and mothers of officers. Together
will put an arrangement of flowers on the Altalena Memorial and
will vow: NO MORE ALTALENAS! NO MORE JEWS FIGHTING
JEWS!
3) MONDAY, February 14th, 2005
The Knesset will hold a crucial vote, on the criminal and
despicable Deportation Law. At 10:00 A.M., Women In Green will
hold a noisy protest outside the PRIME MINISTER'S RESIDENCE.
We urge you all to join. Bring shofars, whistles, pots and pans.
At 5..00 P.M. in the afternoon - a couple of hours before the vote-
Moetzet Yesha is organizing a large gathering in Gush Katif.
Buses will be leaving from different cities. Jerusalem: Buses will
leave from Binyanei Hauma from 2:00 to 3:00 P.M. For other
cities, call Moetzet Yesha 02-582-2224
*******************************************************
$390MN TO ABU MAZEN DEFIES US GLOBAL POLICY by Yoram
Ettinger
1. PRESIDENT BUSH's MEMORABLE SEPT. 20, 2001 SPEECH vs.
$390MN TO ABU MAZEN.
"Deliver to the US all the leaders of Al-Qaeda who hide in your
land...Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training
camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist...[But, Abu
Mazen has stated that he would not fight, nor would he extradite,
Palestinian terrorists. Palestinian terrorism - mostly
masterminded by PA leaders and carried out by PA "security
forces" - has evolved under the 1993-2005 Arafat-Abu Mazen
regime into the largest terrorist base in the world]. "They will
hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate...[But, the
PA has received some $1.5BN in US foreign aid since 1994, in
spite of Abu Mazen being the chief architect of PA-Hamas
agreements since 1993. Abu Mazen insists on integrating, rather
than eliminating, Hamas terrorists].
"We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety... [But,
notwithstanding Abu Mazen's grandpa-like well-shaved
appearance, he was Arafat's chief accomplice since the 1950's,
he has shaped PA's hate-education, he and his son have been
role models for "Mr. 20%" kickback/corruption, he was the chief
architect of PLO ties with ruthless communist regimes, and he
played a key role in hijacking planes, in the 1972 Munich
Olympics Massacre, in the 1972 execution of 2 US ambassadors,
and in the 1970 and 1976 attempts to topple the Hashemite and
Lebanese regimes].
"Either you are with us, or your are with the terrorists...Any
nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be
regarded by the US as a hostile regime...WE WILL STARVE
TERRORISTS OF FUNDING...[Where does that leave Abu Mazen,
Card #2 of the Palestinian Terror Authority, the largest terror
base in the world?! With a $390MN US foreign aid???]
2. U.S. POLICY ON IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN vs. $390MN TO ABU
MAZEN.
The prerequisite for free election and for US assistance to Iraq
and to Afghanistan, was the thorough eradication of - rather than
accommodation with - rogue regimes. US policy would not
tolerate top Ba'th or Taliban leaders running for office, let alone
heading a new regime. The US would not tolerate an Iraqi or
Afghani candidates campaigning for office on the shoulders of a
most wanted notorious terrorist, as did Abu Mazen on the
shoulders of Zakaria Zubeidi, the leading terrorist in Jenin. Abu
Mazen did not emerge, on election day, from exile in Europe or
from his hiding cave in the Judean Desert. Abu Mazen emerged
from Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, running as Arafat's most
intimate confidant during the last 50 years and Arafat's loyal #2
since 1993. Abu Mazen had occasionally disagreed with Arafat
tactically, but always c! oncurred strategically. Contrary to US
policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has re-entrenched, rather
than uproot, the rogue old regime, thus rewarding Palestinian
terrorism and adrenalizing regional anti-US terrorism.
3. U.S. FARM SUBSIDIES vs. $390MN TO ABU MAZEN.
The US would not extend grants/loans to farmers, who have
misused previous subsidies in gambling and other non-farming
mischief. Why would the US extend a $390MN grant to the PA,
which has misused some $1.5BN since 1994, promoting anti-US
and anti-Jewish hate-education, terrorism (including the murder
of 52 US citizens), corruption and repression, rather than
moderation, peaceful-coexistence and counter-terrorism?
