We don't need any favors
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/676691.html
By Yoel Marcus
Yaakov Herzog, an Israeli diplomat and intellectual who was also Golda Meir's closest adviser, was once invited by the BBC to take part in a symposium. The
subject: How long will Israel survive? Herzog declined. In a polite but sarcastic letter of response he wrote that he would be delighted to participate in a symposium on how long the British Empire would survive. This anecdote, passed down over the years, has suddenly taken on new relevance since Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Authority elections.
This is not what the Americans and Europeans had in mind when they demanded democracy from the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is a bloodthirsty gang of Islamic fundamentalists whose charter, signed in 1998, after the Oslo Accords and after Arafat came to Israel, explicitly calls for Israel's destruction. It not only refuses to negotiate with Israel at any stage or under any circumstances, but refuses to recognize its existence.
Hamas' surprise electoral victory is a kick in the teeth to all who were hoping for a peace agreement. Now President Bush and the leaders of Europe are saying that if Hamas wants to be part of the government, it will have to recognize Israel's right to exist. The very idea that the whole world is down on its knees, begging a Koran-centric organization whose goals are achieved by murdering Jews to recognize Israel's right to exist, is insulting. Israel is the only state in the world that's been on the map for 58 years and still has no permanent borders. The establishment of Israel was declared in May 1948 on the strength of the UN Partition Plan - a proposal the Arabs rejected. They live with the miserable consequences of that decision until today. Within a day of Israel's Declaration of Independence, the two global superpowers recognized it. A year later, it was accepted as a member of the United Nations, the 51st country out of a total of 190. Israel maintains diplomatic relations with 170 of them.
Nevertheless, Israel is the only democracy in the world that has been fighting from the day it was born to safeguard its national security and to be recognized once and for all. It is frustrating and infuriating when fanatic, backward countries declare that Israel, one of the most stable, progressive democracies in the world, has no right to exist. It wasn't the president of Iran who invented the idea of shipping the Jews of Israel back to where they came from in Europe. Ahmed Shukeiry, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization, beat him to it in a series of rabid interviews on Cairo Radio before the Six-Day War.
Israel doesn't need permission to exist, certainly not from the primitive, fundamentalist societies that live around it. Israel is perceived as one of the strongest, stablest, most technologically advanced countries in the world, not least in view of where it stands on the list of nuclear powers. So who is it, exactly, who thinks they can destroy us? Hamas? Hezbollah? Islamic Jihad? Why does Israel have to be in this situation altogether, pleading with the Arabs for recognition?
Many take off their hat to a nation that has spent decades confronting terrorism and war but has managed to chalk up incredible achievements in every sphere despite it all. When partners were found, Israel knew how to make the "peace of the brave" with its fiercest enemies, although it had to bend and make tremendous concessions. Israelis have stood up admirably and bravely in the face of suicide bombings and other acts of terror perpetrated by Islamic militants, dredging up the emotional strength to return to normal life after every blow.
The victory of Hamas is, first and foremost, the problem of the Palestinians themselves. Precisely now, when a political system is taking shape in Israel that has enough electoral clout to reach an agreement, it would be foolish for the Palestinians to wreck their chances again because of the rise of some fanatic party that is not prepared to accept Israel's existence, let alone speak to it.
Swayed by fundamentalism in one guise or another, the Palestinians have been paying for their obstinacy, their extremist policies and their mistakes for many decades. We will go on living and flourishing even without the recognition of Hamas. We don't need any favors.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential
ICELP Australian Support Group
February 2006.
Dear friends,
The parents of special-needs children in Israel, who are undergoing therapy at the world-acclaimed International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP),
founded and headed by Professor Reuven Feuerstein, Israel Prize Laureate in Education are seeking our help.
Prof. Feuerstein's unique and widely acclaimed approach is based on his theories of cognitive modifiability and mediated learning experience. ICELP's highly professional and dedicated team firmly believes that every individual is capable of growth and change and the Center creates an accepting, supportive and enriching environment. They are now in the process of training teachers from the developing countries in their methods which are even adopted to teach gifted students in the education systems of countries in all continents.
The parents who have witnessed extraordinary changes and improvements in all areas
of their children's overall functioning at home and in their learning environments, are appealing for assistance to allow more children to benefit from ICELP's programs.
Despite their limitation, all children who undergo the ICELP therapeutic programs manage to lead happy and productive lives. Their parents are seeking our support for ICELP, to help them for their own children's wellbeing as well as for the thousands, literally, wait-listed at the Center's doors from all over the world, for assessment even before undergoing actual treatment.
A marvellous special edition "coffee-table book" dedicated to Professor Feuerstein by artist Ya'akov Boussidan "Jerusalem: Names in Praise" will be sent to all donors of donations above $A 200.- . I have a copy (English and Hebrew) and it is a beautiful and cherished addition to our library of Judaica.
Your contributions should be made out to: "ICELP Australian Support Group" and sent to :
P.O. Box 6043, Sth. Yarra, Vic. 3141.
Or sent directly to: ICELP, P.O.B. 7755, 47 Narkis Street, Jerusalem 91077.
(Please enclose copy of above).
Credit- card donations can be made by calling ICELP Israel direct:
(02-569 3335 between 9.00 and 13.00 ).
email: icelp@actcom.co.il; website www.icelp.org
Thanking you sincerely in anticipation of your generous assistance,
ICELP and the ICELP Australian Support Group.
February 2006.
Dear friends,
The parents of special-needs children in Israel, who are undergoing therapy at the world-acclaimed International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP),
founded and headed by Professor Reuven Feuerstein, Israel Prize Laureate in Education are seeking our help.
Prof. Feuerstein's unique and widely acclaimed approach is based on his theories of cognitive modifiability and mediated learning experience. ICELP's highly professional and dedicated team firmly believes that every individual is capable of growth and change and the Center creates an accepting, supportive and enriching environment. They are now in the process of training teachers from the developing countries in their methods which are even adopted to teach gifted students in the education systems of countries in all continents.
The parents who have witnessed extraordinary changes and improvements in all areas
of their children's overall functioning at home and in their learning environments, are appealing for assistance to allow more children to benefit from ICELP's programs.
Despite their limitation, all children who undergo the ICELP therapeutic programs manage to lead happy and productive lives. Their parents are seeking our support for ICELP, to help them for their own children's wellbeing as well as for the thousands, literally, wait-listed at the Center's doors from all over the world, for assessment even before undergoing actual treatment.
A marvellous special edition "coffee-table book" dedicated to Professor Feuerstein by artist Ya'akov Boussidan "Jerusalem: Names in Praise" will be sent to all donors of donations above $A 200.- . I have a copy (English and Hebrew) and it is a beautiful and cherished addition to our library of Judaica.
Your contributions should be made out to: "ICELP Australian Support Group" and sent to :
P.O. Box 6043, Sth. Yarra, Vic. 3141.
Or sent directly to: ICELP, P.O.B. 7755, 47 Narkis Street, Jerusalem 91077.
(Please enclose copy of above).
Credit- card donations can be made by calling ICELP Israel direct:
(02-569 3335 between 9.00 and 13.00 ).
email: icelp@actcom.co.il; website www.icelp.org
Thanking you sincerely in anticipation of your generous assistance,
ICELP and the ICELP Australian Support Group.
HAMAS ON THE RANGE by Mark Steyn
[I've been waiting for Mark Steyn to say it as it is,- his tongue-in-cheek analyses are a relief from the tedium of reading the other analysts' repetitive versions. The truth is that no one knows how it will all fan out. MM]
Hamas on the range
by Mark Steyn
The Washington Times
January 30, 2006
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060129-102750-9067r.htm
I was at a county fair in New Hampshire last summer and stopped by the National Guard tent. They had those "Support Our Troops" ribbon stickers for sale -- one on a Stars-and-Stripes background, one of them just plain yellow.
I've never liked the whole yellow-ribbon thing: it's too victimological, too passive, too enervated. One of the distinctive features of that immediate post-September 11, 2001, moment of near national unity was the blessed absence of yellow ribbons. It would have been the wrong symbol for an America full of righteous anger.
But four years on and there are "Support Our Troops" yellow ribbons a-plenty. "What's the idea behind that?" I asked the National Guardsman manning the display. "Well," he said, "a lot of people don't support the war and they aren't comfortable with the flag-colored ribbon but they support the troops."
It seemed to me unlikely people uncomfortable with the national flag would be meaningfully supportive of the national army. But a couple of weeks later, driving past a house in Hanover, N.H., I saw an even sillier qualification: "Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home Now" -- so they can sit around the barracks feeling like losers until they're needed for some hurricane-relief operation.
The Los Angeles Times' Joel Stein (no relation) took a lot of heat last week for coming right out and saying he didn't support the troops and that it was a humbug phrase he and his antiwar comrades shouldn't have to use as cover.
Good for him. He's right. It's empty and pusillanimous, the Iraq war's version of "But some of my best friends are Jewish." If you oppose the mission, if you don't want to see it through, if you support a position whose success would only demoralize and negate the sacrifice of those serving in Iraq, in what sense do you "support the troops"? Mr. Stein should be congratulated for acknowledging that he doesn't. We armchair warmongers are routinely derided as "chicken hawks," but Mr. Stein is a hawkish chicken, disdaining the weasel formulation in which too many antiwar folks take refuge.
The Palestinian elections were similarly clarifying. The old guard -- Yasser Arafat's Fatah cronies -- had their own take on the "But some of my best friends are Jewish" routine. For years they insisted, at least in the presence of Americans and Europeans, they favored of a "two-state solution" -- Israel and Palestine living side by side -- while supporting and glorifying and financially subsidizing suicide bombers and other terrorists. Insofar as their enthusiasm for a two-state solution was genuine, it was as an intermediate stage en route to a one-state solution.
Hamas, by contrast, takes a Joel Stein view: Why the hell should we have to go tippy-toeing around some sissy phrase we don't really mean? Hamas doesn't support a two-state solution, it supports liquidation of one state and its replacement by other, and they don't see why they should have to pretend otherwise. And in last week's elections for the Palestinian Authority they romped home. It was a landslide.
As is the way, many in the West rushed to rationalize the victory. The media have long been reluctant to damn the excitable lads as terrorists. In 2002, the New York Times published a photograph of Palestinian suicide bombers all dressed up and ready to blow, and captioned it "Hamas activists." Take my advice and try not to be standing too near the Hamas activist when he activates himself.
Oh, no no no, some analysts assured us. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because of the policy plank about obliterating the State of Israel but because Fatah is hopelessly corrupt. Which is true: the European Union bankrolled the Palestinian Authority since its creation and Yasser and his buddies salted most of the dough away in their Swiss bank accounts and used the loose change to fund the Intifada. After 10 years, you can't blame the Palestinians for figuring it's time to give another group of people a chance to siphon off all that EU booty.
So I would like to believe this was a vote for getting rid of corruption rather than getting rid of Jews. But that's hard to square with some of the newly elected legislators. For example, Mariam Farahat, a mother of three, was elected in Gaza. She once was a mother of six but three of her sons self-detonated on suicide missions against Israel. She's a household name to Palestinians, known as Um Nidal -- Mother of the Struggle -- and, at the rate she's getting through her kids, the Struggle's all she'll be Mother of. She's famous for a Hamas recruitment video in which she shows her 17-year-old son how to kill Israelis and then tells him not to come back. It's the Hamas version of 42nd Street: You're going out there a youngster but you've got to come back in small pieces.
It may be she stood for parliament because she has a yen to be junior transport minister or deputy secretary of fisheries. But it seems likelier she and her Hamas colleagues were elected because this is who the Palestinian people are, this is what they believe. The Palestinians are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the Earth: after 60 years as U.N. "refugees," they're now so depraved they're electing candidates on the basis of child sacrifice. To take two contemporaneous crises, imagine if the population displacements caused by the end of World War II and by the partition of British India had also been left to the U.N. to manage and six decades later they were still running the "refugee" "camps," now full of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, none of whom ever lived in any of the places they're supposed to be refugees from. Would you wish that fate on post-war Central Europe or the Indian Subcontinent?
So what happens now? Either Hamas forms a government and decides operating highway departments and sewer systems is what it really wants to do with itself. Or, like Arafat, it figures it has no interest in government except as a useful front for terrorist operations. If it's the former, all well and good: many first-rate terror organizations have managed to convert themselves to third-rate national-liberation governments. But, if it's the latter, that too is useful: Hamas is the honest expression of the will of the Palestinian electorate, and the cold hard truth of that is something Europeans and Americans will find hard to avoid.
As with Joel Stein, you're always better off knowing what people honestly think. For decades, Middle East dictators justified themselves to Washington as a restraint on the baser urges of their citizens, but in the end they only incubated worse pathologies. Western subsidy of Arafatistan is merely the latest example. Democracy in the Middle East is not always pretty, but it's better than the West's sillier illusions.
______
Mark Steyn is the senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc. Publications, senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group, North American editor for the Spectator, and a nationally syndicated columnist.
Hamas on the range
by Mark Steyn
The Washington Times
January 30, 2006
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060129-102750-9067r.htm
I was at a county fair in New Hampshire last summer and stopped by the National Guard tent. They had those "Support Our Troops" ribbon stickers for sale -- one on a Stars-and-Stripes background, one of them just plain yellow.
I've never liked the whole yellow-ribbon thing: it's too victimological, too passive, too enervated. One of the distinctive features of that immediate post-September 11, 2001, moment of near national unity was the blessed absence of yellow ribbons. It would have been the wrong symbol for an America full of righteous anger.
But four years on and there are "Support Our Troops" yellow ribbons a-plenty. "What's the idea behind that?" I asked the National Guardsman manning the display. "Well," he said, "a lot of people don't support the war and they aren't comfortable with the flag-colored ribbon but they support the troops."
It seemed to me unlikely people uncomfortable with the national flag would be meaningfully supportive of the national army. But a couple of weeks later, driving past a house in Hanover, N.H., I saw an even sillier qualification: "Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home Now" -- so they can sit around the barracks feeling like losers until they're needed for some hurricane-relief operation.
The Los Angeles Times' Joel Stein (no relation) took a lot of heat last week for coming right out and saying he didn't support the troops and that it was a humbug phrase he and his antiwar comrades shouldn't have to use as cover.
Good for him. He's right. It's empty and pusillanimous, the Iraq war's version of "But some of my best friends are Jewish." If you oppose the mission, if you don't want to see it through, if you support a position whose success would only demoralize and negate the sacrifice of those serving in Iraq, in what sense do you "support the troops"? Mr. Stein should be congratulated for acknowledging that he doesn't. We armchair warmongers are routinely derided as "chicken hawks," but Mr. Stein is a hawkish chicken, disdaining the weasel formulation in which too many antiwar folks take refuge.
The Palestinian elections were similarly clarifying. The old guard -- Yasser Arafat's Fatah cronies -- had their own take on the "But some of my best friends are Jewish" routine. For years they insisted, at least in the presence of Americans and Europeans, they favored of a "two-state solution" -- Israel and Palestine living side by side -- while supporting and glorifying and financially subsidizing suicide bombers and other terrorists. Insofar as their enthusiasm for a two-state solution was genuine, it was as an intermediate stage en route to a one-state solution.
Hamas, by contrast, takes a Joel Stein view: Why the hell should we have to go tippy-toeing around some sissy phrase we don't really mean? Hamas doesn't support a two-state solution, it supports liquidation of one state and its replacement by other, and they don't see why they should have to pretend otherwise. And in last week's elections for the Palestinian Authority they romped home. It was a landslide.
As is the way, many in the West rushed to rationalize the victory. The media have long been reluctant to damn the excitable lads as terrorists. In 2002, the New York Times published a photograph of Palestinian suicide bombers all dressed up and ready to blow, and captioned it "Hamas activists." Take my advice and try not to be standing too near the Hamas activist when he activates himself.
