The Torah Revolution: Everything that Hashem has spoken we shall do (Ex. 19:8): Re: Laci

Re: Laci

B"H

- The very purpose of the EU is to provide a totalitarian system on Europe. Let me explain: The European Parliament is a parliament only in name, even if it is elected with universal proportional representation, it is not a legislative body, it has only consultative powers. The European law-making body is the Council and it is made up by people nominated by the member States. If you turn this concept around, it means that the EU serves the member States precisely to bypass their national parliaments and introduce government (executive branch) produced legislation. Today about 90% of all new laws enter the books this way, meaning the erosion of separation of powers, a fundamental guarantee in democracy. This erosion leads to a concentration of powers that historically we have seen only in totalitarian regimes, which is the Europe of today. No wonder it allocates about a million Euros every day to support the “palestinian” “cause”, the most visible tip of a whole underlying evil iceberg.

- This is a comment on Germany in the Eurozone

The Torah Revolution: Everything that Hashem has spoken we shall do (Ex. 19:8): Re: Laci

The Torah Revolution: Everything that Hashem has spoken we shall do (Ex. 19:8): Let Them Pay For It

Let Them Pay For It

B"H

- The EU is an answer to Germany's imperialistic aspirations: Let them pay for it.

- This is a comment on Germany in the Eurozone

The Torah Revolution: Everything that Hashem has spoken we shall do (Ex. 19:8): Let Them Pay For It

Love of the Land: If the EU seems fragmented, take a look at the Arab world

If the EU seems fragmented, take a look at the Arab world

Michael Young
The National (UAE)
06 May '10
Posted before Shabbat

(It's good on occasion to take a look around the neighborhood. Y.)

The discussion over the future of the European Union offers a useful window through which to examine the destiny of the Arab world. European states are facing a major crisis of meaning as they decide what their intervention to save Greece from financial ruin says about EU solidarity in the future, where other shipwrecks lurk.

The platitudes of Arab unity have long jarred with the reality of Arab states driven apart by mistrust and competition. However, nationalist reflexes notwithstanding, the EU, even in an existential emergency, has not lost sight of what it was set up to achieve. Arab divisions, in contrast, threaten to undermine a unified response to the major existential challenge faced by Arab regimes today: a nuclear Iran.

Iranian hegemony and Greece’s debt are very different things. But they are both good tests as to whether it’s better for states to stand united, warts and all, or fall divided. Surveying the Arab world today, it is difficult to see who might become the engine of a cohesive Arab policy to contain Iran. And here, the EU experience becomes useful.

Arab unity, whether writ large or pertaining to specific events, has always coalesced around certain states. In the same way that EU policy must earn the acquiescence, above all, of Germany and France, traditionally Arabs have looked toward Saudi Arabia and Egypt to build a consensus, with Syria and Iraq having a greater or lesser say depending on the situation. Arab power has fluctuated, however, so that at times poles of influence were built around rivalries between Egypt and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Egypt and Syria, and so on.

Today, the Arab state system is in disarray. Saudi Arabia and Egypt no longer lead as they once did. Both have seen less powerful states, for instance Syria and Qatar, seize the initiative. Last year the Saudis were forced to give Syria a green light to return to Lebanon politically in the hope that this would draw Damascus away from Tehran and facilitate Syrian co-operation with Riyadh over Iraq. Qatar has also punched above its weight by mediating in conflicts and playing on regional contradictions. The emirate has maintained good ties with Tehran while hosting the largest American military base in the Gulf.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: If the EU seems fragmented, take a look at the Arab world

Love of the Land: JCall: the European Echo to JStreet

JCall: the European Echo to JStreet

The incisive and undaunted Nidra Poller provides a roadmap to J Street's French offspring, JCall:


Nidra Poller
J Street Jive
03 May '10

May 2, Paris

What follows is the kernel, the beginning, or the false start of an article that will be developed in the coming days. But I wanted it to exist right now in its imperfect state. The creation of a JStreet look alike in Europe might be a ho-hum ripple in a long saga, but it comes as a last straw at a time when the noose is tightening around our necks. This JCall, one more frivolous example of how much we love Israel but just give the Palestinians what they want, whatever they want, is going to be presented to the EU Parliament on May 3rd and meanwhile back at the UN, Ahmadinejad will present his plan for nuclear disarmament… of Israel. With the blessings of Barack Hussein Obama. The JCall Appeal, at a time like this, is so infuriating, that it immediately provoked a vigorous response here in France. A genuine intellectual debate is underway, and I take it upon myself to report it with the fullness it deserves. We are good at this kind of debate in France.

