Europe's Shifting Immigration Dynamic Part II

 

by Esther Ben-David

 

2^nd  part of 2

Current Immigration: Asylum Seekers.

Traditionally, asylum was reserved for those who fled persecution. Before the immigration stop, some asylum seekers came as economic migrants without bothering to go through the official process of being recognized as refugees. After the immigration stop, the process changed and many economic migrants started posing as refugees as a "consciously planned act of subversion."[23] Asylum seekers enter the country as illegal immigrants, destroying their papers and lying as much as necessary to achieve their objective—a new life in Europe. Today, those who cannot immigrate through marriage often choose the asylum process regardless of their situation back home. Only a minority of asylum seekers are quota refugees for whom the United Nations has recognized their status during a stay in refugee camps ahead of their travel to Europe. Most refugees enter Europe illegally, which requires paying smugglers and sometimes obtaining fake documents. These refugees make their way to the country most likely to accept their application. In recent years, Iraqi and Afghan refugees crossed several European states in order to claim asylum in Sweden and Norway, countries which have more liberal asylum laws. And many of those seeking asylum exaggerate or fabricate persecution claims creating an absurd situation whereby asylum seekers, claiming shelter in Europe, spend holidays on vacation in their countries of origin.[24]

Still, there are real cases of political persecution. Beginning in the 1950s, many Muslim students arrived in Germany not only to take advantage of the technical education in German universities but also to escape political persecution by secular, military leaders such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, bent on eradicating Islamist groups back home.[25] One of these exiles was Said Ramadan, son-in-law of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, and father of Tariq Ramadan. Said Ramadan was granted asylum in Switzerland where he continued working for Muslim Brotherhood interests. The trend has accelerated into the 1980s and 1990s as Islamist activists fled intensified domestic crackdowns in Syria, North Africa, and Egypt. However, unlike many asylum seekers who sought to flee oppression, these refugees sought to replicate it, plotting the replacement of secular dictatorships with religious dictatorships. They cared little for the values of liberal democracy even as they sought to utilize it for their own purposes. European officials, perhaps for reasons of moral equivalency, granted such activists asylum without regard to what caused the persecution against them in the first place. Using their new European base, many of these Islamist activists continued in their struggle for regime change in their homelands, creating networks that at times became the basis for today's European Muslim terrorist networks. As one Egyptian official said, "European countries like Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, England and others, which give sanctuary to these terrorists should now understand it will come back to haunt them where they live."[26] The idea of "refugee" has degenerated so much that, during the war in Afghanistan, British officials granted asylum to Taliban fighters.[27]

Conversely, Islamic countries can also produce refugees who flee strict application of Islamic law, individuals such as homosexuals, converts from Islam to other religions, or members of persecuted minorities, such as the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, or the Jews in Yemen who may face capital punishment for their beliefs or actions.[28] However, such a trend can encourage fraud. For example, after the Norwegian government granted automatic residence permits to persecuted homosexuals, fifty Iranian asylum seekers claimed to be persecuted homosexuals. At least one married in Iran and after receiving asylum proceeded to request family reunification. Several others reported doubtful stories but were given asylum anyway.[29]

Likewise, the decision to grant automatic residence permits to converts from Islam—even those who converted after arriving in Europe—encourages more abuse.[30] In Norway, one hundred Afghan refugees converted to Christianity after the rejection of their initial asylum claims.[31]

While European governments do reject the applications of many asylum seekers, this does not mean the individuals leave or are deported. Perhaps 80 percent of asylum seekers stay in Europe after the rejection of their application.[32]

There are many reasons why asylum seekers are not immediately deported. The West's liberal court systems allow for appeals and for further review after a decision by the first instance of justice. Death sentences in the home country, seen as inhumane by the Europeans, or refusal by the home country to accept its own citizens back can also prevent deportation. Others simply disappear, continuing to live in the country as undocumented illegal immigrants. The result is that those detained in camps for months or years before the completion of court processes are removed from productivity and learn to live at public expense.

In the years of legal battles, prospective asylum seekers are willing to do everything in order to ensure their stays. Children are kept as virtual hostages without knowing their own family abroad, without learning their original mother tongue, and without being able to integrate in their original homelands as a last resort for a residence permit on grounds of humane consideration should the asylum battle fail.[33]

Those who live illegally do not pay taxes and cannot enjoy the full benefits of a welfare society. However, as more illegal immigrants arrive in a country, pressure grows to regularize them by awarding them amnesty and residence permits. Though regularization deals with the humanitarian aspects of the illegal immigrant's situation, it also gives incentives for illegal behavior and further immigration. In Belgium, for example, illegal immigrants have protested in recent years for regularization. Such protests have involved squatting in churches and climbing high-rise cranes. This creates an irony in which state attempts to stop immigration are thwarted by institutions—such as churches—that are subsidized by the state itself. The Belgian protests are aided by pro-immigrant groups, many of which the state also subsidizes.

 

The Challenge of Stopping Immigration

European governments are aware of the problem. Since the immigration stop of the 1970s, there have been several attempts to halt or slow down the immigration flow. Some European governments seek to discourage emigration by improving the life conditions of the prospective emigrant in his home country or by trying to scare prospective immigrants through ad campaigns that show the horrors of life as an illegal immigrant. In 2007, Spain ran an ad campaign in West Africa warning Africans not to risk their lives in futile illegal immigration.[34]

Ignorance contributes to immigration. Researchers studying Turkish marriage immigrants who immigrated to Belgium found that children and adults growing up in Turkey in an emigration town, that is, a town where most of the residents either emigrated or wanted to emigrate, were unaware of the basic facts of European life. They knew about the high unemployment benefits but were not aware that basic necessities were much more expensive. One marriage-migrant interviewee admitted frankly that life in Belgium was not what he had expected. However, when he tried warning the youth in his hometown of the hardships of immigration, he was accused of wanting to keep new-found wealth to himself.[35]

The problem with both methods is that a European lifestyle is based not only on material wealth but also on the rights and privileges of a liberal democracy. Even if it were easy to try to create jobs and affluence in countries such as Tunisia—which it is not—it would be harder to change the fabric of the legal system in a liberalizing direction.

