Learning About War

Learning About War

The more stories such as this one appear in the media, the more likely it is that reasonable regular sort of folks, the ones who aren't animated by this ideology or that, will begin to understand how war is waged these days. The more mainstream people understand this, the less audience there will be for the Goldtone reporters of the world. People will glance at their narrative, recognize how detached it is from reality, and move on. Remember how back in 2001, every Israeli targeted assassination of an enemy was automatically tagged as a breach of international law? Hard to image these days, isn't it, when targeted assassinations are the most commonly used tool of the Americans and their allies.

Close to the road and relative safety, soldiers saw a man in black walking. He was unarmed. They watched him in their scopes but did not shoot. Western forces in Afghanistan are operating under rules of engagement, or ROE, that restrict them from acting against people unless they commit a hostile act or show hostile intent. American troops say the Taliban can fire on them, then set aside their weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location. "The inability to stop people who don't have weapons is the main hindrance right now," McMahon said after the firefight. "They know how to use our ROE against us." (h/t Silke)

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Surviving Adversity

Surviving Adversity

Many of Israel's enemies, including some home-grown ones, seem to feel that if enough pressure is brought to bear on the Jews, they'll give up on their national project and move "back" to where-ever, so long as it's far away. This is an odd preposition, with no evidence to back it up, but it seems to keep the Palestinians and many other Arabs hoping, and they undoubtedly garner satisfaction from Westerners and Jews who tell them eventually it'll work.

In week or two the Daf Yomi folks will pass this story, about obstinate perseverance in the face of the military might of the most powerful empire of the day, Rome. Many Jews grew up on the story, but in these days of limited Jewish education, perhaps many others haven't. I'm reasonably certain many of Israel's enemies don't know the story or the tradition it fits into, which is regrettable since they clearly underestimate how obstinate we can be. The story took place in the decade of 135-145 CE, most likely.

The Gemarah is discussing how judges are appointed, and they're examining the rule that only judges who have been accredited by three previously accredited judges may set fines.

-Really? So how to explain the story told by Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav? [Here's the story]
Blessed is the memory of Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, for if not him, the laws of fines would have been forgotten.
- How forgotten? They could have been re-learned?
- Rather, the authority to apply them would have been abolished. Once the Roman rulers decreed that anyone who accredited judges [the word is smicha] would be killed, and anyone who received smicha would be killed, and any town where smicha was done would be destroyed, and any county were smicha happened would be razed. What did Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava do? He went to an empty spot between two mountains, between two towns between two counties in the area between Usha and Shfar'am, and there he did smicha for five scholars: Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yossi and Rabbi ELiezer ben Shamua. Rav Avaya adds Rabbi Nechemia to the list. When they realized they'd been seen by the enemy, he said to them, Run, my sons! What will happen to you, they cried. He told them, I'm here like an unturned stone [perhaps this means I won't run, and they'll kill me but I won't feel it, as a stone feels no pain]. The Roman soldiers didn't let up until they had stabbed him with 300 spears.

The Gemarah isn't convinced: there were two additional judges there, but the story doesn't mention them because they were less important than Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava [so the story doesn't prove that a single judge can give smicha]

Another problem with the story:
Was Rabbi Meir accredited by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava? Didn't Raba bar bar Hana teach us in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: Anyone who says Rabbi Meir wasn't given smicha by Rabbi Akiva, has it all wrong!
The Gemarah explains: Rabbi Akiva did give Rabbi Meir smicha, but he was too young at the time and it wasn't recognized, so he had to be given smicha again, this time by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava.

The spot where this took place is still empty; you cross it when you take Route 6 north of the Barkai junction. Shfaram is an Arab-Druze town by the same name; Usha is a Jewish village.

[The daf Yomi thread starts and is explained here]

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

History Never Stops

History Never Stops

And since it never stops, stories are rarely "over". For an extreme example, think of the poor Romans who thought they'd finally finished the story of those pesky Jews, back in the days of Hadrian. Guess they were wrong, huh?

On a vastly smaller scale, here's a fascinating story that Stephen Farrell of the NYT dug up in his newspaper's archive: Apparently the town the Americans and others are battling in this week, Marja, was invented a mere 50-some years ago. By well-meaning Americans. Also Nad-i-Ali, where an American missile accidentally killed 12 civilians two days ago. Wesley Morgan, a young man moonlighting for the NYT in the battle zone, follows up on Farrell's story with real-life evidence.

Fascinating.

Farrell's story is then commented on by lots of readers, who go through the usual gamut of navel-gazing we're-the-center-of-the-world introspection: history happens because Americans are nice, or because they're not nice, and so on. So predictable, so uninformed, so uninterested in history... and so boring.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Love of the Land: Roger Cohen And Wishful Thinking, Part 974

Roger Cohen And Wishful Thinking, Part 974

Eamonn McDonagh
Z-Word Blog
13 February '10

As readers of this blog know, Roger Cohen is not a wise man. His latest column in the New York Times gives further evidence of this.

Domestic U.S. politics constrain innovative thought - even open debate - on the process without end that is the peace search.

Open debate constrained, eh? Come on Roger, don’t be a tease. You mean the evil and oh so long tentacles of the Israel lobby are reaching into campuses, news rooms and the very halls of Congress to prevent people saying what they really think, and you know, you’re really sure, that what they’d say if the evil Zionist manipulators would only let them, bears a striking resemblance to what you think yourself.

Centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust created a moral imperative for a Jewish homeland, Israel, and demand of America that it safeguard that nation in the breach.

And if Jews had never been persecuted and never been victims of genocide I guess that would mean that they would have no right to self determination? Let’s try thinking about this another way. During the 19th century the idea began to gain traction among Jews in Europe that they were as entitled to their own nation state as anyone else. The same idea started to gain presence among many other peoples without states at the same time. Eventually the Jews got their state. Not all were so lucky.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Roger Cohen And Wishful Thinking, Part 974

Love of the Land: “Hello, Syria? Hey, it’s Ahmadinejad calling. Look, I know it’s been a while, but I really, really need a favor.”

“Hello, Syria? Hey, it’s Ahmadinejad calling. Look, I know it’s been a while, but I really, really need a favor.”

Judeosphere
15 February '10

Tariq Alhomayed, the editor of Asharq Al-Awsat—the Saudi-owned, international Arabic newspaper—believes that the Iranian regime is growing increasingly nervous over its political isolation.

