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(from A Treasury of Jewish Quotations, [Thomas Yoseloff, 1956])

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YERUSHALAYIM: THE CITY OF DAVID
Baruch Cohen

“For a small moment I have forsaken thee,
with great mercies shall I gather thee.”—Isaiah 54:7

The history of Yerushalayim is the history of man—of greatness, splendor, lofty ideals and of war and peace. Yerushalayim, with its record of some five thousand years, has been known and connected to more people for a longer time than any other place on earth.

Throughout the centuries of their dispersion, in whatever far corner of the earth they found themselves, the Jews prayed for their return to Zion, the Biblical synonym for Yerushalayim.

Houses of prayer, synagogues, wherever in the world they were built, were oriented towards the east—toward Yerushalayim—and the practice is followed to this day. History has no parallel to the mystic bond of the Jews with Yerushalayim. Without Yerushalayim, there would be no State of Israel. Yerushalayim is the soul of the Jewish people.

Yerushalayim is and will remain for all time the center of the Jewish nation, the capital of the restored State of Israel. L’shana haBaa B’Yerushalayim HaBnuya!

(Baruch Cohen is Research Chairman at CIJR.)

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PRIME MINISTER VOWS NEVER TO RE-DIVIDE CITY
Jonathan Lis
Ha’aretz, May 30, 2003

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised Thursday not to redivide Jerusalem at an official ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the city's unification. "For 36 years, there have been no missiles in Jerusalem, the city has not been sown with minefields and no enemy has watched us and spit fire from the gun embrasures of its walls and towers," Sharon told the crowds gathered at the capital's Ammunition Hill, site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Six Day War.

"From a threatened and divided city, Jerusalem has become a bustling, thriving city. But the price was heavy and very painful. This fortified hill is soaked with blood. Its trenches and crevices were, in the wee hours of that terrible morning, the scene of a battle that will forever be inscribed for glory in the chronicles of Israel. Never again will gunfire be directed at it, never again will an enemy set foot on it.

"We are fighting ceaselessly against a cruel onslaught of terror aimed at undermining our determined hold on this city… Jerusalem is defended by walls made of the love of the nation of Israel throughout all its generations. It is defended by the clear and unequivocal policy of its government. We will never concede Jerusalem. Never. As [Israel’s] prime minister I am proud of the right to be Jerusalem's protector. I will carry out this sacred obligation unreservedly, and the people of Israel will carry it out unreservedly forever…"

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A LETTER FOR YOM YERUSHALAYIM
Natan Sharansky
Jerusalem Post, May 28, 2002

As the State of Israel s minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs, I feel deeply privileged to write this letter to you on the eve of one of our most meaningful holidays. Yom Yerushalayim, 27 Iyar…is a significant day in the lives of Israelis and Jews everywhere. Jerusalem has been the center of our national expression for over 3000 years. And ever since the destruction of our Temple over 1900 years ago, Jews throughout world have prayed three times each day for our return. And now, we have returned.

Jerusalem represents both the highest expression of our Jewish ideals and spirituality--and the strongest force for internal unity. Only when King David designated Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, did our people achieve a national identity. And only when King Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem did our people find unified religious focus.

In our time, as well, we have witnessed this power of Jerusalem to unify the Jewish People. When our soldiers reached the Lions' Gate in their campaign to reunify Jerusalem, we very soon witnessed the crumbling of the Iron Curtain enabling the reunification of the Jewish People. Jews on both sides of that miserable barrier experienced an irrepressible surge of Jewish pride, unity and resolve. When Jerusalem is whole, the Jewish People are united.

Those of us fortunate enough to live in the capital of the sovereign Jewish State of Israel intensely feel its majesty and magic. Not one day passes without my taking a moment to try to fathom the miracle of our return. Yet few of my fellow Jews have visited Jerusalem, and even among those who have, fewer still come today. Nothing is more crucial to our unity, solidarity, and determination than Jews coming to Jerusalem to visit, if they cannot yet come to live here. Your presence here gives witness to the importance of our struggle. Your visit here gives testimony to our common destiny. We need your encouragement and your moral support…

On this Yom Yerushalayim we hope that each Jew who reads this message, and each Jew who holds Jerusalem and the future of the Jewish people dear to his or her heart, will resolve to visit us in Jerusalem at least once in the next year. "L'shana Haba b'Yerushalayim HaMeuchedet" ("Next year in united Jerusalem"). Until then, I hope to see you in Jerusalem throughout the coming year.

Shabbat Shalom to all our readers!

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Volume III, No. 638 • Thursday, May 29, 2003

THE ROAD TO A NUCLEAR IRAN
Caroline B. Glick
Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2003

As the world's media and foreign ministries have again trained their sights in on Israel and the Palestinians, a much more significant drama is being largely underplayed. At its meeting next month in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency will address the recent confirmation of reports that Iran is now poised to produce nuclear weapons.

Since a consortium of Russian companies signed an $800 million deal in 1996 to build a 1,000-megawatt light water nuclear reactor for Iran in Bushehr, most efforts by the U.S. and Israel to stop the Iranian nuclear program have centered around applying pressure on the Russian government.

"The Iranians learned from Iraqi mistakes," says a senior Israeli intelligence official who is involved in efforts to monitor the Iranian nuclear program. The Iraqis worked 80 percent in secret and 20 percent in public on their nuclear program [which made] it possible to take action to prevent them from moving forward. “In contrast…Iran works 80 percent in public and 20 percent in secret [moving] forward publicly, lulling the international community into a sense of complacency that all the Iranians are building is a nuclear power plant. Then suddenly we discover that they are on the verge of producing nuclear bombs."

Last August, an Iranian rebel group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, showed that the Bushehr plant might very well be little more than a sideshow to the real Iranian nuclear program. The group's disclosure, which was later substantiated by satellite imagery, indicated that Iran secretly developed two other nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak…While Russian companies have been under constant Western intelligence surveillance, it appears that these two facilities have been built with intense and little noted Chinese, Pakistani, and North Korean assistance.

When satellite images taken after the group's disclosure backed up the allegations, IAEA director Muhammad el-Baradei requested permission from the Iranian government to inspect the sites last December. In what is itself a violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), of which Iran is a signatory, the Iranian government delayed the inspection until February. The IAEA's inspections were limited to the Natanz facility due to Baradei's tight schedule. Visiting the Natanz plant, Baradei and his inspectors found a network of centrifuges for enriching uranium. At the time Baradei indicated that a pilot facility at the site was complete and that a large centrifuge enrichment plant was still under construction. [By] 2005 the Iranian government will be able to field several uranium-based nuclear weapons every year…

For their part, the Russians appear to be cooperating in the attempt to rein in the Iranians. Although they refuse to curtail their involvement with the Bushehr reactor, they have conditioned the operation of the Bushehr plant on Iranian agreement that the spent fuel rods from the reactor, which can be used to produce enriched plutonium, be returned to Russia. The Iranians have refused to sign on to the Russian proposal and as a result, although complete, the Bushehr plant is not operational.

As MK Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, notes, "The Iranian nuclear program is of course a strategic threat to Israel, but it is far from being only Israel's problem. The Iranians are now enhancing their ballistic missile capabilities to cover not only Israel but targets throughout Europe. A nuclear armed Iran, capable not only of bombing Israel, but of bombing Europe, will be a force of global instability and will significantly change the global balance of power."

[The] Bush administration is divided on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. Hawks in the Pentagon are pushing for the U.S. to force the IAEA to find Iran in material breach of the NPT at its meeting next month. Such a finding would open the Iranian nuclear program to UN Security Council scrutiny that could lead to UN-sanctioned military action similar to the actions taken by the Security Council against Iraq in 1990. At the very least, it could have salutary effects on the U.S.'s thus far unsuccessful bid to force Europe to cut economic ties with the mullocracy.

For its part, the State Department…has recommended traveling a less contentious path that involves "engaging" the Iranian government in an "unofficial" dialogue that has been taking place over the past several months in Geneva under UN supervision. At these meetings, the Iranian officials have denied that they are pursuing nuclear weapons just as they refused to accept that Hizbullah is a terrorist organization, denied supporting terrorism, and pretended they are not harboring al-Qaida commanders. That is, these unofficial negotiations with the Iranians…have been characterized by complete Iranian duplicity. At the same time, by soft-pedaling the Iranian threat, the State Department is paving the way for a failure at the IAEA meeting next month. Speaking to Reuters, a Western diplomatic official in Vienna said last week that Baradei is expected merely to note that there are "inconsistencies" in the Iranian nuclear program that need to be explained.

