“I believe we are seeing a new Axis of terror. This time it is
Iraq, Iran and the PLO (Arafat). Arafat is a pawn in their hands. This would
give Iraq and Iran an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. Ti would also destabilize
and neutralize the influence of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt…”—Saul
Troen (March 4)
“I was born on September 11, 1966, and every birthday I have now will
never be a happy one. Why, do you ask? Because as I am out somewhere trying to
have a nice dinner, someone will have a candle or a ribbon or something, crying
about the anniversary of a national tragedy. And then I will think, about how
insignificant my one little birthday actually is compared to everything else
that had happened on that one day.”--Dr. Steven Tomaselli, Uvalde, Texas
(forwarded to CIJR by Lois Mattero; Feb. 28)
“Why do editorialists continue to omit Saudi Arabia from the
discussion?…Saudi Arabia is probably more supportive of destructive acts
that North Korea and Iraq together.”—William Hill (Feb. 6)
“To my mind, the only way to bring peace to Israel is to defeat
Iran…Not only would their defeat destroy much of the support all these
anti-Israel and anti-American terrorist groups receive, it would be a serious
setback for the Islamists who believe they are on a roll. Psychologically the
defeat would be devastating. Short of that Israel will never be free of
ever-escalating terror.”—Ted Belman (Jan. 27)
______________________________________________________
ON CANADIAN MIDEAST POLICY
"Once again, our government and the Liberal party can’t
miss an opportunity to say something against Israel. Even when the president
[Moshe Katsav] of the only democracy in the Middle East is in town for the
Canada Israel Committee parliamentary dinner, the foreign minister can’t
help but look like an idiot. Once again, I am so proud to be a Canadian.
Please take a look at this attached article for all the details. [This
note is contained on the writer’s circulation of our Briefing, 'Double-Talk
on Israel', an editorial in the National Post, March 7]"—Barry
Diner (March 7)
“[T]he singling out of Israel time and again, the not allowing
her a seat within those government bodies in the Security Council whose main
target is Israel itself, whereby countries like Syria and the Sudan who are
infamous for their terrorist agendas and histories are allowed such positions
with Canadian approval, clearly indicates that Israel is being denied its
place as an equal member in the family of nations. Canada can prove its
commitment to democracy and democratic states such as Israel by recognizing
the inconsistency of its own voting record and its manipulation by those Arab
countries…intent upon Israel’s delegitimization.”—Sarah Bauer and
Marilyn Abramovitz, Montreal, in a letter to Canada’s Dept. of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade (Feb. 24)
______________________________________________________
ON MATTERS JEWISH-WORLD RELATED
The Cancellation of the Israel Leg of the March of the Living
“I need to express my outrage about the news that this
year’s March of the Living will be going to Poland and has taken
Israel off the itinerary. What irony that these kids can travel to Poland, the
site of some of the 20th century’s worst anti-Semitism (including the Kielce
pogrom after the Holocaust)…Israel is such a crucial component that it would
have been better to simply cancel the March this year. What can be
learned from the sight of the gas chambers, without realizing the strength and
courage that we are capable of…”--Lea Steinlauf (March 17)
Barenboim’s Now-Cancelled Ramallah Performance
“It is to be hoped that the [Israeli-born conductor Daniel] Barenboim
concert tonight [the concert has since been cancelled] will find the hall
mostly empty…Not only does he try to diminish the impact of the Nazi murders
of 6 million of his own people…he sees fit to perform in Ramallah where the
terrorist leader Arafat who is responsible for the deaths of Jews and Israelis
for decades is holed up…How can anyone of good conscience perform for people
who lynch and mutilate innocent people with relish, and dance in celebration
when whole families are slaughtered, and babies are killed…?”—Reva
Sharon, Israel (March 5)
The Unprecedented Rise of Antisemitism in France
The following unsigned letter to the French Embassy in Washington was
forwarded by CIJR member Leo Grunstein in Montreal.
“As a Jew, I would like to thank…your President Jacques Chiraq for saying
that Israel needs to be convinced that peace is better than war. Never mind
that peace (shalom in Hebrew) is the most common word in Jewish
prayers…[and] is mentioned 275 times in the Jewish Bible…Never mind that
of all the world's literature the UN chose to inscribe the words of Israeli
Prophet Isaiah on the wall across from its building in New York: 'And they
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
any more.'…[T]he President of [France]…would do better teaching cows
how to make milk, or teaching grass how to grow quietly than teaching Jews
(Israelis) that peace is better than war…
I would like also to thank the unnamed cinema near the
Paris Opera for canceling a screening of the ‘Harry Potter’ film for
Jewish kids. But I am even more grateful to the police of Paris, which has
failed to provide protection for these kids. Apparently Jews of any age are no
longer guaranteed complete equality with the rest of the population…
And how can I not mention the doctorate degree in history, which was offered
to Mustafa Talas (Syria's Foreign Minister) by Sorbonne? …Dr. Talas
has written a book on the Damascus Blood Libel of 1840, in which he claims
that Jews kill Christians to obtain their blood for Passover…I am infinitely
glad that good old blood libels…nearly forgotten in the last 50 years, are
being revived in French academic circles…
I also cannot forget the events of October 2000, with synagogues
firebombed and burned, Jewish worshipers attacked and stoned. I know that
President Chiraq spoke out against all this…[His] criticisms of Israel had
been (and remain) so extensive, so common and so unforgiving, that I cannot
possibly believe him…And if there is any doubt about it, your ambassador to
the United Kingdom Daniel Bernard has cleared it up…call[ing] Israel
"that shitty little country"…
I have decided to join the campaign against France. I will
not visit or fly through France…I will also boycott all products made in
France, including perfume…designer fashion labels [and] French wines…I
will use my money to buy Israeli products, and travel to Israel and other
countries who still think that Jews are human and should not live at the mercy
of Palestinian terrorists. I will also contact all people I know and try to
get them to do the same. Let it be a humble manifestation of my gratitude.”
From the Jewish Community in South Africa
South African Briefing recipient Yitzhack Rubin forwarded the letter below
written by Rabbi M.A. Kurtstag, head of the Jewish Ecclesiastical Courts of
South Africa, to Johannesburg’s Star newspaper.
“…[The] Star’s editorial dated December claims
that ‘Sharon’s declaring Arafat to be irrelevant has seen the introduction
of one of the most ruthless programs of random intimidation and killing--in
defense of civilization--in the last 50 years’ is the last straw…
Where have you been for the past 50 years? Have you heard of the
Soviet Massacres in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in
the 1980s? Have you heard of the killing fields of Cambodia, the Genocide of
Burundi, the murder and slave trade of the Sudan perpetrated against the
Christians in the country, Jordan’s Black September when 10,000 Palestinians
were slaughtered by the Jordanian army in a couple of days [and] the cries ‘Maak
die Jode dood’ from the Mosques of Cape Town?
All these Sir, whether you realize it or not have happened and
are happening within your 50 year time limit. And yet, you choose Israeli
whose children are blow to bits in discos and pizzerias and have the temerity
to say “thus far and no further” to Palestinian acts of terror and wanton
murder. The only conclusion to be drawn is that this has nothing to do with
anti-Zionism. Like your colleagues in the media and the ruling party, your
attitude is clearly one of anti-Semitism…I therefore cancel my subscription
number 103266 to your ‘civilized’ newspaper and as a responsible
rabbinical leader call on all Jews and fair-minded South Africans to do
likewise.”
Editor’s Note: We urge all our readers to follow the
Rabbi’s lead and have the courage to follow his example with respect to
anti-Israel coverage in your local newspapers.
