Abbas Reveals His True Agenda

Herbert I. London
Hudson New York
02 February '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/1854/abbas-agenda

In a recent discussion of the anticipated Palestinian state, Mahmoud Abbas, leader in the territory, said he "would not tolerate one single Jew in his new country, Palestine." Speaking before journalists in Ramallah, he clearly noted, "We have already said, completely openly, and it will stay that way: 'If there is a Palestinian country with Jerusalem as its capital, we will not accept that even one single Jew will live there.'"

Abbas rejected any suggestion that Jews in Judea and Samaria, who have lived in their homes for decades, could remain under Palestinian rule. Meanwhile, in all negotiations, the Palestinian position is that "Palestinian refugees" have the right of return to Israel. According to the Abbas proposition, therefore, Israel should open its borders for Arabs while Palestine closes its borders for Jews.

Here is the deal: Arabs, who now represent about 20% of the total population in Israel, can now live in Israel as full fledged citizens with all the rights that being a citizen confers. They can have their own political parties and settle in their own communities. But on the other side of this political ledger, not one Jew, including those who reside on the West Bank, can remain, once Palestine becomes an independent nation.

What more does one have to know? Sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. There is, and will remain, in the proposed new state, different standards for Arabs and Jews. Hence, what precisely is a two state solution? An Arab state that immediately becomes a threat to the very existence of Israel, as Jews are regarded as the enemy and, by virtue of law, must be ostracized -- or worse.

To make matters even more surreal, Abbas is considered an ideological moderate. After all, he does not call for killing Jews, only for a form of apartheid, of absolute separation. Should such a Palestinian nation be created, how long would it take for open hostilities between the two states to break out, especially with the old problem of succession we are now witnessing in the Arab world?

These questions, and a host of others, will have to be addressed to meet the demands of a two state solution. But even more fundamental is the attitude of the Palestinians themselves. If Jews are not permitted there, does that mean that Jewish tourist dollars and investment capital are not welcome there, either. Where does one draw the line?

In context, if Abbas did not have to mollify radical sentiment -- that he continues to create -- in the West Bank, these unmistakably racist comments would be an embarrassment, uttered only in private, if then. But his are the views of a radical, sensing that the tide of world opinion is with him. Unfortunately, he may be right about that: the media elite, as well as so-called human rights organizations, have so far remained silent over -- let alone condemned -- his forthright endorsement of Arab apartheid.

If this Palestinian state is created, Israelis should not have any illusions about what it will mean. Further isolation, increased hostility, border tension and suicide bombings. Rather than have a new Palestinian state that would be a force for peace the region, Abbas "The Moderate" has made it unmistakably clear that he plans to stack the deck against Israel.

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Breaking What Silence? A Critical Reading of Allegations from "Breaking the Silence"

NGO Monitor
02 February '11

On December 12, 2010, the NGO known as Breaking the Silence (BtS) published a 431-page compilation entitled Occupation of the Territories - Israeli Soldier testimonies 2000-2010. BtS claims to counter the "official Israeli position" that IDF actions are defensive in nature: "The soldiers' testimonies describe an offensive policy that includes annexation of territory, terrorizing and tightening the control over the civilian population."

These highly tendentious and unsubstantiated allegations were copied uncritically by media sources such as the New York Review of Books, Ha'aretz, The Independent (UK), leading Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

NGO Monitor's analysis of the Breaking the Silence publication shows:

- BtS makes sweeping accusations based on anecdotal, anonymous, and unverifiable accounts of low-level soldiers.

- Only 30 of 183 testimonies could potentially be independently verified based on the details provided. (According to BtS, 101 individuals testified. It is unclear how many of them are responsible for multiple entries.)

- Responses to terror and legitimate security concerns are dismissed as pretenses to "punish, deter, or tighten control over the Palestinian population" and the "intimidation, instilling of fear, and indiscriminate punishment of the Palestinian population."

- The incidents do not relate to decision-making in the army's higher echelons, but rather refer entirely to allegations of low-level infractions. Many explicitly note that misconduct was opposed and punished by officers: "I have to point out that the officers were opposed to it, and they tried anyone who was involved in these things. There was a strong opposition."

- Some of the testimonies suggest radical anti-Israel political motivations. One former soldier explained that he participates in "anti-Wall" demonstrations, and another referred to settlers as "the biggest Judeo-Nazis that I have met in my life."

- The publishing of the compilation in English indicates that the intended audience for BtS' distorted view is outside Israel. In the words of BtS' Michael Manekin, "Really, the political significance is the only reason for doing it."

Contrary to Breaking the Silence's image as a beleaguered and oppressed group of Israeli dissidents, the NGO is free to publish its allegations without consequence or punishment. Journalists in Ha'aretz and from international papers frequently provide BtS with a platform. The Italian newspaper Il Foglio wrote that members of Breaking the Silence "risk at the most coming late to their Tel Aviv café."

This NGO also receives extensive funding from European governments, enabling officials to artificially amplify their impact within Israel and speak and promote their ideology to international audiences.

(Click here for the full analysis)

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The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Crisis

Dore Gold
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Vol. 10, No. 26
2 February 2011

http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=5953

- Will the Obama administration's policy toward Egypt be based on a perception that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood would be extremely dangerous? Or have they taken the position - voiced in parts of the U.S. foreign policy establishment - that the Brotherhood has become moderate and can be talked to? Initial administration reactions indicate that it does not rule out Muslim Brotherhood participation in a future Egyptian coalition government.