The debate goes to the heart of a conflict that has been brewing in our societies, communities, and families in the first decade of the 21st century. I cannot approach it with any pretense to distance and objectivity. It is the dilemma that occupies my thoughts from morning to night. How do I reconcile my respect for freedom of thought and expression with my conviction that this kind of thinking—call it leftist, progressive, peace nowish—is so harmful that I must combat it? In a fair fight! That’s what I’ll try to explain.

JCall: the European echo to JStreet / Part 1

Let me begin with a prediction before I even explain the tune that JCall is calling: it won’t get anywhere. It’s no JStreet because it has no Obama in the wings, no AIPAC to snipe at, no Soros or Saudi money, and because European Jews are too close to the bone to heed this call.

Friday, April 30, Strasbourg. David Pariente, age 41 and wearing a kippa, was brutally attacked in the center of town at 12:30 in the afternoon as he got off the tramway in a square aptly named “l’Homme de Fer” [Iron man]. A vivid account of the incident by Maylis a 16 year-old lycée student is reported in the local paper--Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace: The victim was attacked by “ …two men in djellaba. One hit him in the back with an iron bar and knocked him down. Then he gave him a terrible kick in the face. I saw his head flung back.” Maylis called for an ambulance, the assailants ran off. One was caught shortly afterward, the other was arrested at his home where police found the iron bar—actually part of a weight lifting apparatus--and the knife. One of the aggressors is allegedly deranged. He said he attacked a Jew because a Jewish doctor sent him to a mental hospital.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: JCall: the European Echo to JStreet

Love of the Land: European Politicians Are Living a Lie about Israel: An Interview with Fiamma Nirenstein

European Politicians Are Living a Lie about Israel: An Interview with Fiamma Nirenstein

The Italian politician and author talks about the East Jerusalem flap and makes some startling statements about the similarity of views between the European left and jihadists.


Stefan Frank
Pajamasmedia.com
26 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

The Italian journalist Fiamma Nirenstein is the author of numerous books on anti-Semitism, Israel, and the Middle East conflict, including (in English) Israel is Us and Terror: the New Anti-Semitism and the War against the West.

In April 2008, she was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies as a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party. She is presently the vice-president of the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. In February, she accompanied Prime Minister Berlusconi on a three-day visit to Israel.

Stefan Frank spoke with Fiamma Nirenstein about Israeli construction in East Jerusalem, anti-Semitism on the left, European criticism of Israel, and the significance of Berlusconi’s recent visit.

********

Q: Jerusalem is presently the focus of a great deal of media attention. Some people say that by announcing the construction of new residential units in East Jerusalem, Israel has clouded the prospects for peace in the Middle East and angered the USA. Relations between the two countries are said to be in a deep crisis.

Fiamma Nirenstein: The 10-month freeze granted unilaterally by Netanyahu in December — which Obama welcomed enthusiastically — referred to West Bank settlements. East Jerusalem was never included. Jerusalem is an issue with which Israel and the Palestinians will deal only at the negotiating table. Most people are ignorant of the fact that what is commonly known as East Jerusalem was ruled by Jordan from 1948 to 1967. Before then, the town had a Jewish majority for centuries.

In previous negotiations, like those between Arafat and Barak in 2000 or between Olmert and Abu Mazen in 2007, even the Palestinian side considered that many of the neighborhoods being called “settlements” by the newspapers, like Ramat Shlomo, could possibly be annexed to the Jewish part of the town in a final agreement. This is because most of these neighborhoods have been built either in deserted areas or in areas that had already been inhabited by Jews, who could not, however, live there under Jordanian rule because of the threat to their lives.

In short, the decision to build 1600 units was taken a long time ago. The Americans have seized on the bad timing of the announcement during Biden’s visit in order to push the peace process in the way Obama wants.

