Olmert Offered, the Palestinians Took a Trip

Olmert Offered, the Palestinians Took a Trip

The Australian last week published a long interview with Ehud Olmert. It conatins the most detailled description I've seen or heard of, of his offer to Abu Mazen of 16th September 2008:

"On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan. It was based on the following principles.

One, there would be a territorial solution to the conflict on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides. Israel will claim part of the West Bank where there have been demographic changes over the last 40 years."

This approach by Olmert would have allowed Israel to keep the biggest Jewish settlement blocks which are mainly now suburbs of Jerusalem, but would certainly have entailed other settlers having to leave Palestinian territory and relocate to Israel.

In total, Olmert says, this would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4 per cent of Palestinian territory in the West Bank: "It might be a fraction more, it might be a fraction less, but in total it would be about 6.4 per cent. Israel would claim all the Jewish areas of Jerusalem. All the lands that before 1967 were buffer zones between the two populations would have been split in half. In return there would be a swap of land (to the Palestinians) from Israel as it existed before 1967.

"I showed Abu Mazen how this would work to maintain the contiguity of the Palestinian state. I also proposed a safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza. It would have been a tunnel fully controlled by the Palestinians but not under Palestinian sovereignty, otherwise it would have cut the state of Israel in two.

"No 2 was the issue of Jerusalem. This was a very sensitive, very painful, soul-searching process. While I firmly believed that historically, and emotionally, Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people, I was ready that the city should be shared. Jewish neighbourhoods would be under Jewish sovereignty, Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be the capital of a Palestinian state.

"Then there was the question of the holy basin within Jerusalem, the sites that are holy to Jews and Muslims, but not only to them, to Christians as well. I would never agree to an exclusive Muslim sovereignty over areas that are religiously important to Jews and Christians. So there would be an area of no sovereignty, which would be jointly administered by five nations, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinian state, Israel and the United States.

"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees." This issue has often been a seeming deal-breaker. The Palestinians insist that all Palestinians who left Israel - at or near the time of its founding - and all their spouses and descendants, should be able to return to live in Israel proper. This could be more than a million people. Olmert, like other Israeli prime ministers, could never agree to this: "I think Abu Mazen understood there was no chance Israel would become the homeland of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian state was to be the homeland of the Palestinian people. So the question was how the claimed attachment of the Palestinian refugees to their original places could be recognised without bringing them in. I told him I would never agree to a right of return. Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number every year for five years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1000 per year. I think the Americans were entirely with me.

"In addition, we talked about creating an international fund that would compensate Palestinians for their suffering. I was the first Israeli prime minister to speak of Palestinian suffering and to say that we are not indifferent to that suffering.

"And four, there were security issues." Olmert says he showed Abbas a map, which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.

"He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."

To the best of my knowledge, Abu Mazen has publicly admitted the essentials of this version, when he admitted regretting not accepting it before Netanyahu was elected. That's not as good as having the documents themselves in the public domain for universal perusal, but that, obviously, can't happen at this stage, not while the negotiations are still unresolved.

Or after 50 years, when the archives open. Whichever comes first.

(h/t soccerdad, last week).

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A Court Rules About A Country - Or Not

A Court Rules About A Country - Or Not

Kossovo is a strange place. It's an independent country, or not, depending on whom you ask; and whomever you ask will give you a reason that has much to do with power politics of one sort or another, and little to do with international law. So now, when someone has decided to break the impasse by going to the International Court of Justice, the general feeling seems to be that the court won't rule clearly one way or the other - because the court itself is political, and its decisions are political, not legal. Assuming there's such a thing as a purely legal decision, which of course there isn't, never was and never can be. Just as no legal system ever operates beyond the cultural, moral or political context in which its legislation was enacted.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Mondoweiss Universe

Mondoweiss Universe

I've just spent half an hour reading comments at Mondoweiss, something I don't often do. It's a bizarre exercise. See, for example, the comments on Phil Weiss' angry response to Obama's Afghanistan speech, last week. It's title, 'History's Fool', only goes halfway; the comments contain a long discussion about the probability that Obama, like other presidents before him, has received a sealed envelope with "marching orders" from... whom? It's not clear, but they're the Bad Guys, and they control the world, and Obama is under their thumb, and his decision on Afghanistan is proof.

I understand there are kooks around, and they can be found at both ends of the political spectrum. You look at this discussion, however, and some of the others on the same site, and you wonder if perhaps the sentence shouldn't be formulated in the other direction: the ends of the political spectrum exist because there are kooks around who can't deal with the complexity of reality and instead create imaginary scenarios to comfort themselves.

So long as they're fringe kooks, they add flavour. Yet the 20th century saw any number of times when the kooks took hold of the mainstream; in the course of trying out their ideas they killed tens of millions of people and caused endless human suffering - which is why normal people need to keep a wary eye on them. Not obsess about them, not act on each and every idiocy they invent, but never forget that in the wrong conditions, kooks can be very persuasive and infinitely destructive. They are often intelligent, articulate, and personable. They don't advertise their oddity with obvious external symbols such as pointed ears, tails, or even simple frothing at the mouth. They can be a nice-looking elderly man with glasses, a clear-eyed fellow with an open collar (to mention two I've linked to over the past few months) - or, they're very likely to be eager young university students earnestly learning about the world. Jo Ehrlich, for example.

Jo and I were on the same bus tour to Hebron, last week. I haven't yet written about the experience. Jo has, at Mondoweiss, here. She doesn't tell how she carefully chose the parts of the story she wished to tell, while overlooking others. She can't tell you the parts she doesn't know. That was one of the funniest things about her, to me: that she and the other enemies of Israel with us on the bus didn't know very much about the Israel-Palestine conflict, to the extent that they didn't even know much about what Israel has done wrong. They are firmly rooted in a narrative about the present, with next to no idea of how it came to be.

I use the term 'enemies of Israel' advisedly. On the way back to Jerusalem I engaged some of these students in conversation. I hadn't intended to, but there was an American woman a few rows behind me who was defending Israel, and the students were lambasting her with a stream of counter factual contentions, so I joined the discussion to set the facts right. (Using the Goldstone Report as my primary source, of all things. The "facts" they were citing were so outlandish I was able to refute them from the Goldstone Report, which they all admitted not to have read.The world can be a funny place).

Jo Ehrlich didn't participate in the conversation, which was mostly between myself and two or three young Palestinians, and an English student named William. The Palestinians weren't kooks; it took all of ten minutes for us to agree that we can't live in peace with each other because their fundamental positions and mine aren't compatible. They demand a right of return and reject a Jewish claim to the Temple Mount. But they were nice, and I was sorry we didn't have more time to discuss.

