The Big Lie

2003-05-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

PA not acting against terror

Accepts 'roadmap,' but splits hairs on definitions

Posted: May 12, 2003
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Publicly the Palestinian Authority has accepted the Middle East peace roadmap offered by the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, but quietly negotiators are splitting hairs over definitions of terms, WorldNetDaily has found.

In the Palestine Liberation Organization's "Roadmap Status Report," the group makes clear it will not act against terror until it is permitted to rebuild its security force and until it receives clarification on the definition of the term "incitement."

The document clearly states the PA is prepared to comply with the requirement to "undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis everywhere" only when its "security apparatuses are allowed to be rebuilt."

As to the roadmap requirement that "all official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel," the PLO negotiators say they are "awaiting definition of incitement."

While Israel is being criticized for not accepting the "roadmap" without conditions, the Palestinian Authority has been praised by diplomats and pundits internationally for accepting it. However, it is clear from the PLO statement that the Yasser Arafat-Abu Mazen regime has its own set of preconditions for acceptance of the plan.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, planning a meeting later this week with Palestinian Prime Minister Mazen, also known as Mahmoud Abbas, says he will never make compromises that affect Israel's security. President Bush has ruled out dealing with Arafat, branding him as a failed leader entwined with terror attacks on Israel. Arafat was not at the table when Powell met with Mazen.

"To start the process there must be an end to terror, and steps must be taken to end terror," Sharon told the Jerusalem Post today. "We made it very clear that when it comes to political solutions we are ready to make painful compromises, but when it comes to security there will not be any compromises, not now and not in the future. Therefore, in order to move forward, it should be quiet, it should be calm."

Sharon is also set to meet with President Bush next week in Washington, at which time the meeting agenda will range over the broad strategic future of the Middle East.

"It will be very interesting and important, particularly after the victory in Iraq," Sharon said.

Palestinian officials accuse Israel of delaying talks on implementing the "roadmap" the last 10 days.

Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Nabil Shaath said today Sharon delayed talks on the plan until his May 20 meeting with Bush. The delay, Shaath said, "means another 10 days of suffering for the Palestinians."

Shaath reiterated a call for Israel to submit a formal response to the "road map." Sharon has said he wants some modifications to the plan before giving his final response. The Palestinians say they accepted the plan, but their official response shows clear reservations.

The "roadmap" is a plan devised by the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union that calls for the setting up of an independent Palestinian state by 2005, and establishing peace and security for Israel.

2003-05-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

The road map: We’ve been down this same road before

The much-ballyhooed road map to peace reminds me of the 18 UN resolutions issued to get Iraq to disarm. They were rehashes of previous edicts, warning, proscriptions, and so on, which never did have the basic desired effect of disarming a renegade regime. The bottom line in the UN-Iraq fiasco is that diplomacy alone cannot cause a government to disarm itself when it chooses not to do so.

The whole road map thesis is built on the idea of all that is needed to implement peace is electing new leadership in the Palestinian Authority. Enter Abu Mazen and let the games begin. There is nothing in Mazen’s legacy to suggest he will do anything differently than his predecessor, and boss, Arafat. Even the concept of a moderate is misleading – a Palestinian moderate is the one who buys the explosives and weapons for the Palestinian extremist.

In the past 32 months of the intifadeh – a fancy Arabic word for premeditated murder – there has been no abatement of terrorism by the Palestinians despite agreement after agreement. There has not even been an effort to change their language. Yet, Palestinian leaders – Mazen being the latest mouthpiece of an oft-spoken refrain – say that they have made “significant strides” towards peace while Israel has not.

What “strides” has that been? The ability to lie in English as well as they do in Arabic? Just last March, Mazen was quoted in the Arab Media as saying that “Palestinians will never abandon their right to armed struggle.” To put it into plain English so that the yahoos in our state department can understand, this means that terrorism will always be an option when they cannot get their way diplomatically.

For Palestinians, their idea of a ceasefire is “hudna”: a temporary truce to allow them to become militarily stronger and destroy Israel. Usually, ceasefires are the first step towards peace. Not so in the Palestinian world – ceasefires are just a step towards more jihad.

Given that Arafat still controls the militant groups within the PA and is still in control of overall security, the election of a PM and cabinet in the Palestinian Authority is just so much window-dressing for more Hegelian dialect. They have already breached the main points of the road map anyway.

Israel has its hands around the mouth of an alligator. Every time it loosens its grip on the alligator’s snout, it gets bit. Yet, the world continues to insist on Israel to loosen its grip if the alligator promises not to bite. The only solution is to neutralize the alligator permanently. Yet, don’t count on the alligator changing its disposition anytime soon.

The issue is not settlements, or “occupation”, that is the problem. It is the terrorism, stupid. End the terrorism, and everyone’s lives will get easier. Israel does not need to promise to stop incitement against Palestinians, for goodness sakes! That is the dumbest thing that has ever been written into a peace treaty. Palestinians need to give up their blood lust – pure and simple – and start living in the 21st Century, not the 7th Century.

2003-05-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

Abu "boo-boo" Abbas...

PA video: Pour flames on settlements

Song on official TV encourages Palestinians to attack Jews in territories

Posted: May 2, 2003
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A music video being played on official Palestinian Authority television calls for attacks on Jews living in settlements in the so-called occupied territories.

Palestinian Media Watch has posted the video, which can be watched using Windows Media Player or Quick Time, on its website.

The video shows a Palestinian gunman followed by an image of a Jewish man and his wife walking. The translated lyrics of the song at that point are: "Foreigners have no place on this land."

While the singer intones, "Pour over the settlements great flames," the video shows aerial views of Jewish settlements.

In addition to the man and wife, the video includes footage of Jewish teen-age girls and an Israeli soldier.

The Palestinians shown include masked militants firing automatic weapons.

The words of the song are repeated throughout the video:

From the mountain of fire [Nablus] came the rebels ...
Everywhere there are settlements.
Oh brave Nablus, keep the cauldron ablaze;
Pour over the settlements great flames;
Foreigners have no place on this land;
Foreigners have no place where Shahids [died for Allah] were killed.
This week, just hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas took office, international Middle East mediators presented Israel and the Palestinians with the long-awaited blueprint for peace dubbed the "road map."

Last week, President Bush praised the new prime minister as "a man dedicated to peace," even as charges were made that Abbas provided financing for the terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

According to Palestinian Media Watch, Abbas was quoted in the newspaper A-Sharq Al Awsat in March as saying, "The Intifada must continue. And it is the right of the Palestinian people to rise and to use all means at their disposal ... all means, even guns. ..."

2003-04-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

Palestinian snipers along the road (map)

Army intelligence: Abu Mazen unable to halt terror

By Amos Harel
Haaretz.com

Military Intelligence told the political echelon at the beginning of the week that the new Palestinian government headed by Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has no intention of uprooting the terrorist infrastructure. "According to what we know now, Abu Mazen plans to speak with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders, and not clash with them," a senior military source told Haaretz yesterday.

In recent weeks much has been written about the different approaches being taken by the army and Shin Bet with regard to what to expect from the Palestinian Authority. While even before Abu Mazen's appointment, army heads were relatively optimistic and spoke of the rare opportunity created as a result of the new prime minister in the PA and the American victory in Iraq, the Shin Bet was providing more pessimistic views.

Now the gap between the two bodies appears to have been totally erased. Military Intelligence shares the Shin Bet's view that at least for now, Abu Mazen is not planning a comprehensive change. "He may have opposed the violent intifada from the first day," say military sources, "but he's barely a third of the new political framework in the PA. The other two-thirds are Yasser Arafat and the terror organizations, which continue to support violence."

The new prime minister, says Military Intelligence, feels he lacks domestic legitimacy and therefore has to concede to Arafat on critical issues, which has already eroded his ability to fight terrorists in the future. The sources say Abu Mazen began his job with excellent conditions for a significant change, in light of the developments in Iraq and the Palestinian failure to achieve anything through violence, but it does not appear he plans to actualize those conditions fully.

In any case, what he does plan to achieve is far from what Israel is demanding of him. Military Intelligence's prognosis is that the terror from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and parts of the Tanzim will continue. "At most," one senior officer said cynically, "the PA will reach an agreement with them not to commit attacks between 2 and 4 in the afternoon."

Military Intelligence predicted Abu Mazen would win confirmation for his government, despite Arafat's obstacles. For his part, Arafat continues to believe he will remain the real manager, whether behind the scenes or on the stage. Intelligence officials also admit that the forecasts of Arafat's political death last summer were premature. He is alive and kicking, and meanwhile has managed to constrain Abu Mazen.

As far as the terror organizations are concerned, the coming months will be an all-out race. After the defeat in Iraq and the total lack of violent resistance to the American powers in Iraq, the main focus returns to Israel and the territories. For the elements that direct the Palestinian terror from outside the territories - Syria, Hezbollah and especially Iran - there is enormous importance to a renewal of the terror against Israel now, especially in light of Tehran's fears that Damascus might concede to American pressure and limit activity of the terror organizations in Damascus.

It's not only the Palestinian will to fight terror that is being questioned in Israel, but also its ability to do so. Mohammed Dahlan has not shown any signs of readiness to enforce his will in the West Bank and some of the heads of the security apparatus are asking out loud why they have to make an effort for him. When the new minister looks around, he is not likely to see them fighting shoulder to shoulder with him, says Military Intelligence.

There's been no change in the motivation of the terror groups, says Military Intelligence. "They're climbing the walls because it has become so difficult for them to infiltrate a suicide bomber into Israel, but that doesn't mean they have ceased trying."

2003-04-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

The top ten things you'll never hear a Syrian diplomat say...

Yes, we smuggled mercenaries into Iraq to kill Americans

Yes, we are granting safe haven to former Iraqi leaders

Yes, we are hiding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction

Yes, we are producing weapons of mass destruction

Yes, we are training and supporting terrorism

Yes, we are still illegally occupying Lebanon

Yes, we commit human rights violations

Yes, we are seeking to destroy Israel

Yes, we have been lying all along

Yes, we have no bananas

2003-04-28T12:10:00.000-07:00

And Saddam was a humanitarian...

Syria launches image-mending campaign in US

Janine Zacharia Apr. 27, 2003
Jerusalem Post

Syria has launched a public relations offensive designed to repair its image in the US after severe criticism by top Bush administration officials.

Damascus dispatched Boutheina Shaaban, director of media relations at the Syrian Foreign Ministry, to Washington and New York. On Thursday, Shaaban appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington to defend Syrian support for Hizbullah and its sheltering of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus, and to insist that Syria had not provided shelter to Iraqi officials.

An articulate English speaker who studied abroad, Shaaban is close to the Assad family. She served as translator and close adviser to late president Hafez Assad for many years and continues to advise President Bashar Assad.

Shaaban said she had come to "confront some stereotypes rather than to confirm them." In addition to her appearance at CFR, Shaaban spoke to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and appeared on cable news programs.

She arrived just as the bulk of criticism of Syria has begun to subside. US President George W. Bush told NBC's Tom Brokaw Thursday that the Syrians "appear to want to be helpful" when it comes to catching Iraqi leaders who fled across the border into Syria. In addition, Bush chastised "left-wing critics" who said his administration is "so militaristic they're getting ready to invade Syria." Secretary of State Colin Powell will head to Syria soon as part of a Middle East tour designed to promote the road map for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

It was not clear who initiated the CFR panel. Syria does not employ a full-time lobbyist in Washington, and the quickly arranged event resembled ones that wealthy Persian Gulf governments put together with the help of local public relations firms when they have problems with Washington.

There has been mounting concern in recent weeks among US companies with investments in Syria that new legislation moving through Congress could lead to fresh sanctions on Damascus and thwart business dealings there.

Conoco, an oil company with the largest US investment in Syria, may, for example, have to cut its ties with Damascus if the Syria Accountability Act passes.

Shaaban said Syria never had good relations with the Iraqi regime and insisted that Syria "has always worked for peace and for security and stability," citing its support for the Madrid peace conference over a decade ago. US-brokered Israeli-Syrian peace talks fizzled after a brief spurt in January 2000 in West Virginia.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Florida), who spoke with Shaaban on the CFR panel, praised Syria for "playing an important role in apprehending Iraqi officials who as fugitives fled into their country" and insisted that, compared to other countries, it is "at best a relatively minor producer and controller of weapons of mass destruction." But he challenged Syria to abandon its support for Hizbullah, which he said has terrorist sleeper cells in the US.

Lebanese Ambassador to the US Farid Abboud said Hizbullah is not a terrorist organization by definition, because "since its inception there was no attack on civilian targets." Hizbullah is the primary suspect in the deadly attacks on a Jewish center and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1994.

Hizbullah, Shaaban insisted, "does not have anything against the United States." Its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, however, spews some of the most anti-American rhetoric in the region.

She defended Syria's refusal to shut offices of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus, saying they were simply "press offices" for the 500,000 Palestinians living in Syria. The US has repeatedly asked Syria to close them, saying they support and help orchestrate terrorist attacks by Palestinians in Israel.

"Instead of condemning Hamas and [Islamic Jihad] and Hizbullah and suicidal bombs and all this, end occupation, end settlements," she said.

Asked about Syria's ongoing occupation of Lebanon, Shaaban insisted Syria, which profits enormously from its presence there, does "not intend to stay in Lebanon except when it is needed." She said Hizbullah's strikes against targets in northern Israel are justified as long as Israel remains in control of Shaba Farms. The UN has certified Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon as complete but Shaaban insisted that Shaba Farms are part of Lebanon.

She failed to adequately answer why Syrian journalist Ibrahim Hamidi, a reporter for the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, has been imprisoned for months without being charged. "He was jailed for reasons violating the Syrian law," she said. Colleagues of Hamidi say he was arrested because the Syrian regime did not approve of an article he wrote.

2003-04-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

Arab rock videos portray Jews as murderers

Palestinian footage shows Israeli soldiers killing
children, elderly

Two music videos being played on Palestinian television are being used to propagate a hate for Israel among Palestinian children, reports an organization that monitors the media in the Middle East.

Palestinian Media Watch offers Internet users the ability to watch the two videos, one of which debuted in January.

The first video (viewed via Windows Media Player) suggests that Israel
soldiers are murders and encourages young Palestinians to take up arms against the Jewish state. The video includes scenes of:

A laughing girl on a swing, which turns into a burning swing and burning child's rocking horse;

A father reading his young son a section from the Quran calling him to fight the enemies;

The father handing his son a stone to throw at Israelis;

A bomb hidden (by Israel) inside a soccer ball that blows up when a child kicks it; Actors depicting Israeli
soldiers murdering an elderly man by shooting him in the head; and

A mother and her infant being blown up by Israeli soldiers.

The second video is older, says PMW, but has been played more frequently in recent days. It presents the message to children that throwing stones at Israelis is a way to defend their mothers' honor. In one scene, young boys throw stones at a glass window with Jewish symbols: the word Israel in Hebrew, a star of David, an Israeli flag and an Israeli soldier. Immediately after the window and the Jewish symbols are smashed, all the flames on a Menorah are extinguished.

2003-04-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

Unkindest Cut

by Hassan Fattah

The New Republic
Post date: 04.16.03

On the eve of Saddam's fall on April 9, hundreds turned out in Bethlehem to offer their condolences to the relatives of Imad Humabi, a Palestinian who had volunteered to fight in Iraq and had been killed in battle. Humabi, who had grown up in Amman and was virtually unknown in the town, was rumored to have been an attempted suicide bomber. But as the villagers poured in, most simply expressed their regret that the young man had given his life for nothing.

For some in the Middle East, the war in Iraq was the last stand for Arab nationalism. For others it was only the latest tragedy to beset the region. But no matter their take, most Arabs expected the invasion to be a long, bloody fight. If nothing else, the thinking went, the Iraqi regime would teach the United States a lesson, even as it collapsed.

So when Baghdad fell in a matter of days, it left the Arab world stunned. Every assumption, every calculation, and every article of faith had suddenly been undercut. And nowhere was that reaction more pronounced than in the Palestinian circles that had looked to Saddam as their only champion, a heavyweight who had stood the test of time. Many had seen Iraq's fight against the United States as analogous to the Palestinian intifada. They had expected Saddam and his crew to stand just as firmly as the Palestinians had. But he had failed them.

One need only consult the unusually sedate Arab media to gauge the depths of the disappointment now settling in across the Middle East. Arab TV reports continue to lament the vandalism and looting in Baghdad under the watchful eye of American troops. An editorial in the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat recently mourned the demise of Arab identity.

But it was the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that most succinctly captured the depths of Arab despair, running a cartoon of an elderly Palestinian man weeping as he waved a flag imprinted with the name "Baghdad." "Everybody felt personally defeated not only in their position [supporting Iraq] but also in their expectation," says Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, head of the Palestinian Academic Society in Jerusalem. "Our thinking and way of being is dominated by our passions. ... People expected steadfastness and a willingness to stand up. How could Jenin stand up to all that bombardment, how did Arafat resist the siege in Ramallah for all these months, but Saddam couldn't stand up to the invasion of his country?"

A recent public opinion poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC) summed up the feeling, reporting that 56 percent of Palestinians surveyed believe the war in Iraq will have a negative influence on the Palestinian cause. "I think people were so surprised that there wasn't any resistance and were so disappointed with the reaction," says Khader Abuswai, acting director of the JMCC. Abuswai explains that in recent years the Palestinian "street" has been eager to seize on the slightest hint of a successful resistance. But each time that resistance fails to produce any tangible results, the ensuing despair can be intense. "It happened with the Intifada, and nothing happened. And now it happened in this war and still nothing happened."

