MIDDLE EAST - ISRAEL

This page has news excerpts and comments on a variety of topics, mostly pertaining to the Middle East and Israel. You are welcome to e-mail your thoughts; those deemed of interest to our visitors will be included here.
Click here to send E-mail now Please include software or other words in the subject of the e-mail to clearly show it is not spam. Thanks.

You can search this individual page by using the FIND function. Enter "Control - F" (FIND), or click on Edit (Ctrl-E), then click on Find (Alt-F). Enter the keyword for the search. Then, click on Find Next (Alt-F or hit enter) to locate the word or name you seek.
Or, you can: SEARCH ENTIRE WINSPORTS SOFTWARE WEB SITE

TOPICS

Israel creation and history

The Arabs had what they are demanding now, but still were not satisfied. Almost immediately after Israel was created, armies from five Arab countries (with 80 million Arabs) invaded Israel, determined to drive the Israelis into the sea. About 1/2 million Israelis, with very limited arms, battled for 15 months, lost more than 1% of its people (6000), and finally forced a truce in 1949. The Arabs had full control of Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. The Arabs refused to allow Jews access to their holiest site (Western Wall), when the Arabs controlled it. ( Israel always has allowed all religions access to their holy sites.) Israel was about 4 miles wide near Tel Aviv. Arab tanks could have cut Israel in half in about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the Arabs would not allow the Israelis to live in peace. The Arabs repeatedly broke the truce, determined to destroy Israel. Israel was able to defend itself and improve its defensible borders. Whatever problems the Arabs now have, they themselves are responsible. Perhaps Turkey's partitioning of Cypress is an example of the only possible immediate solution for Israel. Maybe, after several generations without hate being taught in the schools, the walls can come down and both peoples can live in peace. (factsandlogic.org, more info) Very complete web sites with many links: www.geocities.com/truthmustbesaid/Middle-East http://www.mideasttruth.com/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/compassionplease/SyriaTheMonster

Egypt (with additional troops from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Algeria), Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon attacked Israel in 1967. Syria said it will drench the land with Israeli blood and throw them into the sea. Against all odds, Israel won the war and took land needed as a buffer zone against further attacks. (OCR, 9/30/01, Commentary 3 letter) [Arabs now want pre-1967 borders, to regain land they lost after attacking and trying to destroy Israel.] ..... The middle east Arab cartel produce oil for $2 a barrel, and sell it for $30 a barrel. (OCR, 9/9/03, Local 9) ..... Oppression of Christians in Muslim countries: "In its October 18 [2003] edition, “La Civiltà Cattolica” published a strikingly severe article on the condition of Christians in Muslim countries. The central thesis of the article is that “in all of its history, Islam has shown a warlike and conquering face”; that “for almost a thousand years, Europe lived under its constant threat”; and that what remains of the Christian population in Islamic countries is still subjected to “perpetual discrimination,” with episodes of bloody persecution." http://213.92.16.98/ESW_articolo/0,2393,41931,00.html ..... Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said, "resistance will continue until the Islamic flag is raised not only over the minarets of Jerusalem, but over the whole universe."

Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassen issued a religious edict permitting women to carry out suicide bombings. (OCR, 1/16/04, News 16) ..... Spain sentenced Iman Mohamed Kamal Mostafa to 15 months in prison because he told Muslim men how to beat their wives, in his book "Women in Islam." (OCR, 1/15/04, News 26) ..... Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, 32, a Lebanese man living in Dearborn, MI, has been accused of fighting. recruiting, and raising money for Hezbollah. He entered the U.S. illegally through Mexico in 2001, resided in the Detroit area, and hid his Muslim identity. His brother is security chief for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. (OCR, 1/16/04, News 14)

After ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and West Bank between 1948 and 1967, Arabs now claim the land as theirs. fanciful Arab myths to sway world opinion. ..... A few hundred years BC, the Egyptians, who had enslaved the Jews, allowed them to leave Egypt after a series of plagues. The Jews fled through the Sinai, the Exodus. "After 40 years in the wilderness, they emerged to settle in Canaan, the ancient territory that is now Israel, the occupied territories, and Lebanon." (USN&WR, 10/20/03, 47) [The Jews had settled in the so-called occupied territories more than 2000 years ago.] ..... Arafat's Mufti: No such thing as a 'Wailing Wall': On the same day that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was quoted as saying that he recognizes Jewish sovereignty over the Western Wall, his mufti, Ikremah Sabri, said on Friday that there is no such thing as a "Wailing Wall." The mufti, who was appointed by Arafat, told thousands of worshippers attending Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque that the Western Wall is part of the Al-Aqsa mosque and that it belongs to the Muslim Wakf (trust). "Seventy years ago the Committee of the League of Nations recognized the Al-Buraq Wall (Western Wall) as being part of the walls of the Al-Aqsa mosque," Sabri said. (Jerusalem Post Online Edition, 12/13/03) ..... With the exception of Egypt, all the countries of the Middle East are artificial creations. After World War I, England and France carved up the Ottoman Empire, with England retaining what are now Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Iraq, and France being in possession of what are now Syria and Lebanon. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration, proclaimed by the British mandatory power, established all of Palestine, east and west of the Jordan River, as the reconstituted homeland for the Jewish people. This was ratified by the 52 countries of the League of Nations. Insistence that these are Arab lands and that the Jews are “occupiers” is a myth. http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_88.html ..... In the “peace” accord with Egypt, Israel foolishly yielded the vast Sinai peninsula to Egypt, together with two thriving cities [partially developed by Israel]; producing oil fields (developed by Israel, of course), that would have made Israel independent of oil imports and would have represented huge savings; the strategic port of Sharm-el-Sheik; two militarily indispensable mountain passes, and more. http://www.factsandlogic.org/0704_mailing_gen.html

In 1948, when the army of the Kingdom of Transjordan, together with five other Arab armies, invaded the Jewish state of Israel, on the very day of its creation. The ragtag Jewish forces defeated the combined Arab might, but Transjordan stayed in possession of the territories of Judea and Samaria and the eastern part of the city of Jerusalem. The Jordanians promptly expelled all the Jews from the area that they occupied, destroyed all Jewish institutions and houses of worship, used Jewish cemetery headstones to build military latrines, and renamed as "West Bank" the territories that had been Judea and Samaria since time immemorial. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel regained possession of Judea/Samaria (now renamed "West Bank"), which the Jordanians had illegally occupied for 19 years; of the Gaza strip, which had been occupied by the Egyptians but which (hundreds of miles from Egypt proper) had never been part of their country; and of the Golan Heights, a plateau the size of Queens (NY), which, though originally part of Palestine, had been assigned to Syria by British-French agreement. The last sovereign in Judea/Samaria and in Gaza was the British mandatory power - and before it was the Ottoman Empire. All of Palestine, including what are now the Kingdom of Jordan and Gaza, was, by the Balfour Declaration, destined to be the Jewish National Home. How then could the Israelis possibly be "occupiers" in their own territory? The concept of "occupied territories" in reference to Judea/Samaria and Gaza is a myth created by Arab propaganda. The concept of "Palestinians" is one that did not exist until about 1948, when the Arab inhabitants, of what until then was Palestine, wished to differentiate themselves from the Jews. Until then, the Jews were the Palestinians. There was the Palestinian Brigade of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army (at a time when the Palestinian Arabs were in Berlin hatching plans with Adolf Hitler for world conquest and how to kill all the Jews); there was the Palestinian Symphony Orchestra (all Jews, of course); there was The Palestine Post (now The Jerusalem Post); and so much more. The Arabs who now call themselves "Palestinians" do so in order to persuade a misinformed world that they are a distinct nationality and that "Palestine" is their ancestral homeland. factsandlogic.org

Jerusalem: Never an Arab capital. But the city of Jerusalem — in contrast to Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus — has never played any major role in the political and religious lives of the Moslem Arabs. It was never a political center, never a national or even a provincial or sub-provincial capital of any country since biblical times. It was the site of one Moslem holy place, but otherwise a backwater to the Arabs. The passion for Jerusalem was not discovered by the Moslem Arabs until most recent history. Jerusalem has stood at the center of the Jewish people’s national life since King David made it the capital of his kingdom in 1003 BCE. It remained the capital until the kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians 400 years later. After the return from Babylonian exile, Jerusalem again served as the capital of the Jewish people for the next five and a half centuries. Jews are not the usurpers in Jerusalem. They have been living there since the Biblical era and have been the majority population since the 19th century. Jews have synagogues and other holy sites in most cities of the world. But do they claim sovereignty over those cities because of it? Of course not! It would be preposterous and people wouldn’t accept it. And the Moslem Arab claim to Jerusalem, based on the mosques on the Temple Mount, is just as untenable. Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish life, of Jewish yearning, and of Jewish thinking for over 3000 years. That is the reason that the State of Israel has rededicated the Jewish holy city to be its indivisible capital. http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_07.html

In 1948, five Arab states invaded Israel, and urged the Arabs to flee the war zone, so as not to impede the invading armies. Once victory was achieved and after all the Jews had been killed or had fled, the Arabs could return, reclaim their property and loot that of the Jews. About 600,000 Arabs followed the call of their leaders and became refugees. About 200,000 accepted the promises of the Israeli authorities that they would not be harmed and that they would become citizens of the new state, with the same rights as the Jews. Hardly any of the original 600,000 refugees are still alive. But five million who claim to be their descendants clamor to “return” to Israel. With the single exception of Jordan, none of their Arab brethren have allowed them to settle in their countries and to become citizens. They have confined them to squalid refugee camps, supported by UNWRA (a dependency of the U.N. and financed mostly by the USA). Those refugee camps are seething hotbeds of hatred against Israel and are the sources for terrorists and suicide bombers. Migrations of populations are nothing new in world history, especially after major wars. About 15 million Germans were (often brutally) expelled from what became western Poland, from what used to be East Prussia and from the Sudetenland. Millions of Muslims and Hindus, following bloody battles, migrated to India and to what became Pakistan. Other major migrations following the World Wars were those of the French from Algeria, Armenians, Turks, Greeks, Cypriots, Kurds and others. It is only the “Palestinians” who insist on being “repatriated.” But more to the point, Israel has absorbed over 600,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and millions of others from all over the world. All of them are productive citizens of their new country. The “right of return” is the one concession that Israel can never grant and can never accept. Israel would be swamped by Arabs, and Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish state. http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_80.html

There is no such thing as a “Palestinian people. The so-called Palestinians are the same Arabs that live in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Never at any time in history did the “Palestinians” have a homeland, nor did they ever demand one. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to set up both a Jewish and an Arab state within the borders of the territories. The Arabs were allotted three contiguous areas and the enclave of the city of Jaffa. The Jews were allotted three discontiguous areas. Jerusalem was to be an international city. In order to get their homeland, the Jews reluctantly accepted the unfavorable deal. The Arabs rejected it out of hand and instead invaded the nascent Jewish state with the armies of six nations. The ragtag Jewish forces decisively defeated the aggressors and stayed in control of most of the area. Egypt retained control of the Gaza Strip, and Jordan occupied Judea/Samaria (the “West Bank”). Had the Arabs accepted the United Nations partition plan, they would have had their “Palestinian homeland” for almost 60 years. They spurned the opportunity when it was available to them. For nineteen years, until the Six-Day War, the territories involved were under the control of Jordan and Egypt. Never during those years was there ever a demand for a “Palestinian homeland.” Only after the Six-Day War in 1967, when the territories reverted to Israeli control, did the insistent clamor for a “Palestinian homeland” arise. The declared goal of the Arabs, a goal never rescinded, is the destruction of Israel. Were they granted an independent state, it would geographically and strategically dominate all of Israel. Within a very short time, this “Palestinian homeland” would be bristling with the most advanced weaponry, in all likelihood including weapons of mass destruction. Arab armies would be invited to participate in what they would hope to be the final onslaught against Israel and against the hated Jews. The quest for an independent homeland for the Palestinians is unwarranted because the Palestinians are not a distinct people which never had or even claimed such a homeland, and because the creation of such a homeland would be an existential threat to Israel. The world and especially the Europeans don’t really care about self-determination – they don’t lose any sleep over the Basques, the Kurds, the Tibetans or others who yearn for a homeland. They care about their own political and economic interests, which they cloak in the language of political morality. And of course, there are quite a few who wouldn’t shed a tear if, at the end of the day, Israel were indeed wiped from the face of the earth. http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_91.html

Arabs have been slaughtering Jews long before the “occupation,” long before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In 1929, for instance, Arabs killed 133 Jews and wounded 399 in Hebron. Those who were not killed fled, making the city, where Jews had lived for centuries, judenrein. The Mufti of Jerusalem met in 1941 with Adolf Hitler and declared his kinship with Nazi Germany because “we have the same enemy as Germany, namely the Jews.” Palestine, which incorporated what is now the Kingdom of Jordan, had been part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire for centuries. After World War I, Britain was given the Mandate over Palestine, which, in accordance with the Balfour Declaration, was to be the homeland for the Jewish people. This was formalized by the League of Nations and by the 52 nations that comprised it. In 1922, in violation of its Mandate, the British severed all the lands east of the Jordan River – 80 per cent of the Mandate – and gave it to the Arabs who, under the Hashemite rulers, created the Kingdom of Jordan. The Jews acquiesced to this betrayal. Britain finally relinquished its Mandate in 1947 and turned its responsibility over to the United Nations. They came up with a partition plan, by which the Arab sector was to be a contiguous land mass and the Jewish sector three discontiguous pieces. Jerusalem, located in the very center of the Arab sector, was to be “internationalized.” Most of the Jewish sector was the desolate Negev desert. The Jews accepted this plan. But the Arabs rejected it out of hand and invaded the nascent Jewish state with the armies of six nations. It cost thousands of lives and caused over 650,000 Arabs to flee. Had the Arabs compromised, they would now have had their state since 1948. In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel again defeated the combined Arab might and remained in possession and administration of the Golan Heights, of Gaza, of Judea/Samaria (the “West Bank”), of the Gaza Strip and of the entire city of Jerusalem. Israel had no intention of staying in possession of these territories. It waited for the Arabs to make proposals for peace, but that was not forthcoming. On the contrary, the Arab League met at Khartoum and promulgated their “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no negotiation with Israel, and no recognition of Israel. On Yom Kippur of 1973, Egypt and Syria once again attacked Israel. And again, the heroic people of Israel defeated the combined Arab armies and drove across the Suez Canal and to within miles of Cairo. In the aftermath of that war, Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat came to Jerusalem and spoke to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. He offered a peace treaty, but imposed very tough conditions, among others, the return of the entire Sinai, with the cities that Israel had built; the return of the oil fields that Israel had developed (and which would have made it energy-independent for the foreseeable future); and relinquishing the strategic mountain passes and early warning systems that protected Israel against any future attack. It was the first time in recorded history that the vanquished imposed conditions on the victor. In what was obviously a major act of folly, and once again in its incessant quest for peace, Israel agreed to recognize the murderous PLO, invited it back into Palestine from its exile in Tunis and signed the Oslo Accord, by which governmental authority was to be bestowed on the Palestinians. But instead of accepting the outstretched hand of peace, the Palestinians launched their “intifadas,” which have cost thousands of lives and which have left the Palestinians impoverished and with their economy in shambles. The above is a mere outline of the “peace process.” In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made unprecedented concessions for the sake of peace: 98 per cent of the land that the Palestinians requested, control over most areas of eastern Jerusalem, and authority over the Temple Mount. To the dismay of Clinton, Arafat curtly rejected this dramatic offer. http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_93.html

http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/100/maps/index.html has maps showing the changes in the Middle East from the start of WWI to the present time. Of particular interest is the UN 1947 partition, which gave the Arabs more than they are demanding now, all the West Bank with all of Jerusalem internationalized, enlarged Gaza, plus northern areas near Lebanon. Most (75%) of the Jewish land was desert, and the Jewish land was divided into three parts, easily severed from each other. The Arabs rejected the partition and existence of Israel, attacked with five armies, trying to take all the area and drive the Jews into the sea. Compare the Partition map to the 1949 Armistice map. The Arabs refused to accept Israel and live in peace. They attacked, and despite overwhelming superiority, the Arabs lost land. Now they blame the Jews, and seemingly have convinced the world that the Jews are the aggressors. More Middle East maps: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/ http://www.mideastweb.org/Mewcom.htm (slow loading) http://directory.google.com/Top/Regional/Middle_East/Maps_and_Views/

The 1947 partition awarded 5 times the land to the Arabs as to the Jews. [80 million Arabs attacked 1/2 million Jews.] The Arabs lost the West Bank and Gaza in their 1967 war against Israel, but refused a land-for-peace deal offered by Israel. In 2000, the Arabs refused 95% of what they said they wanted, and started the second violent intifada. (OCR, 1/31/06, Local 9)

In November 1947 the United Nations ordered the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, and the end of the British Mandate by May 15, 1948. The above left map shows the Jewish state divided into three hard-to-defend separate areas. Access to internationalized Jerusalem was through Arab territory. The Arab powers of the Middle East rejected the partition plan, and hours after Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion declared Israel a state on May 14, the forces of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Transjordan and Lebanon invaded the new country. In a series of armistices with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in 1949, Israel established borders similar to those of Palestine during the British Mandate. Jordan retained the West Bank of the Jordan River, Egypt had the Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem was divided under Israeli and Jordanian rule. The Jews were not allowed access to the Wailing Wall. The above center map shows the borders now demanded by the Arabs. In late October 1956, instigated by Britain and France during the crisis over Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula to destroy military bases. Israel captured Gaza and Sharm el Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula that controls access to the Gulf of Aqaba. It also occupied most of Sinai east of the canal. According to plan, the British and French intervened in the conflict to enforce a U.N. cease-fire. The crisis ended in December when the United Nations stationed a peacekeeping force in Sinai. Israel withdrew in March 1957. As Egypt, Syria and Jordan mobilized their forces in spring 1967 for an evident impending attack, Israel launched a preemptive strike. Starting on June 5, the Israeli air force destroyed Egypt's planes on the ground; then Israeli tank columns and infantry overran the Golan Heights, the West Bank of the Jordan River, including the Old City of Jerusalem, Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was over by June 10, ended by a U.N.-arranged cease-fire, see above right map. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in October 1973 (during Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day). Israel suffered heavy casualties but managed to repulse the attacks. It even pushed Egyptian forces back across the Suez Canal and occupied its west bank before the belligerents agreed to another cease-fire arranged by the United Nations. In a series of 1974 agreements Israel withdrew its forces back across the canal into Sinai and came to cease-fire terms with Syria. In the Camp David Accords of March 1979, Egypt and Israel finally ended the war between them. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist. The above three maps and much of the text is from cnn.com, direct link below.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/mideast/

In 1956, President Eisenhower made commitments to get Israel to withdraw from the Sinai. In 1967, President Johnson failed to implement those commitments, and the Six-Day War followed. In 1970, President Nixon made promises to end the war of attrition between Israel and Egypt. Egypt violated the agreement, and the United States failed to live up to its commitments. The 1973 Yom Kippur War followed, which killed 2,800 Israelis. In 1996 and again in 1998, President Clinton promised to refrain from pressuring Israel into making further concessions until the Palestinian Authority altered its charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel. The charter was not altered, but Israel was expected to honor its promises. In 2000, Clinton committed $800 million in special assistance to induce Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon. Israel withdrew, and Hezbollah quickly filled the geographic and military vacuum, increasing terrorist attacks. The promised assistance never arrived. Now President Bush has made a new commitment to Israel. The depth of the problem is revealed in a new study by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, which has been examining what the next generation of Egyptian children are learning about Israel. In Egypt's regular and religious educational system, the books celebrate jihad, or Islamic war, and exalt those who die in the fight against "nonbelievers." The center says jihad is described in military terms, not as a spiritual endeavor, as so many Muslim leaders claim. "Jihad is encouraged and those who refrain from taking part in it are denounced," says the report. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2004_04.php

Israel: A Vision of Oil in the Holy Land
John Brown formed Zion Oil in 2000 and bought rights from the Israeli government to explore a 100,000-acre plot in northern Israel. After raising $7 million, mostly from other evangelicals eager to support the Jewish state, he chose a spot near Kibbutz Maanit to begin the 4,500-yard drill based on his reading of the Old Testament. Brown, a born-again Christian, began with Gen. 49:22-26, where he believes a verse about God's giving Joseph "blessings of heaven above [and] blessings of the deep that couches beneath" refers to the presence of oil in an area of ancient Canaan named after the tribes of Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. (The verse also includes reference to a well or spring—evidence, in Brown's mind, of underground treasure. A similar blessing "for the precious things of heaven ... and for the deep that couches beneath" appears in Deut. 33:13-17.) Brown traced the geographic location of the two tribes on a Biblical map he superimposed on a map of modern Israel. A wide area around Maanit corresponded to his interpretation of the texts. It also linked with research by Stephen Pierce, a geologist who had studied the area. Now Brown's consulting geologist, Pierce says there's a Triassic reef deep below the surface of Maanit, a strong sign of oil. The site where they're drilling has been excavated before, but John's team is going much deeper than a previous crew. Some Israelis politely scoff at the project. Zvi Alexander, a veteran of the Israeli oil business, says Brown's chances of hitting pay dirt are slim. He says nearly 500 holes have been drilled in Israel in the past 50 years by geologists looking, unsuccessfully, for oil. "I don't know of any other area in the world this small that has been poked so many times," he says. Brown says God won't let him fail. If no oil is found at Maanit by the time he reaches bottom later this month, Brown has plans to drill at least three more holes. That will require more money, which he says evangelical Christians will gladly provide. "Finding oil will give Israel a huge strategic advantage" over its Arab enemies, he says. "It will change the political and economic structure of the region overnight." (Newsweek, 6/13/05, 10)

