Land for War by Karsh/Romirowsky

Efraim Karsh and Asaf Romirowsky
Middle East Forum
The Wall Street Journal
August 5, 2011

http://www.meforum.org/3001/land-for-war

As September approaches, many are waiting with bated breath to learn if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will deliver on his threat to unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state and seek recognition of it through the U.N. But in putting the Palestinian demand for statehood to a vote, Abbas will end up subverting the international organization's longstanding solution to the Arab Israeli-conflict—U.N. Security Council Resolution 242—with unpredictable results.

Passed in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, resolution 242 established the principle of "land for peace" as the cornerstone of future peace agreements between Israel and the Arabs, to be reached in negotiations between the two sides. Israel was asked to withdraw "from territories occupied in the recent conflict"—the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

The absence of the definite article "the" before "territories" was no accident: Issued a mere six months after Israel's astounding triumph over the concerted Arab attempt to obliterate the Jewish state, the resolution reflected acceptance by the Security Council of the existential threat posed by the 1949 armistice line, memorably described by Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban as "Auschwitz borders." The Security Council expected negotiations between Israel and the Arabs to produce a more defensible frontier for Israel, one consistent with, in the words of the resolution's other key formulation, the right of every state in the region "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries."

In the 44 years that have followed, Israel has persistently striven to make peace with its Arab neighbors. It withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, constituting more than 90% of the territories occupied in 1967, as part of its 1979 peace agreement with Egypt. Repeated efforts to persuade Syrian President Hafez Assad to follow in Egypt's footsteps came to naught, however.

As for the Palestinians, their rejection of resolution 242 was absolute. In 1967, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) rejected the U.N. proposal as a plot "concocted in the corridors of the United Nations to accord [with] the Zionist racist colonial illegal occupation in Palestine," acceptance of which constituted "a treasonable act not only against the Palestinian people but against the whole Arab nation." When the Carter administration informed Arafat of its readiness to inaugurate Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, should he accept resolution 242, the PLO chairman categorically turned the offer down. "This is a lousy deal," he told an intermediary. "We want Palestine. We don't want bits of Palestine."

Fresnozionism - Nicholas Kristof: Every proposition false — and boring!

Fresnozionism.org
04 August '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/08/nicholas-kristof-every-proposition-false-and-boring/


The New York Times publishes the columns of Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen regularly, and a disproportionate number of them can be called Israel-bashing. Sometimes they are quite ugly. But for sheer slimy dishonesty, nobody beats Nicholas Kristof when he aims his pen at Israel and her supporters.

Today’s column is representative. It starts mildly enough with a reflexive twitch at Jewish settlements:

Next month, Palestinians are expected to seek statehood at the United Nations. It’s a stunt that won’t accomplish much for anybody, but it’s more constructive than throwing rocks at Israeli cars — or, on the Israeli side, better than expanding illegal settlements.

Kristof and his ideological soulmates apparently think that if they say this enough, the way that Hamas says that Jews are descended from apes and pigs, it will become true. It’s not, and until Kristof and others can answer the arguments presented here, they should refrain from categorical statements like the above.

Yet the American House of Representatives voted 407 to 6 to call on the Obama administration to use its diplomatic capital to try to block the initiative, while also threatening to cut the Palestinians’ funding if they proceeded to seek statehood.

My goodness, imagine the power of that Zionist lobby who could pull the strings of 406 members of Congress! Of course, what Kristof leaves out is that the resolution threatens to stop funding the Palestinian Authority if it does not cut ties with the terrorist, antisemitic, genocidal Hamas!

So it isn’t a question of the poor, oppressed, third-world ‘Palestinian’ people of color being kept from self-determination and the state they ‘deserve’, it has something to do with not wanting to finance murderers. I wonder if he missed that point by accident?

Similarly, when Israel stormed into Gaza in 2008 to halt rocket attacks, more than 1,300 Gazans were killed, along with 13 Israelis, according to B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights group. As Gazan blood flowed, the House, by a vote of 390 to 5, hailed the invasion as “Israel’s right to defend itself.”

This paragraph is so packed full of crap that I have to refute it in the form of a list:

1) B’Tselem is funded by European governments and left-wing US organizations like the New Israel Fund. It is in no way an impartial human rights group, but rather an extremist organization devoted to nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state. Do I go too far? Read this.

2) B’Tselem’s casualty numbers are wildly incorrect. IDF figures count 1,166 dead Gazans, of whom 709 were combatants and 295 civilians. A Hamas source later said that “about 600″ of their fighters were killed. Considering the nature of urban warfare — and the fact that Hamas deliberately operated from civilian areas — this points to the exceptional care taken by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties.

3) The fact that there were more Palestinians than Israelis killed does not imply that Israel did not have a right to defend itself, after thousands of rockets and mortars were fired into Israel, not to mention cross-border terror attacks like the one in which several Israelis were killed and Gilad Shalit taken hostage.

Kushner - From Israel: Those Tel Aviv Demonstrators

Arlene Kushner
Arlene from Israel
04 August '11



I want to return to the issue of the housing demonstrators, because there continues to be a good deal of misunderstanding -- in no small part because of media coverage -- regarding who they are and what they are about.

Let me begin with a description by Sarah Honig from her column in last Friday's Jerusalem Post magazine. Honig -- who is far closer to the situation than I am -- pulls no punches:

"News flash: There’s cheap rental housing in Tel Aviv. Dirt cheap. So cheap, in fact, that illegals from Ghana and Nigeria, Guatemala and Columbia, Thailand and Outer Mongolia, can afford it. But that’s not where the privileged children of the well-heeled classes wish to fulfill fantasies..."

Their preference, she explains, is for the equivalents of fashionable, upscale Manhattan: "'Heart-of-Tel-Aviv' neighborhoods...But topping it all for prestige and desirability is Tel Aviv’s 'Old North,' radiating from the upmarket Habimah Theater-Mann Auditorium hub.
"At that posh pivot, trendsetters and groupies pitched their tent city to campaign for lower/subsidized rents. We, wage-earners in the rest of the country, are presumably required to foot their extravagant bills and make Israel’s Manhattan ambiance more affordable...

