ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING ARCHIVE
July 2003
A Service of CIJR
Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research
Prof. Frederick Krantz, Director
Volume III, No. 680 •
Thursday, July 31, 2003
ROAD MAP TO WHERE?
Israel H. Asper
Toronto, July 29, 2003
The following are highlights
of the keynote address given by Israel Asper, Chair of Canwest Global
Communications, at the Memorial Evening marking the 63rd anniversary
of the death of early Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinksy. The public
lecture was sponsored by B’nai Brith and Herut-Likud.
…My function tonight is to comment on the facts, and not the philosophies
confronting Israel as it addresses the American, Russian, European Union
and UN-promoted "road map to peace in the Middle East"--and
to help answer the question, Is this a road map to peace? A road map
to heaven? Or a road map to hell? Is it a trap, or a treadmill to nowhere?
It has been called by some critics “Oslo refurbished,” and
“Auschwitz updated,” by others. U.S. Christian leader Pat
Robertson has called it “insanity and the end of Israel.”
Its supporters call it a panacea for peace, but I fear they may be the
same naïve and delusional pacifists whose rose-coloured view of
Arab intentions is responsible for the Oslo debacle of death and destruction…
We are all familiar with the 1993 Oslo peace process. In the seven years
of that activity, Israel delivered to the Arabs everything that it promised,
but the Arabs did not keep a single one of the commitments they had
made. Terrorism continued, and the incitement to violence and hatred
continued in the Palestinian schools, mosques, media, and political
rhetoric.
In 2000, under the pressure and influence of President Bill Clinton,
and in a desperate attempt to achieve a final peace under the Oslo umbrella,
the Camp David Summit was held, where Israel's Labor Prime Minister
Barak made an egregious offer, giving the Palestinians almost everything
they outrageously demanded. But even that wasn't good enough for Arafat,
who rejected it and returned to Ramallah to plot, organize and launch
the current uprising. Then 9/11 intervened, and suddenly President George
W. Bush had to face the ugly realities of Islamic terrorism… On
June 24, 2002, President Bush made a speech in the Rose Garden…
There, he recognized Arafat as the master terrorist he has been all
his life, and called for a "new and different Palestinian leadership
so that a Palestinian state can be born." He said such new leadership
must not be "compromised by terror," must practice democracy,
reform all its institutions, abandon terror, end incitement to hatred
and adopt a new constitution giving its people full liberty… He
also spelled out what would be expected of the Israelis.
This was the forerunner to the road map, which was formally tabled by
the Quartet three months ago, on April 30. The Palestinian authority,
created under the Oslo agreements, said it would accept the road map.
Israel, determined not to reward terrorism, tabled 14 reservations,
and after being promised by President Bush that the reservations would
be given serious and sympathetic consideration as the process moved
along, agreed to follow the map.
As you read, listen to, or watch today's media, you would think that
the road map is all about Israel refusing to free captured terrorist
prisoners. You would think it was about Israel building a security fence
to keep out Arab terrorists. You would think it is about Israel being
forced to let Palestinian workers, terrorists amongst them, come back
in to work in Israel. You would think it was about demanding that Israel
make "confidence-building" gestures to support Palestinian
Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas… The road map is about none of these.
In fact, none of these matters is even part of the road map. They are
merely red herrings dragged across the picture by the Palestinians to
try to distract the world from the fact that they are not carrying out
their commitments that the road map actually provides, and to which
they say they've agreed.
The road map is divided into three phases, the second being contingent
on the first being complete, and the third being contingent on the second
being complete… Phase One [consists of the following steps]:
1. President Bush's speech of June 24/02 was adopted as the cornerstone
philosophy.
2. The Palestinians are to immediately implement an unconditional cessation
of violence.
3. The Palestinians are to immediately end the incitement to hatred
and the celebration of homicide bombers.
4. The Palestinians will draft a new constitution providing for free,
fair and democratic elections and government.
5. Israel is to take steps to normalize Palestinian life.
6. Israel will withdraw from Palestinian areas occupied after September
28, 2000 as and when security is provided by Palestinians.
7. Israel issues an unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to
a two-state vision for Palestine.
8. The Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism
and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain
individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis
[including] confiscation of illegal weapons and the consolidation of
security authority…
9. The Arab states are to cut off public and private funding and all
other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence
and terror. And, all donations to the Palestinian authority be properly
accounted for and used for proper purposes.
10. Israel will dismantle unauthorized settlements and freeze all settlement
activity.
11. Israel agrees to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation,
lifting curfews, removing check-points and easing restrictions on movement.
[Note that] there is no language which could conceivably expand the
meaning to include the release of prisoners, the restriction on building
of a security fence, or releasing Arafat…
Although I doubt that we will get to Phase II and III, let's take a
look at what they provide… In Phase II, provisional boundaries
for the Palestinian state would be established, and when all the other
democratization tests have been met, there will be an international
conference… It is at this stage that borders, the issue of Jerusalem,
the refugees issue, settlements, a comprehensive peace treaty amongst
all the countries in the region would be resolved and normal relations
with Israel established… Phase III calls for a final international
conference to tie up all the loose ends.
Parenthetically, let me draw your attention to the word refugees. Note
that it does not say "Arab" or "Palestinian" refugees…
I fully expect Israel, or other nations, such as Canada, who attend
those conferences, to ensure that the fate and compensation of the 850,000
Jewish refugees from Arab lands will be addressed and be as equitably
dealt with concurrently as the case of Palestinian refugees is resolved…
I don't believe you can address these questions without understanding
what this war is really all about. It isn't about Jerusalem, it isn't
about refugees, it isn't about settlements [nor] borders. This hundred-year
war is about the right of the Jewish nation to have…a Jewish state,
within the boundaries of the biblical and ancestral homeland of its
forebears. The fundamental objective of Arab leadership…has been
that Israel must be destroyed; all Jews killed or expelled, and that
all Palestine belongs to the Arab world… Unless there is that
change in Arab thinking…the creation of a Palestinian state [will
lead to] yet another sovereign terror state like Iran, Iraq, Syria and
Libya [and] to an all out Arab war to wipe out Israel.
My pessimism arises from the current stumbling start down the roadway.
Firstly, the road map is premised on a [Palestinian] "regime change"…
That simply has not happened. Arafat, the master terrorist, and the
thief of billions of dollars meant for the benefit of his own subjugated
people, still runs the show… He still controls 60% of the security
forces in the regime…and has been allowed full control of negotiations
with the Israelis… Arafat continues to make speeches [in Arabic]
extolling the heroism of the homicide bombers… This is regime
change? This is a renunciation of terrorism? This is an end to incitement?
As for his token replacement, Mahmoud Abbas, he is a known Holocaust
denier [linked] to terrorism, including the massacre of the Israeli
athletes at the Munich Olympic games…
Instead of the entire Palestinian community denouncing terrorism and
laying down arms, Abbas has been able only to produce the hudna. Hudna
does not mean "armistice". Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aksa
announced an interim ceasefire, which translates from the Arabic as
merely an official temporary halt…to the terrorism… There
[were] ten ceasefires during Oslo, which the Palestinians unilaterally
broke, and six which suffered the same fate since the Intifada began.
[The] terrorist organizations have made it conditional on the release
of all Israeli captured prisoners of the war. That is simply bizarre.
Releasing prisoners, in wartime, only occurs after final peace treaties
are signed, not when belligerents announce a war stoppage with the unilateral
right to recommence at any time… Hudna is being used to give fighters
a summer vacation while they rest, re-arm, recruit and recover from
the devastating blows that have been inflicted on them by Israel….
And in an absolute abject rejection of the cornerstone principle of
the road map [Abbas] has refused to dismantle the terrorist organizations.
Last week in Cairo he said "cracking down on Hamas, Jihad, and
the Palestinian organizations is not an option at all." He went
on to remind his audience that if he were to attempt to dismantle and
destroy and disarm the extremists, it would lead to a Palestinian civil
war… There are more than 20,000 Palestinian armed policemen in
Gaza alone who are entirely capable of wiping out Hamas and Jihad, but
they will not, and that is why the road map has become a farce…
The road map is flawed further by its reference [to] UN Resolution 242
[which] provides that Israel withdraw from territories occupied by it
in the 1967 war, consistent with peace and militarily defensible and
secure borders. It does not say "all the territories", or
even "the territories". It just says "territories".
[Israel] gave back all of the Sinai to Egypt, and that constituted 92%
of "all the territories." One can argue that that is quite
enough…
Israel is now entitled to call a halt to its obligations under the road
map, based on Palestinian non-compliance--and it should do exactly that.
But, of course, it is not compatible with what President Bush wants,
heading into an election year…
What should Israel do? Israel
has already paid with 1,000 dead citizens and 5,000 maimed and wounded
for the failure of the Oslo process. It cannot afford to repeat that
mistake. Thus, Israel should not agree to release Palestinian prisoners
who are connected to terrorism. Objective data indicates that one out
of every two that were released during the Oslo process comes back as
a terrorist…
Israel must continue to build its security fence to keep the terrorists
of the future out [but] should not accept the fence as its final border…
Israel should also put forward a plan and begin insisting on that plan,
saying that since there are 1,200,000 Arabs living in the Israeli state,
at least that number of Jews ought to be permitted to live in whatever
Palestinian state emerges…
Can Canadians play any role in this international and interminable conflict?
What we can do is demand an end to the dishonest reporting by our media.
The refusal of the CBC to call a terrorist a terrorist, the taken-as-given
that there is a "cycle of violence"…and the call for
only "proportionate response" to terrorist activities is nothing
short of odious. The media reporting on the release of prisoners is
dishonest unless it clearly states that this demand was not a condition
of the road map… We and our Christian Zionist friends can ensure
that the Canadian public and our politicians know the facts…
Canada is seen as a rational, human-rights oriented country… Our
credibility with the United States, the European Union, and the UN is
greater than our numbers would suggest… Therefore, Canada has
an influential role to play. We are about to elect a new prime minister
and we are entitled to call for a complete review of Canada's foreign
policy… At the UN…our voting record is unacceptable.
We must demand that our government's CRTC agency refuse to license the
broadcast of an Arab government-owned, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic television
station, al Jazeera… But if in the name of free speech it should
be licensed, then the law should be strengthened to ensure that [cable
and satellite companies] are personally liable for any hate incitement
they broadcast… We must ask our country, as the chair of the Madrid
conference on Middle East refugees, to put on the table (and not permit
it to be removed) the compensation for the Jewish refugees from Arab
lands, and not allow the word refugees to apply only to Palestinian
refugees. [And] we must ask that Canada demand that the United Nations
treat Israel…like every other nation, not a pariah nation…
I'm sorry I can't deliver a more optimistic message tonight, but in
a 100-year war, it is difficult to be optimistic… Regrettably,
tonight, time does not permit me to lay out a Jabotinsky-inspired approach.
But, perhaps, at another time, I will have another opportunity to postulate
what I think would work to achieve equitable ends for Jews and Arabs
alike….
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 679 • Wednesday, July 30, 2003
WEDNESDAY’S
“NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES
“We are thankful
for every hour of increased quiet and less terrorism, and for every
drop of blood that is spared. At the same time, we are concerned that
this welcome quiet will be shattered…as a result of the continued
existence of terror organizations, which the PA is doing nothing to
eliminate… I wish to move forward with a political process with
our Palestinian neighbors. And the right way to do that is only after
a complete cessation of terror, violence, and incitement, full dismantlement
of terror organizations, and completion of the PA reform process…
The security fence will continue to be built, with every effort to minimize
the infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian population…”—P.M.
I, following his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush. (Israel
Foreign Ministry, July 29)
“The PA must undertake sustained, targeted and effective
operations to confront those engaged in terror, and to dismantle terrorist
capabilities and infrastructure. We’re determined to help P.M.
Abbas as he works to end terror, and establish the rule of law…
I urge Arab states to follow through on the pledges made in Sharm el-Sheikh,
to actively contribute to these efforts, and to reject the culture of
extremism and violence from whatever source or place…”—U.S.
President George W. Bush at a joint press conference with visiting
P.M. Ariel Sharon. (White House Press Office, July 29)
“[President] Bush has placed his trust in Mahmoud Abbas
as the embodiment of the reforms that will help to make his dreams of
Middle East peace come true… The royal treatment for Abbas [who
visited Washington last Friday] comes with strings attached—an
expectation that he hand over the first pound of flesh, getting rid
of the [terrorist] infrastructure comes before the establishment of
a state. Bush and Sharon are aligned so tightly on that point, you couldn’t
pass a pin between them… The war on terror sits at the top of
the Bush administration’s national agenda… It would be the
height of irresponsibility for the new Palestinian leadership to continue
the long-standing tradition of missed opportunities, and also miss the
one now being offered by Bush.”—Columnist Yoel
Marcus (Ha’aretz, July 29)
“The fence is racist. It represents a title for no coexistence.”—Palestinian
P.M. Mahmoud Abbas, critiquing the Israeli government’s
decision to complete work on a security fence in parts of the West Bank,
which Israel says will prevent terrorist attacks. (Jerusalem Post,
July 30)
“More than
the road map, the truce or even Mr. Abbas, the fence stands a good chance
of fundamentally transforming the strategic landscape between Israelis
and Palestinians… With even moderate Palestinian leaders forswearing
any serious effort to disarm terrorists…constructing a fence may
be the only effective protection against the next wave of suicide bombers.
The fence is not, as some have characterized it, a Middle East version
of the Berlin Wall… [T]he Berlin Wall separated one people, Germans
from Germans, denying freedom to half; Israel’s security fence
will separate two peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, offering the prospect
of security to both…”—Director of Strategic
Planning at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert
Satloff. (Baltimore Sun, July 23)
“Today marks the one-month anniversary of the Palestinian
terrorist organizations’ decision to declare a temporary hudna,
or ceasefire, in their ongoing campaign of murder and mayhem against
Israel. Reading the press, it would be easy to conclude that this is
a date almost worthy of national celebration… But the reality,
of course, is that there is very little to celebrate. [T]he fact is
that anti-Israel terror has far from petered out. According to statistics
compiled by the IDF, there have been a total of 167 Palestinian terrorist
attacks against Israel in the four weeks since the hudna went into effect.
That averages out to about six Palestinian attacks per day, every day,
over the past month… Does it really matter if instead of trying
to kill Jews 300 times per month they have decided to temporarily ‘cut
back’ to just 167?…”—Columnist Michael
Freund (Jer. Post, July 30)
“It’s liberation [from Palestinian violence] that
we are determined to secure, not merely a paper-thin cease fire. Murderers
who take 90-day vacations are still murderers. Israel’s fight
is our fight. And so shall it be until the last terrorist on Earth is
in a cell or a cemetery.’’—U.S. House Majority
Leader Tom Delay, currently in Israel, calling on Palestinians
to disarm their terror organizations. (Fox News, July 30)
“Back in the mid-1990’s there was a lot of talk
about ‘a new Middle East’… It turned out, shall we
say, ‘premature’… There are two very radical political
experiments under way in the Middle East… One is the new Palestinian
political authority, spearheaded by P.M. Mahmoud Abbas… And the
other is the new political [Governing Council] that was just appointed
by the U.S. in Iraq… These two infant authorities…are, in
theory, fundamental departures from both the style and substance of
their predecessors… But while there is much that we must do, there
is also much that they must do… When you see Iraqis risking their
lives to protect and nurture their new infant self-ruling authority,
when you see Palestinians ready to take on the extremists in their midst
because they are a cancer on the Palestinians’ own future…you
can legitimately start to speak again about a ‘new Middle East’.”—Columnist
Thomas Friedman (New York Times, July 30)
“Traveling throughout Iraq last week, I heard many more
accounts of unspeakable brutality… One of my strongest impressions
is that fear of the old regime is still pervasive. A smothering blanket
of apprehension and dread woven by 35 years of repression…won’t
be cast off in a few weeks’ time… Until [Iraqis] are convinced
that every remnant of Hussein’s old regime is removed…that
fear will remain… What happened to Uday and Qusay Hussein last
week is essential to the process of building that future… When
we’ve convinced Iraqis that we mean to stay until the old regime
is crushed and its criminals are punished—and that we are equally
determined to give their country back to them—they will know they
can truly begin to build a government and society of, by and for the
Iraqi people…”—U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz. (Washington Post, op-ed, July 28)
“We need to be positive and constructive, and not just
snicker in our little corner, saying, ‘They are in trouble’.
But at the same time, we cannot simply send men in Iraq…to support
a policy whose purpose we don’t see…”—French
Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, communicating that
neither France nor Germany is likely to agree to a large NATO role in
Iraq as long as the U.S. remains the main occupying power. [On Monday
the U.S. named 30 governments that have agreed to contribute to military
or police operations in Iraq.] (N.Y.T.; L.A. Times, July 29)
“Everybody is having a field day and casting aspersions
about Saudi Arabia. My concern is that the good name of Saudi Arabia
is being tarnished.”—Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah
in a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, requesting that the U.S.
declassify a key portion of a Congressional report, which insinuates
Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks. [The White House has rejected
Saudi calls to declassify the pages, insisting their release could jeopardize
sources used in gathering intelligence and could “help the enemy.”]
(Washington Post, July 29; N.Y.T., July 30)
“Israel is one of the leaders in the world [in spinal-injury
treatment and stem-cell research], and I came to pay tribute to the
work being done here.”—Actor Christopher Reeve,
paralyzed from the neck down since an equestrian accident in 1995, speaking
at Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Science. Reeve, who will also
be meeting with Israelis injured in Palestinian terrorist attacks during
his five-day visit to Israel, said that “politics and religion”
should not interfere with scientific research. (New York Post, July
30)
______________________________________________________
SHORT TAKES
ARAFAT ADVISER CALLS
FOR KIDNAPPING IDF SOLDIERS--(Ramallah) Ahmed
Jbarra, the veteran Palestinian prisoner who was released by Israel
on the eve of the Aqaba summit last month, has called on Palestinians
to kidnap Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for the Palestinian
prisoners held by Israel. According to the Hamas-affiliated Palestine
Information Center, Jbarra, who served 28 years of a life sentence for
murdering 14 people when he planted a booby-trapped refrigerator in
Jerusalem's Kikar Zion in 1975, was speaking at a Bethlehem rally held
in his honor on Sunday night. Jbarra was appointed earlier this month
as P.A.Chairman Yasser Arafat's special adviser on the issue of prisoners.
(Jer. Post, July 29)
ISRAEL TO RELEASE 540 PRISONERS, INCLUDING 210 FROM HAMAS, JIHAD--(Jerusalem)
The Israeli Cabinet voted in favour of releasing several hundred prisoners,
including 210 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israel still refuses
to free anyone directly involved in deadly attacks and the government
is reluctant to release any potentially violent prisoners. Palestinian
terror groups have threatened to abandon their temporary cease-fire
unless Israel releases all Palestinian inmates. The PA says that at
least 3,000 of the prisoners pose no security risk to Israel. There
are approximately 6,000 prisoners currently held in Israeli jails. (Ha’aretz,
July 28; Jer. Post, July 28)
POLICE REFUSE JEWS ACCESS TO TEMPLE MOUNT--(Jerusalem)
Just weeks after opening the Temple Mount to Jews and Christians for
the first time in nearly three years, Jerusalem police suspended the
limited visits amidst fears of renewed Palestinian violence. Officials
from the Islamic Wakf, which maintains the day-to-day maintenance of
the area, had expressed growing opposition to the re-entry of the visitors.
PA Chairman Yasser Arafat warned of "grave consequences" if
Israel continued to allow Jews to visit the Temple Mount. (Jer.
Post, July 30)
QAEDA TARGETS ISRAELI INTERESTS IN E. AFRICA--(Mombassa)
Israeli security forces say that Fawzal Abdullah Mohammed, a senior
activist in al-Qaeda believed responsible for attacks against Israeli
and American targets in Kenya and Tanzania, recently arrived in east
Africa and is plotting future attacks. Mohammed is said to be directly
responsibility for two attacks in Mombassa, Kenya last November that
killed three Israelis. He is also tied to the plots to blow up the American
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, where some 250 people
were killed. Kenyan authorities recently arrested five suspected Islamic
activists who were questioned about al-Qaeda's intentions to stage a
double attack on the new American embassy in Nairobi. (Ha'aretz,
July 29)
INTELLIGENCE REPORT ON SEPT. 11 REVEALS EXTENSIVE TERROR PLANNING--(Washington)
Highlights of a 900-page congressional report on the terrorist activities
of September 11, 2001 reveal that hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid
Almidhar had frequent contact in the summer of 2000 with an FBI informant
in San Diego, but the FBI never gathered information on them. Also while
in San Diego, Alhazmi worked for a businessman being investigated by
the FBI for possible links to Osama bin Laden, but the FBI agent dropped
the case. It was also revealed that two members of al-Qaeda slipped
past checkpoints in a "dry run" at a New York airport in 1998,
as part of a plan to hijack planes and attack U.S. targets. The report
urged an increased Congressional role in the overseeing of anti-terror
activities. (N.Y.T.; N.Y. Post, July 25)
SAUDIS ADMIT AL QAEDA CAMPS FOUND IN THEIR COUNTRY--(Jidda,
Saudi Arabia) In contrast to earlier statements, Saudi authorities
are now reporting that Muslim militants arrested or killed in recent
police raids were trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and possibly even
in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time the Saudi kingdom has acknowledged
that it may have been infiltrated by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
More than 200 suspects have been reported arrested and more than a dozen
killed in police shootouts in 13 raids throughout the kingdom since
the May 12 suicide bombings in the capital. (A.P., July 30)
ONLY 28 JEWS REMAIN IN IRAQ AFTER 6 IMMIGRATE TO ISRAEL--(Jerusalem)
Six of Iraq’s 34 known remaining Jews made aliyah on Friday in
what is thought to be the first direct flight between Iraq and Israel
since an airlift in 1950-51 brought thousands of Iraqi Jews to Israel.
The move was prompted after a fact-finding Jewish Agency mission discovered
that most members of Iraq’s tiny Jewish community were elderly
and in poor health. The oldest member of the group of six is 99-year-old
Naima Elliyahu Hallali who, along with her 70 year-old daughter, decided
it was time leave Iraq. Seventy-nine-year-old Salima Moshe Nissim, the
sole known Jewish resident of Basra, was reunited with her sister Marcel
Madar in the Avia Hotel lobby in Israel, after a 52-year estrangement.
(J.T.A., July 29; N.Y.T, July 28)
ISRAEL RENEWS TIES WITH AUSTRIA--(Vienna)
Israel is re-establishing full diplomatic ties with Austria. Israel
pulled its ambassador from Vienna in 2000 after the Freedom Party of
far-right politician Jorg Haider joined the Austrian government. Haider
no longer leads the party, and Israeli officials say they are pleased
with the steps Austria has taken in recent years to compensate Holocaust
survivors and their families. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 29)
CALGARY MISSIONARY HELD IN LEBANESE PRISON--(Ottawa)
Bruce Balfour, a Canadian missionary languishing in a Lebanese
jail for the past three weeks is now facing charges of collaborating
with an enemy state--Israel. Airport security guards found computerized
records of Mr. Balfour’s previous trips to Israel. Lebanon does
not permit entry to travelers carrying a passport stamped by Israel.
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Reynald Doiron confirmed that Mr. Balfour
will remain in jail until his Beirut court date on August 11, 2003.
(Globe and Mail, July 29)
Top
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Volume III,
No. 678 • Tuesday, July 29, 2003
THE LEFT AND ANTI-SEMITISM
Fiamma Nirenstein
(This speech was delivered
by Italian journalist Fiamma Nirenstein on April 14, 2003 at a conference
on anti-Semitism at the YIVO Institute in New York City. Ms. Nirenstein
is the Jerusalem correspondent for the Italian newspaper, La Stampa,
as well as for the magazine, Panorama.)
In 1967 I was a young communist, like most Italian youngsters. Bored
by my rebellious behavior my family sent me to a Kibbutz in the upper
Galilee, Neot Mordechai. I was quite satisfied there; the kibbutz used
to give some money every month to the Vietcong. When the Six Day War
began, Moshe Dayan spoke on the radio to announce it. I asked: "What
is he saying?", and the comrades of Neot answered: "Shtuyot",
silly things. During the war I took children to shelters; I dug trenches,
and learned some simple shooting and acts of self-defense. We continued
working in the orchards, but were quick to identify the incoming Mig-im
and the outgoing Mirage-im, chasing one another in the sky of the Golan
Heights.
When I went back to Italy, some of my fellow students stared at me as
somebody new, an enemy, a wicked person who would soon become an imperialist.
My life was about to change. I didn't yet know that, because I simply
thought that Israel rightly won a war after having been assaulted with
an incredible number of harassments. But I soon noticed that I had lost
the innocence of the good Jew, of the very special Jewish friend, their
Jew: I was now connected with the Jews of the State of Israel, and slowly
I was put out of the dodecaphonic, psychoanalytic, Bob Dylan, Woody
Allen, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, Freud shtetl, the coterie
that sanctified my Judaism in left-wing eyes.
I have tried for a long time to bring back that sanctification, and
they tried to give it back to me, because we desperately needed each
other, the left and the Jews. But today's anti-Semitism has overwhelmed
any good intention.
Throughout the years… I've been called a cruel and insensitive
human rights denier who doesn't care about Palestinian children's lives.
A very famous Israeli writer told me on the phone a couple of months
ago: "You really have become a right-winger". What? Right-winger?
Me? An old feminist human rights activist, even a communist when I was
young? Only because I described the Arab-Israeli conflict as accurately
as I could and because sometimes I identified with a country continuously
attacked by terror, I became a right-winger? In the contemporary world,
the world of human rights, when you call a person a right-winger, this
is the first step toward his or her delegitimization.
Jews born after the Holocaust learn a very clear message: evil has come
to Jews mostly from the Right--from the church during a large part of
its history, and certainly from Nazism and Fascism. The history of the
Holocaust placed evil on the Right. And because the Jews are the living
torches of how bad the Right can be, they legitimize the Left by their
mere existence. The Left blessed the Jews as the victim "par excellence"…
In return for being coddled, published, filmed, considered artists,
intellectuals and moral judges, Jews, even during the Soviet anti-Semitic
persecutions, gave the Left moral support and invited it to cry with
them at Holocaust memorials. Today the game is clearly over. The left
has proved itself the real cradle of contemporary anti-Semitism.
When I speak about anti-Semitism, I'm not speaking of legitimate criticism
of the State of Israel. I am speaking of pure anti-Semitism: criminalization,
stereotypes, specific and generic lies which have fluctuated between
lies about the Jews (conspiring, blood thirsty, dominating the world)
to lies about Israel (conspiring, ruthlessly violent) starting most
widely since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000,
and becoming more and more ferocious since operation Chomat Magen ("Defensive
Shield"), when the IDF reentered Palestinian cities in response
to terrorism.
The basic idea of anti-Semitism, today as always, is that Jews have
a perverted soul that makes them unfit, as a morally inferior people,
to be regular members of the human family. Today this Untermensch ideology
has shifted to the Jewish state: a separate, unequal, basically evil
stranger whose national existence is slowly but surely emptied and deprived
of justification. Israel, as the classic evil Jew, according to contemporary
anti-Semitism, doesn't have a birthright, but exists with its "original
sin" perpetrated against the Palestinians… The caricature
of the evil Jew is transformed to the caricature of the evil state.
And now the traditional hook-nosed Jew bears a gun and kills Arab children
with pleasure.
On the front pages of European newspapers Sharon munches Palestinian
children and little Jesuses in cradles are threatened by Israeli soldiers.
This new anti-Semitism has materialized in unprecedented physical violence
towards Jewish persons and symbols, coming from organizations officially
devoted to human rights. Its peak occurred at the United Nations summit
in Durban, South Africa, when anti-Semitism officially became the banner
of the new secular religion of human rights, and Israel and Jews became
its official enemy.
[Jews]have been caught unawares, and have failed to denounce the new
trend of anti-Semitism. Nobody is scandalized when Israel is accused
daily, without explanation, of excessive violence, of atrocities, of
cruelty. Everybody is tormented about the necessity of painful attacks
against terrorist nests, often located among families and children.
Still, every country has the right to defend itself. Only the Jews in
history have been denied the right of self-defense, and so it is today…
Is it not anti-Semitism, when you act as if Jews must die quietly? Why
is Israel officially accused by the human rights commission in Geneva
of violating human rights, while China, Libya, Sudan, have never ever
been accused? Why has Israel been denied a fixed place in regional groups
in the UN while Syria sits in the Security Council? Why can everybody
join a war against Iraq except Israel, despite the fact that Saddam
has always threatened Israel with complete destruction?… Israel
is an "unterstate," denied the basic rights of every other
state, to exist in honor and peace. The Jewish state is not equal…
The Jews that survived Nazi-fascist persecution, the persecution of
the Right, created a socialist state inspired by the values of the Left,
work and collectivism, and by doing so, again sanctified the Left as
the shelter of the victims. In exchange for this, the Jews were granted
legitimization… The people of Israel were a living accusation
of the anti-Semitism that marked the Shoah, the Nazi-Fascist anti-Semitism;
and now they were building collective farms and an omnipotent trade
union! To some degree, this absolved Stalinist anti-Semitism, or gave
it a much smaller importance than it really had. The Jews became indispensable
for the left: look at the passionate and paternalistic tone of the Bologna
professors, as they seem to plead: "Come back, our dear Jews. Be
ours again. Let us curse Israel together and than take a trip together
to the Shoah memorials".
But [how] can you cry with the survivors for Jews killed by Nazis when
the living Jews are accused to be Nazi themselves? Somebody on a European
radio program said that after the diffusion of the images of Muhammed
al Dura, Europe could finally forget the famous picture of the boy in
the Warsaw ghetto with his hands raised. The meaning of this statement,
often repeated in other forms, is obliteration of the Holocaust through
the overlapping of Israel and Nazism…
As a journalist, I must mention the significant contribution of the
mass media to this new anti-Semitism. Since the beginning of the Intifada,
freedom fighter journalists, grown in the Guevara and Fedayeen campus,
have given the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of the most biased coverage
in the history of journalism. Here are the main problems that lead to
distorted reporting of the Intifada:
1) Lack of historic depth in attributing responsibility for its outbreak.
