ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING ARCHIVE
May 2008
A Service of CIJR
Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
Prof. Frederick Krantz, Director

Volume VIII, No. 1,855 • Friday, May 30, 2008

YOM YERUSHALAIM

CITY OF THE WORLD
Yehuda Halevi

Oh, city of the world, most chastely fair.
In the far west, behold, I sigh for thee…
Oh, had I eagles’ wings I’d fly to thee…
And with my falling tears make moist the earth…
Oh, that I might embrace thy dust, the sod
Where sweet as honey to my fond desire.

(Translated by Amy Levy, in A Treasury of Jewish Quotations, South Brunswick, 1965)

JERUSALEM
Rose Ausländer

When I hang up my blue-and-white scarf
eastward
Jerusalem swings over to me
with Temple and Song of Songs

I am five thousand years young

My scarf
is a swing

When I close my eyes
eastward
Jerusalem on the hill
five thousand years young
swings over to me
in an aroma of oranges

Coevals
we have a game
in the air

(Translated in Selected Poems, 1977.)

THE CITY OF PEACE—JERUSALEM THE ETERNAL
YERUSHALAIM--IR HASHALOM
Baruch Cohen

In Loving Memory of Malca z”l

“Jerusalem is the very heart of the Jewish People” (Ben-Gurion)

The history of Yerushalaim is the history of greatness, splendour, lofty ideals and of war and peace. Yerushalaim is the history of man. With its record of some five thousand years, Yerushalaim has been known and connected to the Jewish 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. History has no parallel to the mystic bond of the Jews with Yerushalaim. Without Yir Hashalom, without Yerushalaim, there would be no State of Israel.

Houses of prayer, synagogues, wherever in the world they were built, were oriented towards the east—toward Yerushalaim—and the practice is followed to this very day.

Yerushalaim is and will remain forever, for all time, the center of the Jewish nation, the capital of the old-young-rebuilt State of Israel.

B’Shana haBaa B’Yerushalaim HaB’nuia!
Next year in Yerushalaim!

(Baruch Cohen is Research Chair of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.)

THOUGHTS ON JERUSALEM

“That which the Hebrews call the City of God is Jerusalem, literally, ‘Vision of Peace’.”--(Philo, Dreams 11.39)

“Without Jerusalem, the land of Israel is a body without a soul.”-- (Elhanan Leib Levinsky, Words of the Wise, 1973)

“For a small moment I have forsaken thee, with great mercies shall I gather thee --(Isaiah 54:7)

“Through a historical catastrophe—the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome—I was born in one of the cities of the Diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.”-- (S.Y. Agnon, upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1966)

“Jerusalem, which is bound firmly together, binds the Jews one to the other.”-- (Psalm 122:3 in Talmud Yerushalmi—Boba Qamma)

“In the din and tumult of the age, the still small voice of Jerusalem remains our only music” --(Israel Zangwill, 1921, Voice of Jerusalem P9)

“There is no beauty like the beauty of Jerusalem.”-- (Avot De Rabbi Nathan)

“Beautiful for any situation, the joy of the whole Earth, is Mount Zion of the Great King.”--(Psalm 122:6)

“Jerusalem has been and will remain forever the capitol of the Jewish people.” --(Ben Gurion Dec. 3, 1947—Selection 77)

“Jerusalem at midday in summer is a city of stone in a land of iron with a sky of brass.” --(Disraeli, Tancred 1847)

“Ten measurements of beauty came down to eart; nine were taken by Jerusalem, and one by the rest of the world” --(Talmud, Kiddushim, 49b)

Shabbat Shalom to all our readers.

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Volume VIII, No. 1,854 • Thursday, May 29, 2008

HAMAS

THE DIPLOMATIC DANCE WITH HAMAS
Efraim Karsh
Jerusalem Issue Brief, JCPA, April 30, 2008

No sooner had former U.S. President Jimmy Carter emerged from his Damascus meeting with Khaled Mashaal to declare Hamas’ readiness to accept the Jewish state as a “neighbor next door” than the radical Islamist group demonstrated what its vision of peaceful coexistence meant by making the most ambitious attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers and detonating two car bombs at a border crossing used for the introduction of vital foodstuffs and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. …

The notion that Hamas’ co-option into a political process aimed at stifling its overriding goal of destroying Israel will make it more hopeful and less despairing is a contradiction in terms. Yet the hope that Hamas could somehow be lured away from its genocidal agenda seems to be gaining wider currency. …

Some Israelis have also joined the chorus calling for talks with Hamas. “Before we are dragged into Gaza, we must exhaust the other possibility,” wrote journalist Ari Shavit. “We should offer Hamas a deal: an Islamic republic in Gaza in exchange for full demilitarization.…” Shavit is aware that his proposal is likely to be rejected, as Hamas “tends to prefer the deaths of Israelis over the lives of Palestinians.” Yet he believes that “if there is any chance of a frank negotiation with Hamas, this is the path the talks should take. … A street deal. A deal with thugs. …”

But why should Hamas pay a price, any price, for something it already has? It needs no Israeli consent to establish an “Islamic republic” in Gaza. It did precisely that in early 2006, to Israel’s abhorrence, and is probably in a position to replicate this success in the West Bank, the only inhibiting factors being considerations of political expediency and Israel’s effective counterinsurgency measures. It can likewise obtain peace and quiet for its Gaza subjects at any given moment if it stops the rocket attacks on Israeli towns and villages and sends no “holy warriors” to blow themselves up among Israeli civilians.

Nor is Israel in a position to reach “a street deal,” given the steady erosion of its deterrent prowess since the Oslo years, and especially after the hurried flight from south Lebanon on May 24, 2000, which was instrumental in triggering the so-called “al-Aqsa Intifada” and in inaugurating Hizbullah’s military buildup, and numerous provocations, along Israel’s northern border, that culminated in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. This war, and the thousands of rockets raining down on Israel’s southern localities during the past eight years, despite countless Israeli threats of harsh retribution, afford a foretaste of Palestinian and Arab abidance by a “peace of the thugs.”

Above all, not only is the destruction of Israel not a bargaining chip, it is the heart of the matter. Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, sees the struggle for Palestine as neither an ordinary political dispute between two contending nations (Israelis and Palestinians), nor even as a struggle for national self-determination by an indigenous population against a foreign occupier. Rather, it sees Palestine as but one battle in a worldwide holy war to prevent the fall of a part of the House of Islam to infidels. In the words of Mahmoud Zahar: “Islamic and traditional views reject the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state.… In the past, there was no independent Palestinian state.… [Hence], our main goal is to establish a great Islamic state, be it pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic.”

Hamas’ charter not only promises that “Israel will exist until Islam will obliterate it,” but presents the organization as the “spearhead and vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism [and] the fight against the warmongering Jews.” The document even incites anti-Semitic murder, arguing that “the Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’” … Hamas was established not merely to “liberate Palestine from Zionist occupation” or to wipe out Jews, but to pursue the far loftier goals of spreading Allah’s holy message and defending the “oppressed” throughout the world: “The Islamic Resistance Movement will spare no effort to implement the truth and abolish evil, in speech and in fact, both here and in any other location where it can reach out and exert influence.”

Hamas’ extreme belief that a perpetual state of war exists between it and anyone, either Muslim or non-Muslim, who refuses to follow in the path of Allah does not permit it to respect, or compromise with, cultural, religious, and political beliefs that differ from its own. Its commitment to the use of violence as a religious duty means that it will never accept a political arrangement that doesn’t fully correspond to its radical precepts. As the movement’s slogan puts it: “Allah is [Hamas’] goal, the Prophet its model, the Koran its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief.”

Hamas certainly sees itself as part of the larger network of jihadi movements struggling with the West. Mahmoud Zahar has expressed the hope that Hamas’ victories in Gaza will inspire the mujahideen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, Khaled Mashaal declared in a Damascus mosque in early 2006: “We say this to the West, which does not act reasonably, and does not learn its lessons: by Allah, you will be defeated.” He added: “Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world.” He has lashed out at Western powers for helping the persecuted Christians of East Timor and for opposing Sudan’s genocidal campaign in Darfur. Thus, Hamas identifies with global Islamist causes.

All this raises the question of how a Western diplomatic embrace of Hamas would impact on the larger war on terrorism. Legitimizing a jihadi group of this sort would undoubtedly undermine the broader struggle against Islamism, and deepen the doubts of many people in the Middle East and South Asia about the determination of the West to neutralize the current threat they all face at present. Hamas is plainly not an organization whose ideology can be integrated into any political process without undermining democracy and poisoning the norms of civil society. …

(Prof. Efraim Karsh is Head of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College, University of London, and a member of the Board of International Experts of ICA at JCPA.)

