Israel Matzav: IDF investigation: 'PA police' including 'former' terrorist shot 44 bullets at unarmed Israelis

IDF investigation: 'PA police' including 'former' terrorist shot 44 bullets at unarmed Israelis

An IDF investigation has concluded that 'Palestinian police' shot 44 bullets at mostly unarmed Israeli civilians in the April 24 incident in which Ben Yosef Livnat was murdered. The investigation has also concluded that at least one of the 'Palestinian police' was a terrorist who had been released from an Israeli jail.

A probe by the Judea and Samaria division of the IDF stated the attack at Joseph's Tomb was unwarranted, and the report did not rule out the possibility that it may have been a terrorist attack, Voice of Israel government radio reported. The soldiers shot with the intention to kill, according to the IDF.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and police are conducting a further investigation to determine whether the shooting and murder were pre-meditated.

Israel National News reported last week that an internal Palestinian Authority probe contradicted initial claims that the PA soldiers shot at the worshippers because they allegedly broke through a PA checkpoint on their way home from the holy site.

The IDF report confirmed that the PA troops shot 44 bullets without any provocation and that there was no danger to their lives. Most, if not all, of the Jews were unarmed, contrary to claims disseminated by Palestinian Authority media.

At least two of the PA soldiers, commonly called “police” by mainstream media, were trained by American officers at an American-funded training base in Jordan.

The IDF report concluded the attack is a ”warning” of what may await Jews this summer and also serves as a caution sign concerning further cooperation with the PA security forces.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: IDF investigation: 'PA police' including 'former' terrorist shot 44 bullets at unarmed Israelis

Love of the Land: The Responsibility Belongs to Lebanese Government

The Responsibility Belongs to Lebanese Government

JINSA
Report #: 983
6 May '10

It could not have been more explicit.

Standing next to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said if the situation in Lebanon flares into warfare as it did in 2006, Israel would not just blame Hezbollah. "The main responsibility lies with the Lebanese government. We make it clear once and again that we see the government of Lebanon and behind it the government of Syria responsible for what happens now in Lebanon. And the government of Lebanon will be the one to be held accountable if it deteriorates."

In Israel, BG Yossi Beidatz of Israeli Military Intelligence was equally clear in his presentation to the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. "Weapons are transferred to Hezbollah on a regular basis and this transfer is organized by the Syrian and Iranian regimes. Therefore, it should not be called smuggling of arms to Lebanon - it is organized and official transfer."

But Secretary Clinton, in her remarks to the AJC, maintained the fiction that the Lebanese government is not a party to the conflict in its own country:

We have spoken out forcefully about the grave dangers of Syria's transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and have expressed our concerns directly to the Syrian government... Transferring weapons to these terrorists - especially longer-range missiles - would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel. It would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on the region. All states must stop supplying weapons to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Every rocket smuggled into southern Lebanon or Gaza sets back the cause of peace.

"The cause of peace" is a relative term. There are those for whom the removal of Israel from the region would engender "peace."

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: The Responsibility Belongs to Lebanese Government

Love of the Land: The Real Demographic Threat

The Real Demographic Threat

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
19 April '10

As Israel celebrates its 62nd Independence Day this evening, is the country actually independent? Judging by the remarks of some of its leading politicians, one would have to conclude that the answer is no.

Speaking at a Memorial Day ceremony yesterday, for instance, Defense Minister and Labor-party chairman Ehud Barak declared that only by signing a peace agreement with the Palestinians could Israel preserve its Jewish majority. Ehud Olmert made this claim even more bluntly in 2007, when he was prime minister, declaring that if “the two-state solution collapses … the State of Israel is finished.” Olmert’s successor as head of the Kadima party, opposition leader Tzipi Livni, has made similar remarks.

In other words, Israel has no control over its own fate; its continued existence depends entirely on the goodwill of a nation that would like nothing better than to see it disappear. Moreover, all the Palestinians have to do to secure this outcome is to continue doing exactly what they have done for the past 17 years: say “no” to every peace offer Israel makes. If that is true, Israel really is finished.

