November 2004
November 4, 2004 One country, two governments
November 5, 2004 President Bush and the Holy Land
November 6, 2004 His Great Obsession
November 7, 2004 How and Why America's Christians Must Care for Israel
November 8, 2004 After Arafat
November 10, 2004 Gush Katif Viewpoint
November 11, 2004 Death of a Serial Murderer
November 13, 2004 And the Land is Sold in Perpetuity
November 14, 2004 The Father of Modern Terrorism
November 15, 2004 Arafat Tape
November 15, 2004 Another one bites the dust
November 16, 2004 Upcoming Events
November 17, 2004 Stop the War Against Fellow Jews
November 20, 2004 Onward Christian Voters
November 23, 2004 Pollard Speech - Don't Trade Me For Barghouti
November 23, 2004 Nadia Matar Writes About the Pollard Handcuff Rally
November 23, 2004 The Awakening of Yosef Goell
November 25, 2004 Who Will Fill Arafat's Bloody Shoes?
November 26, 2004 Petition against Deportation of Jews
November 27, 2004 Chanukah Trip to the Shomron!
November 28, 2004 Immoral Politics
November 30, 2004 Not For The Spineless
*******************************************************
November 4, 2004
One country, two governments
by Evelyn Gordon
THE JERUSALEM POST - Nov 1, 2004
For a country to have two governments simultaneously is quite a trick.
But as of last week, that is
precisely what Israel has: one government that we elected, and one that
we did not. The one we
elected handles issues such as counterterrorism and economic reform.
The one we did not
handles disengagement.
It is not merely that in last week's Knesset vote the disengagement plan
earned just 37 votes from
the official government the one that received the Knesset's confidence
after last year's election.
The other 30 votes, which enabled the plan to pass, came from
opposition parties that never won
the confidence of either the Knesset or the people.
Since the disengagement is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's central policy
initiative, the fact that it
was passed by the opposition rather than the official government is bad
enough. Far worse,
however, is Sharon's unprecedented decision to split the 2005 state
budget in two. One part, the
section that deals with cutbacks and reforms, will be passed by the
official elected government.
The other part, dealing with disengagement, will be passed by the
unofficial, unelected one.
Because the budget is the government's blueprint of action for the
coming year, the annual
budget law has unique constitutional status: Failure to pass it by March
31 automatically
dissolves the Knesset and results in new elections within 90 days. No
other issue can topple a
government without even being brought to a vote.
Unforeseen developments have occasionally caused a government to
submit a supplementary
budget partway through the year. But never before has a key policy
initiative been deliberately
omitted from the budget because no coalition could be found to approve
the entire budget with it
present. What this means is that according to the test explicitly laid
down in Israel's Basic Laws
that no government may survive if it cannot, once a year, find a
Knesset majority to approve its
plan of action for the next year the Sharon government deserves to
fall.
But Sharon has circumvented this constitutional litmus test by a method
so devious that our
lawmakers never thought to ban it: Instead of submitting his whole
work plan for the year, he is
submitting only part of it in the document entitled "The 2005 Budget
Law." The remainder,
funding for the disengagement, will be submitted separately and, like
the disengagement itself,
be approved by an unofficial coalition with Labor and Yahad that never
received the Knesset's
confidence. In the letter of the law there is no barrier to this maneuver.
Nevertheless, it blatantly
violates the spirit of Israel's constitutional legislation.
THE SHARON government is also constitutionally problematic in
another way: It is the first
government in Israel's history that does not enjoy the Knesset's
confidence. There have, of
course, been minority governments before, but these received support
from outside the coalition
that enabled them to claim the confidence of a majority of the Knesset.
That is not true of Sharon's government. A majority of Knesset
members have no confidence in it
and would topple it if they could, but they cannot because of an
anomaly known as "constructive
no confidence" that was added to the Basic Law: The Government in
2001.
This provision states that a government can be toppled only if a
majority of MKs not only loses
confidence in it but can also form an alternate government. In Sharon's
case, this is impossible.
Since his opposition comes from both Left and Right, the majority that
opposes him is incapable
of forming an alternative government.
Clearly, Sharon's survival under these circumstances is legal, since
constructive no confidence is
part of the Basic Law. It is not even unprecedented internationally.
Though rare among Western
democracies, this system is also practiced in Germany. Nevertheless, it
contradicts the very
essence of parliamentary democracy, as expressed in that same Basic
Law (Article 3): "The
Government holds office by virtue of the confidence of the Knesset."
None of these issues greatly bother Israel's chattering class, where the
dominant view is that the
end of dismantling settlements justifies any means, even the subversion
of Israel's constitutional
structure. With a few exceptions Yuli Tamir and Yossi Beilin come to
mind almost no one on
the Left has dared to say that the rules of the game have value in and of
themselves, regardless of
whether or not one likes the outcome.
But they do, and this ought to be of supreme concern to all Israelis
because it is only the rules
of the democratic game that have allowed a politically and religiously
fractured nation to live
together for half a century. If these rules are shattered beyond repair if
too many Israelis
become convinced that all that matters is seizing power, by any and
every means this country
will not long survive. And Sharon has already stretched the rules
dangerously close to the
breaking point.
The simplest solution, of course, would be to call new elections. But a
referendum on
disengagement could also help because much of the opposition to this
plan both within the
official coalition and within the nation as a whole stems from the
sense that it is fundamentally
illegitimate for a man who won the election by running against
unilateral withdrawal to proceed
to implement that very program, which the voters explicitly rejected,
with the aid of the parties
they explicitly rejected.
If disengagement passed a referendum, thereby acquiring unassailable
public legitimacy, Sharon
would probably be able to form a real government around the initiative
one that enjoyed the
Knesset's confidence and didn't depend on anti-constitutional tricks
such as splitting the budget
for its survival. Either elections or a referendum would be expensive
and disruptive. But the
alternative for Sharon to continue warping Israel's constitutional
structure beyond recognition
would, in the long term, be far worse.
The writer is a veteran journalist and commentator.
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*******************************************************
November 5, 2004
PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE HOLY LAND
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN)
JERUSALEM
Friday, November 5, 2004
Dear Friends,
Finally, I was able to enjoy a good night's sleep. While my American
compatriots stood on line
to vote on November 2nd, the real action here took place at the start of
calendar date November
3rd, because we are seven hours ahead of EST (Eastern Standard Time).
Needless to say, I
couldn't sleep, and I stayed glued to the Fox News TV channel the
entire long night. It certainly
seemed to be a cliff hanger in the very beginning. The exit polls used
by radio and TV stations
early on even projected John Kerry to be the winner!
The final result, of course, was that Bush not only got 274 electoral
votes as against Kerry's 252
electoral votes, but that his popular vote majority was 3.6 million. In the
year 2000 election, Al
Gore actually had the majority of the popular vote, but only a little over
half a million.
What made President Bush's overwhelming victory so astounding?
I feel that there are two camps in America today. There seems to be a
wide gulf between
secularists and those who believe that traditional, moral, and religious
values are of great
importance. It is definitely the latter group, which does not believe in
same-sex marriage, partial
abortion, giving in to terror, etc, which voted for Bush.
In Israel, as well, there are two distinct groups. The people who believe
in G-d's Promise to the
Jewish People that their Holy Land is their eternal inheritance, and
those on the Left of the
spectrum, who feel that the Promised Land can be "disengaged" from in
stages, at any time, for
whatever reason, if they feel this to be politically expedient.
For them, the proclamation of the first Prime Minister of Israel, David
Ben-Gurion, that "the
Bible is our Mandate" is completely irrelevant. In yesterday's
Jerusalem Post there was article
on the attitudes of Israeli politicians, both from the Right and from the
Left, towards Bush and
Kerry.
On Bush's side:
National Union MKs Benny Elon and Yuri Shtern, are both close to
Evangelical Christians.
They said they hope Bush stays on.
"Bush is a much more loyal friend of Israel than any previous American
president," said Elon,
who attended the Republican convention. "He was raised on the Bible;
he's connected to
Evangelical Christians who love Israel; and no one can take away from
the leadership he
displayed on leading the international fight against Islamic extremists."
Elon said that fears Bush would abandon Israel as a second-term
president are unwarranted,
because his loyalty to Israel was never connected to American Jewish
voters, who did not
support him in the first place. He said American Jews who are upset
about the disengagement
plan should blame Sharon, not Bush.
"YOU CAN'T ASK BUSH TO BE MORE CATHOLIC THAN THE
POPE," ELON SAID.
"SHARON CONVINCED BUSH TO SUPPORT A PALESTINIAN
STATE AND BACK
DISENGAGEMENT, SO YOU CAN'T BLAME HIM. BUSH IS
MORE LOYAL TO ISRAEL
THAN MANY OF MY COLLEAGUES IN THE KNESSET."
***
On Kerry's side:
Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz said he supports Kerry because he believes
he will have a more
interventionist Middle East policy. He also believes Bush's mistakes in
Iraq will make it more
difficult for the US to eliminate the strategic threat to Israel posed by
the weapons of mass
destruction in Iran.
"I back Kerry because I prefer the Clinton approach to the Bush
approach," said Pines-Paz, who
attended the Democratic Convention. "Both Bush and Kerry love
Israel, but I prefer people who
will be more involved in the process here rather than support from afar.
Bush was fully
supportive but passive. Clinton was more critical, but he worked
actively to find a solution to
the conflict."
Yachad (Meretz) MK Yossi Sarid said he opposes Bush because he
fears that as a second-term
president he will act independently against Israel, and because he is
afraid of Bush's religious
beliefs.
"Bush runs the world on the basis of calls from heavens," Sarid said.
"The fact that this man
runs the world gives me goose bumps. Sharon should be careful
because Bush could hear a new
voice from the heavens and change his mind about supporting Israel."
The attitude of opposition leader Shimon Peres (Labor Party), according
to his associates is that
he generally prefers more Liberal candidates.
***
Nonetheless, Sharon and his advisors feel confident that Bush's victory
will be good for the
Disengagement Plan. They may harbor some fears that George W.
Bush will be "unduly
influenced" by the Evangelical Christian Zionists, who love Israel in an
unqualified manner and
who certainly were very influential in his successful reelection. But
Sharon's spokesman,
Ra'anan Gissim, sees it differently:
"Bush is as free as a bird. He is only accountable to history and G-d,
which is a good thing for
us, because both history and G-d are on our side. "
What incredible arrogance! Jewish longing to regain the Homeland
over a period of 2000 years
is legendary. That G-d is on the side of those who want to abandon the
Holy Land to the enemy
is clearly against everything written in the scriptures, the Tanach.
To repeat the words of Knesset Member Benny Elon, "Sharon is the one
who convinced Bush to
support a Palestinian State and to back disengagement. Bush is more
loyal to Israel than many of
my colleagues in the Knesset."
Israel now unfortunately has two governments: one government that we
elected, and one that we
did not elect.
The leader of the Likud Party, Ariel Sharon, has hijacked the Israeli
government, against his own
party's will. He has turned into a devilishly clever manipulative
dictator, who completely ignores
his own party, which he supposedly heads. His Disengagement Plan
was passed, not by his own
coalition, but by an unholy alliance with the leftist opposition. He
cleverly split the 2005 State
Budget in two. The Israeli basic law - the nearest we have to a
constitution - states that no
government can survive if it cannot, once a year, find a Knesset
majority to approve its plan of
action for the next year. By a devious method, Sharon separated the
budget for disengagement
from the general budget. He then passed the disengagement budget by
his unofficial coalition
with the Left: Labor and Yachad (formerly Meretz).
The Disengagement law incorporates evil measures: Member of
Knesset Benny Elon says the
measures are draconian and would enable the government to "starve
settlers who refuse to
evacuate". The Prime Minister plans to issue a decree setting a deadline
for the evacuation of
each group of settlements. After the deadline, no Israelis are to be
allowed in the area without
special permission. The punishment for breaking the evacuation rules
is up to three years
imprisonment. This bill gives the security forces the right to arrest
settlers, including children,
who are gathered in groups of three or more and are demonstrating
against disengagement.
Natan Sharansky says these measures are exactly like those of
Bolshevik Russia. He should
know. He was imprisoned in Russia for ten years.
None of these issues greatly bother Israel's leftists, where the dominant
view is that the end of
dismantling settlements justifies any means, even the subversion of
Israel's democratic structure.
It is fundamentally illegitimate for Sharon, who won the election by
running against unilateral
withdrawal to proceed to implement that very program, which the
voters explicitly rejected, with
the aid of the Left wing parties the voters shunned.
May the Almighty open the eyes of President Bush and make him
understand the reality of Ariel
Sharon's Disengagement Plan. How Ariel Sharon plans to send the
police and the army to
forcibly and illegally evacuate 8,500 of his own Jewish People, and
drag mothers, fathers and
little children from their homes against their will. How Ariel Sharon
means to disinter Jewish
graves in Gush Katif, to make the very earth Judenrein. All this even
though the Bible, which
President Bush certainly believes in, clearly says that G-d gave Gaza to
the tribe of Judah, as
their share of the Holy Land.