"I personally know some of the Rothschild Boulevard protest-instigators. I also know their affluent families (whose incomes far exceed my own meager salary)...

"Several of the tent-happening’s ringleaders are my daughter’s erstwhile schoolmates and friends to this day. Their exceptional good tastes have always meant shopping for the most impressive brand-names and running up bills that annoyed even their prosperous parents. They also gravitate to pricey eateries, drinking holes and clubs...

"Some are chronically 'between jobs' and/or between schools, seeking to find themselves and their true calling. Some dabble in showbiz...Some smoke funny things, and all, without exception, are trendily left-wing – as befits rebels against bourgeois mom and dad (who nonetheless help pay the rent and provide laundry services)...

"They flaunt political affiliations like Hadash – the largely Arab remnant of the local Communist Party...

"Political patrons purchased nifty tents for the sons and daughters of our well-to-do compatriots. These pampered radicals, with less-moneyed hangers-on, hanker after thrills...Note the pervasive anti-Bibi/bring-the-government-down slogans chanted by the mobilized/manipulated thousands who joined their march last weekend."

http://sarahhonig.com/2011/07/28/another-tack-between-tunisia-and-tel-aviv/

~~~~~~~~~~

Meir Indor, head of Almagor, a terror victims association, has spent time visiting the tent cities and has this additional information to provide:

"...having discovered who the lead protesters are, I am not surprised by their antidemocratic tendencies. The disturbances were initiated by Daphne Leef, an employee of the New Israel Fund, which is known for funding organizations that work to stigmatize Israel and the IDF, and to promote boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.

Another leader is Stav Shafir, a self-avowed semi-anarchist in the employ of the news company Yediot Aharonot, which opposes Netanyahu and has been covering the protests nonstop.

Other prominent participants include Asaf Nadiv, who was convicted in 1989 of membership in the Trotskyite terrorist group Derech Hanitzotz; writer Anat Rosilio, who in December 2008 strongly opposed Operation Cast Lead against rocket fire from Gaza; Tzvika Besor, a self-described devotee of communist Dov Khenin; and more than a few other communist and anarchist activists."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146376

~~~~~~~~~~

I want to reiterate here what I wrote about earlier: there really is a housing problem, both with regard to availability and cost. I don't know any one who would dispute this. And some of those who have joined the demonstrations truly are hurting and hope for redress of their housing situations.

Steinberg/Balanson - HRW’s ‘Arab spring’

Gerald M. Steinberg/Naftali A. Balanson
JPost Op-Ed Contributor
03 August '11

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=232340

As Syrian citizens are murdered by Assad forces, HRW has no infrastructure in place to aid them in leading the “human-rights” revolution.

On May 20, two months after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began slaughtering protesters in his country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) hired a Jordanian journalist, Hani Hazaimeh, to interview victims of and witnesses to Assad’s atrocities. At first glance, this would appear to be an unremarkable example of an NGO doing its job. Although Hazaimeh had no experience in human rights investigations, HRW believed he was its best option to record Syrian abuses.

However, this predicament of having no trained professionals to turn to in the field raises an important question: How is it that two months after citizen-protesters were being murdered – not to mention decades of severe repression of the worst kind – “one of the world’s leading independent organizations” did not have assets in place for proper investigations? Despite nearly 50 years of police-state repression and emergency law, HRW had to resort to a last minute, inexperienced outsider to record human rights brutalities.

And Syria is not an isolated incident. Since the Arab Spring awoke at the end of 2010, HRW has quickly expanded to cover developments and violations in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. HRW’s lack of preparation, foresight, and capacity is obvious. Indeed, the international media have relied entirely on local activists; as a source of information, HRW is entirely irrelevant. As HRW’s Fred Abraham stated, “The west of Libya is a black hole....we have no idea what’s going on.”

In Syria, HRW’s inadequacy is not new. Last July, HRW published a report titled “A Wasted Decade,” covering ten years of research on human rights violations in Syria in just 35 pages. The thinness of the report was matched by the weak recommendations.

The report recommended a limited response, directed exclusively to President Assad, who was urged to enact, amend, introduce, and remove a variety of laws, and to set up commissions. To alleviate restrictions on freedom of expression, HRW urged him to “stop blocking websites for their content.” In a contemporaneous op-ed article, "Syria's decade of repression” (The Guardian, 16 July 2010), HRW researcher Nadim Houry concludes with gentle prodding of Assad: “his legacy will ultimately depend on whether he will act on the promises” of reform he made upon taking office. “Otherwise, he will merely be remembered for extending his father’s...government by repression.”

In other words, HRW was content as a spectator throughout much of Assad’s brutal reign. Now, as Syrian citizens are murdered by his forces, HRW has no infrastructure or networks in place to aid citizens leading the “human rights” revolution.

But, if HRW did not invest in developing its capabilities in the closed and repressive society of Syria, what were HRW’s priorities?

As dictated by the ideological agenda of the organization’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) division, the priority was Israel. For example, while HRW released 51 documents in 2010 on “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” it released 12 for Syria. Israel also had three “single country reports,” compared to the very short one for Syria.

Rosen - The Palestinians' Imaginary State

by Steven J. Rosen
Middle East Forum
Foreign Policy
August 3, 2011


http://www.meforum.org/3000/palestinians-imaginary-state

In a few weeks, an overwhelming majority in the United Nations General Assembly will likely vote for collective recognition of a Palestinian state. But which Palestinian state? Of the three Palestinian states the assembly could recognize, two are real and arguably could meet the requirements for statehood. But it is the third, purely imaginary one that the assembly will endorse, one that neither has a functioning government nor meets the requirements of international law.

According to the prevailing legal standard, the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a "state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." Both the Hamas-controlled Palestinian entity in Gaza and the rival Fatah-governed Palestinian entity in the West Bank can be said to meet all four of these criteria of the law of statehood. The one on which the United Nations will vote does not.