Several countries have also tried unsuccessfully to convince immigrants to leave their new homes by offering incentives and continued welfare support for those who return to their native countries. Two such programs in France, the first in 1977 and the second in 2005, ended in failure. Creating incentives for departure might also backfire by encouraging migration for the purpose of collecting the offered benefits and by convincing those in the home country that Europe is drowning in cash, ready to be exploited.

As many countries become aware that the long-term effects of a brain drain outweigh any short-term benefits from remittances, some have themselves begun to discourage emigration. The Algerian Ministry of Religious Affairs, for example, issued a fatwa (religious edict) decreeing that illegal immigrants who die at sea have committed suicide, a sin in Islam.[36]

Tightening immigration laws is an obvious strategy but one that is undercut by inconsistent regulations among EU states. Sweden, long the destination of choice for Iraqi asylum seekers, saw claims drop after it tightened its regulations although there was an increase in asylum claims in neighboring Norway during the same period. Tough marriage immigration laws in the Netherlands likewise encouraged the creation of the "Belgian Route," in which the non-EU spouse first comes to Belgium, using that country's laxer marriage-immigration laws. After the couple stay in the country for the minimum amount of time required by EU law, they move to the Netherlands. A recent EU Court decision, however, scrapped the requirement for a minimum stay and rejected any national restrictions on free movement.[37] Judicial activism compounds the problem when courts create new legislation by imposing their own opinions on elected lawmakers.

In two such recent cases, for example, courts struck down laws intended to prevent immigration. A court in Amsterdam rejected a requirement for immigrants from certain countries to undergo integration testing and to prove their knowledge of Dutch language and culture in their home countries before receiving a visa to the Netherlands for marriage immigration.[38] The high court in Belgium struck down a law preventing the children of polygamous marriages from immigrating to Belgium in order to reunite with their father and, thereby, opened the option for the polygamous spouse to do the same.[39]

As these countries are EU members, they also subordinate national law to European Union directives and to the decisions of the European Court. For example, in recent years, both Denmark and the Netherlands have passed laws limiting family reunification. In both cases, marriage immigration dropped significantly from about 60 to 38 percent in four years, 2001-05, for Denmark,[40] and from 56 to 27 percent for Dutch Turks and 57 to 23 percent for Dutch Moroccans over a five year period beginning in 2001.[41] However, in July 2008, the European Court prohibited member states from denying residence permits to non-EU spouses of EU citizens or residents.[42] This ruling caused a political crisis in Denmark, but it holds for all other countries as well, and in practice prevents them from stopping marriage immigration.

 

Conclusion

It will be far more difficult to stop immigration than it was to initiate the immigration flow. A unified European approach, slashing the time to process requests and achieve final adjudication might help to decrease immigration. Immigration to Europe might have developed differently with tougher, more restrictive immigration policies, but as long as Europe offers opportunities for work, education, and personal safety, and as long as it offers a liberal democracy with the rights and privileges such a lifestyle entails, it will continue to attract mass immigration.

The West has always been proud of its moral standard of protecting human rights and giving refuge to persecuted individuals. Referral to human rights has catalyzed immigration. For example, the right to marry is recognized as a fundamental right that in many European countries brings conveyance of citizenship. However, in a society where arranged marriages are the norm and forced marriages are common, the right to marry can easily place the law on the side of the aggressor who coerces somebody else to marry rather than the victim. Redefining refugee status by creating so many categories that fulfil it renders that status meaningless. Not only does it encourage economic immigration, it actually hurts those who truly need refuge.

 

Esther Ben-David is an independent researcher of Islam in Europe.

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

 