Life After Gaza
The mutual anguish of Jewish families in Gaza and the Israeli military forcing their removal from their long-cherished homes was intensely moving to witness, even as it was an inspiring demonstration of democracy and the rule of law. Nearly 10,000 Israeli citizens from two dozen thriving towns and agricultural villages in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank now have to start their lives all over again. heir prime minister, Ariel Sharon, shares the anguish and deserves the congratulations he has received for his bold but risky attempt to change the political dynamic of the region. But will it? The response of the Palestinians to a heroic act of statesmanship is contemptible. Not only have their leaders been demanding more, but they have endorsed the baldfaced lie of the extremist Hamas group that "the blood of our martyrs" drove the Israelis out of the Gaza settlements. The implication is that more bloodshed will produce more Israeli concessions. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, has said all the right things in English for a western audience, but what is he doing to counter the notion that terrorism pays? Not a thing. On the contrary. He asserted that the credit of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank goes to the Palestinians who were killed, wounded, and are present during the struggle--the credit for the retreat, he said, goes to the martyrs. This is not just false. It is an incitement to more violence and terrorism. Most Israelis expect that Gaza, after a period of diplomatic quiet, will once again be a base for terrorism aimed not to adjust borders but to drive Israel from its biblical lands into the sea. Indeed, the idea of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel is not credible to anyone who experiences the demonic nature of the hatred or reviews the threats continuously promulgated by the Palestinian leaders in every forum--mosques, schools, radio, newspapers, television, the Internet--everywhere. Friends like these. Since all this poison passes largely unnoticed in the West, it is necessary to spell out a few declarations of intent. Abbas himself, on the occasion of Israel's 57th birthday, proclaimed that the creation of the Jewish state was the "greatest crime in human history." More recently, he said: "Today we are beginning the march of the fishermen towards freedom. Soon you will be able to fish along the whole coast of Palestine." What could he mean when the rest of the coast of Palestine is Israel? Yes, yes, Abbas is busy selling the idea that his strategy is to bring Hamas into peaceful politics, but what kind of people does he think he's dealing with? Just look at some of the recent statements by Hamas leaders. Mahmoud Zahar: "We are part of a large global movement called the International Islamic Movement. . . . [Gaza is] proof that the armed struggle has borne fruit. Neither the liberation of Gaza nor the liberation of the West Bank will suffice [for] us. . . . We don't recognize the State of Israel or its right to hold on to one inch of Palestine. . . . After the victory in Gaza we will transfer the struggle first to the West Bank and later to Jerusalem." The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses. Radio al-Aqsa: "[Our] battalions will make you tremble in Haifa, in Tel Aviv. They will strike you in Zefat and Acre. Wait for us in Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv. . . . The knights of Gaza are coming. Our beloved sons of Palestine, we make no distinction between [Israeli-controlled] Palestine and [the West Bank and Gaza Strip] Palestine." Jihad leader Muhammad Hindi: "The resistance will continue until the expulsion of the occupation from all our lands, including the West Bank, Jerusalem, and all of Palestine." The war isn't over, in other words, until there is no more Israel. The truth is Abbas is not so much trying to smash the terrorist organizations as he is trying to reconcile with them, including paying some that engage in acts of terrorism, like the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin, mostly former members of Palestinan security forces, who continue to receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority. Jamal Abu Samhadana, the head of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, announced that at least 500 members of his group have been recruited to the PA. He himself was offered a senior "intelligence" position by the PA. There are over 700 armed gangs like this in Gaza, all connected with Fatah, that have made murder, kidnapping, and extortion a part of everyday life. Whatever emollient words may be uttered on the occasion of the Gaza withdrawal, the violence from the Palestinian side simply cannot be ignored. In the five months between the February cease-fire and July, Palestinians carried out 812 attacks on Israeli targets, and thousands more were disrupted by Israeli security efforts. No fewer than 47 percent of those attacks were claimed by Fatah, the ruling group in the Palestinian Authority, which is headed by Abbas--yet no one was arrested or expelled. How long can Israel negotiate a peace with people who in fact are coconspirators in the efforts to destroy the Jewish state? Diplomacy fails if one side does not deliver on its word. Where is the pro-peace, pro-prosperity, and pro-freedom wing of the Palestinian people determined to dismantle the terrorist groups, as called for by President Bush? Pressure. Far from being disarmed, the terrorist forces are being rearmed, and now they're trying to transfer their technical knowledge on how to build rockets to groups in the West Bank, in order to attack nearby Israeli cities. So what does Israel get in return for giving Palestinians Gaza? An Islamic terrorist state? Even a liberal think tank like the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies has concluded that the disadvantages and the risks of disengagement outweigh the benefits and that it will lead to more terrorism. In a recent paper, the center's scholars concluded: "After the disengagement, terrorism's center of gravity will shift to the West Bank . . . while Gaza will serve as a rear echelon and support base for this activity" and will "offer safe harbor for wanted terrorists and senior commanders," thus providing a place for Hamas and other terrorist groups to build larger militias with a greater degree of immunity. In these circumstances, Israelis will be wholly justified if they refuse to make any more concessions until the Palestinians change their behavior over an extended period of time. And they will deserve the strongest international support for that. Western sympathy and aid for the Palestinians should now be conditioned on the Palestinians' unequivocal answers to six questions: 1. Will there be a decline in incitement to hatred or a change in the rhetoric of Palestinian officials when speaking in Arabic to their people? 2. Will the Palestinians continue to be directed toward the destruction of Israel, or will they seek to build up their own nation-state? 3. Will there be a stable government with real control of the territory that will stop terrorism and disarm radical groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a terrorist paramilitary group ruled by Fatah? 4. Will Palestinians continue to claim Israeli withdrawal as a victory through terrorism, thereby justifying more terrorism? 5. Will the billions of dollars of new aid disappear into the private bank accounts of their leadership groups, as it has for years, or instead be put into programs for the welfare of their people? 6. Will they dismantle the refugee camps that, despite all the foreign aid, have been a permanent condition of Gaza life and resettle their people in decent housing? Without the right answers to these questions, it will be impossible for Israel to make further concessions and withdrawals, especially when the message from the international community is always that they are never enough--no matter what the Palestinians do.Fortunately, President Bush has long insisted that meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians cannot be held as long as Palestinian terrorism persists and the terrorist organizations are not dismantled and disarmed. His instincts will be to hold to that, but the instincts of a second term in any administration are similar to those of the last Clinton administration--namely, to accomplish some great diplomatic coup in this part of the world before the president's final term ends. The Bush administration would be wise to look not just at the failures of the Clinton administration to hold the Palestinians accountable but also at the Carter administration's participation in the ouster of the shah of Iran in 1979 because of Iran's poor human-rights record. The ensuing revolution brought the ayatollahs to power--a strategic catastrophe for America, for the region, and for Israel, since now the world must contend with a nuclear-ambitious and terrorist-sponsoring regime. Similarly, the danger is that Gaza will become a worldwide terrorist training base, much as Afghanistan was for the Taliban and al Qaeda.The assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, David Welch, said last week that it is critical that the Palestinian Authority disarm Hamas and other terrorist organizations. "In the road map," Welch said, referring to the U.S.-backed plan for peace in the region, "there is a requirement to take steps toward the dismantlement of the terror organizations. Hamas is, for us, a terror organization. I would expect that the PA would do those things. . . . Security is the beginning, the middle, and the end."Until now, Abbas has shown neither the willpower nor the firepower to stop the extremist terrorist groups from resuming terrorism. The next few years will determine whether President Bush continues with his policy of moral, strategic, and diplomatic clarity or abandons it in the pursuit of an illusory solution, pressuring Israel for more concessions, before knowing whether Abu Mazen presides over a Palestinian state or a terrorist state. (USN&WR, 9/5/05, 70)

Israel voluntarily removed roadblocks; so terrorists in a Fatah group, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, put stolen Israeli license plates on a car, sped by a crowd at a hitching post, and opened fire with automatic weapons. Three young Israelis, including a 15-year-old, were killed, and four others were wounded. Now the entire Palestinian population will have to bear the burden of tighter Israeli security. To protect its citizens, Israel has to ban all private Palestinian cars from the main roads, rebuild roadblocks and barriers throughout Judea and Samaria, and end the turnover of West Bank towns (especially Bethlehem) to the Palestinian Authority. The sickening story of Hasan al-Madhoun is worth a little attention, you'd think. At the Sharm al-Sheikh summit in February, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told Abbas about the former Palestinian security officer who organized a suicide bombing at Ashdod in March 2004. He even gave him his address. Abbas promised an arrest within 48 hours. More than 48 days later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeated the request to Abbas, who again promised to arrest Madhoun. Madhoun was called into a police station, spent the evening there on his cellphone, and left the next day. No punishment. It gets worse. A few months later, Madhoun persuaded a Gaza woman to blow up the very hospital, Soroka, where she was receiving burn treatment. She was caught with explosives attached to her underclothes. And worse: After extremists killed three Americans working for the State Department in Gaza in October 2003, they were put on trial for relatively minor offenses, then allowed to escape. All we get from Abbas are nice interviews to the western media explaining how he will persuade the militias to give up their guns, and the media write upbeat stories without bothering to note that in the meantime no terrorist has been arrested, tried, or sent to prison. The lawless, virtually feudal, criminal and terrorist factions within Gaza simply refuse to obey Abbas or to stop attacking Israel. He is so scared of them he has even rejected international appeals to dismantle the armed militias, saying the world should stop meddling in Palestinian internal affairs. Gaza will almost certainly determine the future of the region's peace prospects. Sadly, it is essentially becoming a Hamas base for launching missiles into Israeli communities. When Israel pulled out, it left behind, at no cost, thriving greenhouses. Hamas looters stripped a significant portion of them, depriving their own people of the windfall. Hamas's leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, said, "If we win the elections, Hamas will not shake Sharon's hand; we will continue to aim our gun barrels at his head." (USN&WR, 10/31/05, 92) ..... TEHRAN, Iran (10/26/05, AP) - Iranian Leader: Israel Will Be Destroyed. Iran's hard-line president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations with it.

JERUSALEM (AP, 11/08/05) - Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service currently uses a red Star of David to identify its ambulances and medical workers, rejecting the red cross used by most countries and the red crescent preferred by Muslim nations. But Israel has not been permitted to use its symbol on international humanitarian missions, and has been denied full membership in the international Red Cross for 57 years because of the issue. The Red Cross has said Israel was excluded because it did not use an accepted symbol, but Israeli officials have suggested the policy reflected international hostility toward the Jewish state. The last major attempt to include Israel was five years ago and failed because of increased Arab-Israeli tensions. The red crystal depicts a square standing on one corner, with a blank white interior and a thick red border. Dr. Noam Yifrach, chairman of Magen David Adom, said Israeli aid workers would be able to insert a Star of David symbol into the crystal when working overseas. The American Red Cross has also been campaigning for full Israeli membership for years. It has withheld six years' of payment owed to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies - totaling approximately $34 million - since May 2000 in protest. The American Red Cross itself faces the prospect of being excluded for not paying its dues, a gesture not lost on its Israeli colleagues. "We are a small organization, and if they did not help us, we simply would not be part of the Red Cross," Yifrach said. "We are happy to go to sleep at night, knowing that overseas somebody is thinking about us."

Israel withdrew from every last inch of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis dismantled all military bases, destroyed all their settlements, turned over functioning greenhouses that could employ 4,000 people, expelled all 7,500 Israeli settlers--all at a huge financial and political cost. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon even went a step further, declaring the lines that divide Israel from Gaza an international frontier, making Gaza the first independent Palestinian territory ever. Everyone hoped then that the Palestinians would show the world what they could achieve with freedom as a template for a future independent state. Alas, they have shown us all too well. Not one day of peace has followed since then. The pattern was set on the very day of Israel's pullout. Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza into Israeli towns on the other side of the border, targeting innocent civilians living in the pre-1967 Israel recognized by the international community. The final straw came last month, with the Hamas attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and resulted in the kidnapping of a third. Last week, inspired by the rhetorical threats of Iran's incendiary president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah--like Hamas, another Iranian proxy--attacked Israel from the north, killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two more, and then began raining rockets down onto Israel civilians.

The Palestinians failed to begin building schools, roads, and hospitals; they made no effort to turn Gaza into a thriving state, nor did they create villages of their own out of the settlements the Israeli government forced its settlers to abandon. They vandalized the greenhouses not once, but twice. They elected a radical Islamic Hamas government; they breached the border with Israel, permitting the smuggling of huge quantities of weapons and creating new bases for terrorism. Not only did Hamas fail to become more moderate; Fatah and the Palestinians became even more radicalized, moving closer to Hamas's extremist position, choosing to interpret Israel's voluntary evacuation not as a gesture of peace but as a victory for the armed struggle. Terrorism in Gaza flourished, tunnels were dug, more weapons were imported, militants trained, more Kassam rockets were produced and fired at Israel. At first, the Israelis tried nonlethal deterrence--diplomatic warnings, then sonic booms from fighter jets to remind the Gazans that Israel has the power to retaliate. Those failed. It was a sad demonstration of the truth in the metaphor that in the Middle East the law of nature prevails--an animal perceived as weak invites only attack. The Israelis fell back on targeted assassinations against the terrorist leaders--exactly what America did against Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq, despite the risk that innocents might be killed because the terrorists hide among civilians, moral shields for immoral men.

The core of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute stems not from Israel's unwillingness to compromise, but from the desire among Palestinians to eliminate Israel is too powerful, the adherence to violence too pervasive, to overcome. As the leading Egyptian paper, Al-Ahram, pointed out: "The Palestinians must be aware by now that they can no longer count on Arab help, economically, politically, or militarily . ... Arab nations have had enough ... of the slogans and rhetoric that have gotten us nowhere. ... The Palestinians have lost Arab backing both on the official and nonofficial levels." And the CEO of the Arab News Agency Al Arabiya wrote, "Was the result worth all the damage it caused?" The Middle East equation today could hardly be more stark or depressing. It reveals once again that Hamas and the Palestinians, now joined by Hezbollah, armed and financed by Iran, wish to get rid of Israel. This will be a "long war" in which victory will be the culmination of a series of unavoidable catastrophes. (USN&WR, 7/24/06, 60)

The true nature of Hamas must be fully understood. It is not just another nationalist political party. It is a radical Islamist terrorist group with a totalitarian DNA, just as it has been since its inception. Its leaders continue to support suicide-bombing terrorism. They describe the random murder of innocent civilians as a legitimate form of "self-defense," but they have also made it clear that they will not obstruct those who wish to attack Israel. According to the Arab newspaper al-Hayyat, their leading terrorist, Mohammed Deif, is even holding discussions with al Qaeda. Hamas supported the Popular Resistance Committee, a terrorist group in Gaza, and appointed its leader, Jamal Abu Samhadana, as the head of the new security force, despite the fact that the PRC killed three Americans in the Gaza Strip in 2003--not to mention dozens of Israelis. Samhadana immediately restated his goal, "We have only one enemy. They are Jews. We have no other enemy. I will continue to carry the rifle and pull the trigger." Thus, a self-declared terrorist has been put in command of the Palestinian police force for the first time. Equally telling, the interior minister, Said Sayyam, has stated that Hamas will not sanction any security cooperation with Israel. On the contrary, it will coordinate terrorist activity against Israel.

Hamas is preparing to get rid of the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and it is collecting intelligence on the houses of the senior Fatah commanders in the security service who support him. When Abbas is gone, according to the Constitution, the parliamentary speaker, who is a Hamas member, would then become president in his stead. Eliminating Abbas is the last obstacle preventing Hamas from achieving full control of the Palestinian Authority--its security forces, its commercial authorities and monopolies, and other business interests and associations. It wants the gun and the wallet. No one who knows the Hamas leaders expects them to mellow in office. If they exhibit any restraint at all, it will be short term, merely to improve their military equipment and deployment for the next round of confrontation. They cannot accept a lasting peace with Israel because they cannot accept Israel. The question beyond that, of course, is whether the Palestinian people can accept Israel. Palestinians have known all along what Hamas stands for. Now they are being so incited by Hamas, it seems less and less likely that, for years or even decades, any Palestinian government will be able to make the concessions necessary for a negotiated outcome with Israel.The surprise plan proposed last week by Abbas, giving Hamas 10 days to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, is not to be taken seriously. Rather than a credible peace plan, it is a transparent effort to stop the internal political squabbling among the Palestinians.

The Israelis were moving closer to a real two-state solution. Israel's leadership and public opinion have declared a willingness to realign their borders and remove all Israeli civilians from 85 to 90 percent of the West Bank. Hamas, to no one's surprise, favors a one-state solution--that is, no Israel. Its hostility, however, also jeopardizes Israel's original scheme for pulling back: To leave Hamas in control of the West Bank would bring the terrorists and their Katyusha rockets within range of Israel's urban population centers and strategic targets. In danger would be Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the major highways between them, along with Ben Gurion Airport.

For Hamas, nationalism exists only "as part and parcel of the religious faith." To Hamas, Palestine is Islamic land, and its covenant states: "God decreed Palestine to be a Muslim Trust for perpetuity," making the dispute not about territory and boundaries but about the need for Muslims to wage jihad until Israel no longer exists. The attitude of Hamas members toward Israel was captured by their foreign minister, who declared, "I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home, which does not show Israel on it." Hamas has rejected prior agreements reached with Israel with such contempt as to exasperate even the dovish former prime minister, Shimon Peres. "If they don't honor agreements," said Peres, "what is the point in negotiating with them?"

The Israeli settlers will have to be moved to settlement blocks cushioned from attack behind the security fence and beyond the range of terrorist rockets and guns. Israel will also have to retain a presence along the Jordan River so as to preclude the inflow of terrorists and weaponry, in order to respond on a timely basis to its intelligence. To continue its remarkable success in thwarting the vast majority of terrorist attacks, Israel must retain its security bases in the West Bank. It is a modern-day version of the policy of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister. As he put it: "When it was a question of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the land, we chose the Jewish state without all the land." (USN&WR, 6/5/06, 60)

ISRAEL (11/9/05, from an e-mail, unverified)

The Middle East has been growing date palms for centuries. The average Israeli date trees are now yielding 400 pounds/year and are short enough to be harvested from the ground or a short ladder.

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.

Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel.

The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.

The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

Israel has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S., Russia and China). In addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel's air force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16's. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the U. S.

Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look (finally) to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people --as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the U.S. (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).

With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world -- apart from the Silicon Valley, U. S.

Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the U. S.

Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East.

The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.

On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech startups.

Twenty-four per cent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland and 12 per cent hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews (Operation Solomon) at risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.

When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.

When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day -- and saved three victims from the rubble.

Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship -- and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.

Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity. (Hundreds of thousands from the former Soviet Union)

Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."

Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

Medicine... Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.

Israel's Givun Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, cancer and digestive disorders.

Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the camera helps doctors diagnose heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the Clear Light device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct -- all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue.

An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave desert.

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other county on earth.

. . . AND THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN ENGLAND SAYS : "ISRAEL IS NOTHING BUT A SHITTY LITTLE COUNTRY"

Special Report: Why Hezbollah Fights

In part, this attitude appears to stem from Mr. Bush's travel in Israel and his personal relationships with its leaders. In part, it reflects the feelings of the US public, which is generally more pro-Israeli than is the population of Britain, say, or France.

But - as the White House reaction to the recent fighting makes clear - it may also stem from a stark view of Middle East conflicts. The overall administration calculus may run like this: There are good guys, and there are bad guys, and the role of the United States is not to manage negotiations between them but to facilitate the bad guys' defeat.

"The Bush administration [has] hoped to change the strategic equation in the region by eliminating or neutralizing regional troublemakers," writes Michele Dunne, a senior associate in the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a recent report on the current crisis.

Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet approved a UN cease-fire plan, scheduled to take effect Monday morning. The Lebanese government has also approved the truce, which calls for the deployment of about 15,000 foreign troops and an equal number of Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon. Despite the cease-fire plan, however, Israeli warplanes and troops continued fighting in Lebanon, and Israeli officials said their country would still be entitled to use force to prevent Hizbullah from rearming.

American presidents have long struggled to balance support of Israel with other Middle East diplomatic objectives. The balancing act, in fact, goes as far back as Harry Truman, who quickly recognized Israel in 1948 over the objections of Secretary of State George Marshall.

In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower faced down Israel, France, and Britain in the Suez Crisis, a convoluted scheme by the trio to unseat Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and reseize control of the Suez Canal.

In 1973, Richard Nixon rushed supplies such as ammunition and fighter jets to the Israeli military to bolster its fight for existence in the Yom Kippur War.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan embraced Israel as a strategic partner in the cold war. But Vice President George H.W. Bush didn't entirely share that attitude. He thought the US should be more of a neutral arbiter between Israel and Arab nations, which held vast reserves of oil.

When the first President Bush succeeded Reagan in the Oval Office, he for a time withheld US loan guarantees from Israel in an effort to force the curtailment of settlements in Israeli-occupied territory.

The second President Bush has broken with his father and warmly supported Israel, as Mr. Reagan did. One of the most repeated anecdotes of Bush's political biography is his 1998 helicopter flight over Israel with then-Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon. Bush marveled at how thin and fragile Israel seemed from the air, noting that there were "driveways in Texas" as long as the nation was wide.

Critics have charged that Bush's support of Israel is a result of his Christian faith and its attitude toward the Holy Land - something administration officials have long denied. Others point to the power of the Jewish vote. Bush received almost a quarter of Jewish votes in 2004, up from 19 percent in 2000. That's a significant increase, but Jews as a political group remain predominantly Democratic.

Critics also say Bush may be under the sway of pro-Israeli interest groups, long a potent Washington force.

Overall, "the 'special relationship' with Israel ... is due largely to the activities of the Israel lobby - a loose coalition of individuals and organizations who openly work to push US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction," write political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of a recent cover story on the subject in the journal Foreign Policy.

Administration supporters reply that, whatever the wellsprings of Bush's attitudes, he's merely reflecting US public opinion. They say Americans generally see Israel as a plucky democracy in a sea of autocracies - and a friend that, like the US, has endured terrorist attacks.

A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that 59 percent of respondents judged Israel's actions in the current conflict "justified." That's a stark contrast to opinion in Europe. In Britain, a Daily Telegraph poll found that only 17 percent of respondents agreed that Israeli attacks were "appropriate and proportional." In Germany, a similar survey found only 12 percent approval.

Then there is the 9/11 factor. Over the past five years, the administration has increasingly seen all Middle East conflicts through the lens of the war on terror. Given the stakes, that's the right choice, say administration officials. But others say longstanding regional conflicts don't lend themselves to an us-against-them style of analysis.

"I think the administration has had a rather militant and absolutist notion of how to achieve peace in the Middle East, laced with overtones of black-and-white morality," said former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski at a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies conference.

Morotola consumer products are sold globally, including its cell phones, cordless and corded phones, the Droid phone, accessories, cable modems, digital video equipment, and more.

Board Member Ronald Lauder chairs the Jewish National Fund and is former a JNF president. In 1901, the Fifth Zionist Congress established it to "purchase, take on lease or in exchange, or otherwise acquire any lands, forests, rights of possession and other rights....for the purpose of settling Jews ."

JNF calls itself "Caretakers of the land of Israel for over a century (and) a global environmental leader by planting 240 million trees, building over 200 reservoirs and dams, developing over 250,000 acres of land, creating more than 1,000 parks, providing infrastructure for over 1,000 communities (and) bringing life to the Negev Desert," exclusively for Jews.

JNF develops land. It doesn't sell it, but can lease it to Jews or any Jewish-controlled company, organization or entity. It holds these lands on behalf of "the Jewish People in perpetuity." Non-Jews are entirely excluded from renting or buying property, getting financing, opening a business, or doing virtually anything on Jewish land under a strict apartheid policy. JNF policies have been legally challenged, so far without success.

Besides Ronald, other Lauders are also involved - Leonard, Evelyn and William. The company produces skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products that include Clinique, Aramis, Lab Series, Prescriptives and Origins. Acquired brands include M*A*C, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Jo Malone, Aveda, Bumble and Bumble, Darphin, and Ojon. It's also the fragrance and beauty products licensee for Kiton, Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Sean John, Missoni, Tom Ford, and Mustang.

Other products sold through alternative channels include American Beauty, Flirt!, good skin, Daisy Fuentes, Coach, and Eyes by Design. The company is headquartered in New York, with many stores nationally and in Canada operating Estee Lauder "counters."

L'Oreal Israel makes a line of Natural Sea Beauty products using Dead Sea minerals. In July 2008, the company also gave a $100,000 "lifetime achievement" award to an Israeli Weizmann Institute scientist, a research center that clandestinely develops nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons for the IDF war machine.

In addition, L'Oreal Israel's chairman, Gad Propper, is the founding chairman of the Israel-EU Chamber of Commerce, and was heavily involved in promoting trade with Australia and New Zealand. Since the mid-1990s, Israel has been L'Oreal's regional commercial center.

Its brands include Maybelline, Lancome, Matrix, Redken, Vichy/Dermablend, and Helena Rubinstein. It also owns the Body Shop, a company reputed to be socially conscious.

The technology giant produces computer processors and other hardware components employing thousands of Israelis. It's been one of Israel's major supporters since opening its first development center outside America in Haifa in 1974. Ever since, it's heavily invested in the country and operates an annual billion dollar export business. It has a microprocessor plant in Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem, another development center there as well, a plant in Lachish-Qiryat Gat, a branch for the development of network communications products in Omer, close to Beersheba, as well as other operations.

It's the world's largest fast food retailer, operating in about 120 countries globally, including in Israel since 1993, with about 150 restaurants. McDonald's is also a major partner of the Jewish United Fund (JUF) and Jewish Federation. Through its Israel Commission, JUF "works to maintain American military, economic and diplomatic support for Israel; monitors and, when necessary, responds to media coverage of Israel."

