by Elliott Abrams in the Weekly Standard
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned, it seems, to direct the Middle East policy of the Obama administration.
Since the Oslo Accords of 1993, 17 years of efforts under three American presidents and six Israeli prime ministers have taught five clear lessons. Each of them is being ignored by President Obama, which is why his own particular "peace process" has so greatly harmed real efforts at peace. Today the only factor uniting Palestinian, Israeli, and Arab leaders is distrust of the quality, sagacity, and reliability of American leadership in the region.
The patching-up efforts of the last two weeks were impressive, but perversely: They showed how much damage had been done and how little the administration cares about reversing it. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom Obama was said to be "boiling with rage" after the Jerusalem housing announcement, got the complete slate of Washington meetings: Clinton, Gates, Biden, Obama. But the meetings were virtually secret: The White House did not permit a single photo to be taken of the Oval Office session, an unprecedented snub. Same at State: no ceremony, no press conference.
For her part, Secretary Clinton told the giant AIPAC meeting, "Our credibility in this process depends in part on our willingness to praise both sides when they are courageous, and when we don't agree, to say so, and say so unequivocally." Several recent Palestinian actions, she said, were "provocations" that are "wrong and must be condemned." That was nice, but saying it to a Jewish audience in a kiss-and-make-up session in Washington fools no one, not after her famous 43-minute telephone call to Netanyahu. These "provocations. . . that must be condemned" (note the passive voice) did not after all elicit a timely call to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemning them, nor did she use the Quartet meeting in Moscow on March 19 for that purpose. And general administration protestations that the United States is committed to Israel's security and that relations are "rock solid" now carry little persuasive power; they sound like Obama's (and for that matter Clinton's) campaign rhetoric, and everyone knows how useful a guide to administration policy all of that proved to be.
What are the lessons the Obama team is ignoring?
1. Israel's flexibility is dependent on its sense of security.
Martin Indyk, Bill Clinton's ambassador to Israel, put it this way in his memoirs: "The record. . . suggests that American presidents can be more successful when they put their arms around Israeli prime ministers and encourage them to move forward, rather than attempt to browbeat them into submission." During the George W. Bush years, the leader of the Israeli right, Ariel Sharon, decided to abandon the idea of a "Greater Israel," impose constraints on settlement construction in the West Bank (no new settlements, no outward expansion of settlement territory), and remove every settlement in Gaza and four small ones in the West Bank. His closest advisers say all of this was possible for him only in the context of unwavering American support for Israel's security steps - including the targeting and killing of Hamas terrorists and the refusal to deal with a terrorist leader like Arafat. What was the turning point for Sharon? Bush's June 24, 2002, speech, where he abandoned Arafat, denounced Palestinian terrorism, and said thorough reforms were the only possible basis for Palestinian statehood. Reassured, Sharon began to act.
Contrast this with the Obama administration, where Israel has been "condemned" - the toughest word in the diplomatic dictionary - for a housing project. Instead of seeking practical and politically feasible limits to settlement activity, the Obama approach has been to say every brick cemented to another was "illegitimate."
Israelis know that these American denunciations of Israel liberate Europeans and others to crank up their own, and so it has been this past year: Israel has been increasingly isolated and criticized internationally. Once we used "condemn," it was impossible (even if we were trying, which we were not) to keep it out of Quartet and EU statements. Add a few other international assaults (the Goldstone Report on the Gaza war, for instance) and American acts of distancing (the president visits Cairo and Riyadh but skips Israel, for example), and Israelis are in no mood for additional risktaking. Who, after all, will have their back if things get rough? Hillary Clinton told AIPAC that "the status quo is unsustainable," as if just about anything we can get on paper would be better. Such phrases do not inspire Israeli confidence that their country's security is anywhere near the top of the administration's list. All this should be elementary, but it seems to have escaped the Obama White House.
2. The failure to set standards for Palestinian conduct hurts the cause of peace.
In the Bill Clinton years, the foreign leader who visited the White House most often was Yasser Arafat - 13 times. Who can blame Arafat for failing to take seriously criticism of his "alleged links" to terrorism when the invitations kept on coming? For years, American officials of both parties have said the "incitement must end," but they have imposed no penalty for its failure to end. When in March the Palestinian Authority (PA) named a square for a terrorist involved in an attack in 1978 that killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, Obama, Biden, and Clinton were silent. Lower-ranking officials tut-tutted. In Palestinian society, the veneration of this terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi, is widespread; Fatah, not Hamas, is the one celebrating Mughrabi. PA radio and television incite hatred of Israel and Jews with regularity, as Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI document every month.
In recent weeks the Obama administration has stated that both sides have responsibilities to meet, but it made no serious demands of the PA. Had there been early and regular insistence that incitement end, the Mughrabi incident would never have taken place. The price for such negligence is being paid in both Israeli and Palestinian society: Every such action and every vicious broadcast helps persuade Israelis that Palestinians do not truly seek peace and helps raise a new generation of Palestinians who see Jews as enemies to hate, not neighbors with whom to reach an accommodation. This infantilization of Palestinian society, moreover, moves it further from the responsibilities of statehood, for it holds harmless the most destructive elements of West Bank life and suggests that standards of decency are not necessarily part of progress toward "peace."
A tough demand that all the incitement end now - no more terrorist squares, a clean-up of Palestinian broadcasting, the replacement of offending school textbooks - would both help Palestinian moderates undertake these actions and reassure Israelis that President Obama shares at least some of their concerns about the ability of Palestinians to negotiate and sustain a peace deal. The silence thus far, the unconvincing and rote handling of this issue, leaves the impression that Obama simply wants a deal signed and doesn't much care about what happens after that. Like his distancing himself from Israel and his apparent lack of concern for Israeli security, this undermines any chance of successful peace talks.
3. Israeli withdrawals do not lead to peace unless law and order can be maintained by responsible security forces.
Israelis learned this the hard way in South Lebanon and Gaza, and it is unquestionably the greatest factor leading them to oppose a similar withdrawal from the West Bank. The Labor party leader Ehud Barak is not viewed in Israel as a hardliner; when he was prime minister he offered Arafat a dramatic peace proposal in 2000. But when, as defense minister, he met with President Bush in 2008 he handed over, and raised repeatedly in later meetings with Secretary Rice, a list of Israel's security needs in the West Bank. He and Netanyahu (and the vast majority of Israelis) are of one mind on this: Terrorism from Gaza is a security challenge for Israel, but terrorism from the West Bank threatens Israel's survival. There has been considerable progress in training Palestinian security forces, but no one believes they can yet maintain order without the presence of the IDF and Shin Bet. Those who say, as George Mitchell - Obama's special envoy to the Middle East - and the Quartet have, that there can be a peace deal in 24 months are saying that fundamental security issues can be finessed or forgotten. Of course they can if your goal is a piece of paper - or, perhaps better put, a paper peace. If you want a real and lasting peace, you must have the answer to the question: What will fill the vacuum when Israeli forces leave? Today the answer is chaos or Hamas, and any prediction that in 24 months these matters will be resolved shows a lack of seriousness. Palestinians who value law and order and seek to build a decent society, as well as Jordanians who worry what forces will be across the river from them, cannot be so cavalier. This brings us back to lesson one: If the United States is intent on a deal in 24 months no matter what, Israelis will understand that we are not going to protect their security and that we'll complain when they assert the need to do it themselves.
4. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not the center of world, Arab, or Muslim politics.
George Mitchell once acknowledged that when he talks to Arab leaders they raise Iran first, but no one in the administration wants to allow mere facts to interfere with their ideology. George W. Bush was as close as any American president ever has been to Israel, but had excellent relations with the Moroccan, Algerian, Emirati, Omani, Bahraini, Kuwaiti, Saudi, and Jordanian rulers - all except the Egyptians, who were annoyed that he thought they should have free elections. Paying attention to what Arab political leaders say publicly about Israel is foolish, for their real views consist of tough-minded assessments of the balance of power in the region. What they want most of all is calm; they do not want their streets riled up by Israeli-Palestinian violence. Palestinians are not at the center of their hearts or they would visit the West Bank and bring plenty of cash with them. What preoccupies them is survival and Iran. If they take any lesson from the current coldness between the United States and Israel, it is that the United States is not a reliable ally. If we can ditch Israel, they know we can far more easily ditch them.
The most perverse misunderstanding along these lines is the thought that supporting Israel is risking American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the war on terror. Vice President Biden is reported to have told Netanyahu that "this is starting to get dangerous for us. What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan." White House denials suggest that the quotation is not exact, but there has also been no flat-out denial of the sentiment. David Axelrod, the political hack who appears to be a key foreign policy strategist and spokesman for the president, was asked on one of the Sunday shows if he agreed that settlement construction puts U.S. troops' lives at risk. He replied, "It is important for our own security that we move forward and resolve this very difficult issue." Not exactly a resounding "no." General David Petraeus, the CENTCOM commander, told the Senate that "clearly the tensions in these issues have an enormous effect on the strategic context in which we operate in the Central Command area of responsibility." Once again, not a "No way" or a "Get real." Petraeus had a chance to say the Pakistanis are not thinking hard about West Bank settlement construction when they watch the Taliban and developments in Waziristan, and he failed to do so then or in later explanations. How hard would it have been for him or some other official to remind everyone that Osama bin Laden became a terrorist to overthrow the government in Riyadh, not the one in Jerusalem? The struggles between modernizers and traditionalists, Sunni and Shia, secularists and Islamists are tearing the Islamic and the Arab world apart. They would continue to do so if Israel no longer existed.
Israelis listening to official American remarks hear an amateurish interpretation of Arab politics, which as Lee Smith reminded us in his recent book (quoting bin Laden himself) is basically about backing the strong horse. Arab leaders want to know what we will do to stop Iran; they want to know if their ally in Washington is going to be the top power in the region. Israelis wonder where the "uh oh, this will make Islamic extremists angry" argument stops. Does anyone think al Qaeda or the Taliban would be mollified by a settlement freeze? The Islamists are not interested in "1967 issues" related to Israel's size, but in "1948 issues" related to Israel's existence. If henceforth we mean to engage such people rather than to defeat them, Israel's existence - not its settlement policy - comes into play.
If this is not the Obama view of the world, the administration should say so quickly and very clearly. Otherwise his administration can fairly be said to be revisiting our own "1948 issues." The argument that Israel would be a great burden and ruin our place in the Arab world was proffered then by George Marshall - and rejected by Harry Truman. In his memoirs, Clark Clifford wrote at length about the State Department's efforts to stop Truman from recognizing the new State of Israel. Clifford quoted Marshall's deputy Robert Lovett as saying on May 14, 1948 - the day Israel declared its independence and Truman offered recognition - "There will be a tremendous reaction in the Arab world. We might lose the effects of many years of hard work with the Arabs. We will lose our position with Arab leaders. It will put our diplomatic missions and consular representatives in personal jeopardy." After 60 years of American leadership and military dominance in the Middle East, it should be as disturbing to Americans - not least to Democrats who venerate Truman - as it is to Israelis that traces of this approach are emerging again in Washington.
Netanyahu answered these poor arguments in his address to AIPAC:
"Our soldiers and your soldiers fight against fanatic enemies that loathe our common values. In the eyes of these fanatics, we are you and you are us. To them, the only difference is that you are big and we are small, you are the Great Satan and we are the Little Satan."
5. The 'peace process' retards peace.
A single-minded concentration on "the peace process" hurts the cause of peace and moderation throughout the region and does little to build the necessary institutions of Palestinian society. It's obvious that nearly two decades of negotiations have not produced peace. Instead this focus has had two deleterious effects.
First, it means we care more about getting Syria, Egypt, or others to endorse some negotiating plan than we do about their own internal situations. The people, the politics, the alliances of such countries become unimportant, as we focus on whether their rulers will deign to sit at some table we've laid. Human rights and democracy issues evaporate.
Second, we use all our chips for the negotiating sessions, instead of applying them to the hard work of nation building. We ask Arab states to reach out to Israel (which they will not do) when we should be demanding that they reach out to the Palestinians (which they might). We explode, and damage U.S.-Israeli relations, over a tiny construction announcement because it might slow "proximity talks" Mitchell has cooked up. We use American influence with Israel not to promote economic growth in the West Bank, but to try and impede Jewish (never Arab) construction in Israel's capital city. This set of priorities is perverse and will not lead to peace. Instead, a pragmatic approach that seeks to create in the West Bank a decent society and a state that will maintain law and order should be our goals.
The last week of March brought talk of "reconciliation" between the Obama administration and the government of Israel. Relations are so strained that we, too, appear to need our own set of "proximity talks" now. But reconciliation is not a simple matter, as the Catholic Church knows. In that faith, it is a sacrament consisting of three elements: conversion, confession, and celebration. Conversion is the internal realization of wrongdoing, confession is the external admission of it, and celebration follows when (and only when) the sinner has converted, repented, confessed, and returned. Given the Obama administration's view of Israel and the Middle East, celebration seems a long way off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Abrams
Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American lawyer and politician who served in foreign policy positions for two Republican U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.[6]
During the Reagan administration, Abrams gained notoriety for his involvement controversial foreign policy decisions regarding Nicaragua and El Salvador. During Bush's first term, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs. At the start of Bush's second term, Abrams was promoted to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy, in charge of promoting Bush's strategy of advancing democracy abroad. His appointment by Bush was controversial due to his conviction in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully withholding information fromCongress during the Iran-Contra Affair investigation.