[1] Anja van Heelsum, "Moroccan Berbers in Europe, the US and Africa and the Concept of Diaspora," Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam, June 20, 2003.
[2] Ural Manço, "Turks in Europe: From a Garbled Image to the Complexity of Migrant Social Reality," Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques, Facultes Universitaires Saint-Louis, Brussels, Belgium, accessed Dec. 30, 2008.
[3] BBC News, Aug. 22, 2006.
[4] Hans Van Amersfoort and Rinus Penninx, "Regulating Migration in Europe: The Dutch Experience, 1960-92," Strategies for Immigration Control: An International Comparison [Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science] (London: Sage Publications, 1994), pp. 133-46.
[5] Maarten Alders, "Prognose van gezinsvormende migratie van Turken en Marokkanen," Bevolkingstrends, 2nd quarter, 2005, pp. 46-9.
[6] Jorgen S. Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe: Islamic Surveys (New York: Columbia University Press, Oct.1992), pp. 25-6.
[7] Unni Wikan, Generous Betrayal: Politics of Culture in the New Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 234, ftnt. 24.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., p. 201-2.
[10] The Local (Stockholm), Nov. 29, 2007.
[11] BBC News, Aug. 16, 2006.
[12] Wikan, Generous Betrayal, p. 194.
[13] Ibid., p. 242, ftnt. 76.
[14] Hind Fraihi, Undercover in Klein-Marokko, Achter de Gesloten Duren van de Radicale Islam (Leuven: Uitgeverij Van Halewyck, 2006), p. 78.
[15] Hilâl Yalçin, Ina Lodewyckx, Rudy Marynissen, and Rut Van Caudenberg, Verliefd verloofd..gemigreerd. Een onderzoek naar Turkse huwelijksmigratie in Vlaanderen, (Antwerp: Steunpunt Gelijkekansenbeleid, University of Antwerp-University of Hasselt, 2006), p. 186-91.
[16] Fraihi, Undercover in Klein-Marokko, p. 78.
[17] Dagens Medisin (Oslo), Mar. 8, 2007.
[18] Joop Garssen and Han Nicolaas, "Fertility of Turkish and Moroccan Women in the Netherlands: Adjustment to native level within one generation," Demographic Research, July 18, 2008, pp. 1249-80.
[19] Ina Lodewyckx, Johan Geets, and Christiane Timmerman, reds., Aspecten van Marokkaanse huwelijksmigratie en Marokkaans familierecht (Antwerp: Steunpunt Gelijkekansenbeleid, University of Antwerp-University of Hasselt, 2006); Yalçin, et. al., Verliefd verloofd..gemigreerd. Een onderzoek naar Turkse huwelijksmigratie in Vlaanderen, p. 160.
[20] Fraihi, Undercover in Klein-Marokko, p. 54.
[21] Van Amersfoort and Penninx, "Regulating Migration in Europe: The Dutch Experience, 1960-92," pp. 133-46.
[22] Wikan, Generous Betrayal, p. 216.
[23] Ibid., pp. 39-41.
[24] Aftenposten (Oslo), May 15, 2007.
[25] Lorenzo Vidino, "The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005, pp. 25-34.
[26] The Houston Chronicle, Sept. 24, 1995.
[27] Lorenzo Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2006), pp. 46-7.
[28] See, for example, Andrew Hollin, "Dissident Watch: Mehdi Kazemi," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2008, p. 96.
[29] VG Nett (Oslo), June 6, 2006.
[30] Nederlands Dagblad (Barneveld), July 4, 2008.
[31] Dagbladet (Oslo), July 18, 2008.
[32] Wikan, Generous Betrayal, pp. 39-41.
[33] Aftenposten, July 27, 2007.
[34] BBC News, Sept. 20, 2007.
[35] Yalçin, et. al., Verliefd verloofd..gemigreerd. Een onderzoek naar Turkse huwelijksmigratie in Vlaanderen, pp. 186-91.
[36] Adnkronos International News, Apr. 29, 2008.
[37] Metock and Others, Case C127/08, The Court of Justice of the European Communities, July 25, 2008.
[38] De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), July 15, 2008.
[39] HLN, July 10, 2008.
[40] The Copenhagen Post, Nov. 7, 2007.
[41] "Minder migratiehuwelijken Turken en Marokkanen," Netherlands Statistics, The Hague and Heerlen, Jan. 7, 2008, accessed Jan. 16, 2008.
[42] Metock and Others, Case C‑127/08.        ../..

 

Charges of IDF's "Wanton Killing" Crumble.

 

by Alex Safian

 

Less than a month after Israel concluded operations in Gaza, some of the soldiers who served there met at the pre-military academy they had attended to discuss their experiences in the fighting. As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz has reported, the head of the academy, Danny Zamir, arranged the gathering, and at the outset he condemned the Israeli operation for setting "new limits for the army's ethical code and that of the State of Israel" and for sowing "massive destruction among civilians."

 

The only reason this is notable is because the transcript released by Zamir also included allegations of two specific atrocities, the killing by snipers of an elderly woman, and of a woman and her two children. These allegations have gotten huge coverage around the world, including in the New York Times (see below), the Washington Post, the BBC, the Guardian, and the Financial Times.

 

While in Israel initial doubts were raised about these claims because they were actually hearsay rather than eyewitness accounts, now the charges have been further debunked. The brigade commander of the unit linked to the supposed killings launched his own investigation, speaking with actual eyewitnesses, all of whom said that the alleged incidents did not took place.

 

In the discussion that included the atrocity stories, Danny Zamir also declared to the soldiers:

 

I think it would be important for parents to sit here and hear this discussion. I think it would be an instructive discussion, and also very dismaying and depressing. You are describing an army with very low value norms, that's the truth.

 

Since, as Ha'aretz put it, Zamir "does not hide his political opinions," it seems likely that his former students at the left-leaning Kibbutz-affiliated school knew what Zamir wanted to hear at the meeting, and that only a self-selected group attended. In any event, some of the attendees certainly did not disappoint Zamir, who had been imprisoned by the IDF in 1990 for refusing to serve in the West Bank. They recounted tales of "murder in cold blood," including seemingly eyewitness accounts of a sniper shooting a woman and two of her children merely because they made a wrong turn, and another sniper killing an old woman.

 

Zamir wrote an article about the discussion for the academy's newsletter, which he then provided to the Israeli newspapers Ha'aretz and Maariv, triggering in Ha'aretz alone multiple stories extremely critical of the Israeli army's alleged conduct (here, here, here, here and here), as well as numerous stories in the foreign press, such as the New York Times, which put its initial report on page one above the fold (here and here). Both the Ha'aretz and the New York Times reports ignored detailed testimony by soldiers of exemplary conduct by the IDF, such as soldiers leaving an envelope of cash for the Palestinian homeowner whose house they had occupied.

 

While the Israeli government has promised a full and even a criminal investigation, serious doubts were quickly raised about some of the charges.

 

For example, on Israel's Channel 2, defense correspondent Roni Daniel reported that the soldier who supposedly witnessed the sniper shoot a mother and two of her children has now admitted to his brigade commander that he didn't see any such thing:

 

I didn't see it myself. There were stories like this. I wasn't in that house and everything I said was only on the basis of hearsay. At the gathering it was a friendly talk, and that's how I related to it.

 

Daniel raised similar questions about the killing of the old woman by a sniper, and concluded that "The credibility of these two stories is very doubtful."

