Victims of Dictatorship Unite: Why Central Europeans, Jews and Israelis Should Cooperate, Not Compete

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
30 December 09

Note: This article is a response to an op-ed by Ephraim Zuroff in the Jerusalem Post. To show my respect for Mr. Zuroff, I gave a blurb which is on the back cover of his latest book. But it is necessary to rethink the relationship between Jews and the peoples of Central Europe—including Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and other countries—regarding the events of the World War Two era. Rather than compete over our sufferings in that period, we should join forces in exploring and exposing the traumas of that period.

Central to Mr. Zuroff’s argument is the claim that any emphasis by Central European countries regarding their own sufferings during World War Two—especially if it focuses on the oppression of the Stalinist USSR—is somehow a challenge to the uniqueness and importance of the mass murder of Jews in those countries. Indeed, it is implied that this effort borders on or even exemplifies antisemitism.

I think this argument is fallacious and a strategic mistake. It is never a good idea to concea history. Due to the existence of the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc until 1991, the truth about the terrible oppression of Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, Ukrainians, and others was hidden away from the world until recently. As part of their national reassertion, these peoples want to highlight what happened to them and the full horror of their sufferings.

They have every right to do so. And why should we oppose this as long as it does not come with the ignoring or justification of the Shoah? Is our highest priority to set up a competition of suffering , in which we define these oppressions as conflicting rather than mutually reinforcing? Instead, we should fully participate, as Jews and Israelis, in this process for several good reasons.

One factor is that many Jews were among the victims of Soviet repression. In the Lithuanian museum in Vilnius housed in the former KGB headquarters, it is pointed out that about ten percent of those deported by the Soviets in 1940-1941 were Jews. One of them was Menahem Begin. Although being sent to Siberia saved those who survived those camps, this was not the intention. Almost 1,000 Jews were massacred by the KGB in the Katyn forest along with thousands of Poles. Is the blood of these Jews and the tens of thousands who perished in the Soviet Gulag of lesser value than those murdered by the Germans?

(Read full article)
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Israel's Right to the 'Disputed' Territories

Danny Ayalon
Wall Street Journal
30 December 09

The recent statements by the European Union's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel's rights to what are generally called the "occupied territories" but what really are "disputed territories."

That's because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered "occupied" in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel's conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years.

The name "West Bank" was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan. The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan's insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations." (Italics added.) This boundary became the famous "Green Line," so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map.

(Read full article)

Mr. Ayalon is the deputy foreign minister of Israel
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Iran in 2010

The world watches as the Iranians battle against the illegitimate Ahmadinejad regime that stole the last election and set up show trials of the opposition. The Iranians are fighting the nasty regime that tortured, raped, and murdered demonstrators and dissenters.
Interesting to note that, as Ahmadinejad threatens the world, he himself is threatened by "the will of the people".
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Israel’s nuclear traitor

Nuclear traitor Mordechai Vanunu

FresnoZionism
29 December 09

‘Any other country in the world would…’ department:

In 1985, Mordechai Vanunu, left his job as a technician at Israel’s nuclear installation in Dimona. Before leaving he took several rolls of film and in 1986 helped the UK Sunday Times write a bombshell story (so to speak) exposing the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Vanunu revealed that Israel had ten times the number of bombs heretofore thought, and that it was developing hydrogen and neutron weapons.

Vanunu was lured into a trap in Italy by a female Mossad agent; he was brought back to Israel and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for “transmission of secret information with the intent to harm state security, collecting secret information with the intent to harm state security and of aiding the enemy during a state of war”. When he was released in 2004, he was forbidden from leaving the country, meeting foreigners or even having a cell phone. I presume he is carefully watched day and night.

Born a Jew in Morocco in 1954 (but not, as Wikipedia says, the son of a rabbi), Vanunu converted to Christianity and now lives in an Anglican monastery in Jerusalem. He insists that he was incarcerated as punishment for his conversion. Right.

(Read full article)
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The question that the White House should answer

Elder of Ziyon
29 December 09

The White House announced:

The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved by the parties through negotiations and supported by the international community. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations.