- Since January 28, the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement has become more prominent, with its support of Mohamed ElBaradei to lead the opposition forces against the government. In the streets of Cairo, Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators disdainfully call people like ElBaradei "donkeys of the revolution" (hamir al-thawra) - to be used and thenpushed away - a scenario that sees the Muslim Brotherhoodexploit ElBaradei in order to hijack the Egyptian revolution at a later stage.

- There has been a great deal of confusion about the Muslim Brotherhood.In the years after it was founded in 1928, it developed a "secret apparatus" that engaged in political terrorism against Egyptian Copts as well as government officials. In December 1948, the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Nuqrashi Pasha. It also sought to kill Egyptian leader Abdul Nasser in October 1954.

- Former Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Akef declared in 2004 his "complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America." In 2001, the Muslim Brotherhood's publication in London, Risalat al-Ikhwan, featured at the top of its cover page the slogan: "Our Mission: World Domination." This header was changed after 9/11.

- The current Supreme Guide, Muhammad Badi', gave a sermon in September 2010 stating that "the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death, just as the enemies pursue life."


Initially, it was widely observed that the Muslim Brotherhood has been very low-key during the current crisis in Egypt. Most analysts admitted that it is the best organized and largest opposition group in Egypt, but they played down its role. Yet since January 28, the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement has become more prominent. One tangible example is the support the Brotherhood has given to Mohamed ElBaradei to lead the opposition forces against the government.

In the streets of Cairo, Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators disdainfully call people like ElBaradei "donkeys of the revolution" (hamir al-thawra), to be used and then pushed away.1 Thus, there is a scenario that sees the Muslim Brotherhood exploit a figure like ElBaradei in order to hijack the Egyptian revolution at a later stage.

What is the Muslim Brotherhood? It is known as Ikhwan al-Muslimun in Arabic, or just Ikhwan, established in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher, Hassan al-Banna. Outwardly, it was a social and religious organization, but over the years it developed a "secret apparatus" that engaged in military training of its cadres and political terrorism against Egyptian Copts as well as government officials. This dualism continued years later. In December 1948, the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Nuqrashi Pasha. It also sought to kill Egyptian leader Abdul Nasser in October 1954.

The Muslim Brotherhood also had an expansionist agenda right from the start, and called for the re-establishment of the Islamic Empire. In the late 1930s, its newspaper called for retaking "former Islamic colonies" in Andalus (Spain), southern Italy, and the Balkans.2 This theme was maintained in recent years by its former Supreme Guide, Muhammad Akef, who in 2004 declared his "complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America," with the caveat that Westerners will join Islam by conviction.3 Others have also made this point. According to Sheikh Yousef Qaradawi, widely regarded as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Constantinople was conquered in 1453 by a 23-year-old Ottoman named Muhammad ibn Murad, whom we call Muhammad the Conqueror. Now what remains is to conquer Rome. That is what we wish for, and that is what we believe in. After having been expelled twice, Islam will be victorious and reconquer Europe....I am certain that this time, victory will be won not by the sword but by preaching.4

Over the years, the Muslim Brotherhood opened branches in a number of Arab countries and even has front organizations in the UK, France, and the U.S. But it has not disavowed its original commitment to Islamic militancy and its global ambitions. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood's publication in London, Risalat al-Ikhwan, has maintained a clearly jihadist orientation; in 2001 it featured at the top of its cover page the slogan: "Our Mission: World Domination" (siyadat al-dunya). This header was changed after 9/11, but the publication still carries the Muslim Brotherhood's motto which includes: "Jihad is our path; martyrdom is our aspiration."5

Hamas has no problem with movie theatres. Well, maybe a little.

Elder of Ziyon
31 January '11

From Ma'an Arabic:

The Minister of Culture in Gaza, Dr. Osama al-Issawi, said that his ministry does not have any objection to the reopening of cinemas in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that there has not been any application to the Ministry to open one so far.

Al-Issawi said in a press statement, "We believe that art is part of the basis of any society, and we encourage arts festivals and special film festivals. We do not have any objection to the reopening of any cinemas."

Then comes the but...

He stressed that [any cinema] should be under the monitoring and control of his ministry to maintain the customs and morals and traditions of Palestinian society.

(Read full "Hamas has no problem with movie theatres. Well, maybe a little.")

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From Israel: On the Edge

Arlene Kushner
Arlene from Israel
01 February '11



Last Friday, a piece of mine on UNRWA went up on FrontPage Magazine. Please, take a look at it here:

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/01/28/a-un-appointment-exposed/

~~~~~~~~~~

As I write, hundreds of thousands of people are congregating in the streets of Cairo, in response to a call for one million to come out for a protest march demanding that Mubarak resign.


While in Jordan, King Abdullah fired his government in response to street protests.

~~~~~~~~~~

On the edge, indeed.

A detailed look at these events will wait until my next posting, when the air has cleared a bit. Just briefly here I will touch on a couple of points, and then move to some broader-based analysis.

* The Egyptian army has promised no violence against the people.

* Mubarak seems determined not to accede to the demands of the street and quit now. He has announced that he will deliver a speech tonight; according to Al Arabyia TV, he will say that he will remain in his position until the end of his term, and during that time will work to meet the demands of the protesters. The new prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, also went on TV, to say he would like a chance to make changes in the country to benefit the people: "We will turn all of the citizens' demands into a reality sooner than they expect."