Q: You write a lot about leftist anti-Semitism. When and how did you discover its existence?

Fiamma Nirenstein: I made this discovery in theory and in practice. In 1967, as a young girl, I was a communist like all the other people of my age. My parents sent me to a kibbutz in northern Israel called Neot Mordechai. It was a leftist kibbutz, every week it dedicated one working day to the Vietcong. During the Six-Day-War, which broke out during my stay, I took care of the kids and brought them to the shelter.

(Read full interview)

Love of the Land: European Politicians Are Living a Lie about Israel: An Interview with Fiamma Nirenstein

Love of the Land: EU justice for refugees

EU justice for refugees

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
21 March '10

There's no reason to blame yourself if you missed the media coverage of last week's Middle East visit by the EU's new foreign policy chief, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, England. To be sure, the media dutifully reported on the visit, but it didn't exactly dominate the headlines. Many people may therefore be unaware that Lady Ashton followed President Obama's example and tried to win Muslim "hearts and minds" with a speech in Cairo.

Since there is already an excellent analysis of this speech by Emanuele Ottolenghi at Commentary's Contentions blog, I would like to focus here just on one of the issues raised by Ashton, namely her declaration that "we need a just solution of the refugee issue."

The context of this remark indicates that Lady Ashton only had Palestinian refugees in mind when she raised this point. As usual, there was no mention of the inconvenient fact that the number of Jewish refugees systematically driven from their ancient communities and dispossessed by Arab states is actually higher than the number of Palestinians who fled their homes during the war waged by the Arabs to prevent or undo the establishment of Israel.

We can obviously only speculate as to what Lady Ashton and the EU would consider a "just solution of the refugee issue", but we know by now that in the negotiations between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, the Palestinians demanded that 150,000 refugees should be allowed to "return" to Israel as part of a peace agreement. Interestingly enough, this number is only stated in the English translation of a relevant document, authored by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, while the original Arabic version does not specify any number.

The long-standing Arab demand that, different from all the world's other refugees, the Palestinians should be allowed hereditary refugee status and should be able to claim a "right of return" for several generations has often been refuted.

A recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights has once again illustrated that there is little basis for Palestinian claims of a "right of return". The court rejected the "right of return" claimed by Greek refugees from Northern Cyprus who had fled to the southern half of the island during the Turkish occupation in the 1970s. A majority of the court's judges accepted the Turkish argument that developments in the following decades had created a new reality that should not be undone, and that the refugees therefore could only claim financial compensation for their lost property.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: EU justice for refugees

Love of the Land: A revolutionary proposal

A revolutionary proposal

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
19 March '10

Commenting on the Obama/Israel crisis, Ed Lasky concludes that the US President is deliberately trying to turn America against Israel – and he is succeeding.

I have written in today’s Jewish Chronicle that it is time for Israel to stop going along with the diplomatic lies told for so long by Britain, America and the west about the Arab war against Israel. Lies that have twisted so many people’s minds into the belief that Israel is the historic usurper and aggressor in the Middle East, whereas in fact the Jews and the Jews alone are the rightful heirs to the land, in historical, legal and moral terms, and a monstrous injustice has been and is still being done to them.

It is these lies, and the consequent appeasement of the Arabs who promulgate them and the rewarding of Arab aggression, which has caused the Middle East impasse to remain an unending conflict. And it is these lies and the new distortions supplied by Obama which now pose the greatest single danger to Israel’s security and existence by eroding public support – not just in Britain, which is already lost, as is to a lesser extent ‘old’ Europe, but among the people who are the staunchest supporters of Israel: the great mass of middle America.

