PA Bash Jews' 'Imaginary Temple'

 

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

The Palestinian Authority, run by PLO Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas, is again making efforts to popularize Muslim denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, especially to the site of the two Jewish Temples. The PA claims fly in the face of the archaeological evidence, as well as the history of Jerusalem as endorsed by the most authoritative Muslim sources.

According to Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of the Palestinian Media Watch organization, Fatah-controlled television broadcasts have been promoting a music video that "denies any historical connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem." Building on the denial of Jewish rights in Jerusalem and the claim that the Temple Mount is "ours," meaning it is Muslim, PMW explains, that "the lyrics repeat the Palestinian fabrication that Israel is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and therefore it needs protection."

 

As translated by PMW, the video clip that appeared on PA TV on September 23, 2008, includes the lyrics, "Oh [Sons of] Zion, no matter how much you dig and no matter how much you destroy, your imaginary Temple will not come into being, Al-Aqsa is ours. Al-Aqsa is ours, Oh Muslims, Al-Aqsa is ours." It goes on to call for another Saladin, the Muslim conqueror of Jerusalem in 1187, according to PMW.

Marcus and Crook explain that the clip has appeared on both Fatah and Hamas TV "intermittently during the last 18 months, and it constitutes part of a prolonged hate campaign against Israel. The campaign denies the historical fact of the connection between the Jewish people, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, while infusing hatred and fear by pretending that Islam's holy site, as well as its adherents, are in great danger."

Jerusalem Muslim Council: Temples in Jerusalem 'Beyond Dispute'
In complete opposition to the claims promoted by the PA, as reported by Israel National News earlier this year, a tourist guide published by the Supreme Muslim Council (the Waqf) of Jerusalem in 1925 declares of the Temple Mount, "Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the L-rd....' "

In addition, on page 16 the pamphlet makes reference to the underground area in the south-east corner of the Mount, which it refers to as Solomon's Stables. "Little is known for certain of the history of the chamber itself," the guide reads. "It dates probably as far back as the construction of Solomon's Temple. According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D."

Islam's Founder Muhammad: The Temple is in Jerusalem
Throughout the religious, behavioral and doctrinal codebooks Muslims believe were transmitted from Muhammad or his immediate associates, known as Hadith, Jerusalem is primarily called Bayt al-Makdis in Arabic. The term is an Arabic translation of the Hebrew Bait HaMikdash, which means "the Temple" in English.

Jerusalem, however, is not mentioned by name in the primary Islamic scripture, the Koran. However, Muslim apologists often point to a description in the Koran of a mystical journey Muhammad made to "the furthest mosque," which they claim is al-Aqsa mosque currently located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

However, the Hadith that provide more details of the mystical journey also refer to Jerusalem as the location of the Jewish Temple. As the Hadith collection Sahih Muslim states: "[The] Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: I was brought al-Buraq who is an animal white and long, larger than a donkey but smaller than a mule, who would place his hoof a distance equal to the range of vision. I mounted it and came to the Temple (Bait al-Maqdis in Jerusalem), then tethered it to the ring used by the prophets." To this day, the Muslims refer to the Western Wall as "Al-Buraq Wall".

Archaeological Evidence: The Temples Were in Jerusalem
Archaeological finds in recent years in and around Jerusalem have been providing physical evidence for the history as presented by the earliest Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources. Some examples follow:

* In 2005, following painstaking archaeological work carried out in a dump from an illegal Wakf construction project on the Temple Mount, researchers discovered: a coin from the period of the First Revolt against the Romans, which preceded the destruction of the Second Temple, bearing the phrase "For the Redemption of Zion"; an inscription chiseled on a jar fragment of the First Temple period, with the ancient Hebrew letters heh, ayin and kof; A seal with five-pointed star with ancient Hebrew letters spelling "Jerusalem" spaced between the points; a Hasmonean coin bearing inscription "Yehonathan High Priest, friend of the Jews"; a coin of Alexander Jannaeus; a Scytho-Iranian arrowhead, of the type used by the Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar that destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE; and more.

* In 2005, a Hebrew University archaeologist uncovered a clay seal dated from about 580 BCE bearing the name Yehuchal Ben-Sheleimiya, who is identified as a royal envoy and court minister sent by King Zedekiah to the prophet Jeremiah (in chapters 37 and 38 of the Bible's Book of Jeremiah).

Several years earlier, another circa-580 BCE royal seal was found at the same site. It had the name of Gemaryahu, son of Shafan, who is also mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah as a top official in the court of King Zedekiah's predecessor, King Yehoyachim. Another seal found among dozens of others bears the name of Azaryahu Ben-Hilkiyahu, a member of a priestly family, who served in the Temple before Jerusalem's destruction, according to I Chronicles, 9:10.

* In May 2007 archaeologists revealed a number of seals and signet rings from the time of the Biblical Kings David and Solomon, unearthed in the City of David, below Jerusalem's Old City.