When President Bush understands that Ariel Sharon is planning barbed
prison camps for those
who merely demonstrate against his evil plans, he will realize Sharon's
perfidy, and that Sharon
has tried to involve him in an entirely undemocratic evil scheme.
All of us who love the Holy Land, and believe in G-d's promises, Jews
and Christians alike,
congratulate President Bush on his victory. We believe that the G-d of
Israel has chosen him to
do His Will at this crucial time.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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November 6, 2004
His Great Obsession
by Yossi Verter
Haaretz, 22 October 2004
It was fascinating to hear the way Ariel Sharon's adversaries
and his supporters talked about him this week. According to
members of the Yesha Council of settlements, the prime
minister is encased in a space of his own, cut off, almost a
robot. "He's on Prozac," one of them said. Sharon's
confidants spoke of a person who "looks neither to the right
nor the left," who is in a mental bunker and is taking no
interest in anything or dealing with anything apart from
mustering a Knesset majority for his disengagement plan.
So there you are: for the first time, agreement has been
reached between proponents and opponents. Both sides
saw a man of 76, on the eve of the conclusion of his political
career, who has known many disappointments and defeats
and who, in the twilight of his life adopted a plan that is
totally contrary to everything he said and preached his
whole life. The plan, which Sharon was dragged into willy-
nilly, has become his obsession. It has distanced friends
who were by his side for a generation. It has wreaked havoc
in the Likud, the party Sharon created. It is freaking out the
entire political establishment, from one end to the other, and
it could lead to Sharon's political demise. Or to his political
resurrection.
Sharon spent most of his time this week putting out feelers
to potential supporters and giving pep talks to others. He
held a brief meeting with MK Shimon Peres, who emerged
satisfied, according to sources close to the Labor Party
chairman. Sharon apparently told him what he told other
MKs he met with: that after the disengagement plan is
passed by the Knesset he intends to start talks to expand
the coalition. Others, though, ascribe to Sharon a different
comment: that after the plan is approved the Likud rebels
will calm down and go back to functioning as part of the
faction. The National Religious Party will not leave the
government, at least not in the coming months, and Sharon
will be able to carry on with the current coalition until the
end of the Knesset's winter sitting, next March, which will be
the month of the cabinet votes on implementing the
withdrawal from Gaza.
"Sharon wants to see how things look on Wednesday" - the
day after the Knesset vote - "and then he will decide how to
proceed," the prime minister's aides say. That's one way of
saying that Sharon has no plan, no strategy. The main thing
is to get the disengagement plan approved by the Knesset.
After that, things will take their own course. It's very
possible that the course they will take will lead to elections
in mid-2005 or later next year. If it's up to Sharon, there will
be no elections. There is nothing to be gained from elections
now. He is not convinced that he will be elected Likud leader
again if Benjamin Netanyahu decides to run against him. He
knows he will have a hard time running an effective
primaries campaign on a disengagement ticket, with the
party split and torn between supporters and opponents of
the disengagement plan. He knows that the next group of
Knesset candidates that the Likud Central Committee will
elect will make him nostalgic for the current crop.
"If we go to elections now, before disengagement, we will
get 20 seats," said MK Michael Eitan in a meeting of the
Likud Knesset faction on Monday. "How can I appear at an
election rally together with Uzi Landau? What will I say to
the people there?"
As usual, opinions are divided in Sharon's immediate
vicinity. Some advisers are recommending that he go to
elections now, precisely over the disengagement issue.
Others would like to see him impose a new government on
the Likud faction, one with Labor and the Haredim (ultra-
Orthodox) as partners. Still others are urging him to start
forming a new party, a kind of all-inclusive center party,
based on the vision known as the "big bang." Sharon is not
keen on that idea. He finds it a bit fanciful, at his age, to
embark on an adventure like that.
Shimon Peres this week made the following observation: "A
moshavnik," he said, referring to a resident of a farming
village, "never buys another house. He never buys more
land. And he never goes to elections. Why? Because
everything like that costs him money. Sharon is a
moshavnik."
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November 7, 2004
HOW AND WHY AMERICA'S CHRISTIANS MUST CARE FOR
ISRAEL
by Professor Louis Rene Beres
The Land and People of Israel are now in great peril. Day
after day, men, women and children are fiendishly murdered
by Arab terrorists because they are Jews (ONLY because
they are Jews). And again, not all that many years after the
Holocaust, the people of Israel are widely abandoned to
villainous slaughterers - this time in a land wherein they
were promised safety; a "Promised Land."
In a large scientific poll undertaken for the European
Community just before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom,
the nations of that marvelously civilized continent proudly
identified Israel - together with the United States - as the
world's two most dangerous and evil countries. Syria, Iran,
Saddam's Iraq, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, North Korea barely
even made the list. So much for rational judgment in
"civilized" Europe.
Arab terror in Israel has only one overriding purpose:
Annihilation of the Jewish people in their own land, and
transformation of the Jewish State into "Palestine." This
purpose is openly genocidal - even by the codified
standards of contemporary international law - and it is not
kept hidden from anyone. The prevention of a second
Holocaust, however, is not only a Jewish responsibility. It is
a Christian responsibility as well, an absolutely sacred
responsibility. I refer to G-d's Covenant with Israel and to the
indisputable Christian view that Israel will be G-d's people
forever.
-------------
I am a Jew, and I am also a university professor. As a
professor I could simply ask you to understand that the
uniquely barbarous terror of Palestinians against Jewish
civilians is morally and legally unforgivable, and that merely
as compassionate human beings - we must oppose such
barbarism. After all, there is no other single insurgency on
the face of the earth where so-called "suicide bombers"
intentionally direct their murderous violence against nursery
schools, ice-cream parlors and municipal buses.
Nor is there any other insurgency on the face of this
bleeding planet where the "martyrs" fill their explosive
containers with nails and screws dipped in rat poison, to
maximize the pain and suffering of primarily children. Nor is
there any other terror movement that is so filled with
cowardice, as the plainest motive of the suicide-bomber is
not to die, but rather to conquer death altogether. It is only
by killing Jews that this coward is able to convince himself
that he shall in fact live forever. For him, the act of dying is
merely a momentary inconvenience on his fiery way to
heaven and the explicit promise of 72 virgins.
But I wish to speak to you this day in Houston ... as a Jew
as the Jewish son of Holocaust survivors who fled Austria
to Switzerland on their wedding night many years ago - on
July 31, 1938. The promise of the continuation of the people
of Israel and their ingathering to the Land of Israel is
revealed to all of you in Genesis (15:18): "On that day the
LORD made a covenant with Abraham, saying, `To your
descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt
as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.'"
At the heart of G-d's covenant with Israel is the promise to
the Jewish people - His People - to the land of Israel. For
Christians, this promise is the only "Road Map" of value. No
secular authority, not the Secretary General of the United
Nations, not even the President of the United States, can
revoke G-d's covenant with Israel. Israel is not "Palestine."
Israel, if we are to take G-d's word seriously, is the place for
ingathering of the Jews. Period! Whenever the Jews are in
their own land, the deserts bloom and water springs forth,
exactly as foretold in G-d's promise at Isaiah (43: 18-21) and
elsewhere.
As for the Palestinian Arab populations who wish to eject
the Jewish People from their own land, their presence in the
Land of Israel has surely not brought waters to the
wilderness or rivers in the desert. There are no gardens in
Gaza or edens in Ramallah, only feverish preparations for
bringing still more murderous violence to the Jews. The
Scriptures make it all very clear: The Lord G-d of Israel has
regathered His people from the four corners of the earth.
Since June 1967, His holy city of Jerusalem is back in the
hands of His people. Sometime, perhaps sooner than we
think, the great Jewish Temple will also be rebuilt - in
Jerusalem.
I will bless those who bless thee, and curse those who curse
thee." G-d's plan for those who stand against His land and
His people is clear, in Genesis. America's Bible-believing
Christians shall not stand by silently and watch the
persistent Palestinian assault upon Israel. (The Presbyterian
and Episcopalian churches should take heed.) So it is
written. Rather, they must show their care and love for G-d's
people and land in every way within their grasp and with
every fiber of their being. There is no more sacred
responsibility.
In the matter of Israel, our religious obligations - as
Christians and Jews - are entirely consistent with our
patriotic obligations. The enemies of Israel are the enemies
of the United States. Make no mistake about it, all of the
Palestinian terror groups are closely intertwined with Al
Qaeda; all the Palestinian terror groups wept at our capture
of Saddam Hussein (with whom they collaborated during the
1990-91 rape of Kuwait); and all the Palestinian terror groups
celebrated wildly on 9/11. Palestinian hatred of America is
passionate and undisguised. Israel's love of America, on the
other hand, is evident in every corner of the Jewish State.
These unassailable facts notwithstanding, we give annually -
from our hard-earned American tax dollars - several hundred
million dollars to Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Authority -
money which is converted directly into weapons for the
mass murder of Jews in Israel and is also distributed
meticulously to loyal Arafat henchmen involved in organized
crime and narcotics trafficking. In this way our very own
American government - seeking a politically correct way to
straddle the slippery fence of Middle Eastern politics - has
now become directly complicit in serving the enemies of
Israel.
"I will bless those who bless thee; and curse those who
curse thee." Yassir Arafat, whose hands are soaked in the
blood of thousands of Jewish women and children (in some
cases by his actual participation in killings and torture), was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is what we can expect
from a world that places politics above G- d's promise.
Yassir Arafat is a billionaire; one of the richest men in the
world. His family lives in unimaginable splendor as he doles
out $10,000.00 rewards to the impoverished families of Arab
suicide bombers. This is the man whom Israel has been
pressured to keep alive by our leaders in Washington.
Even for this president - although somewhat less than for
his predecessor (President Clinton's influence on Israel's
security was entirely nefarious) - the promise of Genesis has
become less important than the promise of power. Israel has
been asked, again and again, to depend upon the hollow
promise of international treaties and agreements. But
international law is not a suicide pact.
As even Thomas Jefferson once noted, in a scholarly essay
on the French Treaties, no nation is obliged to comply with
international agreements that would bring about its own
destruction. But whether one refers to the Oslo Agreements,
or to the "Road Map," or even to the privately-negotiated
(and especially repulsive) "Geneva Initiative," these human
compacts have had only one purpose for the Arab side - that
is, to remove the Jewish People from their own land.
There is ample and revealing evidence in Scripture for the
kind of agreements still being extracted from a tiny and
beleaguered Israel: "We have made a covenant with death,
and with hell are we at agreement....We have made lies our
refuge and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." (Isaiah
28, 15).
How big is Israel - G-d's own land? It is half the size of Lake
Michigan, or - for those who prefer less watery references -
half the size of San Bernardino County in California. Any
comparison to Texas, of course, would make Israel's size
even more incomprehensibly small. The people of Israel -
who include, of course, thousands of deeply committed
Christian Zionists - live under not only hourly threats of
extermination, but also under one of the most frenetic
barrages of insidious propaganda in human history.
Every day the news media - in this country including THE
NEW YORK TIMES; LOS ANGELES TIMES; CHICAGO
TRIBUNE; CNN; etc - transforms the Jewish victims into
victimizers, David into Goliath.
When, in desperation, the people of Israel build a fence to
keep their children from being burned and disemboweled by
Arab terrorists (disembowelment was prominently featured
and secretly filmed in the Palestinian "police" lynchings of
two Russian Jews who had lost their way in Ramallah), the
World Court does not put Arab terrorism on trial - it puts the
fence on trial. Again and again, the world is reminded that
the life of a Jewish child is substantially less valuable than
the olive tree of a Palestinian farmer; that the Israeli fence
crosses illegally into "Arab land;" that the Arabs must suffer
no "inconvenience" or "humiliation" (President Bush).
Better that Israel should suffer another bus load of
murdered and burned Jewish children.
Even if we should discard the Scriptural "Road Map" - and
we surely should never do that - there is ample evidence in
international law, including the terms of the League of
Nations Mandate and the results of repeated Arab
aggressions from 1948 onward, that Israel and the so-called
"territories" are Jewish land. Indeed, if we can recall that
Transjordan (later Jordan, in 1949) was illegally created by
Great Britain from Mandatory lands in 1922, there is even
good jurisprudential argument that Jordan is an integral part
of Israel.
The Arab world is comprised of 22 states of almost five
million square miles and 144 million people. The Islamic
World contains 44 states with one billion people. The Islamic
states comprise an area 672 times the size of Israel. Israel,
with a population of about 5 million Jews, is - together with
Judea/Samaria and Gaza - so small that its name on maps
must be printed off its own land mass, far out in the
Mediterranean Sea.
