Want Peace? Democratize Jordan: Mudar Zahran's Letter

by Ted Belman

I have not been a fan of the “Jordan is Palestine” option, however it was defined, because it required the consent of King Abdullah. I preferred a unilateral, made in Israel solution.

But that was then and this is now.

Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian Palestinian exiled in London, has been communicating with me about his desire and ability to form a secular democratic government in Jordan, should fair elections take place. He is seeking help in getting the US government to influence King Abdullah to democratize and in getting Israel to embrace the change.

Why he turned to me and how I plan to go about achieving this will be the subject of another article. But first I would like to say why I am so excited about this possibility.

Zahran advises that the Palestinians represent a large majority of all residents of Jordan and they are trending secular and are anti the Muslim Brotherhood, King Abdullah and Mahmud Abbas. They are tired of waiting for a peace deal to emerge from the process, isn't waiting 60 years enough, and want to take their destiny in their own hands.

They envisage a demilitarized state which is a protectorate of Israel and the US. They want full normalization and full economic relations with Israel. They want the money otherwise spent on maintaining an army to be invested in building up the country.

They have agreed to invite all Palestinians to move to Jordan and receive full citizenship. In effect, Jordan would become Palestine, which it was once part of according to the San Remo Resolution and the Palestine Mandate.

It would mean that UNWRA would be wound up and that the West could transfer its economic assistance from the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians in Jordan. The money would no longer be going down the drain in Judea and Samaria or into the pockets of the corrupt few, but instead would be used to build a stable Palestinian state in Jordan. Financial incentives would be provided to all Palestinians to move to Jordan.

It would mean the end of the Oslo Accords and the PA. Israel would then exercise sovereignty of Judea and Samaria. It would truly usher in the New Middle East.

It is truly, “a consummation, devoutly to be wished”.

Mudar Zahran is the putative leader of the Palestinians in Jordan. He currently resides in exile in London, U,K. Below is his letter:

Jordan's King and the Muslim Brotherhood: An Unholy Marriage

By Mudar Zahran

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon has been witnessing protests for the last ten months, though much less intense than those of the Arab Spring. Still, the protests there are very regular, and the protesters have been upgrading their demands. Today, most factions have come to the point of threatening that if their demands for reform are not met, they will call for deposing the king. Some are already calling for it.

Jordan’s king, Abdullah, has established an image for himself as a secular modern ruler who has kept Israel’s Eastern front quiet amid a hostile Middle East.

Is it possible that the Hashemite regime’s anti-Islamist, secular image is just a façade?

The Arab Spring tsunami has laid bare a different face of the Jordanian monarchy — one which shows a lengthy, well-established cooperation with the Islamists, which is now evolving even further. In fact, amid the sweeping opposition protests in Jordan, the only Jordanian political force supporting the monarchy now is none other than the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nonetheless, the king seems determined not to exact any significant reforms and justifies this with the excuse that “the Islamists will take over.” In his interview with the Wall Street Journal — published in 21 September 2011– the king claimed that rapid reforms would bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power, as they were “the only people who are organized” in Jordan. This claim by the king finds many believers in the West and is in line with more established fears, as the Islamists have just taken over Tunisia. In Morocco, too, the Islamists just achieved a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections.

Nonetheless, the Islamists in those countries are very different from the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, as the Brotherhood in Jordan is not the regime’s enemy. In fact, it is quite the opposite. For starters, the Muslim Brotherhood has historically been at the receiving end of extensive tolerance and support from the Hashemite regime, even before Abdullah came to power. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in most Arab countries, is allowed to operate freely in Jordan. The regime allowed them to establish their own political party, the Islamic Action Front Party. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan runs charitable organizations, owns businesses, publishes its daily newspaper, and has been recruiting members in the open.

Furthermore, since Abdullah came to power, the Hashemite regime has been cracking down on all the political rivals of the Muslim Brotherhood. For example, in 2008, the Jordanian government introduced a new law retroactively banning all political parties unless they manage to recruit five hundred members within at least five of the country’s twelve counties. As a result, most existing political parties were outlawed except for the well-financed Islamists.

No wonder the king told the Wall Street Journal that the Muslim Brotherhood was the only organized group in Jordan. He had made it so. He wants the West to believe that if he is deposed, the Muslim Brotherhood will come to power — circumstances which, presumably, the West abhors.

The Hashemite regime allows the Muslim Brotherhood to organize anti-American and anti-Israeli protests, while peaceful secular reformists, like the 24th March movement, are clamped down on by the ruthless Jordanian riot police. In September, the Muslim Brotherhood called for protests against both the American and the Israeli embassies. This was in coordination with Nahid Hatter, a right-wing Jordanian Bedouin writer who admitted that he was close to the fearsome Jordanian Intelligence Department. The Palestinians did not respond to the Muslim Brotherhood’s call — the Washington Post reported that barely 200 people attended — and as a result, the protests were a failure. In the past, such an event would have garnered tens of thousands of Palestinians from refugee camps.

It seems that the Hashemite regime is determined to convince the world that it will have to choose between the king and the Islamists ruling Jordan.

Yet is that really the case? It is a fact that most leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan are Bedouin Jordanians and not Palestinians. For example, of the nine members of the board of the Islamic Action Front Party — the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm — only two are Palestinians. Also, the board of governors of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is made up of nine members, of whom five are Bedouin Jordanians. In a country where the majority of the population is Palestinian, you would expect proportionate representation within the Muslim Brotherhood. Also, this might be an indication that Jordan’s Palestinian majority does not support the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since the Arab Spring began, the Jordanian regime has been in a difficult position. The Palestinian majority is systematically discriminated against and disgruntled. It might as well do what the majority in Syria are doing. Despite the Palestinians’ lack of involvement in the ongoing protests, they — like the rest of the region’s people — are observing closely what is happening in their neighborhood, and they could take action at any moment.

The king’s allies, the Bedouin Jordanians, have been most active in the protests, and recently, the most prominent Bedouin Jordanian opposition, the 36 Movement, called for toppling the regime. The rest are calling for abolishing the king’s powers and turning the country into a constitutional monarchy.