* In July 2007 an expert in ancient Babylon discovered a small clay tablet that records a donation of gold by "the chief eunuch of King Nebuchadnezzar," a man named Nabu-sharrussu-ukin. In Jeremiah 39, the researcher noted, the man's name is listed as one of Nebuchadnezzar's top ministers, who took part in the destruction of the First Holy Temple 2,500 years ago.

* In January 2008 archaeologists discovered a stone seal that includes the name of a family, Temech, whose members were servants during the First Temple, were exiled to Babylonia and then returned to Jerusalem. The seal was found near the Dung Gate walls of the Old City. The Book of Nehemiah (Chapter 7) refers to the Temech family by name.

* In March 2008 a coin from the Second Temple used during the turbulent Second Temple period to pay the Biblical half-shekel head-tax was found in excavations in the City of David.

* In August of 2008 archaeologists unearthed a completely intact seal impression bearing the name of another minister to King Zedekiah, Gedaliahu son of Pashur, a few meters away from the site where a the seal of Yehuchal Ben-Sheleimiya was found three years earlier.

Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

WE ONLY GET ONE STRIKE.

 

by Moshe Sharon

An Israeli attack on Iran seems inevitable. If it succeeds, it will return to Israel its deterrent power and send a clear message to the saber-rattling jihadists that they were too early in beginning the countdown for the disappearance of the Jewish state.

If it fails, or fails to achieve the majority of its objectives, it could amount to an act of national suicide. Fanatical Muslims on every side will be encouraged by the failure and outcome of an Iranian retaliation which would cause heavy damage to the whole center of our country.

Iran would unquestionably be joined by its proxies on our borders, Hizbullah and Syria on the north and Hamas on the south, the PLO jihad brigades under various names, and the Arabs of Israel. The latter have already shown their ability to block major traffic arteries and demonstrated that their loyalties rest with their Arab brethren, not with the Jewish state.

The repeated declarations of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the aim of Iran is to wipe Israel off the world map should not be taken as the empty, fiery words of a fanatical Muslim dictator, but as a plan of action. True, Iran does not need a pretext, but an Israeli attack on any nuclear installation in Iran, or just an invasion of Iranian air space could be used as an excellent reason for mounting an all-out missile attack.

The damage to Iran would be serious, but not devastating. Iran has a very high tolerance level. It proved it in the early 1980s during the war against Iraq, when Teheran and other places came under destructive attacks by Frog and Scud missiles and the Iranian army suffered heavy losses on the battlefield.

Iran can live with one Israeli air raid or two; not with a nuclear attack. As it seems now, Israel does not have the military facilities to deal with the distances involved and with other technical obstacles to carry out a successful attack on Iran. A combined Israeli and American effort, however, could cause irreparable damage to the Iranian nuclear program.

A non-nuclear Israeli attack on Iran would be a "surgical" operation. But an Iranian-Hizbullah-Hamas attack would be indiscriminate and aimed at the major urban centers, causing tremendous harm.
 

IRAN HAS the motivation to destroy Israel, and if it is allowed to gain nuclear weapons it will not need an excuse to do so. That motivation is a double one: messianic Shi'ite and expansionist-imperial.

Since the late ninth century, the Shi'ites have been expecting the emergence of the hidden imam-mahdi, armed with divine power and followed by thousands of martyrdom-seeking warriors. He is expected to conquer the world and establish Shi'ism as its supreme religion and system of rule. His appearance would involve terrible war and unusual bloodshed.

Ahmadinejad, as mayor of Teheran, built a spectacular boulevard through which the mahdi would enter into the capital. There is no question that Ahmadinejad believes he has been chosen to be the herald of the mahdi.

Shi'ite Islam differs from Sunni Islam regarding the identity of the mahdi. The Sunni mahdi is essentially an anonymous figure; the Shi'ite mahdi is a divinely inspired person with a real identity.

However both Shi'ites and Sunnis share one particular detail about "the coming of the hour" and the dawning of messianic times: The Jews must all suffer a violent death, to the last one.

Both Shi'ites and Sunnis quote the famous hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad: The last hour will not come unless the Muslims fight against the Jews, and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and the stone or the tree would say: "Muslim! Servant of Allah! Here is a Jew behind me; come and kill him!"

Not one Friday passes without this hadith being quoted in sermons from one side of the Islamic world to the other.

Shi'ism regards the Jews as an embodiment of filth and the contaminating source of ritual impurity — which adds another religious justification to the Muslims to rid themselves of the Jews and their state. Iran threatens that it has the ability to do so with its ballistic missiles and the readily available services of local proxies who would love to join the general effort to kill the Jews.
 

THE OTHER side of Iran's motivation to destroy Israel is the imperial one.

Iran has the same virus inherent in every totalitarian power — to gain imperial dominion. Totalitarian Iran wants to recreate its empire east of the Mediterranean. The leaders of modern Iran, long before the present Islamic regime, toyed with the idea of reviving the empire of Cyrus and Darius.

The present Islamic regime has the same aspirations. Nuclear power is necessary to achieve this desire. As fantastic as it sounds, the destruction of the State of Israel seems necessary for the expansion to the east Mediterranean (which might include the elimination of a few Sunni entities such as Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states).
 