In Gaza, Hamas controls a permanent population in a defined territory (i.e., Gaza within the armistice lines of 1949). Gaza has a functioning, if odious, government. And Hamas-controlled Gaza already conducts international relations with a large number of states. From a narrowly legal point of view, the Hamas Gaza entity could become a state, another miserable addition to a very imperfect world.

Of course, a Hamas state in Gaza is not something most of the world wants to see. A Hamas state allied to Iran would be a severe blow to international peace and security, and it would not be a state deserving of recognition by any democracy. It would be a state arising from the military coup of June 2007, a state that engages in large-scale violations of treaty obligations and human rights. Nor does Hamas seek statehood for Gaza alone. Hamas wants eventually to rule the whole of mandatory Palestine, comprising not just the West Bank along with Gaza, but all of today's Israel too. Gaza alone is too small a prize for so grand an ambition. So this possible state is not on the table.

The Fatah Palestinian entity in the West Bank also could meet the legal requirements for statehood, and it would have more international support. It has a functioning government in the Palestinian Authority (PA), a permanent population, and international relations with a very large number of states. It also controls a defined territory, which comprises what are called areas A and B as defined under the Oslo II agreement of September 1995, plus additional territory subsequently transferred by Israel in agreed further redeployments. (Area A is the zone of full civil and security control by the Palestinian Authority, and Area B is a zone of Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control.) The Fatah West Bank entity within these lines also could be recognized as a state under international law.

More Rockets from Gaza - Our response?

Love of the Land
04 August '11

Tonight, Thursday night, rockets continue to arrive from Gaza to the Kiryat Gat region, following yesterday's launching of Grads from Gaza in the early evening. While no serious injuries have been reported B"H, there have been a number of cases of shock requiring treatment. It does not require an explanation to what would have occurred, if these were to land in proximity to any group of people not in a proper shelter, a bus stop, direct hit on a home, or day camp.

To try to understand why this situation continues, let us first take a look at recent IDF Spokespersons statements concerning the IDF response to recent attacks from Gaza:

In Response to Rocket Fire, IAF Targets Two Terror Activity Sites and a Smuggling Tunnel
Posted on August 4, 2011 

http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/08/04/in-response-to-rocket-fire-iaf-targets-two-terror-activity-sites-and-a-smuggling-tunnel-2-2/

Overnight, IAF aircraft targeted two terror activity sites in the northern Gaza Strip and a smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed. 

These sites were targeted in response to the rockets fired from Gaza at Israel’s southern communities over the past few days. Overnight, two Grad rockets hit Israeli territory, raising the amount of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza at the Israeli home front since the beginning of 2011 to over 340.

The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, and will respond with determination to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel. The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.

=========================================

New Road Protects Southern Residents from Missile Attacks
Posted on July 27, 2011

http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/07/27/new-road-to-protect-southern-residents-from-missile-attacks/

Today, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened access to a newly built road along the Israel-Gaza border. The three-kilometer road is intended to safeguard Israeli civilians in southern Israel from anti-tank missiles launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

In the past, Israeli drivers and passengers along the Israel-Gaza border were vulnerable to Hamas-fired missiles. In an effort to reduce the threat of missile attacks, the secure road was integrated into a fold of land outside the visual range of terrorists in the Gaza Strip
Last April, Hamas launched an antitank missile from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, striking a school bus, killing 16-year-old Daniel Viflic and wounding the bus driver.

===============================

So while we have "The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, and will respond with determination to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel", in practical terms we see a targeting of two terror activity sites and a smuggling tunnel in response to last nights rocket attacks. In response to the launching of antitank missiles at Israeli drivers and passengers, "the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened access to a newly built road." to safeguard Israeli civilians in southern Israel from anti-tank missiles launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

While not to belittle the efforts that have been made to protect and deter, taking a look at our adversary might more clearly emphasize the inadequacies of our response.

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, which aired on Dream 1 TV on July 21, 2011:

Elder - The politics of honor/shame: PalArabs unlikely to drop UN bid

Elder of Ziyon
04 August '11




From AFP:

THE PALESTINIANS are unlikely to agree to drop their UN membership bid in exchange for new peace talks based on the pre-1967 lines, Palestinian officials and analysts say.

On Tuesday, an Israeli official confirmed that Israel has been working with Washington to hammer out a framework for new peace talks that both countries hope could convince the Palestinians to drop their bid for United Nations membership.

But Palestinian officials and analysts said the Palestinian leadership had already invested heavily in the bid, and would face public disgrace if it agreed to drop the much-touted plan. They described the new framework for talks as little more than a public relations exercise for Israel, allowing it to show willingness to resume talks while attempting to torpedo the UN membership campaign.

This is only a minor example, but the shame culture dynamic among Arabs gives them an advantage in any negotiations with a "guilt culture" adversary.

They can always fall back on the importance of honor and fears of disgrace to avoid doing things that are necessary.

In this case, as is often the case, the threat is exaggerated. Yes, Abbas would lose face if he backs down, but it would not be fatal to his hold on power.

What people are not discussing is the downside of going through with the UN stunt. Already, the PLO is planning mass demonstrations on the eve of the vote (under the guise of being "popular demonstrations," of course:)

(Read full "The politics of honor/shame ...")

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Bayefsky - UN Backs Palestinian Statehood Move in Advance

Anne Bayefsky
info@eyeontheun.org
August 4, 2011

For Immediate Release:


Palestinian 'Head of State' at the U.N. -- Get Ready for the Statehood Steamroller

The United Nations showed its hand this week and sent out a provisional list of speakers for the opening session of the General Assembly in September listing the speaker from “Palestine” as “H.S.” or Head of State.

Everybody knows that U.N. goings-on concerning anything Israel-related are about as crooked as it gets. But the much talked-about Palestinian statehood bid threatened for September is being sold as a test of legitimacy. So much for that bill of goods.

In the past, the speaker from Palestine has been given the title in the speakers’ list “H.L.” or High Level – short for high level delegation – precisely because Palestine is not a state member of the United Nations. Though the Palestinians themselves have put a cover page on their speeches that labels Mahmoud Abbas “President of the State of Palestine,” the U.N. has, until now, resisted following suit.