______________________________________________________
OUR READERS ASK US TO SUPPORT PETITIONS
Petition to revoke the Nobel Peace prize of Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat:
http://www.revoketheprize.org
–
Eliahu Shvili, Haifa, Israel (March 6)
The Canadian Institute for Jewish
Research thanks its readers all over the world for their insightful responses.
We encourage you to continue to share your thoughts and comments with us.
Hag Pesach sameach to all CIJR members and friends. Next year in
Jerusalem!
CIJR's
daily "ISRANET BRIEFING" is available by fax and e-mail.
Please urge colleagues, friends and family to visit our web-site for more
information
on our briefing series. To join our distribution list, or to unsubscribe,
contact us at http://www.isranet.org.
CIJR’s Briefing series
attempts to convey a wide variety of opinions on Israel, the Middle East
and the Jewish world. Reprinted articles and documents express the
opinion of the author, and
do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of
the Institute.
Top

Volume
II, No.
354 Tuesday, March 26, 2002
ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING
A
Service of CIJR
Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research
Prof.
Frederick Krantz, Director
P.O. Box 175, Station H
Montreal, Quebec H3G 2K7
E-Mail:
cijr@isranet.org
Internet: http://www.isranet.org
______________________________________________________
THE 1930S, AGAIN
A HARD RAIN IS GOING TO FALL
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review, March 25, 2002
In some ways in our war against the terrorists we are like
the democracies of the late 1930s. They knew that there was more to Hitler
than his avowed quest for the return of the Sudetenland or the
Alsace-Lorraine. They sort of suspected that an entire, venerable culture in
Germany and Japan had gone off the deep end. And while there was a certain
logic to Hitler's diatribes that a moralistic England had no more right to
distant India than did Germany to nearby Danzig, most deep-down knew that such
parlor-game banter simply masked a much larger dilemma--how to corral a very
powerful dictatorship and its axis that wished dominance not coexistence, and
whose fuel was brutal force and autocracy, not democracy and freedom.
For England, most of Western Europe, and the United States,
reeling under recent economic depression and hardly recovered from the sheer
horror of the First World War--carnage unlike any in the long history of
warfare--the idea of forceful resistance was little short of insanity.
Filmstrips of German Panzers, thousands of Japanese shouting
"Banzai!," and even Mussolini's comically delivered, but hateful
rants overwhelmed the senses.
How could one stop such madness? And might it just go away with
proper diplomacy? And why did "militarists" in the West insist on
rearming and thereby "provoking" war? And was not there some truth
to German grievances and Japanese hurts? And did anyone really wish to risk
millions of innocent Americans and British to kill equally innocent, although
perhaps mesmerized, Germans? Who was stirring up such animosity?
We are in a similar dilemma--in our hesitation about Iraq, our
pressure on Israel, and our worries about mission creep in pursuing the
killers. Can't the Jews and Arabs just get along? If Israel would just give
back all of the West Bank, wouldn't there be peace? Didn't we just fight in
the Gulf a mere decade ago? How do we know that Saddam Hussein really has such
dreadful weapons? Shouldn't our allies get involved too? Do these undemocratic
Muslim countries really dislike us all that much? Who can trust polls anyway?
Why are these saber-rattlers trying to get us into a war?
And so we Americans, like those 70 years ago who so wanted a
perpetual peace, pray for a return of sanity in the Middle East. We chose to
ignore horrific stories of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia--the embryo of 9/11. We
are more amused than shocked that madrassas have taught a generation to hate
us. When mullahs in Iran speak of destroying Israel we wince, but also shrug.
We want to see no real connection between madmen blowing themselves up to kill
us in New York and the like-minded doing the same in Tel-Aviv. We put our
trust in peace with a killer like Mr. Arafat, who packs a
gun and whips up volatile crowds in Arabic. All the while, no American
statesman has the guts to tell the Arab leadership that statism, tribalism,
fundamentalism, gender apartheid, and autocracy--not America, not Israel--make
their people poor, angry, and dangerous.
Rather than preparing for what our enemies are preparing for us,
we look to gestures of appeasement. Does not the Islamic world appreciate the
presence of General Zinni? Do we not give billions to Arab countries? Did we
not save Kuwait and Muslims throughout the globe? Who in the Arab world could
really think that the murderous Taliban were preferable to the present more
enlightened government in Afghanistan? And although Middle Eastern males blew
up our planes, people, and monuments, have we not had a national discussion
about the evils of profiling those from the Middle East in our airports and
stations? Don't Muslims tell their kindred back home how much freer they are
in America than in Iraq or Syria?
Like the dashed hopes of the 1930s such faith is not only
misplaced, but also dangerous. The efforts of countries like Iraq to acquire
nuclear weapons might under the present pressures grow dormant, but they will
not cease. A nuclear Pakistan is a tottering military dictatorship away from
Armageddon. Bribed autocracies in Jordan and Egypt are allies only in
the sense that their unelected leaders promise to jail their nuts and
fundamentalists who otherwise might turn on them as well as on us. Polls
everywhere in the Middle East reveal not mere anguish, but real enmity toward
Americans. Public pronouncements in Iran are not any less hateful than what
emanated from Berlin in 1936. Thousands of al Qaeda killers have escaped--and
thousands more are angry over the death of the comrades and kin and planning
carnage for us as we sleep.
Only a few of us Americans really take the Islamic world at its
word--that one in three is reported to think (representing, say, a small
number of around 200 million?) that the murder of 3,000 Americans was
justified; that two of three believed no Arabs were involved; and that even
higher poll numbers reflected real antipathy for the West.
After 30 years of listening to nauseating chanting from Teheran
to Islamabad to Nablus, hearing the childish rants about "The Mother of
All Battles" and "The Great Satan," and witnessing presidents
from Carter to Bush burned in effigy, the ritual torching of the American
flag, the misspelled banners of hatred, the thousands of paint-by-the-numbers
posters of psychopaths from Khomeini to bin Laden, televised threats that
sound as hideous as they are empty, Nazi-inspired anti-Semitism, embassy
takeovers, oil-boycotts, hijacked planes, cars, and ships, lectures from
unelected obese sheiks with long names and gold chains, peacekeepers
incinerated in their sleep, murders at the Olympics, bodies dumped on the
tarmac of airports, shredded diplomats, madmen in sunglasses in Iraq, Syria,
and Libya, demented mullahs and whip-bearing imams in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
and Iran, continual Televised murders of Americans abroad, our towers toppled,
our citizens butchered, our planes blown up, hooded Klansmen in Hamas and
Hezbollah, killers of al-this and Islamic-that, suicide bombers, shrill
turbaned nuts spouting hatred on C-SPAN broadcasts, one day the salvation of
Kuwait, the next sanctions against the swallower of Kuwait, the third day fury
against the sanctions against the swallower of Kuwait, the fourth day some
grievance from 1953, the fifth another from A.D. 752; and all the time
sanctimonious fingerpointing from Middle Eastern academics and journalists who
are as bold abroad in insulting us as they are timid and obsequious under
dictators at home in keeping silent, I've about had it. No mas. The problem is
you, not us--you, you, youS.
I don't listen any more to the apologies and prevarications of
our whiney university Arabists, our equivocators in the state department, and
the really tawdry assortment of oil men, D.C. insiders, bought and paid for PR
suits, and weapons hucksters. The truth is that a large minority of the Middle
Eastern world wishes a war with America that it cannot win--and much of the
rest is apparently either indifferent or amused.
So we should stop apologizing, prepare for the worst, hope for
the best, and accept this animosity¾just as our forefathers once did when
faced by similar autocrats and their captive peoples who threatened us in
1941. I don't know about the rest of America, but I am proud that thugs like
Khaddafi, murderers like Saddam Hussein, inquisitionists like the mullahs in
Iran, criminals in Syria, medieval sheiks in the Gulf, and millions of others
who do not vote, do not speak freely, oppress women, and are not tolerant of
religious, gender, or ethnic diversity don't like me for being an American. I
would find it repugnant if they did.