In reality, of course, the Barak-Olmert-Livni conclusion is ridiculous even if one believes the demographic doomsayers (there are grounds for skepticism, but that’s another story). Should Israel someday decide the status quo is untenable, it doesn’t need a peace agreement to leave; it can always quit the West Bank unilaterally, just as it did Gaza. After decades of condemning Israel’s “illegal occupation” and demanding its end, the world could hardly object if Israel complied.

(Read full post)

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Love of the Land: The Real Demographic Threat

Love of the Land: Bullying the neighborhood bully

Bullying the neighborhood bully

Soccer Dad
19 March '10

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him, 'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac. He's the neighborhood bully.
Neighborhood Bully - Bob Dylan

Scott Wilson writing on the web for the Washington Post posits that Israeli leaders are not likely to win diplomatic battles with the United States.

Next, think back to 1992. Picking a fight with the Bush administration cost Shamir his job. Who succeeded him as prime minister?
Rabin, who immediately pledged to cease construction of what he called "political" settlements in the territories. Perhaps he, too, remembered 1975.

Of course one could also point to Ehud Barak who did all he could to cooperate with the Americans to the point of making an unprecedented offer to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000. Arafat rejected the offer and, two months later, launched a war against Israel. None of President Clinton's goodwill towards Barak helped him as months later he went down to the worst electoral defeat in Israel's history.

The two previous paragraphs, though, give a hint to Wilson's premises and the limitations of his analysis.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Bullying the neighborhood bully

Love of the Land: The Chicken Licken syndrome

The Chicken Licken syndrome

It’s now up to Netanyahu to decide whether he’ll revive yesteryear’s resolve about Jerusalem or.


Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
19 March '10

Hillary is hopping mad about Israeli “insults” (no less). Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden (some of whose best friends are Zionists), has warned us (at Tel Aviv University) that “the status quo is not sustainable.”

Obviously doubting our abilities to comprehend so weighty a message, he slowly and deliberately reiterated the portentous mantra with extra emphasis on the really important syllables, so that even dim-witted vassals can get the point and get scared.

Our left-leaning media did all they could to amplify the implicit intimidations. Opinion-molders prone to running with the pack and going with the flow were duly aghast with angst.

But upon cooler reflection, those of us with more than two weeks’ worth of historic memory might recollect that this is hardly the first time we received the harshest of warnings that time isn’t in our favor – heaven forefend – and that if we don’t rush to slash our own throats, our enemies might shortly decapitate us. Do we really want to lose our heads?

IN SEPTEMBER 2000, Hillary’s significant other, Bill, when he was still president, delivered the same warning in the same omniscient tone of we-know-better-than-you-what’s-best-for-you. It was at the Millennium Summit. “Like all chances, this one too is fleeting and there’s not a moment to lose,” Slick Willy wagged his disapproving finger. If we don’t do pronto as he wishes, he admonished, disaster would strike and the sky would come crashing down upon our thick skulls. He only tried to save us from ourselves. Just like Biden. For our own good.

Amazingly the sky is still hanging up there, as it did eons ago, contrary to the dark predictions that it wouldn’t.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The Chicken Licken syndrome

Love of the Land: Israel, the United States, and the Military Option against Iran

Israel, the United States, and the Military Option against Iran

Zaki Shalom/Jonathan Schachter
INSS Insight No. 169
18 March '10

In a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on February 26, 2010, Defense Minister Ehud Barak made extensive reference to Iran, its attempts to obtain nuclear capabilities, and the policy ramifications for the major powers and Israel towards Iran. Despite a certain measure of opacity in his address, Barak did make some unequivocal statements of interest. These express the situation assessment prevalent in Israel regarding Iran’s nuclear goal and the gaps between Israel and the American administration and their implications from Israel’s perspective. What follows are highlights:

a. Iran is a threat challenging not only Israel but also the entire international community. It is hard to imagine a stable world order with a nuclear Iran. Iran is attempting to “defy, deceive, and deter” the entire world with its nuclear ambitions and gain time in order to attain military nuclear capabilities.