Speaking of maps, there are no official maps anywhere in
the Arab world that include Israel. The official Palestinian
Authority (PA) map of "Palestine" includes all of Israel. For
the PA, the PLO "Phased Plan" of 1974 is still fully-
operational. There is no "Two-State" plan for the
Palestinians; no Israel living side- by-side with "Palestine."
There is only "Palestine." The Palestinians continue to
speak - together with their "civilized" European allies whose
traditional anti-Semitism is now reinvigorated by
Arab/Islamic Jew hatred - of "occupied territories." Yet the
PLO was formed in 1964, three years before Israel even took
control of Judea/Samaria and Gaza - an inadvertent control
dictated by an indispensable war of self-defense.
What, then, was the PLO planning to liberate between 1964
and 1967? Not just Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also
"mainstream" and "moderate" PLO still calls for Israel's
"liquidation." To this very day - after all of the bowing and
scraping of American presidents before the defiled altars of
Arab terrorism - the PLO Charter still calls openly for Israel's
elimination. Unashamedly; self-righteously.
As for the Charter of Hamas, its position is rather
unambiguous: "There is no solution to the Palestinian
problem except by Jihad. We must imprint on the minds of
generations of Muslims that the Palestinian problem is a
religious one to be dealt with on this premise: ~I swear by he
who holds in His hands the Soul of Muhammad: I indeed
wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I promise to assault
and kill; assault and kill; assault and kill.'" These are the
exact words from the published Charter of Hamas. Are they
ever even quoted on the evening news or in our most
important newspapers?
Israel's conflict with the Arab/Islamic world has almost
nothing to do with Arab/Islamic interest in Jewish lands.
Israel comprises 1.2% of the land in the Middle East.
Arab/Islamic states take up 98.8 % of these lands. Israel is
despised in the Arab/Islamic world because it is Jewish.
Period.
As painful as are the torments for Israel of suicide-bombings
- the most blatantly cowardly forms of modern terrorism -
there is an even far- greater danger. I refer to the very real
prospect of WMD terror attacks upon Israeli populations, or
even of chemical/biological/nuclear war. Presently, with Iraq
immobilized by our own country's Operation Iraqi Freedom,
the main nuclear threat to Israel lies in non-Arab Iran. (And
let us not forget that Israel's own preemptive destruction of
Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981 is THE reason
why we can't find any nuclear weapons in Iraq today - it is
the ONLY reason). Moreover, it is not out of the question
that a nuclear-armed Islamic adversary of Israel might be
irrational; that is, it might be the individual Islamic suicide-
bomber in macrocosm - A state willing to "die" itself in order
to achieve a religiously- desired outcome. Nuclear
deterrence is based upon assumptions of rationality. Where
such assumptions might be unfounded, deterrence could be
immobilized. With this in mind, Israel - preferably together
with its only ally - the United States of America - must
prepare, once again, for acts of anticipatory self-defense.
Alternatively, it could place all of its hopes in ballistic
missile defense - in Israel the system is called the Arrow -
but these would be decidedly vain hopes. As we know from
our own recent American experience with the Patriot ATBM
system, even we are very far from achieving a minimally
high probability of interception. Best estimates are that in
the first Gulf War our American reliability of BMD intercept
was less than 10%. ....
A popular Palestinian refrain today is this: "Today the
Saturday people; tomorrow the Sunday people." We are both
now despised as "occupiers" in the imperiled Land of Israel
- Jews and Christians alike - and we both have an obligation
to protect and serve G-d's own chosen land. None of us -
Jew or Christian - now has any right to stand silently by as
Israel suffers grotesque calumny from the Arab/Islamic
world and growing threats to its physical survival from that
world. All of us must now recall from Isaiah a most sacred
injunction: "For Zion's sake, I will not hold my peace, and for
Jerusalem I will not be still."
What shall we do? We - Jews and Christians - know full well
that Israel and America are not the problem. We know that
Israel and America are the solution. We - Jews and
Christians alike - know full well that the Arab/Islamic world
of the Middle East is largely animated by a resurgent
medievalism - a giant leap backward into history that now
seeks to replace coexistence with Jihad (Holy War) and to
supplant Reason with hateful indoctrination.
The Christian world, along with its kindred Jewish world,
has already seen the violence of militant Islam - not only in
Israel, but in places like Lebanon; Egypt; Algeria; India; the
Sudan; Ethiopia; and elsewhere. Now is the time for
Christians to stand by their Jewish brothers and sisters
against a common and retrograde threat.
We together - Jews and Christians - have already borne
witness to the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy in the Land of
Israel. We have witnessed the ingathering of the Jews to
Zion and the recovery of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
We both know and recognize that Jerusalem is the exclusive
and eternal capital of the Jewish State - even when that
knowledge and recognition is denied by the President and
Secretary of State of these United States. (Contrary to
Congressional authorizations, our embassy remains in Tel
Aviv). Zionism and its corollary protection of Israel must
quickly become a LIVING article of faith for all Christians in
this great land of America. Christians believe that Zionism is
a prelude to the Redemption. For Christians, as for Jews,
Zionism is necessarily understood as a great and holy
movement. Zionism is understood by all Christians as a
divine process that cannot be turned back - and most
certainly not by a resurgent medievalism that seeks to
separate G-d's land from G-d's people through mayhem and
murder.
It is time to end. In conclusion, let me become more
pragmatic.America's Christians have an obligation to fight
anti-Semitism wherever it rears its ugly and decidedly un-
Christian head. America's Christians must stand up for
Israel in the newspapers, on the radio, on television,
wherever the Jewish State is under propagandistic and
violent attack. This includes horribly misguided statements
of "divestment" from Israel by America's Presbyterian and
Episcopal churches. America's Christians must recognize
and condemn the altogether unique barbarism of Palestinian
terrorism, acknowledging publicly that there is no "Cycle of
Violence" in the Middle East - no "equivalence" between
terror and counterterror - but only an endless cycle of Arab
attacks upon Jewish civilians followed by unavoidable
Israeli efforts at essential self-defense.
America's Christians should visit Israel, showing solidarity
with the Jewish People. America's Christians should have
courage, and should now join together with other churches
and movements that seek to protect Israel - e.g., the National
Unity Coalition; Christians For Israel Political Action
Committee (CIPAC); and the International Christian
Embassy in Jerusalem. (Also, my current work with Gary
Bauer, who is a great and heroic champion of Israel).
America's Christians should read beyond the mainstream
press, both at internet sources and informed print media. ....
America's Christians should become engaged politically in
defense of Israel, speaking out against politicians who
would themselves prefer personal power over Christian
duty.
Finally, America's Christians must pray for Israel, for the
Jewish People and for the Peace of Jerusalem - not a peace
of surrender to the new and sinister forms of totalitarianism,
but for a peace that would recall G-d's blessing upon
Abraham: "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse
Him that Curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of
the Earth be blessed."
===============
LOUIS RENE BERES was educated at Princeton (Ph.D.,
1971) and is the author of many books and articles dealing
with international relations and international law. He is Chair
of "Project Daniel," a small advisory group on nuclear
matters to Israel's Prime Minister. The above was a speech
delivered in Houston, Texas before a predominantly
Christian Audience.
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November 8, 2004
After Arafat
by Caroline B. Glick November 6, 2004
So PLO chieftain Yasser Arafat, the godfather of Islamic
terrorism, is now dying or dead in a French military hospital.
Will the passing of this mass murderer and master
propagandist have an immediate impact on the
Palestinians_ interest and ability to reach an agreement with
Israel? Can his death bring about the end of the Palestinian
terror war against Israel and perhaps usher in a period of
peace in the Middle East?
In his press conference Thursday, President George W.
Bush said that people who don_t believe in the applicability
of democracy to the Arab world cannot really believe in a
two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict with Israel. That
is, as long as the Palestinians remain governed by terrorists,
there is no way that they will be willing to live at peace with
Israel.
Is Arafat_s retreat from this world all that is required for the
Palestinians to achieve a democratic transformation that will
enable them to live at peace with Israel? In answering this
question, we should take an example from one of Arafat_s
guiding lights throughout his career: Adolf Hitler. Hitler_s
suicide in his bunker in Berlin in May 1945 was not what
enabled Konrad Adenauer to lead a democratic West
Germany. Adenauer could not have led, and certainly would
never have been a democrat, if all he did was take over the
reins of power from Hitler in May 1945. Aside from Hitler
dying, the Nazi regime he created was necessarily militarily
vanquished to the point of unconditional surrender. As well,
Nazi leaders -- both political and military -- were brought
before war crimes tribunals and hung or sentenced to long
prison terms.
Adenauer also presided over a German democracy whose
borders were determined by the Allies; where the Allied
Occupation Forces expunged Nazi propaganda from the
schoolbooks; barred Nazis from positions of power and
influence in all walks of life; forced the Germans to teach
their schoolchildren the evil they had wrought in the war;
and outlawed Nazis or anyone espousing a similar racist
ideology from entering politics in Germany. That is,
Adenauer_s ascension to power was only enabled as a
result of the total destruction of the Nazi power apparatus.
This historical precedent for the death of a dictator is
pertinent in the case of Arafat not merely because of his
ideological affinity with Hitler, but because Arafat, like Hitler,
has built an entire apparatus of power in Palestinian society
in his own murderous image. All of Arafat_s presumed heirs
_ from Mahmud Abbas to Ahmed Qurei to Muhammed
Dahlan to Jibril Rajoub are terrorists.
Abbas and Qurei owe their prominence to the fact that they
co-founded the Fatah terror group with Arafat. Abbas, who
has been upheld by the US and Israel alike as a _reformer,_
wrote his PhD dissertation and later a bestselling book
explaining why the Holocaust is a hoax. Abbas has overseen
and facilitated terrorist attacks for the past several decades
including in the now four year old Palestinian terror war.
Qurei, who also has a rich history of terror involvement and
apologetics, has bee the PLO_s chief money man for the
past three decades. From Tunis to Lebanon to the Gulf
States to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Qurei has overseen
a confidence operation that puts the Sicilian mafia to shame.
He has managed to simultaneously shakedown Palestinian
businessmen for hundreds of millions of dollars and to
blackmail the international community into contributing
billions of dollars in aid to the PLO. Qurei continues to
overtly support and applaud terrorist attacks against Israeli
civilians and as recently as September has made open calls
for terrorists to murder Israeli civilians. Muhammed Dahlan,
who with his Pierre Cardin suits and his flashing smile
easily won the hearts of Israeli and American policymakers
alike, is one of the architects of the current terror war. In
1994, Arafat placed him in charge of coordinating activities
with Hamas. Dahlan_s militia in Gaza has taken an active
role in carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians including
the infamous bombing of an Israeli school bus in November
2000 in which three people were murdered and a half dozen
school children lost their legs and arms. Since then
Dahlan_s forces have retained their leadership role in terror
attacks, as well as in the weapons smuggling and
development in Gaza. For their part, Gazans hate and fear
Dahlan for his strong arm tactics against businessmen and
day laborers in Israel.
Jibril Rajoub, Dahlan_s counterpart and rival in the West
Bank was responsible for setting up the PLO_s terror
infrastructure in the West Bank from 1994-2000. Since the
Palestinian terror war against Israel began in September
2000, Rajoub_s men have taken an active role in carrying
out terror attacks in Israel while still retaining their salaries
from his militia. Like Dahlan in Gaza, Rajoub is despised by
Palestinians on the West Bank for his extortion of
businessmen; confiscation of farmland; and raping of
Palestinian girls. And so on, down the line. There is today
not one Palestinian political party that is not a terrorist
organization. Of the twelve militias that Arafat formed in the
West Bank and Gaza since arriving on the scene in 1994,
there is not a single one that is not deeply involved in terror
activities. Documents seized by the Israeli army during
major combat operations in the West Bank have shown
Arafat_s generals ordering the carrying out of suicide
bombings and authorizing the payment of terrorist cell
members.
Under Arafat_s leadership, Palestinian society in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip has been indoctrinated to jihad in a
way that is unmatched throughout the Arab world, perhaps
with the exception of Al Qaeda training camps. Children
have been brainwashed to believe that they should see their
lives fulfilled by carrying out acts of genocidal mass murder
of Jews. Women have been inculcated with the inhuman
belief that rather than being the sources of life, their wombs
are bomb factories.
Through the Palestinian media, the school system, the
religious institutions, the sports teams and the
iconographers in art studios and on city streets, Palestinian
society over the past decade has been brought to believe
that their sole purpose as a people is to liquidate the Jewish
people. Suicide bombings in Israel are greeted with carnival-
like celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no
remorse, nor regret, no shame and no guilt in the face of the
wanton brutality and barbarity of suicide bombings. And so,
in light of the current state of derangement of Palestinian
society, does Arafat_s passing bear any significance for
policymakers?