In other words, failure to repeat the story of the Israeli offer of
a Palestinian state and of Arafat's refusal which, in essence, is a
refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state, and which continues the
almost 70-year-old Arab rejection of partition of the land of Israel
between Arabs and Jews as recommended by the British in 1936, decided
by the UN in 1947 and always accepted by the Jewish representatives.
2) Failure…to assign responsibility for the first deaths to the
fact that, unlike in the first Intifada, in the second the IDF faced
armed fighters hiding in the midst of the unarmed crowd.
3) Failure to recognize the enormous influence of the cultural pressure
on the Palestinians from the systematic education in Palestinian schools
and mass media, vilifying Jews and Israelis and idealizing terrorist
acts of murder and mayhem.
4) Describing the death of Palestinian children without identifying
the circumstances… The equating of civilian losses of Israelis
with those of the Palestinian, as if terrorism and war against it were
the same …
5) Using Palestinian sources to certify events… I am thinking
of Jenin, of the unconfirmed reports that passed to printed pages or
TV screens as absolute truth. In contrast, Israeli sources, which are
very often reliable, are seen as subservient, prejudiced and unworthy
of attention…
6) Manipulation of the order in which the news are given and of the
news itself. The headlines give the number of Palestinians killed or
wounded in most articles, at least in Europe, before describing the
gunfights and their causes, and linger on the age and family stories
of the terrorists. The purposes of the IDF actions, such as capturing
terrorists, destroying arms factories or hiding places and bases for
attacks against Israel, are rarely mentioned…
7) Manipulation of language, taking advantage of the great confusion
about the definition of "terrorism" and "terrorist"…
The press has learned this very well: the occupation is the cause of
everything, terrorism is called resistance and does not exist per se.
Terrorists [are] called militants, or fighters. An act of terrorism
is often "a fire clash", even when only babies and old men
are shot inside their cars on a highway. It is also interesting to note
that a young shahid is a cause of deep pride for the Palestinian struggle,
but if you ask how a child of twelve can be sent to die and why young
children are indoctrinated to do such acts, the answer is: "come
on, a child can't be a terrorist…"
This is perhaps the most crucial point: given the fact that there is
a ferocious debate on the definition of terrorism, it is widely accepted
that terrorism is a way of fighting. This is a semantic and even substantial
gift of the new anti-Semitism, where it is natural for a Jew to be dead.
Namely, intentionally targeting civilians to cause fear and disrupt
the morale of Israel is not a moral sin. It doesn't raise world indignation,
and if it does, it hides in its folds some or much sympathy for the
terrorist aggressor….
8) The media have promoted the extravagant concept that the settlers,
including women and children are not real human beings… Their
deaths are almost natural and logical events. In a way, they asked for
it. On the other hand, when a Hamas commander is killed, even though
he obviously "asked for it", an ethical, philosophical debate
arises, on the perfidy of extra-judicial death sentences. This would
certainly be a licit debate, were it not for the grotesque double standard
on which worldwide press bases it.
9) Not to go overlooked is that censorship and corruption within the
PA and the physical elimination of its political enemies is hardly ever
covered.
The points listed above all point in one direction: Durban. Here, the
human rights movements that we will later find on the streets demonstrating
against the war in Iraq chose Israel as their primary target and enemy…
A Left incapable of confronting the capitalist globalization system,
decided to appoint the state of Israel as its main target. In a word,
the Left decided to make Israel pay for what they think America should
pay…
This kind of anti-Semitism, unlike Nazi anti-Semitism, is more like
the older theological anti-Semitism, for it gives the Jews the option
to renounce the devil (Israel, or sometimes Sharon). Whoever declares
a sense of revulsion towards Israel's conduct, is allowed to set foot
again in the civil society, the one of common sense, civilized conversation,
groups of good people full of good will that fight for human rights…
All the theories that claimed classic anti-Semitism would abate with
the creation of the state of Israel…have been destroyed. Furthermore,
Israel has actually become the sum of all the evil, the proof that the
protocols and the blood libels were right. The Palestinians are turned
into Jesus, crucified; the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan waged by the
U.S. is part of the Jewish plan of domination. Jews all over the world
are threatened, beaten, even killed to pay the price of Israel's existence.
Israel and the Jews have today only one certainty: now that Jews have
their own means of defense, a new Shoah is no longer possible. Still
we have to pass from the idea of our possible physical elimination,
to that of possible moral elimination. The only way to face this threat
is to fight fearlessly, on our own terrain, using all the historic and
ethical weapons that Israel possesses… The watchword of the Jews
should be "Jewish pride," in the sense of pride in our history
and national identity, wherever we are. Jewish pride means that we have
to claim the unique identity of the Jewish people and its right to exist.
We must act as though it has never been acknowledged, because today,
once again, it no longer is…
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 677 • Monday, July 28, 2003
CAN THE BBC OPERATE
RESPONSIBLY?
Daniel Seaman
Jerusalem Post, July 15, 2003
Media reaction to Israel's decision
to reevaluate its relationship with the BBC has tended to ignore the
reasons why it was taken. [Any] evaluation of Israel's grievances should
be based on whether the BBC adheres to universal standards of journalistic
ethics. In short: Does BBC coverage of Israel meet the tests of integrity,
impartiality, honesty and accuracy?…
Months after a UN investigation concluded there was no evidence of a
massacre in Jenin, BBC anchors and the BBC web site still implied doubt
as to what really happened. In a recent program allegations were again
raised about Israel's use of a "mysterious" gas in Gaza, ignoring
the fact that medical experts refuted this hoax over two years ago…
The BBC goes out of its way to state that the Temple Mount is called
"Haram al-Sharif" by the Arabs, implying an Arab claim to
the site. The BBC goes so far as to accommodate the Hizbullah terror
organization when it describes the UN-recognized Israeli border with
Lebanon as "disputed." Similarly, Israeli settlements are
"illegal" and the territories "occupied" rather
than disputed.
Undermining the credibility of sources by implying doubt, by questioning
and conditioning is disingenuous, especially when it is applied to only
one side of an issue. Israeli sources reported by the BBC almost always
"allege," while Palestinians "report." When hard
evidence is presented by Israel, such as the photo of an infant Palestinian
dressed as a homicide bomber, its authenticity is questioned. Yet Palestinians
leveling the most ludicrous of accusations against Israel are quoted
verbatim…
The use of camera angles, hidden cameras, cinematographic techniques
of insinuation and innuendo, intonation--even rhetorical questions--can
create a sinister, even diabolical image of an interviewee… Contrary
information is omitted in a manner that can only be regarded as knowing
and deliberate. Such treatment of highly complex Middle East issues
does not represent "legitimate criticism." It is not an objective
attempt to expose the truth, but defamation aimed at creating prejudice.
This kind of reporting does not require an official Israeli response;
it demands a legal defense…
Criticizing Israel's policies
is the BBC's prerogative. However, an accumulation of grievances over
a number of years leads us to believe that the BBC has crossed the line
from valid criticism into vilification and demonization of the State
of Israel, to such an extent as borders on delegitimization of the nation
itself. A direct cause of incitement, such treatment reinforces acts
of anti-Semitism and violence against Israelis and Jews worldwide.
The BBC can continue to operate freely in Israel. Israel is an open
democracy embracing freedom of the press. But only at such time that
the corporation acknowledges its responsibility to provide its viewers
and listeners with an honest, balanced and factual account of events
in the Middle East will the government of Israel restore cordial cooperation.
(Daniel Seaman is director
of the Israel Government Press Office.)
______________________________________________________
ANTI-SEMITISM IN THREE STEPS
Bret Stephens
Jerusalem Post, July 3, 2003
Dear Sir,
I would like to protest against your use of the pronoun "we"
in reference to the coalition forces fighting to liberate Iraq.... Zionists
are not part of the "we" of the freedom-loving English-speaking
world. They are a curse on it, who bribe and morally blackmail our politicians
and media. The vicarious glee at the defeat of the Arabs in The Jerusalem
Post reads like medieval bigotry… It behooves Israel, from its
position of strength, to magnanimously offer a generous peace... I don't
like the Palestinians, but I am dispassionate enough to realise that
their misconduct, which is driven by desperation, does not deprive them
of their inalienable rights. Please stop to think whether aggression
without justice will ever provide you with security. I pity the Israelis
who will continue to be killed for as long as your government refuses
to be just.
With kind regards
Yours sincerely,
[SIGNED]
London, England
I love the "kind regards." It is correct, earnest, blithe.
Most of the anti-Semites who write me aren't sticklers for good form:
"F-- you! Jewboy" is more typical. Then again, my Tory correspondent
plainly doesn't think of himself as an anti-Semite. He is pro-self determination,
pro-democracy, pro-justice, pro-freedom. He despises bigotry and aggression.
If this makes him an anti-Zionist, it is because Zionism is bigoted
and aggressive. How could he be an anti-Semite? Here's how: By watching,
on a semi-regular basis, the BBC.
Earlier this week, the government of Israel decided that it would refuse
BBC interviews, impose visa restrictions, refuse practical assistance
and otherwise make life difficult for BBC personnel stationed in Israel.
The immediate cause of this decision was the airing of "Israel's
Secret Weapon" on BBC Correspondent… Hosted by journalist
Olenka Frenkiel, the show purports to be an expose both of Israel's
non-conventional capabilities and of its treatment of Mordechai Vanunu,
the Israeli technician who laid bare those capabilities to the Sunday
Times in 1986 and has been in jail ever since.
Sinister-sounding Klezmer music sets the tone of the program. Frenkiel
describes Vanunu as a "nuclear whistleblower" who has been
"buried alive" in a tiny prison cell. She quizzes Shimon Peres
over Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity: "Isn't it just a euphemism
for deception?" she asks. She travels to Dimona, site of Israel's
nuclear reactor, and trains her camera through a chain link fence: "Israel,"
she says, "is an inspection-free zone."… She rails against
the unwillingness of Israelis involved in the program to discuss it
openly: "If this was the Soviet Union or Iraq or North Korea I
would understand why people are so scared to talk. But this is Israel,
it's supposed to be a democracy."…
Every now and then Frenkiel commits an error of fact, [telling us] that
Ariel Sharon was held "personally responsible" by the Kahan
Commission for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. Actually, the commission
found that "no Israeli was directly responsible for the events
which occurred in the camps." She also takes at face value Palestinian
claims that Israel used unknown and presumably forbidden gas agents
against Palestinian civilians. Still, none of this would matter very
much were it not for Frenkiel's larger purpose: To paint Israel as the
Middle East's real rogue regime, and Ariel Sharon as a Jewish Saddam
Hussein…
"How can you compare it?" an exasperated Shimon Peres replies
to Frenkiel's suggestion that Israel's nuclear designs are as suspect
as Iraq's. "Iraq is a dictatorship. Saddam Hussein is a killer.
He killed a hundred thousand Kurds with gas bombs. How can you compare
that at all?" Frenkiel rejoins: "But some in Israel do. The
current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon directed the invasion of Lebanon
in 1982. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed." Notice Frenkiel's
method. "But some in Israel do"--a statement that is true
in the sense that, as in any free society, you can always find someone
willing to make the most lurid comparisons… "The current
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon directed the invasion of Lebanon in 1982"
is another true statement, albeit one shorn of all context… Frenkiel
might have added that the bloodletting was mainly at the hands of warring
Christian, Muslim, Syrian and Palestinian factions.
In other contexts, this would be known as checkout-line journalism…
It's a tactic that's been honed to perfection by outfits like National
Enquirer. With the Enquirer, however…the innuendo can be shrugged
off as so much tabloid trash. With the BBC, the target is the Jewish
state, and the charges come with the imprimatur of one of world's most
venerable news-gathering organizations. No wonder my London pen pal
believes it and forms his views accordingly. No wonder he thinks Zionism
is a "curse." …
______________________________________________________
DISINFECT THE BBC
BEFORE IT POISONS A NEW GENERATION
Barbara Amiel
Daily Telegraph, July 9, 2003
Whatever the outcome of the present
battle between the BBC and the Government, it does serve to throw attention
on the state of the BBC. The BBC has been a bad joke in its news and
public affairs broadcasting for several decades, but…no one notices
until his own ox is gored… My oxen are the BBC's relentless anti-Israel
and anti-America biases…
Last week, the government of Israel decided it would refuse BBC interviews,
impose visa restrictions on BBC personnel and generally make life difficult
for BBC employees. I happen not to agree with this Israeli action, but
I understand the impulse. The casus belli was a specious documentary
[called] “Israel's Secret Weapon,” which in effect made
Israel the rogue regime of the Middle East, equivalent to or worse than
Saddam's Iraq.
That evening I watched the BBC programme The Reporters, in which the
terrorist organisation Hamas was depicted as a cross between the Good
Samaritans and the Girl Guides. In the early days of the Iraq war, the
BBC's architectural expert, Dan Cruikshank, filmed “On the Road
to Armageddon,” [on] the effect of the war on Middle East historical
artefacts. The programme was a breathtaking farrago of distortions,
historical illiteracy and appalling insinuations against Israel, despite
Cruikshank's assertion that he was "objective" and had "no
axe to grind". The effect of the programme was to blame Israel
for imperilling the historical monuments of the region. There was not
a single reference…to the shocking defacing of historical architecture
in East Jerusalem when it was under Arab control. And it was riddled
with errors: as if the 29 Arabs murdered by the Israeli settler Baruch
Goldstein at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994 were not enough, Cruikshank
had to inflate the figure to 70. The Guardian and Arab Media Watch loved
it, as they did the programmes on the Jenin massacre that didn't happen.
But factual errors can be corrected. The deeper problem in the BBC is
its editorial emphasis and the spin it puts on news and current affairs
stories… Instead of fuming about it…it would be more useful
to work out what can be done with an organisation that has lost all
even-handedness…
I can think of five options. The first approach is to continue complaining
and do nothing. The BBC might occasionally be sued for defamation; there
could be blow-ups and reconciliation at Downing Street. Viewers could
write letters to the editor. In essence, we would all accept the fact
that the Left has captured the BBC. As this is the most humiliating
and easiest approach, it is likely to be the one chosen. It has the
inert momentum of stupidity.
The second way is to decide unequivocally that the hijacking of the
BBC by any ideology must end. It is time to clean house. This means
a radical purge in order to re-establish the objectivity that is the
BBC's mandate… A purge involves pensioning people off and replacing
them not with "Right-wingers"… but with people dedicated
to even-handedness. The problem is that such people would not be easy
to find…
A third option would be to accept that our attempt to establish objective
journalism has been a failure and should be replaced by the parti pris
system. French television and radio have some excellent programming
and so long as everyone understands that the national broadcaster will
parrot the views of the government of the day, this approach would have
the virtue of honesty. The BBC would slant its views as the government
changes.
Four: we could adopt the American system. America doesn't have a public
broadcaster… If we copied this system, we would abolish the BBC
licence fee and tax subsidy. In one sense, the reasons for a national
broadcasting system are obsolete anyway. When the airwaves were restricted,
it made sense, but with today's technology and multiplicity of channels,
it has far less rationale.
I could see a fifth option, in which we maintained the BBC without its
news and public affairs. The corporation would do the intelligent comedy,
drama and music that it has always handled well.
These options could be refined, but my preference would be for one of
the last two.
…By sponsoring documentaries such as Frenkiel's, and through its
tendentious coverage of Israel, the BBC today is doing more than championing
the cause of the Palestinians. It is inciting against Israelis. When
the next Jew gets beaten on London's streets, I, for one, will know
whom to blame.
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 676 • Friday, July 25, 2003
“…It is strongly
underlined the fact that in Romania
between 1940-1945 there was no Holocaust.”—
Romanian Public Information Ministry, June 12, 2003
“The Holocaust was not unique to the Jewish population in Europe…
Does the wretched Romanian citizen of today have to pay for what
happened then? Is it worth it to skin those who are living today in
distress?
And just to compensate others? I don’t find that appropriate.”—
Romanian President Ion Iliescu, Ha’aretz, July 24
LETTER
TO ROMANIA’S AMBASSADOR
TO CANADA DR. LIVIU MAIOR
ON ROMANIA’S MOST RECENT HOLOCAUST DENIAL
Montreal, June 19, 2003
Dear Ambassador Maior,
Israel-Romania relations have been strained by the Romanian Ministry
of Public Information’s outrageous claim that within the borders
of Romania between 1940-1945 there was no Holocaust (Communicat de presa
2- sedinta de Guvern- 12 Junie 2003).
Sir, as a survivor of the Bucharest “Kristallnacht” (“Night
of Broken Glass”) pogrom in January 21-23, 1941, searching for
my missing father, I “visited” (along with other members
of the Bucharest Jews), the Bucharest slaughterhouse, in which I saw
Jewish corpses hanged from their bellies with tags reading “Jewish
meat” and/or “Kosher Meat”. These vivid
scenes remain a nightmare, and continue to haunt me today, sixty-two
years later. Over one hundred and thirty Jews were massacred during
these three days. Hundreds of homes, stores and over 25 synagogues were
set on fire, vandalized, and some destroyed to their very foundations.
It is true that there were no gas chambers in Romania, nor crematoria
for corpses; Romania did not industrialize victims’ hair, teeth
or grease, as did Germany. But the Romanian fascists had their own original
methods to exterminate the Jews. The persecution and the Nazi-Fascist
terror directed against the Jewish population within Romania’s
borders were just as violent and destructive as those in the other countries
under Nazi German domination or influence. “The distinction between
what took place in Romania and what took place in other countries where
the Nazi persecution was most horrible…lies only in details of
method. Romania’s war criminal Ion Antonescu had his own original
methods for the extermination of Jews. Jews were beaten until they died,
suffocated in freight cars with blocked up vents, sold as part of convoys
that would be killed later when their clothing would be sold, hacked
to pieces so that their blood could be used as axle grease…”
(The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry, ed. Randolph L. Braham, Columbia University
Press, New York, 1994)
The Bucharest Kristallnacht was preceded in its ferocity by
the 1940 pogroms, most notably in Galati and Dorhoi, which claimed the
lives of hundreds of Romania’s Jewish citizens. On June 28, 1941,
during a 6-day pogrom in Iasi, over ten thousand Jews were
murdered and more than 2,500 were deported in cattle trains, the majority
dying from suffocation. On September 27, 1941, mass deportations by
the Romanian army of thousands of Jews from the provinces of Moldova,
Bucovina, Bassarabia and other Romanian cities began. My wife’s
grandmother was amongst the hundreds who perished in the death march
deportation from the city of Darabani. Destination: the killing fields
of Transnistria, which claimed the lives of more than 250,000
Jews.
Historian Raul Hilberg in his magnum opus The Destruction of the
European Jews (Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1961) writes: “Measured
in sheer numbers, Romania was Germany’s most important ally in
the East. Besides Germany itself, Romania was thus the only country
which implemented all the steps of the destruction process, from definitions
to killings.”
After decades of intentional and methodical distortion of contemporary
history, revisionism has become predominant in post-communist Romania.
For several decades after 1948, basic historical information about what
went on in Romania during the war (1940-1944) was kept hidden, inaccessible
even to historians. Today, Holocaust education is virtually non-existent.
Following the international public’s outcry to your government’s
June 12 statement of Holocaust denial, Romania backtracked somewhat
from its original comments. However, the mere fact that such a denial--in
a long series of Holocaust denials--could have been uttered, reflects
the continuing poisonous atmosphere prevalent in today’s Romania.
I call on you Mr. Ambassador to set the record straight. If Romania
wishes to join the community of free nations, then it must first own
up to its Nazi past. Romania was perhaps the most enthusiastic ally
of Germany. To say otherwise is to disregard the memory of over 300,000
Romanian Jews who perished at the hands of Romania’s Iron Guard
Nazi government under the orders of war criminal Ion Antonescu.
Sincerely,
Baruch Cohen
Research Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
Member, Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum
___________________________________________________________
ROMANIAN AMBASSADOR’S REPLY
Ottawa, June 24, 2003
Dear Mr. Cohen,
As you may know, the present Government of Romania has initiated, for
the first time since December, 1989, a firm legislation condemning Fascist,
Nazi, racist and xenophobic extremists. On numerous occasions, Prime
Minister Adrian Nastase, as well as other members of the Government,
showed that, unfortunately, the systematic action of extermination through
deportations to concentration camps or through executions, became the
fate of an important number of Jews in Romania. This was reiterated
two days ago through the press release of the Government’s Official
Stand, asserting clearly this very position.
The people in power during 1940-1944, representatives of the Romanian
state, are guilty of war crimes, pogroms, deportations to Transdnestria,
as well as mass displacements of an important part of the Jewish population
of Romania in territories occupied and controlled by the Romanian army,
using methods of discrimination and extermination, all part of the sinister
mechanism of the Holocaust.
Today, Emergency Ordinance 31/March 31, 2002, bans public denial
of the Holocaust, condemns all Fascist, Nazi and xenophobic-type
manifestations, as well as public monuments venerating war criminals.
Monuments commemorating the victims of the Holocaust have been unveiled
all over the country; the latest, built with the support of the Government,
was inaugurated at Targu-Mures.
The Holocaust phenomenon is studied in schools, while the National Archives
allow unconditional access to its documents for experts studying the
Holocaust in Romania and neighboring countries, and have also signed
an important partnership with the United States Holocaust Museum.
By assuming the responsibility for the victims of the Holocaust, of
the then Government of Romania, today’s Government of Romania
reiterates its strong will to continue to cooperate with the international
institutions that study the Holocaust and to help being light upon some
dramatic episodes of our country’s history. The official stand
of our Government reflects the determination of Romania, of its people,
in fiercely combating all forms of extremist, racist and religious behaviour.
We have done much to come to terms with the Holocaust and we will spare
no efforts in permanently sustaining the slogan of the OSCE Conference
on Anti-Semitism scheduled in Vienna, between June 19-20, “Promoting
Tolerance.”
________________________________________________________
ROMANIA MUST OWN UP TO ITS PAST
Florea Ioncioaia
Ziarul de Iasi [Romania], June 23,
2003
Last week, the Romanian government’s
negation of the Holocaust appeared in the international press. Interviewed
by the BBC, Minister of Culture Razvan Theodorescu boldly claimed authorship
of the idea. According to him, Romanians may not talk about a Holocaust
(as an official policy that destroyed the Jewish minority), but only
about the “vicious” individual actions of Romanians who
participated in a more general Holocaust. His arguments are based on
the following premises: there were no Jewish concentration camps in
Romania itself, and if anti-Semitic actions did indeed take place, they
occurred in Bessarabia and Bucovina. These two regions, though administrated
by Romanians in the name of the Romanian state, had no “real”
connection with Romania since they were “merely” under military
control.
Mr. Theodorescu’s opinions were not formally denounced by any
official. On the contrary, [Prime Minister] Adrian Nastase immediately
supported his minister, while [President] Ion Iliescu reproached him
only about the timing of his words. The current regime thus agrees with
the revisionist thesis…and the problem of the Holocaust in Romania
has again become a political question. We have been instantaneously
thrust back many years, to the era when the cult of war-time leader
Marshal Antonescu—which was never seriously rejected by Ion Iliescu—was
an almost official phenomenon.
…How can the average person understand the sophism that Razvan
Theodorescu uses, according to which he claims that Romania did not
take part in a Holocaust, but individual Romanians did? To whom, then,
did the administration in Transnistria belong? And who was responsible
for other anti-Semitic campaigns that took place between 1940 and 1943
in the territories of the Old Kingdom, in Bessarabia and Bucovina?…
Even by Theodorescu’s definitions, actions took place in Romanian
territory that were part of the well-known German version of the Holocaust.
This was true in northern Transylvania, which was administrated by Hungary,
even if this area was not obviously under Romanian jurisdiction. Though
it is true that extermination camps like Auschwitz did not exist in
Romania “proper,”…concentration camps and campaigns
of mass extermination of Jews and gypsies were organized by the Romanian
state, both in what is now national territory and, even more so, in
former Romanian territories, particularly Transnistria.
…Romanian Jews in the 1940s did not only suffer because of institutional
discrimination. [They] were also subjected to ghettoization and massive
population transfer to Transnistria under barbarous conditions. Groups
in military custody were frequently subjected to collective executions.
The camps in Transnistria were organized by a Romanian government, under
Romanian supervision, and against citizens who had been living under
Romanian state authority. While some historians believe that the government
policy was not as systematic as it was in Germany, they also maintain
that the number of victims would have been even higher had they not
been constrained by the inability of the Romanian administration to
implement such a project of mass assassination. …As is well known,
Antonescu aimed to impose an ethnically homogenous state on the country,
and he was a doctrinaire anti-Semite.
It is disturbing that an official holding the position of Minister Theodorescu,
who repeats distortions, can pass as a historian (he once held an academic
chair in this capacity), and can be so irresponsible about so grievous
a question. The facts are historically proven… [Ironically] Razvan
Theodorescu was the first president of the Association for Romania-Israel
Friendship, and I. Iliescu—who more than once visited the Holocaust
Memorial in Washington—is regarded as an antifascist and a philosemite….
Shabbat shalom to all our readers!
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 675 • Thursday, July 24, 2003
THE REAL IRAQ
Amir Taheri
New York Post, July 17, 2003
'The Iraqi Intifada!" This
is the cover story offered by Al-Watan Al-Arabi, a pro-Saddam Hussein
weekly published in Paris. It finds an echo in the latest issue of America's
Time magazine…The daily Al Quds, another pro-Saddam paper, quotes
from The Washington Post in support of its claim that "a popular
war of resistance" is growing in Iraq. Some newspapers in the United
States, Britain and "old Europe" go further by claiming that
Iraq has become a "quagmire" or "another Vietnam."
The Parisian daily Le Monde prefers the term engrenage, which is both
more chic and French.
This chorus wants us to believe that most Iraqis regret the ancien régime,
and are ready to kill and die to expel their liberators. Sorry, guys,
this is not the case. Neither the wishful thinking of part of the Arab
media, long in the pay of Saddam, nor the visceral dislike of part of
the Western media for George W. Bush and Tony Blair changes the facts
on the ground in Iraq.
One fact is that a visitor to Iraq these days never finds anyone who
wants Saddam back. There are many complaints, mostly in Baghdad, about
lack of security and power cuts. There is anxiety about the future at
a time that middle-class unemployment is estimated at 40 percent. Iraqis
also wonder why it is that the coalition does not communicate with them
more effectively. That does not mean that there is popular support for
violent action against the coalition.
Another fact is that the violence [of] the past six weeks is limited
to less than 1 percent of the Iraqi territory, in the so-called "Sunni
Triangle," which includes parts of Baghdad. Elsewhere, the coalition
presence is either accepted as a fact of life or welcomed. On the 4th
of July some shops and private homes in various parts of Iraq, including
the Kurdish areas and cities in the Shiite heartland, put up the star-spangled
flag as a show of gratitude to the United States…
In the early days of the liberation, some mosque preachers tested the
waters by speaking against "occupation." They soon realized
that their congregations had a different idea. Today, the main theme
in sermons at the mosques is about a partnership between the Iraqi people
and the coalition to rebuild the war-shattered country and put it on
the path of democracy. Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr now
says that "some good" could come out of the coalition's presence
in Iraq…
Yet another fact is that all 67 of Iraq's cities and 85 percent of the
smaller towns now have fully functioning municipalities. Several ministries,
including that of health and education, have also managed to get parts
of their operations going again. The petroleum industry, too, is being
revived with plans to produce up to 2.8 million barrels of crude oil
a day before the year is out. …There is no famine--in fact, the
bazaars are more replenished with food than ever since the late 1970s--while
food prices, having jumped in the first weeks after liberation, are
now lower than they were in the last years of Saddam's rule. Most hospitals
are functioning again with essential medical supplies trickling in for
the first time since 1999. Also, some 85 percent of primary and secondary
schools and all but two of the nation's universities have reopened with
a full turnout… The difference is that there no longer are any
mukahebrat (secret police) agents roaming the campuses and sitting at
the back of classrooms to make sure lecturers and students do not discuss
forbidden topics…
For the first time in almost 50 years there are also no political prisoners,
no executions, no torture and no limit on freedom of expression. Iraq
today is the only Muslim country where all shades of opinion--from the
extremist Islamists of the Hezbollah to Stalinists, and passing by liberals,
socialists, Arab nationalists and moderate Islamists--have full freedom
to compete in an open market of ideas. Better still, all are now represented
in the newly created Governing Assembly (Majlis al-Hukum). Iraq is also
the only Muslim country where more than 100 newspapers and weeklies…appear
without a police permit and are subjected to no censorship…
The free-market economy is making its first inroads into Iraq's socialistic
system in a number of small ways… Some teahouses, in competition
to attract clients, offer satellite television as an additional attraction.
Every evening people pack the teahouses to watch, and zap and discuss,
what they have seen in an atmosphere of freedom unknown under Saddam.
It may be hard for Westerners to understand the Iraqis' exhilaration
at being able to watch television of their choice. But this is a country
where, under Saddam, people could be condemned as spies and hanged for
owning a satellite dish…
There are two Iraqs today: One as portrayed by those in America and
Europe who wish to use it as a means of damaging Bush and Blair, and
the other as it really exists, home to 24 million people with many hopes
and aspirations and, naturally, some anxiety about the future. "After
we have aired our grievances we remember the essential point: Saddam
is gone," says Mohsen Saleh, a geologist in Baghdad. "A man
who is cured of cancer does not complain about a common cold."
______________________________________________________
GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ THAT CAN’T
BE IGNORED
David Warren
National Post, July 23, 2003
It would appear the 101st Airborne
managed to pick off Uday and Qusay Hussein yesterday, in Mosul, Iraq.
This is an item of news that is almost impossible to package as "a
setback for the U.S."… Yesterday, as well, Sergio Vieira
de Mello, the U.N.'s special representative, took the first step to
recognizing the new U.S.-supported governing council as the legitimate
government of Iraq.
For their hit in Mosul, the U.S. forces were working, as ever, with
information provided to them by Iraqi allies who've been feeding them
leads, at their own risk… Even now, as we approach the second
anniversary of 9/11, the CIA is desperately short of its own human agents
in the field, and overly dependent on high technology… This is
the legacy of…the previous two presidencies. The CIA was stripped
of its ability to get down and dirty in dangerous, frontier environments;
and hamstrung with debilitating rules and regulations, devised by sherry-drinking
legal academics with no appreciation whatever of reality. It was somehow
forgotten that the prevention of events like 9/11 itself ultimately
depends on deadly accurate intelligence assessments, which can never
be obtained without human operatives.