Even the most ardent Saddam supporters have trouble suppressing their disillusionment. "These are not the Iraqis that I knew," laments Mohanna Shbatt, an activist with the Arab Liberation Front, the Palestinian branch of the Baath movement. Shbatt had studied in Iraq and looked to Saddam as the last true Arab leader. He had carried Saddam's flag in Gaza for years and just two weeks earlier had been responsible for dispensing Saddam's money to families of Palestinian militants and civilians killed in the intifada. Saddam had handed out $32 million over 30 months, but in just a matter of days he had become an embarrassment. "I didn't think that the Iraqi people could fall so far," Shbatt broods.

All of which has provoked a desperate round of defiance among Palestinian elites. In his office in Jericho a few days later, Palestinian spokesman and minister for local government Saeb Erekat railed against the dramatic fall of the Iraqi government and the looting and occupation that stripped the country of much of its history, maybe even its dignity. "What this means to us is that we have to be more determined than ever to stop the occupation," Erekat said, quite determinedly. The leaders of terrorist organizations like Islamic Jihad and Hamas have offered a different take on the same idea: They've promised to escalate their attacks against Israelis.

What's not clear is how representative these views are. At the very least, many non-Palestinian Arab opinion-makers are beginning to see the fall of Baghdad as an opportunity for introspection. "If we don't face ourselves and discuss our shortcomings ... nobody can do anything for us. We are responsible for all that is happening to us," wrote Saudi columnist Anas Zahid in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. In the Lebanon's English-language Daily Star, Shafeeq Ghabra, president of the American University of Kuwait, sounded an even tougher note. "These fateful days have revealed the degree of cultural degradation in our region."

And that message may be resonating with the average Palestinian. "It's bad news, but always in bad news there is good news," says Abdul Hadi. "It's time for [our leaders] to take a position--this has simply exposed their hypocrisy." "At the end of the day, people are saying that we have to speak our mind. There's not going to be obedience to rulers as before," he adds. "This has been a lesson to every Arab regime that they need to look to their people. If a storm comes from outside, the only way to stand is to have a constituency supporting you."

2003-04-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Hamas kids' magazine: 'Destroy rapist Jews'

Periodical claims Iraqi children being 'torn to shreds' by U.S.

By Jon Dougherty
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A monthly children's magazine published by the Hamas terrorist organization urges Palestinian and Iraqi children to pray for Allah to "destroy the cruel, rapist Jews" and bring victory to the Palestinian and Iraqi causes.

"The eighth edition of Al-Fateh [The Conqueror], was published [last month] and it seems that over the last eight months it has caught the eyes of its young readers," says an analysis by The Media Line, an Israel-based group offering news and commentary on the Middle East.

"The Conqueror" icon of the Al-Fateh magazine.

Pleas for violence against Jews, contained in the magazine's editorial, is preceded by descriptions of alleged suffering by Iraqi children as a result of the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein. It says the children are suffering due to cruelty being committed against them by coalition forces.

"Their pure bodies torn to shreds, their heads in one place and their arms in another," says the editorial, designed, TML believes, to provoke fear and hatred in the hearts of young Palestinian readers.

The editorial says the enemy's hatred and insensitivity "are caused by the Jewish filth, and they are inspired by the Jews' cruelty, heresy and barbarity."

The editorial also devotes much space to describe Palestinians who provide information to Israeli intelligence and military officials as people who "sold their religion, their honor, their conscience … to the Jews and the Americans … and became animals to be used at any time."

The editorial calls them "traitors to their own people, their land and their brothers."

"They betray Allah and his messenger [the Prophet Muhammad] and the Arabs and Muslims in Iraq, Palestine and around the entire globe," it continues.

Felice Friedson, president and CEO of The Media Line, told WorldNetDaily she believes the magazine's creators are ratcheting up the hate-filled rhetoric against Israel and the Jewish faith to attract more readers – a ploy that seems to be working.

She said the magazine's website has attracted 1.6 million visitors since its launch. It uses simple language, light stories and endearing illustrated characters, TML analysts have said.

Yo, Quartet! If you don't get rid of groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aksa, and the other Palestinan thugs, you can take your "road map" and shove it.

2003-04-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

Palestinian support of Saddam continues

U.S. forces battled irregulars from Arafat's territory in Iraq

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

When the U.S. Army's 3rd infantry division locked into fierce fighting south of Baghdad last week, officers were surprised to learn they were not always battling Iraqis.

Military sources tell Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin captured prisoners of war in that fight included Palestinians and Jordanians who used rocket-propelled grenades, suicide trucks, artillery and sniper fire to attack U.S. troops.

Military sources referred to the resistance as "thugs" who appeared to be attempting to reorganize Iraqi resistance in and around Baghdad.

The involvement of Palestinian fighters from Yasser Arafat's territory was no fluke.

Islamic Jihad and Arafat's Fatah both sent hundreds of its men from Lebanon and Syria on suicide missions against U.S. and British forces, according to G2B sources.

Meanwhile, leaders of various Palestinian groups say they will escalate the fight against Israel following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The threats came as many Palestinians continued to express deep disappointment at the defeat of the Iraqi army, saying they still don't understand what went wrong in Baghdad. In some places, Palestinians were seen removing posters of Saddam Hussein from the streets and public buildings, according to the Jerusalem Post.

A cartoon in the Palestinian Authority's daily Al-Hayat al-Jadeeda showed an Arab man, with tears streaming from his eyes, hoisting a black flag that carried the label Baghdad.

Palestinian columnist Adli Sadeq heaped praise on Saddam, saying "despite some reports that he struck a deal for himself, his family, and some of his close aides enabling [them] to leave Iraq unharmed ... the man tried his best and did all that he could."

Writing in Al-Hayat, Sadeq said, "[Saddam] was a thorn in the eye of the imperialists, and we will not change our mind about him, though we know that he made some mistakes, like other great leaders who ruled difficult societies."

Al-Quds, the largest Palestinian daily, described the collapse of Baghdad as a nakba (catastrophe). "This is not going to be the last nakba," it said in an editorial. "The Anglo-American victory will open the colonialists' appetite to devour more Arab capitals. This nakba is added to a series of disasters that have plagued the Arabs and Muslims over the past century. Perhaps this latest disaster will bring about a genuine awakening of the Arabs and Muslims."

Y'mean...like wake up and realize it's the 21st Century, and not the 7th?

2003-04-10T05:35:00.000-07:00

Clueless in Gaza...

Hamas, Jihad leaders express sorrow over Saddam's fall

By Haaretz Service

Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in the Gaza Strip expressed sorrow Wednesday over the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime and urged the Iraqi people to rise against the West, Israel Radio reported.

Senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantisi said that he hopes the Iraqis install a Muslim government and urged the people to join a popular uprising in the streets against "American-Zionism."

Mohammed al-Hindi, Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, said that he hopes the situation in Iraq is ultimately rememberd just as what happened in Beirut, when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.

Hindi said that in the end the popular resistance in Iraq will be victorious.

2003-04-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

Why Arabs love Israel

By Joseph Farah
Executive Editor, WorldnetDaily.com

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Over the last quarter century, the Hispanic population of the United States has exploded.

Immigration laws have been ignored. The huge border separating the U.S. and Mexico is virtually unpatrolled. And the illegal population of recent immigrants has been offered a series of amnesties forgiving past trespasses.

Some within that community – and it is certainly a small minority of the population – are resentful about life in America. Some are even promoting the idea of creating a separate Spanish-speaking state of Aztlan in the southwestern United States.

All this raises an obvious question: If life in America is so bad for Spanish-speaking immigrants, why do they continue to flock to the United States?

Why do I ask this question today? Not because I am writing about immigration in America, but because I want to make a point about immigration in the Middle East.

Conventional wisdom suggests a huge Arab population was displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948. It suggests the remaining Arab population in Israel has been mistreated. And it further suggests the solution to this problem is the creation of an Arab Palestinian state on Israeli land.

There are several glaring misconceptions in this view:

The Arab population displaced by the 1948 war has been greatly exaggerated. The actual figure is no more than 500,000. Even more important is the cause of that displacement. The 1948 war was declared against Israel by all of its Arab neighbors. The refugees left Israel at the urging of those Arab states. They were told to leave because their homeland was about to be liberated by Arab forces. Of course, we all know Israel survived. Who is morally and legally culpable for creating those refugees? I would suggest it is the Arab states, not Israel.

Far from being mistreated, the Arab population in Israel and in the territories administered by Israel has been freer than the population in any Arab state. Arabs in Israel vote. They elect leaders to the Knesset. They have their own political parties. They have their own newspapers. They have full rights to citizenship. They are free to speak their minds. As an Arab-American journalist who has spent a good deal of time covering the region, I can tell you there is more freedom for Arabs in Israel than in any Arab state.

Land cannot possibly be the contentious issue as the Arab and Muslim states in the region already have 800 times as much territory as Israel. The Arabs have 50 times the population of Israel. The Arabs have all of the oil reserves of the region. They have 21 states of their own – all varying shades of police states. It's difficult to imagine how one more will bring peace to a region that has known some of the most devastating and costly wars of the last century.

But, to top it all off, I seem to be the only observer asking pointed questions about the Arab-Israeli conflict: If conditions for Arabs are so bad in Israel, why is the Arab population exploding? Why do Arabs continue to flock to the tiny Jewish state from virtually every Arab and Muslim land in the world?

In 1949, the Arab population of Israel was about 160,000. Today, it is over 1.2 million.

This is hardly attributable to higher birth rates. Most of the growth in Arab population is due to migration. In other words, Arabs are picking up stakes in Arab lands and choosing to live in Israel.

This trend, of course, doesn't include Arab Jewish migration to Israel. No one talks about the staggering number of Arab Jewish refugees – as many as 1 million – who fled the Muslim world with little more than the clothes on their backs to reach the safety and security of the Jewish state in the last 50 years.

We're led to believe Arabs hate Israel – and, indeed, it's true there is an irrational, inexplicable form of virulent anti-Semitism growing in the Arab and Muslim world. But when they vote with their feet, Arabs seem to love Israel. They continue to choose it as a place to live over life in their native countries as they have for the last half-century.

I'd love to hear one of the Arab nationalists explain this phenomenon.

2003-04-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Do you really want to give these folks their own state?

Palestinians boycott US, UK products

Khaled Abu Toameh

Copyright 1995-2003 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/

A day after the Palestinian Authority's mufti ruled that Muslims must prevent US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair from setting foot in the "blessed, sacred holy land of Palestine," Palestinians have launched a boycott campaign aimed at American and British products.

The decision is clearly linked to the fatwa, or religious edict, issued Saturday by Sheikh Ikremah Sabri, who was appointed to the senior post by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in 1996.

The fatwa bans Muslims worldwide from providing any kind of assistance to the US and Britain in their war on Iraq.

Asked how Muslims should behave if Bush or Blair visit the Holy Land, Sabri explained: "We should not receive them. Each one of them is persona non grata in Palestine."

He holds the two leaders responsible for "war crimes" against humanity.

The call for boycotting American and British goods was published in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Sunday as thousands of Palestinians continued to stage demonstrations in support of Saddam Hussein.

In Gaza City, hundreds of Fatah activists took to the streets to celebrate the "defeat" of the US and British troops at Baghdad Airport.

The celebration followed a press conference by Iraqi Information Minister Said Sahhaf in which he claimed that Iraq's Republican Guard fighters managed to drive the coalition soldiers out of the airport, killing several hundred "mercenaries."

Shortly after the Iraqi minister appeared on Al-Jazeera and other Arab TV stations, the Fatah members, waving Iraqi and Palestinian flags and posters of Saddam and Arafat, gathered outside al-Azhar university in Gaza City to express their jubilation at the ostensible defeat of the American and British soldiers.

Calling for the launching of suicide attacks against the invading forces in Iraq, the Fatah demonstrators, who were joined by many passersby and policemen, announced the beginning of an initiative to boycott all American and British-made products.

Some of the activists later raided shops in Gaza City and confiscated US-made cigarettes and other goods found on shelves.

In Jenin, representatives of various Palestinian factions also announced their intention to clear local markets of any American and British products.

According to Sheikh Bassam Sa'adi, a leader of the Islamic Jihad organization in the Jenin area, anyone who buys American- or British-made goods is financing the war against the Iraqi people.

"We want all Palestinians to boycott these products, which are abundant in our markets," he added, stressing that the ban also includes Israeli products.

2003-04-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

Palestinians name Jenin square after Iraqi suicide bomber

By Hassan Fattah, Associated Press, 4/1/2003 08:01

JERUSALEM (AP) A square in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin
has been named after an Iraqi suicide bomber who killed four U.S.
troops over the weekend, camp officials said Tuesday.

The naming of the square is part of a weeklong commemoration of
the first anniversary of 11 days of fighting between Israeli troops
and about 150 gunmen in the camp.

The April 2002 battle was one of the toughest in 30 months of
Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Fifty-two Palestinians and 23 Israeli
soldiers were killed, and large patches of the Jenin camp were
ruined.

On Monday, a small square in the camp was named after Ali Joafar
al-Noamani, a non-commissioned Iraqi officer who blew himself up
Saturday at a U.S. checkpoint in southern Iraq, killing four U.S.
troops.

The bombing symbolizes the close ties between Iraqis and
Palestinians, said Akram Abu Esbaa, organizer of the
commemorations.

''We are experiencing the same tragedy here in Palestine that
they are in Baghdad,'' he said.

As part of anniversary, camp residents plan to march in support
of Iraq on Thursday and hold prayers in a demolished section of the
camp Friday in honor of the Iraqi dead.

Residents also hope to collect thousands pints of blood to be
delivered to Iraq through the Red Crescent Society, camp officials
said. By Tuesday, they had collected hundreds of pints.

In Gaza City, about 700 Palestinians marched in support of Iraq
on Tuesday, carrying Iraqi flags, posters of Saddam Hussein and
banners reading ''No Blood for Oil.''

The bomber was an innocent Iraqi civilian

forced at gunpoint to blow himself up. One of these days, they are going to

get the real news.

2003-04-03T04:31:00.000-08:00

More Palestinian hypocrisy

Muslim cleric wants to see Americans orphaned

Palestinian sheik slams Arab leaders, gives pep talk to Saddam

Palestinian TV broadcast a Muslim sermon on Friday that chided Arab leaders for not coming to Iraq's defense and prayed for Allah to make more American orphans and widows.

The sermon by Sheik Muhammad Abu al-Hunud was delivered in a Gaza mosque and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Al-Hunud lashed out at fellow Muslims for not supporting the "slaughtered" Iraqis under siege by coalition forces.

"The sons of Iraq are slaughtered, Iraq is bombarded; the sons of Iraq are murdered," he declared. "[Iraq] is an Arab Muslim country, the cradle of civilization since the dawn of history, the capital of the land of Muslim caliphates. The Iraqi people are crying for help. ... Where are you, oh Arabs? Where are you, nation of Islam? ... Be free, or die honorably. The sons of the Arab and Muslim nation are murdered, its sons are slaughtered, its homes demolished – and the Arabs are standing and watching."

Without naming names, al-Hunud criticizes Arab nations that are giving any sort of aid to the United States.

Now, what about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens slaughtered by Saddam? Where was this loud-mouth then? We killed "Brave and glorious fighters" who (1) use women and children as human shields, (2) force all male citizens to fight at gunpoint (some of whom were 10-year old children) or to become homicide bombers (3) blow up Iraqi marketplaces, (4) fire weapons from mosques and (5) store weapons and munitions in hospitals and schools. Saddam and his slime target civilians to kill, since the only way it can kill coalition forces is by fake surrenders asnd other perfidious means.

Al-Hunud continued his sermon by equating any assault on an Arab country as an assault on the religion of Islam.

"The aggression against Iraq is an aggression against humanity, against values and principles."

Britain, are you listening? European Union, are you listening? Russia, are you listening? United Nations, are you listening? Do you really want to create a Palestinian state with this Saddam-kind of mentality?

2003-04-02T07:09:00.001-08:00
Israel can't win for losing

By Joseph Farah, Executive Editor
WorldNetDaily
Posted: April 2, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Have you noticed the further Israel bends over backward to achieve peace with its neighbors, the more excuses those neighbors find for maintaining a state of war?

In the latest example, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad explains why no matter what the Jewish state does – even if it achieves a settlement with the Palestinians and other Arab states – Israel will never be a "legitimate state," presumably one Assad recognizes has an absolute right to exist.

Assad made the statements in an interview in the Lebanese paper Al-Safir – really a house organ for his puppet government in that state.

"There are countries in the Middle East with diverse nationalities, but they have social and historic cohesiveness," Assad explained. "Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region, by and large, is one. On the other hand, the [social] structure in Israel is an anomaly. It is a country with one characteristic, which is a religious characteristic. Its democracy stems from this characteristic. It is not a democracy based on the state's boundaries. Therefore, it is inconceivable that Israel will become a legitimate state even if the peace process is implemented, because its structure deviates from the region's norm, and maybe from the whole world …"

Now, let's analyze this statement – something no one in Lebanon or Syria would dare do for fear of swift, sure and draconian reprisals:

For starters, let's apply the Assad litmus test to a nation run by some of his best friends – Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is the most religiously intolerant nation on the face of the earth – bar none. The kingdom restricts an entire city, Mecca, to Muslims alone. A Jew, a Christian, a non-believer isn't allowed to set foot in the city. While Saudi Arabia feverishly exports its brand of Wahabbi Islam around the world though support of maddrasses – schools that brought the world the Taliban of Afghanistan – it doesn't allow any evangelism by other faiths, Muslim or non-Muslim. In fact, it doesn't even permit private worship by non-Muslims to take place. Possession of a Bible is a criminal offense. There is not a single church or synagogue anywhere in the country. Yet, Assad has the temerity to criticize Israel for its secular and highly pluralistic style of government.