Alhomayed notes:

There is a small – but important – piece of news that reveals the Iranian confusion and anxiety as a result of the western political deluge which is attacking Tehran from all directions, including Israel, after it was announced that Netanyahu is visiting Russia for three days. This small news item which was announced by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting [IRIB] and reported by the Syrian-News website is that Ahmadinejad telephoned President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday and that “Ahmadinejad informed al-Assad that should Israel launch an attack on the region it [Israel] must be confronted and eliminated.”

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: “Hello, Syria? Hey, it’s Ahmadinejad calling. Look, I know it’s been a while, but I really, really need a favor.”

Love of the Land: Why is Ahmadinejad Smiling?

Why is Ahmadinejad Smiling?

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
15 February '10

Sprightly Ahmadinejad tours nuclear facilities, having stolen an election he marches on, as his police batter protesters. And everywhere he goes, he smiles his trademark loopy smile. The smile of a psychopath or a saint.

Why is Ahmadinejad smiling? The answer is not a terribly complicated one. With every step he takes and every day that he remains in power, he discredits the most deeply held ideas of Western liberals about the power of diplomacy to resolve conflicts and internal civil disobedience to achieve peaceful regime change. Despite years of diplomatic and hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets-- Ahmadinejad's grip on power remains as secure as ever.

Walking over the bodies of student protesters, of political dissidents, of the thousands killed by the wars he has touched off, he continues to taunt the rest of the world to do anything about it. And the rest of the world has done nothing except talk. And as Ahmadinejad has demonstrated, talk counts for nothing at all.

While Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be detached from ordinary reality, living in an Islamic version of Charles Manson's fantasies about touching off a spectacular war in order to bring on a new age, he understands his enemies well enough to call them out on their weakness. Like every other Islamic terrorist and warlord, Ahmadinejad sees diplomacy as weakness behind a mask of civility. And like just about every strongman in the world, he laughs at it.

Ahmadinejad may be a monster, but there are no shortage of monsters in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein was just as bad, yet much of the American and European left proved eager to shut their eyes to the rape rooms, to Uday's horrors of mangled limbs and broken fingers, to the ethnic cleansing and gassing-- while demanding that we respect Saddam's sovereignty. Today those very same people pat themselves on the back, as if defending the right of a tyrant to keep killing his own people were some great act of moral courage.

But even Saddam and Ahmadinejad are not particularly unique, because monsters proliferate in the Middle East like mushrooms after a rainstorm, growing off the oil money that their enemies send them, which they exchange for weapons and payments to their own loyalists to secure their base of power. Every petrodollar sent to the Middle East means death of a certain kind, whether it's the death of a passerby by a suicide bomb in Basra funded by Iranian or Saudi money, the death of an imported Indian contract worker in Dubai or the murder of an African Sudanese in Sudan. Either way oil money is death money, and the world knows it, and yet does nothing. No wonder Ahmadinejad keeps on smiling.

Love of the Land: Why is Ahmadinejad Smiling?

Love of the Land: Currents of denial run deep among the Left

Currents of denial run deep among the Left

Bataween
Point of No Return
15 February '10

Is denial of Arab and Muslim antisemitism fast becoming a pathology of the left? Read my guest post on CiFwatch.

Leopold1904 must be a bewildered man. His comment, on the Uri Dromi thread, stating the facts of the 1840 Damascus blood libel - which Dromi had invoked in his piece on the Jenny Tongue ‘Israel harvests organs in Haiti’ affair - was deleted by the Comment is Free moderator.

Does Leopold’s comment breach Comment is Free guidelines? Does it contain offensive or personal attacks? No. Is it defamatory? No. Is it irrelevant? No, it simply seeks to expand on Dromi’s cursory description of the Damascus blood libel. Its conclusion, that the affair ‘restoked the fires of European antisemitism’, is unassailable.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Currents of denial run deep among the Left

Love of the Land: Outside funding of NGOs threatens sovereignty

Outside funding of NGOs threatens sovereignty

Fresnozionism.org
15 February '10

News item:

NGOs that receive funding from a “foreign political entity” would have to register with the Political Party Registrar and declare in all public appearances that they represent an organization that receives funding from such an entity, according to a bill sponsored by Likud MK Ze’ev Elkin that received government backing from the Ministerial Committee on Legislation on Sunday…

According to the bill, no organization in Israel would be allowed to receive money from a foreign political entity unless it registers with the Registrar of Political Parties. The registrar would be responsible for the registry completely independent of his registry of political parties.

The NGO would have to list the aims of the organization, its address and the identification number of every key activist, including directors, members of the executive committee, active directors and those authorized to sign checks…

This would seem to apply both to foreign governments, fronts for same, and charities like the New Israel Fund (NIF).

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Outside funding of NGOs threatens sovereignty

Love of the Land: Palestinian Official: Israel Should Release PA Officer Who Murdered Israeli Last Week

Palestinian Official: Israel Should Release PA Officer Who Murdered Israeli Last Week

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
15 February '10

[In English on Monday afternoon 15 February 2010]

Question: Last week a Palestinian Police Officer (Mahmoud Yusef Nimer Hattib) killed an Israeli soldier (NCO Sgt 1st Class Ihab Khatib).

PA Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs - Information Department Director General Osama Al-Ghoul: Yes

Question: Now he is being held by Israel. Is it the position of the Palestinian Authority that he should be freed?

Osama Al-Ghoul: Of course. This is our struggle with the Israeli occupies (sic)

Question: He should be released. Fair enough. Not to be extradited but instead just freed.

Osama Al-Ghoul: Of course. We are fighting the Israeli occupied. This is our land.

Question: This is Osama Al-Ghoul right?

Osama Al-Ghoul: Yes.

Question: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Osama Al-Ghoul: Welcome. Anytime.

Love of the Land: Palestinian Official: Israel Should Release PA Officer Who Murdered Israeli Last Week

DoubleTapper: Doggy Style in Jerusalem

Doggy Style in Jerusalem

If you are in Jerusalem and need a quick meal,

try

Doggy Style Hot Dogs!

Let me know if you need directions!

DoubleTapper: Doggy Style in Jerusalem

RubinReports: Why Isn't There Peace? One Reason: Few People Know How Much is Being Offered

Why Isn't There Peace? One Reason: Few People Know How Much is Being Offered

Please subscribe for unique reportage and analysis. You can be subscriber 9,105!

By Barry Rubin

I’ve been having a dialogue through correspondence lately with someone describing himself as a moderate Palestinian who lives in the United States. What most impressed me in the exchanges--both from what my interlocutor said and how he described the views of other Palestinians--is the total lack of comprehension on their part—those who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along with those who live elsewhere, both moderate and radical--about Israeli positions toward peacemaking that are easily available on the public record.

