A “Mug Him Again” Moment

As Ruthie Blum aptly noted in her column in Israel Hayom, as awful as this incident was, it is also the sort of thing that it is hard not to laugh at. As she writes, one of the drawbacks about being an Israeli Israel-basher is that it doesn’t earn you much applause or even a hearing from European or Arab opponents of the country:

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
29 March '13..

Last year when liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed, the New York Post editorial page used it to recall one of the late Ed Koch’s favorite anecdotes:

Back when he was first running for mayor, Ed Koch used to tell of the time he told some senior citizens about a judge he knew who’d been mugged.

The judge, said Koch, told a group that “this mugging will not influence any of my decisions from the bench” — whereupon a woman yelled, “Mug him again!”

While the Post was roundly criticized in some quarters for insensitivity, the lesson was apt. Those who can’t learn from their encounters with violent criminals lack credibility when they render judgment on dealing with related issues.

This anecdote came to mind when reading of the encounter of leftist Israeli filmmaker Yariv Horowitz–who was in Aubagne, France to pick up an award at a film festival for his film Rock the Casbah–had with a gang of Arab toughs. Though his movie is a cinematic attack on Israeli policies and a bouquet thrown in the direction of the Palestinians, the Arabs proved to be uninterested in his politics and instead subjected him to the same treatment they have accorded to many another Jew: he was badly beaten.

Israel, the Two-State Solution and Confronting the Unpleasant Truth

Fresnozionism.org..
27 August '12..

Sometimes the truth is more than just ‘inconvenient’. Sometimes it is downright unpleasant, even ugly. But nevertheless, it is what is and we need to deal with what is, not what we would like it to be.

Martin Sherman sees the unpleasant truth and, unlike so many others, draws the logical conclusions. He has written a series of articles in the Jerusalem Post in which he has exposed the sheer insanity of the Left’s two-state solution (TSS), as well as the failure of the Right to propose real alternatives.

Now Sherman has taken up the challenge to provide a practical alternative. In his most recent article — which I urge you to read in its entirety, since I can’t do justice to it with a few snippets — he writes,

To survive as the permanent nation-state of the Jewish people Israel must address two fundamental imperatives:

• The geographic imperative

• The demographic imperative

It is self-evident that if either of these is inadequately addressed, Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people will be gravely jeopardized, eventually becoming unsustainable.

The mainstream discourse invariably – and deceptively – presents Israel’s only choice as being between accepting the TSS – which would make Israel untenable geographically, or the OSS (one-state solution) – which would make it untenable demographically.

Neither comprises an acceptable policy-paradigm for anyone whose point of departure is the continued existence of Israel as the permanent nation-state of the Jews.

This, as we will see, compels us to the inexorable conclusion that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there can – and eventually will – prevail either exclusive Jewish or exclusive Arab sovereignty…

Fresnozionism - Slanderous essay wins Carnegie-Mellon award

Fresnozionism.org..
16 January '12..




Ben Zoma says:
Who is wise?
The one who learns from every person…
Who is brave?
The one who subdues his negative inclination…
Who is rich?
The one who is appreciates what he has…
Who is honored?
The one who gives honor to others…
(Talmud – Avot 4:1)

I lived for some years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is not a bad place at all, although the winters are very cold and once the sun didn’t come out for 43 days (I counted). It has several top -notch universities, including the University of Pittsburgh where I was a graduate student, and Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU).

Every year CMU runs a contest for student writing about racial issues, on the occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. This year’s high school winners were a African-American girl, Erika Drain, and a Jewish boy, Jesse Lieberfeld. They are both juniors at the Winchester Thurston School, a private school whose main campus is located in the city’s Shadyside neighborhood. Tuition for the 11th grade is $23,600 at Winchester Thurston, so one assumes that they have only the best teachers and facilities available to them.

Their essays were published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, here. Erika Drain’s, about being called “not black enough” because of her academic achievement, was perceptive and nuanced. Jesse Lieberfeld’s was notable for several reasons:

- His clearly expressed disdain for Jews and Judaism

- His completely one-sided understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

- The fact that his parents, teachers, rabbi, etc. didn’t succeed (or try) to introduce at least a bit of reality into his thinking

- The fact that CMU chose this offensive piece as one of the top two high school essays

He begins with an arguably antisemitic statement:

Hornik - Israeli Tensions Rise over ‘Radical Islamic Winter’

P. David Hornik
frontpagemag.com
09 September '11



http://frontpagemag.com/2011/09/09/israeli-tensions-rise-over-radical-islamic-winter/

A battle raged in Israel this week—for the time being, a verbal one. It started with some words from the homefront commander, Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg, in a conference at Tel Aviv University on Monday.