As far as Israel's structure deviating from the region's norm, I would suggest that is high flattery from Assad. There are some 22 police states surrounding Israel. The Jewish state is the one truly free country in the Middle East.

This interview should illustrate to the entire world just how futile are Israel's efforts to achieve peace with the Arab world through concessions and negotiations from a position of weakness. I really hope Washington is reading. I really hope this statement is not missed over at the Bush State Department. I really hope the White House is watching – even while it continues to push hard for the creation of a Palestinian state as the solution for peace in the Mideast. I trust the doves in Israel's own Labour Party read this interview and understand what it means.

It means there is nothing Israel can do to mitigate the hatred focused upon it in places like Damascus. It is an irrational hatred. It is a self-destructive hatred. It is a hatred that is all-consuming and unquenchable.

So, why try?

There's an old saying that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It seems to me that is exactly what Israel has been doing for more than 10 years in the so-called "peace process."

And why does the U.S. State Department continue to promote the same, old solutions despite their abject, undeniable failure over more than a decade?

2003-04-02T07:09:00.000-08:00

Syria: Israel will never be legitimate

President Assad claims U.S. just doing Jewish state's bidding in Iraq

Posted: April 1, 2003
5:00 p.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

In an interview in a Lebanese newspaper, Syrian President Bashar Assad has lashed out at Israel, saying as long as the Jewish state exists it will be a threat.

Assad, who has expressed support for Saddam Hussein's regime in the face of coalition action, gave the interview to the pro-Syrian daily Al-Safir. His comments were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The Syrian leader claimed the U.S. is doing Israel's bidding in the war on Iraq.

"[The Americans] removed their masks and said that they wanted oil and that they wanted to re-draw the map of the region in accordance with the Israeli interests," he said. "Israel has a vested interest in dividing Iraq into small ethnic, national and ethnic mini-countries, so that Israel could enjoy legitimacy. There are countries in the Middle East with diverse nationalities, but they have social and historic cohesiveness. Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one.

"On the other hand, the [social] structure in Israel is an anomaly. It is a country with one characteristic, which is a religious characteristic. Its democracy stems from this characteristic. It is not a democracy based on the state's boundaries. Therefore, it is inconceivable that Israel will become a legitimate state even if the peace process is implemented, because its structure deviates from the region's norm, and maybe from the whole world. ..."

Assad says Israel could get its way in rearranging the region based on a "racial, religious or ethnic basis" because the "Israeli lobby" has clout with the United States.

Saying he was not surprised by the Iraqi resistance to coalition forces, Assad claimed "the U.S. and Britain are incapable of controlling all of Iraq." While they may conquer Saddam's state, he believes the U.S. will not actually control it.

Assad slammed those Arab countries that are helping to facilitate "the aggression" and called for the implementation of the Arab Defense Agreement.

"According to this agreement, if an Arab country is invaded, the rest of the Arab countries should defend it," he noted.

Assad says the fact that there has not been an "exodus" of refugees from Iraq, proves that the nation is still strong.

"The first lesson that the Iraqi citizen had learned is that displacement and leaving [home] last forever," he said. "Therefore the solution is resistance. This was the first lesson learned from Lebanon, and after that from the Intifada. There is no disaster, because there is no exodus. The problem is not the occupation, but whether the people are willing to resist it or not. ... Today, the Iraqi citizen sees that America is coming and wants to occupy his country and kill him, and he is willing to experience for himself what happened in Palestine. ... I believe that the situation will be much harder for the Americans and the British."

Asked if Syria feels threatened, Assad again referred to Israel:

"As long as Israel exists, the threat exists. As long as there is aggression against an Arab country, and as long as there is a war close to our borders, the danger continues. Anyone who does not worry in such circumstances does not see reality. Worry does not mean fear, but readiness for the confrontation. ..."

Continued Assad, "... None of us and none of the Arabs trust Israel. It is natural that we should always expect an Israeli attack, even when it does not threaten. It should be known that Israel is based on treachery. This is a point to be considered thoroughly. We are dealing with treachery and threats, which accompanied the establishment of Israel. Since its very inception, Israel has been a threat. It is the Israeli nature, and for that Israel was established.

"Based on this understanding of Israel's nature and role, we should deal with the possibility of protracted aggression. ... Israel does not care about the international public opinion. The U.S. is unable to reign it in; to the contrary, the Israelis are the ones who control [the U.S.] now through their lobby. ..."

2003-04-01T04:51:00.000-08:00

PA official calls for Israel's 'elimination'
Herb Keinon Mar. 31, 2003
The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded Sunday the recall of the Palestinian observer to the UN Human Rights Commission for calling for the "elimination" of Israel.
Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Center's representative at the 59th Human Rights Commission session currently taking place in Geneva, wrote to UN Human Rights High Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello calling on him to "immediately condemn the Palestinian observer and take the necessary measures for his recall, due to his violation of the UN Charter in calling for the 'elimination' of the state of Israel."
In addition to calling for Israel's elimination, Samuels said, Nabil Ramlawi repeatedly compared Nazism and "new Zionist Nazism," and at one point said Zionist Nazism was worse than German Nazism.
Samuel, in his letter to de Mello, said, "This call for the elimination of Israel may reveal the true intentions of the PA, but such language should have resulted in the immediate intervention of the session's chairperson, Libyan Ambassador Najat al-Hajjaji." Samuels also called on the high commissioner to "censure Ms. al-Hajjaji for her abuse of power in not restraining Ramlawi's excesses."
In a related matter, the Wiesenthal Center Monday called on the Human Rights Commission to launch a "a full and thorough investigation of UNRWA's expenditure and employment practices" and "to establish an independent committee to restructure what has become an agent for the perpetuation of the Middle East conflict."
Samuels, in addressing the sessions debate on "the Question of the violation of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine," said that "after 55 years of stagnation it is time to ask whether UNRWA has not served to perpetuate Palestinian refugee status."
He called for a "re-examination of UNRWA, by an independent agency, to determine whether it serves the cause of peace through its statutory responsibility for 'relief works.' Or, in contravention of its mandate and the UN Charter, is it, in fact, a prejudicial agent for the perpetuation of conflict and the deprivation of human rights?"
Samuels said the time has come to question whether UNRWA has not served the policies of Arab countries opposed to integration of the refugees in order to stoke the ever-festering Israeli-Arab conflict.
Samuels also slammed UNRWA head Peter Hansen, who in April 2002 said that in Jenin, Israel had perpetrated "a human catastrophe that has few parallels in recent history."
"The Hansen story," Samuels said, "entered the annals of 'Big Lie' revisionism, exacerbating further Palestinian hatred and politicizing UNRWA as an instrument of propaganda and incitement."

2003-03-30T08:03:00.000-08:00

Arafat's suicide squads dispatched to Baghdad

Fatah movement sends Saddam hundreds of 'human bombs'
to attack allied forces

March 30, 2003

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

One of the top commanders of Yasser Arafat's Fatah
movement, the largest faction of the PLO, says hundreds
of Palestinians living in Lebanon have been sent to Iraq
to carry out suicide attacks against American and British
soldiers, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.

Col. Munir Maqdah told the Nazareth-based as Sennarah
weekly that Fatah has decided to ''strike at American
interests all over the world.'' He added: ''Resisting the
American aggression on Iraq supports the Palestinian
people and the intifada. What is happening in Iraq is the
battle of the Palestinian people first and the Arab and
Muslim nation second.''

Maqdah said his men were already in Baghdad, prepared
to launch suicide attacks, and that another group of
Fatah suicide bombers is due there shortly. Palestinian
sources said the Fatah volunteers entered Iraq through
Syria.

Fatah, which is the first Palestinian group to recruit
women for suicide missions, has several thousand
militiamen in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, and is
headed by Arafat, who also holds the title of chairman of
the Palestinian Authority. Most of the Fatah gunmen
continue to receive their salaries from the PLO.

Fatah is responsible for a number of suicide attacks
against Israel over the past 30 months. Palestinians say
some of the attacks were carried out on the personal
instructions of Maqdah, according to the Post.

Last week, Israeli security forces announced the
capture of a Fatah teenager sent with a suitcase filled
with explosives to blow up a home for 180 orphans and
homeless children in Jerusalem.

Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have repeatedly
urged Iraqis to endorse the suicide attacks as an
effective weapon against the Americans and British
troops.

On Friday, tens of thousands of Palestinians,
chanting, ''Oh beloved Saddam, bomb Tel Aviv'' and
''Death to America,'' rallied in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip in their biggest show of support ever for Iraq.
They burned effigies of President Bush, British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon.

During "Gulf War I," Arafat – virtually
alone among even Arab leaders – threw his lot in
publicly with Saddam Hussein.

"We will enter Jerusalem victoriously and raise
our flag on its walls. ... We will fight you [the
Israelis] with stones, rifles, and 'El-Abed' [the Iraqi
missile)]," Arafat said at the start of that war,
according to a March 29, 1990, Associated Press report.

A few days later, on April 2, Saddam responded
publicly to Arafat's expression of loyalty, saying,
"In the name of Allah, we shall cause fire to devour
half of Israel," according to the Iraqi News Agency.
The next day, Arafat replied, "We say to the brother
and leader Saddam Hussein – go forward with Allah's
blessing."

Though Iraqi Scud missiles assaulted Israel during
that brief war, the Jewish state did not respond
militarily, at the urging of the U.S. However, Sharon has
made plain that such restraint on Israel's part would not
be forthcoming in the event of an Iraqi attack on Israel
in the current conflict.

In recent weeks, the Bush administration has explained
repeatedly that, after deposing Saddam and ending his
support for terrorism, the U.S. president's No. 1
priority in the region will be to facilitate the creation
of an independent Palestinian state. Repeated polls show
a large majority of Palestinians today favor terrorism as
a means of attaining political goals.

2003-03-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

Tongues of Deceit

Facts about the Claims on Jerusalem
by Jews and Palestinians

From an article: "Tongues Of Deceit"

Presented by: A Time To Speak (speak@actcom.co.il)

15 August 2001

"They speak treachery, with tongues of deceit in their
mouths." Micah 6:12
"They conceive mischief and bring forth evil and their
heart prepares deceit."

Job 15:35
There is a Hebrew term "lashon ha-ra" (the bad tongue).
Since the Children of Israel came back to the land of their fathers, the
bad tongue has been one of the sharpest weapons used against them. This
tongue has three forks, that:
        * invent deceits
to forward an ambition or a spite.

        * spread deceits
because they are preferred to the truth.

        * spread deceits
that in ignorance are mistaken for the truth.
For instance: According to Pope John Paul II, "A sad condition
was created for the Palestinian people who were excluded from their homeland.
These were facts everyone can see." When this sentence is parsed by standards
of evidence and logic, not one single "fact" can be seen in it.
Among the relentlessly repeated deceits:
1. There was a flourishing Arab nation in Arab-Palestine,
subjugated and ruined by the intrusion of alien Jews who have no history
or roots there.
The nation known at stages of its history as "Israel"
"Judah" or "Judea" is the only sovereign nation-state that ever existed
in the land now known by the Greco-Roman geographical designation of "Palestine".
The Israelite-Jewish presence goes back some 3,500 years and has never
been broken. The Jews were deprived of their ancient political independence
by the Roman conquest in the year 70 CE, but never lost their attachment
to the Land of Israel or their conviction that they would one day redeem
it.
Both Jews and Christians dwelt in the land when it was
seized by military forces from Arabia in the Seventh Century. There was
no Arabic name for this region, so the conquerors adopted the Greco-Roman
"Palestina", that they pronounced "Falastin". This region became the neglected
province of one foreign empire after another. [See further: A Time to Speak
I:2]
2. The Arabs of Palestine had been a nation in the
land since remote antiquity.
The Arab military invaders themselves left few descendants
in the land, but some of the local population converted to Islam and adopted
the Arabic language. For 1,200 years thereafter, peoples of many origins
came into the land at one time, and left it at other times, while nomads
wandered in and out. These peoples came from throughout the Middle East,
Egypt, North Africa, Turkey, the Balkans, Armenia, and Central Asia.
In a census of 1931, the non-Jewish population of Mandate
Palestine named 24 different countries as their places of birth. They were
never an indigenous or homogeneous population, and they never formed a
distinct national identity, society or polity. The claim that there is
a "Palestinian people" or "Palestinian nation" has a history of decades,
not millennia. It was concocted only after the Six-Day War of 1967, avowedly
as a device to forward the goal of the destruction of Israel.
"Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity
serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a
new tool in the continuing battle against Israel." -- PLO Military
Department head, 1997.
3. There was a flourishing Arab society in Palestine
before the intrusion of the Jews.
At the start of the Jewish resettlement -- in the 1870s-1880s
-- Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, ruled by the
Sultan in far-off Istanbul. The entire non-Jewish population west of the
Jordan River was about 140,000, including nomads who moved in and out and
even roving bandits. That population had been stagnant or in decline for
centuries.
The land was depopulated, deserted, impoverished and barren.
Western travellers, who knew from the Bible of the beauty, fertility and
vitality of ancient Israel, came to visit and found not the Land of Milk
and Honey but an empty wilderness of ruin and desolation.
A British consul reported in 1857 that the land was not
cultivated, villages had disappeared, and that "The country is in
a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore the greatest need
is that of a body of population".
Mark Twain rode through just a few years before the start
of Jewish resettlement and saw only ". . . the kind of solitude to make
one dreary." The Galilee was "unpeopled deserts . . . rusty
mounds of barrenness" where he "never saw a human being on the whole route".
He concluded that "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . . . desolate
and unlovely." -- From Innocents Abroad, 1867.
At about the same time, a British Christian clergyman
came to the Holy Land and wrote: "But where are the inhabitants? This fertile
[coastal] plain which might support an immense population is almost a solitude.
. . . The denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the
very letter - 'The land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants.'"
- Reverend Samuel Manning, These Holy Fields, 1894.
By the early Nineteenth Century it was perceived, especially
in the United States and Great Britain, that the only hope for the restoration
of Palestine was in the return of the only people who loved it and would
care for it. Those who seriously espoused the idea of the Return of the
Jews included U.S. President John Adams, British Prime Minister Disraeli,
British Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston, and writer George Eliot.
This had indeed been the sustaining hope of the Jews themselves
for two millennia, and it became an active movement by the 1870s-1880s,
even before Theodor Herzl organized Zionism as a worldwide movement.
4. The Jews displaced and dispossessed the Arabs.
Jews had always "come up to the Land". Now pioneers began
to come, perhaps

a dozen or a score at a time, calling themselves Hovevei
Tzion (Lovers of Zion), or BILU - an acronym for the Hebrew Beth Ya'akov
Lecha Venelecha (House of Jacob Let Us Rise Up and Go 0, that echoes The
Lord's first command to Abraham: Lech lecha . . . (Rise up and go
. . . to a land that I will show you).
They did not take any land away from Arabs, or displace
any Arabs. They went into areas long uninhabited and abandoned. The Ottoman
Turkish government sternly restricted purchase of land by Jews. An effendi
who could claim or contrive ownership of a bit of wasteland would be paid
an exorbitantly inflated price for it. On the wasteland, the pioneers drained
swamps and irrigated deserts, tilled soil untilled for centuries and built
where nothing had been built for centuries. Many died of malaria and other
diseases, and many more were murdered by bandits.
They did not create the "sad condition" of the papal lament,
Rather, they created conditions that attracted and drew Arabs from other
countries and regions, who came to seek the work, wages and a better conditions
found only in the vicinity of the new Jewish settlements. Within decades
of the start of Jewish resettlement, the Arab population in those areas
grew far beyond the limits of natural increase. If the Jews had not come,
the Arabs would not have come either.
"Around 1910, my family was staying at a hotel in Switzerland,
where we met a very rich Arab. One of the other guests said to him, 'You
Arabs are making a mistake in letting Jews come into Palestine. You should
throw them out while you can.' "The Arab laughed and said, 'Oh, no. Palestine
is one of the poorest and most backward places in the world. There's nothing
there. The Jews will come and fill it with farms and orchards and towns.
They'll build factories and schools and hospitals and railways. Then we
Arabs will throw them out and keep it all for ourselves.'" -- Carrie
Nora Isaac, New York
Malcolm MacDonald, a British Secretary of State hostile
to the Jews, admitted in 1938: "The Arabs cannot say that the Jews
are driving them out of their country. If not a single Jew had come to
Palestine after 1918, I believe that the Arab population of [Western] Palestine
today would still have been around the ….. it had been stable under Turkish
rule."
5. The British Mandate to establish a Jewish National
Home in Palestine was a crime against the Arabs.
According to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the League
of Nations Mandate of 1921, "Palestine" included all of the land east as
well as west of the Jordan River in the Jewish National Home to be open
for "close Jewish settlement".
In 1922, the British detached the entire region east of
the river, depriving the Jewish National Home of a full 75 percent
of Mandate Palestine. This they did in order to provide a puppet kingdom
for their protégé Emir Abdullah, after he was driven out
of Arabia. Since there was no historic name for such a kingdom, it was
called after a biblical river. From that day to this, the Kingdom
of Jordan has permitted no Jew within its borders, and when it seized control
of Judea and Samaria (1948-1967) it killed or drove out every Jew there
as well.
The British progressively limited the areas open to Jews
west of the Jordan River. They slammed and bolted the gates of the Jewish
National Home at the very time when Jews most desperately needed a haven.
The British obsessively counted and recounted the number of Jews, with
a view to barring their entry or deporting them. At the same time they
permitted a massive influx of Arabs from other countries and regions, technically
illegal but never hindered.
These newly arriving Arabs took the places meant for the
Jews, and so charmed or intimidated the British that the Jews they displaced
were consigned to the death camps of Europe, or left to drown on their
way to the Promised Land. Shortly before the start of World War II, the
British Foreign Office actually requested the government of Nazi Germany
to prevent the escape of Jews, and a few years later admonished the U.S.
State Department not to encourage the escape of Jews, because nobody wants
them.
"So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded
into the country and multiplied until their population has increased more
than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population." -- Winston
Churchill, 1939
"If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather
than the Arabs." -- British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, 1937
"If we must have preferences, let me murmur in your ear
that I prefer Arabs to Jews." -- British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden,
1943
The Jews who succeeded in reaching the Jewish National
Home were confined to only 17 percent of Mandate Palestine, which became
the State of Israel in 1948. That the Arabs were not granted 100 percent
is what they ever since constantly proclaimed to be the Crime of the Century,
to be undone by any means.
6. Jerusalem is a holy city of Islam, where Jews have
no history, rights or claims.
Jerusalem has been the heart of Israel and of world Jewry
for
3,000 years, and there has been a virtually unbroken Jewish presence there
for all that time. When modern statistics are on record, they show Jews
as the majority in the city:
        * 1860:
11,000 Jews, 6,500 Muslims, 4,500 Christians