William, on the other hand, is an antisemite with whom there can be no common ground for agreement. For him, Israel Is Evil. Everything Israel does is wrong and the Palestinians are the only wronged party in the conflict. He was incapable even of an intellectual exercise of trying to piece together how the Israelis see their world. Not only can there be no possible explanation of the fact that would set Israel in a reasonable light; when I suggested a number of such scenarios he brushed them aside as fantasies. In one case, I told of a clear-cut democratic decision made by a comfortable majority of the Israeli electorate earlier this decade; not only was he unaware of it, but he confidentially told me I was wrong, and if I wasn't wrong, the decision had been a hoax, intended to pull the wool over people's eyes; since he, however, studies Middle East Studies in London, he's able to recognize the truth and not be fooled.

Such a pathology cannot be argued with, and after about the fourth attempt to counter his allegations with facts, to each of which he responded with a version of "it's an Israeli attempt to fool everyone so as to continue with their evil machinations", I literally turned my back to him and stopped trying. If I'm evil irrespective of any facts, what might we discuss?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Torah Revolution: My grandfather

The Torah Revolution: My grandfather

The Torah Revolution: Let's stop voting

The Torah Revolution: Let's stop voting

RubinReports: The American Public’s Incredibly Strong Support for Israel; Pew Gets Wrong the Amazing Results

The American Public’s Incredibly Strong Support for Israel; Pew Gets Wrong the Amazing Results

[Please subscribe for original analysis and information found nowhere else]

By Barry Rubin

According to the latest Pew poll, 51 percent of the American public say they sympathize more with the Israelis, while just 12% say they sympathize more with the Palestinians. (14 percent say neither; 19 percent have no opinion). That’s very impressive, right?

That means that two-thirds of Americans who have an opinion sympathize more with Israel.

What about all the academics who hate Israel, all the anti-Israel propaganda, the supposed sympathy for Palestinians as victims and underdogs? No apparent effect.

The poll also shows that among Democrats the number supporting Israel has remained the exact same (43 percent) over the last 16 years. So there’s been no decline due to a party or shift to the left within this camp. That’s important, too.

True, among those describing themselves as liberals, the gap is only 35 to 27 percent which is quite narrow and far different from the overall population. Here is where the hostility has made some real difference. Yet among Democrats as a whole it is a much wider 43 to 18, and for Democrats to be elected they need votes from the even more pro-Israel independents.

But there’s more. Among independents, support for Israel rose from 44 to 49 percent. And among Republicans it’s gone up sharply, from 52 to 68 percent.

Wait a minute, though. Pew says regarding the overall figure (51-12), “These numbers have changed little in recent years.” But that’s just flat wrong.

In fact, in 1990 the figures were 34 percent support for Israel and 13 percent for the Palestinians. So here’s the incredible story that Pew not only left out but denied:

Since 1990 backing for the Palestinians has remained the same low number, while sympathy for Israel has gone up from 34 to 51, a rise of 50 percent!

This is extraordinary.

How can one explain this tremendous shift in the face of such a contrary position by a vocal part of the intellectual and cultural elite?

Presumably, the public understands that Israel tried sincerely to make peace and was turned down by the other side; that radical Arab nationalism and militant Islamism hate America for lots more reasons than its support of Israel; an understanding about the origins of terrorism; a grasp of the threat from Iran (quite visible in other parts of the poll); and many other factors. In short, it is a victory for common sense.

[For the kind of thinking most Americans must be doing, even if only subconsciously, see here]

These figures should shape our understanding of the mood in the United States toward the ongoing conflict, the continuing attitude in Congress, and the political impact these factors must have on any U.S. government.

RubinReports: The American Public’s Incredibly Strong Support for Israel; Pew Gets Wrong the Amazing Results

RubinReports: Why All the Excuses for Palestinian Intransigence Don’t Make Sense

Why All the Excuses for Palestinian Intransigence Don’t Make Sense

[Please subscribe for good analysis and original stories]

By Barry Rubin

The Arab-Israeli, or Israel-Palestinian, conflict is the most misrepresented subject in the entire world. The most basic facts are often distorted and the most fantastical of narratives provided, even in college classrooms, about what has actually happened.

On the most single important issue in this framework—why isn’t there peace, who wants and doesn’t want peace, and how can peace be achieved—there is a common set of arguments against Israel. It goes like this:

How can the Palestinians make peace when they are suffering so much and when Israel builds settlements, or Israeli leaders make statements saying they want to keep some of the territory or won’t give up east Jerusalem, or do a variety of other things? The idea that the Palestinians yearn for peace, are eagerly trying to make some kind of agreement, but are only stopped by Israeli intransigence seems completely self-evident to the point that any challenge of this idea is ridiculed, ignored, or treated as some kind of dishonest manipulation.

People think that when they've made these points it constitutes some kind of devastating, unanswerable rebuttal proving why there is no peace and why Israel is responsible. In fact, these statements are all either long outdated or simply beside the point.

In addition, many of the things said are factually wrong. Israel has neither constructed new settlements nor expanded their boundaries for fifteen years. But for the moment let’s leave aside the factual issues. It is easy to show that these claims are inaccurate but either ears are shut or the columns of the publications are closed to such responses.

Still, nothing could be simpler than to answer these claims.

Here’s the answer:

If the Palestinians are so miserable, they feel their situation intolerable, and want to get rid of settlements, they have and have had a very simple solution. Drum roll, please:

Make peace as fast as possible in a way that settles almost all their ostensible claims.

Yet they have refused to do so on numerous occasions going back for decades. In fact, this is the thirtieth anniversary of the Egypt-Israel agreement at Camp David which first opened the door to a Palestinian state. Then there was the Reagan plan and U.S.-PLO dialogue of the 1980s, followed by the peace process of the 1990s, the Camp David 2 and President Bill Clinton offers of 2000, and most recently the offer of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who was absolutely desperate for a deal in order to save his political career) and most recently the Israeli cabinet’s peace plan in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly agrees to accept a Palestinian state.

If the Palestinians made a deal they would get an independent state with its capital in east Jerusalem. They would enjoy tremendous sympathy in the West to help them get the best possible terms. What wouldn’t they get? They’d have to swap, say, three or four percent of the West Bank’s territory in exchange for an equal amount of Israeli land and they wouldn’t get all of east Jerusalem.

That’s about it. Oh, and they’d also get many billions of dollars in compensation.