* Obama closely watching the street protests, has been slip-sliding towards that street and is now talking about "a peaceful transition of power." The message was carried to Cairo by professional diplomat Frank Wisner. According to the NYTimes, Mubarak's apparent decision not to run in the next election was made at the urging of Obama. There are reports that the US gov't has also had contact with El-Baradei, via the US Embassy in Cairo.

~~~~~~~~~~

I've encountered (at least) two serious thinkers who believe that Mubarak will prevail. It now looks a bit more like this might be the case than I would have thought just hours ago.

One of those analysts is Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal. He makes some worthwhile points:

http://nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=236375

~~~~~~~~~~

The other analyst is Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum. But while Stephens is writing about Mubarak's situation, Pipes is also looking more broadly at issues such as the cultivation of democracy in the Middle East.

http://www.danielpipes.org:80/9391/turmoil-in-egypt

~~~~~~~~~~

UNRWA report on Pal. poverty in Lebanon flies under the radar

Elder of Ziyon
31 January '11

"Even with its flaws, this document is important in that it details exactly how there is endemic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon and the horrid results.

Yet I cannot find any UNRWA press release that summarizes the findings or any public calls to action." Elder of Ziyon

On December 31, UNRWA released a major report that goes into detail of the poverty and unemployment for Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon.

Here are some important parts:

- 6.6% are extremely poor i.e they cannot meet their essential daily food needs (compared to 1.7% amongst Lebanese).

- 66.4% of Palestine refugees in Lebanon are poor i.e cannot meet their basic food and nonfood needs (compared to 35% amongst Lebanese).

- 56% of Palestinians are jobless

- 38% of the working age population are employed

- 2/3 of Palestinians employed in elementary occupations (like street vendors, work in construction, agriculture) are poor

- Of the 425,000 Lebanese "refugees" registered with UNRWA since 1948, only 260,000-280,000 currently reside in Lebanon. The difference is apparently from some 200,000 who have fled Lebanon, mostly for Europe.

(Read full "UNRWA report on Pal. poverty in Lebanon flies under the radar")

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The Real ‘Palestine Papers’ Scandal

Michael Weiss
Just Journalism
01 February '11

Just Journalism Executive Director Michael Weiss has authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on how the Palestine papers reveal the Guardian’s preference for continued intransigence over peace negotiations on the part of the Palestinians. The op-ed is reproduced in full below.


http://justjournalism.com/opeds-features/the-real-palestine-papers-scandal/

Last week Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera and Britain’s Guardian newspaper released a tranche of 1,600 documents that appear to consist of Palestinian negotiators’ emails and meeting minutes covering the past 10 years of manic-depressive Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.

The Guardian presented these disclosures in grand tabloid style, claiming in an editorial that they show the Palestinian Authority to be “craven” and “weak” for its willingness to compromise with Israel. The real scandal is not that the Palestinian leadership was willing to consider certain concessions to end the conflict, but that the Guardian would object to those peace overtures in favor of continued intransigence.

Chief among the findings in the “Palestine Papers,” as they have come to be called, are that the Palestinians are willing to cede certain neighborhoods in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem to Israel in exchange for compensatory land elsewhere; and that several million Palestinians’ so-called “Right of Return” to Israel would be honored symbolically but not actually.

None of these compromises were ever certified by formal agreement on either side, nor did they rise above the level of presuppositions and negotiating starting points. More importantly, the broad outlines of these concessions have been public information since the Camp David summit of 2000, which is where these minutes and emails begin.

But according to Guardian editorial writers, the leaked papers read like “the longest suicide note in history.” Although in the final paragraph of its first editorial on the subject, the newspaper perfunctorily expresses its faith in a two-state solution, its spin on these documents over the past week suggests otherwise.

The same editorial instructs us that the only way forward is for the U.S. to recognize the terror organization Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction and incorporates the most primitive anti-Semitism in its founding charter. By presenting the Palestinian Authority’s compromises as nothing less than treasonous, the Guardian has helped to undermine Palestinian moderates and bolster the extremists.

Consider also the Guardian’s decision on Wednesday to give the newspaper’s comment section over to Osama Hamdan, the head of Hamas’s international relations department, who has explicitly defended suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. As late as 2007, Mr. Hamdan said the “final goal of the resistance is to wipe this entity [Israel] off the face of the Earth.” Last week, he used his column space in the Guardian to affirm his party’s aim to “regain the initiative in order to protect our cause and isolate those who have betrayed it.” All that was missing here was an explicit call for a third Intifada against Israel or another Palestinian civil war. Is this the Guardian’s idea of a viable partner for peace?

Finally, the Guardian deemed worthy of publication a letter to the editor written by University College London professor Ted Honderich, who wrote “the Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine against neo-Zionism.” Well, it was good of him to avoid euphemisms in suggesting how Hamas might “regain the initiative.”

No journalist will dispute the right to publish privileged information. But at a time when the Middle East is on the verge of major upheavals—some of them overdue and potentially democratic as in Egypt and Tunisia, others theocratic and potentially violent as in Lebanon—it is the height of irresponsibility for a major news outlet to frame the contents of privileged information as more explosive than they really are. Not to mention egging on the people who will do the actual exploding.

Mr. Weiss is executive director of Just Journalism, a London-based think tank that monitors how the British media cover Israel and the Middle East.

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Palestinian Authority insults the US – and no one says a word

Eldad Zioni
www.newsrealblog.com
23 February '11