Not this year, however. Negotiations are out. U.N.-imposed solutions on Israel are in.

The U.N. founding document – the U.N. Charter – promises the equality of states “large and small.” But in reality, Islamic states and their cronies form an automatic General Assembly majority. In 2010, for example, this meant 78% of all the Assembly resolutions condemning any of the 192 U.N. members for human rights violations were directed at Israel alone.

To date, the U.N. has pretended that the parties themselves must take responsibility for recognizing each other; dozens of U.N. resolutions and the U.N. Middle East Roadmap pay lip service to the necessity of negotiations. After all, negotiations require a willingness to live in peace and acceptance of the other party’s existential rights.

But that has never gone down very well in the Palestinian and larger Arab world and the U.N. has been their safety net for any and all excuses for a six decade rejection of a Jewish state.

Some Palestinians put it more clearly than others. As co-founder of Hamas and member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud al-Zahar, declared on July 29: “we are not going to accept Israel as the owner of one square centimeter because it is a fabricated state."

Hertz - Children Dying To Kill

Eli E. Hertz
mythsandfacts.org
03 August '11





Purposely Sacrificing Children

"... We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.... We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

Golda Meir, former Israeli Prime Minister, 1972

What kind of a society consciously and purposely sacrifices its own youth for political gain and tactical advantage? Suicide bombers are an escalation of a small-arms war introduced during the first Intifada (1987-1993 Palestinian’s uprising) and championed by Palestinian leaders, even prior to Arafat’s arrival from Tunis in July 1994. Today the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs nurture a blind hatred of Israel. They created a cultural milieu of vengeance, violence and death - preparing their children to be sacrifices in a death cult. Proud parents dress up their toddlers not in clown costumes, but with suicide belts,1 and countless others celebrate their children’s deaths with traditional sweet holiday cakes and candies.

Protecting our children is a universal trait that unites the Family of Man. But in Palestinian society, that standard has been turned on its head

Around the world, children are precious gifts to their parents and keys to the future. The loving care we invest in our own children is a human trait that unites different cultures: rich and poor, traditional and hi-tech. The toughest job parents have is to raise their children while making everyday sacrifices and decisions for them. We hug them, love them and watch them grow up, praying that they will come to no harm, and doing everything we can to ensure that.

From the poorest barrios in South America to the most wretched slums of Cairo, parents strive to make sure there is food for their children and money for their children’s education. Parents everywhere walk a fine line between the need for parental guidance and youthful independence, setting rules for what their children can and cannot do, trying to ensure that their children will not make mistakes that endanger them. Parents raise their children with the hope that they will grow into happy, responsible, caring, and contributing members of society. That is what unites the Family of Man from Caracas to the Caucuses, from Timbuktu to Katmandu.

It is clear that in Palestinian society something has gone dreadfully wrong. Children in Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza are turned into ‘self-destructing human bombs’ capable of carrying out casualty terrorist attacks in the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis - a phenomenon whose seeds can be traced to the first Intifada.

It happened because Arab communities within the civil jurisdiction of self-rule under the Palestinian Authority (which includes 97 percent of the Arab residents in the West Bank and 100 percent of those in Gaza) foster a culture that prepares children for armed conflict, consciously and purposely putting them in harm’s way for political gain and tactical advantage in their war against Israel. The PA buses children to violent flashpoints far from their neighborhoods and Arab snipers often hide among the young during battle, using children as human shields. Teenaged perpetrators of suicide attacks have become the norm.2

In the first Intifada, a similar pattern surfaced, in which women and children led riots while young men in their late teens and early 20s, armed with rocks, sling shots, Molotov cocktails and grenades operated from the rear.3

There were thousands of Molotov cocktail attacks, more than 100 hand grenade attacks and more than 500 attacks with guns or explosive devices over the course of the first Intifada. Children in elementary and junior high school were encouraged to stone Israelis using rocks and slingshots, knowing that Israeli soldiers could do little beyond taking the youngsters into custody and fining their parents in the hopes they would ground their children. Instead, Palestinian parents sent their children back onto the streets. Some were killed. Others were maimed.

Palestinian society praised the transformation of its children into combatants during the first Intifada, dubbing them fondly “the children of the rocks.” Mahmud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet laureate, wrote a poem after the outbreak of the first Intifada, which sanctioned and sanctified their deaths, and praised “Arab youth on the road to victory, each with a coffin on his shoulder.”4 The poem eventually was set to music, encouraging countless Palestinian children to endanger themselves as a form of socially-condoned conduct that would bring them fame and prestige should they be hurt. This nihilistic bent took an even more destructive path in the second Intifada, as the ‘weapons of choice’ moved from rocks to explosives and the role of the children moved from reckless life-threatening behavior to conscious premeditated suicidal acts.

Clearly horrified by the use of children in armed conflict, Israeli author and peace advocate Aharon Megged wrote during the first Intifada:

“Not since the Children's Crusade in 1212 … has there been a horror such as this – no people, no land where adults send children age 8-9 or 14-15 to the front, day-after-day, while they themselves hide in their houses or go out to work far-far away. They continue, and send them time-after-time, and don't stop them even when they know they are liable to be killed, maimed, beaten or arrested.”

But the use of children to fight grownup battles, which germinated in the first Intifada in 1987, has run the full course - not only teaching and training children to kill, a crime shared by those behind an estimated 300,000 child soldiers around the world, but indoctrinating their own offspring to take their own lives.5

(Read full "Children Dying to Kill")

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Parasczuk - US olim want ‘Israel’ on passport of their J'lem-born son

Joanna Parasczuk
JPost
04 August '11

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=232381

Despite law passed in 2002 allowing Jerusalem-born US citizens to list Israel as birthplace, policy hasn’t been implemented.

In an unprecedented lawsuit that could affect over 50,000 Jerusalem-born Americans, the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a Jerusalem-born American boy whose parents are demanding consular officials record Israel as his country of birth on official documents.

American olim and Jerusalem residents Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Naomi Siegman Zivotofsky have been fighting for their son Menachem Binyamin’s passport and other documents to show Israel as his birth country even since he was born in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital eight years ago.