        * 1906:
40,000 Jews, 13,000 Christians, 7,000 Muslims

        * 1999:
633,000 Jews, 200,000 Mulsims and Christians
Jews around the world turn toward Jerusalem when they
pray. Muslims turn toward Mecca. Jews and Christians make religious pilgrimages
to Jerusalem. Muslims make religious pilgrimages to Mecca.
Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the Koran. It does
not appear on lists of Muslim holy cities. Caliphs and sultans ruling from
afar paid little or no heed to Jerusalem; it dwindled to a dirty, dilapidated
and poverty-stricken village -- scarcely to be expected in any city that
is loved or revered.
Arabs built little in Jerusalem, with the exception of
the Dome of the Rock, that a caliph built in the Seventh Century -- on
the site of the First and Second biblical Temples. It is now being alleged
that those Temples never existed, and while one might suppose this too
preposterous to require rebuttal, the historically illiterate minions of
the news media may repeat it with quite serious mien.
During the Jordanian occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem,
the Jewish residents were killed or driven out. For 19 years, Jews of all
nationalities were banned from their holy places and historical sites,
while ancient synagogues and cemeteries were wrecked or crudely desecrated.
Now, the Muslim religious authorities still permitted to administer Temple
Mount are relentlessly unearthing and destroying every relic of the Temples
they say never existed -- a program dubbed "archaeological terrorism".
7. Judea, Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza are Palestinian
territory, unlawfully occupied by Israel. Israeli settlements there are
illegal under international law.
Israel is not occupying Palestinian territory because
there is not and never has been any such thing. "Occupied Palestine", like
"Arab East Jerusalem", as a diplomatic and journalistic stock epithet that
melts away under analysis.
The status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza are still fixed
by the Mandate for the Jewish National Home, while the other parts of the
Mandate lands have become the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan.
In 1948, Jordan launched a war of destruction against Israel during which
it seized control of these areas. In 1967 it launched another war of destruction
against Israel during which it lost that control. Since then, the areas
have been under Israeli administration, as is quite lawful. Israeli settlements
in that land are also quite lawful, regardless of the juridical rulings
of

radio-TV broadcasters. [See further A Time to Speak
No. I-6, June 2001]
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel has turned
over administration of some cities and areas to the PLO, but it was not
a grant of sovereignty nor is it irrevocable. It is conditional on PA/PLO
fulfillment of its own undertakings in those Accords -- a fulfillment that
it never began. Israel retains responsibility for security in those areas,
and the right to take action against terrorism or any other threat to its
security that emanates therefrom. The mantras of the news media notwithstanding,
Israeli actions for security and/or self-defense are not attacks against
or incursions into "Palestinian territory".
8. The Palestinians seek only to free themselves of
occupation and regain the lands taken from them.
As noted above, lands were given to them by Israel, not
taken from them. Since Israel's voluntary withdrawals after the Oslo Accords,
some 98% of the Arabs resident in Judea, Samaria and Gaza now live under
the rule of the PLO.
When the PLO was founded in 1964, it adopted a charter
defining its purpose as the total destruction of Israel, to be achieved
by terrorism and war. This was before the Six-Day War of 1967, when the
lands the PLO now purports to liberate were still held by Jordan and not
by Israel. It therefore cannot rationally be argued that the terrorism
is caused by or excused by the "occupation".
The Oslo Accords demanded the cancellation of this Charter,
but that has never been done. Despite public relations flimflam to the
contrary, the goal of the destruction of Israel is still in effect. The
pretense that the Palestinians yearn only for a state in these areas, side-by-side
with Israel and at peace with it, is belied by PLO-officials themselves:
In 1974, the PLO adopted its Plan of Stages: First take
control of any territory that it can trick Israel into yielding. Then use
that territory as the springboard for the war to destroy Israel. That Plan
of Stages is also still in effect.
After signing of the Oslo Accords, Yasser Arafat announced:
"This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which
had been signed between our Prophet Muhammad and Koraish." [Note: Two years
after Muhammad signed the treaty with the tribe of Koraish, he attacked
and annihilated it.]
In a speech in Sweden, he promised to: ". . . eliminate
the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make
life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion.
Jews won't want to live among us Arabs."
Faisel al-Husseini, scion of one of the most powerful
Arab families, and PLO "Minister for Jerusalem" defined the PLO program:
"[We will] continue to aspire to the strategic goal: namely,
Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea. Whatever
we get now, cannot make us forget this supreme truth." April 2001
"If we agree to declare our state over . . . the West
Bank and Gaza, our ultimate goal is the liberation of all historic
Palestine from the River [Jordan] to the Sea [Mediterranean]. We distinguish
the strategic, long-term goals from the political phased goals, which we
are compelled to temporarily accept due to international pressure."
June 2001
PLO Minister of Communications, 1999: "Our people have
hope for the future, that the occupation state [Israel] ceases to exist."
9. The Moslem "claim" to Jerusalem is unfounded.
The Moslem "claim" to Jerusalem is based on what is written
in the Koran, which although Jerusalem is not mentioned even once, nevertheless
talks (in Sura 17:1) of the "Furthest Mosque": "Glory be unto Allah who
did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the
Furthest Mosque." But is there any foundation to the Moslem argument that
this "Furthest Mosque" (Al-Masujidi al-Aqtza) refers to what is today called
the Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem? The answer is, none whatsoever.
In the days of Mohammed, who died in 632 of the Common
Era, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem
was captured by Khalif Omar only in 638, six years after Mohammed's death.
Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church
stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian,
built in the Byzantine architectural style.
The Aksa Mosque was built 20 years after the Dome of the
Rock, which was built in 691-692 by Khalif Abd El Malik. The name "Omar
Mosque" is therefore false. In or around 711, or about 80 years after Mohammed
died, Malik's son, Abd El-Wahd - who ruled from 705-715 - reconstructed
the Christian- Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque.
He left the structure as it was, a typical Byzantine "basilica" structure
with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular "ship" in the center.
All he added was an onion-like dome on top of the building to make it look
like a mosque. He then named it El-Aksa, so it would sound like the one
mentioned in the Koran.
Therefore it is crystal clear that Mohammed could never
have had this mosque in mind when he compiled the Koran, since it did not
exist for another three generations after his death. Rather, as many
scholars long ago established, it is logical that Mohammed intended the
mosque in Mecca as the "Sacred Mosque," and the mosque in Medina as the
"Furthest Mosque." So much for the Moslem claim based on the Aksa Mosque.
With this understood, it is no wonder that Mohammed issued
a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that
had been tolerated only for some months in order to lure Jews to convert
to Islam. When that effort failed, Mohammed put an abrupt stop to it on
February 12, 624. Jerusalem simply never held any sanctity for the Moslems
themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain. [By
Dr. MANFRED R. LEHMANN - who is a writer for the Algemeiner Journal. Originally
published in the Algemeiner Journal, August 19, 1994.]
Source: Tzemach News Service (TNS)

tzemachnews@tzemach.org

2003-03-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

Palestinians Urge Saddam To Lob Missiles At Israel

Ah...those peace-loving Palestinians

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians marched in pro-Iraq rallies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, calling on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to launch missiles at Israel, reports said. In the largest demonstration, organized by Hamas, some 30,000 protestors flooded into the streets in Gaza City after noontime prayers. In the West Bank town of Nablus, some 4,000 demonstrators cheered as effigies of President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were hanged and burned. Elsewhere in the West Bank, another 16,000 Palestinians demonstrated their support for Saddam. "Our beloved Saddam, hit Tel Aviv," the people chanted. During the 1991 Gulf War, Palestinians danced on their rooftops as Israel - primarily Tel Aviv - was hit by dozens of Iraqi Scud missiles. On Friday, Israeli police restricted entry to the Temple Mount to holders of Israeli identity cards over the age of 40 after intelligence reports suggested there would be trouble there after noon prayers. Jerusalem police had to use tear gas and concussion grenades after last Friday's prayers to disperse pro-Iraqi demonstrators who tried to block the road in eastern Jerusalem. While expressing its opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Palestinian Authority officials have tried to downplay any support for Saddam. This week, 21 families of Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers received $10,000 each from the Iraqi leader.

2003-03-26T12:26:00.000-08:00

Untitled Document

Palestinian Leadership Farce

by Rachel Neuwirth

March 26, 2003

Even the Nazis, who were bent on the extermination of the Jewish people, did
not resort to suicide bombing. To eliminate the scourge of Nazism, the Allies
followed a policy of seeking total, unconditional defeat and surrender. It is
necessary for Israel and the US to take a similar policy regarding the current
Arab-Palestinian leadership.

The only way to bring about a peaceful solution is to totally defeat the Arab-Palestinians'
current leadership, including all terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, DFLP, Tanzim and the al-Aqsa Brigades, who exploit the Arab-Palestinian
people, including their children.

Arafat and his cronies have now appointed a "new" prime minister:
Mahmud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, Holocaust denier, Arafat's No. 2 for the last
30 years, and co-founder of Fatah, a terrorist organization set up to destroy
Israel in 1959. Does anyone really believe that an old dog can learn new tricks?

Mahmud Abbas is no better than Yasser Arafat. Arafat’s mentor is none
other than Haj Amin al-Husseini who sided with Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany.
From 1929, Haj Amin repeatedly called on the Arabs who lived the British Mandate
in Palestine to carry out "Itbach al-Yahood " -"Slaughter the
Jews!" This call still echoes today as it is etched in the hearts and minds
of many Arab-Palestinians.

Rewarding the Arab-Palestinian leadership, whose complicity in terrorism is
beyond dispute and who broke all the agreements they signed with Israel, is
against rational thinking. Moreover, how can anyone in the international community
now legitimize a regime that continues to teach children to be suicide bombers?

In 1999, the French news agency, Agence France Presse, reported that Adolph
Hitler's Mein Kampf was at number six on the Palestinian Authority's best-seller
list. Middle East Media and Research Institute (www.memri.org) released more
details on the sale of Mein Kampf in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian autonomy.
The cover of the book features a picture of Hitler, a swastika, and the title
in both German and Arabic. Following are some excerpts of the introduction by
translator Luis al-Haj:

"Hitler was a man of ideology who bequeathed an ideological heritage whose
decay is inconceivable. This ideological heritage includes politics, society,
science, culture, and war as science and culture...

"National Socialism... did not die with the death of its herald. Rather,
its seeds multiplied under each star...

"This translation of the book My Struggle has never been presented to
Arabic speakers. It is taken from the original text of the author, Adolph Hitler.
The text was untouched by the censor. We made a point to deliver Hitler's opinions
and theories on nationalism, regimes and ethnicity without any changes, because
they are not yet outmoded and because we, in the Arab world, still proceed haphazardly
in all three fields..."

Arafat's regime-controlled newspaper, Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, said, on the day
of the barbarity of 9/11: "The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors
of their noble predecessors... the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the
US Marines a tough lesson in [Lebanon]... These suicide bombers are the salt
of the earth, the engines of history... They are the most honorable among us."
(Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 9/11/2001)

On the morning of October 12, 2000, two Israeli reservists, Yosef Avrahami
and Vadim Norzesche, where lynched by Palestinian Authority "policemen"
who then threw their corpses out a window to a mob, which then pelted their
dead bodies with stones, fire and metal bars. One of the bodies was set on fire
and then dragged by car through the town, to a cheering crowd.

Days later, the Arab-Palestinians further celebrated their "victory"
by dressing a donkey in a Jewish prayer shawl and painting the star of David
and a swastika on its snout.

The bodies of Kobi Mandel, 14, a US citizen, and Yossi Ishran, also 14, were
found bludgeoned to death in a Haritoun cave, on the hills of Tekoa. When they
chose to skip school to go on a hike and enjoy nature, the nature they faced
was ferocious.

About 120 suicide-bombings were committed within two-and-a-half years, in pizza
and ice cream parlors, discos, supermarkets, Hebrew University, buses, malls,
and at Passover dinners and Bar Mitzvah parties.

Appointing Mahmud Abbas, who has been there for more than three decades, won't
accomplish the goals set out by President Bush in his September 24, 2002 speech.
All it will do is reward terrorism and violence, which Mahmud Abbas has always
advocated. Hanan Ashrawi, on the appointment of Mr. Abbas, said, "It's
the beginning of a transition - it is certainly a turning point and a qualitative
shift in the political culture. Now we have power-sharing that is clearly spelled
out."

What quality are you talking about, Ms. Ashrawi? You have ignored the reality
of who Abbas is. The Arab-Palestinian leadership must stop blaming Israel and
the US for the misery of their people. Instead, they should examine their core
beliefs, and until they change those, Israelis can never rely on the Palestinian
Authority to be a true partner for peace.

--------------------------------------------------------

Rachel Neuwirth is a Los Angeles-based analyst associated with the American
Jewish Congress and Stand With Us.

2003-03-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

News from Saddam's Mini-Me:

Palestinians in Ramallah are celebrating Iraq's capture of American and British soldiers.

A policeman at Yasser Arafat's battered headquarters today said the news made it a "big day for the Iraqi people and all the Arabs and Muslim," the Jerusalem Post reported.

"Everyone here was happy ... to see pictures of American soldiers in Iraqi custody," the officer said. "This is a big blow for Bush and Blair. I don't believe they will be able to continue with the war now that many of their soldiers are being killed or taken prisoner."

The Post said one of the policeman's colleagues in Arafat's presidential guard, Force 17, said the news made him so happy that "I felt like kissing all the people around me."

"Saddam has once again proven that he is a great leader, a defender of Arab rights," he said. "His men are brave. They have been able to teach the American and British dogs an unforgettable lesson."

The Iraqis, he said, "are much better at war because they have more experience."

"The American and British soldiers are cowards and spoiled kids," the Force 17 officer said.

'Oh beloved Saddam, bomb Tel Aviv'

The Jerusalem paper described the mood in central Ramallah's Manarah Square as euphoric.

"They have just shot down two Apache helicopters," an excited merchant shouted hysterically as he ran out of his shop. "This is unbelievable. The Americans are losing the war. Iraq is going to be Bush's Vietnam."

Adorned with Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam, the square has been the scene of daily demonstrations, the Post said. The streets were deserted this morning, however, when locals gathered in front of TV sets – many in the shops and cafes – to watch the broadcast of a defiant speech by Saddam.

Shortly after the speech was aired, about 50 girls in green and white school uniforms marched toward the square with signs denouncing U.S. "aggression" on Iraq, the Jerusalem paper reported.

The girls were greeted by shopkeepers and others with "Allahu Akbar" [God is great] as they chanted, "Oh beloved Saddam, bomb, bomb Tel Aviv."

Some of the girls, who were younger than age 10, urged the Iraqi leader to destroy Israel.

"Oh Saddam, we love you, why don't you annihilate all the Jews."

They also had a message for President George W. Bush and pro-Western Arab leaders.

"Bush, soon Saddam will bury you,"and "[King] Abdullah [of Jordan], your people don't want you, we hope you will follow your father."

'Only dictator is Bush'

A Palestinian journalist said the capture of coalition soldiers brought a sense of pride to Palestinians after morale had been dampened in the first few days of the war.

"Until yesterday, the feeling here was bad," he told the Post. "But when the pictures of the American prisoners and bodies of soldiers were shown on TV, there was a lot of excitement. It's very moving to watch Arab soldiers … defeating American and British soldiers and killing them."

The journalist added that "Saddam is now more popular than ever."

