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The Goldstone Report – Using Terminology in Service of Deception
Justice Richard Goldstone and the United Nations Human Rights Council, sought to rewrite history by labeling Judea and Samaria (Known as the West Bank) “Occupied Palestinian Territories” [Paragraph 11], calling Israeli Arabs “Palestinian citizens of Israel” [Paragraph 111], referring to Israeli Arab villages as “Palestinian Israeli communities” [Paragraph 110] and calling Arab inhabitants of Gaza “Palestinian People in the Gaza strip” [Paragraph 1859]. Essentially Goldstone is endowing Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza with an aura of bogus peoplehood and statehood, as well as a false history as if title or ownership could be assigned out of thin air.
No legal binding authority has empowered Goldstone or any UN organ, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the Human Rights Council to decide that the territories of the West Bank, known as Judea and Samaria, and Gaza could be transformed into “Occupied Palestinian Territories” or “Palestine.” Goldstone’s use of these dishonest, loaded terms empowers terrorism and the Palestinians with the right to use all measures to expel Israel.
Palestine is a Geographical Area, Not a Nationality
Arabs, the UN and its organs, and lately the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as well, have repeatedly claimed that the Palestinians are a native people – so much so that almost everyone takes it for granted. The problem is that a stateless Palestinian People is a fabrication. The word Palestine is not even Arabic. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on October 27, 2009 - ט' חשון תש"ע at 9:16 pm
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Israel Must Remain a Jewish State With a Jewish Majority
Muslim intolerance precludes consideration of a binational state
By Israel Zwick, CN Publications, October 25, 2009
Since the signing of the Oslo Agreement in September 1993, the international mantra for peace in the Middle East has been “two-states for two peoples; the two-state solution is the only solution.” Unfortunately, the last 16 years has brought only more death and destruction with scant progress towards a resolution of the conflict. Now some of the original proponents of the two-state solution are saying that perhaps it isn’t the most practical solution after all. From simply an administrative, economic, and pragmatic perspective, it doesn’t seem to be a practical solution. In this era of globalization, pluralism, and diversity, establishing two microstates in an area of 28,000 sq. km. appears to be an anachronism. There is an increasing realization that the establishment of another Arab Muslim state on Israel’s border will only create more problems, not solve them. It will reduce economic viability and create conflicts over resources.
While initially this understanding seems encouraging, the alternative proposal is even more ominous. There have been a significant number of proposals from both the Arab and Israeli peace groups that advocate a one-state solution, meaning that Israel should be replaced by a binational Arab and Jewish state. It sounds good: Jews and Arabs will live together in peace with equal rights for all. It’s easy to do, they say. We already have one airport named Ben Gurion, so we’ll build another airport and name it Yasser Arafat Airport. Who really needs all those streets named “Weizmann” and “Herzl?” It’s too confusing. We’ll just rename some of them “Nasser” and “Abdullah.” We’ll just add a red crescent to the flag, add a few Muslim holidays to the calendar, modify the national anthem a bit, and poof, there you have it. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity for all. Peace, harmony, and tranquility will abound. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts, Zwick's Picks on October 25, 2009 - ז' חשון תש"ע at 6:24 pm
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The Algerian Precedent in Israel
by Dr. Mordechai Nisan, Arutz Sheva Opinion, 22 October 09
(Israelnationalnews.com) A Palestinian state, or even a fledgling political entity exercising governmental and security functions, will act to provide the base necessary for accelerating the Arab war against Israel. This was explicitly stated when the PLO adopted its 1974 ‘stages plan’, and it was implied in the 1988 PLO Declaration of Independence. The advent of the 1993 Oslo Accords saw this Palestinian strategy get off to a good start with the establishment of the armed Palestinian Authority in areas from which Israel withdrew in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.
As a result of ideological rigidity, national exclusivity, and religious dogmatism, the Palestinian struggle against Israel knows no limits. The PLO, no less than Hamas and Islamic Jihad, demands refugee return, settlement dismantlement, and Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital. These positions enjoy the support of UN resolutions and of the entire international community, leaving Israel standing alone and isolated on this diplomatic front.