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week, former FBI director Louis Freeh addressed the issue of the Iranian threat to U.S. national security. Calling Hizbullah "the exclusive terrorist agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran," he criticized the Clinton administration for refusing to apply pressure on Iran after the FBI found that its security services stood behind the 1996 Hizbullah bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia… Then, too, the U.S. has accused Teheran of sheltering top al-Qaida terrorists like Said Adel, the network's security chief, and Osama bin Laden's son Saad. Washington further alleges that al-Qaida operatives in Iran directed the May 12 terror attacks against U.S. targets in Riyadh. [The] Iranians also control the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, finance Hamas, and since the Karine-A weapons sale to the PA was concluded in late 2001, Iranian intelligence authorities have been backing and instructing Fatah terror cells as well.

In the aftermath of the May 12 attacks, the State Department suspended its dialogue with the Iranian government and raised its rhetoric against the Iranian regime. [Yet] the State Department has been spending its energy not playing up the IAEA meeting next month, but in pressuring Israel to accept its road map to establish a Palestinian state by 2005 just in time for the Iranians to declare that they are vacating their signature to the NPT and possess a nuclear arsenal capable of hitting targets in Israel and Europe.

In a conversation with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon earlier in the week, U.S. President George W. Bush reportedly said he is convinced that PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is committed to reforming the PA and fighting terrorism. And yet, the day after this conversation, Abbas himself told the Egyptian press that as far as he is concerned, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, and not he, remains the head of the PA. In Abbas's words, "Arafat is at the top of the [Palestinian] Authority. He's the man to whom we refer, regardless of the American or Israeli view of him."…

In an article in The Atlantic Monthly published in August 1992, Robert Kaplan discussed how it came to pass that the U.S. government was caught unawares when Saddam Hussein marched his army into Kuwait in August 1990… Saddam's 1988 gassing of 5,000 Kurds met with little backlash from Washington, as Arabists in the State Department were given more or less free rein regarding U.S. policy towards Iraq… Kaplan noted, "The only Middle East issue that really energized [U.S. secretary of state James] Baker was…the Arab-Israeli question." Together with his senior policy aides Dennis Ross and Dan Kurtzer, Baker poured all his energy and leverage into pressuring then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir's government to open negotiations with PLO-backed Palestinians… Baker failed to take note of what Saddam was planning for Kuwait. This, in spite of the fact that in April 1990, four months before the invasion, Chas Freeman, then U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, warned specifically that Saddam was likely to invade Kuwait.

For anyone with eyes to see, it is clear that Abbas's ascension to power in the PA is a farce. The new wave of massacres in Israel and Abbas's declared allegiance to Arafat and Hamas are simply expressions of the obvious: Abbas is not a trustworthy interlocutor and by supporting his sham of reform, the U.S. is supporting the terrorist organizations murdering Israelis as well as their state supporters in Teheran.

There is an old joke about a man groping around on the street at night. His friend approaches him and asks him what he is doing. "I'm looking for my keys," he responds. "Did you drop them here?" his friend asks. "No, I dropped them in the alley across the way. But there's no light in the alley, so I'm looking for them here." The prime danger to U.S. national security lies in Teheran. The key to the global Islamic terror nexus…is found in the dark allies of Teheran, not in the well lit streets of Jerusalem. Rather than pressuring an ally to reward Teheran's terrorist friends, the U.S. should be using all its leverage throughout the world to prevent the ayatollahs from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The price the U.S. paid in 1990 for ignoring Saddam Hussein in favor of pressuring Israel was the Gulf War. The price it will pay for repeating the mistake with Iran will be a nuclear nightmare.

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TURN UP THE RHETORIC ON IRAN
David Warren
National Post, May 28, 2003

It is now emerging from intelligence sources that the reason the United States was able to give Saudi Arabia the heads-up it ignored on the terror bombings in Riyadh, is because the CIA had been intercepting communications between al-Qaeda operatives in Arabia and Iran. The hits themselves helped to clarify co-ordinates; and there is thus little doubt remaining in American minds that Iran is sheltering senior al-Qaeda leaders. The ayatollahs are most likely trying to integrate surviving al-Qaeda resources with those of Hezbollah, their own main horse in terror international.

I read some hint of that into the strange remarks made by the Syrian President (Syria is Iran's closest ally), to the effect that al-Qaeda no longer exists. He spoke rhetorically, as if al-Qaeda had been a figment of George Bush's paranoid imagination all along; but Bashir Assad, who is not very intelligent, has a track record for unconsciously spilling beans. Meanwhile, in an event which deserved much greater media coverage, the Israelis last Thursday intercepted a third ship delivering arms to Gaza. The Abu Hassan was in the Mediterranean, outbound from Lebanon with a major Hezbollah arms expert on board. There were Iranian fingerprints all over the mission.

Iranian opposition sources have helped identify two new uranium enrichment facilities, previously undisclosed to the IAEA, west of Tehran. A string of other sites are suspected. These are the latest indications of the Iranian regime's North-Korea-like obsession with speeding up its nuclear program, on the theory that once you have nuclear bombs there is nothing the Americans can do to hurt you…

We know that the U.S. State Department has broken off discreet talks with the Iranian regime… Over the Memorial Day weekend, various agencies were directed by the U.S. National Security Council to find answers urgently to a series of intelligence and policy questions; and a major White House review of Iran policy is in progress. It would appear a more aggressively confrontational U.S. position is coming; and that a tacit decision has already been made, to give up on diplomacy with Iran--whether through back channels or publicly with the powerless foreign ministry, nominally under the direction of the elected President, Mohammed Khatami. Ayatollah Khatami's role towards the end of the Islamist revolution in Iran [is] to be the pretty face, "shaking hands with everything that sticks out horizontally" in the words of one Iranian commentator… Khatami has no domestic credibility left…

The United States is not going to invade Iran, however. I am aware of not even one hawk in the Pentagon who wants to do that, to say nothing of the fey State Department. The consensus of policy wonks left and right is that invading Iran would be a foolish idea; and on the right, that "regime change" can be accomplished without this.

Nor even does Michael Ledeen want to invade. He is the "neoconservative" journalist, historian, and think-tanker [who] wants the Bush administration to speed things along, by kicking away a few more of the struts that support the regime, while providing the students in Iran's ragingly pro-Western campus underground with something more resembling material support. And as the Americans are still learning from their remarkably successful Iraq incursion, external threats can in themselves undermine and discombobulate a regime that is in fear of its own people. It is among the chief reasons the Saddamites became frozen in the headlights with the approach of war. Therefore, turn up the rhetoric.

Mr. Ledeen is the best informed Western journalist on the situation in Iran… His view, and mine, is that the Iranian people are, unlike the Iraqis, capable of taking down their monstrous regime themselves. As in other Asian societies, the students are the vanguard of a whole oppressed people. They are the proxies of their elders, they come from the more "advantaged" families, and by their demonstrations show that even those who endure the least material suffering want the dictatorship overthrown.

July 9 is when the pot next approaches boil-over. That will be the third anniversary of the first major student insurrection. Each year the demonstrations reach crescendo on that date, and my own Iranian correspondents hope that this is the year the lid comes off.