The company is the world's largest soft drink maker, with numerous brands sold virtually everywhere globally. Since the mid-1960s, it's been been a staunch Israel supporter, and in 1997, the country's Chamber of Commerce and Economic Mission praised its chairman, Roberto Goizueta, for 30 years of support and for refusing to honor an Arab boycott at the expense of lost regional business. In 2002, Coca-Cola announced plans to build a Kiryat Gat plant, and in 2005, raised its investment in the Israeli-based Tavor Winery to 51%.

The company's Florida Epcot Center Millennium exhibition depicts Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a joint effort by Tel Aviv and Disney to Judaize the city preparatory to legitimizing Israel's claim. Israel's Foreign Ministry, in charge of the exhibit, says it highlights the city's importance to Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, but a formal statement asserts:

As the world's largest home improvement retailer, it's second only to Wal-Mart in total retail sales. Its founder and former chairman, Bernard Marcus, actively supports Israel, including through the Marcus Foundation promoting Jewish issues.

In addition, he's a board member of Emet (Hebrew for "truth") News Service, reporting pro-Israeli propaganda, analysis and commentary to ensure all US media are on board, and why not with a board of directors including Marcus; Lex Wexner, The Limited's founder; Edgar Bronfman Sr., Seagram's former head; Lou Ranieri, a major Wall Street figure and Israeli bank owner; and former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. Before he died, Jack Kemp also served on the board.

The company invests heavily in Israel, and according to former executive, Lawrence Ricciardi, "This wedge of land and the huge ideals it represents are very important to IBM."

In June 2001, the American-Israel Friendship League praised the company and two others at its Partners for Democracy Award dinner. In May 2002, the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce gave IBM the Ambassador's Award "in recognition of its outstanding contribution to the development of the Israeli high-tech industry and (for) advancing trade between the US and Israel."

IBM began its regional operations in 1949 and was the first large US company with a wholly owned Israeli subsidiary. Its Haifa Research Laboratories employs over 2,000 people doing extensive research cooperatively with the US-based operations. For decades, it's also been involved with Israeli start-ups and venture capital funds.

Billionaire Ronald Perelman controls the company, a major producer of cosmetics, skin care, fragrance and personal care products. He also supports Israeli causes, and is a trustee of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, with over 300,000 global members and support from prominent figures like himself, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Senator Charles Schumer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and many others.

Chairman Howard Shultz is staunchly pro-Israel. In 1998, the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah gave him "The Israel 50th Anniversary Friend of Zion Tribute Award" for "playing a key role in promoting a close alliance between the United States and Israel." In 2002, Israel's Foreign Ministry praised him for being key to the country's long-term PR success, asking Americans to back Israel against a common enemy, and sponsoring fund raisers for Israeli causes. Jointly with the Israeli-based Delek Group, Starbucks Coffee International operated a joint venture in Israel, opened six stores, then shut them after heavy losses.

The company is a major retailer with five specialty brands, including Express, The Limited, Lane Bryant, Lerner New York and Structure as well as the major ownership of Intimate Brands.

Its founder and CEO, Leslie Wexner, is a board member of the pro-Israeli Emet News Service, and through his Wexner Foundation promotes "strengthening Jewish Leadership in North America and Israel." One of its initiatives finances up to 10 Israeli officials at Harvard annually for a year-long Master in Public Administration program (MPA) combined with intensive leadership development. Many alumni return home to high ministerial positions and similar IDF ones. Wexner also sponsors "Birthright Israel" that brings young American Jews to the country for intensive indoctrination. He supports Hillel, Israel's bastion on college campuses.

It's the Rupert Murdoch-owned media giant that includes dozens of print publications, motion pictures, book publishing, and Fox News, what Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) calls "the most biased name in news....with its extraordinary right-wing tilt" that includes one-sided Israeli support, and no wonder.

Murdoch invests heavily in Israel and was one of three US companies the American-Israel Friendship League honored for their support at their June 2001 Partners for Democracy Awards dinner. Murdoch, in fact, co-chaired the dinner, was a close friend of Ariel Sharon, calls himself a lifelong ally of Israel, and shows it through one-sided reporting allowing no wiggle room for staff deviation.

It's the world's largest clothing manufacturer, owning in whole or in part familiar brands, including Hanes, Playtex, Champion, Leggs, and Wonderbra. Its food brands include Sara Lee, Ball Park, Hillshire Farm, and Jimmy Dean, and its global businesses include Fresh Bakery, North American Retail, Foodservice, International Beverage, International Bakery, and International Household and Body Care. It also owns a 30% stake in the Israeli company Delta Galil. More on it below.

In 1998, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu awarded Sara Lee Personal Products executive Lucien Nessim (from its European subsidiary) its highest honor, the Jubilee Award, in recognition of those individuals or organizations who've helped Israel's economy most through trade and investments.

Many other companies and/or their officials have also won it, including Johnson and Johnson, the UK retailer Marks & Spencer, the French food company Danone, Kimberly-Clark, L'Oreal, Nestle, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Volkswagon, De Beers, Goldman Sachs, Archer Daniel Midland, Cisco Systems, Motorola, AOL, formerly AOL/Time Warner, and numerous others.

Israel's largest textile manufacturer produces clothing and underwear for popular brands including, Gap, J-Crew, JC Penny, Calvin Klein, Playtex, Victoria's Secret, Hugo Boss, Banana Republic, Ralph Lauren, and others.

From its Mitzpe Shalem settlement facility, the company produces cosmetics using Dead Sea salt, minerals, and mud, natural substances extracted from the Dead Sea.

Established in 1992 in Kibbutz Dorot, the company is now Israel's largest frozen seasonings supplier to food retainers, hotels, and restaurants in America, Canada and Europe.

Israel's second largest food and beverage company supports the Golani reconnaissance platoon, infamous for its decades of slaughtering Palestinians, most recently during Operation Cast Lead.

In the "corporate responsibility" section of its website, a sub-heading titled "In the Field With Soldiers" states:

Sabra is another Strauss company in a joint venture with Pepsico. It produces traditional Arab salads like hummus, baba ghanoush, and fried eggplant.

The company is half Israeli state-owned, exporting fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs from Israel and the Occupied Territories, operating under the Carmel, Jaffa and Coral brands.

The Israeli Date Growers' Cooperative sells 65% of all Israeli and West Bank settlement-produced dates under the brand names King Solomon and Jordan River. They also supply supermarkets and retail chains that market them under their own private brands. Customers include UK-based Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury, Tesco and Waitrose.

Comprehensive history
Gary Katz, CBC News Online

IN THE BEGINNING
The land that the State of Israel sits on is small enough to fit into New Brunswick (Canada) three and a half times, but you can't get from Mesopotamia to the Nile by chariot without crossing it. It's been controlled by Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and the British and it's deeply embedded into the passions and the history of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

When the Israelites travelled eastward across the Sinai Desert in their exodus from Egypt over three thousand years ago, the land they were aiming for was called Canaan. Their tradition was that God had promised the land to the patriarch Abraham and his descendants. Jericho, the first town in the West Bank lands to be given Palestinian self-rule by Israel (1994), is famous for its place in an Old Testament story involving Joshua, trumpets and tumbling walls. It goes back 10,000 years and is the oldest settlement ever uncovered.

Around 1000 BC, after successful conquests, the land became the Hebrew state of Israel, named after the patriarch Jacob who was renamed Israel by God. Its first kings were the famous trio of Saul, David, and Solomon. A century later, after Solomon's death, the country was divided into two and the southern portion named Judah. In 721 BC, Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians and its inhabitants disappeared from history as "The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel".

In 587 BC, Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, and the Jews (from the name "Judah") were deported into exile. 50 years later, when the Persians under Cyrus the Great overcame the Babylonians, the Jews were permitted home again to rebuild Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem which the Babylonians had destroyed.

Between the Persians and the Roman occupation around the time of Christ, the land was under the control of Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies of Egypt, and the Seleucids of Syria. A brief Jewish dynasty resulted from a national uprising by Judas Maccabeus (the source of the festival of Hannuka) but by the middle of the century Before Christ, Romans were in control of the province they called Judea. In 70 AD the Romans destroyed Jerusalem (and the Temple) and again most of the Jews were dispersed from the land.

In the early seventh century a new religion came blazing out of Arabia fueled with the word of the prophet Mohammed and afire with his admonition to spread it. Islam (meaning "submission" or "surrender" to Allah's will) was seen by Mohammed as a continuation of Judaism and Christianity, and his God was the same as in both the Old and New Testaments. His followers spread quickly throughout the middle east (and much further). Except for several years of Christian control during the Crusades, Palestine remained in Muslim hands, first Arab then Turk, for 1300 years until the end of World War One.

The Twentieth Century
The empire of the Ottoman Turks had existed since the middle of the fifteenth century and included the ancient land of Palestine and much that surrounded it. Turkey had sided with losing Germany in World War One and was carved up afterward by victorious Britain and France. By that time- the early 1920s- Jewish immigration into Palestine had already begun on a small but regular scale. There were 85,000 Jews in Palestine by the beginning of the war. By 1925 it was closer to 110,000.

Zionism, an organized movement to settle Jews in Palestine, had increased its activity in the late nineteenth century as a result of growing, violent anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe. Zionists were immensely hopeful when, in 1917, the British foreign secretary Lord Balfour put into writing Britain's support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." He didn't, however, suggest turning the country into a Jewish state. When the League of Nations made Palestine a British mandate after the war, Lord Balfour's declaration was assumed as part of the deal and the allied powers of the Great War all agreed.

It was the people whose land it was that objected.

Britain quickly discovered that the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was immensely unpopular among the residents of the area (except the Jewish settlers already there). For the years between the World Wars Jewish immigration and Arab hostility to it both continued while Britain tried to avoid doing anything wrong, which meant avoiding doing anything at all. By 1935 there were 300,000 Jews in Palestine. Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, had 100,000 people.

As conditions in Nazi Germany worsened throughout the thirties, the need for Jewish sanctuary in Palestine grew but conflicted with British needs to woo Arab support in case of war. In 1939 Britain declared that Jewish land purchases in Palestine would be cut back sharply for the next five years and then stopped altogether.

Then came the War. When it was over in 1945, the case for a Jewish homeland was stronger than it had ever been. The problem was both practical and emotional. The practical issue was the hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe who had no homes to return to and little or no family left alive. 2.3 million of the eight million Jews who had lived in German- occupied Europe were still alive. They had to go somewhere. The emotional problem was the guilt and sadness that resulted from the revelation of the millions who hadn't survived. The Jewish homeland question was front and centre.

In 1947 Britain, which had been handed the Palestine problem by the now-defunct League of Nations passed it on, with relief, to the newly born United Nations. The UN agreed to partition Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a neutral UN zone containing Jerusalem, a city sacred to three religions. The Jews were thrilled, the Arabs adamantly opposed.

In late 1947 the plan was ratified by the UN, and the State of Israel proclaimed on May 14, 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the country or were evicted, the British pulled out completely, and most of the Arab world- Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, as well as Palestinians- immediately attacked in an attempt to destroy Israel. By the time of armistice in 1949 Israel held three quarters of Palestine- twice as much land as the UN had proposed- Jordan had taken the land on the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt had taken the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians had nothing.

TWO HISTORIES

Israel
The year of Israel's twenty-fifth anniversary, 1973, marked the fourth all-out war in the area. The state was one day old when the first assault occurred. Surrounded by Egypt on the west, Jordan on the east, Syria and Lebanon on the north, and with Iraq close enough to be a danger, Israel managed to end that war with more land than it started with. Among it was the new section of the city of Jerusalem that was to be part of an international zone administered by the UN. Jordan took the old city, also meant to be in the neutral area.

In 1956 Egypt moved to nationalize the Suez Canal (up until then owned by a corporation dominated by France and Britain) and, as well, prevent Israeli shipping through the Strait of Tiran into the Gulf of Aqaba, the country's access to the Red Sea. Israel allied with France and Britain and, by the cease-fire, had taken the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. They were convinced by the UN, which set up a peacekeeping force in the area, to return the land to Egypt in return for assurances that Israeli shipping rights would be protected.

By 1967 Arab nationalism and Egyptian anger toward Israel had both increased dramatically. Egypt demanded removal of the UN troops which had been stationed in the area since the Suez Crisis and, when they were gone, again threatened Israeli shipping by blocking access to the Gulf of Aqaba. In what became known as the 'Six Day War' Israel destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground and, with military supremacy assured, headed west across Sinai. Though they again faced the circle of their Arab neighbours, they gained more ground, capturing Gaza, parts of the Egyptian Sinai desert, taking the West Bank lands and old Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights on Israel's northern border with Syria. This time, they refused to return any part of their spoils of war.

The Arab world responded with a united policy on Israel: no peace, no negotiation, and certainly no recognition. Guerrilla violence in Israel escalated with neighbouring countries, chiefly Jordan, used as bases for attack.

In 1973 (the Yom Kippur War), Egypt attacked Sinai while Syria attacked the Golan Heights. Other Arab countries contributed troops and aid. Israel again prevailed, driving further into Syria and encircling the entire Egyptian Third Army in Sinai, clearing a path to Cairo.

But finally, after a quarter century of warring, everyone seemed to accept the futility of looking for a military solution. Israel was not about to be driven into the Mediterranean. In December, the first Arab-Israeli peace conference was convened in Geneva, Switzerland and the expression "shuttle diplomacy" soon entered the language.

Palestine
Ten years after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left their homes they were still homeless and no one seemed to care. Some had been taken in by surrounding countries but many lived in camps. In the West there was support for the Jewish state based on political expediency (the U.S. needed allies in the region), affiliation (the Jewish population outside of Israel supported the state politically and financially), and humanitarianism (the Holocaust was still vividly and appallingly recent). The West also seemed to think that the Palestinians who left should have been absorbed easily into the lands of their neighbours. That's a bit like giving Saskatchewan to the Kurds and expecting the displaced to be absorbed effortlessly into Alberta and Manitoba.

In the late fifties an underground group was formed to push for the destruction of the state of Israel. It was called al-Fatah and its leader was a 29-year-old engineer named Yasser Arafat. Arafat was born in Jerusalem and had been involved in '48 smuggling guns to the Arabs, and in '56 as a soldier in the Egyptian army. He'd also trained commandos and edited an anti-Zionist magazine.

In 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed to co-ordinate the growing number of Palestinian groups fighting against Israel. In 1969 Arafat became chairman of the PLO. It was a PLO group, Black September, that murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Though the organization was an umbrella for a wide range of pro-Palestinian groups, it was perceived clearly in the West as a purely terrorist organization. It's avowed objective was the total removal of Israel from Palestine.

In 1974, less than a year after the first Arab-Israeli talks began, the PLO was given official status by the UN and the Arab world accepted it as a Palestinian government in exile.

ROAD TO WYE PLANTATION

From Camp David to Wye Plantation
It was Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, who made "shuttle diplomacy" a buzzword. Kissinger was already an acclaimed negotiator when he got between Egypt and Israel, having shared the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in Vietnam. In December of 1973, in the aftermath of the "Yom Kippur War," the first Arab-Israeli peace conference opened in Geneva, Switzerland.

By early 1974, with Kissinger flitting from side to side, Israeli and Egyptian troops were disengaged, and by May the Israelis and the Syrians were disentangled. Israel returned some of the land it took from Syria and UN buffer zones were created between the antagonists.

In 1977 a dramatic step was taken toward peace in a region that had known nothing but war for far too long. Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat visited Jerusalem - an unthinkable idea just a short period before - and within a year Egypt and Israel began discussions on implementing a continuing peace between the former bitter enemies. The Arab world was appalled.

In 1978 Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin for his courageous initiative but paid dearly for it as well. In 1981 he was assassinated by a Muslim extremist for exactly the act which most of the world applauded.

The agreement between Egypt and Israel was negotiated at the American Presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland with President Jimmy Carter as host and witnessing signatory. Israel agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt, but an equally important part of the talks involved the Palestinian problem. Both sides agreed to negotiate Palestinian autonomy in Gaza and in the West Bank lands. Sadat was killed, however, before any headway was made on the issue.

But, for the first time since Israeli statehood, Palestinian self-rule was an issue on the table.

Intifada
A decade after Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem, the Palestinians were no further ahead. In fact, it had been 10 years in which the situation appeared to be getting worse, not better.

By the early 1980s the PLO, which had been driven from Jordan in 1970 after a brief civil war, was based in Lebanon, on the north of Israel. In 1982, Israel, in response to PLO missile attacks on Israeli settlements, invaded Lebanon in an attempt to drive the PLO out. Before the war was over several hundred Palestinians living in Lebanese camps had been massacred and, though the actual killing was done by Christian militia members, Israel was in control of the camps during the murderous event and had permitted the militia to enter. International condemnation of Israel was small comfort to the Palestinians.

The Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank were still living in poverty, mostly in squalid camps, and under Israeli rule. To make the situation even worse, Israeli settlements were being constructed throughout the lands occupied since the 1967 war, the lands on which the Palestinians hoped, demanded, to create their own state. Increased Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel (sometimes at the rate of 1000 people a day) had made new housing an absolute necessity, and there were many Israelis who thought of the lands not as "occupied" but as "retrieved."

In December of 1987, the Palestinians in Gaza, followed immediately by those in the West Bank, erupted with four decades of anguish and anger. The Intifada, the spontaneous uprising of a people with nothing to lose, had begun. Israeli military presence was increased, curfews imposed, the Palestinians answered with a general strike. Violence became as common as poverty. Rocks and homemade explosives faced rubber bullets and tear gas. Over the next several years hundreds of Palestinians were killed and thousands more put into detention camps. The economy of the areas, always poor, worsened. Construction of Israeli settlements continued at an ever-advancing rate as immigrants flooded into the country.

In 1990, the U.S., in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, formed an international coalition of 28 countries to force them out. The Gulf War, early in 1991 achieved that end. In a wave of international fellow feeling that followed, peace talks were planned to grapple, finally, with the Palestinian situation. A conference in Madrid, Spain, in October of 1991 included representatives from Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians. Both American president George Bush and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev addressed the meeting. The issue was clear even if the solution was anything but: both Israel and the Palestinians wanted to live in peace in their own country. Though the Madrid conference settled nothing it had started something and that was a major victory.

By 1993 Israel and the PLO had met in Washington and signed an agreement that all parties hoped would end almost half a century of violence and hatred. It had been worked out beforehand in secret, in Norway. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and PLO leader Yasser Arafat met and shook hands on the White House lawn, though it must have been a mixed pleasure for both of them. Gaza, and the West Bank town of Jericho were to be transferred to Palestinian rule. The agreement wasn't broad but, to use a word that has so many meanings in the Middle East, it was historic.

The peace process took a terrible turn when, in November of 1995, the left-wing Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Jewish law student who was opposed to peace talks with the Palestinians. The election, in June, 1996 of right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the peace situation even more tenuous. The convoluted history of the agreement regarding the West Bank city of Hebron gives some insight into how tortuous the process can be.

But a series of talks have followed, most recently at the Wye Plantation in Maryland with President Clinton presiding and, bit by bit, land on the West Bank has been returned to the Palestinians. In return Israel wants to stop sleeping with one eye open as it has for the last fifty years and spending an enormous amount of its economy on fighting. Unfortunately, half a century of hatred is not erased by a contract.

After Israel under Netanyahu stalled on implementing the Wye accord, the election in May 1999 of Ehud Barak breathed new live into the peace process. Barak's first move was to call for peace with Israel's Arab neighbours, pledging to carry out the terms of the U.S.-brokered agreement. Then, in March 2000, the Israeli cabinet voted to withdraw its soldiers from the zone they had occupied in southern Lebanon for 15 years.

The Problems
The two biggest obstacles remaining to settling the land-for-security issue are that the two sides loathe and mistrust each other, and that both sides -- like, say, Canadians -- are made up of people with a range of conflicting needs and opinions.

Israeli politics remain divided left and right, while in Palestine, Arafat's leadership has been uneasy for at least twenty years. Hamas, a militant Islamic group, wants an end to negotiations and a resumption of the Intifada. Israelis who have settled on the West Bank consider a return of the lands to Palestine a betrayal of them and of the entire nation. Every time a small step toward resolution is planned extremists on one side or the other try to commit acts so heinous as to replace the movement toward settlement with renewed hatred.

A total absence of good will makes every agreement, every word of every agreement, slippery to handle. The Wye accord, for instance, called for Israeli release of some Palestinian prisoners along with the return of land. Since the Israeli purpose in the plan is to achieve peace and security, they don't want to release from prison Palestinians whom they consider a danger to them. Since the Palestinian requirement is freedom and self-government, they demanded the release of those they consider political detainees.

From the Israeli perspective there's nothing worse than giving neighbouring land to an enemy who then uses it as a base to destroy you. For the Palestinians, getting back land only to find themselves overrun by Israeli settlements is barely better than their current situation.

If politics is the art of doing the best you can under the circumstances, then the negotiators on both sides are trying hard to be rational politicians. But the conflicting nationalism of two peoples, a life-long memory of loathing and suspicion, and a list, thousands of names long, of dead and broken relatives, friends and countrymen, can obscure pragmatism.

BUILDING THE FUTURE

What a difference a few bulldozers can make.

The leaders talk, shake hands, sign documents and sometimes they agree. Then real life and real emotions get in the way. An Israeli housing project on a rural hillside in East Jerusalem is a good example. It helped derail a peace process that had seemed on track just months before.

The land is known to Jews as Har Homa, and to Arabs as Abu Ghnaim. Though news reports often mention that the plot of land has religious significance for both Muslims and Jews, archaeologists refer to it mainly as the setting for Christian monuments on an old road to Bethlehem. Whoever can lay claim to the most symbols on the site, the real issue is much larger than a plot of new houses on historic lands. The issue is Jerusalem itself, the sacred city of three religions and the centre of the most disputed land in a much-disputed country.

The Lure of Jerusalem
Jerusalem is considered among the holiest of cities by Christians, Jews and Muslims, and it contains many of the most revered locations in all three traditions.

To Jews, Jerusalem is the central and most emotional place in the religion, home of Solomon's Temple which was destroyed twenty-seven hundred years ago then rebuilt. It is the City of David, from which they were driven in 70 AD, when the Romans destroyed the Temple yet again. Jerusalem is the centre of the Jewish dream of return. According to Muslim tradition, Jerusalem the third holiest place in Islam. The Dome of the Rock is there, the place where Mohammed was elevated to heaven, and also the Mosque of Al Aqsa, one of the religion's most sacred shrines.

For Christians, Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. The city contains the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the traditional tomb of Christ. As well, Palestinian Christians have expressed concern about the Har Homa development's proximity to Bethlehem, Christ's birthplace.

In 1947 when the UN drew their partition lines in Palestine, the city of Jerusalem wasn't part of the deal. Because of its intense importance to three religions, the UN's plan called for the city to be an international enclave administered by the UN. However, after armistice was declared in 1949, ending the Israeli War of Independence, Jerusalem was a divided city, with the new, or western, section in Israeli hands and the old, or eastern, part annexed by Jordan. By the end of the Six Day War in 1967, the entire city of Jerusalem was in Israeli hands. It remains for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace process to decide its future, both in terms of who controls the city and in terms of who lives there. It's not a dispute either side will give up on.

The Last Suburb
Har Homa/Abu Ghnaim covers only 2 square kilometres, but the parcel of land is one of the last rural spots in an area of dense suburban development. It is a small piece of land that symbolizes the larger struggle for Jerusalem.

In the early 1900s, Arabs farmed the territory known as East Jerusalem and established some rudimentary buildings on Abu Ghnaim. In the 1930s and '40s, some of the land was purchased by Jewish businesses. From 1949 until 1967 the Jordanians were in control.