No, their hatred is a badge of honor, and I would have it no
other way. I am tired of the appeasers of the Middle East on our Right who
fawn for oil and trade, and those pacifists and multiculturalists on the Left
who either do not know, or do not like, what America really is. I'd rather
think of all the innocent dead on 9/ 11 than give a moment more of attention
to Mr. Arafat and his bombers.
The truth is that there is a great storm on the horizon, one that
will pass--or bring upon us a hard rain the likes of which we have not seen in
60 years. Either we shall say "no more," deal with Iraq, and prepare
for a long and hard war against murderers and terrorists--or we will have more
and more of what happened on 9/11. History teaches us that certain nations,
certain peoples, and certain religions at peculiar periods in their history
take a momentary, but deadly leave of their senses--Napoleon's France for most
of a decade, the southern states in 1861, Japan in 1931, Germany in 1939, and
Russia after World War II. And when they do, they cannot be bribed, apologized
to, or sweet-talked--only defeated.
In that context, we see much of a whipped-up Arab world entering
this similar period of dangerous unreality. The problem is them and their
unelected and unfree regimes, not us--just as it was Hitler, not us; Tojo, not
us; Mussolini, not us; and Stalin, not us--just as it always is when unelected
maniacs take control and hijack an entire country and culture. We can either
step up and stop Islamic fundamentalism, Arab terrorists, and Middle Eastern
dictators or we can step back and watch it all continue to grow. If 9/11 was
the beginning of a war, then we should remember that wars usually end when
one, not both sides, win.
CIJR's
daily "ISRANET BRIEFING" is available by fax and e-mail.
Please urge colleagues, friends and family to visit our web-site for more
information
on our briefing series. To join our distribution list, or to unsubscribe,
contact us at http://www.isranet.org.
CIJR’s Briefing series
attempts to convey a wide variety of opinions on Israel, the Middle East
and the Jewish world. Reprinted articles and documents express the
opinion of the author, and
do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of
the Institute.
Top

Volume
II, No.
353 Monday, March 25, 2002
ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING
A
Service of CIJR
Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research
Prof.
Frederick Krantz, Director
P.O. Box 175, Station H
Montreal, Quebec H3G 2K7
E-Mail:
cijr@isranet.org
Internet: http://www.isranet.org
______________________________________________________
WHY WE STAY IN ISRAEL
Sherry Mandell
It feels crazy to live in Israel right now. A few people are
leaving. I understand them. It's horrible to live with the violence, and the
attendant stress and anxiety. We Israelis are so vulnerable: travelling in a
car or bus, going to a cafe, even staying home. All have been woven with
terror. Every time of day and night, we know we are targets.
One recent Friday night, we were awakened at one in the
morning by the loudspeaker in our community. The announcement said:
"There is a warning that there is a terrorist in Tekoa. Lock your windows
and doors, sleep with gun, guard your children. Turn out all of the
lights."
We quickly turned off the lights even though we are Sabbath
observers. We locked the doors and windows. We put a chair in front of
the front door. Then the phone rang. Our neighbor was calling to make sure
that we had heard the warning.
The kids were scared, shaking. I told them that we would protect
them, take care of them. That they should try to go to sleep.
The kids fell to sleep, all of them in our bed. I prayed and then
slept fitfully, hoping that morning would soon be on its way.
Around 3:00 the loudspeaker came on again. The warning was over.
For now. But as I told my children, it's rare that terrorists warn you.
They certainly didn't warn my son, Koby, 13, before they stoned
him and his friend Yosef to death, crushing their skulls so they were
unrecognizable. Koby and Yosef were hiking near our home in Tekoa. The two
boys wanted to know the canyon beyond our house like the backs of their hands.
They were killed for their love of the land. They were killed for
being Jews.
My friend was at a movie in Jerusalem on Saturday night, the
night of the massacre at the Moment Café when a terrorist killed 11 people.
The manager stopped the movie and told the patrons what had happened and asked
if they wanted the movie to continue. They didn't. They all went home.
Why do people continue to stay here even though we are being
slaughtered by terrorists? Because many of us feel a deep sense of connection
here, to our country, our heritage, and to each other.
The sense of connection manifests itself in surprising ways.
Today I go to the makollet, the grocery store, and there is a man
filling a cardboard box with goodies to send to his son in the army. The man
picks out a bar of chocolate, plain milk chocolate. And the makollet
lady, Rena, says: "Your son doesn't like that kind of chocolate. Noam
likes crunchy chocolate."
Another story: My friend Ruth is at a kiosk buying a drink. A
little girl says shyly to the proprietor: "What can I get for 2 shekls?"
He says, "nothing." Then he hands her a shekl. "But now you
have three. You can buy gum or a candy." Ruth fishes into her pocket.
"Now you have four."
Here there is a feeling of family. Here in the face of pain and
suffering, we don't feel alone. We feel that we are a net that is woven
together and though it is full of holes, it is strong enough to lift us up.
If we make a hole in the net, the net is weakened. Of course it
can be mended. But it will never be quite the same.
We don't want to make a hole in the net. We don't want to leave
the place where our son is buried. We don't want to leave the only place in
the world where time is measured by a Jewish calendar, where the celebrations
center on the Jewish holidays, where the language is the language of the
Bible. We don't want to leave the center of Jewish history. Now we are part of
that long, hard history. We are part of the struggle of the Jewish people
trying to live in their land.
My son died for being a Jew. I want to live as one.
___________________________
A WAR OF NO CHOICE
Israel Harel
Ha’aretz, March 21, 2002
The war of suicides is not the Arabs' war of despair. Anyone
claiming so is looking for a way to validate the enemy and heap fallacious
feelings of guilt on us. It is not despair that grips the Arabs, but a spirit
of madness. They feel they have hit upon the most effective weapon against the
Jews--a weapon that sows confusion, fear, suffocation and a sense of having
reached a dead end, a weapon against which the Israel Defense Forces has no
solution in the framework of the norms that form its core essence.
It is not a weapon of last resort, one that is employed after all
other avenues have been explored, but rather the well-thought-out,
coolly-calculated (and premeditated) use of a weapon that leads many Jews to
the desperate conclusion that given the high costs claimed by terrorism in all
areas of life, it is impossible to go on living in this country.
The feeling of the Arabs--and the moralistic reactions that gave
rise to the refusal to serve in the territories, itself the product of
despair, prove to them that they are right--is that when it comes to Jews,
suicide terrorism is a much more effective weapon than anything else in the
Arab arsenal, including those that are apparently in Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's stockpile.
It is a non-conventional weapon that sows despair in Israel,
while elsewhere in the world, it, unsurprisingly, causes reactions that along
with non-binding denunciations, primarily express understanding for and
empathy with the Arab "despair." True, for a brief period after
September 11, it wasn't very nice to be an Arab terrorist, even the sort that
kills only Jews. But now the double standards are back: Only when terror
strikes against Americans and Europeans is there a uniform response of
condemnation and loathing, together with an unremitting war that uses every
means at its disposal.
The enemy is aware of this double standard, which is also
accepted by a sizable number of Jews in their own land, and this redoubles the
enemy's motivation to continue using suicide terrorism that rocks, as it sees
from the despairing responses in Israel, the foundations of their existence.
And some Israelis, even some cabinet ministers among them, react with
desperate thoughts and actions. It was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, not the
enemy, who asked for a cease-fire earlier this week. On the other hand, the
Arabs, who are ostensibly the big losers and the desperate party, were against
it, and are continuing to blow up buses.
