The march of the Red-Green brigades.

 

by Caroline B. Glick

The Red-Green alliance is on the march.

On Wednesday, the leftist-controlled European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report. That report, it will be recalled, denies Israel's right to self-defense by alleging that Israel's actions to defend itself from illegal Palestinian aggression during the course of Operation Cast Lead were war crimes.

The resolution did more than accept the Goldstone report's baseless claims. It sought to silence those who are trying to make the Red portion of the Red-Green alliance pay a price for its abetment of jihad. The resolution, "expresses its concern about pressure placed on NGOs involved in the preparation of the Goldstone report and in follow-up investigations, and calls on authorities on all sides to refrain from any measures restricting the activities of these organizations."

This statement was inserted to defend the EU-supported Israeli organizations — overwhelmingly associated with the far-Left New Israel Fund — that took a lead role in providing Richard Goldstone and his associates with false allegations of illegal actions by IDF forces. Those organizations — and the New Israel Fund — have rightly been the subject of scrutiny in Israel after their role in compiling the Goldstone Report was revealed in January by the Israeli student organization Im Tirzu.

Israel is not the only target of the Red-Green alliance. Its operations span the globe. Sometimes, as in the case of the Goldstone report, the Left leads the charge. Sometimes, as with the case of the Hamas-led missile offensive against Israel that preceded Cast Lead, the jihadists move first. In general, jihadists are motivated to attack non-Muslims by their religious belief that Islam must dominate the world. And in general, the Left's justification of jihadist aggression stems from its neo-Marxist faith that the liberal nation-state is the root of all evil. Whether the Left recognizes that if successful, its collusion with jihadists will lead to the destruction of human freedom is subject to debate. But whether or not the Left understands the consequences of its actions, they have played a key role in abetting this goal.

In Nigeria on Sunday night, the jihadists led the charge. With the apparent collaboration of the Muslim-dominated Nigerian army, Muslim gangs entered three predominantly Christian villages around the city of Jos and killed innocent civilians, including children with machetes, axes, and daggers.

According to eyewitness reports, some victims were scalped and many were raped. Most had their hands and feet chopped off. Infants and children were among the butchered.

The massacre was premeditated. According to government spokesmen, Muslim residents were tipped off two days prior to the attack. So too, to ensure their victims were Christians, the jihadists addressed them in Fulani, the local language spoken by Muslims. If the victims responded in Fulani they were saved. Otherwise they were hacked to death. Sunday's massacre could have been expected to lead the news worldwide. But it didn't. Indeed, it was barely noted.

That scant coverage the barbarous events received was itself plagued by obscurity and vagueness. Commentators and reporters alike hid the identities of the aggressors and the victims, characterizing the jihadist butchery as "sectarian violence." They also sought to obfuscate its significance claiming that the Muslim gangs decapitated infants in response to tribal property disputes.

Jessica Olien at the Atlantic, not only made these claims, but brushed off the dimensions of the atrocity writing, "It's worth noting that police have confirmed only 109 dead."

After minimizing the death toll, Olien turned her literary daggers on the victims claiming that they had it coming. As she put it, "It's hard not to compare the weekend's attack with one in January in which 150 people from the same Muslim community responsible for Sunday's attack were brutally killed. The attack on March 7th drew considerably more international attention the previous incident."

Ah, so unfair. The over-reported atrocity unfairly portrays murdered Christians as victims. But Olien knows better. The Muslims were simply retaliating for the attacks they suffered. Apparently Olien would kill babies too if she were in their shoes.

Sadly for Olien and her erudite justification of barbarism, it is far from clear that the victims of January's violence were Muslims. Writing in the London Times on Thursday, British Baroness Caroline Cox claimed that the primary victims of January's slaughter were Christians, not Muslims.

According to Cox, eyewitnesses to the events in January "indicated that the killings began when Muslim youths attacked Christians on a Sunday morning on their way to church. Muslims were also killed as those under attack began to fight back."

Cox continued that Sunday's attack followed a now familiar pattern. Attacks "are initiated by well-armed Muslim extremists, chanting militant slogans, attacking and killing Christian and other non-Muslim citizens and destroying homes and places of worship."

"In the early stages of the attack, the Muslim militants take corpses to mosques, where they are photographed and released to the media, creating the impression that these are Muslim victims."

The international media are only too willing to accept these false accusations of Muslim victimization at the hands of their actual victims at face value. And so are their leftist comrades in international governing circles.

In the wake of Sunday's massacre, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, both issued statements making no distinction whatsoever between the victims and the aggressors. Both called for "both sides" to act with "restraint."

In the Left's apparent willingness to hide the nature of January's attacks and then underplay Sunday's massacre, we have an example of Leftist facilitation of jihadist violence. In Nigeria of course, the jihadists are the main actors and the Left are merely their help-mates.

In Israel the roles are generally reversed. Here it is the Left that leads the jihadists by the hand. Take the Left's campaign against Jewish property rights in Jerusalem. In the Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon Hatzaddik neighborhood in Jerusalem, buildings owned by Jews were seized by Jordan in 1948 after the Jordanian conquest of the city. For the past decade Jewish property owners have been working through the courts to assert their rights to their buildings and remove the Arab squatters who took them over.

Court after court upheld their rights to their property. And, indeed, more than a decade ago, the squatters reached a settlement in which they acknowledged the owners' property rights and the owners agreed to let the squatters stay so long as they paid rent. But when the squatters stopped paying rent, the Left pushed them to refuse to vacate the premises and try to relitigate the old settlement. Finally, the case made it to the Supreme Court which also recognized the rights of the Jewish owners and ordered the police to enforce their ruling and remove the illegal squatters.