See this article and more at Israel Behind the News
Showing posts with label Arafat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arafat. Show all posts
Monday, April 5, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Stop the Bonner-Bashing!
by David Wilder, Spokesman, Jewish Community of Hebron
For the past couple of weeks, ever since the 'story' broke, I've been debating with myself whether or not to write anything about it. I've learned, usually the hard way, that sometimes it's better to shut up. But usually, my second nature gets the better of me and I mouth off anyhow. That's what I seem to be doing now. Actually, I find myself in a somewhat strange situation. I've helped out journalists before, even those I really didn't particularly care for. A number of years ago a CNN correspondent was hit in the head with a rock (thrown by an Arab) outside Beit Hadassah. The guy really wasn't a friend of ours, but, what can you do �" he was bleeding. So I sent him up to my apartment to get some first aid from my wife. Another time, when a journalist's car battery died in Hebron, I helped him start up with cables. A photographer friend of mine was almost killed by a group of very angry people the night that Beit Shapiro was emptied of its Jewish residents. I didn't save him; someone else from the community arrived first. Etc. Etc. I guess it's what we call in Hebrew 'Derech Eretz' or in plainer language, just being well-mannered and polite. But I don't recall that I ever had to publicly defend a journalist. Especially one of the most well-known journalists in the field who happens to work for a paper that surely isn't a friend of ours. Well, there's a first time for everything. I've known Ethan Bronner probably for about as long as I've worked in the business of media as spokesman for Hebron's Jewish community, primarily with the foreign and English-speaking press. Way back then, I'd guess about 13 years ago, Bronner was working for the Boston Globe. I'm not sure why I remember him; I meet so many reporters from around the world and have a lousy memory for names and faces. And truthfully, I usually prefer to forget them as fast as I can after meeting them. But, for whatever reason, when he arrived back in Israel, probably a decade after leaving, I remembered him. Why? I'm not sure. But his name stuck in my head perhaps because he wasn't as one-sidedly biased and subjective as others. That’s not to say that I agreed with everything he wrote. Far from it. In 1996 he wrote, “Since the settlers in Hebron are among the most fervent of Jewish nationalists, believing they are part of a celestial scheme for Jewish reconquest of the Promised Land, the conflict here seems insoluble.” On the other hand, that same year, he also penned,“For years, leaders of the tiny, fortress-like Jewish settlement in the middle of this Palestinian city have said that the very idea of Palestinian police is absurd since armed Palestinians, uniformed or not, would ultimately turn their guns on Israelis. Never, these leaders argued, should such a force be permitted in Hebron, a city rich in Jewish history where the biblical patriarchs are buried, and today the last West Bank city under full Israeli control. If that came to pass, they said, the lives of every Jew -- settler or visitor -- would be at risk.” In any case, there aren’t a whole lot of journalists that can be described as being ‘somewhat objective’ concerning Hebron. I’ve followed Bronner’s writing in the NY Times since he arrived back here, I guess about a year or so ago. I publicly attacked him in an op-ed piece written for the Jerusalem Post this past summer, marking the 80th anniversary of the 1929 riots and massacre, [http://goo.gl/tKiG], when he compared the Israeli right to Hamas. On the other hand, after reading a feature he authored called Resolve of West Bank Settlers May Have Limits last September, I had to seriously consider the merits of the piece. But I really didn’t get a kick out of the positive publicity he gave to the radical left-winger Ezra Nawi in the pages of the New York Times [http://goo.gl/TojJ]. So much for another NY Times bureau chief in Israel. They come, they go, but we stay. Almost. Until a couple of weeks ago. I started catching blogs attacking Bronner because… his son joined the Israeli army. This, it seems, in the opinion of some of my best left-wing friends, is a primary reason why Bronner cannot continue to serve as the Time’s Bureau Chief. Why? Because he can no longer be…. Objective? Ah. The truth finally revealed. Remember such bureau chiefs such as Serge Shememan, who titled Hebron Jews as ‘militants’ and ‘extremists’ [http://goo.gl/Peoh]. Or Deborah Sontag’s magnum opus, written as she retired from her position in Israel, Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed [http://goo.gl/1Av9], where she absolves Arafat from the ‘failed’ Barak-Arafat Camp David powwow, which led to the beginning of the Oslo War aka 2nd Intifada in October, 2000, and places the blame on Barak. (According to Tom Gross http://goo.gl/imfk - “this piece has been dubbed “the mother of all Arafat-rehab articles.””) Well, that’s OK. That’s good, objective NY Times journalism because it extols the Arabs, lambasts Israel, and most importantly, demonizes “the settlers.” But, if a correspondent happens to have a son who has patriotic emotions towards the Jewish state, and desires to take part in defending his people (Bronner is Jewish, and married to an Israeli), well, that’s just too much. That kind of a correspondent will never ever be able to fit the bill and abide by the Times age-old agenda (see previously quoted Tom Gross article). What’s the problem? It’s a given that Israeli soldiers are, by definition, ‘bad guys,’ evil Arab-hating killers, who will let nothing stop their vindictive violent acts of war against poor, innocent, defenseless terrorists, who have nothing but Goldstone to protect them. That being the case, Ethan Bronner’s son is now ‘one of them.’ Bronner the elder, being the ‘evil ones’ father must have some sympathetic symbiosis with these iniquitous emotions, thereby branding him as ‘unfit’ to cover Israel for the paper that publishes all the news that’s not fit to print. Guilt by association. I wonder how far back they would go. Say, for example, that it wasn’t Bronner’s son in the army, rather his grandson. Would that still taint his objectivity? Probably. I seem to remember that about 60 years ago the “Jew stain” included anyone twenty-five percent Jewish. OK. The left wing blogs can be excused. After all, this is how they make their money. But �" on Saturday, the NY Times Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, wrote in a column in the NY Times [http://goo.gl/hIcb] officially recommending that Bronner be relieved of his Israeli duties, “at least for the duration of his son’s service in the I.D.F.” This is about as inexcusable as you get. Like I said, I’m not a flag-waving fan of Ethan Bronner, but I do believe that he retains some qualitative journalistic integrity. And I am a flag-waving fan of Jewish patriotism, especially when it takes the form of a young man wanting to serve his country and his people. Especially a kid who didn’t spend his entire life growing up in Israel. To penalize his father for such devotion, to accuse him before-the-fact of lacking the ability to continue to write objectively, is a professional slap in the face, publicly insulting. These people’s problem is that a correspondent who cannot Israel-bash on a daily basis is not worthy of his business card. Despite my professional disagreements with Ethan Bronner, which I will continue to express whenever necessary, in this case I stand behind him, his son and his family one hundred percent. With blessings from Hebron.
www.hebron.com (English)
www.hebron.org.il (Hebrew)
www.machpela.com
www.hebronfund.com
www.thewilderway.info
Tel:Israel # 972-52-429-5554
US # - 1-347-725-0325
Canada 1-647-723-3789 x109
Fax: (801) 720-9291
Google/Aim Chats: Beit Hadassah
Skype: Beithadassah
Twitter: DavidWilder
Facebook: http://profile.to/hebron.jewish.community
For the past couple of weeks, ever since the 'story' broke, I've been debating with myself whether or not to write anything about it. I've learned, usually the hard way, that sometimes it's better to shut up. But usually, my second nature gets the better of me and I mouth off anyhow. That's what I seem to be doing now. Actually, I find myself in a somewhat strange situation. I've helped out journalists before, even those I really didn't particularly care for. A number of years ago a CNN correspondent was hit in the head with a rock (thrown by an Arab) outside Beit Hadassah. The guy really wasn't a friend of ours, but, what can you do �" he was bleeding. So I sent him up to my apartment to get some first aid from my wife. Another time, when a journalist's car battery died in Hebron, I helped him start up with cables. A photographer friend of mine was almost killed by a group of very angry people the night that Beit Shapiro was emptied of its Jewish residents. I didn't save him; someone else from the community arrived first. Etc. Etc. I guess it's what we call in Hebrew 'Derech Eretz' or in plainer language, just being well-mannered and polite. But I don't recall that I ever had to publicly defend a journalist. Especially one of the most well-known journalists in the field who happens to work for a paper that surely isn't a friend of ours. Well, there's a first time for everything. I've known Ethan Bronner probably for about as long as I've worked in the business of media as spokesman for Hebron's Jewish community, primarily with the foreign and English-speaking press. Way back then, I'd guess about 13 years ago, Bronner was working for the Boston Globe. I'm not sure why I remember him; I meet so many reporters from around the world and have a lousy memory for names and faces. And truthfully, I usually prefer to forget them as fast as I can after meeting them. But, for whatever reason, when he arrived back in Israel, probably a decade after leaving, I remembered him. Why? I'm not sure. But his name stuck in my head perhaps because he wasn't as one-sidedly biased and subjective as others. That’s not to say that I agreed with everything he wrote. Far from it. In 1996 he wrote, “Since the settlers in Hebron are among the most fervent of Jewish nationalists, believing they are part of a celestial scheme for Jewish reconquest of the Promised Land, the conflict here seems insoluble.” On the other hand, that same year, he also penned,“For years, leaders of the tiny, fortress-like Jewish settlement in the middle of this Palestinian city have said that the very idea of Palestinian police is absurd since armed Palestinians, uniformed or not, would ultimately turn their guns on Israelis. Never, these leaders argued, should such a force be permitted in Hebron, a city rich in Jewish history where the biblical patriarchs are buried, and today the last West Bank city under full Israeli control. If that came to pass, they said, the lives of every Jew -- settler or visitor -- would be at risk.” In any case, there aren’t a whole lot of journalists that can be described as being ‘somewhat objective’ concerning Hebron. I’ve followed Bronner’s writing in the NY Times since he arrived back here, I guess about a year or so ago. I publicly attacked him in an op-ed piece written for the Jerusalem Post this past summer, marking the 80th anniversary of the 1929 riots and massacre, [http://goo.gl/tKiG], when he compared the Israeli right to Hamas. On the other hand, after reading a feature he authored called Resolve of West Bank Settlers May Have Limits last September, I had to seriously consider the merits of the piece. But I really didn’t get a kick out of the positive publicity he gave to the radical left-winger Ezra Nawi in the pages of the New York Times [http://goo.gl/TojJ]. So much for another NY Times bureau chief in Israel. They come, they go, but we stay. Almost. Until a couple of weeks ago. I started catching blogs attacking Bronner because… his son joined the Israeli army. This, it seems, in the opinion of some of my best left-wing friends, is a primary reason why Bronner cannot continue to serve as the Time’s Bureau Chief. Why? Because he can no longer be…. Objective? Ah. The truth finally revealed. Remember such bureau chiefs such as Serge Shememan, who titled Hebron Jews as ‘militants’ and ‘extremists’ [http://goo.gl/Peoh]. Or Deborah Sontag’s magnum opus, written as she retired from her position in Israel, Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed [http://goo.gl/1Av9], where she absolves Arafat from the ‘failed’ Barak-Arafat Camp David powwow, which led to the beginning of the Oslo War aka 2nd Intifada in October, 2000, and places the blame on Barak. (According to Tom Gross http://goo.gl/imfk - “this piece has been dubbed “the mother of all Arafat-rehab articles.””) Well, that’s OK. That’s good, objective NY Times journalism because it extols the Arabs, lambasts Israel, and most importantly, demonizes “the settlers.” But, if a correspondent happens to have a son who has patriotic emotions towards the Jewish state, and desires to take part in defending his people (Bronner is Jewish, and married to an Israeli), well, that’s just too much. That kind of a correspondent will never ever be able to fit the bill and abide by the Times age-old agenda (see previously quoted Tom Gross article). What’s the problem? It’s a given that Israeli soldiers are, by definition, ‘bad guys,’ evil Arab-hating killers, who will let nothing stop their vindictive violent acts of war against poor, innocent, defenseless terrorists, who have nothing but Goldstone to protect them. That being the case, Ethan Bronner’s son is now ‘one of them.’ Bronner the elder, being the ‘evil ones’ father must have some sympathetic symbiosis with these iniquitous emotions, thereby branding him as ‘unfit’ to cover Israel for the paper that publishes all the news that’s not fit to print. Guilt by association. I wonder how far back they would go. Say, for example, that it wasn’t Bronner’s son in the army, rather his grandson. Would that still taint his objectivity? Probably. I seem to remember that about 60 years ago the “Jew stain” included anyone twenty-five percent Jewish. OK. The left wing blogs can be excused. After all, this is how they make their money. But �" on Saturday, the NY Times Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, wrote in a column in the NY Times [http://goo.gl/hIcb] officially recommending that Bronner be relieved of his Israeli duties, “at least for the duration of his son’s service in the I.D.F.” This is about as inexcusable as you get. Like I said, I’m not a flag-waving fan of Ethan Bronner, but I do believe that he retains some qualitative journalistic integrity. And I am a flag-waving fan of Jewish patriotism, especially when it takes the form of a young man wanting to serve his country and his people. Especially a kid who didn’t spend his entire life growing up in Israel. To penalize his father for such devotion, to accuse him before-the-fact of lacking the ability to continue to write objectively, is a professional slap in the face, publicly insulting. These people’s problem is that a correspondent who cannot Israel-bash on a daily basis is not worthy of his business card. Despite my professional disagreements with Ethan Bronner, which I will continue to express whenever necessary, in this case I stand behind him, his son and his family one hundred percent. With blessings from Hebron.
www.hebron.com (English)
www.hebron.org.il (Hebrew)
www.machpela.com
www.hebronfund.com
www.thewilderway.info
Tel:Israel # 972-52-429-5554
US # - 1-347-725-0325
Canada 1-647-723-3789 x109
Fax: (801) 720-9291
Google/Aim Chats: Beit Hadassah
Skype: Beithadassah
Twitter: DavidWilder
Facebook: http://profile.to/hebron.jewish.community
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Israeli Intelligence Think Tank Hosts Palestinian leader: Issues Ultimatum to Israel
by David Bedein
On Tuesday, February 2, Palestinian Authority leader Salman Fayyad made an unprecedented appearance at the annual “Herzlia conference” of the leading lights of Israeli intelligence, and used the occasion to issue an ultimatum to Israel, in which Fayyad, appointed as the Prime Minister of the PA by Machmud Abbas, declared that he would a Palestinian state within two years.