 

In the wake of Daniel's broadcast, even Ha'aretz reported that the soldier recounting the tale of a mother and children being killed had been called in by his brigade commander, at which time he admitted he was relying solely on "rumors" within his unit:

 

By the afternoon, the army could report that the investigation into the testimony regarding the shooting of a mother and two children had reached preliminary conclusions. Givati brigade commander Ilan Malkha summoned the squad leader who recounted the story, who admitted he had relied solely on rumors in the company.

And now there has been an even more definitive debunking, after an investigation by the brigade commander of the units in question. The brigade commander's findings were reported in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, in a story titled IDF Investigation Refutes the Testimonies About Gaza Killings. According to the story:

 

Two central incidents that came up in the testimony, which Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy presented to Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazi, focus on one infantry brigade. The brigade's commander today will present to Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg, commander of the Gaza division, the findings of his personal investigation about the matter which he undertook in the last few days, and after approval, he will present his findings to the head of the Southern Command, Major General Yoav Gallant.

Regarding the incident in which it was claimed that a sniper fired at a Palestinian woman and her two daughters, the brigade commander's investigation cites the sniper: "I saw the woman and her daughters and I shot warning shots. The section commander came up to the roof and shouted at me, ?Why did you shoot at them.' I explained that I did not shoot at them, but I fired warning shots."

Officers from the brigade surmise that fighters that stayed in the bottom floor of the Palestinian house thought that he hit them, and from here the rumor that a sniper killed a mother and her two daughters spread.

The other alleged incident, the killing by a sniper of an elderly woman, also seems not to have taken place:

Regarding the second incident, in which it was claimed that soldiers went up to the roof to entertain themselves with firing and killed an elderly Palestinian woman, the brigade commander investigation found that there was no such incident.

It seems the Ha'aretz, the New York Times, and other outlets which reported the charges at face value and gave these stories great play despite a clear lack of evidence, should be composing forthright corrections – preferably to be run on the front page.

 

Counter Evidence Ignored

Ha'aretz, the New York Times, and most other outlets covering this controversy have also ignored detailed statements by other soldiers of the strict rules of engagement that they followed, and of their acts of kindness towards Palestinians. (The Times devoted all of one sentence to a soldier who said that Israeli soldiers put their own lives at risk to avoid harming Palestinians. And the lone sentence was buried towards the end of the article.)

The Israeli newspaper Yediot recounted some of these in reaction to the Ha'aretz stories:

"I don't believe there were soldiers who were looking to kill (Palestinians) for no reason," said 21-year-old Givati Brigade soldier Assaf Danziger, who was lightly injured three days before the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead.

"What happened there was not enjoyable to anyone; we wanted it to end as soon as possible and tried to avoid contact with innocent civilians," he said.

According to Danziger, soldiers were given specific orders to open fire only at armed terrorists or people who posed a threat. "There were no incidents of vandalism at any of the buildings we occupied. We did only what was justified and acted out of necessity. No one shot at civilians. People walked by us freely," he recounted.

In the same article Yediot also quoted other soldiers:

A Paratroopers Brigade soldier who also participated in the war called the claims "nonsense". Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said "It is true that in war morality can be interpreted in many different ways, and there are always a few idiots who act inappropriately, but most of the soldiers represented Israel honorably and with a high degree of morality.

"For instance, on three separate occasions my company commander checked soldiers' bags for stolen goods. Those who stole the smallest things, like candy, were severely punished," he said.

"We were forbidden from sleeping in Palestinians' beds even when we had no alternate accommodations, and we didn't touch any of their food even after we hadn't had enough to eat for two days."

"During one incident, we were informed that a female suicide bomber was heading in our direction, but even when women approached us and crossed a certain point we made do with firing in the air, or near the women," the soldier recalled. "Even when we came across deserted stores, we didn't even think of taking anything. One soldier took a can of food, but he immediately returned it after everyone yelled at him."

Major (res.) Idan Zuaretz of Givati said "in every war there is a small percentage of problematic soldiers, but we must look at it from a broad perspective and not focus on isolated incidents."

Zuaretz, a company commander, also questioned the integrity of the soldiers who made the controversial claims, saying "if this was such a burning issue for them, why have they remained silent until now? On an ethical and moral level, they were obligated to stop what they claimed had occurred and not wait two months to be heard at some esoteric debate."

According to the officer, the IDF went to great lengths and employed the most advanced technology to avoid harming civilian population.

"I've seen a few things in my time, but even I was blown away by the level of professionalism displayed by the army," Zuaretz said. "I personally gave my soldiers an order on the day we withdrew from Gaza to leave all of our goodies in the last house we occupied. Some reservists even left an envelope full of money to one Palestinian family."

Another soldier who had fought in Gaza, Yishai Goldflam, circulated an open letter to the Palestinian family whose home his unit had temporarily occupied during the fighting. His letter, titled "I am the soldier who slept in your home," was published in Maariv, and then translated and published in Canada's National Post. Goldflam too spoke of the care he and his fellow soldiers had taken to minimize damage to the home:

I spent many days in your home. You and your family's presence was felt in every corner. I saw your family portraits on the wall, and I thought of my family. I saw your wife's perfume bottles on the bureau, and I thought of my wife. I saw your children's toys and their English-language schoolbooks. I saw your personal computer and how you set up the modem and wireless phone next to the screen, just as I do.

I wanted you to know that despite the immense disorder you found in your house that was created during a search for explosives and tunnels (which were indeed found in other homes), we did our best to treat your possessions with respect. When I moved the computer table, I disconnected the cables and laid them down neatly on the floor, as I would do with my own computer. I even covered the computer from dust with a piece of cloth.