The police removed the squatters last month and within hours, Jewish residents moved in, in accordance with an agreement with the buildings' lawful owners. Since they moved in, the Jews have been under constant attack from their Arab neighbors. They have been beaten and threatened with murder.

In the meantime, the Left has turned the case of the illegal Arab squatters into a cause celebre. Last week, thousands of leftists staged an anti-Semitic demonstration outside the compound demanding that the Jews be removed from their homes. The argument, of course, is that allowing Jews to exercise their legal property rights by peacefully residing in a predominantly Arab neighborhood is an unacceptable "provocation." The Arab squatters attempting to steal the property, on the other hand, are "victims."

Rather than characterize the protestors as anti-Semites who are stoking violence against innocent Jews for their crime of lawfully living where they choose, the local and international media have described the demonstrators as "peace activists," and "human rights activists." For turning reality on its head and championing the cause of jihadists against the human rights of their victims, these leftist demonstrators are lionized by their comrades in the media and in the chanceries of the Western world. The State Department said it was "unacceptable," that Jews moved into their homes.

So too, the UN raced to accept the Left's claim that human rights demand the denial of Jews' property rights due to their ethnicity. Its peace process boss Richard Miron said, "I deeply deplore the totally unacceptable actions by Israel in which Israeli security forces evicted Palestinian refugee families… to allow settlers to take possession of their properties."

It is a depressing commentary on our times that spokesmen of democracies and supposed champions of human rights are willing to state publicly that granting Jews the equal protection of the law is an unacceptable imposition on their bigoted neighbors. But the notion that Jews have an equal right to buy and own property in areas of Jerusalem from which they were illegally ethnically cleansed by the Jordanians in 1948 is now a great cause of the Left. And one can only assume that the jihadists will soon make their move — to the gratification of their leftist comrades — against the innocent Jews of Jerusalem.

This brings us to the events surrounding US Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to Israel this week. On the first day of his visit, as a matter of routine governance, the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee approved plans to build 1,600 housing units in Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood. Ramat Shlomo is a neighborhood with over 20,000 residents located between the even more populous Ramot and Sanhedriya neighborhoods. From an Israeli perspective, it is just as uncontroversial as Yad Eliyahu in Tel Aviv or Hadar in Haifa.

But not from a Red perspective. Just moments after the decision was announced, the Left used it as proof of Israeli venality. For approving the construction of new homes in its capital, the government was condemned again and again. The Palestinians and the Arab League jumped on the bandwagon. And now, owing to the Left's anti-Israel onslaught, anyone murdered in Jerusalem — or anywhere else for that matter — will be dismissed as a product of fully justified Muslim anger.

Observing the Leftist charge, led in this case by the frothing-at-the-mouth Israeli media, Biden moved swiftly. The man who came to Israel on a charm offensive could no longer hide the truth about where the Obama administration's true sympathies lay. After declaring his undying love and fidelity to Israel just hours before, Biden switched gears and condemned Israel for "undermining," prospects for peace.

Wednesday morning as he referred to his condemnation of Israel's decision to build homes in its capital, Biden said, "Sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth." And at least in this case, he is correct.

And so, in the spirit of that sentiment, it must be said: When those who purport to support peace and human rights join forces with the Red-Green alliance what they are actually supporting is bigotry, violence, murder and ultimately, the destruction of human freedom. Whether the Left recognizes the significance of its actions or not, it is time that it be held as accountable for its defense of jihad as the jihadists are for carrying it out.

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

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

 

Getting Israel Right.

 

As the annual hate-circus known as "Israel Apartheid Week" pitches its tent again, it is incumbent on us once more to reconsider what Israel actually is.

by David Solway

Any open-minded person who has either visited Israel, kept apace of the documentary evidence, or honestly examined the tainted "bona fides" of Israel's accusers would realize that Israel has been set up as the target for what is nothing less than an illegitimate campaign of delegitimation. Orwell's Hate Week has escaped the boundaries of the novel, whose "Enemy of the People" is someone with the surname — what else? — Goldstein. (Oddly, the enemy of the Jewish people is someone with the surname Goldstone.) And as Orwell writes about the Two Minutes Hate period instituted by the Party, "Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room."

Watch the YouTube video of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren addressing a group of students at UC Irvine for real-world confirmation.

A triple alliance comprising leftist ideology, Islamic anti-Semitism, and vast commercial interests has coalesced into an aggressive bloc of anti-Zionist calumniators and malevolent defamers of the one genuine democracy in the Middle East. The international left sees Israel as a colonial outpost of the detested United States and a resolute defender of the national patriotic spirit which the left believes is obsolete. Islam continues to prosecute its 1400-year war against the Jews. And powerful economic interests are concerned with opening export markets and preserving and expanding their ties with the oil-rich Muslim states — it truly is all about oil: "Arab oil is thicker than Jewish blood," Robin Shepherd pointedly writes in his important new book, A State Beyond the Pale.

The favored strategy to reduce Israel to a pariah state and thrust it beyond the international pale operates via what Hitler and Goebbels called "the big lie," manifest fictions and canards reiterated often enough to lodge in the public mind as indisputable verities. In Goebbels' words, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." The promulgation of sophistries is quite extraordinary. As in the 1930s, the "big lie" has become a palpable and ubiquitous public institution. "Latter-day anti-Semitism," as Shepherd puts it, is "a new organizing force in world politics."