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Volume III, No. 637 • Wednesday, May 28, 2003

WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP

WEEKLY QUOTES

“The decision…was as difficult as crossing the Red Sea.”—Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, describing his government’s 12-7 cabinet vote to approve the U.S.-backed road map. [Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that in granting qualified approval to the road map peace plan, the cabinet had not ratified a binding legal document, but rather presented a “declaration of diplomatic intentions.”] (Associated Press, May 26; Jerusalem Post, May 26)

“We are not occupiers. This is the homeland of the Jewish people.”—P.M. Ariel Sharon, who earlier this week caused an uproar for using the word ‘occupation’ to describe Israeli rule over Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, backtracked from his remarks, explaining that what he had meant was that it is “not desirable to rule over another people.” [P.M. Sharon noted that Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein had rebuked him for using this term, pointing out that the legal position adopted by all Israeli governments since 1967 is that the West Bank and Gaza are “disputed territories” rather than “occupied territories”.] (Jer. Post, May 28)

“If you compare the current Likud to the Labor party’s forerunner, the Mapai, during the time of Golda Meir [prime minister from 1969-74], you’ll see that Golda’s Mapai was more nationalist, more determined, and more prepared to stand up for what’s ours than the Likud of today.”—M.K. Uzi Landau, reflecting the viewpoint of many from within P.M. Sharon’s own Likud party. Landau lobbed scathing criticism against the prime minister for his conditional approval of the road map, and also said that he would not have believed he would hear such a statement [the prime minister’s usage of the term ‘occupation’] coming from a right-wing, hawkish icon, like Ariel Sharon. (Ha’aretz, May 28)

“At this price, the left would have brought peace long ago. There’s no compromise here. It gives up everything. Even leaving the settlements in our hands will be difficult. [Israel’s 14 reservations] will end up like autumn leaves. It is far worse than Oslo.”—M.K. David Levy, a Likud stalwart who moved leftward into Ehud Barak’s government and who later returned to the Likud, saying that the road map document was one of the “worst things ever to be faced by Israel”. (Ha’aretz, May 28)

“I don’t want to judge Sharon by what he says or by what’s said about him. I know him inside and out. I’ll believe him only when he implements the road map. The implementation is the only test as far as I’m concerned… We do not accept each side picking and choosing only those specific elements that are convenient for them in the road map… We cannot accept relinquishing the right of return… This does not mean we want to destroy the State of Israel—we recognize it in the borders drawn by [UN Resolution] 242…”—P.A. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who said that he had received word from the Americans that the peace plan would not be reworked, emphasized that Israel’s stated 14 reservations to the plan “do not interest” him. (New York Times, May 25; Ha’aretz, May 28)

“I will not step down, but will die as a martyr. The struggle against occupation is legitimate and I mean ‘soldiers of the occupation’. It is inadmissible to kill a child or a woman in a restaurant or a café.”—P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat, categorically rejecting the possibility of his resignation. (Arab News, May 26)

“…This can be a hopeful moment in the Middle East… The Palestinians have a new leader who is dedicated to reform, P.M. Sharon has accepted the road map and the two-state solution. And this President…is determined to see if this can be the right moment to get the parties to move forward… I think the biggest difference is Yasser Arafat is not party to the current discussions. It was Yasser Arafat who did the most to destroy the prospects of an agreement being reached when it was very close to being reached.”—White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, responding to a question on how President Bush’s Mideast efforts differ from those of President Bill Clinton. (White House Press Office, May 27)

“Indeed, Iran should be on notice: Efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran’s image will be aggressively put down.”—U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, also suggested that Iraq might have destroyed illicit weapons just prior to the commencement of the war. [Senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Joseph Cirincione, charged that “they don’t have a good explanation for (not having found unconventional weapons), and therefore are trying to come up with as long a list as possible. But it’s impossible to destroy or hide the quantities the administration said they had without noticing it.”] (Nat’l. Post, May 28)

“Is there really an entity called al-Qaeda? Was it in Afghanistan? Does it exist now? [Osama bin Laden] cannot talk on the phone or use the Internet, but he can direct communications to the four corners of the world? This is illogical. America is happy with Syria and the Arab countries when Israel is happy with them. Israel is a state that occupies our land and we are required to take its interests into account? What logic is that?”—Syrian President Bashar Assad, who said he doubts the existence of al-Qaeda, denied that his country was harbouring terrorists and members of Iraq’s ousted regime. (A.P., May 26)

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SHORT TAKES

BUSH TO MEET ABU MAZEN AND SHARON—(Washington) The White House announced today that President George W. Bush will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas next week. Bush will first talk with Arab leaders in Egypt, and then will hold a summit with Sharon and Abbas in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba. The announcement came as the Palestinians, amid a power struggle between Abbas and P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat, postponed a meeting between Abbas and Sharon that had been scheduled for today. While the U.S. administration tried to minimize the significance of the postponement, Arafat told the PLO's executive committee that he wanted to review security proposals with Abbas. (A.P., May 28)

ABBAS SEEKS TO OUST ARAFAT’S NEPHEW—(New York) Palestinian P.M. Mahmoud Abbas is trying to oust P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat’s nephew from his post as chief Palestinian representative at the UN. Nasser al-Kidwa has been Palestinian “observer” since 1991, promoting the hard-line stances of his uncle, including lobbying for a UN peacekeeping force to be sent to the West Bank and Gaza, and calling for Israelis to be indicted by the UN’s international war crimes court. Al-Kidwa was seen last week having angry words with Terje Roed-Laresen, the UN’s special representative for the Middle East. The impassioned exchange was a result of Mr. Larsen’s address to the Security Council, in which he offered uncharacteristic praise of Israeli P.M. Ariel Sharon for his having “repeatedly endorsed the two-state solution”. (Nat’l. Post, May 28)

NAVY SEIZES HIZBULLAH ARMS BOAT—(Rosh Hanikra) Naval commandos intercepted an Egyptian fishing trawler loaded with bomb components and bombmaking instructions prepared by Hizbullah, heading for the Gaza Strip from Lebanon last week. Security officials say there is a clear link between Hizbullah and two men linked to P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat: deputy Naval Police chief Fathi Razam, considered a close confidant of Arafat who decides on weapons-smuggling routes, and Adel Almairibi, in charge of weapons smuggling for the Palestinian Authority. Razam and Almairibi were involved in the Karine A episode of January 2002, in which a ship was intercepted with 50 tons of weapons destined for the P.A. (Jer. Post, May 23)

ISRAEL CHAIRS DISARMAMENT PARLEY—(Geneva) Calling for ''dialogue, recognition and acceptance,'' Ya’akov Levy, permanent representative of Israel to the UN Office in Geneva, opened the annual Conference on Disarmament, marking the first time Israel has headed a major inter-governmental forum. In protest, several Muslim countries sent lower-level representatives to the meeting, and two delegations sat in the gallery instead of behind their country’s nameplates, but no one walked out. The presidency of the conference rotates each month among the 66 member states. (Reuters; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 27)

JORDAN FEARS RELIGIOUS WAR OVER JEWISH TEMPLE MOUNT—(Amman) Jordan today warned the Israeli government against allowing Jews to pray on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, saying such a step could lead to a "devastating religious war." Abdullah Kana'an, chairman of the Jordanian Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, was responding to plans broached by Israeli cabinet ministers to open the Temple Mount to Jewish worshippers. He said the Israeli move was "designed to back the Jews' alleged right to the Mosque by turning part of it into a synagogue in the run-up to rebuilding their alleged Temple." Under the provisions of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, Jordan continues to have a role in protecting Islamic and Christian holy places in Jerusalem. (Ha’aretz, May 28)

AL-JAZEERA TV FIRES CHIEF OVER SPY-LINK TO IRAQ—(Dubai) The satellite television company al-Jazeera has fired its chief executive, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, who was named in documents procured by a British newspaper in Baghdad that appear to link him with Saddam Hussein's intelligence services, the Mukhabarat. The papers allege contacts between agents and three members of al-Jazeera staff. Jihad Ballout, a senior company official, said Mr. Jassem Al-Ali would remain on the board of directors. Other papers found among abandoned ministries and palaces indicate that Iraqi intelligence had intervened to prevent the broadcast of footage of the 1988 gas attacks on the Kurdish town of Halabjah. (N.Y. Post, Independent, May 28)

U.S. STILL CRITICAL OF IRAN, DESPITE AL QAEDA ARRESTS—(Washington) The Bush administration said yesterday it received word that Iran has arrested several al Qaeda members, but the actions fail to ease American concerns about Iranian support for terror. Administration officials say it is unclear how many al Qaeda members were arrested and whether they include any top operatives that some believe function with Iranian acquiescence. The arrests also fail to meet the demands that al Qaeda operatives be handed over to Saudi Arabia or other authorities investigating the bombing of three foreign compounds in Riyadh this month. Despite the tough tone, officials say that a high-level meeting to decide steps against the Tehran government has been postponed. The White House also took a tough position on Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes only. (N.Y.T., May 28)

MONTREAL ‘SLEEPER AGENT’ DENIES TERRORIST LINKS—(Montreal) A Moroccan karate instructor arrested in Montreal last week is a sleeper agent in the Osama bin Laden network who could be activated at any time to carry out a terrorist attack, according to a Canadian intelligence report released yesterday. The dossier claims that Adil Charkaoui, who was also a graduate student at the Université de Montréal, trained at bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan in 1998 and is allegedly tied to the Montreal-based cell associated with Ahmed Ressam, who tried to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. (Nat’l. Post, May 28)