I know that the devastation, the bullet holes in your walls and the destruction of those homes near you place my descriptions in a ridiculous light. Still, I need you to understand me -- us -- and hope that you will channel your anger and criticism to the right places. I decided to write you this letter specifically because I stayed in your home...

It's unfortunate that readers of the New York Times and Haaretz and viewers of the BBC are fed constant doses of the anti-Israel story-of-the-day, while these outlets ignore the stories of typical Israeli soldiers like Yishai Goldflam. Times editors and their counterparts elsewhere should explain why Danny Zamir is fit to print, and Yishai Goldflam is not fit to print.

Through such tendentious choices is news made rather than reported.

 

 

Alex Safian

Associate director CAMERA

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

 

The great refugee Scam.

 

by Shmuel Katz

The writer, a co-founder with Menachem Begin of the Herut Party and member of the first Knesset, died earlier this year.  He was a biographer and essayist.

 

The story of the Arabs who left the coastal areas of Palestine in the spring of 1948 encapsulates one of the great international frauds of the 20th century. The Arabs are the only declared "refugees" who became refugees by the initiative of their own leaders. The concoction of the monstrous charge that it was the Jews who had driven out the Arabs of Palestine was a strategic decision made by the leaders of the Arab League months after the Arabs' flight.

The Arab "refugees" were not driven out by anyone. The vast majority left at the order or exhortation of their leaders - always with the same reassurance - that it would help the Arab states in the war they were about to launch to destroy the State of Israel.

The fabrication can most easily be detected by the simple circumstance that at the time the alleged expulsion of the Arabs by Zionists was in progress, nobody noticed it.

Foreign newspapermen abounded in the country, in daily contact with all sides - and they did, in fact, write about the flight of the Arabs, but even those most hostile to the Jews saw nothing to suggest that the flight was not voluntary.

In the three months that the major part of the flight took place, the London Times, a newspaper most notably hostile to Zionism, published 11 leading articles on the situation in Palestine, in addition to extensive news reports. In none was there even a remote hint that the Zionists were driving Arabs from their homes.

---

"Zionists" are in hot pursuit? Hardly!

 

"Ethnic Cleansing?" No Way!

 

Widespread Massacres? Not a chance!

---

Even more pertinent: No Arab spokesman made such a charge. At the height of the flight, the Palestinian Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, Jamal Husseini, made a long political statement (on April 27) that was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress) the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees.

Why did they leave? Monsignor George Hakim, then Greek Catholic bishop of Galilee, the leading Christian personality in Palestine for many years, told a Beirut newspaper, Sada al-Janub, in the summer of 1948: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the `Zionist gangs' very quickly, and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."

The initiative for the flight was indeed no secret. One of the famous American newspapermen of the time, Kenneth Bilby, who had covered Palestine for years, explained the Arab leaders' rationale for the flight in his book New Star in the East, published in 1950:  "Let the Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab countries to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea."

There is also the piquant report in the files of the British police at Haifa, of how the leaders of the Jewish community pleaded with the leaders of the Arab community not to leave Haifa, and how the Arabs refused. There is too, in the annals of the UN Security Council, a speech by Jamal Husseini heaping praise on the Arabs of Haifa for refusing to stay put and insisting adamantly on leaving their homes. The British police then kindly provided transport and helped the Haifa Arabs across the Lebanese and Transjordanian borders.

When, four months after the invasion, the prospect of the flightlings' retuning "in a few weeks" had faded, there were some recriminations. Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, said in an interview with the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state.

"The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem."

The policy adopted inside the country was emphasized by the leaders of the invasion. The prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Said, thundered: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

One of the Arabs who fled later succinctly summarized the story of the refugees in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Difaa: "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."

Later, after the fighting began, many Arab villagers who believed the false rumors of a massacre at the village of Deir Yassin "panicked and fled ignominiously before they were threatened by the progress of the war." So wrote the British general Sir John Glubb, who commanded the Transjordanian army. Throughout the war there were two incidents - at Ramle and Lod - in which a number of Arab civilians were driven out of their homes by Israeli soldiers.

The total number of Arabs who evacuated, even according to the British Mandate's statistics, could not have been more than 420,000. This figure conforms roughly also to the figure published from Arab sources, and by the UN.

The central, horribly cruel fact is that the Arab states - who had brought about their plight - denied them residence rights; and the idea was born that they should be left in camps and used as a weapon for Israel's destruction. "The return of the refugees," said president Nasser of Egypt years later, "will mean the end of Israel."

It was in the immediate aftermath of the war that the refugee scam was developed into an international operation. As soon as the UN Disaster Relief Organization started providing food, shelter, clothing and medical attention to the Arabs who had fled Palestine, a mass of needy Arabs descended on the camps from all over the Arab states. The organization had no machinery for identification; so the arrivals simply signed the register as refugees and received the free aid.

Already in December 1948, the director of the Relief Organization, Sir Rafael Cilento, reported he was feeding 750,000 "refugees." By July 1949 the UN reported a round million.

The Red Cross International Committee joined the party. It pressed for the recognition of any destitute Arab in Palestine as a refugee. Thus about 100,000 were added to the list.

To add a touch of mordant humor, the Red Cross authority wrote about the additional people that: "It would be senseless to force them to abandon their homes to be able to get food as refugees."

So these people stayed at home, received their free services there, and were added to the rolls of the refugees.

Thus - and by other more expectable means of humanistic falsification we have, in the third generation, a large amorphous mass of Arabs, all of them comfortably lumped together in official UN lists as Arab refugees, described as "victims of Israeli aggression" and demanding the right of "return."

While everybody in Israel has rejected the Arab demand for accepting the return of the "refugees," the government has not rejected the idea that if negotiations for a settlement take place the problem of the refugees will be discussed. Moreover, there has been talk of "compensation" by Israel.