Oh, no no no, some analysts assured us. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because of the policy plank about obliterating the State of Israel but because Fatah is hopelessly corrupt. Which is true: the European Union bankrolled the Palestinian Authority since its creation and Yasser and his buddies salted most of the dough away in their Swiss bank accounts and used the loose change to fund the Intifada. After 10 years, you can't blame the Palestinians for figuring it's time to give another group of people a chance to siphon off all that EU booty.
So I would like to believe this was a vote for getting rid of corruption rather than getting rid of Jews. But that's hard to square with some of the newly elected legislators. For example, Mariam Farahat, a mother of three, was elected in Gaza. She once was a mother of six but three of her sons self-detonated on suicide missions against Israel. She's a household name to Palestinians, known as Um Nidal -- Mother of the Struggle -- and, at the rate she's getting through her kids, the Struggle's all she'll be Mother of. She's famous for a Hamas recruitment video in which she shows her 17-year-old son how to kill Israelis and then tells him not to come back. It's the Hamas version of 42nd Street: You're going out there a youngster but you've got to come back in small pieces.
It may be she stood for parliament because she has a yen to be junior transport minister or deputy secretary of fisheries. But it seems likelier she and her Hamas colleagues were elected because this is who the Palestinian people are, this is what they believe. The Palestinians are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the Earth: after 60 years as U.N. "refugees," they're now so depraved they're electing candidates on the basis of child sacrifice. To take two contemporaneous crises, imagine if the population displacements caused by the end of World War II and by the partition of British India had also been left to the U.N. to manage and six decades later they were still running the "refugee" "camps," now full of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, none of whom ever lived in any of the places they're supposed to be refugees from. Would you wish that fate on post-war Central Europe or the Indian Subcontinent?
So what happens now? Either Hamas forms a government and decides operating highway departments and sewer systems is what it really wants to do with itself. Or, like Arafat, it figures it has no interest in government except as a useful front for terrorist operations. If it's the former, all well and good: many first-rate terror organizations have managed to convert themselves to third-rate national-liberation governments. But, if it's the latter, that too is useful: Hamas is the honest expression of the will of the Palestinian electorate, and the cold hard truth of that is something Europeans and Americans will find hard to avoid.
As with Joel Stein, you're always better off knowing what people honestly think. For decades, Middle East dictators justified themselves to Washington as a restraint on the baser urges of their citizens, but in the end they only incubated worse pathologies. Western subsidy of Arafatistan is merely the latest example. Democracy in the Middle East is not always pretty, but it's better than the West's sillier illusions.
______
Mark Steyn is the senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc. Publications, senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group, North American editor for the Spectator, and a nationally syndicated columnist.
Monday, January 30, 2006
ECAJ Media Release on Palestinian elections.
[N.B.One can support Democracy but one need not necessarily support the results of it. MM]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media Release
"The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the elected representative organisation of the Australian Jewish community, has said Hamas must "reinvent itself completely" if it seriously wants to play any part in furthering the interests of Palestinians and peace.
The Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas, which is overtly racist and violent, was the winner in last week's Palestinian council election. The Hamas Charter calls on Islam to "obliterate" Israel, rules out negotiation and says no part of historic Palestine can ever be given up and contains references to "Elders of Zion Protocols" a notorious anti-Semitic forgery.
ECAJ President Grahame Leonard said: "It is to be hoped that Hamas will revoke its covenant, recognise Israel, abandon terrorism and engage in constructive dialogue."
ECAJ welcomed the statements of President Bush and most other world leaders which are typified by Prime Minister Howard's remarks in which he noted Hamas "has got to accept that you can't simultaneously behave like a democratically elected government and support terrorism and from the Australian Government's point of view there will be absolutely no change at all in our total commitment to the preservation of the State of Israel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media Release
"The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the elected representative organisation of the Australian Jewish community, has said Hamas must "reinvent itself completely" if it seriously wants to play any part in furthering the interests of Palestinians and peace.
The Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas, which is overtly racist and violent, was the winner in last week's Palestinian council election. The Hamas Charter calls on Islam to "obliterate" Israel, rules out negotiation and says no part of historic Palestine can ever be given up and contains references to "Elders of Zion Protocols" a notorious anti-Semitic forgery.
ECAJ President Grahame Leonard said: "It is to be hoped that Hamas will revoke its covenant, recognise Israel, abandon terrorism and engage in constructive dialogue."
ECAJ welcomed the statements of President Bush and most other world leaders which are typified by Prime Minister Howard's remarks in which he noted Hamas "has got to accept that you can't simultaneously behave like a democratically elected government and support terrorism and from the Australian Government's point of view there will be absolutely no change at all in our total commitment to the preservation of the State of Israel.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Democracy's bitter fruit: the Hamas victory.
I cannot help feeling like 'deja vu'. When Sharon was first elected by the Israelis, the world also showed their anxieties about him, about the Israelis who elected him and what would the future hold for Israel and the Palestinians. Their fears were totally unfounded.
Let us pray and hope that the same will eventuate among the Palestinians.
However, given the differences in the peoples involved, I must admit to a great deal of anxiety and pessimism!
Daniel Pipes fears that the people in the Islamic world are not ready for democracy; its results have consistently backfired on the West!
MM
[The Hamas electoral victory:] Democracy's bitter fruit
by Daniel PipesNational PostJanuary 27, 2006http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3321
Now that Hamas has apparently won the Palestinian elections, the West is
hoist with its own petard.
On the one hand, Hamas is a terrorist group that unabashedly targets Israeli civilians and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. On the other hand, it just won what observers deem to have been a reasonably fair election, and so enjoys the legitimacy that comes from the ballot box. Every foreign ministry now confronts a dilemma: Nudge it to moderation or give up on it as irredeemably extremist? Meet with Hamas members or avoid them? Continue to donate to the Palestinian Authority or starve it of funds?
This double bind is of our own making because, with Washington in the lead, virtually every Western government adopted a two-prong approach to solving the problems of the Middle East.
The negative prong consists of fighting terrorism. A "war on terror" is underway, involving military forces in the field, toughened financial laws, and an array of espionage tools.
The positive prong involves promoting democracy. The historical record shows that democratic countries almost never make war on each other, and tend to be prosperous. Therefore, elections appear to be what the doctor ordered for the maladies of the Middle East.
But that combination has failed this troubled region. The first functional election in the Palestinian Authority has thrown up Hamas. In December, 2005, the Egyptian electorate came out strongly for the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic party, and not for liberal elements. In Iraq, the post-Saddam electorate voted in a pro-Iranian Islamist as prime minister. In Lebanon, the voters celebrated the withdrawal of Syrian troops by voting Hezbollah into the government. Likewise, radical Islamic elements have prospered in elections in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
In brief, elections are bringing to power the most deadly enemies of the West. What went wrong? Why has a democratic prescription that's proven successful in Germany, Japan and other formerly bellicose nations not worked in the Middle East?
It's not Islam or some cultural factor that accounts for this difference; rather, it is the fact that ideological enemies in the Middle East have not yet been defeated. Democratization took place in Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union after their populations had endured the totalitarian crucible. By 1945 and 1991, they recognized what disasters fascism and communism had brought them, and were primed to try a different path.
That's not the case in the Middle East, where a totalitarian temptation remains powerfully in place. Muslims across the region – with the singular and important exception of Iran – are drawn to the Islamist program with its slogan that "Islam is the solution." That was the case from Iran in 1979 to Algeria in 1992 to Turkey in 2002 to the Palestinian Authority this week.
This pattern has several implications for Western governments:
Slow down: Take heed that an impatience to move the Middle East to democracy is consistently backfiring by bringing our most deadly enemies to power.
Settle in for the long run: However worthy the democratic goal, it will take decades to accomplish.
Defeat radical Islam: Only when Muslims see that this is a route doomed to failure will they be open to alternatives.
Appreciate stability: Stability must not be an end in itself, but its absence likely leads to anarchy and radicalization.
Returning to the dilemma posed by the Hamas victory, Western capitals need to show Palestinians that – like Germans electing Hitler in 1933 – they have made a decision gravely unacceptable to civilized opinion. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians to see the error of their ways.
To comment on this article, please go to http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3321#commentTo see the Daniel Pipes archive, go to http://www.DanielPipes.org
To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list, go to http://www.DanielPipes.org/subscribe.php (Daniel Pipes sends out a mailing of his writings 2-3 times a week.)
Sign up for related (but non-duplicating) e-mail services: Middle East Forum (media alerts, event reports, MEQ articles): http://www.meforum.org/subscribe.php Campus Watch (research, news items, press releases): http://www.campus-watch.org/subscribe.php
You may freely forward this information, but on condition that you send the text as an integral whole along with complete information.
Let us pray and hope that the same will eventuate among the Palestinians.
However, given the differences in the peoples involved, I must admit to a great deal of anxiety and pessimism!
Daniel Pipes fears that the people in the Islamic world are not ready for democracy; its results have consistently backfired on the West!
MM
[The Hamas electoral victory:] Democracy's bitter fruit
by Daniel PipesNational PostJanuary 27, 2006http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3321
Now that Hamas has apparently won the Palestinian elections, the West is
hoist with its own petard.
On the one hand, Hamas is a terrorist group that unabashedly targets Israeli civilians and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. On the other hand, it just won what observers deem to have been a reasonably fair election, and so enjoys the legitimacy that comes from the ballot box. Every foreign ministry now confronts a dilemma: Nudge it to moderation or give up on it as irredeemably extremist? Meet with Hamas members or avoid them? Continue to donate to the Palestinian Authority or starve it of funds?
This double bind is of our own making because, with Washington in the lead, virtually every Western government adopted a two-prong approach to solving the problems of the Middle East.
The negative prong consists of fighting terrorism. A "war on terror" is underway, involving military forces in the field, toughened financial laws, and an array of espionage tools.
The positive prong involves promoting democracy. The historical record shows that democratic countries almost never make war on each other, and tend to be prosperous. Therefore, elections appear to be what the doctor ordered for the maladies of the Middle East.
But that combination has failed this troubled region. The first functional election in the Palestinian Authority has thrown up Hamas. In December, 2005, the Egyptian electorate came out strongly for the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic party, and not for liberal elements. In Iraq, the post-Saddam electorate voted in a pro-Iranian Islamist as prime minister. In Lebanon, the voters celebrated the withdrawal of Syrian troops by voting Hezbollah into the government. Likewise, radical Islamic elements have prospered in elections in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
In brief, elections are bringing to power the most deadly enemies of the West. What went wrong? Why has a democratic prescription that's proven successful in Germany, Japan and other formerly bellicose nations not worked in the Middle East?
It's not Islam or some cultural factor that accounts for this difference; rather, it is the fact that ideological enemies in the Middle East have not yet been defeated. Democratization took place in Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union after their populations had endured the totalitarian crucible. By 1945 and 1991, they recognized what disasters fascism and communism had brought them, and were primed to try a different path.
That's not the case in the Middle East, where a totalitarian temptation remains powerfully in place. Muslims across the region – with the singular and important exception of Iran – are drawn to the Islamist program with its slogan that "Islam is the solution." That was the case from Iran in 1979 to Algeria in 1992 to Turkey in 2002 to the Palestinian Authority this week.
This pattern has several implications for Western governments:
Slow down: Take heed that an impatience to move the Middle East to democracy is consistently backfiring by bringing our most deadly enemies to power.
Settle in for the long run: However worthy the democratic goal, it will take decades to accomplish.
Defeat radical Islam: Only when Muslims see that this is a route doomed to failure will they be open to alternatives.
Appreciate stability: Stability must not be an end in itself, but its absence likely leads to anarchy and radicalization.
Returning to the dilemma posed by the Hamas victory, Western capitals need to show Palestinians that – like Germans electing Hitler in 1933 – they have made a decision gravely unacceptable to civilized opinion. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians to see the error of their ways.
To comment on this article, please go to http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3321#commentTo see the Daniel Pipes archive, go to http://www.DanielPipes.org
To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list, go to http://www.DanielPipes.org/subscribe.php (Daniel Pipes sends out a mailing of his writings 2-3 times a week.)
Sign up for related (but non-duplicating) e-mail services: Middle East Forum (media alerts, event reports, MEQ articles): http://www.meforum.org/subscribe.php Campus Watch (research, news items, press releases): http://www.campus-watch.org/subscribe.php
You may freely forward this information, but on condition that you send the text as an integral whole along with complete information.
Friday, January 27, 2006
The HAMAS Covenant.
Israel and the international community is facing a hugely problematic dilemma. From the Hamas Covenant below one can see that they are the hate-filled, militant group who have been voted into power by the Palestinian people. Obviously the people don't want peace with Israel. One would have thought that by now they would be ready to give up on fighting for their wants and start negotiating for them. Arafat has gone,- he was seen as the obstacle to peace, so they went from the frying pan into the fire? Instead of voting for a secular democratic administrarion they voted for an extremist Islamic society a-la- Taliban?
On the other hand, any movement towards peace, whether by Israeli leaders like Begin and Sharon or Arab ones, have come from the Right-wing Governments.
So who knows what the future may hold. The Palestinians are known to "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity", so I am not holding my breath for any peace moves coming anytime soon. If anything,- things will get worse before they can even begin to get better.
MM.
============================================
THE COVENANT OF THE HAMAS - MAIN POINTS
=======================================
The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement was issued on August
18, 1988. The Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as the HAMAS,
is an extremist fundamentalist Islamic organization operating in the
territories under Israeli control. Its Covenant is a comprehensive
manifesto comprised of 36 separate articles, all of which promote the
basic HAMAS goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad
(Islamic Holy War). The following are excerpts of the HAMAS
Covenant:
Goals of the HAMAS:
------------------
'The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian
Movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is
Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of
Palestine.' (Article 6)
On the Destruction of Israel:
-----------------------------
'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will
obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' (Preamble)
The Exclusive Moslem Nature of the Area:
----------------------------------------
'The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession]
consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one
can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.'
(Article 11)
'Palestine is an Islamic land... Since this is the case, the
Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem
wherever he may be.' (Article 13)
The Call to Jihad:
------------------
'The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the
individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation,
it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.' (Article 15)
'Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses
everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the
call of duty, loudly proclaiming: 'Hail to Jihad!'. This cry will
reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is
achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah's victory comes about.'
(Article 33)
Rejection of a Negotiated Peace Settlement:
-------------------------------------------
'[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and
International conferences are in contradiction to the principles of
the Islamic Resistance Movement... Those conferences are no more than
a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of
Islam... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by
Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a
waste of time, an exercise in futility.' (Article 13)
Condemnation of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty:
----------------------------------------------
'Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of struggle
[against Zionism] through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. The
Zionists are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar
agreements in order to bring them outside the circle of struggle.
...Leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism is high treason,
and cursed be he who perpetrates such an act.' (Article 32)
Anti-Semitic Incitement:
------------------------
'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and
kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the
rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind
me, come and kill him.' (Article 7)
'The enemies have been scheming for a long time ... and have
accumulated huge and influential material wealth. With their money,
they took control of the world media... With their money they stirred
revolutions in various parts of the globe... They stood behind the
French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the
revolutions we hear about... With their money they formed secret
organizations - such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs and the Lions -
which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies
and carry out Zionist interests... They stood behind World War I ...
and formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the
world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge
financial gains... There is no war going on anywhere without them
having their finger in it.' (Article 22)
'Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet
expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have
finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they
will look forward to more expansion. Their scheme has been laid out
in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.' (Article 32)
'The HAMAS regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the
circle of struggle against World Zionism... Islamic groups all over
the Arab world should also do the same, since they are best equipped
for their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews.'
(Article 32)
.