b. Iran’s objective is not merely the construction of a “Manhattan project-like crude nuclear device.” Its goal is to skip to the “second or second and a half generation” of nuclear warheads that can be mounted on surface-to-surface missiles with ranges covering not only Israel but also Moscow and Paris.

c. A nuclear Iran will lead to the elimination of the non-proliferation regime. Saudi Arabia, and perhaps another state or two in the region, will also feel obligated to acquire nuclear capabilities of their own. At a later stage this might lead to third-tier dictators acting in the same manner.

d. The model Iran looks to is that of Pakistan rather than that of North Korea. The meaning of this distinction is almost certainly that Iran strives for a solid nuclear capability based on a large number of nuclear warheads and the capacity for launching them at remote targets rather than on single launchers for purposes of show.

e. These circumstances obligate adoption of a clear policy toward Iran before it manages to realize its nuclear ambitions. Such a policy must be “intensive, concrete and conclusive.”

f. There is real activity aimed at instituting sanctions against Iran. The severity of these sanctions – from “targeted," to "hurting," "crippling," and "paralyzing" – remains unclear. Israel prefers the most severe option.

g. Israel will not deny its own responsibility or enter into a cycle of self-delusion and turn a blind eye to what is happening right before it. Therefore, it recommends not removing any option – i.e., the military option – from the table.

Barak’s statements suggest a gap between US and Israeli perspectives on Iran’s nuclear activity, in terms of its significance and severity. The United States, so it seems from Barak’s address, can live with a nuclear Iran – despite its declarations to the contrary. Israel, by contrast, cannot accept such a reality. In any event, Israel must first and foremost see to its own existential interests, even to the point of not coordinating its every move with the American administration.

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: Israel, the United States, and the Military Option against Iran

Love of the Land: Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Michael Ledeen
Pajamasmedia.com
07 March '10

The failed Israeli ex-PM, Ehud Barak, gives us the benefit of his deep thinking about Iran. It’s an Einsteinian metaphor about relative rates of the passage of time:

The clock for the Iranian regime’s downfall is ticking, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday. However, “it’s clear to me that the clock toward the collapse of this regime works much slower than the clock which ticks toward Iran becoming a nuclear military power,” Barak said.

How does he know that? — we (or at least some of us) wonder. I can imagine that the Israelis think they know the timetable for the Iranian atomic bomb, but I don’t think anyone has the schedule for the regime’s final days. And anyway, this is a case where static analysis is totally inappropriate. Any scenario has to include the likelihood of new variables being introduced. There’s probably a big sabotage operation going on against the atomic project, and some day somebody in the so-called Western world might decide to help the Iranian opposition speed up the “downfall clock.”

With regard to the atomic clock, I am told that the Iranian regime intends to announce two more hitherto-secret enrichment sites in early April. One is near Mashad, over by the Afghan border. The other is in the mountains east of Tehran. In keeping with the regime’s constant use of deception and misdirection, you can be pretty sure that there are other secret sites as well.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Love of the Land: Israel's bogus demographic threat

Israel's bogus demographic threat

Dr. Aaron Lerner/Yoram Ettinger
IMRA
12 February '10

Theodore Herzl (in 1900) and David Ben Gurion (in 1947) did not subordinate their vision and long-term strategy to tenuous demographic constraints: A Jewish minority of 8% and 33% respectively between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Their defiance of odds was responsible for the 1948 establishment of the Jewish State.

In 2010, there is a solid 67% Jewish majority in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel and Judea and Samaria. However, some Israeli politicians employ toxic demographic assets. They inflate the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria in order to scare the Jewish State into a retreat from a most critical area, historically and security-wise.

The following OpEd, by Haim Rozenberg, former Head of Long-Term Planning at RAFAEL (Israel Defense Ministry's Armament Development Authority), addresses the issue of toxic demographic assets.

