WILLIAM MEHLMAN: ABDULLAH, PICK UP THE PHONE

If it’s solely a National Home for which the so-called Palestinians yearn, rather than the liquidation of the Jewish National Home, such an abode – fully furnished –already exists east of the Jordan River

Filed under Mideast

When all the wild, desperate, improbable solutions to a problem have been exhausted, there is    nothing left to turn to but the obvious.

In respect to the Arab-Israel conflict, the “obvious” has been staring us in face for over 40 years. Encapsulated in the mantra “Two States for Two Peoples on Two Banks of the Jordan River,“ it has the distinction of being the most ignored testament to rationality and common sense in the history of international diplomacy.

An “invented ”nation the so-called Palestinians surely are, but given the world’s acceptance of their claim to sovereignty, it  is on the shoulders of the world, not on Israel’s, that the  realization of  that aspiration rests.

Indeed, if it’s solely a National Home for which the so-called Palestinians yearn, rather than the liquidation of the Jewish National Home, such an abode – fully furnished –already exists east of the Jordan River. “Jordan” it may be called, but encompassing 77 percent of Biblical Israel expropriated by the British and handed over to a Hashemite desert potentate, it is a “Palestinian State” in the purest post-Biblical sense of the term.

That this de facto  “Palestinian State” with its 70 percent  Palestinian Arab  majority should be allowed to stand on the sidelines, like some kibbitzer at  an  interminable diplomatic poker game, exempt from any material obligation toward  its compatriots, boggles the  mind.

Gratuitous advice can no longer be accepted as currency for Jordan King Abdullah’s unsettled debt of responsibility for the “ingathering” of his Palestinian “Diaspora.” His assumption of it should begin by reinstating the Jordanian nationality of hundreds of thousands of Arabs resident in Judea and Samaria wiped off the by King Hussein, his father, in 1988, in brazen contempt of Jordan’s 1954 nationality law. This unappealable disenfranchisement without notice has more recently been intensified for thousands more, including Arabs of   Palestinian origin who have lived in Jordan since the Six-Day War.  Viewed as especially vulnerable to the same treatment are the more than 200,000 Palestinian-origin Jordanian migrant workers expelled from Kuwait in 1991 in the wake of Operation Desert Storm.

Jordan claims its citizen annulment policy is motivated by a desire to reinforce the victims’  “Palestinian birthright” and their right to return to the “West Bank.”   Insiders suspect the real reason is the monarchy’s desire to rid itself of excess population weight on a stagnant economy, with the eventual hope of unloading the problem on Israel’s doorstep as part of a Middle East peace agreement

Meanwhile, the newly minted non-citizens face a bleak future.  Jordanian law prohibits the state from employing them. A similar law, requiring proof of nationality, virtually disbars them from employment in the private sector.  The outlook for professionals is classical Catch 22.  They can’t practice law, medicine or any other calling without being members of  the corresponding professional associations.  And the latter can’t admit them unless they’re Jordanian citizens.

The United States, King Abdullah’s chief political and financial prop, has consigned its  humanitarian instincts to cold storage in the face of this brutal Jordanian onslaught against its  citizenry.  As far as the Obama White House is concerned, the Hashemite monarchy, the only true second party to its vaunted “two-state solution,” remains not only free of involvement,  but free to further exacerbate the problem it was ostensibly designed to resolve.  That charade must end. Moreover, having made the Palestinian issue the fulcrum of its Middle East policy, the United States should bring every material and diplomatic resource at its disposal to the aid of its favorite king in fulfilling his national obligation. That might well be worth the institution  of a modern-day “Marshall Plan” to finance the repatriation and resettlement of the Palestinian Arabs in their homeland on the east bank of the Jordan.

There is no better time than now to begin that process.

The Arabs, though some may be talented, have a lot of loud-mouthed activists who scream and spew hatred.

By RAY HANANIA
Jerusalem Post, 24/01/2012

If Palestinian groups would band together, perhaps they would achieve something- after 100 years of failure.

If the Israelis wanted to defeat the Palestinians, Israel would immediately recognize a Palestinian State in Gaza, the West Bank and even east Jerusalem rather than embrace policies that push Palestinians to unite. If they did that, all the Israelis would have to do is sit back and watch as the Palestinians tear themselves apart.
Yes, the tragedy of the Palestinians isn’t that they are victims of injustice at the hands of the Israelis. It is their own tendency to destroy themselves from within.
The most powerful factor keeping Palestinians together as a people is the anger they share in response to injustices by Israel. But that’s a pathetic reason for unity. Worse, anger easily turns into hatred and hatred easily turns into violence, terrorism and killings. And violence undermines even the most just of causes.
Palestinians hate Israelis but they hate themselves even more.
Palestinian activists spend as much time bashing their own people as they do bashing Israel. The truth is that for the Palestinians, bashing Israel results in nothing but more defeats and losses. Bashing other Palestinians makes them feel better, and serves to distract their community from their inherent leadership failures.