Thus Israel is repeatedly condemned as an apartheid state when the truth of the matter is that Israel is a diverse, multicultural country whose Arab citizens are equal before the law, have the vote and elect representatives to the Knesset, enjoy freedom of worship, and count disproportionately large numbers in Israeli universities. Even lefty columnist Larry Derfner, no friend to Zionism, acknowledges that "another brightly-lit sign that Israeli Arabs aren't living under anything like apartheid is their wall-to-wall opposition to becoming citizens of a Palestinian state." Check! The apartheid slander would be accurate, ironically, were it levied against Muslim nations where Jews and Christians are systematically persecuted.

The situation for Jews and Israel is plainly more precarious in Europe than it is here. One gets the distinct impression that significant elements in the European Union have already arrived at a covert decision to sacrifice Israel on the composite altar of political ideology and economic profit, having, as Bat Ye'or has meticulously recorded, established a de facto entente with the Islamic world. They are quite ready to let Israel go, frequently vote with the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the United Nations, fund adversarial NGOs, and impeach Israeli officials as war criminals. (Although, to give them their due, they might shed a few crocodile tears if Iran carried out its threat to obliterate Israel.)

One detects similar worrying signs in the behavior of the current American administration which came down hard on Israel, forcing a building freeze in long-standing Israeli communities and demanding Israeli concessions to a Palestinian negotiating team that was (and is) not prepared to reciprocate. And probably a healthy, or rather, unhealthy, majority of many Western populations — certainly the case in Europe — would have little objection to the disappearance of the Jewish state, oblivious of the extent to which they are Israel's beneficiaries.

This last statement might appear counter-intuitive but a closer look at this small, beleaguered, and heroic nation will provide ample justification for it. Readers who are familiar with either my Hear, O Israel!, George Gilder's The Israel Test, or Dan Senor and Saul Singer's Start-Up Nation (with its cheeky, implicit, and very-Jewish pun on "upstart nation") are no doubt already in the know. Otherwise, what follows are a few facts they should be aware of.

The Israeli contribution to the modern, high-tech world is second only to that of the United States and closing rapidly. Its major exports derive from the fields of advanced cybernetics, desalination projects, hydrology, energy technology, productive agricultural methods, and life-saving medical technology, in all of which it is among the world's recognized leaders.

Windows XP and Microsoft Office were developed in Israel. Virus protection software and firewalls, cell phones, voice mail, instant messaging devices, Intel microchips, and Pentium microprocessors were also developed in Israel. Google runs on Israeli search algorithms and Google's new super-search algorithm, Orion, launched on March 24, 2009, was developed by an Israeli doctoral student, Ori Allon. One of Israel's newest technological breakthroughs involves the mobile Internet, where it is once again a global forerunner. The multi-jacketed Modu cell phone, which has made the Guinness World Records, has brought user functionality to a new level, unmatched anywhere in the world. The first wireless LAN (Local Area Network) was developed in Israel. Indeed, Israel is fast becoming the new Silicon Valley.

It doesn't stop there. Whether it is the Israeli pharmaceutical company, Teva, the world's foremost supplier of antibiotic medicines, including its "flagship drug" Copaxone treating multiple Sclerosis; or the Weizmann Institute's bioinformatics computer project that will enable Eastern Europe and Asia to access the online molecular biology resource network, which even UNESCO has singled out for praise; or Tel Aviv University's research into microRNA molecules that regulate gene expression and protein production, promising a cure for deafness, whether age-related or genetic; or the recently developed biomarker, called placental protein 13 (PP13), a pre-diagnostic for various severe fetal diseases; or the world's tiniest medical video camera developed by two Israeli companies, Medigus and Tower Semiconductor, to be used for disposable endoscopes; or the Arava Power Company, one of the most advanced solar enterprises in the world, working towards the preparation of large-scale megawatt fields, an exportable technology; or Israel's Epcon, a world pioneer in wind-turbine technology; or Ormat Technologies opening up the field of geothermal energy, operating eleven plants in five countries, and presently constructing a 340-megawatt geothermal power project in Indonesia; or the world's first hybrid solarized gas turbine power station which runs on solar energy by day and biofuel by night, in process of assembly by the AORA company; or the fact that Israel is now working toward the development of an environment-friendly electric car network for which Israel Corp, a pace-setter in "green electricity," will supply the power, a venture called Project Better Place; or Israel's state-of-the-art desalination, drip-irrigation and water technology programs that benefit much of the world, including its Arab neighbor, Jordan — considering all these and more, a boycott against Israel would be something of a catastrophe for many countries. And I am only skimming the surface.

Meanwhile, the abominations proliferate: Israel Apartheid Weeks, boycott movements, lopsided UN resolutions, Walts and Mearsheimers galore, public anti-Israel demonstrations, the machinations of the Human Rights industry, Middle East departments manured with Arab money, current American diplomacy, mini-pogroms throughout western Europe, Holocaust memorial and cemetery desecrations, synagogue arsons, blood libels, and shrill denunciations of Israeli efforts at self-defense. Those who denigrate Israel — and that includes many diasporite Jews and many leftist, post-Zionist, revisionist Israelis — are living in a state of false consciousness or outright bigotry. Much that they take for granted in their advanced lifestyles would disappear along with Israel if they had their way. But bad faith never troubled a true believer.

 

 

David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. He is the author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity, and is currently working on a sequel, Living in the Valley of Shmoon.

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

 

Peace Plans and Palestinian Politics.