HAMAS LEADER KHALED MASH’AL:
OUR PURPOSE FOR TAHDIAH (“CALM”) IS TACTICAL
MEMRI, April 29, 2008

Following is an interview with Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on April 25, 2008. …

Khaled Mash’al: “Our only real motive for seeking tahdiah [‘calm’] and for our willingness to deal with the Egyptian efforts, which were generated in order to achieve a tahdiah, with full knowledge of the Americans, of Rice, and David Welch, and through the efforts Egypt has exerted vis-à-vis the Israeli side, is to put an end to the aggression against our people in Gaza and the West Bank, and to get the siege lifted and the border crossings opened. Let me tell you that without all this, all options will be available for us. When the [Egyptian] minister Omar Sleiman comes, he will meet with the other factions, in order to develop a general Palestinian position. Then he will move on to the Israeli occupation, and if they accept [the tahdiah], we are ready, but if the Israelis reject it, then it was not us who offered them this tahdiah to begin with, and the Israeli rejection will be vis-à-vis Egypt.

“Egypt bears the responsibility, and no one in the world will be able to blame us when we take two measures: We will defend our people and our land in the face of the Israeli aggression, and we [will carry out] the explosion in Gaza, of which we have warned. Yes, if the siege is not lifted, the Gaza Strip will explode in the face of all those besieging it.”

Interviewer: “Including the Egyptians?”

Khaled Mash’al: “No, we don’t blame the Egyptian for this. We will explode in the face of everybody. By ‘explosion,’ I mean that the Palestinian people will choose its own options.” …

“People should not assume that in the management of this conflict, we are moving from a phase of resistance and battles to a phase of calm. No. According to our concept of the management of this conflict, the tahdiah is a tactical means. It is a step within the resistance and is not detached from it. It is only natural for any resistance movement, which cares about the interests of its people, to bear in mind the general Palestinian condition. At times, it generates an escalation, and at times, it withdraws a little. It is a process of ebb and flow, going up and down. This is how you run a battle. Hamas is renowned for this.

“In 2003, we began a tahdiah, and later renewed the operations. The same thing happened following 2005. Hamas conducted resistance from within the government, as well as when it was not in the government. This is a method of conflict management. …

“My brother Muhammad, if a tahdiah is achieved—the Gaza Strip was, is, and will continue to be part of this homeland. People in Gaza would be able to recover, and the siege would be over. This would be an accomplishment. …

“They are worried that Hamas and the other resistance factions will use the tahdiah to grow stronger, both in terms of weapons and training, and that the people will recover and prepare for the next round of resistance, because we are talking about a tactical tahdiah, within the constraints I have mentioned. But the resistance, in principle, is not directed against the aggression only. In principle, the resistance is directed against the occupation. As long as there is occupation, there must be resistance.” …

THE MYTH OF OCCUPIED GAZA
David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey
Washington Post, May 10, 2008

…Israel’s critics argue that Gaza remains “occupied” territory, even though Israeli forces were unilaterally withdrawn from the area in August 2005. (Hamas won a majority in the Gazan assembly in 2006 and seized control militarily in 2007.) If this is so, Jerusalem is responsible for the health and welfare of Gazans and is arguably limited in any type of military force it uses in response to continuing Hamas attacks. Moreover, even Israel’s nonmilitary responses to Hamas-led terrorist activities—severely limiting the flow of food, fuel and other commodities into Gaza—would violate its obligations as an occupying power.

Israel, however, is not an occupying power, judging by traditional international legal tests. Although such tests have been articulated in various ways over time, they all boil down to this question: Does a state exercise effective governmental authority—if only on a de facto basis—over the territory? As early as 1899, the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land stated that “[t]erritory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation applies only to the territory where such authority is established, and in a position to assert itself.”

The Hague Convention is a founding document of the modern law of armed conflict, and its definition of occupied territory was woven into the 1949 Geneva Conventions. There, the relevant provision provides that “[i]n the case of occupied territory, the application of the present Convention shall cease one year after the general close of military operations,” although certain protections for the populations continue “to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory.” That is the key—exercising the functions of government. … It is because an occupying power exercises effective control over a territory that international law substantially restricts the measures, military or economic, it can bring to bear upon this territory, well beyond the limits that would be applicable before occupation, whether in wartime or peacetime.

The Israeli military does not control Gaza; nor does Israel exercise any government functions there. Claims that Israel continues to occupy Gaza suggest that a power having once occupied a territory must continue to behave toward the local population as an occupying power until all outstanding issues are resolved. This “principle” can be described only as an ingenious invention; it has no basis in traditional international law.

The adoption of any such rule (designed to limit Israel’s freedom of action and give Hamas a legal leg up in its continuing conflict) should be actively opposed by the United States. Its adoption would suggest that no occupying power can withdraw of its own volition without incurring continuing, and perhaps permanent, legal obligations to a territory. This issue is particularly acute regarding territory not otherwise controlled by a functioning state—failed states or failed areas of states where the “legitimate” government cannot or will not exercise effective control. Such places—call them badlands—were once rare. Over the past 15 years, though, there has been an explosion in the number of such areas, notably parts of Afghanistan, Somalia and portions of Pakistan.

Gaza is exceptional only in that its international legal status is indeterminate. Its last true sovereign was the Ottoman Porte. It was part of the British Palestine Mandate and has since been administered by both Egypt and Israel. Today, no state claims sovereign authority, though it is expected that Gaza will become part of a future Palestinian state. For its part, Hamas acknowledges no higher authority and functions as a de facto government in Gaza. It is a classic example of a terrorist-controlled badland. Unduly handicapping states that intervene in such badlands—whether to protect their own interests, those of the local population or both—is unrealistic and irresponsible. Requiring agreement by the “international community” (whatever that may be) as a precondition for extinguishing such a designation is equally unproductive if the goal is saving lives. Consider the example of Darfur.

Even worse is pretending that groups such as Hamas are merely criminal gangs that must be dealt with as a local policing problem—just one of the potential side effects of imposing an “occupied” status on a territory. This implicates U.S. interests directly, since America’s ability to use robust armed force against al-Qaeda and similar non-state actors remains critical to defending our civilian population from attack. Efforts to limit states’ rights to use military force against such groups simply benefit the globe’s worst rogue elements and endanger the civilian populations among which they operate. Here, as in so many other areas, the traditional international law that imposes the obligations of an occupier only on states that physically occupy a territory makes perfect sense.

(David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey served in the Justice Department under Pres. Reagan and Bush Sr..)

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Volume VIII, No. 1,853 • Wednesday, May 28, 2008

WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP

WEEKLY QUOTES

“In the wake of the current situation and considering the challenges Israel faces, including Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, Iran, the captured soldiers and the peace process, the prime minister cannot simultaneously lead the government and conduct his personal affairs… Out of consideration for the good of the country and the accepted norms, I believe the prime minister must detach himself from the day-to-day leadership of the country.”—Defense Minister Ehud Barak, at a press conference in the Knesset, articulating his belief that Prime Minister Olmert must step down. The defense minister warned that if Olmert does not quit, “we will move towards early elections.” Barack stressed, “We're not coming to Kadima with a stop watch… [but] this has to happen soon, and I mean soon.” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni would become caretaker prime minister if Olmert resigned. The Kadima party could then try to form a new government, and if that effort failed elections would likely be called. (Jerusalem Post, May 28)

“It is forbidden to negotiate with the axis of evil and certainly to abandon the Golan to the axis of evil. When we see that there is real danger of giving the Golan to the axis of evil, Shas, of course, won’t be in the government. We are constantly evaluating whether we should remain in the government.”—Shas party chair Eli Yishai, defending his decision to keep his party in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s coalition government. (Jerusalem Post, May 21)

“We must not leave the Golan Heights because of its strategic height. We must not make peace with a dictatorial regime—because this will be a peace that we will not be able to protect.”— Opposition leader and chair of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu, during a meeting held by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Earlier in the week, he stated that withdrawing from the Golan Heights would put Israel on Iran’s frontlines. (Ha’aretz, May 26)