Earlier today:

Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias said Monday that 500 housing units have recently been authorized in Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood. According to Atias, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat gave the go ahead for the building in order to address the lack of housing in the city, for Jews and Arabs alike.

Atias made these statements on the heels of Palestinian accusations that Israel is not allowing Arabs to build in the city outside of some isolated cases.

According to details gathered so far, out of the 500 housing units authorized in Silwan, only two of them are for Jewish residents living in the neighborhood. Minister Atias presented this figure in response to allegations that Israel is only allowing construction for Jewish housing after 692 housing units were authorized in Jerusalem outskirt neighborhoods Neve Yaakov, Har Homa, and Pisgat Ze'ev.

(Read full post)
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Jimmy Carter and the Politics of Apology

Jacob Laskin
FrontPageMag.com
29 December 09

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jimmy Carter is no stranger to apologies. The former president has spent years making excuses for Hamas, championing the Palestinian jihadists as the embattled victims of Israeli aggression – the group’s exterminationist founding charter and record of terrorism notwithstanding. Now it’s Israel’s turn to profit from Carter’s dubious public relations tactics.

After years of demonizing the Jewish state on the world stage, Carter at last has seen the error of his ways. Or so he says: Last week, Carter issued a statement to the Jewish community in which he apologized for his role in tarnishing Israel’s image and, invoking a traditional Jewish prayer, asked for forgiveness.

“I never intended or wanted to stigmatize the nation of Israel, even though I have disagreed with the settlement policy all the way back to the White House,” Carter reportedly said. He also urged that “[w]e must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances,” and that “we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel.”

(Read full article)
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Abbas turns 3 latest terrorists into Palestinian heroes

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
29 December 09

Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai -- a 45-year old Israeli and father of seven children - was killed in a drive-by shooting last Thursday. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, part of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, took responsibility for the killing. On Friday night, Israeli forces located and killed three of the terrorists involved in the attack. The fourth surrendered to the PA police.

The response of the PA has been unequivocal support and backing for the terrorists. Since Friday, the leadership of the PA, the heads of Fatah, the heads of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the PA-controlled media have continuously portrayed the killers as Palestinian heroes and Shahids -- holy Martyrs -- while describing Israel's killing of the three terrorists as "murder in cold blood" and "assassination."

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared the killers "Shahids" (holy Martyrs) and sent his personal emissary to visit the families:
"Secretary General of the Presidents Bureau, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, conveyed condolences on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas to the residents of Nablus and to the families of the three Shahids [Martyrs] for the Martyrdom of their sons, who were assassinated by Israeli occupation forces yesterday morning. He conveyed to the fighting families letters of condolences from the President [Abbas] and updated them as to [Abbas's] decision to declare them as Shahids [Martyrs] of the Palestinian revolution..."
Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim: "Without doubt, what the [Israeli] occupation authorities have carried out is a wild and barbaric act and a deliberate, malicious assassination in cold blood."
[PA TV (Fatah) News, Dec. 27, 2009]

(Read full article)
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Blindness in Cairo

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
29 December 09

The story of the 1,300 demonstrators stuck in Cairo continues not to attract much attention. The Guardian, generally exuberant in seeking vehicles to cast mud at Israel, doesn't seem to be noticing: I think this is because they're embarrassed. Even the editors of the Guardian don't see how the tale can be told without somehow attracting attention that it's the Egyptians, not the Israelis, who are doing the blockading. The BBC visited the story yesterday, but seems not to have returned today. Been there, done that.

The Mondoweis universe is, of course, bursting: Electronic Intifada, Antony Loewnstein, those folks (but not Richard Silverstein, for whatever reason). I continue to be fascinated by Mondoweiss itself. Yesterday they offered us the reflections of Emily Ratner:

We remember the more than 1,400 that were murdered. We remember the hundreds more who have died as a result of this horrific siege. We remember the tens of thousands who are still homeless, one full year later. And we remember our sisters and brothers on the other side of the Rafah border who have breathed life into this historic march every day for months, who have guided our feet to Cairo, and who light the shadowy path to Gaza. Most of all we remember that they will still be caged in Israel’s massive open-air prison long after we’ve safely returned home.