What else would they have to give up? They’d have to agree that a peace treaty ended the conflict, which makes sense. They’d have to resettle Palestinian refugees in Palestine, which also makes sense. They might well have to accept security guarantees for Israel and some limits on their own armaments. But, okay, they could bargain on that and get the best deal possible.

Again, though, there would be no Jewish settlements on Palestinian state soil, though some would become part of Israel due to the land swaps.

Note that right now the Palestinian Authority is refusing to negotiate at all, nominally because Israel is building a few apartments in Jerusalem. So what? That should be an incentive to negotiate faster so that the construction doesn’t go on and on, becoming ever more irreversible.

The purpose of negotiations is to offer compromises in order to get things you want. It is suspicious for a side to say that they are the desperate, suffering underdog eager for peace to say: We won't even come to the table unless we know beforehand we'll get everything we want and we won't make peace unless we get 100 percent of our demands. 95 percent? We'd rather go on fighting for decades.

Why is it so hard for people to understand these basic points? Of course, they have been misinformed and nobody’s pointed these things out to them. To some extent, the demonization of Israel has distorted their comprehension.

But the truly fundamental problem is that understanding that the solution for the Palestinians is to make a peace agreement—and that Israel isn’t blocking this outcome—is that it leaves them with a paradox for their minds to resolve:

Why if the Palestinians are suffering so much won’t they make peace?

Here’s the answer: the Palestinian leadership wants total victory and Israel’s elimination. They are willing to go on letting their people suffer for a century in pursuit of that goal. They hope that the world will give them everything they want without their having to make any concessions. They realize that saying “no” and letting the conflict continue gives them more—not less—leverage internationally because they make Israel look like the guilty party and think, consequently, it is being punished in European policies and public opinion.

So the arguments being made by Westerners who think they are being sympathetic to a suffering people just don’t make sense. In fact, they make things worse. Indeed, they are part of a Palestinian strategy to avoid making peace and encourage such intransigence.

Again, the calculation goes something like this: the longer the Palestinians refuse to make a compromise peace, the more people will blame Israel, turn away from it, and pressure it into unilateral concessions. This is a masochistic-based approach, a willingness to suffer in exchange for gain, and a gain that partly comes from many onlookers’ inability to believe that anyone could use such tactics.

And yet the truth is right out in the open. Don’t like settlements? Don’t like “occupation.” Then make peace and get rid of these things. The continued existence of settlements or of any Israeli military presence due to the Palestinian continuation of the conflict doesn’t prove anything to the contrary.

RubinReports: Why All the Excuses for Palestinian Intransigence Don’t Make Sense

Settler Leaders in Open Call for Disobedience - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Settler Leaders in Open Call for Disobedience - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Video: Police Violence in Kedumim over Freeze Protest - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Video: Police Violence in Kedumim over Freeze Protest - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Proposed Law to Keep MKs Loyal to Platform - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Proposed Law to Keep MKs Loyal to Platform - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Goldstein: Freeze Lawsuits will Total More than NIS 1 Billion - Inside Israel - Israel News - Israel National News

Goldstein: Freeze Lawsuits will Total More than NIS 1 Billion - Inside Israel - Israel News - Israel National News

Weekend Terror Attack on Yitzhar Foiled - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Weekend Terror Attack on Yitzhar Foiled - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

'Terrorist Release like a Defeat in Battle' - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

'Terrorist Release like a Defeat in Battle' - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Yehuda Weinstein to Become New A-G Next Month - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Yehuda Weinstein to Become New A-G Next Month - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Israel Matzav: Iranian dissidents harassed in Turkey

Iranian dissidents harassed in Turkey

On Thursday night I blogged a story about Iranian dissidents being stalked by email, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. On Friday, the Guardian confirmed the story with this article about Iranians being harassed in Turkey.

In the latest incident, a 24-year-old man who claims he was raped described how he woke up in the early hours of the morning this week to find three men looking through the windows of his ground floor flat. "I was woken by what sounded like someone trying to break in," he told the Guardian. "When I went to the living room, there was a man staring through the window.

"I went to the bedroom window so I could shout for help, but there I discovered two more men. I was terrified. I switched off the lights and piled the sofa behind the living room door. They left after a few minutes, but I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. The following day I was on the internet when a chat-room message appeared under the name of one of my friends, who has been arrested in Iran. It said, 'you witnessed last night what we are capable of – keep your wits about you and don't think you can do whatever you like'. It wasn't the first such message I had received."

Another alleged rape victim said his hotel room was trashed after an Iranian embassy employee had asked the receptionist for a list of the guests. The 27-year-old man, a former activist for the defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, also said he was pursued on the streets.

"On one occasion, a man grabbed me by the hand as I was walking and said, 'let's go and talk', but I ran away," he said. "Another time, as I was going into my flat, a man put his hand on my shoulder and, looking into my eyes, told me, 'either you are going to shut up or we will shut you up'."

Mariam Sabri, 21, who claims she was raped by an interrogator after being arrested, said her father and her brother were arrested after she spoke out about her ordeal. "They arrested my brother for a second time just a few days ago and broke both his hands," she said. "They told him, 'either you go to Turkey and get her back so we can put her on television to make her confess that she has done this just to seek asylum, or we will take action ourselves'. They also told my father, 'do you think it's difficult for us to put her into a sack and bring her back'."

These people need to get much further away from Iran than Turkey. Much further. You don't even need a visa to enter Turkey from Iran. And Turkey is an Islamist country. I wonder if Argentina would take them.

Israel Matzav: Iranian dissidents harassed in Turkey

Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Overnight music video

This song is sung by Avraham Fried and Hanan Yuval. Hanan Yuval is an Israeli who originally wrote the song for Yardena Arazi, a popular Israeli singer. In the interview, Fried says that he sees this song as the history of the Jewish people and the sun (the song is called "When the sun passes over me") as representing redemption.

Sorry, no translation.

Let's go to the videotape.




Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Israel Matzav: Was Ahmadinejad snubbed in Latin America and Senegal?

Was Ahmadinejad snubbed in Latin America and Senegal?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez seemed all lovey-dovey in Caracas last month, but Amir Taheri claims that things weren't what they appeared to be.

Earlier this month, President Ahmadinejad toured Brazil, Venezuela and Senegal in a bid to secure some of the legitimacy that eludes him at home. It would be an understatement to suggest that in all three countries he was treated with less deference due to being an Iranian president.

Neither the Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva nor his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez took the trouble to go the airport to welcome Ahmadinejad. Neither offered him the routine state banquet that protocol requires. Chavez, who has benefited from Iranian political and economic support, appeared to have lost much of his fraternal sentiments for his Iranian guest.

In Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, Ahmadinejad had to stand to attention while the pre-revolution Iranian national anthem was played instead of the one introduced by the mullahs in 1979.

In Senegal, President Abdullah Wade made sure that Ahmadinejad's state visit had none of the frills that the Senegalese put on show when Empress Farah visited Dakar almost 40 years ago. However, the main problem with Ahmadinejad's failed foreign policy is not protocolary slaps in the face. He has made the nation more isolated and vulnerable than at any time since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989.

On the other hand, Brazil and Venezuela both came out in favor of Iran's nuclear weapons program. So did they really snub him?

It seems that he's not getting the respect that a head of state normally would get, but so far it hasn't translated into any serious efforts to stop the nuclear program. But it might. Eventually.

Israel Matzav: Was Ahmadinejad snubbed in Latin America and Senegal?

Israel Matzav: Terrorist's father to sue victim's husband

Terrorist's father to sue victim's husband

Remember the video I put up the other night of the husband of a Kiryat Arba woman who was stabbed by a terrorist running over the terrorist?

Now, the terrorist's father wants to sue the victim's husband for driving over his son.

And I'll guarantee that an Israeli court will hear that case....

Israel Matzav: Terrorist's father to sue victim's husband

Love of the Land: What the Peace-Partner Palestinians Really Want

What the Peace-Partner Palestinians Really Want

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
04 December 09

In Haaretz yesterday, Ari Shavit detailed the results of Netanyahu’s serial efforts to commence negotiations with the Palestinians:

He accepts the principle of two states, and receives no response. He suspends construction in the settlements, and is rejected. He courts Mahmoud Abbas, and is disparaged. The son of Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s personal secretary wants a historic reconciliation with the Palestinians, and the Palestinians are slamming the door. He is offering the Palestinian national movement negotiations over the establishment of a Palestinian nation-state, and has found that there’s no one to talk to and nothing to talk about. Zilch. A brick wall.

Sometimes you get the impression that the Palestinian Arabs do not really want a Palestinian state. They could have had one in 1919 (the Weizmann-Feisel Agreement), 1937 (the Peel Commission), 1947 (UN Resolution 181), 2000 (the Camp David proposal), 2001 (the Clinton Parameters), or 2008 (the Annapolis Process offer). Six formal offers — each accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs.

The peace-partner Palestinians do not really have a negotiating position — only a set of demands to reverse history. They demand that Israel withdraw to the 1967 lines to reverse the Six-Day War (a war the Arabs caused). They demand a “right of return” to reverse the 1948 war (a war the Arabs started). They demand all of East Jerusalem — not simply the Arab neighborhoods and Muslim religious sites — to control the historic portion of the city; they concede no Jewish connection to the Temple Mount or the Western Wall.

Evelyn argued persuasively today that the goal of Hamas in its negotiations for the release of nearly a thousand Palestinian prisoners — in exchange for one Israeli soldier — is not really the release of the prisoners. A similar insight explains the absence of a Palestinian state despite 90 years of two-state offers, increasing Israeli concessions throughout the Oslo and Annapolis “peace processes,” and Netanyahu’s unsuccessful efforts to commence negotiations once again. A second state is not really what the Palestinians want — not if the cost is recognition of a Jewish one in defensible borders. What they really want is something else.

Love of the Land: What the Peace-Partner Palestinians Really Want

Love of the Land: For Israel, the moment of truth is now

For Israel, the moment of truth is now

Ted Belman
Israpundit
05 December 09

This analysis ignores the possibility that the choice exercised by Netanyahu with the agreement of Yaalon and Begin is the best short term policy. They are privy to much that we are totally unaware of.

According to David Horovitz, editor of JPOST, The Battle of Wills has begun. He is referring of course to the will of the settlers to resist the freeze and the will of the international community to impose it.

Although Netanyahu was at pains to assure the settlers that after the ten months are over, construction will resume as before. Begin went so far as to emphasize that the amount of construction would return to what it was before Olmert instituted a defacto freeze last summer. But no one is buying it.

To modify the old Cat Stevens song, the first halt is the hardest. Ten months from now, Iran will likely be a more urgent threat; internal Palestinian rivalries will be still more acute, possibly following Hamas electoral successes; the international community will probably be yet more critical of Israel and still more supportive of unilateral Palestinian moves to statehood; and American pressure for positive Israeli measures will be even more intense. For all Netanyahu’s protestations to the contrary, it is hard to conceive that, 10 months from now, the man who gave us 2009’s West Bank Moratorium would resist 2010’s Moratorium II.

Netanyahu argues that this painful decision was in the “wider national interest”. That’s the rational. But he doesn’t tell us in what way. Perhaps he is referring to international resolve to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. Although Obama is now talking about stronger sanctions in January, that’s a far cry from bombing Iran while there is still time. Or perhaps he is thinking of avoiding the Tools of Persuasion that could be applied.

He also argues that this freeze was necessary to get Abbas to return to negotiations. This doesn’t make sense. He could have said as soon as Abbas returns to negotiations we will institute a 10 month freeze. That would make mores sense but in either case why would Abbas return to negotiations? With the current freeze he could stay away for nine months letting Israel suffer and then return to negotiations with the conditions that so long as negotiations are ongoing, the freeze must continue. In the latter situation he would not return to negotiation that are certain to end in ten months.

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: For Israel, the moment of truth is now