There were more politically congenial days for Israel in the past. President Reagan intimated in his Plan of 1982 that Israel should not go back to the 1967 borders, nor should there be a Palestinian state. President Bush, though calling for a Palestinian state, agreed in 2004 that Jewish ‘settlement blocs’ would provide Israel with territory beyond the Green Line borders. However, in his recent UN address, President Obama in 2009 demanded “ending the [Israeli] occupation which began in 1967.” Removing all Israeli presence from the territories, both civilian and military, is now at the heart of an American policy that considers the formation of a Palestinian state the key to conflict-resolution based on justice – for the Palestinians.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 25, 2009 - ז' חשון תש"ע at 10:16 am
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Stop religious persecution in Iran
By Rainn Wilson, Special to CNN, October 24, 2009
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Rainn Wilson: I’m a member of the Baha’i faith, founded in the 1800s in Iran
- He says the faith has been persecuted on and off for 150 years
- Seven Baha’i leaders are going on trial in Iran on a variety of charges, he says
- Wilson: Ask your congressman to support a resolution on the Baha’is
RELATED TOPICS
Editor’s Note: Actor Rainn Wilson plays paper salesman Dwight Schrute in the television comedy "The Office."
(CNN) — Why is Rainn Wilson, "Dwight" on "The Office," writing a news commentary for CNN? Good question.
It’s a bit strange for me, to say the least; a comic character actor best known for playing weirdos with bad haircuts getting all serious to talk about the persecution of the fellow members of his religious faith.
Dear readers of CNN, I assure you that what I’m writing about is no joking matter or some hoax perpetrated by a paper-sellin’, bear-fearin’, Battlestar-Galactica obsessed beet farmer.
I am a member of the Baha’i faith. What is that, you ask? Well, long story short, it’s an independent world religion that began in the mid-1800s in Iran. Baha’is believe that there is only one God and therefore only one religion.
All of the world’s divine teachers (Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, Abraham, Krishna, etc.) bring essentially the same message — one of unity, love and knowledge of God or the divine.
This constantly updated faith of God, Baha’is believe, has been refreshed for this day and age by our founder, Baha’u'llah. There. Nutshell version.
Now, as I mentioned, this all happened in Iran, and needless to say the Muslim authorities did not like the Baha’is very much, accusing them of heresy and apostasy. Tens of thousands were killed in the early years of the faith, and the persecutions have continued off and on for the past 150 years.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on October 24, 2009 - ו' חשון תש"ע at 10:01 pm
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A briefing by Wafa Sultan
October 20, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2488/the-muslim-world-needs-reform
Wafa Sultan is a Syrian-born psychiatrist who immigrated to the U.S. in 1989. She is most well-known for appearing on Al-JazeeraA God Who Hates. On October 20, Dr. Sultan addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call. in 2006 in a debate with sheikh Ibrahim Al-Khouli, when she delivered a memorable attack on Islam (which has since caused her to live in hiding). She just released a new book, entitled A God Who Hates. On October 20, Dr. Sultan addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call.
Islam is intrinsically destructive—that is Dr. Sultan’s message. She began by discussing how she came about this conclusion, which is the story of her largely autobiographical book. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East, Monotheistic Religions, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 24, 2009 - ו' חשון תש"ע at 2:48 pm
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Guardians of the underground
Larry Derfner , THE JERUSALEM POST, Oct. 22, 2009
We were on our way to see how Jerusalem’s buried past is being protected from the engines of progress – in this case, from a construction crew laying a sewage pipe – when the car phone rang.
"I think I’ve found something. Do you have a camera with you?" asked Shimrit Elia on the other end of the line. Elia is an Antiquities Authority archeologist whose job for the last two weeks had been to monitor the construction crew’s work in Nahal Tzofim near Mount Scopus.
"No, all I’ve got is my video camera. What did you find?" asked Semyon Gendler, the authority’s roving field archeologist in the capital, driving the work van.
"I’ll tell you when you get here," said Elia.
"Good for you," said Gendler, perking up, impatient now to get around midday traffic to the construction site.
Entering a pine forest, we drove along a dry river bed where the tractors were digging up the earth for the sewage pipe. We passed a configuration of stone blocks sticking out of the dirt. Elia, 27, dressed like your classic archeologist in hiking boots, T-shirt, khakis and floppy hat, led us up the hill to what looked like a cave covered by a slab of rock.
"It’s a cistern," she said – basically a huge bowl to catch rainwater. Gendler thought it might be from the Byzantine era, and by the plaster he scraped off the sides, he figured it might have been in use until sometime in the 19th century.
"Very nice," he told Elia. She’d found the cistern while hiking around. Otherwise, she’d been sitting on a chair under the trees watching the crew at work, making sure nothing emerged from the ground that might have archeological value.