Disastrously, Israel has gone along with these lies -- for a variety of reasons. First, Israel observes the rules of diplomacy which almost invariably involve compromise. Now compromise is in general a good thing; but in a war of extermination, if the victim compromises with its attackers it strengthens them and makes its defeat more likely. In no other conflict in the history of the planet has a country which is the victim of an eight-decade belligerency aimed at wiping it off the map been expected to make concessions to its attackers. In no other conflict has such a victimised people been bullied by onlookers into doing so. Yet the first pressure is what Britain, America and Europe have been applying for decades, and the second is what Obama is now applying, with the EU falling in behind him: bullying the prospective victim of extermination into submitting to measures which increase the risk of such an eventuality, and in the process almost forcing the Palestinians from their habitual pose of sullen obstructionism and sporadic terrorism into another spate of outright war.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: A revolutionary proposal

Love of the Land: They Haven’t Learned the Lesson

They Haven’t Learned the Lesson

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
14 March '10

Last week, I wrote that American, European, and Arab success in pressuring the Palestinians to resume negotiations could prove a turnabout in the peace process, if the world learned the lesson and began pressing the Palestinians for necessary concessions on substantive issues. But based on its response to last week’s announcement of new construction in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, the world clearly hasn’t learned the lesson.

All the parties concerned were understandably upset by the announcement’s timing: just as proximity talks were about to begin, and while Vice President Joe Biden was in the region. But substantively, the new construction makes absolutely no difference to the prospects of an agreement — because any agreement would unquestionably leave this neighborhood in Israel’s hands.

Ramat Shlomo already has more than 20,000 residents — far too big to be uprooted even without the planned 1,600 new houses. It is also, as Rick noted, of considerable strategic importance, dominating all of Jerusalem’s major roads; thus Israel would insist on retaining it, even if not a single Jew lived there. Finally, its location in no way precludes the division of Jerusalem, which is what both Washington and Europe claim to want: situated in the corner formed by two other huge Jewish neighborhoods to its west and south, it does not block a single Arab neighborhood from contiguity with a future Palestinian state.

Thus if Washington and Europe were serious about wanting an agreement, they would essentially tell the Palestinians:

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: They Haven’t Learned the Lesson

Love of the Land: The March of the Red-Green Brigades

The March of the Red-Green Brigades

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
12 March '10

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

The resolution did more than accept the Goldstone Report's baseless claims. It sought to silence those who are trying to make the Red portion of the Red-Green alliance pay a price for its abetment of jihad.

The resolution "expresses its concern about pressure placed on NGOs involved in the preparation of the Goldstone Report and in follow-up investigations, and calls on authorities on all sides to refrain from any measures restricting the activities of these organizations."

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

Israel is not the only target of the Red-Green alliance. Its operations span the globe. Sometimes, as in the case of the Goldstone Report, the Left leads the charge. Sometimes, as with the Hamas-led missile offensive against Israel that preceded Cast Lead, the jihadists move first.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The March of the Red-Green Brigades

Love of the Land: Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution

Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution

Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
27 February '10

In yet another shameful day at the United Nations, Britain has signalled a hardening of its position in support of the Goldstone Report on Gaza. In the General Assembly’s latest vote on Friday, Britain moved from the abstainers camp to join ranks with the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan in supporting a resolution to breathe new life into Goldstone for another five months. Not one EU member state joined the United States, Israel, Canada and four others in opposing the move.

The resolution was a follow up to last November’s vote in the General Assembly calling for Israel and the Palestinians to mount credible investigations into allegations contained in the Goldstone Report that both sides, but particularly Israel, had committed war crimes against civilians. Britain abstained in that vote having absented itself entirely at the original vote in the Human Rights Council the previous month. Britain has therefore moved in three stages: absence, abstention, and now support.

Technically all three votes were slightly different in that the first asked participants to endorse the report’s findings, the second called for investigations on the basis of the report and the third provided for an extension of the time period in which those investigations should take place. However, as the United States — which voted against Goldstone on all three occasions — made clear after yesterday’s vote the key principle at issue is whether such a deeply flawed report should be given any legitimacy at all. That, said US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Alejandro D. Wolff, was why the US continued to have no truck with it.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution

Love of the Land: When rhetoric rules the roost

When rhetoric rules the roost

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
26 February '10

There is something pathetic about what passes as European foreign policy these days. Quite simply, more often than not, the concerted positions of the EU member nations have nothing to do with any of their national interests.