Jewish Defence League Parsha and Weekly Update

Jewish Defence League Parsha and Weekly Update

This Shabbat we will read from the Torah about the disturbing story of Dina, the daughter of Lea and Jacob. The entire chapter 34 of Bereishit, all 31 verses, narrates the events surrounding Dina’s rape and her brother’s response. And, as we read in the Torah, Shcehm takes her captive, lies with her and afflicts her. We are told that she suffers. In addition, Shcehm enslaves her in his house for at least 3 days until Dina’s brothers rescue her.We will read how after Dina is raped, her father Jacob is silent; then all of Dina’s brothers devise a plan where they convince the people of Shchem to circumcise themselves, and on the 3rd day Shimon and Levi rise up and kill the men of Shchem. “Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field; and Jacob held his peace until they came.When Jacob heard that his daughter had been defiled, he kept silent. He did nothing. This story has been the subject of intense debate. The issue is collective punishment. Is it right and just for a population to be silent when rape and other horrors take place in the open. The USA and Britain ended WW2 because they bombed German cities. That was collective punishment. When the Arabs of Gaza vote in a Hamas Government, then they have openly endorsed a policy that calls for the murder of Jews the destruction of the Jewish State. A very basic lesson of this parsha is that the Government of Israel has betrayed Gilad Schalit and Jonathon Pollard. It is wrong to be silent. Please review the following information; Barbara Kay: Swiss right on minarets “Switzerland is not banning mosques, in which religious activity and observance takes place. They have banned what in Islamic countries is very well understood as a symbol of cultural dominance.”...This from the JDL:
Subject: CJC Press Release regarding the Swiss Referendum
Hello Mr. Kerbel,
Please be advised that the Jewish Defence League of Canada does not support your recent press release against the Swiss Referendum. The press release negates the realities of hate and violence being preached from many so called Islamic Houses of Worship under Swiss rule.
With Love of Israel,
Meir Weinstein National Director Jewish Defence League of Canada
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEDecember 3, 2009
Canadian Jewish Congress Expresses Deep Concernover Swiss Minaret Ban
TORONTO—-Canadian Jewish Congress President Mark J. Freiman issued the following statement in response to the results of a referendum supporting a ban on the construction of minarets in Switzerland:
“Canadian Jewish Congress believes deeply in equality and freedom of religion. These are essential human rights, guaranteed in Canada by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but also protected in international law by instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. State-imposed bans on essential elements of houses of worship are inconsistent with freedom of religion. When the bans apply only to one group, they are also inconsistent with the fundamental right to equality. For this reason, Canadian Jewish Congress is deeply concerned by the results of a Swiss referendum that would ban the construction of minarets in that country. As Canadians and as Jews, we hold tolerance dear to our hearts and understand the consequences of discrimination. We hope that these fundamental values will guide the Swiss authorities.” The following anti Israel event will take place at Ryerson University. The purpose is to raise funds for groups in Gaza. It is a crime in Canada o raise funds for Hamas. This event must be monitored:
The Conservative Party of Canada sent out a flyer which blasted the Liberal Party of Canada rerding its position on Israel. Irwin Cotler went to bat fhe Liberal Party and condemned the Coservative Party. The following article from the National Post is very important to read. The Concervative Party has always taken a better stand on Israel and Jewish Issues.An inconvenient truth about Durban 1 Get involved with the Jewish Defence League of Canada. Come out every Monday evening 7:00 pm for Karav Maga (Israeli Martial Arts) at the Toronto Zionist Center 788 Marlee Avenue. Also, every Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm will be an open discussion group with snacks and refreshments. Come and discuss the issues. Also, we are in need of volunteers for our office and require funds to continue to ad the fight for Jewish rights. Visit our web site at www.jdl-canada.com
The JDL will continue to lead and speak out.
With Love of Israel,
Meir Weinstein National Director Jewish Defence League of Canada

Originally posted by B'NAI ELIM (Sons of the Mighty)

Israel Matzav: What the 'Palestinians' really want

What the 'Palestinians' really want

Rick Richman nails it:

The peace-partner Palestinians do not really have a negotiating position — only a set of demands to reverse history. They demand that Israel withdraw to the 1967 lines to reverse the Six-Day War (a war the Arabs caused). They demand a “right of return” to reverse the 1948 war (a war the Arabs started). They demand all of East Jerusalem — not simply the Arab neighborhoods and Muslim religious sites — to control the historic portion of the city; they concede no Jewish connection to the Temple Mount or the Western Wall.

Evelyn argued persuasively today that the goal of Hamas in its negotiations for the release of nearly a thousand Palestinian prisoners — in exchange for one Israeli soldier — is not really the release of the prisoners. A similar insight explains the absence of a Palestinian state despite 90 years of two-state offers, increasing Israeli concessions throughout the Oslo and Annapolis “peace processes,” and Netanyahu’s unsuccessful efforts to commence negotiations once again. A second state is not really what the Palestinians want — not if the cost is recognition of a Jewish one in defensible borders. What they really want is something else.

Indeed.

Israel Matzav: What the 'Palestinians' really want

Israel Matzav: News from the Gaza 'concentration camp'

News from the Gaza 'concentration camp'

Underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip are the only way for millions of dollars worth of essential supplies to get past Israel's siege of the coastal territory.

But it has now emerged that at least 40,000 Gazans have lost their life savings in scheme that promised up to 50 per cent profits in return for an investment in tunnel trading.

Hamas, which has de facto control of Gaza, returned a fraction of the $100m that disappeared through the scheme, and has said that is investigating the fraud.

However, with hundreds of middlemen as yet unpunished and many of them rumoured to have had links to Hamas, the duped Gazans say that more should be done.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Awad reports from Gaza.

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Shy Guy)

If they were so poor, how did they have money to invest in the first place? Inquiring minds want to know.

Israel Matzav: News from the Gaza 'concentration camp'

DoubleTapper: Bielski Partisan Survivor Database

DoubleTapper: Bielski Partisan Survivor Database

Israel Matzav: ElBaradei to run for President of Egypt?

ElBaradei to run for President of Egypt?

Outgoing IAEA Chairman Mohamed ElBaradei is reportedly considering running for President of Egypt in 2011.

In a statement published in al-Quds al-Arabi, ElBaradei joined the ranks of the Egyptian opposition against bequeathing power to President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal.

This is the first time ElBaradei has official spoken of the possibility of running for president. He also wrote in his statement that the parliament and presidential elections in Egypt must be conducted based on the examples of the advanced democracies in the West.

Good luck with that. Maybe ElBaradei can seek asylum in Iran. Heh.

Israel Matzav: ElBaradei to run for President of Egypt?

Israel Matzav: American TV series to be based in Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital

American TV series to be based in Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital

An American television series based in Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital is to start running in 2011 on something called the Sundance Channel (forgive me, but I've been out of the US for too long to have heard of that channel). This would not be big news except that it is being made by Steven Spielberg and Phil Rosenthal.

"The idea is to take a small group of American doctors and bring them to this hot spot in the world. Shaare Zedek is one of the busiest hospitals in Jerusalem, and it's a kind of fascinating situation where you have Arab doctors working next to Jewish doctors, patients of all kinds as well, and you have to check your religion at the door.

"The ideology is that we're only here to help people. It's a microcosm for how it can be, how it should be."

Rosenthal added that the hook for American viewers is the exchange program, where American doctors would come to work alongside Israeli doctors and learn the ins and outs of both the pressure-filled emergency treatment that the Israelis have excelled in due to terror attacks, and the multifaceted social intricacies taking place amongst the Jewish, Christian and Arab populace at the hospital.

According to the series' local producer, Zafrir Kochanovsky of TTV Productions, it's that fish-out-of-water syndrome that will attract the viewers.