LET US try a scenario in which Israel carries out a successful attack, with or without active American help, on a few key Iranian reactors. Such an operation would not completely destroy Iran's nuclear capability, but it would badly wound its national and Islamic pride.

The Iranian people, including the opposition would, at least in the initial stage, rally around the ruling mullahs. The price of oil would soar, Israel would be blamed for the destruction of the West's economy, and Europe might go so far as to impose sanctions on Israel, with or without a UN decision.

Moreover, being an easy target, Israel would have to brace for the inevitable Iranian retaliation. Iran would attack with the Shihab 3 ballistic missiles that carry a warhead of up to one ton and have an accuracy of 50 meters-100m. Israel has an answer to a limited number of these missiles, of which Iran has probably a few hundred. It has no answer to all the missiles that would be launched against it from three fronts.

Theoretically, Iran can deliver 1,000-1,500 tons of the most modern explosives within a few days. The long-range missiles that have been supplied to Hizbullah via Damascus, and the arsenal that has been massed by Hamas in Gaza, which includes missiles that can reach Beersheba, must also be taken into consideration.

There is no question that these two organizations will move into action together with Iran, and it is not impossible that Hizbullah would attempt the invasion of Israel proper to gain a local victory by occupying a border village, killing inhabitants and kidnapping a few over to Lebanon.

This gruesome situation can happen any time, and not necessarily as a result of an Israeli attack on Iran. Such an attack, however, would surely bring it about.
 

ARE THESE facts not known to the Israeli intelligence agencies? They are, but so were Hitler's intentions known to the British and the French before World War II, and they were known to the Russians before Operation Barbarosa. None of them did anything to stop the German dictator before it was too late.

At the end of the war, Europe was freed. The Germans were defeated and none of the countries of Europe was obliterated from the map. In the case of Israel, there is no recovery from a one-time devastation.

There is no second chance.

 

Moshe Sharon Professor (Emeritus) of Islamic History and Civilization The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

THE MYTH OF STOLEN ARAB LAND.

 

by Israel Kasnett

While the Arab-Israeli conflict today is a diplomatic and military one, it is also composed of a third element — the media. Not being confined, the media debate has spread throughout the internet, online newspapers, online journals and of course, blogs.

Although contributors to online blogs and threads often offer nothing more than rubbish and repartee, there exists a lively and healthy debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the main points of contention on most blogs and discussions I have seen center around one issue. Pro-Palestinian writers claim that in 1948, Israel appropriated Palestinian lands and villages to create their own cities and agricultural communities. Pro-Israel writers offer good counterpoints but these are often insufficient to properly negate the argument and win the debate.

Debaters from both sides of the argument often use sources gleaned from political, left or right-wing sources and this damages the quality of the argument since the proofs brought are often nothing more than the biased views of extreme groups. When making an argument, it is important to find credible information from sources that cannot be attributed to a specific political slant.

The first part of the argument that Zionists stole Palestinian land can refer to the British Mandate period before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Arab absentee landowners owned most of the land eventually used by the UN to create the State of Israel and their willingness to sell the land to Jews demonstrates evident disinterest in maintaining ownership over it.

Furthermore, Arab governments displaced their own populations in far greater numbers than the Jews displaced Palestinian Arabs up until the 1930's. Jews were careful not to buy land in areas that would cause Arab displacement and instead bought uncultivated land in remote areas. Israeli leaders at the time discouraged Jews from displacing Arabs and placed heavy importance on a continued Arab presence in the land.

In January of 1937, Ben Gurion testified before the Palestine Royal Commission in which he said, "We will work it out together, and we will see to it that not a single Arab cultivator is displaced, but he should not only remain, but his conditions should be improved, and, by intensification, new room should be created for new Jewish settlers."

However, even with this proposed cooperation, Arabs often sold their land to Jews when they decided to move elsewhere or when they needed the money to invest in promising Jewish-owned business projects.
 

THE PEEL COMMISSION OF 1937 FOUND ARAB CLAIMS THAT JEWS STOLE THEIR LAND AS BASELESS. Land shortages were due more in part to massive Arab immigration to Palestine from other Arab countries than to Jewish land purchases. Chapter IX of the Peel Commission states,

"The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought."

Whereas the British resigned much of Palestine to be "uninhabitable," the Jews took this "barren wasteland," drained the swamps and "made the desert bloom." Many of the Jewish-owned citrus groves at the time were situated on sand dunes viewed by the British as "uncultivable."

It is without doubt that the Jews, in their quest to purchase and acquire more land, did not take any land from Arabs unlawfully. Furthermore, Arab absentee landlords living elsewhere and real estate brokers sold their land to Jews at an inflated cost.

As of today, not a single person representing the pro-Palestinian view has been able to contradict this reality using any official documentation, land data or historical records.

Furthermore, the Peel Commission admitted that Arabs on the whole, benefited from a growing Jewish presence in the land as they brought economic prosperity and stability to Palestine and its inhabitants.