4. U.S. POLICY ON SYRIA vs. $390MN TO ABU MAZEN.
President Bush ("State of the Union", Feb. 2, 2005) and Secretary
of State Rice (Israel, Feb. 7, 2005) have condemned Syria for
harboring terrorists, which has denied Damascus US foreign aid
and cooperation. Where does that leave Abu Mazen, who has
harbored Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, while heading the
political infrastructure of PA ("security organizations")
terrorism?! Abu Mazen met - in December 2004 in Damascus - the
leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PDFLP, and will meet
shortly with other Islamic terrorists in Teheran. Both meetings
(at terrorist capitals) aim at coordination and co-existence with
terrorists, in defiance of the morally-just and strategically-right
US war on global terrorism.
5. PAST US CRITICAL BLUNDERS & 390MN TO ABU MAZEN.
Sacrificing the 50 year track record of Abu Mazen - and the
lessons of the last eleven years since the signing of Oslo - on the
altar of wishful thinking, is consistent with the 1993 White House
embrace of the Oslo Process and Nobel Laureate Arafat, with the
1996 crowning of Arafat - by the US Administration - as "a
democratically elected President", with honoring Arafat as the
most frequent visitor to President Clinton's White House, with the
1988-91 courting of Saddam by the Bush/Baker Administration
(until the day of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait!), with the 1978 US
Administration support extended to the "elder Iranian religious
leader in exile" (Khomeini) in his battle against "the dictator in
Teheran" (the Shah), etc.
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*******************************************************
Israel's Auschwitz borders
By Joseph Farah
Condelizza Rice may know a lot about the old Soviet Union, but
she sure doesn't know squat about the Middle East. The
secretary of state recently explained how it is necessary for Israel
to give up more land to help fashion a viable, contiguous
Palestinian state – from Gaza through Judea and Samaria.
Perhaps if you don't understand the geography, this might seem
like a perfectly reasonable demand. After all, how can we expect
the new Palestinian state to function normally if its people are
divided by artificial barriers?
What I trust Rice does not understand – in fact, what I hope she
simply fails to comprehend – is that Israel has no more land to
give. Israel has no moral obligation to give any land. Israel will be
jeopardizing its own security in doing so. Let me make this
crystal clear. Look at a map of the Middle East. After glancing at
it for a few minutes, can anyone honestly tell me they believe the
problems of violence and terrorism there have to do with the fact
that Israel has too much land? This is apparently what we are to
believe.
There's lots of land in the Middle East. Most of it is populated
sparsely by Arabic-speaking people, culturally, linguistically,
religiously and ethnically at one with the so-called "Palestinians,"
a people who have never had a country of their own in the history
of the world. Why then is it Israel's obligation to carve itself up to
create this Palestinian state? The tiny sliver of land that
represents the current state of Israel is only about one-tenth the
size of the original United Nations mandate that created the
Jewish state in 1947.
Now, I'm not a Jew. I'm a Christian Arab-American journalist who
believes in freedom first, peace second. And I've got to tell you
that the demands on Israel right now are demands for the nation
to commit political, military and cultural suicide. Do you know
what the new borders of Israel would be under the plans being
drawn up now for a "viable, contiguous Palestine"? I call them
Auschwitz borders. I don't know why the Jews don't see it.
They are willingly helping to build a national concentration camp
of half the world's Jewry surrounded by hostile maniacs who
want to eradicate them. Israel's new borders under a Rice plan
will be indefensible. Creating a new Palestinian state with
contiguous borders and relying on Israel to come up with all the
necessary real estate requires cutting Israel in half from north to
south. It might create a "viable" Palestinian state, but it will
destroy the viability of Israel.
If Adolf Hitler had been a little smarter, he would have helped
recreate a Jewish State in the Middle East and squeezed it the
way the Arabs, the EU and now the United States are squeezing
Israel. Hitler could never have dreamed of a more expedient "final
solution." Now I am not going to suggest that Rice or the Bush
Entity are intentionally trying to destroy Israel or the Jews. I will
give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are ill-
informed, that they are making profoundly bad decisions based
on bad data and bad analysis.