“Syria cannot progress even one step forward in negotiations before it receives assurances that Israel will fully withdraw from the Golan Heights. This is not a precondition, it’s Syria’s right.”—Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, in an interview to the London-based daily Al Hayat, following confirmation that Israel and Syria were pursuing diplomatic negotiations. In a poll published by the Geo-Cartographic Institute last week, sixty-five per cent of Israelis reject a withdrawal, even if it would bring peace. This week, a bill requiring a two-thirds parliamentary majority to approve any steps to return the Golan was filed at the Knesset with the immediate support of enough members to pass. (Jerusalem Post, May 22, May 26)

“We have identified Iranian efforts to transfer more sophisticated rockets to the Gaza Strip. … Hamas is preparing for another round of escalation. Time is in Hamas’ favor and the threat on Israel is only getting worse. … Hamas does not accept Israel’s conditions and wants to gain time so that it can build up its military capabilities.”—Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin, reporting to the cabinet that Hamas has acquired rockets capable of striking Ashdod and Kiryat Gat from the Gaza Strip. (Ha’aretz, May 26)

"We don’t want authority in Lebanon. We don’t want to control Lebanon. We don’t want to impose our ideas on the Lebanese people. … Regarding the recent events, we have sustained deep wounds, and they have sustained deep wounds.”—Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, appearing to a throng of supporters in Beirut by videolink from a hiding place in fear of assassination by Israel. The terror chief made his appearance after Lebanon’s parliament gave Hezbollah the right to veto any cabinet decision. The Iranian-funded Hezbollah leader pledged to comply with a provision of the Arab League-brokered agreement that forbids the use of arms to achieve political gains, but he warned that the government should not try to use the military against Hezbollah and its allies. In recent fighting, the worst in fifteen years, Hezbollah turned its weapons on fellow Lebanese, deepening sectarian anger between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. (New York Times, May 27)

“Essentially, he was saying we’re willing to go back to being Mr. Nice Guy, but we’re not going to accept anybody crossing us. All the political and military options have been used to try to disarm Hezbollah, and basically they’ve failed.”—Judith Harik, a Hezbollah expert and the president of Matn University in Beirut, responding to Nasrallah’s repeated insistence that Hezbollah is the guardian of Lebanon’s “defence strategy”. (New York Times, New York Sun, May 27)

“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”—Senator and presidential hopeful John McCain, responding in a statement Thursday to John Hagge’s recently-surfaced allegation that God sent Adolf Hitler to deliver the Jews to the promised land. Later, he told reporters: “I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable.” He also denounced the support of Rod Parsley, a preacher from Ohio who called Islam inherently violent. “I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn’t endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement.” (Jerusalem Post, May 23)

“In no way is John McCain a neo-con. There’s a strong realist strain in his record. He is something of a maverick in Republican ranks, which is why he is so attractive to independents. The worst argument Obama supporters can make is that a McCain presidency would be a continuation of the Bush administration. …

[W]hat’s appealing about [McCain’s] approach is…his link to the international tradition. He is a committed believer in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and free trade…and he has promised to restore alliances with Asia and Europe. He wants to revive the nuclear non-proliferation regime, which is one of the most important initiatives of the past 40 years.

I am strongly attracted to him because, unlike many politicians who approach strategic dilemmas with an ignorance of history, his thinking is historically informed.…”—Historian Niall Ferguson, responding to a question by Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente on whether or not John McCain’s foreign policy would simply be an extension of the current Bush Administration policy. Regarding the threat that terrorists still pose to the West, Ferguson said: “There’s a real danger that the terrorists will achieve a super-9/11. When I talk to the experts, it makes my hair stand on end, because there’s a much higher probability of this than people realize. According to [Harvard national security expert] Graham Allison, if the U.S. and other governments just keep doing what they are doing today, a nuclear terrorist attack in a major city is more likely than not by 2014. Another estimate, by Matthew Bunn, puts the odds of a nuclear terrorist attack over a 10-year period at 29 per cent. We mustn’t assume we are out of the dangerous waters we entered in 2001.” (Globe & Mail, May 24)

SHORT TAKES

ISRAEL SAYS HEZBOLLAH EXCHANGE DEAL IS CLOSE—(Jerusalem) Significant progress appears to have been achieved in recent days in the indirect talks between Israel and Hezbollah on a deal for the release of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two abducted reservists that sparked the Second Lebanon War. The deal is expected to involve the release of six Lebanese held in Israel, including the convicted terrorist Samir Kuntar. Nasim Nisr, a Lebanese Jew who immigrated to Israel and was convicted in a plea bargain of spying for Hezbollah, is also expected to be among those released by Israel. According to Israeli sources, Hezbollah Secretary Hassan Nasrallah’s demand for the release of Palestinian prisoners has been the main obstacle standing in the way of an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. (Ha’aretz, Jer.Post, May 27)

DEAL FOR LEBANESE FACTIONS LEAVES HEZBOLLAH STRONGER—(Beirut) An agreement was reached last week by Lebanese political factions that amounted to a significant shift of power in favour of Hezbollah and its allies in the opposition who won the power to veto any cabinet decision. The sweeping deal, which includes a new election law, promises an end to 18 months of political deadlock and underscores the rising power of Iran and Syria, which have backed Hezbollah against the Lebanese governing coalition and its American and Saudi allies. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah sent guerrillas into the streets of Beirut earlier this month, leaving at least 62 people dead. The election of army chief Michel Suleiman to Lebanese president brought palpable relief to its citizens Sunday who feared, in recent weeks, that their country was in danger of breaking up in another civil war. (New York Times, Ha’aretz, May 22, 26)

FRENCH COURT OVERTURNS AL-DURA LIBEL CASE—(Jerusalem) The French Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled in favor of Jewish activist Philippe Karsenty, overturning a lower court decision that he had libeled France 2 and its Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin when he accused them of knowingly misleading the watching world about the death of the Palestinian child Muhammad al-Dura in the Gaza Strip in 2000. “The verdict means we have the right to say France 2 broadcast a fake news report, that [al-Dura’s shooting] was a staged hoax and that they duped everybody—without being sued,” Karsenty explained. After initially apologizing for the death, the IDF concluded that the boy could not have been hit by Israeli bullets. (Jer.Post, May 21)

DATE SET FOR ‘DURBAN II’—(New York) The next UN racism conference will be held on UN premises in Geneva from April 20 to 24, 2009, a UN preparatory committee decided Monday. Canada, the United States and Israel are planning to boycott the event, while it is widely speculated that the European Union will fully participate in the conference. Some say the timing of the conference, which will take place over Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah on April 21, is an insult to the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered in the worst instance of racism and xenophobia in human history. Durban II is intended to promote the implementation of the 2001 Durban Declaration, which singled out only Israel and labelled Palestinians as victims of Israeli racism. (Press Release, Eye on the UN, May 26)

NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO INDICT OLMERT—(Jerusalem) Despite significant disclosures in the investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s alleged acceptance of large sums from American businessman Morris Talansky and his initial testimony Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court, there still may not be enough evidence to indict Olmert for bribery, say sources close to the probe. However, in a survey conducted later Tuesday night, 70 per cent of those polled said they do not believe Olmert’s version that the money he received from his American businessman went only towards his election campaigns. (Ha’aretz, May 22,28)

ISRAEL SENDS AID FOR CHINESE EARTHQUAKE RELIEF—(Jerusalem) Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel announced Sunday that Israel will send disaster relief aid to China after an earthquake left at least 55,000 people dead and an estimated 5 million homeless. The shipment will carry clothing, medical supplies, generators and tents for victims. Troubles continued Sunday afternoon when a magnitude 5.8 aftershock rattled the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, causing office towers to sway in Beijing 1,300 kilometres away. Some estimate the death total could surpass 80,000. (Jer.Post, May 25)

UNIFIL IS IGNORING HEZBOLLAH VIOLATIONS—(Jerusalem) Israel has submitted a complaint to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon against the commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) General Claudio Graziono and UNIFIL official Milosh Strugger for giving interviews to the Lebanese press in which they ignored violations of UN resolution 1701. According to resolution 1701, Hezbollah is not supposed to be present south of the Litani river, something Israel contends is routinely violated. In interviews with the Lebanese media, Strugger said UNIFIL is doing its job. “The situation south of the Litani River is calm. Hezbollah is a social group that runs many charity organizations.” (Ha’aretz, May 26)