First it should be noted that the Israeli Homefront Command only goes back to 1992, when it was set up in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s Scud missile attacks on Israeli cities during the First Gulf War. Since that time, in fact, attacks on Israel—whether suicide-bombing campaigns and other terror, or rocket and mortar barrages from Gaza and Lebanon—have been waged primarily against the civilian population, that is, the homefront.

Eisenberg indeed mentioned that during the most recent barrage from Gaza last month, a “new weapon” was fired and as “a result we instructed the public to take extra precautions and to seek cover under two roofs and not just one.” That remark fell within the purview of his post.

It was more far-reaching statements by Eisenberg, though, that sparked controversy. As he said:

The revolutions and upsets in the Arab world, coupled with the deteriorating relations with Turkey, might lead to an all-out regional war…. What is called the Arab Spring can become a radical Islamic winter, which increases the likelihood of an all-out regional war, and this might even involve weapons of mass destruction.

The “deteriorating relations with Turkey” Eisenberg mentioned got even worse in the course of the week as Turkish prime minister Erdogan, in a tizzy over the fact that the UN’s Palmer Commission mainly blamed Turkey for last year’s Mavi Marmara incident and the fact that Israel refused to apologize for its soldiers’ self-defense against a violent Turkish mob aboard that ship, reacted by drastically downgrading diplomatic ties with Israel, ending defense trade between the two countries, threatening Israel with naval warfare, and hinting at forming an anti-Israeli alliance with Egypt.

Harel - As war looms large, Israel is sticking its head in the sand

Israel Harel
Haaretz
08 September '11
H/T P. David Hornik



http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/as-war-looms-large-israel-is-sticking-its-head-in-the-sand-1.383158

No Israeli campaign ever ends with the enemy's surrender, which is one of the reasons why we are eternally at war.

This week, the head of the Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg, said what he thought to the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. "It's being called the Arab Spring, but it could turn into a radical Islamic winter," he said. "And that increases the chance of an all-out, total war, which could even include the use of weapons of mass destruction."

His remarks caused a storm. Even his cautious phrasing (he said "chance" ) was an affront to the political correctness that has been formulated in Israel regarding the true nature of this "spring." In contrast to the dreamers, he called a spade, a spade.

Eisenberg's analysis (which was meant to be a situational assessment, not a defiant declaration ) drew a reprimand from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Barak's aide, Amos Gilad, joined the fray, telling Israel Radio's Reshet Bet's Aryeh Golan, "Our security situation has never been better." The same declaration, word for word, was made by our nation's leaders on the eve of the Yom Kippur War. Surely anyone who remembers this trembled.

Is "the conception" - and history as well - repeating itself?

"None of Israel's rivals is interested in initiating a war against it," said Barak. None of them? Really? Not even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Why exactly has Hassan Nasrallah been stockpiling thousands of rockets? Have we really heard no hostile voices coming from Egypt? Why are missiles, some of them capable of hitting Ben-Gurion International Airport, being smuggled into Gaza? And does anyone really know what might happen next in Amman?

(Video) Elder - "Peace" - Palestinian style

elderofziyon2
Sep 4, 2011




Look at the map of "Palestine" in many Palestinian Arab organization logos. Not much room for Israel, is there?



Also from Elder of Ziyon: The attitudes of Palestinian Arabs towards peace are not quite how they are portrayed in the media. Do we really need another Arab state where people are bred to hate?

Watch: What would a Palestinian State mean?

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Bechor - Mideast rules must change

Guy Bechor
Israel Opinion/Ynet
01 September '11

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4116543,00.html

Land for peace formula dead, Israel must adopt doctrine based on equality

Ever since the Six-Day War we’ve been hearing, like a mantra, the buzz about “land for peace.” The tiny Israel, a small dot on the globe, shall give up “land,” and in exchange it shall receive “peace” from the Arab side.

This mantra was so absolute that it was accepted here as an unqualified truth that cannot be denied; we even went as far as to convince the world that this is good for us. However, in the wake of the shocks experienced by the Arab world in recent months, there is no escaping the assertion that this mantra is no longer valid.

While Israel paid with hard, irreversible currency when it handed over land to the Arab side, the Arabs paid with soft, completely reversible currency - that is, words and agreements. Now we are hearing claims that these deals were made with the regimes rather than with the “people”; that is, they lack any legitimacy.