She sees the Egyptians blocking her, but her hatred of the Israeli prison is unaffected. She's in Cairo, for crying out loud, a city where millions live in squalid cinder-block structures under an undemocratic regime, and in the dimmest way she even knows this, but what comes out is a mishmash of romantic verbiage:

(Read full post)

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White House Priorities

Michael Goldfarb
The Weekly Standard
28 December 09

After three days of radio silence from our Nobel laureate president on al Qaeda's attempted Christmas Day Massacre, President Obama finally felt compelled to get off the beach and make a statement. Nearly two hours before that, the White House issued a statement responding to an hours old news report that the Israeli government had authorized the construction of 700 new apartments in East Jerusalem. So now we know what the administration's priorities are.

The statement from the White House on Jerusalem construction explained flatly that this United States government "opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem." Candidate Obama once memorably declared that "Jerusalem must remain undivided," now his administration opposes the construction of even a single Jewish apartment anywhere in the eastern half of that city (which American law recognizes as the capital of Israel).

It's an odd statement -- and given the track record of loosely worded and later corrected statements on this issue, it's hard to know what to make of it. Last month the White House expressed "dismay" at Israeli "settlement" construction in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, only to correct that statement hours laterand remove the word "settlement" in recognition of the fact that no previous administration had ever described Gilo as any such thing. Maybe they've again made the mistake of using sloppy, hastily prepared language on a sensitive issue -- a problem that has plagued this administration's approach to the Middle East in general.

But at least Obama once again took his time before weighing in on the protests in Iran, and then showed that regime the appropriate level of deference and "mutual respect" in addressing it by its official (and self-aggrandizing) title, the Islamic Republic.

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Comic Book Hate: a New Chapter in Anti-Israel Bias at the New York Times

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
29 December 09

The debate about the extent of the New York Times’ anti-Israel bias was revived this past weekend in the book-review treatment of Joe Sacco’s Footnotes From Gaza, a volume that purports to tell the story of massacres of innocent Palestinian Arabs in Gaza by evil Israelis in 1956 during the Sinai Campaign.

The review is notable for two reasons.

First is the fact that the review is a rave for what can only be described as a 418-page piece of anti-Israel propaganda. Masquerading as history, this graphic novel is a detailed compendium of slanders against Israeli forces engaged in a counteroffensive against Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, an area used as a base for murderous terror raids into Israel since the 1949 armistice. But that fact is ignored by the reviewer, who accepts the author’s single-minded obsession with placing all of the blame on the Jews for the fighting in Gaza at that time and for the entire duration of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The piece claims that it is a “bias against history” that has prevented the publication of more such accounts of Israeli brutality. Yet this book has nothing to do with a genuine search for historical truth and everything to do with anti-Israel bias. Indeed, the core accusation of Sacco’s book—that these incidents in 1956 “planted hatred” in Palestinian hearts against Israelis—is absurd.

The fighting in that year had been precipitated by Arab cross-border murder raids, whose brutality was rooted in anti-Jewish hatred and intolerance for the Jewish presence in the land, which long predated the events this cartoon purports to explain. The point of Sacco’s cartoons is not very different from more recent attempts to portray last year’s invasion of Gaza as aggression when, in fact, it was merely a response to missile attacks on Israel. But as with other such examples of “journalism” aimed at vilifying the Israelis, Sacco’s only goal is to paint Israeli self-defense as illegitimate and to portray the Palestinians as innocent victims whose agenda to destroy the Jewish state cannot be mentioned.

(Read full article)

Related: Footnotes in historical fiction
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Hannah Rosenthal's new problem

Shmuel Rosner
Rosner's Domain
29 December 09

Hannah Rosenthal ("officially a burden") tells Tablet that A. she's still going to Washington, B. that the headline "exaggerated what she actually said" and C. that “I don’t think a reporter asking me about J Street is out of bounds, and I don’t think my answer was out of bounds.”