"The Arab population shows a remarkable increase since 1920, and it has had some share in the increased prosperity of Palestine. Many Arab landowners have benefited from the sale of land and the profitable investment of the purchase money. The fellaheen are better off on the whole than they were in 1920. This Arab progress has been partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the National Home. In particular, the Arabs have benefited from social services which could not have been provided on the existing scale without the revenue obtained from the Jews."

 

UP UNTIL 1948, THE PALESTINIAN ARAB POPULATION GREW APPROXIMATELY 120 PERCENT. This population growth occurred in tandem with Palestinian Jewish population growth and for reasons often overlooked. Jewish immigration and subsequent economic growth in Palestine led to increased Arab immigration from other countries by those seeking economic opportunity. Many Arabs at the time wandered around the Middle East seeking sustenance and a means to support their families.

Arab claims that they were displaced from their homes after living there generation after generation for thousands of years were baseless and fabricated. Most Arabs living in Palestine prior to 1948 had come from Arab lands in search of subsistence and had not been in Palestine for more than a few years.

In addition, the Jews cleared unused land, drained swamps in the Jezreel Valley and surrounding areas and in doing so, helped rid the country of its widespread malaria problem. They established medical clinics, improved water supplies and developed better solutions to deal with sanitation. All this, directly led to better health, higher standard of living, longer life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate.

It is clear that Arab complaints against Jews were, for the most part, politically motivated, and did not reflect the reality in Palestine at the time. In comparison to their lives in Arab countries or the situation in Palestine before massive Jewish immigration, Arabs saw a consistently increased improvement in their standard of living, overall health and improved economic stability — all while cultivating their own land.

 Israel Kasnett lives in Israel and is a pro-Israel advocate and political strategist.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Appease Iran?

 

By Daniel Pipes

After Hitler, the policy of appeasing dictators – ridiculed by Winston Churchill as feeding a crocodile, hoping it will eat one last – appeared to be permanently discredited. Yet the policy has enjoyed some successes and remains a live temptation today in dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Academics have long challenged the facile vilification of appeasement. Already in 1961, A.J.P. Taylor of Oxford justified Neville Chamberlain's efforts, while Christopher Layne of Texas A&M currently argues that Chamberlain "did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt." Daniel Treisman, a political scientist at UCLA, finds the common presumption against appeasement to be "far too strong," while his University of Florida colleague Ralph B.A. Dimuccio calls it "simplistic."

 In perhaps the most convincing treatment of the pro-appeasement thesis, Paul M. Kennedy, a British historian teaching at Yale University, established that appeasement has a long and credible history. In his 1976 article, "The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865-1939," Kennedy defined appeasement as a method of settling quarrels "by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise," thereby avoiding the horrors of warfare. It is, he noted, an optimistic approach, presuming humans to be reasonable and peaceful.

From the prime ministry of William Gladstone until its discrediting in the late 1930s, appeasement was, in Kennedy's description, a "perfectly respectable" term and even "a particularly British form of diplomacy" well suited to the country's character and circumstances. Kennedy found the policy had four quasi-permanent bases, all of which apply especially well to the United States today:

• Moral: After the Evangelical movement swept England in the early nineteenth century, British foreign policy contained a strong urge to settle disputes fairly and non-violently.
• Economic: As the world's leading trader, the United Kingdom had a vital national interest in avoiding disruptions to commerce, from which it would disproportionately suffer.
• Strategic: Britain's global empire meant it was over-extended (making it, in Joseph Chamberlain's term, a "weary titan"); accordingly, it had to choose its battles sparingly, making compromise an accepted and routine way of dealing with problems.
• Domestic: The extension of the franchise made public opinion a growing factor in decisionmaking, and the public did not care for wars, especially expensive ones.

As a result, for over seven decades, London pursued, with rare exceptions, a foreign policy that was "pragmatic, conciliatory, and reasonable." Again and again, the authorities found that "the peaceful settlement of disputes was much more to Britain's advantage than recourse to war." In particular, appeasement steadily influenced British policy vis-à-vis the United States (in relation to, for example, the Panama Canal, Alaska's borders, Latin America as a U.S. sphere of influence) and Wilhelmine Germany (the "naval holiday" proposal, colonial concessions, restraint in relations with France).

Kennedy judges the policy positively, as serviceably guiding the foreign relations of the world's most powerful state for decades and "encapsulating many of the finer aspects of the British political tradition." If not a brilliant success, appeasement permitted London to accommodate the expanding influence of its non-ideological rivals such as the United States and Imperial Germany, which generally could be counted on to accept concessions without becoming inflamed. It thus slowed the UK's gentle decline.

Post-1917 and the Bolshevik Revolution, however, concessions failed to mollify the new kind of ideologically-driven enemy – Hitler in the 1930s, Brezhnev in the 1970s, Arafat and Kim Jong-Il in the 1990s, and now, Khamene'i and Ahmadinejad. These ideologues exploit concessions and deceitfully offer a quid pro quo that they do not intend to fulfill. Harboring aspirations to global hegemony, they cannot be appeased. Concessions to them truly amount to feeding the crocodile.