Take the EU's initial response to the killing of Hamas terror-master Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19. A senior terrorist engaging in the illegal purchase of illicit arms from Iran for Hamas-controlled Gaza is killed in his hotel room. The same Dubai authorities who had no problem with hosting a wanted international terrorist worked themselves into a frenzy condemning his killing. And of course, despite the fact that any number of governments, (Egypt and Jordan come to mind), and rival terrorist organizations, (Fatah, anyone?) had ample reason to wish to see Mabhouh dead, Dubai's police chief Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim blamed Israel.

Not only did he blame Israel, to substantiate his claims, Tamim released what he said was video footage of alleged Mossad operatives who entered Dubai with European and Australian passports.

Relying only on Tamim's allegations, EU leaders went into high dudgeon. Ignoring the nature of the operation, the basic lack of credibility of the source of information, and the interests of Europe in defeating jihadist terrorism in the Middle East and worldwide, the chanceries of Europe squawked indignantly and threatened to cut off intelligence cooperation with Israel.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: When rhetoric rules the roost

Love of the Land: Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians

Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
26 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

A ruling by the European Union’s highest court yesterday is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. The court ruled that the EU’s free trade agreement with Israel does not apply to the West Bank, and therefore, goods made by Israeli firms in the West Bank are subject to EU import taxes.

Legally speaking, it’s hard to quarrel with the ruling: even Israeli law doesn’t view the West Bank as Israeli, as it does East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. But for years, European countries ignored this detail and exempted Israeli firms in the territories from import duties. What has changed is not the law but the politics: seeking to persuade Israelis that “the occupation” doesn’t pay, EU countries recently began taxing such imports. A German importer then sued his country’s tax authorities, prompting yesterday’s verdict.

But as the Associated Press noted, the biggest victims may well be not Israelis but Palestinians. Many Israeli firms moved to the West Bank because they could export to the EU duty-free while also benefiting from cheaper Palestinian labor. Thus, if the new import taxes lower these firms’ profits, hundreds of Palestinians could lose their jobs. And because “Palestinians are largely barred from working in Israel and have few job opportunities in the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, jobs in settlement factories are sought after.”

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians

Love of the Land: When fighting terror is an outrage

When fighting terror is an outrage

Soccer Dad
24 February '10

After the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the United States attempted to capture the terrorist responsible by forcing the plane they were on to land on an American-Italian base in Sicily. However, Italy and Egypt were outraged and Italy refused to extradite the terrorists.

Jack Ohman the cartoonist for the Oregonian brillaintly captured the hypocrisy of the anger directed at the Reagan administration for trying to bring the killers to justice. His cartoon showed pictures of Hosni Mubarak, Bettino Craxi and Yasser Arafat; under each picture there was a caption: "Mr. Mubarak demands an apology"; "Mr. Craxi demands an apology"; "Mr. Arafat demands an apology."

On the right of the panel was a wheelchair draped with an American flag. The caption was "Mr. Klinghoffer has no demands."

For the all the outrage the three politicians expressed, there was no remorse that they had played a role in allowing terrorists to kill or escape. Things have not changed much. Arab terrorists still threaten Israel with the acquiescence of Arab states and European countries still enable them.

The Washington Post reports In a shift, United Arab Emirates may tighten travel rules after assassins' entry:

The use of forged European passports by assassins who entered Dubai and killed a Hamas operative may lead the United Arab Emirates to review the open border policies that have made it a commercial and tourist hub, a top UAE official said Sunday.

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Love of the Land: When fighting terror is an outrage

Love of the Land: The European lobby in Israel

The European lobby in Israel

Seth Frantzman
Terra Incognita/JPost
23 February '10

The EU, realizing it cannot get Israel to change its laws through diplomatic means, has resorted to creating an internal lobby - through lavish funding of NGOs - to get Israel to bend.

Ever since the publication of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's The Israel Lobby there has been much talk of the "lobby." In England mainstream and respectable Channel 4 aired an entire program entitled Inside Britain's Israel Lobby which claimed the "lobby" "owns" the Conservative Party. Amidst all the talk of an Israel lobby in the West, people have ignored the growth of a lobby located in the Holy Land itself, the European lobby in Israel.

The European Parliament adopted the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) in 1994. This was part of the European Union's broader belief that "democracy and human rights are universal values that should be vigorously promoted around the world." The initiative was supposed to promote democratization through the promotion of "fair and free" elections and mainstreaming "democratic values" through "accountability, transparency and equality."