It never, ever makes sense to follow civilized rules when your enemy
does not play by them. [This] is an ages-old issue in the defence of
civilization itself. The enemies of civilization must be given no quarter;
there can be no "rules" beyond the frontier; the purpose of
engagement is not to win friends and popularity. It is instead to find
and utterly annihilate the enemy--in this case all those secular and
religious "Islamists" dedicated to our own destruction. [Those]
hesitating to take our side must learn that hesitation is fatal. Nor
can we wait for the kind of evidence acceptable in a courtroom, before
acting upon each threat. As long as civilization has existed, it has
survived by doing the necessary against savages who threaten from its
frontiers…in order to avoid being unable to engage them in the
middle of Imperial Rome, or the middle of Manhattan.
[This] is lost on a "liberal" media establishment which subordinates
all commentary and reporting to the desire to score cheap political
points against such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair. [But] the choice…is
not between a Bush and a Gore; it is between Bush and real monsters;
between us and people dedicated to our destruction. And the power of
the enemy does not depend on his strength, but on our weakness; not
on his malice, but on our restraint. As Daniel Pipes explained yesterday,
paraphrasing Lee Harris: "Al Qaeda destroys airplanes and buildings
that it itself could not possibly build. The Palestinian Authority has
failed in every field of endeavour except killing Israelis. Saddam Hussein's
Iraq grew dangerous thanks to money showered on it by the West to purchase
petroleum…" And the ability of such enemies to regroup…now
depends on the media's ability to hog-tie the West's legitimate political
leaders.
Shortly after 9/11, Robert Bork, the great American jurisprude, told
me he feared for the future… when he read what was being published
in the New York Times. The paper was already gearing up to oppose whatever
the Bush administration did; its former editor Howell Raines was already
telling his colleagues, "I can feel in my bones a new Vietnam."
Now, the reader should know that in newsrooms across North America,
editors consult the New York Times before deciding which foreign and
national stories should be given prominence, and which should be ignored.
That one paper alone has power far beyond its own readers to create
media sensations over trivial things. And public opinion can be effectively
swayed when the media give a consistently false view of what is important…
Mr. Bork said he could feel in his own bones the media taking the stomach
out of the American will, and predicted that "a couple of years
down the road", we would be getting the sort of nonsense that I
am reading every day in the papers now… That is why small, but
highly visible pieces of good news are crucial just now--of which the
killing of Saddam's sons would be an example. At a moment when the "liberal"
media are smelling blood, let us pray it turns out to be their own.
_____________________________________________________
TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO
Margaret Wente
Globe and Mail, July 24, 2003
It would be nice if Saddam's demented
sons had been captured alive and turned over to some of their victims
for a rousing public hanging. But perhaps it's just as well they're
dead. They were a human stain, and now they're gone. There will be no
72 virgins to greet them at the gates of paradise. If there's any justice
in the afterlife, Allah will be roasting them on a spit for all eternity.
I liked the way they spun the news yesterday morning on the CBC. The
death of these two thugs was good for--Tony Blair! This undoubtedly
is true. It's also remarkably good news for the 24 million people in
Iraq, and for U.S. reconstruction efforts there. It's convincing evidence
that Saddam is never, ever going to come back.
As for the situation in Iraq, I have a hunch it's going better than
the daily dose of woe dished up by the media might lead us to believe.
According to the media, Iraq is Vietnam, with an all-out guerrilla war,
a hostile local population, anarchy in the streets, and American troops
who are ready to frag the brass. But hey, the media's job is to report
what went wrong yesterday. Bad news is good, and good news isn't news.
Anything that shows imperialist America screwing up is good. Anything
that vindicates imperialist America isn't newsworthy.
[Here's] something else that went right yesterday. On the same day Uday
and Qusay were mowed down, Paul Bremer, the temporary American ruler
of Iraq, visited the United Nations with the brand-new interim Iraqi
governing authority. The new council includes Kurds, Shiites and Christians,
liberals, socialists, and Islamists of all stripes. It is the most pluralist
political body in the Arab world… New York Times columnist Tom
Friedman called its creation one of the most important events in modern
times. All this happened with remarkable speed. It's been less than
four months since American tanks rolled into Baghdad. And Mr. Bremer
is still unpacking. "When I got to Baghdad three weeks ago,"
he said last week, "the city was on fire." Now, with luck,
there could be elections within a year.
Maybe it's the speeded-up world we live in, but I'm astonished how impatient
people are. Saddam had 30 years to wreck the place, and now the U.S.
is under fire because it hasn't fixed it up yet and got the hell out.
The same people who darkly warned of "quagmire" in Week Two
of the war are now blasting Paul Bremer for not having the air conditioning
back on in Baghdad.
One journalist who doesn't work for the network news is Amir Taheri,
a London-based Iranian who has written 10 books on the Middle East…
The violence against American troops, he wrote in the New York Post,
is limited to a very small part of Iraqi territory dominated by Sunnis.
Elsewhere, the coalition presence "is either accepted as a fact
of life or welcomed."… Another person who went to see for
himself is Reuel Gerecht, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington. "Though the problems in Iraq are enormous,"
he wrote in The Weekly Standard, "neither the country nor its American
administrators appeared to be sliding downhill into chaos. In most of
Iraq . . . just the opposite is happening." Some powerful local
leaders complain of American heavy-handedness and ignorance. But he
couldn't find any Shiite cleric who really wants the Americans to leave
right away. Just the opposite: Many of them fear the Americans aren't
going to interfere enough…
As for the breathless and obsessional interest over uranium in Niger…give
me a break. Most of this is opposition politicians playing politics
and the media playing their favourite game of Gotcha. I am indeed intensely
curious about what happened to the weapons of mass destruction--but
it's worth pointing out that we've just destroyed two of the biggest
ones. Their names were Uday and Qusay.
Don't get me wrong. Iraq will be a three-Excedrin headache for a long
time to come. Maybe it will all blow up. But please allow me a tiny
scrap of optimism. It could be going a whole lot worse. And it's probably
going a whole lot better than you'd think if you watched the news.
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 674 • Wednesday, July 23, 2003
WEDNESDAY’S
“NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES
“Yesterday,
in the city of Mosul, the careers of two of the regime’s chief
henchmen came to an end. Saddam Hussein’s sons were responsible
for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis. Now more than ever
all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming
back.”—U.S. President George W. Bush,
on the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein (Washington Post, July 23)
“This is a great day for the new Iraq. These two people
[Uday and Qusay Hussein] were at the head of a regime that was responsible
for the torture and killing of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis.
The celebrations that are taking place are an indication of just how
evil they were.”—British Prime Minister Tony
Blair (Sky News, July 23)
“Cracking down on Hamas, Jihad and the Palestinian organizations
is not an option at all.”—PA Prime Minister Mahmoud
Abbas, emphasizing, as he has done repeatedly, that he will not
crack down on Palestinian terror groups. [The PA, meanwhile, in a seemingly
contradictory move, outlawed groups that espouse violence and encourage
incitement.] (Reuters, Nat’l. Post, July 22)
“If this visit [to the White House] does not succeed, and the
Palestinians feel no positive changes on the ground, the Palestinian
government’s plight will be shaky indeed.”—Israeli
Arab Knesset member and former adviser to Yasser Arafat, Ahmed Tibi,
alluding to the political vulnerability of P.M. Mahmoud Abbas, who faces
a number of opponents within the Palestinian leadership who remain loyal
to Yasser Arafat and who would like to see the Palestinian prime minister
toppled. P.M. Abbas is scheduled to meet for the first time on Friday
with U.S. President George W. Bush. (Ha’aretz, July 22)
“The PA and its government deserve support by everybody.
This entails remaining in contact with all interlocutors within the
Palestinian Authority.”—A joint declaration on
the Middle East, issued by the foreign ministers of the 15 nations belonging
to the European Union and those of 10 candidate nations, in response
to Israeli F.M. Silvan Shalom’s call to bypass PA Chairman Yasser
Arafat and deal directly with P.M. Mahmoud Abbas. (Jerusalem Post,
July 22)
“Armed Palestinian
groups clearly premeditate and organize serious violations of international
humanitarian law. [Suicide bombings], by their ‘systematic or
generalized character’, in a stated intention to kill civilians
and to sow terror in the Israeli population, constitute crimes against
humanity in the terms of the statute of the International Criminal Court.”—Excerpt
from a report by the French-based human rights group, Medecins du Monde,
whose statistical findings reveal that the proportion of civilian victims
during the period from September 29, 2000–August 12, 2002 was
“at least equal to 70 percent” and that most were
elderly, young, or children. (Agence France-Presse, July 21)
“Both P.M. Abbas and P.M. Sharon are showing leadership and courage.
Now it is time for governments across the Middle East to support the
efforts of these two men by fighting terror in all its forms. This includes
the governments of Syria and Iran…[which] continue to harbor and
assist terrorists. Their behavior is completely unacceptable and states
that support terror will be held accountable….”—U.S.
President George W. Bush (White House Press Release, July
21)
“Does anybody seriously believe that there would be a
cease-fire between Israel and the most extreme Palestinian terrorist
groups if the U.S. did not have 150,000 troops in Iraq? Isn’t
it obvious that Israel’s willingness to ignore scattered acts
of violence and seriously pursue negotiations is closely linked to a
newfound sense of security born of the willingness of the U.S. to use
its muscle to reward its friends and punish its enemies? Can anyone
deny the linkage between American pressure on Iran, Syria and Saudi
Arabia and the new attitude toward negotiations among Hamas and Hezbollah?”—OpEd
by Dick Morris (New York Post, July 20)
“We’re taking all steps necessary to counter the
threat as much as possible. Israel has the necessary means to respond
defensively, as well as deterrent capability. The Shihab-3 and other
projects reveal that Iran is eager to achieve nonconventional and even
nuclear capability, but Israel is prepared.”—Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, assuring the public that the
Arrow missile can effectively defend against attack from Iran’s
Shihab-3 ballistic missile. (Jer. Post, July 22)
“News of you, the men of the armed forces and the Republican
Guard, reaches me. I am pleased when I hear that you are carrying out
these honorable Jihad operations… Yes, this war has not ended.
The will of the people, the government, the Ba'ath Party is not broken…”—A
new audiotape purportedly carrying the voice of toppled Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein. The tape, aired today on Arab satellite, makes
no reference to his sons, Uday and Qusay, killed yesterday by U.S. forces.
(Jer. Post, July 23)
“We didn’t become members of the [Ba’ath]
party for Saddam’s sake. We found in this party and its aims,
and what it wishes for, things we liked.”—Twenty-two-year-old
Iraqi political science student Nassir Muhammad, an ardent
supporter of Arab nationalism, who said that he hoped to go into academia
to create a generation that understands that the “occupying Americans
and international Zionism” are the real enemy. (New York Times,
July 22)
“In order to establish the Islamic state and spread the religion,
there must be [five conditions], a group, hearing, obedience, a Hijra
[detachment from the world of heresy to establish and strengthen a community
of believers outside it, in the path of the Prophet Muhammad], and a
Jihad. Those who wish to elevate Islam without Hijra and without Jihad
sacrifices for the sake of Allah have not understood the path of Muhammed….”—Excerpt
from a speech allegedly by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
(MEMRI, July 18)
“I think in six months from now we will have a considerable
amount of evidence, and we’ll be starting to reveal that evidence.”—Special
Adviser for Strategy on Weapons of Mass Destruction and former UN weapons
inspector Dr. David Kay, providing a likely time frame for
what he believes will be the disclosure of evidence concerning Iraqi
weapons programs. Asked whether he believed the strongest evidence would
suggest the existence of nuclear, biological, or chemical material,
Kay responded: “I think we’ll have a very strong
case on all of those. I think we’ll have a strong case on missiles
as well.” (London Times, July 21)
“I had an oral agreement with [my Arab publisher] Dar al-Saqi
that the back cover would make my Israeli citizenship and academic affiliation
explicit, and I dedicated the book to my father, who was born in Iraq.
But they omitted the information and left only the dedication. They
told me they just wouldn’t be able to sell a book that came from
Israel.”—Israeli-born author and chair of Haifa
University’s department of Arabic language and literature, Reuven
Snir, referring to the deliberately erroneous identification of
himself as an “Iraqi exile living in Israel” which appeared
on the jacket of his recently published Arabic-language book. Moreover,
due to his Israeli background, he was forced to deal only with the London
office of a Lebanon-based Arab publisher. (Chronicle of Higher Education,
July 21)
______________________________________________________
SHORT TAKES
MINISTERIAL COMMITTEE
AUTHORIZES RELEASE OF PRISONERS—(Jerusalem)
An Israeli ministerial committee has authorized the release of 530 Palestinian
prisoners, including members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The committee
made the decision based on a list drawn up by the Shin Bet security
service, but referred the release of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad men
to the government for further debate. Some 400 of the prisoners are
to be freed in coming days, including security prisoners, those convicted
of criminal offenses and those held for being in Israel without proper
permits. In reaction, a senior Hamas official said Israel would pay
a price if it does not release Hamas members during the three-month
cease-fire period. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 23)
TWO WOULD-BE SUICIDE BOMBERS CAPTURED; IDF SOLDIER MISSING—(Jenin)
The IDF said today that police arrested two Palestinians overnight in
the village of Rai, southwest of Jenin. Sources say the men are members
of Islamic Jihad and were planning to carry out a suicide bombing in
Israel. Also, police are requesting the public's help in finding missing
IDF soldier Oleg Shaichat, who was last seen Monday at the
Ami-Ad junction in the Galilee. Security officials have repeatedly said
they have intelligence warnings of Palestinian militants' intentions
to kidnap Israeli soldiers. (Ha’aretz, July 23)
HAMAS BUILDING 1,000 KASSAM
ROCKETS; HEZBOLLAH CONTINUES ATTACKS IN NORTH—(Gaza
Strip; Shlomi) A senior IDF officer reports that Hamas is utilizing
the three-month cease-fire to build more than 1,000 Kassam rockets,
sparking fears that future hostilities will be much more violent. The
officer said that the raw material for building the rockets is smuggled
along the Egyptian border into tunnels beneath Rafah, and then driven
to Khan Yunis or Gaza City. In the northern Israeli town of Shlomi two
people were injured on Tuesday when Hezbollah guerrillas in southern
Lebanon fired salvoes of anti-aircraft shells. (Jer. Post, July
21; London Times, July 22)
NEW PA TEXTBOOKS FULL OF ANTI-ISRAEL PROPAGANDA—(Jerusalem)
Since 2000, the PA has replaced half of the Egyptian and Jordanian textbooks
that were used in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But according to a report
released by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) that
examined 35 third- and eighth-grade PA textbooks, the new texts are
much like the old. CMIP Vice-Chairman Dr. Yohanan Manor states that
the books do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.
The name "Israel" does not appear on a single map; the entire
land is called "Palestine." The solution to the current conflict
is generally described as the "liberation of Palestine" and
the return of all refugees to their former homes. Although the textbooks
do, for the first time, recognize Judaism as a "heavenly,"
or monotheistic, religion, there is no recognition of Jews as a people
with links to Israel; Jews are stereotyped as "oppressors"
and "slaughterers." (Jer. Post, July 22)
GOVERNOR OF JENIN KIDNAPPED, BEATEN BY FATAH GROUP—(Jenin)
Haider Irsheid, the governor of Jenin, was abducted from his
home last Saturday, publicly beaten, marched barefoot through the Jenin
refugee camp, and thrown into a cave, where he was beaten again. Irsheid
had earlier accused PA Chairman Yasser Arafat of supplying financial
and political support to armed groups that reject the current cease-fire.
Irsheid said he had spoken with the Palestinian leader two days before
the abduction and told him ''it was 100 percent wrong'' that Fatah had
given $10,000 to Brigade members from the Jenin camp on July 12. Irsheid
said he recognized the leaders of the Brigades among the people who
abducted and beat him. (Boston Globe, July 23)
PERES RAISES 'WORLD CAPITAL' SOLUTION FOR JERUSALEM—(Jerusalem)
Labor Party head Shimon Peres has suggested placing Jerusalem’s
holy sites under UN stewardship. His plan calls for declaring a holy
area of sites sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Jerusalem's
old walled city as a "world capital," with the UN Secretary-General
serving as mayor. Peres raised the idea in a meeting with visiting Russian
diplomats-in-training when they asked how he envisaged a solution to
conflicting Israeli-Palestinian claims to the city. Israel has previously
rejected proposals raised by the Vatican to internationalize Jerusalem.
(Reuters, July 22)
AL-JAZEERA CONDEMNS KILLINGS OF SADDAM’S SONS—(Baghdad)
While many Iraqis openly celebrated the killing in a shoot-out of Saddam
Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday, not all reactions were positive.
The correspondent for Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite network that has
been a staunch critic of the war, described the two men as having been
killed “in cold blood,” and one analyst brought on to comment
called the method of their deaths a “crime.” (N.Y.T.,
July 23)
IRAN INAUGURATES MISSILE CAPABLE OF REACHING ISRAEL—(Tehran)
Iran has produced a ballistic missile—the Shahab-3—capable
of reaching Israel and U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
and Turkey. The missile was inaugurated on Sunday during a military
parade before Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. ''Today,
the Iranian nation and armed forces…is prepared to stand up to
the enemy with a firm resolve anywhere,'' Khamenei was quoted as saying.
The missile technology is allegedly based on North Korea's No Dong surface-to-surface
missile, but Iran says it is entirely locally made. Ha’aretz reports
that the U.S. believes Iran’s nuclear know-how came from Pakistan.
(MSNBC, July 20; Ha’aretz, July 23)
AL-QAEDA AGENT IDENTIFIES MONTREALER, CSIS SAYS—(Montreal)
Adil Charkaoui, the Moroccan-born Montrealer arrested this
spring and accused of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent, has been fingered
by Abu Zubaydah, a close adviser to Osama bin Laden now in
U.S. custody. A brief prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service says that Abu Zubaydah saw Mr. Charkaoui, known as "Zubeir
al-Maghrebi," in Afghanistan in 1993, suggesting that Mr. Charkaoui
was involved with radical militants long before his arrival in Canada.
Citing security concerns, Canadian officials have not disclosed what
led them to detain Mr. Charkaoui and seek his expulsion from Canada
under a certificate declaring him a threat to national security. Montreal’s
Muslim community continues to voice strong public opposition to the
secretive nature of the proceedings surrounding the case. (Globe
and Mail, July 19)
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 673 • Tuesday, July 22, 2003
JUSTICE FOR JEWS
FROM ARAB NATIONS
Giulia Boukhobza
International Herald Tribune, July
1, 2003
This is the first time I have
ever written about my experience as a Jew from Libya. It's not easy
for me. The memories are still painful.
Jews had a continual presence in Libya for over two thousand years,
predating the Arab conquest and occupation by centuries. My own family
had lived on Libyan soil for hundreds of years, if not longer.
I was born in Libya in 1951, the year of the country's independence.
Most of the nearly 40,000 Jews left Libya between 1948 and 1951 because
of a wave of anti-Jewish rioting, beginning in 1945, that left hundreds
dead and injured and thousands homeless. My family, however, decided
to stay and see if things would improve. After all, it was our home,
it was our language, and it was the land of our ancestors. And the new
Libyan constitution offered guarantees that gave us hope.
We were wrong. The hope was misplaced. The guarantees were absolutely
worthless. By 1961, Jews could not vote, hold public office, obtain
Libyan passports, buy new property, or supervise our own communal affairs.
In other words, at best we were second-class residents--I can't even
say citizens-- though this was our birthplace and home.
Our fate was sealed six years later. In June 1967, the anti-Jewish atmosphere
in the streets became terrifying, so much so that my family could not
leave our house in Tripoli. My parents and I, along with my seven brothers
and sisters, sat frightened at home for days. And then the mob came
for us.
I can't even begin to describe the scene. It seemed there were a thousand
men chanting “Death to the Jews.” Some had jars of gasoline
which they began to empty on our house. They were about to strike a
match. We were near hysteria. But then one man from the mob courageously
spoke up. He said he knew us and we should be left alone. Amazingly,
the mob complied and moved elsewhere. Other Jews, however, were not
as lucky. Some, including close friends of ours, were killed, and property
damage was estimated in the millions of dollars.
Our family went into hiding for
several weeks before we were finally able to leave the country and reach
Italy. We arrived with barely a suitcase each.
Today, to the best of my knowledge, there is not a single Jew left in
Libya, not one. An ancient community has come to a complete end.
My family had to start from scratch in Italy. We had nothing and no
one. But we persevered. We knew that we weren't the world's first Jewish
refugees, or the last, and that we would just have to make the best
of a difficult situation. And that's exactly what we did. We did not
wallow in self-pity. We did not seek to make ourselves wards of the
international community. And we didn't plot revenge against Libya. We
simply picked up the pieces of our lives and moved on.
The more I think about what befell us, though, the angrier I become.
In effect, we were triple victims. First, we were uprooted and compelled
to leave our home forever solely because we were Jews. Second, our plight
was largely ignored by the international community, the UN and the media.
Do a search and you'll be shocked at how little was written or said
about this tragedy. And third, Libya erased any trace of our existence
in the country. Even the Jewish cemeteries were destroyed and the headstones
used in the building of roads. In other words, first our homeland was
taken away from us, then our history as well.
I can no longer be a Jew of silence, nor can I allow myself to become
a forgotten Jew. It is time to reclaim my history. It is time to demand
accountability for the massive human rights violations that occurred
to us in Libya. That's why, after 36 years, I've chosen to speak out
today.
(The writer now lives in Westchester
County in New York state.)
______________________________________________________
JEWS FROM ARAB COUNTRIES:
THE CASE FOR RIGHTS AND REDRESS
David Matas and Stanley A. Urman
June 23, 2003
The following executive summary
report was written by, and represents the opinions and conclusions of
David Matas, Chair of the Advisory Legal Committee, and Stanley A. Urman,
of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC). JJAC was founded in
the U.S. under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents of Major
Jewish Organizations, the American Sephardi Federation, the World Jewish
Congress and the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries.
I) INTRODUCTION
This Report is based on three fundamental principles: Truth, Justice
and Reconciliation.
A) The history and truth about the plight of former Jewish refugees
from Arab countries must be returned to the narrative of the Middle
East from which it has been expunged;
B) Compelling evidence supports the call for justice to redress the
victimization of Jews who lived in Arab countries and the mass violations
of human rights that they were victims of; and
C) In the absence of truth and justice, there can be no reconciliation,
without which there can be no just, lasting peace between and among
all peoples of the region.
II) THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
Historically, Jews and Jewish communities have existed in the Middle
East, North Africa and the Gulf region for more than 2,500 years. Fully
one thousand years before the advent of Islam, Jews in substantial numbers
resided in what are today Arab countries. Following the Moslem conquest
of the region, for centuries under Islamic rule, Jews were considered
second class citizens but were nonetheless permitted limited religious,
educational, professional, and business opportunities.
Upon the declaration of
the State of Israel in 1947, the status of Jews in Arab countries changed
dramatically as virtually all Arab countries declared war, or backed
the war against Israel. This rejection by the Arab world of a Jewish
state in their ancient homeland was the event that triggered a dramatic
surge in a longstanding, pattern of abuse and state-legislated discrimination
initiated by Arab regimes and their peoples to make life for Jews in
Arab countries simply untenable. Jews were either uprooted from their
countries of residence or became subjugated, political hostages of the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
Little is heard about these Jewish refugees because they did not remain
refugees for long. Of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees between
1948 and 1972, some two-thirds were resettled in Israel at great expense--others
emigrated elsewhere--all without any compensation provided by the Arab
governments who confiscated their possessions.
Securing rights and redress for Jews displaced from Arab countries is
an issue that has not yet been adequately addressed by the international
community. In fact, there were more former Jewish refugees uprooted
from Arab countries (over 850,000) than there were Palestinians who
became refugees as a result of the 1948 war when six Arab nations attacked
the fledgling State of Israel. (UN estimate: 726,000)
There is a moral and legal imperative to ensure that justice for Jews
from Arab countries assumes its rightful place on the international
political and juridical agenda and that their rights be secured as a
matter of law and equity.
III) THE MASS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Immediately before and after the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49,
the rights and security of Jews resident in Arab countries came under
legal and physical assault by their own governments and the general
populations. By way of example, in Syria, as a result of anti-Jewish
pogroms that erupted in Aleppo in 1947, 7,000 of the town’s 10,000
Jews fled in terror. In Iraq, ‘Zionism’ became a capital
crime. More than 70 Jews were killed by bombs in the Jewish Quarter
of Cairo, Egypt. After the French left Algeria, the authorities issued
a variety of anti-Jewish decrees prompting nearly all of the 160,000
Jews to flee the country. After the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution
on the Partition Plan, Muslim rioters engaged in bloody pogroms in Aden
and Yemen, which killed 82 Jews. In numerous countries, Jews were expelled
or had their citizenship revoked (e.g. Libya). Varying numbers of Jews
fled from 10 Arab countries, becoming refugees in a region overwhelmingly
hostile to Jews…
The uprooting of ancient Jewish communities from these 10 Muslim countries
did not occur by happenstance. There is evidence that points to a shared
pattern of conduct amongst a number of Arab regimes, that appear intended
to coerce Jews to leave and go elsewhere, or to retain them as virtual
political hostages. These are evidenced from: (a) statements made by
delegates of Arab countries at the U.N. during the debate on the partition
resolution representing a pattern of ominously similar threats made
against Jews in Arab countries; (b) reports on multilateral meetings
of the Arab League from which emerged indications of a coordinated strategy
of repressive measures against Jews; (c) newspaper reports from that
period; and (d) strikingly similar legislation and discriminatory decrees,
enacted by numerous Arab governments, that violated the fundamental
rights and freedoms of Jews resident in Arab countries.
From the sheer volume of such state-sanctioned discriminatory measures,
replicated in so many Arab countries and instituted in such a parallel
fashion, one is drawn to the conclusion that such evidence suggests
a common pattern of repressive measures, if not collusion, against Jews
by Arab governments. The Report contains country reports that describe
these unmistakable trends. The situations in Egypt, Iraq and Libya are
described in greater detail. General ‘snapshot’ profiles
are provided on 7 other countries, including Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco,
Yemen, Aden, Syria, and Lebanon.
IV) THE DISCRIMINATORY UN RESPONSE TO THE PLIGHT OF JEWISH REFUGEES
From 1947 onward, the response of the international community to assist
Palestinian refugees arising out of the Arab-Israeli conflict was immediate
and aggressive. During that same period, there was no concomitant UN
response, nor any comparable international action, to alleviate the
plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. The sole comparison that
can be made between Palestinian and Jewish refugees is that both were
determined to be bona fide refugees under international law, albeit
each according to different internationally accepted definitions and
statutes--the former covered by UNRWA and the latter by the UNHCR.
As far as the response of the UN is concerned, the similarity ends there.
The contrasts, however, are stark:
a) Since 1947, there have been over 681 UN General Assembly resolutions
dealing with virtually every aspect of the Middle East and the Arab
Israeli conflict.
b) Fully 101 of these UN resolutions refer directly and specifically
to the ‘plight’ of Palestinian refugees.
c) In none of these 681 UN resolutions on the Middle East is there a
specific
reference to, nor any expression of concern for, the 856,000 Jews living
in Arab countries.
d) Numerous UN agencies and organizations were mandated, or others were
specifically created, to provide protection, relief, and assistance
to Palestinian refugees. No such attention and assistance was forthcoming
from these UN
agencies for Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
e) Since 1947, billions of dollars have been spent by the international
community…
to provide relief and assistance to Palestinian refugees. During that
same period, no such international financial support was ever provided
to ameliorate the plight of Jewish refugees.
V) THE LEGAL CASE FOR RIGHTS AND REDRESS
In the Middle East context, it would be an injustice to ignore the rights
of Jews from Arab countries. As a matter of law and equity, it would
not be appropriate to recognize the claim of Palestinian refugees to
redress without recognizing a right to redress for former Jewish refugees
from Arab countries. The legal case of displaced Jews to redress is
as strong as, if not stronger than, the case of Palestinian refugees.
A recognition of the past is essential to the integrity of the Middle
East peace process. Rejection of memory is a rejection of peace. This
Report argues that justice in the Middle East requires acknowledgement
of the historical narrative and rights of Jews uprooted from Arab countries
and argues for redress as a matter of international law. Jews from Arab
countries are entitled to invoke the right to redress because of the
injustices inflicted upon them that caused their displacement. The Report
author states: "The Jews who were displaced from Arab countries
are a victim population, people who suffered human rights violations
at the hands of the governments and populations in the countries in
which they lived."
The report contains an extensive canvassing of the remedies available
to assert the right to redress. The remedies considered include the
Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Convention on the
Status of Refugees, a compensation fund established under an Arab-Israeli
comprehensive settlement, and litigation in the courts of the countries
where Jews displaced from Arab countries are now found.
(To obtain a copy
of the full report, please forward your request to the attention
of Robert Miller, Kessler Communications, at suitking@earthlink.net.)
Top
of the Page
Volume III, No. 672 •
Monday, July 21, 2003
PRAGMATISM'S
PITFALLS
Editorial
Jerusalem Post, July 21, 2003
What is the difference between
Oslo and the road map? No, this is not the beginning of a new joke,
though sometimes we might wish it were. There are indeed some important
structural differences between the two, but in the main, the latter
tries to pick up where the former left off.
The real difference, we are told by Israeli and American officials,
is not so much in the recipe but in the cooks. George W. Bush and Ariel
Sharon are not Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak (or his Labor predecessors).
The difference between Oslo and the road map, presumably, is that this
time Bush and Sharon mean it when they say that terrorism must stop
and its infrastructure dismantled.