"The people here adore him," he said. "The feeling here is that Saddam has restored Arab confidence and dignity."

Footage of elated Iraqi villagers and militiamen waving their rifles next to an Apache helicopter stirred Zuhair Karajeh, a 42-year-old laborer, as he ate in a diner.

"The Iraqis are very brave and we are proud of them," he said. "An old man with a rifle was able to shoot down one of the world's most advanced helicopters. Did you see Bush's face when he was talking about his prisoners last night? It was great to see this big devil almost breaking into tears."

Karajeh does not see Saddam as a dictator.

"I would like to see Saddam as the leader of the Arab and Muslim world," he said as others in the café nodded in agreement. "The only dictator is Bush, who has waged a war against the Arabs and Muslims."

Hasan Kamleh, 37, a hotel receptionist, says he expects the war to end soon because of the U.S. and British casualties.

"The Americans and the British can't put up with the losses," he said. "They will have to end the war ahead of time because they are losing too many soldiers. Honestly, I didn't believe that Saddam stood a chance, but when I saw the bodies of the American soldiers, I understood that this is a war which the Arabs could win."

Palestinian Authority media also reflected the euphoria expressed on the street.

"On the fourth day of the war, Iraq has presented to the Arabs and all the peoples of the world proof that it is possible to defeat the U.S.," said Hasan al Kashef, a respected columnist and senior PA official.

"On this day, the Arabs and the rest of the world have come to learn that the U.S. is not the almighty superpower that is capable of doing anything anytime," he said. "Iraq has proved that surrendering to the will of the U.S. is the result of impotence, miscalculation and a lack of will."

The largest Palestinian daily, Al Quds, ran a cartoon today that depicted a coalition pilot hiding in bushes next to the wreckage of his plane. The Post said the panicking pilot in the cartoon radios Bush to tell him that he sees a thousand Iraqis holding Kalashnikov rifles, but none of them have brought him roses and gifts.

Another cartoon in the PA's official organ al Ayyam bears the message that American soldiers will return from Baghdad only in coffins. It portrays a frightened American soldier reluctantly marching toward Baghdad with a coffin draped with the U.S. flag.

2003-03-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

Grim Fairy Tale:

Palestinians claim they are decendents of ancient Canaanites

To bolster their claim to the land that Israel now occupies,
the Palestinians have been circulating a new mythology that
says modern-day Palestinians are the direct decendents of
Canaanites -- the ancient people who inhabited Sodom and
Gemorrah. Now, originally, they tried to trace their lineage to
Philistines, but since the Philistines were of Greek origin,
lived along the Aegean Sea, and disappeared after the late
seventh century B.C., Palestinians decided to go with the
Canaanites.

The Canaanites were the most degenerate society on the face of the
Earth at the time. The brutality, lust and abandon of Canaanite
mythology was without equal in the ancient world. Given that Canaanite deities
had no moral character whatsoever, that fact alone must have brought out the
worst traits in their devotees and entailed many of the most
demoralizing practices of the time, such as child sacrifice (some
of it by fire), incest, bestiality, homosexual practices and
cultic prostitution--both male and female (www.theology.edu/canaan.htm).

Nothing like picking the historical scum of the Earth as your
ancestors. However, we have a little conundrum here:
Palestinians are Arabs who claim lineage from Abraham's son
Ishmael. The Qur'an identifies that G-d promised the land to
Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, not Ishmael. In fact, the Qu'ran
itself states "And when Moses said to his people: 'O my
people, call in remembrance the favour of God unto you, when he
produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to
you what He had not given to any other among the peoples. O my
people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and
turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to
your own ruin.'" [Qur'an 5:20-21]

Abraham was 75 years old when he entered the land of Canaan.
He was 86 years old when Ishmael was born. Abraham was a
Chaldean, not a Canaanite. In other words, Canaanites existed
well before Ishmael.

The term “Palestine” or “Palestinians” to
designate any geographic location or people does not exist
anywhere in the Torah (Jewish "Bible"), the Christian
Bible, or the Qur'an. The historian Josephus never use these
terms in his major works, Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of
the Jews. These relatively recent terms cannot change
history.

In 135 A. D., the Roman Emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius
Hadrianus) renamed Jerusalem after himself and the god Jupiter
Capitolinus—Aelia Capitolina. Some historians feel that this
period was most likely the time that the Romans renamed Judea as
Palestina (or Palestine). Others believe the change occured about
a century or so later, after Constantine established the eastern,
or Byzantine, part of the Roman Empire. In any event, Palestine
was, in fact, Judea.

Not only is the term “Palestine” found to originate
as late as the Byzantine era, the Arabs who call themselves
“Palestinian” did not lay claim to the Holy Land until
about the tenth century A.D.

On the other hand, given the current bloodlust of Palestinians
who have regularly sacrificed their children by making them
homicide bombers, and who wholeheartedly support Saddam
and his sadistic regime, maybe they are like Canaanites after all.

2003-03-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

Wall Street Journal Falsely Charges Israeli Arson of al-Aqsa Mosque

UPDATE -- November 15: The Journal has now issued a correction.

November 13, 2000

A news article in today's Wall Street Journal (11/13) falsely charges that in 1969 an Israeli tried to burn down the al-Aqsa Mosque, when, in fact, the arson was committed by a tourist, a fundamentalist Protestant from Australia. It should also be noted that Muslim bystanders attacked Israeli firemen as they struggled to save the mosque.

The Journal claimed that:

Anger against Israel has long been the touchstone of both Arabic and Islamic unity – as has Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, a sacred Islamic site on what Jews call Temple Mount. It was an Israeli’s attempt to burn down al-Aqsa in 1969 that led to the founding of the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. (November 13, 2000)

Contrary to the Journal’s reckless charge, the arsonist, Dennis Michael Rohan, was neither Israeli nor Jewish – he was an Australian Protestant follower of an evangelical sect known as the Church of God. By his own admission, Rohan hoped to hasten the coming of the Messiah by burning down al-Aqsa.

The fire was put out by Israeli firemen, despite attacks upon them by Muslim bystanders, who also cut some of the fire hoses. (Times of London, September 2, 1969)

Wall Street Journal news editors should correct the false charge and might consider hiring a few fact checkers.
In addition, the Journal's casual phrase that the site of the al-Aqsa Mosque is what "Jews call Temple Mount" is also highly objectionable. The site has been called the Temple Mount since Jews built the First Temple there 3000 years ago. It was called the Temple Mount 1600 years before the the advent of Islam, and it was called the Temple Mount in the days that witnessed the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem. The site should be referred to as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, known by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary).

2003-03-20T13:51:00.000-08:00

Integrity, Not Expedience (The meaning of UN Resolution 10/6)

From the Editor's Desk, The Canadian Jewish News, Toronto, Ontario, February 18, 1999

Most of us can still recall with abject disdain the way in which, for decades after the Six Day War, the United Nations General Assembly became a bear pit of the nastiest invective and outright anti-Semitism directed at Israel.

The lowest of all low points was reached in November 1975 when the GA passed the infamous and outrageous
resolution that equated Zionism with racism

The resolution was ultimately repealed 16 years later with the advent of the Oslo peace process. The tide of anti-Israel bias seemed to dissipate, diminished somewhat by new bilateral relations being forged by Israel with many of its former enemies.
Indeed, for two or three years, an unfamiliar optimism infected Israel's representatives at the United Nations. Their credentials were no longer being routinely challenged and they were being asked to participate in various committees.

But that sense of optimism was short-lived.

In 1995, with the change of government in Israel, the UN General Assembly returned to being, essentially, a reflexive, knee-jerk anti-Israel forum, constantly intervening in bilateral Israeli-Palestinian problems on the side of the Palestinians whenever
they asked it to.

Whether the pretext was south Lebanon or Har Choma, there are many recent examples of UN General Assembly's one-sided, retrograde diatribes against Israel.

Last week we witnessed the latest such example. By a vote of 115-2, the UN General Assembly called upon the 188 nations that signed the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to convene this summer to ensure that Israel complies with its provisions regarding
the protection of civilians in the West Bank and Gaza.
(Resolution 10/6, February 9, 1999)

Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN, called the resolution "a vulgar distortion of international humanitarian law for the purpose of narrow political interests."

He understated the case.

If the signatory states do convene to judge Israel, it will mark the very first time they will have done so.

There was no such conference, nor any call for one, when for example, Iraq invaded Kuwait, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, or the former Soviet Union invaded Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Afghanistan. None of these instances of malicious aggression has burdened
the conscience of the UN General Assembly quite the way the plight of the Palestinians does.

Moreover, there is a significant legal issue as to whether the Convention protocols even apply to the West Bank and Gaza.

The rightful sovereignty of the area from 1948 to 1967 has not yet been legally settled. Only one country on earth, Great Britain, recognized Jordan's claim to the West Bank after the 1948 war. Even so, it bears remembering that Israel captured the
territory while fighting a defensive war.

Finally, adding the last piece of absurdity to the morally inverted world of UN General Assembly, virtually no Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza now live under Israeli rule. More than 95 percent live under Palestinian rule.

The resolution was nothing more than the most recent effort by the Palestinians to prejudice future negotiations over the very issue that was the subject of the hateful resolution, namely the future of the settlements under the Oslo accords.

It is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the Palestinians have ignored the dispute-resolution mechanism in the accords to embarrass Israel in the international arena.

2003-03-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

The First Breach of the UN Charter

June 1999 - It has become more evident that Yasser Arafat is seriously attempting to resurrect UN General Assembly resolution 181, thus sabotaging the only legal framework mutually agreed upon to date for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Camp David, the Madrid Conference, and the Oslo Accords are all anchored in UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, to the exclusion of resolution 181.

In February 1947, Great Britain declared its Mandate in Palestine "unworkable" and referred the matter to the youthful UN. Eleven member states were appointed to the UN Special Committee on Palestine, the first truly independent tribunal to examine the Palestine question. Committee members were especially moved by the plight of desperate Holocaust survivors denied entry to Palestine. UNSCOP's majority concluded the pledge of a Jewish national home had never been fulfilled, as Jewish immigration and land purchases had been artificially restricted. They recommended partition into separate Jewish and Arab states with economic ties, with a separate regime for Jerusalem.Arab leaders were enraged when UN resolution 181 (the Partition Plan) was adopted on November 29, 1947 (the vote was 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions).

One after another, Arab states registered immediate objections with the UN. Amb. Jamali of Iraq: "In the name of my government, I wish to state that it feels that this decision is anti-democratic, illegal,… Iraq does not recognize the validity of this decision." Amb. Amir Arslan of Syria: "My country will never recognize such a decision. It will never agree to be responsible for it."When news of the decision reached Palestine, Arab rioters wreaked carnage in the Jewish commercial center in western Jerusalem in plain sight of British forces. Such hostilities continued until the British left six months later, leaving a vacuum of power Arab states hoped to fill.

The Arab League thought a mere show of force would be sufficient to ensure the intervention of the major powers and prevent the birth of a Jewish state. The UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council on 16 February 1948: "Organized efforts are being made by strong Arab elements inside and outside Palestine to prevent the implementation of the Assembly's plan of partition and to thwart its objectives by threats and acts of violence, including armed incursions into Palestinian territory... This Commission now finds itself confronted with an attempt to defeat its purposes, and to nullify the resolution of the General Assembly."

With diplomacy stalled at the UN, Britain announced plans to leave on May 14. By that time, several thousand Jews already had been killed or wounded. But Arab-Jewish fighting had resulted in de facto partition and the Jewish people were poised to declare statehood. As the British Mandate ended on 14 May 1948, seven Arab armies illegally attacked the nascent Jewish state. UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie termed this act "the first armed aggression which the world had seen since the end of the [Second World] War."

The Arab League actually included rejection of resolution 181 as a formal justification for its invasion, the first blatant breach of the UN Charter. Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha vowed: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

And in the words of the foremost Palestinian leader at the time, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem:

" I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all! "

SOURCES: UN Records; Israel Foreign Ministry; The Birth of Israel, by Jorge Garcia-Granados; Myths and Facts, by Bard and Himelfarb.

2003-03-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

Peace in The Middle East:
A Pragmatic "Road Map" from Truth to Peace

Salomon Benzimra

Before we embark on a new round of peace talks, it seems appropriate to learn from the events that have besieged the Middle East since the failure of the Oslo process at Camp David in July 2000.

The recently disclosed "Road Map" proposed by the Bush Administration and actively pursued by the "Quartet"should avoid the pitfalls that have marred previous peace negotiations. The relentless
terrorist activities triggered by the Palestinians since the end of 2000 have created a new paradigm for any future negotiations. It would be unconscionable to dismiss these realities for the sake of reaching a hasty and fragile agreement between the parties.

Above all, a lasting peace can only be founded on TRUTH. Historic truth. Geographic truth. Up until now, the several attempts aimed at a rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbors have been crafted by diplomats
bent on "constructive ambiguities." Recent history shows that such attempts have a short life span. Even the much-trumpeted peace between Egypt and Israel proved to be not much more than a very cold peace, if not a smoldering cease-fire.

In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, "Justice is truth in action." We cannot expect a just and lasting solution to the Middle-East problem as long as truth yields to distorted facts, and firm action is avoided
to appease the aggressor.

Details were changed: the "Peace Process" became a "Road Map"; the timetable was extended; the list of participants was expanded. But as long as the foundations remain unchanged, failure is once more
inevitable. The guiding principles of a lasting peace in the region require a thorough re-evaluation. The following thoughts ought to be considered.

1. Terrorism should never be rewarded

Arabs and other groups seeking political advantage should be clearly shown the negative effects that any recourse to violence against civilians will have on their own cause. Rewarding Palestinian terrorism, especially
in diplomatic negotiations, would be a scandalous precedent. Conscious of their achievements through terror, the "Palestinians" will not hesitate to start another campaign of violence, with the quasi certitude of gaining further concessions through a
new round of "peace negotiations". This western "Munich mentality" must end: it is politically disastrous and morally reprehensible.

2. The Oslo Accords were fatally flawed

In a thoughtful analysis of the Oslo Accords, Professor Codevilla (2)
notes the following points:

1. Specific concessions were made by the Israelis, in exchange for Palestinian promises, which were rarely kept.

2. Sheer determination by Israel and the U.S. to pursue the negotiations, fearing that the sought agreement might prove to be otherwise impossible to reach.

3. No effort was made "to ascertain that the objectives of the two parties are compatible," in a blatant departure from the basis of any political negotiation.

Launching a peace process with little or no attention to the deep feelings of the "Palestinian street," or the hidden agenda of its leaders, was a major mistake. The euphoria of a much welcome peace in the
region masked the serious cracks in the structure of the "Peace Process." The persistent blindness of Israeli and western leaders was finally shattered by the unprecedented violence known as "the second intifada". However, the shortcomings
of such a "Peace Process" were blatant from the start:

1. Non-enforcement of agreements (exceeded limits on the strength of the Palestinian police force, incitement in the media and in school books, persisting terror attacks, Palestinian Charter unchanged20).

2. Why should Israel be the suitor for peace, when it has been the victor of more than one military offensive launched against it?

3. Why should the resolution of the "Palestinian question" rest only on Israel’s shoulders, while the surrounding Arab nations played a major role in creating and exacerbating the problem? (See Section 4).

4. No mention of the final end to Arab hostility.

Israel made a major mistake in letting a terrorist organization -- the PLO --metamorphose itself into an internationally recognized legal facade -- the PA --with whom negotiations were undertaken. The
"Quartet" seems to be on the path of perpetuating and aggravating this mistake by calling for the creation of a "Palestinian State" with little or no thought given to the justification, final borders, and ultimate goals of such a state. It
is still time to correct this dead-end and avoid its disastrous consequences. But a thorough reassessment of the Middle East conflict is necessary.

3. Lies and misconceptions should be challenged

The power of the word is far more resilient than one may think. Slogans are quickly born and they soon take all the trappings of absolute truth. They later become difficult to question, no matter how misleading or
erroneous they may be, because they end up being deeply rooted in people’s psyche. However, left unchallenged, truth cannot emerge and a lasting peace will remain forever elusive.

The "Palestinian" discourse is made of countless misconceptions and untruths. Most unfortunately, the world at large seems to have espoused these ideas, no matter how far-fetched, in its blind support of what
is perceived as "the underdog struggling against a brutal occupation." Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Palestinian people

The notion of a "Palestinian people" surfaced only in the late 1960s, after the Six Day War. Prior to 1967, the "West Bank" was annexed by Jordan and the Gaza strip administered by Egypt. During the
19 years following the creation of the State of Israel -- let alone during the previous British and Ottoman periods -- there has never been any mention of a "Palestinian people." No UN Resolution, up to and including Resolution 242 (1967), mentions
the "Palestinian people."

It can be argued that for the past 35 years the "Palestinians" have had a different history than that of the surrounding Arabs. Is this enough to recognize them as a different people? After all, East Germans
have also had a different history for 45 years, including a full-fledged government and international recognition, but no one would regard them now as nationally different from the other Germans living in the western part of the country. When the Berlin Wall
fell and Germany was reunified, no one advocated the recognition of a separate East German people.