=====================================================================
Information Division, Israel Foreign Ministry - Jerusalem
Mail all Queries to ask@israel-info.gov.il
URL: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il
gopher://israel-info.gov.il
=====================================================================
On the other hand, any movement towards peace, whether by Israeli leaders like Begin and Sharon or Arab ones, have come from the Right-wing Governments.
So who knows what the future may hold. The Palestinians are known to "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity", so I am not holding my breath for any peace moves coming anytime soon. If anything,- things will get worse before they can even begin to get better.
MM.
============================================
THE COVENANT OF THE HAMAS - MAIN POINTS
=======================================
The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement was issued on August
18, 1988. The Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as the HAMAS,
is an extremist fundamentalist Islamic organization operating in the
territories under Israeli control. Its Covenant is a comprehensive
manifesto comprised of 36 separate articles, all of which promote the
basic HAMAS goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad
(Islamic Holy War). The following are excerpts of the HAMAS
Covenant:
Goals of the HAMAS:
------------------
'The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian
Movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is
Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of
Palestine.' (Article 6)
On the Destruction of Israel:
-----------------------------
'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will
obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' (Preamble)
The Exclusive Moslem Nature of the Area:
----------------------------------------
'The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession]
consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one
can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.'
(Article 11)
'Palestine is an Islamic land... Since this is the case, the
Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem
wherever he may be.' (Article 13)
The Call to Jihad:
------------------
'The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the
individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation,
it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.' (Article 15)
'Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses
everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the
call of duty, loudly proclaiming: 'Hail to Jihad!'. This cry will
reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is
achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah's victory comes about.'
(Article 33)
Rejection of a Negotiated Peace Settlement:
-------------------------------------------
'[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and
International conferences are in contradiction to the principles of
the Islamic Resistance Movement... Those conferences are no more than
a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of
Islam... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by
Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a
waste of time, an exercise in futility.' (Article 13)
Condemnation of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty:
----------------------------------------------
'Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of struggle
[against Zionism] through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. The
Zionists are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar
agreements in order to bring them outside the circle of struggle.
...Leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism is high treason,
and cursed be he who perpetrates such an act.' (Article 32)
Anti-Semitic Incitement:
------------------------
'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and
kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the
rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind
me, come and kill him.' (Article 7)
'The enemies have been scheming for a long time ... and have
accumulated huge and influential material wealth. With their money,
they took control of the world media... With their money they stirred
revolutions in various parts of the globe... They stood behind the
French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the
revolutions we hear about... With their money they formed secret
organizations - such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs and the Lions -
which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies
and carry out Zionist interests... They stood behind World War I ...
and formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the
world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge
financial gains... There is no war going on anywhere without them
having their finger in it.' (Article 22)
'Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet
expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have
finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they
will look forward to more expansion. Their scheme has been laid out
in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.' (Article 32)
'The HAMAS regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the
circle of struggle against World Zionism... Islamic groups all over
the Arab world should also do the same, since they are best equipped
for their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews.'
(Article 32)
.
=====================================================================
Information Division, Israel Foreign Ministry - Jerusalem
Mail all Queries to ask@israel-info.gov.il
URL: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il
gopher://israel-info.gov.il
=====================================================================
IRAN ON ISRAEL'S BORDERS?
IRAN ON ISRAEL’S BORDERS? Rabbi Dow Marmur
As the old saying has it: the operation was successful. However, the patient died.
The operation: the elections in the West Bank and Gaza. By all accounts, they were conducted in true democratic fashion. Since the Palestinians couldn’t have learnt it from their Arab neighbors and supporters, they must have learnt it from the Israelis.
The patient: the Palestinian authority. Hamas had a resounding victory. Though the reasons for it may be internal – the corruption and the mismanagement of the until now ruling Fatah party – the effect has vast implications. Even if it was Fatah mismanagement that led to the Hamas victory, the repercussions for Israel are as yet incalculable. Some say that it has brought Iran to Israel’s borders.
Here in Israel, opponents of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza insist that it was this that gave succor to Hamas and helped it to convince the Palestinians that only their hard line approach can yield results. “We told you so” is the refrain of settlers’ leaders and others. They remind us that even after their victory leaders of Hamas declare that they’ll continue the armed struggle against Israel and that they stand by their commitment to seek to eradicate it.
Ehud Olmert (and presumably Arik Sharon, though it’s still taboo to criticize the ailing Prime Minster) is accused of having yielded to international pressure and squandered Israel’s interests. Right-wing opponents hope to capitalize on it in the March elections. The most recent polls still point to a Kadima victory and poor results for Likud, but polls also predicted a Fatah victory in the Palestinian elections.
The arguments include implied references to the Psalmist who warns us not to trust in princes. World leaders have implied that they won’t cooperate with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. This means that they would withhold the funds without which the Authority allegedly cannot function. But international opinion is fickle. In the struggle between Israel and her enemies, European states - at times even America - often take the side of the enemies, especially when essential oil supplies are at risk. Moreover, Iran may make up the shortfall; its oil revenues are soaring.
Good news doesn’t stay good for long, particularly when prospects of peace between Israel and the Palestinians are on the agenda. The hopeful signs from previous weeks are evaporating. But it’s still too early to assess if the patient is really dead. There are optimists around who believe that he’s only in shock and will soon wake up to face reality.
Some of the optimists suggest that, after an internal struggle, Hamas will modify its stance in the way Arafat’s PLO once did. Perhaps, they say, it’s better to have Hamas inside the proverbial tent than outside it.
What if that doesn’t happen? If your optimism is persistent you may suggest that a Kadima-Labor government in Israel will know how to protect the country’s borders by completing the fence in ways that are most convenient to Israel and leave the land on the other side to the devices of the Palestinians by way of unilateral withdrawal. We may not live in peace with each other, but Israel may still have security. If the Palestinians will suffer, as they’re bound to, they only have themselves to blame by electing the government they did.
Jerusalem 28.1.06 Dow Marmur
As the old saying has it: the operation was successful. However, the patient died.
The operation: the elections in the West Bank and Gaza. By all accounts, they were conducted in true democratic fashion. Since the Palestinians couldn’t have learnt it from their Arab neighbors and supporters, they must have learnt it from the Israelis.
The patient: the Palestinian authority. Hamas had a resounding victory. Though the reasons for it may be internal – the corruption and the mismanagement of the until now ruling Fatah party – the effect has vast implications. Even if it was Fatah mismanagement that led to the Hamas victory, the repercussions for Israel are as yet incalculable. Some say that it has brought Iran to Israel’s borders.
Here in Israel, opponents of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza insist that it was this that gave succor to Hamas and helped it to convince the Palestinians that only their hard line approach can yield results. “We told you so” is the refrain of settlers’ leaders and others. They remind us that even after their victory leaders of Hamas declare that they’ll continue the armed struggle against Israel and that they stand by their commitment to seek to eradicate it.
Ehud Olmert (and presumably Arik Sharon, though it’s still taboo to criticize the ailing Prime Minster) is accused of having yielded to international pressure and squandered Israel’s interests. Right-wing opponents hope to capitalize on it in the March elections. The most recent polls still point to a Kadima victory and poor results for Likud, but polls also predicted a Fatah victory in the Palestinian elections.
The arguments include implied references to the Psalmist who warns us not to trust in princes. World leaders have implied that they won’t cooperate with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. This means that they would withhold the funds without which the Authority allegedly cannot function. But international opinion is fickle. In the struggle between Israel and her enemies, European states - at times even America - often take the side of the enemies, especially when essential oil supplies are at risk. Moreover, Iran may make up the shortfall; its oil revenues are soaring.
Good news doesn’t stay good for long, particularly when prospects of peace between Israel and the Palestinians are on the agenda. The hopeful signs from previous weeks are evaporating. But it’s still too early to assess if the patient is really dead. There are optimists around who believe that he’s only in shock and will soon wake up to face reality.
Some of the optimists suggest that, after an internal struggle, Hamas will modify its stance in the way Arafat’s PLO once did. Perhaps, they say, it’s better to have Hamas inside the proverbial tent than outside it.
What if that doesn’t happen? If your optimism is persistent you may suggest that a Kadima-Labor government in Israel will know how to protect the country’s borders by completing the fence in ways that are most convenient to Israel and leave the land on the other side to the devices of the Palestinians by way of unilateral withdrawal. We may not live in peace with each other, but Israel may still have security. If the Palestinians will suffer, as they’re bound to, they only have themselves to blame by electing the government they did.
Jerusalem 28.1.06 Dow Marmur
STOP IRAN NOW: END NUCLEAR THREAT.
January 26, 2006
INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY ASSOC: STOP IRAN NOW
IMPOSE SANCTIONS AND END THE NUCLEAR THREAT
This Friday, for the first time, the United Nations will officially observe the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. A UN General Assembly resolution has designated January 27 as the official International Day of Commemoration. Its provisions reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event and condemn all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur.
Ironically, just as the UN is finally commemorating the Holocaust for the first time, Iran, a UN member-state, is planning its own Holocaust Conference: one that denies the historical reality of the Nazi Genocide against the Jewish people.(AP Photo: A man burns Israeli flags during an anti-Israel rally called "Al-Quds Day" (Jerusalem Day) in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Oct. 28, 2005. Tens of thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel protests.)
This is the latest move in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s campaign against Israel and the Jewish people. He has labeled the Holocaust a “myth” and more ominously declared that the Jewish State should be “wiped off the map”.
All this as Iran vigorously pursues its goal of becoming a nuclear power – a move that puts the entire Middle East and Europe in harms way. But, it is Israel and her seven million citizens, including 40% of the world’s Jewish population that is the first potential target of Tehran’s tyrannical regime.
We urge you to join our campaign to demand that the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, take the lead at next week’s February 2nd special meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency to immediately refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council for the imposition of sanctions and to demand immediate suspension of its nuclear program.
The ruling Mullahs and Iran’s fanatical president venerate suicide bombing and martyrdom and are placing the Iranian people on a collision course that could lead to genocide and ultimately self-destruction.
(UPI Photo: Iranian women athletes form a human chain around the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) to support Iran's nuclear program, just outside the city of Isfahan, 410 kilometers (255 miles) south of Tehran, Iran, Sunday, January 22, 2006.)
By clicking here, you will be sending a letter directly to Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency demanding that action be taken to stop Iran immediately.
We need your support to continue our work.
Please click here to support the work of the Simon Wiesenthal Center .
Send inquiries to: information@wiesenthal.net
Or send mail to:Simon Wiesenthal Center1399 South Roxbury, Los Angeles, California 90035310-553-9036http://www.wiesenthal.com
This e-mail was sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international organization with 400,000 members, promoting tolerance and combating antisemitism worldwide.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
ISRAEL'S MIAs: missing in action!
I just heard tonight for the first time that Israel, unlike most other countries, has no memorial for "The Unknown Soldier". Why? Because Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion declared after the War of Independence in '48 that every Israeli soldier has a name and an identity and no effort should be spared in tracing all MIAs so that they can be given a proper burial. This is particularly important for young Jewish widows who would be left as "agunot" or "chained wives" (without the ability to remarry and start a new family, because their children would be sigmatised as "mamserim" unless there was proof of death of the husband).
Therefore no effort is spared by groups of experts and volunteers in a special unit in the IDF who then set about to track down every single soldier MIA. Sometimes it takes years for these to be found and there are still some 200 MIAs from the various wars waiting to be traced.
The speaker (at a function for a new group of Friends of the Israeli Firefighters, very appropriate for us these days!) described 2 fascinating cases which he helped to solve. One was still from the '48 war who was buried at he time in a field where he fell,- but without ID. The situation in those days was desperate, they needed every man and having got separated from his brigade, someone asked this particular guy to join another without any formalities. He fell in battle, was quickly buried and then forgotten.
The investigators tried very hard to find this MIA, but it was only after many years that they spoke with a newly arrived relative from his home town, who was blind. She remembered him and said only that when he hugged her as a child, she felt that one of his front teeth was different.
Then it 'clicked' for them, - someone had described this person with a gold tooth in his unit. They found one unknown body among many in a certain field where that particular battle took place, but with a front tooth missing! By that time, both his mother and his daughter had passed away and only they could prove his DNA (males canot do that). But the missing front tooth, obviously stolen because of its gold, by someone at the time, helped them to identify him. Some 40years after his death, this MIA was given a proper burial, with an identity which his grandchildren can see. Sadly by that time his daughter and parents had passed away.
Another case he described involved a missing navigator who was shot down over Egyptian territory in the '73 Yom Kipur war. It was some 20 years later that they followed a hunch from a satelite photo to chase up a particular field, which when they got there, was planted with wheat.
The team of some 20 people from the army and specialists in various fields who gathered there, bought the crop from the farmer, harvested it and proceeded to dig and look for any remnants of a plane.
While the Egyptians insisted that they didn't hold or shoot this airman, the Israelis didn't believe them because another pilot thought he saw all the airmen parachuting out of the Phantom jet at the time. The investigators wanted to at least find the plane.
All the children and people in the village were offered bribes to bring any plane fragments they could find and many did. But there was a Professor in the team, with experience in Africa as an "osseologist",- archeological bones expert, who recognised a tiny part of a jaw-bone which was brought to them by one of the kids. To their amazement, from this one particular tiny bone, the Professor was able to describe the complete stature of the person from where it came! The description fitted exactly the missing airman's physique. This gave them the inpetus to search also for the body as well as the aeroplane. Sure enough, several feet underground they came upon the cockpit of the plane and the remains of the MIA still inside. Apparentlythere was a malfunction in the ejection mechanism and he looked as though he was chained to his seat.
Then they remembered reading an article in the Egyptian papers of those days, where they were gloating over the downing of two Phantoms plus claiming that Israelis "chain their pilots to their seats otherwise they would run away"! No one took it more than senseless propaganda and dismissed it because they believed that the Egyptians simply didn't want to admit that they probably killed the airman, just as they did another one whose body was returned after the peace treaty was signed.
--------------
It was a most interesting evening,- like watching the Foxtel Discovery channel about crime investigators! What impressed us most is the degree of importance and the perseverence which is dedicated to this project by the government and the IDF.
Kol Hakavod to them.
"Every soldier has a name and an identity." There is no "Joe Doe" in Israel!
MM.
Therefore no effort is spared by groups of experts and volunteers in a special unit in the IDF who then set about to track down every single soldier MIA. Sometimes it takes years for these to be found and there are still some 200 MIAs from the various wars waiting to be traced.
The speaker (at a function for a new group of Friends of the Israeli Firefighters, very appropriate for us these days!) described 2 fascinating cases which he helped to solve. One was still from the '48 war who was buried at he time in a field where he fell,- but without ID. The situation in those days was desperate, they needed every man and having got separated from his brigade, someone asked this particular guy to join another without any formalities. He fell in battle, was quickly buried and then forgotten.
The investigators tried very hard to find this MIA, but it was only after many years that they spoke with a newly arrived relative from his home town, who was blind. She remembered him and said only that when he hugged her as a child, she felt that one of his front teeth was different.
Then it 'clicked' for them, - someone had described this person with a gold tooth in his unit. They found one unknown body among many in a certain field where that particular battle took place, but with a front tooth missing! By that time, both his mother and his daughter had passed away and only they could prove his DNA (males canot do that). But the missing front tooth, obviously stolen because of its gold, by someone at the time, helped them to identify him. Some 40years after his death, this MIA was given a proper burial, with an identity which his grandchildren can see. Sadly by that time his daughter and parents had passed away.
Another case he described involved a missing navigator who was shot down over Egyptian territory in the '73 Yom Kipur war. It was some 20 years later that they followed a hunch from a satelite photo to chase up a particular field, which when they got there, was planted with wheat.
The team of some 20 people from the army and specialists in various fields who gathered there, bought the crop from the farmer, harvested it and proceeded to dig and look for any remnants of a plane.