A major mistake of the Oslo era, even its proponents agree, was to take
Palestinian violations of the agreement too lightly. In particular,
it is now widely seen to have been a mistake that the Palestinians were
not pressed to end incitement and to confiscate illegal weapons, as
required by multiple Oslo-era agreements. It is in this context that
we are feeling a disturbing sense of deja vu. In the first years after
the famous handshake on the White House lawn, we were told that Yasser
Arafat cannot be expected to end what was termed "rhetoric"
for the masses, that we should not be concerned that the PA had more
than double the "police" permitted, and that he did not use
them to shut down terrorist groups…
Now the U.S. is admitting that the Palestinians are not dismantling
the terrorist infrastructure. There have been no significant arrests
or confiscation of weapons, and both PA leaders and Hamas say there
will not be. The terrorists are regrouping, not disbanding. There is
not even a significant reduction in incitement from the PA-controlled
media, including the glorification of suicide bombers. On Thursday,
for example, Al-Ayyam took the trouble to note the graduation of 100
girls from a summer camp "named after the Shahida [female suicide
bomber] Wafa Idris" near Kalkilya.
The Palestinians, as in the past, have started making extraneous demands
before implementing what they have just agreed to, in this case for
the release of prisoners. The U.S., as in the past, is reflexively parroting
these demands regardless of what the current framework, the road map,
says, under the rubric of "helping Mahmoud Abbas." Actually,
it does not "help Abbas" or anyone else to play into excuses
for inaction and violation of commitments. The PA, not surprisingly
from its perspective, will implement as little as possible and demand
as much as possible. There is no natural limit to the demands, nor minimum
level of implementation--both are defined by what the U.S. and Israel
will tolerate.
U.S. officials say they are simply pressing both sides to fulfill their
commitments. How is Israel committed to prisoner releases when the subject
does not appear in the road map? Sharon committed to Bush at Aqaba to
release prisoners, we are told. Once again, we see that what is on paper
is worthless and what matters is what the Palestinians are demanding
at a particular moment…
Attempts to stand on principle, fairness, or logic are brushed aside
in favor of the supreme guide: pragmatism. But here's the rub--tossing
principles aside in this manner is not pragmatic, but a sure path to
failure. The U.S. should not be pressuring Israel to release prisoners,
because there is no limit to the Palestinian appetite for more releases.
Thus raising expectations and attempting to fulfill them is an endless
process… The responsibility here is not all on the American side.
[I]t is ultimately in Israel's hands to persuade the U.S. to behave
otherwise. It is a mistake for the U.S. to simply press the party that
seems most flexible, regardless of merit or the precedent it sets. But
if this is the U.S. modus operandi, Israel must show some inflexibility
as well.
If the U.S. responds by increasing pressure on Israel, the whole process
will unravel, since the pressure on the Palestinians will dissolve and
they will deliver even less. But if we continue giving into Palestinian
excuses and demands and go quietly along with American mistakes, the
process will unravel as well. If we, the U.S. and Israel, repeat the
mistakes of Oslo, we should not be surprised when we achieve the same
result.
_________________________________________
WILL MY DAUGHTER'S KILLERS BE
SET FREE?
Stephen M. Flatow
Jerusalem Post, July 19, 2003
As the road map unfolds, like
many concerned about events in Israel I find myself once again praying
for the best while preparing for the worst. However, I do so from a
vantage point different from many others.
About noon on Sunday, April 9, 1995, a young man named Khalid el-Khatib
sat in a van parked alongside the northbound side of the road leading
to the settlement of Kfar Darom. The van was loaded with explosives.
Seeing his target, the No. 36 Egged bus on the route from Ashkelon to
Gush Katif, el-Khatib stepped on the gas, aimed for the side of the
bus and, when he hit it, detonated the explosives in his van. Eight
died because of that attack, among them my 20-year-old daughter, Alisa,
and more than 40 were wounded, some permanently.
Personally new to terror and the shock that follows, in the weeks and
months after the attack I didn't have much desire, or time, to think
about the scope of the attack that was carried out by Islamic Jihad.
I didn't ask who recruited el-Khatib to become a murderer, who bought
the van, who made the bomb, or who provided the funding for all of it.
And no one in law enforcement, either Israeli or American, volunteered
any information.
Eighteen months later that began to change as my lawyers and I began
to investigate the attack in connection with a planned lawsuit under
a new American law that gave U.S. citizens the right to sue foreign
countries that sponsored terror attacks against them. With information
from the U.S. State Department and material drawn from Israeli government
demands upon the PA for the transfer to Israel of terrorists who had
killed Israelis, I learned that at least 10 men had been involved in
the attack at Kfar Darom.
Not all of the 10 involved in the Kfar Darom attack were named in the
transfer requests Israel presented to the PA. According to the U.S.
State Department two men were at large, two were in Israeli custody,
and the rest were dead. Although I was never invited to testify at the
trials of the two men in Israeli custody, in prison they were placed
and there they would stay I was assured because Israel, we are told,
will not release prisoners "with blood on their hands." It
was an unwritten "red line."
Although we all knew of the Palestinian prisons' revolving-door policy
Adnan Yihye Mahmoud Jaber al-Gohl, who helped conceal the car used in
the attack, and Nabil Sharihi, who helped prepare the bomb had been
arrested and released by the Palestinians only to participate in more
terror, I thought Israel's prisons would be harder to leave. I am no
longer sure of that fact.
In a country famous for setting "red lines" when it comes
to water shortages, the unity of Jerusalem or the need to retain the
Jordan River Valley, I was surprised that the release of prisoners with
blood on their hands had not achieved red-line status in official circles.
Maybe that is a good thing because we know that the red line for the
Kinneret was lowered at least twice; that Ehud Barak offered shared
sovereignty in Jerusalem; and we no longer hear about the security offered
by maintaining an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley. The problem
with red lines is they create embarrassment for those who cross them.
Because there is no red line on prisoner releases, there's no embarrassment
when Israel releases a prisoner with blood on his hands, as we saw with
the release of the so-called "refrigerator bomber" to a hero's
welcome in Ramallah and his new role as an adviser to Yasser Arafat.
I do not often think about Alisa's killers now in prison. I would rather
think of Alisa's smile, her laugh, and the way she could light up a
room with her presence. But I fear for the day when her killers are
set free. So while I continue to pray for their continued imprisonment,
I am sadly preparing myself for the day when Alisa's killers are released
as another demonstration of Israel's determination to live in peace.
And while I will never forget the events and aftermath of April 9, 1995,
I hope that one day God will give me the strength to forget Israel's
crossing of an unwritten red line.
(The writer lives in West
Orange, New Jersey.)
_________________________________________
GET RESULTS, NOT MORE AGREEMENTS
Daniel Pipes
National Post, July 8, 2003
In private conversations with
Bush administration officials this past week, I was favourably impressed
by their realism about the U.S.-sponsored "road map" plan
to stop Palestinian-Israeli violence. But I worry nonetheless that things
could go awry.
Those worries stem from the seven years (1993-2000) of the Oslo round
of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, when well-intentioned Israeli initiatives
to resolve the conflict only worsened it. I learned two main lessons
about Palestinian-Israel negotiations:
-
Unless Palestinians accept
the existence of Israel, the agreements they sign are scraps of paper.
-
Unless Palestinians are held
to their promise of renouncing violence, agreements with them reward
terrorism and therefore spur more violence.
My caution today concerns both
points: Palestinian ambitions to destroy the Jewish state remain alive;
and can the U.S. government enforce Palestinian compliance more effectively
than did its Israeli counterpart? Questioned again and again on these
issues of Palestinian intentions and American monitoring, the senior
officials I spoke with offered impressively hard-headed analyses. On
Palestinian intentions to destroy Israel, they echo U.S. Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell's recent statement, who said he worries about
"terrorist organizations that have not given up the quest to destroy
the state of Israel." On the need to enforce signed agreements,
both officials insist that the road-map diplomacy would screech to a
halt if the Palestinians fail to keep their word…
I was especially pleased by the modesty of their aspirations. As one
official puts it, "We have a shot at peace." He emphasized
that the U.S. President cannot merely snap his fingers and expect Palestinians
to do as summoned. He showed a reassuring awareness that this project
is chancy and that the odds of its succeeding are not that good. All
this is music to my skeptical ears. Yet, I worry. Won't human nature
and governmental inertia combine to induce the Bush administration to
push the road map through to completion, riding roughshod over the pesky
details to keep things moving forward? Suppose that Palestinian violence
continues; won't there be a temptation to overlook it in favour of keeping
to the diplomatic timetable?
That has been the historic pattern whenever democratic states negotiate
with totalitarian enemies to close down their conflicts, starting with
the British-French attempts to appease Nazi Germany in the 1930s, then
the American-Soviet détente in the 1970s, the Israeli-Palestinian
peace process in the 1990s, and South Korea's sunshine policy with North
Korea since 1998. In each case, the delusion that sweetening the pot
would bring about the desired results persisted until it was dashed
by a major outbreak of violence (the German invasion of Poland, the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Oslo war).
In theory, American policy makers can break this pattern. Should Palestinian
violence against Israel continue, they would announce something along
the lines of: "Well, we did our best, but the Palestinians failed
us. The road map is a good idea in principle but must be postponed until
they are ready for it. We are giving up on it for now."
Can they do it? We'll probably find out soon enough, for the violence
has continued despite some signs that the PA has started cracking down
since three Palestinian terrorist organizations agreed to a hudna on
June 29. The Israeli Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, summed up the situation
this way: "There is a certain decrease in the number of terror
warnings and also a certain decrease in incitement, but [the Palestinians]
still have a long way ahead of them in order to live up to their commitments."
How demanding will the U.S. government be about those commitments? One
troubling sign came a week ago, when Secretary Powell stated that "We
can't let...minor incidents or a single incident destroy the promise
of the road map that is now before us." Oslo is just a slippery-slope
away; to prevent a repetition of that debacle, American officialdom
needs to reject all violence, and not wink at "minor incidents."
The goal, everyone needs firmly to keep in mind, is not the signing
of more agreements but (short-term) the ending of terrorism and (long-term)
the Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.
(Daniel Pipes, a member
of CIJR’s Academic Council, is director of the
Middle East Forum and author of Militant Islam Reaches America.)
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 671 • Friday, July 18, 2003
THE ANTI-AMERICANS
Fouad Ajami
Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2003
America is unloved in the alleyways
of Nablus and Karachi, and in the cafés of Paris: The Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press came forth last month with news
of anti-Americanism in foreign lands. Its Global Attitudes Project,
directed by the pollster Andrew Kohut, and chaired and advised by former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, told us that the "bottom
has fallen out" of support for America in the Muslim world, that
the rift has widened between Americans and Europeans. From 20 countries,
pollsters returned with what they took to be evidence of a growing animus
toward the U.S. Only 1% of Palestinians think "favorably"
of the U.S.; the numbers are not much better in Jordan and Pakistan.
Turkey, once reliably anchored in the Pax Americana, is now of a piece
with its neighbors: only 15% of Turks now report positive views of the
U.S…
Americans ache to be loved in foreign places, and now the world denies
us. But a mix of partisanship and naiveté runs through this survey.
Consider this leading question and the trail it opens: What's the problem
with the U.S.?, the pollsters ask. Is it "mostly Bush," or
"America in general," or both? Not surprisingly, President
Bush is the culprit in France and Germany (74% attribute their anti-Americanism
to him)…
"Nations follow the religion of their kings," an Arab expression
has it. The anti-Americanism of Egypt is the malignant strain that leaders
wink at. You can't rail against Hosni Mubarak; so anti-Americanism is
the permissible politics. Where the dream of modernism atrophies, as
it has in Egypt, and a culture of abdication settles in, a people are
easy prey to any doctrine that absolves them of responsibility for their
own world. Anti-Americanism is the placebo… The Pew pollsters
fall for a legend and an evasion that those who rail against America
often put forth to pretty up their anti-Americanism: It is not individual
Americans they hate, but the U.S.! This is pure sophistry, but the pollsters
report it as credible sentiment.
Consider Turkey next… Years ago, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk pointed
Turkey westward, gave it a dream of renewal and self-help, and distanced
it from its Arab-Muslim hinterland. But that was then, and now Kemalism
has come apart…
The fury of the Turkish protests against America's war plans in Iraq
had a pathology all its own… The Turks burning American flags,
superimposing swastikas on portraits of President Bush, went at it,
it seemed, in the hope that Europeans (real Europeans, that is) would
take Turkey into the fold. The American presence had been benign and
benevolent in Turkey. Americans have been Ankara's advocates in the
European councils of power… But suddenly this relationship that
served Turkey so well was no longer good enough. The "soft"
Islamists (there is no such thing, we should know by now) hacked at
the Pax Americana; secularists averted their gaze… Pollsters calling
on the Turks found a people in distress, their economy on the ropes,
their polity in an unfamiliar world beyond the simple certainties of
Kemalism.
Running through the Pew survey is the explicit assumption that it had
been better for America before the "unilateralism," and our
campaign in Iraq: We called up this anti-Americanism. But leave the
false empiricism of these numbers, and there is nothing new in Amman,
and Cairo, and Paris. No one said good things about America in Egypt
in the 1990s, either. It was then that the Islamists of Egypt had taken
to the road, to Hamburg and Kandahar, to hatch a monstrous conspiracy
against the U.S. And it was then, during our fabled stock market run…when
anti-Americanism became the uncontested ideology of French public life…
Much has been made of the sympathy that the French expressed for America
and of [the] editorial in Le Monde, "Nous Sommes Tous Americains"--We
Are All Americans--penned after Sept. 11. But it took the paper precious
little time to revoke the sympathy it had expressed on Sept. 12. To
maintain France's sympathy, and that of Le Monde, we would have had
to turn the other cheek to al Qaeda, and engage the Muslim world in
some high civilizational dialogue. Anti-Americanism flatters France,
and gives its unwanted Muslims a claim on the political life of a country
that knows not what to do with them.
"America is everywhere," Ignazio Silone once observed. An
idea of it, a fantasy of it, hovers over distant lands. In the days
that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, a young Palestinian gave expression
to the image America holds out in places where its shadow falls: the
boy passing out sweets in celebration of America's grief wondered aloud
as to the impact of the bombings on his ability to get a U.S. visa.
He felt no great contradiction. He had no feeling of affection or loyalty
for the land he yearned to migrate to. He grew up to the familiar drums
of anti-Americanism. He had implicated America in his life's circumstances.
You can't reason with his worldview. You can only wish for him deliverance
from his incoherence… You can make foreigners say the sort of
things about America you wanted to say yourself. It is an old literary
trick. Everyone knew that Montesquieu's "Persian Letters"
were indeed Parisian letters, a writer's device to chronicle France's
foibles in the early 18th century. His "Persians," Rhedi and
Usbek, spoke of France. It is our American pollsters we hear speaking
to us through those Turks and Arabs and Frenchmen who, on cue, were
ready to speak of America's alienation from the rest of the world.
______________________________________________________
AMERICA, DON'T EVER APOLOGIZE
FOR YOUR VALUES.
TONY BLAIR
Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2003
Excerpted below is an address
delivered yesterday by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to a joint
session of the United States Congress.
…There never has been a time when the power of America was so
necessary or so misunderstood… We were all reared on battles between
great warriors, between great nations, between powerful forces and ideologies
that dominated entire continents. And these were struggles for conquest,
for land or money. And the wars were fought by massed armies, and the
leaders were openly acknowledged, the outcomes decisive.
Today, none of us expect our soldiers to fight a war on our own territory.
The immediate threat is not conflict between the world's most powerful
nations. And why? Because we all have too much to lose… Because
in the last 50 years, countries like yours and mine have trebled their
growth and standard of living. Because even those powers like Russia,
China or India can see the horizon of future wealth clearly and know
they are on a steady road toward it. And because all nations that are
free value that freedom, will defend it absolutely, but have no wish
to trample on the freedom of others.
We are bound together as never before, and this coming together provides
us with unprecedented opportunity, but also makes us uniquely vulnerable.
And the threat comes because in another part of our globe, there is
shadow and darkness, where not all the world is free, where many millions
suffer under brutal dictatorships, where a third of our planet lives
in a poverty beyond anything even the poorest in our societies can imagine,
and where a fanatical strain of religious extremism has arisen that
is a mutation of the true and peaceful faith of Islam, and because in
the combination of these afflictions, a new and deadly virus has emerged.
The virus is terrorism, whose intent is to inflict destruction…
Our new world rests on order. The danger is disorder. And in today's
world, it can now spread like contagion. The terrorists and the states
that support them don't have large armies or precision weapons. They
don't need them. Their weapon is chaos. The purpose of terrorism is
not the single act of wanton destruction, it is the reaction it seeks
to provoke: economic collapse, the backlash, the hatred [and] the elimination
of tolerance, until societies cease to reconcile their differences and
become defined by them...
The risk is that terrorism and states developing weapons of mass destruction
come together, and when people say that risk is fanciful, I say we know
the Taliban supported al Qaeda. We know Iraq, under Saddam, gave haven
to and supported terrorists. We know there are states in the Middle
East now actively funding and helping people who regard it as God's
will in the act of suicide to take as many innocent lives with them
on their way to God's judgment. Some of these states are desperately
trying to acquire nuclear weapons. We know that companies and individuals
with expertise sell it to the highest bidder. And we know that at least
one state, North Korea, lets its people starve while spending billions
of dollars on developing nuclear weapons and exporting the technology
abroad...
Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join
together? Let us say one thing: If we are wrong, we will have destroyed
a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and
suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive. But
if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fiber
of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then
we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have
given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.
But precisely because the threat is new, it isn't obvious. It turns
upside-down our concepts of how we should act and when… [J]ust
as it redefines our notions of security, so it must refine our notions
of diplomacy. There is no more dangerous theory in international politics
today than that we need to balance the power of America with other competitor
powers, different poles around which nations gather. Such a theory may
have made sense in 19th-century Europe. It was perforce the position
in the Cold War. Today it is an anachronism and it is dangerous, because
it is not rivalry, but partnership we need… And I believe any
alliance must start with America and Europe. If we are together, the
others will work with us…
Europe has one potential for weakness. For reasons that are obvious--we
spent roughly a thousand years killing each other in large numbers--the
political culture of Europe is, inevitably, rightly based on compromise.
Compromise is a fine thing, except when based on an illusion, and I
don't believe you can compromise with this new form of terrorism.
But Europe has the strength… Now Europe is at a point of transformation.
Next year 10 new countries will join. Romania and Bulgaria will follow.
Why will these new European members transform Europe? Because their
scars are recent, their memories strong, their relationship with freedom
still one of passion, not comfortable familiarity. They believe in the
trans-Atlantic alliance… They want a Europe of nations, not a
superstate. They are our allies, and they are yours. So don't give up
on Europe; work with it.
To be a serious partner, Europe must take on and defeat the anti-Americanism
that sometimes passes for its political discourse. And what America
must do is show that this is a partnership built on persuasion, not
command… And the UN can then become what it should be, an instrument
of action as well as debate… And we need to say clearly to UN
members: If you engage in the systematic abuse of human rights in defiance
of the U.N. Charter, you cannot expect to enjoy the same privileges
as those that conform to it…
When we removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, this was not imperialism.
For these oppressed people, it was their liberation. And why can the
terrorists even mount an argument in the Muslim world that it isn't?
Because there is one cause terrorism rides upon, a cause they have no
belief in but can manipulate… This terrorism will not be defeated
without peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Here
it is that the poison is incubated. Here it is that the extremist is
able to confuse in the mind of a frighteningly large number of people
the case for a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel, and
to translate this, moreover, into a battle between East and West; Muslim,
Jew and Christian.
We must never compromise the security of the state of Israel. The state
of Israel should be recognized by the entire Arab world, and the vile
propaganda used to indoctrinate children not just against Israel but
against Jews must cease. You cannot teach people hate and then ask them
to practice peace… The ending of Saddam's regime in Iraq must
be the starting point of a new dispensation for the Middle East: Iraq
free and stable; Iran and Syria, who give succor to the rejectionist
men of violence, made to realize that the world will no longer countenance
it; the whole of the region helped towards democracy; and to symbolize
it all, the creation of an independent, viable and democratic Palestinian
state side by side with the state of Israel…
[T]he world's security cannot be protected without the world's heart
being one. So America must listen as well as lead. But, members of Congress,
don't ever apologize for your values. Tell the world why you're proud
of America. Tell them when "The Star-Spangled Banner" starts,
Americans get to their feet--Hispanics, Irish, Italians, Central Europeans,
East Europeans, Jews, Muslims, white, Asian, black, those who go back
to the early settlers, and those whose English is the same as some New
York cab drivers I've dealt with--but whose sons and daughters could
run for this Congress. Tell them why Americans, one and all, stand upright
and respectful. Not because some state official told them to, but because
whatever race, color, class or creed they are, being American means
being free…
As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible,
but in fact it is transient. The question is, what do you leave behind?
And what you can bequeath to this anxious world is the light of liberty…
We're not fighting for domination… We're not fighting for Christianity,
but against religious fanaticism of all kinds. And this is not a war
of civilizations, because each civilization has a unique capacity to
enrich the stock of human heritage. We are fighting for the inalienable
right of humankind to be free... And I know it's hard on America. And
in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho…there's
a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business,
saying to you, the political leaders of this country, "Why me,
and why us, and why America?" And the only answer is because destiny
put you in this place in history in this moment in time, and the task
is yours to do.
And our job--my nation, that watched you grow, that you fought alongside
and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance
and great affection in our common bond--our job is to be there with
you. You're not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight
for liberty… And if our spirit is right and our courage firm,
the world will be with us.
Shabbat shalom to all our readers!
Top
of the Page
Volume III, No. 670 •
Thursday, July 17, 2003
WHAT WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY?
Max Abrahms
Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2003
Iraqi regime change has not significantly
improved Israeli security.
During the build-up to the 2003 Iraq War, President George W. Bush delivered
a watershed speech at a prominent Washington D.C.-based think tank.
In late February at the American Enterprise Institute, Bush suggested
that after dealing with Saddam Hussein, Israel "will be expected
to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state and to work as
quickly as possible toward a final status agreement."
The point was not that the United States would be downgrading Israel
as an ally the "day after," rather that Israel's improved
postwar security situation would soon allow it to safely conciliate
the Palestinians.
This mindset, shared by all four members of the road map's Quartet--the
multilateral body made up of the U.S., EU, UN and Russia--was tacitly
based on the post-1991 Gulf War experience. Then, prime minister Yitzhak
Rabin came to believe that the (first) US victory over Saddam had created
a proverbial "window of opportunity to take risks for peace."
This catchphrase held that with Iraq sidelined, Israel had a fleeting
moment to solidify peaceful relations with its neighbors before they
could reconstitute their forces and once again threaten Israel's survival.
Unfortunately, this historical analogy is flawed, with important implications
for the road map.
The 1991 Gulf War did create a limited window of opportunity by qualitatively
improving Israeli security. But the same cannot be said about the 2003
Iraq War.
During the 1980s, the Iraqi army had become the largest in the Middle
East and the most powerful in the Persian Gulf. Iraq was also on the
verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. The 1991 Gulf War destroyed half
of Iraq's conventional military forces and led, in Rabin's words, to
"the discovery of Iraq's nuclear plans, which postponed if not
prevented a supremely dangerous threat."
Not only did the 1991 war neutralize Israel's toughest enemy, the Soviet
Union was in the process of collapsing, thereby undercutting the Arab
world's primary weapons supplier and creating a steady stream of Jewish
emigrants to Israel.
By the time the Oslo framework was introduced to Rabin in early 1993,
Israel's strategic position was thus at its pinnacle. This fact, more
than any other, persuaded "Mr. Security" that Israel's postwar
situation afforded the Jewish state a temporary opening to make concessions
to the Arab world.
Now times are different. With Saddam's capabilities having never recovered
from his 1991 defeat, subsequent inspections, and years of sanctions,
Iraqi regime change has not significantly improved Israeli security.
This point was easy to miss. Leading up to the war the Israeli government
and military elite actively contributed to the misperception that deposing
Saddam Hussein would be a panacea for Israel. Whether it was a case
of wishful thinking or the desire to support the U.S. president, Israel's
official line both before and after the war was exceedingly optimistic.
And the international media, on the extremes of both the Left and the
Right, often went even further by suggesting that the whole point of
the war was to eliminate the Iraqi threat to Israel.
But rhetoric aside, Israel's main strategic threats have outlived Saddam.
Rabin never fully appreciated the danger posed by terrorism. He called
it a "second level of threat" that posed only small-scale
safety problems for Israel.
Rabin was right, but only in reference to Palestinian terror based largely
in neighboring states, where the Palestine Liberation Organization had
operated since the mid-1960s. He did not foresee the impact of terror
from within a Palestinian quasi-state, operating from bases in immediate
proximity to Israeli cities.
The impact of this terror from 2000 onward went well beyond the daily
personal security of Israelis, constituting a direct threat to Israel's
economic security and Arab-Jewish modus vivendi. Rabin's "window,"
while there, was hence never as wide as believed.
Notwithstanding rosy predictions of postwar Israeli security, Saddam
had always been a tertiary contributor to Palestinian terrorism. The
bulk of resources funneled to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, not to mention
Hizbullah, have come from Iran and Saudi Arabia--not Iraq.
The Iranian threat has also intensified since Rabin's time. According
to Muhammad el-Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, Iran's nuclear technology is considerably further along than
Iraq's was at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.
That Teheran could potentially develop an "Islamic bomb" by
as early as next year is particularly troublesome to Israel: Teheran
has made veiled threats in the past that it would not hesitate to use
nukes against the Jewish state. And these threats are lent urgency by
credible reports of Iran's newly completed Shahab-3 ballistic missile,
which is capable of striking anywhere in Israel.
In sum, defeating Saddam in 1991 significantly improved Israeli security--though
only temporarily and perhaps not enough for an "end of conflict"
agreement, as envisioned in Oslo. In contrast, today Israel must contend
with the mounting threat of Palestinian terrorism and a fickle Iranian
regime on the break of acquiring a nuclear option.
Like Oslo, the road map initiative adopts the window of opportunity
mindset that calls on Israel to make immediate concessions before the
Arab world poses a major threat. Unfortunately, we are presently passed
that point.
That does not mean Israel should rule out taking so-called risks for
peace. But the road map to peace needs to lead through Arab and Muslim
minds, not just the streets of Baghdad.
(The writer, a Soref Fellow
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
specializes in Israeli security and U.S.-Israeli relations. This article
is taken
from a longer essay in the current edition of the Middle East Quarterly.)
______________________________________________________
CALM, BUT NOT COMPLACENT
Gerald Steinberg
Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2003
After the restoration of some
sanity following the end of the Iraqi biological weapons scare and the
IDF’s declaration that Yasser Arafat’s war has been defeated,
the tension level is growing again this time over Iran.
Teheran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons via a thinly disguised
civil program have been exposed, and Hamidreza Assefi, an official in
the Iranian Foreign Ministry, has boasted that the recent Shahab-3 missile
launch demonstrated an ability to strike Israel.
But before returning to a state of full alert, gas masks and missiles
at the ready, and reversing the cuts in defense spending, a calmer look
would be useful.
In the first place the Iranian missile program, while dangerous, appears
to rely on imports of critical components form North Korea. If Washington
acts soon to sever the Pyongyang link, and if the access to Russian
and Chinese technology is halted, Iran will have difficulty maintaining
a missile force. The small number of Shahab-3 tests resulted in more
failures than successes, and the range of 1,300 kilometers, while sufficient
to strike Israel, leaves no margin for error. A minor guidance or thrust
deviation would send missiles into Jordan or Syria. And if a few missiles
were to get close the Arrow missile defense system is designed to intercept
them.
The real threat will be posed by the long-range Shahab-4, capable of
hitting European cities; but if the technology flow is disrupted this
will remain a paper missile.
At the same time, Iran’s nuclear weapons program is moving quickly,
as highlighted by the discovery of a large-scale centrifuge enrichment
plant. Iran’s shadowy decision makers loyal to hard-line clergy
(as distinct from the officials appointed by the reformists under President
Muhammad Khatami) are working to acquire an independent nuclear fuel
cycle. If the plug is not pulled this technology would provide the material
necessary to produce nuclear weapons within a few years.
But in contrast to earlier patterns in which the “international
community” did little to stop destabilizing proliferation, the
Iranian case is being taken more seriously. U.S. President George W.
Bush has repeated his determination to force Iran to give up its nuclear
ambitions through diplomacy, or less subtle sanctions and pressures.
Even Russia and Europe are demanding acceptance of the International
Atomic Energy Agency’s stricter and far more intrusive inspections
(known as the “additional protocol”). Iran’s latest
in-your-face Shahab-3 missile test will only increase this pressure.
As a result, continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons could prove
extremely costly for Iran. Beyond the potential impact of a confrontation
with the U.S., European trade sanctions are also being discussed for
the first time. And since Iran’s security and survival does not
depend on an existential deterrent in sharp contrast to the Israeli
situation such penalties could dissuade the government from continuing
in this direction.
Of course there are no guarantees that such measures will stop the extensive
Iranian efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and Israel cannot
take the risk of strategic complacency.
The officials in Iran who hold the power to ship weapons, provide active
and substantive support to Hizbullah and Hamas and repeatedly declare
their intention to destroy “the Zionist entity” would be
far more dangerous armed with nuclear weapons.
However, Iranian society is in the middle of a fundamental political
upheaval. So-called Islamic hardliners led by supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei who hold power via extra-political and undemocratic frameworks,
are under increasing pressure from citizens who want to live normal
lives, without control from the mullahs.
Assuming the post-Shah Iranian majority takes power in the next few
years, the extremist anti-American and anti-Israel policies exploited
by the mullahs to justify their political role will lose significance.
In this environment Iranians will focus on different priorities and
abandon expensive strategic projects and the fanatic anti-Israel ideology.
This optimistic scenario may also fail to pan out; but even if the Islamic
leaders cling to power, they are not suicidal, ready to risk the destruction
of Iran by attacking Israel. Despite the hate directed at the “Zionist
entity” this regime is aware of Israel’s ability to strike
back and destroy any potential enemy.
Deterrence though the threat of mass destruction is far from desirable,
but it has often been effective in the absence of a better alternative.
(Prof. Gerald Steinberg,
a member of CIJR’s Academic Council, is director
of the program on conflict management and negotiation at Bar-Ilan University.)