The prominent French historian Ernest Renan thought of a nation in terms of " … a soul, a spiritual principle. A common glory in the past, a common will for the future; to have done great things together -- to
work to do them again -- these are the elements that compose a nation (3)
." There is no doubt that Arabs, as a whole, constitute a nation even though they have formed twenty-one different states. But can we see the "Palestinians" as a specific nation? On historical, linguistic, cultural, social, ethnic and
religious grounds, what is it that differentiates them from their neighbors in Lebanon, Jordan, or Syria? Actually, in 1974, Syria's former President Hafez-el-Assad, although a PLO supporter in his fight against Israel, lifted all uncertainties in a remarkable
definition: "Palestine is not only a part of our Arab homeland, but a basic part of southern Syria."

Arabs invented a fictitious people for the sole purpose of stoking the flames of hatred toward Israel. Back in 1977 -- several years after the proclamation of the Palestinian Charter20 -- Zuheir Muhsin, a high official
in the PLO Executive Council made the following declaration in the Dutch newspaper Trouw: "There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully
underline our Palestinian identity, because it is in the interest of the Arabs to encourage a separate Palestinian identity. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool
in the continuing battle against Israel."

Why is it, then, that the European Union, the United Nations, most of the world media and even the United States and the leftist parties in Israel have still their minds so hopelessly anchored in this artificial entity
of a separate "Palestinian people" entitled to become a nation? Why is it that the world is prepared to accept yet another Arab state on top of the twenty-one already existing and covering a land mass 680 times the size of Israel whose own legitimacy
is often put into question?

Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land

Census data from the Ottoman period and the British Mandate show that the Arab population in Palestine jumped from 141,000 in 1882 to over a million in 1938. This demographic explosion represents more than three times
the corresponding population increases in neighboring Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. As recently as 1930, the Hope-Simpson Report noted, "illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material." Even the Syrian
governor Tawfik Bey el-Hurani recognized that in a few months in 1934 some 30,000 Syrians moved into Palestine. On the eve of World War II, Winston Churchill stressed: "far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and
multiplied." The Bedouin population followed the same skyrocketing numbers: from 14,000 in 1949, they are now over 130,000 and enjoy their new sedentary lives as Israeli citizens.

And yet we hear the spinning tales of Yasser Arafat and his cronies who shamelessly claim that Palestinians’ ancestry goes back to the ancient Canaanites and Jebusites! Arafat himself and other prominent
"Palestinians," such as Professor Edward Said, kept spreading their fake "Palestinian" identity until both were forced to admit that they were born in Egypt and grew up there. Arafat is indeed one among hundreds of thousands of Arab
"settlers of the West Bank."

The truth is that Jewish immigrants to what was then Palestine created the economic conditions that allowed these newly minted "Arab Palestinians" to flock, flourish and multiply. Even British officials, who
relentlessly strived to curtail Jewish immigration to Mandated Palestine, recognized this fact.

West Bank

"West Bank" is an expression that erases the original identity of this historic region. The names "Judea" and "Samaria" are nowhere to be seen outside some quarters in Israel. Together with
"Palestine," the "West Bank" has blotted out the collective memory of the place, built over millennia.

Even Nazi Germany, in its race toward the establishment of the Aryan Reich in Europe, never referred to "East Bank" and "West Bank" when conquering territories east of the Oder and west of the Rhine
rivers: these territories remained what they always were, Poland and Alsace-Lorraine. The Nazis were fully conscious that they were occupying foreign lands with long histories. But the Palestinian logic can only be built on the eradication of Jewish history.

This portion of the land can only be called "West" in reference to Jordan. The whole world seems to have accepted this distortion, even though the Jordanian occupation of this land from 1948 to 1967 has been
widely recognized as illegal (4)
.

A viable Palestinian state living peacefully side by side with Israel

Recent events have shown that "Palestinians" are not likely to live peacefully side by side with Israel. Not in this generation. Probably not even in the next generation, considering the hateful curriculum to
which their children have been exposed from the earliest grades in primary schools through university. In Nablus’ Al-Najah University, students proudly display a mock replica of the Sbarro pizzeria carnage where 15 Israelis were blown to bits by an Islamic
homicide bomber who, like all the other "shaheed," is glorified as a holy "martyr."

It is hard to contemplate a "viable state" made up of two disconnected territories, the Gaza Strip and the "West Bank." Making the new Palestinian state geographically viable would destroy Israel’s
own viability.

A "viable state" implies full sovereignty and at least a modicum of economic autonomy. Full sovereignty (air space, military forces, alliances with other nations, etc.) is definitely unacceptable to Israel for
obvious reasons. As for its economic viability, it can only be ensured by a steady supply of employment provided by Israel, hence a large transient work force.

Finally, turning the "West Bank" as it is now into a Palestinian state would put Israel’s security at risk, since most of the Israeli population lives within a small strip of land, as narrow as 9 miles in
some places. Therefore, if UN resolution 24219 -- which calls for "secure and recognized boundaries" -- is to be respected, the actual size of the "Palestinian West Bank" is likely to be considerably reduced, thus making it even less
viable.

Land for peace

Israel gave up the entire Sinai Peninsula (60,000 km2) for what it boiled down to be a de facto cease-fire with Egypt. Israel relinquished this territory willingly in the hope of a durable and mutually beneficial peace
(which never materialized), since it did not have any claim to this land. But when it comes to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, which are the heart and soul of the Land of Israel, the expression "land for peace" takes a whole new dimension.

Occupied territories

This persistent fallacy is at the very core of the conflict.

The territory known as the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria) is not in the same category as the Sinai Peninsula, which was entirely returned to Egypt in 1979. Relinquishing places like Hebron, Bethlehem, Shechem
(Nablus), etc. would make it difficult for Israel to justify its sovereignty over other "settlements" like Ashkelon, Eilath, Netanya, and even Tel-Aviv.

If the "territories" were really "occupied" (as Germany occupied existing countries such as Belgium and France in 1940), there would be no need to negotiate: only a full unconditional withdrawal
would be required. The very existence of UN Resolution 242 -- which is still the basis of any peace agreement -- proves that these territories are not "occupied" but actually disputed.

How can the "Green Line" (armistice line drawn in 1949) define a permanent border for a new nation hitherto unheard of?

Has there ever been a "Palestinian State" before the "occupation"? What did Israel "occupy" in 1967, other than a territory4 from which military aggressions were launched, in violation of
the 1949 armistice line?

Southern Lebanon was indeed occupied by Israel for eighteen years, in response to continuous attacks to its northern communities. Israel eventually withdrew unilaterally from the entire Lebanese territory in 2000 -- a
withdrawal fully acknowledged by the United Nations -- but the hostility of the Arabs remained unabated (Hezbollah). This experience casts a doubt about the effectiveness of any further Israeli withdrawal and sheds some light on the real Arab objective, which
is the total destruction of the Jewish state.

Illegal settlements

From a legal standpoint, there cannot be anything "illegal" about settlements established in a territory that is not "occupied." Most of these "settlements" have been built on
government-owned land (going back to the Ottoman Empire) or on legally purchased land from Arab landlords. Israel never expropriated any private land for the purpose of establishing settlements. It should also be noted that the Israelis living in these
"settlements" have not been transplanted there by force, as the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits (art. 49, paragraph 6). The building of settlements throughout Mandated Palestine -- i.e. in all the areas west of the Jordan River -- was in agreement
with the Mandate of the League of Nations. This agreement has never been terminated (5)
. It should also be recalled that the latest Oslo Accords contained no provision curtailing the building or expansion of "settlements."

The actual impact of these "settlements" has been ferociously exaggerated by the media, fuelled by Arab propaganda. Actually, the "settlements" in the "West Bank" represent less than 5% of
the total area and 10% of the population. In the Gaza strip, the corresponding ratios are substantially lower.

There are 144 Jewish "settlements" in the "West Bank," all built since 1968. In the same 34-year period, some 260 new Arab "settlements" have also been built, which no one cares to mention.
Why should the former be any more illegal than the latter? As for the 230,000 "Palestinians" living in east Jerusalem, most of them should also be called "settlers." The "Palestinians" continuously lambaste the "cruel
apartheid Israeli rule" but these Jerusalem Arabs will never move to the more "enlightened" Arab countries and lose the employment, social and medical benefits granted by Israel.

The Palestinian Authority demands that all Jewish "settlements" be totally dismantled, thus making the whole area Judenrein, whereas the current Arab population living in Israel hovers around 20%.

"Palestinians" claim that these "settlements" are the obstacle to any permanent peace. Yet, for the nineteen years preceding the Six Day War, when there was not a single Jew living in the Gaza Strip
and the "West Bank" (most Jews had been either massacred since the Arab revolts of the 1920s or expelled), Israel has nevertheless been regularly attacked by Arab gunmen from these territories.

Jerusalem is the third holy site of Islam

The holiness of Jerusalem has been hardly mentioned by the Arabs in the years preceding the Six Day War. No high-ranking Arab official ever prayed in Jerusalem during the Jordanian occupation between 1949 and 1967.
There is not a single instance where Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran, barring a highly debatable, indirect allusion in Sura Al-`Isra (17-1) (6)
. While the religious importance of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem to Christendom is undeniable, no Christian religious authority in modern times has ever laid a political claim to these cities, knowing full well that the Israeli authorities have
established a total freedom of worship throughout the land, contrary to previous Arab practices.

It is clear that this newly flaunted Islamic holiness of Jerusalem was intended to internationalize the conflict and raise the stakes throughout the Muslim world. Concurrently, by presenting Jerusalem as a holy Muslim
city, the Arabs intended to dispel the notion that Jerusalem ever had a sacred Jewish character. Hence, Arafat’s tantrum complaining that Israel intends to "judaize Jerusalem," and his constant denial of the historic Jewish Temple. Curiously, this
latter rewriting of history, repeated ad nauseum, never seemed to anger his Christian interlocutors, even though it flies in the face of the Gospels’ narrative.

Finally, if any city where an ancient mosque is still standing becomes a de facto holy Muslim city and justifies a political claim, then Cordoba, Seville and others may be next in line!

There is no military solution to the problem

This has been a most nefarious mantra, counterproductive to the search for peace in the Middle East. At a time when repeated terrorist attacks were launched by Palestinian groups, even during the Oslo Peace Process,
this fallacy has emboldened the most intransigent factions of the Arab population to pursue "negotiations by other means," in the belief that no large-scale military counteraction will ever be launched by Israel. Further concessions made by Israel in
the wake of these repeated attacks gave the terrorists the glorious aura of "martyrs" for the "Palestinian cause," while fostering a new wave of violence. These appalling effects gained so much currency in the Arab street that the current
fight against terrorism has been made difficult, with a rising number of casualties. The continuous admonitions from the West -- sometimes including the U.S. State Department -- that Israel should not use "disproportionate force" have exacerbated the
conflict.

Israel should put an end to the ‘cycle of violence'

All "Palestinian" spokespersons repeat this nonsense. Western diplomats and the world media parrot the same line with hardly a thought to its logic or lack thereof. A "cycle" is obviously a
convenient device to blur any connection between cause and effect. The truth is that "Palestinian" terrorists launch criminal attacks on civilians and Israel responds -- often with incredible restraint -- to target the instigators of these attacks or
the facilities they use.

Strangely enough, the U.S. response to September 11 (Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan) and the ongoing war on terrorism are never referred to as "cycles of violence" and rightly so. Even preemptive
actions and arrests conducted by the U.S. do not raise the specter of the "cycle." But when it comes to Israel fighting terror, different standards seem to apply, which shows a visceral hatred born in Arab quarters and foolishly embraced by officials
at the United Nations and the European Union.

4. The solution must be linked to the source of the problem

Arab countries have been largely responsible for the creation of the Palestinian problem in 1947 by rejecting the UN Partition Resolution 181; by fomenting uninterrupted attacks on Jewish communities; by perpetuating
the status of the "refugees" (7)
; and by launching three full-scale wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973.

Historians would be hard pressed to find a "land for peace" agreement similar to Camp David I, when Israel agreed in 1979 to return the whole Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. In 1948, Egypt was one of the countries
which attacked Israel as soon as it was born. It failed. In 1956, Egypt closed the Suez Canal to Israeli navigation in flagrant violation of international law. Israel responded by capturing the Sinai Peninsula which it returned to Egypt a few months later
under intense pressure from the U.S.. In 1967, Egypt unilaterally expelled the UN peacekeepers from Sinai, started mobilizing its army and openly threatened to attack Israel in a war "of total annihilation" with Jordan and Syria as its allies. In a
preemptive strike, Israel captured the Sinai again in the Six Day War. In 1973, Egypt launched a surprise attack across the Suez Canal and was repulsed again by a strong Israeli counter-offensive. In spite of these multiple Egyptian aggressions spanning a
quarter of a century, Israel eventually returned the whole Sinai Peninsula to Egypt -- including major infrastructure assets built by the Israelis -- with nothing in return but Egypt’s formal recognition of Israel. There is no precedent in history where
persistant military aggression, ending in defeat after defeat, led to a total restititution of territory without any penalty to the party initiating the aggression. In fact, Egypt was handsomely rewarded for its persistent aggressions, with the cancellation of
its foreign debt and the assurance of massive American aid.

Arab countries, together with UNRWA (8)
, should also be held responsible for perpetuating the refugee problem and opposing its resolution. There has never been an effort on their part to resettle these refugees and provide them with adequate living conditions. They willfully kept over a
million Arabs in squalor to fuel their perennial animosity against the Jewish state (9)
.

Whereas "Jewish refugees" from Arab and Muslim countries -- stretching from Morocco to Iran and beyond -- were entirely relocated, mainly in Israel, Arabs still refuse to address the problem of their
"Palestinian refugees", a problem they have largely contributed to create. Moreover, in their most twisted logic, they claim that these "Palestinian refugees" must be relocated in Israel, a cornerstone of all the so-called "peace
processes" which have been circulating recently. Needless to say, this demand is tantamount to the eradication of Israel.

Therefore, any sound peace agreement should call for a major Arab contribution -- in land and funds -- toward solving these problems, rather than leaving them solely on Israel’s shoulders, as it has been the case for
far too long.

5. Lessons to be drawn from the intifada

The only positive aspect of the "Oslo Peace Process" and its subsequent failure is to have unmasked the true objectives pursued by the "Palestinians." Media savvy Arab propagandists insist over and
over on the "occupation" as the "root cause" of the violence. In so doing, they exhibit the same discourse as the angry mobs at the Durban Conference (11)
, who accused Israel of being a Nazi, racist, apartheid state bent on colonizing a foreign people. But if anyone is sincere about real peace, he must first confront the truth and reject all this fallacious propaganda.

Understand the real goals of the "Palestinians":

There is no doubt that "Palestinian" leaders follow a double agenda, which is frighteningly clear in their Arabic declarations. Their real objective is far removed from peace, the "two state
solution" and the recognition of Israel, regardless of their official statements in English aimed at the gullible -- or biased -- western media. Even their most "moderate" leaders are unabashed about their dedication to the total destruction of
Israel. The late Faysal Husseini -- who could hardly be branded an extremist -- declared "Even if we accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, our final objective remains the liberation of the whole historic Palestine from the [Jordan] river
to the [Mediterranean] sea, even if the conflict lasts a thousand years or several generations." (12)
As for the means to achieve these goals, Yasser Arafat was straightforward: "Kill a settler every day. Shoot at settlers everywhere. Do not pay attention at what I say to the media, the television or in public appearances. Pay attention only to the
written instructions that you receive from me." (13)

After two years of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, most "Palestinian" groups still support the same "final solution". As late as January 2003, Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the DFLP, declared that the
establishment of an independent "Palestinian state" within the 1967 territories will prepare the grounds for a future "liberation of all historic Palestine." (14)

In their official declarations to the western media, "Palestinians" often criticize the present Likud government of Ariel Sharon, whom they accuse of being the main obstacle to peace. But in leaflets locally
distributed in several "Palestinian" towns and villages we read: "There is no difference between Labor and Likud. They are all murderers and thieves of land. No one can deny us the right to resist the occupation. … The martyrdom operations are
being carried out in self-defense; … the blood of the martyrs will drown all the defeatists." (January 2003).

Lies, lies and more lies

Another despicable characteristic of the "Palestinian" leadership is their shameless denial of the truth. In a joint article published recently in the New York Review of Books, former Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak and historian Benny Morris wrote: "[Palestinians] are products of a culture in which to tell a lie ... creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an
irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't." This disposition has unfortunately been proven true time and again in recent events.

Palestinian Authority (PA) chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, among others, has mastered the technique of deception to a morbid art, with no qualms whatsoever about insulting the intelligence of his television viewers by
using the crudest denials. When confronted with unpleasant truths, he accuses Israel of manufacturing lies. For Mr. Erekat, the story of the Karine-A weapons-loaded ship (15)
intercepted in the Red Sea was an Israeli concoction; the records of financial support from the PA to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, seized in Arafat’s Ramallah compound during Operation Defensive Shield, were "lies that [the Israelis] use to cover
their own crimes, the murder of our children." ; the Jenin operation was immediately characterized as "a terrible massacre with over 3,000 Palestinians murdered."

The PA Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, does not fare any better. In June 2002, when the Israeli Army showed a picture found in Hebron of a "Palestinian" toddler wearing a mock explosive belt, Abed
Rabbo stopped short of claiming the picture was fraudulent and accused the Israelis of "using this photo to justify Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people and to go on with their occupation of Palestinian territories." Nevermind that the
toddler’s grandfather, Redwan Abu Turki, acknowledged both his grandchild and the authenticity of the photograph, hardly disguising his pride.