But I will make no such assumptions about the leadership of the
Palestinian Authority and the Arab states that back it. They are
not promoting a Palestinian state because they believe in
freedom and self-determination for the Arab people who live
there. Instead, they are doing so to create a permanent staging
ground from which they will continue their war of attrition against
the Jewish infidels who have the audacity to live in what they
consider to be Dar al-Islam. It's that simple. I wish Rice and Bush
and even the Israeli government could see it.
It is a national disgrace that the U.S. government is spending
$350 million more to subsidize the Palestinian Authority, which
holds that no Jews are permitted to live within its territory or
future nation. It is a national disgrace that the U.S. government
would join with the rest of the anti-Semitic world to force Israel to
abandon its own security needs and its own Jewish communities
on historically Jewish lands. It is a national disgrace that the U.S,
while supposedly fighting a global war against Islamist terrorism
is appeasing them in the Arab-Israeli war.
*******************************************************
Disengagement or Disaster
By Serena Weil
Israel is presently grappling with a heart rending, soul-searching
dilemma. Some call it disengagement, redeployment,
resettlement; others call it evacuation, withdrawal, retreat. Living
as we do in a mire of misinformation, we are inundated with a
never-ending tsunami of words and images. At best, they portray
the "news" — bits and pieces of information — but they rarely
present the entire picture in intelligent context; at worst, they
distort reality to the point where the consumer of all this news
cannot possibly differentiate between truth and falsehood. And
when the stakes are as high as they are in Israel today, the lack
of dependable information to inform public opinion is downright
frightening. Recently, in the Israeli paper Hatzofeh, Boaz Haetzni
enumerated a number of unpopular, seldom reported facts. They
are worth repeating together with the disturbing questions they
engender.
1. GAZA vs. KATIF: A Clearer picture. Historically, the city of
Gaza (and its surroundings) is part of Biblical Israel, included in
G-d's divine promise to the Jewish People. Jews have resided in
Gaza from Biblical times until 1948 when, as the result of Arab
violence, they were forced to leave. The city contains ruins of
synagogues, a Jewish cemetery, and archeological finds of
Jewish origin. A Jewish presence in the Gaza area (known as the
Gaza Strip) was re-established in the wake of the Six Day War
after 1967. Known as Gush Katif (the Katif Block), it comprises 22
communities and numbers 8,500 inhabitants and comprises only
12% of the Gaza Strip.
2. CAN THE IDF LEAVE GAZA? The IDF already left the Gaza
Strip (!) eleven years ago as part of the Oslo agreements. Since
then the Strip has been governed by the Palestinian Authority
(under Arafat). Israel remained in Gush Katif. The IDF manned
points of entry into Katif and at the border-like road blocks. They
enter Gaza itself only when terrorist activity makes their entry
necessary. Meanwhile, a monstrous terror network of worldwide
proportions has surfaced in Gaza. Constant shelling of nearby
Israeli settlements and cities, suicide bombers, shootings, and
mines have become daily fare. (Many, thank G-d, miss their
mark.) The media barely mentions them before going on to more
"interesting" news.
Retreating from Katif would bring the cities of Ashkelon, Netivot,
and Ofakim into the range of Arab missiles in the south. As it did
in Lebanon, the Hezbollah terrorist organization intends to bring
thousands of missiles into Gaza as well. The highly successful
results of the terrorist organizations in the recent Palestinian
Authority elections in Gaza do not bode well for peaceful
intentions or resolutions. With additional, far ranging weapons in
Gaza, the long arm of Hezbollah will bringing not only Ashkelon,
but the port of Ashdod, Beersheva and the nuclear reactor in
Dimona within firing range. Israel has to be utterly insane to allow
this to happen.
3. WHOSE WATER IS TASTIER? Israel is presently supplying
Gaza with water. After Oslo and the Israeli retreat from Gaza, as a
result of total Arab/ Palestinian Authority mismanagement and
greed, vast amounts of water were pumped from the wells in the
area, the salt level rose drastically, and the water is no longer
potable. Humane Israel, unwilling to deny water to thirsty Arabs,
now provides for their needs from its own water supply. The IDF
also forces the Arabs to treat their sewage and refrain from
pouring it into the sea. In addition to severe pollution, the sewage
destroys the filters from a large purification plant in nearby
Ashkelon.