 

by Rick Richman

Writing in the widely circulated Israeli newspaper Yisrael Hayom (“Israel Today”), Israeli journalist Dan Margalit reviews the prospects for the new peace process. The article is in Hebrew, but is summarized by the Israel Foreign Ministry:

The author recalls that in 2000, at Camp David, “Ehud Barak agreed to discuss the division of Jerusalem and the Palestinians fled the negotiations,” and adds that “In 2009, Ehud Olmert even offered to soften on the principle against ‘the right of return’ and again they fled.” The paper speculates that “In the current round, Israel is in a more complex position. Benjamin Netanyahu cannot offer Abu Mazen what came up in Ehud Olmert’s plan and if Ramallah rejected the previous move, what will it accept now?” The author notes that the Palestinians will, apparently, proffer a plan of their own in the hope that an Israeli rejection will draw the Obama administration to their side.

Presenting a plan they know Israel will not accept — to generate a condemnation of Israel for not accepting it – would be, in the weird world of the peace process, a step forward: at least the Palestinians would be proffering a plan. The last three times Israel offered the Palestinians a state – at Camp David, in the Clinton Parameters, and in the Olmert offer – the Palestinians rejected the offer without making a counterproposal.

If the process plays out as Margalit predicts, here is one way to determine the seriousness of the Palestinians’ plan: will they release it to their public before July 17? July 17 is the date set for local elections in the West Bank – coincidentally (or maybe not) a week after the four-month period the Palestinians have set for the new indirect talks. In an analysis for Ynet News, Alex Fishman discusses how that election relates to the peace process:

Abbas and Fayyad are aspiring to win at least 50% of the vote this time around. With such support, they would be able to move on to negotiations with Israel with the legitimacy of the Palestinian public, and not only with the backwind provided by moderate members of the Arab League. This would be a real source of power, not a bogus one. Hamas has already announced that it will not take part in the elections. The PA will go to elections even without it.

It will be a real source of power, however, and not a bogus one, only if the Palestinian public knows what it is voting for — and only if the plan, itself, addresses the criteria set forth in the 2004 Bush letter to Israel: a Jewish state with defensible borders encompassing the major Jewish population centers in the West Bank (which are necessary for such borders). But the chances of Abbas and Fayyad proposing such a plan in the indirect talks, or discussing it with the Palestinian public before an election, are slight. In Fishman’s words:

[T]he PA cannot show up at the July 17 elections with a record of concessions on the national front. The opposite is true. It has a clear interest in creating a crisis in order to prompt a warm public embrace and reach the elections with an image of national strength, clear of any indication of “collaboration.”

After the death of Yasser Arafat, it was thought that Palestinian democracy would lead to peace. But the 2006 election resulted in a victory for Hamas; the PA president’s term expired more than a year ago with no new presidential election in sight; PA leaders are afraid to make concessions in the peace process lest they lose even uncontested local elections. The tragedy of Palestinian politics is that the Palestinian electorate will not vote for anyone willing to make the concessions necessary to get them a state — in part because they lack leaders who will tell their public that painful compromises are necessary to achieve one.

 

Rick Richman

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

 

Joe's Israeli adventure.

 

by Wesley Pruden

Good old Joe. The vice president is off to Israel to play kissy-face with hosts who are in no mood to pucker up. And for good reason: There's abundant evidence that President Obama is no friend of the Jewish state, and the Israelis must decide whether to believe Joe Biden or their own eyes and ears.

This White House puts great store in its ability to make millions believe nine impossible things before breakfast, but the Israelis are a tougher audience than any Mr. Obama faces at home. When your survival is at stake, it's difficult take words, no matter how thick the butter on them, as the equal of action. "What you do speaks so loud," as the saying goes, "I can't hear what you say."

The Palestinians are trying to make hay, with the help of compliant Western media, of the announcement that the Israelis have approved construction of 112 new apartments in "an ultra-orthodox" settlement on the West Bank, and the Palestinian complaint that this violates an Israeli undertaking to restrain further development of settlements will complicate the veep's mission, but not by much. The Palestinians will always find a reason to find a fly on the pastrami, and the purpose of the Biden visit is to warn, harshly, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to be nice about the West doing nothing about Iran.

Because Mr. Obama and his administration can't do anything to punish an enemy, they'll try to punish a friend by extracting a promise from Israel to learn to live with the neighborhood nuclear outlaw. Nobody at the White House puts it quite that way. Not yet. What Mr. Obama wants now is Israel's connivance in "toughening" sanctions against Iran and its accelerating nuclear program but exempting China and maybe Brazil (and eventually anyone else) from obeying the sanctions. This is such a transparent farce that only a puffed-up windbag like good old Joe would undertake such a mission to Jerusalem.

Good old Joe follows Sen. John Kerry to Israel - George Mitchell, the special "peace" envoy already lives there — with Mr. Obama's message. Before John Kerry, there was Adm. Michael Mullen, the emotional chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I am here, and other people were here, and Vice President Biden is coming shortly," the senator, the much-decorated (some of it in graffiti) hero of the Vietnam War, said on his visit. "We want to make sure we are all on the same page and that we are all clear about Iran." Mr. Netanyahu's government sees only too clearly what the White House offensive is all about.

"In light of the gaping disparity between the Obama administration's policies and those of the Israeli government," Caroline Glick, an Israeli analyst, writes in JWR, "the apparent goal of the Biden [visit] is to shore up the position of the Israeli left as an alternative to [Mr.] Netanyahu … the picture emerging from all of the senior U.S. officials' meetings with [Mr.] Netanyahu is that Israel's leader still feels comfortable defying them. Presumably they now believe that the only way to force him to toe their line is by making him believe that the price of defiance will be his premiership."