"This measure of culture shock, on both the professional and sociological level, will explore an additional side of Jerusalem, combining perspectives of veteran Israelis and Jerusalemites with the innocence of these outsiders," said Kochanovksy, a TV veteran whose hit series Merhak Negia (Touching Distance) was bought last year for adaptation by the American TV network HBO.

"We have no idea what we're going to find, but I imagine that stories will beget stories," said Rosenthal. "A patient will come with an interesting life and we'll follow them for a while. You never know, and it's fun, if I can say fun, to see how Americans are going to do here - not just in the business of the hospital, but socially - who are they going to live with and what's their daily life going to be like?"

Rosenthal is the producer of the sitcom Everyone loves Raymond (which is shown regularly on the airline I fly most often to the US, but I long ago gave up watching the entertainment on the airlines) and is a long time supporter of Shaare Zedek.

Hmmm.

Israel Matzav: American TV series to be based in Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital

Israel Matzav: Egypt puts editor on trial for 'criminal peacemaking'

Egypt puts editor on trial for 'criminal peacemaking'

Egypt is about to put Hala Mustafa, editor of an Egyptian democracy journal, on trial for meeting with Israel's ambassador to her country. Barry Rubin reports.

At the ambassador’s request, she spoke with him briefly in her office about a project to hold an academic conference including Egyptians, Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians. Mustafa replied that she’d check with her supervisors at the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies on whether they wanted her to help organize or participate in the conference.

That’s it.

On December 14 her employer is scheduled to decide whether she will be punished. The Al-Ahram Center is part of Al-Ahram newspaper which is controlled by the Egyptian government. In other words, this harassment is due to a decision made at high levels in Egypt’s government which receives many rewards—including lots of U.S. aid—because it is perceived as a moderate government at peace with Israel.

So is this same government going to punlish a scholar and researcher for merely talking to an Israeli diplomat?

Read the whole thing.

Would things have been different if Anwar Sadat (pictured above with Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter) had lived? Maybe. But what this story shows - again - is the difference between making peace with a country's leadership and its people. If there's no peace with the people, the treaty becomes worthless as soon as the leader is gone.

Israel Matzav: Egypt puts editor on trial for 'criminal peacemaking'

Israel Matzav: Why the 'freeze'?

Why the 'freeze'?

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

Here's an interesting poll: 72% of Israeli Jews believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu adopted the 'freeze' due to pressure by President Obama.

Seventy-two percent of Israel's Jewish population over the age of 18 believes that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided on the building freeze for Jews living in Judea and Samaria because he could not stand up to United States pressure on the matter, according to a survey taken this week by the Maagar Mochot (Brain Base) organization. Of the 512 people polled by phone, 17 percent said other factors were considered.

The same number [17%. CiJ] felt the freeze would not have an effect on concessions by Israel for the resumption of diplomatic talks, while 56 percent felt it would increase pressure on Israel. Twenty-two percent felt it would lower pressure.

Forty percent believe the 10-month freeze will end up being maintained for an indefinite period.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Why the 'freeze'?

Love of the Land: Cold turkey on Turkish Delight

Cold turkey on Turkish Delight

Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
04 December 09

'Turkey has a very special place in my heart and special relationship with Israel... Turkey can bridge the gaps between us and our neighbors and help promote normalization and coexistence in the region" - Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer in Turkey last week.

No wonder Rahat Lokum, that delectable Istanbuli confection marketed since the 19th century as Turkish Delight, conquered Europe without any resistance. If anything, there was willing cheerful surrender to the jelly-like starchy cubes, flavored with rose water and nuts and liberally dusted with icing sugar. There's an unquestionable exotic whiff to these pale-pink mouthfuls, accentuated by repeated suggestions that they are an addictive pleasure (to which, for instance, the untrustworthy Edmund succumbs in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

The soft candy is almost emblematic of the land in which it originated. Of all the world's Muslim powers, Turkey appears the most accessible. A negligible corner of it even protrudes into what's arbitrarily defined as Europe. The founder of its post-World War I republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, seemed to transform the abolished Ottoman sultanate with political, cultural, social, economic and legal reforms. Despite the occasional resort to military coups to protect its threatened secular quasi-democracy, Turkey became a NATO stalwart and for decades held radical Islam at bay.

It's enticing to relish this political confection, smacking with traces of alien seduction, even if excessive indulgence guarantees indigestion.

Bigger players on the international arena have very realpolitik motives to suck up to Turkey. For Israel the attraction is overpowering. An outcast in its neighborhood, Israel yearns for Muslim friends. It fell headlong for the vision of the region's non-Arabs banding together in a comradeship of self-preservation. This made particular sense in the heyday of nationalist pan-Arabism. It was bound to erode as jihadist fervor supplanted nationalist zeal, and Arabs could theoretically welcome Iran and Turkey into their club rather than shun their coreligionists as rank outsiders.

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: Cold turkey on Turkish Delight

Love of the Land: What Hamas Really Wants from a Prisoner Swap

What Hamas Really Wants from a Prisoner Swap

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
04 December 09

One myth the negotiations over kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit should definitively debunk is that Hamas’s leadership actually cares about the fate of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

In exchange for Shalit, Israel has offered to free 980 Palestinian prisoners, including 450 chosen in consultation with Hamas. And by all accounts, it has already agreed to almost all the 450 specific prisoners whose release Hamas is demanding: the London-based daily Al-Hayat claimed today that Israel has agreed to 400 of them; the Palestinian dailyAl-Ayyam claimed yesterday that Israel has agreed to all but 15.

Hence if Hamas really wanted to free a large number of Palestinian prisoners — including hundreds involved in some of the worst terrorist violence of the past two decades — all it had to do was say yes. And since the handful Israel still refuses to release includes several senior Hamas figures, such a deal would even reap a public relations bonus: it would show that Hamas is willing to sacrifice for the good of the whole, to let some of its top people stay in jail in order to win freedom for almost 1,000 of its Palestinian brethren.

But in fact, Hamas has said no, publicly and repeatedly. Why? Because, as Al-Ayyamquoted a Hamas source saying, even the mere 15 prisoners whom that paper claims Israel is standing firm on are “a red line, without which there will be no deal.” Al-Hayatoffered a similar explanation.

There are only two possible ways to interpret this. One, of course, is that Hamas’s leadership cares only about the handful of top-level terrorists in its inner circle, and unless they are released, the other 900-plus Palestinians can rot in jail forever for all it cares.

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: What Hamas Really Wants from a Prisoner Swap

The Torah Revolution: McDonalds' defiance

The Torah Revolution: McDonalds' defiance

The Torah Revolution: Remember!

The Torah Revolution: Remember!

The Torah Revolution: How's about..