Among Palestinians, as more broadly with almost all of the public in the Muslim-majority world and a lot of the elite classes in Europe, there exists a mythical Israel, reminiscent of the fabricated antisemitic stereotypes of the past, that has little to do with reality. They believe Israel isn't interested in peace, doesn't offer the Palestinians anything, opposes any real Palestinian state, intends to keep the West Bank (until Israel's withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip they would have added that territory as well), and is led by intransigent hardliners. Such a conception was comprehensible--if not fully accurate--describing the situation in parts of the 1980s but has nothing to do with the last 20 years.

In 2010 they have no idea what Israel actually offered in the 1990s' peace process, or at the Camp David summit in 2000, or what President Bill Clinton offered with Israel's agreement in December 2000, or what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proffered in 2008, or what is in the current Israeli government’s peace offer in 2010. All proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state, the first three in close to 100 percent and the last three as equivalent to 100 percent (with some small, equal land swaps) in size to the pre-1967 West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Lacking any knowledge of these offers, or at least knowing only very distorted ones, they can maintain that Israel has offered “nothing” and that therefore the continuation of the conflict is not due to Palestinian intransigence but Israel’s alleged opposition to the creation of a real independent Palestinian state. This reminds me of how Mahmoud Abbas, today leader of the Palestinian Authority, responded to some reasonably accurate descriptions in the Palestinian media of what Israel offered in 2000 at Camp David. It is better, he said at the time, not to talk about these things at all, presumably lest some Palestinians might think that it was a reasonable deal.

Anyone who actually lives in Israel knows that--whether they like it or not--Israel is ready to make big conessions and take reasonable risks to achieve peace. They know, whether or not they agree, that the overwhelming majority is ready to accept an independent Palestinian state as long as it is willing to end the conflict and live side by side in peace.

Outside Israel, far fewer people than should do so understand this reality. And that includes journalists,academics, and politicians. If they address the issue at all, they presume that Israel is asking the Palestinians to make some huge or unreasonable concession. Often, as noted above, their understanding of Israeli views is more than 20 years out of date.

But the Palestinians especially and these Westerners generally know even less about Israel’s own demands, which is not surprising since they are never explained in the Arabic-language media and virtually never mentioned in the Western media. These include security guarantees, non-militarization of a Palestinian state, an end to the conflict, and the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Palestine. For an analysis of Israel's current peace plan, if you would like to see what is actually on the table, see here.

The above observations can produce a simple definition of the difference between moderates and radicals. The radicals, both among the Palestinians and their Western sympathizers, know—even if they pretend otherwise—that they want all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea along with Israel’s elimination. This is true whether they seek it through a two-stage process, the dispatch of a million or two Palestinians to Israel in a peace agreement, a one-state solution, or a temporary binational state.

A moderate is someone who actually thinks the Palestinians today want a two-state solution and is genuinely fooled by the ploys outlined above. Consequently, the moderates--few as they are among Palestinians, more numerous in the West--can have the facts explained to them. But the radicals know precisely what they are doing and don't care about any chance for compromise.

RubinReports: Why Isn't There Peace? One Reason: Few People Know How Much is Being Offered

Elder of Ziyon: Today's incitement

Elder of Ziyon: Today's incitement

Elder of Ziyon: Mabhouh finger-pointing update

Elder of Ziyon: Mabhouh finger-pointing update

Elder of Ziyon: PalArab "refugees" killing each other in Lebanon again

Elder of Ziyon: PalArab "refugees" killing each other in Lebanon again

Elder of Ziyon: HuffPo prints MPAC lies

Elder of Ziyon: HuffPo prints MPAC lies

Israel Matzav: Misunderstood Muslim: 'Slaughter the Jews' means 'O Jews we will win'

Misunderstood Muslim: 'Slaughter the Jews' means 'O Jews we will win'

The Muslim student who screamed itabach al-Yahud (slaughter the Jew) at Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon last week at Oxford last week claims that what he screamed did not mean 'slaughter the Jews.'

The Oxford student who shouted “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic at Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon during his talk at the university last week says his remark was misunderstood.

The Oxford Student newspaper named the student as sophomore Noor Rashid and said that Rashid claimed he used a classical Arabic chant “Khaybar ya Yahod” which commemorates a seventh-century battle between Arabs and Jews.

The battle of Khaybar was an attack launched by the prophet Muhammad in 629. It led to the defeat of the Jewish community in the Arabian peninsula, forcing the Jews to pay half their income to the Muslim victors.

“My version went: ‘Khaybar, O Jews, we will win.’ This is in classical, Koranic Arabic and I doubt that apart from picking up on the word ‘Jew,’ that even the Arabic speakers in the room would have understood the phrase,” Rashid told The Oxford Student.

“As you can see, I made no reference to killing Jews,” he said, adding that the remark had “absolutely no derogatory or secondary meanings.”

It gets worse from there. Something tells me that little police investigation has something to do with Rashid's claims. But they remind me of Yasser Arafat's claims that he was waging a 'jihd for peace' (which is an oxymoron). Rashid is lying.

Israel Matzav: Misunderstood Muslim: 'Slaughter the Jews' means 'O Jews we will win'

Love of the Land: A proper site for a Museum of Tolerance

A proper site for a Museum of Tolerance

The Wiesenthal Center's project has been approved by the government and the courts, and will be built on property that is not a cemetery but a parking lot.


Marvin Hier
L.A. Times
12 February '10

Listening to the few vocal opponents of our Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem project -- among them the notorious Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the extremist Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel -- you would never know that the Israeli Supreme Court deliberated for almost three years before unanimously rejecting all their claims and authorizing the Wiesenthal Center to begin construction. Just six weeks ago, Chief Justice Dorit Beinish also rebuked those who re-petitioned the Supreme Court for an "abuse of court proceedings," ordering them to pay professional costs.

Still, our opponents would have you believe that in the name of tolerance, our bulldozers actually have invaded the adjacent Mamilla Cemetery, desecrating ancient Muslim tombstones and historic markers.

They don't want you to know the real facts. The museum is not being built on what can rightfully be called the Mamilla Cemetery, but on a three-acre site in the heart of West Jerusalem that, for more than half a century, served as the city's municipal car park. Each day, hundreds of people of all faiths parked in the three-level underground structure without any protest from Muslim religious or academic leaders or interest groups. Additionally, telephone and electrical cables and sewer lines were laid deep below ground in the early 1960s, again without any protest.