This worked before. A full decade ago, Bill Clinton, posing as the best friend the Jews ever had — feeling their pain, pointing with pride to his undying love for Israel and viewing with alarm the occasional venal sins of the Palestinians — imposed some of the most hostile policies the United State ever foisted on Israel. This so effectively undermined Mr. Netanyahu that he was booted from office.

But that was then, and the Israeli public, like the government, has scant appetite for saccharine this time. It's just as well. Mr. Obama reserves his sweet talk for Arab provocateurs; he made his apology tour of the Muslim world early in his presidency but still can't find time to visit America's only reliably democratic ally in the Middle East. Good old Joe is the best messenger the president can find to take the bitter medicine to Jerusalem. He's regarded, at least by himself, as the best friend Israel has at the White House. Some friend. As a senator, he voted against sanctions against Iran, said he didn't see anything necessarily wrong with Iranian nuclear ambitions and grumbled that George W. Bush should be impeached if he sent Americans to bomb the Iranian nuclear plants. He'll blow some kisses at Israel this week, but none of them will be wet. Good old Joe will only be going through the motions of a duty dance.

 

Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

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

 

The Middle East Peace Scam.

 

by  Daniel Greenfield

"I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem"

Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, March 09, 2010

 

For nearly twenty years the great sham of the Middle East Peace Process has dragged on. And this despicable scam has consisted of only one policy, only one platform and only one plan. Pressuring Israel for more concessions.

Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace. When Arafat and his gang of terrorists made a concession, it was to demand 5 percent less of Israel in the current phase of negotiations. When Israel made a concession, it was to turn over another 10 percent of land to its worst enemies in this phase of negotiations... in exchange for them putting off their demands for that 5 percent into the next phase of the negotiations. And this sick charade in which Israel gave and the terrorists took was the peace process.

While this great surrender process was going on, outside the bombs went on exploding, tearing apart buses, restaurants, malls and families-- the politicians and diplomats in charge excused the terrorists and damned Israel if it so much as lifted a finger to defend itself, or erected a single checkpoint to catch at least one of the terrorists on the way to kill a dozen people in Jerusalem.

And now finally the Vice President of the United States arrives in Israel to reaffirm his absolute commitment to Israel's security, a commitment he and just about every other politician who let that phrase trip lightly off their lips, honors by pressing Israel to surrender again the terrorists. He arrives and condemns the greatest impediment to peace. Jewish families living in the capital of their own nation.

Biden did not take the time to condemn Abbas for his failure to hold elections, for his attendance at a funeral for the terrorists in his own militia who murdered an Israeli Rabbi, for his violation of the Gaza Jericho agreement or for his recent threats of a Holy War against Israel. Not even the Palestinian Authority naming a municipal square two days ago after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the Coastal Road Massacre bus hijackers, resulted in any statements of condemnation. Let us for a moment balance the horrifying scene of Jews moving into new apartments in Jerusalem, vs the Coastal Road Massacre in which Fatah terrorists murdered Gail Rubin, an American nature photographer, hijacked a bus, and murdered 38 passengers, 13 of them only children.

But the murder of Israelis never "undermines the trust we need right now". Only Jews living in East Jerusalem can do that. Not Israelis, Jews, for if Arab citizens of Israel were moving into new buildings in East Jerusalem, Biden and the media would not be condemning Israel for it. It is precisely Jews that are the problem for the Obama Administration and its Media-Government Complex. Just as they were a problem for Hitler and Stalin. Just as they have always been a problem for would be tyrants.

There are of course no worries about whether Israel will trust Abbas and his Fatah gang. As if anybody in their right mind would, after nearly two decades of terrorism that followed the ballyhooed signing of the Peace Accords and the famous handshake overseen by a smiling Clinton. After violating nearly every agreement he ever signed with Israel, Arafat unleashed a wave of terror, while pocketing a fortune in foreign aid. And after every bombing, the same despicable conglomeration of diplomats and politicians and diplopols that form the "World Community" pointed Israel to the negotiating table. Their only solution, then as now, was more concessions. By Israel to the terrorists-- of course.

And so here we are in the splendid year 2010, 5770 in the Hebrew calendar, and 1431 in the Muslim calendar. In a few months it will be 43 years since the Liberation of Jerusalem. Since Jews returned to the Old City they were ethnically cleansed from by Muslim soldiers. And today the Hurva synagogue, twice destroyed by Muslims, has been completely reconstructed. In 1948 the Jordanian command expelled the Jews from East Jerusalem and destroyed the Hurva synagogue, vowing that the Jews would never return. And today in the year 2010, the Vice President of the United States comes on a mission to carry on their work. That of the dynamiters and the bombers and the expellers.

This is where nearly two decades of negotiations have brought us. In the early nineties, Israel was discussing the status of certain West Bank towns. Today Israel is being warned against allowing Jews to live in Jerusalem. Tomorrow... I would dearly like to say that the possibilities are endless, but there are only so many parts of Israel where Jews still live, and no doubt the eager ethnic cleansers in the Obama Administration and the EU have plans for them too.

And so the Middle East Peace Scam marches on. There is a great deal of preparation for intense rounds of negotiations at which it will be determined what else Israel must give for there to be no peace. East Jerusalem will naturally end up on the table soon enough. Meanwhile the entire farce has less legal basis than a kangaroo court and all the consistency of a drunken liar on the witness stand.

Today there are three Palestinian states. One in Jordan, divided to create an Arab State in the bygone days of the Palestine Mandate. A second state in Gaza, which is ruled over by Hamas as part of the spoils from their war with Fatah. A third state in the West Bank ruled over by Abbas and Fatah, even though his term ended and there have been no new elections. Out of this hodgepodge, Israel is expected to negotiate even though Hamas refuses to negotiate any permanent peace agreement, and Fatah has no legal authority to represent anyone.