Sharon speaks of further withdrawals in northern Samaria which
sits atop one of Israel's largest aquifers and main sources of
water. Once in Arab hands, it is expected that the Arabs will, as
they have done throughout the rest of Judea and Samaria, pump
water without plan or thought for the future, thus endangering
vital water sources in the Jezreel Valley. The oft-bandied solution
of treating sea water would cost billions of dollars. Can Israel
afford to place her precious and limited water supply in the
hands of her Arab neighbors?
4. DEMOGRAPHY & GEOGRAPHY and other fraudulent claims:
Gaza, we are told, is the most crowded place in the world. The
Arabs, they say, need land, living space! Well, so does Tel Aviv.
The population density in the city of Tel Aviv is eleven times
higher than in Gaza!
Not only that. The much maligned Katif area, on only twelve
percent of the Gaza Strip, covers approximately ninety square
miles! Does anyone really think that giving this pittance of the
Strip as a gift to the Arabs will solve their demographic
problems? (It is highly suggested that the reader open a map of
the Middle East to verify the size of Israel, of the Gaza Strip and
of Katif. If Israel is infinitesimal, then Katif is infinitely more so!)
Perhaps Egypt, a huge country, would like to contribute a portion
of its vast holdings in Sinai to its fellow Arabs. Sinai was never
officially part of Egypt (just as Judea and Samaria were never
officially part of Jordan). It is devoid of settlements — absolutely
empty except for several tourist locations (originally built and set
up by Israel) and best of all, it borders Gaza. Could there be a
more perfect, fitting, humane solution to lessen the population
density in Gaza?
Gush Katif was built on virgin sand dunes which even the Arabs
had never exploited. The constantly attacked and bombarded
community of Kfar Darom was built on swampy land which was
purchased at full price by Jews during the time of the British
Mandate. The Jews have turned the entire Katif area into a mini
Garden of Eden. Eleven percent of all Israeli agricultural exports
come from this tiny spot on the map. No wonder the Arabs living
in their squalid cities nearby have dreams of inheriting it!
5. ECONOMICS — What's the Price? According to government
assessments, direct costs for disengagement will be upwards of
six billion NIS (one and one half billion U.S. dollars). Since this
figure was released, the Knesset upped it by offering larger
restitution to the settlers. (The previous amounts were rather
parsimonious and it was felt that a bit more generosity would
make things easier for all concerned.) Add to this related
expenses such as additional security for settlements within the
Green Line which will now be within Gaza's firing range;
unemployment for the several thousand evacuated families;
establishing new communities, new schools or classrooms for
the thousands of Katif children who will be evacuated; new social
services; and the necessary psychological counseling and help
for those evacuated (this promises to be a highly traumatic
experience, to put it mildly), Etc., etc.
No country, and surely not the U.N. or the E.U., is offering to
reimburse or assist Israel with disengagement. The Israeli
taxpayer will be expected to foot the entire bill. All the advances
Israel has so painfully made in the past ten years on the
economic front will be wiped out. And the price of real estate all
along the shrunken new border will fall drastically. (Who will want
to live next to Gaza?) Disengagement promises to be an
economic disaster.
6. THE ARMY-What affect will disengagement have on it? Is the
Israel Defense Force here to evacuate Jews from their homes, or
to protect them from their enemies? Discomfort at the idea of the
army forcefully evacuating peaceful citizens is widespread. So
much so that the government changed gears and decided the
police would be given the job while the army stood guard to
make sure the Arabs don't take advantage and aim their missiles
in the direction of the evacuees.
There is also the well founded fear that a large number of
soldiers and police will refuse to take part in the disengagement.