Shortly after watching two formerly invincible dictators, Mubarak and Ben Ali, fall, the king turned to the Muslim Brotherhood. He first met with them for discussions in February 2011 amid the start of the Arab Spring.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been an active part of the protests. Nonetheless, they have refused to call for the toppling of the king and have kept their demands as low as just reforming the government. I spoke to Zaki Bani Rushied, a former aide to of Hamas’ leader Khaled Mishaal and president of the Islamic Action Front Party, the Brotherhood’s political front. I asked him why the Brotherhood was determined to refuse any calls to topple the king, as Bani Rushied himself said recently. Rushied responded: “We have evaluated the situation and we’ve decided we want the regime to stay[.] … [W]e are just demanding a reform policy to lead the country to democracy … we are not willing to give up on the regime. If we do so, the alternative homeland will be achieved.” Bani Rushied here is talking about the “Jordan is Palestine” option for peace, which the Jordanian regime has used as an excuse against allowing political rights for the Palestinian majority.

Bani Rushied continued: “Our agenda is against Israel. The Americans and the Israelis have been trying to sell the alternative homeland solution, and therefore we will not do anything that would facilitates that[.] … [S]hould a new regime be established in Jordan, it will make the Palestinians feel that they do actually have a country, and the Palestinians in Jordan will play the role of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. They will be guard dogs for Israel, just like Palestinian troops trained by General Keith Dayton[.] … [D]id you not hear him say [that] ‘we have produced the new Palestinian’? That is exactly what we fear.” This was Bani Rushied’s answer as to why is the Muslim Brotherhood is so supportive of the king.

Bani Rushied noted that the Muslim Brotherhood has been scaling back its opposition after the appointment of a new Jordanian prime minister in October — namely, Oun Khasweneh, the renowned judge at the International Criminal Court. Oun Khasweneh has been appeasing the Islamists since his arrival — for example, by inviting them to join his government. They turned him down, claiming that they were expecting more “reformist steps.”

Furthermore, Khasweneh did the unthinkable by telling the media that “the Jordanian state’s decision to expel Hamas leaders in 1999 was a political and constitutional mistake.” Khasweneh even told Time that he had always thought that expelling Hamas leaders from Jordan was unconstitutional! Before making these statements, Khasweneh received Hamas’s spokesman Muhammad Nazzal at his home, and spoke to Hamas’s leader Khalid Mishaal over the phone. Around the same time, Jordan’s minister of communication, Rakan Majali, said that “the Jordanian state is serious about correcting the political mistake with Hamas by re-establishing ties to it,” noting that “this will not mean we will be handling Hamas as an alternative of the Palestinian Authority.”

Jordan is an autocracy in which the king rules, and where a prime minister is basically executing what the king wants. It seems that the Jordanian regime is not as anti-Islamist as it claims to be, and it seems that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the regime don’t want the Palestinian majority to come to power. From the king’s point of view, it would mean the end of his kingdom. From the Muslim Brotherhood’s point of view, it would present Palestinians everywhere with “the alternative homeland” — i.e., the “Jordan is Palestine” option is “a threat” to their attempts to destroy Israel..

While the fear of the Islamists hijacking Arab revolutions is a valid one, it is likely that Jordan is different, as the Muslim Brotherhood there is the regime’s ally. Therefore, should the Arab Spring make it to Jordan, it likely will not bring Islamists to power as many seem to fear. Those keen on establishing peace and stability in the Middle East should re-examine the situation in Jordan and stay alert to the unfolding of different potential scenarios.

Ted Belman is a retired attorney and the editor of Israpundit.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11160#.Tx29UoFvIi5

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

Getting it Right About Russia

by Anthony T. Salvia

Secretary of State Clinton's reaction to evidence of vote fraud in Russia's parliamentary elections of last December 4th hammered one more nail in the coffin of President Obama's reset of relations with Moscow.

If President Obama had stuck to his guns on the reset, he would have justified in dramatic fashion his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize - deemed premature by many - and entered the 2012 presidential campaign able to argue plausibly that he was one of America's great foreign policy presidents.

He was poised to complete the work, started by Reagan and Gorbachev, of bringing about a definitive settlement of the Cold War -- and, indeed, of the European civil war that broke out in 1914 -- by forging a new pan-European entente from Lisbon to Vladivostok and including North America.

But the bipartisan US foreign policy elite had other ideas. Why settle for entente when there is a world to be won? They want nothing less than global strategic dominance, or benevolent global hegemony, or empire, or whatever you choose to call it.

And so Mrs. Clinton brands the elections "neither free nor fair." She insists on investigations into all allegations of fraud, and will brook no contradiction. Channeling Woodrow Wilson, she champions the right of Russians to have "their voices heard and their votes counted."

But there is another possible narrative: On December 4th, despite clear evidence of electoral shenanigans, the final result as reported by the Russian Central Election Commission conformed broadly to the actual vote as evidenced by exit and pre-election polls.

For the first time in Russian history, a ruling party was rebuked at the polls, effectively losing the election. According to experts, ballot stuffing and other forms of skullduggery cannot have skewed the results by more than 5 per cent.

When it takes office, the new State Duma will approximate to the real shape of public opinion. No longer enjoying an absolute majority, United Russia will forge a coalition with other parties, and the Dum will become a venue for the kind of give-and-take and political horse-trading that parliaments are meant to be.

Washington's Russia policy is badly out of whack. It is rooted in a plethora of false narratives about the meaning of Russian developments, some of which stem from ignorance, some from a desire to give moral justification to its single-minded quest for global dominance. These include: Russia is a defeated power (it is not); Yeltsin fomented democracy (he did the opposite), while Putin seeks to restore Soviet great power status (he seeks nothing of the kind; his aims are confined to stability on Russia's borders so as to develop internally); what Washington says and does is important to Russians (it is not.)

If you have no intention of talking seriously to Russia, of offering it strategic partnership, to say nothing of friendship, because all you really want is to absorb it into your globe-girdling hive of compliant states, then there is no need to get any of this right.

But in view of our declining economic fortunes (our total indebtedness is as large as our Gross Domestic Product; our military and foreign budget of some $1 trillion per year is as large as our yearly federal budget deficit), we may be approaching a time when we have to start getting reality right. Our elite may have to ditch their grandiose ambitions for global hegemony sooner than they think, so now is a good time as any to get it right about Russia and its enduring strategic importance.