While the Egyptians insisted that they didn't hold or shoot this airman, the Israelis didn't believe them because another pilot thought he saw all the airmen parachuting out of the Phantom jet at the time. The investigators wanted to at least find the plane.
All the children and people in the village were offered bribes to bring any plane fragments they could find and many did. But there was a Professor in the team, with experience in Africa as an "osseologist",- archeological bones expert, who recognised a tiny part of a jaw-bone which was brought to them by one of the kids. To their amazement, from this one particular tiny bone, the Professor was able to describe the complete stature of the person from where it came! The description fitted exactly the missing airman's physique. This gave them the inpetus to search also for the body as well as the aeroplane. Sure enough, several feet underground they came upon the cockpit of the plane and the remains of the MIA still inside. Apparentlythere was a malfunction in the ejection mechanism and he looked as though he was chained to his seat.
Then they remembered reading an article in the Egyptian papers of those days, where they were gloating over the downing of two Phantoms plus claiming that Israelis "chain their pilots to their seats otherwise they would run away"! No one took it more than senseless propaganda and dismissed it because they believed that the Egyptians simply didn't want to admit that they probably killed the airman, just as they did another one whose body was returned after the peace treaty was signed.
--------------
It was a most interesting evening,- like watching the Foxtel Discovery channel about crime investigators! What impressed us most is the degree of importance and the perseverence which is dedicated to this project by the government and the IDF.
Kol Hakavod to them.
"Every soldier has a name and an identity." There is no "Joe Doe" in Israel!
MM.
INDEX OF LATEST POSTS
Latest Posts
Happy "Australia Day"! Happy Anniversary.
Israel: Palestinian terrorism latest statistics.
"Munich"- what's all the fuss about?
UN- INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
Liberalism, Relativism, Cosmopolitanism: "Easier Said than Done"
Article by Pete Fisher (USA) about Islam.
Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Israel Propaganda.
Happy "Australia Day"! Happy Anniversary.
Israel: Palestinian terrorism latest statistics.
"Munich"- what's all the fuss about?
UN- INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
Liberalism, Relativism, Cosmopolitanism: "Easier Said than Done"
Article by Pete Fisher (USA) about Islam.
Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Israel Propaganda.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Happy "Australia Day"! Happy Anniversary.
My husband and I are always celebrating our wedding aniversaries on Australia Day. I was on my honeymoon on my 21st birthday. My husband had arrived in this country only 18 months earlier. We both survived the second world war as children, but then, while still a teenager, he went on to fight for his people's survival in Israel's War of Independence, together with his family. All the Arab armies together could not overrun the tiny newly declared State but as soon as those armies were defeated by the rag-tag army of untrained soldiers, mostly survivors of death camps,- my husband decided to see the world and got stuck with me in Oz! 48 years later we still call marvellous Australia home,- but we also love our spiritual homeland of Israel.
HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY TO US ALL!
Jewish Australia Online Newsletter January 26, 2006
Dear readers, Australia Day 2006 presents a scene all too familiar: searing heat and bushfires, tennis and cricket, and the end of the summer school holidays.
But Australia Day also has special meaning for the Jewish community. Not only were Jews "present at the creation" when the first European settlers arrived in 1788, but their story has been intertwined with Australia's story ever since.You'll find many interesting links to Australia Day history and activities on our special page
http://www.jewishaustralia.com/?Page=australiaday
To all our readers, around Australia and around the world, happy Australia Day and good wishes for a peaceful 2006.
Aura Levin LipskiPublisherJewish Australia Online NetworkThe internet home of:
Jewish Australia.comThe gateway to Jewish Australiahttp://www.jewishaustralia.com/
Hebrew Songs.comThe Online Library of Hebrew Songshttp://www.hebrewsongs.com/
Israeli Dances.comThe Global Resource for Israeli Danceshttp://www.israelidances.com/
This newsletter is proudly brought to you by ImageWorks Specialists in document design and production
Remember: January 27th is the UN-World Holocaust Memorial Day!
HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY TO US ALL!
Jewish Australia Online Newsletter January 26, 2006
Dear readers, Australia Day 2006 presents a scene all too familiar: searing heat and bushfires, tennis and cricket, and the end of the summer school holidays.
But Australia Day also has special meaning for the Jewish community. Not only were Jews "present at the creation" when the first European settlers arrived in 1788, but their story has been intertwined with Australia's story ever since.You'll find many interesting links to Australia Day history and activities on our special page
http://www.jewishaustralia.com/?Page=australiaday
To all our readers, around Australia and around the world, happy Australia Day and good wishes for a peaceful 2006.
Aura Levin LipskiPublisherJewish Australia Online NetworkThe internet home of:
Jewish Australia.comThe gateway to Jewish Australiahttp://www.jewishaustralia.com/
Hebrew Songs.comThe Online Library of Hebrew Songshttp://www.hebrewsongs.com/
Israeli Dances.comThe Global Resource for Israeli Danceshttp://www.israelidances.com/
This newsletter is proudly brought to you by ImageWorks Specialists in document design and production
Remember: January 27th is the UN-World Holocaust Memorial Day!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Israel: Palestinian terrorism latest statistics.
In view of the forthcoming elections in the Palestinian Territories, it is important to keep tabs on who is doing what against Israel in the terrorism stakes:
(21-1-06)
Despite the ''Tahdia,'' the commitment by Palestinian groups on January 22, 2005, not to commit terror attacks against Israel, 2 990 terror attacks were perpetrated against Israeli targets in 2005 and 377 Qassam rockets were fired against Israel (compared to 304 in 2004). (Guysen.Israël.News)
The number of Israeli victims decreased : 45 peoples died - including 37 civilians and 8 security force members -, in 2005 (as opposed to 117 in 2004) - a 60% drop ; 406 people were wounded - inculding 302 civilians and 104 security force members (compared to 589 in 2004) - a 30% drop. In 7 suicide bombings, 23 people died in 2005, as opposed to 55 in 15 suicide bombings in 2004. Also, in 2005, Israeli security forces arrested 160 would-be suicide bombers in the West Bank - 59 belonged to the Islamic Jihad, 47 to the Fatah Tanzim, 29 to Hamas, 14 to the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and 11 to other movements.The terrorists are taking advantage of the absence of a security fence in Judea.
(21-1-06)
Despite the ''Tahdia,'' the commitment by Palestinian groups on January 22, 2005, not to commit terror attacks against Israel, 2 990 terror attacks were perpetrated against Israeli targets in 2005 and 377 Qassam rockets were fired against Israel (compared to 304 in 2004). (Guysen.Israël.News)
The number of Israeli victims decreased : 45 peoples died - including 37 civilians and 8 security force members -, in 2005 (as opposed to 117 in 2004) - a 60% drop ; 406 people were wounded - inculding 302 civilians and 104 security force members (compared to 589 in 2004) - a 30% drop. In 7 suicide bombings, 23 people died in 2005, as opposed to 55 in 15 suicide bombings in 2004. Also, in 2005, Israeli security forces arrested 160 would-be suicide bombers in the West Bank - 59 belonged to the Islamic Jihad, 47 to the Fatah Tanzim, 29 to Hamas, 14 to the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and 11 to other movements.The terrorists are taking advantage of the absence of a security fence in Judea.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
"Munich"- what's all the fuss about?
1. The Age article by a Palestinian. 2. Letter to the Ed. in reply by MaryWerther.
3. Link to a debate about it on FrontPage Magazine. 4. My comments after seeing it.
1.Melbourne, " The Age".
» Opinion » Article
Remembering the Munich massacre, a lesson for us all
By Maher Mughrabi
January 18, 2006
Steven Spielberg's Munich opens on Australia Day, but already I feel as if I am watching it everywhere. My last cinema trip was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which began with an imaginary international sporting event disrupted by terror. As the Death Eaters marched through the Quidditch World Cup, all I could see was grainy 1970s footage of masked men: Palestinians, like me.
In these post-September 11 days, every major sporting event - from Melbourne's Commonwealth Games to the coming World Cup in Germany - lives under this shadow. High above the soccer crowds in the northern summer, it won't just be blimps bearing cameras; AWACS surveillance aircraft will be on patrol.
Sitting in the cinema, I thought: we are the ones who violated the Olympic truce. I know that the Soviets were rolling tanks into Afghanistan at the same time as they hosted the Moscow Games in 1980, and there must be a host of other cases where war went on while athletes played. I was not even born when the Munich Games were held. None of this affects the way I feel about what happened there: it was a disgrace, to me and my people.
How does one address such disgrace? Until recently, Australians were caught up in this question of the violence of their history, much of it violence and cruelty against Aborigines. A big part of John Howard's ambition to make Australians "relaxed and comfortable" was to end any agonising over the national past, what he once called "the black armband view of history".
Watching the Australian cricket team after Kerry Packer's death, it struck me that black armbands aren't about shame, or a lack of relaxation. They are, as we all know but perhaps don't always realise, a sign of mature and dignified acknowledgement of what has happened. Whether or not you think Packer is worthy of such acknowledgement is another matter. What matters is that nations can and do choose to look back in this way all the time.
This is a far cry, I think, from what Howard thinks saying sorry or acknowledging past injustices would mean. He sees it in legalistic terms, as an admission of fault or liability, and not in terms of mutual recognition. Perhaps he believes that such violence is part and parcel of the establishment of nations everywhere, and that is probably true. But we should never allow that truth to be reduced to "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet"; we should always face up to it and admit it is part of us.
Spielberg turned down the offer to make Munich a number of times. He knew the criticisms the film was likely to attract before any screening: it humanises Palestinian terrorists, or humanises Israeli assassins, or makes the two equivalent. Before the film was released anywhere, he showed it to Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, widows of two of the slain Israeli athletes.
Ilana Romano emerged from the film satisfied that it did not dishonour the memory of her husband and his teammates. She also felt Israel's reputation was protected. "Had Spielberg wanted to harm Israel's image, he would have included the Lillehammer affair," she added.
Yet here again there is a problem, for it would not be "unfair" or "biased against Israel" to include the Lillehammer affair; it is something that actually happened. In July 1973, Israel sent a death squad to that Norwegian town to assassinate a man they believed to be a Palestinian terrorist. Walking home from the cinema with his pregnant Norwegian wife, he was shot repeatedly. Yet Ahmed Bouchiki turned out to be an innocent Moroccan waiter.
After 23 years of denying liability, the Israeli government finally compensated Bouchiki's widow Torill. But liability and responsibility are not the same things. Israel still assassinates people in this way, and the deaths of innocents continue.
It is tempting to respond to such facts by pointing to intention - something those responsible for Munich have tried to do - or by pointing outwards and saying that "they (Palestinians, Israelis) left us with no choice". These arguments are the ones that should really make us hang our heads.
Palestine as a nation doesn't exist, yet these days there is a team competing on its behalf in Olympic Games. Against the odds, it has even won a medal. Most of its athletes are younger than I, that much further removed from Munich.
But I don't dream of silver or gold; I dream of our athletes and officials having the nerve to make some acknowledgement of Moshe Weinberg, Yossef Romano, Yossef Gutfreund, David Berger, Mark Slavin, Yacov Springer, Zeev Friedman, Amitzur Shapira, Eliezer Halfin, Kehat Shorr and Andre Spitzer for the whole world to see.
Perhaps it is too much to hope that such a gesture might be reciprocated and not exploited, not seen as an admission of liability. But any other path to "relaxation and comfort" is surely a sham, for all of us.
Maher Mughrabi is a staff writer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2. LETTER TO THE EDITOR in reply.
Palestinian maturity
IT IS admirable that Maher Mughrabi, in his imaginary "mea culpa", wishes for the Palestinians to be mature enough to officially repent for their massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
However, in trying to relate this to Australia's acknowledgement of past errors, he is sorely mistaken. That particular act of Palestinian terrorism was not some isolated event or aberrant time in history but was part of a constant, daily policy of Arab attacks on Israel and its citizens that continues to this day. Most attacks are thwarted, and we only hear about the devastation when one slips through.
True maturity would be when Palestinian society stops brainwashing young students to aspire to violence and martyrdom, and stops naming schools and sporting clubs in honour of suicide bombers. Inclusion of Israel in Palestinian maps of the region would also be a mature move.
The most important sign of Palestinian maturity would be a determination to build up a law-abiding civil society in their own areas, which they now control, rather than wasting lives and a huge amount of donated funds in attempting to destroy Israel.
Mary Werther, Camberwell
•---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
A debate about the film "Munich" is featured here:
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20956
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. My reaction re the film.
AfterI saw the film, my initial reaction was:
I don't know what all the criticism is about from the point of view of Israelis. The real footage is graphic and horrifying enough; the Israeli Jewish avengers show all the emotions that we would expect from people with a conscience; they say "never again",- never again will Jews be killed with impunity. The fanatical Palestinians briefly featured in an unlikely scenario where they actually meet with them and there is some dialogue with the Israelis, they show their callousness and fanaticism.-
But the targeted terrorists, after their cowardly release from jail by the Germans under blackmail,- are shown as having returned to a normal life by the time the assassins caught up with them. Care is taken not to hurt innocent members of their families, or their neighbours. It was difficult to work out who their source of information was,- the whole makes for mystery and thrill,- a good fictional thriller based on some true facts but it's all fiction.
I don't think that Spielberg could possibly make a commercial film based solely on the Israeli and Jewish point of view. If any of the modern Israeli film-makers would have produced this film, it would probaly be very similar. I saw one which was in fact similar, - an Israeli thriller dealing with a Mossadnik sent to kill an old Nazi war-criminal but in the end he couldn't face killing this old man. He was killed not by the Israeli but by his own German grandson!In both films, the Jewish assassin goes home to his wife and baby and says "I've had enough"!
Whether Leunig who is against "targeted killings" or Spielberg against "revenge killings", or those who don't believe in "an eye for an eye"- the final word goes to "Golda Meir" who says "every civilization has to negotiate compromises with its own values". As one reviewer put it: "the film asks how does one bring order to a violent land without using the same methods as the enemy."
(Malvina)
3. Link to a debate about it on FrontPage Magazine. 4. My comments after seeing it.
1.Melbourne, " The Age".
» Opinion » Article
Remembering the Munich massacre, a lesson for us all
By Maher Mughrabi
January 18, 2006
Steven Spielberg's Munich opens on Australia Day, but already I feel as if I am watching it everywhere. My last cinema trip was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which began with an imaginary international sporting event disrupted by terror. As the Death Eaters marched through the Quidditch World Cup, all I could see was grainy 1970s footage of masked men: Palestinians, like me.
In these post-September 11 days, every major sporting event - from Melbourne's Commonwealth Games to the coming World Cup in Germany - lives under this shadow. High above the soccer crowds in the northern summer, it won't just be blimps bearing cameras; AWACS surveillance aircraft will be on patrol.
Sitting in the cinema, I thought: we are the ones who violated the Olympic truce. I know that the Soviets were rolling tanks into Afghanistan at the same time as they hosted the Moscow Games in 1980, and there must be a host of other cases where war went on while athletes played. I was not even born when the Munich Games were held. None of this affects the way I feel about what happened there: it was a disgrace, to me and my people.
How does one address such disgrace? Until recently, Australians were caught up in this question of the violence of their history, much of it violence and cruelty against Aborigines. A big part of John Howard's ambition to make Australians "relaxed and comfortable" was to end any agonising over the national past, what he once called "the black armband view of history".
Watching the Australian cricket team after Kerry Packer's death, it struck me that black armbands aren't about shame, or a lack of relaxation. They are, as we all know but perhaps don't always realise, a sign of mature and dignified acknowledgement of what has happened. Whether or not you think Packer is worthy of such acknowledgement is another matter. What matters is that nations can and do choose to look back in this way all the time.