However dysfunctional these days, appeasement abidingly appeals to the modern Western psyche, ineluctably arising when democratic states face aggressive ideological enemies. With reference to Iran, for example, George W. Bush may bravely have denounced "the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," but Middle East Quarterly editor Michael Rubin rightly discerns in the realities of U.S. policy that "now Bush is appeasing Iran."

Summing up, the policy of appeasement goes back a century and a half, enjoyed some success, and ever remains alive. But with ideological enemies it must consciously be resisted, lest the tragic lessons of the 1930s, 1970s, and 1990s be ignored. And repeated.

 

Mr. Pipes - director of the Middle East Forum, is the Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University during the spring semester.

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Madam Secretary - A Secure Israel is a Condition for Peace.

 

By Eli E. Hertz

 

A strong Israel is a vital asset to the free world and America. To be a strong and dependable friend in a 'rough neighborhood', Israel must have defensible borders and military prowess capable of addressing multiple challenges which can materialize suddenly in this unstable region.

The conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis is not the only adversary Israel faces. Historically, anti-Zionism has been the glue behind Arab nationalism. It has provided a convenient scapegoat for deflecting Arab states' frustration over unsolved domestic problems, but it also stems from a deep innate intolerance that exists throughout the Muslim world to any non-Muslim presence. Israel has no alternative but to remain strong enough to fend off the combined capabilities of all Arab states - a reality that leaves little room for risk-taking or margin for error.

While indeed peace with the Palestinians is a core issue for both Israel and the Arab states, the scope of the conflict cannot be artificially minimized by ignoring that the Arab world as a whole continues to view Israel as a foreign irritant, an artificial, illegitimate and ultimately transitory entity which by hook or by crook, must ultimately be destroyed or disappear.

Israel's security concerns are further exacerbated by its objectively small size, both geographically and demographically. Its tiny size makes Israel more vulnerable than a large country like the United States. This situation is further complicated by Israel's geopolitical proximity to the crucible of Arab terrorism.

One must keep in mind that Israel is located in a region of the world where the strong prey on the weak. Even weak Arab states such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait are victimized by their Arab neighbors. The Middle East, with its patterns of despots, coups, assassinations, civil wars, revolutions and lack of respect for human life, resembles Europe during its own bloody centuries of nation building. Realistically, for the foreseeable future, little positive substantial change can be expected in this regard. The late Anwar Sadat, keenly aware of just how capricious the Middle East can be, laughed during an October 1980 interview with The New York Times remarking dryly: "Poor Menachem [Begin] ... I got back ... the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper."

Political upheaval in Arab lands will continue to threaten Israel's security. The magnitude and multiplicity of strategic threats it faces mean Israel must make its security assessments realistically based on a host of possibilities - to hope for the best but be prepared for worse case scenarios as well, and tie a secure future to far more than 'pieces of paper' sitting on a 'shelf.'

Objectively, how vulnerable is Israel? In fact, it is almost impossible for non-Israelis to fathom Israel's size. To say that Israel is a tiny nation does not begin to describe the state's predicament. Slightly larger than the Canary Islands, more or less the size of the state of New Jersey, Israel fits into Lake Michigan with room to spare.

Israel's pre-1967 borders - the borders Secretary Rice and the Palestinians want Israel to pull back to (in the 'first phase') - lacked rhyme or reason and reflect the deployment of Israeli and Arab forces when the 1948 armistice agreement for a cease-fire was signed.

At one of the narrowest points in central Israel, the entire width of the state from the Mediterranean coastal town of Netanya to the Green Line is a mere nine miles - just about three times the length of John F. Kennedy Airport's runway (14,570 feet or 4,441 meters). If Israel would relinquish the foothills on the east side of the Green Line to Palestinian control, Ben-Gurion International Airport would be within range of shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles, Katyusha rockets and mortars. The heart of Tel Aviv, Israel's New York City, is merely 11 miles from the West Bank 'as the crow flies.'

In an interview with the German news paper Der Spiegel in November 1969, the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, a lifelong dove, described Israel's pre-Six-Day War borders as "Auschwitz' lines" that threaten Israel's survivability. IDF Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror puts Eban's 'Auschwitz' metaphor in operational terms in regard to the West Bank.

In a 2005 analysis of what 'defensible borders for a lasting peace' entail, Amidror explained that even from a technical standpoint, the Green Line lacks minimum 'defensive depth' - an overarching principle of military doctrine for all armies: There is insufficient battle space for a defensive force to redeploy after being attacked; there is no room for reserves to enter or counterattack; and there is no minimal distance between the battle front and the strategic interior necessary for any army to function.

American military experts have recognized the importance of shoring up Israel's borders to provide some territorial depth. In a study published immediately after the 1967 Six Day War, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earl Wheeler said that "the minimum required for Israel's defense includes most of the West Bank and the whole of Gaza and the Golan Heights." The study content was considered so explosive and contrary to State Department policy, it was classified "Top Secret" until the Wall Street Journal revealed its conclusions in 1983.