Dr. Stephen F. Cohen of New York University, one of America's foremost Russia experts, describes Russia's strategic significance in concise fashion:

"Russia still possesses devices of mass destruction capable of destroying the Western power and tempting international terrorists for years to come.

"Russia...remains the world's largest territorial country, a crucial Eurasian frontline state in the conflict between Western and Islamic civilizations, with a vastly disproportionate share of the planet's essential resources, including oil, natural gas, iron ore, nickel, gold, timber, fertile land and fresh water.

"Moscow's military and diplomatic reach can still thwart or abet vital US interests around the globe from Afghanistan, Iran, China and North Korea to Europe and Latin America."

Dr. Cohen correctly points out that in the absence of an expansive, cooperative relationship with Russia, there can be no real US and pan-European security.

To this end, the policy of the next US administration, whether Republican or Democratic, should call on Moscow to reaffirm the sovereignty of all former satellites and Soviet republics. At the same time, it should insist that NATO halt further expansion eastward, and desist from basing military forces, including missile systems, anywhere east of Germany.

Thus, the newest NATO members in central and eastern Europe would have the benefit of Article 5 protection while post-Soviet Russia would achieve stability on its borders, thus allowing it to develop internally and repair the damage of 70 years of Marxist-Leninist misrule. The path would then be open to a strategic partnership with Moscow -- much needed if pan-Europe is to meet the strategic challenges posed by a rising East Asia and resurgent Islamic extremism.

In addition, the U.S. should scrap any notion of deploying missile defenses in Europe pointing towards Russia, and instead opt for a joint U.S.-Russian system designed to defend against threats from rogue states -- if indeed it proceeds with missile defense at all.

The next administration should conduct an agonizing reappraisal of American foreign policy with a view to pan-European solidarity rather that a global hegemony we do not need and cannot afford. We should have conducted such a review in the immediate wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but never did. We must make up for lost time.

The time to act is now.

Anthony T. Salvia, a consultant in international public advocacy and governmental affairs, served as Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Reagan Administration.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11158#.Tx27m4FvIi5

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

Why The President Should Speak Out Against Religious Persecution

by Raymond Ibrahim

On January 24, during his State of the Union Address, the president of the United States has a chance to expose the plight of religious minorities living in Muslim majority nations. Doing so would not merely shed light on one of the most ignored humanitarian crises of the 21^st century; it would help alleviate it.

Why should the president speak up on the oppression of religious minorities? For starters, because it is the right thing to do, and reflects American values and principles.

He should speak up because religious cleansing is currently underway in nations like Nigeria, where Boko Haram—"Western Education is Forbidden"—and other Islamic groups have declared jihad on the Christian minorities of the north, killing and displacing thousands, burning and bombing hundreds of churches, most notoriously this last Christmas, where over forty people were killed while celebrating Christmas mass. Likewise, since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, about half of Iraq's one million Christians have been forced by targeted violence to flee their homeland, the most notorious incident, again, being a church attack, where some 60 worshippers were killed.

He should speak up because churches are constantly being attacked, burned, or forced into closure, not just in Nigeria and Iraq, but in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia (click on country-links for the most recent examples). In Egypt alone, after several churches were burned, thousands of Christian Copts gathered to demonstrate—only to be slaughtered by the military, including by being run-over by armored vehicles.

He should speak up because Muslim converts to Christianity are regularly ostracized, beat, killed, or imprisoned—recent examples coming from Algeria, Eritrea, Kashmir, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and even Western nations. Iran's Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, whose plight actually made it to the mainstream media, is but one of many people imprisoned and tortured for simply following their conscience and converting to Christianity. Uganda offers a typical example: there, a Muslim father locked his 14-year-old daughter for several months without food or water, simply because she embraced Christianity. She weighed 44 pounds when rescued.

He should speak up because Christian girls are being abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam—recent examples coming from Egypt, India, Pakistan, and Sudan. In Pakistan alone, "a 12 year-old Christian [was] gang raped for eight months, forcibly converted and then 'married' to her Muslim attacker." Now that she has escaped, instead of seeing justice done, "the Christian family is in hiding from the rapists and the police." Earlier in Pakistan, a 2-year-old Christian girl was savagely raped and damaged for life because her father refused to convert to Islam.

The U.S. president should speak up because such persecution is not merely performed at the hands of "outraged Muslim mobs," but is institutionalized in many Muslim governments, including those deemed "U.S. friends and allies"—such as Afghanistan, where the last church was recently razed; Egypt, where Islamists, supported by the U.S., openly speak of returning Copts into second-class dhimmis; and Saudi Arabia, where churches are not permitted, and Bibles and crucifies are confiscated and destroyed.

He should speak up because there is a pattern, one that is becoming increasingly harder to ignore—one that demonstrates great continuity over the centuries. Past and present, from Morocco in the west, to India in the east—in countries that do not share race, culture, or language, only a culture permeated with the spirit of Islamic supremacism—non-Muslims suffer.

He should speak out because calling out bullies and cutting out their financial aid is the most effective way to curb their bullying, even as giving in to bullies—or worse, pretending they are not bullies and forcing others to go along—is a sure way to guarantee they continue bullying their minorities.

Perhaps most importantly, the president of the United States should speak up because we live in a day and age where the reality of religious persecution under Islam is so well documented—unlike in the days of former U.S. presidents who may be excused—that to continue ignoring it is tantamount to abetting it. Just as history has recorded the great sufferings of non-Muslims under Islam, so too will it record the complacency or complicity of those who are in a great position to end the persecution, but refuse to do so.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: Christian Solidarity International; http://www.meforum.org/3159/sotu-religious-persecution

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

Frustration and Extortion

by Mordechai Kedar

In just a few days the Egyptians will mark one year since the outbreak of their revolution, whose only success has been - so far - the removal of Mubarak. The parliamentary elections that were held in recent months might also be called a success by some, but they were a disaster for the secular and liberal sectors, so it's not clear if those people would define the elections as a success.

The majority of Egyptians are severely frustrated today with the results of the revolution, and are extremely worried about the future of Egypt, principally because of the deterioration of the economic situation. With the outbreak of the massive demonstrations a year ago, foreign investments have totally disappeared, and tourism has been almost totally eliminated. Unemployment in some areas of Egypt is fifty percent and even higher in others, and there have already been reports of Egyptians committing suicide because of the lack of ability to provide for their hungry families.