Last March Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel to work on getting indirect peace talks underway.

While he was there, a Jerusalem planning committee announced the approval of an additional 1600 housing units in an existing Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. The neighborhood, Ramat Shlomo, would never be handed over to the Palestinian Arab state in any conceivable peace plan, and the Jerusalem municipality approves or rejects housing plans all the time. Beyond that, the PA had already admitted that Ramat Shlomo would remain part of Israel.

Still, there was a firestorm of protest over this coincidental timing, as if the Knesset and Israel’s Prime Minister personally approve every housing project in Jerusalem. Secretary of State Clinton called the move “insulting” and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu had to express regrets over the incident.

The supposed “insult” was nothing of the sort, but the US publicly dressed down its closest ally in the Middle East because of the actions of a low-level city clerk.

Now let’s fast forward.

On Friday, the US vetoed a UN resolution calling Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria “illegal.” This occurred after a long phone call from President Obama to PA president Mahmoud Abbas begging him to drop the resolution. Abbas ignored the President’s pleas.

After the vote and the veto, UN representative Susan Rice gave an unprecedented speech clarifying the US position, and groveling towards the Arab world by insisting how distasteful the Obama administration considers Jews living in their historic heartland.

The response from the Palestinian leadership was published, in Arabic, on the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. It says, in part:

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The Guardian: Let’s Have a ‘Discussion’ About the Morality of Terrorism

Alana Goodman
Commentary/Contentions
01 February '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/alana-goodman/388612

If you’ve ever wondered what the first step to becoming a full-blown terrorist apologist is, check out this column by the Guardian’s Chris Elliott. In the piece, Elliott defends a letter to the editor from “eminent philosopher” Ted Honderich, which “proposed the ‘moral right’ of the Palestinians to adopt terrorism as a strategy.”

“It is the policy of the Guardian not to publish letters advocating violence against others,” wrote Elliott. “[B]ut that does not – and should not – preclude a discussion about the nature of terrorism.” He added that “It is a legitimate area of discussion.”

To really grasp Honderich’s “discussion” about the “nature of terrorism,” you should read his letter in full here.

But here is a quick summary: First, Honderich noted that the Palestinian Papers have revealed “the intransigent greed, the escape from decency” of the Israeli government during peace negotiations. According to the philosopher, these revelations “provide a further part of what is now an overwhelming argument for a certain proposition. It is that the Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine against neo-Zionism. … Terrorism, as in this case, can as exactly be self-defence, a freedom struggle, martyrdom, the conclusion of an argument based on true humanity, etc.” a

As Adam Levick notes at CiF Watch, “In other words, what Honderich has learned from the Guardian’s Palestine Papers is that Israel is such a morally indecent country that Palestinians now clearly have the moral right to murder Israeli men, women, and children.”

Having a philosophical discussion about the nature of terrorism is one thing. But Honderich’s letter wasn’t about the “nature” of anything, nor was it a discussion. The acts of terror the philosopher was referring to are very real, and it’s clear he’d already come to a conclusion on their morality.

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Egypt: The Turning Point, The Regime's Plan on What to Do Next

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
01 February '11

In 1978 and 1979 I followed the Iranian revolution on a daily and hourly basis. Even before the hostage crisis, recognizing the importance of this event, I began work on a book. The title? Paved with Good Intentions. This came from the expression, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

This is precisely might be what is happening now. Out of "good intentions," the United States is headed--though I hopes it can still be averted--the biggest catastrophe in the history of its relations with the Middle East. Thirty years after Iran's revolution produced a similar situation, nothing has been learned by U.S. policymakers. Nothing.

Let me be clear: Removing Mubarak is NOT the problem. There is little doubt that he will lose power personally, something that would have happened within months any way given his age. The most hated and corrupt figures will flee the country.

The question is whether the regime--the current system--will survive. As of this moment (for reasons you can read four paragraphs down) I believe that the regime that has ruled Egypt for 59 years is finished. Is that a good thing? Well, it depends on what happens.

It is not inevitable that the Muslim Brotherhood will take over. Even the Brotherhood doesn't want that in the near future. It is far more likely, though, that Egypt would become a radical, anti-American state perhaps with some restraint (see point 1, below). The army will play a critical role one way or the other.

But nobody should neglect the reality of public opinion. Here's a report direct from the massive demonstration in Cairo today by a friend interviewing people there:

Demonstrators in Tahrir Square are increasingly saying this is not a fight against Mubarak. This is a fight against Israel and the United States whose interests he's implementing.

But, many will say, isn't it the fault of these countries for supporting Mubarak? The answer is: And would the situation be better if they had never done so? At any rate, it is January 2011 and, like it or not, one has to deal with the existing reality.

(Read full "Egypt: The Turning Point, The Regime's Plan on What to Do Next")

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Guardian columnists’ continued dehumanisation of Israelis

Israelinurse
CiF Watch
01 February '11

What a newspaper does not report can be just as revealing as what it does.

Back in May 2010 CiF rushed to report the arrest of two Arab Israelis suspected of espionage, allowing Ben White to make wild claims that “Israel seeks to silence dissent” and “repressive practices long used in the West Bank and Gaza are now being used to limit civil liberties within Israel”.

White claimed that:

“Several examples now point to an uncomfortable reality for the self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East”: practices that have long been routine in the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza are being used in Israel to suppress dissent and limit civil liberties.” (my emphasis)