Shabbat Shalom,
Yoram Ettinger

Toxic Demographic Assets

Haim Rozenberg
News First Class
February 8, 2010

Haim Rozenberg, former Head Long-Term Planning, RAFAEL (Israel Defense Ministry's Armament Development Authority

Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, said on February 4, 2010 that there are 12 million persons between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean: 6 million Jews and 6 million Arabs. Therefore, he concluded, a two state solution would spare Israel the wrath of Apartheid. Really?!

Barak's conclusion is based on a dramatic error of a two million person gap.

In fact, the total population west of the Jordan River is 10 million. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Israel's population includes 6 million Jews and 1.5 million Arabs. The ICBS has not dealt with Judea, Samaria and Gaza Arabs since 1997.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Israel's bogus demographic threat

Love of the Land: Another Tack: Beit El’s mystery guest - guess who

Another Tack: Beit El’s mystery guest - guess who

The same Barak who told Beit El residents that "under no circumstances will we return to the ‘67 lines" spoke differently at the Herzliya Conference.


Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
12 February '10

Which right-wing extremist do you suppose said the following?

“From here in Beit El to the people of Beit El and to all the citizens of the State of Israel: My party and I have clear red lines. We will remain in Beit El forever.... A united Jerusalem must remain under full and unequivocal Israeli sovereignty.... Under no circumstances will we return to the 1967 lines and there will be no foreign army west of the Jordan River.”

There was more: “I came here to see how the settlements have developed. It is heartening to see that there is so much growth and progress. There are beautiful projects here – the beauty isn’t only in the projects but is connected to the soul, to the soul of Israeli society.”

As The Jerusalem Post’s then-political correspondent, I was there on May 12, 1998. I heard Beit El residents suggesting – not entirely in jest – that they find a home for their visitor inside the settlement. As predictable, Peace Now excoriated him, issuing a statement that expressed “shock and dismay” at his heresy.

Puzzled? Here’s a further clue. Beit El’s mystery guest was the same one who at the recent Herzliya Conference sternly warned that “lack of a solution to the problem of border demarcation within historic Eretz Yisrael – and not an Iranian bomb – is the most serious threat to Israel’s future.” In other words, failure to cede to Ramallah’s flimsy make-believe regime whatever it wishes – Beit El included – is a greater threat to Israel than Iranian nukes. No less.

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: Another Tack: Beit El’s mystery guest - guess who

Love of the Land: Words, words, words

Words, words, words

Moshe Arens
Haaretz
09 February '10

(It strikes me as a good summation of what's been said in recent weeks and conclusions to be drawn. Y.)

One might be inclined to brush off the recent verbal exchanges between Ehud Barak, Walid Moallem and Avigdor Lieberman as no more than Hamlet's "words, words, words" that have little meaningful content. Nevertheless, they are an indication of the thoughts running through the minds of Israel's defense and foreign minister and Syria's foreign minister. So just what are these thoughts?

Let's start with our defense minister. Barak is saying that if Israel does not negotiate a peace agreement with Syria - one that would lead to the return of the Golan Heights to Syrian control - Israel is risking a war with Syria; that after such a war, we would simply return to the present situation and the need to negotiate a peace agreement with Syria and give up the Golan.

Really? Does that mean that in his opinion Israel's deterrent capability against Syria that has existed since the Yom Kippur War and was reinforced during the first Lebanon war has worn thin over the years and, in effect, no longer exists? Does that mean that after a war initiated by Syria, Syria's situation would essentially be no different than before it attacked Israel, that it would continue to remain a threat so that Israel would be forced to concede the Golan Heights? Well, that would be good news for Syrian President Bashar Assad, and if taken seriously by him might even put adventurous thoughts in his mind.

Except that Assad knows better than that. He knows that a war with Israel would probably damage Syria severely and leave him with little chance to continue to make demands on Israel; that is, unless he places great reliance on the thousands of ballistic missiles he has accumulated over the years. Moallem hinted at their use. "Israel should know that a war will move to Israel's cities," he said. So maybe in fear of the destruction of its cities by Syrian missiles, Israel would prefer to concede the Golan Heights to Syria to prevent such a war. Is that really the balance of terror that now exists between Israel and Syria?