The secular, liberal sectors are extremely frustrated; on one hand, the army continues to rule their lives and deaths; and it becomes increasingly clear to them that General Tantawi does not intend to hand power over to the people. On the other hand, in the fair elections that were held for parliament, the religious parties - the Muslim Brotherhood and the (ultra religious) Salafis - won about seventy percent of the seats in the house. There are no jobs, no livelihood, and the future looks very bleak.

The Egyptian government is nearing economic bankruptcy, and is frantically seeking any source of income.

The Big Israeli Mouth

And then there's Israel's part: since the demonstrations began on the 25th of January, 2011, Israeli spokesmen have continually expressed their anxiety about the peace agreement with Egypt, and their fear that the agreement will be cancelled. Every interviewer brings this matter up, and every interviewee answers according to his understanding. The Egyptians immediately picked up on the Israeli fear and began extorting us, knowing that we would be willing to give a lot, only to keep the peace agreement. Evidence of this is seen in the Shalit agreement and in the increase in the number of Egyptian soldiers permitted to enter into Sinai. Israel went to great pains in order to answer every Egyptian demand, if only Egypt would keep the peace agreement.

And then comes the big blow: today, Egypt's leaders are seeking any possible source of cash, even opening files from thirty years ago or more, dealing with what Israel did or didn't do in the years between 1967 and 1982. It was recently made known that Egypt is preparing a huge suit against Israel for the amount of no less than 500 billion dollars, for damages caused as a result of the conquest of Sinai in 1967 and additional actions that Israel has taken since then.

The claim for compensation is based on charges that in Sinai, Israel established mines for stone, marble and other natural resources; and stole sand, water, antiquities, wildlife, and silver and gold from the banks of the cities of Sinai. There is also a claim that Israel ruined coral reefs in the Gulf of Eilat near the Sinai shore and exterminated schools of fish.

According to the Egyptian claims, Israel killed 250,000 Egyptians, soldiers as well as civilians, and wounded a million; Egyptians are still being killed by Israeli mines that were left in the area, and Israel refuses to hand over the maps of the mine fields, despite the fact that Israel is obligated by law to do it. The Egyptian Air Force was severely harmed because of Israel, and the land forces as well.

Egypt also claims that Israel is responsible for the cessation of shipping in the Suez Canal for six years, and therefore it is also responsible for the damage that was caused to Egypt as a result.

And so on, and so forth. Some of the claims have a basis in reality and some are delusional, but all are built on the ability of the Egyptians to squeeze Israel again: In the past, they received all of Sinai without one Israeli in Yamit, Ofira, Di-Zahav, Neviot, Refidim, Elei Sinai and other Israeli settlements which were built is Sinai after 197. Who remembers these wonderful places thirty years after Israel destroyed them with its own hands because of Sa'adat's demands?

And these days, the Egyptian regime, which is going bankrupt, is trying to sell Israel the peace agreement again, this time in exchange for cash, accompanied by the threat that if Israel doesn't pay up, the peace agreement will be cancelled.

The Israeli proves again that he doesn't know what to say or what not to say in the Middle East, an area in which if you express a fear of something, you'll have to pay in order to remove the threat; and if you fear someone you will have to pay "protection money" to him or his friends, just to keep him from harming you. Only he who is sure of himself and of his strength and has no fear, is left alone in peace.

They Should Sue Themselves

It is well known that Arabs flee from taking responsibility for their mistakes and blame others for all of their woes. It's very difficult for them to own up to the mistakes that they've made, because he who errs brings shame upon himself. Placing blame on others eases his conscience and exempts the Arab from the price of admitting guilt and the painful responsibility to repair the damage.

The Egyptians ignore the fact that the state of war between them and Israel was caused by them alone, because Israel always wanted peace with her neighbors, and in the year 1948 there was no "occupation" (unless we define Tel Aviv as occupied territory).

The Egyptians are suing Israel also for the downing of the Libyan jet in 1973 after entering the airspace over Sinai, but ignore the Israeli fatalities in the War of Attrition, 1969-1970, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The Egyptians ignore the damage that they caused to the young State of Israel when they invaded its territory on the 16th of June 1948, one day after the declaration of its independence. They don't count the Israeli citizens who were killed in bombings by Egyptian planes during the war of Independence, just as they ignore the many Israeli casualties that fell when Egyptian officers sent fedayeen terrorists into Israel during the fifties.

They complain that Israel caused the closing of the Suez Canal between the years 1967 and 1975, but ignore the fact that they illegally prevented Israeli ships to pass through canal between 1948 until the peace was signed, flouting International Law, which obliges them to allow the ships of the whole world to use the canal.

And by the way, it was Gamal 'Abd al-Naser who closed the canal in 1967, in order to put pressure on Europe which would, in turn, put pressure on Israel to retreat from Sinai.

The Egyptians ignore the tremendous damage that they have caused to Israel since the establishment of the boycott on Israel and on companies that trade with it, just as they ignore the support that Egypt gave to the enemies of Israel over the years, mainly Hamas, even after the peace treaty was signed, by allowing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

They ignore the murder of Israelis in Ras Burka, 1985, which also occurred after the peace agreement, when an Egyptian police officer killed seven vacationers on the coast of Sinai. And they ignore the victims of the terror attacks last year along the border between Rafah and Eilat. They don't take into account the economic damage that was caused to Israel by the thousands of illegal aliens who pass through their territory into Israel, and they don't relate seriously to the damage of drugs, women and goods that are smuggled from their territory into Israel.

And here's the joke: They complain that Israel stole oil from Sinai, but they "forget" that it was Israel who discovered the oil field and developed the field of the black liquid that came from it, and in the end handed over the precious oil facilities to the Egyptians for free, even giving up the oil that it deserved as a result of the discovery.

The Egyptians also suffer from a weak memory: They forgot to note in their suit that it was Israel who rescued thousands of soldiers of the Egyptian Third Army, who were trapped in Sinai in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and were left to their fate by the Egyptian command. If Israel had not fed them and given them water during the war they would have become food for the vultures and foxes of the desert. In fact, Israel could serve a counter suit against Egypt that would be much larger than the Egyptian suit, even if one doesn't include the damages that were incurred to us when we were slaves in Egypt of Pharaoh.