As the Supreme Court noted in its ruling, "for almost 50 years the compound has not been a part of the cemetery, both in the normative sense and in the practical sense, and it was used for various public purposes." It also noted: "During all those years no one raised any claim, on even one occasion, that the planning procedures violated the sanctity of the site, or that they were contrary to the law as a result of the historical and religious uniqueness of the site. . . . For decades this area was not regarded as a cemetery by the general public or by the Muslim community. . . . No one denied this position."

(Read full article)

Related article: Demagoguery at its finest

Love of the Land: A proper site for a Museum of Tolerance

Israel Matzav: Intel even more inside Israel than you thought

Intel even more inside Israel than you thought

Intel is even more inside Israel than you thought.

Intel Corp's Israeli subsidiary said on Monday its exports surged 145 percent in 2009 to a record $3.4 billion and the company is hoping growth will continue with further expansion in the country.

Exports rose thanks to Intel's new $3.5 billion chip manufacturing plant in southern Israel which came into full production in early 2009.

It is the third plant in the world to make processors with 45 nanometer-wide circuitry and Intel is negotiating with the Israeli government for a possible grant to expand the plant to include production of smaller 22-nanometre chips.

"We are competing with other countries on the ability to bring to Israel 22-nanometre technology," Intel Israel General Manager Maxine Fassberg told a news conference, adding that the company plans to have two 22-nanometre plants.

The first one will be built in Arizona and Fassberg said she'd like the second plant to be in Israel.

The investment to expand the Israeli plant is estimated at $2.7 billion, she said.

"We have asked for a decision (from Israel) by mid-March when Intel is due to make a decision," Fassberg said. "Intel's second 22 nanometer plant needs to start producing by the start of 2012."

...

Intel accounts for 10 percent of Israel's industrial exports and $7.3 billion has been invested in its operations in Israel, including $1.2 billion in grants from the government, Fassberg said.

Wow. And something tells me that they didn't invest in Egypt or Saudi Arabia at the same time either.

Israel Matzav: Intel even more inside Israel than you thought

Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Overnight music video

Here's another Purim song. This is LaYehudim Hayesa Ora (And for the Jews, there was light), and it comes from Megillath Esther - which we read on Purim.

Let's go to the videotape.

Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Love of the Land: Can it all be just a mistake?

Can it all be just a mistake?

Itzik Yarkoni
Sderot Media Center
09 February '10

Hamas officials said that a 52-page document has been compiled to testify that the offensive missiles fired during Operation Cast lead were “an accident” due to their weapon’s lack of aiming capabilities toward military installations.

However, section 1687 of the “Goldstone Report” presents that, “indeed, Palestinian armed groups, among them Hamas, have publicly expressed their intention to target Israel civilians.... claimed responsibility for the deaths of each of the Israeli civilians killed by rocket fired during the operations in Gaza”.

This begs the question: If Hamas weapon’s suffer from inaccuracy, maybe the information that was given to Goldstone is also off target?

I remember the first time that I heard about Sapir college was when I was traveling in the United States after the army. When I asked about the whereabouts of the college, a friend replied, “It is a nice place next to Sderot. However, the situation is a little strange. Rockets are launched towards the city daily”. I did not know what lay ahead for me at Sapir College, but I decided that I would take the risk. After all, I figured something would be done, eventually, to stop the rockets.

Eight years have passed since the first rocket was launched towards Sderot. The situation has not changed, I was wrong. More than ten thousand kassam missiles, grad, and mortar shells have been fired from Gaza, of which eighty-four fell in Sderot during Operation Cast Lead. Moreover, the “military installations” Hamas speaks of are nowhere to be found in the city. Where exactly were the rockets intended to fall?

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: Can it all be just a mistake?

Israel Matzav: England's new anti-Semitism

England's new anti-Semitism

England's not the only place that has this new anti-Semitism - it's just one of the more prominent places.

This fourth kind of antisemitism is now more European than English but has a particularly English history, stemming from the intimacy of association between England and the Zionist project from the mid-19th century through to the mid-1950s. It denies to Jews the rights that it upholds for other, comparable peoples. It adheres to the principle of national self-determination, except in the Jews’ case. It affirms international law, except in Israel’s case. It does not understand that supporting the cause of Palestinian nationhood is one thing, while denying the right of Jews to live in their own state is quite another. It is outraged by the Jewish nature of the state of Israel, but is untroubled by, say, the Islamic nature of Iran or of Saudi Arabia. It regards as racist the social inequalities between Jew and Arab in Israel, while being indifferent to the legal inequalities between Muslim and non-Muslim in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim states.

It regards Zionism as uniquely pernicious, rather than as merely another nationalism, just as earlier generations of antisemites regarded Jewish capitalists as uniquely pernicious, rather than as heterogeneous members of a much larger capitalist class.

It writes out of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the massacres of Jews in Hebron (August 1929), Jerusalem (February 1948), and Kfar Etzion (May 1948), while treating the massacre of Arabs at Deir Yasin (April 1948) as proof of fundamental Zionist iniquity. It is reluctant to take a position on the Chinese occupation of Tibet, while holding the Israeli occupation of the West Bank an indefensible evil of global consequence. It is hostile to the United States, which it believes is dominated by Jews. It plays variations on well-established antisemitic tropes and deploys some new ones of its own — principally, that Israel may suitably be compared with Nazi Germany and/or Apartheid South Africa.

It treats UN, and UN committee and council, resolutions on Israel as if passed by impartial, apolitical bodies. It denies the existence of Islamic antisemitism, save perhaps as a Western import and of no practical consequence. While it excoriates racist sentiments found among Israelis, or in the complex history of Zionism, it refuses to acknowledge the racist themes towards Jews to be found in many currents of Arab nationalism. It overstates, on every occasion, and beyond reason, any case that could be made against Israel’s actions or policies, and wildly overstates the significance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in world affairs.

Longstanding antisemites now embrace “anti-Zionism” as a cover for their Jew-hatred. This is because, in relation to Israel, the antisemite finds a protected voice. The desire to destroy Jews is reconfigured as the desire to destroy or dismantle the Jewish state. The new anti-Zionism has become a cause for some English academics and political activists; it is commonly found in the universities and in student and university teacher associations. Anti-Zionism has renewed antisemitism, and given it a future.

Read it all.

Israel Matzav: England's new anti-Semitism

Israel Matzav: Should the US be giving UNRWA $40 million?

Should the US be giving UNRWA $40 million?

Well of course, the US should not be giving UNRWA $40 million. But it's important to know why not.