Yes, it’s true. The Palestinian leadership is a failure, and the activists who lead the hatred, for example against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate Palestinian like myself, and against anyone who dares to challenge their fanaticism, are the primary cause.
Let’s define failure. In nearly 100 years of battling Jewish immigrants and then the Israeli people, the Palestinians have failed to establish sovereignty over one inch of historic Palestine.
THE DIFFERENCES between Israelis and Jews on one side and the Palestinians and the Arab World on the other is striking.
For example, Israelis and Jews recognize that the American public is the single most important public constituency in the world. The Arab World marginalizes the American public, brushing them off as “ignorant” and “uneducated.”
That may be. But there’s a reason the most powerful lobbying group in the world, AIPAC, operates out of Washington, DC, not London, Paris or the Hague.
And recognizing the importance of the American public means recognition of the significance of American politics. Some of the wealthiest people funding the presidential candidates in the United States are not Arabs who have billions at their disposal, but Jews.
Newt Gingrich this week pulled to the front of the Republican field of candidates seeking to unseat Democrat President Barack Obama in November’s presidential election.
Gingrich did that with the backing of one of the wealthiest people in the world, Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson is the publisher of an Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, and the owner of lucrative casinos in Las Vegas. He put up more than $5 million to fund a “Super Pac” that has been bashing Mitt Romney and that is helping Gingrich.
Although Arabs hate Gingrich because he called the Palestinians an “invented people,” the fact is that Gingrich has very moderate views on Israel and Palestine. In interviews with my journalist colleague Ali Younes, who covered the South Carolina Republican primaries, Gingrich explained that he would recognize and support a Palestinian state if Hamas and the Palestinians recognized Israel and renounced violence.
Forget about the politics of Gingrich’s words. Mainstream Palestinians renounced violence years ago and continue to live in the limbo of occupation, while Hamas goes back and forth, one day pretending to be moderate and the next vowing retaliation for brutal Israeli air strikes.
But as a veteran journalist and now columnist, I know presidential candidates will say anything to win elections. In other words, that Gingrich called Palestinians an “invented people” is meaningless in terms of what he might do to bring about compromise if elected president.
The bigger question, though, is where is the Palestinian or Arab version of Sheldon Adelson who is willing to put up much of his wealth to support the interests of his people? Arabs do not own newspapers, television stations or put any real money into the Palestinian lobbying. Pro-Israel groups have donated more than $51 million to candidates, according to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. In contrast, Arabs have only donated $61,000.
The Arabs, though some may be talented, have a lot of loud-mouthed activists who scream and spew hatred. There’s the great jazz musician whose hatred of Israel borders on anti-Semitism. There’s the talented writer at the Electronic Intifada whose words are driven by hatred of Jews.
These hate-driven activists have compromised mainstream Arabs, putting them in a headlock of oppression. Moderate Arabs are discouraged from expressing their views or espousing moderation in the face of the bullying and threats from the fanatics who spend more time and energy beating up their own people than turning legal claims against Israel into meaningful reality.
I was sitting with a group of Arab journalist friends recently at al-Manar restaurant outside of Chicago in Bridgeview, which is the hub of the local Palestinian Muslim community.
What struck me as odd was the restaurant was empty, save for our group. It was lunchtime on a Sunday. Down the street, Arabs were standing in line at two American restaurants owned by Greek Americans.
The real secret is that the Israelis don’t have to work hard at defeating the Palestinians. All they have to do is let Palestinians undermine themselves.

The writer is an award winning columnist and radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com

Much the way the Nazis assigned their strategic national assets to the destruction of a people, the rulers of Iran are focusing their considerable national resources on creating and fielding nuclear weapons. They do so while publicly embracing time and again a foreign policy that calls for literally wiping Israel off the map.

by Lawrence Kadish
January 24, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2779/planning-genocide

When a group of high-ranking Nazi bureaucrats sat down 70 years ago today (Jan. 20, 1942), they didn’t plot the death of 6 million Jews; they aimed at 11 million.

Dubbed the Wannsee Conference, after its location, it was chaired by SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, who brought together some of the most efficient managers of mass murder history has ever seen.

The 90-minute agenda was direct, having been transmitted by Hitler to his deputy, Reich Marshal Herman Goering, and then onto Heydrich: “Make all necessary preparations” for a “total solution of the Jewish question” in all territories under German influence, coordinate the role of all government organizations in accomplishing that goal — and then submit a “comprehensive draft” for the “final solution of the Jewish question.”

In other words, for the first time, the administrative, industrial and transportation resources of an entire nation would be deployed for the purpose of genocide.

While history records that a staggering 6 million Jews would ultimately be destroyed as a result, one of the more chilling documents retrieved from the massive archives of the Nazi regime is a simple list of all European nations with Jewish populations as small as 200. Prepared for the Wannsee meeting by Heydrich’s notorious SS assistant, Adolf Eichmann, it assumed that at some point soon the Nazis would control countries from Ireland to Turkey.

The genocidal census was designed to anticipate the organizational structure required to retrieve and ship those 11 million Jews to the Nazi murder factories, regardless of how distant they were from Auschwitz or Treblinka. The Wannsee conferees met to ensure that all participants would meet their quotas (under Heydrich’s centralized authority) to complete “the final solution.”

It would take untold blood, treasure and sacrifice from the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union to bring the Third Reich to an end. Seventy years later, the ruthless, brutal and unrelenting struggle against one of the darkest regimes ever to plague mankind serves as an eternal reminder that there remain forces that would destroy humanity.

Much the way the Nazis assigned their strategic national assets to the destruction of a people, the rulers of Iran are focusing their considerable national resources on creating and fielding nuclear weapons. They do so while publicly embracing time and again a foreign policy that calls for literally wiping Israel off the map.

Elsewhere, the racial hatred practiced by the Third Reich is echoed in the Taliban revulsion of our Western democracies — and in policies in areas it controls that include burning to death young girls for the high crime of attending school.

On this grim 70th anniversary of Wannsee, let us contemplate how a disbelieving world can stand idly by as evil regimes coolly harness their bureaucracies to methodically achieve horrendous goals. Whatever the double speak (as the Wannsee crowd used the phrase “final solution” to mask its program of mass extermination), the outcome is clear to all who wish to see it. Had they been invited, the Iranian regime and the Taliban would have been enthusiastic participants in the Wannsee Conference.

This Third Reich milestone should serve as a cautionary tale for every 21st-century democracy. Middle East expert Bernard Lewis has observed that Islamist leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are little concerned with the mutual-destruction strategies that kept the Cold War from becoming hot. Instead, they welcome the martyrdom of their subjects.

History consistently reminds us that indifference in the face of an implacable enemy invariably leads to disaster. Further, more often than not, our enemies tell us exactly what they mean to do before they do it. Acting on their warning requires our collective insight, personal courage and national will.