GAZA CROSSINGS UNDER ATTACK—(Gaza Strip) Hundreds of Palestinians gathered at the Karni Crossing last Thursday carrying light weapons and anti-tank missiles, some opening fire at IDF troops stationed nearby, according to IDF sources. The soldiers returned fire, killing one Palestinian man and wounding five others. Earlier that day, a Palestinian suicide-bomber blew up an explosives-laden truck on the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing, injuring only himself. Also on Thursday, IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip found a cache of weapons hidden in a schoolyard in the Sajayeh refugee camp. (Ha’aretz, May 22)

‘PROUD DRUSE ISRAELI’ LIKELY TO REPLACE SNEH—(Jerusalem) The highest-seeded Druse representative on Labor’s Knesset list, Shakib Shanan, seems to be a shoo-in to replace resigning Labor MK Efraim Sneh. Shanan, a long time party activist, would have won a seat in the Knesset during the parliamentary elections of March 2006 if Labor had not lost a few dozen critical votes at the last moment. Shanan, who describes himself as a “proud Druse Israeli”, joined Labor in 1982 after finishing his army service, worked as the director of the Welfare and Social Services Ministry’s Northern District and adviser to then-Interior Minister Ophir Paz-Pines. (Jer.Post, May 25)

BIG ISRAELI LEBOWSKI TOPS CANNES—(Cannes) An Israeli film won first place at the Festival de Cannes’ Cinéfondation for the best student submission. Elad Keidan, who directed the thirty-six-minute-long Himnon (Anthem), said his film about the people a man encounters while buying milk in Jerusalem’s Katamonim neighbourhood is “like an Israeli Big Lebowski, but an existential Big Lebowski.” (Ha’aretz May 23).

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Volume VIII, No. 1,852 • Tuesday, May 27, 2008

ISRAEL & SYRIA—GOLAN HEIGHTS

HOLDING ONTO THE GOLAN
Hillel Halkin
New York Sun, May 27, 2008

I can't remember how many columns I have written, in The New York Sun and other places, against the idea of returning the entire Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a largely worthless peace treaty.

The first of them was published back in 1994, when Yitzhak Rabin gave the Syrians his renowned "deposit," an advance promise, which has haunted all subsequent Israeli governments, to cede the whole Golan if all other issues were resolved.

Every few years another supposed Israeli-Syrian deal of this sort hits the headlines; every few years I write another column against it; every few years it fades away until the next time.

So what's left to say now that the next time has again become this time? That one can only hope that this time, too, it will soon become last time?

That all the reasons for not surrendering the Golan that have been valid in the past are more valid than ever today, especially when the Syrian regime has just been caught trying to develop clandestine nuclear weapons and is successfully in the process of helping Hezbollah take over Lebanon and the president of America thinks that yielding to its demands would be a bad idea?

That offering to give up the Golan would therefore be the most unpardonable act that could be committed by a government whose leader, Ehud Olmert, has close to a zero approval rate from the Israeli public and will soon have to resign, and possibly go to jail, because of his crooked finances? Or that this same public has shown itself when polled, time after time, to be against ceding the Golan and currently opposes doing so by 70% to 30%?

Let's talk about this public and the paradox it represents in terms of the Golan. It's no secret that every Israeli government that has offered to return the Golan has been heavily influenced by high army officers who have supported such a move and that this is true of the Olmert government, too. Nor is it a secret why the army's general staff has tended to take this position.

This is not because the Golan has no strategic value in the army's eyes. It is because the army fears that, should war with Syria break out over the Golan, or over some other issue like Iran, this value will be offset by the rain of Syrian missiles that will hit Israeli population centers, panicking their inhabitants, causing massive casualties, and forcing Israel to sue for a ceasefire before it can press its military advantage.

Is the Israeli public unaware of this danger? If it was before the 2005 war against Hezbollah, it certainly isn't any longer. It knows what happened then, and it knows that what would happen if the Syrians were to emulate Hezbollah's tactics would be far worse. If it doesn't agree with the army, this is because it has more faith in itself and in the army than the army does.

It has more faith in the army, because it believes in the army's deterrent power, which could pulverize Damascus if the Syrians attacked Tel Aviv or Haifa. (The army, apparently, does not believe that any Israeli government would allow it even to threaten pulverizing Damascus, let alone to do such a thing.) And it has more faith in itself because it believes that even if Tel Aviv and Haifa were attacked, it could hold out long enough for the army to do its job.

This is not to minimize how grim a worst-scene scenario might be. No one in Israel wants to see thousands or tens of thousands of Israeli casualties, or for that matter, hundreds of thousands or millions of Syrian casualties. It is simply to say that the Israeli public, besides justifiably feeling that the Golan is by now part of Israel and should remain so, is more realistic than either its army or its government.

It knows not only what the price of risking a war with Syria might be, it knows what the price of not risking one would be. Once the Arab world understands that Israel does not believe it can fight or win another war, and will not fight one to hold onto its own sovereign territory (which the Golan has been since 1980), Israel might as well go into receivership immediately, because it will in any case be ripped apart piece by piece, each time yielding another bit of itself to the latest Arab ultimatum.

Fortunately, this time, too, the Golan will not be traded for a peace treaty, in the first place, because the Olmert government will fall, and secondly, because if the government that succeeds it wishes to relinquish the Golan too, it will not be able to muster the 61 votes needed in the Knesset to do so. The Golan will remain Israel's for at least the next several years.

But the damage will have been done.

The Arabs and the rest of the world will have been told, louder and clearer than ever, that: 1) Israel agrees that the Golan belongs to Syria; 2) Israel does not want to fight for it; and 3) If a Syrian-Israeli peace is not achieved, Israel will be to blame and a Syrian resort to arms will be justifiable. The Rabin "deposit" will have been re-deposited with a clunk. Keeping the Golan, or hoping eventually to settle with the Syrians for part of it, will be made that much more difficult.

This is why the Olmert government's actions are so outrageous. For the sake of a diplomatic initiative that cannot succeed it is, in the months remaining before its prime minister has to stand trial on corruption charges, jeopardizing Israel's reputation and future. That Mr. Olmert may have plenty of time to reflect on this in prison is not much comfort.

(Hillel Halkin is a contributing editor of the New York Sun.)

UTOPIAN PEACE JUNKIES
Caroline Glick
Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2008

Arguments against an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights are so self-evident that they simply fly off your tongue. But that doesn't mean that it is unnecessary to make them. This is especially the case when supposedly serious people like former IDF chief of general staff Lt. Gen. (ret.) Dan Halutz—co-architect of the strategic disaster which was the Second Lebanon War—advocate withdrawal in exchange for "peace."

So here goes.

Since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Golan Heights has been Israel's quietest, most stable border. This is largely the case because the Syrians know that from the Golan Heights, the road to Damascus is wide open.

An Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights would destabilize the border by removing Israel's offensive deterrent capacity against Syria. Since nature abhors a vacuum, Israel's deterrent capacity would be transferred to the hands of Syrian dictator and Iranian proxy Bashar Assad and his henchmen. Additionally, in the wake of an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights on the heels of Iran's consolidation of its hold over Lebanon, Assad's regime will be triumphant. His decision to cast his country's lot with Iran will be perceived an act of brilliant statecraft.

While there is no certainty about how long it would take before Syria took advantage of the new situation to initiate aggression against Israel, it is clear that an Israeli withdrawal would raise tensions dramatically. And those tensions would find the remainder of Israeli territory more vulnerable to an Iranian-Syrian attack than ever before.

Today Syria already has the capacity to attack all of Israel with its Scud and Nodong ballistic missiles. But while these missiles can terrorize and kill Israeli civilians, their guidance systems are generally assessed as too primitive to enable them to be successfully deployed against tactical and strategic targets. Possession of the Golan Heights would enable Syria to use more conventional armaments to precisely target IDF positions, arms depots and attack formations throughout Northern Israel. So one of the consequences of Israel's handover of the Golan Heights would be a steep rise in the price in blood that a post-Golan Heights-withdrawal-Israel would be forced to pay to win any future military contest with Iranian proxies Hizbullah or Syria. Indeed it would dwarf the heavy price that Israel paid for victory in 1967 and 1973.

And the cost of an Israeli relinquishment of the Golan would not be paid by Israel alone. With Syria in control of the Golan, Damascus and its allies in the Iranian axis would be even more willing to assert themselves in battlegrounds like Iraq. Their renewed will to fight would limit still further the possibility that the US could remove its forces from Iraq without risking the prospect of Iraq being forced into the Iranian axis.

Moreover, with Israel's strategic options massively curtailed as a result of its surrender of the Golan Heights, the Iranians would have far less cause to fear that Israel would launch a counter-attack in the event of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel or a preemptive attack against Iranian nuclear installations.