Last month, due to concerns Hamas had infiltrated UNRWA, the Canadian government quietly decided to redirect funding away from the agency; instead, the $300 million in aid Canada has pledged to the Palestinians for the next five years will go to food aid and the support of the Palestinian justice system in an effort to help the Palestinians build a civil society.

Perhaps the U.S. should follow Canada's lead.

In recent years, watchdog organizations have shined a light on the content of books in schools in the Palestinian territories - and what they illuminated was a consistent pattern of propaganda denying Israel's right to exist, dehumanizing Israelis and Jews, and lacking any concrete perspective that would point towards a nonviolent resolution of the conflict, such as a two-state solution. UNRWA schools use the same text books as those that are used in Palestinian schools run by the Palestinian Authority - and by Hamas.

In 2007, Senator Hillary Clinton joined Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, an organization that translates and publishes online the contents of Palestinian media, in presenting a report to Congress analyzing eight textbooks used in Palestinian schools.

In a press conference on Capitol Hill, then-Senator Clinton said, "These school books together with the media are profoundly poisoning the minds of these children."

(Clinton also convened a Senate subcommittee hearing on the subject at which Marcus testified in 2003).

In the aftermath of last week's State Department announcement of its plan to give UNRWA $40 million, I spoke with Marcus and asked whether text books in UNRWA schools continue to incite intolerance and hatred.

He said that, the wake of consciousness-raising including Hillary Clinton's stand, the Palestinian Authority had removed overt anti-Semitism from a new crop of text books. But the new books do not acknowledge Israel's right to exist and, perhaps even more chilling, are laden with content that romanticizes suicide martyrdom to children.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: Should the US be giving UNRWA $40 million?

Israel Matzav: Saudi scholar wants to appear on Israeli television

Saudi scholar wants to appear on Israeli television

The Arab News reports that Saudi scholar Mohasen al-Awaji wants to appear on Israeli television.

RIYADH: Saudi scholar Mohasen Al-Awaji has caused controversy by saying he is prepared to appear on Israeli television.

Interviewed on Al Arabiya news channel last week, Al-Awaji said that although he has not been invited by any Israeli TV channel he would be willing to appear purely to tell the Israeli viewing public about the threat posed by Zionism. He added that appearing on Israeli TV was the right move and would help counter Israeli propaganda.

“The aim is to expose the crimes the Zionists have committed. Debating with logic and evidence and using their media and appearing on their television channels will be effective and allow us to reach a wider audience. At the same time it will show the Zionists that we are willing to talk to them on their own ground,” he said.

He can come on television here so long as Dr. Mordechai Kedar appears with him and debates him. But of course, al-Awaji won't do that, and there's not going to be peace between Israel and the Arab Muslim countries anytime soon.

Despite his willingness to appear on Israeli television, Al-Awaji told Arab News that he is impressed and delighted at the negative response [to appearing on Israeli television that he has received from other Saudi scholars. CiJ]. He said that it drove home the fact that the Arab and Muslim worlds “are not and never will be ready to have relationships with the Zionist body, and that this foreign body among us is not accepted, especially following its barbaric attacks on Gaza.”

Nevertheless, he still thinks it is a shrewd move to address the Israelis in their own living rooms. However, if taking part is interpreted as normalizing relations with Israel then he would not do so.

Hope and change same after all.

Israel Matzav: Saudi scholar wants to appear on Israeli television

Love of the Land: Re: Goldstoned

Re: Goldstoned

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
14 February '10

Readers of David’s post on Goldstone Commission member Desmond Travers’ ridiculous assertion — that “the number of rockets that had been fired into Israel in the month preceding” last year’s war in Gaza “was something like two” — could erroneously conclude that Travers was correct about that month; his mistake was in “blithely ignoring the thousands of rockets Israelis endured in the years leading up to the operation.” That was certainly not David’s intention, but to eliminate all doubt, here are the actual figures, as compiled by Israel’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

The war began on December 27, 2008. During 2008 as a whole, the number of rockets and mortar shells launched at Israel from Gaza was 3,278, more than double the number that landed in 2007.

More importantly, however, there was a significant escalation in November and December, 2008, after Hamas withdrew from the truce that had been in place during the previous months. Thus the number of rockets launched from Gaza into Israel totaled 125 in November and 361 in December, compared with only 11 in the four preceding months (July through October) put together. The number of mortars totaled 68 in November and 241 in December, compared with only 15 in the four preceding months put together. The number of rockets and mortars combined totaled 193 in November and 602 in December, compared with only 26 in the four preceding months put together.

Needless to say, these figures are a good deal higher than “something like two.” But the more important fact to be derived from this data is that Hamas could have avoided the war simply by continuing the truce. Instead, it opted for a major escalation in the volume of fire. And it was that escalation that finally provoked Israel into responding, after three and a half years of trying and failing to end the bombardment by methods short of war.

Love of the Land: Re: Goldstoned

Israel Matzav: Arab countries ambivalent about sanctions, don't believe they'll matter

Arab countries ambivalent about sanctions, don't believe they'll matter

The Wall Street Journal reports that Arab countries are ambivalent about sanctioning Iran, apparently because they don't believe it will work anyway.

The issue of sanctions is especially controversial, and few officials in the region say, even privately, that they believe sanctions will have any effect on Tehran's behavior.

As recently as December, Bahraini officials hosting a security conference in Manama, attended by Iranian diplomats and U.S. State Department and military officials, publicly said that they were against new sanctions on Tehran.

Still, the region could play a more discreet role in the current international debate over United Nations-backed economic measures targeting Iran, analysts say.

Martin Indyk, the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, the Washington-based think tank, says Saudi Arabia could persuade China—which is a big trading partner with Iran and so far has indicated little support for further sanctions—that a nuclear-powered Iran is bad for the stability of global oil exports and thus Beijing's oil-dependent economy.

Arab Gulf trade with China jumped to $80 billion in 2008 from just $12 billion in 2002, according to trade statistics from the Gulf countries. That outstrips the $50 billion traded between China and Iran in 2008, according to Mr. Indyk.

A Saudi official declined to comment on his government's position toward Iranian sanctions, or any effort by Riyadh to influence China's thinking on the issue.

Meanwhile, a debate has broken out among regional commentators recently about the wisdom of Gulf states remaining quiet in the face of Iran's stepped-up nuclear rhetoric.

Abdallah al-Shayji, a Bahraini political analyst, wrote in an editorial last week in the Dubai-based Gulf News that a policy of fencesitting by Gulf Arab governments towards Iran would be disastrous for the region.