Currently, in line with US policy, Menachem Binyamin’s passport and Consular Report of Birth Abroad (equivalent of a birth certificate) only show that the boy was born in Jerusalem – but omit the country, his parents say. As Menachem Binyamin’s parents are both Americans, he is automatically a US citizen and entitled to a US passport and other official documents.

US State Department policy is to record the city and country of birth on these documents for US citizens born overseas. However, this rule does not apply for American citizens born in Jerusalem, as the Zivotofskys discovered when they applied to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv for a passport and a Consular Report of Birth for their newborn son back in 2002.

Menachem Binyamin’s mother, Naomi, says she specifically requested that consular officials list her son’s place of birth as Israel. Consular officials refused this request, the Zivotofskys say. Instead, Menachem Binyamin’s passport shows only that he was born in Jerusalem.

“If a US citizen is born in Tel Aviv, his passport will designate his place of birth as Israel. But in the case of Jerusalem, the US Consular Department will not give the country of birth as Israel,” Menachem Binyamin’s father told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

The US State Department’s refusal to allow Jerusalem-born American citizens to list Israel as their country of birth on official documentation stems from the US’s official position of not recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“Even though our son was born in Shaare Zedek Hospital, which is in West Jerusalem, the US Consular Department does not recognize it as being Israel,” added Ari Zivotofsky. “And on his Consular Report of Birth, it’s even more blatant – the document is supposed to list both the city and the country of birth, and in Menachem Binyamin’s case, the country field has been left completely blank.”

PMW - Palestinian Authority distortion: Jerusalem, Hebron, Atarot, Shechem, Ashkelon and Tel Aviv originally had Arabic names

Itamar Marcus/Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch
02 August '11

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=5351


An important aspect of Palestinian Authority policy, documented by Palestinian Media Watch, is to claim that the Jewish nation has no history in the land of Israel and at the same time claim an ancient Palestinian-Arab history in the land.

As part of this rewriting of history, a regular columnist on religious affairs in the official PA daily recently made the false claim that the Jews changed the original Arabic names of places in Israel into Hebrew names. Is'haq Feleifel cited six cities that he said originally had Arabic names, when in fact all of those names appear in the Hebrew Bible long before Arabic names were given:

Jerusalem, capital of the nation of Israel/Judea (1000 BCE - 70 CE), mentioned 670 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Joshua 10:1;

Hebron, first capital of the tribe of Judah, mentioned 73 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Genesis 13:18;

Atarot, mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Numbers 32:3;

Shechem, capital of Israel after the nation divided [922 BCE], mentioned 64 times in the Hebrew Bible (including a small number of references to two people of that name). First reference: Genesis 33:18;

Ashkelon, a Philistine city, mentioned nine times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Judges 1:18

The sixth city he mentioned, Tel Aviv, is also mentioned in the Bible [Ezekiel 3:15] as a location in Babylon where Jews settled after being exiled from Judea in 586 BCE. That name is the source for today's Tel Aviv. All these Biblical names predate by many years the names the PA religion teacher claims are the original Arabic names.

The following is from the article by the official PA daily's columnist on religious affairs, Is'haq Feleifel:

"The great and exalted Allah commanded the angel Gabriel to place Muhammad upon the riding beast [named] Al-Buraq, which was a cross between horse and donkey. The night journey was both physical and spiritual... Once he [Muhammad] reached the Al-Aqsa Mosque, (PMW note: the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was not yet built in the time of Muhammad. The "night journey" mentioned in the Quran is dated to 621 CE. The mosque was built on the Temple Mount by the son of Ummayad Caliph Abd Al-Malik 84 years later in 705 CE.) the angel Gabriel removed Muhammad from upon Al-Buraq's back, and then he tied the beast to the Al-Buraq rock, which was called the 'Al-Buraq Wall'. The Jews changed its name to the 'Wailing Wall', because the Jews are always trying to change Arabic names into Hebrew names, especially when it comes to prayer sites or names of towns and villages. For example, they call Al-Quds 'Jerusalem'; Al-Khalil [they call] 'Hebron'; Atara - 'Atarot, Nablus - 'Shechem', Tel Al-Rabi'a - 'Tel Aviv'(PMW note: 'Rabi'a' is the Arabic translation of the Hebrew word 'aviv', meaning 'spring'); Askelan - Ashkelon. There is not enough room to list all the names which have been replaced with false names. Even the 'Torah' falsified, changed and forged; this is the way of the Jews - they always try to change the real names to other, false names, in order to erase the [historical] facts."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 1, 2011]

In a second article fabricating an ancient Palestinian history, PA columnist Feleifel claimed that Palestinian history in the land of Israel dates back to the Biblical period, which is historically incorrect. He also wrote that Allah predetermined "Arab and Muslim ownership of Palestine" - meaning Islamic ownership of Israel.

The following is from the second article by the official PA daily's columnist on religious affairs, Is'haq Feleifel:

"The book I wrote a year ago is entitled Palestine Belongs to the Arabs and Muslims, According to the Testimony of the Sovereign of the Universe. This is a Quranic study based on the 'Night Journey' chapter, in which I proved the Arab and Muslim ownership of Palestine and reviewed Palestinian history since the period of the Canaanites, via the Edomites, Emorites, Midianites, Amalekites, Ibrahim bin Azar [the biblical Abraham] and Al-Khader [a reference to the prophet Elijah] in the Islamic sources."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 8, 2011]

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Berkowitz - The Gaza Flotilla and International Law

Peter Berkowitz
Hoover Institution
policy review no. 168
01 August '11



Further politicization of the global legal system

On May 31, 2010, in defense of a naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, Israel seized control of the Mavi Marmara in international waters, detained the passengers, and towed the ship to the Israeli port city of Ashdod. During the previous three days and without incident, Israel had boarded, inspected, and brought to Ashdod the other five ships that had set sail from Turkey as part of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla.” But on the Mavi Marmara, passengers wielding pipes, knives, and axes attacked Israeli commandos as they rappelled from helicopters down to the ship’s deck. Nine passengers were killed in the operation and several dozen were injured. Seven commandos were injured as well.