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Words, words, words

Love of the Land: [Logic haitus?]: DM Barak: Israel should make deal with Syria to leave Golan because Syria will attack if thinks can destroy Israel?

[Logic haitus?]: DM Barak: Israel should make deal with Syria to leave Golan because Syria will attack if thinks can destroy Israel?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
02 February '10

So here is the logic of DM Ehud Barak - the military genius who opposed buying submarines that could launch Jericho missiles because he didn't think Israel needed a second strike capability:

#1. "If the other side believes it is possible to bring down Israel...it will prefer to do so"

#2. "Just like the familiar reality in the Middle East, we will immediately sit down [with Syria] after such a war and negotiate on the exact same issues we have been discussing with them for the past 15 years."

Questions:

#1. And if, thanks to an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, Syria "believes it is possible to bring down Israel" then what?

#2. And if Israel sits down with Syria after a war, why conclude that there would be any greater logic to make a dangerous concession of leaving the Golan just because there was a war? The Egyptian Sinai model, with a huge peninsula available for different levels of demilitarization - far away from Cairo, is hardly comparable to the tiny Golan that puts Damascus within easy striking range - and the move was premised on the assertion that somehow the outcome of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 convinced Egypt that Israel could not be beaten (I appreciate that this logic is hard to follow - since by the same token the message of the Yom Kippur War could have just as easily been for Egypt that they should switch to American weapons before trying to destroy the Jewish State but that's not the popular narrative).

#3. Here's a novel suggestion for the people drawing salaries in the Israeli defense field: how about coming up with some ideas so that should Syria indeed decide to attack the Jewish State in the coming years, that the consequences for Damascus be so serious that at the end of the exchange they are the ones telling their citizens that the task of restoring the Golan will have ton be assigned to a future generation?

(Click here for full post w/Barak: War with Syria won't solve diplomatic issues)

Love of the Land: [Logic haitus?]: DM Barak: Israel should make deal with Syria to leave Golan because Syria will attack if thinks can destroy Israel?

Love of the Land: Giving accreditation where it's due

Giving accreditation where it's due

Amiel Ungar
Haaretz
31 January '10

Defense Minister Ehud Barak's announcement of his intention to implement a five-year-old government decision to recognize Ariel College as a university unfortunately elicited the usual "Judea and Samaria delenda est" (the settlements must be destroyed) invective from the left. Such polemics unfortunately only divert us from addressing the need to reevaluate higher education priorities and policies.

It is difficult to respect the intellectual honesty of critics such as Hebrew University Prof. Yaron Ezrahi (quoted in a report by Or Kashti in Haaretz, Jan. 24), who called Barak's move "a dangerous precedent in which a general is establishing a university," adding that "such a thing only exists in totalitarian countries."

Ezrahi and others who resort to such cheap shots know full well that the army's status as legislator is a byproduct of the unresolved status of Judea and Samaria. If the settlement of Ariel were to be annexed today, Barak would be out of the picture in terms of both higher education and housing freezes there. And if Israel had not legally reunified Jerusalem, the roads to Ezrahi's campus would also be governed by a general.

Ezrahi charges that Ariel College was established to promote the ideology of right-wing settlers. In all the years I taught there, I encountered colleagues from all colors of the political spectrum. However, even the most ideological rightist would never have dared to present a right-wing equivalent to an M.A. thesis branding Israeli soldiers as racist because they don't rape Arab women - a thesis sponsored by the former head of the Hebrew University's Truman Peace Center.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Giving accreditation where it's due

Love of the Land: Ending the illusion of peace in our time

Ending the illusion of peace in our time

Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem
28 January '10

It is high time that we ceased indulging in theatrics and spoke the truth. We all desperately yearn for peace, and the vast majority of us do not wish to rule over Arabs. If we could convince ourselves that our neighbors would commit to peaceful coexistence, we would make major sacrifices. But alas, the prospects for a comprehensive settlement in the near future are virtually zero.