But the most important service that Israel can do for Egypt is a little advice: start looking into where your faults are, before accusing others for your problems. Because it just might be you yourselves who are the cause of all of this woe and damage, and if you don't find an answer, just look in the mirror.

And if you're suffering from a lack of cash, look for the money among the corrupt people you who took advantage of the poor and miserable Egyptian people, stole Egypt's wealth and accumulated billions, which are now sitting in the banks of Switzerland, Vaduz and the Cayman Islands, the favored tax shelters of the crooks of the world.

===============

Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the
Syrian domestic arena.

Translated from Hebrew by Sally.

Links to Dr. Kedar's previous articles on this blog:

• Thank You, Hamas
• Drums of War in the Gulf
• 2011: The Year of the Arab Winter
• And This is the Gate of Heaven
• In the Shadow of the Rising Islamic Crescent

Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.

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

'Rivlin racist for calling J'lem capital of Israel'

by Lahav Harkov

Jordanian Parliament Speaker Tahar al-Massri sent back a letter from Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin on Sunday, claiming that it is racist for calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Rivlin had sent a letter to parliamentary speakers around the world in honor of the secular New Year earlier this month, in which he wrote that he is optimistic about the coming year.

Massri called the letter racist, biased and political, and returned it to Israel’s ambassador to Jordan Daniel Nevo.

The Jordanian speaker specifically took issue with Rivlin calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Rivlin, who was visiting the British House of Lords on Sunday, said that Zionism is not anti-Arab or anti-Islam.

Israel’s relations with Jordan are important, he added, therefore the two sides must agree to disagree.

Rivlin also said he would be happy to meet personally with Massri to smooth out the problems.

The Knesset Speaker’s letter began with him explaining that he is writing from “the Holy City of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.” He added that the Jewish people have hoped and prayed for peace since Biblical times.

Rivlin also mentioned that Israel faces many challenges, including “the refusal of the Palestinians to resume direct negotiations with us,” terror by Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Arab Spring. He also said that “there are those to whom death is dearer than life is to us,” mentioning al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad, and called on the world to cooperate and fight the “evil menace.”

In addition, Rivlin emphasized that “Israel is as much Jewish as it is democratic,” adding that the two values are inseparable.

Lahav Harkov

Source: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=254655

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

Arabism Is Dead! Long Live…?

by Barry Rubin

An editorial in the moderate Lebanese publication, Lebanon Now, reminds us of just how dramatically the Middle East has changed. Many of the arguments and assumptions that governed the Arabic-speaking world for six decades have simply vanished. Others, though, have just been modified slightly.

The biggest change has been the collapse of Arab nationalism, the ideology and system that governed many countries, controlled the regional debate, and intimidated everyone else into line for six decades. But is the analogy to Eastern Europe in 1991—rescued from Communism and transformed into democracies—or to the situation there in 1945—save from fascism only to be taken over by Communism for almost a half-century?

In other words is the Arabic-speaking world moving into an era of democracy or merely a new form of authoritarianism?

We are reminded vividly of the death of the old order by an editorial in the moderate Lebanese publication, Lebanon Now, discussing President Bashar al-Assad’s attempts to say in control in Syria. The editors write:

“After months of procrastination, months of ignoring the insistence of the international community that he stop murdering his people; after nearly three weeks into the catastrophic Arab League mission to assess the level of violence in the country and after a body count that by conservative estimates has exceeded 5,000, he can only resort to the hollow and outdated rhetoric of an era the Arab world is aching to leave behind.”

What is this rhetoric? To blame everything on “the creation of Israel and the imperial reshaping of the Middle East” after World War One. Well, 1948 (the creation of Israel) and 1918 (when the old Ottoman Empire crumbled and Arab states began to emerge) were a long time ago. Arab nationalism was a response to these events and also to the belief that fascist and Communist systems in Europe offered role models for ruling the Arabic-speaking world.

Arabism was also a way to unite disparate peoples into a coherent state while focusing on a common ethnic identity that might suppress ideological and regional differences while transcending religious ones. In al-Assad’s recent speech, he stated, “Arabism is a question of civilization, a question of common interests, common will and common religions.”

Lebanon Now calls this a, “cobweb-ridden idea.” Yes, indeed, but it is one that sent the Arabs into immense enthusiasm until recently. Still, it no longer does. Today people are focused more on the failures of Arab nationalist regimes in the 1950-2010 period rather than on the alleged sins of the 1920-1948 era. Yet that might only lead to supporting a revolutionary Islamism that argues it can do better than its predecessors.

Same authoritarianism; same demagoguery; same enemies; just a different method of fighting them, the political use of religion rather than of nationalism.

One of the institutions the editorial ridicules is the Arab League. Using that group to advise people how to get rid of dictatorship and replace it with democracy, as is being tried in Syria, is like “a smoking doctor who advises the patient to quit smoking while putting a cigarette in his mouth.”

And yet that’s what Islamism is seeking to do, merely changing the cigarette for a cigar. In doing so, a lot of these old Arabist arguments are merely being recycled. For example:

–It isn’t “Arabism” that will unite the people but…Islam.

–One of Arabism’s failures is that it didn’t unite the Arabs, but Islamist ideology will unite the Muslims, which it insists is easier to do. That may prove true within individual countries and even across newly forming blocs, counties where the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood holds sway.

–Arabism failed to expel Western “imperialist” influence from the region and destroy Israel but Islam will succeed. One Islamist complaint is that nationalist rulers made deals with the West, as Mubarak did. The Islamists, due to the nature of their ideology, won’t make that “mistake.”

–Arabism didn’t bring economic success but Islam “is the solution.” It is easy to see that this won’t work in economic terms yet belt-tightening, a renewed revolutionary enthusiasm, and other means might survive hard times by producing pious times. Religion has often succeeded in doing so in the past.

Of course, Syria is also a special case, a place where—again a great turn of phrase by Lebanon Now’s editors—the ruling “a system more akin to organized crime than that inspired by Pericles,” i.e., democracy.

Clearly, Lebanon Now’s editors hope that Syria’s revolution does better than the one they helped lead in Lebanon. Remember, Lebanon was the original “spring” movement and now it is run by Islamists (Hizballah) who took power in an election but ultimately depend on Iranian money, Syrian assassins, and terrorist intimidation to stay in power.