The need for territorial depth has not decreased over time. U.S. Lt. General (ret.) Tom Kelly, who served as Chief of Operations during the 1991 Gulf War, said in the wake of the Gulf War:

"I cannot defend this land (Israel) without that terrain (West Bank) ... The West Bank Mountains, and especially their five approaches, are the critical terrain. If an enemy secures those passes, Jerusalem and Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible."

This sentiment was echoed in the assessment of the late U.S. Admiral James Wilson "Bud" Nance, who told Congress in 1991 that there was:

"... no logical reason for Israel to give up one inch of the disputed areas. Quite to the contrary, I believe if Israel were to move out of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it would increase instability and the possibility of war, increase the necessity for Israel to pre-empt in war and the possibility that nuclear weapons would be used to prevent an Israel loss, and increase the possibility that the U.S. would have to become involved in a war."

The prospects of a new Arab state, a Palestinian state, on Israel's border have raised concern by U.S. policy makers, as well. Writing in Commentary in 1997, Douglas Feith, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, said such a state would give the Arab world "a much greater capacity than they now have to facilitate terrorism against Israel, conduct anti-Israel diplomacy, assist or join enemy armed forces in the event of war, and destabilize local states (such as Jordan) that cooperate with Israel."

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was even more candid, remarking in a talk with Pentagon employees in August 2002:

"If you have a country that's a sliver and you can see three sides of it from a high hotel building, you've got to be careful what you give away and to whom you give it."

Eli E. Hertz

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Christian Group: Indict Ahmadinejad for Threatening a Holocaust.

 
by Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel

 

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to speak in the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, a major international evangelical Christian group based in Jerusalem plans to send a petition to the U.N. Secretary-General calling for the arrest and indictment of Iran’s president on charges of incitement to genocide against Israel. The petition from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (I.C.E.J.) has gathered signatures from tens of thousands of Christians around the world, as the group joins the chorus of prominent voices from many countries demanding that Iran’s president be brought to justice.

“We feel a profound and telling moral duty to speak out against the growing Iranian nuclear threat to Israel,” said David Parsons, media director for the I.C.E.J.

"The silence of most Christian clergy in the face of Germany's horrific bid to annihilate European Jewry left a deep stain on the churches,” said the I.C.E.J.’s executive director, Rev. Malcom Hedding. “Yet from it has arisen a sense among multitudes of Christians today that we have an inescapable moral duty to earnestly speak out whenever another genocidal campaign threatens the Jewish people.

"Unfortunately, we are concerned that just such a genocidal campaign is taking shape in the form of Iran's repeated threats to eliminate the Jewish state, and its quest for nuclear means to carry out these threats," said Hedding.

'Hold Ahmadinejad Legally Accountable for Clear Calls to Genocide'
For several years Ahmadinejad, as president of the Islamic Republic, has repeatedly threatened to “wipe Israel off the map,” and has repeatedly denied the holocaust as a “myth.” Israeli Government officials and American legal experts say that such statements are a clear call to genocide and thus a  violation of the U.N. Charter Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a treaty drafted by the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and approved in 1948 by the General Assembly.

A week ago Israel’s Minister of Pensioner Affairs and former Mossad Agent and Nazi-hunter Rafi Eitan told a German magazine that capturing Ahmadinejad and sending him to the International Criminal Court in The Hague was a distinct possibility.

In 2006, following a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran sponsored by the Iranian government, and prior to Ahmadinejad’s visit to to the United Nations, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations convened to declare a legal battle against the rogue Islamic leader. Among the speakers at the event was Alan Dershowitz, perhaps America’s most well-known attorney, who argued the legal grounds for indicting Ahmadinejad. Since then, numerous Jewish and non-Jewish groups have called for the leader’s indictment. 

At another event, in Toronto, Dershowitz called Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the “Hitler of the 21st century…a dictator who denies one Holocaust in order to bring about another Holocaust.”

The latest shot in the battle has been fired by the I.C.E.J., who plan to deliver their petition, signed by more than 55,000 people in 128 countries, to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the eve of next week’s appearance by Ahmadinejad at the General Assembly. The petition reflects the sentiments of community leaders and government officials around the world, who are outraged that the U.N. has bestowed upon him the honor of addressing the Assembly on its opening, rather than pursuing his indictment for violating the Assembly’s very own charter and treaties.

The petition is called ‘Stop a Nuclear Iran’, and it points out that the Iranian president's statements that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and his denial of the Holocaust violate the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Particularly disturbing, as the I.C.E.J. points out, is the fact that Ahmadinejad’s Iran is developing the means to carry out its threat to commit genocide against the Jewish State.

Chilling Film Concludes with a Call to Action
A short film,produced by the the I.C.E.J., compares Hitler’s partly successful campaign to wipe out the Jewish nation with that of the Iranian leader.

“It was a crime of genocide, so enormous, so horrific, committed by men so sinister, with so many innocent victims, and so few rescuers, that it has it deserves its own name: the Holocaust,” the narrator begins.

“Nothing compares to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Yet today, an alarming campaign to commit genocide, targets the same Jewish people.