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 669 • Wednesday, July 16, 2003
WEDNESDAY’S
“NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES
“We know
the huge amount of work you have been doing to help, in very great difficulties,
the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. We commend
you for that.”—British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw, praising visiting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the “courageous
steps” he took in implementing the road map. [Secretary Straw
firmly rejected P.M. Sharon’s appeal to Britain to cease its contacts
with PA Chairman Yasser Arafat.] (Ha’aretz, July 14)
“[PA Prime Minister] Abu Mazen is betraying the interests
of the Palestinian people. He is behaving like a tyro who doesn’t
know what he is doing. How does he dare to stand next to an Israeli
flag and next to [Ariel] Sharon and to act friendly with a man whose
history is known to all the world?”—P.A. Chairman
Yasser Arafat, pointedly excluded from the latest Middle East
peace talks by Israel and the U.S., in comments reportedly made to UN
envoy Terje Roed Larsen. [While the Palestinians deny that Arafat had
made such remarks, Mr. Larsen stands by his account.] (London Times,
July 12)
“The disputes are over and things are all right.”—P.M.
Mahmoud Abbas, announcing an end to recent tensions between
himself and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. [An official from P.M. Abbas’
office further declared, “The prime minister would never abandon
Arafat.”] (Ha’aretz, July 14)
“People are clarifying where they stand, with the old school or
the new school. This is the chapter where people begin to change their
seats. It’s a dangerous time… Dialogue, negotiations, delivering
as much as he can, making small successes—filling the glass with
as much water as possible—this is [P.M. Abbas'] style. Charisma,
ego, ambition, national pride—‘revolution until victory’—is
[Chairman Arafat’s style].”—Mahdi Abdul-Hadi,
director of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Academic Society for the
Study of International Affairs, says the outcome of the current internal
struggle between Arafat and Abbas will have profound implications for
the prospects of Palestinian statehood. [According to Palestinian pollster
Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey
Research in Ramallah, support for Abbas fell from 61% in April to 52%
in mid-June. Yet for the first time in 10 years, Mr. Shikaki found support
for Hamas in Gaza outweighed backing for Yasser Arafat’s mainstream
Fatah organization.] (Christian Science Monitor, July 11)
“[PA security forces]
are still not acting in the realm of terror. There have been a few signs
of activity but there’s not the sort of action that’s required.”—F.M.
Silvan Shalom, explaining that there had been a “quiet
understanding” that after the truce the Palestinians would have
three weeks to get their security forces into full gear. “Those
three weeks end this weekend,” said F.M. Shalom. [Today,
Israeli security forces rescued Israeli cabdriver, Eliyahu Gorel, seized
five days ago from his taxi in an Arab neighborhood in east Jerusalem.
Israel demanded assistance from the Palestinians to help find Mr. Gorel,
but there was no indication they played any role in freeing him.] (New
York Times, July 16)
“Any attempt to implement the American and Israeli…plan
to grant security to Israel or to cooperate with the plan to eliminate
the military resistance and collect weapons will open tunnels that have
no end. I won’t add anything to that.”—Khaled
Mashal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, in a warning to
Palestinian P.M. Mahmoud Abbas and to PA Security Minister Mohammed
Dahlan, against trying to collect Hamas weapons, a key demand of Israel
and the U.S. [A similar statement was issued by Islamic Jihad spokesman
Muhammad al-Hindi, who said that an agreement had been reached
with PM Abbas dictating that the PA would not confiscate weapons from
Hamas and Islamic Jihad. “We agreed that the Palestinian
people need the weapons for resistance… These weapons are a red
line which the PA would not trespass,” said Hindi.] (Ha’aretz,
July 10; Jerusalem Post, July 14)
“I wish him the best, but how can I take orders from [PA
Security Chief Mohammed] Dahlan? It would be like taking orders from
my oldest son.”—Palestinian Maj. Gen. Saeb
al Ajiz, who heads the border patrol designed to prevent terrorists
from moving into Israel, reflecting the sentiment of many veteran PLO
commanders who feel that the 42-year-old Dahlan lacks the strength to
lead them. [Most border security officers, including Gen. Ajiz, are
loyal to PA Chairman Arafat, rather than to Mr. Dahlan and P.M. Abbas.]
(Wall Street Journal, July 15)
“The Saudi share of Hamas funding is growing, not declining…
We’re getting no change in Saudi behavior.”—Former
Israeli ambassador to the UN Dore Gold, in a presentation on
Saudi terrorist financing to members of the U.S. Congress, communicating
that 50 percent of Hamas’ funding continues to come directly from
Saudi Arabia. (Jer. Post, Jul. 16)
“We are honoured at this critical moment in the history
of our country to announce to our people and the whole world the establishment
of the interim governing council. The establishment of this council
is an expression of the national Iraqi will in the wake of the collapse
of former oppressive regimes.”—Ranking cleric and
member of Iraq’s multi-ethnic council, Mohammed Bahr Al-Uloom.
The 25-member interim governing council, which held its inaugural meeting
this week, represents key tribal, religious and ethnic factions of the
country. (Cox News, July 14)
“The president took the nation to war to depose a bloody
tyrant who had defied the world for 12 years, who was building weapons
of mass destruction [and] had used them in the past, who was a threat
to American interests in the Middle East and who, now that he is removed,
is giving us an opportunity for a Middle East that might finally be
at peace…”—U.S. National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, defending President Bush’s inclusion
in the State of the Union address of “questionable” British
intelligence regarding Iraq seeking uranium from Africa. (CBS’
“Face the Nation”, July 13)
“I stand by entirely the claim that was made last September.”—British
P.M. Tony Blair, responding to allegations of faulty British
intelligence information, arguing that it was “not beyond the
bounds of possibility” that Iraq had sought supplies of uranium
in Niger, where it had purchased tons of the substance in the 1980s.
[U.S. President George W. Bush also stood by his remarks, stating that
“The intelligence I get is darn good intelligence.”] (N.Y.T.,
July 15; A.P., July 16)
“What is now clear is that there are those in the [Bush] administration
that misled the President, misled the nation, and misled the world in
making the case for the war in Iraq. They know who they are. And they
should resign… There will be investigations, and the truth will
come out… But we do not need to wait for the investigations…they
can resign on their own today.”—Democratic presidential
hopeful and former Vermont Governor, Howard Dean. (Press communiqué,
Office of Howard Dean, July 14)
“I think we are losing control [of the situation]. The nuclear
program now underway in North Korea poses an imminent danger. [T]ime
is running out…”—Former U.S. Defense Secretary,
Willliam Perry, warning that the U.S. and North Korea are drifting
toward war, perhaps as early as this year. [Mr. Perry’s statement
follows unconfirmed reports by North Korean officials claiming that
the country has finished producing enough plutonium to create a half-dozen
nuclear bombs, and that they intend to move ahead quickly to turn the
material into weapons.] (Washington Post, N.Y.T., July 14)
______________________________________________________
SHORT TAKES
POLL: PALESTINIANS READY
TO GIVE UP “RIGHT OF RETURN”--(Ramallah)
Angry Palestinians stormed the Ramallah office of pollster Khalil
Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey
Research, in an attempt to stop him from releasing results from his
new survey showing that most Palestinian refugees would not return to
Israel if given the choice. While 95% of the 4,506 sampled in Jordan,
Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip felt that some sort of recognition
was in order, the majority would not actually choose to return. More
than half, 54%, said they would accept some sort of compensation and
homes in the West Bank and Gaza. Seventeen percent said they would prefer
to stay in Lebanon or Jordan; 10% of them actually hoped to rebuild
their homes inside Israel; and 2% expressed an interest in immigrating
to a foreign country. (Jer. Post, July 14; N.Y.T., July 15)
STUDY REFUTES CLAIMS OF A JENIN “MASSACRE”—(Jerusalem)
In a 35-page study to be released next month by the Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs, Palestinian sources refute claims made by PA leaders
in April of 2002 that IDF forces had been engaged in a “massacre”
in Jenin, attacking innocent, unarmed Palestinian civilians. The study
confirms that the total number of Palestinian casualties was 52, most
of whom were armed Palestinian terrorists. This is in sharp contrast
to the widely-circulated Palestinian claims that thousands had died.
The study also reveals for the first time that Fatah, Islamic Jihad
and Hamas had prepared themselves thoroughly with automatic weapons,
grenades, anti-tank missiles and explosives and perceived the confrontation
with IDF troops as nothing less than a “military to military battle.”
The IDF presence in Jenin had been part of Israel’s Defensive
Shield Operation against terrorism. (Jer. Post, July 14)
GROUP LINKED TO ARAFAT RESPONSIBLE FOR LATEST ATTACK—(Jerusalem)
While the June 29 cease-fire significantly reduced the number of terror
attacks on Israelis, sporadic violence persists. Yesterday, a Palestinian
man struggled with a security guard in front of a Tel Aviv restaurant,
stabbing him in the neck and then fleeing on foot only to attack a young
Israeli man and his girlfriend as they walked along a Tel Aviv promenade.
The guard was slightly wounded but the man died in hospital. His girlfriend
remains in critical condition. The attacker was apprehended by security
personnel. Fatah’s Al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades, a group linked
to Yasser Arafat, claimed responsibility for this latest attack.
(A.P., N.Y.T., Reuters, July 16)
ISRAELI KIDNAPPED BY HEZBOLLAH, REPORTEDLY ALIVE—(London)
A senior Israeli official confirmed reports today that businessman Elhanan
Tennenbaum, kidnapped in October 2000 by Hezbollah operatives,
is alive but in poor health. Hezbollah, which acknowledged for the first
time that it is holding Mr. Tennenbaum, a reserve colonel in Israel’s
military, claims that he is connected to Israel’s Mossad intelligence
agency. About a week before Tennenbaum’s capture, Hezbollah seized
three Israeli soldiers in a guerrilla raid in the disputed Chebaa Farms
area near the border in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah had hoped to exchange
the four for 13 Lebanese prisoners being held by Israel. (A.P.,
July 16)
UNITED NATIONS RANKS ISRAEL 22ND FOR QUALITY OF LIFE—(Jerusalem)
The UN Human Development Report ranked Israel number 22 out of the 175
countries in this year’s report for best quality of life. The
annual UN list, started in 1990, measures a host of indicators such
as human rights, labor rights, poverty, disease, and health and education
spending. Since the report’s inception, Israel has always maintained
a place in the top thirty. The ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’
took the 98th spot, using statistics from before the current violence.
Jordan ranked 90, with Egypt lagging behind at 120, Syria 110, and Lebanon
83. (Jer. Post, July 10)
NEW REPRESENTATIVE IRAQI COUNCIL TO TRY SADDAM FOR WAR CRIMES—(Baghdad)
Iraq's new U.S.-backed Governing Council agreed on Tuesday to set up
a war crimes tribunal that would try ousted President Saddam Hussein
and his top associates. The new Governing Council, the most representative
in Iraqi history, is made up of 25 seats, of which, 13 will go to Shi’ites,
who make up 60% of the population; 5 seats have been allocated to Kurds
and another five to Sunnis; Christians and Turcomans, representing a
combined 4% of the population will each get one seat. A delegation from
the Governing Council will visit U.N. headquarters in New York next
week to lobby for a seat in the U.N. General Assembly and hopes to address
the Security Council. (Reuters, July 15; New York Post, July 16)
JUDGE FINDS OSAMA-SADDAM LINK—(Washington)
A U.S. federal judge helping to rebuild Iraq’s judicial system
says he’s found evidence linking Saddam Hussein and Osama bin
Laden. Federal Appeals Judge Gilbert Merritt, who is currently in Iraq,
said an Iraqi lawyer brought him documents that included the name of
an Iraqi officer in that country’s embassy in Pakistan, Abid Al-Karim
Muhamed Aswood, who was described as “responsible for the coordination
of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.” Judge Merritt,
a Democrat and long-time family friend of Al Gore, wrote in a dispatch
for the Tennesseean newspaper that, “It seems to me to be strong
proof that the two were in contact and conspiring to perform terrorist
acts”. (N.Y.P., July 12)
SYRIA REDUCES FORCES IN LEBANON—(Beirut)
Amidst mounting U.S. tensions over Syria’s lack of anti-terror
cooperation, Damascus has begun to reduce its military presence in Lebanon,
which it has occupied since 1976. One thousand out of some 20,000 Syrian
troops have begun dismantling bases near Beirut and in eastern and northern
areas. An unnamed Syrian official said that Syrian troops which withdrew
from the south of Beirut would redeploy to eastern Lebanon, near the
border with Syria. The redeployment, however, is not expected to reduce
Syria's dominance in Lebanese politics. (A.P., July 16)
59 WAR CRIMINALS MISSING IN CANADA—(Ottawa)
Dozens of war criminals from 24 countries are on the loose after Canadian
immigration authorities lost track of them, according to arrest warrants
obtained by the National Post. Immigration officials are searching for
59 war criminals who came to Canada, were ordered to report to immigration
offices to be deported, but never showed up. They disappeared from Montreal,
Toronto, Edmonton and Kitchener and Canadian officials have no clues
as to their whereabouts. Of the missing 59, one is a Lebanese murderer
wanted for crimes against humanity and other is a Kashmiri terrorist
considered armed and dangerous. (Nat’l. Post, July 16)
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 668 • Tuesday, July 15, 2003
HOW MUCH DON'T
WE KNOW?
GOVERNMENT-IMPOSED CONSTRAINTS
ON MIDDLE EAST MEDIA COVERAGE
Doug Jehl and Khaled Abu Toameh
The Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, June 16, 2003
On June 2, 2003, Doug Jehl
and Khaled Abu Toameh addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy
Forum. Mr. Jehl, currently with the New York Times' Washington bureau,
served as the Times' Cairo bureau chief from 1995 to 2000 and, prior
to that, as a White House correspondent for the paper. Mr. Abu Toameh
is the West Bank and Gaza correspondent of the Jerusalem Post; previously,
he served as a special correspondent for U.S. News and World Report,
a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report, and a correspondent for Al
Fajr. The following is a rapporteur's summary of their remarks.
DOUG JEHL: Of the seventeen countries covered by the
New York Times' Cairo bureau, only a few are accessible without constraints--Kuwait,
Jordan, and, more recently and to a lesser extent, Lebanon and Bahrain.
The most interesting countries in the region from a reportorial standpoint
are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, and all of them have very restrictive
visa policies. Entering these countries is not impossible, however.
The question is how to deal with the authorities and how to write about
what one has observed…
First of all, little words can make huge differences. During Israel's
1996 incursion in Lebanon, the lead sentence in my New York Times article
read, "The Israeli army fired an artillery barrage into a UN peacekeeping
camp today. The attack, which Israel said came in response to rocket
mortar fire…" In contrast, the Washington Post described
"Israeli artillery shells fired in retaliation for a rocket barrage
slammed into a UN compound." Evidently, the Post's wording upset
the Syrians, and the author was banned from entering the country for
years… While in Iraq, I visited a camp of the Iranian opposition
group Mujahedin-e Khalq. The rather light story I wrote about the visit
upset the Iranian government, for Tehran considers MEK its number-one
enemy. Consequently, I was banned from entering Iran for nearly nine
months…
Even if foreign journalists are not banned from entering a particular
Middle Eastern country, they may suffer harsh criticism in the state-affiliated
media. This happened to me in Iran in 1998, when I was accused of being
a spy and blamed for anti-Islamic attitudes.
All of these incidents demonstrate that journalists covering the Middle
East should be very cautious… For instance, it may be wise to
delay writing about certain matters until one has left the country in
question. Moreover, it may be inappropriate to report information if
it could put lives at risk. In other words, the real challenge often
arises after visiting a country. The guiding principle is to be extremely
cautious because missteps can have severe consequences.
KHALED ABU TOAMEH: The Palestinian Authority imposes
constraints on media coverage in its territory. When the PA moved into
Gaza and the West Bank in 1994, one of its first activities was to assume
control over the media by cracking down on independent Palestinian media
outlets (i.e., those not affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization).
Some journalists were imprisoned; others lost their jobs when newspapers
were shut down. PA restrictions on the media remain in effect…
Nevertheless, the situation in the Palestinian territories is much better
than that in many Middle Eastern states, particularly Syria and Saddam
Husayn's Iraq. There are no restrictions on journalists' movements,
in part because of the lack of Palestinian border enforcement. Yet,
the Palestinian Ministry of Information closely follows the work of
foreign journalists…
Concern about the PA's reaction is not the main reason for limited reporting
by Palestinian journalists… Rather…many Palestinian journalists
see themselves as part of the national cause and hence do not report
on matters that they think are irrelevant or harmful to that cause.
Foreign journalists face acute problems in the territories as well…
Indeed, my main activity is to take foreign journalists based in Israel
or elsewhere on trips through these territories, showing them the relevant
places… In effect, foreign journalists are dependent on Palestinian
journalists. Yet, the latter are often more vulnerable than the former.
For instance, an article published by a foreign journalist after a visit
to the territories can cause serious problems for those Palestinians
who accompanied him or her, often unbeknownst to the journalist in question.
Such problems may lead to a sort of Palestinian self-censorship…
(This Special Policy Forum
Report was prepared by Michael Schmidmayr.)
______________________________________________________
'LONG LIVE DICTATORSHIP': AN ARAB
COLUMNIST
ON DICTATORSHIPS IN THE ARAB WORLD
Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI)
Special Dispatch Series - No. 536, July 10, 2003
In an article titled "Long
Live Dictatorship" that appeared in the United Arab Emirates daily
Al-Itihad on June 29, 2003, columnist Abdallah Rashid examined the roots
of the Arab street's rejection of democracy. The following are excerpts
from the article:
"The entire world is perplexed about us--the Arabs--and no longer
knows whether we truly live on this planet or came from another planet.
Are all the Arab peoples in need of psychological treatment, or are
we a hopeless case for which psychological treatment will make no difference?
The whole world is perplexed about us: Do the Arab peoples support democracy
or not? Do they want their freedom, or have they gone into the dungeon
of repression, pleased and satisfied with handcuffs on their wrists,
bonds of steel on their ankles, and prisoner's collars about their necks?"
"The entire world is perplexed about us. Do we really seek our
freedoms and attempt to rid ourselves of ages of oppression, deprivation,
and domination? Do the Arab peoples really want to extricate themselves
from the claws of the repressive regimes, or are they addicted to a
life of decline, lowliness, and acceptance of humiliation? Have the
Arab peoples become addicted to a life that is like being thrown into
the darkness of the dungeon? Have they become addicted to floggings
with whip and lash, to the dissolving [of victims] in acid, to the blows
on the back of the head, to humiliation and insult?"
"In light of ongoing events, it appears that the Arab psychology
has become addicted to the dictatorial model of life. Indeed, all the
Arab peoples--all of them--have become completely addicted to dictatorship,
oppression, and regimes that beat [the people] on their heads with their
shoes… At first glance, it seems to the world that a powerful
craving for dictatorship flows in the blood of the Arab peoples, to
the point of chronic addiction, from which they can never be freed--that
they will die, as [a] fish dies out of the sea, if they awaken one day
to a non-oppressive regime…that does not practice dictatorship
and humiliation."
"I do not exaggerate by saying this, because within each one of
us there is a little dictator who feels gratification when he is repressed
by those stronger and more brutal than he, and who at the same time
does not refrain from acting this same way, in his milieu, towards those
weaker and inferior in status. And when that milieu expands, he gradually
imposes this on more people, so that when this sphere grows and he is
the one who decides first and last, and who gives the orders, dictatorship
spreads and it is imposed on all the people. Thus yesterday's oppressed
become today's oppressor; yesterday's subjugated become today's subjugator;
he that was wronged now becomes the wrongdoer; the humiliated becomes
the arrogant."
"Many Arab writers have gone berserk cursing the U.S. night and
day for taking its time establishing democracy in Iraq--but they refuse
to enter into any talk about the [lack of] desire of the Iraqi people,
with all its factions, to experience democracy. So far, no Iraqi side
has agreed to sit with the other side to arrive at an understanding
regarding Iraq's future as a united and sovereign country. Everyone
wants his piece of the pie, and everyone rejects the other…"
"Does the Iraqi model of dealing with the problem of implementing
democracy mean that the culture of negating the other flows in the blood
of the Arab peoples to the point where they are incapable of ridding
themselves of the enslavement to dictatorship[s]? Does this mean that
the Arab peoples have become addicted to [the point that they] accept
repression, brutality, and an iron-fist policy, to the point where any
talk about democracy may cause them horror…? Has the worship of
a dictator and of oppression become the foundation of Arab thought and
culture, while turning towards democracy is the exception?"
______________________________________________________
PIPES'S EFFECTIVE ROUTE TO PEACE
Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe, June 22, 2003
Ninety-nine Americans out of 100
have probably never heard of the United States Institute for Peace,
but that hasn't stopped a pitched battle from breaking out over President
Bush's nomination of Daniel Pipes to the institute's board of directors.
The USIP was created by an act of Congress in 1984 ''to promote international
peace and the resolution of conflicts among the nations and peoples
of the world.'' Its bipartisan board reflects a multiplicity of ideologies
and opinions, but each director must, by law, ''have appropriate practical
or academic experience in peace and conflict resolution.''
What Pipes offers the institute is a deep knowledge of Islam and the
Middle East and the conviction that confronting Islamism--the radical,
fundamentalist, and often violent ideology exemplified by Osama bin
Laden and the Ayatollah Khomeini--is the key to resolving some of the
world's worst conflicts.
To hear his critics tell it, Pipes is an ''Islamophobe'' and an anti-Muslim
bigot whose ignorance about Islam is matched only by his hostility toward
it. Their smears of him are poisonous. ''Daniel Pipes has a problem--his
obsessive hatred of all things Muslim,'' writes James Zogby of the Arab
American Institute. ''Pipes is to Muslims what David Duke is to African-Americans.''
But these are gross and vicious libels, as anyone who reads or listens
to Pipes's own words will quickly discover. He is not one to keep his
views to himself. His hundreds of essays on terrorism, Islam, and the
Middle East have appeared in scores of publications, from the Atlantic
Monthly to The Jerusalem Post to Foreign Affairs. He has written countless
book reviews, many for the Middle East Quarterly, a journal he founded
in 1994. He is the author or editor of 13 books [and] he lectures nationwide.
In short, he has compiled a vast public record. (Much of which can be
inspected at www.danielpipes.org). If he were the hater his foes decry,
it would be pretty hard to disguise.
The truth, however, is that far from nursing a ''hatred of all things
Muslim,'' Pipes has devoted most of his life to an appreciation and
understanding of Islamic culture. He earned two degrees in medieval
Islamic history from Harvard, traveled widely in the Muslim world, and
lived for three years in Egypt. He even wrote a book on Arabic grammar.
''I fully intended to go into scholarship,'' Pipes told me the other
day, ''but in 1978, the year I got my PhD, Ayatollah Khomeini appeared
on the scene and so did the need for an understanding of Islam in politics.
So I responded to that.''
Over the ensuing quarter-century, his ''response'' has comprised a great
array of issues. But one theme has predominated: the menace of Islamism.
''Militant Islam is the problem,'' Pipes says. ''Moderate Islam is the
solution.'' He has been forthright in his denunciation of Islamist extremism
and relentless in calling attention to the threat posed by the likes
of bin Laden and his adherents in the West. If Pipes's admonitions had
been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11.
Pipes warned in 1995: ''Unnoticed by most Westerners, war has been unilaterally
declared on Europe and the United States.'' He has been, at times, eerily
prescient. Just four months before the attack on the twin towers, he
and Steven Emerson wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Al Qaeda was
''planning new attacks on the US'' and that Iranian operatives ''helped
arrange advanced…training for Al Qaeda personnel in Lebanon where
they learned, for example, how to destroy large buildings.''
But just as there is no contradiction between President Bush's determination
to wipe out international terrorism and his frequent expressions of
solidarity with American Muslims, neither is there any conflict between
Pipes's hard line on militant Islamist radicals and his support for
the traditional, moderate Muslims who are generally the radicals' first
victims. Indeed, some of those moderates are among his strongest supporters.
''The Pipes nomination has become a test of strength for Islamists who
wish to paint the war against terrorism as a war against Islam,'' Hussai
Haqqani, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
wrote recently. ''Pipes is not always right in all his arguments. As
a Muslim, I disagree with several of his policy prescriptions. But his
views are neither racist nor extremist; they fall within the bounds
of legitimate scholarly debate.'' Tashbih Sayyed, the Muslim editor
of Pakistan Today magazine, concurs. Pipes ''does not bash Muslims,''
he stresses. ''What he attacks is a fascist interpretation of Islam…''
The most effective champions of peace are frequently notable for their
realism and refusal to succumb to political correctness. Those are precisely
the hallmarks of Daniel Pipes's career. The USIP will be enriched by
his presence.
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 667 • Monday, July 14, 2003
AN INTERVIEW WITH
PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON
Anton La Guardia and Alan Philps
Daily Telegraph, July 12, 2003
…Do you worry
about Tony Blair exerting pressure on George Bush to put more pressure
on Israel to make more concessions?
P.M. Ariel Sharon: The answer is no. We have made our position very
clear. For genuine, durable, real peace I am ready to make painful compromises.
I spoke about compromises in the cradle of the Jewish people. I made
it very, very clear to the heads of the U.S. and Great Britain and other
European countries and President Putin that when it comes to the security
of Israeli citizens here, there are not going to be any compromises;
not now, not in the future. We accepted the road map. We had 14 reservations,
but we accepted. I am committed to that. When it comes to security nothing
will move us to give up our right to self-defence…
Not so long ago you were saying that a withdrawal process from the
West Bank and Gaza Strip would be national suicide. Have you changed
your position?
If there is a Palestinian government and there are real reforms, if
there is a plan based on stages and in the first stage there is a full
cessation of terror, I will be ready to make painful compromises…
I will be ready then to make painful compromises on the political and
territorial side, but I will not make any compromise on security.
[T]he problem is that Arafat is undermining the new government. It is
a good thing that Mahmoud Abbas was nominated as the prime minister…
He is one of those who understood that Israel cannot be defeated by
terror and he understood very early that the suffering of the Palestinians
was caused by Arafat and his strategy. If there is complete quiet and
terror organisations are dismantled…[and] if they take serious
preventive steps to stop incitement and start educating for peace, I
believe that Israel will then be able to [compromise].
I mentioned a state. I meant a fully demilitarised state. I meant without
final borders, because final borders will only be agreed upon in the
third stage. The plan is called a performance-based plan. Things should
be fully implemented. We do not move from one stage or sub-stage to
another one unless the former one is fully implemented…
Abu Mazen has made quite clear he has no intention of dismantling
Hamas or disarming the militants. This surely means the road map is
going to stop at the first stage and there will be no Palestinian state.
The Palestinian prime minister is having some problems… But things
are very clear. If the new Palestinian government will not dismantle
terrorist organisations, if it will not collect weapons and hand them
to third parties for destruction, and will not take serious preventive
steps and will not stop incitement, then nothing will move forward…
I have confidence in him because I know that he understands the situation.
Abu Mazen is not a member of the Zionist movement. He is a Palestinian.
But he understood that one cannot defeat Israel by terror, although
we have suffered heavy casualties. When you look at the numbers of casualties
it's hard to imagine what we suffered. In three years 815 Israelis have
been killed and 5,615 injured. It is not only the numbers. But here
the targets are different--the goal is to kill civilians… For
me peace means security and the right of the Jewish people to live in
peace…
You have said…that you are ready to make painful compromises,
but it's not entirely clear what those compromises might be. For some
in your cabinet the release of 400 prisoners is a painful compromise.
If the Palestinians do everything that you want them to do, what is
it that you have to offer them?
It would be a mistake at this stage to say, for instance, where the
final borders will be. If you say it now, that will be the starting
line for negotiations. The final borders depend on the relations that
will develop and the negotiations that take place…
You started off by saying concessions bring terrorism, but now you
say concessions are possible. What made you change your mind?
Do not think for one minute that concessions will be made if terror
will continue…. In the past, say during Arafat's leadership, there
was no chance whatsoever that terrorism would stop. It's a new experience
with the PA. We have to see how it will develop. Now maybe for the first
time we can say there is hope.
What happens if terror is reduced but there are still some attacks?
If the Palestinians will make 100 per cent effort and there is an act
of terror, we would take into consideration that such things may happen…
One hundred per cent effort means that terrorists, their supporters
and those that instigate murder are arrested, interrogated and punished…
Is Arafat strong enough to obstruct the process?
He is doing it. He controls the larger part of their armed forces, still
part of the money, and he got all those telephone calls from leaders,
mostly from Europe, and he receives messages, ministers of foreign affairs
and others. Every act of this nature only postpones the progress in
the process. Most European countries are doing that. By that they are
undermining Abu Mazen. This is a major mistake…
Don't you regret still being in the saddle--why not be on the farm,
listening to Mozart?
I would like to be on the farm to ride horses and to watch the cattle
and the sheep… But as long as I have the strength, I'll have to
continue and face these complicated problems… I believe that I
know how to deal with complicated and hard situations. The horses will
wait. The cattle will wait.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TRUTH ABOUT
THE TRUCE
Ehud Ya’ari
Jerusalem Report, July 14, 2003
A cease-fire is a bad formula
for fighting terrorism. It gives a murderous foe immunity, status and
the opportunity to regroup and rearm. It does not entail arrival at
a decision, still less a victory, but at most a kind of stand-off, an
acknowledgement of an ability to end the conflict.
This is precisely what is being offered to Israel by the “Interim
Unified National Command,” which unites the Palestinian Authority
with the Fatah and Hamas and the other rejectionist organizations. It
is a kind of supra-structure which will serve as the ultimate fount
of authority for the conduct of the truce period. It is entirely outside
of the PA, and even Fatah. This makes it a leadership which is, ab initio,
free of the yoke of the PA’s obligations, including those which
the PA will undertake in any new agreements to be reached with Israel
through American mediation.
Despite all these flaws, a cease-fire is the one and only path to pacification
of the cruel confrontation. Unfortunately but indisputably, there is
simply no other way to stop the violence.
So the search for a stable cease-fire is the only game in town, and
even those who now rant against it understand this. For indeed, after
all is said and done, without a cease-fire, the army will have to do,
under the guidance of the Shin Bet, something that no one in Israel
is eager to see done: Reoccupy the Gaza Strip and its 1.2 million residents,
in order to smash the networks of Hamas and its allies there as was
done on the West Bank with great, but, as we all know, far from complete
success.
The practical question: What will be the rules for this cease-fire between
Hamas and Israel, mediated by the PA, under Egyptian patronage and with
American consent?