The flotilla’s ostensible purpose was to bring humanitarian goods to the Palestinian population of Gaza. In fact, humanitarian goods had been arriving in Gaza over land through Israel, and Israel had repeatedly volunteered to deliver the flotilla’s humanitarian cargo through the established land crossings. The flotilla’s real and obvious goal was, as one of the organizers put it, “breaking Israel’s siege.”

The international outcry in response to Israel’s raid on the Mavi Marmara was immediate. Little attention was given to the Turkish flotilla’s deliberate provocation or to the possibility that Israel had acted ineptly or unwisely. The focus rather was on the accusation, often couched as a conclusion, that Israel had acted unlawfully.

Little attention was given to the Turkish flotilla’s deliberate provocation or to the possibility that Israel had acted ineptly or unwisely.

On May 31, almost as soon as the news broke, un Secretary General Ban Ki Moon insisted that it was incumbent upon Israel to explain its actions to the world: “I condemn this violence . . . it is vital that there is a full investigation to determine exactly how this bloodshed took place . . . I believe Israel must urgently provide a full explanation.”

Also on May 31, Richard Falk, un special rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, immediately pronounced Israel in egregious violation of international law: “Israel is guilty of shocking behavior by using deadly weapons against unarmed civilians on ships that were situated in the high seas where freedom of navigation exists, according to the law of the seas.” Falk called for an investigation on the grounds that “It is essential that those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behavior, including political leaders who issued the orders, be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts.” He characterized the Gaza blockade as “a massive form of collective punishment” constituting “a crime against humanity, as well as a gross violation of the prohibition on collective punishment in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He insisted that failure to punish Israel’s lawlessness would itself be criminal: “As special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, familiar with the suffering of the people of Gaza, I find this latest instance of Israeli military lawlessness to create a situation of regional and global emergency. Unless prompt and decisive action is taken to challenge the Israeli approach to Gaza all of us will be complicit in criminal policies that are challenging the survival of an entire beleaguered community.” Such was Israel’s “flagrant flouting of international law” that, to end its blockade of Gaza, Falk concluded, “the worldwide campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is now a moral and political imperative, and needs to be supported and strengthened everywhere.”

Many nations promptly condemned Israel and some presumed its guilt that day. According to the bbc, within hours of the boarding of the Mavi Marmara French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner announced he was “deeply shocked” by Israel’s action and called for an inquiry, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Israel of a “disproportionate use of force.” Sweden summoned the Israeli ambassador to discuss the “unacceptable action.” The Turkish foreign ministry issued a statement declaring the incident a “flagrant breach of international law” while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proclaimed Israel’s raid “totally contrary to the principles of international law” and an act of “inhumane state terrorism.” And the Arab League called for an emergency meeting the next day to discuss Israel’s “terrorist act.”1

On June 1, the un Security Council issued a presidential statement. By condemning Israel’s raid and by demanding a “prompt, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation conforming to international standards,” the Security Council indicated that there was sufficient evidence to be concerned that serious breaches of international law had occurred.

Not to be outdone, the notorious un Human Rights Council on June 2 issued resolution 14/1 on “The Grave Attacks by Israeli Forces against the Humanitarian Boat Convoy.”2 The hrc resolution “condemns in the strongest terms the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces against the humanitarian flotilla of ships which resulted in the killing and injuring of many innocent civilians from different countries.” And it authorized “an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance.”

The widespread accusations of unlawful conduct directed at Israel — coming, it should be said, not from some abstract international community, but from officers and official bodies of the un, European states, Turkey, and Arab states — were high on outrage and low on legal analysis. This is in keeping with the growing tendency in international affairs to transform hard political questions into conclusive legal judgments. The transformation increasingly yields gross abuses of law fraught with substantial political implications. The denunciations of Israel’s response to the Gaza Flotilla provide a case in point. To counteract the harm they can cause to a state’s interests when they gain international currency and exert worldwide influence, even far-fetched and perverse legal arguments must be addressed and refuted in legal terms.

In fact, the legality of Israel’s stopping and seizing of the Mavi Marmara and the other five ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla turned on the legality under international humanitarian law (a part of the international law of war governing the conduct of war, also known as ihl, the law of armed conflict, or the laws of war) of the naval blockade. If the blockade was legal, then Israel was perfectly within its rights to stop on international waters ships whose announced intention was to break it, and Israeli commandos were within their rights to defend themselves against the potentially lethal attacks to which they were subject as they boarded the Mavi Marmara. Israel’s blockade was legal given the state of armed conflict between Israel and Hamas, the de facto ruler of Gaza; the widely accepted use of naval blockades in war; and the conformity of Israel’s blockade to the requirements of maritime law — it was duly declared, effective, nondiscriminatory, and allowed the passage of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of Gaza.

(Read full "The Gaza Flotilla and International Law")

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Fuhrman - Overcoming Attempted Murder

Pia Levine

Rebecca Fuhrman
Israel Resource Review
01 August '11



http://israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=4472&q=1



[Rebecca's story represents countless forgotten stories in Israel. According to an on the record intelligence briefing which was held only two weeks before this attack, the IDF prevents anywhere from eleven to fifteen of these kind of attacks every day - preventing 98% of potential attacks - simply because our soldiers patrol in every nook and cranny of every Arab community west of the Jordan River. Imagine a situation of a PLO state where the IDF would not have that freedom of action.

On a more personal note, my wife Sara worked for seven years for the Koby Mandel Foundation, meeting the forgotten family members of those whose loved ones have been murdered by Israel's peace partners.- David Bedein]

Dear friends and facebook friends of friends!

I am asking you to take a moment - read my story - and consider sponsoring Pia Levine as she participates in the NY Triathlon to raise funds to the One Family Fund and their continued support for victims of terror and their families.

A little over four months ago I became a victim of terror.

There are many clubs in life - and until you are part of the club, there is really no way to fully understand how you would feel after an experience. When I was growing up I heard about terrorism, read about terrorism, felt sad when there was a terror attack in Israel - it was not until I survived a terror attack that I finally understood.