Fayyad said: “We have shown that we are serious in our intention to establish a state. We will do everything possible to be ready for this within two years”.
Fayyad’s theme was that “a failure to establish a state within two years could create severe disappointment on the Palestinian street”. Fayyad clarified that the international community also expects to see a solution within this time span, and that the Palestinian demand is to create a situation in which the world applies pressure on Israel.
Fayyad laced his presentation with statements of recent PLO history that had nothing to do with reality. Fayyad declared that the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the patron of the Palestinian Authority, had recognized Israel at the PLO’s conference in 1988 and in the wake of the Oslo Accord in 1993.
What Fayyad failed to mention was that at the PLO conference in 1988, which convened in Algiers, he refused to recognize Israel, while the media and many wishful thinking diplomats quoted a memo from Palestinian sources BEFORE the Algiers conference which assessed that the PLO was “expected to cancel the PLO covenant and recognize Israel”, a decision which never occurred.
The 1993 myth of PLO recognition is even more interesting.
The Oslo “Declaration of Principles” mutual recognition peace accords were indeed signed by the PLO’s Machmud Abbas and Yassir Arafat together with Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.
Yet the Israeli Knesset Parliament ratified the Oslo Accords on September 25, 1993 - while the PLO would not ratify the accords when the PLO executive convened in Tunis on October 6, 1993 and the PLO’s Palestinian National Council convened in Gaza on April 24, 1996 to cancel the PLO Covenant which calls for Israel’s destruction and simply refused to do so and has never cancelled the PLO Covenant.
Fayyad also addressed security issues, demanding that Israel stop military incursions in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, which have continued since Israel reestablished its presence in Palestinian cities and villages and refugee camps since April, 2002, greatly reducing terror attacks from Palestinian areas, after Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel and murdered more than 1,000 people in Israel between 1993 and 2002.
During 2009, with Israeli military presence firmly entrenched in Palestinian areas, five Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorist infiltrators, as opposed the tens of Israelis per month who were murdered by terrorist infiltrators at the beginning of the decade.
However, Fayyad was firm in his demand that Israel must withdraw its military presence from all Palestinian areas: “The meaning of an end to the occupation is Palestinian presence, and not Israeli presence, in this area. We have proven ourselves from a security standpoint. Dealing with the security situation is not in Israel’s interests, it is also in the Palestinians’ interests”, including Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Fayyad went on to say that “ In all the agreements and understandings, nothing has ever been said to contradict the fact that East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the Palestinian state...You are building exactly in the places where the Palestinian state is supposed to be established”
Along with this, Fayyad issued a further demand, to remove the “siege from the Gaza Strip”, without any call for the Palestinian Hamas regime that rules Gaza to cease and desist from hostile activity against Israel, saying that “ Removing it will contribute to a positive dynamic in advance of achieving internal Palestinian unity”. Fayyad added that if the Palestinian Authority were given a chance, it could rehabilitate Gaza very quickly. Fayyad forgot to mention that there is no chance that the PA will ever rule Gaza, where Hamas’s Gaza government remains unchallenged.
In terms of Fayyad’s call to remove Israeli military presence from Palestinian areas, Fayyad conveniently forgot to mention to the rank and file of Israeli intelligence that armed Israeli military intelligence forces protect his home and family in the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and that Israeli security guards often accompany Fayyad during his travels.
How would Fayyad react to the removal of Israeli military protection from his home and family?
On Tuesday, February 2, Palestinian Authority leader Salman Fayyad made an unprecedented appearance at the annual “Herzlia conference” of the leading lights of Israeli intelligence, and used the occasion to issue an ultimatum to Israel, in which Fayyad, appointed as the Prime Minister of the PA by Machmud Abbas, declared that he would a Palestinian state within two years.
Fayyad said: “We have shown that we are serious in our intention to establish a state. We will do everything possible to be ready for this within two years”.
Fayyad’s theme was that “a failure to establish a state within two years could create severe disappointment on the Palestinian street”. Fayyad clarified that the international community also expects to see a solution within this time span, and that the Palestinian demand is to create a situation in which the world applies pressure on Israel.
Fayyad laced his presentation with statements of recent PLO history that had nothing to do with reality. Fayyad declared that the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the patron of the Palestinian Authority, had recognized Israel at the PLO’s conference in 1988 and in the wake of the Oslo Accord in 1993.
What Fayyad failed to mention was that at the PLO conference in 1988, which convened in Algiers, he refused to recognize Israel, while the media and many wishful thinking diplomats quoted a memo from Palestinian sources BEFORE the Algiers conference which assessed that the PLO was “expected to cancel the PLO covenant and recognize Israel”, a decision which never occurred.
The 1993 myth of PLO recognition is even more interesting.
The Oslo “Declaration of Principles” mutual recognition peace accords were indeed signed by the PLO’s Machmud Abbas and Yassir Arafat together with Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.
Yet the Israeli Knesset Parliament ratified the Oslo Accords on September 25, 1993 - while the PLO would not ratify the accords when the PLO executive convened in Tunis on October 6, 1993 and the PLO’s Palestinian National Council convened in Gaza on April 24, 1996 to cancel the PLO Covenant which calls for Israel’s destruction and simply refused to do so and has never cancelled the PLO Covenant.
Fayyad also addressed security issues, demanding that Israel stop military incursions in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, which have continued since Israel reestablished its presence in Palestinian cities and villages and refugee camps since April, 2002, greatly reducing terror attacks from Palestinian areas, after Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel and murdered more than 1,000 people in Israel between 1993 and 2002.
During 2009, with Israeli military presence firmly entrenched in Palestinian areas, five Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorist infiltrators, as opposed the tens of Israelis per month who were murdered by terrorist infiltrators at the beginning of the decade.
However, Fayyad was firm in his demand that Israel must withdraw its military presence from all Palestinian areas: “The meaning of an end to the occupation is Palestinian presence, and not Israeli presence, in this area. We have proven ourselves from a security standpoint. Dealing with the security situation is not in Israel’s interests, it is also in the Palestinians’ interests”, including Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Fayyad went on to say that “ In all the agreements and understandings, nothing has ever been said to contradict the fact that East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the Palestinian state...You are building exactly in the places where the Palestinian state is supposed to be established”
Along with this, Fayyad issued a further demand, to remove the “siege from the Gaza Strip”, without any call for the Palestinian Hamas regime that rules Gaza to cease and desist from hostile activity against Israel, saying that “ Removing it will contribute to a positive dynamic in advance of achieving internal Palestinian unity”. Fayyad added that if the Palestinian Authority were given a chance, it could rehabilitate Gaza very quickly. Fayyad forgot to mention that there is no chance that the PA will ever rule Gaza, where Hamas’s Gaza government remains unchallenged.
In terms of Fayyad’s call to remove Israeli military presence from Palestinian areas, Fayyad conveniently forgot to mention to the rank and file of Israeli intelligence that armed Israeli military intelligence forces protect his home and family in the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and that Israeli security guards often accompany Fayyad during his travels.
How would Fayyad react to the removal of Israeli military protection from his home and family?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
INTERVIEW WITH PALESTINIAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S. HANNA SENIORA: DO ANY OF HIS STATEMENTS RING TRUE IN THE NEW YEAR (2010)?
by Rhonda Spivak
Hanna Seniora, the man that Yasser Arafat appointed to be The Palestinian Authority’s Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002, agreed to let me interview him while he was sipping a cup of turkish coffee. We were in Beit-Jalla outside of Bethlehem.
The white-haired 72 year old Senoira, is a Christian Palestinian who lives in East Jerusalem, and is the co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. He is also currently a member of the Palestine National Council and the chairperson of the Palestinian-American Chamber of Commerce.
In the 1970’s, Siniora served first as editor-in-chief, and later as publisher of the Jerusalem Arab newspaper Al Fajr. That paper has an English-language edition known as The Jerusalem Times founded in 1994, of which Seniora is currently the publisher.
I first asked Seniora was how many Christians (who made up over 75% of Bethlehem’s population in 1947) currently lived in Bethlehem, which now has a Moslem majority. Do the Christians continue to leave? Seniora answered “About 40% [of Bethlehem’s population] are Christian. They are staying. They are born and raised here...”
At the time, Seniora’s answer struck me as a little odd, one which tried to downplay the ongoing exodus of Bethlehem’s Christians. According to Israeli surveys, Christians now make up less than 25 percent of Bethlehem. According to Wikipedia, in 1998 Bethlehem’s Christian population had already declined to 23%.
While Seniora mentioned his inflated figure of 40%., he didn’t mention that in Bethlehem, Christians have long complained of anti-Christian violence. His prediction that Christians in Bethlehem will all be “staying” struck me as rather untenable.
Seniora has long been a proponent of dialogue in working towards a resolution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict, and is viewed by many as a moderate.
He said that “in the long run”, he believes that a two state solution “ is the only solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but “in the short term it’s difficult because the Israeli government is still reluctant about a two state solution.” Seniora made no mention at all of any notion that there are those on the Palestinian side of the equation who oppose a two state solution, or are “still reluctant.”
Seniora said that “We [the Palestinians] have to stop violence, and they [the Israelis] have to freeze settlements.”
I asked about a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, and Seniora spoke of Palestinian elections. Seniora said “ Eventually the [Palestinian] people will have to decide. We are trying to start a democracy where the results will be respected. Unfortunately, [in the last election when Hamas won in Gaza], the results weren’t respected and this led to [conflict]. Now Mahmoud Abbas is saying, let the voters decide and the Palestinian Authority will respect the results of the elections.”
Seniora’s above statement about the PA holding elections in the West Bank, and respecting the results if Hamas won, seemed rather fanciful to me at the time. My interview with Seniora took place last August. Since we are now in January 2010 when these elections were to be held, we can certainly say that Seniora’s statement turned out to be way off the mark. Regardless of whether Abbas declares that he is resigning or not, one thing has become increasingly clear-it’s not likely that we will see elections in the near future, since Abbas might well lose!
On the subject of Hamas, Seniora said this past August “Even Hamas has changed in the last three years from asking for the whole of historical Palestine.... Until now they [Hamas] refuse to recognize the State of Israel. They say that the PLO did that, and what did it get them? They [Hamas] say that if Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders and the State of Palestine will take shape in the borders of ’67, then they will reconsider their position on the recognition issue.”
In response, I said to Seniora, that Hamas’s view that they would “reconsider their position,” is very different then saying they would recognize Israel. Seniora acknowledged this distinction.
When I asked whether he was saying he thought Hamas would recognize Israel, he responded “I think eventually, yes, they would.”
He said that currently “Hamas says they are ready for a long term ceasefire for ten years.”
While he was saying this, I thought to myself, that throughout the interview Seniora was trying to sell me a rather strong smelling concoction: not only will all the Christians stay in Bethlehem, but Abbas will soon call elections and respect their results, and, of course, Hamas is really in its own humble way telling us that it recognizes Israel.
Seniora expounded, “Hamas are saying that they are for ending the occupation and they have said they will live in a state [with the 1967 borders], which means that they indirectly recognize Israel.”
Seniora then said “Israel should go to Hamas and say that Hamas can participate in [Palestinian] elections in January 2010 and we[Israel] will respect the results of that, and will negotiate with you [Hamas] if you win.”
Seniora noted that Gershon Baskin, the Co-CEO of the Israel-Palestine Centre for Research and Information,[IPCRI] disagreed with him in this regard.
“Gershon [Baskin] thinks that Hamas can not participate in elections without recognizing Israel’s right to exist, but without them [Hamas] we can’t have a peaceful settlement,” Seniora said.
“Most of [Hamas’s] people justify it[ not recognizing Israel] by saying how can I recognize Israel, when I don’t have a state?,” Seniora added.
After hearing Seniora try to sanitize what Hamas has been saying, I finished the interview feeling rather pessimistic about the prospects for peace.
But there was something else that made me feel more pessimistic.
I interviewed Seniora just before a two day peace education conference IPCRI held in Beit Jalla, outside of Bethlehem on Aug 7-8. Baskin and Seniora, as Co-CEO’s of the organization were scheduled to speak at the opening session. But, when the time came Seniora wasn’t there and Baskin opened the conference without even mentioning his whereabouts.
Throughout the two day conference, Baskin actively participated and attended the sessions. But, I didn’t see Seniora attend any of the sessions. He wasn’t around much, and when he was around, he was sitting having coffee in the lounge. Baskin also gave closing remarks at the conference without Seniora.
Was this an accident, or was it symptomatic of the fact that Seniora’s interest in peace workshops is waning?
Subsequent to the conference, I read the IPCRI website, and was not surprised to find writings of Baskin posted, but nothing of Seniora’s.
Rhonda Spivak, an attorney and a writer, is a member of the Canadian and Israel Bar Associations, now editing the Winnipeg Jewish Report at http://winnipegjewishreport.com/
Hanna Seniora, the man that Yasser Arafat appointed to be The Palestinian Authority’s Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002, agreed to let me interview him while he was sipping a cup of turkish coffee. We were in Beit-Jalla outside of Bethlehem.
The white-haired 72 year old Senoira, is a Christian Palestinian who lives in East Jerusalem, and is the co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. He is also currently a member of the Palestine National Council and the chairperson of the Palestinian-American Chamber of Commerce.
In the 1970’s, Siniora served first as editor-in-chief, and later as publisher of the Jerusalem Arab newspaper Al Fajr. That paper has an English-language edition known as The Jerusalem Times founded in 1994, of which Seniora is currently the publisher.
I first asked Seniora was how many Christians (who made up over 75% of Bethlehem’s population in 1947) currently lived in Bethlehem, which now has a Moslem majority. Do the Christians continue to leave? Seniora answered “About 40% [of Bethlehem’s population] are Christian. They are staying. They are born and raised here...”
At the time, Seniora’s answer struck me as a little odd, one which tried to downplay the ongoing exodus of Bethlehem’s Christians. According to Israeli surveys, Christians now make up less than 25 percent of Bethlehem. According to Wikipedia, in 1998 Bethlehem’s Christian population had already declined to 23%.