CANADIAN MP NOMINATES INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE—(Ottawa) New Democratic Party member of Parliament Sven Robinson has nominated the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. In particular, Robinson singles out Brian Avery and Tom Hurndal, who survived sniper fire while “defending Palestinian civilians from Israeli troops,” and Rachel Corrie, the American student who was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer. According to a report by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), the ISM is, according to its own website, a Palestinian-led movement that recognizes "the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle." For example, in a January 2002 article for Palestine Journal, ISM founders Adam Shapiro and his Palestinian-American wife Huwaida Arraf wrote that non-violent activities should take place in addition to (not in place of) armed resistance, because the non-violent activities are good for public relation purposes. They also characterized suicide operations as “noble.” (Office of M.P. Sven Robinson, May 2; CAMERA Alert, May 27)

MONTREAL HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS HOLD CEREMONY TO OPEN MUSEUM—(Montreal) The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre on Tuesday dedicated its new museum to the memory of the six million Jews killed under Nazi rule. The museum, which officially opens on June 30, is believed to be Canada's only site dedicated solely to the Holocaust. The most emotional moment of the day came as survivors placed an urn of ashes from Auschwitz into the museum's Memorial Room. Curator Yitzchak Mais said the museum is designed to reflect Jewish culture and history in Europe before the war, the political context and horrors of the war itself, and how the 25,000 survivors who immigrated to Montreal rebuilt their lives. (The Canadian Press, May 28)

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Volume III, No. 636 • Tuesday, May 27, 2003

MIDDLE EAST TRAGEDIES:
PRESSING AHEAD IS OUR ONLY CHOICE
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review, May 23, 2003

The images are jarring, the hypocrisies appalling, the rhetoric repulsive. Only in the Arab Middle East--and the Islamic world in general--are suicide-murderers operating and indeed canonized, even blessed with cash bonuses. An inveterate liar like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf is lauded for his defense of a mass killer like Saddam Hussein--and at last lampooned not on moral grounds, but because his yarns about thousands of dead Marines are finally exposed by the sound of American tanks rumbling his way. The last gassings in the modern world--Nasser's in Yemen and Saddam's in Kurdistan and Iran--were all Mideastern; so are promises of virgins in exchange for bombing women and children.

Pick up any newspaper and the day's bombings, killings, and terror are most likely to have occurred somewhere in the Islamic world. The big, silly lie--Jews caused 9/11, the U.S. used atomic weapons against Iraq, Americans bombed mosques--has been a staple of Middle East popular culture. The hatred of Jews is open, unapologetic, and mostly unrivaled on the world stage since the Third Reich.

I think the American street--and as we have learned in the case of anger toward the French, there surely is such a thing--has finally thrown up its hands with Arab ingratitude. Egyptian, Jordanian, and Palestinian recipients of billions of dollars in American aid routinely reply by trashing the U.S., whether in the street, through government publications, or via public declarations in Arab and European capitals.

In embarrassed response, we are tossed the old bone by their corrupt leaders--"Ignore what we say publicly and look instead privately at what we do." Arab apologists claim that triangulating with and backing off from the only democracy in the region would win back their good graces; but we know that such perfidy toward Israel would only win us contempt, as we were shown to be not merely opportunistic, but weak and scared into the bargain as well.

Shiites, once murdered en masse by Saddam Hussein, now turn on the American and British liberators who alone in the world could do what they could not. Iraqis, freed by us from their own home-grown murderers, in thanks now blame us for not stopping them from robbing themselves. Our citizens are routinely blown to pieces in Saudi Arabia or shot down in Jordan, even as we are told that Americans--after losing 3,000 of their citizens to Islamist killers--are not being nice to Arab students and visitors because we require security checks on them and occasionally tail those with suspicious backgrounds. Egyptians march and shout threats to America and the West--and then whine that thousands in Cairo and Luxor are out of work because most over here take them seriously, and choose to pass on having such unhinged people escort them around the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings. Have all these people gone mad?

The world is watching all this, and it is not pretty. After talking to a variety of foreigners who do not necessarily share the American point of view, I conclude that South Americans, Europeans, Asians, and Africans don't much like what they see in the Middle East--and blame those over there, not us, for the old mess.

The general causes of these Middle Eastern pathologies have been well diagnosed since September 11, ad nauseam. The Arab world has no real consensual governments; statism and tribalism hamper market economics and ensure stagnation. Sexual apartheid, Islamic fundamentalism, the absence of an independent judiciary, and a censored press all do their part to ensure endemic poverty, rampant corruption, and rising resentment among an exploding population…

Class, family, money, and connections--rarely merit--bring social advancement and prized jobs. The trickle-down of oil money masks the generic failure for a while, but ultimately undermines diversification and sound development in the economy--as well as accentuating a crass inequality. Autocracies forge a devil's bargain with radical Islamists and their epigones of terrorist killers, from al Qaeda to Hezbollah, to deflect their efforts away from Arab regimes and onto Americans and Israelis. All the talk of a once-glorious Baghdad, an Arab Renaissance in the 13th century, or a few Aristotelian texts kept alive in Arabic still cannot hide the present dismal reality--and indeed is being forgotten because of it.

Millions in the Arab street now enjoy merely the patina of Western culture--everything from cell phones, the Internet, and videos--but without either the freedom or material security that create the conditions that produce these and thousands of other such appurtenances. The result is that appetites and frustrations alike arise faster than they can be satisfied with available wealth--or constrained by the strictures of traditional and ever-more-fanatical Islam. Americans now accept all this--and snicker at the old Marxist and neocolonialist exegeses that the British, the Americans, the French--or little green men on Mars--are responsible for the Middle East mess.

Illegitimate governments--whether Arab theocracies, monarchies, dictatorships, or corrupt oligarchies--rely on state police and their labyrinth of torture and random execution to stifle dissent. Filtered popular frustration is directed toward Israel and the United States--as the martyrs of the West Bank are the salve for anger over everything from dirty water to expensive food. Millions of Muslims collectively murdered by Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, the Taliban, the Assads, Qaddafi, and an array of autocrats from Algeria to the Gulf seem to count as nothing. Persecuted and often stateless Muslims without a home in Kurdistan or Bosnia gain little sympathy--unless the Jews can be blamed. It is not who is killed, nor how many--but by whom: One protester in the West Bank mistakenly shot by the IDF earns more wrath in the Arab calculus than 10,000 butchered by Saddam Hussein or the elder Assad.

Before 9/11, the West in a variety of ways had been complicit in all this tragedy, and either ignored the alarming symptoms--or, worse still, aided and abetted the disease. Oil companies and defense contractors winked at bribery and knew well enough that the weapons and toys they sold to despots only impoverished these sick nations and brought the dies irae ever closer. "If we don't, the French surely will" was the mantra when bribery, Israeli boycotts, and questionable weapons sales were requisite for megaprofits.

Paleolithic diplomats--as if the professed anti-Communism of the old Cold War still justified support for authoritarians--were quiet about almost everything from Saudi blackmail payments to terrorists and beheadings to mass jailings, random murder, and disfigurement of women. Political appeasement--from Reagan's failure to hit the Bekka Valley after the slaughter of U.S. Marines, to Clinton's pathetic responses to murdered diplomats, bombings, and the leveling of embassies--only emboldened Arab killers.

Judging magnanimity as decadence, the half-educated in al Qaeda embraced pseudo-Spenglerian theories of a soft and decadent West unable to tear itself away from thong-watching and Sunday football. Largess in the halls of power in New York and Washington played a contemptible role too--as ex-ambassadors, retired generals, and revolving-door lawyers created fancy names, titles, and institutes to conceal what was really Gulf money thrown on the table for American influence.

On the left, multiculturalists and postcolonial theorists were even worse, promulgating the relativist argument that there was no real standard by which to assess third-world criminality. And by mixing a cocktail of colonial guilt and advocacy about the soi-disant "other," they helped to create a politically-correct climate that left us ill-prepared for the hatred of the madrassas. Arab monsters like Saddam Hussein sensed that there would always be useful idiots in the West to march on their behalf if it came to a choice between a third-world killer and a democratic U.S. More fools in the universities alleged that oppression, exploitation, and inequality alone caused Arab anger--even as well-off, educated, and pampered momma's boys like Mohamed Atta pulled out their Korans, put on headbands, and then blew us and themselves to smithereens, still babbling about unclean women in the last hours before their rendezvous in Hell.