Lawrence Kadish is chairman of the advisory board of the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale, L.I. Originally published by the New York Post, January 20, 2012, and reprinted by gracious permission of the author.

There is a Pollyanna aspect to Obama arising from his belief that everything would be okay as long as America behaves properly and he is president. In his world there are no real conflicts; few true enemies but only misunderstandings. With Obama the problem is not merely his politics and views but also his total lack of true understanding about international affairs, security issues, and strategy.

Posted By Barry Rubin On January 25, 2012

In his State of the Union message, President Barack Obama began by wrapping himself in the flag, patriotism, and love of the armed forces while trying to highlight his foreign policy achievements. Among his points:

“The United States [is] safer and more respected around the world.”

Presumably, a lot of Americans will believe this. The United States may be said to be safer in terms of facing direct terror attacks but that was basically true in 2002. As for “more respected”—a phrase no doubt chosen to seem more statesmanlike than saying “more popular”–that is a joke. If there’s one thing that should be obvious (and this is often revealed even by international public opinion polls) it is that the United States is not more respected at all.

Moreover, while individual Americans may be relatively safe from terrorist attacks in their homes, neighborhoods and workplaces within the territory of the United States—a perception partly reinforced by redefining terrorist attacks as something else—U.S. interests abroad are far less safe.

“For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.”

True, though the remaining forces may have to fight to defend themselves. This withdrawal, of course, was planned by Obama’s predecessor and Iraq is not doing so well today.

“For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated.”

Aside from the lack of grammar here—was Obama trying to avoid saying that these people were killed?—the statement is true. The problem is that Hamas, Hizballah, the Turkish regime, Iran, Syria, and the Muslim Brotherhood add up to a far bigger threat, a problem magnified by Obama refusing to acknowledge they are a threat.

“The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.”

While the latter point about withdrawal is true, the Taliban is still quite strong. It would be quite possible for the Taliban to return to power within five years.

Then Obama rearranges history—quite obviously though no one in the mass media will point this out:

“Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.”

In fact, of course, the successes against al-Qaeda were obviously achieved before the withdrawal. Are al-Qaeda operatives trembling in fear before the might of America? Of course not. And in both Pakistan and Yemen (one should add Somalia) they are doing quite well. Obama could have done better by referring to the defeat of al-Qaeda as being part of the American “victory” in Iraq.

“From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.”

Again, Obama tells an unnecessary lie. The withdrawal from Iraq is a correct move but hardly puts the United States in a position of strength, especially given Obama’s deep cuts on the military. And of course the end of the war in Afghanistan was planned long before any withdrawal in Iraq; indeed it was basically planned during his predecessor’s term.

As for an “enduring partnership with Afghanistan,” that’s the kind of statement bound to come back to haunt Obama. Afghanistan remains unstable, its government is angry with Obama, and the tide may well turn there after a U.S. withdrawal.

Next, Obama turns to the Arab Spring. He refers to his success in Libya:

“A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators – a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone.”

True, but what will replace him?

“And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can’t be reversed, and that human dignity can’t be denied.”

In fact, for two and a half years, Obama strongly backed—in contrast to predecessors—that regime which denied “human dignity.” And he’s doing very little to help that transformation now.

My number-one complaint about Obama—not that there aren’t others but this is in first place—is that he never hints at the dangers in the region precisely because he doesn’t recognize that they exist.

And, in total contrast to his actual policy, he gives lip service to doing something productive:

“While it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings – men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.”

In fact, though, Obama has basically ignored the “violence and intimidation” against Israel; the people of the Gaza Strip; the Turkish people; the Iranian people; the tyranny taking shape in Lebanon; the Christians in Iraq and Syria; and elsewhere.

How can “tyranny” be “no match for liberty” when U.S. policy is largely on the side of tyranny, indeed a tyranny of a worse kind that has previously prevailed in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Turkey?

When it comes to U.S. security interests, Obama can only talk about Iran, where he claims success:

“Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent.”

Nice. But Iran is still advancing in its nuclear program and its influence in Lebanon and Iraq increases while Tehran adequately defends its interests in Syria. If the State Department had not restrained Obama, he would also have handed Iran a victory in Bahrain.

On nuclear weapons, Obama repeats the standard line:

“America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”

And if it doesn’t? Yes, it is quite true that Obama led a move to tougher sanctions on Iran but he did so only by excluding Russia, Turkey, and China from compliance. I would argue that the same result could have been achieved far earlier than Obama did it.

Here is the worst sentence of the speech: “The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe.” It is precisely the lack of American leadership that is being felt.

“Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever.” Really? The South Koreans would probably agree but generally the alliances are not stronger than ever but about as weak as they have ever been.

“Our ties to the Americas are deeper.” Actually, Latin American leaders are very unhappy, feeling that Obama has coddled the Chavez dictatorship while ignoring them.

“Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.”

This is a carefully constructed sentence which I find makes me even more suspicious about Obama’s commitment toward Israel. Why? Because it is true that the bilateral military cooperation is as good as it has ever been. But all other areas of relations are terrible. This sentence tells me that Obama understands that and wants to accentuate the positive without doing anything to improve the negative. He thinks U.S.-Israel relations are good enough and will not—even if, or especially if, elected to a second term–make any effort to improve relations with Israel or U.S. support for that country. After all, he thinks that the relationship is perfect right now.

Another point to notice is Obama’s failure to mention—much less highlight—the Israel-Palestinian “peace process.” They’ve given up on that one, at least for 2012.

And then he concludes with this statement, remarkable for being so directly opposite to the truth:

“America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Wow, first, America is not back because Obama has reduced U.S. influence, leverage, and activism. Second, who has done more than Obama to assert that U.S. power is in decline? And, third, this fact is totally obvious to leaders in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Obama, however, is always one for doubling down on his lies or errors. (You choose the word you prefer.):

“That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Capetown to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years.”