On March 23rd I left work half an hour late. Paused outside my building to stare at some people taking photographs. And missed my light and the 74 bus.

A minute later I hopped onto the 75 bus and sat in the back. At the next stop my student, Pia Levine (read her story: https://www.teamonefamily.org/pialevine ) got onto the bus with her friend Sara and sat in the row infront of me.

It was Pia's last week in Israel and the end of her Shana Bet (2nd) year in seminary. We chatted about what she should take in her carry-on luggage.

Across town, a terrorist placed a bomb in the crowded bus stop of Binyanei Hauma - the Jerusalem convention center and a major bus stop.

As we raced toward Binyanei Hauma - I debated about getting off the bus like I usually do, or walking back to school with Pia.

I was still debating as the bus rolled to a stop - BOOM - the bomb exploded.

There is a moment. Not even seconds. Its like someone moves the camera as they take a picture. The world is a blur in my memory.

THEN. I knew in my gut that there had been a pegua (terror attack). The window IMPLODED into the bus. Women were screaming. THE BUS WAS STILL MOVING. I turn. Pia and Sara are on the floor. I run to them. They are praying. I yell "YOU ARE OK". I yell to the bus driver "OPEN THE DOORS! OPEN THE DOORS!" I grab their hands and run through the bus.

We run. And run. We called our parents on the way to tell them we were ok. As we run ambulances drove towards the scene. We just kept running - our arms around each other until we got back home.

The bomb tore through the bus stop, through the front of the 74 bus and the back of the 75 bus. It killed one woman and injured 23 people.

Thankfully Pia and Sara were not physically injured in the pegua. I was in shock and did not know I was injured until the following morning.

The fact I was injured made it easier for friends and family to ask how I was. But, the physical injury barely registered - I am extremely lucky to have my vision, I got shrapnel in my eye and my cornea got infected - and still it was so low on my list of horrific outcomes of the day. In many ways the trauma was more traumatic than the pegua itself.

I did not sleep for a month and a half. I could not be alone for two weeks without crying. I still feel a huge amount of tension in my shoulders. And do not get me started on thunder, lightening, fireworks, a car door slamming, or any other unexpected (or expected) noises - it is a jolt to the system. Apparently this is all completely normal - and I've had a "textbook" response and recovery.

BUT TERRORISM DID NOT STOP MY LIFE. I was on a bus the next morning at 8:30am. I was at work the next morning by 9:00am. I walked through the bus-stop the next afternoon. I continued working, having fun with friends, and doing all the other important parts of my every day life. And I continue to make aliyah plans and will hopefully be landing in Israel at the end of the summer!!

Pia - Pia, continues to amaze me. She participated in the Jerusalem marathon that Friday and returned home as originally planned. Pia will be participating in the NY Triathlon on August 7th to raise money for the One Family Fund - an organization that provides ongoing support for victims of terror and their families.

I am asking you to take a moment. Look at https://www.teamonefamily.org/pialevine and sponsor her. And then, share our stories with your friends and family.

Thank you,

Rebecca


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Fresnozionism - Terrorism on the Temple Mount

Destroying Jewish history
with a backhoe (2007).

Fresnozionism.org
03 August '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/08/terrorism-on-the-temple-mount/

Jeffrey Goldberg writes about the three terrorist attacks he worries about the most, and one of them is an attack by Jews on the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount:

There are still Jewish extremists roaming the Old City of Jerusalem, and some West Bank Jewish settlements are still home to men who believe they could hasten the coming of the messiah by igniting a cataclysmic war with Islam. I’ve met these men — rabbis among them — and they believe that God would save Israel if the Muslim world rose up in anger at the destruction of what one rabbi called “the abomination.”

They are right about one thing: The Muslim world would ignite if the Dome were attacked.

Ironies abound. Can I be excused for saying that the Muslim world is remarkably inflammable? Even a cartoon or two can light it up. If the IDF were to disappear tomorrow, don’t you think Hamas and Hizballah would ‘spontaneously combust?’

Goldberg correctly notes that Israeli authorities take the threat of Jewish extremism very seriously. Would that the Lebanese, Palestinian or Egyptian ones took a similar attitude to Muslim extremism! Instead, the Palestinian Authority pays stipends to the families of ‘martyrs’ and convicted terrorists.

But there is even a greater irony, which is that the Muslim waqf to which Moshe Dayan foolishly ceded control of the Temple Mount in 1967, has been perpetrating a form of terrorism against the holiest place in Judaism for years. Here is a snippet from an article by former Mossad head Efraim Halevy, which fortuitously appeared today:

In the year 2000 I paid a clandestine visit to the Temple Mount, to what is called Solomon’s Stables, where I saw beautiful, 2,000-year-old columns. They do not exist anymore because they were destroyed by the Muslims, believing that if they destroyed the remnants of the Temple area, they would destroy Jewish rights there.

Herschel Shanks of the Biblical Archaeology Review has been writing about this for years:

Within the last few days [July 2007], a trench two-feet deep—starting from the northern end of the platform where Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock sits—has begun working its way toward the southern end of the Temple Mount. The work is being done without any regard for the archaeological information or treasures that may lie below. Destruction is particularly great in places where bedrock is no deeper than the trench. Some of the digging is being done with mechanical equipment, instead of by hand as a professional archaeological excavation would be conducted…

The Waqf is not acting illegally. According to one report, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has quietly granted permission for this destructive dig (otherwise the excavation would be a clear violation of Israeli law). The Israel Antiquities Authority, when queried about the matter, replied: “No comment.” So the dig is proceeding without interference from Israeli authorities. Perhaps their attitude is a product of fear; otherwise, it is inexplicable. Significant remains—pottery, tesserae from ancient mosaics, tiles and even architectural fragments—have already been observed in the soil from the excavated part of the trench.

As they have in the past, Palestinian leaders claim that neither Solomon’s Temple nor Herod’s Temple ever existed on the site. In a recent interview, Palestinian Justice Minister Taysir Tamimi stated: “About these so-called two temples, they never existed, certainly not on the Haram al-Sharif.”