Since 1967 Israel has initiated a series of settlements in East Jerusalem. The state has provided financial incentives and encouraged immigrants to Israel to move to these suburbs. In 1991 Jewish developers who owned some of the rural Har Homa land asked the Israeli government to expropriate the rest of the land in preparation for development. Both Israeli and Palestinian land owners appealed, but to no avail. Har Homa completes a ring of Jewish-owned homes around the old city. There is a housing shortage for Palestinians in Jerusalem, and fewer Palestinian housing projects have been approved than Jewish projects. Palestinians claim that construction of a controversial thoroughfare, called Road 45, isolates many of their communities in Jerusalem from their neighbors on the West Bank.

The Diplomatic Crisis
The Israeli population in the East Jerusalem has swelled since 1967. It is estimated there were 50,000 Israelis in East Jerusalem in 1979. By 1993, there were 168,000 Israelis and 154,000 Palestinians. Palestinians believe the future of the city and control of the West Bank will be determined by local politics, and they believe control of those politics, by virtue of numbers, has shifted to the Israelis. That's one of the reasons they don't want new construction in the area.

In the Oslo II peace agreement of 1995, Israel agreed that Palestinians- who are residents but not citizens in Jerusalem- would have a vote in future elections. More Israeli citizens means the balance of power shifts in their favour. Jews, of course, believe this is desirable. Arabs will fight strenuously against it. So the bulldozers arrive to do their work. To one community they are building a rightful future. To the other, they are machines of destruction of a homeland.

JORDAN'S KING HUSSEIN

Hussein played major role in peace process
Hussein ibn Talal, whose line stretched back to the prophet Mohammed, ascended the throne of Jordan at the age of 17.

The Hashemite Dynasty to which he belonged proudly traces their lineage thirteen hundred years back to the founder of Islam. The dynasty had endured through the centuries of Turkish Ottoman control of the Mideast, and the Hashemite Prince Faysal ibn Husayn had fought alongside Colonel T.E. Lawrence during the First World War to overthrow Ottoman control in the area.

After the war Faysal's brother, Abdullah, became the Hashemite ruler of the newly formed nation of Trans-Jordan, which, like Palestine, was a British mandate.

Full independence came to Jordan after World War II and in 1946 Abdullah proclaimed himself king.

From the beginning of King Hussein's rule in 1953 he perpetually found himself, like his country, caught between conflicting forces: Israel and the West on one side, Arabs-- in particular Palestinians-- on the other. And Jordan always between them.

When the State of Israel was born in May of 1948 on the land that had been Palestine, the Arab world rose up in immediate attack.

When the fighting was over only Jordan emerged as a significant Arab victor. The lands on the west bank of the Jordan River that were, according to the UN plan, meant to form part of the Palestinian portion of the partitioned country ended up in Jordanian hands.

In 1950 Jordan officially annexed the West Bank. Israel and Britain quietly agreed to King Abdullah keeping the area, but the Arab countries objected loudly, and the new arrangement was recognized by only two countries: Britain and Pakistan.

In part it was Jordan's affiliation with the West that was responsible for its victories in the Israeli War of Independence.

The Arab Legion, formed in Trans-Jordan in the 20s under British influence, and taken over in 1939 by Sir John Bagot Glubb (a.k.a. Glubb Pasha), was the most effective military force in the Arab world. But Jordan's annexing of the West Bank, though it nominally expanded the Hashemite Kingdom, provided few benefits for Hussein.

The Palestinians were not supporters of the Hashemite Dynasty and an increase in Palestinian population could only be seen as a threat to Hussein's control. As well, the West Bank lands were at the centre of Palestinian hopes for their own homeland.

Because Jordan is not a nation rich in resources, Hussein knew that satisfying foreign interests in return for economic support was an absolute necessity. The West has been an enormous source of support for Jordan.

On the other hand-- there was always the other hand for Hussein-- the Arab world demanded Jordan's allegiance. After the armistice ending the Israeli War of Independence, Jordan's control of the West Bank was accepted by Israel and relations between the two countries were tolerable, though intermittent acts of violence on both sides kept tensions always near the surface.

Jordan retained its claims over the West Bank lands even after Israel occupied them during the Six Day War in 1967.

Jordan didn't finally relinquish its claims until 1988. But whatever Jordan's relationship to the West Bank, their histories were intertwined and Hussein was never far from whatever battlefield, military or political, was at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the 50s, Hussein bowed to nationalism and Arab pressure by purging Western advisors and removing Glubb as head of the Arab Legion.

He was also talked out of joining in a Western defence arrangement called the Baghdad Pact even though he had been instrumental in initiating it. But an attempted coup d'etat in 1957 by members of the National Guard, many of them Palestinians from the West Bank, caused Hussein to act decisively against the Palestinian nationalists in his legislature. Caught in the middle of too many conflicting demands, he banned political parties and set up a dictatorship.

When the Iraqi branch of the Hashemite Dynasty was killed in a coup in 1958-- engineered by Egypt-- Hussein turned to the West for protection.

With the financial and military aid of the U.S. and Britain, Hussein resisted the anti-Hashemite forces-- largely Palestinians supported by Egypt-- and hung on to power.

His next crisis was the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960s. This new force in Palestinian affairs threatened Jordan's sovereignty on the West Bank and caused the Israelis to respond to PLO raids, many launched from Jordan, with violence of their own. It was Israel's hope to force Jordan to stop the PLO. Relations between Jordan and the Palestinians worsened.

Hussein, understanding the potential for violence and political disintegration, attempted to quiet the situation by stopping guerilla use of his country and, in the process, he strained relations with both Syria and Egypt. But as tensions boiled ever higher, he joined with Egypt and Syria in 1967, putting Jordanian military forces under Egyptian command.

In the Six Day War in June of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, pushing Jordan back to the east side of the Jordan River. Jordan not only suffered heavy casualties but also lost much of its best farmland and, as well, had to cope with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hussein had gambled and, though he lost, he may have lost less than he otherwise might have. His reasoning was that if he didn't support Egypt and Syria, they in turn might well have supported a Palestinian coup in Jordan. He lost the West Bank but he kept his kingdom.

The post-Six Day War period provided several major problems for Hussein. The increase in Palestinian population in Jordan--angrier than ever at their situation-- threatened his Hashemite throne. The losses in the war had been crippling. And Israel now occupied the West Bank.

Ever the pragmatist, Hussein kept up negotiations with Israel but out of sight of the Arab world. He refused to sign a peace treaty with Israel and their relationship subsisted as neither friends nor enemies.

The PLO, under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat was a constant challenge to Hussein's power.

In September 1970, PLO guerrillas hijacked several airliners and blew them up on a landing strip in Jordan. Later that month, civil war erupted in Jordan and Hussein was forced to ask for Western help in combating the threat, which included several hundred Syrian tanks sent to aid the PLO.

By the next year the PLO had been forced from Jordan. When Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973 (the Yom Kippur War), Hussein kept out as much as possible though he sent tanks to help Syria. When the war was over Hussein demanded the return of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Israel but with no success.

By August 1974, however, Jordan and Israel were discussing a new proposal that would see Jordan representing the Palestinians. Arab leaders disagreed and with a largely unified voice the Arab world proclaimed the PLO as the only official representatives of the Palestinian people. Their objective was a Palestinian State. Hussein recognized that a federation between Jordan and a Palestinian state would give the Palestinian population a majority and he declared that he would never agree to such an idea.

In the late 70s Hussein, meeting with American President Jimmy Carter, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, discussed the issue of a Jordan-Palestine link but this time it was Arafat, speaking for the Palestinians, who demurred.

Relations between Jordan and Israel soured with the election of Menachem Begin as Israeli Prime Minister in May 1977. Begin clearly was in favour of keeping all of the West Bank. He sped up construction of Jewish settlements in the land still claimed by both Jordan and the Palestinians.

Hussein put an end to 15 years of secret negotiations with Israel and for several years, until 1984, Jordan and Israel stopped talking. In the early 1980s Hussein tried to settle with Arafat and the PLO, whose bases in Lebanon had been destroyed by Israel. Hussein needed the Palestinian situation resolved if Jordan was to achieve either peace or prosperity. He also needed to end the continuing threat to his Hashemite throne.

Hussein let the Palestine National Council meet in Amman, and in 1985 he agreed to aid the PLO in coordinating a joint peace initiative. Hussein wanted a confederation of the West and East Banks with autonomy for the Palestinians but under Jordanian rule. Arafat was happy to agree to confederation between a future Palestinian state and Jordan, but his vision included independence for the West Bank.

In February 1986 talks between Hussein and Arafat broke down. Hussein needed assurances from Arafat that he would renounce violence and recognize Israel but such an undertaking was never given. Hussein declared that Jordan would be responsible for the economic welfare of the West Bank Palestinians and, as well, he raised the number of Palestinian seats in the National Assembly.

If he could squeeze out the PLO and reach some accord with Israel, he hoped, he might still hang on to some of the disputed land.

In April 1987 Hussein and Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, agreed to a UN-sponsored conference that would include Palestinian representatives as part of a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. In spite of American assent to the plan, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir refused, wanting the conference to include only Jordan.

Hussein's stature rose with the 1987 Arab League summit meeting in Amman though, interestingly, the Palestinian issue wasn't the main topic of discussion. The Iran-Iraq War, already eight years old, took the floor.

In December of 1987 the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising on the West Bank and in Gaza, changed the entire situation for Jordan. Hussein supported the Intifada publicly and offered aid in an attempt to keep, or regain, Palestinian confidence.

Hussein's attempts at being seen as a friend of the Palestinians were rejected as Arafat became the spokesman for the Palestinians.

Any hopes of a Jordanian-Israeli resolution to the Palestine problem were effectively ended and Hussein renounced all claims to the West Bank. He dissolved the Jordanian parliament, half of whom were West Bank representatives, and stopped paying salaries to over 20,000 West Bank civil servants. When the Palestine National Council recognized the PLO as the sole legal representative of the Palestinians, Hussein immediately gave them official recognition.

With Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent Gulf War, Hussein was again stuck between two worlds, able to please only one. Hussein favoured Iraq over the US. Saddam Hussein of Iraq was an Arab who was widely supported within Jordan. As well, Iraq was one of Jordan's major trading partners. Jordan suffered condemnation and blockades. With the end of the war, however, all was forgiven as Jordan was again solicited to support a peace initiative in the perpetually troubled area.

With the Gulf War behind them, all the parties involved in the mid-east stepped up attempts to reach a solution to the Palestinian situation, at that point almost half a century old. King Hussein of Jordan, whose land and life had both been in the centre of the controversy for so long, clearly had as much interest in a settlement as the principals themselves.

In 1991 a conference was convened in Madrid, with Jordan as a major player, at which the PLO and Israel were both in attendance and first steps toward resolution were taken. Israel and the PLO went on to arrange a secret peace plan in Oslo in 1993 and Hussein signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

In 1997 when President Clinton needed some prestigious heft to break the deadlock at the Wye Plantation talks, he invited King Hussein, in the US for treatment of the cancer that finally took his life, to attend. Though the agreement hashed out at Wye has followed the usual, complex course of mid-eastern affairs, Hussein's input at the conference helped to sway the participants to at least begin to agree.

Hussein was King of Jordan for over 45 years and in that time was plagued by a single problem that overshadowed every other in his political life. He did not live to see its resolution though he will be remembered as one whose efforts helped his neighbours, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to live in the peace that eluded him most of his life. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/middleeast/questforpeace.html (links to more info)

The Temple: The crowning achievement of King Solomon's reign was the erection of a magnificent Temple (Beit ha-Midkash) in Jerusalem. His father, King David, had wanted to build a great Temple for God a generation earlier, as a permanent resting place for the Ark containing the Ten Commandments. A divine edict, however, had forbidden him from doing so. "You will not build a house for My name," God said to him, "for you are a man of battles and have shed blood" (I Chronicles 28:3). The Bible's description of Solomon's Temple suggests that the inside ceiling was was 180 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 50 feet high. The highest point on the Temple that King Solomon built was actually 120 cubits tall (about 20 stories or about 207 feet). He spares no expense in the building's creation. He orders vast quantities of cedar from King Hiram of Tyre (I Kings 5:2025), has huge blocks of the choicest stone quarried, and commands that the building's foundation be laid with hewn stone. To complete the massive project, he imposes forced labor on all his subjects, drafting people for work shifts lasting a month at a time. Some 3,300 officials are appointed to oversee the Temple's erection (5:2730). Solomon assumes such heavy debts in building the Temple that he is forced to pay off King Hiram with twenty towns in the Galilee (I Kings 9:11). When the Temple is completed, Solomon inaugurates it with prayer and sacrifice, and even invites nonJews to come and pray there. He urges God to pay particular heed to their prayers: "Thus all the peoples of the earth will know Your name and revere You, as does Your people Israel; and they will recognize that Your name is attached to this House that I have built" (I Kings 8:43). Until the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians some four hundred years later, in 586 B.C.E., sacrifice was the predominant mode of divine service there. Seventy years later, a second Temple was built on the same site, and sacrifices again resumed. During the first century B.C.E., Herod greatly enlarged and expanded this Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E., after the failure of the Great Revolt. During the centuries the Muslims controlled Palestine, two mosques were built on the site of the Jewish Temple. (This was no coincidence; it is a common Islamic custom to build mosques on the sites of other people's holy places.) Since any attempt to level these mosques would lead to an international Muslim holy war (jihad) against Israel, the Temple cannot be rebuilt in the foreseeable future. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/The_Temple.html

JERUSALEM (3/31/05, AP) - Israel's Supreme Court agreed Thursday to recognize non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism that are at least partly performed in Israel, giving a limited victory to the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements, which had been marginalized by the religious establishment here. Under current practice, Israel recognizes only those conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel, although people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are eligible for citizenship under Israel's "Law of Return." The court ruled on a case brought in 1999 by 17 foreigners who studied for Reform or Conservative conversions in Israel but had the ceremonies performed abroad in an attempt to get around the limitations. Israeli authorities objected to their conversions, saying the Law of Return does not apply to foreigners already living in Israel. The ruling Thursday accepted the conversions, granting legal recognition to those who study for conversions in Israel but go through the actual conversion process abroad. The court did not rule on whether those who complete their conversions in Israel would be recognized as Jews. "This is a great ruling. On one hand, all the petitioners received the status of new immigrants, a status they have been waiting for over more than eight years," Nicole Maor, a lawyer for the petitioners, told Israel Radio. "Secondly, while this is limited to overseas conversions, the court ruled emphatically that the government could not create a monopoly on conversions here. If the they want a monopoly for Orthodox conversions, they have to legislate it." The conversion battle cuts to the heart of the identity of the Jewish state and was being watched by Jews outside Israel, where the Reform and Conservative movements are more widely accepted than they are here. The Reform and Conservative movements are the two largest streams of Judaism in the United States, but they have been largely sidelined in Israel. The dominant Orthodox establishment has a virtual monopoly over issues such as marriage, divorce, and burial, as well as sizable budgets from the government for schools and other programs.

JERUSALEM (4/6/05, AP) - Israel's Arabs will make up 25% of the country's population by the year 2025, according to a projection published Wednesday by the government's Central Bureau of Statistics. The survey predicts that the overall population will rise over the next 20 years to just over 9.2 million from its present 6.6 million, of which 2.3 million will be Arabs and 6.5 million will be Jews. About 435,000 people will be from other groups, the projection says. Israeli Arabs currently make up about 19 percent of the population. The report, covering population growth only inside Israel's pre-1967 frontiers, assumes an average annual growth of 2.7 percent in the Arab population and 1.1 percent for the Jewish community. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimates the current population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip at about 4.0 million. Israeli demographers have said Arabs will outnumber Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in the coming decades.

Thomas Sowell notes that Jews are not the only minority hated for economic success. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, overseas Indians and Chinese, Lebanese in Africa, have served as middlemen minorities, intermediaries between producers and consumers, as retailers or lenders. Typically, they start with little capital, put the whole family to work, and eventually prosper. They then are resented by the society that they have done so much to facilitate. This accounts for much historic anti-Semitism. (OCR, 6/5/05, Commentary 4)

In 1947, the British, who had the Mandate over Palestine, decided that they had enough of the decades of fighting and slaughter between Arabs and Jews. They washed their hands of the Mandate and turned it over to the United Nations.

A solution not accepted. Wishing to end the bloodshed and to create a stable and, hopefully, permanent solution to the decades of conflict, the U.N. decreed a partition of the country west of the Jordan River into an Arab and a Jewish state. In deference to Arab Muslim insistence that it was their “third holiest city,” the city of Jerusalem, the focus of all Jewish aspirations for two millennia, was to be “internationalized.” For the Jews this was bitterly disappointing. Still, in order to create their dreamed-of state, to normalize the lives of the Jewish inhabitants, and to make possible the ingathering of the Holocaust survivors, they accepted the partition plan. They declared their state, Eretz Yisrael – the Land of Israel – and became a nation. Forever to his credit, US President Harry Truman recognized the nascent state of Israel within minutes of its declaration of independence.

The Arabs rejected the partition proposal out of hand. Instead, six Arab armies invaded the country from all sides. They vowed to wage a war of extermination. The Jewish population of only 650,000 people was lightly armed and almost hopelessly outnumbered. But in an almost Biblical miracle, the ragtag Jewish forces defeated the combined Arab might. They suffered horrendous casualties – about 1 per cent of the population. It was as if the United States were to lose 3 million people in a conflict. The Arabs also suffered greatly. Goaded mostly by their leaders to make room for the invading armies, about 650,000 fled the fighting. They were not accepted by their Arab brethren. They were interned and live to this day in so-called refugee camps, slum cities, in which they lead miserable and totally unproductive lives, dependent on the dole of the world. They are consumed with hatred against the Jews who, they believe, have deprived them of their patrimony.

At the end of Israel’s War of Liberation, Jordan remained in possession of Judea and Samaria (which were renamed “The West Bank”) and the eastern part of Jerusalem. Egypt remained in control of the densely populated Gaza Strip.

Prosperity despite unending attacks. But Israel was not allowed to live in peace. Virtually without interruption, it was victimized by attacks from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. There were two major wars: the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Israel prevailed in both. It acquired major territories, most of which, in its never-ending quest for peace, it returned. Following these unsuccessful wars, the Palestinians subjected Israel to almost uninterrupted “intifadas,” essentially one-sided civil wars, in which suicide bombings and other assorted terrors were the main weapons.

Despite these unending tribulations and absorbing close to 4 million migrants from all parts of the world, Israel prospered mightily. Its population is now close to 8 million. Over 1 million of them are Arabs. They are Israeli citizens, have all the rights of their fellow Jewish citizens, serve in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) and in the diplomatic corps. They are full participants in the economic prosperity that permeates Israel. Israel’s product per person is on the same or higher order as that of most European countries. It is a center of science and of culture. Its industrial output encompasses some of the most advanced technology and sophisticated production in the world. Next to Canada, Israel is the most represented country on US stock exchanges. Most major high-tech companies have facilities – factories and research establishments – in Israel.

All of this is admirable, of course. But there is a flip side to this edifying story. That is the fate of the Arab descendants of those who fled Israel in the 1948 War of Liberation. Had they followed the example of the Jews and agreed to the partition decreed by the U.N., they could today be in the same advanced position as Israel, instead of the misery in which they live. Because there is no question that Israel would have been more than willing to enter into a federation with Palestine, in which citizens of both countries could peacefully partake in common prosperity. Can that dream still come true? Of course it can! Israel has accepted virtually all of the “conditions” for reconciliation on which the Palestinians have insisted, with the sole exception of the demand for the “right of return.” That “right” would swamp Israel with hundreds of thousands or even millions of Arabs. The country could not absorb them and it would with one stroke be the end of Israel as the Jewish state. Even for the thorny question of Jerusalem a compromise could be found. But, having been misled by the thuggish Arafat for decades, Arab Palestine needs a wise leader in order to finally make peace with Israel. Arab children could study at Israel’s splendid universities and technical schools, instead of learning the “science” of martyrdom and the “skills” of suicide bombing. Then the dream could finally be fulfilled and peace and prosperity could be extended over all of the Promised Land. Milk and Honey could indeed flow

DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT THE MIDDLE East's old diplomatic game of make-believe is back. The peace process is hopelessly deadlocked, but the key players pretend otherwise, hoping that wishing will make it so. There's an old saying in the sands of Araby: "If you can't manage to get control of the camel, at least get control of its saddle." Israel has control of neither.

What everyone knows but doesn't like to admit is that the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have, once and for all, given in to the gunmen. Abbas pledged to establish "one authority, one law, and one gun." He has failed on all counts. When radicals threatened to break the cease-fire several weeks ago, he caved, freeing nine of their jailed gunmen. He caved again when the radicals threatened to kill Fatah supporters unless he released another terrorist who had been firing rockets in Gaza. When Israel gave the Palestinian Authority the names of militants involved in a February suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv nightclub, he caved yet again, arresting several, then releasing them. Instead of living up to his promise to keep tabs on a "Most Wanted" list of 495 terrorists, he tried to slip many of them in as employees of the Palestinian security forces, to legitimize and launder their possessions of arms so they could attack again. When Israel provided the names of weapon smugglers, Abbas's security chiefs tipped them off that the Israelis were on their trail.

Now you have armed gangs playing pretend democracy. Gunmen of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades run Jenin. In Ramallah, dozens of wanted men, joined by 80 members of the presidential guard, opened fire in the courtyard of Palestinian Authority headquarters. In Tulkarm, another gang opened fire on the Palestinian governor's building. In Gaza, Hamas still fires scores of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli homes while Islamic Jihad defies the agreement for a "calm," saying, "We joined the tahdiya [calm] to give the combatants rest. . . . As far as we are concerned, the intifada has not ended; it is still going on."

What is also still going on is the incitement of hatred. In print and on broadcast media controlled by the Palestinian Authority--and subsidized by Europe and the United States--Israelis and Jews continue to be demonized, their murders blatantly encouraged. Palestinian kids are still taught that the greatest glory is dying for Allah in battle as jihadists. They save terrorist cards the way American kids save baseball cards.

What is Israel to do? It's amazing that Israelis have kept their patience for this long in the face of such betrayals. It would have been a dereliction of Israel's duty to its citizens not to respond as it has--retaining control of land, sea, and air access to Gaza; resuming arrests and the targeted killings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist leaders; and tightening security all around. The Palestinians have only themselves to blame for the fact that Israel is now slowing the withdrawal program and has delayed transferring more West Bank cities to Palestinian control.

Victimhood. The Palestinian Authority is in disarray and decline. Abbas ducked elections in Gaza that were scheduled for July 17. Hamas opposes a negotiated peace with Israel, but it is filling the void left by the PA. It provides health and education services, exploiting popular revulsion over the PA's corruption in siphoning off vast amounts of the aid donated to the Palestinian people by the international community.Abbas's strategy has been to present himself as a victim. His desire is that this will take the heat off him to confront terrorism, in the hope that the international community will force Israel to make still more concessions to help him out. But Israelis rightly ask: What's the point of strengthening a leader whose popularity is plummeting, who cannot or will not exert control over terrorists, and who has proved incapable of carrying out his promises?Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is determined to proceed with the disengagement despite the fact that the postponement of the Gaza election means Israel does not know the full extent of Hamas's political strength there, leaving open the risk that it may be transferring territory to enemies who will seek to destroy Israel.The sad fact is that everything is going wrong. Terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are using the relative calm to rearm and regroup for the next intifada. They smuggle longer-range missiles through dirt tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, for use after disengagement against Israelis now across the fence. Sharon has taken a huge gamble with the Gaza withdrawal. But instead of playing weak, Sharon plays strong, determined to complete the disengagement. How sad that there is no comparable leader on the other side, someone with a vision of what a Palestinian state might be and with the courage to save the Palestinian Authority from being a fig leaf for an increasingly anarchic terrorist state. (USN&WR, 8/15/05, 72)

On the eve of Israel's 60th Independence Day, the country's population stands at 7,282,000, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), 18,000 new immigrants have arrived in Israel since last Independence Day. Some 5,499,000 of the population (75.5 percent) are Jews, 1,461,000 (20.1%) are Arabs and the remaining 322,000 (4.4%) are immigrants and their offspring who are not registered as Jews by the Interior Ministry. According to the CBS statistics, since last Independence Day, the country's population has risen by some 130,000, with most of this increase being attributed to natural growth. 156,400 new babies have been born and some 18,000 new immigrants have arrived. When the state was established, there were only 806,000 residents, with this number reaching its first and second million in 1949 and 1958 respectively. In 1990, Israel's population hit five million and in 1998, after the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union, it numbered six million. According to the CBS forecast, the population is expected to reach 10 million by 2030.