There have even been voices suggesting the return of a "symbolic few" of the refugees. Israel must, from the outset and forever, unequivocally reject such ideas.

 

Just Say "No!"

 

Once and for all, Israel must remind whoever has to be reminded that the responsibility for the displaced Arabs lies wholly and absolutely on the shoulders of the Arab states. Their utterly unprovoked invasion of the territory of Israel in May 1948 was a crime.

 

Its declared intent was a crime. Six thousand Israel citizens were killed in that war, and thousands of others were injured. It was the Arab states that called on the Arab population to evacuate, all in order to facilitate accomplishment of their evil purpose.

 

It is a hutzpa of historical dimensions and significance to ask Israel to even discuss giving an inch or paying a penny of the price of the refugee problem. And it is dangerous for any Israeli spokesman to even agree to take part in any discussion of the subject - at any forum or in any context whatsoever.

 

Indeed, the Israeli government should long ago have declared - but even now it is not too late: "We shall not participate in any discussion of the so-called refugee problem. This is a problem the Arab nation must solve for itself in its own spacious territories."

 

 

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

 

Middle East still not ready for democracy.

 

by Barry Rubin

 

Democracy is a great idea; open elections are ideally the best way to choose governments; dialogue with everyone is wonderful in theory. But in the Middle East, unfortunately, as a policy this would be a disaster.

It is not Western policy but local conditions which are going to determine whether there will be democracy in the Arabic-speaking world. In my book, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), I analyze both the debate and the existing groups. The assessment must be pessimistic.

Would we like to see liberal democracy and moderation prevail with rising living standards and more freedom? Of course, but the real question is what effect certain policies would have.

The Western debate gets stranger and stranger. Among the policymaking classes, there's a prevailing view that the Bush administration was a disaster. The rather misleading description for those who advocated a US policy of promoting democracy and overthrowing dictators — "neo-conservative" — has become among such people a curse word implying stupid and evil.

Why, then, does the debate seem to be between those who now run most Western governments and want to engage with the worst, most dangerous extremists and those who want to promote democracy by opening up the political process to the... worst, most dangerous extremists?

 

WHATEVER BECAME of good old-fashioned realism, the breakfast of champions in diplomacy for centuries? Realism, a term that has been hijacked lately far more than Islam, means to base a policy on the actually existing situation rather than one's wish-list, building alliances on the basis of common interests. It does not mean embracing your worst enemies while kicking those with common interests in the groin. Nor does it mean acting like the nerdy kid groveling in the hope that it will make the popular guys like him. And it also doesn't mean ignoring adversaries' ideologies and goals.

Is it really so hard to understand that US policy should be based on working closely with Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon (moderates, not Iranian-Syrian agents), Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf emirates? Is it really so hard to understand that US policy should also be based on combating Iran, Syria, Sudan, Hizbullah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhoods, as well as al-Qaida?

We saw what happened in Iran after experts predicted in 1978 that anything would be better than the shah and that moderates would inevitably prevail.

We saw what happened with the Palestinian elections, for while Fatah was no prize, Hamas is far worse and eager for bloodshed. We are about to see what will happen with Lebanese elections which are nominally democratic but influenced by Iranian-Syrian money and intimidation, as a government emerges likely to lead Lebanon into the Iranian bloc.

In Turkey, the several-times-elected AK regime, although still presented internationally as a model moderate Muslim government, is engaged in systematically Islamizing institutions and taking the country down a road leading closer to Teheran than to Washington.

 

I DO NOT LIKE saying this because I know many courageous liberal dissidents and would like them to win. US and Western policy should always press for their rights, against their imprisonment.

But why should the United States pursue a policy that we have every reason to believe will be catastrophic: namely, pushing for a situation in which radical Islamists are more likely to take over.

Examples have been given of people who might be expected to be liberal preferring to back Islamist parties. But Egypt is virtually the only place this seems to be happening. Elsewhere, people who might be expected to be liberal are supporting the existing regimes out of fear of Islamists. I think that Egypt is a misleading case for that reason. And in Egypt, the leading "liberal" group has now been taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood and spouts a very radical anti-American line.

Do we really want to contribute to subverting the Egyptian regime, with all its faults, and making the Brotherhood more powerful? The reaction is arrogance on the part of the radicals and despair among the moderates. The liberals conclude, you hear this all the time in Turkey, that America wants the Islamists to win.

I don't prefer this situation. I don't like it. But in a world where Islamists seek to overthrow nationalists, in which an Iranian-Syrian led alliance is trying to gain hegemony in much of the region, I feel that Western policy needs to back the regimes against the revolutionaries.

There are some ethnic or religious communities which have an interest in supporting a moderate democratic approach. At present, this includes Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites; Lebanese Sunni Arabs, Christians and Druse; and the Berbers of the Maghreb. These are, however, special cases.

There are also very systematic campaigns to fool well-intentioned, gullible Westerners. These are often carried out by having moderate statements in English directed to a foreign audience and revolutionary extremist ones in Arabic directed at one's own society. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has created a very nicely done English-language Web site that would make it seem the organization is something between the Democratic Party and the March of Dimes.

If the West engages with Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhoods, while working to create a situation in which these groups can compete for power more effectively, the results will be disastrous both for the West and for the Arabs who become victims of the resulting Islamist regimes. No argument, no matter how sincerely heartfelt or superficially clever, alters that fact. That is a tragedy, but in policy terms it is also a necessity to deal with the reality of Middle East polities and societies.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. His latest book is "The Truth About  Syria".

 

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

 

Iran targets the US.

 

by  Yoram Ettinger

The prevention of a nuclear Iran constitutes a top US national security priority. It sheds light on a special aspect of US-Israel relationship: defiance of mutual threats.