Since the Oslo Accords, we have remained in a state of denial, refusing to reconcile with the reality that the duplicitous Palestinian leaders, then Yasser Arafat and today Mahmoud Abbas, rather than seeking to create an independent state, were utilizing terror and diplomacy to dismember the Jewish state in stages. We ignored the relevance of Arafat’s repeated call to his people to heed the passage in the Koran relating to the prophet Muhammad consummating the Al Hudaibiya Treaty with the Koreishi Jews and subsequently reneging and killing them. The message clearly signaled that agreements with Jews and non-Muslims may be violated.



Our passion to achieve peace blinded successive governments into accepting the false premise that Palestinian leaders were peace partners, and repeatedly chant the idiotic mantra that the peace process was irreversible and that “peace in our time” was achievable. This cost the lives of thousands in terror attacks and generated successive wars. In conveying this charade to the world at large, we encouraged the false belief that our conflict with the Arabs was a struggle between two peoples to divide land. We maintained this nonsense even after Arafat and Abbas rebuffed Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who had offered them virtually all the territory previously occupied by Jordan and Egypt.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Ending the illusion of peace in our time

Love of the Land: Aww... Holocaust-Abetting Poles Try To Capture Israeli "War Criminals" On International Holocaust Day

Aww... Holocaust-Abetting Poles Try To Capture Israeli "War Criminals" On International Holocaust Day

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
27 January '10

In fairness it was probably their parents and grandparents who consummated millennia of Catholic antisemitism by turning over Jews to Nazis, denying supplies to Warsaw Ghetto smugglers, pretending that Auschwitz didn't exist, and so on. But still:

Knesset members visiting Poland for ceremonies marking International Holocaust Day were surprised to see ads against Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni in the city of Krakow on Tuesday evening. Posters hung not far from the Israeli lawmakers' hotel read in English, "Wanted for war crimes," offering the public an award of 10,000 euro in exchange for information on Barak or Livni's expected arrival in Europe... "After 65 years, we once again realize that being right is not enough," said MK Hasson. "We must remember this ahead of the next challenges, like Holocaust deniers, Holocaust cursers and different kinds of anti-Semites."

I especially like the part where they offered rewards for any information on where the Jewish delegation could be found and captured.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Aww... Holocaust-Abetting Poles Try To Capture Israeli "War Criminals" On International Holocaust Day

Love of the Land: Breaking Israel’s Academic Stranglehold

Breaking Israel’s Academic Stranglehold

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Comentary
22 January '10

This week’s recognition of Ariel College as a “university center” — a step toward full-fledged university status — outraged Israel’s academic establishment.

For some, the objection is political: the institution is located in Ariel, a West Bank settlement, so hard-core leftists want it dismantled, not upgraded — though all Israeli governments have sought to retain Ariel under any peace agreement.

But for most, the objection is ostensibly professional: academically, they claim, Ariel is no better than other colleges that haven’t been upgraded; the Council for Higher Education, an independent professional body that oversees Israeli academia, opposes the upgrade; and the final approval was ordered by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, constituting blatant political interference in higher education.

The actual facts are these: because Israel never annexed the West Bank, formal legal authority there lies with the army — specifically, the GOC Central Command — rather than civilian bodies. Thus Ariel isn’t formally subject to the CHE. But since the army clearly can’t oversee universities, a CHE clone, the Council for Higher Education-Judea and Samaria, was created to do the job.

In 2006, a CHE-JS subcommittee recommended the upgrade, and in 2007 the full CHE-JS adopted this recommendation. All six subcommittee members admittedly lean politically right; most leftists wouldn’t serve on the CHE-JS. But as one member of the regular CHE acknowledged, all were also “people of the first rank in research” — including Nobel Prize laureate Robert Aumann, Israel Prize laureate Yuval Ne’eman (the father of Israel’s space program), and Israel Prize laureate Daniel Sperber.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Breaking Israel’s Academic Stranglehold

Love of the Land: A road map leading nowhere

A road map leading nowhere

Moshe Arens
Haaretz
12 January '10

It is now close to 17 years since Israel's ill-fated decision to recognize the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the Oslo Accords. Despite the accords, or possibly because of them, during those years much blood has been shed and no significant progress was made toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

There was no absence of good intentions on the part of Israel. But as was shown repeatedly, good intentions are not enough to resolve the seemingly intractable issues that separate the parties. On the contrary, on many occasions, suggestions and proposals offered by Israel actually created obstacles to any progress in the negotiations. Far-reaching concessions offered by Israel, although rejected by the Palestinians, only served to establish what the Palestinians from then on insisted would have to be the starting point for future negotiations, actually creating a pitfall on the road map for any progress.