In Egypt there are many voices, including among presidential candidates, declaring that the Camp David Accord with Israel must be annulled or at least changed. That is, change the aspects that pertain to “peace” with Israel. Yet if the Egyptians wish to annul the Camp David Accord, will they return the Sinai desert to Israel? After all, they received this territory through the peace treaty between the two states, after failing to secure it through war. Yet for some reason, this is unthinkable for them.

The peace treaty with Egypt is undergoing changes rather casually at this time in respect t to the deployment of Egyptian troops in the Sinai, an issue that was a major element in the agreement. This shows how easily one can change agreements or understandings and possibly annul them altogether.

Slowly, Egypt is returning its army to the northern Sinai, a move that may prompt harsh implications for the ties with Israel. Yet did anything change about the land? Did Israel again annex Taba? Of course not. And why does the tiny Israel have to pay with land? After all, the Arab countries around it hold huge territories. Why wouldn’t they pay with land, while Israel gives them peace?

Sultan Knish - The End of Normal

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
22 August '11

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/08/end-of-normal.html


The Arab Spring didn’t accomplish a whole lot beyond swapping out a handful of dictators for their more obscure henchmen and Islamist allies, but it did kill the treaty model of regional normalization completely dead.

European models of conflict settlement never mapped well onto a region where there is no enduring form of government. Middle Eastern states are tribal arrangements ruled over by a combination of force and local consensus. A signed treaty with them was not an enduring agreement inherited by a republic, but an agreement with a family or an oligarchy. The overthrow of Mubarak and the subsequent rejection of Camp David by his successors is a reminder that even the most famous regional peace accord could not outlast Sadat and his chosen replacement.

Israeli politicians on the left and the right have chased after the will-o'-the-wisp of normalized relations, but a normalization of relations that permanently moves conflict out of the sphere of armed warfare, and into that of trade competition and soccer matches does not exist in the region. The Saudi peace plan with full regional normalization is something that they could not offer to Israel, or even any significant Arab Muslim state in the region.

The Middle East's players ricochet from competition to armed confrontation, each regional player always has its eye on the other, alliances are made, broken and reformed in only a few years. Anyone who thinks the region is driven by honor and revenge only has to look at how quickly leaders will ally with the murderers of their own fathers for a temporary advantage. Or how quickly they will turn on their brother if the price is right.

Blood and religion create nebulous allegiances and enmities that are permanent in the long view, but flexible enough to accommodate temporary alliances. A Sunni and Shiite alliance cannot be sustained over the long term, but it is common enough in the short term. Jews and Christians can never form a long-lasting agreement with a Muslim state for the same reason. But official and unofficial alliances are common.

European diplomats pressure Israel to do whatever it takes to achieve regional normalization, but they forget that their own regional normalization only occurred after hundreds of years of war, culminating in a devastating global conflict that displaced them from world power status. Europe's internal peace did not come from higher enlightenment, but the firepower of Pax Americana which settled two world wars and averted a third.

The only possible Middle Eastern peace could come from a regional hegemony by a superpower. And half the conflicts in the region have been driven by the aspirations of Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Turkey to become that superpower. Should such a peace come about, it would be a Caliphate, a pseudo-Islamic empire built on repression and terror.

The Pax-Americana imposed a peace based on free enterprise and human rights. A peace built on the sacrifice of soldiers, wealth and trade. A Pax-Caliphatica is unlikely to make similar sacrifices for regional stability. Like Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Ataturk's Turkey, it will be a prison of nations, overseen by an ethnic elite, whether it be Turks, Persians or Arabs, and a religious elite, Sunnis or Shiites, with brutal suppression of minority uprisings.

Silverberg: Next Steps in the Middle East

Mark Silverberg
Hudson New York
15 April '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2044/next-steps-in-the-middle-east

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar recently set out what Israel faces when he noted: "We do not recognize the State of Israel or its right to control any of the land of Palestine. Palestine is holy Islamic land. Our national problem is not related only to the West Bank, Gaza, and al-Quds (Jerusalem)...but to Palestine, all [the territory of] Palestine." By that he means Israel proper or what he terms "the Zionist entity." So far as Hamas is concerned, the battle will continue until Israel is destroyed, even if that takes decades. He must be taken at his word.