And if nonetheless it does take place, it is feared that tens of
thousands of young people across the country will be so
disillusioned that many of them will refuse to serve when they are
called up. Huge numbers of youngsters from youth movements
and yeshivas, the ones you see at the demonstrations and on
street corners passing out flyers, are passionately anti-
disengagement. These youths tend to be some of our best
soldiers and a high percentage, out of all proportion to their
numbers, of officers. Which is why the government is taking such
a hard stand against conscientious objectors whom they view as
a "threat to democracy". Many older people will refuse to
continue to serve in the Reserves as well.
7. DEMOCRACY or DICTATORSHIP? Sharon ran for office on a
platform diametrically opposed to this plan. His own Likkud party
overwhelmingly rejected the proposal in an internal Likkud
referendum. After much political wrangling and the firing of two
cabinet ministers, Sharon finally managed to obtain Knesset
approval for his plan although the law approving the financial
restitution has not yet been passed.
No legitimate government, however, has the right to oust people
from their legal homes by means of a highly questionable order
and without recourse to due process of law. No government has
the moral right to make historic changes and cede parts of its
historic homeland with only a slim majority and a highly unstable
minority coalition. Just as no government, even with a large
majority, has the moral right to legitimize murder, rape or
robbery. Years ago, Yossi Sarid, one of Israel's extreme, leading
Leftists, proclaimed: The day that an order is given to transfer
[Arabs] from their homes, an order which is patently illegal and
immoral, will be the Day of Refusing Orders. … We will not fulfill
an order to transfer [Arabs], nor will our children or our students
fulfill such an order. How, then, can he legitimize transferring
Jews?
Democracy does not mean the dictatorship of the many over the
few. Democracy is built on a shared set of values; its laws are
supposed to give form to these values. Destroying the basic
values underpinning democracy, and ripping apart the social
fabric and shared values of a nation destroys democracy itself.
Where might all this lead? The papers are rife with reports of
detention centers being set up for reluctant settlers, their wives
and children; of special, speedy courts of "justice" to deal with
resisters; with special police training courses hastily organized
to program the police to deal with the expected, traumatic
expulsion. (All this while it was just announced that over nine
hundred convicted terrorists will be released from Israeli jails as
a sign of Israel's "good will").
Remember, we are not speaking of evacuating an enemy. We are
speaking of 8,500 Israeli citizens who settled an empty, new area
with full State approval and are now being ousted after thirty
years because a Sharon without the necessary democratic
sanctions, has decided they must leave.
8. DID YOU SAY DISENGAGEMENT? From what? According to
the government's own declarations, Israel will continue to supply
the Palestinian Authority in Gaza with 1) water; 2) electricity; 3)
communications (a telephone system); 4) food, medical and other
supplies, just as we do now. Oh yes, and also employment in
Israel. No one expects Gaza to support itself or provide
employment for its people. Everyone - the entire world - expects
Israel to help the new "fledgling state" along. Israel assumes she
will fill all these needs although she insists that in case of trouble
or terrorist activity, she will feel free to re-enter Gaza whenever
necessary. (Just imagine the world's reaction to that!)
What then will be different? What exactly is being "disengaged"?
Only one thing. Jewish communities in one small corner of the
Gaza Strip. They are being evacuated, transferred,"
resettled" — all the things Israel would never allow to be done to
its Arab citizens or neighbors. Judenrein at the hands of the
Israeli government.
9. WHAT IS SHARON THINKING? No one seems to know. If the
above is an accurate description of the situation, based on true,
objective facts (and it is), how could any normal, intelligent
person choose this path?
Sharon has led us to a Palestinian state. He gave his approval to
the Road Map whose cease-fire cost scores of Jewish lives. He
approved the infamous prisoner swaps which put an end to hope
for finding or releasing Ron Arad, the missing Israeli pilot. And
now he is taking us further along the road to destruction with his
new plan. Why? While there are a few souls who feel that Sharon
is taking a brave step forward and has the best interests of the
country at heart, there are many more who are doubtful. The
rumors are that he is depressed, demented, or wants to go do
down in history as the great Man of Peace after having been
demonized as Israel's worst war-monger. There are other, even
more disturbing theories.