Ehud Barak's egregious concessions offered at the Camp David talks in 2000, and the additional farcical proposals made by the Israeli delegation at the continuation of these talks in Eilat, only served to establish a roadblock on the way to peace.

Why would an Israeli offer of concessions end up being a roadblock to further progress? For the simple reason that if these concessions are not supported by the majority of the Israeli public they cannot be implemented, while a Palestinian demand that these concessions become the starting point of any further negotiations blocks the resumption of negotiations.

The prime minister or government that offers these concession might well argue that they are the democratically elected government and have the perfect right to offer concessions that they consider appropriate. And they do have that right, but if they are aware of the fact that the Israeli public would not support these concessions they should know that they cannot be implemented, and therefore they are actually doing a disservice to the very peace process they claim to be pursuing by offering these concessions to the Palestinians.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: A road map leading nowhere

Love of the Land: Between the vortex and the vacuum

Between the vortex and the vacuum

Yisrael Medad
Green-Lined/JPost
05 January '10

If you read this JPost report, you'll find a host of hot items including: "revised order"; "remedies for some of the complaints"; "a 10-month freeze on construction"; "underlined by the Supreme Court"; "I confess that the arrangement we devised is not the best one"; "a heated Law Committee hearing"; "The meeting got off to a bad start"; "the Law Committee was being exploited"; and much more.

All the above refer to the November 25 Cabinet decision to suspend construction beyond the Green Line that was discussed in a Knesset comittee this past week. The suspension order was concieved with no grounded consideration of its possible ramifications - neither political, diplomatic, strategic or the simple aspects of how to compensate builders for their financial losses. This last point even received the sympathy of Israel's Supreme Court, which demanded that the Defense Ministry get their act together quick.

This is but another example of what I term the "between the vortex and the vacuum" characteristic of Israeli politics. Yes, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is, to be fair, in an unenviable position by virtue of his job. As head not only of a coalition government but one that includes the erstwhile main opposition parliamentary faction, the Labor Party, most of his time is usually spent quenching sparks and flames of third-tier politicians, not to mention the ego-busters. That, unfortunately, is the nature of the game and has been for decades.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Between the vortex and the vacuum

Love of the Land: The decade of defeatism

The decade of defeatism

Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
31 December 09

Strictly in the Israeli context, the first decade of the 21st century deserves to be remembered as the decade of defeatism. The country ushered in the new millennium with an air of resignation. The no-can-do premise and loser mentality still persist, perniciously.

It's essentially a psychological state in which defeat is the foregone conclusion, anticipated as inevitable and accepted without significant resistance. Thus Kadima MK Nahman Shai pontificated in a radio interview that "Israel has no choice but to pay the price Hamas demanded for Gilad Schalit" and if more abductions are thereby engendered, "we'll have to pay then too. That is our lot."

To be sure, Israeli defeatists aren't all cut from the same cloth. Some, especially on the ideological Left's fringes, promote anything that weakens the state. Their espousal of capitulation to Hamas over Schalit's kidnapping wasn't inspired by concern for his welfare but by desire to further dent Israel's armor. Hence they portray settlements as, heaven forefend, compromising the country's Jewish majority. Yet they simultaneously clamor against new citizenship legislation geared to prevent the wholesale importation of hostile Arabs under the guise of family reunions, as occurred in Oslo's wake when some 150,000 Arabs were willy-nilly added to the population. That transpired without arousing any outcry from the Left, which, at opportune occasions, wrings its hands in despair over the purportedly perilous Jewish demographics.