You will not of course here about any of this in the media, which is still busy being outraged by the thought of Jews living in Jerusalem. When they're not being outraged by the thought of Israel treating Rachel's Tomb as a heritage site. After all the Prime Minister of Turkey has declared that Rachel's Tomb is not Jewish, but Islamic. Just as all of Israel is Islamic. Just as all of the world is Islamic. But the world isn't paying attention. The world is certain that the rage and violence of a billion Muslims can be calmed with some Jewish land and Jewish blood. Just as the rage and violence of Nazism could be calmed with some Czech land and blood.

But why listen to me? Listen instead to the soothing words of Ahmad Bahar, the Speaker of the Palestinian Authority Parliament.

"Make us victorious over the infidel people… Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies… Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don't leave even one."

Ah, but you say it's about "the occupation". And there will be peace when the terrorists have all the land they feel they're entitled to. But... no.

"Our enmity with the Jews is a matter of faith, more than an enmity owing to occupation and the land."

Oh yes, there will be peace when they have all the land that they feel Muslims are entitled to. And this is the scope of their territorial demands.

 

"Soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, like Constantinople was conquered, according to the prophecy of our prophet Muhammad. Their capital will be the first post of the Islamic conquests that will spread all over Europe then it will turn to the two Americas and even to Eastern Europe."

 

 But don't worry. Joseph Robinette Biden is deeply committed to fighting against Jewish families living in Jerusalem. And the Middle East Peace Scam marches on.

 

 

Daniel Greenfield

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

 

The Saudi Foreign Minister Explains the New Middle East.

by Barry Rubin

Here's today's evidence that we are now living in Middle East 2.0 instead of the old version.

First, a definition:

Middle East 1.0: Characterized by Arab nationalist domination, competition among the strongerArab states to lead the region and by the weaker ones trying to survive those campaigns. Arab-Israeli conflict is a real enterprise. Roughly 1952-2000 or so. International aspect: Cold War competition between the United States and USSR and, near the end, US as sole superpower.

Middle East 2.0: Characterized by a battle between Arab nationalist regimes and revolutionary Islamists. An Iran-led bloc (Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, Iraqi insurgents) seeking regional hegemony. Israel and most Arab states have parallel interests; Arab states (except for Syria) put low priority on conflict. International aspect: Will the West support the moderates or appease the radicals.

The latest occasion is an interview of Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Of course, there are the usual rhetorical flourishes about Israel but the passion and focus is clearly on Iran and various Islamist terrorists. ("There is nothing wrong with keeping the terrorists on the run," says the prince.)

This is the same man who told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that sanctions would be too slow in stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons and the United States better do something quick. Here he says he prefers a resolution through the UN but it isn't clear what that means.

It's funny that in the West the region is being discussed, written about, and taught as if we were back in the 1970s. There is a particular obsession with the idea that everything is about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But if the Saudis talk like this publicly (you can imagine what they say privately) it's a sign of how changed everything is in Middle East 2.0's world.

Read this carefully. The prince says:

"There are no troops arrayed on the border of Israel waiting for the moment to say, 'Attack Israel. Nobody is going to fight them and threaten their peace. But they didn't accept that. So it makes one wonder, what does Israel want?"


Now you can take this as propaganda, and of course Israel does have a lot to worry about: Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, Arab countries being overthrown by Islamist warmongers, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and agreeing to a Palestinian state that then begins phase two of an effort to destroy Israel. It also needs agreement that any peace treaty permanently end the conflict, that Palestinian refugee be resettled in Palestine, that a Palestinian state is really going to block cross-border raids, and that foeign armies (notably those of Iran and Syria) aren't going to enter the West Bank.

Even Dowd, not known as being sympathetic to Israel, understand some of this  and makes the remarkable statement: "If anyone deserves to be paranoid, of course, it's Israel. But Israel can't be paranoid because paranoia is the mistaken perception that people are out to get you."

But Faisal isn't just trying to score points. He is trying to get across the point that Saudi Arabia's government doesn't want a war with Israel and prefer the conflict to go away. It can't and won't make a formal peace but the Saudis certainly don't think the way they did decades ago.

And when Faisal talks about "no troops arrayed on the border....Nobody is going to fight them and threaten their peace," how does that look if one subtitutes Saudi Arabia for Israel? The Saudis and other Gulf Arab states (along with Lebanon and Iraq) are now on the front line and under threat more than Israel is right now. Faisal know it and so should we all.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal

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

 

Facing Iran: Lessons Learned Since Iraq's 1991 Missile Attack on Israel.

 

by  Moshe Arens 
 

• The Iranians learned a great deal from the destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor by the Israel Air Force in 1981. The Osirak reactor was the key element in the Iraqi nuclear program: a single target which, when it was destroyed, set that program back very substantially. The Iranians saw this and they dispersed their nuclear program. Much of it is deep underground. There is no single target which, if destroyed, would substantially set back the Iranian nuclear program
• When I came to Washington as Israel's ambassador in 1982, the atmosphere was one of hostility and there was talk of imposing sanctions against Israel as a reaction to its unilateral action against the Osirak reactor. Yet after a few years the view in Washington changed completely. It is difficult to envision the Americans undertaking Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf in 1991 if the Iraqi nuclear program had continued beyond 1981 and had not been so seriously set back by the Israeli action.
• Some say that while the missiles Israel faces are relatively cheap weapons, we are launching a very expensive missile interceptor system against it, which does not seem very wise at first sight. However, the damage that might be caused by the incoming missile may far exceed the cost of the anti-missile system.
• Israel's missile interceptor system poses a dilemma to anybody who decides to launch missiles against Israel, especially a missile that has a nuclear warhead. The dilemma is that the missile may very well be intercepted and thus expose the launching of a nuclear missile, even if it didn't reach its target, which could bring about the response that could be expected for committing this deed.
• At the start of the Gulf War, the Americans said they expected that within 48 hours the U.S. Air Force would eliminate the missile launch capability of the Iraqis. If they did not succeed, Israel would be free to take whatever action it considered appropriate. Although there was intensive aerial activity directed at hitting the Scud launchers, not a single Scud launcher was hit or immobilized during the Gulf War. Furthermore, the U.S.-made Patriot missiles in Israel did not succeed in intercepting a single Scud missile.