The configuration of blocks further back was a stone-cutting instrument probably from the Second Temple era, said Gendler. Since it lay beyond the route of the sewage pipe, as did the cistern, it would not be harmed by the construction crew.
Additional antiquities – such as wine presses, olive presses, wells and ceramic pieces – were expected to turn up before the construction crew was finished, which is why Elia was there. Whatever was found would be documented and thus added to the store of knowledge about Jerusalem’s ancient past.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on October 23, 2009 - ה' חשון תש"ע at 11:46 am
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The significance of Israel to the west is out of all proportion to her size and in direct relation to her place, on the front line. The country is unambiguously western, and not only her institutions but the way they operate leave no doubt of this. When, for instance, there are allegations that Israeli troops have committed crimes, in the course of military operations, there is an investigation. The contents and conclusions of that investigation are invariably made known. There will most certainly be open public discussion, and Israel’s press is remarkably free.
The country is full of what we can easily recognize as “liberal” people, indeed more than to my taste, and I am frequently amazed that people who live within a mile of an enemy who obviously wants them dead, can blather on so glibly. I find it a source of discouragement: for at one level I had always assumed that “the prospect of a hanging concentrates the mind” — that people whose minds have been scrambled by moral relativism must necessarily wake up, when their own extinction is in view. But no, they only turn in their sleep.
The significance of Israel is that she stands proxy for America and the West in the minds of our most lethal enemies.
In Islamist propaganda she is the “Little Satan,” as the U.S. is the “Big Satan.” And while there is plenty of blood-curdling anti-Semitism in Islamist pronouncements, there is also clarity about the long-term goal.
First destroy “the Jewish entity” of Israel, because she is exposed. Then destroy “the Christian entity.”
The U.S. is held constantly in view as the ultimate target, to accomplish this; and the destruction of Israel is constantly presented as a means to it.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 22, 2009 - ד' חשון תש"ע at 10:09 am
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Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast
Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.
By ROBERT L. BERNSTEIN, NY Times Op-ed, October 20, 2009
AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.
At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.
That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.
When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Opinion, Recent Posts on October 20, 2009 - ב' חשון תש"ע at 12:00 pm
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A Tale of Two Taxi Drivers
“Perhaps the Peacemaker-in-Chief should speak with the people most involved. Then he may learn that the Palestinian Arabs don’t really want their own state, they just want to complain about not having one. That way they can obtain the benefits from being a poor, suffering, disenfranchised, stateless people.”
By Israel Zwick, CN Publications, October 18, 2009
The internationally acclaimed peacemaker, Barak Hussein Obama, is now eager to achieve tangible results from his peacemaking efforts. Most likely he will concentrate his efforts on trying to get Palestinian and Israeli leaders to sit down together at a table for final status negotiations. Israel will concede land to the Arabs, dismantle Jewish communities, and a peace agreement will be signed. When the Palestinians have their own state, Hamas and Hezbollah will no longer smuggle weapons and threaten Israel. Iran will cease efforts to build a nuclear weapon and will instead become a world leader in alternative nuclear energy. The entire Middle East will become an exemplary model of peaceful coexistence and mutual cooperation. There will be peace and harmony throughout the region. How wonderful!
There is a small, minor snag in this ambitious plan. While the Israeli leaders are ready to go back to the table, the Palestinians still insist that Israel must first cease all settlement activity in eastern Jerusalem and Judea. They refuse to abandon their demands for a capital in Jerusalem and the “right of return” of millions of Arabs to the State of Israel. Israeli leaders could never agree to these demands if they want the Jewish state to survive. That begs the question, “Are the Arabs again missing a valuable opportunity to establish their own state, or perhaps they don’t really want their own sovereign state?” Could it be that the great Peacemaker-in-Chief is actually misinterpreting the will of the people? Let’s find out. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts, Zwick's Picks on October 18, 2009 - ל' תשרי תש"ע at 10:05 pm
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Israel’s Consulate General in N.Y. Defends Nation’s Strategic Actions
By Ben Gitlin
Published on The Cornell Daily Sun (http://www.cornellsun.com), Oct 16 2009
Asaf Shariv, consulate general of Israel in New York, spoke to approximately 90 students, professors and locals yesterday about the current state of affairs in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, as part of the Mario Einaudi Center’s Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series in the Biotech building. Shariv noted that so long as Hamas’ leaders in Gaza refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, any peace resolution in the foreseeable future is doubtful.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 16, 2009 - כ"ח תשרי תש"ע at 7:36 am
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