One cannot also help but note that Arab nationalism did work to hold together a country including Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Sunni Muslims, along with non-Arab Kurds. Replacing that “glue” won’t be so easy. Iraq and to some extent Lebanon suggest the alternative solution of each community largely governing itself in practice, albeit with a lot of bloodshed. That won’t be so easy to achieve in Syria.

The editorial concludes:

“Those Syrian people who have decided to forgo sectarianism and self interest in the name of freedom, care not one jot for the illusion that is Arabism; for Syria’s equally mythical lead in taking the fight to the Zionist enemy.”

One hopes that those people win in Syria, where they do have a better chance, but they [then] such a standpoint has clearly not won in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and even—despite appearances—Turkey.

Whether justified by “Arab nationalist” or “Islamist” rhetoric the old scape-goating combined with dictatorship might be too useful a method to abandon.

This article also appeared in The Jerusalem Post in a different version.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/01/arabism-is-dead-long-live%E2%80%A6/

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

Hizballah Backs Assad – and Pays The Price

by Jonathan Spyer

In early January, 2011, Hizballah and its allies took up the reins of government in Lebanon, having ensured the collapse of the coalition led by March 14 leader and then Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. Hizballah needed a coalition which it thought would staunchly oppose the Special Tribunal on Lebanon, investigating the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

But many at the time discerned a more significant meaning in the rise to government of the March 8 coalition. It looked like the latest stage in the inexorable rise of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement, founded under the patronage of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982. Hizballah had survived Israel’s onslaught in 2006, and gone on to successfully intimidate its internal opponents in the mini civil war of May, 2008.

With a reputed yearly donation of $200 million from Teheran, Hizballah had built a state within the state. it had developed a matchless military and security capability, independent of the organs of the Lebanese government, and in most ways more powerful. By January, 2011, Hizballah looked set to absorb its host.

Today, however, much of this is open to question. Hizballah no longer looks so unassailable. The movement has been one of the less remarked upon victims of the Arab upheavals of 2011. Let’s take a look at how this has happened.

Over the last two decades, Hizballah defined itself along a number if parallel lines, each of which before 2011 appeared to support the other. The movement was simultaneously a sectarian representative of the Lebanese Shia, a regional ally of Iran and Syria, a defender of the Lebanese against the supposed aggressive intentions of Israel, and a leader of a more generically defined Arab and Muslim ‘resistance’ against Israel and the west.

As a result of the events of 2011, these various lines, which seemed mutually supportive, have begun to contradict one another. This is diminishing Hizballah’s position – though it remains physically unassailable for as long as the Assad regime in Syria survives.

When the ‘Arab Spring’ first broke out, Hizballah was able to happily endorse it. This is because in its first three significant manifestations – in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain – the ‘Arab Spring’ was directed against pro-western, anti-Iranian regimes. And in Bahrain, even better, a Shia populace was rising up against a pro-western, Sunni monarch.

The problems began with the outbreak of the revolt against the Assad regime in Syria. Syria is a charter member of the pro-Iranian regional alliance to which Hizballah also belongs. It is also a vital strategic conduit for the organization, providing a hinterland, a potential safe haven in the event of war with Israel, and a route for the supply of Iranian arms. For all these, reasons, Hizballah is determined that Assad survive. Reliable sources suggest that Hizballah men are involved in infiltrating opposition groups in Syria and providing intelligence.

This investment in the survival of Assad indicates which of the four aspects of Hizballah’s identity mentioned above are most important to it. The link with the Iran-led alliance and maintaining the ability to wage war against Israel are the cardinal interests. To maintain these, Hizballah has to a great extent sacrificed its more nebulous self-image as a leader of pan-Islamic ‘resistance.’ Syrian Sunnis leading the uprising against Assad now count Hizballah among their enemies. The movement’s flag has been burnt at opposition rallies.

So the uprising in Syria has served to remove the veil of ‘resistance’ from the face of Hizballah. The sectarian visage beneath has been revealed. Hizballah has been exposed as a sectarian, iran-aligned Shia force, backing a vicious, non-Sunni dictatorship in its war against its own, largely Sunni people.

Polls show the resulting disappearance of the high regard in which Hizballah was once held across the Arab world.

Of course, for as long as the Assad dictatorship survives, this has no immediate physical implications for Hizballah. And despite the overenthusiastic predictions of some westerners and Israelis, the Assad regime may well be around for some considerable time to come.

But in Lebanon, there are already signs that non-Shia communities, long chafing under the heel of Hizballah, are beginning to grow restive. The governing coalition is no longer unified on Syria. The perennial political weathervane, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, now supports the Syrian dictator’s departure.

More ominously, there are signs of growing Sunni restiveness on the ground. The sectarian nature of the conflict in Syria is spilling across the border. Hizballah operatives have been engaged in the arrest of Syrian oppositionists seeking refuge in Lebanon, and their despatch back to Assad. The Lebanese government is claiming that the border town of Arsal has become a haven for ‘al-Qaeda’ elements. In the town of Tarshish, local residents in October physically prevented Hizballah from extending its telecommunications networks into the town.

Hizballah is also engaged in putting down opposition within its own community. Two Shia clerics are set to face charges of ‘conspiring with Israel’ later this month. The two, Sheikh Hassan Mchaymech and Sayyed Mohammad Ali al-Hussein were known for their independent and critical positions toward Hizballah.

None of this portends the imminent demise of Hizballah. What it does reveal is a nervous, diminished organization, which has shed most of the region-wide charisma it earned through its fight against Israel.

The logic of the emerging post 2011 Middle East is one of Islamism and sectarianism. In this context, Hizballah is now exposed as a gendarme in the Levant for Iran and the Shia Islamism it adheres to. The movement, like its friend Bashar Assad, increasingly holds power by force alone. This can be maintained while it is the stronger party. For as long as Bashar is in his seat, it will be so. If he falls, Hizballah’s enemies in Lebanon (and Syria) will be waiting.

Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel, the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict (Continuum, 2010) and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/01/hizballah-backs-assaf:\israel\politics\blog\hard_nl OUT.txtd-%E2%80%93-and-pays-the-price/

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Springtime for Islamists in Egypt

by Rick Moran

Yes, it's a takeoff on the wildly bizarre and funny Mel Brooks song from "The Producers." In a way, I feel like the audience listening to "Springtime for Hitler" in the film; absolutely aghast, horrified, and can't quite believe what has happened.

The official tally is in: Islamists in Egypt have captured more than 70% of the seats in Parliament.

The New York Times:

The military council leading Egypt since Mr. Mubarak lost power last February has said it will keep Parliament in a subordinate role with little real power until the ratification of a constitution and the election of a president, both scheduled for completion by the end of June.

But the council has assigned Parliament the authority to choose the 100 members of a constitutional assembly, so it may shape Egypt for decades to come, although the military council has sometimes tried to influence that process.

The election results were expected because of preliminary tallies after each of the three phases of the vote, but the confirmation comes in time for the seating of Parliament on Monday.

The tally, with the two groups of Islamists together winning about 70 percent of the seats, indicates the deep cultural conservatism of the Egyptian public, which is expressing its will through free and fair elections for the first time in more than six decades.

But the two groups have described very different visions and appear to be rivals rather than collaborators. The Brotherhood has said it intends to respect personal liberties and will focus on economic and social issues, gradually nudging the culture toward its conservative values. By contrast, the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, put a higher priority on legislation on Islamic moral issues, like the consumption of alcohol, women's dress and the contents of popular culture.

I'm not sure if the Times is trying to be funny or what. They admit both the Brotherhood and the Salifis want the exact same kind of society - they only disagree about how fast to get there. How does this make them "rivals?" Also, this is hardly "two very different visions." It is one vision that unites both parties. The Brotherhood is just being a little more pragmatic about things.

I wonder what Mel Brooks could do with the "Arab Spring" in Egypt?

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/01/springtime_for_islamists_in_egypt.html

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Eyeless in Gaza

by Michael Curtis

It is saddening that leaders of mainstream churches, Catholic and Protestant, unlike most Evangelicals, have expressed such little concern about the fate of Christians in the Middle East, let alone registered any support for Israel in its efforts to deal with the incessant attacks on the country. They do not heed the warning of Pierbattista Pizzaballa, custodian of the Holy Land, an individual appointed by the Franciscan order with the approval of the Vatican, of the increasing violence that Christians in the West Bank suffer at the hands of Muslims. Nor do they accept the Evangelican conviction that the establishment of the State of Israel and the return of Jews to their historic land is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, or agree with the declaration of the 4^th International Christian Zionist Congress in 2001 to "fulfill our biblical command to stand with, bless, and support Israel."

This mainstream clerical criticism, at its worst animosity, regarding Israel has become very visible at the moment because of the upcoming Christ at the Checkpoint (CAC) Conference organized by the Biblical College, Bethlehem (West Bank), in partnership with the Holy Land Trust and the World Council of Churches to be held this March. Two previous CAC conferences took place in 2010 and 2011.

The thrust of these conferences was clear from the outset. At the first in 2010, Rev. Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, Surrey, England, who is to be the main organizer of the 2012 CAC conference, in one of his frequent denunciations of Israel, supported the call of the journalist Helen Thomas for Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine." The Lutheran priest, Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Evangelical Christian Church in Bethlehem, acknowledged that a DNA test would show the mutual origin of King David and Jesus, but there was no link with Benjamin Netanyahu, who came from Eastern Europe, not Palestine. The British Anglican Rev. Colin Chapman asserted that because Muhammad had "bad experiences" with the Jews of Medina, it must seem to Palestinian Muslims as if the Jews of the modern period were simply repeating the hostile behavior of Jews towards the Prophet many centuries earlier.

At the 2011 CAC conference Naim Ateek, former Palestinian head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, compared the fate of Jesus on the cross to that of present-day Palestinians. He saw Palestine as one huge Golgotha in which the Israeli government crucifixion system was operating daily. Elsewhere, he argued, with curious theology, that "the original sin is the work of the violence of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank." In his book Justice, and Only Justice, Ateek, calling for a liberation theology, contended that the Bible is a problem for Palestinian Christians because of its use in the justification of Zionism.

The March 2012 CAC conference is expected to attract a considerable number of U.S. theologians, including well-known individuals such as Samuel Rodriguez, head of the U.S. National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Tony Campolo, a sociologist and pastor who was for a time a spiritual adviser to Bill Clinton and founder of the Evangelical Association for Promotion of Education; and the South Korean pastor Sang-Bok David Kim, head of the World Evangelical Alliance, the parent group of the National Association of Evangelicals, and also head of the Asian Evangelical Alliance.

Campolo illustrates differences within the evangelical community. The fervent evangelical Zionists pledge undying love for the Jewish people and, like John Hagee's Christians United for Israel, call for solidarity with Israel. Campolo is one of the 34 evangelical leaders who called for a fair, two-state solution in a letter of July 29, 2007 to President George W. Bush. Yet this apparent even-handedness is belied by their fallacious history that "both Israel and Palestinians have legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine." Their advice to Israel was to remember in dealing with Palestinians "the profound teaching on justice that the Hebrew prophets proclaimed so forcefully."

In connection with the forthcoming conference, a Bethlehem Call manifesto has been published. The manifesto speaks of the Israeli occupation that has "reached a level of almost unimaginable and sophisticated criminality. This includes the slow yet deliberate and systematic ethnic cleansing and the genocide of Palestinians and Palestine as well as the strangling of the Palestinian economy." Taking it for granted that Israel is an apartheid state, the manifesto deplores the failure to resist the Israeli government; such silence "makes us accomplices in crimes against humanity."

The Bethlehem Call was preceded by the Amman Call of June 2007, which urged the end of Israeli occupation of Palestine. The Amman Call was presented in September 2007 for approval by the participants in the meeting of the World Council of Churches in the United Nations Advocacy Week in Geneva. The Council, which claims a membership of 580,000 adherents in 349 Protestant and Orthodox churches, urged all churches and Christians to stand against injustice and modern-day apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Following the Amman Call was the Bern Perspective of 2008, issued after a conference co-hosted by the World Council of Churches, which wrote of the "decades of dispossession, discrimination, illegal occupation, violence and bloodshed in Palestine-Israel." The document distinguished the Israel of the Bible from the modern State of Israel. It declared that references to Israel in the Bible should be seen as metaphorical.