The tiny refusal-to-serve movement, which the media inflates
beyond any reasonable proportion to its true significance, is the spearhead of
the Israeli desolation camp. This camp has begun to understand the critical
message sent by suicide terrorism. It has concluded that if in order to
survive, we have to keep on fighting when there are no visible signs of peace
on the horizon--and through "not nice" means, at that--then we give
up.
This, in my opinion, is the deeper meaning of their refusal to
serve in the territories. And since they cannot admit it was in fact despair,
in a combination of self-indulgence and fastidiousness, that led them to
forsake the struggle and their comrades in arms, the quitters wrap themselves
in a moralistic mantle and seek the guilty parties among us: the settlement
enterprise--the mother of all sins; the misdeeds of the IDF, the most moral
army in the world, that stem, for the most part, from the soldiers' fear of
suicide bombers blowing up alongside them, and from all the other harsh
outcomes of the Arabs' cruel and inhumane warfare.
Basically, the signs that the Arabs will never give up the fight
have been apparent ever since the start of the modern return to Zion. However,
fairly few people, in each generation, were willing to admit it: Our war of
existence will not, evidently, ever end, even in the distant future.
Not Zinni, not Tenet and not Mitchell; not Oslo, not 242 or 338;
not the partition borders of 1947; not the boundaries of the Balfour
Declaration (that included Transjordan and parts of what are now Syria and
Lebanon) approved by the League of Nations; not the borders of June 6 or June
12, 1967: The objective of the Arabs' wars, from the war rejecting the
partition borders in 1947 to the war rejecting the Camp David and Taba talks
boundaries, is to prove that no sovereign Jewish presence, in any boundary
whatsoever, was, is or will be accepted by the Muslim world, and certainly not
by the Arab world.
This sentiment was well expressed by Osama bin Laden, hero of the
Muslim world and heir, in the eyes of many denizens of that world, of Salah
a-Din. The Islamic nation--and through his act bin Laden united the Arabs and
the Muslims--will pursue its war until the last of the infidels is expelled
from the holy lands of Mohammed. And Sheikh Ahmed Yasin echoed the sentiment:
Bin Laden's words, he said, were mainly intended to describe the Jewish
presence that defiles these holy lands.
When the war of terror first broke out, Deputy Chief of Staff
Major General Moshe Ya'alon said that there had been no other conflict to
compare to this one since the War of Independence. Essentially, he added, it
was a continuation of that war. Everything we have been through since then
proves that he was right; or maybe he was actually playing down the
severity--and the crucial nature--of the current war.
Suicide terrorism is not only battling against Jewish
independence, but against the fact of our mere presence here. As the 21st
century begins, despite the fact that the Jewish people can exact an
immeasurably high price from anyone trying to destroy it by unconventional
means, the Jewish people in its homeland is the only people in the world whose
enemies aspire to drive it out of its own country.
_____________________
THE SUICIDE OF THE PALESTINIANS
David Gelernter
The Weekly Standard, March 25, 2002
…The axioms that underpinned Zionism have been turned inside
out. Modern Israel was conceived as a safe haven for Jews. It had other
reasons for existing--but safety, and the dignity that only comes with safety,
were Zionism's emotional mainsprings. In recent decades, though, especially
since the end of Soviet tyranny, the safe-haven idea has lost cogency like an
unwound watch running down. In the last few years, Israel has started to look
(on the contrary) like the most dangerous place for Jews in the world--if we
exclude the small Jewish communities that still exist in Arab countries.
Israel must change the way in which it explains itself…
Israeli thinkers ought to speak less about the tragedy (or the
ordinariness) of Israel's 3,000-year history, and more about its luminous
greatness; ought to talk up the nation's brilliant prospects, and the central
role it has played from Moses to Wittgenstein in creating and molding Western
civilization. They don't like to talk this way, but they ought to steel
themselves and do it anyway. "The Jew is a desert region,"
Wittgenstein wrote, "but underneath its thin layer of rock lies the
molten lava of spirit and intellect."…
(David Gelernter is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard)
CIJR's
daily "ISRANET BRIEFING" is available by fax and e-mail.
Please urge colleagues, friends and family to visit our web-site for more
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contact us at http://www.isranet.org.
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and the Jewish world. Reprinted articles and documents express the
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do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of
the Institute.
Top

Volume
II, No.
352 Friday, March 22, 2002
ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING
A
Service of CIJR
Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research
Prof.
Frederick Krantz, Director
P.O. Box 175, Station H
Montreal, Quebec H3G 2K7
E-Mail:
cijr@isranet.org
Internet: http://www.isranet.org
______________________________________________________
PALESTINIAN PRETENSE AND ISRAELI REALITY:
WHAT THE WORLD KNOWS, BUT CAN’T SAY, TO BE TRUE
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review, March 18, 2002
A common theme throughout classical literature
is the role of pretext (prophasis) contrasted with the actual cause
of complaint (aitia)--the great divide between what aggrieved
people say publicly and what they feel privately. Nations, the historian
Thucydides reminds us, also adopt such strategic postures. Their spokesmen
often voice complaints that are either groundless or--even if partly
justified--at least different from the "real" or "true"
causes of their discontent.
We know the prophasis of the
Arab states at the heart of the Middle East question: Israel's occupation of
the West Bank. But the aitia--the truest cause of the Palestinian
lament--cannot be voiced so easily, either openly or in detail. Why? To do
so would involve a systematic cultural, political, and social review of the
entire Middle Eastern contemporary world--one that might explain, in terms
other than the few thousand acres of the West Bank, why a tiny Jewish state
is so prosperous, free, and confident amid dozens whose half-billion
inhabitants are not.
Do any in Europe and the Middle East
really wish to open the Pandora's Box of secular rationalism, religion,
capitalism, democracy and a host of other issues that might hurt Middle
Eastern feelings, cost real money, and incur danger--when chanting Zionism,
colonialism, racism, and other alleged -isms and -ologies do not?
The Palestinians publicly allege that
once given back 100 percent of the West Bank they will recognize Israel and
thus the dispute will at last end with recognition by the entire Arab world
of the Jewish State. Fair enough. Palestine will thereupon be democratic and
prosperous, and so for the first time in its history live in peace
side-by-side with Israel. Most Americans welcome just such a vision.
Of course, few in the Islamic world
really believe that. Indeed, a number of its more impolitic spokesmen have
already written that such a withdrawal would merely be the first step in a
renewed struggle to end Israel altogether--as the Arab world was energized
at a sign of "weakness," and the citizens of Israel demoralized by
concessions made under duress. If one peruses translated newspapers and
magazine articles from the Middle East, the rhetoric of destroying Israel is
far more ubiquitous than the gospel of mutual coexistence. The Arab League
will soon meet to promise acceptance of Israel's right to exist with the
return of the West Bank--of course with the caveat that we can hardly expect
the crazies like Syria, Iraq, and Libya to sign on publicly to such a
"surrender." Mr. Arafat himself to domestic audiences screams
"jihad," and "infidels," as he praises suicide bombers
as "martyrs" and "heroes," and promises the capture of
Jerusalem.
Europeans likewise publicly advance this prophasis,
but in private conversation admit that within a few years of
"peace" the Israeli-Palestinian relationship would return to its
pre-1967 status of conflict over the very existence of Israel. Afraid of
terrorism, desirous of trade, eager for steady supplies of oil, nervous over
large groups of Islamic immigrants, eager to court third-world favor, and
playing good cop to our bad, Europe can hardly express publicly what it
privately knows to be true.