While Seniora mentioned his inflated figure of 40%., he didn’t mention that in Bethlehem, Christians have long complained of anti-Christian violence. His prediction that Christians in Bethlehem will all be “staying” struck me as rather untenable.
Seniora has long been a proponent of dialogue in working towards a resolution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict, and is viewed by many as a moderate.
He said that “in the long run”, he believes that a two state solution “ is the only solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but “in the short term it’s difficult because the Israeli government is still reluctant about a two state solution.” Seniora made no mention at all of any notion that there are those on the Palestinian side of the equation who oppose a two state solution, or are “still reluctant.”
Seniora said that “We [the Palestinians] have to stop violence, and they [the Israelis] have to freeze settlements.”
I asked about a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, and Seniora spoke of Palestinian elections. Seniora said “ Eventually the [Palestinian] people will have to decide. We are trying to start a democracy where the results will be respected. Unfortunately, [in the last election when Hamas won in Gaza], the results weren’t respected and this led to [conflict]. Now Mahmoud Abbas is saying, let the voters decide and the Palestinian Authority will respect the results of the elections.”
Seniora’s above statement about the PA holding elections in the West Bank, and respecting the results if Hamas won, seemed rather fanciful to me at the time. My interview with Seniora took place last August. Since we are now in January 2010 when these elections were to be held, we can certainly say that Seniora’s statement turned out to be way off the mark. Regardless of whether Abbas declares that he is resigning or not, one thing has become increasingly clear-it’s not likely that we will see elections in the near future, since Abbas might well lose!
On the subject of Hamas, Seniora said this past August “Even Hamas has changed in the last three years from asking for the whole of historical Palestine.... Until now they [Hamas] refuse to recognize the State of Israel. They say that the PLO did that, and what did it get them? They [Hamas] say that if Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders and the State of Palestine will take shape in the borders of ’67, then they will reconsider their position on the recognition issue.”
In response, I said to Seniora, that Hamas’s view that they would “reconsider their position,” is very different then saying they would recognize Israel. Seniora acknowledged this distinction.
When I asked whether he was saying he thought Hamas would recognize Israel, he responded “I think eventually, yes, they would.”
He said that currently “Hamas says they are ready for a long term ceasefire for ten years.”
While he was saying this, I thought to myself, that throughout the interview Seniora was trying to sell me a rather strong smelling concoction: not only will all the Christians stay in Bethlehem, but Abbas will soon call elections and respect their results, and, of course, Hamas is really in its own humble way telling us that it recognizes Israel.
Seniora expounded, “Hamas are saying that they are for ending the occupation and they have said they will live in a state [with the 1967 borders], which means that they indirectly recognize Israel.”
Seniora then said “Israel should go to Hamas and say that Hamas can participate in [Palestinian] elections in January 2010 and we[Israel] will respect the results of that, and will negotiate with you [Hamas] if you win.”
Seniora noted that Gershon Baskin, the Co-CEO of the Israel-Palestine Centre for Research and Information,[IPCRI] disagreed with him in this regard.
“Gershon [Baskin] thinks that Hamas can not participate in elections without recognizing Israel’s right to exist, but without them [Hamas] we can’t have a peaceful settlement,” Seniora said.
“Most of [Hamas’s] people justify it[ not recognizing Israel] by saying how can I recognize Israel, when I don’t have a state?,” Seniora added.
After hearing Seniora try to sanitize what Hamas has been saying, I finished the interview feeling rather pessimistic about the prospects for peace.
But there was something else that made me feel more pessimistic.
I interviewed Seniora just before a two day peace education conference IPCRI held in Beit Jalla, outside of Bethlehem on Aug 7-8. Baskin and Seniora, as Co-CEO’s of the organization were scheduled to speak at the opening session. But, when the time came Seniora wasn’t there and Baskin opened the conference without even mentioning his whereabouts.
Throughout the two day conference, Baskin actively participated and attended the sessions. But, I didn’t see Seniora attend any of the sessions. He wasn’t around much, and when he was around, he was sitting having coffee in the lounge. Baskin also gave closing remarks at the conference without Seniora.
Was this an accident, or was it symptomatic of the fact that Seniora’s interest in peace workshops is waning?
Subsequent to the conference, I read the IPCRI website, and was not surprised to find writings of Baskin posted, but nothing of Seniora’s.
Rhonda Spivak, an attorney and a writer, is a member of the Canadian and Israel Bar Associations, now editing the Winnipeg Jewish Report at http://winnipegjewishreport.com/
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: PLO Leaders Continue Threat of Armed Rebellion against Israel
by David Bedein
Jerusalem - Senior leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) are threatening that they are preparing to turn their weapons against Israel, at a time when the American program to arm and train the Palestinians continues full speed.
Bassam Abu Sharif, a former senior advisor to late President Yasser Arafat, added his voice to a chorus of those raising the possibility of a third Intifada, or uprising against Israel. "The Palestinians are preparing themselves to carry out another Intifada of independence and freedom in response to Israeli violations, massacres and policies against the Palestinians and their land, against Jerusalem, the confiscation of land and the geographic separation of the Palestinian territories," said the former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesperson in a press conference in Ramallah, Israel as reported by Maan, the Palestinian news agency.
Mr. Abu Sharif said Palestinians will not remain silent in the face of "Israeli violations" and the "failure" of peace talks.
"The Palestinians are working to establish a fully sovereign state on the land, sea and airspace in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242, which has not been implemented since it was issued 42 years ago," he said, even though the UN security council resolution 242 says nothing about land, sea and air space.
Mr. Abu Sharif urged Hamas and Fatah movements to sideline their partisan interests for the sake of the Palestinian cause. In that spirit, PLO head Machmud Abbas reiterated his call to the Hamas terrorist organization to join the Palestinian Authority governing body.
The Bulletin asked the US consulate in Jerusalem for comment on the fact that Mr. Abbas was courting Hamas at a time when the United States has been training the Palestinian Authority to fight the Hamas. No comment from the United States consulate was forthcoming.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Jerusalem - Senior leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) are threatening that they are preparing to turn their weapons against Israel, at a time when the American program to arm and train the Palestinians continues full speed.
Bassam Abu Sharif, a former senior advisor to late President Yasser Arafat, added his voice to a chorus of those raising the possibility of a third Intifada, or uprising against Israel. "The Palestinians are preparing themselves to carry out another Intifada of independence and freedom in response to Israeli violations, massacres and policies against the Palestinians and their land, against Jerusalem, the confiscation of land and the geographic separation of the Palestinian territories," said the former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesperson in a press conference in Ramallah, Israel as reported by Maan, the Palestinian news agency.
Mr. Abu Sharif said Palestinians will not remain silent in the face of "Israeli violations" and the "failure" of peace talks.
"The Palestinians are working to establish a fully sovereign state on the land, sea and airspace in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242, which has not been implemented since it was issued 42 years ago," he said, even though the UN security council resolution 242 says nothing about land, sea and air space.
Mr. Abu Sharif urged Hamas and Fatah movements to sideline their partisan interests for the sake of the Palestinian cause. In that spirit, PLO head Machmud Abbas reiterated his call to the Hamas terrorist organization to join the Palestinian Authority governing body.
The Bulletin asked the US consulate in Jerusalem for comment on the fact that Mr. Abbas was courting Hamas at a time when the United States has been training the Palestinian Authority to fight the Hamas. No comment from the United States consulate was forthcoming.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Palestinian Prime Minister Belies Moderate Image
Palestinian Prime Minister Belies Moderate Image
by David Bedein
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayad's plan for a Palestinian State was received with adulation and praise at the United Nations this past week in New York. Indeed, throughout the month of August, 2009, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad met with more than fifty members of the US Senate and US House of Representatives and made a fine impression on each and every one of them, from both sides of the aisle.
In press conferences held by almost democratic and republican congress people after meeting the American educated Fayad, the consistent impression that they conveyed was that Mr. Fayad represented a "moderate voice of leadership" for a future Palestinian state that could live alongside the state of Israel.
A group of Israeli peace groups received and distributed the English version of a position paper for a future Palestinian state that Mr. Fayad submitted this week to the UN, The EU, The American government and the Russian government
However, Fayad's paper "Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State: Program of the Thirteenth Government - August 2009" would seem to belie Fayad's image as a "moderate voice of leadership" available on the net at HERE.
The preface to Fayad's paper introduces a Palestinian state that will strive for "peace, security and stability in our region on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital".
Yet Fayad's 38 page position paper reads like a declaration of war, not of peace.
Fayad asserts that "Jerusalem" will be the Palestinian capital of the Palestinian state - not East Jerusalem.
In case anyone was wondering if Fayad had made a typographical error by not mentioning "east" Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, Fayad repeats - ten times - that he means Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem. Fayad leaves nothing to the imagination, and writes that the Palstininian stat will " Protect Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Palestinian state", because Fayad asserts that "Jerusalem is our people's religious, cultural, economic and political center. It is the Flower of Cities and Capital of Capitals. It cannot be anything but the eternal capital of the future Palestinian state. Jerusalem"
Fayad goes on to claim that Jerusalem "is under threat" and that " the occupying authority is implementing a systematic plan to alter the city's landmarks and its geographical and demographic character in order to forcibly create facts on the ground, ultimately separating it from its Palestinian surroundings and eradicating its Arab Palestinian heritage".
Fayad further claims that "Palestinian life in Jerusalem is under daily attack through systematic violations perpetrated by the occupation regime" and that "It is the right and the duty of all Palestinians to protect their land, reject the occupation and defy its measures", adding that the Palestinian state "bears special responsibility for nurturing our people's ability to persevere and protect their homeland".
Fayad ads that the Palstinian government will maintain its "unreserved commitment to defending the Arab character and status of Jerusalem.... The Government will continue to do all that is possible to achieve this goal. The Government will work with all organizations to preserve the landmarks of Jerusalem and its Arab Palestinian heritage, develop the city, and secure its contiguity with its Palestinian surroundings".
Fayad frames Jerusalem as an illegal settlement, postulating that "the occupying authority is pursuing its intensive settlement policy in and around Jerusalem...The occupation regime has shut down our national institutions, neglected the development of Palestinian life, continued to demolish and evacuate Palestinian homes, and restricted access to sacred Christian and Islamic sites"
Fayad goes so far as to present a practical plan to Arabize Jerusalem:
Maintaining Jerusalem as a top priority on the Government's agenda and·" highlighting its predicament in the media. Launching a programs to promote the steadfastness of Jerusalemites, including: Strengthen Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, providing financial support to help them deliver services to citizens".
Fayad reassures his readers that a future Palestinian state would not be satisfied with Jerusalem, the west bank and Gaza as the national home for Palestinians, and says that the Palestinian government will continue to advocate for "Palestinian refugees in accordance with relevant international resolutions, and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 in particular", which mandates that Palestinian refugees and their descendents have a right to return to the homes and villages that Palestinians left during the 1948 war and its aftermath.
Fayad reminds Palestinians that "the refugee issue will remain under the jurisdiction of the PLO, through its Department of Refugees' Affairs...in a manner that does not exempt the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from its responsibilities"
In the view of Fayad, UNRWA will therefore continue to confine Palestinian refugees a their descendents to the indignity of refugee camps, under the premise and promise of the "right of return".
Meanwhile, Fayad expresses full support for Palestinians who have been convicted of murder and attempted murder, saying that "the state also has an enduring obligation to care and provide for the martyrs, prisoners, orphans and all those harmed in the Palestinian struggle for independence".
Fayad simply cannot understand why Palestinians convicted of capital crimes should be jailed.
Fayad proclaims that "the continued detention of thousands of Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention camps in violation of international law and basic human rights, is of great concern to all Palestinians" and declares that "Securing the freedom of all these heroic prisoners is an utmost Palestinian priority and it is a fundamental duty all Palestinians feel to honor their great sacrifices and end their suffering" and demands the "freedom of all Palestinian detainees and prisoners and will continue to strive to secure their liberty".
Fayad also asserts that the PLO and have signed "all provisions of agreements signed with Israel", yet forgets to mention that the PLO never ratified the signed agreements with Israel.
On October 6, 1993, PLO chairman Arafat could not get a quorum for the PLO executive to ratify the Oslo accords that Arafat had signed with Rabin on the White House lawn.
On April 24, 1996, the Palestinian National Council would not cancel the PLO covenant and has never ratified the PLO covenant, despite the PLO commitment to do so as an integral part of the Oslo accord. The PLO Covenant has yet to be cancelled.
Fayad's view of justice is well articulated in this piece when he states that "All Palestinians are equal before the law".
Anyone who is not a Palestinian is therefore not equal
Fayad declares that the Palestinian State will be an Islamic state and "Promote awareness and understanding of the Islamic religion and culture and disseminate the concept of tolerance in the religion through developing and implementing programs of Shari'a education as derived from the science of the Holy Qur'an and Prophet's heritage".
In sum, Fayad concludes with a demand for a Palestinian state in the next two years, along the parameters that he has outlined, with an Palestinian state that will have all of Jerusalem as its capital, in an Islamic Sharia state that will campaign for all convicts to be freed, for all refugees to return to the homes and villages that they left in 1948.
A voice of moderation?
It would be interesting to know if the peace groups that distributed Fayad's working paper ever bothered to read it.
View the Original Link: Palestinian Prime Minister Belies Moderate Image
by David Bedein
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayad's plan for a Palestinian State was received with adulation and praise at the United Nations this past week in New York. Indeed, throughout the month of August, 2009, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad met with more than fifty members of the US Senate and US House of Representatives and made a fine impression on each and every one of them, from both sides of the aisle.
In press conferences held by almost democratic and republican congress people after meeting the American educated Fayad, the consistent impression that they conveyed was that Mr. Fayad represented a "moderate voice of leadership" for a future Palestinian state that could live alongside the state of Israel.