"Iran has for a long time bet on the [Gulf's] lack of a coherent and well articulated, unified strategy and stance against it," he wrote. "The [Gulf] states, bilaterally and collectively, continue to pursue cordial relations with Iran, hoping that this will prevent it from menacing them. But this strategy has been found wanting and lacks strategic depth."

Left unmentioned is another role the US is hoping Saudi Arabia will play with China: Guaranteeing its oil supply in the event that sanctions are imposed on Iran.

But what's really up in the air from this article - probably because the Arab countries themselves have not decided - is what they would like to happen if Iran doesn't back down (which appears likely). They cannot be seen supporting an Israeli strike on Iran. So do they sit tight and hope Israel will do it anyway? Do they quietly encourage the Obama administration to do it? The Gulf countries are supposedly convinced (I am not) that they will be targeted by Iran before Israel will. If that is the case, they cannot be without a position on these issues.

And yes, I agree with them that at this point, sanctions are an exercise in futility, but we ought to impose them anyway.

Israel Matzav: Arab countries ambivalent about sanctions, don't believe they'll matter

Love of the Land: Where are the pressure points?

Where are the pressure points?

Ira Sharkansky
Shark Blog
12 February '10

What is amazing about the preoccupation with Israel and Palestine is the certainty with which respectable individuals preach about a problem whose complexity has been pondered for decades, and where fluidity is more prominent than stability.

Even more amazing is the focus of urging change on the one element that is stable, while failing to take account of the instability elsewhere that may run over in several directions with no end in sight.

A prominent recent example of misplaced certainty is an op-ed piece by Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Cohen has a long record of blaming Israel for the problems of the Middle East. He has called for an end to Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and expressed shame for the operation in Gaza that he described as a disastrous case of Israel slaying Palestinian children.

Now he is lamenting that President Obama must do more to honor an election pledge for "new thinking, outreach to the Muslim world, and relentless focus on Israel-Palestine. . . . The conflict gnaws at U.S. security, eats away at whatever remote possibility of a two-state solution is left, clouds Israel's future, scatters Palestinians and devours every attempt to bridge the West and Islam."

Cohen realizes that problems among Palestinians contribute their share of the frustrations, but he asserts that President Obama must work harder "to ask such tough questions in public and demand of Israel that it work in practice to share the land rather than divide and rule it."

If the two-state solution does not work, Cohen is certain that "there will be one state between the river and the sea."

The one-state solution is a common threat, typically made by the Israeli left and overseas critics who claim that they are friends of Israel, and want to reign it in before it is lost. As Cohen writes of the one state he sees as possible, "very soon there will be more Palestinian Arabs in it than Jews. What then will become of the Zionist dream?

The one-state threat illustrates the weakness in many criticisms of Israel. It is more a fantasy than anything that can be extrapolated from realities. Who would make Israel absorb into itself land and people that do not succeed in achieving statehood. The process would not reflect any natural law of politics that I recognize.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Where are the pressure points?

A Good Heart

פורסם על ידי Mordechai Friedfertig ב- 11:10

15

פבר

2010

Question: I do not understand how Yitzchak agreed to marry a woman who he did not know, and he relied on Eliezer to act as his agent. What if it was not a good match? And I also do not understand how Rivka, without knowing Yitzchak, says: "I am going" (Bereshit 24:58). It seems like a recipe for disaster!?
Answer: It was not a recipe for disaster but a recipe of kindness. Eliezer did not choose just any woman he met but searched for a woman with a good heart, who agreed to take water from the well, a large quantity, without asking questions. It was a sign that she had a good heart. He then said to her: You have a good heart. In our house, everyone has a good heart and you fit in, come with me (Rashi). When one has a good heart, he can overcome all problems. He does not only love to receive, he loves to give. And they indeed loved one another (ibid. v. 67 and 26:8). The most important thing is a good heart. Therefore, if you

Originally posted by Torat HaRav Aviner

Ta'anit Dibbur

פורסם על ידי Mordechai Friedfertig ב- 01:28

["Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah" Mishpatim 5770 – translated by R. Blumberg]

Question: What are the laws of a Ta’anit Dibbur? [literally, “a fast from speech” – undertaking not to speak words unrelated to Torah, for a particular amount of time] Answer: This is a new practice not mentioned in the Torah, the Mishnah, the Talmud or the Rishonim [medieval Sages], but only amongst several of the Acharonim [more recent Sages]. It is therefore impossible to determine halachot about it, and everyone can do whatever he wishes. This custom was spread by Rabbi Yitzchak Alfia, author of the “Kuntres HaYechieli,” and there several practices are elaborated upon, as they are at the end of the “Ish Matzliach” edition of Tehillim, for example, completing the Book of Tehillim three times.
Yet the main thing is to be careful with one’s speech and to avoid Lashon Hara, gossip and other forbidden speech. One can talk, but one shouldn’t say forbidden things. The Vilna Gaon wrote: “Until the day of one’s death, one must chastise oneself, not by fasting and self-torture, but by restricting his mouth and his cravings. That is repentance, and that is all the fruits of the World to Come, as it says, 'For mitzvot are a candle and the Torah is light' (Mishlei 6:23), but 'reproofs of instruction are the way of life' (ibid.). This is greater than all the fasts and self-torture in the world… Scripture states (Tehillim 34:13), 'Who is the man who desires life and who loves days… It is one who guards his tongue from evil.' By such means one can atone for any sin and be saved from hell. As it says (Mishlei 21:23), 'Whoever guards his mouth and his tongue, keeps his soul from troubles,' and, 'Life and death are in the hands of the tongue' (18:21). Woe to him who kills himself for the sake of one comment. What advantage is there to the gossip?' (Alim Li-Terufah) There is therefore room for holding a Ta’anit Dibbur as an interim means of learning to distance oneself from gossip, backbiting, and insult. As in the well-known words of Rambam, in order to be cured of an evil trait, one must temporarily move to the opposite extreme (Hilchot De’ot 2:1-3).
We find the following in the Mishnah Berurah: “I saw written in one sefer that when a person wishes to conduct a voluntary fast day, better that he should undertake a fast from speech than from food, for avoiding speech will do one no harm, either to his body or to his soul, nor will it weaken him” (Orach Chaim 571, M.B. 2; and the same idea may be found in Shemirat Ha-Lashon, Sha’ar Ha-Tevunah, chapter 2).
Obviously, however, all this refers to where one thereby does no harm to his wife or his children who wish to speak with him, or to anyone else who needs him. It is more important to speak kind words than to remain silent. There’s a story of a bus driver who engaged in a verbal fast and did not want to help his passengers who were asking him where to get off.
Surely our Sages said, regarding Tehillim 58:2, “Is it true [he’omnam] that you were silent [elem] about the righteousness that you should have spoken [tzedek tedaberun], the fairness with which you should have judged the children of men?”: “What should man’s trade [omanut] be in this world? He should make himself mute [ilem]. I might think this applies even to Torah learning? It therefore says, Tzedek tedaberun”, ‘Speak righteousness’ (Chulin 89a). Thus, silence is not appropriate across the board. Rather, it is an “omanut,” an “art” or a “trade”. It involves much wisdom, skill and sensitivity to know when to be silent and when to talk. When it comes to Torah and charity, you should talk. Here is our great master Rambam: “One should remain silent often and not speak except to utter Torah wisdom or to say something that he needs to sustain his physical self. It was said of Rav, a disciple of Rabbi Yehuda the Prince, that he never throughout his life engaged in vain chatter, which is the talk of most people. Even for one’s physical needs one should not speak much. In this regard our sages commanded, ‘Whoever talks much invites sin.’ They said further, ‘I have found nothing better for the body than silence’ (Hilchot De’ot 2:4). Sometimes there is also a need to engage in kind words to one’s fellow man, to encourage him, strengthen him or gladden him. And sometimes, obviously, we do him a kindness by listening to him. The rule is this: Sefer HaKuzari calls man “the Speaker”. That is his virtue, that he can think and talk (Rashi on Bereshit 2:7). He must therefore use this supreme virtue for good, and be very responsible for every word he says.