So the general symptomology, diagnosis, and bleak prognosis of this illness in the Middle East are now more or less agreed upon; the treatment, however, is not. Arab intellectuals--long corrupted by complicity with criminal regimes, and perennial critics of American foreign policy--now suddenly look askance at democracy, if jump-started by the United States. American academics, who once decried our support for the agents of oppression, now decry our efforts to remove them and allow something better.

What in God's name, then, are we to do with this nonsense? We seek military action and democratic reform hand-in-glove to end Islamic rogue states and terrorist enclaves--not because such audacious measures are our first option (appeasement, neglect, and complicity in the past were preferable), but because they are the last. Go ahead and argue over the improbability of democracy in the Middle East. Reckon the horrendous costs and unending commitment. Cite the improper parallels with Germany and Japan until you are blue in the face. Stammer on that Baghdad will never be a New England town hall.

Maybe, maybe not. But at least consider the alternatives.

Hitting and then running? Did that in Iraq in 1991--and Shiites and Kurds hated us before dying in droves; Kuwaitis soon forgot our sacrifice, and we spent $30 billion and 350,000 air sorties to patrol the desert skies for 12 years. Afghans gave no praise for our help in routing the Soviets, but plenty of blame for leaving when the threat was over.

Establish bases and forget nation-building? Did that too once, everywhere from Libya to Saudi Arabia, and we still got a madman in Tripoli and 60,000 royal third cousins in Riyadh.

Turn the other cheek and say, "What's a few American volunteers killed in Lebanon or the Sudan when the stock market is booming and Starbucks is sprouting up everywhere?" Did that also, and we got 9/11.

Pour in money? Did that for a quarter-century; but I don't see that the street in Amman or Cairo is much appreciative about freebies, from tons of American wheat to Abrams tanks.

Get tough with Israel? Taking 39 scuds, pulling out of Lebanon, offering 97 percent of the West Bank, and putting up with Oslo got them the Intifada and female suicide bombers.

The fact is that the only alternative after September 11 was the messy, dirty, easily caricatured path that Mr. Bush has taken us down. For all the reoccurring troubles in Afghanistan, for all the looting and lawlessness in the month after the brilliant military victory in Iraq, and for all the recent explosions in restaurants, synagogues, and hotels--we are still making real progress.

Two years ago the most awful regimes since Hitler's Germany were the Taliban and the Hussein despotism. Both are now gone, and something better will yet emerge in their place. The American military has not proven merely lethal, but unpredictable and a little crazy into the bargain--as if our generals, when told to go to Baghdad or Kabul, nod yes and smile: "Hell, what are they going to do anyway, blow up the World Trade Center?"

Two years ago the world's most deadly agent was an Arab terrorist; now it is an American with a laptop and an F-18 circling above with a pod of GPS bombs.

Two years ago nuts in caves talked about Americans who were scared to fight; now the world is worried because we fight too quickly and too well. There are no more videos of Osama bin Laden strutting with his cell phone trailing sycophantic psychopaths. Yasser Arafat is no longer lord of the Lincoln bedroom, but shuffles around his own self-created moonscape.

Two years ago Syria and Lebanon were considered sacrosanct hideouts that we dared not enter--or so a sapling ophthalmologist from Syria threatened us. Today we tell the custodians of terror there to clean it up or we will--and assume that eventually we must.

Two years ago--and I speak from experience--faulting our corrupt relationship with Saudi Arabia brought mostly abuse from hacks in suits and ties in Washington and New York; now defending that status quo is more likely to incur public odium.

Two years ago the Cassandra-like trio of Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, and Fouad Ajami were considered outcasts by disingenuous but influential Middle Eastern Studies departments; now they--not the poseurs in university lounges and academic conferences--are heeded by presidents and prime ministers.

No, we are making progress because we have sized up the problem, know the solution--and have the guts to press ahead. No one claimed all this would be easy or welcome. But like Roman senators of old with each hand on a fold of the toga, we offer choices. We hope that there are still enough people of good will and sobriety in the Middle East to rid themselves of the terrorist killers, and thus select a freely offered, Western-style democracy over the 1st Marine Division, a 1,000-plane sky, and some 30 acres of floating tarmac.

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Volume III, No. 635 • Monday, May 26, 2003

ISRAEL AND THE ROAD MAP

PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON:
'OCCUPATION' OF PALESTINIANS IS 'TERRIBLE'
Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2003

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon delivered an impassioned defense of his support for the U.S.-backed road map peace plan on Monday, calling the occupation of Palestinians in the territories, "terrible" for Israel. In remarks to Likud Party members who assailed the cabinet decision made Sunday to back the plan…Sharon retorted: "There is nobody here to whom the homeland means more than it does to me…I don't know if we shall succeed, but I shall make every effort to reach a political settlement…"

He said there would be no let down in Israel's war on terror, and that if terror attacks continue to be launched against Israel, "the Palestinians won't get anything." But, Sharon said "…to maintain 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation, is terrible for Israel, the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy… If there is security and quiet, along with the measures we are taking, there will be investment in Israel and growth… Whoever thinks we have surrendered to terrorism, Israel has not, Israel fights terrorism day and night."…

____________________________________________________

AN INAUSPICIOUS START
Editorial
Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2003

The cabinet decision to endorse the road map is being billed as an historic moment. It was. For the first time, the Israeli government has formally committed itself to the formation of a Palestinian state on this side of the Jordan river. Ten years ago this September, there was another, much more festive historic moment--the signing of Oslo's Declaration of Principles by Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat, and Bill Clinton on the White House lawn. That moment too seemed pregnant with possibility for some, with trepidation for others.

How is this moment different? What should be done to ensure that this moment turns out better than the last one? That moment also followed American victories, first in the Cold War, then in evicting Iraq from Kuwait. Then, like now, there was a sense that the defeat of forces most opposed to peace--Iraq, the PLO, and the Soviet bloc--provided a window of opportunity for peacemaking.

This time, Saddam Hussein has not just been defeated, but ousted from power in a war dedicated to that objective. This time, Saddam's ouster is not an isolated act, but a battle in a wider war against the terror network of which he was one part. This time, the signatory of the last agreement, Yasser Arafat, has been revealed to be addicted to terrorism and the principle obstacle to any settlement. The regional context of this moment, in other words, is arguably even more promising than a decade ago. Whether this regional climate is translated into a successful peace process depends on whether the lessons of the past decade of failure are learned.

Much will be made of the reservations that the cabinet passed in conjunction with its endorsement of the road map. Yet none of Israel's basic reservations alters the basic destination of that document: a Palestinian state. A document that did not contain so many flaws and yet endorsed a Palestinian state would have passed by an even larger majority than 12 to 7 (with 4 abstentions). The remarkable thing then, is not the reservations, but that a government so right-wing that Ariel Sharon sits on its left flank decided to back Palestinian statehood by a solid majority.

The conventional wisdom will be that it is this government, as much as the Palestinians, that threatens the prospects of the road map successfully reaching its declared destination: two states living side by side in a stable, secure peace. The road map was constructed according to such a conventional balance of blame. This is its primary weakness and threat to its success. The greatest problem with the road map is not where it is going, but where it came from.

Since the Six Day War of 1967, Middle East peacemaking has been built on the idea that Israeli reluctance to give up territory is the principle obstacle to peace. Since the current Palestinian offensive began, this formula has been changed by shifting some of the blame to the Palestinian side. Rather than completely blaming Israel, an equation has been created: Israel must give up land (and stop settlements), the Palestinians must stop terrorism. These models have failed because they were attempts to ignore reality. The reality always was, and continues to be, that the "Arab-Israeli conflict" is not about the land Israel took in order to survive, but the repeated Arab attempts to destroy Israel in its entirety.

The insistence that Israel at least share the blame for being under attack is not just a matter of unfairness. Unfairness per se is not pleasant, but it does not matter. What matters is that the readiness to blame Israel has taken the Arab world off the hook, and has been a key force in the legitimization of terrorism. In September 2000, for example, the Palestinians even used terror to reduce their share of the blame in the conflict. Just two months before, at Camp David, Arafat had rejected Israel's offer of a state over almost the entire territory in dispute, including the redivision of Jerusalem. When the Palestinians launched their offensive, far from compounding the blame on them for scuttling peace, Israel became a pariah again.