Jews were driven out of Arab lands in roughly the same number as Arabs who fled Israel at the time of the creation of the Jewish state. The difference was the Jews were absorbed into the new state, given jobs and citizenship, while the Palestinians were largely confined to squalid camps in order for their unwilling Arab hosts to exploit them as political pawns to use against Israel. ( JERUSALEM POST, May 12, 2008) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627059753&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

THE JEWS TOOK NOBODY'S LAND

by Joseph Farrah, (Nov 19, 2002, WorldNet Daily) - As the most visible Arab-American critic of Yasser Arafat and the phony "Palestinian" agenda, I get a lot of hate mail. I've even received more than my share of death threats. Most of those who attack me - at least those who bother to get beyond the four-letter words and insults - say I just don't understand or have sympathy for these poor Arabs who were displaced, chased out of their homes and turned into refugees by the Israelis. Let me state this plainly and clearly: The Jews in Israel took no one's land.

WHEN MARK TWAIN visited the Holy Land in the 19th century, he was greatly disappointed. He didn't see any people. He referred to it as a vast wasteland. The land we now know as Israel was practically deserted. By the beginning of the 20th century, that began to change. Jews from all over the world began to return to their ancestral homeland - the Promised Land Moses and Joshua had conquered millennia earlier, historians and Jews believe, on the direct orders of God. That's not to say there wasn't always a strong Jewish presence in the land - particularly in and around Jerusalem. In 1854, according to a report in the New York Tribune, Jews constituted two-thirds of the population of that holy city. The source for that statistic? A journalist on assignment in the Middle East that year for the Tribune. His name was Karl Marx. Yes, that Karl Marx.

A travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal. The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews. "The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states. Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and Represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906. And even though Muslims today claim Jerusalem as the third holiest site in Islam, when the city was under Islamic rule, they had little interest in it.

As the Jews came, drained the swamps and made the deserts bloom, something interesting began to happen. Arabs followed. I don't blame them. They had good reason to come. They came for jobs. They came for prosperity. They came for freedom. And they came in large numbers. Winston Churchill observed in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population." Then came 1948 and the great partition. The United Nations proposed the creation of two states in the region - one Jewish, one Arab. The Jews accepted it gratefully. The Arabs rejected it with a vengeance and declared war. Arab leaders urged Arabs to leave the area so they would not be caught in the crossfire. They could return to their homes, they were told, after Israel was crushed and the Jews destroyed. It didn't work out that way. By most counts, several hundred thousand Arabs were displaced by this war - not by Israeli aggression, not by some Jewish real-estate grab, not by Israeli expansionism. In fact, there are many historical records showing the Jews urged the Arabs to stay and live with them in peace. But, tragically, they chose to leave.

FIFTY-FOUR YEARS LATER, the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of those refugees are all-too-often still living in refugee camps - not because of Israeli intransigence, but because they are misused as a political tool of the Arab powers. Those poor unfortunates could be settled in a week by the rich Arab oil states that control 99.9 percent of the Middle East land mass, but they are kept as virtual prisoners, filled with misplaced hatred for Jews and armed as suicide martyrs by the Arab power brokers. This is the modern real history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. At no time did the Jews uproot Arab families from their homes. When there were title deeds to be purchased, they bought them at inflated prices. When there were not, they worked the land so they could have a place to live without the persecution they faced throughout the world. It's a great big lie that the Israelis displaced anyone - one of a series of lies and myths that have the world on the verge of committing yet another great injustice to the Jews.

ADDENDUM:
After 1948, the land of Arabs who left the territory of Israel was assigned to an administrator of absentee lands, and under Israeli law the absentee Arabs could return and reclaim their land. Thousands of them did so (the figures I have seen are over 15,000). As to those absentee Arab land owners who refused to deal with Israel, their land was taken by eminent domain (called "compulsory purchase" in British law, or "expropriation" in European civil law), and they were paid fair market value plus interest. This is a story that for some reason has not received any publicity, an act of informational neglect that from the point of view of hasbara is positively criminal. This story should be told. Don't take my word for any of this. Check it out with your Israeli sources. I believe that the Office of Administrator of Absentee Property still exists in Israel. Gideon Kanner, Professor of Law Emeritus, Loyola Law School
http://www.windowview.org/NEWS/2005/Q1/news.021905.bk.htm

Israel's Arab Settlements
[rightsidenews.com, 1/6/10]

While the media and politicians wail over Israeli settlements and revisionist historians pen narratives in which Israel's entire history comes down to a plot to seize Arab land (following in the footsteps of how their American counterparts have reinterpreted US history)... very little is said of Israel's Arab settlements.

But Arab settlements in Israel far outweigh Jewish ones and have far less legitimate roots. Consider East Jerusalem, which Obama and the EU are insisting should be reserved for Arab residency alone. East Jerusalem does indeed have a solid Arab majority because in 1948 the armies of seven Arab nations invaded Israel and occupied half of Jerusalem, dividing it as their Soviet allies divided Berlin, and ethnically cleansed its Jewish population. Jewish places of worship in East Jerusalem were bombed or turned into mosques and toilets, even the dead were not allowed to rest in peace as their tombstones were used to pave roads. Jewish homes were seized by Arabs and East Jerusalem became wholly Arab.

This is the situation that Obama and the EU are fighting to perpetuate by banning any Jewish housing in the eastern half of the now united Jerusalem. This is what every government that refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is legitimizing by rewarding the ethnic cleansing practiced by the Jordanian Legion and the Holy War Army (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) of the nephew of Nazi collaborating Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad al-Husayni.

And then there are the so-called Israeli settlements of Gaza, Judea and Samaria-- which indeed were built on territory that Israel captured from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, after Egypt and Jordan had captured the territory in 1948, destroying Jewish villages on the territory in the process. Some Jewish villages like Kfar Darom suffered the fate of being destroyed twice over, once by the Arab occupation armies in 1948, to be reestablished and again destroyed by Fatah's terrorist militias after Israel agreed to ethnically cleanse its own population from Gaza to appease Arab terrorism.

That is the truth behind the so-called Israeli Settlements issue, but it is not by any means the whole truth. Because the UN, the EU and the State Department have only applied the term "settlements" to Jewish towns and villages, never Arab ones, regardless of their legality. This double standard that is defined purely by ethnicity and religion, and by no other factor whatsoever, represents the real international Apartheid that targets Jews for ethnic cleansing to the benefit of Arab Muslims.

That means that the Arab Muslim seizure of land for the creation of settlements has been mostly unregulated and is widespread. Not only that it's often aided and abetted by foreign activists who regularly come to "help" Arab villagers harvest olives. In reality this is often a charade in which those same villagers have marked the territory by planting on the land of Jewish villages nearby, resulting in calculated clashes that are broken up by soldiers and police, and filmed by the same activists resulting in international condemnations. To avoid those condemnations, Israel eventually seizes the land from the Jewish farmers and turns it over to the Arab villagers. This only sets the stage for the next stage of the clashes, recreating in a microcosm the entire "peace process", in which terrorism results in concessions, which results in more terrorism and more concessions, creating the cycle of appeasement and terrorism that has bedeviled Israel and most of the First World when dealing with Islam.

Those same left wing activists, most notably groups such as Peace Now and Rabbis for Human Rights, go on to destroy and damage the land of Jewish farmers. When the farmers attempt to defend their land, the activists videotape the resulting encounter and the farmers are arrested. At which point the land can be easily seized while its owners are tied up by the legal system. Attempting to reestablish ownership then becomes next to impossible in a political system constantly afraid of international condemnation and in a legal system controlled by the Anti-Israel left all the way up to the Supreme Court, which actually refused to seat a Justice for being too conservative.

And in the process Arab settlements continue to expand on land that they casually appropriate, whether from public domain lands under the authority of the Israel Land Administration or from that of farmers and villages who own the land. Arab villages and towns routinely expand into public lands, fouling water sources and seizing property they do not own, and then defying the government to do anything about it. And while the government occasionally issues a demolition order, then braces itself for the rioting and the international condemnations, these orders constitute only a fraction of the illegal Arab construction.

While Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states fund Arab land purchases, similar Jewish ventures, such as Irving Moskowitz's developments in Jerusalem meet with aggressive opposition from the EU and the State Department. Once again the double standard is all too clear and it promotes the growth of Arab towns and houses, at the expense of Jewish ones.

The media, whether the international media, or the Israeli media, which is just as left wing as its American and European counterparts, naturally report the Arab side of the story. The culture of demonization they have created toward Jewish farmers and residents helps justify the terrorist attacks aimed at them. Every time the media reports on the victims of a Muslim terrorist attack as "settlers", the labeling of Jewish residents as subhuman continues.

Israel's left wing parties have sold much of the secular public on the idea that the "settlers" are the problem. This conveniently allows them to ignore the fact that on Arabs maps and in the Islamic lexicon, all Israeli Jews are settlers, regardless of which side of the demarcation line they happen to be living on. Since non-Muslims cannot live in a Muslim land except by agreeing to become Dhimmis and paying Jizya, under Islamic law no Jews, aside from a handful of collaborators who recognize the area as an Islamic ruled state like the Neturei Karta have any right to live anywhere in Israel.

When Zionist activists opposed to the Oslo Peace Process shouted that Hevron is Jerusalem in the early 90's, they were laughed at. Today Jerusalem is indeed Hevron, the new slogan should be that Tel Aviv is Hevron, because any dividing lines of legitimacy exist only as a diplomatic fiction. The idea that Muslims are any more reconciled to 1948 than they are to 1967, and that returning to 1948 will somehow win their friendship is the worst form of political and diplomatic delusion. But it is the dominant policy of the EU and successive American and Israeli governments.

As a result Israel is shrinking and Arab settlement is expanding. The settlement freeze enacted under pressure from Obama has frozen the ability of Jewish residents to build and expand homes, even those already mortgaged and under construction. But Barak has gone even further by barring Jewish residents from planting trees. Jewish residents pay 28 shekels for a cubic meter of water. Arab residents pay less than 50 agorot (cents). The result is that Jewish residents are being charged up to 50 times more for water. And water is the lifeblood of farming in a generally arid part of the world.

Since Oslo elements within the Israeli political system, aided and abetted by foreign funding from the likes of Soros, have been on a crusade to wipe out Jewish towns and villages in order to destroy the conservative and Zionist parts of the country. The resulting quiet civil war in which hundreds of thousands of Jewish villagers have been pitted against the machinery of government bureaucracy, the judicial system and various left wing activist groups, has only further increased Arab settlements, at the expense of Jewish ones.

Every institution that was once intended to promote Jewish residency, has instead been transformed into a hostile force that aids and abets Arab settlement, and works against Jewish settlement. Case in point, the Jewish National Fund which normally refuses to plant trees outside the Green Line around areas of Jewish residency, is donating 3,000 trees for Rawabi, a new Palestinian Authority Fatah city set in a strategic location.

While inspectors march around every Jewish town looking for signs that anyone has lifted up a hammer to bang in a nail on a door, Arab construction is continuing non-stop, including on places like Rawabi, an Arab settlement meant to house 40,000. And while Tony Blair repeatedly warned Israel against building Jewish settlements, he himself visited the headquarters of the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company that is constructing Rawabi. Bayti is co-owned by the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company, which is itself owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, which is an arm of the Government of Qatar.

Qatar is an oil rich gulf dictatorship that is one of the biggest funders of Hamas and Al Queda. It is likely that Hamas and Al Queda would have serious trouble continuing their operations without money from Qatar. It is an Islamist Sharia paradise much like the rest of its gulf neighbors and it funds Jihad around the world.

Rawabi is another expression of the international Islamic Jihad, which in this case takes the form of demographic warfare through Arab settlement. Gulf State construction companies such as the Bin Laden group are tools for promoting Islamic expansionism. And JNF's gestire of appeasement is another example of how Israel's institutions continue to collaborate with Arab settlement, even as they restrict Jewish settlement.

The global double standard treats Israel's Jewish residents as foreign invaders who must be expelled, despite the fact that the Jewish presence in the land is a matter of record in virtually every major world religion, while treating the Arabs, many of whom came to the area from Egypt after the British conquest and Jewish immigration created jobs, as indigenous natives who have every right to be there.

This form of political ethnic cleansing has become the de facto narrative, rooted in double talk about settlements and terrorism. But to treat Jewish towns and villages as illegitimate and working to destroy them, while encouraging the construction of Arab towns and villages means that talk of "settlements" and "settlement freezes" is nothing more than an international apartheid and the Islamist agenda dressed up in seemingly reasonable talk. Until Israel's Arab settlements are on the table, as much as Israel's are, the only thing that Israel can do is reject this international mandate for ethnic cleansing.

http://www.rightsidenews.com/201001068056/global-terrorism/israels-arab-settlements.html

We’re not going anywhere
Sara K. Eisen -- Published: 06.09.10, 17:33 / Israel Opinion

Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about poor Helen Thomas, who I believe was probably just saying what everyone thinks and has therefore been made a scapegoat. Not that I really care, because we ought to share the scapegoat status once in a while. It’s the least we can do to dispel the stereotype that we are stingy, us irritating Jews.

Helen, you know why we were in Germany and much of Eastern Europe in the first place? (And by the way, if I follow your advice, do you think the nice old ladies who got my grandmothers’ large houses and farms from the Nazis in what was once Czechoslovakia will kick the property back two generations? That would be cool because I’d love a vineyard and an agricultural estate.)

We were in Germany and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Russia (where we were regularly just plain killed by Cossacks), and also, for many centuries, Poland (ditto), because we were told to get the hell out of England, France, and Spain. (Or, you know, just plain killed by handsome and heroic fairytale knights.)

And you know why we were in Western Europe to begin with? Because we were told by the Greeks and the Romans – wait for it – to get the hell out of “Palestine,” where we had been living since the beginning of recorded history.

We also ended up in Babylonia (Iraq) and other Middle Eastern and North African countries, where we stayed as second class citizens for hundreds and hundreds of years, till the Arab world finally caught up with the pagans and the Christians in their hatred of the Jews. Amazing how the student has now far surpassed the teacher. But I digress.

In any event, there is no way around it: Jews being asked (usually not by old ladies on the White House lawn) to get the hell out of anywhere and everywhere is just the way it goes.

Persona non grata in East Europe So it came to pass that about 200 years BCE the Macabees got sick of it and established a Jewish state in Palestine, within the Roman Empire, which lasted till about the time of Jesus (another Pesky Jew) and the destruction of the Second Temple.

And it also came to pass that Jewish settlers began arriving in Ottoman Palestine in the late 1800s, after the Russians and the Poles made it clear that Jews were persona non grata in Eastern Europe. Palestine was as good a place as any to escape to, since it was the last place, about 2000 years before, that the Jews had a sovereign state (see above). Never mind Jewish liturgy and texts pining for Jerusalem, since I know these are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.

Anyway, nowhere else wanted European Jews any more than Russia did, not even America really, where there were very strict quotas, although the Americans, again politely, refrained from all the messy European killing, which was apparently in vogue until after Hitler. Besides, those Ottoman Turks, as now, were known around the world for their amazing human rights activism and the Jews were excited to see it firsthand. (No, not really. But…they were better than the Polish peasants. Unless you were Armenian.)

But when the Jews came back to Land of Israel, it was suddenly necessary, once again, to tell them to get the hell out. There was no living side by side, even though that was an express Jewish desire right up until 1947/8, when the Partition Plan was summarily rejected by the Arab League, who started the war that Israel won. If keeping land you win in a war others provoke (when you wanted to make peace) is called occupation, Helen, the world’s axis of furious justice has a lot bigger fish to fry than Israel.

The Arab desire to kick the Jews the hell out of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and not in 1948. It began the moment the initial groups of Jews arrived and started to make the land flower and produce crops. The Hebron Massacre of 1929, where marauding Arabs killed nearly 70 Jews and wounded countless others, took place long before a single house was built over the Green Line.

At any rate, it seems that every time a Jewish minority starts to make a society too successful – so annoying!!!! – the indigenous people start to feel very uncomfortable, and tell them one way or another to get the hell out.

Nowhere left for us to go But now, alas, there is nowhere left for us to go, except the eternal place Ahmadinejad wants us to go, and Haniyeh and Nasrallah, and Hitler before them, and Khmelnitsky before him, and Haman before him, and so on. And, I suspect, in her heart of hearts, perhaps Thomas and the likes of her, who, the pesky Jew Freud may have observed, seriously let her slip show.

Let me make it clear: I know that Israel has made mistakes over its 62 years, some clumsy and inept (was there no intelligence regarding the terrorists aboard the Mavi Marmara?!?), and some borderline immoral. But none worse than every other democracy on earth has also done, and most much better than the large majority of the UN rogue nations which condemn Israel daily have done…daily.

But let’s be honest: the international community’s human rights crusades on behalf of the Palestinians are just the latest Crusades, and the ones who really suffer are not the Jews or the Israelis but the poor occupants of the Third World who are ignored while the enlightened First World castigates the Jews… and yes, of course, the Palestinians, who are kept in misery by their own leadership in order to provide the polite Jew haters with a media club to beat them with.

So here’s the thing: We are not going anywhere this time, Helen. We totally get it: Ya’ll pretty much hate us. It’s just the way it is, like a natural law.

Nothing we can do – not giving away pieces of Palestine/Israel (witness our evacuation of Gaza in 2005, and handing over the keys to army bases and greenhouses- a new economy! Food for the children! – which were summarily torched as property of the infidels); not donating billions annually to global charity, nor discovering a cure for Polio or the Theory of Relativity, or writing revered legal and religious texts, or co-founding Google, or manufacturing the microprocessor in the majority of laptops that spew Jew hatred to the Internet, or founding Christianity itself, or championing women’s rights and gay rights in the US and helping to bring about a human rights revolution in America in the 60’s. None of those things will absolve us of our real sin: Existing and overcoming.

I’m really sorry they told you to get the hell out of the White House, Helen. It really wasn’t your fault that you thought you could say what you said. It’s not like it’s a secret: That’s what people think.

But this time, seriously. Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.

I know. Irritating.

The Israelis know that the Jews have lived in the land of Israel without interruption for nearly 4,000 years. They know that, except for a short Crusader kingdom, they are the only people who have had independent sovereignty on this land. And they are the only people for whom Jerusalem has been their capital.

They are not a foreign occupier because the State of Israel is the child not of European colonialism but rather of Ottoman decolonialization. It was that Jewish historical bond that led the League of Nations 85 years ago to establish the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute a Jewish homeland on all the territories west of the Jordan River, all the way to the Mediterranean. That same right to a national home was sanctioned again 59 years ago by the new United Nations. After an Arab invasion 40 years ago, the U.N. passed a resolution affirming Israel's right to "secure and recognized boundaries." As Winston Churchill noted in 1922, "The Jews are in Palestine by right, not sufferance." And when Yasser Arafat said there was no First or Second Temple in Jerusalem but only "an obelisk," he, too, was trying to deny the history of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. But this is the site of the binding of Isaac by Abraham, the place where David built the altar on the threshing floor of Aravna to halt the plague. The Temple Mount was where Jesus was brought as an infant and where he later chased away the money-changers. Mentioned 20 times in the New Testament, the Temple Mount is one of the cornerstones of the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition of the West. Yet it is all denied by the Palestinians. This obduracy, combined with waves of terrorism, has shattered the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

It was Arafat who invoked the Islamic terms of jihad and shahada; it was Arafat who described "all of Palestine," which includes all of Israel, as a "holy wakf," i.e., an Islamic trust that cannot be given away; it was Arafat who introduced children to radical Islamic thinking so that they could become terrorists and suicide bombers. The name that Arafat gave to the violence that began in the year 2000 was not the "West Bank intifada" but the "al-Aqsa intifada," making it clear that religion was an integral part of the struggle. When suicide bombers blow up Israelis, they don't yell, "Free Nablus!" They yell, "Allahu Akbar!" The backdrop is Islamic and not territorial.

That is why the Middle East is so different from Northern Ireland, which is sometimes falsely used as a comparison. The basic goal of the Irish Republican Army was to create a united Ireland, to bring Ireland to Ulster, not to London. Their goal was never to replace England with Ireland, unlike the Palestinians who wish to rule not just in the West Bank and Gaza but in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. The IRA struggle was primarily a political one, its violence not supported by the Roman Catholic Church. At its core the conflict was over borders, whereas in the Middle East the conflict has become not just a territorial conflict but much more of a religious one.

Arafat personified the Palestinian problem of leadership, and for a long time the current president, Mahmoud Abbas, has been weak and ineffective. As David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy put it, "The people who are moderate are not effective. And the people who are effective are not moderate." Today, the impossible Arafat has been replaced by an impotent Abbas, but the new figure of Salaam Fayed as prime minister may change the equation. He is the most talented Palestinian to emerge at the leadership level. He recognizes that rather than continually presenting themselves as victims, Palestinians must work to build a credible and honest institution of government, beginning with reforming their security services.

Absent these reforms, the Palestinians will be unable to confront and subdue Hamas, the jihadists, and the various warlords of the local militias in the West Bank. The Israelis are naturally leery of Abbas because they witnessed how Hamas so humiliatingly chased his men out of Gaza. They remember that Hamas beat Fatah to win a plurality of the vote in the West Bank during the last election; they have been warned by their security services that Hamas could take over the West Bank if the Israeli Defense Forces weren't there. The Israelis will be reluctant to fund, arm, and embrace a new Palestinian leadership that has yet to tackle terrorism, yet to stop instilling hate in the young, yet to stop printing maps without Israel, and yet to confront their own people with the clear message that the end of terrorism is a precondition to progress. Had there been a peace education in the West Bank parallel to that in Israel after Oslo, no one would have joined Arafat's calls for war. Without such a program, signing a piece of paper with the Palestinians is meaningless.

Fayed knows that Fatah must win popular support by focusing on health, education, law, and order to improve the lives of the Palestinians; he knows this means establishing an honest administration and a civil society that can develop a functioning economy and middle class, rather than support a corrupt, rich elite. (No wonder the Palestinians refer to Abbas's government as the government of salaries.) He knows that the Israelis will be unable to pull out of large sectors of the West Bank while they fear a Gaza-like repetition of rockets raining on Ben-Gurion Airport and Tel Aviv. The Israelis fear that even if a Palestinian state is officially demilitarized on paper, it could accumulate within a few years a vast arsenal of weapons that could kill thousands of Israelis. Gaza has shown that a security fence cannot prevent missiles from flying over and killing and wounding Israelis. Then there is the fact that Palestinians in the West Bank would control 60 percent of Israel's water. The Israeli defense minister put it squarely: In those circumstances, Israel could not leave the West Bank until it develops a defensive system against rocket attacks. (USN&WR, 10/8/07, 68)

Did Obama call on Israel to vacate Temple Mount?
Israeli politicians accuse president of 'misrepresenting history' in U.N. speech

(JERUSALEM, WorldNetDaily , 9/24/09) – Did President Obama yesterday adopt U.N. and Palestinian phraseology while calling on Israel to give up the biblical West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount? Some members of the Israeli government here reacted angrily to Obama's strongly worded demand – expressed during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly – for the creation of a "viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967."