In his statement Saturday in support of Olmert's announced intention to give Assad the Golan Heights, Halutz said, "For real peace one must be willing to pay a real price." While this is no doubt a true statement, it is completely irrelevant. Everyone knows that Israel won't get a "real peace" from Assad. Indeed it won't even get a pretend peace from Assad.

To understand why Israel can expect to receive absolutely nothing from Syria in exchange for the Golan Heights, one needs to look no further than Syria's last big peace treaty with a neighbor. In 1989, Syria agreed to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon under the Taif Accord that ended Lebanon's civil war. Needless to say, Syrian troops continued their illegal occupation Lebanon for the next 15 years and still today continue to block Lebanese independence by arming Hizbullah.

Or consider Israel's "successful" treaty with Egypt, under which Egypt received the entire Sinai Peninsula in exchange for signing a peace treaty with Israel. Due to Egypt's willingness to sign the deal, Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship has been hailed as a moderate and friendly regime by the US and Israel alike. And yet, short of going to war against Israel, since it signed its peace treaty, Egypt has done just about everything in its power to endanger Israel's security.

At the cabinet meeting Sunday, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin warned the Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government that Hamas has missiles with ranges long enough to hit Ashdod and Kiryat Gat. Diskin added that with the border between Gaza and Egypt breached, time is working in Hamas's favor. With every passing day of Israeli inaction, Hamas brings in more and more advanced weapons.

Aside from Iran, which is the major source of Hamas's weapons, Egypt has done more than any other country to enable Hamas's missile war against southern Israel and its takeover of Gaza in general. As MK Yuval Steinitz has noted repeatedly over the past several years, those missiles didn't just magically appear at the Egyptian-Gaza border. Those Iranian weapons are transported in ships through Egyptian waters that dock at Egyptian ports. The weapons are then offloaded onto trucks and travel overland across the country before reaching Gaza.

Egyptian security forces could intercept these weapons at any point along the way. But they pass through unmolested because Egypt wants Hamas to have those weapons to attack Israel and to keep the border destabilized.

And if this is what Israel gets from our supposedly moderate Egyptian friends, what can Israel expect to receive from our radical Syrian enemies? Here it bears noting that Syria is still preventing the International Atomic Energy Agency from sending inspectors to check out the site of the North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria that Israel destroyed last September 6. And again, if this is how Syria treats the UN, how will it treat Israel after Israel relinquishes its ability to threaten the Syrian capital?

Given all of these self-evident drawbacks of Olmert's proposal to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria, it is obvious that the plan is ridiculous. Similarly, in light of the massive danger such a withdrawal would entail, withdrawal advocates like Halutz are exposed as complete fools.

But the fact that this is true does not diminish the chance that Israel may still give up the Golan Heights if those who advocate this policy remain in power and continue to enjoy public respectability. Reality has counted for little in Israel's political and strategic discourse in recent years.

The lunacy of transferring control over south Lebanon to Hizbullah in 2000 and of giving Gaza to Fatah and Hamas in 2005 was just as obvious as the lunacy of relinquishing the Golan Heights to Syria in 2008. Moreover, the lunacy of transferring control over Gaza and Judea and Samaria to the PLO was obvious to anyone with eyes to see in the 1990s. And yet, even though all the opponents of these strategic fiascos made these arguments until they were blue in the face, Israel still withdrew.

All along and still today, standing against these voices of sane reality were voices preaching utopian peace. Men and women like Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Shulamit Aloni, Tzipi Livni, Yuli Tamir, Sheli Yachimovich, Amnon Shahak, Uri Saguy, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and their chorus of "peace" operatives in the media castigated all proponents of reality-based policymaking as nothing more than fear-mongering fanatics and enemies of peace almost indistinguishable from the likes of Hizbullah, Hamas and all the rest.

And of course the voices of reason were correct every time and never thanked for their wisdom. Indeed, they continue to this day to be condemned as fear-mongering fanatics.

And in spite of the fact that the utopian peace junkies have been wrong every single time, they are still the first to be put on television and the radio to advocate Israel's capitulation on every conceivable front. Even as the cemeteries fill up with the charred corpses of Israelis killed because of their utopian madness, they are still feted as experts and wise men and elder statesmen.

The one hopeful sign of change is found in the Israeli public's reaction to the current malformed public debate about Olmert's new plan to give Assad the Golan Heights. In the past every time a government launched negotiations or simply called for unilateral surrender of land opinion polls showed an immediate jump of some 20 percent in public support for the initiative. Today's polls suggest that public support for a withdrawal from the Golan Heights has decreased since Olmert announced he is negotiating their surrender.

If during past negotiations and planned withdrawals, politicians enjoyed the support of 45 percent of Israelis for their moves, today Olmert has the support of only 22 percent of Israelis for his plan to give up the Golan Heights.

The fact that Israelis are reacting negatively to people like Olmert and Halutz and their advocated withdrawals for "peace," may simply be a consequence of the public's contempt for these men specifically. That is, it is possible that the public would be more supportive of capitulation to Syria if more popular leaders like former prime minister Ariel Sharon were advocating it.

But it is also possible that the public has finally had enough of these utopian gasbags and their capitulation agenda. One can only hope that this is the case. Because while Israel will not be destroyed if its leaders are stupid enough to relinquish the Golan Heights, without the Golan Heights, Israel's chances of survival in the long term will be vastly diminished.

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Volume VIII, No. 1,851 • Monday, May 26, 2008

THE WAR IN IRAQ

AMERICA'S “GIFT” TO IRAQ
Fouad Ajami
National Post, May 26, 2008

I believe in the Iraqi project. Ryan Crocker, U. S. ambassador in Baghdad, who knows the ways of the region, said something that I truly believe in. He said, "In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be much more important than how we came." The debate thus far has been about how we came. Bush lied, people died, there were no weapons of mass destruction. There's no connection between al-Qaeda, which is religious, and the regime of Saddam Hussein, which is secular. We spent five years and we are now in year six of this debate about the origins of the war and the rationale of the war. We are done with this. We are in Iraq.

The U.S. smashed the Sunni-Tikriti hegemony and we created the Shia-led government. We hadn't really intended to create the Shialed government. The war wasn't about this. But once you destroy the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, then of course the Shia and the Kurds were bound to come into power, because in the end, this was a Shia country in terms of numbers, with a vast Kurdish minority in the north. So the U. S. has already midwifed, if you will, this country. And here, in the middle of this unbelievably difficult landscape of the Arab world, we've installed a binational government in many ways.

Here were the Kurds—they absolutely were the most betrayed of people. All the nations of the region, all the great powers had betrayed the Kurds. And yet there is now a decent order in Kurdistan.

For the Sunnis, Americans came and stole their country. They believed Iraq was going to be theirs forever. Whenever I'm there I remind the Iraqis that there was no way this tyranny in Iraq could be overthrown internally. Saddam's regime was a reich of a thousand years. It was decapitated in 2003, and we've been watching the pain of Iraq, the disappointments of Iraq.

I look at Iraq and ask myself, does any man own Iraq? When I go to Egypt I know I am in Hosni Mubarak's country. When I am in Jordan I know I am traveling to King Abdullah's country. Who owns Iraq? Is it Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president? Not particularly. Is it Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a son of the Shia middle class from the middle Euphrates? Not particularly. Is it his deputy, the Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Sadr? Not exactly. Is it the Shia vice-president, the Sunni vice-president? So we have created this order in Iraq. And I think President Bush deserves immense credit for both launching this war with the approval of his country and the approval of the Congress, and then for doubling down and staying with this war in January, 2007, when the project was threatened.

Now the Shia, we always worry about the Shia. You know why we worry about them? Because we listen to the Sunnis too much. You have the King of Jordan saying, "There's a Shia crescent"—stretched, he says, from Iran to Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. But there are no Shia in Syria. So the crescent breaks. But even after 9/11, and even after the attacks of al-Qaeda, which were Sunni attacks, from Sunni fundamentalists, we still believe—we still believe, and we fear the Shia. We see them as kind of soulmates of the Iranian theocracy next door. When in truth, if you know Iraq and you know the traditions of Iraqi Shiasm, there's a big difference between Iranian Shiaism and Iraqi Shiaism. And the Arab-Persian divide is so deep and so integral to the way Iraqis think about Shiaism and about themselves.