He is not alone in this thinking. In a recent poll of Palestinians, when asked, "Do you support or oppose suicide bombings against Israeli civilians?" 56% said they supported it. This poll paralleled the results of an earlier survey conducted jointly by Public Opinion Research of Israel and the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion which found that only 13% of Palestinians agreed with the statement that "Hamas was a terrorist group"; 82% agreed that Hamas was a "freedom-fighting organization"; and a mere 10% believed that bombings targeting Israeli civilians in buses and restaurants could be classified as "acts of terrorism." The world may have been appalled when Israelis are murdered in their schools, cafes, discotheque, wedding halls or buses by Palestinian holy warriors, but the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research reports that 84% of Palestinians approved of these acts of terrorism.

Such attitudes suggest an enormous ethical and moral divide separating Palestinian and Israeli cultures. What the Obama Administration and the Europeans fail to understand -- or pretend not to understand -- is that Hamas was elected in 2006 because its very rationale for existence -- the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state - - reflects the prevailing attitude of mainstream Palestinian society. For the Palestinians, terrorism is not a weapon borne of desperation or poverty; it is a strategic choice.Supporters of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority both seek the annihilation of Israel, as is openly stated in their charters.

As military historian Victor Davis Hanson writes: "Modern Western man is faced with an awful dilemma, from which he recoils: Real peace and successful reconstruction are in direct proportion to the degree to which an enemy is defeated and acknowledges it - the aim being that he will come to feel that he cannot go on being what he has been." That moment is reached when an enemy is rendered incapable of and unwilling to continue the conflict; only then can an enemy's terror apparatus be dismantled (as was the case of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the FARC in Columbia); its leadership replaced, its capacity to wage further war eliminated; its weapons seized; its militias hunted down; its propaganda machine terminated; its educational system reformed; its human and financial resources channeled into massive social and economic reconstruction, its government and judiciary made transparent, its universities updated, and its population prepared for future of building rather than destroying.. If his historical analysis is correct, neither Israel nor the US will be able to accommodate -- or moderate -- an ideologically-driven enemy, be it Iran or any of its its Middle East proxies whose divinely-inspired mission is to conquer Israel (for starters) and compel its citizens to submit to Islam.

Faced with a choice between annihilation and survival, the Israelis will choose survival. For post-modern children of the Enlightenment, the idea that we would ever have to destroy our enemies to ensure our survival is disturbing. War is neither pleasant nor desirable, but in an environment where a society educates its population virtually from birth to hate Jews and to revere suicide bombers as "martyrs," where Palestinian mothers celebrate the "martyrdom" of their children, name town squares and tournaments after them, and where Palestinians are taught a culture of death in their kindergartens, children's TV programs, textbooks, schools, summer camps, mosques and marketplaces, video games and on the Internet [see www.palwatch.org], war may become necessary to respond to the culture that spawns such officially-sanctioned sadism, as well as violating of the human rights of the child -- about which putative human rights groups have been mystifyingly silent, perhaps from a bias that should merit examination.

The Media Expects Israel to Bail Out Obama

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
18 January '11

Obama needs a victory. Somewhere. After losing congress and returning from another useless international trip, that victory has to come from somewhere. Outmaneuvered on the home front, he desperately needs to regain his stature and upstage the new Republican congress with a major achievement. And it's clear now to even his dimmest media supporters that such an achievement won't come from another international tour.

His political status as the occupant of the White House, and his own personal celebrity, mean that he can hop on Air Force One and get a reception in most countries. But having cocktail parties thrown in your honor and actually being listened to are two different things. Internationally Obama has become a "party guest", whose attendance brings status and media attention, but who isn't to be taken seriously.

Cracking both the new congress and the world community is hard with no leverage. Most presidents have understood that their leverage came from representing American interests. But Obama has acted as if his charisma and genius would automatically make everyone listen to what he had to say. And it hasn't worked out that way. His personal qualities have made him into an international globetrotting party guest, not a world leader. And now that he needs to be a world leader, to impress congress, the public and the world community-- he's going about it in the same old-fashioned way. By going after the one country he still has leverage over.

Creating a Palestinian state is unworkable in practice, but politically necessary. Which is why numerous presidents, prime ministers and world leaders have thrown themselves into the task. The Muslim world has cynically stymied every call for reform or a crackdown on terrorism, with the claim that the real problem in the region is Israel. Unfortunately few American diplomats have been able to see through that puppet theater. And even more unfortunately, few have wanted to see through it.