He attempted to paint a terrifying picture of Soviet-style assaults on the civil liberties of Israel’s Arab citizens:

“So why is this happening now? First, it is the latest manifestation of a deteriorating atmosphere in Israel, with political dissent and human rights groups under attack…..

….Second, there is also a specific focus on Israel’s Palestinian minority…..

…..Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer for both Makhoul and Said, stressed the role of someone like Makhoul in being a prominent advocate internationally for “the need for accountability” – in other words, “the state has enough reasons to stop this voice”. Mohammad Zeidan, of the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), says that the arrests are “clearly political”. He believes that for some in Israel, the work being done by NGOs and Arab parties on the international level is “crossing a red line” – “they want to remind us that this is not a democracy”. “

Ten days after White’s article, CiF published a piece by Yousef Munayyer in which he too took up the theme of Israel’s supposed ‘intimidation’ of Ameer Makhoul.

(Read full "Guardian columnists’ continued dehumanisation of Israelis")

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Olmert Offered Peace Plan, But Palestine Papers Give No Evidence That Abbas Ever Came Back With A Counteroffer

Daled Amos
01 February '11

http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2011/02/olmert-offered-peace-plan-but-palestine.html

The group Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East has taken the time to read through Al Jazeera's "Palestine Papers" and they noticed that for all the talk about Palestinian concessions, the bottom line is that Abbas failed to respond to Olmert's offer for peace:

Sr. Ruth Lautt, O.P., Fair Witness National Director, says "What the documents from the post-Annapolis talks reveal is that members of the respective negotiating teams shared pragmatic talk about borders, Jerusalem and refugees. While there was not complete agreement on core issues, there was hope of reaching a compromise. A 'Palestine Paper' dated August 31, 2008, memorializes Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's peace proposal package. But there is no indication that Palestinian President Abbas ever came back with a counteroffer."

The "Palestine Papers" reflect claims about an alleged counteroffer, but no evidence that one was ever relayed to Olmert. A December 14, 2008 memo shows Saeb Erekat telling Israeli negotiator Udi Deckel that the Palestinian counteroffer had been 1.9%. It appears, however, that 1.9% was a number Palestinian negotiators had been discussing with the Israeli negotiators prior to the Olmert offer. And, as Deckel points out, "discussions on territory" between negotiators do not constitute a leader's response to a comprehensive peace offer.

An internal Palestinian document reveals that Abbas never intended to respond to the offer at his September 16, 2008 meeting with Olmert, which he regarded as merely "ceremonial." A memo drafted in preparation for that meeting states:

In order to avoid the blame game, the President [Abbas] today is going with a positive attitude, where he will ask more questions from Olmert on his offer, and he will tell him that the Palestinians will respond later.

There is no record of a subsequent response from Abbas.

The account in the Palestine Papers that Abbas failed to come back with a counteroffer is reflected in Olmert's account of what he and Abbas talked about. In an interview on November 28, 2009, Olmert's description of that September 16, 2008 meeting corroborates the Palestine Papers claim that Abbas failed to make a counteroffer:

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

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

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

There is of course no downside for Abbas in this: on the one hand the fact that he failed to do what was necessary to finalize a peace agreement will counter the arguments that he and his team betrayed the Palestinian Arabs in making concessions for peace--and on the other hand, the West is always willing, if not eager, to ignore the fact that Abbas refuses to do or concede anything that might bring about peace.

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Palestinian Journalist Behind on Palestinian Affairs

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
01 February '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/02/palestinian_journalist_behind.html

Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab apparently doesn't keep up with the Palestinian media. Writing in the International Herald Tribune last week (Jan. 25), he insisted that "Abbas has rejected all forms of anti-Israeli violence" and that Palestinian television has been "cleaned of anti-Israeli incitement."

Yet, as reported in the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida one day earlier, Abbas spoke in favor of an Arab war against Israel, stating: "I have said more than once that if the Arabs want war - we are with them."

Yet, even if Kuttab missed the paper that day, it stretches the imagination to believe that he missed all of the following: At a rally marking the five year anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death, Abbas praised the "noble" resistance, in which "we combined armed struggle with political activity." Similarly, speaking at a 2007 Fatah rally, Abbas declared: "We have raised our rifles against the occupation [ie, Israel] and that is a legitimate right." Likewise, Abbas was quoted in Jordan's al-Dustur in 2008, "At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different."

It seems that Kuttab is also not a regular viewer of the "cleansed" Palestinian television, which recently ran broadcasts glorifying Dalal al-Mugrabi, the ringleader of the 1978 hijacking of an Israeli bus, in which terrorists massacred 37 civilians. One music video refers to the killers as "heroes... who shook the land, brought down mountains," and another praises them for having "no fear of death or the darkness of prison." A separate music video on the Fatah-controlled channel in December proclaimed: "By Allah, we won't throw down our weapons. We treat the rifle as a brother."


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The rockets keep raining on southern Israel

Netivot, last night - site of the Grad rocket attack
on a wedding reception [Source: Ynet]

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War
01 February '11

http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/2011/02/1-feb-11-rockets-keep-raining-on.html

The fast-moving political and social chaos in Egypt has grabbed most of the regional news headlines. But, in Israel's southern towns and cities, the ongoing years-long state of violence perpetrated by the neighbors remains sadly in place, unchanged.

Overnight, far from the cameras and reporting now going on so intensively in Egypt, three powerful rockets were fired on Israeli communities from the jihadist-infested Gaza Strip, further terrorizing the residents (always the principal goal of the terrorist thug gangs). Fortunately the property damage was relatively minor and there are no reported injury to humans.