Indeed, if the West Bank were to be
returned and a general peace declared, there might well be a decade of
peace. But then after the hiatus, the madrassas, the autocrats, the
theocrats, and the coffee-house intellectuals would, according to their
station and methods, all move on to the next round of recovering
"all" of "Palestine"--a task made somewhat easier in
their mind by Israel's new nearly indefensible borders.
Unlike the Europeans and some others in
the West, much of the Arab world does not see distinct and lasting periods
of peace and war, but rather interprets the conflict as a continuum--one
that will properly and only end eventually with the end of Israel itself. In
this view, the Middle East discord is not unlike the first and second
Peloponnesian Wars, the three Punic Wars, the First through Fourth Crusade,
or perhaps even the interpretation of World War I and II as part of the
larger Anglo-German conflict. Such a series of individual "wars"
spanning decades ends not with mutual concessions and a brokered peace, but
when one side--an Athens, Carthage, Crusader kingdom, or Germany--is
militarily defeated and humiliated.
Why should we put credence in such a
pessimistic appraisal of Arab intentions? History supports it. The first
three wars were waged when the West Bank was in Arab hands; so why would the
premises for the next war be any different from those of 1947, 1956, or
1967, when the goal, as Egyptian General Saad Ali Amer once put it plainly,
was "the realization of our common goal--the elimination of
Israel"?
The current conflict is surely not over
the grievance of dead Muslims--Iraq and Iran make Israelis look like
amateurs in that regard. Nor is the lament really over the cruel expulsion
of Palestinians en masse--Kuwait garners that prize for expelling a quarter
million after the Gulf War. Nor is there much historical precedent of
according Palestinians any privileged position based on land lost through
war. Compare the current borders of Germany with those of 1914, and then try
and make the case for returning soil from France and Poland that was German
since antiquity--and the world will answer back with a stern lecture about
the wages that a state incurs when it repeatedly attacks its neighbors and
loses.
Economically, there is no reason to
believe that an autonomous Palestinian state will operate any differently
from its other Arab neighbors--statist, corrupt, tribal, and unfree, with an
intolerable situation of sending workers into a hated Israel to earn what
they could not garner in a beloved Palestine. And without the grievance of
the West Bank, the stark reality of such economic disarray might be more,
not less difficult, for thousands to stomach.
Politically, the situation is
depressingly similar. Why, if Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq are
run by autocrats, will Palestine be any different? Why, if he were granted
his entire agenda, would Mr. Arafat suddenly surrender his ironclad control
of the media, and thereupon become the first truly democratic leader of the
entire Muslim world to welcome discussion of his policies, Islamic religion,
and Westernization?
The best to be hoped for would be a
Palestine more similar to Jordan--a "nice-guy" autocracy without
real democracy or freedom that supported Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, and
lives in fear of its own Islamic extremists. So we continue with the present
Orwellian scene in which loud Middle-Eastern journalists and intellectuals,
who have never known true freedom at home, lecture the United States about
Mr. Arafat's democratic demands for his own unfree Palestinians.
If the world knows the bleak prognosis,
why all the idealistic demands for granting "freedom" and
"democracy" to the Palestinians? To be crass, I think much of the
discussion is simply a matter of anti-Semitism and the power of oil. Those
two themes are central in many angry letters that I receive daily from
critics--and not all of them are from Middle Easterners or survivalists in
the northwest, who nevertheless exhibit a spooky commonality. If the Arab
world were without crude oil, there could be an honest assessment of the
true nature of Mr. Arafat's regime, and enlightened people could talk of a
great faultline between a free democracy and a one-party autocracy. And if
this dispute did not involve Jews--that is, if it were seen in the context
of hundreds of murderous border disputes over lost lands now going on
between Indians and Pakistanis, Chinese and Tibetans, Colombians, Congolese,
Irish, Rwandans, Kurds and Turks and other aggrieved, the world would merely
sigh.
Much of the problem, then, quite simply
is also psychological and arises because a Jewish state is right smack in
the middle of the Arab world--and by every measure of economic, political,
social, and cultural success thriving amid misery. Without oil, without a
large population, without friendly countries on its borders, without vast
real estate, and without the Suez Canal, it somehow provides its citizenry
with a way of life far more humane than what is found in Syria, Iraq,
Lebanon, Jordan, or Egypt. Yet the world listens to the Palestinians'
often-duplicitous leadership--despite the corrupt nature and murderous past
history of Mr. Arafat's regime--because its sponsors sell a good part of the
globe's oil. And to risk their wrath, one would have to support a few
million Jews, not hundreds of millions of, say, British, Swedes, or
Italians.
And so we give not a damn over millions
of innocents elsewhere butchered over millions of acres each year worldwide,
but instead focus on what the Palestinians lost while attempting to destroy
their neighbors. For those who laugh at such reductionism, imagine the
world's moral outrage if China were tiny and Jewish, while Tibet was backed
by Asian nations with the world's oil reserves. I have not recently heard
any European demanding an instant redress for the theft of Tibetan land, the
destruction of its cultural heritage, and frequent forced expulsion of its
population by a government that is neither democratic nor free.
If such a bleak appraisal of prophasis
and aitia is accurate, is there any hope for Israel when the
entire world knows the truth that it cannot confess without endangering its
economic interests or moral pretenses? What then can Israel do as the West
watches and wonders whether the supply of suicidal murderers will be
exhausted before the weary Israeli public concedes? Such a strange place,
the Middle East--where Klansmen-like terrorists in hoods, who blow
themselves up in Israeli restaurants, and fire machine guns up into the air
at funerals, try to pass themselves off as noble, underpowered freedom
fighters because their fiery supporters in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan
have learned long ago not to send any more of their own plentiful planes and
tanks to destroy Israel.
Given pressure from all sides and short
of an all-out war, Israel may well have to exist as a fortress next to Mr.
Arafat's state, after unilaterally returning what it considers it can afford
of the West Bank. It would then brace for a cold war of the type the United
States waged against the Soviets and Eastern Europe, holding firm against a
Palestinian state behind barbed wire and concrete for decades until (fat
chance?) true democracy and secularism might appear among its neighbors.
West Germany prospered for a half century behind mines, guard towers, and
police dogs; apparently that was better than having Communists crossing the
border to kill free German citizens.
But there is one final consideration for
those smug utopian architects in our state department and Europe that is
completely forgotten in all this. There will be no second Holocaust. If
almost all of the West Bank is returned, as is likely, and in a few years
hostilities nevertheless resume as they did during phases 1-3 of the Middle
East wars, as is also likely, the battle will be over Israel itself, not
Palestinian land. That will be a war Israel will not lose, and it will be
fought outside not inside the Jewish state. And that will be a nightmare
compared to the current crisis. Those in Europe and in the United States who
now lecture about morality will then prove to be not only amoral, but also
answerable for far, far more still.
Shabbat shalom to all our readers!
CIJR's
daily "ISRANET BRIEFING" is available by fax and e-mail.
Please urge colleagues, friends and family to visit our web-site for more
information
on our briefing series. To join our distribution list, or to unsubscribe,
contact us at http://www.isranet.org.
CIJR’s Briefing series
attempts to convey a wide variety of opinions on Israel, the Middle East
and the Jewish world. Reprinted articles and documents express the
opinion of the author, and
do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of
the Institute.
Top

Volume
II, No.
351 Thursday, March 21, 2002
ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING
A
Service of CIJR
Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research
Prof.
Frederick Krantz, Director
P.O. Box 175, Station H
Montreal, Quebec H3G 2K7
E-Mail:
cijr@isranet.org
Internet: http://www.isranet.org
______________________________________________________
BREAKING NEWS: TWO KILLED, 87 INJURED
AS SUICIDE BOMBER HITS DOWNTOWN JERUSALEM
Jonathan Lis and Haim Shadmi, Ha'aretz, March 21, 2002
At least two people were killed when a suicide bomber blew
himself up in downtown Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon. According to Magen
David Adom, more than 87 people have been evacuated to Jerusalem's four
hospitals.