A group of Israeli peace groups received and distributed the English version of a position paper for a future Palestinian state that Mr. Fayad submitted this week to the UN, The EU, The American government and the Russian government
However, Fayad's paper "Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State: Program of the Thirteenth Government - August 2009" would seem to belie Fayad's image as a "moderate voice of leadership" available on the net at HERE.
The preface to Fayad's paper introduces a Palestinian state that will strive for "peace, security and stability in our region on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital".
Yet Fayad's 38 page position paper reads like a declaration of war, not of peace.
Fayad asserts that "Jerusalem" will be the Palestinian capital of the Palestinian state - not East Jerusalem.
In case anyone was wondering if Fayad had made a typographical error by not mentioning "east" Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, Fayad repeats - ten times - that he means Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem. Fayad leaves nothing to the imagination, and writes that the Palstininian stat will " Protect Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Palestinian state", because Fayad asserts that "Jerusalem is our people's religious, cultural, economic and political center. It is the Flower of Cities and Capital of Capitals. It cannot be anything but the eternal capital of the future Palestinian state. Jerusalem"
Fayad goes on to claim that Jerusalem "is under threat" and that " the occupying authority is implementing a systematic plan to alter the city's landmarks and its geographical and demographic character in order to forcibly create facts on the ground, ultimately separating it from its Palestinian surroundings and eradicating its Arab Palestinian heritage".
Fayad further claims that "Palestinian life in Jerusalem is under daily attack through systematic violations perpetrated by the occupation regime" and that "It is the right and the duty of all Palestinians to protect their land, reject the occupation and defy its measures", adding that the Palestinian state "bears special responsibility for nurturing our people's ability to persevere and protect their homeland".
Fayad ads that the Palstinian government will maintain its "unreserved commitment to defending the Arab character and status of Jerusalem.... The Government will continue to do all that is possible to achieve this goal. The Government will work with all organizations to preserve the landmarks of Jerusalem and its Arab Palestinian heritage, develop the city, and secure its contiguity with its Palestinian surroundings".
Fayad frames Jerusalem as an illegal settlement, postulating that "the occupying authority is pursuing its intensive settlement policy in and around Jerusalem...The occupation regime has shut down our national institutions, neglected the development of Palestinian life, continued to demolish and evacuate Palestinian homes, and restricted access to sacred Christian and Islamic sites"
Fayad goes so far as to present a practical plan to Arabize Jerusalem:
Maintaining Jerusalem as a top priority on the Government's agenda and·" highlighting its predicament in the media. Launching a programs to promote the steadfastness of Jerusalemites, including: Strengthen Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, providing financial support to help them deliver services to citizens".
Fayad reassures his readers that a future Palestinian state would not be satisfied with Jerusalem, the west bank and Gaza as the national home for Palestinians, and says that the Palestinian government will continue to advocate for "Palestinian refugees in accordance with relevant international resolutions, and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 in particular", which mandates that Palestinian refugees and their descendents have a right to return to the homes and villages that Palestinians left during the 1948 war and its aftermath.
Fayad reminds Palestinians that "the refugee issue will remain under the jurisdiction of the PLO, through its Department of Refugees' Affairs...in a manner that does not exempt the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from its responsibilities"
In the view of Fayad, UNRWA will therefore continue to confine Palestinian refugees a their descendents to the indignity of refugee camps, under the premise and promise of the "right of return".
Meanwhile, Fayad expresses full support for Palestinians who have been convicted of murder and attempted murder, saying that "the state also has an enduring obligation to care and provide for the martyrs, prisoners, orphans and all those harmed in the Palestinian struggle for independence".
Fayad simply cannot understand why Palestinians convicted of capital crimes should be jailed.
Fayad proclaims that "the continued detention of thousands of Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention camps in violation of international law and basic human rights, is of great concern to all Palestinians" and declares that "Securing the freedom of all these heroic prisoners is an utmost Palestinian priority and it is a fundamental duty all Palestinians feel to honor their great sacrifices and end their suffering" and demands the "freedom of all Palestinian detainees and prisoners and will continue to strive to secure their liberty".
Fayad also asserts that the PLO and have signed "all provisions of agreements signed with Israel", yet forgets to mention that the PLO never ratified the signed agreements with Israel.
On October 6, 1993, PLO chairman Arafat could not get a quorum for the PLO executive to ratify the Oslo accords that Arafat had signed with Rabin on the White House lawn.
On April 24, 1996, the Palestinian National Council would not cancel the PLO covenant and has never ratified the PLO covenant, despite the PLO commitment to do so as an integral part of the Oslo accord. The PLO Covenant has yet to be cancelled.
Fayad's view of justice is well articulated in this piece when he states that "All Palestinians are equal before the law".
Anyone who is not a Palestinian is therefore not equal
Fayad declares that the Palestinian State will be an Islamic state and "Promote awareness and understanding of the Islamic religion and culture and disseminate the concept of tolerance in the religion through developing and implementing programs of Shari'a education as derived from the science of the Holy Qur'an and Prophet's heritage".
In sum, Fayad concludes with a demand for a Palestinian state in the next two years, along the parameters that he has outlined, with an Palestinian state that will have all of Jerusalem as its capital, in an Islamic Sharia state that will campaign for all convicts to be freed, for all refugees to return to the homes and villages that they left in 1948.
A voice of moderation?
It would be interesting to know if the peace groups that distributed Fayad's working paper ever bothered to read it.
View the Original Link: Palestinian Prime Minister Belies Moderate Image
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Terrorist murderer whom Israel allowed to attend Bethlehem Fatah conference hopes Fatah returns to terror
Originally published by the Ma'an News Agency
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an Exclusive) - “I have waited 30 years to come back to
Palestine, and I won’t leave. I will wait until I get a Palestinian ID card
so I can bring back my wife and children,” said Khalid Abu Isba, one of two
Palestinian fighters who survived the famous attack on a beach in north of
Tel Aviv on 11 March 1978.
In the city for Fatah’s upcoming convention, Abu Isba was speaking during an
interview at Ma’an’s Bethlehem office.
The operation that made him famous was led by the legendary female fighter
Dalal Al-Mughrabi. Al-Mughrabi’s name is synonymous with the 1978 attack,
which is today a symbol of an earlier era when the Palestinian movement was
led by refugees living in Lebanon and other places of exile, struggling to
retrieve the homeland they lost in 1948.
The Palestinians who carried it out called the attack the “Martyr Kamal
Udwan operation,” after the PLO chief of operations killed in an Israeli
commando raid on Beirut in April 1973. The Israelis called it “Coastal Road
Massacre.”
Palestine, Abu Isba says, is the homeland for which he sacrificed in the
1978 operation that saw him injured and detained. During that operation, 13
Palestinian fighters hijacked an Israeli bus, and fierce battle erupted
between them and Israeli forces. Thirty five Israelis were killed as well as
all the Palestinian fighters except Abu Isba and another named Hussein
Fayyad.
Both were injured and detained by Israeli forces. After spending seven years
in prison, both were released in a prisoner exchange deal in 1985 between
Israel and The Popular front for the Liberation of Palestine- General
Command led then by Ahmad Jibreel.
Abu Isba says he was worried Israel would not allow him to come to Palestine
to partake in sixth Fatah conference in Bethlehem. For reasons that may
never be known, Israeli authorities allowed the former guerilla leader to
cross into the West Bank this weekend.
Yet Abu Isba is returning to a Palestine, and a Fatah, that have changed
dramatically in the three decades since the raid on the coast road. Inside
the occupied territories, his movement has become closely identified with
the Oslo peace accords and its offspring, the hapless bureaucracy of the
Palestinian Authority. A weak Palestinian “sovereignty” has returned to a
few square kilometers of the homeland, but the rest has been annexed,
splintered, and subdivided over the Olso years. Fatah is embroiled in a
bitter power struggle with Hamas. It is a movement also seeking to reconcile
its past as a resistance movement with its present state.
While visiting Ma’an, however, Abu Isba seemed happy to be back in one
corner of Palestine. He says he is happy with the young Palestinian
generation. “For your sake, young people, we sacrificed, and we will
continue to,” he said.
”Bring back the Fatah of the revolution”
Asked about his expectations for the Fatah conference, he said, “After the
conference is finished, Fatah should continue with change, close the ranks,
and restore Fatah’s dignity.”
The veteran fighter said he hoped his movement would return to a program of
popular resistance.
“We hope the conference will bring back the Fatah of the revolution, the
Fatah of Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat] and the Fatah of sacrifices after waiting
20 years since the fifth conference,” he added.
Abu Isba applauded the decision to increase the number of delegates to the
conference to 2,260 highlighting that more delegates are still needed in
order to cover all the regions where Fatah is active. He pointed out that
Fatah in Jordan and Lebanon need to have more representatives in the
conference. He mentioned that late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat had
increased the number of delegates to the fifth conference 20 years ago.
With regards to Hamas’ refusal to allow Fatah delegates from Gaza to leave
to Bethlehem, Abu Isba said, “Hamas plans to thwart Fatah conference to tell
the world that Fatah is unable to lead the Palestinian people.”
“They [Hamas] try to impose religion by force, thus, the Palestinian people
in the beloved Gaza Strip will rebel. If Hamas was confident about its
strength, and popularity, they would have accepted president Abbas’ call for
elections,” he added.
Commenting on the Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip last
winter, he said, “Hamas did not achieve anything in that war. They continued
to slam Egypt for refusing to open the Rafah crossing during the war without
considering that Egypt wanted to avoid displacing the Palestinian people....
Hamas is not ready to stage a coup in the West Bank, and if they stage a
coup, they will then start criticizing Jordan for not opening the Allenby
Bridge,” he added.
He said that Hamas lauds Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is in prison in
Israel for his actions during the Second Intifada, “But once the man is
released and starts playing a role in PA [Palestinian Authority] politics,
Hamas will have prepared accusations [against him] in advance.”
With regards to Fatah leader Farouq Qaddoumi’s recent accusations that
President Mahmoud Abbas was being involved in an assassination of Yasser
Arafat, he said, “If he [Qaddoumi] had such information, why did he remain
silent for five years? His silence is complicity. There must be
international sides who planned these accusations with Qaddoumi.”
View this article at Israel Behind the News
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an Exclusive) - “I have waited 30 years to come back to
Palestine, and I won’t leave. I will wait until I get a Palestinian ID card
so I can bring back my wife and children,” said Khalid Abu Isba, one of two
Palestinian fighters who survived the famous attack on a beach in north of
Tel Aviv on 11 March 1978.
In the city for Fatah’s upcoming convention, Abu Isba was speaking during an
interview at Ma’an’s Bethlehem office.
The operation that made him famous was led by the legendary female fighter
Dalal Al-Mughrabi. Al-Mughrabi’s name is synonymous with the 1978 attack,
which is today a symbol of an earlier era when the Palestinian movement was
led by refugees living in Lebanon and other places of exile, struggling to
retrieve the homeland they lost in 1948.
The Palestinians who carried it out called the attack the “Martyr Kamal
Udwan operation,” after the PLO chief of operations killed in an Israeli
commando raid on Beirut in April 1973. The Israelis called it “Coastal Road
Massacre.”
Palestine, Abu Isba says, is the homeland for which he sacrificed in the
1978 operation that saw him injured and detained. During that operation, 13
Palestinian fighters hijacked an Israeli bus, and fierce battle erupted
between them and Israeli forces. Thirty five Israelis were killed as well as
all the Palestinian fighters except Abu Isba and another named Hussein
Fayyad.
Both were injured and detained by Israeli forces. After spending seven years
in prison, both were released in a prisoner exchange deal in 1985 between
Israel and The Popular front for the Liberation of Palestine- General
Command led then by Ahmad Jibreel.
Abu Isba says he was worried Israel would not allow him to come to Palestine
to partake in sixth Fatah conference in Bethlehem. For reasons that may
never be known, Israeli authorities allowed the former guerilla leader to
cross into the West Bank this weekend.
Yet Abu Isba is returning to a Palestine, and a Fatah, that have changed
dramatically in the three decades since the raid on the coast road. Inside
the occupied territories, his movement has become closely identified with
the Oslo peace accords and its offspring, the hapless bureaucracy of the
Palestinian Authority. A weak Palestinian “sovereignty” has returned to a
few square kilometers of the homeland, but the rest has been annexed,
splintered, and subdivided over the Olso years. Fatah is embroiled in a
bitter power struggle with Hamas. It is a movement also seeking to reconcile
its past as a resistance movement with its present state.
While visiting Ma’an, however, Abu Isba seemed happy to be back in one
corner of Palestine. He says he is happy with the young Palestinian
generation. “For your sake, young people, we sacrificed, and we will
continue to,” he said.
”Bring back the Fatah of the revolution”
Asked about his expectations for the Fatah conference, he said, “After the
conference is finished, Fatah should continue with change, close the ranks,
and restore Fatah’s dignity.”
The veteran fighter said he hoped his movement would return to a program of
popular resistance.
“We hope the conference will bring back the Fatah of the revolution, the
Fatah of Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat] and the Fatah of sacrifices after waiting
20 years since the fifth conference,” he added.
Abu Isba applauded the decision to increase the number of delegates to the
conference to 2,260 highlighting that more delegates are still needed in
order to cover all the regions where Fatah is active. He pointed out that
Fatah in Jordan and Lebanon need to have more representatives in the
conference. He mentioned that late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat had
increased the number of delegates to the fifth conference 20 years ago.
With regards to Hamas’ refusal to allow Fatah delegates from Gaza to leave
to Bethlehem, Abu Isba said, “Hamas plans to thwart Fatah conference to tell
the world that Fatah is unable to lead the Palestinian people.”
“They [Hamas] try to impose religion by force, thus, the Palestinian people
in the beloved Gaza Strip will rebel. If Hamas was confident about its
strength, and popularity, they would have accepted president Abbas’ call for
elections,” he added.