The truth is generally the exact opposite and even in the polls one can see this. Obama can be daring because he knows the media won’t bash him for saying stuff like this.

There’s something else I find fascinating and generally ignored about this speech. All presidents, of course, want to put the accent on the positive. But with Obama I don’t see any real consideration of threats and problems. Yes, he mentions al-Qaida and the Taliban (no longer a problem, he says) and Iran (under control and they will be pressed into making a deal), and democratic transitions (we don’t know what will happen but…).

Nevertheless, America faces no real threats or enemies. revolutionary Islamism doesn’t exist as an issue; Russia poses no problem; Chavez and Castro and various other dictators are vanished; even underdevelopment or instability aren’t mentioned. There is a Pollyanna aspect to Obama arising from his belief that everything would be okay as long as America behaves properly and he is president.  In his world there are no real conflicts; few true enemies but only misunderstandings.  With Obama the problem is not merely his politics and views but also his total lack of true understanding about international affairs, security issues, and strategy.

Governor Mitch Daniels gave the Republican response and stuck completely to domestic economic issues, which was after all Obama’s main theme. Yet international affairs was the only other theme and if Obama’s critics can’t do a better job of analyzing his claims, responding to his policies, and offering an alternative to his strategies he is more likely to remain president for five more years.

Article printed from Rubin Reports: http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/01/25/obamas-sotu-speech-my-response/

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch

Senior Rabbi, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue

Posted: 01/25/2012 4:38 pm

In early Jan. 15 senior rabbis, ministers and imams traveled together to Israel and the Palestinian territories. We are from among New York City’s leading religious institutions. Collectively, our houses of worship are home to tens of thousands of prominent New Yorkers.

Anyone who appreciates the hectic schedules and unique demands upon congregational clergy realizes that it is no small matter to bring 15 spiritual leaders together for five days. So why did we leave our congregations for a week? Why did our congregants insist that we go and even pay for our mission?

In the post 9/11 world, religious rapprochement is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity. To ignore dialogue is to invite destruction. If we do not find ways to live together in dignity we will die together in agony. Religious moderates must build new bridges of coexistence or religious extremists will burn the last bridges of peace.

Our presence in the Middle East was intended to broadcast that we can live together, work together, travel together, dream together and build together. In a world awash in religious conflict, we wish to model a different way: the way of coexistence, respect and peace.

It was a tough trip. We did not paper over our differences. We visited the heart of the conflict. There were moments of despair. We met with presidents, prime ministers, members of parliament and mayors on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. We met with priests, imams and rabbis. We met with journalists, academics, students, villagers and farmers.

Daily headlines do not begin to tell the story. None of the people we met — not one — believed that the Middle East is closer to peace today than ten years ago. If this is the truth, we need to hear it. Progress rests upon the solid rock of reality, not the shifting sands of fantasy.

Despite it all, many of us returned to New York guardedly optimistic. None of the people we met — not one — felt that the status quo was sustainable. Everyone understood that a way must be found to break out of the suffocating reality. There is broad agreement that the present is not working and that a new future must be forged.

People of faith have a unique role to play. Both Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad urged us to engage. Both of them emphasized that religion could be a source of enormous support as the politicians seek a political solution. We can help to create a context that is conducive to peace.

Religion specializes in hope. We are good at articulating our common humanity and giving voice to the better angels of our nature. We were also cautioned that if we do not step up the forces of religious intolerance will continue to drag the rest of us towards war. Our era has placed a sacred obligation on the forces and figures of religious moderation to speak out and act out.

There are many good people working to build bridges. In Haifa we met Christians, Muslims and Jews who have built a true house of coexistence. In Tel Aviv we met doctors, nurses and hospital staff who treated illness without regard to race, religion or creed. Even on the Gaza border, in Israeli towns that were fired upon in a barrage of missiles, there were people who were reaching out to the other side.

Peace is made piece by piece, from the bottom up. Progress is advanced day by day, person by person, each laboring in their own corner of the universe, connecting with others who together create an irresistible force. We should connect with those people and strengthen their hand. This daily labor is heroic work.

Jewish sages ask: Who is a hero? They respond: He who turns an enemy into a friend.

This is our task: person by person to help turn enemies into friends.

The Unvarnished Reality of Contemporary U.S.-Israel Relations

The following article was published in Maariv newspaper in Hebrew. 

By Barry Rubin

Do not speak of it in public. Do not expect any Israeli official to admit it. But Israel is facing an issue unlike anything it has had to deal with during the past 50 years: It cannot depend on the United States.

True, the relationship in terms of weapons’ supply remains good. Old programs continue to provide advanced arms to Israel. Nor is the problem the one most people think of first: on Israel-Palestinian, “peace process” issues.

President Barack Obama’s Administration has seen that no real progress is possible on that front.  It tends to blame Israel in public and Obama intensely dislikes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but those problems have little material effect. If that personal matter were the only issue involved Israel could muddle through as it has with other presidents.

The difficulty with Obama is that his entire strategy in the Middle East is contrary to Israeli interests, except for putting some sanction’ pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear weapons’ program.  The greatest threat to Israel today is the rise of radical Islamist regimes. Here is how Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh puts it:

“The Palestinian cause is winning. With the Muslim Brotherhood part of the government [in Egypt], they [the Egyptians] will not besiege Gaza. They will not arrest Palestinians. They will not give cover to Israel to launch a war….Israel is disturbed by this. It knows the strategic environment is changing. Iran is an enemy. Relations are deteriorating with Turkey. With Egypt, they are really cold. Israel is in a security situation they have never been in before.”

Even though Israel has faced worst strategic situations and the Islamists are badly divided, Haniyeh has put his finger on the central strategic factor today. Radical Islamists who want to open a new round of battle against Israel now rule or are likely to do so very soon in Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey.