 

Today, in 2010, in the United States and the Western world there is a very real and acute awareness of the danger that Iranian nuclear activity - which is clearly designed to achieve a nuclear military capability - poses to the world, not just to Israel. 

Some people like to think that Israel has nothing to worry about because of the sizable Muslim population in the area and that the Iranians would not dare to cause massive destruction in an area where many Muslims might get injured or killed. However, as Prof. Bernard Lewis has said on a number of occasions, this kind of immunity is imaginary because radical Muslims are convinced that God knows how to tell the difference between Jews and Muslims.

What Iran Learned from the Israeli Attack on the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor

The Iranians learned a great deal from the destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor by the Israel Air Force in 1981, which set back Saddam Hussein's nuclear project very significantly. At the time of the Gulf War nine years later, Israel estimated that the Iraqis really did not have any nuclear capability, that the destruction of the Osirak reactor set them back so far that they did not have the capability to endanger Israel with nuclear weapons. The Osirak reactor was the key element in the Iraqi nuclear program: a single target which, when it was destroyed, set that program back very substantially. 

The Iranians saw this and they dispersed their nuclear program. There is no single element or target which, if destroyed, would substantially set back the Iranian nuclear program. Much of it is deep underground. So the Iranians have done their best to obtain immunity from the possibility of an aerial attack of the kind that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, making any military move, regardless of who might consider taking it, substantially more difficult. 
 

Changing U.S. Attitudes toward the Osirak Attack 

I came to Washington as Israel's ambassador in 1982, a little over a year after the destruction of the Osirak reactor. The atmosphere in Washington at the time was one of hostility, anger, even antagonism - and this was the Reagan administration, an administration correctly considered as very friendly towards Israel. The administration thought Israel's action was ill-conceived, a mistake that could only cause problems rather than solve them. When I arrived in Washington there was talk of actually imposing sanctions against Israel as a reaction to this unilateral action by Israel against the Osirak reactor. 

After a few years the view in Washington on that particular action had changed completely. It is difficult to envision the Americans undertaking Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf in 1991 if the Iraqi nuclear reactor had still existed, if the Iraqi nuclear program had continued beyond 1981, and if that program had not been so seriously set back by the Israeli action. 

General David Ivri, who was the commander of the Israel Air Force at the time of the Osirak operation, had a photograph of the destroyed reactor in his office, given to him by Dick Cheney, the American secretary of defense during the Gulf War, with his compliments. This was an indication of the appreciation that today is felt by most, if not all, about the very important, positive aspects of that particular operation. People's views changed with time, and what started out with feelings of antagonism and even hostility changed to strong appreciation for what was done for the benefit of everybody, certainly for the benefit of the Western world and, of course, Israel.

Israel's Experience Under Long-Range Missile Attack

During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel experienced a major missile attack from a distant Muslim country, facing Soviet-made Scud missiles from Iraq. Since we did not believe that the Iraqis had a nuclear capability in 1991, we were not concerned about being hit by nuclear weapons. However, we knew they had conventional explosive warheads, and our estimate was that they also had chemical warheads. 

The first question that arose was whether the Iraqis could be deterred from launching these missiles against Israel. I met with Egyptian President Mubarak shortly before the Gulf War, who was of the opinion that Iraq would not dare fire these missiles against Israel. It turned out that he was wrong, and so were many people who thought that Israel could deter Saddam Hussein from firing his missiles against Israel. 

Saddam Hussein fired thirty-nine missiles against Israel during the Gulf War. Fortunately, only six landed in populated areas, one of them not far from my house. There was considerable property damage but only one civilian was killed. Most of Israel's population went around with gas masks and took shelter in sealed rooms or underground shelters during those five weeks, as every day or so we found ourselves under fire from these missiles. 

The Iraqis did not use chemical warheads during the Gulf War, and we can only assume - since they had chemical warheads at the time - that they were deterred from doing so by what they thought might be the Israeli response or, more probably, by what the American response might be. Iraq knew there was very close coordination and collaboration between the United States and Israel, and there might be an American response that they might not welcome. 

As the countdown began for the Gulf War, for the American invasion of Kuwait and Iraq, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said quite openly that the Iraqis were going to fire their Scud missiles against Israel. He told Secretary of State Jim Baker in Geneva shortly before the U.S. military operation: "If we are attacked, we will fire missiles against Israel." 

The precautions Israel took - the preparation of sealed rooms, the distribution of gas masks - were very unpleasant. During the war little Israeli children were walking around with little brown boxes at their sides that contained the gas mask kit they were prepared to put on their faces the minute the alarm was sounded. Whenever an alarm was sounded - which happened almost every day during the war - people ran for shelters, ran for sealed rooms, and put on their gas masks. 