Commenting on the Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip last
winter, he said, “Hamas did not achieve anything in that war. They continued
to slam Egypt for refusing to open the Rafah crossing during the war without
considering that Egypt wanted to avoid displacing the Palestinian people....
Hamas is not ready to stage a coup in the West Bank, and if they stage a
coup, they will then start criticizing Jordan for not opening the Allenby
Bridge,” he added.
He said that Hamas lauds Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is in prison in
Israel for his actions during the Second Intifada, “But once the man is
released and starts playing a role in PA [Palestinian Authority] politics,
Hamas will have prepared accusations [against him] in advance.”
With regards to Fatah leader Farouq Qaddoumi’s recent accusations that
President Mahmoud Abbas was being involved in an assassination of Yasser
Arafat, he said, “If he [Qaddoumi] had such information, why did he remain
silent for five years? His silence is complicity. There must be
international sides who planned these accusations with Qaddoumi.”
View this article at Israel Behind the News
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Arafat Protege Abbas to Meet with Obama Today
by David Bedein
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, the protégé of the late Yasser Arafat, will arrive in Washington, D.C., today to meet with the president of the United States.
There are 10 issues at hand that would challenge the credibility of Mr. Abbas as a peace negotiator:
Mr. Abbas’ continued incitement in the Arabic language, as expressed in his school books, media outlets and public statements that emanate from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which operates under his firm control.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to renounce his own Holocaust Denial Ph.D., which also contends that the Nazis and Zionists worked together during WWII.
Mr. Abbas’ election platform from 2005 that calls for the total right of return to villages from before 1948.
Mr. Abbas’ celebrations of murder attacks against Jews.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to implore the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or the PA to ratify the Oslo Accords or cancel the PLO covenant.
Current weapons/security sharing arrangements between the PA and Hamas.
Disappearance of Arafat’s billions, some of which have wound up in the coffers of Mr. Abbas.
Mr. Abbas’ endorsement of the Hezbollah war, summer 2006.
The Nakba campaign endorsed by Mr. Abbas, which calls on Palestinians to reclaim areas lost in 1948 - by force if necessary.
Mr. Abbas’ continued confinement of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants to the indignity of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camps, under the specious premise of the “right of return” to villages that no longer exist.
View this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
View this story at Israel Behind the News
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, the protégé of the late Yasser Arafat, will arrive in Washington, D.C., today to meet with the president of the United States.
There are 10 issues at hand that would challenge the credibility of Mr. Abbas as a peace negotiator:
Mr. Abbas’ continued incitement in the Arabic language, as expressed in his school books, media outlets and public statements that emanate from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which operates under his firm control.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to renounce his own Holocaust Denial Ph.D., which also contends that the Nazis and Zionists worked together during WWII.
Mr. Abbas’ election platform from 2005 that calls for the total right of return to villages from before 1948.
Mr. Abbas’ celebrations of murder attacks against Jews.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to implore the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or the PA to ratify the Oslo Accords or cancel the PLO covenant.
Current weapons/security sharing arrangements between the PA and Hamas.
Disappearance of Arafat’s billions, some of which have wound up in the coffers of Mr. Abbas.
Mr. Abbas’ endorsement of the Hezbollah war, summer 2006.
The Nakba campaign endorsed by Mr. Abbas, which calls on Palestinians to reclaim areas lost in 1948 - by force if necessary.
Mr. Abbas’ continued confinement of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants to the indignity of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camps, under the specious premise of the “right of return” to villages that no longer exist.
View this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
View this story at Israel Behind the News
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Will The New Israeli Government Adopt New Policies Toward The PLO?
by David Bedein
Questions remain.
Last month’s Israeli elections witnessed a solid defeat of the Israeli left wing.
As recently as the 1992 elections, the left-leaning Labor and Meretz parties controlled 56 seats of the Israeli Knesset’s 120 seats; however, in the 2009 elections both parties together garnered only 19 seats.
The 1992 election of Labor and Meretz to the helm of the Israeli government ushered in the Oslo PLO negotiation process of 1993. This caused the the Israeli government to launch a new information policy toward the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which promoted the PLO as a potential partner for peace.
From the outset of the Oslo process, the Israeli government deleted virtually all prior documentation from its information services that had always previously defined the defined the PLO as a terrorist entity.
It remains to be seen if the new Israeli government will reverse the policies toward the PLO that Israeli governments have adopted over the past 16 years.
The new Israeli government must now wrestle with at least eight major policy areas.
Late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and his protégé, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to the Declaration Of Principles in Oslo, in what became known as the Oslo Accords. They signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, together with late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and then-Israeli Foreign Minister, now President, Shimon Peres.
The accord committed the PLO to abandon violence and to cancel the PLO Covenant that calls for Israel’s destruction, in exchange for Israeli recognition.
The Israeli Knesset adopted the Oslo accord within a week of its signing. However, the PLO Executive Committee met on Oct. 6, 1993 to consider ratification of the Oslo accord, but it failed to ratify the agreement.
The head of the Israel Government Press Office at the time noted that Arafat and Mr. Abbas had signed the Oslo accord with the hope that the PLO would eventually ratify the Oslo accord.
However, successive Israeli governments have not asked the PLO to ratify the Oslo accord and have instead acted as if the PLO had already ratified the Oslo accord with Israel and as if the PLO canceled its covenant calling for Israel’s destruction.
This remains to be seen.
The PLO introduced new Palestinian Authority textbooks that were supposed to promote peace and reconciliation and integrated these school books into the curriculum in all PA schools - under Fatah, Hamas, UNRWA and even in Arab schools in Jerusalem.
However, this curriculum inculcates the next generation of Palestinians to make war on the Jewish state. While special subcommittees of the Israeli government have discussed the PA curriculum, the Israeli government has never made it a policy to even ask the PA abandon its was curriculum.
The Israeli government has gone so far as to ask that Israel advocacy organizations not discuss the new curriculum. The Israeli government has also asked research institutions to refrain from critiquing the anti-Semitism in the PA school curriculum. The Israeli government has also discouraged news investigations of the anti-Semitism in the PA school curriculum.
Arafat was elected in January 1996, and Mr. Abbas was elected in January 2005 on the same clear platform which advocates the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to take back the villages that they or their ancestors left in 1948. This means uprooting most of the Israeli population now living on the sites of the former Arab villages.
The Israeli government has never demanded that the PLO and the PA stop advocating the “right of return.”
In May 1994, the Israeli government provided Israeli-owned TV and radio frequencies for the Palestinian Authority to establish TV and radio networks with the idea that these networks would promote peace and reconciliation between the two peoples.
However, for the past 15 years, the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), has used these Israeli-government-owned TV and radio frequencies with a daily drum roll of incitement to overthrow what it calls “the Zionist entity” (Israel). At no time has the government of Israel ever annulled its agreement to allow the PBC to use Israeli government frequencies that have been used to encourage hostilities against the people and the State of Israel.
The PLO has never disbanded the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist organization, which continues to operate under the aegis of the PLO, despite the fact that this group continues to be designated by both the U.S. and Israel as a terrorist organization. Again, it remains to be seen what line the new Netanyahu government will take in this regard.
The draft of the proposed constitution of the Palestinian state, prepared by Nabil Sha’ath, creates a Palestinian State based on a strict Shariah Law that recognizes Islam as the only religion with juridical status. In that context, the PA has instituted policies that make it very difficult for Palestinian Christians to practice their religion.
With the demise of Arafat, Israeli intelligence played down public reports that documented hostilities and incitement promulgated by Mr. Abbas and the PA. The Israeli government also played down the March 2007 Mecca agreement between the Fatah and the Hamas, which instituted obligatory revenue sharing between the Fatah and the Hamas. Consequently, funds accrued by the Palestinian Authority are automatically be divided between both factions.
This agreement contradicts Israeli-government-signed tax revenue rebate agreements with the Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, that held an understanding that no tax revenue rebates would reach terrorist organizations such as Hamas or the al-Aqsa Brigades.
David Bedein can be reached at bedein@thebulletin.us
Questions remain.
Last month’s Israeli elections witnessed a solid defeat of the Israeli left wing.
As recently as the 1992 elections, the left-leaning Labor and Meretz parties controlled 56 seats of the Israeli Knesset’s 120 seats; however, in the 2009 elections both parties together garnered only 19 seats.
The 1992 election of Labor and Meretz to the helm of the Israeli government ushered in the Oslo PLO negotiation process of 1993. This caused the the Israeli government to launch a new information policy toward the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which promoted the PLO as a potential partner for peace.
From the outset of the Oslo process, the Israeli government deleted virtually all prior documentation from its information services that had always previously defined the defined the PLO as a terrorist entity.
It remains to be seen if the new Israeli government will reverse the policies toward the PLO that Israeli governments have adopted over the past 16 years.
The new Israeli government must now wrestle with at least eight major policy areas.
Late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and his protégé, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to the Declaration Of Principles in Oslo, in what became known as the Oslo Accords. They signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, together with late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and then-Israeli Foreign Minister, now President, Shimon Peres.
The accord committed the PLO to abandon violence and to cancel the PLO Covenant that calls for Israel’s destruction, in exchange for Israeli recognition.
The Israeli Knesset adopted the Oslo accord within a week of its signing. However, the PLO Executive Committee met on Oct. 6, 1993 to consider ratification of the Oslo accord, but it failed to ratify the agreement.
The head of the Israel Government Press Office at the time noted that Arafat and Mr. Abbas had signed the Oslo accord with the hope that the PLO would eventually ratify the Oslo accord.
However, successive Israeli governments have not asked the PLO to ratify the Oslo accord and have instead acted as if the PLO had already ratified the Oslo accord with Israel and as if the PLO canceled its covenant calling for Israel’s destruction.
This remains to be seen.
The PLO introduced new Palestinian Authority textbooks that were supposed to promote peace and reconciliation and integrated these school books into the curriculum in all PA schools - under Fatah, Hamas, UNRWA and even in Arab schools in Jerusalem.
However, this curriculum inculcates the next generation of Palestinians to make war on the Jewish state. While special subcommittees of the Israeli government have discussed the PA curriculum, the Israeli government has never made it a policy to even ask the PA abandon its was curriculum.
The Israeli government has gone so far as to ask that Israel advocacy organizations not discuss the new curriculum. The Israeli government has also asked research institutions to refrain from critiquing the anti-Semitism in the PA school curriculum. The Israeli government has also discouraged news investigations of the anti-Semitism in the PA school curriculum.
Arafat was elected in January 1996, and Mr. Abbas was elected in January 2005 on the same clear platform which advocates the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to take back the villages that they or their ancestors left in 1948. This means uprooting most of the Israeli population now living on the sites of the former Arab villages.
The Israeli government has never demanded that the PLO and the PA stop advocating the “right of return.”
In May 1994, the Israeli government provided Israeli-owned TV and radio frequencies for the Palestinian Authority to establish TV and radio networks with the idea that these networks would promote peace and reconciliation between the two peoples.
However, for the past 15 years, the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), has used these Israeli-government-owned TV and radio frequencies with a daily drum roll of incitement to overthrow what it calls “the Zionist entity” (Israel). At no time has the government of Israel ever annulled its agreement to allow the PBC to use Israeli government frequencies that have been used to encourage hostilities against the people and the State of Israel.
The PLO has never disbanded the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist organization, which continues to operate under the aegis of the PLO, despite the fact that this group continues to be designated by both the U.S. and Israel as a terrorist organization. Again, it remains to be seen what line the new Netanyahu government will take in this regard.
The draft of the proposed constitution of the Palestinian state, prepared by Nabil Sha’ath, creates a Palestinian State based on a strict Shariah Law that recognizes Islam as the only religion with juridical status. In that context, the PA has instituted policies that make it very difficult for Palestinian Christians to practice their religion.
With the demise of Arafat, Israeli intelligence played down public reports that documented hostilities and incitement promulgated by Mr. Abbas and the PA. The Israeli government also played down the March 2007 Mecca agreement between the Fatah and the Hamas, which instituted obligatory revenue sharing between the Fatah and the Hamas. Consequently, funds accrued by the Palestinian Authority are automatically be divided between both factions.
This agreement contradicts Israeli-government-signed tax revenue rebate agreements with the Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, that held an understanding that no tax revenue rebates would reach terrorist organizations such as Hamas or the al-Aqsa Brigades.
David Bedein can be reached at bedein@thebulletin.us
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Israel Considering Release of Top Terrorist Barghouti
Israel Considering Release of Top Terrorist Barghouti
The Israeli security establishment is examining the release of a convicted multiple murderer - Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti - as a means of strengthening Fatah chairman and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli security sources confirm that the idea will be to place a strongman next to Mr. Abbas who could succeed him in future and counter the rise in Hamas’ strength.
Mr. Barghouti’s release is complicated from a legal standpoint and would require a pardon from Israeli President Shimon Peres.
The background of Mr. Barghouti’s involvement with terrorism and the incitement of terrorism is now under scrutiny in Israel.
On Jan. 22, 1995, after Hamas massacred 19 Israelis at a bus stop in Beit Lid - a village near the coastal city of Netanya, located within Israeli territory - Mr. Barghouti declared on the Saudi-owned MBC television network that “we cannot condemn such an attack, since this is an area that we have not yet liberated.”
Mr. Barghouti hammered out cooperative agreements in Cairo between Hamas and the PA from 1995 until his imprisonment in 2002, according to the semi-official Egyptian daily al-Ahram. He continues to do so today from prison.
According to Israeli intelligence sources and in the indictment issued against him, Mr. Barghouti, on the outbreak of the Palestinian rebellion known as the Second Intifada in 2000, became the head of a joint coordinating body of all Palestinian organizations in the West Bank - including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The American and the Israeli governments list all three as terrorist groups.