Originally posted by Torat HaRav Aviner

Chester Chronicles - Heroic Muslim Girls and Women: Missionaries to Feminist America?

Chester Chronicles - Heroic Muslim Girls and Women: Missionaries to Feminist America?

Israel Matzav: 'Obama's credibility melting faster than the snow in Washington'

'Obama's credibility melting faster than the snow in Washington'

I would say that this is a fair assessment.

A FIFTEEN billion dollar job bill? Sanctions on the accounts of Iran's Revolutionary Guard in WESTERN banks?

You can fool some people some of the time, but the Obama Administration credibility is melting faster than the snow in Washington.

Who said it? Go here to find out.

Israel Matzav: 'Obama's credibility melting faster than the snow in Washington'

Love of the Land: Should Israel's conduct in Gaza have provoked this mad-dog fury?

Should Israel's conduct in Gaza have provoked this mad-dog fury?

Stephanie Gutmann
Telegraph.co.uk
07 February '10

(Good question, good answer. Y.)

Or is there, as the psychologists would say, “something else going on”?
Look, I love Daniel Hannan and would like him to come over and run for president of the United States in 2012 but I was disturbed by something in his recent post about the motivations for anti-Semitism. I don’t want to be confused with one of those nags who’s always ready to find some tiny ideological misstep and consign would-be friends to an enemies list. No, I think what I’m doing here is making a different point. I think Daniel and a number of intelligent, well-informed people are missing an important part of the picture about anti-Semitism in Britain, Europe or wherever and its relationship to the Gaza invasion.

Daniel wrote:

Anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in Britain and (hat-tip Mark Steyn) in the rest of Europe. Many of the perpetrators are reported as having been provoked by the invasion of Gaza… [But] why should British Jews be held answerable for the actions of the Israeli government? The most bellicose critics of Israel are forever telling us that their quarrel is with Zionism, not with Jews. If so, it seems perverse in the extreme to attack those Jews who have declined to migrate to Zion.

What hangs in the air here is the notion that it is not odd to get so incensed about Israel’s conduct that you would feel moved to do something extreme, and that the odd part is blaming it on British Jews. Reasonable people would ask themselves, as Daniel put it, “why should British Jews be held answerable for the actions of the Israeli government?” and then they would not, say, throw the rock and then we could still call them reasonable people.

And I too would congratulate them for their reasonableness – for not throwing the rock is a big deal – but then I would like them to take the next step on the road to sanity. I would like them to see how the intensity of the reaction, the fact that we can even think of Israel’s conduct in Gaza as understandable provocation, is itself a symptom of the madness. In other words, no, “Israel’s rampage in Gaza” does not “provide a convenient cover story”, to paraphrase Julian Kossoff. The interesting part that so many of you are missing is that the conduct is used to provide a cover story for people who are looking for a convenient cover story.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Should Israel's conduct in Gaza have provoked this mad-dog fury?

Israel Matzav: Does this make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Does this make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

From Laura Rozen at Politico:

Unruffled by GOP attacks, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan talked KSM trial, surveillance, and the U.S. alliance with Israel to a largely Muslim audience at New York University law school Saturday, Josh Gerstein reports, even breaking out some Arabic presumably from his days as CIA station chief in Riyadh:

It may not be politically correct to say so, but am I the only one who gets the creeps from reading that? (P.S. I am an NYU Law alumnus).

Israel Matzav: Does this make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Israel Matzav: How long until Malmo is Judenrein?

How long until Malmo is Judenrein?

Here's a report from Swedish television about the rapid flight of Jews from the city of Malmo.Some of you may recall Malmo as the city in which there were violent anti-Israel demonstrations during Operation Cast Lead, and in which the Israeli tennis team had to play its Davis Cup match without an audience due to threats of violence. Unsurprisingly, Jews are fleeing the city in droves; there are only 700 left. There were 6,000 Jews in Malmo 40 years ago.

Let's go to the videotape.



You can read much, much more about this story here.

Israel Matzav: How long until Malmo is Judenrein?

Elder of Ziyon: Today's incitement

Elder of Ziyon: Today's incitement

Israel Matzav: ABC News interview with Dick Cheney

Israel Matzav: ABC News interview with Dick Cheney

Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty ignore real victims to go after Israel

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty ignore real victims to go after Israel

Evelyn Gordon looks at some of the consequences of the disproportionate attention groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International pay to Israel.

The civil war in Congo, Kristof writes, has claimed almost seven million lives over the last dozen years. It has also created a whole new vocabulary to describe the other horrific abuses it has generated – such as “autocannibalism,” which is when militiamen cut flesh from living victims and force the victims to eat it, or “re-rape,” which applies to women and girls who are raped anew every time militiamen visit their town.

Yet the world rarely hears about Congo — because groups such as Amnesty and HRW have left the victims largely voiceless, preferring instead to focus on far less serious abuses in developed countries, where gathering information is easier.