Those Scud missiles were a somewhat upgraded version of the German V2 rockets from World War II. The Germans fired these rockets against Britain toward the end of the war and caused very considerable damage. There was no way of intercepting them. We did not know how to shoot down a ballistic missile that comes at us at supersonic speeds.

The Drive to Develop Missile Interceptors

During the Gulf War, Israel was already in the process of developing a missile designed to intercept Scud rockets. This had become possible because of technological advances, primarily in computer and radar technology. This development had started some years before the Gulf War, partially funded by the United States as part of what Reagan called the Star Wars Initiative, when the U.S. launched a very large program to develop anti-missile missiles. Today Israel has the Arrow system that can intercept missiles that come from Iran. 

Some say that while the missile we intend to intercept is a relatively cheap weapon, we are launching a very expensive weapon against it, which does not seem very wise at first sight. However, the damage that might be caused by the missile may far exceed the cost of the anti-missile system.

Israel's missile interceptor system poses a dilemma to anybody who decides to launch missiles against Israel, especially a missile that has a nuclear warhead. The dilemma is posed by the knowledge that the missile may very well be intercepted and thus expose the launching of a nuclear missile, even if it didn't reach its target, which could bring about the response that could be expected for committing this deed. When this is taken into account, a decision might very well be made that this chance should not be taken and such a missile should not be launched. 

There are many ways of trying to fool a missile interceptor, such as the use of decoys and the use of maneuvering reentry vehicles that will try to escape the interceptor. But for every measure there is a countermeasure, and the people who are developing the Arrow system are taking all that into consideration. 

Israel is also very close to fielding the Iron Dome missile interceptor system against short-range missiles with a range of tens of kilometers. The shorter the range of the missile, the more difficult it is to intercept because you simply have less time available to react.

American-Israeli Relations During the Gulf War

During the Gulf War there was a very "noisy" communications channel with the United States. The physical contact was good. I spoke with Secretary of Defense Cheney at least every day, sometimes two or three times a day. 

The Americans were very concerned that Israel might take preemptive action even before they began their military operation. They were very eager that Israel not get involved in any way because they had built a coalition with Arab countries - Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia (they were operating out of Saudi Arabia) - and they were afraid that coalition might fall apart if Israel openly got involved in the operation. 

The Americans asked that we not undertake any preemptive action, that we let them handle the situation. They said they expected that within 48 hours the U.S. Air Force would eliminate the missile launch capability of the Iraqis. If it turned out that they were not going to be able to do it within forty-eight hours, Israel would be free to take whatever action it considered appropriate. 

It was under these assumptions that Desert Storm began, and Israel did not take any preemptive action. When the first Scuds fell, we waited for the United States to take care of the problem. As it turned out, the problem of hitting mobile launchers was far more difficult than the U.S. had envisioned. Although there was intensive aerial activity directed at hitting the Scud launchers, not a single Scud launcher was hit or immobilized during the five weeks of the Gulf War. Hitting moving targets that appear only for a very short time and then disappear is very difficult, even to this day. 

Even at that point, the United States was very eager that Israel not intervene in any way. So, despite the previous U.S. assurance that Israel would be free to take action if the missile threat could not be eliminated within forty-eight hours, after seventy-two hours President Bush called Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Jim Baker called me, insisting that we not take any action, that we not in any way "spoil" the operation that was underway.

Then the Americans sent over the Patriots. The Patriot was probably the most advanced anti-aircraft missile around at the time, and was advertised as also having anti-missile capability. When the Gulf War started, the United States insisted that the Patriot, which was operating in Saudi Arabia, was effective in destroying Scud missiles. The U.S. urged us to also accept Patriot missiles and was prepared to send them to Israel with American crews because Israeli crews had not yet been trained.

As it turned out, the Patriot missiles in Israel did not succeed in intercepting a single Scud missile. Today there is a more advanced version of the Patriot that is said to have limited capability for intercepting ballistic missiles.  
 

Israeli Plans to Attack Iraqi Missile Sites

During this five-week period I even traveled to Washington to tell President Bush that we could not reconcile ourselves with the continuing situation of these missiles falling on Israel with no reaction and that we had to take action. 

But what kind of action? The initial feeling in Israel was that we should get the Israel Air Force to respond, but this didn't make much sense when the United States and its British allies were employing an armada of aircraft that were flying out of Saudi Arabia and off aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, plastering Iraq day and night. The U.S. was not interested in Israel participating in any way in the fighting during the Gulf War. So it didn't seem to make sense to use our air force under these circumstances. 

In order to neutralize the launching of the Scuds, it became clear very quickly that the only way this could be done would be by ground troops. Ground troops would have to search for the places where the launchers were being hidden and take action on the ground. That is no simple operation. It is 1,000 kilometers from Israel to Baghdad and it would involve landing ground troops in western Iraq. 

Nevertheless, we prepared that kind of an operation. Gen. Nehemia Tamari was scheduled to lead it. We told the Americans that we had no choice, that we had to take that kind of action. The Americans didn't like it, though they finally accepted it. But before we were able to launch this operation, the Americans declared a cease-fire and the war was over. 

I was for an Israeli response. I gave instructions to prepare a military operation in western Iraq, a very difficult and dangerous one, mainly because I thought it would be wrong for Israel to be hit without responding for the first time in its history. I thought this would send the wrong message to Israel's enemies. 

In the meantime, we have taken actions against terrorists in military operations in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Gaza. So I don't think that the fact that we did not respond during the Gulf War in 1991 permanently damaged Israel's deterrent capability. 

 

 

Prof. Moshe Arens was Israel's defense minister during the 1991 war with Iraq. He served as Israel's Minister of Defense in three different governments, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and was Israel's Ambassador to the United States.

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