A isn't at all surprising. With B I tend to agree (Kampeas explains why the Haaretz piece was somewhat problematic). But C is a downer. Rosenthal either denies what she knows to be the obvious truth: she was out of bounds. Or - even more problematic - she doesn't get it. Maybe reading Jeffry Goldberg's recent post can assist:

I asked three people who currently work in the State Department if they could recall an instance in which an official of their department ever criticized a foreign ambassador for such a thing -- or for anything -- and they said no. In fact, the State Department is fairly upset at Rosenthal for speaking at all about the alleged political proclivities of a foreign ambassador, not about her specific criticism. It is this behavior that has put her beyond the pale...

(Read full post)

Why Abbas Does Not Want To Resume Peace Talks

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
29 December 09

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority have reached the conclusion that, under the current circumstances, it would be a waste of time to return to the negotiating table with Israel. They are convinced that the only way to get anything is by rallying pressure from the international community against Israel.

It is for this reason that representatives of the Palestinians have been negotiating with the Europeans and Americans about the peace process -- not with Israel.

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is negotiating about the peace process, but with the foreign ministers of France, Sweden, Norway, Germany and the UK and not with Israel. Almost every step this leadership takes is fully coordinated in advance with Western diplomats and their governments.

They believe that at present Israel is more isolated than ever in the international arena, particularly in light of the UN’s Gaza War report, the “Goldstone Report.”

The Palestinian leadership has chosen to confront Israel in the international arena, and not at the negotiating table. Abbas’s strategy is to further isolate Israel in the world through boycotts and anti-Israel resolutions at the UN and other international forums.

(Read full article)
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High Court rules: Palestinian use of Highway 443 more important than Israeli lives

"Following explosions heard on road 443 on 17.12.09, IDF and border patrol forces searched the area of the village Bir Neballah, south of Ramallah. During the searches, the forces uncovered a roadside bomb, attached to the bomb was a note with instructions on how to use the device in order to cause maximum damage and a message attributing it to a Palestinian terrorist unit. Upon discovery, the device was detonated in a controlled manner by the bomb squad." IDF Spox.

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
29 December 09

There isn't another way to put it: The High Court of Justice of Israel ruled that the restoration of access for Palestinians to Highway 443 was more important than the lives of Israeli driving on that road - as well as the lives of the millions of Israelis that terrorists driving on Highway 443 can reach within minutes.

The court argued that the Palestinians should have access since otherwise it would not be proper for Palestinian land to be confiscated for the construction of the road. The court ignore that the road indeed was originally opened for Palestinian use and the restriction was only imposed as a result of Palestinian violence. This is not a matter of "collective punishment" but instead a decision based on practical security considerations.

The judges can hide behind instructions that measures be taken to insure that security is not impacted by their decision, but they know damn well that there are serious limits to the ability to stop terror activity.
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Construction in Jerusalem

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
29 December 09

The White House is peeved at Israeli plans to build 700 apartments in East Jerusalem (well, north and south-east Jerusalem). So are the Swedes, if you care, and more significantly, so are the moderate Palestinians who are Israel's putative negotiating partners.

The Mondoweiss universe is derisive, but the sun also rises in the east, so that's OK.

Jeffrey Goldberg gives some context, but still regrets the decision.

I understand the impulse behind the building of these housing units. They are going up in areas that no one -- Israeli, Palestinian, or American -- believes will become part of the Palestinian state. They are being built on land that will be swapped for territory now under Israeli sovereignty. The Netanyahu government, under pressure from the Obama Administration, is trying to solidify even further -- these neighborhoods are already thickly-built -- Israel's claim to these places. So the impulse is understandable, but Netanyahu shouldn't give in to this impulse, for two reasons. One, he will never please the settlers and their partisans in the cabinet. They will always demand more. Two, building like this, and right now, undermines Israel's relationship with the United States, at a crucial moment. Next year may be the year of decision on the Iranian nuclear program, which Netanyahu calls an existential threat to his country. You would think that he would want the strongest possible bond just now with the American president. But this new building binge only serves to alienate the President, and for what? Does Israel's existence depend on these 700 apartments?

I like Jeffrey, and once told him I agree with him 88% of the time. In this case I fully understand his position, which unlike the Swedish one is well-informed, but beg to disagree.