On the one hand, the death of an evil man, of a mass
murderer is always a cause for celebration and hope. Yet on
the other hand, Arafat_s death will only constitute an
opportunity for building a better future if the Bush
administration uses his disappearance as a catalyst for a
true overhaul of Palestinian society. And this requires more
than just applying pressure on Israel to meet with and make
concessions to a new PLO warlord who was raised on
Arafat_s knee.
There is no doubt that there are Palestinians alive today who
have the potential to be Palestinian Adenauers. But for these
leaders to come forward the apparatus of genocide and
terror that Arafat has wrought over the past four decades
must first be dismantled. Arafat_s heirs have no more
chance of bringing peace and democracy to the Palestinians
than Hitler_s heirs could have brought to Germany. For
peace to arise, Palestinians must make a clean break from
their past.
Caroline Glick was a member of Israel's negotiating team
with the PLO from 1994-1996. She is currently the Deputy
Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Post and the Senior
Middle East Fellow at the Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid. in Washington, DC.
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November 10, 2004
GUSH KATIF VIEWPOINT: A LAWYER CALLS BE
REALISTIC!
by Rachel Saperstein, Neve Dekalim
My cousin's daughter, a Tel Aviv lawyer, called last night. Be
realistic she said. You know that you are going to be
expelled from Gush Katif. So get yourself a lawyer and start
negotiating for money now! We chatted a bit about family
news and then I explained why I wouldn_t discuss the
expulsion or compensation law with her or with any lawyer.
My dear lawyer/cousin, please understand. There is
something otherworldly about Gush Katif. We are tucked
into a corner of the world with our homes and lawns but
more than that we have a sense of purpose. For four and a
half years we have been bombarded and instead of fleeing
as is normal to do, we stayed, refusing to budge. My friend,
Zimra, said it is hard to be a Jew and obey the
commandments of Hashem. But the settlement of Eretz
Yisroel is one of the most important commandments of all. If
we choose to live in danger to fulfill this mitzvah then we
expect our children to do the same.
Living in Gush Katif means having an exceptional
relationship with the Almighty. We personally see His
endless miracles and we acknowledge them. Psychologists
visit to give us strength but they leave having been
strengthened by us. We have heard that Gush Katif people
are beautiful and our faces reflect an inner glow that sends a
clear message to the Prime Minister and his Knesset that we
will not give up the land of Israel to the Arab enemy. If the
Good Lord had wanted us to depart he would have
weakened our resolve. Instead we show strength and will
not capitulate to the draconian laws that the Knesset has
just passed. Have you read the Laws of Compensation, dear
lawyer?
If we do not agree to give away our homes or farms by a
certain cut-off date, our homes will be confiscated. All of our
personal belongings will belong to the State without
recourse to compensation. We will be forcibly removed,
brought to a makeshift court to be included into the prisons
now being built. We will have no recourse to a lawyer.
Specially trained soldiers and police can beat us. If we resist
we can be given a five-year prison sentence. In a short while
the law against demonstrations or meetings between more
than three people will be put into effect. The list goes on and
on.
We heard that Natan Sharansky turned white when he read
the 89 pages of the Disengagement plan. It reminded him of
his period of incarceration in Russia because he refused to
capitulate to the law. Sharansky said this is worse than the
worst laws of the Soviet Union. No, we are not realistic. For
the sake of Israel and for the future of democracy in Israel
we dare not be realistic.
Dear lawyer, read the laws that the lawmakers have just
signed. The laws are illegal and immoral. Gush Katif will
remain long after this Knesset falls.
*******************************************************
November 11, 2004
DEATH OF A SERIAL MURDERER
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN)
JERUSALEM
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Dear Friends,
I am writing this Letter from Jerusalem only moments after
Yasser Arafat was finally pronounced dead.
It is with deep sadness that I read about the world's reaction
to this serial murderer's death. I am not going to discuss
the reaction of the Arab Muslim world. Arafat was their
standard bearer, their great hope of dislodging the "Jewish
Cancer" from the Holy Land. They were complicit in helping
Arafat create the fiction of a "Palestinian People" and a
"Palestinian Homeland", in what they perceived to be their
own interest.
No, what makes me sad is that the world leaders have
bought into this extraordinary lie of the Arabs and Arafat,
and are pledging to help make Arafat's "vision" of an Arab
state on Jewish Biblical Land a reality. This is the very land
which the G-d of Israel promised the Jewish People in our
Judeo-Christian Bible.
"I will ratify My covenant between Me and you and between
your offspring after you, throughout their generations, as an
everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your
offspring after you; and I will give to you and to your
offspring after you the land of your sojourns - the whole of
the land of Canaan - as an everlasting possession; and I
shall be a God to them." (Genesis, 17:7-8)
Some examples of the reactions of world leaders to Arafat's
death:
U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN: "I am deeply
moved. It is tragic that he did not live to see his vision
fulfilled!"
What vision? To drive the Jews into the sea?
FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC called Arafat a
"man of great courage and conviction".
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR wants to remind us
that Arafat was a Nobel Peace Laureate.
FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT CLINTON: "Arafat's greatest
moment was September 13, 1993... which led to seven years
of negotiation and relative peace."
"Relative peace"? Does Bill Clinton mean that ONLY 1,288
people were killed on Arafat's DIRECT orders since 1993?
This would be equivalent in American terms to 64,400
murdered!
Most disturbing to me were the remarks of President George
W. Bush who, was just reelected with a popular vote
majority of 3.6 million. He said that Arafat's death was a
"significant moment" in Palestinian history. That remark, of
course, could be interpreted in different ways.
However, President Bush has previously endorsed the
establishment of a Palestinian State on Jewish Land. He
renewed that pledge immediately after his reelection last
week.
President Bush said that with a new Palestinian leadership
that asks for help in building a democratic, free society
"there will be an opening for peace". When that happens,
Mr. Bush said, the "United States of America will be more
than willing to help the institutions necessary for a free
society to emerge so that the Palestinians can have their
own state".
"The vision is of two states, a Palestinian state and Israel
living side by side," he said, "and I think we have got a
chance to do that, and I look forward to being involved in
that process".
Who is that wonderful moderate leadership which President
Bush is talking about? Arafat has built an entire apparatus
of power in Palestinian society in his own murderous image.
All of Arafat's presumed heirs - from Mahmud Abbas to
Ahmed Qurei to Muhammed Dahlan to Jibril Rajoub - are
terrorists.
(The following information about the so-called "moderates"
in line to succeed Arafat is taken from an article by
Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick.)
MAHMUD ABBAS owes his prominence to the fact that he
co-founded the Fatah terror groups with Arafat. He wrote
his PhD dissertation and later a bestselling book explaining
why the Holocaust is a hoax. He has planned and overseen
terrorist attacks for the past several decades, including the
latest four year old Palestinian terror war.
AHMED QUREI also co-founded the Fatah terror group with
Arafat. He has been the chief PLO money man for the past
three decades. He has blackmailed the international
community into contributing billions of dollars in aid to the
PLO. He continues to overtly support and applaud terrorist
attacks against Israeli civilians, and as recently as
September he has made open calls for terrorists to murder
civilians.
MUHAMMED DAHLAN is a favorite of Israel and American
policy makers alike. He is one of the architects of the
current terror war. In 1994, Arafat placed him in charge of
coordinating activities with Hamas. Dahlan's militia in Gaza
has taken an active role in carrying out attacks against
Israeli civilians, including the infamous bombing of an
Israeli school bus in November 2000, in which three people
were murdered and a half dozen school children lost their
legs and arms. He is active in weapon smuggling to Gaza
and in frequent terror attacks.
JIBRIL RAJOUB is Dahlan's counterpart and rival in the
West Bank from 1994 to 2000. Rajoub's men take an active
role in carrying out terror attacks in Israel while they still
retained their salaries from Arafat.
Today there is not one Palestinian political party that is not a
terrorist organization. Of the twelve militias that Arafat
formed in the West Bank and Gaza, since arriving at the
scene in 1994, there is not a single one that is not deeply
involved in terror activities. Documents seized by the Israeli
army during major combat operations in the West Bank and
Gaza, have shown Arafat's generals ordering the carrying
out of suicide bombings and authorizing the payment of
terrorist cell members.
Are these the moderate Palestinian leaders that President
Bush is talking about? Are Mahmud Abbas or Ahmed Qurei
or Muhammed Dahlan or Jibril Rajoub going to be any
different than Arafat himself? After decades of murdering
and of indoctrinating young people to murder as a way of
life, can we really believe that these "moderate leaders"
would suddenly metamorphous into Jeffersonian
democrats?
To my surprise, after the U.S. election, I received quite a few
letters from Evangelical Christians telling me that they could
not bring themselves to actually cast a vote for George W.
Bush, because of his stated intention to divide the Hold
Land. Nonetheless, they were happy that Kerry lost.
The reason that I myself, and millions of Bible believing
Christians and Jews voted for President Bush despite his
expressed support for a Palestinian state on Biblical Land
is, I believe, twofold.
1. A belief that John Kerry was a great danger both to the
interests of the United States and Israel.
2. That his Christian constituency will ultimately convince
the President of the danger for the United States to go
against G-d's Word.
Judea, Samaria and Gaza, are all part of Israel's Biblical
Heartland. Beit El, Shilo, Hebron, Shchem (Nablus) and
Jerusalem should be just as much a grassroots issue as the
belief in family values, and opposition to partial birth
abortion and gay marriage.
At the heart of G-d's covenant with Israel is the Promise to
the Jewish People - His People - to the Land of Israel. For
Bible believing Jews and Christians, this is the only "Road
Map" of value.
The Land and People of Israel are now in great peril, both
from within and without. The Prime Minister of Israel, in an
unholy alliance with the Israeli Left, the architects of Oslo, is
planning to drag Jewish families forcefully out of their
homes in Biblical Gush Katif. The Quartet, the United
Nations, the European Union, Russia, and unfortunately the
United States, is hell-bent on dividing Israel and giving the
Arabs an additional state carved out of the Holy Land.
Could a Holocaust happen again?
The prevention of a second Holocaust is not only a Jewish
responsibility. It is a Christian responsibility as well. We
should remember G-d's blessing upon Abraham: "I will
bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee:
and in thee should all the families of the Earth be blessed."
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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November 13, 2004
(The following is a translation of a Hebrew article which
appeared on Tuesday, November 9, 2004, in the Yediot
Ahronot, one of Israel's leading newspapers.)
And the Land Is Sold in Perpetuity
by Aryeh Eldad
Sharon has already decided to relinquish East Jerusalem,
and Olmert is aiding him. The Zionist Organization
established the Jewish National Fund as an instrument for
the redemption of the land and its transformation into
national land. Jews were called upon to donate to this Fund,
also by means of the blue-and-white boxes with the map of
Eretz Israel emblazoned on them, that were distributed
throughout the world. Generations of tots sang "This is our
box, the redemption of our soil."
But in the last generation the box has become a collector's
item, the map of Eretz Israel has been expunged from our
hearts and from political programs; the concept of
redemption has become a disgraceful term that the Prime
Minister includes in the definition of "messianism" when he
seeks to disengage from the bearers of the flag that only
yesterday he marched under.
The Zionist movement, from the time of Ussishkin and
Hankin, the redeemers of the lands of the Jezreel Valley, to
that of Moshe Zar, the redeemer of the lands of Samaria, and
Irving Moskowitz, the redeemer of the lands of Jerusalem,
knew that it was right to purchase lands from Arabs. They
paid the full price, and at times even for double and triple
what the land was worth. They made this land available to
Jewish settlers. Now, right before our very eyes, this trend
is being reversed.
A number of months ago the Hebrew University sold 91
dunams [about 23 acres] in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of
Jerusalem to a Palestinian bank. This is a plot of land that a
Jewish family of German immigrants donated to the
University 70 years ago, and now the need arose to make
use of it as the solution to financial distress. The University
first offered to sell the plot to the Israel Lands
Administration. The ILA declined, and Irving Moskowitz's
representative entered the picture. But even though the
price that he offered was higher than that of the Palestinian
bank, the land passed into Arab hands.
I directed a Knesset query on this matter to Vice Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, who is also responsible for the Israel
Lands Administration, and who responded after three
months: "The Israel Lands Administration decided to reject
the offer to purchase lands, because the land is situated in a
settled area within the bounds of the city of Jerusalem, its
realization would have required construction for the citizens
of the State of Israel. The purchase of the lands in these
circumstances would have been done for the purpose of
marketing by tender to that [i.e., Arab] population."
Of what concern to him is redemption? Of what concern to
him is national land? A donation of land in Jerusalem
became commercial property for the Hebrew University, and
the person charged with responsibility for the national lands
declares that he would sell the land to Arabs if he had
purchased it - and therefore it did not matter whether the
University sold it, or the ILA. The Jewish National Fund had
an inviolable principle, not to sell national lands in
perpetuity, not even to Jews! Those entrusted with
responsibility for the national land give lip service to the
strengthening of [Jewish] settlement in Galilee, in the
Negev, and in Jerusalem, and abandon land that is already
Jewish owned. With the money of the oil states, the Arabs
are establishing an Ishmaelite National Fund, to buy lands
from Jews. And the guard? Has he fallen asleep? No, he
simply collaborates and sells, brazenly.
