The Philadelphia Bulletin: Reconsidering the Credibility of DAVID MAKOVSKY as a Commentator on the Current Middle East Situation.

Reconsidering the Credibility of DAVID MAKOVSKY as a Commentator on the Current Middle East Situation.

After reading DAVID MAKOVSKY AT GA: OPTIMISTIC THAT ABBAS IS A REAL PARTNER in the Winnipeg Jewish Bulletin, (http://tinyurl.com/y9h2s2n) , here are some thoughts.

David Makovsky wants to live up to his job description as the “director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s project on the Middle East peace process”, and therefore promotes the notion that a middle east peace process still exists, when he states that “he is “hopeful” that real opportunities for peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel exist today.

Makovsky chooses to ignore the unambiguous declaration of war on Israel to that the Fatah, which is the controlling organization in the Palestinian Authority, declared at its conference in August and at the meeting of the Fatah’s central committee Palestinian at its conference last week in Ramallah.

Instead, Makovsky declares that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is not a rejectionist, in the speech that he gave at the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America that took place in Washington, D.C., Nov. 8-10. On what basis did Makovsky draw such a conclusion? In Makovsky’s words, because, “Abbas has faced death threats from extremists for advocating a two-state solution.” Why does Makovsky not relate to the widespread corruption that continues to plague the Palestinian Authority and the widely publicized graft that Abbas’s own sons have benefited from in that context? Why does Makovsky not mention a word about the whereabouts of the billions of dollars from his mentor’s Arafat’s slush accounts that continue to help Abbas’s colleagues live high on the hog? Why does Makovsky not make any mention of the e thousands of Palestinians whom the PA continues to confine to UNRWA camps, under the specious premise and promise of the right of return to homes and villages that no longer exist from 1948?

Makovsky’s standing as a serious academic comes into question when he declares that he relies on the polling data of Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, who declares that “49 percent of Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state”.

In a totalitarian system, what is more important - what a state-run pollster concludes or the statements of all Palestinian Authority spokespeople who categorically declare that they will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, beginning with Abbas’s countless statements in this regard.

A most unprofessional statement from Makovsky at the GA was when he praised the removal of checkpoints and barricades, saying that this would solve the problem that “people can’t get from Ramallah to Nablus”, in Makovsky’s words.

Makovsky’s praise of the “security co-operation between Israel and the PA” is devoid of any warning that this may have disastrous consequences, since the Fatah-dominated PA repeats, time and again, that it is not abandoning the military option against Israel.

Yet the unkindest cut of all in Makovsky’s myopic promotion of the Fatah as a peace partner occurred in October 2003, when he hosted four leaders of the Fatah Tanzim to Washington, D.C., to advance their cause with the U.S. Congress and with various Jewish organizations.

Yet Makovsky hosted the Tanzim at a time when the Tanzim were helping to orchestrate a murder campaign that claimed the lives of hundreds of people in Israel at the time.

It would be instructive to know if Makovsky, in his frequent visits to Israel, has taken the time to visit the victims of those whom he promotes as a peace partner.

Makovsky lived in Israel for many years. However, Makosvky chose to leave Israel and to raise his children in the comfortable suburb of Silver Spring, Md.

Distance makes the heart grow less sensitive to those who suffer at the hands of a terrorist organization. Anyway, that would not fit the script that Makovsky so optimistically lays out, which is that Israel has a peace partner to deal with.

Special Report: Assessment of US Military Aid to Fatah (The Center for Near East Policy Research)

Assessment of US Military Aid to Fatah

In March 2005, a US Security Coordinator Team was established in order to help the Palestinian Authority reorganize its security services.

The approach of the Team is being presented as markedly different from, and more effective than, prior international efforts to help the Palestinians transform the old Palestinian Liberation Organization militia into a professional force – a gendarmerie – that might serve a state. General Keith Dayton, who now holds the office of Coordinator and is striving to fulfill the mandate with which he has been charged, is on record as saying “What we have created are new men.”

This report takes a careful look at the development of this program and its import.

Click here for the full report in PDF format: Assessment of US Military Aid to Fatah

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