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

STOP IRAN NOW: END NUCLEAR THREAT.

From: Simon Wiesenthal Center

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.

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Or send mail to:Simon Wiesenthal Center1399 South Roxbury, Los Angeles, California 90035310-553-9036http://www.wiesenthal.com

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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.
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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.

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!

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.

"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.
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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
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3.
A debate about the film "Munich" is featured here:
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20956
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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)