Sharon has already decided to relinquish East Jerusalem,
and Olmert is merely his faithful agent. They are so
occupied in denouncing "messianism" that these two have
turned themselves into the obedient beasts of burden of the
Israeli left and of Arab national aspirations. Also in
Jerusalem. Whoever deceives himself that the
disengagement will stop at the fences of the Gaza District
and northern Samaria should look closely at the actions of
the Prime Minister and his Vice Prime Minister, also in
Jerusalem, and he will understand: they are selling Israel. In
perpetuity.
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November 14, 2004
The Father of Modern Terrorism
by Andrew McCarthy
The true legacy of Yasser Arafat.
For the last week of his life, the scuttlebutt about the
Palestinian movement's centrifugal force concerned whether
his impending demise was driven by AIDS, likely contracted,
according to leaked foreign-intelligence reports, by his
omnivorous, orgiastic sexual appetite. This as if, after three
quarters of a century's worth of megalo-sadism, additional
indicia of Yasser Arafat's throbbing depravity were somehow
necessary. And so, evidently, they were. Thus is reflection on
his life, a signal emblem of the late 20th century's triumph of
terror and fraud over security and reason, as instructive
about our times as it is about him.
A Thug's Life
About him, while there is much to say, there is little to glean.
He was a thug. One of the most cunning of all time for sure,
but quite simply a ruthless, thoroughly corrupt, will-to-power
thug.
As is often the case in the modern information age, just about
everything in his life is known and almost nothing in his
proffered legend is true. The man airbrushed in Thursday-
morning encomiums from Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac
(among others) as the courageous symbol of Palestinian
nationalism was not really named Yasser Arafat, was not a
native Palestinian, and tended to sit out warfare with Israel
whenever conventional fighting was involved.
Although he occasionally claimed to have hailed from what
are now the Palestinian territories, Muhammad Abdel Rahman
Abdel Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini was actually born in Egypt
in 1929, the fifth child of a well-to-do merchant. He was
educated in Cairo, although, after his mother's death when he
was four, he lived at least part of the time with an uncle in
Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was then the heart of the territory known as
Mandatory Palestine, which chafed under British rule as a
result of a 1918 League of Nations mandate. The era, to put it
kindly, was not the Crown's finest hour. Sowing seeds for
recriminations that persist to this day, the Brits appeared
during WWI to promise some or all of the territory
alternatively to Arabs and to Jews, only to exacerbate matters
by keeping Palestine themselves for three decades.
Arafat's formative years were thus spent in a milieu of
sectarian violence, annealed in a hatred for Jews that, far
from ever subsiding, propelled him. As an engineering
student in Cairo during World War II, he was powerfully
influenced by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Islamic mufti of
Jerusalem who was closely aligned with Hitler and schemed
from Berlin to import the Fuhrer's genocidal program to
Palestine. Indeed, as the New York Sun observed in an
editorial last week, one of el-Husseini's biographers relates
that Arafat was a blood relative of the mufti, who preferred
him to another up-and-comer, George Habash (al-Hakim),
among the fiercest of Israel's Nasserite enemies who
eventually founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), a frequent Arafat ally.
Nevertheless, though he may have been a local gun-runner,
the 19-year-old Arafat refrained from combat in 1948, when,
upon Israel's declaration of independence, it was attacked by
the Arab League (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and
Iraq), which was defeated in the war still regarded by
Palestinians and other Arabs as "al-Nakba" (the Catastrophe).
Nor did he partake in the 1956 Suez War, although, as
recounted last week by the Wall Street Journal's Bret
Stephens, he later claimed to have done so.
Raising Terror
While Arafat's mantel as the "Father of Palestine" is dubious
given that he is singularly responsible for the failure of a
Palestinian nation to emerge, his credentials as the "Father of
Modern Terrorism" are solid. In the late 1950's, he co-founded
Fatah, the "Movement for the National Liberation of
Palestine." His me'tier, and thus Fatah's, was the sneak attack
on soft Israeli targets, the better to maximize carnage and
fear. The first efforts were ham-handed: failed attempts in
1965 to bomb the national water carrier and the railroad. But
the organization soon hit its stride, successfully attacking
villages and civilian infrastructure. By 1969, Arafat was the
chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the
umbrella group he never ceased to dominate after merging
Fatah into it a year earlier. The PLO had a single purpose: the
destruction of Israel.
Actually, make that two purposes. The PLO was also a
fabulously profitable criminal enterprise. Though Arafat
purported to have made it big in the engineering business in
Kuwait, British investigators, as Stephens reported,
concluded after a searching probe that his wealth stemmed
from sidelines his organization maintained in "extortion,
payoffs, illegal arms-dealing, drug trafficking, money
laundering and fraud" that yielded billions. Throughout his
career, moreover, Arafat proved a master at culling funds -
whether from levies on strapped Palestinian workers or
gushing subsidies from starry-eyed European and American
governments. From these, he skimmed millions and stashed
them throughout the world - including in Israeli banks -
keeping his wife on a lavish $100,000-per-month allowance in
Paris while his people starved, and, of course, blamed Israel
for their troubles.
By the late 1960s, the PLO had set up shop in Jordan,
wreaking havoc in the kingdom. Arafat and his affiliates soon
became innovators in a tactic later refined by al Qaeda: the
civilian airliner as terror weapon. On February 21, 1970, the
PFLP - by then also under the PLO arch - bombed SwissAir
Flight 330 enroute to Tel Aviv, murdering 47 passengers and
crew. Eight months later, on September 6, they attempted a
spectacular atrocity: a quadruple hijack, which now appears
an eerie harbinger of the tectonic bin Laden operation on
another September day 31 years later.
As recalled in the riveting account of "Black September" by
hostage David Raab, all the hijacked flights were bound from
Europe to the United States. One, a Pan-Am 747, was taken to
Cairo, where it was blown up on the tarmac just after the
passengers were allowed to exit. A second, targeting an El-Al
aircraft, was foiled in flight by Israeli sky marshals. But a TWA
707 and a SwissAir DC-8, with a combined 310 passengers
and crew, were hijacked to a Jordanian dessert. The terrorists
segregated Israeli, American, Swiss, and West German
passengers for captivity - releasing the others - and
threatened to kill the hostages and blow up the planes unless
jailed militants were released. Under international pressure,
King Hussein resolved to reassert control. War broke out on
September 13. By the time it ended two weeks later, the
hostages had been released, but over 2,000 people had been
killed as Arafat and his terrorist band were driven out of the
country.
In the first of his many rises from the ashes, Arafat relocated
to Lebanon. Staging from there, the PLO embarked, almost
exactly a year to the day later, on another of the late 20th
century's most infamous murder sprees. On September 5, in
the midst of the Munich Summer Olympic Games of 1972,
eight PLO operatives (a wing of Arafat's Fatah group known
as the "Black September" brigade) carried out a plan that
enabled five of them to steal into the Olympic village, quickly
murder two members of the Israeli team (the wrestling coach
and a weightlifter), and take nine other Israeli athletes
hostage. The terrorists demanded the release of 200 Arab
prisoners and safe passage back to the Middle East. German
authorities lured them, with their captives, to the airport, but a
rescue attempt was badly botched. In the resulting battle, the
Palestinians killed all nine Israeli athletes by grenade and
gunfire, as well as murdering a German policeman. Five of the
terrorists were killed in the struggle, but German authorities
managed to capture the remaining three. True to form,
Arafat's organization responded the following month by
hijacking a Lufthansa jet and taking the passengers hostage.
The Germans capitulated, releasing the killers.
Arafat, meanwhile, also kept Israel's support network, the
U.S., in his sights. On March 1, 1973, another eight-member
Black September cell raided the Saudi embassy in Khartoum,
Sudan, taking as captives two American government officials,
Ambassador Cleo Noel and the Charge d'Affaires George
Curtis Moore, as well as a Belgian diplomat named Guy Eid.
The terrorists demanded the release of Sirhan Sirhan in
California (jailed for the 1968 slaying of Robert F. Kennedy),
of Palestinians imprisoned in Jordan (including Black
September's own Abu Daoud, who later claimed to be the
master-planner of the Munich Olympics massacre), and of
Palestinian women jailed in Israel. When they were rebuffed,
the terrorists murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid, and then
anxiously surrendered to the Sudanese authorities.
These murders, theoretically an act of war against the U.S.,
were never "solved" in the sense of convicting the man
ultimately responsible. The FBI was reported to have
reopened an investigation of them earlier this year, and at
least one State Department spokesman has strangely claimed
the link between Arafat and Black September was never
conclusively established - even as he acknowledged Black
September's membership in Arafat's own Fatah faction.
Nonetheless, a number of Israeli and American intelligence
officials have long maintained that Arafat personally ordered
the killings by issuing a radio message, to wit: "Why are you
waiting? The people's blood in the Cold River cries for
vengeance" - Cold River reportedly being a predetermined
code directing the executions. Furthermore, in the kangaroo
court that passed for a Sudanese prosecution, one of the
terrorists, Salim Rizak, testified: "We carried out this
operation on the orders of the Palestine Liberation
Organization"; while another witness, the Sudanese official
who conducted interrogations, reported that the killers had
taken their cues from radio messages emanating from Fatah
headquarters in Beirut. Thus abound dark suspicions, not to
mention an explicit allegation by former NSA official James J.
Welsh, that Arafat's complicity was shunted aside for what
was perversely perceived as the greater good of
diplomatically cultivating him. Meanwhile, of the eight
surrendering Black September terrorists, two were released
immediately by the Sudanese due to purportedly insufficient
evidence, while the remaining six were convicted, sentenced
to life-imprisonment, and...released the very next day to the
open arms of the PLO.
From his Lebanese perch, Arafat's rampage of Israel
continued apace. On April 11, 1974, the PLO slaughtered
eighteen residents of Kiryat Shmona in their apartment
building. A month later, on May 15, Palestinian terrorists
attacked a school in Ma'alot, murdering 26 Israelis, including
several children. Then, in June, the PLO - through the
"Palestinian National Council" - endorsed what it called a
"phased plan" to obliterate Israel.
Weak-Kneed Appeasement
Seven years earlier, of course, Egypt, joined by Syria and
Jordan, had foolishly launched yet another war of aggression
against Israel. They were routed in the Six Day War of June
1967, at the end of which Israel's territorial holdings had
drastically swelled to include the West Bank and East
Jerusalem (taken from Jordan), the Suez and Gaza (from
Egypt), and the Golan Heights (from Syria). It was understood
that this expansion would not be permanent - in accordance
with U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Israel agreed
eventually to withdraw from some undetermined portion of
these territories in exchange for peace treaties that settled
borders and acknowledged Israel's right to exist. In Arafat's
1974 phased plan, however, the PLO reaffirmed its rejection
of Resolution 242 and committed itself to establish, in any
ceded territory, a Palestinian state that would work toward
Israel's destruction.
Adumbrating the global strategy for dealing with terror that
would reign supreme through the quarter century leading up
to the 9/11 attacks, the world reacted to Arafat's
contemptuous belligerence with weak-kneed appeasement.
The PLO was rewarded with observer status in the U.N., and
on November 13, 1974, a triumphant and utterly unrepentant
Arafat, holster strapped to his hip, addressed the General
Assembly in New York City. By 1980, the European Economic
Community recognized him as the "sole legitimate
representative" of the Palestinian people.
Not that there weren't setbacks. In 1979, Israel had struck a
historic peace deal with Egypt in which it agreed to a phased
pull-out from the Sinai (completed in 1982) and acknowledged
that there should eventually be some form of autonomy for
the Palestinian enclaves of the West Bank and Gaza. With its
southern flank calmed, Israel wearied of continuing missile
attacks and other sorties launched against its northern
communities from the PLO's Lebanese stronghold. Israel
invaded in 1982, inducing Arafat to flee to Tunis.
From Killing Klinghoffer to "Nobel" Star
The PLO's bloodlust did not abate. In 1985, a cell identifying
itself as the Palestine Liberation Front, led by Mohammed
Abu al-Abbas, hijacked the Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro.
As his horrified wife looked on, the terrorists viciously shot a
69-year-old, wheelchair-bound Jew named Leon Klinghoffer,
then tossed him overboard to die in the sea. Despite
indications that the PLF was acting on instructions from PLO
headquarters in Tunis, a State Department spokesman
incredibly contended as late as 2002 that the PLF had been a
renegade group broken off from the PFLP, and that Arafat
was probably blameless in the Achille Lauro operation. But,
aside from the fact that the PLO's website (for its U.N.
mission) listed the PLF as one of its constituents, Abbas had
actually been a member of Arafat's own PLO Executive
Committee. More to the point, when Abbas died last year in
Iraq (where he had been harbored by Arafat's staunch ally,
Saddam Hussein), Arafat issued an official statement lavishly
praising him as a "martyr leader" and "a distinguished fighter
and a national leader who devoted his life to serve his own
people and his homeland."