Here is where the problem with the United States comes in. Obama does not really view this trend as a threat. He spent the first half of his term engaging with Iran and its ally Syria. Obama and his administration regards the Islamists as people who are either already moderate or are likely to become so by governing.

This is, of course, the opposite of the Israeli assessment.  In Syria, the U.S. government even helped organize and supports an external opposition leadership in which Islamists form the majority even though it is doubtful that this reflects their level of support within the country.

To put it bluntly, the U.S. government does not even recognize the existence of the number-one threat to Israel.

And to make matters worse, the government that Obama looks to for advice, guidance, and interpretation of the region is not Israel but the Islamist regime in Turkey. That government’s sharp turn to a highly emotional anti-Israel policy has not cost it anything at all in terms of its relations with the White House, something that would have been unthinkable under any previous president.

That is why Israel, as well as the Middle East generally, is going to be an important issue in this year’s presidential election.  To preserve relations with the United States, Israeli leaders will neither do nor say anything about that contest. Yet nothing could be more obvious than that Obama’s reelection would be extremely damaging for Israel’s security.

Posted By David Solway On January 25, 2012, In Daily Mailer,FrontPage

I have often written, sometimes bemused, sometimes incensed, about what is surely the strangest fact of Jewish life, namely, its self-division. Since time immemorial, the Jewish people have been at war with themselves, both in the Holy Land and the Diaspora, allowing themselves to succumb to one of history’s most mordant ironies. In turning against themselves, they have effectively collaborated with those who would suppress, conquer or extinguish the Jewish community.

The template was already established in the Book of Genesis, where we read how one brother slew another in jealousy and resentment and a group of conspiratorial brothers sold their sibling into slavery. From that point on, the biblical archive presents a saga of recrimination, envy, hatred and fratricidal strife that in different degrees has imperiled the very survival of the Jewish “nation.” The pattern was consolidated in the story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, the three rebels who “rose up” before Moses and challenged his authority. As the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people” (Exodus 32:9).

Brother against brother, prophet against people, king and priest, and even nation against nation form an indelible part of the Jewish chronicle. The history of the Two Kingdoms provides a continuingly relevant object lesson. After the death of King Solomon, the Israelite communality broke apart into the two warring monarchies of Israel and Judah. The shedding of kinship blood critically weakened the two kingdoms, leading to the conquest of Israel by the Assyrians and the reduction of Judah first by the Chaldeans, then by the Egyptians, and finally by the Babylonians. The Jewish epic may be described as: divide and be conquered. Indeed, surah 59:14 of the Koran tells us something very true about Jews: “There is much hostility between them: their hearts are divided…” It seems that the wise counsel of Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah has no resonance for the backsliders: “All of Israel and those who are joined to it are to each other like brothers. If brother shows no compassion to brother, who will show compassion to him?”

The fault line in the Jewish sensibility is tectonic in its dimensions and destructive in its effect. Perhaps the single most resonant case study in self-division involves the institutional founder of the Christian faith. The story of St. Paul is too well known to require much in the way of comment, yet it is richly instructive. A rabid persecutor of the followers of Jesus, Saul of Tarsus experienced a blinding conversion to the new faith and was shortly thereafter  called by the name of Paul (Acts 13:9). He then became the Apostle of Christianity, considering his Jewish identity a mere rehearsal for a larger identity and at times expressing strong disapproval of Jews who held to their traditional beliefs and identity. (His quarrel with the Desposyni, the “servants of the Lord,” led by James the brother of Jesus who wished to preserve the purity and exclusivity of the original faith, is a matter of historical record.)

But the details of the Apostle’s former activities and subsequent religious convictions are specific to the time. Jews today do not persecute Christians. Indeed, they are the ones who are relentlessly persecuted—by Muslims, by secular antisemites and unhinged fanatics from both sides of the political spectrum (though massively from the Left), and by several Christian denominations associated with The World Council of Churches, replacement and liberation theologians, and the Quaker-Presbyterian axis promoting its BDS campaigns. More to the point, and the most indigestible perversion of all, countless Jews harry and denounce their own congeners. The tendency to a kind of binary kinesis seems inherent in the Jew, whether it is himself he loathes or his own people he reproaches and undermines. It is the psychic split itself, not its local content, that transcends the ages. In this respect, the Saul/ Paul fracture represents a longstanding Jewish archetype.

This history of self-estrangement, political strife and cultural rupture has been played out from the biblical era through the centuries of religious factionalism and reciprocal excommunication culminating in our own epoch. The profound antipathy between assimilated Jews and their irredentist counterparts in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed and Hebron, as well as the caste-like contempt of Western Jewish intellectuals for the Ostjuden, that is, their assumed “plebeian” and “uneducated” East European brethren, are facts of modern Jewish history. The shame of many of the Jewish Councils in Nazi Europe that collaborated with their murderers (not all, as Gershom Scholem justifiably argues in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis) cannot be forgiven, despite attempts to explain it away as the least of worst alternatives. The legacy of the celebrated Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and the equally acclaimed Jewish political writer Hannah Arendt, who could never forget their German patrimony and were corrosively suspicious of the Zionist project, has been broadly and unambiguously noxious. In the present moment we observe their offspring, that is, left-wing “peace activists,” liberal rabbis and “post-Zionist” intellectuals, who strive to erode the Jewish character of the state of Israel and so deprive it of its legitimacy. The Jewish Left, as it dances around the golden calf of a fictitious peace, represents perhaps the gravest danger to the survival of the country.