“It is Iran’s call for wiping Israel off the map and its drive for the means to carry it out,” continues the narrator in the film, referring to Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons.

“We should take these threats seriously,” the voice in the film says, as direct quotes from Ahmadinejad’s speeches to cheering crowds appear on the screen:

“Israel must be wiped of the map.”

“The elimination of the Zionist regime will be smooth and simple.”

The video shows Iran’s leader delivering a speech full of vituperative attacks on Jews, and the reaction of the crowd as it chants, repeatedly, “Death to Israel” with thousands of fists pumping in the air.

The film continues: “The Iranian president has violated an international treaty on incitement to genocide, yet the United Nations has yet to hold him to account or to take effective action against Iran’s nuclear threat.

As for the Holocaust, says the narrator, “he says it never happened.”

“We say, never again!” proclaims the film.

“Let’s be the rescuers of the day. Let’s stop Iran!” the film exhorts, as it presents a link to the I.C.E.J.  petition.

The petition adds that Ahmadinejad’s campaign “not only endangers Israel, but is also a threat to the peace and security of the world community."

The I.C.E.J.’s Hedding also slammed the leaders of certain Christian groups, among them the Mennonites and the Quakers, who plan to further honor Ahmadinejad by hosting him at a special reception during his visit to the U.S., in which the Christian leaders hope to engage in a “dialogue” with the threatening leader.

"These Christian leaders will forever be associated with the appeasement of wickedness,” said Hedding, bringing to mind the lasting condemnation of Western leaders for appeasing Hitler in the 1930’s.

Hedding explained to his fellow Christians that “Jesus did not talk with Herod because he represented a system that was corrupt and evil."

Rally at U.N. Plaza
David Parsons spoke to INN a day before his departure for a New York rally at the Dag Hammerskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations' world headquarters. He explained that the rally will be led Monday, on the eve of the annual fall opening of the U.N. General Assembly, at which Ahmadinejad will be invited to speak along with the leaders of other member states. The rally, organized by the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, is sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, United Jewish Communities, U.J.A.-Federation of New York, and Jewish Council for Public Affairs."

The rally will repeat the message of the petition and demand that the U.N. bring the recalcitrant Iranian leader to justice.

“I think there are lessons we can take from Hitler,” Parsons said. “When someone develops a warped self-awareness, like Hitler had about being the ‘fuhrer’ of the fatherland, and makes threats against the Jews, and then develops the means to carry them out, we should take all this seriously.

“It looks like Ahmadinejad has all three—warped self awareness, threats and the means to carry them out.”

As Parsons discussed the Islamic Republic’s support for its leader's “radioactive rhetoric,” he could only speculate on the “dark religious reasons” of Iran’s Muslim clerics in pushing for nuclear weapons for the country.  Parsons also pointed out that “even [former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, who is considered moderate, was the first to suggest nuking Israel 5-6 years ago.”

Rafsanjani said that Iran has nothing to fear from an Israeli retaliation, since “Israel in return could only hit a few Arab cities” and not Iran, according to Parsons.

“It’s not just a threat to Israel, it’s a threat to the whole world,” said Parsons of the Iranian menace. “So much more could be disrupted,” he explained, by the economic and political shockwave that would follow a physical blast from an Iranian warhead.  

Parsons offered words of warning to his fellow Christians: “The history is that Christian leaders were silent during the Holocaust, and we dare not be silent again in the face of another genocidal threat against the Jewish people.

“We feel a profound and telling moral duty to speak out against the growing Iranian nuclear threat to Israel.”

Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The myth of al-aqza.

 

Holiness of Jerusalem to Islam has always been politically motivated

By Mordechai Kedar

When the Prophet Mohammad established Islam, he introduced a minimum of innovations. He employed the hallowed personages, historic legends and sacred sites of Judaism and Christianity, and even paganism, by Islamizing them. Thus, according to Islam, Abraham was the first Muslim and Jesus and St. John (the sons of Miriam, sister of Moses and Aron) were prophets and guardians of the second heaven. Many Biblical legends ("asatir al-awwalin",) which were familiar to the pagan Arabs before the dawn of Islam, underwent an Islamic conversion, and the Koran as well as the Hadith (the Islamic oral tradition), are replete with them.

 

Islamization was practiced on places as well as persons: Mecca and the holy stone - al-Ka'bah - were holy sites of the pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Great Mosque of Istanbul were erected on the sites of Christian-Byzantine churches - two of the better known examples of how Islam treats sanctuaries of other faiths.

 

Jerusalem, too, underwent the process of Islamization: at first Muhammad attempted to convince the Jews near Medina to join his young community, and, by way of persuasion, established the direction of prayer (kiblah) to be to the north, towards Jerusalem, in keeping with Jewish practice; but after he failed in this attempt he turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the kiblah southward, towards Mecca.

 

Muhammad's abandonment of Jerusalem explains the fact that this city is not mentioned even once in the Koran. After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramlah, 30 miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant nothing to them.