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is insisting that the cease-fire be an interlude
of no more than a few weeks’ duration, prior to the disarming
of Hamas. As Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter told Condoleezza Rice, Hamas
and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip have a total of 600-1,000 armed
personnel. This is no mass militia, and the 20-30,000 members of the
PA’s various armed forces should be capable of handling them quickly
and effectively.
However, the understandings on the cease-fire reached between PA Prime
Minister Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Hamas are based on the principle
of prevention of intra-Palestinian clashes, on sanctification of the
“right to resist the occupation” and the inclusion of Hamas
in the decision-making process. In other words, from the Palestinian
point of view, the cease-fire will be the way to enable Hamas, as Dr.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of Hamas’s top leaders, puts it: “To
return the sword to its scabbard without breaking it.”
While the Palestinians see the cease-fire as a means of conserving the
threat of Hamas terror, the Israeli-American attitude is that the cease-fire
should be a rung on the ladder to destruction of Hamas’s terrorist
potential. This gap can be bridged only by a firm policy on the part
of Abu Mazen, aimed at embracing Hamas and simultaneously disarming
it. This means converting Hamas into an unarmed political movement,
just as many dreamed and still dream would happen to Hizballah in Lebanon.
As things stand now:
-
Abu Mazen lacks the
determination to back up his declarations with deeds. He, and with
him security chief Muhammad Dahlan, are rapidly becoming weaker, despite
the booster shots from the Americans.
-
Hamas has no intention
of facilitating its own castration through a cease-fire. Its plan
is to exploit the cease-fire to improve the range of its rockets,
to upgrade its explosive charges and to rebuild the destroyed command
infrastructure on the West Bank.
-
Israel has no intention
of turning a blind eye to the process of reorganization, and if it
does not carry out “targeted interdictions,” it will surely
bitterly complain at the top of its voice over the exploitation of
the cease-fire for the preparation of another bloody round of violence.
It seems to me that the
obvious conclusion can be summed up like this: A cease-fire could produce
new terms of reference in this confrontation. From the moment the Palestinians
lay down their arms, or at least engage the safety catches, it will
be difficult for them to start using them again soon. The struggle in
the next stage will therefore have to focus on the preservation of quiet
and on prevention of bloodshed on the part of both sides, while constraining
Hamas and its ilk. A cease-fire is just that, a temporary truce and
not an armistice, and certainly not a prelude to peace.
It is also not a prelude to a Palestinian state in interim borders,
as is called for by the road map, but rather to a Palestinian administration
that has genuine worth on the ground. In other words, the cease-fire
will decide the fate of the PA long before its chances of becoming a
state are even discussed.
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 666 • Friday, July 11, 2003
AN ACTIVIST'S
GUIDE TO ARAB AND MUSLIM CAMPUS
AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA
Stephen Schwartz
FrontPageMagazine, May 23, 2003
The following is an excerpt
of a survey of Muslim campus and community organizations in North America.
Information about receiving the complete pamphlet may be found at the
following website: www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7991
1. Historical Background.
…Arab and Muslim community politics is a relatively new phenomenon
in the U.S. and Canada, having first appeared at the end of the 1980s.
The emergence of organizations claiming to represent ethnic Arab communities,
as well as born Muslims, in the North American political and social
context, reflected four successive developments in society. The first
was the growth in immigration from Arab countries, beginning in the
1970s. The second was the radicalization of Arabs in North America,
under the influence of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The third, which
was also a consequence of increased immigration, was the arrival of
a significant Islamic community on the western side of the Atlantic.
Finally, came the period of concern and solidarity motivated by the
suffering of Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Chechnya…
The communities of Arab Americans and born Muslims in America are now
dominated by advocacy organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s,
and which assumed a particularly important role after September 11th.
Many of them now target interfaith and peace groups for common activities,
especially demonstrations and other events against the Iraq intervention.
Because so many of them are now active on campus and in other public
affairs, each of them will be discussed separately…
2. American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) [www.adc.org].
Founded in 1980…as a non-religious civil rights group [the ADC]
was clearly created in imitation of, and even as a rival or counterweight
to, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights organization.
It originally concentrated its attentions on Christian Arab Americans,
who make up a majority of the Arab American population… Until
September 11th, ADC mainly focused on paralleling the ADL, by mounting
legal campaigns to defend Palestinian advocates. It frequently allied
with leftist groups in campaigns against U.S. support for Israel.
After the beginning of the U.S. war against terror, a perceptible shift
occurred in the orientation and activities of ADC. It became a strident
voice protesting what it said were plans of the Bush administration
to curtail the civil liberties of Arab Americans. ADC has labeled all
efforts by the Justice and Treasury Departments against terrorism as
unfair persecution based on ethnic discrimination. ADC has also fostered
the belief that “ethnic profiling” is rampant in official
U.S. dealings with Arab and Muslim Americans. [After] September 11th,
ADC extended its range of concerns. It suddenly became a leading defender
of Palestinian “martyrdom” campaigns inside Israel, as well
as of Saudi Arabia… .
3. Arab American Institute (AAI) [www.aaiusa.org].
AAI was organized in 1985…“to represent Arab American interests
in government and politics.” Its chairman is a political operative
in Washington, attorney George Salem… AAI is much more identified
with its cofounder, president and leading spokesperson, James Zogby,
formerly executive director of ADC. In contrast with Salem, a Republican,
Zogby is a major figure in Democrat party affairs. His brother John,
who runs a polling business, is an AAI board member… AAI…is
extremely active on campuses. Prior to September 11th AAI and Jim Zogby
enjoyed immense credibility in U.S. media… Jim Zogby also underwent
a striking change after September 11th…denouncing all opponents
as racist, extremist, Zionist agents… Zogby also became a vehement
denier of charges that Saddam supported terrorism, and violently denounced
any suggestion that removal of the Ba'ath party state would advance
the cause of democracy in the Middle East...
4. The Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA)
[www.msa-natl.org]. [MSA] has infiltrated numerous college
and university campuses in North America, and took the lead in corralling
young Muslims to defend…Saddam… When its leaders speak to
mainstream media, MSA presents itself as a campus-service organization
not much different from other collegiate faith groups. But the reality
is very different… MSA has been a key element in supporting the
Wahhabi conspiracy by Saudi-backed extremists to control American Islam…
MSA seeks to present itself as moderate and opposed to terrorism, even
though its chapters have distributed the propaganda of Osama bin Laden
on its websites, along with publicity-recruiting campaigns for Wahhabi
subversion of the Chechen struggle in Russia…
The poster boy for MSA could well be U.S. Army Sgt. Asan Akbar, an American
Muslim, accused of a bloody terrorist attack [which killed two U.S.
servicemen and wounded 15 in Kuwait, on March 23, 2003]. Akbar had attended
the student mosque at the University of California, Davis, controlled
by MSA...
5. Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)[www.cair-net.org].
CAIR…is the most active and consistent promoter of extremism in
the name of Islam now found in the U.S. and Canada… In 1999, the
Saudi embassy in Washington announced a grant by the Islamic Development
Bank of $250,000 to CAIR for the purchase of land in Washington, to
be used in the construction of “an education and research center.”
[CAIR] has organized numerous community branches and has had immense
and alarming success in gaining position as an “official”
representative of Islam in the U.S… It has always served as an
ally of the terrorist Hamas movement, engaging in blanket charges that
American Muslims are the victims of wholesale repression, and that U.S.
foreign policy is dictated by extreme Zionists.
CAIR was the main group to gain U.S. media access, after September 11th,
and during the war in Afghanistan and the 2002 Israeli incursions into
the West Bank, providing the “Muslim view” of these events…While
they were eventually induced…to condemn suicide terror in a pro
forma manner, they hedged their disavowals by describing them as an
understandable response to Israeli brutality…
6. Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) [www.mpac.org].
MPAC was created in 1989, centered in Los Angeles. Even before September
11th, it presented itself as more inclusive and more open to real dialogue
with Jews and Christians than other Arab and Muslim groups, but [it]
nonetheless typically defends extremist violence.
MPAC cofounder Salam al-Marayati maintained his reputation for irresponsible
rhetoric when, on the very afternoon of September 11th, he used a Los
Angeles talk radio show as a forum to accuse the Israelis of responsibility
for the attacks on New York and Washington… When a suicide terror
bomber blew up a pizzeria in Israel on August 9, 2001, MPAC declared
that Israel itself was “responsible for this pattern of violence.”…
7. American Muslim Council (AMC)[www.amconline.org]. AMC was
also created in 1989, as a Washington-based counterpart to MPAC. It
has been especially active in spreading Wahhabi Islam to inmates in
the federal and state prisons, as a partner of the Islamic Society of
North America (ISNA), and to U.S. military personnel.
8. Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) [www.isna.net].
ISNA enforces Wahhabi theological writ in the country's 1,200 officially
recognized mosques….
Many of the main mosques in the U.S. were recently built with Saudi
money and saddled with a requirement that they follow Wahhabi imams
and Wahhabi dictates…. Testimony to this effect comes from (among
many others) Kaukab Siddique, the radical editor of New Trend, an Islamic
periodical of extremist views yet opposed to Wahhabi domination of American
Islam, who charged: “ISNA controls most mosques in America and
thus also controls: 1. Who will speak at EVERY [Friday prayer]. 2. Which
literature will be distributed there.”… Islamic Horizons,
based in Plainfield, Indiana, is the bimonthly organ of ISNA…
Involvement with ISNA should be avoided by sincere interfaith activists,
although its annual national convention may be a useful place for independent,
traditional, antiterrorist Muslims to seek contacts…
9. Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS) & International
Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) [www.siss.edu] [www.softechww.com/iiit].
In spring 2002 [a] U.S. Treasury task force, Operation Green Quest,
had been investigating the funding of terrorists claiming to act in
the name of Islam. Raids on March 20, 2002, struck an extraordinary
array of financial, charitable, and ostensibly religious entities identified
with Muslim and Arab concerns in this country, most of them headquartered
in Northern Virginia…
The keystone of the Saudi-sponsored Northern Virginia network was the
Saar Foundation, created by Suleiman Abdul Al-Aziz al-Rajhi, a scion
of one of the richest Saudi families. The Saar Foundation is connected
to Al-Taqwa, a shell company formerly based in Switzerland, where its
leading figures included a notorious neo-Nazi, Ahmed Huber. Subsequently
moving to the United States, Al-Taqwa was shut down after September
11th and its assets frozen by U.S. presidential order. But operations
continued, as the Wahhabi lobby shifted to its backup institutions here…
Saar received $1.7 billion in donations in 1998, although this was left
out of the foundation's tax filings until 2000…
Front groups interfacing between the Wahhabi-Saudi money movers under
federal suspicion and the broader American public included two institutions
active in the religious field: the Graduate School of Islamic and Social
Sciences (GSISS), in Leesburg, Va., and the International Institute
of Islamic Thought (IIIT), located in Herndon, Va. The involvement of
GSISS with the financing of extremism was especially startling in that
it alone is credentialed by the Department of Defense to certify Muslim
chaplains for the U.S. armed forces…
10. Islamist Hate Media. …While the “mainstream”
Islamic establishment--groups like CAIR, AMC, and ISNA--offers perfunctory
support for the anti-terror war and hovers around President Bush for
photo ops in mosques, the poison pens of its media produce an unceasing
stream of insult and loathing directed against America…
These publications are widely distributed on campuses. They make no
attempt to hide their attachments to international extremist groups.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood which preaches the classic neo-Wahhabi doctrine
of the supremacy of Islam and condemnation of non-extremist Muslims
as irreligious--receives support from at-Talib (The Student), published
at UCLA by the Islamic Center of Southern California, and from ISNA's
Islamic Horizons. The Jama'at-al-Islami movement, which perpetuates
the same extremist mentality in Pakistan, appears to enjoy the sympathy
of the Weekly Mirror International, based in the Greenpoint section
of Brooklyn, New York, and other papers. The Muslim Observer publishes
anyone given to an exaggerated anti-U.S. idiom, and its contributors
have included Osama bin Laden…
The Minaret, also published in Los Angeles by the Islamic Center of
Southern California, is infamous for its anti-Jewish cartoons. Its May
2002 issue featured a tasteful headline: “Axis of Evil: The United
States, Israel, and Arab governments,” adorned by a graphic of
a rattlesnake. In it, editor Aslam Abdullah accused Israel of pursuing
“a policy adopted by Henry Kissinger in 1979 that called for a
final solution of the Palestinian problem.” If this is not the
language of incitement, what is?
In the April 27-May 2, 2002, issue of the Michigan-based Muslim Observer
(www.muslimobserver.com), we find an article titled “Eyewitness
Account of Washington March,” in which a Pakistani-American proudly
described how one of his companions, a 16-year-old boy, “put on
a Palestinian scarf and truly gave the tingles to the breakfast crowd,
looking quite the epitome of the suicide bomber.” Meanwhile, in
the March 27 issue of the Weekly Mirror International (www.readmirror.com),
author Khalil Osman declaimed, “The Bush administration has demonstrated
unprecedented zeal in instituting draconian measures aimed mainly at
Arabs and Muslims…”
11. Other Entities. CAIR, which we have already examined,
was originally established as a political action base for Hamas in the
U.S., in an interlocking network with the Holy Land Foundation (HLF),
based in Richardson, Texas. While federal authorities have allowed CAIR
to continue functioning undisturbed, they shut down HLF. Although headquartered
in Texas, HLF ran branch offices in Paterson, N.J., Bridgeview, Ill.,
and San Diego. Established in 1989, HLF took off when it received a
$200,000 cash infusion from Musa Abu Marzook, the external director
of Hamas, who lived in the United States until he was deported in 1997…
Federal authorities had been watching the foundation since 1996, and
concerned American Muslims had denounced its activities on numerous
occasions. On September 5, 2001, less than a week before the World Trade
Center atrocities, federal anti-terrorism agents raided InfoCom Corporation,
the company that ran the HLF website. The InfoCom connection is crucial
to understanding relations between the various components of the Wahhabi
terror conspiracy. According to defectors from Hamas, the HLF web server
was also used by CAIR, MSA, ISNA, the Islamic Association for Palestine
(IAP), and other terrorist apologists… All of these groups shared
a single administrative and technical contact for the maintenance of
the server. They had been erected as political shells around the Hamas
hydra-head represented by HLF…
The cluster of Hamas front groups in America emanating from HLF also
included the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), and such other
groups as the American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ)… These groups
appear independent of one another, but nearly all of them drew from
the common financial and technical pool at HLF. They do not disagree
or compete; they are diverse “shops” offering identical
ideological content.
Other, less prominent groups within the Muslim extremist camp in America
include the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) [www.icna.org], aligned
with “neo-Wahhabi” extremists in Pakistan, and the American
Muslim Alliance (AMA) [www.amaweb.org], which has conducted targeted
political lobbying to advance the Arab Muslim agenda and distributes
Holocaust denial literature at its annual convention. ICNA and AMA are
both now coordinated with the Muslim American Society (MAS) [www.masnet.org]…
Conclusion. … American Muslims must now take
the initiative in finding a proper and legitimate place for the faith
at the table of American religions. This means counteracting Islamophobic
propaganda and prejudice. It also means protecting civil liberties.
But above all, it means taking the microphone away from the Wahhabi
lobby. To do that, new organizations must emerge. Shi'a Muslims must
organize civic groups that will introduce their concerns into discussion
of such issues as the future of Iraq. Muslim students must create independent
campus organizations that will allow real debate over their destiny
as believers. America offers Muslims a place to develop faith and activism
as nowhere else in the world. But this mission cannot be accomplished
if American Islam remains the captive of extremists. The encouragement
of such activism, and education of all campus and community groups in
its tasks, has been the intent of this survey.
(Stephen Schwartz is author
of “The Two Faces of Islam:
The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror” [Doubleday, 2002].)
Shabbat Shalom to all our
readers!
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 665 • Thursday, July 10, 2003
COMMENTARY: IS
'ROAD MAP' A U.S. SETBACK?
Joel Fishman and Joseph Morrison Skelly
United Press International, July 3,
2003
Just over a year ago, on June
24, 2002, President George W. Bush declared that a change of leadership
and the introduction of democratic institutions were the preconditions
of Palestinian statehood. Now, rather than stand his ground, the president,
using subtle coercion and media-hype, has launched the "road map"
to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. It is an ill-timed plan that rewards
the Palestinian Authority before it has undertaken fundamental political
reforms.
With this policy shift, the Bush administration has retreated from its
stated principles. This backtracking seems somewhat surprising, since
the United States has just enhanced its geopolitical position in the
Middle East by securing regime change in Iraq. At the same time, such
a post-war diplomatic withdrawal seems to be part of a wider pattern:
In the closing stages of conflict, the United States too often fails
to convert military success into long-term political advantage. The
"road map," in fact, may well prove to be another U.S. strategic
setback.
This failure of nerve is not an isolated event. Twelve years ago the
United States walked away from its victory in the Gulf War without consolidating
fundamental geopolitical objectives or even, in retrospect, properly
defining them. It left Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in power instead
of marching on Baghdad. It failed to support a Shiite uprising in southern
Iraq or to properly defend the Kurds in the north.
Rather than sidelining Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat,
who had been discredited for backing Saddam's regime, it sponsored the
ill-fated 1993-2000 Oslo peace process, which rehabilitated him and
then collapsed when he launched a renewed terrorist war against Israel
in late September 2000.
More recently, in Afghanistan the United States defied expectations
by scoring a lightening quick triumph over the Taliban and replacing
it with a friendly regime in Kabul. Yet by not cementing its early success
around the capital with more troops on the ground, it allowed al-Qaida
operatives to escape into Iran and Pakistan, from where they are now
filtering back into the country.
In Iraq, the United States and its allies have just won a resounding
victory, and the country is now taking its first tentative steps in
35 years towards a more open society. That said, there are some disturbing
signs. The consistent killing of American GIs -- and British troops
-- since the "official" end of combat operations on May 1
might be the result of declaring victory too soon. Perhaps this is because
the United States' political leadership entered the war with a hazy
strategic outlook…
What factors account for America's periodic failure to convert battlefield
triumph into hard strategic coin? It may be fuelled by features of democracies
in our therapeutic age.
History demonstrates that when pushed to war, democracies have often
preferred decisive, shock battles that result in clear-cut winners and
losers. But recoiling before the decisive defeat of one's enemy may
now be a competing reflex. This reluctance to deliver a coup de grace
might be a reaction to constant media scrutiny. It is reinforced by
domestic and international criticism, which was especially acute in
the run-up to the Iraqi conflict. It certainly complicates the nature
of diplomatic negotiations at the end of war.
Then again, the State Department is everyone's favorite whipping post.
Some analysts think it overcompensates for U.S. military strength rather
than harnessing that power to the pursuit of national interests. Historian
Victor Davis Hanson bemoans how "Pressuring Israel to 'take risks
for peace' has long been seen by our State Department as a means of
assuaging Arab humiliation after military defeat -- almost as if the
amazing military prowess of Western armies required some kind of compensation
in the form of political concessions." …
There seems to be a misconception of the relationship between the legitimate
use of force and the fulfillment of political aims. This is especially
the case in the concluding phases of conflicts, when diplomacy must
serve as the interface between war and strategic objectives…
Perhaps we have lost sight of what victory actually means or how to
define it in the war on terror. It does not consist solely of bringing
back the heads of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in boxes or simply
finding weapons of mass destruction. Victory and world leadership come
in two stages.
In the first stage, or short term, they are represented by the imposition
of order, the attainment of security and the maintenance of stability.
In the second stage, or long run, world leadership comes with the gradual
spread of constitutional democracy, the rule of law, ordered freedom,
representative institutions, guaranteed individual rights, freedom of
religion, and the development of economies that offer a livelihood to
large numbers of people.
So thorough was the U.S. victory in Western Europe after World War II
that the example of its model ultimately shook the foundations of America's
great strategic rival, the Soviet Union. During the post-World War II
era, the United States successfully turned martial achievement to its
strategic advantage.
However, months after its military victory in the Middle East, it has
become evident that the Untied States does not yet have a similar plan
for Iraq, but it does have something for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
in the mistaken belief that this is a problem of urgent world importance.
Nobody really understands the "road map," and maybe that is
what its authors intend. With great emphasis on the journey -- in the
form of a "process" -- the final destination, the essence
of the issue, is left in the twilight zone. Will it lead to peace? Or
could the retreat to "process" be an insidious appeasement
project whose real agenda is to "manage" the problem instead
of solving it?
The first premise of the "road map" is that the United States
can domesticate the Palestinian Authority and force it to neutralize
other terror groups. This repeats late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin's gamble that Arafat would actually take the harsh steps necessary
to destroy Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, since Palestinian
society was without a Supreme Court, without Btselem -- a leading Israeli
human rights organization -- and without all kinds of "bleeding-heart
liberals."
The Israelis lost that role of the dice, because Arafat didn't act.
Nor will the Palestinian Authority's new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas,
also known as Abu Mazen. But he may well facilitate the return of Arafat,
this time through the back door of the "road map."
We believe that the Palestinian Authority has no plans to make peace
-- ever. The United States should, therefore, begin a process to dismantle
the organization. What is more probable, however, is that it will extort
one-sided Israeli concessions in a new type of framework that resembles
an open-ended arbitration, as opposed to a legitimate negotiation guided
by the principle of a fair exchange of value.
Meanwhile, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Arafat's own Fatah group have just
agreed to a cease-fire, but we predict they will not abide by it.
As tempers flare anew, we predict that the State Department will blame
both sides, call for an end to the "cycle of violence," and
thus erroneously equate a democratic Israel with a Palestinian Authority
wedded to terror. The CIA will train more Palestinian snipers, and more
innocent Israeli civilians will pay for this folly with their lives.
The "road map" will not lead the region in a new direction,
but it may usher the Israelis into a cul de sac of Palestinian-induced
violence. Time will tell if the United States, having won the war in
Iraq, suffers another strategic reversal in the Middle East.
(Joel Fishman is an associate
of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Joseph Morrison Skelly is an academic fellow with the Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.)
______________________________________________________
SAVING ABU MAZEN
Yisrael Harel
Ha’aretz, July 10, 2003
Tel Aviv University's School for
Government and Policy this week conducted large-scale diplomatic simulations.
The most important of these, which concluded Tuesday evening, dealt
with the road map. This is the closing scene of the simulation: From
the U.S. point of view, the first stage of the map ends as planned in
December 2003, even though the two sides, particularly the Palestinians,
have not fulfilled all their obligations. The Palestinians have held
new elections - in which, of course, Yasser Arafat was chosen as president
- but have not dismantled the terrorist organizations, as they are obliged
to do.
In addition, there were even more serious terror attacks during this
period than prior to the cease-fire…But despite all these, U.S.
President George Bush bulldozed the Israeli prime minister into attending
the international conference. One of the results: a coalition crisis.
The National Religious Party and National Union ministers can no longer
face their voters and are forced to bow out of the coalition. Five Likud
ministers, according to this scenario, also resign.
Most of the simulation participants who played the roles of Israeli
government officials believed that, despite the terror, Israel must
attend the international conference. And this indeed was the result
of the simulation. Their mentality is similar to that of the media,
which in recent days have joined forces to keep telling us about Abu
Mazen's troubles - how he would really like to fight terror but simply
cannot. The indirect but effective message is, therefore, that we must
learn to put up with a reasonable amount of terror. It is not so terrible,
they explained after the attack at Kfar Yavetz.
If Abu Mazen is indeed as weak as these supportive broadcasters say,
then the logical conclusion is that he is incapable of reaching an agreement.
Therefore, as strange as this may sound after our self-indoctrination
about him, he is not the partner who can supply the goods. He will constantly
blackmail us - as he is regarding a mass release of prisoners, including
those from Hamas and Islamic Jihad - without giving us a quid pro quo,
and certainly not the cessation of terror. In addition, how do his advocates
believe that the following contradiction can be resolved: Israel will
release Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners while demanding, together
with the Americans, that Abu Mazen, as his part of the deal, fight and
detain members of these organizations?
The only chance the road map has of success, if at all, is if one key
condition is fulfilled: The vast majority on both sides, Jews and Arabs,
have to want it. Then it does not matter whether the prime ministers
are weak. The majority of the Jewish people does want the road map.
The vast majority of the Arab people living in the Land of Israel, however,
has not at any stage reconciled itself to Jewish sovereignty over even
a small part of the land. It accepts the map as just one stage in the
"plan of stages," not as a peace agreement…
The Israelis, as the simulation proved, are looking for magic formulas,
pointless conferences and vain maps. They do not have the courage to
reject outside pressure such as is being applied now, when we are on
the threshold of defeating terror. If they were to stand up for their
right - their duty! - to complete the annihilation of the Hamas and
Jihad leaderships, they would be able to bring about a significant reduction
in terror, perhaps even its collapse, for a prolonged period. But they
were never characterized by determination - despite the fact that they
have the strength - to complete the job. Those responsible for this,
for not completing the job, are for the most part the peace-seekers
from Israel and abroad: Whenever Israel is close to victory, they exert
pressure to stop. This is the truth. And they are among those who are
responsible for the fact that, for another unnecessary and extended
period, there will continue to be victims among us - and we will be
forced to continue to live by the sword.
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 664 • Wednesday, July 9, 2003
WEDNESDAY’S
“NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES
“You have
been managing the negotiations for three weeks and all we’ve seen
are interviews on TV. How many checkpoints have you had removed? How
many prisoners have you released? You turned us all into terrorists
after 55 years of struggle and have given the Israelis quiet, but everything
goes on as before. I ask how long will you negotiate for the sake of
negotiation?” – Sahar Habash, one of Yasser
Arafat’s closest associates, leading the attack against Palestinian
PM Mahmoud Abbas, who then resigned from the Fatah Central Committee
and threatened to step down as PM. (Ha’aretz, July 9)
“It’s a mistake that the world is making (thinking
[Iranian President Mohammad Khatami] is reformist)…. The students
are shouting ‘Death to Khatami.’ They don’t want an
Islamic republic in any way. They want to choose their own government.”
– Ali Nakhai, who organized one of the two Montreal demonstrations
in support of the Iranian student movement, added that the Iranian government
“is the root of all terrorism. All the militant groups
in Palestine are supported by the Iranian government. Everyone knows
this.” (Gazette, July 9)
“President Bush did not get rid of two terrorist states
to create a third one.” – Elliot Abrams,
the US National Security Council’s top Middle East policymaker,
insisting that there would be no move toward the creation of a Palestinian
state before the uprooting of the terrorist infrastructure. (Ha’aretz,
July 8)
“There is no way prisoners with blood on their hands will
be released.” – Israeli PM Ariel Sharon,
commenting on Israel’s decision to free some Palestinian prisoners.
(Globe and Mail, July 7)
“Since Israel has not kept the Hudna, Islamic Jihad and
Hamas therefore cannot sit by and maintain the cease-fire, the attacks
will resume. The issue of prisoner release is the most important one
to us, after the liberation of the territories. This supposed victory
by Israel provoked us to show that the Palestinian struggle is not over,
and we are far from vanquished. We have become so used to death and
deprivation and the loss of our family members that we have nothing
left to lose if we fight on.” – Bessam Sa’adi,
a leader of Islamic Jihad in Jenin, suggesting that Israel’s refusal
to free Islamic Jihad and Hamas prisoners [not mandated by the “road
map” – Ed.], and not the IDF’s ongoing hunt for terrorists,
drove his group to resume attacks. He also described the return to violence
as a jab at Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Yalon, who recently
announced that Israel had won the conflict with the Palestinians.
(Jerusalem Post, July 8)
“Hamas and the other terrorist organizations, even in
their cease-fire declaration, explicitly reject the existence of and
peace with the ‘Zionist enemy.’ Why should Israel consider
releasing people who do not even deny that they plan to attack us again?”
– Editorial. (Jer. Post, July 6)
“Israel values the role of Canada in the multilateral
track of the peace process and is convinced Canada could contribute
significantly to resolve overriding issues such as economic reconstruction
of the Palestinians, and the issues of refugees that the Canadian government
has a prominent position [in] as the gavel holder of the multilateral
working group.” – Ronen Gil-Or, the deputy
head of the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, reiterating Israel’s rejection
of Canada’s offer of peacekeeping forces while encouraging Canada
to resettle Palestinian refugees. (Nat’l. Post, July 8)
“Our objective was not to empower an individual named
Abu Mazen; our objective was to disempower an individual named Arafat.”
– Daniel Kurtzer, the US ambassador to Israel, who added
that Abu Mazen “is a relatively weak man [who tends to]
run away from problems rather than try to solve them.”(Ha’aretz,
July 8)
“Today marks the resumption of a democratic system for
Baghdad.” – Paul Bremer, the US civilian
administrator in Iraq, referring to the first session of Baghdad’s
new city council. (Nat’l. Post, July 8)
“The Likud conceded everything without even beginning
negotiations after declaring that they wouldn’t conduct negotiations
under fire. They opposed a Palestinian state in the past and agreed
to one now, they opposed freezing settlements then and agreed now, they
wanted Greater Israel and now they support ending the occupation. The
Likud, which opposed every kind of international intervention, brought
us to a situation where all the negotiations will be run by international
mediators, who presented the road map to Israel as is, without allowing
changes.” – Labor Party acting chairman Shimon
Peres, who surprised many by attacking PM Ariel Sharon from the
right. (Jer. Post, July 7)
“I am pleased that in recent days we have seen a measure of positive
change in the degree of anti-Israeli incitement and hatred. This change
is not coincidental. It is the direct result of the decision by the
new Palestinian leadership to change the behavior of the past. This
proves that where there is the will, results can be achieved.”
– Statement made by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
at the conclusion of the first meeting of the Joint Israeli-Palestinian
Committee on the Prevention of Incitement.(Israel Foreign Ministry,
July 7)
“Current negotiations call for a Palestinian state, but
it won’t be what the rest of the world considers a state. We normally
use that term to describe an independent country that can, if it chooses,
raise an army and air force, control its air space, and join military
alliances. It’s impossible to imagine Israel agreeing to a state
like that arising on its doorstep…. The new Palestine, when and
if it emerges from the womb of diplomacy, will be a semi-autonomous
demilitarized region, with a little more power than Alberta.”