The Palestinians have learned time and again that terror works. It is for this reason that, even in our post-September 11 world, they are so reluctant to stop it. This cycle can only be broken by a radical changing of the rules. U.S. President George W. Bush's June 24 speech did this by, for the first time, conditioning Palestinian statehood on Palestinian behavior a new leadership, a crackdown on terror, and democratization.

The road map undid this by once again shifting the burden back toward Israel. It did this not just structurally, but through its birth: by the U.S., Europe, Russia, and the UN with almost no Israeli role, as if a peace process by definition must be imposed upon Israel as much as the Palestinians.

Israel's endorsement of the road map presents the U.S. with an opportunity to correct this pattern. Though much importance is being attached to the road map, it is more of an empty vessel than is usually understood. If the U.S. continues to try to prove its evenhandedness by pressuring Israel, and if it continues to shave off its expectations of the Palestinians (as has already happened with the demand for “new leadership”), the road map will fall into the same dust bin as its many failed predecessors. If, however, the U.S. changes tack and places the primary burden on the Arab world to dismantle the edifice of enmity it has built so deep and so high, there is a chance that this inauspicious start could be salvaged.

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TEXT OF ISRAEL'S 14 COMMENTS ON THE ROAD MAP
Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2003

As provided by media watch group Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA), the following is a translation of the text of Israel's 14 conditions for accepting the international Quartet's road map.

1. Both at the commencement of and during the process, and as a condition to its continuance, calm will be maintained. The Palestinians will dismantle the existing security organizations and implement security reforms during the course of which new organizations will be formed and act to combat terror, violence and incitement (incitement must cease immediately and the Palestinian Authority must educate for peace). These organizations will engage in genuine prevention of terror and violence through arrests, interrogations, prevention and the enforcement of the legal groundwork for investigations, prosecution and punishment… There will be no progress to the second phase without the fulfillment of all above-mentioned conditions relating to the war against terror. The security plans to be implemented are the Tenet and Zinni plans. [As in the other mutual frameworks, the Roadmap will not state that Israel must cease violence and incitement against the Palestinians].

2. Full performance will be a condition for progress between phases and for progress within phases. The first condition for progress will be the complete cessation of terror, violence and incitement. Progress between phases will come only following the full implementation of the preceding phase. Attention will be paid not to timelines, but to performance benchmarks (timelines will serve only as reference points).

3. The emergence of a new and different leadership in the Palestinian Authority within the framework of governmental reform. The formation of a new leadership constitutes a condition for progress to the second phase of the plan. In this framework, elections will be conducted for the Palestinian Legislative Council following coordination with Israel.

4. The Monitoring mechanism will be under American management. The chief verification activity will concentrate upon the creation of another Palestinian entity and progress in the civil reform process within the Palestinian Authority…

5. The character of the provisional Palestinian state will be determined through negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The provisional state will have provisional borders and certain aspects of sovereignty, be fully demilitarized with no military forces, but only with police and internal security forces of limited scope and armaments, be without the authority to undertake defense alliances or military cooperation, and Israeli control over the entry and exit of all persons and cargo, as well as of its air space and electromagnetic spectrum.

6. In connection to both the introductory statements and the final settlement, declared references must be made to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel.

7. End of the process will lead to the end of all claims and not only the end of the conflict.

8. The future settlement will be reached through agreement and direct negotiations between the two parties, in accordance with the vision outlined by President Bush in his 24 June address.

9. There will be no involvement with issues pertaining to the final settlement. Among issues not to be discussed: settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (excluding a settlement freeze and illegal outposts), the status of the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in Jerusalem, and all other matters whose substance relates to the final settlement.

10. The removal of references other than 242 and 338 (1397, the Saudi Initiative and the Arab Initiative adopted in Beirut). A settlement based upon the Roadmap will be an autonomous settlement that derives its validity therefrom…

11. Promotion of the reform process in the Palestinian Authority: a transitional Palestinian constitution will be composed, a Palestinian legal infrastructure will be constructed and cooperation with Israel in this field will be renewed. In the economic sphere: international efforts to rehabilitate the Palestinian economy will continue…

12. The deployment of IDF forces along the September 2000 lines will be subject to the stipulation of Article 4 (absolute quiet) and will be carried out in keeping with changes to be required by the nature of the new circumstances and needs created thereby…

13. Subject to security conditions, Israel will work to restore Palestinian life to normal…

14. Arab states will assist the process through the condemnation of terrorist activity. No link will be established between the Palestinian track and other tracks (Syrian-Lebanese).

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RICE, POWELL ACKNOWLEDGE ISRAELI CONCERNS
ABOUT U.S. ROADMAP
White House Office of the Press Secretary, May 23, 2003

The statement below was issued by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

“The roadmap was presented to the Government of Israel with a request from the President that it respond with contributions to this document to advance true peace. The United States Government received a response from the Government of Israel, explaining its significant concerns about the roadmap. The United States shares the view of the Government of Israel that these are real concerns, and will address them fully and seriously in the implementation of the roadmap to fulfill the President's vision of June 24, 2002.”

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Volume III, No. 634 • Friday, May 23, 2003

DOES THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS MEDIA
OVERLOOK ISRAEL'S LEGAL RIGHTS
IN THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT?
Dan Diker
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem Viewpoints No. 495, April 1, 2003

International news organizations covering the Arab-Israeli conflict frequently refer to the international agreements and resolutions that were intended to resolve outstanding issues between the parties. Unfortunately, however, they frequently do this in ways that are prejudiced against Israel's legal rights and claims. In many cases, correspondents misreport or even overlook the expressed intent of the drafters of these resolutions. For example, Israel's civilian and military presence in the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip and its administration of a united Jerusalem and the northern Mt. Dov [Shaaba Farms] region complies with international laws and resolutions, yet some leading international news organizations have referred to these areas as "illegally occupied lands or colonies." 1 …The emotionally charged Palestinian liberation story is, for many reporters, more compelling than the dry, factual context of history, especially existing international laws and resolutions that support Israel's narrative.

Media and Legal "Lenses" on the Disputed Territories. On 16 February 2003, the BBC's Dateline London program featured a live, televised debate on the planned U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. [Journalist] Nick Gowing, and distinguished guests including British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, top German and French officials, and former White House Press Secretary James Rubin, all agreed that "the conflict between Palestine and Israel" would have to be solved as part of the overall peace prescription for the region. 2 This premature reference to "Palestine" places Palestinian claims to the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip…on an equal diplomatic and legal footing with the claims of the State of Israel. In other words, it assigns a legal status to the Palestinian claims that…they do not have. [Reference] to "Palestine" has become so commonplace in recent years that even U.S. President George W. Bush has used the term…According to Alan Baker, Legal Advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry, use of the language "Palestine" contravenes the carefully crafted language in the Oslo Accords and UN Security Council Resolution
242. 3…

New York Times correspondent Steven Weisman reported recently on Israel's obligation to pull out of "occupied" territories according to the U.S. "roadmap." Weisman writes: "Use of the word ‘occupied’ [implies] a full withdrawal by Israel from Palestinian territories it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war." 4 An Associated Press article similarly asserted that: "Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 call on Israel to withdraw from all territory captured in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973." 5 These frequent references…are inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords. UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967, which was the basis of the 1992 Madrid peace conference and the 1993 Oslo accords, require Israel to withdraw from "territories" to "secure and recognized borders," not from "the territories" or "all the territories" captured in the Six-Day War. 6

Lord Caradon, former British Ambassador to the UN and a drafter of Resolution 242, told the Beirut Daily Star on 12 June 1974: "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967 because those positions were undesirable and artificial…They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them…" 7 Israel's former UN Ambassador Dore Gold [noted]: "Since the Soviets tried to add the language of full withdrawal but failed, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of the withdrawal clause, which was unanimously adopted by the Security Council." 8

In November 2002, a senior Reuters television producer participating in a media panel discussing news coverage of the Middle East conflict insisted that Reuters was "careful to maintain objective coverage of the Palestinian territories." This author asked whether the foreign news producer meant "Palestinian territories" that were ceded to the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo accords. The Reuters executive responded that she meant "all of the West Bank and Gaza." 9 This pointed exchange illustrates another common reporting error… Arafat's PLO was not mentioned in Resolution 242 and had no legal status under that resolution. 10 In fact, the drafters of the resolution did not consider creating a second Arab state west of the Jordan River. They therefore used the carefully chosen term "refugee problem" to refer both to extant Arab (Palestinian) and Jewish refugee claims stemming from the 1948 war and the additional Arab refugee problem created by the 1967 war. Moreover, references to the entire West Bank and Gaza as "Palestinian" territories also contradict the Oslo agreement's Declaration of Principles of September 1993 and the Oslo II Interim Agreement of 1995. Neither agreement requires either Palestinians or Israelis to refrain from the construction of settlements, neighborhoods, houses, roads, or any other similar building projects pending a peacefully negotiated final agreement… 11

All Israeli governments since 1967 have held that Israeli settlements are legal according to the 1907 Hague Convention that permits the administering authority to utilize public land and to enjoy its "usufruct" ("fruits"). 12 Moreover, Israeli governments have consistently argued that the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, especially Article 49 which deals with population transfer, has no legal applicability to the West Bank and Gaza….