Some Catholic groups are also engaging in this excessive rhetoric critical of Israel. An interesting contrast is evident between these activities and those of Evangelical Christians. The latter, as early as February 1996, at the 3^rd International Christian Zionist Congress meeting in Jerusalem, proclaimed their deep concern about the increasing threat posed by radical Islam to Israel, to Christian minorities in the Middle East, and to the world. However, the communiqué issued by the eight Catholic bishops and one auxiliary bishop visiting the Holy Land, as part of the Holy Land Coordination in January 2012, expressed no such concern, but instead was critical of Israel.

The bishops, who included those from Evry (France), Liverpool (England), and Tucson (U.S.), did appeal for tolerance and courageous leadership and the need for resumption of dialogue between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. But they also pointed out they had seen for themselves "occupation, fear and frustration dominate the life of people across the land." They expressed no skepticism about the validity of the information given them by Archbishop Fouad Twai, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, that the separation barrier, presumably meaning the fence built by Israel which tried to minimize disruption to Arab life and which has largely succeeded in preventing terrorist attacks against it, had caused people to emigrate, to sell homes in the West Bank, and led to an increase in demand for housing in Jerusalem.

The most disconcerting of the remarks made by the bishops were those by Michel Dubost, who asked prisoners in his home town of Evry to pray for people in Gaza, which he described as a large prison, and by William Kenney, auxiliary bishop in Birmingham, England, who also asserted that two of the largest "open prisons" in the world were Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip.

The strong animus against Israel inherent in the activity of the mainstream churches echoes that in the political world, particularly in the international community of United Nations agencies, NGOs, and academics who excessively criticize or condemn Israel and call for its elimination. What is different and disturbing in the clerical rhetoric is the use of the doctrine of supersessionism, or replacement theology. In this train of thought, the church has replaced the people of Israel in God's plan, and biblical references to Israel really refer to Christians. Theological dispute apart, the doctrine of supersessionism has played a significant role in the past in leading to mistreatment of Jews, and may do so in the future. Most troubling is the argument that Jewish Israelis are crucifying Palestinians as Jews of old crucified Jesus. The establishment of the State of Israel is equated with the killing of Jesus. Not only are those Christian adherents who argue this way eyeless about the real treatment of Christians in Gaza, but they also have lost focus in their vision of Middle East politics.

Michael Curtis is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University, and author of the forthcoming book, Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under attack by the international community.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/eyeless_in_gaza.html

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

"The Prime Ministers" by Yehuda Avner

by Sally Zahav

The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner is a book for anyone who is interested in gaining insight into the challenges and joys of Israel's earliest years. Yehuda Avner was privileged to serve four of Israel's early prime ministers: Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzchak Rabin and Menachem Begin, in various capacities. He seems to have been present, sometimes as an active participant and sometimes as an observer in the chambers of power during many of the most sensitive and fateful moments in Israel's early history.

Below is an excerpt from The Prime Ministers that deals with Menachem Begin's first days as prime minister. It's worth noting that Menachem Begin was a lawyer who graduated from the University of Warsaw before immigrating to the land that was then called Palestine. So when he speaks of Israel's status, or the status of Judea and Samaria under International Law, it's not only a prime minister's opinion or a politician's bluster or wishful thinking, but a sound and legally grounded conviction. The excerpt:

The day after his victory, Begin had traveled to an IDF encampment called Kaddum, near Nablus, in the heart of the densely Arab populated hill country, and in the course of an impromptu press conference announced a settlement drive to embrace the whole of the West Bank, which he insisted on calling by its biblical name - Judea and Samaria.

"In that case, what is the future of the occupied territories?" asked a journalist.

Like a patient schoolteacher gently correcting an uninformed pupil, Begin replied, "These my friend, are not occupied territories. You've used this expression for ten years, since sixty-seven. But now it is seventy-seven, and I hope that from now on you'll start using the term liberated territories. A Jew has every right to settle in these liberated territories of the Jewish homeland."

"And what about the Arabs living here?" somebody asked.

Begin answered, "We don't want to evict anyone from his land. In this beautiful country there is room for the Arabs who are working their lands, and for Jews who will come to make the homeland blossom."

"Do you actually plan to annex these territories?" queried another.

"We don't use the word annexation", chided Begin. "You annex foreign territory, not your own country."

"But what about international law - the Fourth Geneva Convention, which expressly forbids settling occupied land?" pressed the questioner.

Begin would not be provoked. Gently, patiently, he explained, "I advise you to look carefully into the legal status of the territories of which you speak, and you will then understand that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply. The UN 1947 partition resolution, which the Arabs refused to recognize, is null and void. The area which you call 'occupied' remains a part of what the League of Nations Supreme Council defined on the twenty-fourth of July nineteen twenty-two as the area to be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people; and Jews have lived in, owned land, and tilled their soil here in these areas for hundreds of years prior to being evicted because of Arab wars of aggression."

"So will Israeli law be introduced into the West Bank?"

Begin benignly replied, "My friend, what you call the West Bank is Judea and Samaria. Please use these terms in the future. They are, after all, their original biblical names. As for Israeli law, this is a matter for consideration. Once I have formed a government, we shall go to the Knesset and ask for a vote of confidence, and then we shall consider what steps to take. Thank you," and off he went to join a group of would-be settlers, who were singing and dancing as they celebrated installing a new Torah scroll in their makeshift synagogue, which event is what had brought Begin to Kaddum in the first place.

There may be people in Israel today who are capable of the kind of vision, leadership and nobility of character that Begin possessed, but unfortunately, our current leaders don't seem to be among them. Our leaders reflect the uncertainty, anxiety and lack of simple faith of many among the populace. If we want to have worthier leaders, we should look inward and make ourselves worthy of great leaders. And here are a few lines that may point us in the right direction:

From "Then Satan Said," by Natan Alterman:

Satan then said:
How do I overcome
This besieged one?
He has courage
And talent,
And implements of war
And resourcefulness.

Only this shall I do,
I'll dull his mind
And cause him to forget
The justice of his cause.

Sally Zahav

Sources:

• The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner; The Toby Press
• "Then Satan Said" by Natan Alterman
  

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