Not long after Achille Lauro, Arafat began in 1987 to blaze the
path that, by the mid-1990's, sickeningly transformed him into
a regular White House guest and a Nobel Laureate. As was
his Orwellian wont, he started on the road to faux
respectability with a terrorist barrage that became known as
the First Intifada. (With Arafat, it had to be the First Intifada
because there would, of course, be a Second.)
The siege was ignited by two unconnected events in the
powder keg of Gaza: the December 6 murder of an Israeli,
followed quickly by the tragic December 10 death of four
Palestinians in a car accident which was falsely, but
unrelentingly, hyped as a revenge killing. Skirmishes quickly
broke out in Gaza, and careened through the West Bank and
East Jerusalem. The violence, a roller-coaster of lulls and
explosions, lasted over six years. In the first four years - that
is, the period before the ebb that marked the onset of the
1991 Gulf War - Israeli defense forces responded to more
than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade
attacks, and 600 assaults with guns or explosives, all of
which killed 27 and wounded over 3000. Although the PLO
was rivaled in the operation by militant Islamic groups such
as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Arafat's group dominated the so-
called "Unified Leadership of the Intifada," using leaflets to
direct the days and targets of attacks.
Israelis were not alone among the terror casualties. Arafat
unleashed PLO death squads to kill numerous Arabs who
were deemed to be collaborating with the enemy. In 1990, the
Arabic publication Al-Mussawar reported Arafat's defense of
the tactic: "We have studied the files of those who were
executed, and found that only two of the 118 who were
executed were innocent." As for those putative innocents,
Arafat sloughed them off as "martyrs of the Palestinian
revolution."
Even as the violence hummed, Arafat assumed his
statesman's face for the West, to great effect. As the body
count mounted in 1988, the U.N. granted the PLO's observer
mission the right to participate, though not vote, in General
Assembly sessions. In addition, the administration of George
H. W. Bush held open the possibility of direct dialogue if
Arafat would renounce terrorism and agree to be bound by
Resolution 242. This he purported to do on December 16,
1988, claiming to acknowledge "the right of all parties
concerned in the Middle East conflict to exist in peace and
security...including the state of Palestine and Israel and other
neighbors according to the Resolutions 242 and 338"; and
asserting: "As for terrorism...I repeat for the record that we
totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism,
including individual, group and state terrorism." Like the
Europeans, the U.S. officially recognized Arafat as the
legitimate leader of the Palestinians.
The bankruptcy of these claims was revealed as the Intifada
ensued and Arafat blundered by publicly aligning with
Saddam both after the invasion of Kuwait and throughout
Iraq's scud missile attacks on Israel. But just as it seemed he
might finally fade away, the strongman caught a lifeline when
Gulf War victory failed to carry the first President Bush to re-
election. Bush's successor, President Bill Clinton, saw in the
intractable Israeli/Palestinian conflict the chance for an
enduring legacy, and saw in Arafat a viable "peace partner."
With Clinton as determined midwife, Arafat and the
government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the
ballyhooed Oslo Accords of 1993. The Palestinian Authority
was created, Arafat was appointed its chief executive, and a
plan for eventual self-government by Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza was set in motion. But euphoria over this
seeming breakthrough blurred appreciation of both Arafat's
innate mendacity and Oslo's patent failure to resolve key
contentious issues, including final borders, the status of East
Jerusalem, and the rights of Israeli settlers and Palestinian
refugees - under the delusion that Arafat would work in
good faith toward a peaceful, comprehensive settlement with
Israel over a five-year period.
The mega-murderer was suddenly statesman, star, and, in
1994, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize - a once-coveted
honor now, by his attainment of it, reduced to a joke best
listed among his countless victims. Thanks to this peace
partner, it soon became clear that Oslo was a charade, a case
of a credulous American president choosing his honey over
his lying eyes.
The Palestinian Authority reneged on its promises of
democratic reform and establishment of the rule of law -
holding elections exactly once and never again after Arafat
was overwhelmingly elected. Arafat also failed to honor,
despite incessant pleading by Clinton administration figures,
a commitment that the Palestinian National Charter would be
amended to remove clauses calling for the destruction of
Israel. The PA made a show of appearing to comply,
disingenuously noting the provisions purportedly slated for
nullification and calling for a new draft of the Charter to be
produced. No revised Charter, however, was ever
forthcoming. Meanwhile, what education system existed in
the territories, much like Arafat's public statements in Arabic
(always far more menacing than the English he spoke to the
Western world), continued to instill hatred for Jews and calls
for the demise of their state. Naturally, the terrorist activity
also proceeded, with the PA ineffectual in halting it - when
not encouraging it outright.
There should have been surprise in none of this. As Stephens
reports, in 1996, Arafat brayed to an Arab audience in
Stockholm, "We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and
establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life
unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population
explosion.... We Palestinians will take over everything,
including all of Jerusalem." Asked about his plans on
Egyptian television in 1998, Arafat explained that strategic
pause was a venerable Islamic strategy, referring specifically
to the "Khudaibiya agreement" in which the Prophet
Mohammed made a ten-year treaty with the Arabian tribe of
Koreish, but broke it after two years - during which his
forces used the security of the pact to marshal their strength
- and then conquered the Koreish tribe.
Such machinations were certainly no secret to the
governments and media in the U.S., Europe and Israel itself.
They knew precisely who Yasser Arafat was. But politically
and culturally, hopeful hearts and good intentions were for
them more essential than results on the ground - the
"process" always took precedence over the "peace." Thus, in
the Wye River Accords of 1998, the Clinton administration
and Israel, now led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
took the terrorist at his word when he promised, yet again, to
crack down on terror, this time in exchange for a pull back of
Israeli forces (which had entered the territories in response to
terror attacks), the ceding of additional territory to PA control,
and even the release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners -
many of whom had been incarcerated for terrorism offenses.
14 9/11s
The violence never stopped. Yet, with his presidency winding
down in 2000 and desperate for an accomplishment that
might balance a record besmirched by scandal, President
Clinton boldly sought a final time to forge a comprehensive
settlement. He brought Arafat and yet another new Israeli
Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, to Camp David. Under intense
U.S. pressure, Israel offered the creation of a Palestinian state
over 90 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with its
capital to be in East Jerusalem. In a move comprehensible
only if one accepts that Arafat was incorrigibly devoted to
Israel's extermination - in which case, it was entirely
comprehensible - Arafat rejected this stunning offer, with
poison-pill insistence that millions of Palestinians be
accorded a right of return to Israel.
The breakdown of negotiations resulted, like night followed
day with Arafat, in a new round of terror: the Second Intifada,
which continues to this day. This program has been pursued
mostly by suicide bombings - often including explosives
strapped to children encouraged by the culture of shahada, or
martyrdom, which thrived under Arafat's corrupt and
dysfunctional leadership. In the main, attacks have willfully
targeted civilians in busses, restaurants, shopping centers,
synagogues, hotels and other public centers. Since 2000,
approximately 900 Israelis, three quarters of whom were
civilians, have been murdered. To extrapolate to American
proportions, for a country the size of Israel this is the rough
equivalent of over 40,000 dead - or, as the Hudson Institute's
Anne Bayefsky has calculated, about 14 9/11s.
Arafat's world, like everyone else's, radically changed on
September 11, 2001. The Bush Doctrine, announcing a
commitment to eradicate terrorists and terror supporting
governments, did not immediately spell the end for the
Palestinian strongman. He was, however, gradually
marginalized and reduced to pariah status - but for the
markedly less frequent, and ineffectual, paeans from Europe,
the Islamic world and the U.N.
The magic began to fail even his most trusted old tricks. For
example, on December 16, 2001, with American forces
suppressing terrorists in Afghanistan, an ostensibly
chastened Arafat appeared on PA-controlled Palestinian
television to warn Hamas and Islamic Jihad against "all
military activities" against Israel, and to purportedly "renew"
his "call to completely halt any activities, especially suicide
attacks, which we have condemned and always condemned."
This time, the ploy fell flat - undercut, no doubt, after the
Nobel laureate characteristically followed it up only two days
later with a speech at a Ramallah rally - the kind of red meat
always conveniently ignored in the halcyon pre-9/11 days.
"With God's help," he boasted:
"next time we will meet in Jerusalem, because we are
fighting to bring victory to our prophets, every baby, every
kid, every man, every woman and every old person and all the
young people, we will all sacrifice ourselves for our holy
places and we will strengthen our hold of them and we are
willing to give 70 of our martyrs for every one of theirs in this
campaign, because this is our holy land. We will continue to
fight for this blessed land and I call on you to stand strong."
The jig was up. Arafat's celebrity might be a product of the
"international community" but his relevance was strictly
made-in-the-USA, and America was no longer buying. The
administration of President George W. Bush let it be known
that Arafat would no longer be dealt with. When the president
eventually proposed his "roadmap" to resume negotiations
toward an eventual Palestinian state, he snubbed Arafat and
made unconditional cessation of all Palestinian terrorism a
nonnegotiable prerequisite. Critically, the administration also
eased the restraints that had for decades compelled Israel to
accord its sworn enemy so wide a berth.
Now under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel responded
forcefully to the terror onslaught, including through high-
profile "targeted assassinations" of Hamas leaders. Its forces
tightened the noose around Arafat. Unable to leave his
squalid Ramallah compound with any assurance that he'd
either survive or be permitted to return, the "president" of
what was more a racket than a government - and decidedly
not a nation - remained holed up there for over two years
until his evacuation to Paris, in extremis, in late October.
There he died on Wednesday, one of history's most repulsive
conmen and killers.
"The power of bad men," Burke famously observed, "is no
indifferent thing." The power of this evil man informed an age
- the age of terrorism. The Israelis and Palestinians may
never coexist peacefully, but as long as Yasser Arafat lived
they didn't even have a chance.
******
Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the 1995 terrorism
prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven
others, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies.
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November 15, 2004
Arafat Tape
Audio tape of Arafat's famous speech in English,
in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May 10, 1994
Price: $7 (Includes shipping, handling and a transcript)
Only a few months after he signed the Clinton-Arafat-Rabin
Agreement (the Oslo Accords), Arafat discloses his true
intent to a Muslim audience in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Arafat promised, in his speech, to do exactly what the
Prophet Mohammed did when he was militarily weak.
Mohammed signed a peace treaty with the Jewish tribe of
Koraish, but as soon as he became militarily strong, he
abrogated this agreement and slaughtered the entire tribe.
To order the tape, send a check to: Women in Green, P.O.B.
7352, 91072 Jerusalem, Israel.
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November 15, 2004
Another one bites the dust
By Joseph Farah
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Who says we shouldn't rejoice when an evil person dies?
Certainly not the Bible.
In fact, Proverbs 11:10 says: "When the wicked perish, there
is shouting."
I feel like shouting today. I feel like rejoicing. The world is a
better place today because that cold, calculating monster is
no longer in it. He is meeting his eternal judgment. And I hear
it is crazy cold down there.
Why don't I agree with the New York Times, Kofi Annan,
Jimmy Carter and others who are actually mourning this
degenerate pervert?
Yasser Arafat was a murderer of Christians, Jews, Israelis
and Americans – including U.S. diplomats, tourists, innocent
women and children. Yasser Arafat was an unrepentant
terrorist – the modern-day inventor of Arab terrorism, an
inspiration for Osama bin Laden and others. Yasser Arafat
was an exploiter of his own people, keeping them in squalor
and perpetuating their hatreds while padding his own Swiss
bank accounts.
I had my own experiences with Arafat as a Middle East
correspondent. He tried to kill me, too, while I was visiting
Lebanon once. But he missed with his rockets and artillery.
I'm still here, but Arafat is dead.
Arafat had tried to take over Lebanon. But he was chased out
by the Israelis. He directly or indirectly caused the deaths of
about 40,000 Lebanese, however.
He killed tens of thousands, some in cold blood, others – like
the U.S. diplomats in 1973 – through his gleeful orders.
Why should we mourn a monster like this? Why should we fly
a flag at half-staff – unless we approve of his antics?
Do Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and the New York Times
understand that Arafat – their hero, their friend – was a Nazi
sympathizer? Would the truth about that make any difference
to them?
In an interview in 2002 published in Al Sharq al Awsat, a
London Arabic daily, reprinted in the Palestinian daily Al
Quds, Aug. 2, and translated by Palestinian Media Watch,
Arafat called the Arab leader and Nazi ally, Hajj Amin al-
Husseini, "our hero." He drew an analogy between himself
and al-Husseini who survived as a leader despite world
pressure against him because of his Nazi ties.