"Occupied Arab East Jerusalem." International news reporting on Jerusalem [has centered] on Arab and Palestinian claims regarding the "Judaization" of Israel's unified capital, whose eastern half, captured from Jordan in the defensive Six-Day War of 1967, is referred to by much of the international community, including the news media, as "occupied Arab East Jerusalem." 13 Indeed, the underlying assumption in this reporting is that, historically speaking, eastern Jerusalem has always been an Arab city like Damascus or Baghdad. This ignores the fact that Jerusalem has had an overwhelmingly Jewish majority as far back as the mid-nineteenth century…

A recently released comprehensive study of urban planning and demographic growth in Jerusalem by international human rights attorney Justus Reid Weiner reveals a picture of the city that is substantially different from the Jerusalem perceived by the media and public. Between 1967 and 2000, Jerusalem's Arab population increased from 26.6 percent to 31.7 percent of the city's total populace, while the city's Jewish population decreased accordingly. 14 Arab housing starts also heavily outpaced Jewish building during the same period due in part to "the direct sponsorship of illegal construction by the Palestinian Authority." 15

An October 2002 [BBC] report quoted the reaction of 14 Arab and Muslim news media organizations that were "enraged" over the U.S. Congress's most recent vote to confirm a 1995 congressional decision to recognize united Jerusalem as Israel's capital. [Lebanese state television] asserted that such a move would succeed in "'Judaizing' the city's character and falsifying its true identity." 16 The report failed to mention that the U.S. congressional decision was based in part on Israel's Supreme Court decision of 1967 empowering the Eshkol government to administer a unified Jerusalem, and in part on UN Security Council Resolution 242, that did not mention Jerusalem as part of "lands" from which Israel had been requested to withdraw. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg was one of the drafters of the resolution and he asserted that: "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate....Jerusalem was a discrete matter, and not linked to the West Bank." 17

In fact, news reporting on the conflict over Jerusalem almost uniformly neglects Israel's legal and historical claims to its capital city. According to Israel's former UN Ambassador Dore Gold: "Israel's legal position in Jerusalem originates in the Palestine Mandate by which the League of Nations…recognized 'the historic connection of the Jewish people with Palestine' and called for 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People.'" 18… Despite the fact that the United Nations…proposed that Jerusalem be divided…in General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 1947, the Arab armies' invasion of the fledgling Jewish state in May 1948 rendered UN Resolution 181 a "dead letter." 19 …Major international legal experts such as former U.S. State Department Legal Advisor Steven Schwebel, who also headed the International Court of Justice at The Hague, further support Israel's position. In 1970…Schwebel argued that "Israel has better title in the territory that was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem (emphasis mine--D.D.), than Jordan and Egypt." 20

In 1996, Israel decided to open up the Hasmonean archeological tunnel near the ancient Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, and one year later the government decided to approve existing plans to build the Har Homa neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem. Palestinian spokesmen and a compliant international media vilified these moves as violations of the Oslo accords. 21 However, Daniel Taub, General Law Director of Israel's Foreign Ministry and part of the Oslo negotiation team, asserted the legality of Israel's position. "Neither [Oslo's] Declaration of Principles, nor the interim agreement place any strictures on Israel concerning Jerusalem. All questions concerning Jerusalem were left to the permanent status negotiations…" 22

The "Disputed" Shaaba Farms. Following Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon… in May 2000, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced on 25 July 2000 that Israel fully implemented its part of UN Resolution 425. Despite Israel's compliance…news organizations have frequently referred to the Shaaba Farms…as "disputed." 23 …The mistaken use of the term "disputed”…legitimizes continued Hizballah attacks from Lebanon…

The "Fighting" Reporters of the Foreign Media. Fiamma Nirenstein, Middle East special correspondent for Italy's La Stampa newspaper, characterized foreign news correspondents as fighting journalists rather than reporting journalists with respect to the armed conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. 24 Many foreign reporters, today in their 40s and early 50s, actively demonstrated on European and U.S. college campuses against capitalist hegemony in America and Western imperialism in Africa and South America, and against Israel's participation in the 1982 Lebanon war. Today, these "fighting journalists" are active moral participants in a still unfolding story of "Palestinian Davids" fighting to "liberate their homeland" from the Israeli "colonialist Goliath."…

The Influence of Media on International Law. [Although] international legal texts in the past have not cited media reports as an acceptable source of international law…this is beginning to change. A Swedish lawyer, who recently filed a complaint of war crimes against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon [argued that] media reports of Sharon's alleged "crimes" should suffice as evidence against him. Although the prosecutor ultimately rejected the claim, TV pictures have an increasing value as admissible evidence. 25 According to international human rights attorney and Canadian parliamentarian Professor Irwin Cotler, media reports can be a "constituent feature" of a complaint to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, as part of an effort to initiate a war crimes trial. 26 International news organizations, therefore, bear a heavy responsibility for accurate reportage of the rights and claims of both Palestinians and Israelis, in order to ensure optimal balance in presenting this explosive and complex conflict to the public.

Notes:
1. Dilip Hiro, "Land is the Issue," Guardian, 22 May 2001; http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,494505,00.html
2. "The Crisis in Iraq," BBC's Dateline London, with Nick Gowing, 16 February 2003.
3. Interview with Alan Baker, Legal Advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry, 17 January 2003.
4. Steven Weisman, "U.S. Joins Partners on Plan for Middle East, But Not Timing," New York Times, 21 December 2002, p. A2.
5. Jeff Helmreich, "Journalistic License, Professional Standards in the Print Media's Coverage of Israel," Jerusalem Letter #460, 15 August 2001, p. 4.
6. Dore Gold, "From Occupied Territories to Disputed Territories," Jerusalem Viewpoints #470, 16 January 2002, p. 3.
7. Beirut Daily Star, 12 June 1974, as quoted by Leonard J. Davis in Myths and Facts (Washington: Near East Report, 1989), p. 48.
8. Gold, p. 3.
9. This exchange was part of a panel on news coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem, 17 November 2002.
10. Moshe Landau, Yehuda Blum, and Meir Rosenne, "Arafat's Web of Lies," Ha'aretz, 3 January 2001.
11. "Har Homa, Legal Aspects," Israel Foreign Ministry web site, 3 March 1997; www.israel-mfa.gov.il.
12. Ibid. This is also the position of Alan Baker, Legal Advisor to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and part of the Israeli team drafting the Oslo Accords, as stated to the author at a meeting on 17 January 2003.
13. Justus Reid Weiner, Illegal Construction in Jerusalem: A Variation on an Alarming Global Trend (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2003), p. 7.
14. Ibid., p. 8.
15. Ibid., p. 10.
16. BBC Monitoring, "Arab Fury at Jerusalem Decision," 5 October 2002, p. 2.
17. Leonard J. Davis, Myths and Facts, p. 214.
18. Dore Gold, Jerusalem in International Diplomacy (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 2001), p. 23.
19. Ibid., p. 24.
20. Ibid., p. 26.
21. Alex Safian, "The Media's Tunnel Vision," Camera Backgrounder, 6 November 1996, p. 3.
22. Ibid., p. 3.
23. See Ewen MacAskill, "Threat Grows of Second Front in Lebanon," Guardian, 4 April 2002, p. 2.
24. Interview with Fiamma Nirenstein, Special Middle East Correspondent, La Stampa, 27 January 2003.
25. Interview with Alan Baker, 13 May 2003.
26. Interview with Professor Irwin Cotler, Member of the Canadian Parliament and expert on international human rights law, 4 February 2003.