Security sources said that the bomber had previously been
held in jail by the Palestinian Authority, but was subsequently released when
the IDF entered the West Bank city of Ramallah a few weeks ago.
In a telephone call to The Associated Press, the Al Aqsa
Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser
Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Al
Aqsa Brigade identified the assailant as Mohammed Hashaika, 22, a resident of
the West Bank village of Talooza, north of the city of Nablus.
______________________________________________________
ISRAEL, THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC STATE
IN THE MIDDLE EAST, DESERVES OUR MORAL SUPPORT
Declan McCormack
Irish Sunday Independent, March 10, 2002
It's open season for Jew-bashing in the West at the moment. As
the Middle East's only democracy is subjected to wave after wave of vicious
terrorist attacks by Palestinian gunmen and suicide bombers the pious West and
the sanctimoniously 'liberal' Western media lay the blame firmly where it has
always lain with the Jews.
Yes, while every other democracy in the 'free world' claims a
sovereign God-given right to extirpate terrorism and to protect their innocent
citizens from the evil deeds of men and women of violence, the Jewish state of
Israel is supposed to take the vicious, murderous attacks on its citizens
lying down and presumably apologising for its existence, for the Jewish
people's history and for 'going on about' the Holocaust.
The Jews were, after all, made to be attacked, annihilated and
scapegoated. First the pogrom, then the expulsion, then the name-calling. How
odd of God to choose the Jews, indeed. But, of course, no-one even the rabidly
pro-Palestinian Western media really approves of these attacks on ordinary
Jews. No-one, that is, except the gore-glorying mobs who celebrate every
blood-bedraggled mission by dancing in the little streets of the Palestinian
townships.
We in the West would rather the ordinary Israelis who travel on
buses or who attend bar-mitzvahs or eat as a family in pizza parlours weren't
blown to pieces by Palestinian suicide bombers because it doesn't square with
our cherished notion that the poor Palestinian freedom fighters are being
savagely bullied by the US-backed fascist colonial Semitic superpower that is
Israel. Little urchin catapault-wielders fighting against Merkava tanks and
Hellfire missile-shooting fighter jets.
Of course, all Palestinian violence is mere retaliation. Sure,
wouldn't you blow yourself up right beside a mother and her small children if
you had to queue everyday at checkpoints? Sure, we all know that Ariel Sharon
is worse than Hitler. Remember the Lebanese massacres. (How could you ever
forget when they're mentioned in every news reports even as the
blown-to-pieces bodies of Israeli children are picked off the streets of
Jerusalem.) Don't, of course, mention the 1997 suicide bomb which killed 13
Israelis in Jerusalem just after Israel had given the PLO control of Hebron.
It doesn't really fit in with this schema whereby all Palestinian violence is
just the understandable reaction of a downtrodden people to the gratuitous
incursions and the targeted killings by Israel.
Don't mention, either, the fact that while Israel only targets
terrorists who endanger the lives of their families by using them as human
shields (thus the killing of the Hamas leader's family last week, for which
Israel apologised) while the lovely, generous Palestinians (as described on
Liveline last Tuesday) support terrorist organisations who kill Israelis at
random. But then they're only Israelis. Jews. And what are they doing in Zion,
anyway. Zionists! Fascists! Colonists!
And so the West lends immoral support to the Palestinians and
delivers high-minded lectures to Israel about 'how to handle terrorists
without hurting anyone'. Lesson one when, eh, we haven't worked out the
details yet. The Swedes are very good at giving this advice. They had a great
record in the last war facilitating Nazi steel transportations. And, of
course, the UN High Commissioner Mary Robinson, formerly President of neutral
Ireland, has been getting up on her high nelly lecturing Israel and telling
them to be respectful of minorities. Especially, one presumes, suicide bombers
at bus-stops. It wasn't that long ago since Ms. Robinson was emoting about how
she herself was a Jew…She might just show a little consideration for the
embattled and terrorised Jews of Israel now.
She might also bear in mind that someone else recently announced
in public that he was a Jew. The kidnapped Wall Street journalist
Daniel Pearl was forced by his captors to say on video in a sick parody of the
Palestinian Martyrs' final self-glorifying videos that he was a Jew and that
his father was a Jew and his mother a Jew. That said, his Muslim captors slit
his throat and cut off his head. Nice people.
In the ongoing Middle Eastern and potentially worldwide battle
between Islam and Judaism it is sincerely to be hoped that this time out some
European countries may learn the lesson of their obscene history and bring
themselves to say and mean that 'in that case, I'm a Jew'. They could start by
giving moral support to the only democratic state in the middle east as it
tries to quell a coldly calculated uprising inspired by little else except the
ideology and praxis of terrorism and the undiluted anti-Semitic hatred of the
toxic wing of Islam.
______________________________________________________
MAKE THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PAY
David M. Weinberg
Jerusalem Post, March, 17 2002
News item: "Israel, US negotiating over tax monies to be
handed over to Palestinians." Nothing could be more absurd. The EU and
the US are pressuring Israel to release into Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat's coffers some $1.6 billion in various taxes and customs duties
collected by the Finance Ministry on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. US
President George W. Bush himself raised the issue with Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon last month.
Now, I'm certain that Arafat has the best of intentions for the
funds that our good friends abroad would have us deposit in his personal bank
account in Tel Aviv. He plans to build old age homes, establish chess clubs,
open soup kitchens, manufacture Kleenex, and sponsor the Palestinian Gaylee
Boys Choir.
I'll even take Arafat at his word that he will not spend a penny
of the $1.6b. to purchase guns, bullets, mortars, rockets and other
projectiles that could hurt Israelis. Not even to pay-off his Iranian shipping
bill.
I'm also willing to skip the argument that monies are fungible,
meaning that if we give Arafat cash to spend on social welfare, it frees up
other PA funds for the purchase of weaponry. Recall that the previous Bush
administration wasn't so understanding. George Sr. coldly told Israel
"no" when we requested loan guarantees to absorb Russian immigrants,
because he didn't like Yitzhak Shamir's spending on settlements. Money is
fungible, the elder Bush intoned.
Nevertheless, the notion that Israel owes anything to Arafat is
both outrageous and ludicrous. Yasser owes us a lot more money than we
supposedly owe him. It is time to make the PA pay, in hard cash, for the
economic and financial damages it has caused Israel over the past 18 months.
To begin with, Jerusalem should use the PA's embargoed tax monies
to pay the hundreds of Israeli companies that have been stiffed by the PA for
supplied goods and services. Sources in the Israel Chambers of Commerce and
the civil administration say the PA owes Israeli businesses over $100 million,
including $13m. to Israel Electric and about $50m. to Bezeq.
In fact, 22 private companies, supported by the chamber and the
Manufacturers Association, petitioned the High Court of Justice in January
demanding exactly that. The companies--which include flour mills, air
conditioning contractors, plastics, ceramics, chemicals and packaging
manufacturers--hold about $5m. in bounced Palestinian checks. We should return
these checks to the PA through Anthony Zinni. Call it a down payment on the
$1.6b. we theoretically owe Arafat.
According to a 1994 Israeli law passed after the Cairo Accords
(which established the parameters for economic relations between Israel and
the PA), our Finance Ministry is empowered to deduct such Palestinian debts
from tax monies we collect for the PA! Foolishly, the law has never been
implemented.