The Torah Revolution: How's about..

Chester Chronicles - John Brown, the Weather Underground, and Al-Qaeda

Chester Chronicles - John Brown, the Weather Underground, and Al-Qaeda

RubinReports: Life in an American Fourth Grade: Evil American Internment of Japanese: Three; American Heroism in Second World War: Zero

Life in an American Fourth Grade: Evil American Internment of Japanese: Three; American Heroism in Second World War: Zero

[Please subscribe]

By Barry Rubin

Is this a parody of Political Correctness or what? After reading books on African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, another book on an African-American; and a book on the internment of the Japanese in World War Two, it’s time to study the…Native Americans.

And now alongside that--wait for it!--the class is reading a second book on the U.S. internment of Japanese civilians in World War Two. Not about brave Americans fighting the Nazis and Japanese imperialism. Not about the United States as a beacon of liberty combating Communist dictatorship. Only, Americans as bad people. Oh, and then--believe it or not--today they went on to their third book on the internment issue! This was followed, no kidding, by a discussion on slavery and how bad African-Americans were treated in the United States.

But why this particular subject of Japanese interment, which--let’s face it--is simply not that important as to make it the focal point of the class? Here's how I figure it: the internment of Japanese in California is about the only thing about the U.S. World War Two effort that would make the United States look bad. And these kids are getting it triple.

Is this really such an important event to merit two readings compared to none for the American revolution, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the heroism of the Civil War, the settlement of the West by courageous pioneers, the opportunities offered by America to the hard-working and innovative, the integration of past waves of immigrants, the greatness of American literary achievement, and everything else in U.S. history?

A boy in class, not my son, asked the teacher whether it was true that the Japanese government and military tortured and mistreated American soldiers. Yes, she said but that was different—apparently less bad than the U.S. treatment of Japanese in California who were neither tortured nor murdered—because it was done to soldiers not civilians.

I guess she doesn’t know or care about the medical experiments on American prisoners, the 1942 Baatan Death March (one of my teachers in school survived it and told me in private conversation his horrifying experiences), the death railroad in Thailand, and the Japanese officers hung for war crimes as a result of such atrocities.

So not only are these children being taught that America and Americans were bad but also that nobody else did bad things.



[Incidentally, my son suggests--and this seems sensible--that some of the 10-year-olds will be confused between the detention camps the Japanese were kept in and the kind of contentration and death camps that existed under the Nazis and Soviet Communists.]

What’s going on here? I have no axe to grind. In fact, I'm in shock. I’m just reporting on what’s happening and never expected to find anything so extreme in American schools today.

The students are being given two messages:

1. America is not a coherent society with an overarching culture but merely a collection of mistreated minority groups as victims and the mainstream as the persecutors.

2. America has done lots of bad things in history. If there are any good ones, they’re not going to talk about them.

In short, the school has been turned into a factory for manufacturing anti-American and non-American Americans. This is no exaggeration because the information being conveyed is so one-sided and extreme. When questioned, the teacher responds that she is merely following the curriculum. She genuinely doesn't seem to be ideologically committed, just profoundly naive.

Whether this class is typical or not, I cannot say. The only positive thing may be some hints that some (many? most?) of the kids aren’t buying it.

RubinReports: Life in an American Fourth Grade: Evil American Internment of Japanese: Three; American Heroism in Second World War: Zero

RubinReports: On Israel's Construction Freeze: U.S. Fails to Deliver: Instead of Praising, Europe Demands More

On Israel's Construction Freeze: U.S. Fails to Deliver: Instead of Praising, Europe Demands More

[Please subscribe for more original news and analysis]

By Barry Rubin

Israel acceded to a U.S. request to freeze construction on existing Jewish settlements; the Palestinian Authority (PA) refuses even to negotiate or to give anything in exchange for this concession. Who did Europe reward and was the United States able to mobilize praise for the former or criticism for the latter?

Need you ask?

It is now confirmed that my analysis of the State Department statement on the construction freeze was correct. It was intended as a statement supporting key Israeli demands—recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and changes in the 1967 borders—while also meeting major Palestinian demands, an independent state based on those borders.

Equally unnoticed, however, is the fact that the United States did not even get its European allies to endorse its new position. Once again, despite all the Obama Administration's apologies, flattery, and concessions, it could not even obtain the smallest things in exchange from those given such rewards.

The main U.S. effort was to get the Quartet of mediators (U.S., Europe Union, Russia, and UN) to endorse the new U.S. stance. The proposed statement would have urged resumed negotiations without preconditions to seek an agreement which:

"would fulfill the Palestinian goal of establishing an independent, viable state, based on the 1967 borders, agreed upon exchanges [of territory], and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect the developments [which occurred on the ground] and which fulfill the Israeli security requirements."

Reportedly, the Russians rejected the Jewish state and reflecting developments on the ground positions. This explains why the Quartet couldn’t issue a statement. But why didn’t the United States obtain the same statement from the European Union alone?

Instead, after making still another unilateral concession, Israel now has to fight off a hostile EU resolution calling for east Jerusalem to be capital of a Palestinian state without any mention of Israeli goals, including mention of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, an easy way of making the resolution more even-handed.

So once again Israel is given the message, here reinforced by inept U.S. diplomacy, that the reward for making a concession are demands to make more concessions. This is not, however, to underestimate the importance of the new U.S. position as expressed in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement. The question, of course, is how long and whether the Obama Administration will stick to its new set of promises.

RubinReports: On Israel's Construction Freeze: U.S. Fails to Deliver: Instead of Praising, Europe Demands More

Israel Matzav: Sabbath music video

Sabbath music video

I guess this one is the inevitable choice for this Sabbath because part of it comes from the weekly Torah portion (the part about Yaakov wrestling with the angel - here described as a man). It's sung by Mordechai Ben David. Here are the words with translation into English and Spanish.

V'nisgav

Vaivater Iaakov levado
(And Iaakov stayed alone)
(Y Iaakov se quedó solo)

Vaieavek ish imo
(And a man wrestled with Him)
(Y luchó un varón con él)

Ad alot alot hashajar
Ad alot hashajar
(Until it lined the dawn)
(Hasta que rayó el alba)

Venisgav venisgav HaShem levado
(And HaShem will only be exalted)
(Y HaShem solo será exaltado)

HaShem levado vaiom hahú
(in that day)
(en aquel día)

Let's go to the videotape.




Have a wonderful Sabbath everyone.
Israel Matzav: Sabbath music video

Israel Matzav: Putin's blinders

Putin's blinders

Russia's Vladimir Putin has his blinders on when it comes to Iran's nuclear intentions.