"We are not Afghanistan," said Arafat in the interview. "We
are a mighty people. Were they able to replace our hero Hajj
Amin al-Husseini? There were a number of attempts to get rid
of Hajj Amin, whom they considered an ally of the Nazis. But
even so, he lived in Cairo, and participated in the 1948 war,
and I was one of his troops."
Arafat seldom tells the truth, but, in this case, his facts were
correct.
Hajj Amin al-Husseini was the grand mufti of Jerusalem
leading up to World War II. He supported the Nazis. He met
with Adolph Hitler. He was a strong proponent of the Nazi
program for mass murder of the Jews.
In fact, Arafat's hero became a German agent, and the British
tried repeatedly to arrest him as a spy.
Perhaps the mufti's "greatest achievement" was the
recruitment of tens of thousands of Muslims in Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Albania to the German SS. His Arab legions
later participated in the massacres of thousands of partisan
Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.
On March 1, 1944, Arafat's hero was in Berlin making a
dramatic radio broadcast: "Arabs! Rise as one and fight for
your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This
pleases God, history and religion. This saves your honor."
The Nazi mufti visited numerous death camps and
encouraged Hitler to extend the "Final Solution" to the Jews
of North Africa and Palestine. In fact, his only condition for
recruiting the Arab legions in the Balkans was a promise from
Hitler to wipe out the Jews of the Middle East after the war.
The grand mufti was not just Arafat's "hero," as he says.
Arafat was, in fact, so close to al-Husseini that the young
terrorist called him "uncle." Arafat's real name is Rahman
Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa al-Husseini, though his actual blood
relationship with al-Husseini is in question. His entire career
was sponsored by the dreaded Nazi mufti. He was, indeed,
Arafat's mentor, his inspiration for 40 years of terror, murder,
hatred and international duplicity.
Let this be Arafat's final epitaph: He was a terrorist. He was a
murderer. He was a liar. He was pro-Nazi scum.
I, for one, am glad to see him dead.
********
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of
WND and a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. He is
also the founder of WND Books. In addition to his daily
column in WND, he writes a nationally syndicated weekly
column available to U.S. newspapers through Creators
Syndicate.
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November 16, 2004
Upcoming Events
Dear friends-
The following weeks and months are crucial for the state of
Israel. PM Ariel Sharon is going ahead, with his suicidal plan
against the will of the public,. But Women in Green has
good news. It is in the power of the People of Israel to stop
Sharon's plan and thus to save Israel from its crazy political
leadership. For this all of need to participate in the (many!)
upcoming events. Mark your calendar and join us.
1) SUNDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 21st,2004
Handcuffed Human Chain for Jonathan Pollard
Media Release -From: The Committee to Bring Jonathan
Pollard Home
Contact: Nissan GanOr and/or Adi Ginzburg
JONATHAN POLLARD THE NATION IS WITH YOU!
On November 21, 2004 (8 Kislev) Jonathan Pollard will
complete his 19th year in prison and enter year 20 of a life
sentence for his activities on behalf of
Israel.
The Committee to Bring Jonathan Pollard Home invites the
public to show their support for Jonathan on the 20th year
anniversary date by participating in a handcuffed human
chain event on November 21st. Participants will sport plastic
handcuffs and form a human chain from the American
Consulate in Jerusalem to the Prime Minister's residence.
Former Prisoners of Zion and former POWs will all be there to
participate. You can participate too! Here are the details:
When: November 21, 2004
Where: Jerusalem, Israel
Time: 5:30 PM [17:30]
Location: Meet in Independence Park on Rechov Agron
(Independence Park is opposite the American Consulate)
Donning of plastic handcuffs in the Park and formation of
human chain will be followed by a demonstration outside of
the Prime Minister's residence at 6:30 PM [18:30]. Come one!
Come all!
For further information and to arrange transportation: 054-
643-7218 or isit www.FreePollard.org
Hebrew Flyer for this event at www.jonathanpollard.org
******
2) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22nd, 2004
SIGNING UP RESERVISTS ON THE "I REFUSE TO EXPEL
JEWS FROM ISRAEL" PETITION
Where: Jerusalem, main entrance to Central Bus station
When: 9:30am
Please call to confirm you are coming: Nadia
050-5-500834 or Anita 050-5-777254
******
3) TUESDAY , NOVEMBER 23, 2004
WOMEN IN GREEN MEETING OF MEMBERS DETAILING
PLAN OF ACTION.
TOPIC: "Together we can stop Sharon's transfer plan"
Where: at WIG headquarters, 23 Pele Yoetz Yemin
Moshe, Jerusalem
When: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004 at 7:30 pm
New members can join at door (100NIS)
******
4) DECEMBER 1st, 2004
WE ARE ALL GUSH KATIF & SHOMRON!
YESHA is organizing a two-week protest tentcity in front of
the Knesset starting Monday, November 22nd . Every day
hundreds of people will be participating in different activities
of protest around the knesset. The two weeks of protest will
end with a mass demonstration in front of the knesset on
Wednesday December 1st. Details will be available in the
newspapers in the coming days.
******
5) HANUKA WITH WOMEN IN GREEN IN THE SHOMRON!
Reserve the date: CHANUKKA, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12,
2004- from 8:30am till 6:00pm
an exciting trip to two of the four communities in Northern
Samaria that Ariel Sharon wants to destroy, expel its Jewish
inhabitants and hand over to the Arab enemy. Come and see
with your own eyes why Israel cannot give up on those
crucial areas. In addition we will distribute toys and candies
to the children of those brave communities . A day you do not
want to miss. Call our office today and reserve seats on the
bus as places are limited.
Price: 75 NIS per Adult; 35 NIS per child under 13
years old
*******
6) WATCH MACHSOMWATCH
For the past few months, Women in Green teams have been
going on weekly trips to the different IDF checkpoints-
handing out drinks and treats to our dear brave soldiers and
helping them deal with the horrendous harassment from
Machsomwatch (The women of the extreme left who come to
the IDF checkpoints to harass the IDf soldiers and thereby
help the Arab enemy). In order for our campaign to be even
more succesful, we need more people to join us. We urge
you to help us continue by * donating to Wig, or raising
funds for this campaign * organizing parlor meetings in
your synagogue or church and community centers and
homes. Where possible, we will gladly come and explain why
this campaign is so vital and what it accomplishes. However,
we are sure you will be able to handle such meetings by
yourselves. as the purpose and goals of our being at these
checkpoints and assisting IDF soldiers are self-evident.
"While you alone can not complete all that has to be done,
you are not free from the obligation to make the necessary
effiorts.." (Ethics of the Fathers 2:21 ) There is much that has
to be done and accomplished ...... See you at all of the above
scheduled events!
Ruth and Nadia Matar
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Novemer 17, 2004
STOP THE WAR AGAINST FELLOW JEWS
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN)
JERUSALEM
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Dear Friends,
Our son, David Matar, my co-chair Nadia's husband, called
us last night.
"I want you to hear it from me," he said, "What I just
decided to do, before you hear it on the news. I have sent
a letter to my commander General Elazar Stern, who is
responsible for manpower in the Israeli Defense Forces,
that I am no longer able to do my reserve duty."
The following is an English translation of David's letter in
its entirety:
To Chief Manpower Branch IDF
General Elazar Stern
Dear Sir,
My name is Dr David Matar, ID # 015484298, army ID #
4662007, rank: Medical Officer.
I have served as a chairman of a medical committee at the
IDF Jerusalem Recruitment Office for the last 15 years,
beginning with my regular duty for a year and a half in '89-
'90, when I served as Chief Medical Officer in the
Jerusalem Recruitment Office, and since then, as a
reserve officer on one-day duty, that has usually exceeded
thirty days a year. I am supposed to serve, according to
the current law, until January 2006, that is another 14
months.
To my great chagrin and sorrow, the Knesset has
approved the so-called "disengagement plan" and
"evacuation-compensation" law of PM Ariel Sharon. As
you know, the term "disengagement" is a euphemism for
the forcible expulsion of more than 8000 Jews from their
homes and lifework in the Gaza district and the Northern
Shomron, and the uprooting and destruction of tens of
flourishing communities, including every last synagogue
and cemetery.
The Prime Minister has charged the army with the overall
responsibility for the execution of his plan, even though
the actual act of expulsion is supposed to be carried out
by the Border Patrol and Police. The media is full of
reports on serious preparations by the army to carry out
Sharon's program, including detailed planning,
intelligence gathering, training of picked army units on
"dummy settlements", and the construction of detention
camps for citizens who dare to resist, all with the openly
declared intention to use any and all means to suppress
any resistance of the Jewish residents to expulsion from
their homes and destruction of their life's work.
All this means that the army hierarchy has received and
accepted orders to declare war on a large group of
innocent and loyal citizens, to define them operationally as
a hostile target, and to break into their homes by force, in
order to drag out men, women and children. These are
preparations for battle, by any definition, featuring planned
violence by our security forces against Jewish citizens,
which will degenerate very quickly into tragedies
reminiscent of the Altalena episode. These self-inflicted
losses do not include the heavy casualties in our midst
from Arab fire during, and especially after, the period that
the plan is carried out.
This insane order is patently illegal, and therefore every
soldier, Jew or non-Jew, should adamantly refuse to obey.
The IDF was founded to defend the people and land of
Israel by fighting Arab enemies - not by attacking Jewish
brothers. In addition, as a religious Jew who tries to
observe the Torah's commandments, I view any order that
conflicts with the commandment of building the Land of
Israel as equivalent to a command that attempts to impose
the desecration of the Sabbath or the eating of swine.
Such orders cross a red line, since they force the soldier
to choose between his commitment to the most
fundamental ideological principles, as opposed to his
loyalty to the institutions of army and state.
Even though I, personally, as a doctor in the Jerusalem
Recruitment office, do not expect to receive orders to
uproot our brothers from Gush Katif and the Northern
Shomron, I am not even now able, emotionally and
ethically, to serve in a hostile army that has declared war
on me, on my family, on my friends and neighbors, and a
large part of our people. This remains true even if a
thousand "disengagement" laws are passed by all 120
Knesset members, with the combined sanction of a
popular referendum, Israel's Supreme Court, the U.N., and
the U.S. State Department.
Therefore, I am hereby returning my army reserves card. I
am, of course, ready to bear the consequences of this act -
including a court-martial.
I am actually looking forward to an opportunity to raise my
views in a public forum, so that others, who serve in the
reserves in non-combat positions, can be inspired to do
likewise. It goes without saying, that if Sharon's plan is
officially shelved or cancelled, that I will be happy to return
to serve as I have faithfully done these past 15 years.
Dr. David Matar, IDF Medical Officer
* * *
It is fortunate that David warned us, because the airwaves
are now full, pro and con, of his decision not to be party to
the illegal expulsion of 8,000 fellow Jews from their
homes.
David is our first born son. He has always been our pride
and joy. He did his premed studies at Columbia University
in New York where he graduated summa cum laude.
Subsequently he completed his studies at Harvard Medical
School, where he chose Pediatrics as his specialty.
The possibility of Jewish mothers with babies being
forcibly dragged out of their homes has long loomed like a
nightmare in his mind. He felt, I am sure, that he had to
personally do what he could to stop this insane illegal plan
to wage war against fellow Jews.
Michael and I are, of course, very proud of David. But, as
a mother, I am concerned about the army's threat to court-
martial him. However, we both respect our son's decision
and pray that others serving in the reserves will have the
courage to follow in his footsteps.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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November 20, 2004
Onward Christian Voters
By Michael Freund, Jerusalem Post
By now it should be clear that George W. Bush wasn't the
only big winner to emerge from this month's US
presidential election.
In terms of flexing political muscle and shaping the
outcome of the vote, no group proved more successful
than America's evangelical Christians. They flocked to the
polls, boosting the incumbent and helping to set the
country's political agenda for the next four years.
While some American Jews view this development with
mounting concern, my reaction is far more sanguine, even
upbeat: Israel should be thanking God for the rise of the
Christian Right. They are the best hope for ensuring long-
term US diplomatic support for the Jewish state in an
increasingly hostile world.
Sure, American Jews still wield a great deal of political
power, thanks to their concentration in key states and their
extensive involvement in the political process. But the
American Jewish community is in the throes of a
protracted demographic decline and their power will
inevitably diminish over time.
By contrast, US evangelicals, many of whom proudly refer
to themselves as Christian Zionists, are clearly on the
upswing.
According to the Pew Research Center, evangelical
Protestants accounted for 23% of the entire American
electorate, or nearly one out of every four voters, in the
recent election.
And, as the Los Angeles Times noted, "Christian
evangelicals provided much of the passion and manpower
for President Bush's reelection" (November 12).
Indeed, political guru Arthur Finkelstein was even more
blunt, telling the Israeli daily Ma'ariv that "Bush's strategy
secures the power of the American Christian Right not
only for this term. In fact, it secures its ability to choose
the next Republican president."