Iran pursues nuclear capabilities to advance strategic goals, which are led by the super-goal: hegemony over the Persian Gulf and its natural resources. Those who undermine the super-goal are considered super-enemies, targeted by super-capabilities. Hence, Teheran would use its nuclear power/threat, first and foremost, to force the US and NATO out of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. It would then turn it against Iraq - its arch rival since the seventh century - and against Saudi Arabia, which is considered an apostate regime. All Gulf states are perceived by Iran as a key prize, required in order to control the flow and the price of oil and to bankroll its megalomaniac regional and global aspirations (e.g. leading Islam's drive to dominate the globe).

The Jewish state constitutes a non-Gulf basin target for Iran, not a primary target. Moreover, Israel is expected to retaliate in a traumatic manner, which would paralyze much of Iran's military and civilian infrastructure. Therefore, Iran would not sacrifice its super-goal (forcing the US out of the Gulf and subjugating the Gulf states) on the altar of a secondary-goal (obliterating the Jewish state).

For the US and Israel, the preferred option against Iran is preemption rather than retaliation. Recent precedents suggest that the two countries benefit from leveraging each other's unique experience, as well as from bold unilateral military action against rogue threats.

In September 2007, the IAF destroyed a Syrian-North Korean nuclear plant, extending the US's strategic arm. It provided the US with vital information on Russian air defense systems, which are also employed by Iran. It bolstered the US posture of deterrence and refuted the claim that US-Israel relations have been shaped by political expediency.

In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor, providing the US with a conventional option in 1991 and 2003, preventing a mega-billion dollar, mega-casualty nuclear war. In 1970, while the US was bogged down in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Israel forced the rollback of a pro-Soviet Syrian invasion of pro-US Jordan. It prevented a pro-Soviet "domino effect" into the Persian Gulf, which would have shattered US economy.

In 2009, Israel shares with the US its battle-tested experience in combating Palestinian and Hizbullah terrorism, which are the role model of anti-US Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. US GIs benefit from Israel's battle tactics against car bombs, improvised explosive devices and homicide bombing. An Israel-like ally in the Persian Gulf would have spared the need to dispatch US troops to Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Former Secretary of State and NATO commander Alexander Haig refers to the Jewish state as the largest cost-effective, combat-experienced US aircraft carrier that does not require US personnel, cannot be sunk and is located in a most critical region for US national security interests.

While the US has been Israel's indispensable ally, Israel's battle experience has been integrated into the US defense industry. For example, the F-16 includes more than 600 Israeli modifications, sparing the US a mega-billion dollar and a multi-year research and development budget. A litany of state-of-the-art US military systems have been upgraded in a similar manner, enhancing US national and homeland security and expanding US employment and exports.

Iran's nuclear threat is a symptom of endemic Middle East violent unpredictability and Muslim hostility toward Western democracies. It calls for an upgraded US-Israel win-win relationship, which requires a strong Israel as a national security producer. A weak Israel, pushed into a nine-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, pressured to concede the mountain ridges of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, relying on foreign troops and guarantees, would become a national security consumer. It would be a burden rather than an asset to the US in a bad neighborhood, which is crucial for vital US interests.

Iran would benefit from an ineffective Israel. However, the US would have to deploy to the eastern flank of the Mediterranean real aircraft carriers and tens of thousands of US servicemen, costing scores of billions of dollars annually, denied the benefits of Israel - the largest US aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US sailor.

 

 

Yoram Ettinger

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

 

 

An Arab-Made Misery.

 

by Nonie Darwish

International donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid for Gaza earlier this month. It has been very painful for me to witness over the past few years the deteriorating humanitarian situation in that narrow strip where I lived as a child in the 1950s.

The media tend to attribute Gaza's decline solely to Israeli military and economic actions against Hamas. But such a myopic analysis ignores the problem's root cause: 60 years of Arab policy aimed at cementing the Palestinian people's status as stateless refugees in order to use their suffering as a weapon against Israel.

As a child in Gaza in the 1950s, I experienced the early results of this policy. Egypt, which then controlled the territory, conducted guerrilla-style operations against Israel from Gaza. My father commanded these operations, carried out by Palestinian fedayeen, Arabic for "self-sacrifice." Back then, Gaza was already the front line of the Arab jihad against Israel. My father was assassinated by Israeli forces in 1956.

It was in those years that the Arab League started its Palestinian refugee policy. Arab countries implemented special laws designed to make it impossible to integrate the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab war against Israel. Even descendants of Palestinian refugees who are born in another Arab country and live there their entire lives can never gain that country's passport. Even if they marry a citizen of an Arab country, they cannot become citizens of their spouse's country. They must remain "Palestinian" even though they may have never set foot in the West Bank or Gaza.

This policy of forcing a Palestinian identity on these people for eternity and condemning them to a miserable life in a refugee camp was designed to perpetuate and exacerbate the Palestinian refugee crisis.

So was the Arab policy of overpopulating Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, whose main political support comes from Arab countries, encourages high birth rates by rewarding families with many children. Yasser Arafat said the Palestinian woman's womb was his best weapon.

Arab countries always push for classifying as many Palestinians as possible as "refugees." As a result, about one-third of the Palestinians in Gaza still live in refugee camps. For 60 years, Palestinians have been used and abused by Arab regimes and Palestinian terrorists in their fight against Israel.

Now it is Hamas, an Islamist terror organization supported by Iran, which is using and abusing Palestinians for this purpose. While Hamas leaders hid in the well-stocked bunkers and tunnels they prepared before they provoked Israel into attacking them, Palestinian civilians were exposed and caught in the deadly crossfire between Hamas and Israeli soldiers.