This is a far cry, I think, from what Howard thinks saying sorry or acknowledging past injustices would mean. He sees it in legalistic terms, as an admission of fault or liability, and not in terms of mutual recognition. Perhaps he believes that such violence is part and parcel of the establishment of nations everywhere, and that is probably true. But we should never allow that truth to be reduced to "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet"; we should always face up to it and admit it is part of us.
Spielberg turned down the offer to make Munich a number of times. He knew the criticisms the film was likely to attract before any screening: it humanises Palestinian terrorists, or humanises Israeli assassins, or makes the two equivalent. Before the film was released anywhere, he showed it to Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, widows of two of the slain Israeli athletes.
Ilana Romano emerged from the film satisfied that it did not dishonour the memory of her husband and his teammates. She also felt Israel's reputation was protected. "Had Spielberg wanted to harm Israel's image, he would have included the Lillehammer affair," she added.
Yet here again there is a problem, for it would not be "unfair" or "biased against Israel" to include the Lillehammer affair; it is something that actually happened. In July 1973, Israel sent a death squad to that Norwegian town to assassinate a man they believed to be a Palestinian terrorist. Walking home from the cinema with his pregnant Norwegian wife, he was shot repeatedly. Yet Ahmed Bouchiki turned out to be an innocent Moroccan waiter.
After 23 years of denying liability, the Israeli government finally compensated Bouchiki's widow Torill. But liability and responsibility are not the same things. Israel still assassinates people in this way, and the deaths of innocents continue.
It is tempting to respond to such facts by pointing to intention - something those responsible for Munich have tried to do - or by pointing outwards and saying that "they (Palestinians, Israelis) left us with no choice". These arguments are the ones that should really make us hang our heads.
Palestine as a nation doesn't exist, yet these days there is a team competing on its behalf in Olympic Games. Against the odds, it has even won a medal. Most of its athletes are younger than I, that much further removed from Munich.
But I don't dream of silver or gold; I dream of our athletes and officials having the nerve to make some acknowledgement of Moshe Weinberg, Yossef Romano, Yossef Gutfreund, David Berger, Mark Slavin, Yacov Springer, Zeev Friedman, Amitzur Shapira, Eliezer Halfin, Kehat Shorr and Andre Spitzer for the whole world to see.
Perhaps it is too much to hope that such a gesture might be reciprocated and not exploited, not seen as an admission of liability. But any other path to "relaxation and comfort" is surely a sham, for all of us.
Maher Mughrabi is a staff writer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2. LETTER TO THE EDITOR in reply.
Palestinian maturity
IT IS admirable that Maher Mughrabi, in his imaginary "mea culpa", wishes for the Palestinians to be mature enough to officially repent for their massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
However, in trying to relate this to Australia's acknowledgement of past errors, he is sorely mistaken. That particular act of Palestinian terrorism was not some isolated event or aberrant time in history but was part of a constant, daily policy of Arab attacks on Israel and its citizens that continues to this day. Most attacks are thwarted, and we only hear about the devastation when one slips through.
True maturity would be when Palestinian society stops brainwashing young students to aspire to violence and martyrdom, and stops naming schools and sporting clubs in honour of suicide bombers. Inclusion of Israel in Palestinian maps of the region would also be a mature move.
The most important sign of Palestinian maturity would be a determination to build up a law-abiding civil society in their own areas, which they now control, rather than wasting lives and a huge amount of donated funds in attempting to destroy Israel.
Mary Werther, Camberwell
•---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
A debate about the film "Munich" is featured here:
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20956
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. My reaction re the film.
AfterI saw the film, my initial reaction was:
I don't know what all the criticism is about from the point of view of Israelis. The real footage is graphic and horrifying enough; the Israeli Jewish avengers show all the emotions that we would expect from people with a conscience; they say "never again",- never again will Jews be killed with impunity. The fanatical Palestinians briefly featured in an unlikely scenario where they actually meet with them and there is some dialogue with the Israelis, they show their callousness and fanaticism.-
But the targeted terrorists, after their cowardly release from jail by the Germans under blackmail,- are shown as having returned to a normal life by the time the assassins caught up with them. Care is taken not to hurt innocent members of their families, or their neighbours. It was difficult to work out who their source of information was,- the whole makes for mystery and thrill,- a good fictional thriller based on some true facts but it's all fiction.
I don't think that Spielberg could possibly make a commercial film based solely on the Israeli and Jewish point of view. If any of the modern Israeli film-makers would have produced this film, it would probaly be very similar. I saw one which was in fact similar, - an Israeli thriller dealing with a Mossadnik sent to kill an old Nazi war-criminal but in the end he couldn't face killing this old man. He was killed not by the Israeli but by his own German grandson!In both films, the Jewish assassin goes home to his wife and baby and says "I've had enough"!
Whether Leunig who is against "targeted killings" or Spielberg against "revenge killings", or those who don't believe in "an eye for an eye"- the final word goes to "Golda Meir" who says "every civilization has to negotiate compromises with its own values". As one reviewer put it: "the film asks how does one bring order to a violent land without using the same methods as the enemy."
(Malvina)
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
UN- INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
Not an official document.
For information only.
December 2005
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27th January.
On 1 November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 60/7 designating 27 January as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Following the adoption of the resolution, the Secretary General of the United Nations characterized this special day as “an important reminder of the universal lessons of the Holocaust, a unique evil which cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten”.
The horrors of World War II sparked the creation of the United Nations. Human rights for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion is one of the fundamental mandates recorded in its Charter. At the inauguration of the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem (Israel) in March 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan recalled that “worldwide revulsion at the genocide -- at the systematic murder of six million Jews and millions of others -- was also a driving force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. The Secretary-General added that “the United Nations
has a sacred responsibility to combat hatred and intolerance. A United Nations that fails to be at the forefront of the fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of racism denies its history and undermines its future”.
27 January was chosen to be International Holocaust Remembrance Day as it marks the day on which the largest Nazi death camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland) was liberated by the Soviet army in 1945. Several countries already observe this day to remember Holocaust victims.
For more information, please visit:
http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/discrim/race_b_ht_print.asp
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/ga10413.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9762.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9689.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sgsm9375.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2005/webArticles/un_seminars.html
This fact sheet has been issued by the Public Inquiries Unit,
Department of Public Information, United Nations.
Tel.: 212-963-4475; Fax: 212-963-0071; E-mail: inquiries@un.org
Website: http://www.un.org/geninfo/faq
For information only.
December 2005
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27th January.
On 1 November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 60/7 designating 27 January as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Following the adoption of the resolution, the Secretary General of the United Nations characterized this special day as “an important reminder of the universal lessons of the Holocaust, a unique evil which cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten”.
The horrors of World War II sparked the creation of the United Nations. Human rights for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion is one of the fundamental mandates recorded in its Charter. At the inauguration of the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem (Israel) in March 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan recalled that “worldwide revulsion at the genocide -- at the systematic murder of six million Jews and millions of others -- was also a driving force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. The Secretary-General added that “the United Nations
has a sacred responsibility to combat hatred and intolerance. A United Nations that fails to be at the forefront of the fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of racism denies its history and undermines its future”.
27 January was chosen to be International Holocaust Remembrance Day as it marks the day on which the largest Nazi death camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland) was liberated by the Soviet army in 1945. Several countries already observe this day to remember Holocaust victims.
For more information, please visit:
http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/discrim/race_b_ht_print.asp
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/ga10413.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9762.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9689.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sgsm9375.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2005/webArticles/un_seminars.html
This fact sheet has been issued by the Public Inquiries Unit,
Department of Public Information, United Nations.
Tel.: 212-963-4475; Fax: 212-963-0071; E-mail: inquiries@un.org
Website: http://www.un.org/geninfo/faq
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Liberalism, Relativism, Cosmopolitanism: "Easier Said than Done"
[Where does Islamism fit into this equation? M.]
This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/gray
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Easier Said Than Done
by JOHN GRAY
[from the January 30, 2006 issue]
There is a strange presumption in recent thought about human values. When we think about basic issues in ethics and politics, it is taken as a given that we face a choice between liberalism and relativism. Believing that human values are cultural constructions that vary widely across time and space, relativists urge us to be conscious of difference. If they have a political message it is one of tolerance: "Don't try to impose your way of life on others; be sensitive to the claims of cultural minorities in your own society." Liberals, on the other hand, insist that there are requirements of justice or rights that apply to all human beings regardless of the communities or cultures to which they belong. The liberal political message is one of universalism: "The human species is--or may one day become--a single moral community in which the same values are honored everywhere." Either we commit ourselves to liberal universalism or we must embrace moral relativism.
There are many things wrong with this dichotomy. One of the most obvious is that it is highly parochial. Liberalism may look like the only game in town these days, but just a generation ago there were Marxists, anarchists, socialists and others who believed a systematic alternative to liberal society was desirable, imaginable and practically feasible. Further back in the history of thought, there were many versions of universalism--most of them nonliberal. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas all believed in universal values, but no one would call them liberals. Looking outside the Western tradition, the same is true of Confucian, Buddhist and Islamic thinkers. It is one thing to assert the existence of universal values, quite another to claim these values are in some sense liberal. It is also true that most relativists have not been greatly concerned with issues of difference. Often relativism has gone hand in hand with the idea that society is an organic whole--a highly dubious notion, which if it tends to support diversity does so only at the level of entire cultures. Herder and the Romantics celebrated the differences among peoples, but they were indifferent or hostile to the claims of cultural minorities.
The idea that we must choose between liberalism and relativism reflects the poverty of the contemporary political imagination and a disabling loss of historical memory. Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers is a welcome attempt to resurrect an older tradition of moral and political reflection and to show its relevance to our current condition. Appiah, a professor of philosophy at Princeton, seeks to revive cosmopolitanism, a view of humans as citizens of the world that was advanced by the Cynics in Greece in the fourth century BCE and elaborated by Stoic philosophers in Roman times. In Appiah's view cosmopolitanism has two intertwined strands: the idea that we have obligations to other human beings above and beyond those to whom we are related by ties of family, kinship or formal citizenship; and an attitude that values others not just as specimens of universal humanity but as having lives whose meaning is bound up with particular practices and beliefs that are often different from our own. Appiah sees this cosmopolitan perspective re-emerging in the Enlightenment and expressed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Kant's idea of a League of Nations.
As a position in ethical theory, cosmopolitanism is distinct from relativism and universalism. It affirms the possibility of mutual understanding between adherents to different moralities but without holding out the promise of any ultimate consensus. There are human universals that make species-wide communication possible--and yet these commonalities do not ground anything like a single universally valid morality or way of life. Clearly this is a position that carries within it a certain tension. The idea that we have universal moral obligations is not always easily reconciled with the practices and beliefs that give particular human lives their meaning. Appiah recognizes this tension, and writes: "There will be times when these two ideals--universal concern and respect for legitimate difference--clash. There's a sense in which cosmopolitanism is the name not of the solution but of the challenge."
A large part of Cosmopolitanism spells out the philosophy that underpins this position. What Appiah has to say in defense of cosmopolitanism is eminently sensible, but it is in no way new. In a move that will be familiar to anyone who recalls the ideas about "open texture" and "essential contestability" that were at the forefront of philosophical debate about language and values a generation ago, Appiah suggests that moral discourse is essentially practical in character. It seeks to express our desires and shape the attitudes of others rather than to report the way things are in the world. Like other types of discourse, moral language requires the use of judgment, which means different people will use it in different ways; but that does not mean morality is subjective. Rather, it means the possibility of moral conflict is built into language itself. As Appiah puts it: "When we describe past acts with words like 'courageous' and 'cowardly,' 'cruel' and 'kind,' we are shaping what people think and feel about what was done--and shaping our understanding of our moral language as well. Because that language is open-textured and essentially contestable, even people who share a moral vocabulary have plenty to fight about."
Appiah argues that as a result of the influence of positivism, an erroneous view of moral language has come to be widely accepted. For positivists science is the model for all other modes of discourse, and since moral reasoning contains nothing like the procedures for verification and falsification that are found in science, ethics is bound to seem a second-rate form of thought. Quite correctly, Appiah maintains that a great deal of human discourse does not fit this positivist model. When people with divergent moral outlooks talk to one another about the good life, he suggests, they are usually not engaged in argument. They are best understood as partners in conversation--an open-ended encounter that can be useful and enlightening even if, as is commonly the case, it does not end in consensus. As Appiah elegantly puts it: "We enter every conversation--whether with neighbors or with strangers--without a promise of final agreement." We can enter into the moral worlds of others and come to see that we partake in a common humanity without ever converging on a shared morality.
Appiah's version of cosmopolitan ethics strikes me as being very close to the value-pluralism defended by Isaiah Berlin, and it suffers from some of the same weaknesses. The advantage of Berlin's view is that it can acknowledge rationally insuperable moral differences without falling into relativism. Contemporary relativists follow the ancient Greek Sophists in holding that judgments of value are matters of opinion. However, human life contains goods and evils that do not depend on our opinions. To be at risk of genocide or subject to torture is an evil for all human beings whatever their beliefs. These evils are not culture-relative, and protection from them is a species-wide good. Once we recognize this, we cannot avoid speaking of universal human values; but this is not the same as having a universal morality. As Berlin never ceased to remind us, the most fundamental human values can make conflicting demands in practice, and in some of these conflicts reasonable people end up with different views of what is right. That is one reason there are different ways of life.
Value-pluralism undercuts the claims of all universal moralities, including liberal morality. Like Berlin in some of his writings, Appiah seems to want to celebrate moral diversity and at the same time endorse the universality of liberal values. The result is that he is constantly pulling liberal rabbits out of cosmopolitan hats. In discussing the issue of gay marriage, for example, Appiah informs us that while most Americans are against it they don't quite know why, whereas for those who favor gay marriage it just seems right. He adds: "The younger they are, the more likely it is that they think gay marriage is fine. And if they don't, it will probably be because they have had religious objections reinforced regularly throughout life in church, mosque or temple." It's not clear how Appiah knows this to be true, but that is not the point. What some people end up feeling cannot decide a question of this kind. If many religious people preach against gay marriage, it is because they believe being gay is wrong. If others think that "gay marriage is fine," it is because they believe there is nothing wrong with being gay. The point is that one cannot avoid making a moral judgment, and this inescapably means accepting or rejecting certain religious beliefs. Those who favor gay marriage--as I do--do so because they reject the belief that being gay is in any way bad or wrong. Cosmopolitanism has very little bearing on the issue.
Appiah defends cosmopolitanism in the apparent belief that it tends to bolster liberal values, when in fact it is bound to be open-ended. Cosmopolitan thinkers may endorse some liberal positions, but this has nothing to do with the logic of cosmopolitan theory. As a political theory, cosmopolitanism is a doctrine of live and let live--a very different thing from liberalism as usually understood today. Appiah tells us that the cosmopolitan view was expressed in modern times in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, but actually it was most clearly held by thinkers who had no truck with declarations of rights. For Thomas Hobbes and David Hume the end of politics was not a regime of rights but peace--and they were ready to curb freedom whenever it posed a serious threat to the achievement of that end. Again, Michel de Montaigne is surely one of the great early modern exponents of cosmopolitan ethics. He affirmed a common humanity transcending differences of custom and tradition--and at the same time denied that any one way of life was best for everyone. These modern cosmopolitans were too aware of the intractability of human affairs to imagine that great human evils such as anarchy, war and tyranny could be overcome by seeking to make a single form of government universal. They believed--to my mind rightly--that pursuing such a goal would only add to the sum of human evils. Nothing could be more alien to these cosmopolitan thinkers than the missionary certainties of the kind of liberalism that seeks to establish one type of regime throughout the world.