Halfway into his term, Obama has discovered that his background in a Muslim country and his antipathy to America, haven't led to any diplomatic accomplishments on the ground. Afghanistan and Pakistan are sliding. The Saudis are pulling the strings. Iran has no interest in being reasonable. And nothing he does make any difference. But the message from the Muslim world is that everything will turn out right, if only he puts the boot down on that one tiny little non-Muslim country in the midst of that great desert of Islam.

Israel has been the obvious whipping boy for a succession of presidents looking to score a victory in the face of domestic unpopularity and no international achievements to their name. Behind it all is the shiny brass ring that the Muslim world keeps dangling in front of the west. The ring that promises an end to Muslim terror. No more instability in the region. A reliable flow of oil. Global harmony between the Western world and the Dar Al Islam. The ring is an illusion, but the need for it is real.

(Read full "The Media Expects Israel to Bail Out Obama")

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

If the US loses Iraq and Afghanistan there won’t be peace in Israel or "Palestine"

JoeSettler
The Muqata
03 November '10

Conventional wisdom in the Obama administration is that somehow peace between Israel and local Arabs is the lynchpin for peace and success in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some Obama officials have gone so far as to imply (if not say outright) that US soldiers are dying because of Israel.

The problem is that once again the Obama administration has the situation completely backwards.

Peace in the Holy Land will only be possible once there is peace and democracy in the rest of the Middle East.

The US troubles in Iraq stem from Iran and other Islamic fundamentalists. And Afghanistan? That’s been a problem ever since the Russians got there, if not before.

And let's not get started on Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Lebanon.

And none of them were caused by the problems of the Holy Land. They were caused by fundamentalist Islam and their individual dictatorial forms of government (and the colonial powers that created these artificial Arab states in the Middle East).

And the solution to their problem has nothing to do with Israel (or Jameel trying to expand his house).

But the opposite is true.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Are the Arabs Blind or is Israel Invisible?

Schmoel Yitzhak
Association for the
Political Defense of Israel
19 October '10

Over the past six decades the State of Israel has grown from from a small, developing nation into one that commands world-wide attention every day.

It has been lauded, condemned, militarily attacked and then attacked over and over again.

Those who have constantly assaulted a democratic country about the size of New Jersey are Arabs, otherwise disguised as Muslims, militant Islamics -- you name it.

What matters is that these Jewish people whose blood the Artabs have shed are very real. They defend themselves; they counterattack; they even talk peace and have done so ever since Israel's creation sixty-two years ago.

Yet, you would never know it by the manner in which the Arab enemy regards the Jewish state.

For one thing, the Arabs regard Israel as if it is a mirage. They know that it's there because since 1948 they have unceasingly attacked it. But even though Israel does exist, the Islamic Entity -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Whatever -- either is blind or regards Benjamin Netanyahu's country as invisible.

How else can one explain these groups -- these nations -- not even including Israel on their world maps?

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

The Israel-Arab Conflict: "Root Causes" and "Red Herrings"

Martin Sherman
JINSA
28 July '10

The Context: Restoring Memory

Israel is continuously accused by its detractors of "occupying" Palestinian territory and "usurping" Palestinian land by means of an "expansionary settlement policy."

"Occupation" and "Settlements" have thus become the buzzwords by which to denote, to decry and defame Israel's control of the territories across the 1967 armistices lines. This prevailing custom is wildly at odds with the realities that forced Israel to seize these territories in an unequivocal act of self defense against threats of annihilation, in classic preemptive exercise of the right of "anticipatory self defense."

A 2003 article "Jus ad Bellum: Law Regulating Resort to Force", published by the American Bar Association, sets out the rather stringent conditions for the legitimate exercise of "anticipatory self defense." It stipulates that the necessity for action must be "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." It goes on to quote a "recent edition of a leading treatise [which] states that [anticipatory] self-defense may justify use of force under the following conditions: an attack is immediately threatened; there is an urgent necessity for defensive action; there is no practicable alternative, particularly when another state or authority that legally could stop or prevent the infringement does not or cannot do so..."

There is clearly not doubt that these conditions were met in June 1967.

The declarations of Arab leaders, before Israel held a square inch of territory now claimed to be "occupied," show irrefutably that "an attack was immediately threatened" and that there was indeed "an urgent necessity for defensive action." Furthermore, there was clearly no practicable alternative, particularly when another state or authority that legally could stop or prevent the infringement did not do so..." (since the UN had, at Cairo's behest, removed its troops from the Israeli-Egyptian border; and the United States and other maritime powers refused to remove Egypt's blockade of the Straits of Tiran, and to honor their commitments to allow Israel the right of navigation in the Red Sea.)