The Kurds, for their part, that's an easier call. The Kurds love America, and are grateful for this war and are grateful for the liberty given them. They understand that there can be no Kurdish state, that America will not countenance a Kurdish state. But it will support Kurdish autonomy. So I think the Iraqi project is coming together reasonably well. And of course, Americans will vote on the Iraq war in November.

The American public will decide whether this Bush project of supporting liberty in the Islamic world is really worth it, or whether it's really kind of a fool's errand, to take liberty to strangers. Because, make no mistake about it, Bush has made this historic decision that the Arabs have the possibility of freedom in their DNA. And that's the message he has taken to them. And that's the message he has remained true to. And that's the message he will leave with on Jan. 20, 2009. This assertion that liberty can stick on Arab soil is a gift that Bush brought to the Arabs.

(Fouad Ajami is Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University.)

PROGRESS, ACTUALLY
Frederick W. Kagan
Weekly Standard, April 21, 2008

The last time General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker reported to Congress on the state of the Iraq war, "benchmarks" were all the rage. Congress had established 18 criteria in early 2007 both to pressure the Iraqis and to keep score on their progress. And in September, Congress faulted the Iraqi government for failing to meet many of those measures. Concocting a checklist of laws and actions that would lead to national reconciliation in Iraq was always a fool's errand and misunderstood the complexity of the situation. But having laid down this marker, Congress would want to hear an update, surely. Not so. The word "benchmarks" was scarcely heard last week when Petraeus and Crocker reappeared before Congress. Crocker testified that the Iraqis have actually met about two-thirds of the benchmarks, including four or five of the six key legislative benchmarks and all of the benchmarks measuring their contribution to their own security. In reply, the congressmen who insisted on legislating these benchmarks now say benchmarks are a poor way to measure progress in Iraq.

Their disingenuousness is monumental—but they are right. So by all means, let's look beyond the benchmarks. Let's look instead at the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Sunni Arab community turned against al Qaeda and the Baathist insurgents in 2006 and 2007 and opted for political engagement instead of armed struggle. The Sunni militias who were previously fighting against us and the Iraqi government have been reconstituted as the Sons of Iraq (SOI) and have enlisted in the fight against al Qaeda. Polls show that about 90 percent of them mean to vote in upcoming provincial elections. One of the most overlooked developments of 2007 was the flood of volunteers from Anbar province into the Iraqi Security Forces themselves, not just into the SOIs, or "concerned local citizens," as they were previously called. The behavior of the SOIs in Baghdad during the recent violence has also been instructive: They did not leave their posts, they did not seize the opportunity to kill Shia; they behaved professionally, and helped maintain order at a very fraught moment. The Shia Iraqi government, as a result, has a new sense of the value the Sunni SOIs add in Baghdad and that sense is likely to lead to even greater integration and cooperation.

Now let's look at the Shia side. Since the seating of the Maliki government in May 2006, a constant criticism has been that it is eager to send money to Shia areas and send troops against Sunni fighters, but not the other way round. Well, the Sunni leadership in Anbar province has succeeded in drawing $100 million from the central government while Shia provincial governors in Karbala, Qadisiyah, and Babil complain that they're not getting what they need from Baghdad. Similarly, the Iraqi Security Forces are now fighting with Anbaris against common enemies, and an Iraqi army unit was just deployed from Anbar to Basra to fight against Shia militias. General Petraeus testified that about 20 percent of the Sons of Iraq are Shia, and Maliki has announced new plans to develop SOIs in Shia areas. So much for the notion that SOIs are a militia-in-waiting for the next Sunni takeover. Taking a step back, we can identify an even more important dynamic. In late 2006 and 2007, Shia, Kurds, and the majority of Sunni Arabs formed a political and military bloc to defeat al Qaeda and the Baathist insurgents and negotiate their differences peacefully. In early 2008, Shia, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs strengthened this political bloc while using it to strike against illegal, Iranian-supported Shia militias and terrorists. That is the most important and positive sign of reconciliation of all.

At the same time, Ambassador Crocker testified (and almost everyone who has been watching politics in Baghdad concurs) that there is a new fluidity and willingness to compromise and act politically rather than in a sectarian way, even within the badly flawed Council of Representatives. Last year, the council could not even debate, let alone pass, laws. In February it passed three at once as part of an omnibus logrolling package that would have made any American congressman proud.

So we have significant progress within the Iraqi government. We have significant grassroots political development. We have Sunni and Shia Arabs fighting together against both Sunni and Shia enemies that they now see as common foes. We have the central government distributing its funds both to Sunni and to Shia areas. Despite the supposed flaws in the de-Baathification reform law, excellent Sunni commanders who could theoretically have been purged remain in key positions in the Iraqi military and police forces. The only groups that remain outside of the political process are al Qaeda, the Baathist insurgents, and the Iranian-backed Special Groups. If this isn't dramatic progress toward reconciliation, what would such progress look like? One congressman last week had the gall to complain about Iraq's "intransigent political leaders." The more intransigent political class is here in Washington.

AJAMI IS AN ASTONISHING RARITY
Kevin Libin
National Post, Monday, May 26, 2008

There are countless stories in Iraq that Fouad Ajami considers "heartbreaking." They are the product of the dozen years that preceded this war. It was then, not now, he reminds us, when people suffered most cruelly. "Ask Iraqis what were their darkest years—read Iraqi fiction, Iraqi memoirs—[it was] the '90s, under the sanctions, after we left Saddam in place in 1991."

He has no tolerance for those "great realists" who argue that more years of miserable sanctions was preferable to invasion: Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright...Barack Obama. "Liberal Americans opted for a sanctions regime which was nearly criminal in its cruelty toward Iraq," says Mr. Ajami. "The Iraqi middle class was destroyed and shattered during the sanctions regime. That's when people sold their books, that's when people sold their belongings, that's when women turned to prostitution, that's when the [Hussein] regime had the run of the country."… Once the dust settles on this war, Mr. Ajami predicts, we will regain clarity on the genuine "monumental tragedy" that was Iraq, before. And why, he insists, "history will be kind" to this "noble war." Unlike those before him who preferred the convenience of their suffering, George W. Bush, he says, "gave the Iraqis a chance."

Mr. Ajami [Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University], is in Calgary this week, addressing the Teatro Speakers Series, is not unique for being a supporter of the U. S. invasion of Iraq—though such creatures are harder to come by these days. What makes Mr. Ajami exceptional is that he is an Arab. He is a Muslim. He is considered, both within the Middle East and without, among the most authoritative and gifted chroniclers of Arab consciousness. He has been granted a rare audience with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's supreme Shia cleric. He counts among his friends Iraqi prime ministers and cabinet ministers….

In [Ajami’s] latest work, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq, he befriends General David Petraeus, the commander of Iraq's multinational force, about whom Mr. Ajami seems unable to say enough good things. In a world where the official voices broadcast by Al Jazeera vent spleen, allegedly on behalf of the so-called Arab Street, over American imperialism in Arabia, Mr. Ajami is an astonishing rarity. He calls the invasion a "gift that Bush brought to the Arabs."

The roots of Mr. Ajami's perspective can be found in The Dream Palace of the Arabs, his critically adored book written three years before 9/11. There, he chronicles the tragic wreckage of the Arab world's postwar aspirations to modernity—a project hijacked across the region, from Egypt to Lebanon, by the terror of tyrants and Islamists.…

"Here is the irony: the Arabs begrudge the Iraqis. They say Iraq is an occupied country. The American presence in Iraq is illegitimate. What about the American presence in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait? Much of Kuwait is ceded to the American military. Yet when you hear the broadcasts of Al Jazeera from Qatar, about the vast American presence in Iraq, what I love is, remember Al Udeid Air Base, the air base from which the American army launches this war, is in Doha. It's a stone's throw from Al Jazeera [headquarters]. But does Al Jazeera ever dwell on the Al Udeid Air base? ... If Al Jazeera were to say 'we are now going to do a report on the Al Udeid Air Base,' the emir of Qatar would shut them down."

Mr. Ajami moved to America in his college years. Those who remain in the region of his birth, he acknowledges, often cannot afford, or are incapable of such candour. Arabia is a land that "aches for the foreigner's protection while feigning horror at the presence of strangers," is how he put it recently in his Wall Street Journal column.

And yet, as unusual as it is to hear a Muslim Arab speak so positively, so hawkishly of U.S. Mideast policy, behind closed doors in Baghdad and Najaf, "I don't feel so isolated," Mr. Ajami assures. "Most people that I meet pretty much partake of this sense that the war was noble, whatever mistakes were committed in execution…there is overwhelming support and there is panic that America would leave Iraq." Sunnis, now soured on al-Qaeda and having given up hope on outside saviours restoring their reign, are "holding onto American power for dear life."