Many Jews, as I wrote in Hear, O Israel!, tend to transpose the fight against iniquity and oppression to other nations and communities rather than press for the rights of their own people. Or they believe, “in traditionally Marxist fashion,” as Sol Stern writes in City Journal, “that the way to fight anti-Semitism was through the broader struggle for international socialism.” Thus they pursue their fugitive merit. Like Paul, their main focus falls on the Corinthians and Ephesians et al. of the time. Indifferent to the reality of their own condition—ignoring the rain clouds until they are drenched and catch pneumonia, as the 19^th century Jewish philosopher Max Nordau noted—these are the ostensibly benevolent Jews who wish to “repair the world” (Tikkun Olam). That it would be a world in which their place would nevertheless remain precarious escapes them entirely.

The benevolent Jews are bad enough. Their spirit of pharisaic charity, however, is exceeded by that of the reprobate Jews, who take their “idealism” to the next level of unctuous self-effacement. They struggle against injustice by reprehending, for example, not Palestinian terrorists and Hezbollah jihadists but Israeli Jews themselves whose right to national legitimacy they perceive as an affront and do everything in their power to misrepresent. Again, like Paul, they regard their own people as “those who please not God, and are contrary to all men” (1 Thessalonians 2:15).

But both the benevolent Jew and the reprobate Jew, the supposedly reasonable and the plainly irrational, work against their own long-term interests in a pusillanimous and delinquent flight before the Accuser. These are the “degraded” Jews whom the great Jewish patriot Vladimir Jabotinsky deplored. They are reminiscent of the spies that Moses sent out to reconnoiter enemy territory, ten of whom on returning compared themselves to frail grasshoppers before the fearsome Anakim and recoiled from their destiny (Numbers 13: 33). They do not  understand, in the words of Nurit Greenger, that “Israel is the last station in the Jews’ Via Dolorosa” and that “beyond this station is the Jews’ final crucifixion,” nor do they realize how profoundly they themselves are at risk. They have forgotten that the Jewish sense of security is always a false sense of security—that over the past 2000 years, as Melvin Konner points out in Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews, Jews have been expelled from 94 countries—and do not think to ask themselves why the future should be any different.

Renegade Jews especially have much to answer for. They are always happy to become token Jews, showcased at antisemitic seminars and congresses—where, as Alan Dershowitz writes in an article titled “Why Anti-Semitism Is Moving Toward the Mainstream,” the “red lines separating legitimate criticism of Israel from subtle anti-Semitism” are now being crossed at will. These turncoats pose as principled anti-Zionists, but their anti-Zionism is nothing more or less than a kosher antisemitism. In so being and doing, they acquire what historian Robert Wistrich calls “historic dissident status” by willfully providing their enemies with the ammunition they need to advance their cause while disguising their intentions. There is not much doubt that what we are looking at is a pathology of the first magnitude, what the Talmudic sages called sin’at akhim, or brotherly hatred, an element of Jewish life sufficiently pronounced to merit a name of its own. The 1930s Zionist Labor leader Berl Katznelson was very explicit about this. “Is there another People on Earth,” he asked rhetorically, “so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape, robbery committed by their enemies fill their hearts with admiration and awe?” The syndrome has come to be known as Jew Flu.

Jews do not have the privilege enjoyed by all other peoples in the world, that is, the luxury of hating one another or, for that matter, of hating themselves. Other groups can get away with intramural conflict, the Islamic umma being the chief example of a community that can inflict enormous damage on itself, sundered between Sunni and Shia, nationalists and pan-Arabists, despotic regimes and the equally tyrannical Muslim Brotherhood. Due to its numbers, its domination of the United Nations, its vast oil reserves and its energy stranglehold on the rest of the planet, it survives robustly and continues to exercise global power. Jews have no such exemption.

A Jew who hates another Jew or who is mortified by his own Jewishness has given hostages to fortune and rendered his own prosperity and well-being, let alone his survival, hypothetical. The universal human prerogative of hating one’s fellow man, whether members of one’s race, ethnicity or nation, should be anathema to Jews since they of all peoples can least afford it. No less than Cain hated Abel or Jeroboam hated Rehoboam or Paul hated Saul, the pathology continues to work its harm or, at the very least, to produce an etiology of dislocation in the self. It is only a small step from this ancient matrix to the current mob of anti-Zionist Jewish Jew-haters we are all familiar with, schismatics like George Soros, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Amos Elon, Naomi Klein, Richard Falk, the late Tony Judt and, most recently, Gilad Atzmon asserting in The Wandering Who? his “contempt for the Jew in me.”

In his important book United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror, Jamie Glazov states that “Two of the most outstanding Jewish characteristics are the love of life and the enduring struggle to survive.” There is much truth in this observation; how else explain Jewish survival into the modern world against all the odds? Yet I fear that this is only part of the story and that in our ceaseless squabbles and conflicts with one another, our misdirected skepticism and historical amnesia, we may one day bring about our own demise. It is as if there is something in the Jewish soul that, despite its love of life, paradoxically hungers for its own extinction, as if the very quick of life, of practical wisdom, ethnic solidarity, love of the better part of heritage, faith in the political miracle known as Israel, and the stubborn desire to persist, will often lie dormant.

Under these circumstances, it is hard not to sympathize with the pungent and despairing remark of the Przysucha Hassidic Rebbe, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, who said: “I could revive the dead, but I have more difficulty reviving the living.”

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here. 

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/25/the-scourge-of-jewish-self-division/

By Ira Sharkansky, Tuesday Jan 24, 2012

We are never far from a reminder that the Israel-Palestinian conflict has a strong element of religious animosity.

Those who aspire to solve this with a simple agreement about lines on a map will be better off refereeing a football match (American or European). The Middle East is not for them.

The latest reminder occurred at an anniversary of the Palestinian political movement Fatah. It currently rules the West Bank, although tenuously, with help from Israel and other outsiders. Hamas and other extremists are nipping at its heels, and may enjoy the support of most residents.

Featured at the “moderate’s” celebration was a master of ceremonies who introduced the Mufti of Jerusalem by saying “His words are necessary because our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs is a war of religion and faith.”