The Waqf has a long history of ignoring Israel’s antiquities laws, and Israel has a long history of ignoring these violations. As early as 1970, the Waqf excavated a pit without supervision that exposed a 16-foot-long, six-foot-thick wall that scholars believe may well be the eastern wall of the Herodian Temple complex. An inspector from the antiquities department saw it and composed a handwritten report (still unpublished) before the wall was dismantled, destroyed and covered up…

In 1999, to accommodate a major expansion of an underground mosque into what is known popularly as Solomon’s Stables in the southeastern part of the Temple Mount, the Waqf dug an enormous stairway down to the mosque. Hundreds of truckloads of archaeologically rich dirt were dug with mechanical equipment and then dumped into the adjacent Kidron Valley. When archaeology student Zachi Zweig began to explore the mounds of dirt for antiquities, he was arrested at the behest of the Israel Antiquities Authority—for excavating without a permit.

For over two years Prof. Gabriel Barkay of Bar Ilan University (together with Mr. Zweig) has been engaged in a major sifting operation of this dirt, after he obtained a permit from the Antiquities Authority. Finds have included thousands of artifacts from all periods going back more than 3,000 years. They include a seal impression of a probable brother of someone mentioned in the Bible, Babylonian arrowheads dating to the destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C. (as well as other arrowheads from battles on the Temple Mount), thousands of coins (many dating to the Great Revolt against Rome), beautiful jewelry and even an ancient Egyptian scarab.

Infuriating.

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CAMERA "Peace Partners" in Their Own Words

JP
CAMERA/Snapshots
03 August '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/08/peace_partners_in_their_own_wo_1.html

In Ha'aretz, July 29, 2011, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a prominent member of Hamas, a terrorist organization which has the stated goal of destroying the Jewish state, is quoted as calling President Mahmoud Abbas's UN bid for statehood within Israel's borders a "political scam." The Ha'aretz article states,

He (Mahmoud al-Zahar) is equally unequivocal on the so-called two-state solution, which aims at an Israeli state and a Palestinian state existing side by side. 'We are not going to recognize Israel. That is very simple. And we are not going to accept Israel as the owner of one square centimeter...'

How does Fatah, which formed a unity government with Hamas this past spring, and is often held up as a "partner for peace" with Israel, weigh in on this "two-state solution?" Nabil Shaath, Head of Foreign Relations in Fatah declared in a July 13, 2011, broadcast, "We will never accept the 'Two States for Two Peoples' solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Fatah is regularly cited as the "moderate" group.

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Halevy - A Strategy for Israel in the Changed Middle East

Efraim Halevy
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Vol. 11, No. 11
2 August 2011

Click here for original link.

(While I found this to be an extremely informative as well as interesting piece, it is my hope that it will be both read and questioned, on a point by point basis. Given his former position as head of Mossad, he is a voice that is listened to, but not uncritically, as he also does not hold a monopoly on understanding past events, including those that occurred on his watch. Yosef)

The options for Israel and the Palestinians basically can be boiled down to these: a permanent agreement, an interim agreement, a de facto interim agreement, and a situation of no agreement. The best possible option - a permanent agreement - is not operable at this time and is the least probable.

Since the leaderships of Israel and the Palestinians are faced with the reality of a no-solution situation, one in which a permanent solution is not workable, both sides will have to do what people often do in life - they settle for less, settle for something which is less permanent, less perfect. There will have to be an interim solution.

In the year 2000 I paid a clandestine visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to what is called Solomon's Stables, where I saw beautiful, 2,000-year-old columns. They do not exist anymore because they were destroyed by the Muslims, believing that if they destroyed the remnants of the Temple area, they would destroy Jewish rights there.

There can only be an ultimate reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians if there is a mutual acceptance of rights. I believe we have a right to Jericho, and they believe they have a right to Jaffa. I would say that if they recognize my right, I will recognize their right, and now let's see how we can live together.

It is a mistake on our part to cringe every time the Palestinians say they are going to do something unilaterally. The end of all this might be a de facto dual unilateral process. After the UN vote in September, the PA will say that Israel is now an army of occupation in a sovereign state. Let them go to the International Court of Justice and, in the meantime, Israel will not cooperate. Israel needs a bit of stamina, strong nerves, and not to take them all that seriously. We should exercise more self-respect.

Identity in the Middle East


Many of the borders in the Middle East are straight lines, the result of negotiations between the colonial powers after World War I. Even to this day, the problem of whether or not there is a border between Lebanon and Syria is an open question.

In addition to states, there are non-state actors that are becoming important in the region like Hamas, which controls an area and a population in the southwestern part of what was formerly Mandatory Palestine, and Hizbullah, which controls an area in southern Lebanon and is also part of the Lebanese government. There is also the Kurdish province in the north of Iraq, where the Kurds enjoy a large measure of independence.

There are also tribal presences in countries which are key players in the Middle East. In the Arabian Peninsula, if you ask someone where they are from, they will first answer with the name of their city, then their tribe, then their religious stream - Sunni or Shiite - and finally their nationality. Identity in the Middle East does not begin with nationality, and this has far-reaching consequences. For instance, whether or not Libya remains a unified state will be decided by the tribes. One of the problems in the fighting there is that it has evolved into a tribal conflict, and it is very difficult to assess the power or the capabilities of a tribe. That is why so many countries appear to be slow in their response because they are not sure and do not want to end up on the losing side.

What is most important is not ideology but capability. In intelligence we have to deal with intentions and capabilities. What is going to count in the end is our capability, the Palestinians' capability, the limits of their capability, the limits of our capability, and the limits of international capabilities.


There Is No Solution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict that Can Be Implemented


There is a new initiative being launched by a group of eminent Israelis that offers a blueprint not only for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but for the entire Middle East. But it is a solution which cannot be implemented by all the parties, regardless of their wishes. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, both parties are constrained by their capabilities. The problem is not simply what Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Abbas want to do, but what they can do. I do not believe it is in the realm of capability of either the prime minister of Israel or the president of the Palestinian Authority to implement a permanent solution to the conflict.