(Read full report)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Satirizing for Israel

The sheer absurdity of how debates over Israel are conducted led us down the comedy route.


Michael Isaccs
Op-Ed/JPost
13 July '10

When British comedian Peter Cook set up his satirical comedy club The Establishment in London in the early 1960s, he said it was modeled on “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.”

As we set up our project, No Laughing Matter, to create satirical videos on topics close to Israel’s heart, we recognized that a degree of humility and realism was in order.

It was the sheer absurdity of how debates over Israel are conducted that led us down the comedy route. We also believed you have more chance of people listening to your argument if you entertain them at the same time.



We were very influenced by the great British comedians John Bird and John Fortune, who have used a mock interview technique to satirize targets for so long they even performed at The Establishment club itself. We weren’t parodying them, we were copying their mechanic: If you interview a fictional figure representing an organization or government, and have them be brazenly honest, what they say can be very telling as well as very funny.

What would happen, we asked, if we had spokespeople for Hamas, Iran and the UN tell us what they really thought? We performed the sketches in front of a live audience, and put the videos on YouTube. (You can see them at www.nolaughingmatter.tv) Although the videos now have more than 100,000 views, the challenge of changing public perceptions about Israel and its neighbors is almost overwhelming.

THE CONDEMNATION that engulfed Israel over the Gaza flotilla is just the latest example of a systemic problem – Israel has completely lost control of the narrative. It is so tempting to get into an argument over say, who was on the Mavi Marmara, or what their intentions were, or what weapons they had, but it is missing the point. If we cannot win the debate over the nature of Hamas, or the threats Israel faces, or even why it has a right to exist, then detailed rebuttals become irrelevant. Nobody is listening.

Instead, UK lawyers are threatening to arrest Israelis on war crimes charges for serving in the IDF. Israeli diplomats and politicians are being shouted down on campus. Israeli artists and scientists are being boycotted.

(Read full story)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

We’ve come a long way, Bibi

The principle of direct talks steadfastly guided even the misguided progenitors of the Oslo folly – until Netanyahu’s current term.


Sarrah Honig
Another Tack: JPost
21 May '10

“There is no precedent of a conflict between nations being brought to finality without direct negotiations. In the conflict between the Arabs and Israel, the issue of direct negotiations goes to the very crux of the matter. Our objective is to achieve peace and coexistence but how will our neighbors ever be able to live with us in peace if they refuse to speak with us?”

The above is a direct quote from an address by prime minister Golda Meir to the Knesset on May 26, 1970, 40 years minus-five-days ago. The insistence on direct talks was cardinal for Israeli leaders before and since the above statement. A succession of foreign emissaries and politicos came and went, but Israel consistently recoiled from the notion of go-betweens and shuttle diplomacy.

The principle of direct talks steadfastly guided even the misguided progenitors of the Oslo folly – until the advent of Binyamin Netanyahu’s current term.

Decades of making one existentially risky concession after another existentially risky concession, of erasing one declaratively ineradicable red line after another, of drawing new “red lines” but deleting these in turn, have certainly paid off. We have gained so indubitably much. We’re so ahead of the starting line. At the beginning we wouldn’t hear of indirect negotiations. After we had yielded so much ground, we are at long overdue last engaged in – indirect negotiations. It was all really worth it. We’ve come a long way, Bibi!

TO BE fair, it’s not all his fault. Netanyahu inherited an unenviable legacy. The Osloites stealthily ushered another Arab Palestinian state into the original territory once designated as Palestine, some 80 percent of which is already Arab (even if it parades under the wholly artificial name of Jordan). This negated Golda’s stance that “Israel and Jordan were the two state-successors to the British Mandate. There is no room for a third... A Palestinian state between us and Jordan can only become a base to make it even more convenient to attack and destroy Israel.”

Ehud Barak, in his catastrophic stint as premier, established the ever-insidious model of total withdrawal back to the 1949 armistice lines. More recently Ehud Olmert, Barak’s challenger for the dubious distinction of worst-ever prime minister, additionally reinforced Barak’s precedent. This, coupled with Washington’s most antagonistic administration ever, left Netanyahu in dire circumstances and with powerful incentives to just please the hectoring censorious chorus out there.

(Read full story)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Linked In

Why do Arab governments—and the U.S.—insist the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of all the Mideast’s problems?