The term "occupation" routinely is used by the Palestinians as well as some countries hostile to the Jewish state in reference to Israel's presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem. It is unusual for U.S. presidents to use the term, although Jimmy Carter once famously called Israel's presence in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem "illegal." "Occupation that began in 1967" is a specific reference to the lands Israel retained after the Six Day War of that year, particularly the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

The Palestinians never maintained any official capacity in either territory, lands in which Jews have been present for thousands of years. The territories came under Jordanian rule from 1948 until Israel captured them in 1967 after Jordan's King Hussein ignored Israeli pleas for his country to stay out of the Six Day War. Most countries rejected Jordan's initial claim on the area, which it formally renounced in 1988.

Commenting on Obama's speech during a WND interview today, Tzipi Hotovely, a Knesset member for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, accused the U.S. president of "misrepresenting history "
"Obama is misrepresenting Mideast history," she said. "The Jewish people's right to live in Judea and Samaria is firstly rooted in the Bible and God's promise 2,000 years before 1967." "I really believe the whole 16-year process since the Oslo Accords (in which Israel gave up land in exchange for promises of peace) has proven the settlements are not the obstacle for peace. The main obstacle is the Palestinians' continued rejection of Israel as a Jewish state even within the borders of 1967."

Danny Danon, another Likud Knesset member, told WND today, "Obama cannot force this on Israel. We do not have a partner in Israel which is a viable partner." Continued Danon: "Every concession Prime Minister Netanyahu makes was not appreciated by the Palestinian Authority. The Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria is an asset for Israeli security . Instead of pressuring Israel, we would like to see the Obama administration deal with the real threat – the global threat coming from Iran."

The West Bank is considered landlocked territory not officially recognized as part of any country. Israel calls the land "disputed." The Palestinians and the U.N. Security Council claims the West Bank is "occupied" by Israel, which maintains overall control of most of the area while the Palestinian Authority has jurisdiction in about 40 percent. The U.N. Security Council is traditionally considered hostile to Israel. The West Bank borders most of Israel's major cities, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Military strategists long have estimated Israel must maintain most of the West Bank to defend its borders from any ground invasion.

Many villages in the West Bank, which Israelis commonly refer to as the "biblical heartland," are mentioned throughout the Torah. The Book of Genesis says Abraham entered Israel at Shechem (Nablus) and received God's promise of land for his offspring. He later was buried in Hebron. The nearby town of Beit El, anciently called Bethel meaning "house of God," is where Scripture says the patriarch Jacob slept on a stone pillow and dreamed of angels ascending and descending a stairway to heaven. In that dream, God spoke directly to Jacob and reaffirmed the promise of territory. And in Exodus, the holy tabernacle rested in Shiloh, believed to be the first area the ancient Israelites settled after fleeing Egypt.

Obama's reference yesterday to "occupation that began in 1967" comes after a top PA official, speaking on condition his name be withheld, said the Obama administration largely has adopted the positions of the PA to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the 1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. The official said Obama also accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley. The official claimed the Obama administration will still support the announcement of a Palestinian state within two years. "We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years," the official said. The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider "sanctions" against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

No Room in Obama's Jerusalem for the Jew

(rightsidenews.com, 11/22/09)

The same media which can't be bothered to notice that there is a proxy war going on between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, with Saudi jets bombing civilian targets. Who have paid no attention whatsoever to a week of violence between Algerians and Egyptians that included stonings and death threats, are up in arms over the building of 900 housing units in the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem.

The Obama Administration and the media are naturally not upset by the Jerusalem municipality's decision to build 500 housing units for Arabs in Jerusalem. No they're upset by a private Jewish housing project built on privately owned land. And that double standard aptly conveys their premise that a Jewish house in Jerusalem is a "settlement", while an Arab house in Jerusalem is just a house. A Jewish home violates the "status quo" and is "unhelpful for peace", while an Arab home is just a home. There is of course a name for that sort of policy, it's one that Jimmy Carter who is still continuing his tour on behalf of Hamas knows quite well, Apartheid.

In response to the Nof Zion construction, Obama warned that, "additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel's security".But Nof Zion is not about security, as much as it is about an overcrowded Jewish population in Jerusalem looking for someplace to live. When the Arabs seized half of Jerusalem in Israel's War of Independence, they forcibly expelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem in a brutal act of ethnic cleansing that goes ignored by the same leftists who focus on elderly Arab men waving keychains in the air. Homes belonging to Jewish families were replaced by Arab families, who in turn were not expelled when Israel liberated and reunited both halves of Jerusalem in 1967.

While countries such as England recognized Jordan's annexation of East Jerusalem, they have failed to recognize Israel's reunification of the city. This has led to the ongoing absurdity in which children born in Jerusalem are treated as stateless by the US government and the US embassy remains in Tel Aviv, while the US Consulate in East Jerusalem does its best to pretend that it's in the capital of Palestine, completely refusing to recognize Israel's existence.

Were security the issue, Gilo which faces the Arab towns of Beit Jala and Al Khader, and has been shot at repeatedly from them, would be a poor choice to live in. But Jerusalem is bulging at the seams. The price of housing has shot up, and while US Ambassador Richard H. Jones may have told Jewish residents of Jerusalem that "Sometimes people do have to move to a different location. They cannot always stay close to their families", the reality is that living next to their families is exactly what people want to do. Regardless of what the State Department thinks about the matter.

1800 years ago the Romans expelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, a pagan city, and renamed Israel, Syria Palaestina. Today Obama and the State Department seem determined to do the very same thing. By calling a Jerusalem neighborhood, a "settlement", Obama is actively attacking the right of Jews to live in Jerusalem. If Jewish Jerusalem is a settlement, then effectively every other part of Israel where Jews live is a settlement too.

When even liberal US news outlets such as CNN have described Gilo as a Jewish neighborhood, in contrast to radical left wing British outlets such as the BBC and Reuters, who branded it as a "settlement", Obama's shift is a deliberate one. Helpful as always, UN Secretary General Ki Ban Moonbat stepped in to denounce Gilo as a "settlement built on Palestinian land that undermines efforts for peace". Considering that Gilo already holds a population of 50,000, the land was privately owned and the Jewish presence there goes back to the Book of Joshua, but the facts are no obstacle to the lies.

In Time Magazine, the increasingly unhinged Joe Klein claimed that Gilo "would be the capital of Palestine", with presumably a Hadrianiac or Jordanian style ethnic cleansing solution for the 50,000 Jews who live there right now. Not that I imagine that would stop him in the least, so long as he had someone else to do the dirty work for him.

But finally what is the basis for calling the Gilo neighborhood a "settlement"? The land on which Gilo was built was bought and owned by its Jewish residents. That land was occupied and seized by Jordan in 1948, until Israel liberated the territory in 1967. To call Gilo a "settlement", recognizes the Jordanian invasion and seizure of the land as legitimate, while treating the Jewish presence there as illegitimate.

And that is the real basis behind all this madness. The reason why a Jewish home in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is a settlement. To speak of "settlements" is to claim that the Jewish presence in Israel is illegitimate. And while some Israeli leftists may fondly imagine that settlers are religious Jews who live in caravans, as the case of Gilo once again demonstrates, all of Israel is a settlement.

And that is why as far as the world's diplomats are concerned, an Arab terrorist has more right to open fire on a Jewish family driving down the road, than the Israeli army has to shoot that same terrorist. And by giving in to US pressure to negotiate directly with the PLO, by signing the Oslo accords and by repeatedly agreeing to talk peace with Arafat and Abbas, the door was opened to greater and greater delegitimization of Israel.

Israel's global diplomatic position is far worse than it was 17 years ago. Israel's strategic position is far worse than it was 17 years ago. The most rabid bigotry and the ugliest incitement has become the norm, the sort of language you would once hear in Ridyah or Damascus has now become cocktail party chatter in London, Paris and Washington D.C. All of Israel's concessions have combined to put a gun to Jerusalem, and then to the rest of the land for a great going out of business, everything must go sale.

The case of Gilo is one more wake up call that not only our terrorist "peace partners", but even the so-called honest brokers of the world community do not believe that Jews have the right to live anywhere in Israel. Their backing of a Palestinian state has nothing to do with peace, as the fact that peace has failed to emerge over 17 years has not in any way dampened their ardor and enthusiasm for the project. Nor is it about a Two State Solution bringing regional stability. Even the dimmest paper pushers in the State Department and Foreign Ministry know that even were a Palestinian state to be created, the result would be more regional instability, not less. Only a One State Solution can succeed, and that solution is an Arab state and no Israel. The "Peace Process" and the "Two State Solution" are an incremental approach to bringing about that final solution.

The men and women who toiled and worked the land, who turned swamps and desert into farmland and cities, understood that if there was no room for Jews in Israel, there was no room for Jews anywhere. Palestinian Islamic terrorism in turn is driven by the national and religious imperative to destroy the only non-Muslim country in the Middle East. And while America and Europe decry Israel's capital as a Jewish settlement, Muslim settlements are springing up in their own capitals. While the cocktail party chatter is that serving up Israel on a platter to the beast will keep them safe, the violence is already in their streets. The same violence that Israel was built as a refuge against. And if Israel falls, they will be the next item on the menu.

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200911227437/global-terrorism/no-room-in-obamas-jerusalem-for-the-jew.html

Jews have lived in the land of Israel for over 3,300 years since 1312 B.C They had lived there at least 1,800 years before the Arab conquest of 635 C.E., which lasted only 22 years. Jerusalem was the Jewish capital for over 3,300 years and never was the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. King David founded Jerusalem; Muhammad never set foot in it. Jews pray facing Jerusalem, and Muslims face Mecca. Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the Old Testament and not once in the Koran. The Jews have never had any other national homeland. When the Roman Empire later extended its rule to Israel and colonized the land, the Romans decimated the Jewish population and exiled the Jews to Europe and other parts of the empire. In A.D. 70, the Second Temple was destroyed by Titus, who returned to Rome in 71 with 14,000 Jews as slaves and forced them to build the Roman Coliseum. But the Jews never lost the connection to their ancestral home.

Through the centuries of Ottoman rule and the years of the British mandate after World War I, the Jews kept faith in their history and came back—to the displeasure of the others ("Arabs" for short) who had moved in. Deadly Arab riots against Jews occurred in 1920, 1929, and 1936-1939. In World War ii, the Jews themselves fought on two fronts, fending off attacks by the Arabs who favored the Nazis and serving alongside the British against Hitler. There was not one inch on all the surface of the Earth that the Jews could call home until the 1947 vote of the United Nations in favor of the establishment of Jewish and Arab states. Thus ended the longest exile ever endured by a people. After almost 2,000 years of homelessness and wandering since the Romans sacked Jerusalem, the Jewish people came miraculously home.

This is a story without parallel, of a love of a people for the land of Israel. In this land in ancient times, the Jewish people were born. In this land in modern times, the Jewish people were reborn. They have never left Israel voluntarily and returned when they could, from more than a hundred countries speaking more than 80 languages, a modern-day gathering of the exiles. More than 3,000 years earlier, Moses had prophesied, "Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back." And so it was.

The day after the vote for partition, Arab gunmen began ambushing Jews, and then five Arab armies invaded. That marked the start of the tragedy that persists today. The Palestinians who were urged by Arab leaders to leave Israel have never been integrated with their coreligionists. All these years since 1948, their "host" countries have held them hostage in camps (and the integrated refugees have now grown to several million people). They cannot be returned, for if that were to happen, there would be no state at all for the Jewish people. The Republican nominee for the presidency in 1940, Wendell Willkie, summed up the competing claims this way: "The Arabs have a good case in Palestine. There is only one thing wrong with it—the Jews have a better case." Time and again, the Palestinians have been offered an Arab state next to Israel: first, in the partition plan of 1947; then, in the Oslo accords; then at Camp David in 2000; and finally, in countless declarations since then by both Israeli and international leaders. All have met with a violent rejection by the Palestinians and by the Arab countries

The refusal to accept the existence of Jews in a separate state of Israel is worse than anti-Semitism. It is, as former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler described it, "a genocidal anti-Semitism, the public calls for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people," wherever they may be. Listen to the state-sanctioned genocidal anti-Semitism in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, made clear by the publicly avowed intent to acquire nuclear weapons for this purpose. It is in the language of the covenants, charters, platforms, and policies of the terrorist movements and militias of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda, which call not only for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews but also for acts of terrorism in furtherance of that objective, supported by religious fatwas in which these genocidal calls are held out as religious obligations. All this comes from a culture that greets brutal deeds of terrorism with glee and celebrates martyrs and their families.

The Jews who became Israelis have built a thriving economy, based to a large extent on their human capital. They revived as a spoken language an ancient language, Hebrew. They have integrated new arrivals from around the world and resolutely maintained a vibrant, free, and democratic society; they have created the political and economic infrastructure of a nation; and they have survived in war after existential war as Psalm 129 foretold. "Sorely have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me." They have cultivated desolate lands with one of the world's most innovative agricultural economies; they have established legal systems that protect civil liberties against the backdrop of the most lethal security threats. They have made a home for the world's largest Jewish population, passing America by about 1 percentage point. They have fulfilled Israel's destiny to give Jewish communities threatened from without, or assimilated to the point of extinction from within, a place to survive and thrive. This is the dream that has come true. Even though Israel seeks no allegiance and loyalty from anyone who is not an Israeli citizen, the realization of the dream and the remarkable historical event that Israel represents with its rebirth have evoked the spirit of kinship and emotional and association with those who share the Judeo-Christian community throughout the world.

They have failed in one respect. They have been unable to make peace with terrorists, but it is because the terrorists reject all compromise. But Israel fights those bent on its destruction within the rule of law and within reasonable constraints of human rights and civil behavior, a remarkable model in an era of terrorism. The achievements are without parallel, but Israel remains a permanently embattled nation. Today, as Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary of independence, Iran develops nuclear weapons, Kassam rockets are daily fired into Sderot from Gaza, and Hamas continues to threaten Israel with more and more terrorism. In the north, Hezbollah remains a potential threat, building up its inventory of longer range, more lethal rockets; prospects for peace with Syria look as dim as ever; and negotiations with those few Palestinians who seem to wish to live in peace are barely progressing. Israel is in a long-term struggle for its security in a region with virtually no margin for error. But President Bush, in his speech last week to the Knesset, gave the members comfort when he said, "Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you." (USN&WR, 5/26/08, 72)

Arabs launched terrorism against unarmed Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936 to 1939, murdering hundreds of Jewish civilians. In 1929, the grand mufti of Jerusalem ordered the slaughter of more than a hundred rabbis, students, and others whose ancestors had lived in Hebron for millenniums. The Saudi Prince Bandar said that Arafat's refusal to accept 95 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza was "a crime" and his account of the circumstances was "not truthful." (USN&WR, 5/5/08, 72)

Israel through the years

November 29, 1947: U.N. General Assembly proposes partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

May 14, 1948: State of Israel proclaimed. Neighboring Arab states invade the next day, ending in October 1949.

[In late October 1956, instigated by Britain and France during the crisis over Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula to destroy military bases. Israel captured Gaza and Sharm el Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula that controls access to the Gulf of Aqaba. It also occupied most of Sinai east of the canal. According to plan, the British and French intervened in the conflict to enforce a U.N. cease-fire. The crisis ended in December when the United Nations stationed a peacekeeping force in Sinai. Israel withdrew in March 1957.]

June 1967: Israel captures Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, West Bank and east Jerusalem in Six Day War against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. More than one million Palestinians come under Israeli military occupation.

October 6, 1973: Egypt and Syria launch surprise attack against Israel, making initial gains. Israel recoups, aided by massive U.S. arms airlift, and a cease-fire takes effect Oct. 24.

September 1978: Egypt and Israel agree on frameworks for peace in the Middle East. A treaty is signed in Washington on March 26, 1979, under which Israel is to withdraw from the Sinai in three phases.

June 1982: Israeli forces invades Lebanon and do not withdraw until February 1985, leaving behind an Israel-backed Christian Lebanese force to act as a control over and buffer against attacks by Palestinian guerrillas and Islamic militants.

December 1987: Palestinian uprising in West Bank and Gaza breaks out. The revolt lasts six years.

September 1993: In secret talks in Oslo, Norway, Israel and the PLO produce an interim framework for autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the first stage, Israel pulls out of most of the Gaza Strip and area of Jericho in West Bank.

October 1994: Jordan and Israel sign peace treaty calling for close economic and political cooperation; Jordan becomes Israel's closest ally in region.

September 2000: Violence flares again and Israel eventually reoccupies most Palestinian towns in the West Bank.

July 2006: The Lebanon war begins after Hezbollah guerrillas cross the Israel-Lebanon border and attack an Israeli patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. Israel bombards Lebanon from the air and then invades, and Hezbollah launches nearly 4,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. In 34 days of fighting, 159 Israelis were killed, including 119 soldiers. (OCR, 5/4/08, News 3)

DAYTON, Ohio (AP, 2/24/06) - Ohio Farmers Seeking Israel's Expertise. Farmers in Israel raise crops in conditions that couldn't be more foreign to their Ohio counterparts. But the arid soils, limited water and cramped spaces have turned Israeli farmers into experts at making crops bloom in the desert. A group of Ohio farmers hopes to use that expertise to improve productivity. A 29-person delegation is leaving for a 10-day trip to Israel to learn everything from water management to milk processing to handling urban expansion. "I'm extremely intrigued by the ability of them to grow enough crops for 7 million people in the desert," said Daniel Corcoran, 42, who raises soybeans, wheat and alfalfa on his 4,000-acre family farm near Waverly in southern Ohio. "Hopefully, there are things we can bring back here." Israel is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Only about 20 percent of the land can be farmed and half of that has to be irrigated. But Israel not only produces most of its own food, it also has enough to export. Fruit, vegetables and fertilizer are among the most successful exports. Israeli farms have prospered by irrigating crops, seeding clouds to increase rainfall, landscaping to redirect floodwaters toward crops and using drip irrigation so that crops receive the precise amount of water and fertilizer. The Israelis have also developed computer-controlled greenhouses that have curtains, skylights and netting to control sunlight and temperature. The trip is being hosted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Cleveland-based Negev Foundation, a group whose mission is to develop agriculture in the southern, largely desert portion of Israel. The journey is part of a larger initiative to help Israelis benefit from business opportunities in Ohio and from sharing ideas with Ohio agricultural researchers. Last fall, Israeli farmers promoted their products at the Farm Science Review in London, Ohio. Ram Ben-Dor, 52, lived on an Israeli farm for 20 years, raising poultry and fruit. He said the Ohio farmers should be able to help Israelis with technologies that would increase their productivity and make them more competitive in world markets. He said it would be an opportunity to make contacts that could increase soybean imports from Ohio. Sam Hoenig, foundation president, said Israeli farmers are also interested in Ohio's expertise on turf as they seek to develop recreational areas. Among those going on the trip are several Ohio fish farmers. John Bechtel raises trout, perch and bluegill near Fredericktown in central Ohio. He is most interested in how the Israelis prevent the spread of disease among fish. He also wants to tap into their knowledge about fish nutrition, genetics and water-quality management. "They use water over and over again," Bechtel said. "That is the future of fish farming." Bob Peterson raises hogs and grows corn, soybeans and wheat on his farm in central Ohio. But residential and commercial development from Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton keeps creeping in. He hopes to see how Israeli farmers manage to work in densely populated areas while increasing production and profits.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429
18. The U. N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives
20. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. http://a-voice.org/discern/islam.htm

In a complete turnabout from previous positions, but probably also yielding to enormous pressure by President Obama, Israel’s Prime Minister “Bibi” Netanyahu has declared his willingness to accept a Palestinian state.A generous offer. Since the “two-state solution” has long been declared to be the Holy Grail of the Palestinians, one would have expected that Mr. Netanyahu’s announcement be greeted with cheers and hosannas. That, however, not surprisingly perhaps, was not the case. In fact, the Palestinians and all others involved declared it to be an insult and a “non-starter.” The principal objections were that Mr. Netanyahu insisted that the newly created Palestinian state would have to be totally demilitarized, and that its air space would be available to the IAF (Israeli Air Force); that Jerusalem would remain undivided as the capital of the Jewish state; that the “Palestinian refugees” would, if they so desired, be returned to the newly formed state and not to Israel; that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as the state of the Jews; and, finally, that he did not commit for the “settlements” to be dismantled.

The “Settlements.” Judea/Samaria (the “West Bank”) is the ancient Biblical homeland of the Jewish people. This area is part of the Palestinian Mandate, which was declared by the Balfour Declaration and by the mandate of the League of Nations, to be the homeland of the Jewish people. After the 1948 War of Israel’s Liberation this area remained in possession of the Kingdom of Jordan, which declared sovereignty over the area. The only possible rationale for the conclusion that this area is Palestinian land is that it is encompassed by the 1949 armistice line. There is absolutely no other reason. This area has never been Palestinian land. In fact, never before the creation of the State of Israel has there ever been a Palestinian people or a Palestinian country anywhere in the long course of human history. The Palestinians were never until recent times in any control over the area. At the very most, the area could be described as “disputed.” In fact, a very good case could be made that Jews have a better right than the Arabs to live there. What a shame that even the leaders of our country cannot see this fundamental truth. And don’t let’s forget that over one million Arabs live in Israel unmolested and nobody gets exercised about that.

Demilitarization. Not so long ago, Israel unilaterally evacuated every last Jewish family from Gaza. One would have hoped that the Palestinians, grateful for being rid of the hated Jews and no longer having to suffer their presence, would have shown their gratitude for that “liberation.” Instead, almost from the very first day, they bombarded Israeli cities with thousands of rockets. Eventually, the patience of Israel snapped and it invaded Gaza to put a stop to this outrage. It has to be clear to all that having had such bad experience with Gaza, Israel is fully justified to expect that if statehood were ultimately granted to the Palestinians, and if demilitarization were not imposed and strictly supervised, the Palestinians of the “West Bank” would be equally inclined to attack Israel on a daily basis. Instead of being confronted by the insular Gaza, Israel would be surrounded totally by those who are sworn to destroy it. Full demilitarization would have to be a key requirement of any Palestinian statehood. Without it, virtually all of Israel – its population centers, its industries, its military installations and its international airport – would be under the gun. Life in Israel would be virtually impossible. How could anybody possibly think otherwise?

Return of the “Refugees.” During the 1948 War of Liberation, about 650,000 Arabs, goaded by their leaders, fled the nascent state of Israel. They and their descendants wish to “return” to Israel. That is a bizarre request. The principal purpose of a Palestinian state would obviously have to be the ingathering and settling of the “Palestinian refugees” and not to foist them onto Israel. Injecting them into Israel would undermine the Jewish state and smooth the path to its destruction. And that is, indeed, the rub. The principal intent of the Arabs is not the creation of a state, but, as they repeat over and over, the destruction of Israel, which they call the “cancer on the Arab body.” And don’t let’s forget that about 800,000 Jews, who escaped barely with their lives from Arab countries during the War of Liberation in 1948 and during the Six-Day War in 1967, were quickly absorbed into the state of Israel and are now at least one-half of the total population. The Arabs, in contrast, have kept their “refugees” in miserable refugee camps for the last 60+ years, on the dole of the world – mostly that of the United States.

There is little likelihood that Mr. Netanyahu’s generous offer, however it might ultimately be modified, will be accepted by the Arabs. Because, if that were the objective, they could have had their own state for over seventy years. But whatever was offered was never sufficient. As Abba Eban, Israel’s former Foreign Secretary, so well put it: “The Arabs will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Sadly, therefore, there is little question that Mr. Netanyahu’s generous offer of a separate state for the Palestinians will again be rejected – most likely even being followed by another “intifada.”