What trust can anyone put in declarations issued by "Palestinian" officials? Should these officials be bound by their moderate statements in English, or should we rather believe their often contradictory and
violent speeches in Arabic? The latter have consistently proven closer to their real policies (16).

6. Draft a new "Declaration of Principles"

We should judge policies by their long-term results. The principles set forth in Oslo have produced more bloodshed than in times of war. It should be clear to everyone that any "peace process" established on
that basis, must be discarded and a new foundation must be sought.

The Middle East can no longer afford any more "band aid" solutions. Thirty years of myth building by the Palestinians (see Section 3) have succeeded in turning historical truths upside down, with the tacit
acquiescence of world politicians focused on their own dubious agendas. It is time to shatter these myths, since the current situation is largely the result of having allowed them to fester for too long, to the point where the world at large now takes them as
unquestionable truths.

The recent terror wave triggered by the "Palestinians" rendered any agreement derived from the Oslo process null and void for three reasons: a) the "Palestinians" have not honored their fundamental
obligations; b) concessions made by Israel to the "Palestinians" since 1992 have exacerbated the terror attacks against Israelis (17)
; and c) the world should never reward terrorism.

Since the 1990s, the Palestinian education system has been geared to instill a total rejection of Israel, the denial of all Zionist aspirations and, in the most egregious instances, the hatred of Jews. This has been
extensively documented. Even the recently revised curriculum rejects Israel, glorifies "martyrdom", and depicts Jews in a way that would seem appalling to any western observer (18)
.

The latest stream of homicide bombings can be directly traced to these teachings. These attacks are no longer the desperate action of some angry, gullible, uneducated youngster but the result of a willful decision taken
by educated men and women. Palestinian university campuses promote this kind of barbarism and contribute to glorify the perpetrators as national heroes. Summer camps inculcate the same kind of violent ideologies from early childhood.

Barring the unlikely emergence of an Arab Adenauer, there is little hope in sight for a peaceful coexistence between the two populations in the next ten to fifteen years.

Therefore, any future negotiations should be based on a new set of principles that integrate the undeniable realities of the region.

1. There is no room between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River to carve two separate, viable, peaceful sovereign states. The inherent inconsistencies of UN Resolution 242 should be corrected (19)
.

2. Jerusalem, as any reunified city, should not be divided again. It was, still is, and should remain the sole capital of Israel.

3. Since the late 1960s, Arab nations have skillfully shifted the Arab-Israeli conflict into a narrower and more convenient "Palestinian-Israeli" problem. This masterful diplomatic distortion of reality has
exonerated them from their obvious responsibility for the present state of affairs (see Section 4). Future negotiations on the fate of the "Palestinians" should include all the Arab states in the region which directly or indirectly have contributed
to the present political problem, including the fifty year old impasse of the "Palestinian refugees." Rather than expecting only Israel to solve the problem, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq should be the major players in solving
the "Palestinian question." We should go back to basics and bring these Arab nations to negotiating the closure of the "Arab-Israeli" conflict.

4. Any negotiation about the fate of the "Palestinians" should be contemplated in conjunction with the absorption of some 700,000 "Jewish refugees" from Arab and Muslim countries who, since the early
1950s, have been settled in Israel and have enjoyed full Israeli citizenship ever since. On this population and property exchange, Israel has done its part. It is the Arab nations’ duty to do theirs.

7. Conclusions

The Oslo Peace Process was a period of endless frustrations and disillusionments. The intifada that followed has been a period of terror, bloodshed, and human tragedy. The only positive aspect of the past ten years is
undoubtedly the realization of the sad realities of the Middle East. The stark truth, that dreamy diplomats failed to see, finally burst out.

This truth is, in simple terms, that Israel cannot make peace with a nation whose core objective is the total annihilation of the Jewish state (20)
.

Arabs living in Judea and Samaria have benefited from Israel and have enjoyed a far higher standard of living than their brethren in neighboring countries. Since they launched their "second intifada," they
have seen their lives destroyed. This is, sadly, the only truth in the "Palestinian" narrative. The reality is that the poor living conditions of the "Palestinians" today have been imposed on them by their own leaders, with the tacit or
overt support of the Arab nations. These people surely deserve to live in peace in a land they can call their own.

Territorial problems of a much greater magnitude have been solved successfully in the wake of WWII for the betterment of millions of people’s lives. Similarly, fairly conducted population transfers may prove to be the
only feasible and lasting solution in the long search for peace in the Middle East. These undertakings require the full cooperation of the surrounding Arab states, which are directly responsible for this situation.

The notion of "population transfers" may not be politically correct nowadays. However, being right in the future sometimes implies to be out of fashion in the present.

In any case, the present framework established by the "Quartet" is, at best, a short-term solution and, most probably, the detonator of further violence. New thinking is necessary.

NOTES:

1 Quartet: designates the combined diplomatic effort of the U.S., Russia, the EU, and the UN.

2 "A Pernicious Utopian Virus", by Angelo M. Codevilla (Professor of International Relations at Boston University), published in the Jerusalem Post on April 14, 1997

3 From "Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?", a lecture given by Ernest Renan at the Sorbonne in 1882.

4 Only Britain and Pakistan recognized the annexation of the "West Bank" by what was then Transjordan. Transjordan became then the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan formally
relinquished any title to these territories, at a time when they were still under Israeli military administration, following the Six Day War of 1967.

5 See American Journal of International Law, vol. 84, July 1990, by Eugene V. Rostow, Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.

6 Koran, Sura 17:1 "The Night Journey" (Al `Isra): "Glory be to Him who made His servant go by night from the Sacred Temple to the farther Temple whose surroundings we have blessed, that We might show Him
some of Our signs." (Translation by N. L. Dawood, Penguin Books). The identification of the "farther Temple" is debated among Muslims, some viewing it as Jerusalem, others as Medina, some giving this verse a literal interpretation, others
regarding it only as a vision. But Jerusalem (or Al-Quds) is not once mentioned in the whole Koran. By contrast, it is mentioned 669 in the Hebrew Bible and 154 times in the New Testament.

7 Khaled Al-Azm, who was Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war, deplored the Arab tactics and the subsequent exploitation of the refugees, in his 1972 memoirs. He writes: "Since 1948 it is we who demanded the
return of the refugees ... while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We
have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children - all this in the service of political purposes…".

8 United Nations Relief and Works Agency, an organization specifically created to handle the Palestinian refugee problem, with a current annual budget of about US$ 280 million. The truth about Palestinian refugees was
clearly stated in 1958 by Ralph Galloway, former director of UNRWA: "The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not
give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die."

9 "Palestinians burned an effigy of Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley on Thursday in a protest against Canada's offer to accept Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace plan. Hooded gunmen fired into
the air during the protest in Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus and hundreds of demonstrators shouted slogans demanding the right of return to former homes. ‘We refuse resettlement of refugees,’ they shouted." (Reuters, January 17,
2001)

10 Yitzhak Rabin is remembered as shaking hands with Yasser Arafat on the lawn of the White House. He was a true believer in peace with the Palestinians. Commenting on the Barak peace plan (Camp David II, where Israel
agreed to relinquish most of the disputed territories, to allow the return of some "refugees" and to share sovereignty over Jerusalem), Leah Rabin declared that the concessions made by Barak would have made Yitzhak Rabin’s stomach churn.

11 UN Conference on Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia, held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001.

12 Interview given by Mr. Faysal Husseini in Kuwait to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Arabi on June 24, 2001.

13 Public address by Yasser Arafat at a popular gathering in Gaza, in July 2001.

14 Open chat on the website "Islam-Online," on January 6, 2003 by Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

15 The 4,000 T. Karine-A ship was seized by Israeli commandos in the Red Sea on January 3, 2002. Its captain, a naval officer of the Palestinian Authority (PA), admitted having received orders from PA officials at the
highest echelon.

16 Yasser Arafat wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Feb. 3, 2002 titled "The Palestinian Vision of Peace": He stated: "I condemn the attacks carried out by terrorists groups against Israeli
civilians. These groups do not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for freedom." Three days later, he addressed a rally in Ramallah (in Arabic) and he called for "a million martyrs marching on Jerusalem." Just a few
hours after that speech, a Palestinian terrorist from Arafat’s own Fatah movement, murdered three Israeli civilians, among whom an 11 year old girl. The next day, Arafat’s "Voice of Palestine" broadcast jubilant praises for the "heroic
martyr." So much for the "Palestinian Vision of Peace."

17 See Statistics on Terror, published by Ari Shavit in the respected Israeli daily Haaretz, Dec. 11, 2002.

18 See "Narrating Palestinian Nationalism - A Study of the New Palestinian Textbooks", by Goetz Nordbruch, Published in 2001 in the USA by The Middle East Media Research Institute, P.O. Box 27837, Washington,
DC.

19 UN Security Council Resolution 242 (November 1967) calls for Israel to "withdraw from occupied territories" and at the same time stresses the "… termination of all claims or states of belligerency
and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." (Emphasis
added). Clearly, in light of recent events, these two objectives seem incompatible.

20 The Palestinian National Charter (July 1968), in spite of aborted attempts to amend it after the Oslo process, still contains several articles that clearly point to the elimination of Israel and the denial of Jews as
a people. Some examples are listed below (English rendition as published in Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement; Leila S. Kadi (ed.), Palestine Research Centre, Beirut, December 1969, pp.137-141.):

Art.15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism
in Palestine."

Art.19: "The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time …"

Art.20: "The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible
with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they
belong.

2003-03-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

Whose peace is it anyway?

Peace is a wonderful thing. Who could argue with the idea of everyone living in harmony with their neighbor, filled with love instead of hate, animosity, and fear? Unfortunately, that conception of peace is not shared by the majority of the world's governments or their people.

Our idea of peace is not shared in Iran where you can be thrown in jail if the state thinks you disagree with their policies, or put to death if the state thinks you disagree with their religion - even if you do not live in Iran. According to a CBS News
Report in April, 2001 the top U.N. human rights watchdog censured Iran and condemned the country for stifling press freedom and allowing "extrajudical killings." In March 1994, TIME magazine published an investigative report into the deaths of Iranian dissidents living outside the country stating that "According to western intelligence and Iranian dissident sources, decisions to assassinate opponents at home or abroad are made at the highest level of the Iranian government: The Supreme National Security Council."

Also in March, 1994, the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group published its report, "The Tehran Murder Machine" in which it documents how opponents of the Iranian regime were killed by terrorists while the victims were living in other countries.

With 18 journalists behind bars, Iran is also the biggest jail for journalists in the Middle East according to a group called,
Reporters Without Borders.

Our idea of peace is not shared in Egypt where you are thrown in jail simply because you are a refugee.
Human Rights Watch
reported in February, 2003 that hundreds of foreigners, including refugees and asylum seekers, were beaten and jailed during two nights of racially-motivated arrests in Cairo.

Our idea of peace is not shared in Lebanon, which has been illegally occupied by Syria for nearly 30 years. In Lebanon, peace is not possible for people who have to endure kidnappings, arrests, torture, and summary executions. The
Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation has on their website
both the grim statistics and the graphic photos to document Syrian atrocities in Lebanon. In June 1976,
Syria invaded Lebanon on the pretext of "preserving the peace" prompted by the PLO's civil war that began in 1975 and lasted 15 years. Syria's occupation of Lebanon is a continuing, blatant violation of UN Resolution 520 which called for all foreign parties to leave Lebanon's territory and respect its territorial integrity as a sovereign nation.

Our idea of peace is not shared in the Sudan where the Muslim North has declared a holy war against the Christian South and over 2 million people have died from fighting and famine.
Worldnetdaily
reported this month that Christian women in the Sudan are raped and their breasts cut off for refusing to convert to Islam. Christian men who refuse to convert have a three inch spike driven into their heads. What peace do they know?

What kind of peace do the people have in the Communist-run countries of Cuba, China, Ethiopia, North Korea, Nicaragua, or Haiti, or anywhere were
free expression is suppressed?

There are people in the world who believe that peace is only a temporary truce or cease-fire and not a permanent agreement. They believe that you make peace with your enemy now so that you can kill him later. The
Palestinian Media Watch
describes in chilling detail how Yassir Arafat's "Peace Plan" is the elimination of Israel in stages by making temporary peace agreements.

The attacks of September 11th were specifically designed to destroy our peace and our way of life. Whether you call the perpetrators extremists, radicals or fundamentalists matters little since peace for them will only come when they rid the world of those who do not believe as they do.

Therefore, what do you mean by peace? Is peace only the absence of war, aggression, or violence? Does peace mean keeping the status quo? On the other hand, is peace defined as totalitarian regimes or nationalistic movements define it, "Peace is anything that advances our cause."

We say we want peace and are against war. We believe that killing innocent people is wrong. However, there are people in this world who believe that killing innocent people is right if it serves their cause. Likewise, there are people in this world who believe that lying is okay if it serves their cause. We say, "The end does not justify the means." They say, "We'll do whatever it takes."

We demand truth, justice and equality. These are foreign concepts in many foreign lands. Peace for us is self-determination and freedom to choose. Peace for us is having the right to dissent. Yet, there are millions of people in the world have never been given these opportunities.

Do you see the problem yet? Peace is not this universal ideal like Truth, Beauty, or Love. Very few people around the world enjoy the same kind of peace that you and I have. Very few people in the world have the freedom to assemble and to protest against their government's policies. We are here demanding a peaceful solution for a man who does not believe in peace. We are here demanding a peaceful solution for a man who has shown his people no peace or mercy for 30 horrible years. We are here saying "Give peace a chance," but peace has not a chance in Hell with dictators, despots, and terrorists who only preach and practice war.

I am reminded of another despicable dictator who once said that a lie repeated enough times becomes the truth. There are many people in the world who have put into practice the idea that Truth is whatever you can get others to believe. Peace is only possible in free societies where truth, justice, and righteousness prevail. Peace cannot take root in the toxic soil of prevarication and perfidy.

There are people who have made distorting the truth into an art form and who are experts at turning lies into truths. There are people who have perpetuated the biggest lie in the history of humanity and have suckered the entire world into believing it. Because of that lie and others like it, the victims have yet to know real peace for the last 1,300 years.

Therefore, when you come out and march for peace, you had better ask yourself, "Whose peace is it?" "Whose peace do we want?" Do we believe in a peace that means living in harmony and fellowship with our neighbors, or do we believe in a peace that means destroying them? Do we believe in searching for the truth, or do we believe in manufacturing it? Do we believe in helping others to find peace, or do we want to turn our backs on them?

Do we believe that peace is possible with those who want to destroy us? Do we believe that peace is possible with those who trash our values or break our laws? Do we believe that peace is possible with those who do not recognize our right to exist and to defend ourselves?

We all blessed with the gift of peace but that peace came at a heavy price. The peace and freedom that you and I enjoy was paid for by the blood of people willing to die and preserve it. We have to be willing to defend our right to exist. We do not wish to destroy or convert other people who do not believe as we do. Our society has a very basic rule: "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." Yet, this rule is subservient to the rule of self-preservation. If there are people in this world who want to kill us, if there are people in this world who want to destroy our way of life and take away our cherished freedoms, we have a right, no a duty, to stand up to them.

We want to give peace a chance, but if peace does not work then what is our alternative? The only way that people can live in peace and harmony around the world is when we all agree on the basic right of self-determination. Everyone here would like to live in peace. Everyone here would like to live in freedom. So, what do we do with people who want to destroy that peace and deny our right to live in freedom? In a post-9/11 world, do we really believe that we can reason with terrorists and the dictators who support them? Do really believe that we can placate people who will not be happy until they see us wiped from the face of the Earth?

Here in America, we believe that everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We hold these truths to be self-evident for they are what make peace possible. So, if we truly want peace for the rest of the world, shouldn't we be trying to share these ideals with the rest of the world? Shouldn't we be encouraging people to speak the truth rather than promulgate a lie? Shouldn't we be encouraging people to people to face reality rather than hide from it? Shouldn't we be encouraging people to learn from history rather than repeating it or rewriting it?

War is a terrible thing and something to be avoided, but doing nothing in the face of danger is not a solution. Patrick Henry, the great American patriot, declared, "Give me liberty, or give me death." Then as now, there are some things worth fighting for even if it means laying down your life to protect it for yourself, or for others. Before we ever became involved in World War II as a nation, we came to the aid of Britain and France - not because we wanted to occupy their country or monopolize their resources, but because we wanted to preserve their freedom and their peace.

Fortunately, for us, one of those two countries has never forgotten what peace really means.

2003-03-17T13:08:00.000-08:00
Report: 12-year-old Palestinian boy's martyrdom 'staged'

French media complicit in perpetuating 'myth' of Mohammed al-Dura

Posted: March 5, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The "martyrdom" death of 12-year-old Palestinian Mohammed al-Dura at the hands of Israeli soldiers – which received widespread international news coverage and spurred on the current intifada, inspiring countless "suicide bombers"
to attack Israel – was actually a "staged" piece of street theater, according to an in-depth report in the current issue of
WND's monthly magazine, Whistleblower.

The entire world was transfixed as news broadcasts played the sensational video footage of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy and his father, pinned down in crossfire between Arab snipers and Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza's remote Netzarim junction on Sept.
30, 2000. The image of the boy crouching in terror behind his father, both of them struggling in vain to protect themselves from Israeli gunfire, only to be shot – the boy apparently dying in his father's arms – became immortalized in posters that were
later plastered up and down the streets of the West Bank and Gaza.