Lee Smith
Tablet Magazine
05 May '10

The one uncontroversial fact about the Middle East is that the Arab-Israeli conflict is inextricably linked to every other problem in the region. Known as “linkage,” this is the one idea that has won the support of a broad consensus of U.S. congressmen, senators, diplomats, former presidents, and their foreign-policy advisers, seconded by journalists, Washington policy analysts, almost every American who has ever watched a Sunday morning news roundtable, and the Obama Administration, from National Security Adviser James Jones to the president himself: “If we can solve the Israeli-Palestinian process,” candidate Obama said on Meet the Press in the spring of 2008, “then that will make it easier for Arab states and the Gulf states to support us when it comes to issues like Iraq and Afghanistan. It will also weaken Iran, which has been using Hamas and Hezbollah as a way to stir up mischief in the region.”

It is hardly surprising, then, that commanders of U.S. armed forces who during the last decade have spent more time on the ground among Arab and Muslim populations than American diplomats also subscribe to the concept of linkage and have even made it into a tenet of U.S. military strategy. For instance, in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus explained that, “The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests” in the region.

Petraeus’s comments were used by some to advance the linkage-based argument that Israeli actions were endangering U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus himself has clarified his remarks, and last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates jumped into the fray to explain that, “Petraeus did not say that the lack of progress in the peace process is costing American lives.” According to Gates, the issue is that:

The lack of progress in the peace process has provided political ammunition to our adversaries in the Middle East and in the region, and that progress in this arena will enable us not only to perhaps get others to support the peace process, but also support us in our efforts to try and impose effective sanctions against Iran.

Gates and Petraeus, then, are adherents of what might be called “soft” linkage.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

There is no Hope for Peace

Dr. Alex Grobman
Israelnationalnews.com
04 May '10

There are many attempts to understand why the Arab/Israel conflict remains unresolved. Among the reasons advanced for this impasse are that: years of suspicion, fear, feelings of injustice and stereotyping have created a psychological barrier between Israelis and Arabs.[1] Negative perceptions have reduced incentives to accept peace proposals, prejudice the viability of these proposals and preclude feelings of empathy.[2]

On the most personal level, there are differences in Arab and Jewish life-styles. Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, laments the gulf dividing Arabs and Jews even when they live together as neighbors. They patronage the same stores, exchange information on common neighborhood issues, drink coffee in the afternoon, and watch their children growing up from opposite sides of the fence.[3]

Yet they do not share common holidays, days of rest, or free time activities. Holidays are especially alienating. Benvenisti would not invite his neighbors to sit in his sukkah (booths used during the Feast of Tabernacles) lest they be offended when he recites the prayer over the wine. Similarly, when one of his neighbor’s children returned from the hajj, the annual religious pilgrimage to Mecca, his family would not be invited to celebrate to save them embarrassment for not knowing how to behave.[4]

Estrangement is even more pronounced the moment visible symbols are involved. When Benvenisti displays the flag on Israeli Independence Day, he knows his neighbors will be upset. On Yom Kippur, work ceases throughout the country. During the month of Ramadan, Arabs rise at 3: 00 a.m. A blind man in his neighborhood, who is escorted by a drummer, wakes-up the pious at 3:a.m. to prepare the meal before the fast. [5]

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

My Peace Plan: An Israeli Victory

Daniel Pipes
National Post
29 April '10

This month, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak declared that Israel must withdraw from Palestinian territories. "The world isn't willing to accept — and we won't change that in 2010 — the expectation that Israel will rule another people for decades more," he said. "It's something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world."

Is he right? Is peace even possible? And if so, what form should a final agreement take? Those are the questions we asked National Post writers in our series "What's Your Peace Plan?"

My peace plan is simple: Israel defeats its enemies.
Victory uniquely creates circumstances conducive to peace. Wars end, the historical record confirms, when one side concedes defeat and the other wins. This makes intuitive sense, for so long as both sides aspire to achieve their ambitions, fighting continues or it potentially can resume.

The goal of victory is not exactly something novel. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, advised that in war, "Let your great object be victory." Raimondo Montecuccoli, a seventeenth-century Austrian, said that "The objective in war is victory." Carl von Clausewitz, a nineteenth-century Prussian, added that "War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will." Winston Churchill told the British people: "You ask: what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory - victory - at all costs, victory, in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be." Dwight D. Eisenhower observed that "In war, there is no substitute for victory." These insights from prior eras still hold, for however much weaponry changes, human nature remains the same.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

What Obama did not say about Iran and Israel

Ami Isseroff
Israel News
25 April '10

An article by Judea Pearl cites the following imaginary quote of Barack Obama:

I am prepared to live with a nuclear Iran, but, to contain it, I need the cooperation of the Arab rulers. As you know, cooperation in this part of the world sways with street tantrums and news broadcasts — this is the reality on the ground. We lost the war of ideas to Al Jazeera rhetoric, and we must pursue an appearance of an ongoing peace process.