A Grad-type rocket (Grad is Russian for hail) crashed into Netivot, a desert city of 27,000 residents, in the driving rain and cold. It narrowly missed a synagogue building where a wedding celebration was underway, producing a deafening explosion in the grounds outside. Four people, according to JPost, were treated for shock in the Netivot attack and a vehicle was damaged.

Several minutes after the attack on Netivot, a second Grad-type missile smashed into the beleagured town of Ofakim (population 25,000) which has the misfortune of being located a mere 15 miles or about 24 km from Gaza. Ofakim was struck in a previous Grad rocket attack by Gazan Arab terrorists in mid-November.

A third rocket - a mortar, according to JPost - crashed into open fields in southern Israel's Eshkol region, also overnight.

A Palestinian Arab news source is reporting on mass breakouts from Egyptian prisons, as well as the phenomenon of 34 "Muslim Brothers" - members of the outlawed Islamist militant/terrorist organization and including seven senior members of its leadership according to Haaretz - simply walking out of a jail, the one in Wadi Natrun north of Cairo, "unhindered after guards there abandoned their posts". There are indications that Gaza's already burgeoning stock of terrorists and bomb-makers has grown in the past few days, contributing to changes that already threaten what has been called "the specter of Israel's worst strategic nightmare... a scenario in which we see the collapse of the peace treaty with Egypt".

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Middle Eastern Moment of Truth

P. David Hornik
frontpagemag.com
31 January '11

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/01/middle-eastern-moment-of-truth/

Over a quarter-century Israel fought Egypt in the 1948 Independence War, the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1967-1970 War of Attrition, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Since then, for 37 years, Israel and Egypt have not fought. This may have been made possible mainly by the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty; or it may be that Egypt, deterred by having lost the wars and desiring realignment with the West, would have kept the peace in any case.

Given the stark difference between the 1948-1973 epoch and the 1973-2011 epoch, Israel has reacted to the current crisis in Egypt without foolishness—heard elsewhere in the West—about the supposed moderation of the Muslim Brotherhood or its ally Mohammed ElBaradei. Israelis are alarmed across the political spectrum.

Left-of-center Haaretz columnist Aluf Benn writes that “Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who ‘lost’ Egypt…. If [a superpower] abandons its allies the moment they flounder, who would trust it tomorrow?” Another left-of-center Haaretz columnist, Ari Shavit, writes harshly that “Obama’s betrayal of Hosni Mubarak is not just the betrayal of a moderate Egyptian president who remained loyal to the United States…. Everyone grasps the message: America’s word is worthless; an alliance with America is unreliable; America has lost it.”

And President Shimon Peres, who not long ago believed in “the New Middle East” and was a central figure in Israel’s dovish turn, said that “We still have great respect for Mubarak. Not everything he did was right, but he worked to keep peace in the Middle East.” And regarding possible developments in Egypt: “A fanatic religious oligarchy is not better than lack of democracy.”

Israelis know that Mubarak’s “peace” (since 1981, when he took over from his assassinated predecessor Anwar Sadat) was cold, that Egypt continued treating Israel as an enemy in international forums, and that its society remained intensely anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic. At the time the crisis broke out last week, there appear to have been only a few hundred Israeli tourists—out of an Israeli population of seven million—in neighboring, officially “friendly” Egypt.

Updating the Ancient Infrastructure of Christian Contempt: Sabeel*

by Dexter Van Zile
JCPA
Institute for Global Jewish Affairs
Published January 2011
Jewish Political Studies Review 23:1-2 (Spring 2011)

http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=5&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=625&PID=0&IID=5925&TTL=Updating_the_Ancient_Infrastructure_of_Christian_Contempt:_Sabeel*

Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, headquartered in Jerusalem, has been a persistent source of anti-Zionist agitation in mainline Protestant churches in the United States since its founding in 1994. The organization subjects Israel, Jews, and Judaism to intense scrutiny while remaining nearly silent about Arab and Muslim extremism in the Middle East. In addition to publicizing the writings of its founder, Anglican priest Naim Ateek, Sabeel broadcasts its message via regional conferences in the United States and regular study missions to Israel. Far-Left American and Israeli Jews are given prominent display at Sabeel conferences, where Israel is held up to a strict biblical standard of conduct while its adversaries are held to no standard at all. By giving its followers the sense that they are engaging in a showdown with the forces of evil embodied by Israel and its U.S supporters, Sabeel reenacts the church-synagogue rivalry documented in early Christian writings.

Rolling Out the Anti-Zionist Catechism
In December 2009, a group of Christians and Jews from South Africa, the United States, Europe, and Asia met in Bethlehem to give their blessing to a document written by Palestinian Christian leaders from Jerusalem and the West Bank. The text of the document - which has come to be called the Kairos Palestine Document (KPD) - calls on Christians throughout the world to target Israel with boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions.[1]

The document's stated goal is to bring a word of truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict to the world, but a close reading of the text reveals many of the tropes Arab Christians often use to indict Israel. The conflict is all Israel's fault; the Palestinians are innocent. Israelis sin; Palestinians make mistakes. Palestinian violence is justified; Israeli self-defense is not. Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli civilians are not terrorism motivated by a desire to destroy Israel, but "legal resistance" motivated by a desire to liberate themselves from oppression. The document also affirms a fantasy that Christian peacemakers have long embraced - that the fighting will miraculously come to an end once Israel ends the occupation. It states, "if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity."[2]