(Dan Diker is a Knesset and economic affairs reporter for Israel Broadcasting
Authority's English News and is also media affairs consultant at the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Institute for Contemporary Affairs.)

Shabbat Shalom to all our readers!

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Volume III, No. 633 • Thursday, May 22, 2003

THE WORLD SHOULD KNOW
WHAT HE DID TO MY FAMILY
Smadar Haran Kaiser
Washington, Post, May 18, 2003

Abu Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are probably few who remember why Abbas's terrorists held the ship and its 400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli prison for life. Kuntar's name is all but unknown to the world. But I know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.

It was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar's mission against my family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on April 22, 1979.

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

The next day, Abu Abbas announced from Beirut that the terrorist attack in Nahariya had been carried out "to protest the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty" at Camp David the previous year. Abbas seems to have a gift for charming journalists, but imagine the character of a man who protests an act of peace by committing an act of slaughter.

Two of Abbas's terrorists had been killed by police on the beach. The other two were captured, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Despite my protests, one was released in a prisoner exchange for Israeli POWs several months before the Achille Lauro hijacking. Abu Abbas was determined to find a way to free Kuntar as well. So he engineered the hijacking of the Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt and demanded the release of 50 Arab terrorists from Israeli jails. The only one of those prisoners actually named was Samir Kuntar. The plight of hundreds held hostage on a cruise ship for two days at sea lent itself to massive international media coverage. The attack on Nahariya, by contrast, had taken less than an hour in the middle of the night. So what happened then was hardly noticed outside of Israel.

One hears the terrorists and their excusers say that they are driven to kill out of desperation. But there is always a choice. Even when you have suffered, you can choose whether to kill and ruin another's life, or whether to go on and rebuild. Even after my family was murdered, I never dreamed of taking revenge on any Arab.

But I am determined that Samir Kuntar should never be released from prison. In 1984, I had to fight my own government not to release him as part of an exchange for several Israeli soldiers who were POWs in Lebanon. I understood, of course, that the families of those POWs would gladly have agreed to the release of an Arab terrorist to get their sons back. But I told Yitzhak Rabin, then defense minister, that the blood of my family was as red as that of the POWs. Israel had always taken a position of refusing to negotiate with terrorists. If they were going to make an exception, let it be for a terrorist who was not as cruel as Kuntar. "Your job is not to be emotional," I told Rabin, "but to act rationally." And he did.

So Kuntar remains in prison. I have been shocked to learn that he has married an Israeli Arab woman who is an activist on behalf of terrorist prisoners. As the wife of a prisoner, she gets a monthly stipend from the government. I'm not too happy about that.

In recent years, Abu Abbas started telling journalists that he had renounced terrorism and that killing Leon Klinghoffer had been a mistake. But he has never said that killing my family was a mistake. He was a terrorist once, and a terrorist, I believe, he remains. Why else did he spend these last years, as the Israeli press has reported, free as a bird in Baghdad, passing rewards of $25,000 from Saddam Hussein to families of Palestinian suicide bombers? More than words, that kind of cash prize, which is a fortune to poor families, was a way of urging more suicide bombers. The fortunate thing about Abbas's attaching himself to Hussein is that it set him up for capture.

Some say that Italy should have first crack at Abbas. It had already convicted him of the Achille Lauro hijacking in absentia in 1986. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi now wants Abbas handed over so that he can begin serving his life sentence. But it's also true that in 1985, the Italians had Abbas in their hands after U.S. fighter jets forced his plane to land in Sicily. And yet they let him go. So while I trust Berlusconi, who knows if a future Italian government might not again wash its hands of Abbas?

In 1995, Rabin, then our prime minister, asked me to join him on his trip to the White House, where he was to sign a peace agreement with Yasser Arafat, which I supported. I believe that he wanted me to represent all Israeli victims of terrorism. Rabin dreaded shaking hands with Arafat, knowing that those hands were bloody. At first, I agreed to make the trip, but at the last minute, I declined. As prime minister, Rabin had to shake hands with Arafat for political reasons. As a private person, I did not. So I stayed here.

Now I am ready and willing to come to the United States to testify against Abu Abbas if he is tried for terrorism. The daughters of Leon Klinghoffer have said they are ready to do the same. Unlike Klinghoffer, Danny, Einat and Yael were not American citizens. But Klinghoffer was killed on an Italian ship in Abbas's attempt to free the killer of my family in Israel. We are all connected by the international web of terrorism woven by Abbas. Let the truth come out in a new and public trial. And let it be in the United States, the leader in the struggle against terrorism.

(Smadar Haran Kaiser is a social worker.
She is remarried and has two daughters.)

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Volume III, No. 632 • Wednesday, May 21, 2003

WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP

WEEKLY QUOTES

“Sunday morning’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem in which seven civilians were killed and dozens were wounded, [Saturday] night’s terrorist attack in Hebron in which a husband and his pregnant wife were killed, and other attacks and victims in recent days, all prove—again—to us and the world what kind of an enemy the State of Israel is dealing with… The objective of Palestinian terror, as perpetrated by all of the organizations operating out of the P.A. areas and from abroad, is to continue to murder civilians, women [and] children because they are Jews and Israelis… The State of Israel will continue to fight terror everywhere, at all times, and in every way possible…until we see that there is someone on the other side who can do this… [P]eace can prevail only after terror has been defeated, only after there will be quiet here. Only then will it be possible to make diplomatic progress.”—Statement by P.M. Ariel Sharon’s Media Adviser, Arnon Perlman (Israel Foreign Ministry, May 18)

“I’ve got confidence we can move the peace process forward. We’re still on the road to peace. It’s just going to be a bumpy road.”—U.S. President George W. Bush defending his administration’s peace plan for the Middle East, in the wake of a series of bombing attacks against Israel over the weekend. [President Bush, who is said to be weighing a possible visit to the region in the coming weeks, spoke via telephone with Palestinian P.M. Mahmoud Abbas, whom he characterized as “a reformer and somebody who will work for peace.”] (New York Times, May 20, Cox News Service, May 21)

“Enough is enough. The peace process has become the terror process. [During a wave of suicide bombings in 1996] we worked to help Arafat so he would put an end to terror. Today we’re doing the same thing [with Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister]. We should stop playing this game of helping the good guys versus the bad guys.”—Head of Parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committee, Yuval Steinitz, pressing for the expulsion of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the dismantling of the P.A. [Head of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, communicated that the security establishment was united in opposing exile for Mr. Arafat, believing that it would only strengthen him.] (N.Y.T., May 20)

“Each peace offering—at least, each offering that includes carrots but no sticks, like the latest ‘road map’--is a new reward for [terrorist] behavior. When U.S. President George Bush…expresses his determination to pursue peace regardless of the terror hits on Israel…he plays right into the terrorists’ hands. He might as well be saying ‘Go ahead, kill as many Jews as you can, that won’t stop us making concessions to you.’ The alternative is to follow the principles enunciated in the President’s excellent speech at the University of South Carolina last Friday, in which the key phrase was, ‘The future of peace requires the defeat of terror’. Sticks work better than carrots to this end, and unless the entire Palestinian leadership can be convinced that they have something to lose by playing these games…their attitude won’t change…”—Columnist David Warren (Nat’l. Post, May 21)

“I condemn those operations [recent terrorist attacks] because it is hampering our efforts to reach a peaceful settlement with Israel. There must be one legitimate authority and one legitimate weapon.”—P.A. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, although appealing to fellow Palestinians to halt the violence, communicated that his government would not clash with the different factions [i.e. Palestinian terror organizations—ed.]. (Ha’aretz, May 21)

“In the name of Allah, those expelled from their homes will return to them. On this cursed day, the State of Israel was founded, under force of arms and as part of an imperialist conspiracy, which led to the eviction of our nation into dispersion and camps, amid acts of slaughter and horrible crimes.”—P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat in a speech to the Palestinian Legislative Council commemorating “Nakba Day”, the day the Palestinians bewail as the founding of the State of Israel. (Jer. Post, May 16)

“We were surprised that the army had come back in. The army presence is not only an obstacle and an affront