"I said 'appearance' because I am not naive, and I know that the Arabs are not prepared to accept the idea of a permanent Israel; perhaps they never will -- it goes against everything they have been taught.

Still, I now need their support and your cooperation.

"You see, the only thing that will tame anti-American sentiments in this part of the world, at least partially, is the prospect that American pressure will bring about a Palestinian state and the delusion that such a state will become a sheltered launching pad for a renewed armed struggle against Israel, for the 'liberation of all of Palestine.' I read what they are saying, and I will not let this happen, but, in the meantime, we need to act as though a peace process has a chance to succeed."

The author confirmed that the somewhat appealing quote is imaginary. It is a touching testimonial to the faith of the author, and of other American Jews, in the good intentions and benign nature of the American government, and of the Democratic party. Obama's policies are portrayed as a test of faith, like Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Be prepared to sacrifice Jerusalem, which is dearest to thee, but have no fear, for God is with thee, and thou shalt gain the kingdom of heaven by thy show of faith in the Lord. None of it is true. Obama never said it, it doesn't represent US policy and doesn't represent a reasobable view of the Middle East. It serves nobody's interest and there is nothing to be gained and a great deal to be lost by believing it.

It is interesting not as a "quote" of Obama but as a projection on Obama that encapsulates several dangerous delusions entertained by many American Jews about Iran, the "peace process" and Israeli-Arab relations.

The first delusion is that it is OK if Obama is "prepared to live with a nuclear Iran" and to "contain" it. Nobody knows for certain what Obama is thinking about Iran. The best guess is that at present the Americans have no strategy at all, as was pointed out by Secretary of Defense Gates. Obama might really think he is prepared to live with a nuclear Iran. Israelis can only be prepared to die with a nuclear Iran. The decision will be made in Tehran, not in Washington or Jerusalem (or by the "Tel Aviv government").

By "nuclear Iran," I mean an Iran that at least makes a convincing case that it has or could have nuclear weapons - that it has completed the fuel cycle. They needn't test an actual bomb.

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

The Palestine Peace Distraction

Richard N. Haass
Wall Street Journal
26 April '10

President Obama recently said it was a "vital national security interest of the United States" to resolve the Middle East conflict. Last month, David Petraeus, the general who leads U.S. Central Command, testified before Congress that "enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests." He went on to say that "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples . . . and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world."

To be sure, peace between Israelis and Palestinians would be of real value. It would constitute a major foreign-policy accomplishment for the United States. It would help ensure Israel's survival as a democratic, secure, prosperous, Jewish state. It would reduce Palestinian and Arab alienation, a source of anti-Americanism and radicalism. And it would dilute the appeal of Iran and its clients.

But it is easy to exaggerate how central the Israel-Palestinian issue is and how much the U.S. pays for the current state of affairs. There are times one could be forgiven for thinking that solving the Palestinian problem would take care of every global challenge from climate change to the flu. But would it? The short answer is no. It matters, but both less and in a different way than people tend to think.

Take Iraq, the biggest American investment in the Greater Middle East over the past decade. That country's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are divided over the composition of the new government, how to share oil revenues, and where to draw the border between the Kurdish and Arab areas. The emergence of a Palestinian state would not affect any of these power struggles.

Soon to surpass Iraq as the largest U.S. involvement in the region is Afghanistan. Here the U.S. finds itself working against, as much as with, a weak and corrupt president who frustrates American efforts to build up a government that is both willing and able to take on the Taliban. Again, the emergence of a Palestinian state would have no effect on prospects for U.S. policy in Afghanistan or on Afghanistan itself.

What about Iran? The greatest concern is Iran's push for nuclear weapons. But what motivates this pursuit is less a desire to offset Israel's nuclear weapons than a fear of conventional military attack by the U.S. Iran's nuclear bid is also closely tied to its desire for regional primacy. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians would not weaken Iran's nuclear aspirations. It could even reinforce them. Iran and the groups it backs (notably Hamas and Hezbollah) would be sidelined by the region's embrace of a Palestinian state and acceptance of Israel, perhaps causing Tehran to look to nuclear weapons to compensate for its loss of standing and influence.

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.