He then introduced the Mufti of Jerusalem, the family member of the Mufti who incited deadly riots in the 1920s and 1930s, and later collaborated with the Nazis.

The present Mufti said, “In both collections of the Hadith . . . Judgment Day will not come before you fight the Jews, and the Jew will hide behind a stone or a tree, and the stone or the tree will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, with the exception of the gharqad tree, and this is why it is common to see gharqad trees around the (Jewish) settlements.”

The comments received condemnations from Britain’s Foreign Office, and calls from Israel’s President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu for judicial authorities to open an investigation about incitement. Even the Jewish peace group that typically condemns Israeli actions, Americans for Peace Now, condemned the comments as

“belligerent anti-Jewish . . . We are appalled by these comments, coming from the most senior Muslim cleric on the Palestinian Authority’s payroll . . . What we find particularly disturbing is that these vile comments were broadcast on the Palestinian Authority’s official television channel, amplifying their “inciting” effect . . . People in positions of religious authority, on all sides, bear a heavy responsibility of avoiding incendiary rhetoric. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a dispute between two national movements with conflicting claims to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Clerics on both sides must prevent this conflict from being perceived as a religious conflict and from becoming one.”

The Mufti, for his part, described the Hadith as an end-of-times prophesy, not a political precept. “”There is nothing in my speech that calls for killing. . . I was speaking about my people, its steadfastness and its existence in this land until the hour (of resurrection)”.

According to the PA religious affairs minister, “Our political position remains unchanged. We believe in peace. He (Hussein) was simply quoting a Hadith that talks about destiny, about what could happen in the future.”

For the sake of candor and balance, I should note that the Palestinian News Agency Maan is as good a source as any for the details on this issue. http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=454753

The Mufti of Jerusalem is not alone among those who play on the borders of fanatacism and the endorsement of peace. Also indicative of Muslim extremism are school books that show maps of Palestine from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and Turkey’s fanatic insistence that Armenian genocide is a reason to break diplomatic relations with France. Those who look at www.memri.org see no end of mad Mullahs who preach the most hateful of doctrines about Jews, as well as indications that large segments of Muslim populations and politicians view The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a legitimate description of history and current reality.

Initial feelings at all these indications  can be intense rage, a wondering if we can co-exist with them, or should employ our military might before it is too late.

Then come thoughts about Jewish equivalents, and the problems of the democratic and rational Jewish state to deal with them. Recent incidents include rabbis who endorsed a text that justifies the killing of Gentiles, including children, and the rabbis of Safed who called on people of the city to avoid renting apartments to Arabs. In both cases, judicial authorities dither about pursuing actions against incitement. (See http://www.irac.org/NewsDetailes.aspx?D=1128;

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/07/05/117043/israels-probe-of-radical-jewish.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shapira)

No less troubling then religious extremism hereabouts is the naivite heard from American and European officials and commentators. Simplistic actions, such as don’t build here or there, may be appropriate for local disputes in Omaha, Oxford, or Leiden, but not in the Middle East. Buidling restrictions against Jews would not longer be acceptable in any of those places overseas. Here the explosive material is in the air, capable of being exploded by a traffic accident or a comment.

Beyond cursing their house and our own, there may be no alternative beyond hoping that the religious devil remains well capped in its bottle, and that there is enough sanity in both communities to pursue the paths of politics, compromise, and accommodation.

For our friends elsewhere, best to watch football until someone wiser than the present crowd comes up with a bright idea.

Israel does not need to avoid the core point of conflict – Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria. On the contrary, Israel has a solid claim to this region and provides benefits for its population, both Arab and Jew. We can stop apologizing and stand up with pride, proclaiming the truth. Israel is committing no crime by building and developing its heartland.

From David Haivri, January 23, 2012

There are battles going on every day against Israel. The battlefields are University campuses and grocery stores near you, and they appear on your TV screens and web browsers. Like at the time of Yehuda Maccabee in his war against the Greeks, we are again few in number and up against a large, powerful and well equipped army. They have well funded student groups supported by local professors in all major Universities. They have support from anti-establishment anarchistic types around the world who are always good for some provocation and a good – or even an ugly – fight. They have talented writers, bloggers and social media geeks all ready to type away and pepper cyberspace with deliberately manipulated messages. And the news media is most often on their side, showing its full support through over exposure and through interpreting events in ways that make Israel look like “the bad guy.”

Their attacks are focused on anything that comes under the heading of “Occupation,” “West Bank,” “Apartheid” or related issues. Israel’s strategy of Hasbara (promoting a positive image through Public Relations and apologetics) has mainly turned its back on these sticky issues, since they are not considered Politically Correct, and diverted their efforts to promote a focus on Israel’s achievements in technology, worldwide humanitarian aid, great beer and beautiful bikini-clad women on the beaches of Tel Aviv and Eilat.

The problem I see is mainly that Israel’s advocates are not addressing the particular issues for which Israel is under attack. By avoiding and not responding to the accusatory claims, it appears that Israel doesn’t have a good answer. We thereby help prove their points by our silence. We need not offer this great advantage to the anti-Israel machine. When our advocates point out that Intel inside every computer was developed in Israel, the anti-Israel propaganda spokesmen are right ask “So what?” and “How does that justify occupying someone else’s land?” There must be a better answer, and I believe that there is.

Israel does not need to avoid the core point of conflict – Israel’s control of the West Bank. First of all, Israel won this area fair and square in a war that was forced on her by neighbors who occupied the land before the war. Basic international standards don’t require countries to give back land that they won in wars. Israel controls these lands only because the IDF has the means to protect our borders – not due to any kind of international approval.

I could proceed along this path, but I would like to suggest another strategy that I have found extremely effective – display the reality on the ground. The facts themselves should be our strongest arguments, because they alone can demolish the anti-Israel campaign. Guests who visit the Shomron (the Northern West Bank area I represent) see these facts for themselves and form a very different picture than the one drawn by the anti-Israel misinformation movement.