In 2007, a subtle change in the name of the EIDHR was made. The word "initiative" was changed to "instrument." This seemingly banal change may be a result of semantic arguments among EU staffers but it puts in words the increasingly meddlesome way the EU has chosen to work within Israel.

The EU may have realized during the second intifada that its concerns were not being listened to. Perhaps they heeded the increasingly alarmist statements of Israelis themselves, such as former Haaretz editor David Landau who in 2007 told US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice that the US needed to "rape" Israel into a settlement with the Palestinians. Regardless of the exact cause, in 2002 the European Union began lavishly funding non-governmental organizations in Israel. It claimed that it was doing this because of "the vital contribution made by NGOs to the promotion and protection of the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law."

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The European lobby in Israel

RubinReports: Two EU Leaders: Complaints about Obama; Fought Against the West Having Nuclear Weapons; Now Indifferent to Iran Having Them

Two EU Leaders: Complaints about Obama; Fought Against the West Having Nuclear Weapons; Now Indifferent to Iran Having Them

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By Barry Rubin

Remarkable statements have just been made by Europe's two highest leaders which reveal a lot about what's really going on right now.

First, EU Council President Miguel Angel Moratinos, who is also Spain's foreign minister, showed that while President Barack Obama and his many American supporters think that by bending over backward he has done a great job making Europe happy with the United States again that hasn't happened. “Europe needs to show Washington it exists, and not fear being marginalized on the world stage,” Moratinos complained.

Europe today is always on the defensive, he continued, but should stop fearing the United States, and China, too, for that matter. He was angry because Obama said he would not attend a U.S.-EU summit in May.

Meanwhile, the EU's own foreign minister provides another example of lack of cooperation with Washington and, if one knows the background, a sign of how ridiculous much Western policy on the Middle East is. Consider this bland item:

“EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has cautioned against any hasty European move to slap new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, while announcing she is assuming the role of international intermediary on the issue.

“In an interview with AFP Ashton distanced herself from the position of some EU nations, such as France, which are pushing for extra sanctions to be imposed on Tehran which the West suspects of seeking to develop nuclear arms under cover of a civil energy program.”

"`We're not moving quickly on anything,’" she said, emphasizing the need for a UN Security Council decision.”

Now if you don’t know the background this story is serious in its own right. The EU is in no hurry to put sanctions on Iran; the U.S. government is in no hurry to put sanctions on Iran. But Iran is in a hurry to get nuclear weapons.

That’s bad enough. But there’s another dimension. For many years, Ashton was a leader of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. During the height of the Cold War she advocated Western unilateral disarmament in the face of the Soviet threat. From her standpoint, the United States and United Kingdom couldn’t get rid of nuclear weapons fast enough. Ashton wanted to ban the bomb when it came to the United States or Great Britain, Iran is apparently more trustworthy.

Now she favors real caution when it comes to the radical, aggressive Islamist dictatorship in Iran getting nuclear weapons. No hurry here; let’s not exaggerate the threat, she says.

In each case, she has favored energetic activism against Western power to weaken it, coupled with giving every benefit to its enemies.

I don’t want to imply she is saying she opposes sanctions forever. The United States is also ready to go to the UN for a resolution. But she does want to go real slow and is very unenthusiastic about doing anything, sounding like the Russians and Chinese. In contrast, the British, French, German, and Italian governments seem more willing to move faster and do more than does Obama. But since the U.S. government wants to have the entire EU on board for the sanctions, her stance creates problems as it means almost any small European country can sabotage the process.

RubinReports: Two EU Leaders: Complaints about Obama; Fought Against the West Having Nuclear Weapons; Now Indifferent to Iran Having Them

Love of the Land: Is Israel’s Safety No Longer a Western Interest?

Is Israel’s Safety No Longer a Western Interest?

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
22 January '10

Posted before Shabbat

A senior Hamas leader reportedly told a British emissary yesterday that Hamas is ready to amend its charter calling for Israel’s destruction and recognize Israel’s right to exist. A breakthrough? Unfortunately, no. But the real bad news is the emissary’s response.