Even outside the ballot box evangelical Christians are a
force to be reckoned with.
A recent study by the Scripps Survey Research Center at
Ohio University found that an astonishing 38 percent of all
Americans describe themselves as being "born-again"
Christians.
In places such as the southern United States, the survey
revealed that a majority of residents, or 52 percent, fall
into this category.
And because of their attachment to the Bible, more and
more evangelical Christians are stepping forward to
embrace Israel, demonstrating a level of commitment and
support that is both sincere and deeply-rooted.
For years, groups such as the Unity Coalition for Israel
have been toiling both to build grassroots political support
for the Jewish state and to explain Israel's case to
members of Congress. They have helped win Israel
numerous friends in mid-western American states such as
Kansas, where the Jewish community is small.
Others, such as Pastor Robert Stearns of New Jersey,
have succeeded in organizing evangelicals to pray on
Israel's behalf. Last month, Stearns launched an annual
"Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, a worldwide
effort that involved tens of thousands of churches from
Korea to California.
Organizations such as Bridges for Peace, the International
Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and the International
Christian Zionist Center have been at the forefront of
encouraging Christian tourism to Israel and raising funds
for various social welfare projects, while leaders such as
the Rev. Pat Robertson have been outspoken on Israel's
behalf.
Hence, it is about time Israel and American Jewry put
aside many of their reservations and doubts and started to
engage evangelical Christians more candidly and openly.
Of course, we must remain on guard against missionary
elements seeking to proselytize Jews. But it would be
unfair, and even wrong, to suspect all Christian supporters
of Israel as being surreptitious soul-snatchers.
Many are sincere and devoted in their love for Israel, their
sole motivation being to live in accordance with God's
promise to the patriarch Abraham: "I will bless those who
bless you, and those who curse you shall be cursed."
To turn down their friendship and backing because of
misguided stereotypes regarding their motivations would
be an act of sheer folly on our part.
As Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International
Federation of Christians and Jews and a pioneer in the
field, has argued, "It is wrong and shortsighted of Israel
and the Jewish community not to reach out to these
people, even as they become more and more powerful.
The Jewish community needs to get its act together."
That message is beginning to get across. MK Yuri Stern
recently created a Christian Allies Caucus in the Knesset,
which works to promote better relations between Israel
and Christian groups. And the Israeli Ministry of Tourism
has been working more closely with US Christians to
promote visits to the Holy Land.
But far more needs to be done. The bond between US
Christians and Israel has all the makings of a historic
alliance, one that could both heal the painful wounds of
the past while paving the way for tremendous
accomplishments in the future.
Properly cultivated, the relationship could help strengthen
our position immeasurably and guarantee bedrock US
support for Israel for years to come.
***
The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications &
Policy Planning under former Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.
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November 23, 2004
Pollard Speech- Don't Trade Me For Barghouti
[IMRA has obtained an English translation of the speech
slated for
presentation in Hebrew at the Handcuffed Human Chain
Rally in
Jerusalem, November 21, 2004]
What do Marwan Barghouti, Dennis Ross and I have in
common?
- Marwan Barghouti is serving multiple life sentences in an
Israeli prison for
murdering Jews.
- Dennis Ross, a Jew, is the former US Special Envoy to
the Middle East
(1988 to 2000).
- I, Jonathan Pollard, am serving a life sentence in America
for my activities
on behalf of Israel.
The common thread that links us all is the amorality of the
Israeli
Government, and its constant willingness to sacrifice its
people on the altar
of political expediency. I would like to discuss that idea
with you today in
honor of an historic occasion. On this day, 20 years ago,
an historic record
was set. For the first time in modern history, a bona fide
agent was expelled
from the embassy of the country he served, and thrown
out into the street to
be arrested by local security services. The nation he
served became the
first and only nation in the history of modern espionage to
cooperate in the
prosecution of its own agent. Indeed, they did such a
thorough job, that he
received an unprecedented life sentence for an offense
that usually merits a
2 to 4 year sentence, or less. I am that agent; and Israel is
the nation I
served.
Now in my 20th year of a life sentence with no end in sight,
it is irrelevant to
talk about whether or not I was abandoned and betrayed
by the country I
served. The facts speak for themselves.
Lately there has been a barrage of speculation in the
Israeli media about a
new proposal to secure my release. The deal is that I may
be traded, along
with Azzam Azzam (the Israeli Druse in prison in Egypt) for
the release of
Marwan Barghouti, murderer of Jews and mastermind of
the Intifada. Let
me state from the outset that I have always been opposed
to gaining my
freedom in exchange for the release of murderers and
terrorists. My
position has not changed. I deserve to be released
because my sentence is
unjust and because the U.S. has promised my release on
more than one
occasion, including a commitment by the President of the
United States at
the Wye Summit in 1998. Someone who fundamentally
agrees that I
should be released because my sentence is unjust, and
not in return for
unilateral concessions by Israel, is the former US Special
Envoy to the
Middle East, Dennis Ross.
In his new book, "The Missing Peace" (Farrar Straus
Giroux, N.Y., 2004)
Ross writes that at Wye the President asked him if freeing
me would be
important to Israel. "Yes," [Ross replied] "because he is
considered a
soldier for Israel and there is an ethos in Israel that you
never leave a
soldier behind in the field." (page 438) In a footnote on the
same page
Ross added: "I also said I was in favor of [Pollard's]
release, believing that
he had received a harsher sentence than others who had
committed
comparable crimes. I preferred not tying his release to any
agreement..."
No sooner does Ross acknowledge the injustice of my
sentence and that I
deserve to be freed unconditionally, than he advises the
President NOT to
free me! Why? Because of my great value as a political
asset and a
bargaining chip. Ross writes that he cautioned the
President against
releasing me until greater concessions from Israel could
be secured during
final status talks. Referring to me as "it", he told the
President: "It would be
a huge payoff [for Israel]; you don't have many like it in
your pocket...You
will need it later, don't use it now." (page 439)
By understanding Ross' attitude towards me as an asset,
not a person, it
becomes possible for the first time to understand Prime
Minister Sharon's
indifference towards me. Sharon has deliberately,
calculatedly ignored
every opportunity to secure my release ever since he took
office. Why?
Because he too sees me as a political asset, and not as a
human being.
Sharon is apparently reserving me for a time that my
release will be the fig
leaf for some very, very dastardly initiative. Perhaps
something as dastardly
as enabling another mass murderer of Jews to become
prime minister of
the P.A. just as Israel once did for the arch murderer,
Yassir Arafat. In the
meantime, the Government of Israel recognizes that the
Americans regard
me as a very valuable bargaining chip. But instead of
pressing for my
release, Israel has learned how to exploit the bargaining
chip without ever
having to pay the price. Israel has learned how to
manipulate my name and
my fate in the media in order to sell the Israeli public on its
morally
repugnant actions.
Over the years, when it was calling for relinquishing the
Golan Heights;
when it was determined to divide Jerusalem; when it
abandoned Hebron;
when it wanted to renounce the Temple Mount - and so on
- the
Government publicly raised the hope that I would be
released as a reward
for making these terrible concessions. Each time the
Nation comforted
itself, thinking, well at least we will get Pollard... But it was
a lie. Even at
Wye, the bid for my release was simply to be the fig leaf to
sell a bad deal
to the Israeli public. As Dennis Ross puts it (page 455):
"[The Prime
Minister] said he couldn't do the deal without it. He said
that he'd made
concessions on the prisoners based on the assumption
that he would have
Pollard and on that basis he could sell the prisoners
[release], indeed, could
sell the whole deal". But like anything expendable, I was
dropped from the
agenda when the Americans reneged on their commitment
to free me. And
Israel released the Arab murderers and terrorists all the
same.
More recently, when debate was raging in the media about
the morality of
swapping terrorist chiefs Obeid and Durani, plus hundreds
of terrorists, for 3
dead Israelis and one live Israeli, Tanenbaum, my name
was linked to the
deal to soften the blow. As soon as the Israeli public got
used to the idea of
this obscene deal, my name was dropped and the deal was
done. There
was never any intention of including me in the deal, only of
raising the
Nation's expectation that I would be. Now, apparently,
Israel is planning to
do the same thing in order to justify releasing Marwan
Barghouti, the
multiple murderer of Jews. But this time, the stakes are
higher. And this
time, Israel might actually be forced to follow through.
When news of the proposed 3-way deal broke, my close
contacts began to
investigate. Here is what we have learned from reliable
sources in this
country and in Israel:
1. It is Israel, not the Arabs, who is pressing for
Barghouti's release. Officially,
Israel insists that it will never free Marwan Bargouhti. He is
a murderer sentenced to
multiple life sentences and freeing him, they claim, would
undermine the rule of law.
Unofficially, sources, including one very close to the
Prime Minister, admit that Israel
has been grooming Barghouti in prison to be the next
leader of the Palestinian
people. It is an open secret in Israel that top officials have
been secretly meeting
with Barghouti throughout his incarceration. He is taken
out of his prison cell and
brought to clandestine locations for these meetings, to
enlist his help in promoting
various initiatives with the Palestinians, such as the cease
fires. These secret
sessions are part of the "grooming" process.
2. It is Israel, not Barghouti's military Tanzim, who leaked
the story that there are
talks aimed at putting together a 3-way swap for
Barghouti's release. Officially,
Israel reviles Barghouti and dismisses any possibility of
releasing him. Unofficially,
Sharon's Government and his closest people believe that
Barghouti is someone that
they can work with, someone who can control the
Palestinian street. They see him
as someone who can unite the warring factions among the
Palestinian militias and
hold them in check.
3. It is Israel, not the Arabs, which is now secretly
supplying positive PR material to
the media about Barghouti. More than just whitewashing
Barghouti, Israel is
seeking to create the impression that there is such
popular support amongst the
Palestinian people for Barghouti, that it cannot be resisted
or denied. This is an
attempt to create an atmosphere where the U.S. feels it
must step in and direct
events. The Americans can then "force" Israel to release
Barghouti, and Israel can
do so with "clean hands."
4. It is Israel, not the Arabs, which is attempting to recast
Barghouti as the
Palestinian version of Nelson Mandela. Israel has done
more behind-the-scenes
work in the media in the last week to ensure the release of
the murderer Barghouti
and his subsequent election as Prime Minister of the PA,
than it has over the past 20
years to lay the foundations of my release! In fact, in the
last 2 decades, Israel has
never done anything in the media to help explain my case
to the American public or
to the Israeli public - in spite of my repeated requests for
this kind of help. My
contacts tell me that for Barghouti, they are working
overtime. Israel's behind-the-
scenes diplomacy and secret advocacy for Barghouti is
just another reflection of
government amorality. It is not a question of ethics but of
expediency. Morality has
nothing to do with it, and that is what makes this so
contemptible.
Finally,
5. It is Arab public opinion, not Israeli public opinion
which prevents Israel from
releasing Barghouti outright. Israel must make it appear
that it is being forced to
free Barghouti, and that a high price has been paid for his
release. Unless Israel
gains something very valuable in return for Barghouti, the
Palestinian "street" will
consider him a traitor, a collaborator, an Israeli stooge; his
credibility will be zero and
his life in danger. There are not many high-priced
bargaining chips left, and fewer
yet, of great value that won't cost the Palestinians
anything. Unfortunately, nothing I
say about my own unwillingness to have any part in such
a morally degenerate
scheme will make any difference. The Government will do
whatever it must, to get
what it wants, regardless of what I or anyone else may say
or do.
If they succeed, remember that only G-d knows how the
full story will turn
out. It says in Tehillim that sometimes G-d allows evil to
flourish, only to cut
it down all the more thoroughly (Psalm 92, Verse 7).
Although some may
believe that they rule the world, our fate both as
individuals and as a Nation
is, was, and always will be in the hands of the Almighty. As
G-d fearing
Jews we take our motto from Tehillim (Psalm 62,Verse 7):
In G-d is my
salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my
refuge is in G-d!
Twenty years ago, on November 21, 1985, when I was
thrown out of the
Israeli Embassy, the Torah portion of the week was
Vayeitzei. Literally:
"And he went out". And I went out of the Embassy. This
week, for the first
time in 20 years, the Torah Portion corresponding to the
November 21st
anniversary is once again Vayeitzei. Let us hope that this
time, Vayeitzei
means, "And he went out of prison."
May the G-d of Israel bless us all and keep us safe from
harm! May He
speedily redeem us all - individually and collectively - to
do His will. May He
return me and my beloved wife, Esther, swiftly to the Land
so that the next
time we meet at a Pollard rally, it will be for the purpose of
giving thanks to
HaShem. Amen! So it be His Will!
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November 23, 2004
Nadia Matar Writes About the Pollard Handcuff Rally
Justice4JP Release - November 23, 2004
J4JP Prefacing Note:
Nadia Matar, co- leader of Women for Israel's Tomorrow