Those who wish to boycott products manufactured in Jewish communities in Yehuda and Shomron disregard the fact that thousands of local Arabs (Palestinians) work in these factories alongside Jewish Israelis, both receiving the same salaries and all workers’ benefits entitled by Israeli law – which happen to be much higher than the established norm in areas under the Palestinian Authority’s control. This means that Palestinians who are lucky enough to find employment in the “settlements” are taking home three times what they would be making in their own villages.

Seeing firsthand the University Center campus in Ariel, with its 14,000 students (including hundreds of Arab students), research departments, sports and cultural centers quickly diminishes the misconception that the “settlements” are in any way limited to temporary structures that can just be folded up and moved to another location on a whim. Witnessing this, guests realize that the image of a lone trailer-home on a barren hilltop has been placed in their imaginations by media outlets wishing to portray Jewish existence in this area as something built on a weak foundation. The reality shows how communities throughout Judea and Samaria are very well established and totally integrated into the scenery of the land. They are not something that is about to just go away.

My point is that I believe advocates of Israel need not avoid the issue of Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria. We have very good answers that can be offered with our heads held high. Israel has a solid claim to this region and provides benefits for its population, both Arab and Jew. We can stop apologizing and stand up with pride, proclaiming the truth. Israel is committing no crime by building and developing its heartland. Standing up to the core of the argument with good answers has proven very effective, where it has been tried.

I strongly suggest that all advocates for Israel come to spend a day in the Shomron and see the sights for themselves. Just one day will equip each of them with background information and renew their efforts to balance the debate and give them the advantage in their struggle to speak the truth – Israel is in the right.

www.israelnationalnews.com

Hugh Naylor (Foreign Correspondent), The National

Jan 20, 2012

BEIT LAHIA // When they later recalled the siege by Hamas security forces, it was not its ferocity that astonished the residents of Beit Lahiya. It was the target – Shiite Muslims gathered in the building to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson.

Up to 100 policemen and masked men in civilian clothes stormed an apartment building in the Gaza enclave late on Saturday.

Minutes later, they emerged dragging 15 men, whom they then beat with truncheons and denounced as infidels. Neighbourhood residents drawn to the commotion said they were shocked.

"The police showed everyone black Shiite headbands and were yelling to the crowds, ‘Look at these kafirs [unbelievers]!’," said Yasser Ziada, 23. "It was like they were putting on a show for us, beating them in front of everyone. No questions – just beatings."

The onlookers had not known that Shiites lived among them.

If they occasionally referred to Hamas as "Shiites", it was because the rulers of the Gaza Strip received money from predominantly Shiite Iran.

Everyone knew, though, that members of Hamas – like every other Muslim in the Gaza Strip – were Sunni. Or so they thought.

For others in the Gaza Strip, Saturday’s anti-Shiite crackdown was an epiphany for another reason.

The main allies of Hamas, Iran and the Lebanese movement Hizbollah, are predominantly Shiite, or in the case of Syria’s Alawites, an offshoot of Shiism.

For years they have formed an axis of revolutionary Islam that has concerned the predominantly Sunni governments of the Middle East and their allies in the West.

Saturday’s crackdown on Shiites – occurring as Hamas dismantles its headquarters in Damascus amid Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s political troubles – is an obvious affront to its long-time patron and may be a sign that one strut of that axis is rickety.

It also may be an indication that the tectonic political shifts underway since the Arab Spring erupted last year may be affecting the Gaza Strip.

"Because Hamas is straying from this Hizbollah-Syria relationship, that means they are freer to do these kinds of things," said Hani Habib, a political analyst and writer, who lives in Gaza.

That freedom, which has also seen Hamas gravitate towards newly empowered Sunni Islamist groups in the Arab Spring countries of Egypt and Tunisia, opens opportunities for hard-line Hamas members to settle sectarian scores at less cost, Mr Habib said.

In a statement released after the assault, the interior ministry in Gaza admitted carrying out the operation.

But it denied attacking Shiites, saying only that the people gathered in the building were seeking to create a "fitna", or societal crisis.

"The Gaza Strip and Palestine in general is a society that believes in Sunni Islam," said the statement, which added that there were "no Shiites in Palestine".

Some Hamas officials acknowledge, however, that Shiism has a toehold in the Gaza Strip.

Mustafa Sawaf, an official at the culture ministry and an expert on Gaza’s Islamist groups, said there was a small but increasing number of Shiite converts, some of them fighters from such groups as Islamic Jihad, who had received training in Iran.

"They are growing in number, but we are a Sunni society, so Hamas felt like it had to take action against them," he said, adding that Saturday’s attack was "dramatised [by Hamas] to show people in Gaza that it does not tolerate Shiites".

At the centre of the Shiite group was Mahmoud Joudeh, 52.

For years, he led a group of Salafi Muslims that lived in a compound near the Gaza city of Rafah.

Called the Excommunication and Migration Group, its members deemed greater society as un-Islamic and lived in isolation, according to a May 2010 report about Salafism in Gaza by the Institute for Middle East Studies, a research organisation in Washington DC.

Mr Joudeh recently turned away from Salafi teachings and towards Shiism, Mr Sawaf said.

At his compound on Tuesday, he received dozens of visitors wishing him a quick recovery from the wounds he said he sustained during the attack.

In an interview, he described how Hamas police violently disrupted the commemoration of Imam Hussein’s death.

"They just burst into the house and started beating us," he said, displaying a cast on his right leg and left arm, both broken during the violence. "There were no questions. They just started breaking our bones until none of us could stand."

Mr Joudeh said that under the circumstances, the group’s particular brand of Islam was not relevant.

"We are Muslims and no Muslim should do to a fellow Muslim what was done to us on Saturday."

hnaylor@thenational.ae