What Palestinian parliament speaker Aziz Dwaik told major Labour Party donor David Martin Abrahams is clearly eyebrow-raising. Just last month, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told a rally in Gaza that “our goal is Palestine, all of Palestine” — which, in Palestinian parlance, includes all of Israel. So was Dwaik speaking without authorization, or has Hamas’s stance really shifted radically since December?

Actually, neither, as the Jerusalem Post’s report makes clear: Dwaik said he was merely reiterating Hamas’s well-known support for a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 lines. What he neglected to mention is that this support has always come with two caveats: first, Israel must agree to absorb millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees, thereby eradicating the Jewish state demographically; and second, in exchange, Israel would get not a peace agreement, but a long-term truce — meaning that if death by demography failed to materialize, Hamas reserved the right to resume trying to finish Israel off militarily.

Needless to say, none of this bothered Abrahams, who is scheduled to brief British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on his meeting this weekend. He said he would urge Miliband to “consider the implications of Hamas’s positive overtures” and was “very excited” about facilitating dialogue between Hamas and the international community. “I’m prepared to give them [Hamas] a chance because I’ve got faith and confidence in Dwaik and Haniyeh,” he gushed. “We can’t allow 1.5 million to be festering in the Gaza Strip while the majority of them are good and well-educated.”

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Is Israel’s Safety No Longer a Western Interest?

Love of the Land: Israel's Arab Settlements

Israel's Arab Settlements

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
04 January '10

While the media and politicians wail over Israeli settlements and revisionist historians pen narratives in which Israel's entire history comes down to a plot to seize Arab land (following in the footsteps of how their American counterparts have reinterpreted US history)... very little is said of Israel's Arab settlements.


But Arab settlements in Israel far outweigh Jewish ones and have far less legitimate roots. Consider East Jerusalem, which Obama and the EU are insisting should be reserved for Arab residency alone. East Jerusalem does indeed have a solid Arab majority because in 1948 the armies of seven Arab nations invaded Israel and occupied half of Jerusalem, dividing it as their Soviet allies divided Berlin, and ethnically cleansed its Jewish population. Jewish places of worship in East Jerusalem were bombed or turned into mosques and toilets, even the dead were not allowed to rest in peace as their tombstones were used to pave roads. Jewish homes were seized by Arabs and East Jerusalem became wholly Arab.

This is the situation that Obama and the EU are fighting to perpetuate by banning any Jewish housing in the eastern half of the now united Jerusalem. This is what every government that refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is legitimizing by rewarding the ethnic cleansing practiced by the Jordanian Legion and the Holy War Army (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) of the nephew of Nazi collaborating Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad al-Husayni.

And then there are the so-called Israeli settlements of Gaza, Judea and Samaria-- which indeed were built on territory that Israel captured from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, after Egypt and Jordan had captured the territory in 1948, destroying Jewish villages on the territory in the process. Some Jewish villages like Kfar Darom suffered the fate of being destroyed twice over, once by the Arab occupation armies in 1948, to be reestablished and again destroyed by Fatah's terrorist militias after Israel agreed to ethnically cleanse its own population from Gaza to appease Arab terrorism.

That is the truth behind the so-called Israeli Settlements issue, but it is not by any means the whole truth. Because the UN, the EU and the State Department have only applied the term "settlements" to Jewish towns and villages, never Arab ones, regardless of their legality. This double standard that is defined purely by ethnicity and religion, and by no other factor whatsoever, represents the real international Apartheid that targets Jews for ethnic cleansing to the benefit of Arab Muslims.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Israel's Arab Settlements

Love of the Land: Palestinian Authority: Fayyad's Gamble

Palestinian Authority: Fayyad's Gamble

Mark Silverberg
Hudson New York
Foreign Policy Analyst
Ariel Center for Policy Research
24 December 09

A new “peace initiative” is in the wind. According to the pan-Arab daily newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, the initiative, to be unveiled in the coming weeks is designed by the U.S., Egypt and France to compel Israel to implement a full building freeze in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and to obtain an Israeli commitment to recognize a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, thereby effectively prejudging the outcome of any future negotiations.