(Read full post)

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'Palestinians drove Iraqi Jews to Israel' - author

Bataween
Point of No Return
29 December 09

At last, an Iraqi tells it like it was: the Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who incited the 1941 Farhoud attacks, was guilty of the political stupidity of driving the Jews of Iraq into Israel. The following are excerpts from an interview with Iraqi author Dr. Rashid Al-Khayoun, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on December 4, 2009. (With thanks: Sacha, Lily)

Here is the MEMRI clip.

Dr. Rashid Al-Khayoun: When you meet an Iraqi Jew today on the streets of Europe or elsewhere, he remembers his co-existence with his Muslim or Christian neighbor.

Interviewer: When did the Iraqi Jews begin to lose that sense of security and tolerance?

Dr. Rashid Al-Khayoun: When pan-Arab nationalism grew stronger in Iraq, from the late 1940's to the early 1950's. The Jew began to be the target of deliberate affronts. Iraqi Jews are known for their patriotism. They have nothing to do with Israel. The issue of Israel and Zionism...

Interviewer: But many of the Jews moved to Israel.

Dr. Rashid Al-Khayoun: They were coerced to move.

Interviewer: Who forced them?

Dr. Rashid Al-Khayoun: The wave of pan-Arab nationalism within Iraq.

Interviewer: So they thought that Israel would be better for them than Iraq?

(Read full interview)

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Israelis "Playing Mini-Mengele"

Honest Reporting
Media Critique
29 December 09

British MP George Galloway recycles the Swedish blood libel to employ Holocaust analogy.

British MP, Iranian Press TV presenter and media personality George Galloway, currently leading a "humanitarian convoy" to Gaza, has a history of anti-Israel activity. But even his latest diatribe in a column for Scotland's Daily Record plumbs new depths.

Galloway refers to the unique barbarity of the Holocaust and how Jewish victims of the Nazis had their organs harvested and were subjected to medical experimentation. He then says:

But the revelation in the Israeli parliament in recent days that the body parts of Palestinian prisoners were systematically harvested without the knowledge or consent of their families has had an impact in these parts which it is difficult to overstate.

When the story first broke, on Swedish TV, I frankly did not believe it. Implacable critic of Israel as I am, it was beyond belief that a country calling itself the "Jewish State" could ever do such a thing.

I met the correspondent responsible for the story months ago and rigorously questioned him about it. I was not satisfied, and didn't use the information. The man was offended and I owe him an apology.

Israel has admitted this evil, wicked crime and declared it no longer practises it.

While it is to their credit that they have stopped it and even more creditable that at least within their own people robust freedom of the press and parliament has allowed the truth to come out, there is little evidence of national soul searching of how such a thing could happen.

Still less of anyone being held accountable for playing mini-Mengele on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Galloway has deliberately distorted two separate stories in order to slur Israel. Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom's blood libel has already been thoroughly debunked and deconstructed. However, the dangers posed by such a libel have already been proven.

(Read full report)

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NGOs Claimed Hamas Police Were “Human Rights” Trainees

NGO Monitor

27 December 09

On December 27, 2008, the IDF attacked the Gaza City police headquarters and five police stations. Prior to the war, it had been documented that “members of the police force and the other security services were supposed to be widely integrated into Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades forces at the expense of their internal security tasks,” and Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan admitted that “police forces had been clearly instructed by the leadership to fight against IDF forces.”

Several studies compiled after the war confirmed that more than 75% of those killed in these strikes were indeed active fighters in Hamas’ al-Qassam brigades, making them combatants and legal targets under the laws of war.

Nevertheless, several NGOs, including B’Tselem, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and others issued numerous condemnations of this legal strike. Based on no evidence, they accused Israel of directly targeting civilians and committing “war crimes.” Although many NGOs backtracked after examining the facts, the damage of their reckless accusations of war crimes had already been done.

(Read full post)

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After One Year, Gazans Would Rather Forget Hamas Than Remember The War

Daled Amos
28 December 09

At a time that around the world blogs are commemorating the anniversary of the Gaza War with support for Hamas, Gazans just want to get on with their lives.