Appiah believes that cosmopolitan theory has a special relevance today, and he succeeds in showing that this neglected and attractive tradition of thought deserves serious attention as a habitable middle ground between liberalism and relativism. Where he fails is in not exploring the points at which cosmopolitanism and liberalism diverge. Yet these are precisely the areas where a cosmopolitan viewpoint is currently most needed. As Appiah notes, contemporary thought is beset by the notion that we can live together only if we are alike. In international relations this idea is expressed in the prevailing belief that only regimes that respect human rights or practice democracy (it's not always clear which) can be legitimate--a view that has been used by the neoconservative right to justify the calamitous attack on Iraq. If we are to avoid similar disasters in the future, we need an account of legitimacy as applied in the society of states that is not just a recent version of liberalism writ large. Cosmopolitanism could surely help frame such an account, but it would have to be more willing to challenge current pieties than the version presented by Appiah.
============================================================================
This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/gray
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Easier Said Than Done
by JOHN GRAY
[from the January 30, 2006 issue]
There is a strange presumption in recent thought about human values. When we think about basic issues in ethics and politics, it is taken as a given that we face a choice between liberalism and relativism. Believing that human values are cultural constructions that vary widely across time and space, relativists urge us to be conscious of difference. If they have a political message it is one of tolerance: "Don't try to impose your way of life on others; be sensitive to the claims of cultural minorities in your own society." Liberals, on the other hand, insist that there are requirements of justice or rights that apply to all human beings regardless of the communities or cultures to which they belong. The liberal political message is one of universalism: "The human species is--or may one day become--a single moral community in which the same values are honored everywhere." Either we commit ourselves to liberal universalism or we must embrace moral relativism.
There are many things wrong with this dichotomy. One of the most obvious is that it is highly parochial. Liberalism may look like the only game in town these days, but just a generation ago there were Marxists, anarchists, socialists and others who believed a systematic alternative to liberal society was desirable, imaginable and practically feasible. Further back in the history of thought, there were many versions of universalism--most of them nonliberal. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas all believed in universal values, but no one would call them liberals. Looking outside the Western tradition, the same is true of Confucian, Buddhist and Islamic thinkers. It is one thing to assert the existence of universal values, quite another to claim these values are in some sense liberal. It is also true that most relativists have not been greatly concerned with issues of difference. Often relativism has gone hand in hand with the idea that society is an organic whole--a highly dubious notion, which if it tends to support diversity does so only at the level of entire cultures. Herder and the Romantics celebrated the differences among peoples, but they were indifferent or hostile to the claims of cultural minorities.
The idea that we must choose between liberalism and relativism reflects the poverty of the contemporary political imagination and a disabling loss of historical memory. Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers is a welcome attempt to resurrect an older tradition of moral and political reflection and to show its relevance to our current condition. Appiah, a professor of philosophy at Princeton, seeks to revive cosmopolitanism, a view of humans as citizens of the world that was advanced by the Cynics in Greece in the fourth century BCE and elaborated by Stoic philosophers in Roman times. In Appiah's view cosmopolitanism has two intertwined strands: the idea that we have obligations to other human beings above and beyond those to whom we are related by ties of family, kinship or formal citizenship; and an attitude that values others not just as specimens of universal humanity but as having lives whose meaning is bound up with particular practices and beliefs that are often different from our own. Appiah sees this cosmopolitan perspective re-emerging in the Enlightenment and expressed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Kant's idea of a League of Nations.
As a position in ethical theory, cosmopolitanism is distinct from relativism and universalism. It affirms the possibility of mutual understanding between adherents to different moralities but without holding out the promise of any ultimate consensus. There are human universals that make species-wide communication possible--and yet these commonalities do not ground anything like a single universally valid morality or way of life. Clearly this is a position that carries within it a certain tension. The idea that we have universal moral obligations is not always easily reconciled with the practices and beliefs that give particular human lives their meaning. Appiah recognizes this tension, and writes: "There will be times when these two ideals--universal concern and respect for legitimate difference--clash. There's a sense in which cosmopolitanism is the name not of the solution but of the challenge."
A large part of Cosmopolitanism spells out the philosophy that underpins this position. What Appiah has to say in defense of cosmopolitanism is eminently sensible, but it is in no way new. In a move that will be familiar to anyone who recalls the ideas about "open texture" and "essential contestability" that were at the forefront of philosophical debate about language and values a generation ago, Appiah suggests that moral discourse is essentially practical in character. It seeks to express our desires and shape the attitudes of others rather than to report the way things are in the world. Like other types of discourse, moral language requires the use of judgment, which means different people will use it in different ways; but that does not mean morality is subjective. Rather, it means the possibility of moral conflict is built into language itself. As Appiah puts it: "When we describe past acts with words like 'courageous' and 'cowardly,' 'cruel' and 'kind,' we are shaping what people think and feel about what was done--and shaping our understanding of our moral language as well. Because that language is open-textured and essentially contestable, even people who share a moral vocabulary have plenty to fight about."
Appiah argues that as a result of the influence of positivism, an erroneous view of moral language has come to be widely accepted. For positivists science is the model for all other modes of discourse, and since moral reasoning contains nothing like the procedures for verification and falsification that are found in science, ethics is bound to seem a second-rate form of thought. Quite correctly, Appiah maintains that a great deal of human discourse does not fit this positivist model. When people with divergent moral outlooks talk to one another about the good life, he suggests, they are usually not engaged in argument. They are best understood as partners in conversation--an open-ended encounter that can be useful and enlightening even if, as is commonly the case, it does not end in consensus. As Appiah elegantly puts it: "We enter every conversation--whether with neighbors or with strangers--without a promise of final agreement." We can enter into the moral worlds of others and come to see that we partake in a common humanity without ever converging on a shared morality.
Appiah's version of cosmopolitan ethics strikes me as being very close to the value-pluralism defended by Isaiah Berlin, and it suffers from some of the same weaknesses. The advantage of Berlin's view is that it can acknowledge rationally insuperable moral differences without falling into relativism. Contemporary relativists follow the ancient Greek Sophists in holding that judgments of value are matters of opinion. However, human life contains goods and evils that do not depend on our opinions. To be at risk of genocide or subject to torture is an evil for all human beings whatever their beliefs. These evils are not culture-relative, and protection from them is a species-wide good. Once we recognize this, we cannot avoid speaking of universal human values; but this is not the same as having a universal morality. As Berlin never ceased to remind us, the most fundamental human values can make conflicting demands in practice, and in some of these conflicts reasonable people end up with different views of what is right. That is one reason there are different ways of life.
Value-pluralism undercuts the claims of all universal moralities, including liberal morality. Like Berlin in some of his writings, Appiah seems to want to celebrate moral diversity and at the same time endorse the universality of liberal values. The result is that he is constantly pulling liberal rabbits out of cosmopolitan hats. In discussing the issue of gay marriage, for example, Appiah informs us that while most Americans are against it they don't quite know why, whereas for those who favor gay marriage it just seems right. He adds: "The younger they are, the more likely it is that they think gay marriage is fine. And if they don't, it will probably be because they have had religious objections reinforced regularly throughout life in church, mosque or temple." It's not clear how Appiah knows this to be true, but that is not the point. What some people end up feeling cannot decide a question of this kind. If many religious people preach against gay marriage, it is because they believe being gay is wrong. If others think that "gay marriage is fine," it is because they believe there is nothing wrong with being gay. The point is that one cannot avoid making a moral judgment, and this inescapably means accepting or rejecting certain religious beliefs. Those who favor gay marriage--as I do--do so because they reject the belief that being gay is in any way bad or wrong. Cosmopolitanism has very little bearing on the issue.
Appiah defends cosmopolitanism in the apparent belief that it tends to bolster liberal values, when in fact it is bound to be open-ended. Cosmopolitan thinkers may endorse some liberal positions, but this has nothing to do with the logic of cosmopolitan theory. As a political theory, cosmopolitanism is a doctrine of live and let live--a very different thing from liberalism as usually understood today. Appiah tells us that the cosmopolitan view was expressed in modern times in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, but actually it was most clearly held by thinkers who had no truck with declarations of rights. For Thomas Hobbes and David Hume the end of politics was not a regime of rights but peace--and they were ready to curb freedom whenever it posed a serious threat to the achievement of that end. Again, Michel de Montaigne is surely one of the great early modern exponents of cosmopolitan ethics. He affirmed a common humanity transcending differences of custom and tradition--and at the same time denied that any one way of life was best for everyone. These modern cosmopolitans were too aware of the intractability of human affairs to imagine that great human evils such as anarchy, war and tyranny could be overcome by seeking to make a single form of government universal. They believed--to my mind rightly--that pursuing such a goal would only add to the sum of human evils. Nothing could be more alien to these cosmopolitan thinkers than the missionary certainties of the kind of liberalism that seeks to establish one type of regime throughout the world.
Appiah believes that cosmopolitan theory has a special relevance today, and he succeeds in showing that this neglected and attractive tradition of thought deserves serious attention as a habitable middle ground between liberalism and relativism. Where he fails is in not exploring the points at which cosmopolitanism and liberalism diverge. Yet these are precisely the areas where a cosmopolitan viewpoint is currently most needed. As Appiah notes, contemporary thought is beset by the notion that we can live together only if we are alike. In international relations this idea is expressed in the prevailing belief that only regimes that respect human rights or practice democracy (it's not always clear which) can be legitimate--a view that has been used by the neoconservative right to justify the calamitous attack on Iraq. If we are to avoid similar disasters in the future, we need an account of legitimacy as applied in the society of states that is not just a recent version of liberalism writ large. Cosmopolitanism could surely help frame such an account, but it would have to be more willing to challenge current pieties than the version presented by Appiah.
============================================================================
Article by Pete Fisher (USA) about Islam.
I don't know whether Pete Fisher has any specific knowledge or insight into this subject matter.
However, while passionately criticizing extreme Islamism, he does seem to be level-headed in his approach to the fact that it is difficult to appease the extremists. No one can argue with that.
N.B.When one talks about "Islam", it is like talking about Communism, Fascism, Evangelism, Anti-Semitism or many other political cum religious cum racist ideologies. It is a collective noun about a phylosophy, not about individuals or communities where the practice of the Moslem religion is their private and personal way of life. One must be aware however, when reading below and all other objective refs., that incitement to hatred of "the other" is very easily incorporated into the practice of this religion at every level,- if allowed to proceed unchecked.
In Eastern Europe, up to WW2, the Christian Churches in the rural areas, preaching to the uneducated peasant masses, far too often referred to the Jews as "Christ killer", "God killers", and many other similar "blood libels" and epithets. Frequent pogroms were the result. Thus Nazi Fascism had a fertile breeding ground in which to fester!
As with the Holocaust, Islamic terrorism did not develop like spontaneous combustion!
MM.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Why Islam Can Never Be Appeased_ _*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Pete Fisher .
[/Pete Fisher is a concerned citizen in the Chicago area who has written
several articles on the economy, educational system, politics, and
religion. He has been featuredon several sites such as RenewAmerica.us,
Chronwatch.com <http://chronwatch.com/> Blessedcause.com
<http://blessedcause.com/>, Michnews.com <http://michnews.com/>,
mensnewsdaily.com <http://mensnewsdaily.com/>, The Rant.us
<http://rant.us/>, and has been circulated on various other sites
worldwide. He is a 6 year veteran of the Armed Forces. ]
2006/01/14
I have to shake my head in disbelief just about every day when I listen
to people who have no clue about Islam or what is happening all around
the world.
I still have a very hard time buying into the claims by many of our
politicians and media that this is somehow a peaceful religion. This
does not mean that every Muslim out in this world is violent. I am not
saying that at all. But what I AM saying is that Islam is the perfect
spring board for violent acts of every kind and is simply unchecked by
its own members.
This week in Mecca we can watch the video from Memri
<http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=991>
http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=991 where in
the height of the Muslim spiritual Hadj, the holiest time and
holiest site in all of Islam, are Muslims screaming
for the death and mutilation of all infidels, but specifically
Americans and Jews. They cry to their god for
our hands to be chopped off and to be murdered
while thanking Allah for his greatness.
And in Mount Arafat this week the people who were on
Hadj were told that there was a huge holy war against
Islam ongoing in this world right now,
according to the Grand Mufi of Saudi Arabia.
We are now finding that Saddam did provide
for terrorist training, we
see evidence that Syria was involved
in goading Iraqi terrorists into
action, we see recruiting in Europe and
Canada as well as the USA . We
see Muslims worldwide who refuse to live
as their host nations live, but
rather demand those nations bend to the will of Islam.
Rapes have become
the crime of choice for many Muslim
men living in Australia and Europe,
where violent crimes in many of these
countries has risen to heights
unknown before the Islamic immigration
into those nations.
The Palestinians will never be satisfied with
the way Israel has bent
backwards trying to appease them.
They still scream for blood, and they
still train their children in the ways
of death and slaughter.
Iran has snubbed their nose at the IAEA
and the rest of the world with
its cat and mouse tactics on nuclear technology.
They claim they need the power, but in truth, the population
of Iran has never been the
concern of the mullahs running the place.
All they care about is pushing
Islam as a world power and desire the technology
to use it as a terror threat when they deem it necessary.
Islam has no concern for human rights if one looks
around the world.
There are no storms of people protesting the rapes
and oppression by the
millions, even when perpetrated on Muslims,
by Muslims. They have no care for the Sudan
where they shoot at innocent women and children as
they drink from the muddy Wadi because they have no other source of
water due to Muslims destroying their lives, land and population.
The funny thing is, Muslim women have written to me telling
me the wonderful rights they have,
all the while being forced to wear a head
cover and not even being able to drive or
shop without a male escort.
And the Saudis are concerned that when we report
such inane and evil events that we as the West are
chasing people away from Islam.
However, this to me is the typical Islam double s
tandard and total lack
of responsibility so prevalent in the religion.
Like not long ago in Sydney where a well known
Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed publicly condoned
raping of women by saying they had no one to blame
but themselves. It is not the fault of the Muslim male;
it had to be the fault of the victim.
Much like the Democrats in America ,
the criminals did what they did for
any other purpose that by personal choice.
Whether it is their
upbringing, abuse, poverty, wealth, illness, being bullied,
all lame excuses that have actually been
used in our courts.
And because of this like minded philosophy,
Islam can never blame itself for its own
shortcomings or actions.
If one of them rapes, it was the fault of the
victim for wearing no socks.
If a school house got bombed and children
slaughtered in innocent blood,
it was the fault of the village or
country not accepting Islam that made them bomb it.
If Palestinians are starving in dire poverty
due to Arafat having skimmed the coffers
and pocketed the money,
then it must be the Jews who
are not allowing them into Israel .
If the Jews do not want them in
Israel because they cannot abstain
from terror and crime, then it must
be an agenda against Islam and Jihad
must be waged. It can not be that
they are simply terrorists and like Jordan
and Syria before Israel ,
they are not wanted due
to their proclivities.
In the mind of Islam, anything that is not
Islam is the fault of their
people starving, the fault they fight each
other, the fault they use acts of extreme cowardice
to make a political point. It is the fault of
all others on Earth that they refuse to help
their own and the image
they put to the world.
It is NOT the West chasing people away from
Islam. It is Islam chasing people away.
It is the actions of Muslims, it
is the writings of the Koran and Hadiths,
etc. that keep people away from Islam.
It is the silence of Muslims when their own commit
acts so diabolical it would take the Devil
himself some trouble to devise.
It is the chaos within Islam and the chaos
it creates without that make
human beings shake their heads in disbelief
at the horrors committed in
the name of their god. But we who are
civilized can never teach those
who refuse to hear.
It is simply easier for Islam to blame
the rest of the world for the
evil it creates and commands through the Koran.
It is much easier to hide behind the lies than to look
at the deceit within. It is easier to
write off the starvation, blood letting,
and lust for murder with (crooked interpretations of)
Koranic passages than to actually become
human beings that care for one another.
It is easier for Muslims around the globe to say nothing
while their own walk this Earth spewing evil. It is easier for
many to believe that just
because a few of the billions do not act like this;
it may have enough peaceful elements to actually
be placed in the Great Religion category.