Zvi Handel a Knesset member from Gush Katif, and a former
friend of Sharon who spent years working in close contact with
the Prime Minister, has a different explanation. Both of Sharon's
sons were involved in highly publicized, highly questionable,
extremely lucrative, international business transactions. There
was grave evidence of illegalities and the country was waiting for
a judicial decision to indict. Suddenly, when things became
exceedingly uncomfortable, Sharon dropped a bombshell and
announced his disengagement plan. It immediately replaced the
stories of his sons in all the media and has kept them out of the
public eye. The indictments are also still on hold.
It is believed by many that this sudden bombastic political
decision, which ran counter to Sharon's entire history and career
(he was called the "Father of the Settlement Movement" and was
a close and constant advocate of settlement activity), which
conflicted with all his previous statements, promises and
campaign platform, was a way of turning the public attention
away from his private troubles. If the settlers had to be the
sacrificial lamb, so be it. Better them than Sharon's sons.
Handel's accusations were made publicly and were detailed. The
media made mention but chose not to dwell on them and they
were "lost" in the governmental tsunami of determination for the
disengagement plan.
10. WHAT ELSE IS LOST? Much has been "lost" in the media
reports. Not only the legalities of the Sharon family affairs, but
many of the above uncomfortable facts and observations. The
settlements in Gaza have existed for more than thirty years.
Families have four generations in the area. There is rarely a
family in Israel which doesn't have Israelis all over the country
have a a relative, a neighbor's relative or a friend in Katif. Most of
the population - truly a silent majority — is distinctly
uncomfortable with disengagement although they have few
public avenues open to express their discomfort. (The media
gives _expression primarily to the left.) The more active and
vocal section of the populace that supports Katif and the
settlements and is thoroughly opposed to "disengaging" is
dubbed "the extreme right" by the media. There is never — or
very rarely — an "extreme" left. Disengagement ("evacuation" is
a more accurate term) of Jews from the area — is not a ! simple,
administrative decision. It is truly a moment of crisis for Israel.
Nor is disengagement a legitimate legal, democratic decision.
Sharon consistently refuses to consider either a referendum on
disengagement or new elections, even though two years after the
elections he still does not have a stable, dependable coalition to
pass . Nor has he been successful
in passing the annual budget (which is why he is turning
somersaults to put a coalition together. Without an approved
budget, new elections are in the offing whether he wants them or
not.)which he needs in order to assure funds for the evacuation
of Katif. Yet he has engaged the country in a disastrous process.
Anti-democratic, anti-Zionistic, militarily and economically
incomprehensible. Add that to the national, emotional and
religious issues which have been stirred up and you wonder if
the man has not gone mad?
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*******************************************************
Our World: Legitimizing Abbas
by Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post
The government's decision to release 500 terrorists from prison
raises a number of profound concerns about the direction the
newfound friendship between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
Mahmoud Abbas – the democratically elected legitimate leader of
the reformed, democratic and anti-terrorist Palestinian Authority
– is taking.
Abbas is well regarded because he has made a number of
statements saying the time of the so-called armed intifada has
passed. His call for a temporary cease-fire by Palestinian terror
groups in exchange for a general amnesty of terror commanders
from Israel has been greeted with exultation by breathless
diplomats yearning for a return to the days when "historic"
summits and secret talks in European five-star hotels were a
routine occurrence.
The government has defended its decision to free 500 terrorists
and to stop chasing down terrorist fugitives by claiming that
these policies are needed to shore up Abbas's legitimacy among
the Palestinian rank and file.
But this raises an obvious question. Why does Abbas, who
(according to the so-called international community) was
legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a free and open and
democratic election, need legitimacy? Isn't the 66 percent of the
vote he garnered in a more or less uncontested race legitimacy
enough?
Sharon said last week that Israel will, for the first time, be
crossing one of the only remaining "red lines" that has been
maintained since the days when we could still refer to red lines
without cynicism. Sharon has agreed to release terrorists found
guilty of murdering Israeli citizens.
Speaking to his favorite radical left-wing "reporter" Yoel Marcus
from Haaretz, Sharon explained that the issue of releasing
murderers is of "decisive importance" to Abbas and his deputies
and that Israel just has to do this for them to ensure the stability
of their new legitimate, democratically elected, anti-terror,
reformed regime.