Mr. Bush, after all, may have smashed their structural entitlements. But he has, Mr. Ajami maintains, created in its place one that all can tolerate: the Arab world's first inclusive, democratic government. “Not democratic in the Canadian mould, but a kind of pluralist government that rests on all the three big communities of Iraq: the Sunnis, the Shia and the Kurds" Mr. Ajami says. Significantly, it is unbeholden to Muslim clerics. And if it can hold, and Mr. Ajami believes it will, it may finally deliver the Middle East its best shot yet at the modernism of which he and so many other Arab intellectuals of his generation have long been dreaming.

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Volume VIII, No. 1,850 • Friday, May 23, 2008

Discover how Israeli writers struggle to define their identity in this week's issue of Israzine

ANTISEMITISM

FROM THE HAGUE TO HAMAS, ANTI-SEMITISM REFUSES TO DIE
Robert Krell
National Post, May 8, 2008

This week marks Israel’s 60th birthday. It also happens to mark the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of Holland—and my personal liberation after nearly three years in hiding with my Dutch saviours, Albert and Violette Munnik and their daughter, Nora.

As I reflect on my life as a Jew, these historical events are linked in a powerful way.

The 1945 liberation was not so liberating for many Jewish children: The majority of Holland’s successfully hidden boys and girls were orphaned. But in my case, my parents miraculously returned from their hiding places after enduring years of hunger and fear. We were the “lucky” ones. Over 80% of Dutch Jews had been murdered. Of all the Jewish children in post-1939 Nazi-occupied Europe, only 7% survived.

But in 1945, there was not yet any perspective on the vastness of what would become known as the Holocaust, the nearly successful annihilation of European Jews. We did not yet know that hundreds of thousands of children had been gassed, bayoneted, shot and burned alive in flaming pits. As a five-year-old, I soon would be hearing the accounts from the few who returned from places like Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.

On a personal level, moreover, it did not feel like freedom to be removed from my hiding family—with whom I had bonded. For the first time in three years, I cried. During the years of hiding, I had neither complained nor cried. We little children somehow knew we were in danger and at the mercy of our hiders. We intuitively became quiet and co-operative. …

Leo and Emmy, my parents, had lost their own parents, brothers and sisters—my grandparents, uncles and aunts. So 1945 felt not so liberating. While grateful to have survived, we remained captives of death, through those we lost and through our ravaged community. Real freedom came only in 1951, when we left behind our lives in Europe and came to Canada.

We were so proud to be Canadians. After all, I had seen Canadian liberators driving tanks into my hometown of The Hague, chasing fleeing German troops. Canada was already on our minds. (Strangely, it was in the minds of Auschwitz inmates as well. They named the storage area of goods stolen from arriving Jews Kanada, as they imagined Canada to be a place of abundance and riches.) The Dutch people have never forgotten Canadian sacrifices to liberate Holland, and Dutch children today probably remember those sacrifices more fervently than Canadian children.

In Canada, I became a Jew again. It was a slow, and at times solitary process: My father had turned away from his faith and my mother was ambivalent until her later years. As a teenager in Canada, I also became connected with Israel, the land of my ancestors, that tiny sliver of land smaller than Vancouver Island.

Some of my relatives had moved there, and I visited in 1961. Standing on the YMCA tower in Jerusalem, I was warned to keep my head down to avoid being shot by Jordanian sniper fire. I could see, but not visit, the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. I learned that the Jordanian occupiers had razed 30 synagogues in the old Jewish section of the city and that the former British Palestinian Mandate was primarily in Arab hands. It was clear that the Arabs wanted to destroy Israel.

I once heard Auschwitz survivors say that when the world discovers what was done, there would be no more anti-Semitism—and surely no more mass murders of Jews, or any killings on such a scale. How wrong they were.

Israel’s hard-fought successes are resented by a world that has grown increasingly anti-Semitic once again. Canada’s own Justice Louise Arbour has denounced Israel’s security fence as illegal, an interference to Palestinian life. (The steady stream of homicide bombers who, prior to the fence’s existence, blew up countless Israeli civilians, including Jews and Arabs, and yes, many Holocaust survivors and their families, was apparently not considered an interference to Jewish life.) This madness continues to this day, with the likes of Jimmy Carter acting as an apologist for Hamas.

A recent Vancouver Sun editorial stated “Anti-Jewish sentiment is inexplicable given the Jews’ contribution to civilization. … As hatred of Jews is irrational, so too is the demonization of the democratic Jewish State of Israel.”

But the Holocaust taught us that the unbelievable must be believed, that the impossible is indeed possible. The political left in Europe and elsewhere view Palestinian rights as their cause—and seize on any pretext to attack the Jewish state. Palestinian Arabs, meanwhile, claim to be the victims of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide,” yet also claim to have grown from 700,000 refugees to 4.5 million. …

But even as Israel is demonized around the world, I remain confident for its future. That is because, as a Canadian, I have learned to hope. It was in Israel, six decades ago, that the Jews reclaimed their land. But it was here in Canada that I reclaimed my own Judaism.

(Dr. Robert Krell is Professor Emeritus at The University of British Columbia;
and Distinguished Life Fellow of American Psychiatric Association.)

KOCH ON KOCH ON ANTISEMITISM
Daniel Treiman
Forward, April 15, 2008

[Ed Koch, t]he legendary former New York City mayor—who puckishly describes himself as “a liberal with sanity”—has never been shy about standing up for his fellow Jews. That much is clear from The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism (Palgrave Macmillan), a new volume he compiled with Holocaust scholar, activist and frequent Koch collaborator Raphael Medoff. The book collects Koch’s speeches, correspondence and writings on antisemitism and Jewish concerns from his years as mayor—a post he held from 1977 to 1989—and his past two decades as an outspoken private citizen.

The hallmark of Koch’s approach to this issue, as his book demonstrates, is a determination to confront bigotry—with steadfastness and an insistent sense of urgency. It’s an approach that’s equally in evidence whether he’s fighting to free Soviet Jewry or responding to an offensive cartoon about the Holocaust in a university’s student newspaper. And he hasn’t been afraid of rocking the boat. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Koch repeatedly found himself in sometimes high-profile wars of words with prominent African-Americans over antisemitism in the black community. But he also aimed his barbs rightward, famously alleging in a 1992 New York Post column that then-secretary of state James Baker had used a profanity in referring to Jews (his source for this explosive allegation, he reveals in The Koch Papers, was then-housing secretary Jack Kemp). …

Koch’s aggressive approach to antisemitism is matched by—and not unrelated to—an overall hawkishness in confronting threats from abroad. Indeed, he vocally broke with fellow Democrats to back President Bush’s reelection, hailing his conduct of the Iraq War and the fight against Islamic extremism. Later, President Bush sent Koch to lead the American delegation to a 2004 conference on antisemitism convened by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Now 83, Koch is showing no signs of slowing down. In addition to his activism on issues of Jewish concern, he co-hosts a radio show, pens commentaries on political affairs, appears regularly as a television pundit and even writes movie reviews.

Speaking with the Forward via telephone, Koch looked back at his decades-long struggle against the scourge of antisemitism.

How did you come to be so committed to this issue—to fighting antisemitism?
Well, I’ve only been subjected to one antisemitic situation in my whole life, and that was when I was in basic training in World War II. I was 19 years of age, and about 25% of the young men in the platoon were Jewish from New York City, and many of them were refugees from Germany, and the rest of the platoon was from all over the country. There was one guy who was antisemitic, and he would make fun of the Jewish young men who couldn’t get over the obstacle course. I could get over it; I’m not even that great an athlete, but I practiced so I could get over the course.

But the Jews excelled in the afternoon, when they had some learning in map-reading and other things of that kind, lectures. They’d get up and ask questions, and nobody else got up. I could hear this guy say loudly, “Who will be the next yid, the next kike, to get up?” And I said to myself, “I can’t take this.” And I knew that if I went over, he’d beat the hell out of me. I was not in great shape; he was in great shape. So I decided to practice and exercise and build myself up.