But those who have befriended Islam have
been bitten badly by the ones they reached to.
France , Spain , England , The Netherlands, Finland ,
Canada , USA , and many African nations have learned
the price of treating them like decent and civilized people.
They have been attacked from within, they have been
demanded to change laws that favor Islam,
they've seen crime rates rise, and they have
been berated by these people.
This is a simple thing really. It stems from a great
arrogance that Islam and only Islam is to survive
on Earth at any cost. Though arrogance is evident
in other religions to some extant, it is the
mainstay of Islam and because of this millions are
enslaved by Islam and millions die by the hand
of the followers of Mohammed.
And because of this, Islam can never be appeased.
It is never enough until they dominate.
It will never be enough until they make all the
laws. It can never be enough as long as there
are those who refuse to buy into Mohammed
and his more than 6,000 satanic verses called Koran.
It can never be appeased until it is fully dominant,
or until it does not exist to create the evil it does
on a daily basis.
I love my fellow man, and I love animals,
but even a rabid dog is shot
to protect the townsfolk from the death
a bite can bring about.
However, while passionately criticizing extreme Islamism, he does seem to be level-headed in his approach to the fact that it is difficult to appease the extremists. No one can argue with that.
N.B.When one talks about "Islam", it is like talking about Communism, Fascism, Evangelism, Anti-Semitism or many other political cum religious cum racist ideologies. It is a collective noun about a phylosophy, not about individuals or communities where the practice of the Moslem religion is their private and personal way of life. One must be aware however, when reading below and all other objective refs., that incitement to hatred of "the other" is very easily incorporated into the practice of this religion at every level,- if allowed to proceed unchecked.
In Eastern Europe, up to WW2, the Christian Churches in the rural areas, preaching to the uneducated peasant masses, far too often referred to the Jews as "Christ killer", "God killers", and many other similar "blood libels" and epithets. Frequent pogroms were the result. Thus Nazi Fascism had a fertile breeding ground in which to fester!
As with the Holocaust, Islamic terrorism did not develop like spontaneous combustion!
MM.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Why Islam Can Never Be Appeased_ _*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Pete Fisher .
[/Pete Fisher is a concerned citizen in the Chicago area who has written
several articles on the economy, educational system, politics, and
religion. He has been featuredon several sites such as RenewAmerica.us,
Chronwatch.com <http://chronwatch.com/> Blessedcause.com
<http://blessedcause.com/>, Michnews.com <http://michnews.com/>,
mensnewsdaily.com <http://mensnewsdaily.com/>, The Rant.us
<http://rant.us/>, and has been circulated on various other sites
worldwide. He is a 6 year veteran of the Armed Forces. ]
2006/01/14
I have to shake my head in disbelief just about every day when I listen
to people who have no clue about Islam or what is happening all around
the world.
I still have a very hard time buying into the claims by many of our
politicians and media that this is somehow a peaceful religion. This
does not mean that every Muslim out in this world is violent. I am not
saying that at all. But what I AM saying is that Islam is the perfect
spring board for violent acts of every kind and is simply unchecked by
its own members.
This week in Mecca we can watch the video from Memri
<http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=991>
http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=991 where in
the height of the Muslim spiritual Hadj, the holiest time and
holiest site in all of Islam, are Muslims screaming
for the death and mutilation of all infidels, but specifically
Americans and Jews. They cry to their god for
our hands to be chopped off and to be murdered
while thanking Allah for his greatness.
And in Mount Arafat this week the people who were on
Hadj were told that there was a huge holy war against
Islam ongoing in this world right now,
according to the Grand Mufi of Saudi Arabia.
We are now finding that Saddam did provide
for terrorist training, we
see evidence that Syria was involved
in goading Iraqi terrorists into
action, we see recruiting in Europe and
Canada as well as the USA . We
see Muslims worldwide who refuse to live
as their host nations live, but
rather demand those nations bend to the will of Islam.
Rapes have become
the crime of choice for many Muslim
men living in Australia and Europe,
where violent crimes in many of these
countries has risen to heights
unknown before the Islamic immigration
into those nations.
The Palestinians will never be satisfied with
the way Israel has bent
backwards trying to appease them.
They still scream for blood, and they
still train their children in the ways
of death and slaughter.
Iran has snubbed their nose at the IAEA
and the rest of the world with
its cat and mouse tactics on nuclear technology.
They claim they need the power, but in truth, the population
of Iran has never been the
concern of the mullahs running the place.
All they care about is pushing
Islam as a world power and desire the technology
to use it as a terror threat when they deem it necessary.
Islam has no concern for human rights if one looks
around the world.
There are no storms of people protesting the rapes
and oppression by the
millions, even when perpetrated on Muslims,
by Muslims. They have no care for the Sudan
where they shoot at innocent women and children as
they drink from the muddy Wadi because they have no other source of
water due to Muslims destroying their lives, land and population.
The funny thing is, Muslim women have written to me telling
me the wonderful rights they have,
all the while being forced to wear a head
cover and not even being able to drive or
shop without a male escort.
And the Saudis are concerned that when we report
such inane and evil events that we as the West are
chasing people away from Islam.
However, this to me is the typical Islam double s
tandard and total lack
of responsibility so prevalent in the religion.
Like not long ago in Sydney where a well known
Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed publicly condoned
raping of women by saying they had no one to blame
but themselves. It is not the fault of the Muslim male;
it had to be the fault of the victim.
Much like the Democrats in America ,
the criminals did what they did for
any other purpose that by personal choice.
Whether it is their
upbringing, abuse, poverty, wealth, illness, being bullied,
all lame excuses that have actually been
used in our courts.
And because of this like minded philosophy,
Islam can never blame itself for its own
shortcomings or actions.
If one of them rapes, it was the fault of the
victim for wearing no socks.
If a school house got bombed and children
slaughtered in innocent blood,
it was the fault of the village or
country not accepting Islam that made them bomb it.
If Palestinians are starving in dire poverty
due to Arafat having skimmed the coffers
and pocketed the money,
then it must be the Jews who
are not allowing them into Israel .
If the Jews do not want them in
Israel because they cannot abstain
from terror and crime, then it must
be an agenda against Islam and Jihad
must be waged. It can not be that
they are simply terrorists and like Jordan
and Syria before Israel ,
they are not wanted due
to their proclivities.
In the mind of Islam, anything that is not
Islam is the fault of their
people starving, the fault they fight each
other, the fault they use acts of extreme cowardice
to make a political point. It is the fault of
all others on Earth that they refuse to help
their own and the image
they put to the world.
It is NOT the West chasing people away from
Islam. It is Islam chasing people away.
It is the actions of Muslims, it
is the writings of the Koran and Hadiths,
etc. that keep people away from Islam.
It is the silence of Muslims when their own commit
acts so diabolical it would take the Devil
himself some trouble to devise.
It is the chaos within Islam and the chaos
it creates without that make
human beings shake their heads in disbelief
at the horrors committed in
the name of their god. But we who are
civilized can never teach those
who refuse to hear.
It is simply easier for Islam to blame
the rest of the world for the
evil it creates and commands through the Koran.
It is much easier to hide behind the lies than to look
at the deceit within. It is easier to
write off the starvation, blood letting,
and lust for murder with (crooked interpretations of)
Koranic passages than to actually become
human beings that care for one another.
It is easier for Muslims around the globe to say nothing
while their own walk this Earth spewing evil. It is easier for
many to believe that just
because a few of the billions do not act like this;
it may have enough peaceful elements to actually
be placed in the Great Religion category.
But those who have befriended Islam have
been bitten badly by the ones they reached to.
France , Spain , England , The Netherlands, Finland ,
Canada , USA , and many African nations have learned
the price of treating them like decent and civilized people.
They have been attacked from within, they have been
demanded to change laws that favor Islam,
they've seen crime rates rise, and they have
been berated by these people.
This is a simple thing really. It stems from a great
arrogance that Islam and only Islam is to survive
on Earth at any cost. Though arrogance is evident
in other religions to some extant, it is the
mainstay of Islam and because of this millions are
enslaved by Islam and millions die by the hand
of the followers of Mohammed.
And because of this, Islam can never be appeased.
It is never enough until they dominate.
It will never be enough until they make all the
laws. It can never be enough as long as there
are those who refuse to buy into Mohammed
and his more than 6,000 satanic verses called Koran.
It can never be appeased until it is fully dominant,
or until it does not exist to create the evil it does
on a daily basis.
I love my fellow man, and I love animals,
but even a rabid dog is shot
to protect the townsfolk from the death
a bite can bring about.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Israel Propaganda.
Many writers hide their antisemitic and/or anti-Zionist-pro-Arab sentiments behind the mantra of being against the policies of the Israeli Government!
This contention never sits well with most sensible Jewish people around the world who are aware that nothing except the annihilation of the Jewish State and its people will satisfy the anti-Semites and the enemies of Israel.
Those who object to a specific action or policy of the Government of Israel are usually very specific in their objection. They can see both sides of the problem and will be careful not to give succor only to the other side!
Below is one good reply to those attacking Israel.
MM
-----------------------------------------
Israeli actions not cause of unrest
By David DRESCHER
AlligatorOnline
January 13, 2006
http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060113column.php
I find it strange that Robert Heck and David Reznik, in their attempt to slander the state of Israel in Wednesday's paper, could not find a single fact to prove or back up their skewed and anti-Semitic view of Israel and the history of the Jewish state. How could one write such a scathing attack on a nation, claiming "institutionalized violence" and "repressive military violence" without citing a single act of it?
The violence I have been seeing, along with most Americans, is the public slaughter of innocent men, women and children in venues such as pizzerias, nightclubs and buses. The oppression I have seen includes repeated attempts by every major Middle Eastern Arab nation to destroy Israel since it became a state by United Nations mandate in 1948.
The original UN partition of Palestine allotted the Jews in Palestine a significantly smaller landmass than what is now present day Israel - land where Jews were the majority of the population. Immediately following the UN resolution, Arab riots claimed the lives of 271 Jews. Immediately following the May 14 Declaration of Independence, the five Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq invaded the small sliver of land that was Israel with the intent of annihilation.
Quoting Azzam Pasha, the secretary-general of the Arab League at the time: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
Following the Arab armies' defeat and the establishment of Israel, the following for an independent Palestinian state was weak and seemed to have no backing -- the reason being Arabs living in what is now the West Bank were completely content to remain under Jordanian rule. It was the Jordanians who had the problem with taking responsibility for those Arabs living in the disputed territories.
In 1967, Israel found herself under attack from her Arab neighbors when Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon invaded with the backing of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait and Sudan. Again in 1973, the Arabs invaded Israel on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.
There seems to be a trend in the violence and oppression the world has witnessed in the Middle East -- Arab attempts at Jewish annihilation.
I find it laughable that Heck and Reznik could compare Israelis with the Nazis, especially considering the most influential Arab leader in Palestine prior to 1948 was Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, an outspoken anti-Semite responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Jews throughout Palestine in the 1920s. The mufti was responsible for the mobilization of Nazi support groups throughout the Muslim and Arab communities and actually met with Hitler in November 1941. He helped recruit 22,000 Muslim volunteers to the Schutzstaffel, the German secret police.
It appears that the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip do have a boot to their heads, but the boot isn't Israel's. It belongs to their own corrupt Arab leaders who have been sucking them dry for years.
________
David Drescher is a microbiology sophomore.
This contention never sits well with most sensible Jewish people around the world who are aware that nothing except the annihilation of the Jewish State and its people will satisfy the anti-Semites and the enemies of Israel.
Those who object to a specific action or policy of the Government of Israel are usually very specific in their objection. They can see both sides of the problem and will be careful not to give succor only to the other side!
Below is one good reply to those attacking Israel.
MM
-----------------------------------------
Israeli actions not cause of unrest
By David DRESCHER
AlligatorOnline
January 13, 2006
http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060113column.php
I find it strange that Robert Heck and David Reznik, in their attempt to slander the state of Israel in Wednesday's paper, could not find a single fact to prove or back up their skewed and anti-Semitic view of Israel and the history of the Jewish state. How could one write such a scathing attack on a nation, claiming "institutionalized violence" and "repressive military violence" without citing a single act of it?
The violence I have been seeing, along with most Americans, is the public slaughter of innocent men, women and children in venues such as pizzerias, nightclubs and buses. The oppression I have seen includes repeated attempts by every major Middle Eastern Arab nation to destroy Israel since it became a state by United Nations mandate in 1948.
The original UN partition of Palestine allotted the Jews in Palestine a significantly smaller landmass than what is now present day Israel - land where Jews were the majority of the population. Immediately following the UN resolution, Arab riots claimed the lives of 271 Jews. Immediately following the May 14 Declaration of Independence, the five Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq invaded the small sliver of land that was Israel with the intent of annihilation.
Quoting Azzam Pasha, the secretary-general of the Arab League at the time: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
Following the Arab armies' defeat and the establishment of Israel, the following for an independent Palestinian state was weak and seemed to have no backing -- the reason being Arabs living in what is now the West Bank were completely content to remain under Jordanian rule. It was the Jordanians who had the problem with taking responsibility for those Arabs living in the disputed territories.
In 1967, Israel found herself under attack from her Arab neighbors when Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon invaded with the backing of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait and Sudan. Again in 1973, the Arabs invaded Israel on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.
There seems to be a trend in the violence and oppression the world has witnessed in the Middle East -- Arab attempts at Jewish annihilation.
I find it laughable that Heck and Reznik could compare Israelis with the Nazis, especially considering the most influential Arab leader in Palestine prior to 1948 was Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, an outspoken anti-Semite responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Jews throughout Palestine in the 1920s. The mufti was responsible for the mobilization of Nazi support groups throughout the Muslim and Arab communities and actually met with Hitler in November 1941. He helped recruit 22,000 Muslim volunteers to the Schutzstaffel, the German secret police.
It appears that the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip do have a boot to their heads, but the boot isn't Israel's. It belongs to their own corrupt Arab leaders who have been sucking them dry for years.
________
David Drescher is a microbiology sophomore.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
INDEX OF POSTS
Previous Posts
Leunig's cartoons in the Age:OPEN LETTER.
Is Disengagement from the Arabs the Answer for Israel?
ISRAEL AT ITS BEST
The General: History Interrupted.
Bukovina (now Ukraine)- Romania's Holocaust.(2.)
Bukovina (now Ukraine)- Romania's Holocaust.(1)
NEW: Secessionists in the West Bank?
Tribute to PM Sharon by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Pres. Union of Progr. Judaism
On the Loss of Ariel Sharon as PM
Also be prepared for the unlikely: ISRAEL'S DILEMMA.
Leunig's cartoons in the Age:OPEN LETTER.
Is Disengagement from the Arabs the Answer for Israel?
ISRAEL AT ITS BEST
The General: History Interrupted.
Bukovina (now Ukraine)- Romania's Holocaust.(2.)
Bukovina (now Ukraine)- Romania's Holocaust.(1)
NEW: Secessionists in the West Bank?
Tribute to PM Sharon by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Pres. Union of Progr. Judaism
On the Loss of Ariel Sharon as PM
Also be prepared for the unlikely: ISRAEL'S DILEMMA.
Leunig's cartoons in the Age:OPEN LETTER.
LEUNIG RESPONDS TO CRITICISM.
The cartoonists' lot: holding the mirror to a fractured world Michael Leunig January 13, 2006
URL: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/01/12/1136956298009.html
--
MY RESPONSE: Leunig doesn't get it!
Dear Sir,
I am sorry you weren't there at that J. Museum function,- I was there and wished that you had been too. We could have personally debated the rights and wrongs of your political cartoons.
Unfortunately, by putting your personal interpretation into the daily paper, it gives me and the Jewish community the impression that you are in collusion with the enemies of the State,- be it Israel, American or our own here.