Security Fence

A growing number of Israeli politicians believe that the only way to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian terrorist attacks is to build a fence between Palestinian and Israeli territory. "There are nearly no instances of suicide bombers, Palestinian guerrillas or weapons infiltrating through the border fences in Gaza." (LAT, 8/20/01, A3) ..... "Suicide attacks left 25 Israelis dead and about 220 injured in less than one day's time." (LAT, 12/3/01, A1) ..... 25 Israelis would be equal proportionally to 1,130 Americans. (LAT, 12/4/01, B4) ..... "During 14 months of fighting with Israel, Yasser Arafat mostly looked the other way as Islamic militants and some of his own supporters killed more than 230 Israelis with guns and bombs." (OCR, 12/4/01, News 20) [Proportionally equivalent to 10,396 Americans] ..... Two suicide attacks [about 3/28/02, Passover] killed 40 and injured 200, because Hamas now is using weapons-grade explosives. (OCR, 4/4/02, News 7) ..... The Mossad hunted down and killed nearly all the Palestinians responsible for killing 11 Israelis during the 1972 Munich Olympics. (OCR, 11/29/02, News 10) ..... There are 5.2 million Jews and 1.3 million Arabs in Israel, with 3.5 million Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. The Arab birth rate exceeds the Jewish birth rate. If the Arab and Jewish areas are not partitioned, the entire area may become dominated by Arabs. (OCR, 12/13/03, News 31) ..... The intifada has failed because of the Israeli Army's killings or arrests of several thousand Palestinian militants, its seige of Palestinian cities, villages, and refuge camps, and its erection of a high concrete and barbed-wire security barrier in the West Bank. (USN&WR, 1/10/05, 24)

Sharon endorsed a buffer zone separating Israel from the West Bank. It could be a mile or two wide in places, to stop suicide bombers and other attackers from slipping across the porous borders from the West Bank. (OCR, 9/8/01, News 34) ..... The Gaza neighborhood, where the homes were demolished, has been a hotbed of violence. Palestinian gunmen routinely lob grenades at Israeli army outposts guarding the border with Egypt, and fire at the outposts and at Israeli patrols. The army had previously destroyed homes in the area in an attempt to create a buffer zone near the border. (LAT, 1/14/02, A3) ..... "In Sharon's Feb. 21 [2002] speech, he said he would implement a Cabinet decision calling for buffer zones between Israel and the Palestinian territories." (OCR, 3/2/02, News 23) ..... The "idea of partition - or unilateral separation - which seemed a radical idea a year or so ago, has become a live option in Palestinian and Israeli politics. Nobody knows how separation would work - whether it would require a large structure like the Berlin Wall or simply a fence - but there are already factions within the separation movement." (OCR, 3/11/02, Local 6) ..... Sharon said that once Israel withdrew from the West Bank, "our forces will deploy to constitute a buffer between Palestinian territories and our territories in order to prevent any penetration in Israeli communities." This may involve Israeli forces remaining in some areas of the West Bank. (OCR, 4/9/02, News 6) ..... Israeli military and civilian officials said that Israeli troops plan to withdraw from Palestinian areas and perhaps establish a several-mile wide buffer zone in an effort to fend off future attacks. (OCR, 4/14/02, News 8) ..... Israel plans to build physical barriers to separate the West Bank from Israel proper, to erect fences and giant obstacles to make it more difficult for terrorists to penetrate Israel. (OCR, 4/22/02, News 4) ..... A 9-foot high barbed-wire fence and broad 6-foot deep trench stretch several miles separating two towns, Jewish Gila and Palestinian Beit Jalla. Similar fence and trench systems are in other parts of the West Bank. (OCR, 5/25/02, News 46) ..... To prevent suicide bombings, Sharon approved a fence between part of the West Bank and Israel, defying supporters who fear it will lead to Israel's giving up most of the territory. (OCR, 6/5/02, News 13) ..... To protect Israel from West Bank suicide bombers, Israel started a 75-mile electronic fence, costing $2 million per mile. Eventually the fence will be 215 miles. No suicide bombers have come from Gaza, which is fenced in. (OCR, 6/17/02, News 9) ..... Israel is building 300-yard wide buffer zones around some of the Jewish settlements to make it harder for Palestinian attackers to infiltrate. (OCR, 12/27/02, News 36) ..... Sharon said, "Tens of thousands of Arabs had been infiltrating illegally into Israel and has to be stopped. ... Arafat's strategy is to make terror part of political negotiation. ... The security fence, when it is finished, will close off this strategy. Losing this negotiating weapon bothers them." (OCR, 7/31/03, Local 9) ..... "The plan to erect a security barrier between Israel and the West Bank is popular in Israel as a way to block suicide bombers. No Palestinian bombers have come from the Gaza Strip, which is fenced." (OCR, 9/15/03, News 11) ..... Israel should complete the fence to stop suicide bombers, or nothing serious will happen with the peace process. (USN&WR, 9/29/03, 67) ..... To stop Palestinian suicide bombers, Israel had built almost 100 miles of security fence, that eventually will be up to 400 miles. The Gaza Strip has been fenced for years, and no suicide bombers have crossed that fence. (OCR, 10/1/03, News 17) ..... Sharon said that the Palestinians must halt terrorist groups in the next few months or he will unilaterally partition the land along the security fence, whose construction will be greatly accelerated. (OCR, 12/19/03, News 29) ..... The security fence may be renamed the "Terror Prevention Fence." (OCR, 1/16/04, News 16) ..... Sunday's double bombing at Ashdod port, some 16 miles north of Gaza, dealt a new blow to Israel's sense of security because Palestinian attackers managed to sneak out of the fenced-in Gaza Strip for the first time in more than three years of conflict. (Reuters, 3/16/04) ..... Military officials said there is concern that the bombers, a pair of 17-year-old high school students, used forged IDs and permits to get through the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel. A militant leader in Gaza said he believed the bombers crawled through tunnels. (AP, 3/16/04) ..... Israel's main concern is keeping Palestinian attackers out. About 100 suicide bombers have infiltrated Israel from the West Bank in more than four years of conflict, but the current, relatively simple fence around Gaza has prevented most infiltrations by armed Palestinians. The military laid out its plans for the new barrier, including new army bases and 22-foot concrete walls around nearby Israeli communities to stop Palestinian sniper fire. The new Gaza barrier draws on experience from the West Bank barrier Israel is building and the high-tech border fence with Lebanon, the army said, but it will be more advanced. Palestinians trying to infiltrate into Israel - like a would-be suicide bomber who managed to penetrate the old fence with wire cutters last week before being captured - will first encounter fence made of coils of razor wire. They would then have to cross a patrol road before reaching the current barrier, a fence with electronic sensors that sends a signal to a central command whenever it is touched or cut. If they pass this barrier, they would have to traverse a 130-yard swath of land - codenamed Hoover - filled with motion sensors and scanned by an array of day and night optical devices, before reaching the third and newest electronic fence. Watchtowers armed with remote-controlled machine guns are to be built every 1.2 miles and within a year, remote-controlled, unmanned vehicles will begin patrolling the area. Running about 35 miles around the seaside territory, the new barrier will cost about $220 million and will be completed by mid-2006, military officials said. (AP, 7/28/05)

There is only one course for Israel. That is to continue building its defensive physical barrier between itself and the West Bank. In a recent poll, 59 percent of Palestinians wanted to see terrorism against Israel continue, even after the creation of a Palestinian state, and in all of the territories, including East Jerusalem. Only 26 percent wanted to give up the armed struggle. Israelis have concluded that the reason the Palestinians reject peace is not because Jews live in the West Bank city of Hebron but because they live in Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Palestinian leaders have made no bones about it. Their own magazine stated long ago their aim clearly: "Not to impose our will on the enemy but to destroy him in order to take his place." Palestinians have few qualms in admitting that the original accord negotiated in Oslo was worse than a sham. The bloody bookends are a statement--within days of the signing by Arafat--that Oslo was part of the "plan of stages" to destroy Israel and the June 24, 2001, affirmation by the relatively moderate Faisal Husseini that the Oslo agreement constituted a "Trojan horse," whose pure essence was deception. The fence would transform the Israeli role from that of fighting terrorists in the West Bank to preventing terrorists from breaching the security fence. This would make it possible for the Israelis to withdraw their soldiers from the West Bank, to end their roadblocks, and give up their remaining responsibility over the Palestinian population. Thus, the Palestinians would lose the propaganda benefit of TV pictures of the Israeli Army in the West Bank. (USN&WR, 12/15/03, 72) ..... "The wall will encompass less than 10 percent of the West Bank, and leave 99.4% of the Palestinian population on the east side." (USN&WR, 5/3/04, 76) ..... Israelis have discovered that they have the resources to wage war against terrorism, including the determination to complete the security barrier that saves lives. Israel has put down the intefada the old way, by fighting back. (OCR, 7/23/04, Local 9) ..... The facts are conclusive: Before the fence was erected, the average number of terrorist attacks was 26 per year. Since its partial construction, the number has dropped to three per year, while the death toll has dropped by over 70 percent from 103 to 28, and the number of injured has dropped by more than 80 percent, from an annual average of 628 to 83. Terrorist penetration into Israel from the northern West Bank, where the initial portion of the fence was completed, has dropped from 600 a year to zero--as Israel was able to foil every suicide bombing originating from the northern West Bank and specifically from the cities of Nablus and Jenin, areas that had previously been infamous for exporting suicide bombers. Under the new court ruling, about 75 percent of Israeli settlers would be incorporated into roughly 8 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side of the barrier. Fewer than 1 percent (13,000) of West Bank Palestinians would be stranded in these Israeli areas, while over 99 percent (1,970,000) would be left in the approximately 92 percent of the West Bank on the other side of the fence, which would be a contiguous area. Building a fence is a civilized way for a nation to defend itself. The U.N. built a fence in NY to protect itself. India built a 460-mile barrier in Kashmir to contain terrorist infiltration from Pakistan, and is building an Israeli-like fence to stop Muslim terrorists coming in from Bangladesh. Saudi Arabia build a 60-mile barrier to stop smuggling of weapons from Yemen. Morocco and Turkey have built fences. (USN&WR, 8/2/04, 88) [The great wall of China was built for protection.]

Gaza was fenced in 1994; since 2001 not one suicide bomber has entered Israel. The new security fence in northern West Bank has reduced attacks from 59 to 3 in the same month period, a year apart. Captured Arab infiltrators confirmed the fence blocked them, and they had to go south to an unfenced part to enter Israel. 83% of Israelis favor construction of the fence. (USN&WR, 2/23/04, 88)

Ethnic violence erupted in Cypress in December 1963, three years after independence from Britain. The violence escalated until 1974, when Greece attempted to make Cypress a part of Greece. Turkey invaded, resulting in 6700 dead or missing, and 215,000 displaced on both sides. 35,000 Turkish troops partitioned Cypress, with 1/3 going to the Turks, who were 25% of the population. An uneasy peace has existed since then. Now, 27 years later, serious talks are underway to resolve the differences, form one nation, and join the European Union. (LAT, 1/16/02, A1) [An example for mideast peace: partition, cooling off period, serious peace negotiations?] ..... Talks to reunify Cypress are deadlocked, with Turkey threatening to annex the Turkish area. (OCR, 6/14/02, News 38)

The Hefer Valley is a narrow nine-mile wide strip of land where Israelis are squeezed between between the Palestinian West Bank and the Mediterranean Sea. A thick concrete wall, 8 feet high and one mile long, separates an Israeli town (Bat Hefer) and a Palestinian city (Tulkarm), about one mile apart. The wall is being extended 600 yards with a 10.5-foot high fence. An electric fence, with surveillance cameras, also is being installed. (LAT, 9/10/01, A1) ..... Palestinian gunmen evaded an electric fence and night-vision equipment to attack a heavily fortified army base in southern Gaza. Three Israelis were killed and seven wounded, before two gunmen were killed. (LAT, 8/26/01, A1) ..... In the 10 cease-fires since 1993, Hamas used the time to regroup and rearm. Hamas recently said that they reject a two-state solution and there can be no compromise. The security fence is in response to 1000 days of terrorism and 800 deaths, mostly women and children. The fence is needed because the Palestinians refuse to live in peace. Not one suicide bomber has come from the fenced-in Gaza Strip, compared to 300 from the West bank with no fence. Israel had to fence its borders with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. U.S. has fenced parts of the Mexican border. There is a wall between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. (USN&WR, 8/11/03, 60) ..... American troops in Iraq are enclosing entire villages in barb wire, demolishing buildings, imprisoning relatives. The counterinsurgency campaign is similar to that used by Israel. (OCR, 12/7/03, News 27) ..... Fences of razor wire, watch towers, and minefields separate Israel from its other neighbors Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. But most of the 320 km (200 mile) border with Egypt is literally just a line in the sand. At least seven militants from the Gaza Strip have slipped into Israel by way of Sinai. Three gunmen, and an Israeli army patrolman, were killed in ensuing clashes -- prompting Israel to set up an airborne special forces unit that is always on standby. The other militants were arrested. (Sex, Flies and Videotape on Sinai Smuggling Routes, by Dan Williams, Reuters, 8/26/04)

JERUSALEM (06/17/05, AP) - Israeli Navy building a sea barrier to keep out Gaza attackers, The Israeli navy is building a sea barrier off the coast of northern Gaza to keep out potential attackers once Israel pulls out of the coastal strip this summer. The navy concluded the barrier, stretching 950 meters (yards) into the sea, is necessary because of the loss of surveillance systems in the planned pullout. Designed to keep potential attackers from swimming to the Israeli coast, the barrier's first hundred meters (yards) will consist of cement pilings buried into the sandy bottom; the structure will extend another 800 meters (yards) in the form of 1.8-meter-deep fence floating beneath the surface. The navy is also refurbishing its radar system at the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel. Construction of the new sea barrier will begin soon and that it will be a major project costing millions of dollars. The barrier is not expected to be complete in time for Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza, set to begin in mid-August. Gaza, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, is surrounded by an Israeli fence built to keep back attackers and which prevents Gazans from being able to come and go. Israel is also building a barrier between itself and the West Bank. ..... A Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bakery in this southern Israeli resort town on Monday, killing three people and himself, police said. It was the first suicide bombing in Israel in nine months and the first ever to hit Eilat, Israel's southernmost city. It was the first suicide bombing in Israel since last April, when a bomber struck a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing 12 people. Suicide bombings were at their height four years ago, when hundreds of Israelis were killed in dozens of attacks. (AP, 1/29/07) http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/ap-suicide-bomber-kills-at-israeli-bakery/74361.htm

"Today there is no [peace] process and no hope, said Dennis Ross, long time American mediator in the middle east. "What we're facing is not even an attempt to defeat the other side, but a kind of exhaustion. Israel doesn't think it has a partner for peace any more. It just wants to be done with it, just to build a high wall." (OCR, 8/12/01, News 12) [Turkey was condemned for partitioning Cyprus in 1974. It may have been unfair and wrong, but it seems to have stopped the fighting there.] ..... Ariel Sharon said that Israel would create buffer zones to achieve security separation from the Palestinians, and any Palestinian state be demilitarized. (OCR, 2/22/02, News 23) ..... Cyprus reunification talks failed when Turkey demanded full recognition of Turkish Cyprus and Greece demanded that refugees be allowed to return to their homes. (OCR, 3/11/03, News 15)

Firstly, there was less violence, both between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Palestinians and Palestinians, than there had been for years. Among other landmarks, 2009 was the first year in a long time without any successful suicide bombings against Israel.

Then, there was the strong economic growth in both Israel and the Palestinian territories relative to most of the rest of the world, for which 2009 was a bleak year. (While Gaza is not undergoing the same kind of economic growth enjoyed by the West Bank, the standard of living there is nonetheless considerably better than you would suppose from the distorted picture provided by certain partisan journalists and NGO workers, and much better then in many other areas of the world.) And most importantly, 2009 was the year that a Likud Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not only recognized the principle of an independent Palestinian state, but also made the most sweeping freeze on Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank since 1967.

Every informed observer knows that for a realistic two-state solution to be achieved, Israel cannot return to what Abba Eban famously referred to as Israel's "Auschwitz borders" (i.e., borders that were indefensible), and that there will be land swaps between Israelis and Palestinians so final borders will more closely reflect demographic and security considerations. Indeed as long ago as 1967, the international diplomats who carefully crafted U.N. Resolution 242 acknowledged that the 1967 borders would not and should not necessarily constitute Israel's final boundaries. They made clear in the wording of their text that they believed that not all of the land previously occupied by Jordan (land that has come to be known as the West Bank) should necessarily be relinquished by Israel. (Wall Street Journal, 1/27/10)

Arafat, Hamas, and terrorism
Arafat wants all the land taken by Israel in the 1967 war to be placed under Palestinian control. Sharon is less concerned about a belief in Israel's birthright to the land, but more about a cold appraisal of security and resource needs, and a pessimistic view of the possibility of reconciliation with Arab neighbors. (OCR, 10/12/01, News 38) ..... "The Palestinians who claim that every inch of the West Bank must be returned should learn some history, The world is full of territory lost by those who start and then lose wars. The Arabs have no right to the land they lost by their own folly. ..... Israel cannot trust Arafat as a negotiator and must see to its own security. A fence and separation for a generation seem the best chance." (OCR, 4/21/02, Commentary 1) ..... Yasser Arafat "saw the Oslo peace accord not as a means to a two-state solution but as a means to the substitution of a Palestinian state for the State of Israel." "Arafat violated most of the essential elements of Oslo, inciting Palestinians to hatred while erecting and empowering a murderous terrorist network." (USN&WR, 7/12/04, 140)

The terrorists understand only the language of force and can be stopped only by means of force. There can be no appeasing of terrorists and no apologies for states like Syria that coddle them. Abu Mazen refuses to rein in the Palestinian Authority's anti-Semitic, anti-Israel rhetoric that spews endlessly from TV and other public platforms. Listen to the words of hate, and you'd never guess there's a cease-fire in place. Palestinian rhetoric leaves no lines to which Israelis can withdraw from the collective Palestinian desire to annihilate the Jewish state. Hezbollah, is sponsoring most of the terrorist activity in the West Bank. Like Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah has headquarters in Lebanon and Damascus and is, thus, less susceptible to Israeli pressure. Supported by Iran and Syria, Hezbollah recently increased the bounty for spilling Jewish blood from $5,000 to $20,000. (USN&WR, 3/14/05, 72) ..... GAZA - Hamas militants said they would not disarm despite Israel's planned Gaza pullout, so they could carry on their fight against the Jewish state. Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, made clear it has not budged from its historic goal of a creating an Islamic state that would encompass not only the West Bank and Gaza Strip but also what is now Israel. "We will draw the map of Palestine from the sea to the river and from Lebanon to Egypt." (Reuters, 08/12/05)

Palestinians will have to detoxify their society before anything like a real peace can exist. Too many Palestinians have devoted themselves for far too long not to the creation of a two-state solution but to the eradication of one state and one people: Israel and the Jews. Arafat made moderation synonymous with treason. He established a cult of total victory and a culture of hatred toward Israel; he legitimized terrorism and suicide bombings; he used the mosques, the media, and the schools to instill his animus in his people, even among the youngest children. A temporary cease-fire is no solution. It will simply raise Israeli suspicions that time is being bought to give Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades a respite to rebuild their arsenals. None of them will forswear the destruction of Israel. Why? Simply because terrorist groups are rarely, if ever, truly neutralized unless they are disbanded and disarmed, for their credo is "I kill, therefore I am." Abu Mazen is also a Holocaust denier who asserts that the Temple never existed in Jerusalem. He supported Arafat when he rejected the Camp David proposals four years ago. Abu Mazen mouthed Arafat's doctrines, including a pledge to return all of Palestinian refugees, now totaling 4 million, to the pre-1948 original home of their ancestors in Israel and to oust Israel from all of the West Bank. The "right of return," he said, was a nonnegotiable prerequisite. The implementation of this demand would destroy the Jewish character of Israel and is clearly a nonstarter. Abu Mazen has attacked Israelis as "Zionist enemies" and vowed that he would not only never attack members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and al-Aqsa but defend them instead. Palestinians see Abu Mazen as a member of the old guard, the Tunis thugocracy that came to Palestine and became rich men. (USN&WR, 1/24/05, 60)

Yasser Arafat was personally responsible for the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics; he directed the execution of two American diplomats in Sudan; he masterminded the cold-blooded murder of 25 people – 21 of them children – in Ma’alot, a city in northern Israel; he authorized the takeover of the Italian cruise ship ACHILLE LAURO, and the murder of a wheelchair-bound American citizen. He was the originator of the infamous crime of suicide bombings and brought it to a horrified world. He was the inventor of the hijacking and bombing of airplanes that killed thousands. And that is just the tip of the evil iceberg. Arafat rejected a more than generous offer that gave virtually everything he ever demanded, except the “right of return” of the descendants of the Palestinian “refugees,” which would have been the end of the Jewish state. Arafat decided instead to start his bloody “intifada,” which by now has cost over 1,000 Jewish lives – and three times as many Arab lives and untold thousands wounded on both sides. The Palestinian economy is in ruins. More than one-half of its population is without work; famine would be rampant were it not for the constant infusion of cash by the U.S. and other western countries (most of it pilfered by Arafat and his cohorts and stashed in secret accounts all over the world). But the greatest harm, the greatest crime that Arafat committed was to poison the minds of two generations of Palestinian Arabs against Israel and against the Jews. Evil propaganda permeates all Palestinian media. Palestinian children, beginning with pre-school, learn to hate Jews and Israel, and to become “shahids” – martyrs and suicide bombers. The State of Israel does not appear in Arab textbooks; the area is described as “Occupied Palestine.” Even with the best effort, it may take at least two generations to change that mind set. It seems almost incredible and a cruel joke that such a man, such a fiend, would have received the Nobel Peace Prize and that presidents, prime ministers and secretaries of state of major countries would have attended this man’s funeral in Cairo. Arafat left his people and the territory that the Israelis had generously yielded to him in a shambles. He refused to create any institutions that could possibly become precursors to a government. He looted the treasury that foreign countries – mostly, of course, the United States – had generously provided for the welfare of his constituents. He implanted hate and poisoned the minds of his people. His main interest never seems to have been the creation of a Palestinian state; his primary goal, ceaselessly pursued, was the destruction of Israel. With that heritage, it will take a very long time, if it can ever happen at all, that peace between Arabs and Jews can come about. http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_89.html

JERUSALEM (09/09/05, AP) - Arafat's Death Remains a Mystery. Newly revealed medical records have failed to solve the mystery of Yasser Arafat's death, although they do cast doubt on popular conspiracy theories about poisoning or rumors of AIDS. But the main question - what led to the massive stroke that killed the longtime Palestinian leader - may never be answered. Arafat, 75, died Nov. 11, 2004, in a French military hospital near Paris after a sudden, rapid decline in his health. Arafat's wife, Suha, refused an autopsy and Palestinian leaders have never given a definitive cause of death. French doctors who treated Arafat concluded he died of a "massive brain hemorrhage" after suffering intestinal inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. But the records are inconclusive about what brought about DIC, which has numerous causes ranging from infections to colitis to liver disease. Since Arafat's death, rumors have swirled throughout the Middle East that Arafat died from either AIDS or poisoning. Many Palestinian officials insist that Israeli agents somehow poisoned him. Poisoning was highly unlikely; toxicology studies done by the French doctors were negative and said Arafat did not suffer extensive kidney and liver damage typical of poisoning. Arafat's condition improved in the hospital and that he was able to walk and talk before slipping into a coma Nov. 3. Such improvement would make poisoning unlikely. An unidentified Israeli infectious-diseases expert as criticized the French medical team for not testing for AIDS. But the expert said after studying the records, AIDS was unlikely due to the sudden onset of an intestinal illness.