PA liability is compounded by the whopping, devastating 95
percent drop in foreign investment that Israel has suffered since the armies
under Arafat's control began shooting; from $2b. to $100m. in one year! That
makes for another $1.9b. that the PA owes Israel. Some $100 million more has
been lost in tourism. Tack it on to Yasser's bill.
The actual fighting has cost the IDF well over $2.5b., I
estimate. One hour's operation of an Apache attack helicopter runs over
$4,500; an F-16, over $12,000; a Merkava tank, at least $2,000. We have
several thousand bulletproof vests for the police and for reservists on order,
at $400 each, a new necessity courtesy of Mr. Arafat. The cost of security
guards at schools, wedding halls, community centers, and synagogues is adding
up, too.
Don't forget the high cost of maintaining so many Palestinian
informants, and funds for hundreds of additional ambulance drivers, surgeons,
social workers, occupational therapists, trauma support groups, etc. Valium,
Prozac and Seroxat use in this country has gone through the roof. The Health
Ministry says it needs an additional $300m.
I think we should add to Arafat's bill the enormous cost of the
election to dump Ehud Barak, and the overtime paid to Carmela Menashe of
Israel Radio so that she can broadcast her trenchant criticism of IDF
operations.
Now for compensation to the approximately 1,500 Israeli victims
of Palestinian terror: each victim should get no less than the Palestinian
dead are receiving.
Reportedly, Hamas gives $10,000 to the family of every suicide
bomber. According to The Financial Times of London, Iraqi Deputy
Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said last Monday that Baghdad would raise its
financial contribution to the families of Palestinian martyrs from $10,000 to
$25,000. That's a total shahid package of $35,000. The principle of
equity demands that our dead--and I think even our wounded--get the same.
Which adds $52.5 million to the reparations owed to Israel by Yasser Arafat's
Evil Authority. Not including punitive damages.
Arafat shouldn't count on pocketing too much change once we get
through adding up the costs of the nasty little war he forced upon us.
(The writer is director of public affairs at Bar-Ilan
University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.)
CIJR's
daily "ISRANET BRIEFING" is available by fax and e-mail.
Please urge colleagues, friends and family to visit our web-site for more
information
on our briefing series. To join our distribution list, or to unsubscribe,
contact us at http://www.isranet.org.
CIJR’s Briefing series
attempts to convey a wide variety of opinions on Israel, the Middle East
and the Jewish world. Reprinted articles and documents express the
opinion of the author, and
do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of
the Institute.
Top

Volume
II, No.
350 Wednesday, March 20, 2002
ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING
A
Service of CIJR
Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research
Prof.
Frederick Krantz, Director
P.O. Box 175, Station H
Montreal, Quebec H3G 2K7
E-Mail:
cijr@isranet.org
Internet: http://www.isranet.org
______________________________________________________
WEDNESDAY'S "NEWS IN REVIEW" ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES
“The Tenet work plan requires 100 percent effort from Chairman
Arafat to stop the violence and the terror. I would expect a 100 percent
effort to begin immediately. [Arafat] must speak to his own people personally
about the importance of ending violence and terrorism, issue clear
instructions to his security services to enforce the cease-fire, and to
follow-up closely these efforts to ensure [their] implementation…”—U.S.
Vice-President Dick Cheney during his visit to Israel, declaring that
he would meet with Chairman Arafat on condition that the P.A. leader first
implement the Tenet cease-fire plan (Jerusalem Post, March 20) [CNN
reports that a potential meeting between Vice-President Cheney and Arafat
might be held in Egypt and could happen just before or just after next week's
Arab League summit in Beirut.]
“Every morning I travel with fear. I know that they don’t care who
you are."—Israeli Arab nurse Kamli Massalha, who was
injured in this morning’s suicide bombing bus attack in northern Israel
which killed seven and injured 30, saying the bombers made no distinction
between Arabs and Jews. (Jer. Post, March 20)
“If [Arafat] does travel to Beirut, we expect to hear a speech
addressing the importance of peace and stability in the region.”—P.M.
Ariel Sharon suggesting that Arafat might not be allowed to return to
the West Bank and Gaza should a surge of terrorist attacks erupt while he was
gone or if he incited violence at the Arab League meeting (New York Times,
March 20)
“The [cease-fire] test will be in results on the ground only. All of
the signs indicate that, regrettably, we are in a re-run. While the IDF indeed
carried out its part and withdrew from ‘A’ areas, IDF Intelligence reports
reveal a chilling picture, and there is no change in the Palestinians’
extremist rhetoric. Yasser Arafat feels that the wave of violence he has been
riding for 1.5 years is finally beginning to bear diplomatic fruit. Then why
shouldn’t he continue on his current path?”—Editorial (Ma’ariv,
March 20)
“The Aksa Brigades are the noblest phenomenon in the history of
Fatah, because they restored the movement’s honor and bolstered the
political and security echelon of the Palestinian Authority.”—West
Bank Preventive Security Service head Jibril Rajoub, praising the
Aksa Brigades, one of the most deadly of the terrorist wings of Yasser
Arafat’s Fatah-controlled movement. [Jibril Rajoub, a prominent Palestinian
figure close to Yasser Arafat, also admitted to being behind a secret mission
in 1992 that attempted to assassinate P.M. Ariel Sharon when he served as
housing minister.] (Jer. Post, March 19)
“The occupation killed my son. I have no doubt this death was
unnecessary, but I am sure that I will have a harder time coping with it if I
continue to think it was unnecessary, so I prefer to make things ‘pretty’
by saying he died while protecting his country. But I do not believe
that.”—Malka Tzemech, mother of murdered Lieut. Tal
Tzemech, harshly attacking Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. Her son was killed in his sleep and three others wounded, by
Palestinian gunmen who yesterday infiltrated an Israeli paratrooper training
camp in the northern Jordan Valley. (N.Y.T., March 20)
“It is important to recognize that in the Arab world the threat is
perceived quite differently. The people who are dying today on the streets are
not a result of any Iraqi action. The people are dying as a result of an
Israeli action. And likewise the people in Israel are dying as a result of
actions taken in response.”—Crown Prince Salman Hamad Al-Khalifa
of Bahrain (Wall Street Journal, March 20)
“…Saddam is not merely the devil they know…The prospect of a new
regime for such a powerful neighbour, and in particular one which espouses
Western-style democracy (which is quite certainly what the U.S. would
install), truly horrifies [the Arab world]…The Arab states are trying
effectively to obtain a trade. In its crudest terms: You can ‘do’ Iraq if,
first, you ‘do’ Israel, by forcing them to accept something resembling the
Saudi Arabian ‘peace initiative.’…The Israeli bête noire is their other
prop…[I]t presents itself, thanks to the recent explosion of violence, as
the only available delaying tactic…What we need is a [sic.] U.S. plausibly
to say: ‘Do what we ask or to hell with you.’ That requires a willingness
to contemplate the collapse of a ‘moderate’ regime in Arabia or Egypt, and
therefore an ability to confront the whole Arab world as the agent of
democracy…Instead, the Bush administration is holding on for dear life to
anything that remains of the old, more comfortable Middle Eastern
order…”—Columnist David Warren (Nat’l Post, March 20)
“In the sphere of the United Nations, Canada is always immediately
behind the U.S. in helping to support and defend Israel. We certainly expect
that in Geneva they will perform likewise.”—Israel’s ambassador
to the UN Yehuda Lancry, looking to Canada to prevent Arab states
from achieving uncontested condemnations of the Jewish state at the annual
meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva next week. With the
U.S. ejected from the commission last year, Canada is the only member in a
strong position to demand a ballot on a series of anti-Israel resolutions (Nat’l
Post, March 16)
“Israel’s acts are seen in a totally different light. Israel is
taking steps to defend itself in extremely difficult circumstances. We have
urged…only that it do so in a way…which moves the peace process along…[W]e
will work in consultation with Israel during this [next] session”--Canada’s
Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham, backing Israel’s charges
that the UN Human Rights Commission has been unfair in its attacks on the
Jewish state. (National Post, March 20)
“There’s been a successive series of important initiatives such as
we’ve rarely seen in some time. There was the initiative by Crown Prince
Abdullah—which for my part I approve of completely and I hope it will be
taken up by all the Arab countries at the summit in Beirut on March 27—that
is, the peace-for-land exchange. It would be the first time that the Arab
countries have taken this position; it’s a far-reaching and important
change. And still, there are questions in Israel about the prime minister’s
action. You know, I understand perfectly well the horror of Israeli citizens
in the face of terrorist attacks. It’s a normal reaction which no one can
dispute, just as I understand the reaction of the Palestinians who feel
humiliated and under attack.”—French President Jacques Chirac,
in an interview with the International Herald Tribune. (I.H.T., March 20)
“I cannot imagine what caused me to make those comments, which
I totally repudiate. Whatever the reason, I was wrong for not disagreeing with
the president [Richard Nixon], and I sincerely apologize to anyone I have
offended. I don’t ever recall having those feelings about any group,
especially the Jews, and I certainly do not have them now. My remarks did not
reflect my love for the Jewish people. I humbly ask the Jewish community to
reflect on my actions on behalf of Jews over the years that contradict my
words in the Oval office that day…”—Rev. Billy Graham
apologizing for his remarks in which he discussed “total Jewish domination
of the media” as recorded on a 1972 Oval Office tape that was made public by
the National Archives. Until recently, the evangelist who said the nation’s
problem lies with “satanic Jews” had denied having made such a statement. (N.Y.T.,
March 17)
___________________________________
SHORT TAKES
7 KILLED IN SUICIDE BOMBING ON BUS IN NORTH—(Jerusalem)
Seven people were killed, four of them IDF soldiers, and nearly 30 were
injured when a suicide bomber set off a powerful bomb that ripped apart an
Egged bus this morning near the Afula-area Israeli Arab town of Umm al Fahm.
The Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility. The soldiers have been
identified as Non-Commissioned Officer Meir Fahima, 40, Staff
Sergeant Shimon Haderi, 20, Sergeant Michael Altfiro, 19,
and Corporal Aharon Revivo. Two of the civilians killed in the
bombing have been identified as Alon Goldenberg, 28, and Mahanto
Mogus, 75. A number of Israeli Arabs were among the dead. Israel Radio
said the bus was traveling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth Ilit. (Ha’aretz,
March 20)
ISRAELI, PALESTINIAN OFFICIALS TO MEET TONIGHT—(Tel
Aviv) Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials are scheduled to meet this
evening in Tel Aviv to discuss ways to implement the Tenet plan. Following its
complete pullout from Bethlehem and northern Gaza, Israel is expected to
request that the Palestinians take a number of steps against terrorism which
include the arrest of wanted terrorists, the dismantling of terror
organizations, and the confiscation of illegal weapons. The Palestinians will
request that the IDF pull back to positions occupied before the outbreak of
violence in September 2000. They are also expected to request the dismantling
of all IDF roadblocks of Palestinian villages, and that Palestinian civilians
be allowed full freedom of movement. U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, Shin
Bet chief Avi Dichter, and Palestinian Preventive Security heads Jibril
Rajoub and Mohammad Dahlan will participate in the meeting. (Jer.
Post, March 20)
MARCH OF THE LIVING CANCELS ISRAEL TRIP—(New York)
The Israel leg of next month’s March of the Living trip, which brings 1,500
teenagers to concentration camp sites and the Jewish state, has been
cancelled. In the face of this decision, the United Jewish Federation of
MetroWest, New Jersey, decided independently to provide teens with what they
say is an integral component of the march--a week of Jewish life in Israel to
offset emotions stirred by a week of witnessing the killing grounds of the
Holocaust. “I think it's a disgrace that they're willing to go to Poland and
not to Israel," said Mark Sarna, a child of Holocaust survivors
and chairman of the American Friends of the Ghetto Fighters Museum. His
17-year-old daughter, Danielle, will fly from Poland to Israel with
the federation. The march organizers, he said, "showed cowardice and
basically buckled in to pressure and fear, particularly when Israel needs
American Jewry so much." (Jer. Post, March 20)
ISRAEL ASSAILS UN CHIEF FOR PUBLIC LETTER—(New York)
The Israeli mission to the UN assailed Secretary General Kofi Annan
for a critical letter he sent to P.M. Ariel Sharon last week and
released publicly on Monday. The Israeli mission said “the tactic of using
the media for selective criticism, so as to exert pressure on those combating
terror rather on the terrorists and those states supporting them is at the
least counterproductive.” The Israeli statement criticized Annan’s letter
for “fail[ing] to reflect the basic fact that it is Palestinian terrorists
that are deliberately targeting civilians.” Annan’s report claimed that as
a result of Israel’s actions, “hundreds of innocent non-combatant
civilians…have been injured or damaged or destroyed.” (N.Y.T.;
Jer. Post, March 20)
GERMAN DOCUMENTARY CASTS DOUBT ON PALESTINIAN ICON-- (Jerusalem)
A documentary aired Sunday on German television has cast doubt on the
authenticity of a Palestinian icon of the intifada: Muhammed al-Dura.
The 12-year-old Gazan boy was shot to death in a crossfire two days after the
violence began on September 30, 2000, while crouching for safety with his
father. The incident was filmed by the France2 television network, and the
pictures had a dramatic impact on the public perception of Israel's use of
force, with the IDF widely accused of killing the boy. The documentary raises
the issue of whether France2 released all its footage, and whether it was
physically possible to have hit al Dura from the IDF’s position. An IDF
investigation after the event raised similar doubts. (Jer. Post, March 19)
NETANYAHU PLAN WOULD OUST ARAFAT—(Jerusalem)
Former P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu told Time magazine that
Israel should invade the West Bank and Gaza Strip if P.A. Chairman Yasser
Arafat will not budge on the right-of-return issue and continues to
sponsor terrorism. His plan would deport Arafat, and the PA’s 35,000
paramilitary police would be stripped of their weapons. Israel would then
create a separation between Israelis and Palestinians with a network of fences
and defensive positions maintained by tanks. Netanyahu added that if
Palestinian leaders give up on the issue of the right of return, he would be
willing to sign a full peace agreement. (New York Post, March 18)
U.S. CHARGED WITH IGNORING SAUDI CHARITIES TIED TO TERRORISTS—(Washington)
John Loftus, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice,
says U.S. officials refuse to move against fraudulent American-based charities
that allegedly channeled money from the government of Saudi Arabia to
terrorist organizations. “The Saudi relationship is so sensitive that, for
more than a decade, federal prosecutors and counterterrorist agents have been
ordered to shut down their investigations for reason of foreign policy.”
Loftus claims that planned raids and arrests against terrorist-related targets
have been halted and that criminal investigations into Saudi-backed charities
have been interfered with. (Nat’l Post, March 20)
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION OMITS JERUSALEM IN LIST OF CAPITALS—(Jerusalem)
The Foreign Ministry of Israel has issued a formal protest to the World Health
Organization and the United Nations for the intentional omission of Jerusalem
as Israel's capital in printed and on-line lists of nearly 200 countries--the
rest of whose capitals are named. Asked to explain Jerusalem's absence from
the list, WHO spokesman Jon Liden said the decision was based on UN
guidelines and follows resolutions “by the General Assembly and the UN
Security Council, as well as by the World Health Assembly.” (Jer. Post,
March 19)
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