Although the Israeli military initially assumed responsibility for the incident, it soon became apparent that the IDF could not have shot the boy, due to a large barrier between the Israeli military outpost across the remote junction and the location of the
boy and his father.

Now, a just-completed, long-term journalistic investigation conducted in France concludes that the Mohammed al-Dura affair was actually a piece of Palestinian theater – similar to the dramatic Palestinian funeral processions last April after the Israeli
incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. During that public spectacle, a martyred "corpse" twice fell off the stretcher, only to hop back up and retake his place in the procession. The Palestinians had claimed 3,000 deaths in Jenin – the actual toll
was 52.

The groundbreaking investigation and its conclusions are spelled out in "Contre-expertise d’une mise en scène" published by Éditions Raphaël, and translated into English for Whistleblower by Nidra Poller. In the book, Gérard Huber, a
psychoanalyst and permanent Paris correspondent of the Israel-based Metula News Agency, reports on the investigation conducted by a team of journalists, including Huber and Stéphane Juffa, Metula's editor in chief.

"What really happened at Netzarim junction?" asks Huber. "One thing is certain: Given the position of the protagonists during the firefight it is impossible that the child was hit by Israeli bullets. Mohammed al-Dura was not killed by
Israelis. And the bigger question remains: Was Mohammed really killed?"

Street theater

Whistleblower cites stunning reports of Palestinians playing to the camera, including Israeli commentator Amnon Lord's account of the larger scene at Netzarim Junction when al-Dura was supposedly shot to death. He describes "incongruous battle scenes
complete with wounded combatants and screeching ambulances played out in front of an audience of laughing onlookers, while makeshift movie directors do retakes of botched scenes."

Palestinian journalist Sami El Soudi echoes Lord's observation, who discloses that "Almost all Palestinian directors take part more or less voluntarily in these war commissions, under the official pretext that we should use all possible means,
including trickery and fabulation, to fight against the tanks and airplanes the enemy has and we don’t. … Our official press reported 300 wounded and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed. Most of the cameramen there were
Palestinians. … They willingly took part in the masquerade, filming fictional scenes, believing they were doing it out of patriotism. When a scene was well done the onlookers laughed and applauded."

"It is incredible," says Huber, "how many people were calmly filming the battle of Netzarim on September 30th, 2000. Not only professionals – some of them standing no more than ten meters away from the al-Dura incident – but amateurs as
well.

"The rushes [video clips] are full of surprising incongruities: Children smile as ambulances go by. A 'wounded' Palestinian collapses and two seconds later an ambulance pulls up to take him to the hospital. It looks as if the driver had been cued in,
knew in advance where the Palestinian was going to fall, or was waiting in the upper right hand corner just out of the photographic field ready to zoom in on signal (there is a scene like this in the France 2 report.)

"In another rush we are startled to hear a Palestinian shouting: 'It's a flop! We have to do the whole thing over again!'"

The French close ranks

Even more disconcerting, says the Whistleblower report, is the fact that France 2, the news organization that broke the story of Mohammed al-Dura's supposed "martyrdom" at the hands of Israeli soldiers, adamantly refuses to release all the raw
footage taken by its Palestinian cameraman. For instance, journalist Charles Enderlin, who narrated the original story of the shooting, claims his employer, France 2, holds onto images of the child’s death throes – which he says he took out of his report
for ethical reasons – because they were just too terrible to view.

To this day, says Huber, it remains unproven whether Mohammed al-Dura is dead or alive.

Meanwhile, every French television station to this day refuses to broadcast a film by German director Esther Schapira, titled "Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young Mohammed al-Dura?" Nominated for best TV documentary in Germany, it also
concludes Israelis did not kill the boy. Although she understands why the Palestinians are not interested in further investigation, Schapira, a staff filmmaker for German public television, wonders why the West should be so resistant to a solid, impartial
investigation.

And French author and Whistleblower translator Nidra Poller asks some probing questions about the French media's behavior:

"Of course the Palestinians won't allow any investigation on the evidence they hold," Poller tells Whistleblower. "However, France 2 is not the Palestinians. It is a public service TV station in a democratic country. And Huber makes a
convincing case for the collusion of France 2 in this stunt.

"How is it possible that France 2 refuses to cooperate with the investigation? If they have nothing to hide, wouldn't it be to their interest to come forth, even partially? Would the American media sit back and allow this kind of enormous question to
remain in the box? If CNN cheats, does Fox News back them up? Well, that's what happens in France."

"The truth," says Huber in the Whistleblower report, "is, first of all, that the child shown on the screen is not dead. He plays dead."

But what about Mohammed al-Dura's funeral?

"The badly wounded corpse of a child was shown by doctors at the Shifa hospital in Gaza," says Huber. "[That] child was dead, but he is not the child seen in the famous TV newscast."

2003-03-17T13:04:00.000-08:00
Recent letters parroting Arab characterizations of Israel as a "terrorist nation" have called upon the United States to stop funding Israel, its only friend and ally in the region.

I agree that we should stop funding terrorist organizations. However, Israel is not one of them.

Yasser Arafat took over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969 and built it into the world's largest and richest terrorist organization.

In the 1970s, Arafat made billions of dollars by exploiting the narcotics trade and by looting Lebanon banks.

Arafat and friends continued to get rich during the Gulf War. Palestinians who supported Arafat helped direct Iraqi troops to rich Kuwaitis and deposits of gold and valuables, while joining in the rape, pillage and murder of Kuwaiti citizens.

With the Oslo Accords, the PLO-dominated Palestinian Authority began receiving billions of dollars in funds from previously reluctant Western countries, in addition to the $500 million our Congress gave it annually in foreign aid.

In 1995, the General Accounting Office produced a financial report (made classified by the Clinton administration) confirming that Arafat and the PLO held well over $10 billion in assets, even at a time when Arafat was publicly claiming bankruptcy. To date, more than 37 percent of these assets remain unaccounted for.

None of Arafat's money has ever been invested in refugee camps or human services infrastructure, whereas much has been invested in lavish housing and gifts for Arafat and friends. So much for saving his Palestinian people.

How then did Arafat and his thugs wind up in control of the Palestinian Arabs with the authority and appellations of government officials? The reason is because our government thought that the more money and "re- sponsibility" it gave to Arafat, the more inclined he would be to "join the international community."

It was American money and influence that enabled the PLO to make itself into the Palestinian Authority, a typically corrupt, internally violent and externally warlike Third World regime based on "special security forces."

Before people ask why we fund Israel, maybe they should ask why we funded an organization that murdered hundreds of Americans in the past and has never made any apology or restitution. Maybe they should also ask why we continue dealing with Arafat.

2003-03-17T13:01:00.000-08:00
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's latest comments about Israel should dispel any doubts that either he (1) is a total idiot, (2) is a pawn of the Arab propaganda machine, (3) really hates Jews as much as Arabs do or (4) all of the above.

In a speech at the University of Maryland recently, Annan said that ''Israel must surrender nearly all of the territory for peace with Arabs." Do the words, ''Camp David 2000" ring a bell with him? The Israelis were willing to do just that, and in return, what they got was an Intifadeh, not peace. Annan also accused the Israeli government of imposing ''condition upon condition" to block peace negotiations. Requiring Arabs to guarantee that they would cease killing Israelis is the only ''condition" they have ever ''imposed."

But, the worst comment of all was when he said: ''Palestinian farmers have been shot by extremist settlers intent on robbing them of their olive harvest and driving them off the land to which the Palestinians are entitled." That is nothing but another blatant lie pulled from the litany of pernicious lies perpetrated by Arab clerics, politicians and the media.

At least Annan did not describe Jews as descendents of apes and pigs who use the blood of Arab children to make unleavened bread and are plotting to take over the world, as these reprehensible Arab spokespeople continue to do without restraint.

What about the rights of Israelis to their land, or the rights of the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab lands and their property confiscated?

Better yet, what about their right to exist, period?

Don't hold your breath waiting for any of those acknowledgements.

2003-03-17T12:59:00.000-08:00
While most of the world is focused on Iraq, the development of a "road map" to peace in the Middle East bears some attention. The quartet of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations have come up with yet another draft for a two-state solution to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, this solution, and all other such solutions that do not address the underlying problem are doomed to failure.

The road to peace in the Middle East is filled with the potholes of racial hatred, blood libel, and distortions of reality that paint Jews as "brothers of pigs and monkeys," "Zionist Nazis," "blood suckers," "usurpers of Arab lands," and other epithets too terrible to print.

How can the world expect the seeds of peace to take root in the toxic soil of anti-Semitism?

If the quartet is serious about wanting peace, then they must do the following:

1. Insist that all countries and entities stop fomenting hatred towards Jews and stop spreading lies, distortions, and blood libels about Israel and the Jewish people.

2. Remove weapons and explosives from all Palestinian refugee camps (which have become armed fortresses). Remove all materials from these camps that promote hatred and violence against Jews (especially those given to Palestinian children), and remove any U.N. relief workers who have ties to terrorist groups.

3. Insist that the U.N. abide by its own resolutions which call for the cessation of hostilities towards Israel and which also identify the West Bank and Gaza as "disputed territories," not "Palestinian lands under Israeli occupation."

4. Insist that the U.N. and other countries of the world stop referring to the "1967 borders." These are armistice lines, not recognized borders of Israel because Arab countries have never recognized Israel. The U.N. resolutions called for the establishment of "secure and defensible borders," and the withdrawal from "some" of the disputed territories acquired by Israel in 1967 -- not "all" territories as so many claim.

5. Finally, the true agenda of Yasser Arafat's Fatah, Hezbollah, Al-Aksa, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and others has to be revealed and repudiated which is, and has always been, the destruction of Israel and the creation of a unified Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Arafat nor anyone of the aforementioned groups will ever be satisfied with any plan that allows Jews to exist anywhere in the Middle East.

Peace cannot be achieved when the death and destruction of Jews are preached as the solution to all the ills of the world. The road map to peace will be a dead-end as long as hatred for Jews continues to be the driving force in the Middle East.

2003-03-17T12:58:00.000-08:00
In response to a recent letter, Palestinians did not inhabit the land for 2,000 years.

Arabs came out of the Arabian desert after the advent of Islam in the seventh century, but the Holy Land was never a great center of Arab population. Certainly, by the Middle Ages, it had become a godforsaken land that men shunned as well.

Jews started to come back to the land from exile and reclaim its waste. They built farms and planted orchards of fruit trees. Until the British Mandate of 1921, there was no Palestine, only southern Syria.

Muslim Arabs were attacking Jews in the few villages that the Jews built on lands they purchased from landowners who took advantage of Jews wishing to return to their ancient homeland.

As for the second half of the 20th century: Five Arab nations that were members of the United Nations in 1947, and therefore pledged to peaceful resolution of international disputes, declared a war of annihilation against the U.N.-recommended Jewish state.

It was they who prevented the creation of the Arab-Palestinian state, while the Jews called for peace and cooperation between Jews and Arabs for the benefit of both people.

"Illegal occupation" is a pro- paganda catchphrase Israel's neighbors use, referring not only to areas occupied in 1967 after yet another attempt to overrun and destroy the Jewish state, but to all areas that are in the hands of Jews.

The Palestinian Authority was created by Israel, the only nation in the history of the world who defended itself against a threat of annihilation five times, won all five wars, and, then, in a show of magnanimity and good will, returned occupied territories three times the size of its national territory to Egypt.

Israel gave a terrorist organ- ization sworn to its destruction a chance to prove that it could become a civilized national entity striving for peace.

However, the Palestinian Authority failed to build bridges of peace, choosing instead to train children to commit suicide murders to further its nefarious cause.

After a century of unremitting violence and perfidy, who would be foolish enough to believe the peace proclamations of men whose hands are red with the blood of the innocents of four and five generations?

E. BEN-YEHUDA,

rabbi, Ponte Vedra Beach

2003-03-17T12:55:00.000-08:00
Why the Palestinian People Do Not Deserve Independence

by Chip Joyce (July 19, 2002) (http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1732)

Summary: Unlike America’s founding fathers, who sought independence to liberate themselves from a government that denied their individual rights, the Palestinians’ war for independence is born out of a desire to have a sovereign dictatorship of their own, one that is merely free from Israel.

[CAPITALISM MAGAZINE.COM] Empathy for the Palestinian people for being in an "occupied" territory and without their own sovereign government is horribly misguided. This is a people, aside from a few voiceless individuals, who chose as their leader an oppressive dictator who not only supports terrorism against Israel, but who also has a Gestapo-like internal secret police, prohibits freedom of speech and freedom of the press, routinely has summary executions, and who has even employed death squads to eliminate political adversaries. This is a people who clearly do not value individual freedom.

Unlike America’s founding fathers, who sought independence to liberate themselves from a government that denied their individual rights, the Palestinians’ war for independence is born out of a desire to have a sovereign dictatorship of their own, one that is merely free from Israel. In fact, the majority of Palestinians want the annihilation of Israel, more than they want independence. This is despite the fact that Israel is inordinately more free and respectful of individual rights, and unique among Middle Eastern nations in this regard. The Palestinians who live within Israeli society enjoy the same rights as Jews, and are infinitely freer than their brothers subjected to the Palestinian Authority.

The United States of America’s Declaration of Independence defines best when people have the right to form their own government. Because people have "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" they need a government whose function is to protect those rights. If their government "becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government to better protect their rights." Yet individual rights are an anathema to the Palestinian people: they prefer dictatorship and subjugation, as demonstrated by their chosen leader. Yassir Arafat is more like Hitler and Stalin than like Washington and Jefferson.

The bromide of “a right to self-determination” for a people is nonsense. The meaning of that phrase is that a people have a right to choose a dictatorial form of government, and that free countries must recognize and respect it. One fallacious premise to this claim is that the majority within a country is always right, and that the minority’s opinion is always wrong. Should free countries have respected Germany’s election of Hitler and his totalitarian regime? What about those Germans who opposed him? Was the Holocaust the German people’s “right to self-determination”? Clearly the majority can want what is wrong and even evil, and that is one reason why the claim to “a right to self-determination” is nonsense.

Another fallacious premise to this claim is that different people have different needs for government: while free countries respect individual rights, other people may not need them and may do better under a dictatorship. There is not one example in human history to defend this point, for every dictatorship has led to nothing but misery, poverty, stagnancy, and often to war. The freest countries, on the other hand, have brought comfort, wealth, advances in all fields, and peace.

Finally, the other fallacious premise to the claim of a “right of self-determination” is that a people’s choice in government is no other country’s business. Modern history shows that dictatorships tend to make war with freer countries as a means to acquire wealth they cannot produce. A dictator also blames other nations for his people’s suffering and is compelled to make war to pacify internal dissension.

For these three reasons the idea of there being “a right to self-determination” is wrong because it is unjust to the minority among a people who oppose dictatorship, contradictory to the fact that all people benefit from freedom, and ignores the fact that dictatorships are dangerous to free countries because they tend to make war against them.

The best thing that Palestinians could do for themselves is to make peace with Israel and ask to be allowed to participate in its government as equals. If accepted, the Palestinians would enjoy far more freedom than they have ever experienced in history. “All men are created equal”: they have the same rights, and they have the same need for a government to protect those rights—be they Americans, Jews, or Arabs. If Israel were to not accept this proposal, then the Palestinians should translate into Arabic Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and begin their revolution from there.

The Big Lie

PA not acting against terror

The road map: We’ve been down this same road before

PA video: Pour flames on settlements

Army intelligence: Abu Mazen unable to halt terror

The top ten things you'll never hear a Syrian diplomat say...

Syria launches image-mending campaign in US

Arab rock videos portray Jews as murderers

Unkindest Cut

Hamas kids' magazine: 'Destroy rapist Jews'

Palestinian support of Saddam continues

Clueless in Gaza...

Hamas, Jihad leaders express sorrow over Saddam's fall

Why Arabs love Israel

Do you really want to give these folks their own state?

Palestinians boycott US, UK products

Khaled Abu Toameh

Palestinians name Jenin square after Iraqi suicide bomber

By Hassan Fattah, Associated Press, 4/1/2003 08:01

Muslim cleric wants to see Americans orphaned

Palestinian sheik slams Arab leaders, gives pep talk to Saddam

Syria: Israel will never be legitimate

President Assad claims U.S. just doing Jewish state's bidding in Iraq

PA official calls for Israel's 'elimination'

Arafat's suicide squads dispatched to Baghdad

Fatah movement sends Saddam hundreds of 'human bombs' to attack allied forces

Tongues of Deceit

Facts about the Claims on Jerusalem by Jews and Palestinians

Palestinians Urge Saddam To Lob Missiles At Israel

Ah...those peace-loving Palestinians

Palestinian Leadership Farce

by Rachel Neuwirth March 26, 2003

News from Saddam's Mini-Me:

Palestinians in Ramallah are celebrating Iraq's capture of American and British soldiers.

Grim Fairy Tale:

Palestinians claim they are decendents of ancient Canaanites

Wall Street Journal Falsely Charges Israeli Arson of al-Aqsa Mosque

Integrity, Not Expedience (The meaning of UN Resolution 10/6)

The First Breach of the UN Charter

Peace in The Middle East:A Pragmatic "Road Map" from Truth to Peace

Whose peace is it anyway?

Fatah movement sends Saddam hundreds of 'human bombs'
to attack allied forces

Facts about the Claims on Jerusalem
by Jews and Palestinians

by Rachel Neuwirth

March 26, 2003

Peace in The Middle East:
A Pragmatic "Road Map" from Truth to Peace