Since the more hypocritical ideological defeatists hold inordinate sway in the media, they also perforce mold opinions, forge zeitgeist and orchestrate political crusades. They inspire widespread defeatism compounded by the citizenry's intellectual indolence. Their demoralizing spin is that there's no sense to struggle and sacrifice because the fight will anyhow be lost. The inescapable by-products are erosion of faith in the cause and the pervasive perception of all headliners as corrupt and unworthy. "They're all the same" is the oft-heard catchphrase.

IRONICALLY, THIS cynicism failed to foil the most cunning abuse against our most fundamental existential interests. The public let Ariel Sharon - striving to extricate himself from whopping legal entanglements - cheat his voters with an abrupt volte-face, renege on the referendum he initiated, crush his opponents with political steamrollers and propagate patently false prophesies about the bounties of disengagement.

The Ehud Olmert-Tzipi Livni duo had ample opportunity to change course but seemed fettered to the folly and indeed plotted more of the same.

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Love of the Land: The decade of defeatism

Love of the Land: A low and dishonest decade

A low and dishonest decade

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
01 January 09

Upon returning from Cairo on Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proclaimed, "It's time to move the peace process forward."

The most sympathetic interpretation of Netanyahu's proclamation is that he was engaging in political theater. It was a low and dishonest statement uttered at the end of what has been, in the immortal words of W.H. Auden, "a low and dishonest decade."

Everyone with eyes in their heads knows that there is no chance of making peace with the Palestinians. First of all, the most Israel is willing to give is less than what the Palestinians are willing to accept.

But beyond that, Gaza is controlled by Hamas, and Hamas is controlled by Iran.

For its part, Fatah is not in a position to make peace even if its leaders wished to. Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies know that just as Hamas won the 2006 elections in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Hamas would win elections today. To maintain even a smudge of domestic legitimacy, Fatah's leaders have no choice but to adopt Hamas's rejection of peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state.

Clearly, now is not the time "to move the peace process forward."

No less than what it tells us about Netanyahu, his statement is notable for what it tells us about Israel. Our continued willingness to ensnare ourselves in the rhetoric of peace processes demonstrates how little we have progressed in the past decade.

In 1999, Netanyahu was ejected from office by an electorate convinced that he was squandering an historic opportunity for peace between Israel and its neighbors. A majority of Israelis believed that Netanyahu's signature policies of demanding that the Palestinians abide by their commitments to Israel, and maintaining the IDF's security zone in south Lebanon were dooming all hope for peace.

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Love of the Land: A low and dishonest decade

Love of the Land: PTA Commander-in-Chief

PTA Commander-in-Chief

Caroline Glick

carolineglick.com

25 December 09

Unbeknownst to most Israelis, this week marked a critical shift for the worse in the regional balance of power. While IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was busy demanding that the government pay a ransom of more than a thousand terrorists for captive soldier Gilad Schalit, few paid attention to Iran's newest strategic successes.

Over the past week Lebanon capitulated to the Iranian axis. Turkey solidified its full membership in the axis. And Egypt began to make its peace with the notion of Iran becoming the strongest state in the region.

Less than five years after former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by Syria, his son Prime Minister Saad Hariri paid a visit to Damascus to express his fealty to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Beirut and began giving the Lebanese government its new marching orders.

On Wednesday, Hizbullah forces deployed openly to the border with Israel under the permissive eye of the US-armed Lebanese army. Lebanon announced that it was no longer bound by binding UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that requires Hizbullah to disarm. And Hariri announced that he will soon visit Teheran.

While Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his media echo chamber insist that Turkey has buried its hatchet with Israel, on Wednesday Prime Minister Recip Erdogan led a delegation with 10 cabinet ministers to Damascus. There, according to the Syrian and Turkish Foreign Ministries, they signed 47 trade agreements.

This Turkish-Syrian rapprochement is not limited to economic issues. It is a strategic realignment. As Assad's spokeswoman Buthaina Shaaban explained to Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam television channel, "We are working to establish close ties between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq so these countries can act as one regional bloc in order to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, while keeping the West's dictates and lust for the region's natural and oil resources at bay."

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Love of the Land: PTA Commander-in-Chief