Sorry,- I still think that you can put your point of view in a less offensive way. Even if you see things differently, as many people do, it is not good enough to mimic the mortal enemies of a people,- be they the anti-Americans, anti-Australians or anti-Israelis or plain anti-Semites. They gleefully copy you to support their own biases and real hatreds.
Please see the analysis below of the Arab "Hate Industry".
You don't represent them surely, - you portray us,- yourself, the Aussies, the Jews, the Israelis and today the Americans,- but in their image.I rarely see you satirising any of the enemies of our peoples.Therein lies the problem.I don't think that you quite understand our emotional reactions to your cartoons,- we often liken them to what Goebels did in the '30s in Germany and would have approved and used today!
Some of us remember those days and where they led!There has to be some sort of "in context" analysis even in cartooning! Yours,
M. M.
The JewishTimes Australia has another response.
http://www.jewishtimes.com.au/content/view/233/190/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
Dr. Reuven Erlich
Director
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the
Center for Special Studies (C.S.S)
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Newsletter Attached please find information about :
The Hate Industry http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/eng_n/as_e0106.htm
Monitoring anti-Semitic publications issued in the Arab countries: two anti-Semitic books published in Egypt in 2005 preach hatred of the Jewish people, the state of Israel and the Zionist movement (with no distinctions made between the three) and provide religious Islamic sanction for violence against them
Download PDF file
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is the educational and documentary center of the national memorial site of the Israeli intelligence community. It is located at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S.), at Gelilot near Tel Aviv, and specializes in information about intelligence and terrorism. It regularly releases exclusive information on its Internet site, both in Hebrew and English (http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/default.htm), a large percentage of which is based on original Palestinian documents captured by Israeli forces.
As an additional service, the Center now sends out information electronically;
We would appreciate your comments and suggestions about both this newsletter and our Website. Yours sincerely, Dr. Reuven Erlich (Colonel, Ret.) Director The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
Telephone: +972-3-7603579
Fax: +972-3-7603790
Email: info@intelligence.org.il
----------------------------------
HonestReporting.com (13/1/06)
A MEDIA U-TURN OR GROSS HYPOCRISY?
While the late conversion of some media outlets to a more balanced and fairer treatment of Sharon is welcome, HonestReporting notes how the media's attitude throughout Sharon's career has been infected with opinion and prejudice that has significantly contributed to the campaign of demonization against Israel. As illustrated by some of the examples in this communique, this trend still exists in many quarters.
The sudden u-turn of many of Sharon's detractors demonstrates the fickleness of a media that has promoted its own opinion of the truth with utter disregard for the consequences. This power to shape perceptions and mould public opinion reinforces the need to hold the media accountable for its work.
The thoughts of HonestReporting are with Ariel Sharon and his family and we urge readers to remain vigilant and to respond to further media distortions of his history. (See the Jewish Virtual Library for a detailed biography.)
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting
The cartoonists' lot: holding the mirror to a fractured world Michael Leunig January 13, 2006
URL: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/01/12/1136956298009.html
--
MY RESPONSE: Leunig doesn't get it!
Dear Sir,
I am sorry you weren't there at that J. Museum function,- I was there and wished that you had been too. We could have personally debated the rights and wrongs of your political cartoons.
Unfortunately, by putting your personal interpretation into the daily paper, it gives me and the Jewish community the impression that you are in collusion with the enemies of the State,- be it Israel, American or our own here.
Sorry,- I still think that you can put your point of view in a less offensive way. Even if you see things differently, as many people do, it is not good enough to mimic the mortal enemies of a people,- be they the anti-Americans, anti-Australians or anti-Israelis or plain anti-Semites. They gleefully copy you to support their own biases and real hatreds.
Please see the analysis below of the Arab "Hate Industry".
You don't represent them surely, - you portray us,- yourself, the Aussies, the Jews, the Israelis and today the Americans,- but in their image.I rarely see you satirising any of the enemies of our peoples.Therein lies the problem.I don't think that you quite understand our emotional reactions to your cartoons,- we often liken them to what Goebels did in the '30s in Germany and would have approved and used today!
Some of us remember those days and where they led!There has to be some sort of "in context" analysis even in cartooning! Yours,
M. M.
The JewishTimes Australia has another response.
http://www.jewishtimes.com.au/content/view/233/190/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
Dr. Reuven Erlich
Director
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the
Center for Special Studies (C.S.S)
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Newsletter Attached please find information about :
The Hate Industry http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/eng_n/as_e0106.htm
Monitoring anti-Semitic publications issued in the Arab countries: two anti-Semitic books published in Egypt in 2005 preach hatred of the Jewish people, the state of Israel and the Zionist movement (with no distinctions made between the three) and provide religious Islamic sanction for violence against them
Download PDF file
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is the educational and documentary center of the national memorial site of the Israeli intelligence community. It is located at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S.), at Gelilot near Tel Aviv, and specializes in information about intelligence and terrorism. It regularly releases exclusive information on its Internet site, both in Hebrew and English (http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/default.htm), a large percentage of which is based on original Palestinian documents captured by Israeli forces.
As an additional service, the Center now sends out information electronically;
We would appreciate your comments and suggestions about both this newsletter and our Website. Yours sincerely, Dr. Reuven Erlich (Colonel, Ret.) Director The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
Telephone: +972-3-7603579
Fax: +972-3-7603790
Email: info@intelligence.org.il
----------------------------------
HonestReporting.com (13/1/06)
A MEDIA U-TURN OR GROSS HYPOCRISY?
While the late conversion of some media outlets to a more balanced and fairer treatment of Sharon is welcome, HonestReporting notes how the media's attitude throughout Sharon's career has been infected with opinion and prejudice that has significantly contributed to the campaign of demonization against Israel. As illustrated by some of the examples in this communique, this trend still exists in many quarters.
The sudden u-turn of many of Sharon's detractors demonstrates the fickleness of a media that has promoted its own opinion of the truth with utter disregard for the consequences. This power to shape perceptions and mould public opinion reinforces the need to hold the media accountable for its work.
The thoughts of HonestReporting are with Ariel Sharon and his family and we urge readers to remain vigilant and to respond to further media distortions of his history. (See the Jewish Virtual Library for a detailed biography.)
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting
Is Disengagement from the Arabs the Answer for Israel?
Dr. Alex Grobman (see biographical notes at end.)
That Jews need to be "disengaged" from the Arabs is not a new idea. In July 1937 the British issued the Palestine Royal Peel Commission that concluded: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born. Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State."
Expelling Jews from their homes in any part of Israel or in the disputed territories will not solve the Arab/Israeli conflict. How do we know? The Arabs have been quite explicit in explaining why the conflict persists. PLO spokesman Bassam-Abu-Sharif and other leaders claim, "The struggle with the Zionist enemy is not a matter of borders, but touches on the very existence of the Zionist entity." In other words, it does not matter whether Israel retreats to her 1967 borders, those mandated by the UN in 1948 or the 1949 cease fire lines. As long as the Jewish State exists, the Arabs are determined to bring about her demise.
Deporting Jews from their homes is also illegal. Writing in The New Republic on October 21, 1991, Professor Eugene V. Rostow made this clear when he declared, "[UN] Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until ‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’ is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces ‘from territories’ it occupied during the Six-Day War--not from ‘the’ territories nor from ‘all’ the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip."
In another essay in which he investigates the Arab claim for self-determination based on law, Professor Rostow concludes, "the [British] mandate implicitly denies Arab claims to national political rights in the area in favor of the Jews; the mandated territory was in effect reserved to the Jewish people for their self- determination and political development, in acknowledgment of the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land. Lord Curzon, who was then the British Foreign Minister, made this reading of the mandate explicit. There remains simply the theory that the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have an inherent ‘natural law’ claim to the area."
"Neither customary international law nor the United Nations Charter acknowledges that every group of people claiming to be a nation has the right to a state of its own. International law rests on the altogether different principle."
In the absence of a peace agreement, how can one legally or morally justify forcing Jews to leave their homes? What did the Jews do to warrant this treatment? They were encouraged by Israeli administrations to establish residences and business in the area. Isn’t expulsion penalizing the victim, while rewarding the aggressor? And when peace negotiations do begin, wouldn’t it be better to have a presence in the area as a bargaining chip ?
Another concern must be that expulsion clearly demonstrates that the Arab Intifada was not fought in vain. If the Israelis retreat under fire as they did in south Lebanon, the Arabs will once again see that terrorism is the most effective means to ensure acknowledgment for themselves, their goals, and to achieve their objectives. According to a joint Israeli-Palestinian Public Opinion Poll in June 2005 conducted by The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 45% of the Israelis and 72% of the Palestinians believe that Ariel Sharon's decision to remove Israeli settlements from Gaza is a triumph for the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel, compared to 52% among Israelis and 26% among Palestinians.
Furthermore, 51% of the Israelis and 66% of the Palestinians believe that the Intifada and armed confrontation has helped Palestinians achieve national and political objectives that negotiations could not have achieved. Israeli settlers share these perceptions with the Palestinians. 72% of the settlers think the disengagement is a victory for the Palestinians and 77% believe the Intifada has helped them achieve political goals.
As to the long term possibility for a political solution to the Israel/ Palestinian conflict, 46% of the Palestinians and 36% of the Israelis believe that there never will be a political settlement, 29% of the Palestinians and 31% of the Israelis think that this goal can only be realized either in future generations or in the next generation, 19% of the Palestinians and 27% of the Israelis expect it will be achieved in the next decade or within the next few years.
In a recent interview, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who presided over the retreat from south
Lebanon and the failed Camp David 2000 Summit, said that Sharon surrendered to terror after realizing that his attempts to curb the violence had failed. Barak believes that the disengagement policy is flawed because even after the Israelis evacuate their armed forces and civilians from Gaza, international law dictates that Israel will be held accountable for everything that occurs there.
Barak further claims that president George Bush did not promise Sharon that Israelis will be allowed to remain in Gush Etzion, Givat Zev, Ariel, and Maaleh Adumim. Israel will not be allowed to remain in this as a reward for leaving Gaza. Behind closed doors, Barak says, Americans will tell you that this in not true. "The public is being deceived," he asserts. Why? Because "Sharon is not strong enough to tell the Israeli public the truth." Sharon and Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz have replaced the former Mossad chief, the head of the security service, IDF Chief of Staff, and the National Security Advisor, and appointed people who support disengagement.
Sharon is not being honest about the security fence either, according to Barak. The communities behind the fence will be abandoned. Several areas of the fence have been left open allowing terrorists access to Hadera, Afula, Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv. Sharon has also lost the city of Ariel, and soon Maaleh Adumim.
Equally disturbing is the admission by Moshe Ya’alon, former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff that the IDF did not participate in most of the discussions that formulated the expulsion plan. Only after the Americans and Egyptians were informed of the arrangement did he learn about it.
After his recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Sharon once again called upon the Arabs to adhere to their agreement to stop the terrorism, violence and provocation, dismantle the terrorist organizations, collect their weapons and carry out organizational changes as a prerequisite to resuming the diplomatic process. Unless the threats are backed up with action, the Arabs will be even more encouraged to continue flaunting their agreements, if there are no consequences.
Another problem not openly discussed is that once Jews have been transferred out of the area, other Jewish communities will be exposed to Qassam rocket fire and terrorist infiltration. In January of this year, Colonel Uzi Buchbinder, head of the Home Front Command's civil defense department, warned that 46 western Negev communities would be within range of enemy rockets and terrorist attacks after the retreat.
That the Arabs will not be swayed in any way by Israeli withdrawal should not come as a surprise. As political scientist Shlomo Avineri observes, the Arabs see themselves as the only "legitimate repository of national self-determination" in the region. They do not accept that national groups in the Middle East have the same right to self-determination that they have properly demanded for themselves. This exclusivity "borders on political racism," and should not be tolerated in the Middle East any more than it is Europe."
A few examples he points out will illustrate the problems Arabs have with minorities. The Kurds have a different language, culture and customs than the Arabs, and the Iraqi and Syrian governments (and the non-Arab Muslims in Turkey and the Persians in Iran) have oppressed them for decades. Yet no Arabs have ever asked that the Kurds be given the right to self-determination. In 2005, when the international community supports the establishment of a state for the Palestinian people, no Arab moderate or academic has requested comparable rights for the Kurds.
The Berbers in Algeria and the Christian Maronites in Lebanon are similar situations, he continues. The Darfur region of Sudan can be added to this group. Arab militias, with the support of the Arab dominated government in Khartoum, have committed what UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called "ethnic cleansing" against the indigenous black population.
The refusal by the Sharon government to explain adequately the reasons for giving up land and transferring Jews in response to repeated terror attacks against its citizens, the failure to engage the Israeli public and politicians in an open dialogue about the implications of this policy, and its unfortunate success at fomenting distrust, alienation and hatred among various segments of the population does immeasurable damage to the Jewish people and weakens the Israeli and the American war on terrorism.
Before Israel "disengages," there should be legal and moral justifications for uprooting Jews who have not violated any Israeli or international statue. When the Arabs are willing to accept the existence of the Jewish State and live in peace with her, then negotiations about future borders should be discussed. As long the Arabs want to destroy Israel, concessions only convince them that terrorism, rather than negotiation, is the best method to achieve their goal.
It appears that we have not progressed much since 1994, when Aharon Megged, the respected writer and supporter of the Labor Party, complained: "Since the Six Day War, and at an increasing pace, we have witnessed a phenomenon which probably has no parallel in history: an emotional and moral identification by the majority of Israel's intelligentsia with people openly committed to our annihilation." He also saw a trend by them "to regard religious, cultural, and emotional affinity to the land...with sheer contempt." "You make peace with your enemies," they incessantly proclaim, yet as Professor Edward Alexander observed, "it is clear that they can far sooner make peace with enemies wearing keffiyehs than with enemies wearing yarmulkes and tefillin."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Grobman’s most recent book is Battling for Souls: The Vaad Hatzala Rescue Committee in Post War Europe [KTAV]. He is also co-author of Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened? (University of California Press, 2000) His next book Zionism=Racism: The New War Against The Jews will be published in 2005.
Alex Grobman is an historian with an MA and Ph.D. in contemporary Jewish history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is president of the Institute for Contemporary Jewish Life, a think tank dealing with historical and contemporary issues affecting the Jewish community. He is a member of the academic board of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, a contributing editor for Together magazine.
Dr. Grobman established the first Holocaust center in the U.S. under the auspices of a Jewish Federation in St. Louis, Missouri and served as its first director. He also served as director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angles where he was the founding editor-in chief of the Simon Wiesenthal Annual, the first serial publication in the United States focusing on the scholarly study of the Holocaust. Dr. Grobman edited Genocide: Critical
Issues of the Holocaust, a companion to the Center's Academy Award winning film Genocide. The book can be found on the Simon Wiesenthal Center website.
Dr. Grobman is the author of Rekindling the Flame: American Jewish Chaplains
and the Survivors of European Jewry, 1944-1948, and editor of In Defense of the Survivors: The Letters and Documents of Oscar A. Mintzer AJDC Legal Advisor, Germany, 1945-46. His book with Michael Shermer, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened, and Why Do They Say It? was published by University of California Press in Berkeley in 2000. In 2002, it was published in Italian and in paperback.
He has also edited three guides for educators: Anne Frank in Historical Perspective, Those Who Dared: Rescuers and Rescued, and a guide to Schindler's List. "Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2003" was written with Dr. Rafael Medoff in December 2003.The "Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey-2004 was published December 2004. In April 2004, he and Rabbi Jack Bemporad wrote an analysis of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ.
Battling For Souls: The Vaad Hatzala Rescue Committee in Post-War Europe was published by KTAV in 2004.
His next book, Zionism=Racism: The New War Against The Jews, will be published in 2006 by Myths and Facts.
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