Hamas marks 1 year after war, but many stay home

Hamas loyalists marked the one-year anniversary of Israel’s devastating war against Gaza’s Islamic militant rulers with defiant protests and a moment of silence on Sunday — even as most of the territory’s residents ignored commemoration events and some even criticized the militant group for not attending to their needs.

The sparse turnout appeared to be an informal vote of discontent by Gaza residents over Hamas’ attempt to turn the day into a victory march for the militant group.

Around 3,000 Hamas supporters milled around a square in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, waving their group’s green flags and holding up pictures of family members slain in the Israeli offensive that began on Dec. 27, 2008. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed [this claim debunked here], including hundreds of civilians, along with 13 Israelis.

"We are the victors! We are the fighters! We are the steadfast!" thundered senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya.

(Read full post)
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Virtual Reality Games (1994)

Today's Golden Oldie is a Dry Bones cartoon done 15 years ago in 1994.
It's another one of those cartoons that I could do today without having to change a single line.
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Poison: The use of the blood libel in the war against Israel

Raphael Israeli
JCPA
3 Iyar 5762
15 April 02

(While this was first written more than 7 years ago, the modus operandi remains the same)

An Epidemic on the West Bank

On the morning of March 21, 1983, one week before Pesach, in a high school in the town of Arrabeh in the Jenin area of the West Bank, Palestinian girls (between the ages of 15 and 17) were sitting in several classrooms when they suddenly began to faint, one after the other. They were taken to hospital and checked, but no medical reason was found for their fainting. Yet they had fainted, so a search began in order to find the reason.

Then other girls of the same age began fainting in other villages on the West Bank, in Bethlehem, and afterwards in Hebron and Halhul, Tulkarem and Nablus. Over a period of a few days approximately 1,000 girls ended up in hospital at the same time, seemingly victims of an epidemic.

Since all this occurred just before Pesach, the motif of blood libel and mass poisoning was raised. The rumors began that it was the Israelis who had poisoned the girls.


The Arab Tradition of Miracle Literature

The famous Japanese director Akira Kurasawa made a classic film in 1950, "Rashomon," based on a Japanese folk tale from the twelfth century. It told the story of the family of a Samurai who were attacked by thieves. Afterward, there are four different stories of the incident. The dead Samurai's spirit tells what happened from his point of view. There are also the stories of his wife, one of the servants, and a woodcutter who happened to witness the attack. The film is a fascinating depiction of four different points of view of the same event, and Kurasawa's message is that there is no objective truth. The truth can be given different interpretations, and everyone can see the truth from a different angle.

In the Middle Ages there was a genre in Arabic literature known as miracle literature. The author would describe his adventures on the way to China or India. He would tell fantastic stories about places with all kinds of amazing things, about diamonds, silver, and gold, about eagles that would fly with him, and afterwards it came together in the wonderful stories we know in the collection of A Thousand and One Nights.

The Palestinian-Arab-Muslim stories about what happens here simply remind one of the miracle literature. Stories come out of the imagination and are strengthened by new inventions. This is what interests the people, and whether it happened or not is not that important. In the political reality, the invented story is believed in the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim consciousness as the truth.


Accusing the Israelis

After the mass fainting epidemic in 1983, the girls claimed that they had been poisoned, although the doctors who checked them found no evidence of this. Then the Arabs began to make charges that maybe, and then certainly, it was Israelis who had poisoned the girls. They also presented the reason -- the fantastic story that the Jews have an interest in countering the high Palestinian birthrate so they specifically targeted young girls approaching the age of marriage. The poisoning was done to harm this most fertile age group in order to limit Arab demographic growth. They even said they had found medical proof, claiming that urine tests showed a high protein level, which means that something is abnormal in the fertility system.

They began to build all kinds of theories and enlisted statements from Arab doctors. Then, amazingly, the Israeli newspapers began asking why the Jews, who were killed in the gas chambers, would do something like this, and there were calls for an investigation of the actions of the then-Likud government of Menachem Begin. The Arabs saw the Israelis themselves accusing their own government and raised the tone of their accusations even higher.

(Read full article)
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