Basic training was 17 weeks; in the 15th week, he was doing this, and I went over to him and I grabbed him by the collar, and I said, “When we get back to the battalion, we’re going to have this out.” And he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are you doing this?” He didn’t put me in the same category as these other kids. And I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. So all I could say was, “You know, you know!” And then he realized what it was, and so did everybody else. And when we got back to the battalion, they gave us leather gloves to fight, and we fought three rounds, and he beat the hell out of me. But I got up whenever I was knocked down, and I fought as well as I could, which wasn’t so terrific. And from that point on—just two weeks left—there was not one antisemitic remark. And it taught me the lesson that you must stand up, you must stand up no matter what, no matter whether you will be beaten or not, you’ve gotta stand up. And I would say that’s basically the beginning.

Is that what you owe your passion to? In your book, you include excerpts from a 2004 speech in which you say your approach is “to be blunt, to confront the adversary, to ‘tell it like it is.’”… Also, throughout your book, you note that there have been times when some people from the Jewish community sort of wished you weren’t so outspoken on these issues. … Why do you think that is?
Well, Jews, particularly those from Europe, have always believed that you don’t want to put your head above the grass because the czar will cut it off. So they historically have shunned—it’s not true anymore—running for office on the basis of: a Jew running for office is elected and he does something bad, all other Jews will be punished for it. And that’s the European psychosis. But I’ve always fought that. And I said to the Jewish groups in ’77 that I campaigned with: “You deserve nothing more than anybody else, but you deserve as much as anybody else. You don’t have to worry that because I’m a Jew and I’m elected, that I’m going to run away from being identified as a Jew and that you will suffer. I will never favor you, but I will see to it that you’re always treated as equals.” That’s what I said.

When you were the mayor, was it difficult to balance your role as the chief executive of the city with your passion for speaking out on issues like antisemitism and Israel?
No, because I made it a point of defending others who were under attack. For example, there’s a large Muslim-Arab community on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and during some events, they were publicly threatened by jerks who were going to assault them. I ran—as mayor, by car, of course—down to the Muslim area and met with the Muslims, and I said to them, “Listen, we can never talk about the Mideast, because we’re never going to convince one another. But put that aside. I want you to know that in me you have a friend who will protect you. You never have to worry. If there is ever a need, I will send every cop in the city down here to defend you.” So I did well with the Arabs as well. …

The Catholics know that I have always spoken out against the anti-Catholic situations that occur and remarks throughout the years. So, for that reason, I always think of Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I?” And to me, that’s a very meaningful statement. …

Let’s zoom out a little bit and look at a more global context. With the outbreak of the intifada and 9/11, there has been a surge in antisemitism around the world. Some in the Jewish community have taken to saying that the threats now facing Jews are analogous to those we faced back in the 1930s—
They’re right. They’re absolutely right. Antisemitism is rising in Europe and has reached proportions in Great Britain where it’s not yet violence against Jews, but in the academies and the colleges, it’s terrible. And Tony Blair appointed a commission of parliamentarians—none of whom were Jews—who reported back that they saw antisemitism escalating like they had never seen before. That’s one. In France, up until Sarkozy, who is, I think, changing things, but before him, under Chirac, antisemitism was violent, the violence coming from French Muslims who assaulted—and still do—French Jewish children and adults on their way to the synagogue. And it’s true in other countries.

And in other countries, and in France and England, it takes the guise of being anti-Israel. And people say to me, “Can’t you be anti-Israel and not be antisemitic?” I say, “Sure.” I’m critical of actions and policies of the Israeli government, but the difference is this: that when you criticize the Israeli for doing things which you don’t criticize other countries for doing, that’s antisemitism. I say to people, “You criticize Israel for going into Gaza to punish them when they are lobbing artillery shells and rockets at Sderot and Ashkelon, as [Israelis] have every right to do under the rules of self-defense that apply to every other country. But nobody has criticized—nor should they—Turkey for doing the same thing, going into Iraq to kill the Turkish Kurds who are part of a terrorist organization.” And that’s the best illustration. What the Turks are doing is exactly what the Israelis are doing vis-à-vis the Palestinian terrorists.

I feel like Jews today, as opposed to the 1930s, are in a somewhat different position: On the one hand, you note that Jews around the world are extraordinarily vulnerable. On the other hand, we’re also sufficiently powerful and influential that our response to this vulnerability is to “stand up,” as you put it.
Firstly, I want to make the point that the antisemitism that’s rising is not occurring in the United States. Of course, there’s antisemitism [here], but I think of it as nothing comparable to what it once was when you had Father Coughlin in pre-World War II and so forth. We’re living, in the United States, in a golden age. I believe that heart and soul. And you can point out when you have a Jew, Joe Lieberman, running for vice president not long ago, more popular at the time than Gore, whose ticket he was on. And you have a black, Obama, running today, and a woman, Hillary, running. We’re living in the golden age.

But it is absolutely true that Jewish communities, particularly in the United States, are in a far more powerful position in terms of status, and ability to be heard and defend ourselves and our brothers and sisters in other countries—and we’re doing it. In pre-World War II, there were powerful Jews, but they were all cowed. The feeling at that time was: “Don’t rock the boat. Don’t get noticed. Don’t embarrass the Jewish community. We’re vulnerable. Keep quiet.” And that was a great mistake, as everybody recognizes.

You’ve just come out with this book looking back at your career as it pertains to combating antisemitism. Looking forward, do you have any new initiatives beyond continuing to speak out on this issue?
I’m not a professional hunter here. I’m a practicing lawyer, and I’m in a law firm, and I have a radio show and a television show, and I write books. And for me the most enjoyment comes from my radio program, which is a call-in show, and these issues come up. And it keeps you lively because you have to be conversant with what’s happening in the world, and able to debate with people who call in, some who like you and some who don’t, and many who disagree with the positions that I might be taking. So I will, until the day of my death, defend people—and that includes Jews—from unfair attacks from bigotry. That’s my purpose in life at this point. I’m 83, I mean I’m not going to create many new challenges.

So you can’t rule out that there might be a “Koch Papers, Volume II”?
Oh, there will be. I love writing books. I think that’s my 16th book. And there will be more.

Shabbat Shalom to all our readers.

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Volume VIII, No. 1,849 • Thursday, May 22, 2008

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IRAN – SYRIA ALLIANCE: CONSEQUENCES FOR LEBANON

IRAN GAINS A BIG VICTORY IN LEBANON
Benny Avni
New York Sun, May 22, 2008

In what is seen as a major victory for Syria and Iran, Hezbollah and its allies are being guaranteed a two-thirds majority in Lebanon's parliament, just as Israel and Syria are announcing talks concerning the fate of the Golan Heights.

In Doha, Qatar, Arab League foreign ministers announced an agreement yesterday to end Lebanon's 18-month political impasse, which has threatened to reignite the country's civil war. The pact includes no reference to the U.N. Security Council's demand that non-state militias disarm and ensures for Hezbollah and its allies a parliamentary majority. Israel and Syria's announcement of indirect peace talks through Turkish intermediaries, meanwhile, is sparking allegations that Prime Minister Olmert is seeking to deflect attention from a fund-raising scandal at home….

"This is a dark day," a member of the Israeli Knesset, Yuval Steinitz of the Likud Party, told the Sun. "In the middle of an international effort to pressure Syria in order to salvage whatever remains of Lebanon, Israel is extending its hand to Assad," the president of Syria. Mr. Steinitz said Syria, "an integral part of the axis of evil," does not really want the Golan, which Israel captured in the Six-Day War of 1967, "but Assad will take it if the international community allows him to also annex Lebanon."

In Beirut, Hezbollah promised to allow the election of a new Lebanese president as early as this week. The Shiite group is funded by both Iran and Syria….

Two-thirds of Israelis are opposed to withdrawal from the Golan Heights, according to several polls. Officials in Jerusalem yesterday said the indirect talks in Ankara are based on the framework laid out at the 1991 Madrid conference, which included no direct reference to the Golan.

Longtime advocates of negotiations with Syria, such as a former director of Israel's Foreign Ministry, Alon Liel, immediately congratulated Mr. Olmert. Mr. Liel, who has said he conducted secret negotiations — with Mr. Olmert's knowledge — through unofficial Syrian channels, has long argued that Syria's "unnatural" alliance with Iran can be broken and Mr. Assad can be convinced to join an alliance of pro-Western Middle Eastern regimes such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

But earlier this month, Mr. Assad told the Italian magazine L'espresso that he would not cut off relations with Hezbollah and Iran, noting that Tehran is an old ally of his country and that cutting ties with the country's ruling mullahs was "irrelevant" to reviving peace talks wit