Being good guests, the visitors responded with some well-worn tropes of their own. One leader dishonestly equated the security barrier - which he called the "Apartheid Wall" - with the Berlin Wall used by East German leaders to keep their own people imprisoned, apparently forgetting that the security barrier was built to stop suicide attacks. Another flattered Palestinian Christians, who have little influence in Palestinian society, as offering a credible witness for peace to their fellow countrymen and to the world. A third lauded the willingness of the document's authors to risk accusations of anti-Semitism. And if the World Council of Churches' (WCC) coverage of the event is to be trusted, no one offered a word of criticism about Muslim and Arab hostility toward Christians, Jews, and Israel in the region.[3]

Musings on how the Guardian defines “Disproportionate” and “Fair and Balanced”

Israelinurse
CiF Watch
31 January '11

After a week of watching the Guardian gorging itself on the ‘Palestine papers’ like an out of control bulimic, a few thoughts and observations came to mind.

It was interesting to see how the Guardian transferred its long-held policies regarding ‘fair and balanced’ coverage of Israeli affairs to the Palestinian stage. As veteran CiF readers know, the column space given to (‘good’) anti-Zionist or Israel-chastising Jews such as Seth Freedman, Antony Lerman, Rachel Shabi, Avi Shlaim, Abe Haim or Mya Guarnieri was always consistently ‘disproportionate’ (to use a word much-loved by the Guardian) when compared to the amount of space allocated to pro-Israel Zionist Jews or Israelis.

The ‘Palestine papers’ week saw a similar tactic being employed with regard to Palestinians. A deluge of fairly uniformly outraged commentary came from ‘good’ Palestinians such as Ghada Karmi, Karma Nablusi, Osama Hamdan and Laila el Haddad – their common denominator being that they either belong to Hamas or are sympathetic to its ideology and political views. None of these people, incidentally, actually live in areas ruled by either the PA or Israel.

The only attempt to inject ‘balance’ into the commentary by allowing a Palestinian voice which opposes Hamas to be heard was an article by Saeb Erekat four days into the outrage fest. The voice of ordinary Palestinians in the streets who are opposed to Hamas and may actually support the kind of compromises reflected in the leaked papers as a way forward to securing a much-needed peace agreement was nowhere to be heard on the pages of CiF. And therefore any reader of the Guardian over the past few days who is unfamiliar with the Middle East might well assume that political opinion on the Palestinian street is remarkably monotone and that those supporting a Hamas-style continuation of the conflict with Israel are the overwhelming majority.

That would of course be because the Guardian has yet again ditched its commitment to being ‘fair and balanced’.

(Read full "Musings on how the Guardian defines “Disproportionate” and “Fair and Balanced”)

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Clueless in Washington

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
31 January '11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/01/clueless-in-washington.php

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.

On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

But does his wisdom apply in this case?

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak's predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel's recommendations were applauded by its members' many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard's editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, "It's time for the US government to take an active role... to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy."

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak's regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

Washington Post: McCarthyism as News Coverage

Eric Rozenman
CAMERA Media Analysis
28 January '11

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1986

Often Arab-Israeli news coverage, including that of The Washington Post, calls for constructive criticism. Occasionally, however, an article or broadcast demands exposure, not a critique. Such is the case with “Israeli human rights groups decry effort to probe funding,” a January 20 report by Joel Greenberg, a special correspondent for The Post.

The report leans so far it nearly overturns. It quotes an opponent of a proposal before Israel’s Knesset (parliament) to make funding of anti-government NGOs (non-governmental organizations) more transparent. He says the measure “smacks of McCarthyism.” And The Post uses the “McCarthyist” charge in its own paraphrase of critics. Yet, relying on often loaded or evasive language and on a narrow range of sources, the article itself could be termed McCarthyite — after U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) tactic in the late 1940s and early ’50s of tarring alleged subversives as communists or fellow travelers.

The Post ostensibly covers a call by the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Is Our Home) Party for an investigation of funding of “local human rights organizations.” The dispatch terms Yisrael Beiteinu a “far-right party.” Only two “human rights organizations” are identified by name. One is B’tselem, identified as “a leading rights group” when context would indicate it is an anti-settlement, pro-Palestinian if not anti-government organization. The other is the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which is not otherwise identified. This implies that ACRI is what its name suggests, rather than another anti-government organization that sometimes parrots the charges of Israel’s adversaries.

NGO-Monitor, an Israeli organization founded by Bar-Ilan University Prof. Gerald Steinberg, has found that, among other things, B’tselem’s executive director has alleged that “in some cases, the situation in the West Bank is worse than apartheid in South Africa.” The group has minimized Israeli security concerns, misrepresented international law and relied on erroneous statistics. A staff member was forced to resign after claiming Israel demonstrated “devotion to Nazi tactics.” B’tselem’s board chairman called for international sanctions against Israel and supported the so-called Palestinian “right of return.”

CAMERA has highlighted B’tselem’s repeated statistical falsifications and noted its reliance on European funding, for example, “UPDATED: In 2007, B’tselem’s Casualty Count Doesn’t Add Up,” Nov. 2, 2008. There also is B’tselem’s tendency to doubt official Israeli claims while accepting without corroboration Palestinian charges. This skepticism extended, for example, to the military’s claim, supported by videotape, that its commandoes boarding the Gaza Strip blockade runner, Mavi Marmara, were attacked by passengers.

Regarding the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, NGO-Monitor found, for example, that the group’s September, 2010 report on Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem, was “based almost exclusively on Palestinian ‘testimony’” that could not be verified independently. The “‘testimony’ is clearly designed to promote the desired political conclusions .... and reinforces the artificial image and ideology of Palestinian victimization.”