This, together with the recent attempt by Sweden to push the EU to recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Authority (while omitting any recognition of the rest of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel) and to recognize the PA as a “democratic” and independent entity if it unilaterally declares statehood, have added to Israeli concerns over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the June 4, 1967 borders - a move which could be recognized by the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad issued a 54-page plan (“Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State”),on August 26, that proposed the establishment of a de-facto Palestinian state within two years – a state to be established regardless of negotiations with Israel and outside the framework of the performance-based March 2003 Roadmap and the Oslo Agreement. While the Plan adopts an anti-Fatah posture by discarding the traditional PLO position of “armed struggle to liberate Palestine” (a position that was reaffirmed at the Sixth Fatah Congress in Bethlehem in August), it is based on the tenuous assumption that the Palestinians can adopt Western-style institutions and standards and thereby re-shape their future over a two-year period.

The problem is, Fayyad has little or no political backing to effect such reforms. Nevertheless, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz revealed on November 14th that Fayyad has already reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration which would provide for U.S. recognition of such an independent Palestinian state within two years.

Love of the Land: Palestinian Authority: Fayyad's Gamble

Love of the Land: Eurabia vs. Israel on Jerusalem

Eurabia vs. Israel on Jerusalem

P. David Hornik
FrontPagemag.com
21 December 09

The recent Swiss vote to ban minarets was seen by many as a further indication that European populations are waking up to the threat of Europe’s Islamization and the need to stop the trend. If so, the European Union—the centralized bureaucracy that, as documented in Bat Ye’or’s important book Eurabia, went “over the heads” of European publics to meld the European and Arab/Muslim civilizations in the first place—still hasn’t caught up and remains locked in a pro-Arab/Muslim disposition.

At least, the EU’s stance on Jerusalem would suggest so. Last week the new EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, “came down hard on the Israeli government” in her maiden speech to the European Parliament and said:

“East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab residents and the construction of the separation barrier.”

Her words prompted Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon to reply:

“Just as the Romans did not succeed in cutting off Jerusalem from Israel, so too will diplomats from the UN and the EU be unsuccessful as well.”

Ashton, previously the EU’s trade commissioner and expected to be given considerable authority as a new sort of EU foreign minister, also called Israel’s recently launched ten-month moratorium on settlement construction a “first step”—representing, as the EUobserver comments, “a cooler tone than EU foreign ministers who last week took ‘positive note’ of the move.”

The EUobserver also pointed out that the speech was

“significant for what it left out: Ms Ashton did not say that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, that it faces a security threat from Palestinian ‘terrorists’ or that Palestinians should immediately return to formal peace talks—the classic tenets of Israeli supporters.”

Ashton’s statements also come hard on the heels of an EU-Israel spat over Jerusalem in which the EU explicitly called for East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state. That demand was later only partially toned-down under intense Israeli objections.

(Full article)

Love of the Land: Eurabia vs. Israel on Jerusalem

Love of the Land: Hamas Reascendant

Hamas Reascendant

P. David Hornik
FrontPagemag.com
15 December 09

“Brothers and sisters, we will not be satisfied with Gaza. Hamas looks toward the whole of Palestine.”

So said Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh on Monday as he addressed a rally in Gaza City to mark the 22^nd anniversary of Hamas’s founding as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As one report describes it,

“Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged downtown Gaza City…. Gaza was decked out in Islamic green, with Hamas flags fluttering from roofs, lampposts and cars. Some parents dressed small children in combat fatigues and green Hamas headbands.

“The crowd packed an outdoor square where a huge banner draped over the wall of a building showed a picture of Jerusalem’s main Islamic shrine and photos of senior Hamas figures.

“Leaders made fiery speeches, bands played and scout troops marched in processions….”

At a time when both the United States and the European Union treat Palestinian statehood as one of the cardinal goals of international politics, seemingly these lines are worth pausing over. When one speaks of “the Palestinians”—the allegedly deprived group that receives more attention and assistance than all others—one is speaking in large part of supporters of an Islamic-fundamentalist movement whose proclaimed goal is the destruction of Israel pure and simple. The people willing to “dress small children in combat fatigues and green Hamas headbands” are—in considerable part—“the Palestinians.”

(Full article)

Love of the Land: Hamas Reascendant