Neither Amnesty nor HRW has issued a single press release or report on Congo so far this year, according to their web sites. Yet HRW found time to issue two statements criticizing Israel and 12 criticizing the U.S.; Amnesty issued 11 on Israel and 15 on the U.S. To its credit, HRW did cover Congo fairly extensively in 2009. But Amnesty’s imbalance was egregious: For all of 2009, its web site lists exactly one statement on Congo — even as the group found time and energy to issue 62 statements critical of Israel.

By any objective standard, of course, there is no comparison in the scope of the violations. Even if you accept all the Goldstone Report’s worst slanders against Israel as gospel truth, none of them remotely compares to the kind of atrocities Congo’s victims describe – such as experienced by the young woman who told Kristof that after Hutu militiamen tied up her uncle, “they cut off his hands, gouged out his eyes, cut off his feet, cut off his sex organs and left him like that.” Nor is this exceptional: such stories are routine.

Routine. And routinely ignored by the World's supposed defenders of human rights.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty ignore real victims to go after Israel

Israel Matzav: The double standard

The double standard

Yaakov Kirschen calls this cartoon "Hopes and Prayers." I called it the "Double Standard" because it's clear to me - as I'm sure it is to all of you - that if Israel did something like this, we'd be 'goldstoned' (Hat Tip: Jody E)

An explanation and more are here.

Israel Matzav: The double standard

Israel Matzav: Another lie about Sarah Palin exposed

Another lie about Sarah Palin exposed

Abe Greenwald exposes another mainstream media lie about Sarah Palin.

Frank Rich, today, goes after Sarah Palin’s populism and calls it like it isn’t:

“This is about the people,” as Palin repeatedly put it last weekend while pocketing $100,000 of the Tea Partiers’ money. Incredibly enough, this message is gaining traction.

But the only thing that’s incredible — as in lacking credibility — is Rich’s claim. Palin isn’t “pocketing” anything. She’s already explained:

“I will not benefit financially from speaking at this event. My only goal is to support the grassroots activists who are fighting for responsible, limited government — and our Constitution,” she wrote. “In that spirit, any compensation for my appearance will go right back to the cause.”

According to Rich’s logic, Barack Obama “pocketed” $1.4million dollars in Nobel Prize money. After all, giving it away doesn’t count.

Read the whole thing.

What I find amazing about this is the extent of the media's obsession with Palin, who is technically a private citizen at the moment. Haven't they got anything else to write about?

Israel Matzav: Another lie about Sarah Palin exposed

Israel Matzav: When a parking lot is claimed to be a cemetery

When a parking lot is claimed to be a cemetery

I feel sorry for Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. What he doesn't tell you in this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times (probably out of fear that it would not sound particularly 'tolerant') is how he and the Center were 'jerked around' (for lack of a better term) for three years by an Israeli Supreme Court that was afraid to decide a political hot potato whose only possible fair resolution would cause the Muslims to seethe.

They don't want you to know the real facts. The museum is not being built on what can rightfully be called the Mamilla Cemetery, but on a three-acre site in the heart of West Jerusalem that, for more than half a century, served as the city's municipal car park. Each day, hundreds of people of all faiths parked in the three-level underground structure without any protest from Muslim religious or academic leaders or interest groups. Additionally, telephone and electrical cables and sewer lines were laid deep below ground in the early 1960s, again without any protest.

As the Supreme Court noted in its ruling, "for almost 50 years the compound has not been a part of the cemetery, both in the normative sense and in the practical sense, and it was used for various public purposes." It also noted: "During all those years no one raised any claim, on even one occasion, that the planning procedures violated the sanctity of the site, or that they were contrary to the law as a result of the historical and religious uniqueness of the site. . . . For decades this area was not regarded as a cemetery by the general public or by the Muslim community. . . . No one denied this position."

In fact, the entire area of the Mamilla Cemetery had long been regarded by Muslim religious leaders as mundras -- abandoned. A cemetery not in use for 37 years is considered mundras and without sanctity. That explains why in 1946 the most prominent Islamic religious figure of the day, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, presented plans to build a Muslim university on a large portion of the Mamilla Cemetery itself (a rendering of which we presented to the court). Today, the concept of mundras is widely accepted and practiced in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories and throughout the Arab world.

Though Judaism does not have a mundras concept, the Supreme Court noted in its decision that "despite the Jewish religious law prohibitions . . . to prevent the removal of graves or building on top of them, in practice, in cases where public needs required this, an agreed Jewish law solution has usually been found, and this allowed the building to be carried out in a way that minimized . . . the violation of the graves. . . . Jewish religious law also allows, as we have said, the removal of graves in a dignified manner. Balanced solutions of this kind were also proposed by the respondents [Simon Wiesenthal Center], and they even agreed to pay all the expenses involved in them."

Recent critics such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Americans for Peace Now and the Center for Constitutional Rights argue that the Museum of Tolerance should abide by a higher standard than the letter of the law. We do, as the above quote from the court confirms. When we first heard of protests against our plan, in January 2006, our lawyers attempted to meet with Salah but were rebuffed. Once a legal case was filed, the Supreme Court's mediator tried, but fared no better. We offered solutions to build without disturbing the bones -- also rejected. We offered to restore the neglected and virtually abandoned nearby Mamilla Cemetery -- not interested.

The court sent the case to arbitration time and time again. But you can only arbitrate when both sides are seeking a compromise - here, one side was willing to do anything to find a compromise (the Wiesenthal Center offered 'compromises' that made major changes in the museum and would have cost them a fortune), while the other side was not willing to budge at all, and sought only to kill the project (sounds like the 'peace process,' doesn't it?). When it was clear even to the court that the arbitration was going nowhere, the Wiesenthal Center had to beg the court to make a decision. And when the court finally decided, Sheikh Sallah's group (which is functionally a terror organization) pretended that the court had not decided and tried to force the Wiesenthal Center to start over again.

In the event, time and the economy severely constricted the project. Donors disappeared while the case dragged through the courts. The world-renowned architect - Frank Gehry - left the project. The economy went to pot. And the Wiesenthal Center was forced to downscale the project into a nice museum, but nowhere near the magnificent centerpiece for the rehabilitation of downtown Jerusalem that was originally planned. And all because a terror organization sought to stop a project that would benefit Jerusalemites and attract tourists to our city.

I hope they at least get to open the downscaled museum on the original site. It's a pity that they have spent so much money on lawyers' fees. A less financially capable or less committed party would have given up long ago.
Israel Matzav: When a parking lot is claimed to be a cemetery