As a result of 60 years of this Arab policy, Gaza has become a prison camp for 1.5 million Palestinians. Both Israel and Egypt are fearful of terrorist infiltration from Gaza -- all the more so since Hamas took over -- and have always maintained tight controls over their borders with Gaza. The Palestinians continue to endure hardships because Gaza continues to serve as the launching pad for terror attacks against Israeli citizens. Those attacks come in the form of Hamas missiles that indiscriminately target Israeli kindergartens, homes and businesses.

And Hamas continued these attacks more than two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in the hope that this step would begin the process of building a Palestinian state, eventually leading to a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was no "cycle of violence" then, no justification for anything other than peace and prosperity. But instead, Hamas chose Islamic jihad. Gazans' and Israelis' hopes have been met with misery for Palestinians and missiles for Israelis.

Hamas, an Iran proxy, has become a danger not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians as well as to neighboring Arab states, who fear the spread of radical Islam could destabilize their countries.

Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them. If they really loved their Palestinian brethren, they'd pressure Hamas to stop firing missiles at Israel. In the longer term, the Arab world must end the Palestinians' refugee status and thereby their desire to harm Israel. It's time for the 22 Arab countries to open their borders and absorb the Palestinians of Gaza who wish to start a new life. It is time for the Arab world to truly help the Palestinians, not use them.

 

 

Mrs. Darwish, who grew up in Gaza City and Cairo, is the author, most recently, of "Cruel and Usual Punishment," (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

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

 

Why Palestinians Prefer Hamas.

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Americans and Europeans have poured billions of dollars on the Palestinian Authority in the past three years with the hope of "empowering the moderates and undermining the radicals" among the Palestinians.

The move came in the aftermath of Hamas's rise to power in the January 2006 parliamentary election and its subsequent takeover of the entire Gaza Strip a year later.

The hope in Washington and a number of European capitals was that the money invested in West Bank areas that are under the control of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority would dissuade the Palestinians from supporting Hamas.

But this week the international community was once again reminded that the policy of financing moderates with the goal of undermining radicals is no longer relevant in this part of the world.

The latest public opinion polls published in the West Bank and Gaza Strip show that Hamas's popularity has sharply increased despite the transfer of funds to Mahmoud Abbas's authority.

According to the polls, a majority of Palestinians prefer Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh over Abbas and would vote for him if elections were held these days in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

How come the billions of dollars haven't persuaded the Palestinians that Fatah is better than Hamas?

And how is it that a majority of Palestinians continue to support Hamas despite the miseries and disasters that the Islamic movement has brought on them?

There are several reasons why Hamas's popularity is on the rise.

The first reason is the anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media in particular and the Arab media in general, as well as in the mosques and educational institutions. This is in addition to the fiery rhetoric of Palestinian spokesmen - from both Fatah and Hamas.

The money coming mostly from the Americans and Europeans cannot have a moderating effect on the Palestinians when they are being told, on a daily basis, that Israel is evil, does not want peace and should not be allowed to exist in the Middle East.

The second reason why a majority of Palestinians continue to back Hamas can be attributed to the fact that they do not see Fatah as a viable alternative.

Fatah lost the 2006 election largely because of its leaders' financial corruption and incompetence. Since then, it has failed to implement real reforms or get rid of former Yasser Arafat cronies and icons of financial corruption and mismanagement.

Nor has Fatah drawn the conclusions from its expulsion from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. Fatah should have embarked on a soul-searching process to find out why its men ran away from the Gaza Strip in 2007, handing the area to Hamas. No one in Fatah has paid a price for this blunder.

Fatah leaders have been so busy squabbling with each other that they cannot even agree on a date to hold the internal elections that may pave the way for the emergence of a new leadership. The last time Fatah held such elections was 20 years ago.

Why should any Palestinian vote again for the same Fatah people whom he voted out three years ago if they have not changed or learned from their mistakes?

The third reason for Hamas's growing popularity is the Americans' public support for Fatah. The more the Americans and Israelis embrace Fatah, the more they discredit the faction in the eyes of many Palestinians.

As far as many Palestinians are concerned, the Americans are not honest brokers because, they argue, the US remains completely biased in favor of Israel.

US meddling in Palestinian affairs is the fourth reason behind Hamas's increased popularity. The biggest mistake that the Americans made after Hamas won the 2006 election was to go the Fatah people who lost the vote and give them money and weapons so that they could bring down the Hamas regime.

For nearly 18 months, Fatah, backed by the US and other European countries, tried to undermine the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. These attempts served as a boomerang, further boosting Hamas's standing. In the end, not only did Fatah fail, but it was kicked out of the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians continue to sympathize with Hamas because they see the movement as a victim of a US-led conspiracy to bring down a democratically-elected government. For these Palestinians, the last war in the Gaza Strip was launched in the context of this conspiracy and not in response to the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel.

Finally, the latest efforts by Fatah to form a joint government with Hamas are seen by many Palestinians as evidence that the Islamic movement is a legitimate and important player in the region. The way these Palestinians see it is that Fatah and its leaders are now begging Hamas to accept the idea of a unity government after having failed to get rid of the movement or undermine its power.

If anything, the results of the public opinion polls show that, more than 15 years after the beginning of the peace process between Israel and the PLO, there is still a majority of Palestinians who support Hamas and its radical ideology. The results also show that a majority of Palestinians are still not prepared to make far-reaching concessions for the sake of a peace treaty with Israel.

The notion that economic prosperity and "bribes" can buy moderation has again proved to be untrue. American and European money will never turn the Palestinians into Israel-lovers. The change has to come from the Palestinians themselves. Ironically, with the help of the American and European funding, the Palestinians have raised an entire generation on the glorification of suicide bombers and hatred for Israel and Western values.

 

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