Russia has no evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

"We have no information that Iran is working on the creation of a nuclear weapon," Putin said when asked by a reporter if Iran was close to making an atomic bomb.

Hey Vlad - I got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Israel Matzav: Putin's blinders

Israel Matzav: End 'endism,' build peace

End 'endism,' build peace

This piece of advice from Rick Richman in Contentions may be the best advice President Obumbler could get right now on the Middle East.

A year ago, Uzi Arad, a prominent Israeli foreign-policy academic, suggested that the way forward in the “peace process” is to put an end to “endism” — the belief that “we are within reach of resolving everything in one fell swoop.” Endism is what marked the two-week final-status negotiations at Camp David; the subsequent four-month process, culminating in the unsuccessful Clinton Parameters; and the failed one-year Annapolis Process under President Bush. Against advice from both the Left and Right, President Obama tried his own hand at endism, and his efforts cratered in less than a year.

Netanyahu has endorsed a two-state solution, as long as the Palestinians recognize one of them as Jewish and demilitarize the other so it cannot threaten Israel. Both conditions have been rejected even by the peace-partner Palestinians, not to mention those in control of the land handed over to them in 2005. Thus another attempt at endism is proving to be futile– and four times is enough in any event. Endism needs to be ended, not mended.

It is time, as the title of Gross’s article suggests, for “Building Peace Without Obama’s Interference” — and long past the time for Obama to turn his full attention, as Arad suggested a year ago, to Iran.

Read the whole thing. There is nothing wrong with the status quo.

Israel Matzav: End 'endism,' build peace

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinians' signal: Freeze is pointless

'Palestinians' signal: Freeze is pointless

'Palestinian negotiator' Ahmed Qrei Abu Ala has told the European Union that despite Israel's freeze on all new construction in Judea and Samaria there is no point to going back to negotiations.

The PA’s Maan news agency reports that former PA prime minister Qureia, who now heads the PA’s Jerusalem Affairs Department, told Christian Berger this week, “As a result of the ongoing violations and Israel's refusal to recognize the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, as well as its rebuffing of its commitments under the Road Map plan and under international law, returning to negotiations will be meaningless."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other Israeli government leaders have emphasized that the controversial freeze is being implemented in order to persuade the PA to agree to resume negotiations with Israel.

If things continue this way (and there's no reason to believe that they won't - having been promised a total freeze by the Obumbler, there's no reason to believe that the 'Palestinians' will accept anything less), do we get to thaw the 'freeze' early?

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinians' signal: Freeze is pointless

Israel Matzav: About those 'illegal' Jewish settlements

About those 'illegal' Jewish settlements

With President Obama the first American President since Jimmy Carter to call Israeli 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria 'illegal' or illegitimate, Commentary has a lengthy article this month with a legal analysis of why the 'settlements' are neither.

Here's their conclusion:

The idea that the creation of new settlements or that the expansion of ones already in place is an act of bad faith on the part of various Israeli governments may seem without question to those who believe those settlements constitute an obstacle to the ever elusive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Whether this argument is well-founded or not, the willingness of Israel’s critics to assert that these communities are not merely wrong-headed but a violation of international law escalates the debate over their existence from a dispute about policy into one in which the Jewish state itself can be labeled as an international outlaw. The ultimate end of the illicit effort to use international law to delegitimize the settlements is clear—it is the same argument used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state entirely. Those who consider themselves friends of Israel but opponents of the settlement policy should carefully consider whether, in advancing these illegitimate and specious arguments, they will eventually be unable to resist the logic of the argument that says—falsely and without a shred of supporting evidence from international law itself—that Israel is illegitimate.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: About those 'illegal' Jewish settlements

Israel Matzav: Ukraine joins the organ theft blood libel

Ukraine joins the organ theft blood libel

Here's a reminder that you don't have to be a Muslim to be an anti-Semite. Ukraine has adopted the organ theft libel.

Stories appearing on several Ukrainian Web sites claim Israel has brought around some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the country over the past two years in order to harvest their organs.

The claim, which was made by a Ukrainian philosophy professor and author at a pseudo-academic conference in Kiev five days ago, is the latest expression of a wave of anti-Semitism in the country. It comes a few months after a Swedish tabloid ran an article alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers have killed Palestinian civilians for their organs.

Jews, Israel and anti-Semitism have become a major motif of the presidential election campaign in Ukraine, with some figures making anti-Semitic statements and others condemning them. Some candidates, including a Jew and someone whose rivals claim is Jewish, blame a third rival - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko [pictured. CiJ] - for bringing anti-Semitism into the race.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of anti-Semites in the world. With the current focus on Islamist Jew-hatred, we forget that for centuries, Jews were relatively safe (albeit with dhimmi status) in Muslim countries and were in danger in Christian countries. The Ukraine itself has a rich history of anti-Semitism. We must always be vigilant (without becoming paranoid).

Israel Matzav: Ukraine joins the organ theft blood libel

Israel Matzav: Some people don't want peace

Some people don't want peace

One of the presumptions underlying the 'peace process' is that everyone in the region wants peace. Cliff May points out that presumption is false.

It doesn't require Donald Trump to know that the art of the deal starts with an understanding of what each side wants. Yet for more than half a century, Western politicians and diplomats have built upon a mirage: the belief that because we see peace as a benefit, everyone in the Middle East must see it that way, too.

This assumption is most obviously false in regard to Hamas, which has ruled Gaza with an iron fist since Israel withdrew from that territory in 2005. Hamas' leaders have been candid: Their goal is the annihilation of Israel, an "infidel" nation occupying land Allah has endowed to the Muslims. A "two-state solution" or any other compromise is out of the question.

Of course, serious people do not envision Israeli-Hamas negotiations. It is rather talks between Israel and Abbas, who maintains tentative control of the West Bank, which President Barack Obama would like to get under way again.

But any agreement Abbas might strike with Israel, no matter how advantageous for average Palestinians, would be denounced by Hamas as an act of treachery and apostasy. Abbas' life would be in danger. If you were advising Abbas, what would you tell him? Probably, to do exactly what he is doing: Pocket any Israeli concessions the Americans can wring out of the Israelis while dismissing them as woefully insufficient; refuse to negotiate; but behind the scenes work with the Israelis on security -- not least your own -- and economic development. If nothing else, that may prevent Hamas from gaining additional ground.

And the 'Palestinians' are not the only ones who aren't interested in peace. May lists Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia as other parties who have no interest in peace and then suggests that we try to achieve the only kind of peace that is achievable rather than pursuing a mirage.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: Some people don't want peace