 

Rediscovering Jerusalem

Islam rediscovered Jerusalem 50 years after Mohammad's death. In 682 CE, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr rebelled

reaching Mecca for the Hajj. Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Calif, needed an alternative site for the pilgrimage and settled on Jerusalem which was then under his control. In order to justify this choice, a verse from the Koran was chosen (17,1 = sura 17, verse,) which states (translation by Majid Fakhri):

 

“Glory to Him who caused His servant to travel by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs, He is indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing. "

 

The meaning ascribed to this verse is that "the furthest mosque" (al-masgid al-aqsa) is in Jerusalem and that Mohammad was conveyed there one night (although at that time the journey took three days by camel,) on the back of al-Buraq, a magical horse with the head of a woman, wings of an eagle, the tail of a peacock, and hoofs reaching to the horizon. He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel. On his way he met the prophets of other religions who are the guardians of heaven.

 

Miraculous account

Thus Islam tries to gain legitimacy over other, older religions, by creating a scene in which the former prophets agree to Mohammad's mastery, thus making him Khatam al-Anbiya ("the Seal of the Prophets”.)

 

Not surprisingly, this miraculous account contradicts a number of the tenets of Islam: How can a living man of flesh and blood ascend to heaven? How can a mythical creature carry a mortal to a real destination? Questions such as these have caused orthodox Muslim thinkers to conclude that the nocturnal journey was a dream of Mohammad's. The journey and the ascent serves Islam to "go one better" than the Bible: Moses "only" went up to Mount Sinai, in the middle of nowhere, and drew close to heaven, whereas Mohammad went all the way up to Allah, and from Jerusalem itself.

 

What are the difficulties with the belief that the al-Aqsa mosque described in Islamic tradition is located in Jerusalem? For one, the people of Mecca, who knew Muhammad well, did not believe this story. Only Abu Bakr, (later the first Calif,) believed him and thus was called al-Siddiq (“the believer".)

 

The second difficulty is that Islamic tradition tells us that al-Aqsa mosque is near Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula. This was unequivocally stated in "Kitab al-Maghazi," a book by the Muslim historian and geographer al-Waqidi. According to al-Waqidi, there were two "masjeds" (places of prayer) in al-Gi'irranah, a village between Mecca and Ta'if - one was "the closer mosque" (al-masjid al-adna) and the other was "the further mosque" (al-masjid al-aqsa,) and Muhammad would pray there when he went out of town.

 

This description by al-Waqidi which is supported by a chain of authorities (isnad) was not "convenient" for the Islamic propaganda of the 7th Century. In order to establish a basis for the awareness of the "holiness" of Jerusalem in Islam, the Califs of the Ummayad dynasty invented many “traditions" upholding the value of Jerusalem, which would justify pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the faithful Muslims. Thus was al-Masjid al-Aqsa "transported" to Jerusalem. It should be noted that Saladin also adopted the myth of al-Aqsa and those "traditions" in order to recruit and inflame the Muslim warriors against the Crusaders in the 12th Century.

 

Must Judaism defer to Islamic myths?

Another aim of the Islamization of Jerusalem was to undermine the legitimacy of the older religions, Judaism and Christianity, which consider Jerusalem to be a holy city. Islam is presented as the only legitimate religion, destined to replace the other two, because they had changed and distorted the Word of God, each in its turn.

 

Though Judaism and Christianity can exist side by side in Jerusalem, Islam regards both of them as betrayals of Allah and his teachings, and has always done, and will continue to do, all in its power to expel both of them from this city. It is interesting to note that this expulsion is retroactive: The Islamic broadcasters of the Palestinian radio stations consistently make it a point to claim that the Jews never had a temple on the Temple Mount and certainly not two temples. (Where, then, according to them, did Jesus preach?)

 

Yasser Arafat, himself a secular person (ask Hamas!), did exactly what the Califs of the Umayyad dynasty did 1300 years ago: He marshaled the holiness of Jerusalem to serve his political ends. He must not have given control of Jerusalem over to the Jews since according to Islam they are impure and the wrath of Allah is upon them. Moreover, the Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs. The Jews are those who distorted the holy writings which were revealed to them and denied God's signs. Since they violated the covenant with their God, He cursed them and they are forever the inheritors of hell. So how could Arafat hand over Jerusalem to the Jews?

 

The Palestinian media these days are full of messages of Jihad, calling to broaden the national-political war between Israel and the Palestinians into a religious-Islamic war between Jews and Muslims. For them, Christianity is no better than Judaism, since both “forfeited" their right to rule over Jerusalem. Only Islam - Din al-Haqq ("the Religion of Truth") - has this right, and forever.

 

Since the holiness of Jerusalem to Islam has always been, and still is, no more than a politically motivated holiness, any Muslim leader or ruler would be putting his political head on the block should he give it up. Must Judaism and Christianity defer to myths related in Islamic texts or envisioned in Mohammad's dreams, long after Jerusalem was established as the ancient, true center of these two religions, which preceded Islam? Should Israel give up on its capital just because some Muslims decided to recycle the political problems of the Umayyads 1250 years after the curtain came down on their role in history?

 

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University’s department of Arabic