– Op-ed by Robert Fulford. (Nat’l. Post, July
7)
“I bring you the good tidings that resistance and jihad
cells have been formed on a wide scale inside Iraq and they are fighting
the enemy and the occupation…. I am in Iraq and with a comrade….”
– A tape recording purporting to be the voice of former Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein. This statement, supposedly recorded
on June 14th, six weeks after US President George W. Bush declared the
end of major hostilities, was recently broadcast on the Arab satellite
station, Al Jazeera. (Nat’l. Post, July 5)
“I think Ariel Sharon has been remarkable.” –
US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who also referred
to the Israeli PM as “courageous” and “statesmanlike.”
(Jer. Post, July 4)
______________________________________________________
SHORT TAKES
ABBAS QUITS FATAH
CENTRAL COMMITTEE, THREATENS TO RESIGN AS PM—(Ramallah)
Tensions in the Palestinian government rose on Tuesday, causing the
cancellation of a meeting between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set for
today and culminating in P.M. Abbas formally resigning from the Fatah
Central Committee. The crisis, spearheaded by Yasser Arafat, was sparked
by reports that have surfaced claiming Abbas was planning to address
the Israeli Knesset. Radical members of the Central Committee, allied
with Arafat, called on Abbas to step down as prime minister after he
failed to persuade Israel to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
In Abbas’ second letter to Arafat, he threatened to resign as
prime minister unless his party backs his methods of dealing with Israel.
Most of the Palestinian leadership believe Abbas' threats to resign
as prime minister are only a tactic to pressure his rivals. If Abbas
does leave the PA, it could cost the Palestinian leadership its new-found
legitimacy. (Ha'aretz, N.Y.T., USA Today, July 9)
HAMAS, ISLAMIC JIHAD: ISRAEL’S RELEASE OF PRISONERS NOT
ENOUGH, CLAIM SUICIDE BOMBING-- (Jerusalem, Jenin)
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have stated that the release of 350 Palestinian
prisoners from Israeli prisons, including the release of a senior Palestinian
security official suspected of being involved in a bus bombing in November
2000 that killed 2 Israeli civilians, is insignificant. They are demanding
that Israel release all 6000 Palestinians currently incarcerated or
risk the collapse of the recently signed cease-fire. Hamas continues
to manufacture Qassam rockets and a local wing of Islamic Jihad claimed
the Monday night suicide bombing in Israel which killed a 63-year-old
woman. In a videotape made before the attack, the 22-year-old bomber
identifies himself as a member of Islamic Jihad and says, “I carried
out this operation as a gift to the prisoners in the Zionist prisons.”
(Ha’aretz, July 7, N.Y.T. July 8, Washington Post, July 9)
IRAN CONFIRMS NEW MISSILES
CAN HIT ISRAEL—(Teheran) The Foreign Ministry
has officially confirmed the successful completion of the final test
of the Shahab-3, surface-to-surface missile. The missiles are being
prepared for delivery to the armed forces. The Shihab-3, based on North
Korea’s Nodong-1 missile but with improved Russian technology,
has a range of approximately 1300 kilometres, which means it can reach
both Israel and American troops stationed in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
UN atomic energy chief Mohamed El Baradei is in Iran today to discuss
the American claims that Iran is using its nuclear program to build
a nuclear bomb. (Ha’aretz, July 7, N.Y.T., July 8)
OXFORD PROF WHO BANNED
ISRAELI STUDENT FACES DISMISSAL—(London) An
Oxford University professor has provoked outrage by rejecting an application
from an Israeli Ph.D. student purely because of his nationality. Andrew
Wilkie, a professor of pathology, is now facing dismissal after
he told Amit Duvshani, a molecular biology student at Tel Aviv
University, that he and many other British academics were not prepared
to take on Israelis. On June 23, Prof. Wilkie wrote: “I am sure
that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I
take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army.” Later, in
his apology, Prof. Wilkie wrote: “I made a mistake, I expressed
personally-held opinions that have nothing to do with Oxford University
and they should not have been expressed in that manner ... I have a
view on the situation in the Middle East but I am not a racist or anti-Semitic.”(Telegraph-UK,
June 30, Jer. Post, July 6)
US COURT ORDERS HAMAS TO PAY $116 MILLION FOR MURDER—(Providence,
R.I.) A federal judge has ruled that the Palestinian terrorist
group Hamas must pay more than $116 million for the 1996 murder of two
Jewish settlers, Yaron Ungar, an American citizen, and his wife Efrat.
The lawyer for the family’s estate, David Strachman, filed suit
in 2000 under the Antiterrorist Act of 1991, which allows US citizens
harmed in terrorist attacks abroad to bring suits against the perpetrators
in US courts. The July 3 ruling was handed down by Magistrate Judge
David Martin after Hamas failed to respond to the charges. (N.Y.T.,
July 4, Jer. Post. July 7)
PARLIAMENT CLEARS P.M. BLAIR OF DOCTORING INTELLIGENCE—(London)
A House of Commons committee cleared British P.M. Tony Blair and his
government of charges that they deliberately altered or “sexed
up” evidence of Iraqi weapons. The Foreign Affairs Committee did
find that the government gave undue prominence to questionable intelligence,
namely a September dossier on Iraq’s weapons and a February dossier
which was plagiarized from a student thesis. (N.Y.T., July 8, Reuters,
July 7)
PRO-PALESTINIAN STUDENT CONFERENCE AT RUTGERS—(New
Brunswick, N.J.) Rutgers University will be the site of a national
pro-Palestinian conference in October despite hundreds of requests to
have the forum relocated off-campus or cancelled. According to Rutgers
officials, the school has received approximately 230 letters from all
across the country, including a plea from the New Jersey regional branch
of the Anti-Defamation League, to cancel the conference. The administration
has since decided the event will go on in the name of “free speech.”(Newsday,
July 8)
ISRAELI P.M. WELCOMES 330 NEW IMMIGRANTS FROM NORTH AMERICA—(Tel
Aviv) P.M. Ariel Sharon and Finance Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu were at Ben Gurion Airport this morning to welcome 330
new immigrants arriving from North America. The El Al flight is the
first of two scheduled to bring a total of 700 new immigrants to Israel
within the month. According to the Jewish Agency, 2,040 North American
Jews relocated to Israel last year and the numbers have increased by
20 percent this year. “In terms of immigrants moving en masse,
there haven’t been these numbers in 25 or 30 years,” said
George Birnbaum, spokesman for Nefesh B’Nefesh, the organization
sponsoring the move of about 940 North American Jews this year. (Ha’aretz,
July 9)
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 663 • Tuesday, July 8, 2003
IRAQ'S REAL WEAPONS
THREAT
Rolf Ekeus
Washington Post, June 29, 2003
With no weapons of mass destruction
as yet found in Iraq, the political criticism directed against President
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is mounting. Before the war,
the two leaders publicly declared that the Iraqi regime had not only
procured and produced such weapons but still retained them with the
intention to use them. This was considered a good reason for a military
operation against Iraq--an outright casus belli. A United Nations inspection
team, before the war, and the U.S. military, after the war, have been
searching Iraq and have not come up with anything that can remotely
be called weapons of mass destruction. Is it now time to join the game
of blaming Bush and Blair for an illegitimate or illegal war? Let us
first consider some facts in a complicated picture.
Chemical weapons were used by Iraq in its war against Iran (1980-88).
Arguably that use had a decisive effect on the outcome: It saved Iraq
from being overwhelmed by a much larger Iranian army. Furthermore, Iraq
made use of chemical bombs in air raids against the Kurdish civilian
population in northern Iraq. Nerve gases, such as sarin, and mustard
gas immediately and painfully killed many thousands of civilians. More
than 100,000 later died or were crippled by the aftereffects.
These reminders illustrate that Iraq's acquisition and use of chemical
weapons were carried out in pursuit of two strategic goals, namely to
halt Iran's possible expansion of its sphere of influence in the Persian
Gulf region and to suppress internal opposition… In strategic
terms and over generations, Iraq/Mesopotamia had been positioned as
a gatekeeper of the Arab nation against repeated Persian expansion westward,
a threat that had become acute with the Islamic revolution in Iran in
1979…
For Saddam Hussein…“Iranian beasts," to quote Tariq
Aziz in a conversation with me--not the United States or Israel--were
the eternal enemy of Iraq. With its population of more than 64 million,
Iran constituted a challenge that Iraq, with its 24 million inhabitants,
could not match with conventional military means. By using chemical
weapons to gas and kill the "human waves" of young, poorly
protected Iranian attack forces, the Iraqi army repeatedly saved itself
from being overwhelmed. And thus it became conventional wisdom, nourished
by the Iraqi leadership, that only nonconventional weapons could guarantee
that Iraq would prevail in an armed conflict with Iran.
Regarding biological weapons, the U.N. inspection team, UNSCOM, managed
after four years of investigation to confirm the existence in Iraq of
a major secret biological weapons program. This led in August 1995 to
the defection from Iraq of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamal,
director of Iraq's WMD programs. During UNSCOM's debriefings in Iraq
after the defection, Iraqi biological weapons scientists, able to speak
slightly more openly than normally, explained that their secret work
mainly was on assignments to find means for warfare against the Iranians.
Regarding the nuclear weapons projects, the Iraqi authorities defended
their systematic violation of Iraq's obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty with the proposition that Iran, likewise a party to the treaty,
was active in developing its own nuclear weapons. Iraq's obsession with
Iran was illustrated by its air attack in 1983 on the Iranian nuclear
reactors at Busher. Even the quite remarkable missile developments in
Iraq were related to Iran. Iraq succeeded in modifying and re-engineering
many hundreds of the more than 800 Scud missiles bought from the Soviet
Union--increasing their range of 200-300 kilometers to 500-600 kilometers,
sufficient to reach Tehran.
In sum, all four components of Iraq's prohibited and secret WMD program
were motivated and inspired by its structural enmity and rivalry with
Iran. Thus, during the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq did not use its readily
available chemical weapons, stored in considerable quantities in southern
Iraq, against the U.S.-led forces. The Iraqi leadership made clear to
me that there would have been no military sense in using chemical weapons
on such a fast-developing battlefield, where the enemy was highly mobile,
well trained and well equipped for chemical warfare. In addition, the
Iraqi willingness to use chemical weapons had been tempered by U.S.
Secretary of State James Baker's promise to Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz that such a contingency would change the U.S. war aim from the
liberation of Kuwait to regime change in Iraq.
The fact that Iraq in the recent war did not counter the coalition forces…with
chemical weapons should not have come as a surprise. The chemical weapons,
like the other WMD, had been developed with another enemy in mind. But
a big question remains about the puzzling absence of chemical weapons
in Iraq. Detractors of Bush and Blair have tried to make political capital
of the presumed discrepancy between the top-level assurances about Iraq's
possession of chemical weapons (and other WMD) and the inability of
invading forces to find such stocks. The criticism is a distortion and
trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security.
During its war against Iran, Iraq found that chemical warfare agents,
especially nerve agents such as sarin, soman, tabun and later VX, deteriorated
after just a couple of weeks' storage. [Iraqi chemists] were unable
to make the agents pure enough… Thus the Iraqi policy after the
Gulf War [focused] on design and engineering, with the purpose of activating
production and shipping of warfare agents and munitions directly to
the battlefield in the event of war. Many hundreds of chemical engineers
and production and process engineers worked to develop nerve agents,
especially VX, with the primary task being to stabilize the warfare
agents in order to optimize a lasting lethal property. Such work could
be blended into ordinary civilian production facilities and activities…where
batches of nerve agents could be produced during short interruptions
of the production of ordinary chemicals…
The real chemical warfare threat from Iraq has had two components. One
has been the capability to bring potent chemical agents to the battlefield
to be used against a poorly equipped and poorly trained enemy. The other
is the chance that Iraqi chemical weapons specialists would sign up
with terrorist networks such as al Qaeda… In this context the
remnants of Iraq's biological weapons program…constitute a potential
threat of much the same magnitude [and] are potentially the more devastating
as a means for massive terrorist onslaught on civilian targets…
It is possible that Iraq, in spite of its denials, retained some anthrax
in storage. But it could be more problematic and dangerous if Iraq secretly
maintained a research and development capability, as well as a production
capability, run by the biologists involved in its earlier programs.
Again, such a complete program would in itself constitute a more important
biological weapon than some stored agents of doubtful quality.
It is understandable that the U.N. inspectors and even more, the military
search teams, have had difficulty penetrating the sophisticated, well-rehearsed
and protected WMD program in Iraq. The task was made infinitely more
challenging by the fact that Iraq was, and indeed still is, a "republic
of fear." Through my indirect contact with some senior Iraqi weapons
scientists, I have been given to understand that the reign of terror
is still in place. Outsiders who have not dealt with Iraq cannot easily
understand the extent to which the terror of the Hussein years has penetrated…
As long as Hussein and his sons are not apprehended or proven dead,
few if any of those involved in the weapons program will provide information
on their activities.…
The chemical and biological warfare structures in Iraq constitute formidable
international threats through potential links to international terrorism.
Before the war these structures were also major threats against Iran
and internally against Iraq's own Kurdish and Shiite populations, as
well as Israel. The Iraqi nuclear weapons projects lacked access to
fissile material but were advanced with regard to weapon design. Here
again, competition with Iran was a driving factor. Iran, as a major
beneficiary of the fall of Hussein, has now been given an excellent
opportunity to rethink its own nuclear weapons program and its other
WMD activities.
The door is now open for diplomatic initiatives to remake the region
into a WMD-free area… Moreover, the defeat of the Hussein regime…has
opened the door to a realistic and re-energized peace process in the
Middle East. This is enough to justify the international military intervention
undertaken by the United States and Britain. To accept the alternative--letting
Hussein remain in power with his chemical and biological weapons capability--would
have been to tolerate a continuing destabilizing arms race in the gulf,
including future nuclearization of the region, threats to the world's
energy supplies, leakage of WMD technology and expertise to terrorist
networks, systematic sabotage of efforts to create and sustain a process
of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the continued
terrorizing of the Iraqi people.
(Rolf Ekeus was executive
chairman of the United Nations
Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq from 1991 to 1997.
A former Swedish ambassador to the United States, he is now
chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE POLITICS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Richard Spertzel
Wall Street Journal, June 29,
2003
Even as evidence is uncovered
that Saddam Hussein was planning to revive his nuclear-weapons program
at the earliest possible date, politicians and pundits alike lament
the failure of coalition forces to find a "smoking gun." Despite
the recent discovery of plans and parts for a uranium-enrichment centrifuge,
some presidential candidates have accused the Bush administration of
lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to justify the war with
Iraq. Such assertions ignore all that has been learned and has transpired
during the past 12-plus years. As I've said time and again, expecting
any inspection regime to find a massive cache of WMDs is a lesson in
self-delusion…
Recall that during the first Gulf War, Iraq stored its biological-agent-filled
munitions in pits dug in the sand or in abandoned railroad tunnels.
Such sites are not easily found. Good intelligence emanating from those
Iraqi personnel responsible [for] such storage sites will be required.
Indeed, it was an Iraqi scientist who last week led coalition forces
to the site where the uranium-enrichment equipment was buried. But many
WMD personnel were part of the Special Security Organization under Saddam's
younger son, Qusay. The information is not likely to be obtained easily.
Some pundits question, if Iraq had WMDs, why did it not use them? Iraq
learned from the first Gulf War that coalition forces headed by the
U.S. could advance very rapidly. Iraq also indicated in testimony to
the U.N. Special Commission, or Unscom, that biological weapons would
have little effect in stopping an advancing military force. Rather,
their interest was to use biological weapons to intimidate their neighbors
and cause them to "see things Iraq's way."…The failure
to use chemical WMDs is also not surprising considering the apparent
confusion within the Iraqi command structure during the race to Baghdad.
Then, why have such weapons not been found? The answer may lie in the
training and experience of the inspectors. The initial team looking
for WMDs in Iraq was more reminiscent of site exploiters than inspectors.
True, if they found a bomb or missile warhead, they were capable of
further exploitation of the find to determine its contents. But they
apparently did not have testing instruments capable of detecting trace
amounts of biological-weapons agents. The next iteration of the coalition
inspectors was supposed to have a number of inspectors that had extensive
experience in Iraq and has been so misrepresented in the media. I was
asked in February to propose a list of Unscom experienced biological
inspectors (a so-called A team) that had multiple inspection trips to
Iraq. These were to be from the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. In March,
after the concept was approved, I was asked to contact those on my list
to assure they were willing and able to devote the time. All but one
agreed to the deployment. None of the individuals on that list ever
made it to Iraq.
A few weeks ago David Albright, writing in the Washington Post, stated
that he had been contacted by several Iraqi nuclear scientists who asserted
that they were afraid to talk to the coalition inspectors because of
the way they were being treated by the inspectors--interrogation, threats,
etc., rather than with any degree of respect…. One doesn't need
to like what was done or the individual scientist to treat them with
respect…
It is encouraging that the third and current iteration under the CIA
is headed by David Kay, which may account for the recent breakthrough
in uncovering the uranium-enrichment plans. In regard to other WMDs,
Iraq imported or retained over the last several years key pieces of
equipment that could not readily be carried off by looters. If located,
extensive intrusive sampling with the right test system might tell wonders
about Iraq's biological-weapons programs.
Let there be no doubt, Iraq retained an active biological-weapons program.
Unscom had adequate evidence of such. In 1998, presented with the evidence,
the leading biological-weapons experts from the U.S., U.K., Russia,
France, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Romania and
Canada all agreed with the Unscom findings and observations. Incredibly,
U.S. and British politicians with little or no knowledge of biological
weapons and biological warfare are choosing to believe otherwise.
(Richard Spertzel
was head of the biological-weapons section of UNSCOM.)
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 662 • Monday, July 7, 2003
‘ROAD MAP’
FOR MIDEAST PEACE LEADS NOWHERE
Max Boot
USA Today, July 2, 2003
Successful negotiations are impossible
when one side won't recognize the other's right to exist. [The] announced
cease-fire by three Palestinian factions and Israel's pullback from
the Gaza Strip buoy hopes of an end to the violence between Palestinians
and Israelis. But based on the record of past cease-fires (this is the
sixth since this Palestinian uprising started in September 2000), it
will not be long before we see a resumption of terror attacks followed
by Israeli retaliation. In fact, less than 24 hours after the cease-fire
was announced, a Palestinian terrorist group murdered a Bulgarian worker
in the West Bank.
In all likelihood, the media soon will be reporting that the "cycle
of violence" has resumed… Funny how no one uses this terminology
in other conflicts. Critics don't castigate President Bush for perpetuating
the "cycle of violence" by targeting al-Qaeda. Nor do they
blame subsequent terrorism on the United States, as if al-Qaeda would
turn into a pacifist organization in the absence of American retaliation.
Yet such moral relativism is rife in the case of Israel…Just like
al-Qaeda, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups deliberately
target civilians. And just like the U.S. military, the Israel Defense
Forces strike back while trying hard to avoid harming civilians…
There is no equivalence here, which is why the vaunted "road map"
for Middle East peacemaking leads nowhere.
The new peace process, just like its predecessors, is premised on the
notion that Israelis and Palestinians need to make mutual concessions
to end their war: The Israelis need to give up the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, and the Palestinians need to stop terrorism. The problem is that
most Israelis are willing to meet their obligations, but most Palestinians
aren't.
Polls show that more than 60% of Israelis are willing to give up the
West Bank and recognize a Palestinian state… Neither Sharon nor
any other Israeli leader, however, will accede to a "right of return"
for millions of Palestinian refugees… The continued harping of
Palestinian leaders on this point suggests they still are not reconciled
to Israel's existence. Indeed, a recent survey by the Pew Global Attitudes
Project found that 80% of Palestinians don't believe "that a way
can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that the rights and
needs of the Palestinian people are met." Another poll found only
25% of Palestinians support "cutting off funding for groups engaged
in terror and violence against Israelis."..
Supporters of the "peace process" have convinced themselves
that the problem is Arafat and that if he can be sidelined, progress
can be made. Thus, they have pushed for the appointment of Prime Minister
Mahmoud Abbas, who is seen as more conciliatory. But Abbas has almost
no power and little support. A recent poll put his approval rating at
only 27%. Arafat, who has 66% support…still refers to terrorists
as "martyrs" and to the birthday of Israel as "the accursed
day." Abbas deserves kudos for negotiating the cease-fire, but
there's little reason to think he'll be able to dismantle the infrastructure
of terror. In fact, he has already rejected using force against Hamas
and other terrorist groups.
But while some radical groups may make a show of a temporary cease-fire,
they remain committed to a strategy of annihilating the "Zionist
invaders." Hamas' charter still states: "There is no solution
to the Palestinian question except through jihad." Such groups
are likely to use the current pause much as they used the peace talks
as an opportunity to prepare for a fresh round of bloodletting. The
negotiations could benefit them if they result in more killers being
sprung from Israeli jails and more U.S. aid going to the Palestinian
Authority, which remains deeply implicated in terrorism.
However well intentioned, the latest peace process is likely to backfire
as badly as its predecessor did. The only long-term hope for peace is
that the Palestinians will weary of this war--as the Israelis already
did when a majority came to support the creation of a Palestinian state--and
give real power to leaders intent on stopping the suicide bombers. Bush
recognized this necessity in his June 24, 2002, speech, which made regime
change in the Palestinian Authority a pre-condition for progress. Abbas'
appointment is a step in the right direction, but the process is a long
way from being complete. Until it is, the road map is unlikely to lead
anywhere.
(Max Boot, Olin Senior Fellow
at the Council on Foreign Relations,
is author of The Savage Wars of Peace [Basic, 2002].)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LAW OF THE PEACE PROCESS
Caroline B. Glick
Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2003
This week, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter
submitted a troubling request to the U.S. Justice Department. Specter
asked that the U.S. attorney-general request that Israel extradite convicted
Hamas terrorist Hassan Salameh to stand trial in the U.S. for the murder
of three U.S. citizens. Salameh was one of the commanders of Hamas at
the time of his arrest in 1996. He was sentenced to some 50 consecutive
life terms in prison for his direct involvement in the murder by suicide
bombings and shooting attacks of scores of Israelis from 1994-1996.
Given the steep sentence, why would Specter seek his extradition? Perhaps
Specter is disturbed by what has become the state of the Israeli criminal
justice system since 1993. For instance, Specter may be aware of the
story of Nasser Abu H'meid [who] is one of Fatah chief Marwan Barghouti's
deputies. He was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences plus
50 years in prison last December. Abu H'meid was charged and found guilty
of seven counts of murder and more than 100 charges of attempted murder.
[In] the early 1990s he was convicted of nine counts of terrorist murder
and sentenced to nine consecutive life sentences, only to be released
a few years later as a confidence-building measure for the PLO.
Then again, maybe Specter is aware that that PLO bomber Ahmed Jbarra
served but 27 years of his life sentence for the murder of 14 Israelis
in 1976. Because of his early release, Jbarra sat in prison for less
than two years for every Jew he killed. Jbarra signed a form upon his
release last month stating that he would not engage in hostile activities
against Israel. And yet, the day he left prison he embraced PA chief
and enemy of Israel Yasser Arafat, and days later accepted the position
of Arafat's advisor.
…Maybe [Sen. Spector] doubts that being in an Israeli prison is
sufficient to neutralize the threat emanating from hardened murderers
like Salameh. After all, behind the entire story of Hamas's theatrical
decision to take a short break from its genocidal program against the
Jewish state stands Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti, who is currently standing
trial for the murder of scores of Israelis, has orchestrated the negotiations
with Hamas that are taking place simultaneously in three countries and
the territories. He sent emissaries to Lebanon to meet with Hizbullah
commanders to pressure them to work out a deal for a prisoner swap together
with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The deal would include his release from
prison. Barghouti's emissaries…have spoken with Egyptian intelligence
officials as well as Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Syria and Egypt.
The fact that Barghouti is capable of arranging and coordinating this
international operation from behind bars makes a mockery of the criminal
justice system…
Today we see that the hope engendered by the 1993 Oslo Accords and by
George W. Bush's speech last year demanding Palestinian reform proved
to be baseless. Mahmoud Abbas is a terrorist, and so is his security
chief, Muhammad Dahlan… Dahlan's "security" chief in
Gaza, Rashid Abu Shabak…himself is wanted for murder by Israel…
On Wednesday, President Bush reiterated his firm stance that Hamas must
be dismantled and not permitted simply to stand down for a short period.
[And yet] the manner in which the president stated the case shows the
moral infirmity of the entire attempt to have a peace process with terrorists.
Bush said, "Progress toward [peace]... will only be possible if
all sides do all in their power to defeat the determined enemies of
peace, such as Hamas and other terrorist groups." But Hamas is
not simply an enemy of "peace." Hamas is an enemy of Israel.
The obfuscation of the fact that Palestinian terrorists are enemies
of Israel and must be defeated by Israel is the reason that the justice
system is rendered impotent in carrying out its duties.
In a normal country, there could be no question that those wishing to
massacre its citizens and undermine its laws and national identity are
enemies of the state. But in Israel, every time a move is made to cut
a deal with the PLO, the national identity is trampled under the peace
process steamroller. Victims of war crimes are referred to as "victims
of peace." Enemies of Israel are defined as "enemies of peace."
Citizens are denied due process in the "interest of peace."
This being the case, victims of terrorism cannot be assured of legal
redress. Their murderers are granted immunity from prosecution….
Advocates of the peace process often argue that there can be no justice
without peace. But given Israel's experience over the past decade, it
seems truer to say that peace must be predicated first and foremost
on justice. Until Israel is able to mete out justice fairly and without
prejudice under its laws, its enemies will continue to work towards
its destruction with impunity. And no peace will be achieved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A TALE OF TWO INTERVIEWS
Amnon Rubinstein
Ha'aretz, June 29, 2003
The
interview itself is standard, but its importance stems from the individual
being interviewed. It is an interview with the speaker of the Palestinian
Legislative Council, Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), published on June 12 in
the Lebanese daily Al Nahar. It is significant because Abu Ala is considered
to be a moderate Palestinian leader, but among other comments, he decries
the statement by President George W. Bush that Israel is a "Jewish
state." Abu Ala is critical of this view because it endangers the
“right of return…”
In other words, the right of return and Israel being a Jewish state
are contradictory. This implies one thing: By implementing the right
of return, the Jewish majority in Israel will be eroded. Israel will
cease to be a Jewish state. That is, we are going back to 1948: A moderate
Palestinian leader rejects a decision by the United Nations that decided
the establishment of two states--one Jewish and one Arab--in the territory
west of the Jordan River, and of course also rejects the right of Jews
to self-determination. No more two states for two peoples.
[The] most important thing is that no Israeli government would ever
agree to what Abu Ala considers to be non-negotiable! Abu Ala also says
that the right of return is "self-evident"--"after all,
isn't that the reason Camp David failed?"--and by this he refutes
the central argument against Ehud Barak and his views.
On the other hand, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian ambassador
to the United States, does not mention the right of return in an interview
with Elsa Walsh in The New Yorker (March 24, 2003). In the interview,
the ambassador attacks Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat in the sharpest
tone. He refers to a meeting between Arafat and president Bill Clinton
in January 2001, at which Bandar was pressuring the Palestinian leader
to accept Clinton's proposals. This offer, Bandar says, gave the Palestinians
97 percent of the territories, all of Jerusalem--excluding the Jewish
and Armenian quarters and the right of Jews to pray at the Temple Mount--and
$30 billion in a "compensation fund." Pressuring Arafat, Bandar
tells him: You won't get anything better. Bandar asks whether the PA
chairman would prefer Ariel Sharon to Barak…and then he presents
Arafat with an ultimatum: If you do not accept the Clinton offer, this
means "we go to war"; no Arab state will rally to support
you.
When Arafat does not contact Bandar after his meeting with Clinton…the
ambassador waits for three hours and goes to Arafat's hotel to meet
him. Arafat lies through his teeth and does not tell the Saudi ambassador
that he refused the Clinton offer, but Bandar recognizes the look on
the faces of the Palestinian aides and knows the truth. Despite his
promises to Bandar, Arafat refused the generous offer of the president,
and Bandar unloaded his rage. But he did not make his knowledge public,
fearing that he would look like "Barak's defense attorney."
Would Saudi Arabia, according to Bandar, have agreed to an end to the
conflict without guarantees for the right of return for the descendants
of the 1948 refugees? We have no clear answer to the matter. It is a
fair assessment that Bandar, were he pressed, would respond negatively;
however, given the pressure he exerted on Arafat to accept the Clinton
offer, there is room for optimism.
The advantage of the road map is that it leaves the issue of the right
of return for future negotiations. This is also its main shortcoming
since this issue will be discussed after the establishment of a Palestinian
state whose government appears to be united in presenting a condition
that no Israeli government will accept. From these two interviews emerges
a picture that must be painful to all those supporters of peace: For
years the Palestinian leaders promised their Israeli counterparts that
the right of return would not be an obstacle to peace and it turns out
to have been an empty promise. Suddenly it appears at the top of the
agenda and threatens to block an end to the conflict. A sad story indeed.
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 661 • Friday, July 4, 2003
THE SURREAL WORLD
OF IRAQ:
LET US THANK OUR SOLDIERS ON THIS INDEPENDENCE DAY
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review, June 27, 2003
What are we to make of the last
four months? In 21 days at a cost of less than 200 fatalities, the United
States military ended the 24-year reign of one of the most odious dictators
in recent memory and freed their people. In response, here at home there
were no mass victory parades in appreciation for our soldiers' proven
bravery or public braggadocio about their own singular prowess. Some
of our fighters, who in a moment of martial zeal had raised the flag
of their country above the toppling statue of a horrific tyrant, were
more likely chastised as undisciplined chauvinists rather than praised
as enthusiastic patriots.
Indeed, intense media scrutiny of Iraqi, not American suffering and
discomfort, was the new gospel--despite the clear evidence that at some
danger to our soldiers we had sought to avoid hurting civilians and
their infrastructure. A soldier or terrorist who had shot at Americans,
been wounded, and had tossed away either his uniform or weapons was
more likely to be tallied by the world's press as an unfortunate civilian
casualty than as an injured combatant hurt in the hammer and tongs of
battle. Under the new war, using enough force to beat soundly the enemy
and convince him in the aftermath to accept defeat--or else--was seen
as excessive, while the effort to mitigate the violence of fighting
may have suggested to the Baathists that they had not really been beaten
after all.