But something is amiss here. If Abbas is supposed to be
convincing the Palestinians that they have to reject terrorism, it
seems odd for him to be insisting that Israel conduct a mass
release of convicted terrorists, let alone murderers. Abbas
justifies this demand by claiming that these men and women are
Palestinian heroes and that his people won't accept their
remaining in prison.
Yet his acceptance of the notion that these war criminals are
heroes of the Palestinian people makes it hard to imagine that he
has anything but admiration for the crimes they committed –
namely acts of terrorism against Israelis. Far from opposing
terrorism and being poised to purge the scourge from Palestinian
society, in his first act as the legitimate, democratically elected,
anti-terror, reform leader, Abbas is sticking out his neck to
support terrorism.
Sharon, like IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen.l Moshe Ya'alon,
further defends his support for releasing murderers by
espousing the Abbasian (nee Arafatian) contention that it is
inconsistent and therefore unjustifiable for Israel to agree to meet
with these inmates' "commanders" – that is, Abbas and his
deputies – while continuing to punish these "poor things" who
were merely the foot soldiers of the revolution.
One senior military official warned last week that an Israeli
refusal to accept this contention could lead to a "symmetric"
Palestinian demand that Israeli soldiers be tried for murder for
having killed Palestinians.
These views are disturbing for two reasons. First, they are
morally reprehensible and mark a stunning abandonment of self-
respect and national honor by Sharon and his followers.
Comparing Israel's right to bring terrorists to justice to the
malicious Palestinian libels against IDF soldiers' conduct in
fighting Palestinian terrorists is morally bankrupt and represents
an abandonment of Israel's inherent right to defend its citizens
from perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
The second reason why Sharon and Ya'alon's support for the
release of terrorists is jarring is because it constitutes an Israeli
acceptance of the Palestinian claim that the use of terror against
Israel is legitimate. This point is made even more abundantly
clear by Israel's mute acceptance of Abbas's plan to integrate
Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad into the official PA militias and
bureaucracies.
Abbas justifies his refusal to destroy the terror groups and
infrastructures by claiming that he does not have the power to do
so. Given that in the Gaza municipal elections three weeks ago
Hamas beat Abbas's Fatah party with 70 percent of the vote, he
may be right. But then, if he is incapable of fighting terrorism,
what good is he?
If the results of the vote – which mark the first time that Hamas
has ever openly competed with Fatah – reflect the sentiments of
the Palestinian people, it is clear that they have no interest in
either purging themselves of terror or of living peacefully with
Israel – and therefore Israel should be giving them nothing.
On the sidelines of the government's decision to release the 500
terrorists was a separate decision to allow the terrorists deported
from Bethlehem in 2002 – after they took over, desecrated and
laid siege to the Church of the Nativity for 39 days – to return to
the city and face no charges for their crimes. This decision has
the Christians of Bethlehem in a blind panic.
Back in 2002, the members of this gang summarily executed
more than a dozen Christians, including children. They raped
Christian girls, took over Christian homes in Beit Jala to fire at
Israelis in Jerusalem, extorted money from Christian
businessmen and expropriated Christian-owned farmlands.
As one Christian put it at the time of their deportation, "They hate
us Christians more than they love Palestine."
Yet, at Abbas' insistence, and in the interest of bucking up his
legitimate, democratically elected, anti-terror, reform minded
regime, Israel has decided to let these war criminals come home
to a hero's welcome.
After two years of rest and relaxation in Europe, they will no
doubt resume their campaign to destroy all vestiges of
Christianity in Bethlehem in no time at all.
It isn't that the government has completely abandoned the fight
against Israel's enemies. After all, today everyone from Sharon to
Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra is calling for the state to
place those who oppose the newfound friendship with Abbas too
loudly or obnoxiously in administrative detention... if they're
Jews, that is.
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*******************************************************
SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ARAB TERRORISTS
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005
Dear Friends,
There are some recent developments in the United States, which I
would never have dreamed of, even in my worst nightmares. I am
aware (being an avid Fox News Channel watcher) that the U.S.
So