NGO-Monitor adds that the association “report repeats tendentious terminology used by political organizations, such as the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department,” including the phrase “Judaize,” which “erases the intense Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem and suggests that the very presence of Jews is alien and unacceptable .... While it is perhaps not surprising that the PLO would employ such terminology, it is immoral for human rights organizations to use phrases supporting ethnically-based exclusion.”

But wait, there’s more

The Arab world on the brink...but of what?

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
30 January '11

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6659250/the-arab-world-on-the-brinkbut-of-what.thtml

Well, what a turn-up for the books. Those same liberal circles which flayed the neo-cons alive for pursuing the apparently ludicrous idea that democracy could ever come to the Arab world are now hailing the current upheavals in that same Arab world as .. a democratic awakening.

Maybe it will be so. For sure some at least of the elements involved want true freedom and human rights. But that particular argument against the neo-cons was not wrong (and before anyone flies to their keyboard, let me clarify that what I support, and have always supported, is the principal belief that drove neo-con thinking -- not that democracy in such countries was necessarily achievable, and certainly not overnight, but that there is a moral duty to defeat the jihad in order to defend the west. And that was always a very different matter).

Anyway, back to the crisis at hand. There is no doubt that, in large measure because of the mainly subterranean debate that has been taking place within the Arab and Muslim world as a result of events on and since 9/11, there are powerful yearnings there for democracy and human rights and for an end to the tyranny and oppression under which the inhabitants of such places generally live.

The unhappy fact is, however, that in Egypt and Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world where ferment is growing against the tyranny of their regimes, the crucial infrastructure of the rule of law, independent judges and police, free press and so on that are the necessary precondition of democracy just don’t exist.

As a result, when tyrants there fall the outcome is generally not the emergence of a free society but a tyranny far worse even than the one that has fallen – an Islamic theocracy. That’s precisely what happened, let us not forget, in Iran in 1979, when the fall of the Shah was greeted with acclaim by the Iranian people who wanted an end to his police state – but what they got instead was the Ayatollah Khomeini and the beginning of decades of Islamist oppression and tyranny far worse than under the Shah.

The unrest in Tunisia has apparently been driven by liberal elements. But the likely outcome is that the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical Islamists who want to overturn all secular Islamic rulers and in turn conquer the rest of the world for Islam might now move into this vacuum. Accordingly, the imminent return to Tunisia of the important Muslim Brother Rannid Ghannouchi, who has announced his decision to go back after more than two decades in Londonistan where he comfortably resided having been convicted in Tunisia of bombing an airport – and as Gabriel Scheinmann notes, who has of course been feted as a moderate by the New York Times and other dhimmi dummies – suggests that hailing the brave new democratic dawn in Tunisia may be distinctly premature.

As this mood of revolt snowballs, there has been unrest too in Yemen and Jordan. But the really terrifying prospect is Egypt, after six days of violent clashes in which untold scores of people have reportedly died. Egypt is the home of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite its ‘cold peace’ with Israel, it is a fulcrum of Nazi-style Jew-hatred which it exports to the Arab and Muslim world. And it is strategically crucial for the west because of the trade and shipping routes it controls in the Suez Canal; it is particularly significant also because of its size and military power.

Through the tyrannical measures which have caused him to become so hated, Mubarak has suppressed the Muslim Brothers – but only just. The nightmare has always been what will happen when Mubarak departs the stage – a development that Obama actually appears to be trying to accelerate, having belatedly discovered the attractions of promoting democracy in the Arab world at the very moment that the Islamists are poised to take control. This is but the latest astoundingly inept or malign action by Obama against the interests of America and the west. An Islamist Egypt would alter the dynamics of the entire region – Jordan would surely not be far behind -- and pose an urgent and acute threat to the western world. That nightmare, it would seem, now might be upon us.

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It's never been about Palestine

John Podhoretz
New York Post
Mon., Jan. 31, 2011, 9:23 AM

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/it_never_been_about_palestine_207FqIaxNIcGbmG7w24aVP

The anti-Mubarak revolution won't only topple an authoritarian regime. It will also topple 40-plus years of wrong-headed thinking about the causes of Middle East instability among the world's foreign-policy cognoscenti.

In that view, the horrible relationship between Israel and the Arabs is the dominant issue for the Near East's 20-plus nations and its 250-million-plus people -- and the root cause of the region's tempestuousness.

But now that Tunisia's street revolt against a corrupt dictatorial regime has led to Egypt's similar revolt only in a matter of weeks, with God knows what to follow elsewhere, the plain truth can no longer be denied: Israel is a sideshow.

The idea that the rest of the world was somehow being held hostage by the Arab-Israeli conflict once had a minimal basis in reality. In the first 20 years of Israel's existence, every Arab country was in an active state of war with the Jewish state. But one of the little-told stories of the last four decades has been the steady easing of that state-on-state belligerency.

Jordan effectively quit the fight after Israel's triumph in the 1967 war cut Jordan in half. So too did the Arab states that did not share a border with Israel. The bloody toll of the '73 war then led Egypt and Syria to surrender their ambitious military efforts to drive Israel into the sea.

So, for the last 30 years, Israel's violent difficulties have not been with other Middle East states, but with terrorist groups and movements supposedly representing Palestinian interests based either in the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza or thriving parasitically in the southern part of the ruined state of Lebanon.