Not to be outdone, domestic critics of our military who had forecast
"millions of refugees" and "thousands of casualties"--and
in week one of the war during a sandstorm had continued on with a chorus
of "Stalemate," "Quagmire," and "Vietnam"--now
post facto paradoxically reversed course. They suddenly played down
our own soldiers' competency by concluding (in their infinite wisdom
from the rear) that the Iraqi army was a paper tiger--hardly capable
of waging modern war after all! In a blink of an eye their horrific
quagmire became a bullying cakewalk.
In the first postbellum 100 days, the Americans lost about 60 additional
lives in trying to pacify a Muslim and Arab country of some 26 million,
wracked by factions, foreign agents, and plagued by thousands of former
Baathist fascists who had transmogrified into drive-by shooters and
assassins--all in a post 9/11 world where it has been often difficult
to distinguish "moderates" in the Middle East from complacent
onlookers who were not especially sad to see two towers full of 3,000
Americans disintegrate.
In such a climate, Marines and army units literally were asked to evolve
from combatants to peacekeepers to reconstructionists in a matter of
hours--as enemy soldiers who ran from battle, now on occasion shot at
them for American felonies like directing traffic, seeking to restore
electricity, and other unmentionables like treating the sick and organizing
local councils. The protocol was for American soldiers in Kevlar and
body armor to help 99 percent of the Iraqi population achieve a stable
society while less than one percent sought to kill them--to more or
less indifference from the beneficiaries who demanded the help (but
not to the degree that they would quite yet thank or help protect the
helper). "Smile while you shoot back" was perhaps the unspoken
mandate for 20-year-olds from New Mexico or New Jersey.
After risking American lives during the war to preserve Iraqi assets,
our soldiers were then blamed for not anticipating that the Iraqis--unlike
any liberated or occupied populace in history--would then themselves
as natives destroy what we as foreigners had sought to save. Indeed,
stung by charges of "occupation" and "imperialism,"
the American military erred for the first time, and for about 30 days
sought an unrealistically low profile, worried that their presence would
be deemed intrusive and thus aggravating to the sensitivities of the
Iraqi public--only to be immediately condemned by the same citizenry
as either naive or deliberately lax for not applying the iron hand to
protect them from themselves.
Along the way, wild charges circulated that our generals had allowed
170,000 priceless artifacts to be looted in order to protect "corporate
oil." When such calumnies were subsequently refuted, unchecked
demonstrations--impossible under any current Arab regime in the Middle
East--were then adduced as proof that our military had nearly lost control
of the country.
Here and there reporters interviewed a irate Iraqis screaming, "Americans,
leave us to ourselves!" as cars in the background whizzed around
a supposedly traumatized Baghdad. Here at home the poor television viewer's
only solace, I suppose, was his hunch that should we have indeed abandoned
our responsibilities, that same reporter in a few months would interview
that same irate Iraqi who would then rail on cue, "The cowards
left us to ourselves."
Anecdotal stories flooded our airways that a doctor here had refused
to treat an Iraqi civilian, that a soldier there had mistakenly shot
a fiery demonstrator--accounts of public councils, progress in restoring
order and power, and private thanks from the aggrieved were relegated
to sound bites or omitted altogether. Indeed, the world seemed far more
worried that a populace that for the first time in three decades was
not in fear of a knock on their door at night was without air conditioning
in their homes--as their rank-and-file liberators slept outside in ad
hoc miserable tents without most of the amenities that they were so
damned for failing instantaneously to provide for others.
A few Iraqis in plush, walled estates seemed especially eager to complain
of lawlessness to CNN reporters, now freed from paying bribe money to
Baathist handlers, who ventured a few blocks from their hotels--secure
that such ignorant sensationalists would never ask them, "What
did you actually do under Saddam Hussein to deserve such plush digs?"
While our soldiers continued their work at policing and reconstruction,
back home their achievement and sacrifice were almost immediately put
into question by the same tired critics, now citing the temporary absence
of stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and a supposed lack
of manifest al Qaeda links. Stories linking al Qaedists to the Hussein
regime or documents attesting to WMD were on the back pages; headlines
in contrast blared "fraud" and "lies" about the
preconditions for war. Somehow soldiers on the frontlines were supposed
to ignore all this and remember that their sacrifice and toil were,
after all, for both a noble cause and vital to the security of the United
States. And in fact they did just that.
The earlier conundrum put to rest by the rapidity of our victory insidiously
resurfaced as it became clear that it was not a cost-free task for 140,000
Americans to institute democracy among 26 million Iraqis tyrannized
for three decades. Newspaper pundits, NPR commentators, and Democratic
aspirants, knowing nothing of the challenges of postwar Okinawa, the
dilemma of ex-Nazis in occupied Germany, or the mess in 1946 Korea,
implied that 60 American dead meant failure and a Chechnya-style inferno.
Our soldiers' job, of course, was made no easier by the usual Arab mendacious
fare broadcast freely into the country--Jews were now buying Iraqi land;
Jewish troops were capitalizing on the occupation, Jews, Jews, Jews…Worse,
still it was not only that our enemies wished us to fail, but our so-called
friends in the region were equally apprehensive that the virus of democracy
might well be contagious.
Meanwhile, the assassins of American soldiers in Iraq were lionized
on the West Bank--itself nursing the fresh wound of losing the murder-subsidies
from Saddam Hussein, whose mug at least still adorned the coffee houses
of Gaza and Ramallah. We, the American public, were asked for forbearance--to
ignore that some Palestinian militants were canonizing the murderers
of American soldiers--as we went forward to save the same Palestinians
from the righteous anger of Israel. "Stop the Apaches and the F-16s
so we can cheer in peace those Saddamites who shot your soldiers,"
they must think. What a weird group, who hate Israel so much that they
are infuriated that the "Zionist entity" is walling itself
off from the likes of them.
As the Americans patrolled the streets of Iraq, and sought to avoid
RPG attacks, machine-gun sprays, and kidnapping murderers, the Left
at home, the European parlors, and the Arab Street all seemed oblivious
to (inadvertent) images on their television screens that belied the
accompanying biased analysis: only in Iraq were Arabs demonstrating
for any cause they wished; only in Iraq were local councils voting democratically;
and only in Iraq were men in helmets and guns prohibited from brutalizing
the population. American occupying soldiers were, in fact, more careful
to respect the lives of a defeated enemy than were Arab constabularies
with their own people elsewhere.
At this point, I must ask, how do our men in arms do what they do? We
so often forget that their dilemma is not just age-old material challenges
of time and space--Iraq, remember, is 7,000 miles away, hot, dry, and
surrounded by overt enemies and canny neutrals--but the exasperating
conditions of both postmodern warfare and fighting in the Middle East
in general. Both combine to diminish, if not apologize for, the idea
of victory, military prowess being defined not as proof of heroism,
discipline, and elan, but almost a shameful admission of outdated bellicosity
and abject imperialism or colonialism. Indeed, the restraint on the
enormous firepower at our military's disposal has almost earned contempt
for hesitancy rather than ensured appreciation of magnanimity.
Various explanations come to mind for the unshakeable nature of our
soldiers put into such impossible circumstances. Of course, there are
the age old motivators in play: unit morale, group loyalty, ingrained
training, chain of command, democratic idealism, patriotism, and simple
self-survival all play their roles--and an understandable desire to
return as quickly as possible to the United States. But there is also
transcendence at work; such soldiers believe in their role of doing
something good for millions in dire need. It seems just as true that
the military has somehow distilled from the rest of us Americans an
elite cohort with the most direct ties to the old breed of the sort
who fought at Okinawa, rolled with Patton, and reconstituted Japan.
Such soldiers somehow remain oblivious to unfounded criticism, confident
in their own prowess, and convinced that their nation and its military
are clear forces for good.
Because of such men and women, and despite so many other forces beyond
their control, Iraq will not be lost to gangs and criminals, much less
to Baathists, pan-Arabists, and Islamicists, who are not so much fueled
by ideology as the desire for power and its accompanying material benefits
for a tiny few.
We are reaching a great tipping point in Iraq, where the American soldier
seeks to impose security and implant freedom faster than former Baathists
try to erode it. The Iraqi Street we see so often on the sidelines is
watching the struggle, unsure whether to re-hang their pictures of Saddam
Hussein now ensconced beneath their sofas or to come forward and join
the great experiment with freedom and consensual government.
And through it all the American soldier is asked to do what no others
could do--and yet does so with grace under fire. On July 4th we should
remember all this and the rare breed who, thank God, are on our side.
Shabbat Shalom to all our readers!
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 660 • Thursday, July 3, 2003
THE ROAD MAP READS
LIKE A NECESSARY LIE
Robert Fulford
National Post, June 28, 2003
For the sake of form and morale,
political rhetoric always contains necessary lies that no one can believe
but many feel they must state. Last year, as the Israelis began fighting
Palestinian murders by attacking the terrorist managers in their hiding
places, The Jerusalem Post published the words of Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon,
Israel's chief of staff. "This," he said, "is a conflict
we must win, so the Palestinians will understand that they cannot gain
through terror."
How the world's leaders love to say that! Terrorism doesn't work and
should never be rewarded, they explain. Ya'alon speaks with the authority
of experience, but on that occasion he was speaking nonsense. In truth,
terrorism produces many benefits. In Sri Lanka terrorism is revising
the system of government to provide a measure of Tamil independence.
In the Middle East, Ya'alon's words certainly apply to the Palestinian
masses: Far from being improved, their lives have been made worse by
terrorism, which brings Israeli tanks down their streets. But for Yasser
Arafat and those under his patronage, terrorism remains to this moment
a rich source of prestige and money.
Arafat's astounding longevity as a leader (he's outlasted seven U.S.
presidents and nine Israeli prime ministers) shows how he makes it work.
With the dreaded apparition of terror at his side, he's lectured from
the dais at the United Nations, shared a Nobel Peace Prize, and made
his way into photo ops on the White House lawn. He's a world figure.
Who can look at him and think terrorism doesn't pay?
Nor should we believe those who say "I will not negotiate with
terrorists." All leaders confronted by persistent terrorists end
up negotiating. George W. Bush refuses to see Arafat, but Americans
negotiate with other Palestinian terrorists. It is terror that has brought
American power back to the region. The "road map" would not
exist but for terrorism.
Margaret Thatcher once said that half the political trouble in the world
results from people taking metaphors literally. The current example
is "road map," the clumsiest metaphor since "information
highway." UN, European, Russian and American diplomats inserted
this figure of speech into the geopolitical lexicon. But a road map
tells you how to get where you want to go, which this one doesn't. Road
maps are usually honest, and this one isn't. Road maps show you where
you will be at the end of your journey. This road map doesn't tell you
that either. Still, some must find it reassuring. Embarking on a dangerous
journey, they seek comfort in the false notion that someone knows enough
to draw a map.
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote in his notebook the phrase "necessary
lies." Those words have often appeared in the language; two novels
published in the last eight years, one American and one Canadian, are
called Necessary Lies.
The road map reads like a classic necessary lie. The diplomats responsible
have little faith in it but argue that it's better than nothing, even
though it makes promises that will encourage false hopes among the naive
on all sides. It anticipates an "independent, democratic and viable
Palestine" by the year 2005 and (once that's accomplished) "Permanent
Status Agreement and End of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 2004-2005."
Anyone who has studied these issues knows that the permanent status
agreement will not be permanent and the conflict will not end. The two
sides hold irreconcilable views. Palestinians demand the return to Israel
of pre-1948 refugees and their descendants. Schoolbooks and government
media have taught them that this is only right, and reversing that belief
(even if their leaders wanted to) would be painfully slow. Israelis,
on the other hand, know that the return of the refugees (now 3-million
or 4-million of them) would swamp Israel and destroy its status as a
Jewish state. So the Palestinians' most passionate desire is the one
that Israel cannot even consider satisfying. But the diplomats assume
that in a year or two this point can be worked out. No one on either
side believes that.
This is only one among half a dozen colossal disagreements between Israelis
and Palestinians. Efraim Inbar, a specialist in strategic studies at
Bar-Ilan University, believes that, realistically, the world should
not expect a solution in this case. "The problem will persist.
What we have to do is manage the conflict."
Lester B. Pearson, who won the Nobel Peace Prize through his skills
as a negotiator, used to say that you had to identify areas of agreement
and then slowly enlarge them. In the Middle East that's not easy; areas
of agreement are hard to find.
In cases of that kind, negotiation can only begin with elements of fiction,
necessary lies, a willing suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, negotiation
must be pursued. There's always a remote chance of success, and, just
as important, negotiation remains an essential element in the way of
life that the West and Israel seek to preserve. Those who oppose chaos
and tyranny must be true to themselves. The qualities expressed through
a persistent belief in negotiation may be among the greatest assets
possessed by the enemies of terrorism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHERE HATRED TRUMPS BREAD
Cynthia Ozick
Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2003
And what rough beast, its
hour come at last,/
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
-- W.B. Yeats
When, some years ago, Golda Meir
contentiously remarked, "There are no Palestinians," she was
historically correct and evolutionally mistaken. She was right because
the people who had only recently begun to take on the name "Palestinian"
were ethnically and civilizationally Arab, part of what the Arabs themselves
were pleased to call, with the poetic resonance of indivisibility, "the
Arab Nation." Palestine, moreover, had its origin as a term of
malice, the Roman invaders' way of erasing Judea by naming it after
the Philistines who warred against the Jews. And like the Palestinians
today, who deny the ancient reality of the Jewish Temple on the Temple
Mount, the emperor Hadrian also had the distinction of reassigning the
history of Jerusalem; he dubbed it Aelia Capitolina, in honor of Jupiter.
Yet at the same time Golda Meir was mistaken: She declined to recognize
a growing sectarianism rooted not merely in the bitterness of contemporary
politics--the Arab war against the Jews--but far more comprehensively
in a particularized and developing cultism. Whether the Palestinians
nowadays constitute a cult or a sect or a nation within the greater
Arab world is scarcely to the point. They have become a nation in their
own eyes--and, with the blessings of the road map, internationally as
well. Nevertheless it is not the determination of political borders
that makes a nation; a nation is defined by its traits and usages, by
its heroes and aspirations--in short, by its culture.
History, in Benedetto Croce's formulation, "is about the positive
and not the negative." No one can refute the truth that the Palestinians
have fashioned a culture peculiarly their own--but one so steeped in
the negative as to have been turned into a kind of anti-history. In
order to deprive Jews of their patrimony, Palestinians have fabricated
a sectarian narrative alien to commonplace knowledge. Although the Arab
invasion of Palestine did not occur until the 17th century, Palestinian
Arabs are declared to be, according to activist Salah Jabr, "the
descendants of civilizations that have lived in this land since the
Stone Age." With equal absurdity, other such deniers of Jewish
patrimony claim a Canaanite bloodline. By replacing history with fantasy,
the Palestinians have invented a society unlike any other, where hatred
trumps bread. They have reared children unlike any other children, removed
from ordinary norms and behaviors. And they have been assisted in these
deviations by Arab rulers who for half a century have purposefully and
pitilessly caged and stigmatized them as refugees, down to the fourth
generation. Refugeeism, abetted also by the United Nations, has itself
been joined to the Palestinian cult of anti-history. A people respectful
of history, including its own above all, will work to fructify and invigorate
life; it will not debase and vitiate it.
The salient attribute of any culture is originality and its legacies.
Genius, no matter how rare, is a human universal. It sends into the
world new perception and new experience, inspiring duplication: Out
of Israel came monotheism, out of Greece philosophy, out of Arab civilization
science and poetry, out of England the Magna Carta, out of France the
Enlightenment. What has been the genius of Palestinian originality,
what has been the contribution of the evolving culture of Palestinian
sectarianism? On the international scene: airplane hijackings and the
murder of American diplomats in the 1970s, Olympic slaughterings and
shipboard murders in the 1980s. And toward the Jews of the Holy Land,
beginning in the 1920s and continuing until this morning, terror, terror,
terror, terror.
But the most ingeniously barbarous Palestinian societal invention, surpassing
any other in imaginative novelty, is the recruiting of children to blow
themselves up with the aim of destroying as many Jews as possible in
the most crowded sites accessible. These are not so much acts of anti-history
as they are, remarkably, instances of anti-instinct. The drive to live
is inherent: The very mite crawling on this sheet as I write hastens
to flee the point of my pen. The child who has been taught to die and
to kill from kindergarten on, via song and slogan in praise of bloodletting,
represents an inconceivable cultural ideal. And it is a cultural grotesquerie
that Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a pediatrician entrusted by his vocation
with the healing of children, is in fact a major recruiter of young
suicide bombers. (When his wife was asked by a neighbor why her husband
did not outfit his own teenage son in a bomber's vest, the good doctor
instantly sent the boy abroad.)
Confronted by this orgiastic deluge of fanaticism and death, there are
some who would apply the term psychopathological. But it is metaphysics,
not Freud, that is at stake: the life force traduced, cultism raised
to a sinister spiritualism--not because the "martyrs" are
said to earn paradise, but because extraordinary transformations of
humane understanding are hounded into being. A Palestinian ethos of
figment and fantasy has successfully infiltrated the West, particularly
among intellectuals, who are always seduced by novelty. We live now
with an anti-history wherein cause and effect are reversed, protection
against attack is equated with the brutality of attack, existential
issues are demoted or ignored--"cycle of violence" obfuscations
all zealously embraced by the State Department and the European Union.
The Road Map permits no contradiction to the Palestinians' emerging
nationhood. But if it is teachings and usages that characterize a nation,
then what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches out of
Bethlehem to be born?
Top
of the Page
Volume III,
No. 659 • Wednesday, July 2, 2003
WEDNESDAY’S
“NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES
“As Prime Minister
of Israel, my primary responsibility is to ensure the security of the
citizens and State of Israel. There will be no compromise with terror…
On behalf of the people of Israel, I tell you: we have no quarrel with
you. We have no desire to control you… We want to live side by
side with you in peace, as good neighbors, helping and respecting each
other…”—P.M. Ariel Sharon at a meeting
in Jerusalem with Palestinian P.M. Mahmoud Abbas. (Israel Foreign
Ministry, July 1)
“There has been enough suffering on both sides. Any future terror
killing would be an attack on humanity. We must forget the past and
work for the future… Our conflict with [Israel] is a political
conflict and we will end it through political means.”—P.M.
Mahmoud Abbas at a joint news conference with P.M. Ariel Sharon.
[In advance of his meeting with the Israeli leader, P.M. Abbas told
Palestinian legislators that he will not engage in a civil war with
Palestinian factions and would not collect their weapons. Rather, he
would encourage factions to put away their weapons.] (Jerusalem
Post, July 1)
“This declaration [temporary ceasefire] signed by Hamas,
Islamic Jihad and Fatah does not fulfill the minimum demands of the
Palestinian uprising. What it does is fulfill Israeli and American security
demands. Our comrades and brothers inside the Palestinian territories…will
continue, through available means, to confront the Zionist enemy…
We are not a marginal force whose only role is to sign on a truce.”—Leader
of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
Ahmed Jibril, said his faction would keep conducting “resistance
operations” against Israel. (A.P., July 1)
“What I’m most worried about is remaining terrorist
organizations that have not given up the quest to destroy the State
of Israel and do not want peace… I’m talking about Hamas.
I’m talking about the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I’m talking
about the Al-Aqsa Brigades. They have entered into a ceasefire. But
as long as they have the capability to conduct these kinds of attacks,
they can come out of a ceasefire at some time in the future. So we hope
they’ll stay with the ceasefire, but ultimately, we are going
to have to convert this kind of organization into organizations that
no longer are interested in using terror as a political weapon…”—U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell. (Fox News, July 1)
“The real test will be in two or three weeks, when the
[PA] has to deal with disarming the terrorist organizations. We will
not move on to transfer responsibility for the West Bank before it becomes
totally clear that in Gaza the process of disarming terror groups has
begun.”—Head of Israel’s Shin Beit security
service, Avi Dichter, emphasizing that Gaza and Bethlehem will
be the “test cases” for determining the seriousness of the
Palestinians in disarming terror organizations. (Nat’l. Post,
July 2)
“Everybody is bargaining with a very different set of expectations.
Maybe Hamas didn’t want to get into a situation against its interest,
but they bet that Israel will not follow through.”—PA
foreign minister Nabil Shath, suggesting that Hamas entered
into an agreement in the hopes that the ceasefire will fail, and with
it, P.M. Abbas and the roadmap peace plan. (N.Y.T., July 1)
“Everyone is talking about the truce, but it’s a
bunch of bull. I can understand that people who are far away think the
Israelis and Palestinians should just sit down and make peace. But if
you’re here, you can’t run away from the truth. And I think
the truth is that there isn’t going to be peace.”—Special-education
teacher and former New Yorker who moved to Israel a decade ago, Yona
Assaf, reflecting the weariness of the general public. [An opinion
poll released this week by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Israel
found that 61% of Israelis and 56% of Palestinians supported the roadmap.
However, only 40% on each side believed that it would lead to a political
settlement, and just 18% of Palestinians and 6% of Israelis believed
all violence would stop. A similar poll by Israel’s Army Radio
found that 36% of Israelis doubt that the ceasefire will last more than
a week; nine percent gave the truce one to two months.] (N.Y.T.,
J.T.A., July 2)
“The chance to come out of the bomb shelters, to breathe fresh
air and to rest a bit from the fear of terror attacks and assassinations
will be a refreshing change on both sides. The economy will start to
recover, some of the tourists will come back and who knows, maybe life
will start having its way instead of death.”—Columnist
for Israel’s Ma’ariv newspaper, Hemi Shalev, expressing
his personal hope, amidst the widespread scepticism, that peace will
take hold. (N.Y.T., July 2)
“Circumstances have changed in the PA. This president [George
W. Bush] would never provide money if he thought the same corrupt leaders
would do with the money what they’ve done in the past.”—White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer, announcing that the Bush administration
was contemplating increasing aid to the Palestinians, and providing
direct assistance to the PA to improve its security apparatus. [Today,
the U.S. Agency for International Development transferred $30 million
directly to the PA for rebuilding infrastructure in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. For many years, the U.S. has bypassed Yasser Arafat, providing
aid to the Palestinians through the UN and independent relief organizations.]
(N.Y.T., July 1, Ha'aretz, July 2)
“We are not going to [let PA Chairman Yasser Arafat travel freely].
At the same time, if Arafat wishes to move to Gaza, we will be willing
to consider it and discuss it.”—P.M. Ariel
Sharon, responding to Palestinian P.M. Mahmoud Abbas’ request
that Israel lift the “siege” on Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah
headquarters. (Jer. Post, July 2)
“The debate [on the merits of recognizing Israel] should
be serious. There should be no emotionalism of the extremists. What
is our dispute with Israel? We should think.”—Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf, saying that his country should
seriously consider recognizing Israel and establishing diplomatic relations
with it. [F.M. Silvan Shalom welcomed the idea of establishing “full
normalization” of ties with Pakistan.] (Jer. Post, June 30,
Telegraph, July 1)
“The rise of Iraq as an example of moderation and democracy
and prosperity is a massive and long- term undertaking. And the restoration
of that country is critical to the defeat of terror and radicalism throughout
the Middle East.”—U.S. President George W.
Bush, vowing to continue with the mission of stabilizing and rebuilding
Iraq, despite the almost daily ambushes on U.S. forces there. [President
Bush also declared that “Of those directly involved in
organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, almost all are now in custody or confirmed
dead” and 65 percent “of the senior al Qaeda leaders…we
have been tracking” also have been caught or killed.] (N.Y.T.,
N. Y. Post, June 2)
“I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis
take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust
and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because
they [the Palestinians] wish to live in their own country. I am sure
that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I
take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware,
I am not the only U.K. scientist with these views, but I’m sure
you will find another suitable lab if you look around.”—Geneticist
at Oxford University, Dr. Andrew Wilkie, rejecting the application
of Israeli student, Amit Duvshani, to work in his laboratory. Dr. Wilkie,
currently under investigation for possible violations of the university’s
anti-discrimination rules, later apologized for his actions. “I
made a mistake,” he said. “The e-mail was
inappropriate. I expressed personally-held opinions that have nothing
to do with Oxford University.” (N.Y.T., Telegraph,
July 2)
______________________________________________________
SHORT TAKES
BETHLEHEM, PARTS OF GAZA
BACK IN PALESTINIAN HANDS—(Bethlehem; Beit Hanoun)
The IDF handed over security control of Bethlehem to PA police this
afternoon, three days after troops withdrew from part of the northern
Gaza Strip on Sunday. Palestinians have promised no suicide bombers
will use Bethlehem as a base to strike Israelis, and that gunmen would
not fire on the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which borders Bethlehem’s
suburbs. In the Gaza city of Beit Hanoun, Palestinians admitted that
armed terrorists had used the city’s damaged industrial areas
to fire rockets at the Israeli towns of Sderot and Nevit Hassara. (Nat’l.
Post, Jer. Post, July 2)
ISRAEL-U.S. RIFT OVER SECURITY FENCE—(Jerusalem)
Israeli-U.S. disagreement over the construction of the security fence
burst to the fore during meetings that National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice held with Israeli cabinet ministers on Sunday. During a meeting
with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the inner cabinet, Rice said that
the fence was creating facts on the ground that would prejudge a final
settlement, and indicated that the U.S. would like to see construction
stopped as a confidence-building measure. Sharon, however, replied that
if the choice were between having a disagreement with the U.S. or burying
victims of suicide bombers, it is clear what choice Israel would make.
Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pointed out that some 250 suicide
bombers have come from the West Bank, but not one from the Gaza strip,
which has a fence. (Jer. Post, June 30)
U.S. GENERALS TO MONITOR DISMANTLING OF HAMAS—(Washington)
Heeding Israeli concerns that the three-month intra-Palestinian ceasefire
may be used by Hamas to re-group and re-arm, the U.S. is dispatching
two generals to the area to monitor Palestinian Authority actions to
dismantle the terrorist organizations. The idea was raised during U.S.
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice’s meeting Sunday in
Jerusalem. (Jer. Post, June 30)
TOUR GROUPS VISIT TEMPLE MOUNT—(Jerusalem) Two
tour groups entered Jerusalem’s Temple Mount yesterday, as Israeli
police confirmed that they had been escorting groups to the site--''delicately
and carefully,'' in the words of National Police spokesman Gil Kleiman--for
several weeks. Nabil Amr, the PA Minister of Information, said that
Israel's police should have coordinated their activities with the Waqf,
the Muslim religious trust that administers the mosques, but he declined
to characterize the Israeli action as a provocation. (Boston Globe,
July 2)
DESTRUCTION OF ILLEGAL NAZARETH MOSQUE PASSES PEACEFULLY—(Nazareth)
Special Interior Ministry crews demolished the controversial Shehab
A-Din Mosque in Nazareth on Tuesday. Six years ago, the Islamic Movement
presented plans to build a 190-foot high mosque next to, and overshadowing,
Nazareth’s Basilica of the Annunciation Church, one of Christianity’s
holiest sites. They took over the square next to the church, pitched
a tent and declared the area a mosque. Since then, devotees of Shehab
A-Din, a nephew of Saladin, the 12th-century Muslim who defeated Christian
crusaders, have kept up a continuous squatter presence. The mosque,
still in the early stages of construction, has been a lightning rod
for controversy, fueling Islamic riots in 1999 and inter-religious strife
in Nazareth since then. (J.T.A., July 2)
ISRAEL SEVERS TIES WITH THE BBC—(Jerusalem)
Israel has severed all links with the BBC and will impose tough sanctions
on its correspondents due to the network’s repeated “demonization”
of the country, which Israel claims “verges on the anti-Semitic.”
The last straw was the screening of a documentary, “Israel’s
Secret Weapon,” that purported to expose the country’s alleged
nuclear, biological, and chemical arsenal, and claimed that the IDF
uses nerve gas against the Palestinians. According to the Times of London,
Israel will refuse to provide spokespersons for BBC interviews and will
decline to issue press cards. There will also be visa restrictions to
ensure that the bureau chief is rotated every few months. A decision
to expel all BBC correspondents has been put on hold, but not dismissed
out of hand. (Jer. Post, June 30)
NAZI JIBE RUINS BERLUSCONI'S EU DEBUT--(Strasbourg)
Italian P.M. Silvio Berlusconi sparked fury in the European Parliament
today when, as new president of the EU, he compared a German lawmaker
with a Nazi concentration camp commander. Berlusconi lost his cool in
response to criticism of an alleged conflict of interest between his
political office and his Italian media interests by German Socialist
MEP Martin Schulz. "Mr. Schulz, I know there is in Italy a man
producing a film on the Nazi concentration camps. I would like to suggest
you for the role of leader. You'd be perfect," Berlusconi exclaimed.
Earlier, Berlusconi said that as president of the EU, he would offer
Sicily as a venue for a Middle East peace conference. (Reuters,
July 2)
ARAB REGIMES GUILTY OF “ETHNIC CLEANSING”—(New
York) At a Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) conference,
Canadian M.P. Irwin Cotler charged that Arab regimes are guilty of “a
pattern of ethnic cleansing…and criminal conspiracy” in
dealing with their native Jewish populations. The organization has released
a report called “Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case
for Rights and Redress,” which makes the case that persecution
of Jews was an orchestrated, state-sponsored effort. As proof, it cites
a New York Times report from May 16, 1948 (one day after the establishment
of the State of Israel), speeches made to the UN by Arab delegates,
multilateral meetings of Arab leaders, and the texts of anti-Jewish
decrees enacted by Arab countries. (News release, JJAC, June 23)
U.S. RELEASES 5 SYRIANS HURT IN CONVOY ATTACK—(Washington)
The U.S. has released five Syrian border guards who were wounded last
month in an American attack on an Iraqi convoy. The U.S. returned the
Syrians on Sunday, defusing a standoff that some diplomats said had
threatened to harm relations between the countries. Some senior Pentagon
aides acknowledge that the evidence was not strong enough to hold the
Syrians, although there were signs that the border guards were actually
smugglers helping members of the former Iraqi government flee. U.S.
officials have said the attack, carried out by a Special Operations
force, was based on information that the convoy was linked to fugitive
Iraqi leaders. (N.Y.T., July 1)
Top
of the Page
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