While it is widely assumed that Mr. Barghouti was only “indirectly” responsible for the murder of innocent people, he was convicted in May 2002 of first-degree murder for the cold-blooded killing of 13 innocent civilians. The Israeli Justice Ministry provided documentation that Mr. Barghouti made direct payments to commission killers to commit wanton acts of murder.
He was convicted in the murders of: Salim Barakat, 33, from the Druze village of Yarka in the Galilee, who survived by his wife, daughter, parents and seven brothers and sisters; Eli Dahan, 53, of Lod, who is survived by his mother Sarah, wife, Ilana, two daughters, two sons and three grandchildren; Yosef Habi, 52, of Herzliya, who is survived by his wife, son and daughter; Fr. Georgios Tsibouktzakis, 34, a Greek Orthodox monk from St. George’s Monastery in Wadi Kelt near Jericho; and Yoela Chen, 45, of Givat Ze’ev, who is survived by her husband and two children.
Nor are they Mr. Barghouti’s only victims. At his trial, people who were maimed as a result of Barghouti-sponsored attacks appeared as witnesses to the pain he caused them - pain they will experience for the rest of their lives.
Chicagoan Alan Bauer and his 7-year-old son, Jonathan, were among those witnesses. They were five minutes from their home in Jerusalem when a Barghouti-funded suicide bomber blew himself up three feet away from them on March 21, 2002. Two arteries in Mr. Bauer’s arm were severed. A screw went all the way through little Jonathan’s head. To this day, Jonathan walks with a limp.
According to the court protocols, Mr. Barghouti proudly admitted that he directed terrorist attacks in which scores of Israelis were killed and revealed how he directly allocated funds needed by terrorist cells to operate and purchase necessary weapons.
He stated that Yasser Arafat personally authorized this funding for Tanzim activities, knowing that this money would be used to finance murderous attacks.
Furthermore, protocols of interrogations of PA officials before the trial showed how the process worked: names of Tanzim killers were submitted to Mr. Barghouti, who would routinely take them to Mr. Arafat for approval.
David Bedein can be reached at bedein@thebulletin.us
The Israeli security establishment is examining the release of a convicted multiple murderer - Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti - as a means of strengthening Fatah chairman and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli security sources confirm that the idea will be to place a strongman next to Mr. Abbas who could succeed him in future and counter the rise in Hamas’ strength.
Mr. Barghouti’s release is complicated from a legal standpoint and would require a pardon from Israeli President Shimon Peres.
The background of Mr. Barghouti’s involvement with terrorism and the incitement of terrorism is now under scrutiny in Israel.
On Jan. 22, 1995, after Hamas massacred 19 Israelis at a bus stop in Beit Lid - a village near the coastal city of Netanya, located within Israeli territory - Mr. Barghouti declared on the Saudi-owned MBC television network that “we cannot condemn such an attack, since this is an area that we have not yet liberated.”
Mr. Barghouti hammered out cooperative agreements in Cairo between Hamas and the PA from 1995 until his imprisonment in 2002, according to the semi-official Egyptian daily al-Ahram. He continues to do so today from prison.
According to Israeli intelligence sources and in the indictment issued against him, Mr. Barghouti, on the outbreak of the Palestinian rebellion known as the Second Intifada in 2000, became the head of a joint coordinating body of all Palestinian organizations in the West Bank - including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The American and the Israeli governments list all three as terrorist groups.
While it is widely assumed that Mr. Barghouti was only “indirectly” responsible for the murder of innocent people, he was convicted in May 2002 of first-degree murder for the cold-blooded killing of 13 innocent civilians. The Israeli Justice Ministry provided documentation that Mr. Barghouti made direct payments to commission killers to commit wanton acts of murder.
He was convicted in the murders of: Salim Barakat, 33, from the Druze village of Yarka in the Galilee, who survived by his wife, daughter, parents and seven brothers and sisters; Eli Dahan, 53, of Lod, who is survived by his mother Sarah, wife, Ilana, two daughters, two sons and three grandchildren; Yosef Habi, 52, of Herzliya, who is survived by his wife, son and daughter; Fr. Georgios Tsibouktzakis, 34, a Greek Orthodox monk from St. George’s Monastery in Wadi Kelt near Jericho; and Yoela Chen, 45, of Givat Ze’ev, who is survived by her husband and two children.
Nor are they Mr. Barghouti’s only victims. At his trial, people who were maimed as a result of Barghouti-sponsored attacks appeared as witnesses to the pain he caused them - pain they will experience for the rest of their lives.
Chicagoan Alan Bauer and his 7-year-old son, Jonathan, were among those witnesses. They were five minutes from their home in Jerusalem when a Barghouti-funded suicide bomber blew himself up three feet away from them on March 21, 2002. Two arteries in Mr. Bauer’s arm were severed. A screw went all the way through little Jonathan’s head. To this day, Jonathan walks with a limp.
According to the court protocols, Mr. Barghouti proudly admitted that he directed terrorist attacks in which scores of Israelis were killed and revealed how he directly allocated funds needed by terrorist cells to operate and purchase necessary weapons.
He stated that Yasser Arafat personally authorized this funding for Tanzim activities, knowing that this money would be used to finance murderous attacks.
Furthermore, protocols of interrogations of PA officials before the trial showed how the process worked: names of Tanzim killers were submitted to Mr. Barghouti, who would routinely take them to Mr. Arafat for approval.
David Bedein can be reached at bedein@thebulletin.us
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Philadelphia Bulletin: On the Eve of the Pennsylvania Primary, the Philadelphia Bulletin interviews Obama's Middle East Advisors
On the Eve of the Pennsylvania Primary, the Philadelphia Bulletin interviews Obama's Middle East Advisors
by David Bedein
During the week before the Pennsylvania primary, I met with Sen. Barack Obama's middle east advisers in Washington, Howard Guttman and former Californian Congressman Mel Levine, along with another Obama Middle East aide who spoke on condition of anonymity, in my capacity as the Middle East Correspondent of the Philadelphia Bulletin.
These are the questions The Bulletin posed to Mr. Obama's Middle East advisers and the responses that they provided:
1. How would a President Obama relate to the security threat posed by Saudi Arabia? [Declassified security reports confirm that Saudi Arabia continues to fund groups defined by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations, while Saudi Arabia maintains an active state of war against the state of Israel since 1948.]
None of Mr. Obama's advisers could answer this question.
2. Does Mr. Obama support President Bush's policy of arming the Saudis? [The Bush administration offers major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, despite its pro-terror posture]
Neither Guttman nor Levine could tell The Bulletin whether or not Mr. Obama supports the Bush arms sales to Saudi Arabia. They checked with Mr. Obama and could not get an answer.
3. Would a President Obama support the idea that Palestinian refugees should reside in UNRWA refugee camps, under the premise and promise of the "right of return," instead of being provided with decent living conditions?
While each of Mr. Obama's advisers emphasized that the candidate opposed the Palestinian "right of return," none of them could find out what Mr. Obama's position is concerning continuing American government funding for the UNRWA agency, which fuels the right of return.
4. Would a President Obama continue Mr. Bush's policy to arm the Fatah organization, since the armed forces of the Fatah are defined by American law as an illegal terrorist organization?
The Obama advisor who spoke on condition of anonymity answered that Mr. Obama wants to continue the policy of developing Fatah as a moderate entity.
5. Would a President Obama ask for a change in the proposed constitution of the Palestinian Fatah state, which is based on the Islamic sharia law, and not allow for juridical status for any religion other than Islam?
All three Obama advisers promised to check this out with the senator. None of them could provide an answer.
6. Would a President Obama restrain Israel from counterattacking in Gaza to put an end to the daily missile attacks from Gaza, as the Bush administration has done?
Mr. Obama's advisers responded that "Israel has a right to defend itself."
7. Would a President Obama recognize that Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza are a direct result of their use of human shields?
Mr. Obama's advisers answered that "Sen. Obama regards the operations of terrorist organizations as intolerable."
8. Would a President Obama allow such a policy to continue where the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to harbor terrorists suspected of murder and refuses to hand them over for trial, as the Clinton and Bush administrations have done?
Mr. Obama's advisers were more emphatic on this point, stating that Mr. Obama's policy would "oppose all attempts to harbor terrorists by the Palestinian Authority."
9. Would a President Obama condition future U.S. assistance on human rights and civil liberties reform in the PA, since the PA operates with no system of civil liberties or human rights?
In another emphatic statement, each of Mr. Obama's advisers stated that a President Obama would insist on the implementation of a policy that would stand up for human rights and civil liberties in the Palestinian Authority.
10. Would a President Obama ignore the plight of Christians who are persecuted in the PA, or would he champion the cause of the Christians to practice their religion freely in the PA, since the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem has refused to render assistance to Christians who are persecuted by the PA?
Mr. Obama's advisers promised an answer to The Bulletin with an answer to this question but did not do so.
11. What would the policy of a President Obama be to Syria in regard to Syria's continuing to host and support a plethora of terror groups?
All three of Obama's advisers indicated that they would review new directives to the Syrian government in this regard.
12. Would a President Obama support an effort to destroy the Syrian source of lethal narcotics in the Bekka Valley, since Syria continues to orchestrate the export of lethal narcotics to the world?
Mr. Obama's advisers could not answer this question.
13. Would a President Obama support an effort to force Israel to withdraw from Golan, since the Golan Heights was used by Syria between 1949 and 1967 to attack Israeli communities in Galilee?
All three of Mr. Obama's advisers answered that "Obama does not believe in pressuring Israel" on any matter related to Syria.
14. Which Middle East road map would a President Obama endorse: the road map of April 30, 2003, or that of May 25, 2003? [The second road map contains the reservations of Israel, which include detailed Israeli directives to disband terror groups as a precondition to continued negotiations.]
Mr. Obama's three advisers referred this policy question to a top adviser to Mr. Obama. However, they would not give an answer to this question to The Bulletin.
15. Would a President Obama continue the Clinton/Bush policy of ignoring the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) never ratified the Oslo Accord and never canceled the PLO charter? [The Clinton and Bush administrations overlooked the fact that the PLO never ratified the Oslo Accord "declaration of principles," which required the PLO and Fatah to recognize Israel, denounce terror and cancel the PLO/Fatah charter, which calls for Israel's obliteration. It will be recalled that the PLO signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, and would not ratify these accords when the PLO executive convened on October 6, 1993, in Tunis and would not cancel the PLO charter when the PNC convened on April 24, 1996.]
Mr. Obama's advisers concurred that a President Obama would insist on a formal PLO ratification of the Oslo Accords and cancellation of the PLO covenant.
16. Would a President Obama issue a directive that any aid to the PA require a cessation of calls to terrorism by the official Arabic language outlets of the PA? [The Clinton and Bush administration consistently ignored the message communicated by the newly constituted PA in the Arabic language, which has communicated a language of war on Israel since the inception of the PA in 1993.]
Mr. Obama's advisers said that Mr. Obama would institute "a policy of no tolerance of incitement."
17. Would a President Obama call for a cancellation of the PA educational curriculum, which inculcates the next generation to continue a war to liberate all of Palestine, which can be seen at www.edume.org?
Mr. Obama's advisers indicated that Mr. Obama would see this as part of a "policy of no tolerance for incitement."
18. Would a President Obama insist on future Israeli withdrawals, since the Gaza withdrawal indicates that Palestinians will use areas under their control to launch missile attacks against Israel?
The Obama adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity answered that the "Gaza and Lebanon precedent should be taken into consideration," considering the fact that Israel is ready for compromise.
by David Bedein
During the week before the Pennsylvania primary, I met with Sen. Barack Obama's middle east advisers in Washington, Howard Guttman and former Californian Congressman Mel Levine, along with another Obama Middle East aide who spoke on condition of anonymity, in my capacity as the Middle East Correspondent of the Philadelphia Bulletin.
These are the questions The Bulletin posed to Mr. Obama's Middle East advisers and the responses that they provided:
1. How would a President Obama relate to the security threat posed by Saudi Arabia? [Declassified security reports confirm that Saudi Arabia continues to fund groups defined by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations, while Saudi Arabia maintains an active state of war against the state of Israel since 1948.]
None of Mr. Obama's advisers could answer this question.
2. Does Mr. Obama support President Bush's policy of arming the Saudis? [The Bush administration offers major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, despite its pro-terror posture]
Neither Guttman nor Levine could tell The Bulletin whether or not Mr. Obama supports the Bush arms sales to Saudi Arabia. They checked with Mr. Obama and could not get an answer.
3. Would a President Obama support the idea that Palestinian refugees should reside in UNRWA refugee camps, under the premise and promise of the "right of return," instead of being provided with decent living conditions?
While each of Mr. Obama's advisers emphasized that the candidate opposed the Palestinian "right of return," none of them could find out what Mr. Obama's position is concerning continuing American government funding for the UNRWA agency, which fuels the right of return.
4. Would a President Obama continue Mr. Bush's policy to arm the Fatah organization, since the armed forces of the Fatah are defined by American law as an illegal terrorist organization?
The Obama advisor who spoke on condition of anonymity answered that Mr. Obama wants to continue the policy of developing Fatah as a moderate entity.
5. Would a President Obama ask for a change in the proposed constitution of the Palestinian Fatah state, which is based on the Islamic sharia law, and not allow for juridical status for any religion other than Islam?
All three Obama advisers promised to check this out with the senator. None of them could provide an answer.
6. Would a President Obama restrain Israel from counterattacking in Gaza to put an end to the daily missile attacks from Gaza, as the Bush administration has done?
Mr. Obama's advisers responded that "Israel has a right to defend itself."
7. Would a President Obama recognize that Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza are a direct result of their use of human shields?
Mr. Obama's advisers answered that "Sen. Obama regards the operations of terrorist organizations as intolerable."
8. Would a President Obama allow such a policy to continue where the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to harbor terrorists suspected of murder and refuses to hand them over for trial, as the Clinton and Bush administrations have done?
Mr. Obama's advisers were more emphatic on this point, stating that Mr. Obama's policy would "oppose all attempts to harbor terrorists by the Palestinian Authority."
9. Would a President Obama condition future U.S. assistance on human rights and civil liberties reform in the PA, since the PA operates with no system of civil liberties or human rights?
In another emphatic statement, each of Mr. Obama's advisers stated that a President Obama would insist on the implementation of a policy that would stand up for human rights and civil liberties in the Palestinian Authority.
10. Would a President Obama ignore the plight of Christians who are persecuted in the PA, or would he champion the cause of the Christians to practice their religion freely in the PA, since the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem has refused to render assistance to Christians who are persecuted by the PA?
Mr. Obama's advisers promised an answer to The Bulletin with an answer to this question but did not do so.
11. What would the policy of a President Obama be to Syria in regard to Syria's continuing to host and support a plethora of terror groups?
All three of Obama's advisers indicated that they would review new directives to the Syrian government in this regard.
12. Would a President Obama support an effort to destroy the Syrian source of lethal narcotics in the Bekka Valley, since Syria continues to orchestrate the export of lethal narcotics to the world?
Mr. Obama's advisers could not answer this question.
13. Would a President Obama support an effort to force Israel to withdraw from Golan, since the Golan Heights was used by Syria between 1949 and 1967 to attack Israeli communities in Galilee?
All three of Mr. Obama's advisers answered that "Obama does not believe in pressuring Israel" on any matter related to Syria.
14. Which Middle East road map would a President Obama endorse: the road map of April 30, 2003, or that of May 25, 2003? [The second road map contains the reservations of Israel, which include detailed Israeli directives to disband terror groups as a precondition to continued negotiations.]
Mr. Obama's three advisers referred this policy question to a top adviser to Mr. Obama. However, they would not give an answer to this question to The Bulletin.
15. Would a President Obama continue the Clinton/Bush policy of ignoring the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) never ratified the Oslo Accord and never canceled the PLO charter? [The Clinton and Bush administrations overlooked the fact that the PLO never ratified the Oslo Accord "declaration of principles," which required the PLO and Fatah to recognize Israel, denounce terror and cancel the PLO/Fatah charter, which calls for Israel's obliteration. It will be recalled that the PLO signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, and would not ratify these accords when the PLO executive convened on October 6, 1993, in Tunis and would not cancel the PLO charter when the PNC convened on April 24, 1996.]
Mr. Obama's advisers concurred that a President Obama would insist on a formal PLO ratification of the Oslo Accords and cancellation of the PLO covenant.
16. Would a President Obama issue a directive that any aid to the PA require a cessation of calls to terrorism by the official Arabic language outlets of the PA? [The Clinton and Bush administration consistently ignored the message communicated by the newly constituted PA in the Arabic language, which has communicated a language of war on Israel since the inception of the PA in 1993.]
Mr. Obama's advisers said that Mr. Obama would institute "a policy of no tolerance of incitement."
17. Would a President Obama call for a cancellation of the PA educational curriculum, which inculcates the next generation to continue a war to liberate all of Palestine, which can be seen at www.edume.org?
Mr. Obama's advisers indicated that Mr. Obama would see this as part of a "policy of no tolerance for incitement."
18. Would a President Obama insist on future Israeli withdrawals, since the Gaza withdrawal indicates that Palestinians will use areas under their control to launch missile attacks against Israel?
The Obama adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity answered that the "Gaza and Lebanon precedent should be taken into consideration," considering the fact that Israel is ready for compromise.
Friday, March 7, 2008
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Gunman Kills Eight at Jerusalem Seminary
Jerusalem - Thursday night is the traditional evening for intense Bible and Talmud study in a Yeshiva Talmudical learning academy seminary.
This Thursday night was no exception in one of Jerusalem's leading seminaries.
The Rabbi Kook Seminary houses more than 800 students of all ages in an academy that was founded 80 years ago by the first chief rabbi of the modern Jewish community in the land of Israel, Rabbi Isaac HaKohen Kook.
On_Thursday night, an Arab living in a Muslim neighborhood in Jerusalem entered the seminary, made his way up the steps to the second floor, and entered the study hall where small groups of students were studying with their respective rabbis.
In a terror attack which took place in a matter of 12 minutes, the toll was eight seminary students dead and 12 students badly wounded.
A student described how the Arab calmly pulled our his Kalatchnikov automatic weapon and began to fire his gun at random at the students.
Some of the students jumped from the second floor window, to get out of the range of fire.
The Arab then proceeded to go up two more flights of stairs, firing live ammunition at point- blank range, until he reached the roof, where he took up position to continue his shooting spree.
A student with a pistol shot the man as he ascended the roof. A neighbor of the yeshiva, an officer in an Israeli Army combat unit, pursued the Arab onto the roof with an M16 and finally killed the Arab.
As this story was being filed, not all of the parents who had lost sons on Thursday night had been located to inform them of their loss.
Yitzhak Dadon, the yeshiva student who shot the Jerusalem terrorist, says he was busy studying when suddenly shots rang out, prompting him to grab his gun and eventually kill the Palestinian attacker.
"We realized something happened so I cocked my handgun," Yitzhak Dadon told the Voice of Israel Radio.
"I went up on the roof and waited for the terrorist. Meanwhile, I saw blood and shattered glass," Mr. Dadon said.
"The terrorist continue firing in the air, so I waited to see him again, and then I shot him twice in the head."
Mr. Dadon says the terrorist continued firing even after he was hurt.
"He kept on firing until an IDF officer arrived and shot him again," Mr. Dadon said.
As he continued his interview with the Israeli radio, Mr. Dadon emphasized that the Arab whom he had helped to kill was carrying a weapon that "President Peres had authorized," reminding the Israeli public that Mr. Peres, as foreign minister and prime minister, had authorized automatic weapons for Fatah members who were loyal to PLO leaders Yassir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
Only two weeks ago, PLO security forces had once again been deployed in Jerusalem at the PLO headquarters in a building known as the Orient House, which was closed in August for security reasons in 2001 at the height of terror attacks in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile the Arab terror attack in Jerusalem followed a day in which Arabs from Gaza had fired at least a dozen missiles on the southern Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon.
Two homes in Sderot suffered direct hits. In one home, the Gaza missile destroyed the family living room, while the parents and four children were in the kitchen In the other home that was hit, the upstairs bedrooms suffered direct hits and were gutted by fire. The family was downstairs at the time. Both parents were hit by shrapnel and all of their three children suffered from smoke inhalation.
In terms of retaliation, U.S. Secretary of State Rice, still in the region, implored Israel not to strike back into Gaza, for fear of civilian loss of life in Gaza, since the Arab rocket launchers remain embedded in the civilian population of Gaza. Ms. Rice also implored Israel to continue with unconditional negotiations with Mr. Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. However, the PBC, the Palestinian TV network run directly under Mr. Abbas' control and supervision, has been running clips from the Gaza morgues this week, with Mr. Arafat's voice used to call upon the Arab people to liberate the land of Israel from the Jews.
Indeed, The Bulletin asked the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv for comment on the incitement which is rampant on the PBC. The U.S. ambassador's spokesman asked for more information about Arab incitement on official PBC TV.
Indeed, The Bulletin provided the ambassador with a full report on the latest official incitement that emanates from the PBC Palestine Liberation Organization.
This Thursday night was no exception in one of Jerusalem's leading seminaries.
The Rabbi Kook Seminary houses more than 800 students of all ages in an academy that was founded 80 years ago by the first chief rabbi of the modern Jewish community in the land of Israel, Rabbi Isaac HaKohen Kook.
On_Thursday night, an Arab living in a Muslim neighborhood in Jerusalem entered the seminary, made his way up the steps to the second floor, and entered the study hall where small groups of students were studying with their respective rabbis.
In a terror attack which took place in a matter of 12 minutes, the toll was eight seminary students dead and 12 students badly wounded.
A student described how the Arab calmly pulled our his Kalatchnikov automatic weapon and began to fire his gun at random at the students.
Some of the students jumped from the second floor window, to get out of the range of fire.
The Arab then proceeded to go up two more flights of stairs, firing live ammunition at point- blank range, until he reached the roof, where he took up position to continue his shooting spree.
A student with a pistol shot the man as he ascended the roof. A neighbor of the yeshiva, an officer in an Israeli Army combat unit, pursued the Arab onto the roof with an M16 and finally killed the Arab.
As this story was being filed, not all of the parents who had lost sons on Thursday night had been located to inform them of their loss.
Yitzhak Dadon, the yeshiva student who shot the Jerusalem terrorist, says he was busy studying when suddenly shots rang out, prompting him to grab his gun and eventually kill the Palestinian attacker.
"We realized something happened so I cocked my handgun," Yitzhak Dadon told the Voice of Israel Radio.
"I went up on the roof and waited for the terrorist. Meanwhile, I saw blood and shattered glass," Mr. Dadon said.
"The terrorist continue firing in the air, so I waited to see him again, and then I shot him twice in the head."
Mr. Dadon says the terrorist continued firing even after he was hurt.
"He kept on firing until an IDF officer arrived and shot him again," Mr. Dadon said.
As he continued his interview with the Israeli radio, Mr. Dadon emphasized that the Arab whom he had helped to kill was carrying a weapon that "President Peres had authorized," reminding the Israeli public that Mr. Peres, as foreign minister and prime minister, had authorized automatic weapons for Fatah members who were loyal to PLO leaders Yassir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
Only two weeks ago, PLO security forces had once again been deployed in Jerusalem at the PLO headquarters in a building known as the Orient House, which was closed in August for security reasons in 2001 at the height of terror attacks in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile the Arab terror attack in Jerusalem followed a day in which Arabs from Gaza had fired at least a dozen missiles on the southern Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon.
Two homes in Sderot suffered direct hits. In one home, the Gaza missile destroyed the family living room, while the parents and four children were in the kitchen In the other home that was hit, the upstairs bedrooms suffered direct hits and were gutted by fire. The family was downstairs at the time. Both parents were hit by shrapnel and all of their three children suffered from smoke inhalation.
In terms of retaliation, U.S. Secretary of State Rice, still in the region, implored Israel not to strike back into Gaza, for fear of civilian loss of life in Gaza, since the Arab rocket launchers remain embedded in the civilian population of Gaza. Ms. Rice also implored Israel to continue with unconditional negotiations with Mr. Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. However, the PBC, the Palestinian TV network run directly under Mr. Abbas' control and supervision, has been running clips from the Gaza morgues this week, with Mr. Arafat's voice used to call upon the Arab people to liberate the land of Israel from the Jews.
Indeed, The Bulletin asked the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv for comment on the incitement which is rampant on the PBC. The U.S. ambassador's spokesman asked for more information about Arab incitement on official PBC TV.
Indeed, The Bulletin provided the ambassador with a full report on the latest official incitement that emanates from the PBC Palestine Liberation Organization.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Special Report: Inside Fatah - A “Moderate” Entity? (The Center for Near East Policy Research)
Can “strengthening” Mahmoud Abbas and his party improve the situation in the Middle East?
by Arlene Kushner
There is a prevailing notion in Western diplomatic circles today that Hamas – and
only Hamas – is the stumbling block to a successful negotiation of peace between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to this thinking, Fatah – and
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in particular – are essentially
“moderate” in outlook and should be strengthened in the interests of achieving that
peace.
The question remains: Can this approach be substantiated? Is the Fatah indeed
“moderate”? Would it sustain a genuine peace with Israel?
Statements offered to a Western world eager to embrace peace are easy to proclaim.
These statements represent a major difference in policy between Fatah and Hamas:
While Hamas is boldly belligerent and declares its intentions outright, Fatah appears
to play the game. But this difference is one of style and not of ultimate intentions.
A review of salient facts dispels the notion that Fatah is “moderate.”
The argument has been made that it was the influence of Arafat that caused Fatah to
lack moderation, and that we are seeing a “new” Fatah since Arafat’s death. There is
scant evidence to support this.
In the battle currently ensuing between Fatah and Hamas, is it reasonable – on the
face of the evidence – to support and bolster Fatah with the expectation that it would genuinely pursue peace? The inescapable conclusion is that this is not a reasonable expectation.
We begin by looking at the Fatah of today, for this is of immediate concern.
We then turn to a broader look at Fatah, and a consideration of the years leading up to the present. No accurate understanding of Fatah would be possible without this
perspective. What we find is that, while style may have changed, the essence of Fatah
goals and policies have not.
See the Full Report: Inside Fatah - A “Moderate” Entity?
by Arlene Kushner
There is a prevailing notion in Western diplomatic circles today that Hamas – and
only Hamas – is the stumbling block to a successful negotiation of peace between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to this thinking, Fatah – and
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in particular – are essentially
“moderate” in outlook and should be strengthened in the interests of achieving that
peace.
The question remains: Can this approach be substantiated? Is the Fatah indeed
“moderate”? Would it sustain a genuine peace with Israel?
Statements offered to a Western world eager to embrace peace are easy to proclaim.
These statements represent a major difference in policy between Fatah and Hamas:
While Hamas is boldly belligerent and declares its intentions outright, Fatah appears
to play the game. But this difference is one of style and not of ultimate intentions.
A review of salient facts dispels the notion that Fatah is “moderate.”
The argument has been made that it was the influence of Arafat that caused Fatah to
lack moderation, and that we are seeing a “new” Fatah since Arafat’s death. There is
scant evidence to support this.
In the battle currently ensuing between Fatah and Hamas, is it reasonable – on the
face of the evidence – to support and bolster Fatah with the expectation that it would genuinely pursue peace? The inescapable conclusion is that this is not a reasonable expectation.
We begin by looking at the Fatah of today, for this is of immediate concern.
We then turn to a broader look at Fatah, and a consideration of the years leading up to the present. No accurate understanding of Fatah would be possible without this
perspective. What we find is that, while style may have changed, the essence of Fatah
goals and policies have not.
See the Full Report: Inside Fatah - A “Moderate” Entity?
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