For two decades, Hezbollah's Islamic fanatics have been a foreign legion for Iran in Lebanon, dedicated to hate and violence. When thousands of them cried, "Death to America! Death to America!" in response to a speech last year by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, they meant it. Before 9/11, Hezbollah was responsible for more American casualties than any other terrorist organization. What of the civilian deaths, exemplified by the tragedy of Qana? A truer picture is summarized by a cartoon showing an Israeli soldier standing defensively in front of a baby carriage, while a soldier of Hezbollah fires at Israel from the other side of the baby carriage. To kill Israelis, Hezbollah cynically hides behind women and children, just as it deliberately dug bunkers in the crowded suburbs of Beirut. Yet these abuses don't attract much international condemnation, especially from the anti-Israel United Nations. It is only luck and tough security measures that have prevented large-scale Israeli tragedies. By contrast, Israel warns the Lebanese population in advance of attacks and urges people to leave the area. Warnings preceded the bombing of the Hezbollah rocket site in Qana--which is still a mystery. The building collapse came seven hours after the bomb fell on or near it. If the blast was perceived as a danger, why didn't Hezbollah or the Lebanese get the civilians out? Hezbollah has clearly violated the most basic laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, which require parties to a conflict to "avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas" and state that "the presence of a protected person [i.e., a civilian] may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."The Geneva Conventions also forbid exactly what Hezbollah was doing at Qana, that is, concealing weaponry among civilians, as revealed in video footage from an Israeli drone showing a Hezbollah rocket launcher firing from a spot directly adjacent to the building struck in Qana. Israeli forces didn't know that dozens of civilians had found refuge there. Hezbollah did when it set up its rocket launcher there. International law is not a suicide pact. (8/6/06) http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/060806/14edit_3.htm

Israel pulled out of Gaza more than a year ago, but instead of using their independence to build a Palestinian state, the Gaza Arabs have been killing each other, as well as trying to kill Israelis. Factional fighting between Hamas forces loyal to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and the Fatah forces more or less loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas verges on a civil war. The turmoil will threaten Israel, which cannot be expected to stand aside as it did to its cost in southern Lebanon while Hezbollah grew strong enough to rocket Israeli cities. In Gaza, every intelligence, police, military, and security agency predicted violence if the security of the Gaza-Egypt border, the Philadelphia Route, was left to those parties when Israel withdrew. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice forced the Israelis to agree to the deal-and the border has indeed become a sewer for terrorists and weapons. The Egyptians have betrayed their obligations, even though Hamas is a threat to Egypt. The Israeli Defense Forces have discovered as many as 100 transborder tunnels, through which some 20 tons of explosives, tens of thousands of rifles, RPGs, rockets, and missiles of all kinds have been shipped. The Gazans have made matters worse by building hundreds of short-range Kassam rockets to rain on southern Israel. None of this is in the interest of the people of Gaza. Their vote for Hamas back in January has brought anarchy, corruption, chaos, and tribal wars. Abdallah Awad, columnist for the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, writes: "The factions, which not long ago were, in the eyes of the public, the guarantee for ridding ourselves of the occupation and for freedom and independence, have become ... another occupation, more repressive than the [Israeli] occupation itself." Hamas simply isn't interested in peace; in the latest survey, two thirds of Gazans reject peace with Israel while almost as many believe in shelling Israeli cities. Hamas ensures further bloodshed by indoctrinating Palestinian children. They are not born hating, but from the age of 3 their radical leadership incites them to murder. The hate pervades the educational system, TV broadcasting, summer camps, children's trading cards, movies, music, even games that make martyrdom a major theme. A Palestinian psychiatrist recently reported that over half the Palestinian children between the ages of 6 and 11 dream of becoming suicide bombers. And in this perverse and tragic pursuit, they are urged on by their prime minister, Haniyeh. "One of the signs of victory," he told a rally recently, "is the Palestinian mother who prepares her son to be a warrior and then receives the news of his death for the sake of Allah with cries of happiness." Hamas prefers to let the Gazans suffer in the hope that sympathy for the victims of its own intransigence trump reason and sound judgment. Hamas, in truth, is not a nationalist force. It is part of the global movement of jihad, a Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt with the goal of eliminating Israel with help from its Syrian and Iranian backers. Middle East diplomats, so enamored of process, keep hoping the right dose of concessions will somehow result in mutually reinforcing perceptions of security. This is hopelessly naive. For now and the foreseeable future, the seat on the other side of the table across from Israel is occupied only by a death's-head. (11/5/06) http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/061105/13edit_2.htm

A captured Hamas leader, who recruited and trained Palestinian suicide bombers, said they could strike anywhere and anytime they wanted. He claimed that most Palestinians would be willing to sacrifice their lives to accomplish their goal to destroy Israel. They are promised martyrdom, which includes everlasting happiness with 70 virgin wives. (CBS, Sixty Minutes, 8/19/01) ..... Hamas, sworn to wipe out Israel, wants the Jewish state and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip for a future Palestinian state run in accordance with Islamic law. (Reuters, 03/25/04 11:10 ET) ..... Islamic terrorists in suicide missions are told they will be rewarded in heaven with 72 virgin brides. However, females are promised little rewards, possibly explaining why so few volunteer. (USN&WR, 2/25/02, 6) ..... UCLA Islamic Law Prof. Khaled Abou El Fadl said that studies of the Koran suggest that the rewards for martyrdom should actually be translated as "raisons," not "virgins." (USN&WR, 4/15/02, 36) More complete info at http://win4sports.com/terror.htm#virgins ..... Despite past feuds, Hamas now is allied with (PLO) Fatah. Hamas' goal is the eradication of Israel as a Jewish state, dismantling of Jewish settlements, return of 4 million Palestine refugees, establishment of Islamic state with Islamic law. (OCR, 4/4/02, News 7) ..... Hamas repeated "its demand that all of historic Palestine - including all of modern-day Israel - should be in Arab hands." (OCR, 8/23/02, News 40) ..... Dogs are a new weapon against terrorists. Dogs can detect bombs from surprising distances. "Islamic radicals believe that dogs are dirty, and if Fido's blood is mixed with that of a 'martyr,' he will not ascend to paradise and win his 72 virgins. As a result, some officials want to place dogs at sites most threatened by suicide bombers." (USN&WR, 9/29/03, 2) ..... Hamas leader Ahmed Yassen said that Muslims will defeat America, and those carrying bombs and blowing themselves up (suicide attackers) are destined for paradise. (OCR, News 15, 9/25/03)

There are one million male students studying in Pakistan's 10,000 mostly militant Islamic religious schools. The students range from 8 to 35 years, are taught to hate and kill Americans, and many become Pecharich terrorists. (Reader's Digest, 1/02, 70) ..... "More than a million of the [Palestinian] refugees from the 1948 war live in 59 camps scattered throughout the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The camps have supplied most of the fighters willing to kill themselves." (OCR, 3/10/02, News 4) ..... On 3/9/77, About a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington D.C., killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later. (OCR, 3/9/02, Accent 7)

Three 14-year old Gaza male classmates left suicide notes about martyrdom, attacked a Jewish settlement in Gaza with homemade pipe bombs, and were killed. Interviewed Palestinians blamed the deaths on Israel for causing a sense of hopelessness and traumatizing the boys. [The Palestinians refuse to accept any responsibility for the deaths of the boys. The boys have been taught in school to hate the Jews, that Israel must be destroyed, and to die for the cause leads to martyrdom. Either the Palestinians are lying to us, lying to themselves, or both.] (OCR, 4/25/02, News 21) ..... "The Arab world seethes with hatred of the Jews as rabid as the Nazi's. ... it is the Arab world that preaches 'Kill the Jews!' and dances in the street when terrorists do so." (OCR, 9/29/02, Commentary 6)

"Ahmed Tibi, a former advisor to Arafat and now a member of Israel's parliament, accused Arab states of hypocrisy when they cite Palestinian corruption as an obstacle to financial aid. Many of the regions other leaders are every bit as corrupt, he said." (L. A. Times, 3/27/01, A4) ..... Bush urged Arafat to purge his administration of the corruption that is the source of much criticism from Palestinians themselves. European leaders echoed those comments. (OCR, 5/3/02, News 4) ..... "Palestinians resume their calls for democratic reform and an end in what is widely seen as rampart corruption." (OCR, 5/14/02, News 11) ..... Israel estimates that Arafat's personal property is worth $2 billion. (Newsweek, 1/27/03, 46) [Rags to riches!] ..... For ten years it has been alleged that Arafat, and a few close advisors, have diverted millions of dollars to secret bank accounts. The Palestinian Authority's first public accounting claims it has $600 million in liquid assets. (OCR, 3/1/03, News 38) ..... Arafat has violated every agreement he has made. Arab leaders also have stopped trusting him. (USN&WR, 9/29/03, 68) ..... Arafat appropriates $800M, By the JPost.com Staff November 7, 2003 The CBS-News program 60 minutes will report Sunday that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat has diverted $800 million to his private accounts from Palestinian Authority aid money. According to the report, Arafat continues to send his wife Suha an additional $100,000 – also from PA aid funds – each month to Paris, where she lives with their daughter. PA Finance Minister, Salam Fayad is currently tracking down missing PA finances, and is reported to have assisted CBS in their report. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1068185482292

Arafat's principal legacy is hate, his gift to the world a kind of terrorism whose techniques have been aped from Indonesia to Iraq. Arafat was resolute in refusing to prepare his people for peace. He used every platform--radio, TV, newspapers, the mosques, schools, even summer camps for kids--to inculcate a hatred of Jews, Israel, and the West. The Jews, Arafat declared, "never lived in or ruled Palestine. They were relying on false mythological sources," i.e., the Bible. Canaan, for Arafat, was not the Promised Land for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants; it was the land of banishment. For good measure, he added that "there was no temple in Jerusalem," thus denying that Jesus ever walked there, preached there, or was crucified there. A Palestinian poll in Gaza asked whether rockets and mortar attacks on Israeli towns should continue even after Israel's full withdrawal: 51 percent approved of more attacks. Only 42 percent said no. A couple of years ago, another poll found only 26 percent of Palestinians favored stopping terrorist attacks--even if they were to receive all of the West Bank and Gaza, East Jerusalem, and sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Hundreds of millions of dollars Arafat received to improve life for Palestinians were diverted to support a terrorist network. Now the Palestinians are to be guided, it appears, by some 10 feuding groups and their warlords who have about 40,000 guns (to say nothing of the criminal gangs that control swaths of the West Bank and Gaza). (USN&WR, 11/29/04, 68)

Yasser Arafat ‘has £1.8bn fortune’ A TELEVISION documentary is to claim that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, has amassed a personal fortune of up to £1.8bn and his wife is given tens of thousands of pounds each week to fund a lavish lifestyle in Paris. The £1.8bn estimate of Arafat's personal fortune is almost six times higher than had been previously been touted. According to a report in the New York Daily News, the CBS show 60 Minutes will claim on Sunday that he has amassed a personal fortune of between £602m and £1.8bn. It will also claim that Arafat's wife, Suha, 40, who lives away from the struggles of her homeland, is given more than £60,000 a month from Palestinian Authority funds. Lesley Stahl, a CBS correspondent, told the newspaper that Raymonda Tawil, Mrs Arafat's mother, is apparently enjoying life in Paris at the expense of the Palestinian taxpayers. http://ww1.theherald.co.uk/news/4130-print.shtml ..... "Yasser Arafat has run a system built on corruption and repression. His aids reap money from many sources in all corners of the dirt-poor territories -- brazenly showing off their newfound wealth with grand new homes and fancy cars. ... The most senior PA officials are stealing the money that belongs to the people. ... hundreds of millions of dollars have disappeared from the PA treasury." Palestinians are fed up with PA repression, extortion, and demand for bribes. (USN&WR, 7/1/02, 16) [Many horrifying examples in article.] ..... Arafat Fends Off Challenge Over Reforms, By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, AP, RAMALLAH, West Bank (Aug. 26, 2004) - Veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turned back another effort by critics to force him to reform his bloated, corruption-plagued administration. The recommendations included forming a viable government capable of fighting corruption more effectively and restoring law and order. It also called on Arafat to follow through on promises made in a speech last week to crack down on graft. ..... Starting in 1979, Arab countries gave the PLO about $200M per year for 10 years. They stopped when Arafat supported Saddam Hussein, who gave $150M. From 1993 to 2000, Israel gave about $4B in tax rebates to the PA. From 1994 to 2003, other countries donated $6.5B to the PA. Thus, more than $12.5B has been given to Arafat, who refuses to give an accounting of his financial empire. Arafat's wealth is estimated to be between $3B and $5B. When he was 62, he secretly married a 28-year-old woman. His wife flew to Paris to give birth because she said conditions in Gaza were terrible. His wife and daughter live a lavish life style in Paris on $100,000 per month. $11.4M allegedly was transferred to the wife's bank account between 7/02 and 9/03. (OCR, 11/9/04, News 14) ..... The Palestinian attorney general said that senior officials in the authority may have stolen billions of dollars of public funds. (OCR, 2/6/06, News 11)

On Sept. 9, 1993, Yasser Arafat signed a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin pledging that the Palestine Liberation Organization "recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." That was a lie. The list of crimes the PLO chairman has incited or been associated with over the years would stain every page of a good-sized book. Highlights, however, would include the slaughter of athletes at the 1972 Olympics by Black September; the assassination of U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973; the massacre of schoolchildren at Maalot in 1974; a bus hijacking that killed 35 civilians in 1978; the slaying of Leon Klinghoffer on the Achille Lauro in 1985; the torture and execution of Palestinian dissidents, especially during the intifada of the late 1980s and early '90s; and the suicide bombings of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in more recent years. Even those incidents provide but a flavor of Arafat's culpability in the decades-long terrorism that sabotaged the likelihood of Middle East peace. Given an opportunity in '93 to lead the Palestinians in setting up a state of their own, Arafat botched it utterly, staffing a soon-to-be corrupt Palestinian Authority with cronies and thugs. At every turn, meanwhile, he walked away from the possibility of a settlement with Israel. Most notably in the fall of 2000, he left on the table a two-state solution that gave the Palestinians nearly everything they could realistically expect in terms of territory and a capital in East Jerusalem. In the four years of violence that have followed, Arafat has made no serious efforts to halt suicide bombings against Israeli civilians or to rein in the violence that has made a shambles of the economy. No doubt part of the reason for this feeble performance is that his Fatah movement and the PA itself are implicated in the attacks. (Rocky Mountain News, 11/5/04) ..... Arafat realized early that Arab dictators would pay to keep the Palestinian issue alive because it gave them an all-purpose diversion from the disaster they were wreaking on their own societies. Arafat became the custodian of the Palestinian grievance for everyone. (OCR, 11/5/04, Local 7) ..... "Arafat has said he was born in Jerusalem, though biographers have concluded that his birthplace was Cairo." (OCR, 11/6/04, News 4)

Marwan Barghouti, a senior official in Arafat's Fatah movement, said, "I think that President Arafat is not only supporting the uprising but also the leader of it." Israel has long charged that Arafat has directed the violence. Arafat has denied that he is behind attacks on Israelis by Palestinian militants and has suggested he is doing everything he can to stop the violence. (LAT, 9/1/01, A4) ..... Netanyahu said that Arafat tells his people in Arabic every night that they ought to annihilate the Jewish state. He has violated dozens of cease-fires, using them just to rearm. (OCR, 4/4/02, News 2) ..... President Bush said Arafat has not earned his trust. "I mean, here's a man who said he has signed on at Oslo that he was going to fight off terror. We thought we had a cease- fire arranged. We were close to a cease-fire, and the next thing we know, there's a suicide bomber that hits. We thought a couple of months ago that ... we had an agreement. The next thing we know, he's ordered a shipment of arms from Iran. He's got a long way to go." (OCR, 4/6/02, News 11) ..... After Arafat rejected Israel's offer at Camp David, he said, "Look, we've got 150 years, and we'll throw them into the sea." Arafat has lied about everything and to everyone. Arafat's colleague Mazen Izz al-Din said on a PLO television broadcast "One day history will expose the fact that the whole intifada and its instructions came from Brother Commander Yasser Arafat." Dennis Ross wrote that he never met an Arab leader that trusted Arafat. (USN&WR, 7/8/02, 68) ..... Arafat told Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci: "We don't want peace. We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else. " (USN&WR, 5/20/02, 60) ..... However, Hamas will not oppose Palestinian statehood despite its announced desire to destroy Israel, he said. "It is the right of Palestinian people to have a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem." "What we will not accept ... is if a state was (created) in return for giving up any of the rights of the Palestinian people," Abu Marzouk said. Hamas says all of Israel and occupied Palestinian territories belong to the Palestinians. He warned that no Israeli would be safe until the Israeli government caves in. (DAMASCUS, Dec 9, 2004, Reuters)

International human-rights group Human Rights Watch said Palestinian suicide attacks against Israeli civilians are "crimes against humanity" and Arafat has not done enough to deter them. No Israeli military action or violations of international law justified such attacks. (OCR, 11/3/02, News 29) ..... For 50 years, an idealistic Jewish group from Argentina, believing in coexistence, lived in a kibbutz in Israeli territory bordering the West Bank. Arabs from neighboring villages shared meals and events with the settlers. The kibbutz even offered their own land to be used in place of Arab land for a security zone. A Palestinian gunman from an Arafat associated group infiltrated the kibbutz and killed five, including a mother and her young sons (4 and 5). (OCR, 11/12/02, News 11) ..... Palestinian gunmen in Gaza killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her four young daughters as they headed into Israel. (OCR, 5/2/04, News 9)

Arafat "has shown a contempt for working democracy. Corruption and nepotism are rampant ...... a judicial system is virtually nonexistent, most media are state-controlled and the legislature is powerless." (LAT, 12/11/01, A18) ..... "Yasser Arafat denounced Israel on Friday night as a racist colonial power at a U.N. conference on intolerance, just hours after one of his senior aids [Nabil Shaath] announced that the Palestinians would reject a proposed declaration that labeled Israel as a racist state." (OCR, 9/1/01, News 29) ..... Arafat arrested two people for making explosives used in a 1996 attack. They were allowed to make more explosives in jail, and were recently released so they could make the bombs used in a terrorist attack on a pizzeria that killed 15 innocent civilians. (USN&WR, 3/25/02, 60) ..... One day before Arafat condemned terror against civilians, his wife told an Arab-language magazine that she endorsed suicide attacks, and it would be an honor for her son to do it, if she had one. She and her daughter (she has no son) live in Paris. (OCR, 4/15/02, News 4) .... Arafat said that Palestinians are against all forms of terrorism. Then he said that terror doesn't serve their interests, not that it is morally wrong. A few days prior, Arafat said he would outlaw suicide bombings, but that was omitted from his speech. (OCR, 9/10/02, News 13) ..... An IMF official said Arafat diverted $900 million in public funds to a special bank account he controlled. Palestine legislator Hanan Ashrawi said she and others have been aware of past misuse of funds for some time. (OCR, 9/21/03, News 35) ..... Gunmen in Arab Beit Jala fired on civilians in Jewish Gilo. Israel sent in troops to stop the attacks. The troops withdrew after two days when the Palestinians promised to stop firing on Jala. An American official said, "This shows that Arafat can stop the shooting." (USN&WR, 9/10/01, 19)

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said "I have no reason to believe anything a Taliban representative would say." First they said they do not know where Bin Laden is. Then they said the Taliban have been been constantly guarding and protecting Bin Laden for more than two years. (LAT, 10/1/01, A1)

"Israeli authorities contend that Bin Laden has not made greater inroads in their nation and the Palestinian territories because of the tight control the Jewish state maintains over its borders and the ability of Israeli-paid agents to penetrate and spy on Palestinian groups." (LAT, 10/3/01, A6)

A survey found 46% of Palestinians and 41% of Israelis believe there will be no peace in the foreseeable future, 59% of Palestinians and 46% of Israelis expect the conflict to continue for 5 to 10 year. Hatred has soared among Palestinians, with wide support for suicide bombings and other armed attacks on Israelis. "Saleh, 69, once served as agriculture minister in the government Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, but he quit to protest rampant corruption. ..... He is one of a daring handful of prominent Palestinians who speak out in favor of nonviolent resistance." (LAT, 8/22/01, A6) ..... A Palestinian poll of 1179 randomly selected adult Palestinians during May 2002 shows 51% support eliminating Israel and 43% wanted to push Israel out of Palestinian areas. During December 2001, the numbers were 43% and 49%, respectively. (OCR, 6/12/02, News 33)

JERUSALEM (AP, 4/11/06) - Israel on Tuesday stood by its new policy of firing artillery shells at Palestinian rocket squads operating from populated areas in Gaza. The Israeli military intensified its offensive against Palestinian rocket fire after the Hamas militant group took charge of the Palestinian Authority two weeks ago. In a major policy shift, it has begun allowing guns to fire close enough to hit populated areas. "As long as it's not quiet here (in Israel), it won't be quiet there (in Gaza)," Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Tuesday. Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said the military operations would continue as long as Palestinian militants continue to launch rockets at Israel. The military's task is to defend the security of the citizens of Israel," Boim said. "If the Hamas government will not control these terrorists from firing Qassam (rockets) against Israeli civilians in cities and communities, we will continue to push these citizens out of the range of these rockets." Since the beginning of the month, Israel has retaliated against the estimated 32 rockets that landed in Israeli territory with 16 air strikes and more than 1,000 artillery rounds, the military said. Seventeen Palestinians, including 13 militants, have died in the offensive since Friday. There have been no Israeli casualties from the rocket fire. Palestinian militants have threatened revenge for the Israeli military crackdown, but the Hamas government is quietly urging them to refrain from launching rockets at Israel without permission, officials from both sides have confirmed. While Hamas says it still supports armed resistance against Israel, a halt in violence would enable it to focus on other brewing crises. Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in January on a platform of ending government corruption and improving public services. But since being sworn into office, the government has found itself facing tough Western aid cutoffs, Palestinian infighting and now, growing violence with Israel.

An Israeli military report expects the conflict to continue for another 5 years. An influential Israeli adviser has said the Palestinians "will never stop shooting until they drive us into the sea." (OCR, 8/20/01, Local 6) ..... "The Palestinians were attacking Jews even when they [Palestinians] controlled the land now under dispute." (LAT, 8/26/01, M4 Letter) ..... "The 'right of return,' meanwhile, is a rallying cry for Arabs, particularly hard-line opponents of Israel. Many Arab states, in hope of keeping anti-Israeli fervor alive, deny Palestinians property, citizenship and other rights that might make their lives as refugees easier." (OCR, 4/16/04, News 28) ..... "Israel is better, more moral in conduct of its affairs, than any Arab nation you can name. ... Arab nations oppress their own people and seek the destruction of Israel. They encourage, finance and celebrate the most horrible acts of terrorism directed against innocent Jewish citizens. (OCR, 11/1/04, Local 6)

Al Jazeera, started 11/96, is a 24-hour satellite uncensored television station from Qatar. It is "a nightmare for Arab governments accustomed to determining what kind of information their masses receive." Protests have been received from Jordan, Kuwait, Arafat, Libya, Morocco, and others. Algeria has cut off power to prevent receiving its broadcasts. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will not permit the reporters on their soil. Israel is concerned that the broadcasts incite Palestinians to riot, yet "continues to allow its correspondents to operate freely within its borders." Faisal al Kasim, an Arab current affairs show host on the station said, "For fifty years, the media in the Arab world have been feeding people nothing but lies." (LAT, 5/7/01, A1)

"The governments of the Arab nations are among the most repressive in the world. In most of the countries, there is no free press. There is no freedom of association. Dissent is crushed. Torture is common. Opposition parties are weak or ineffective. ..... The lack of a democratic outlet in Arab countries fosters a breeding ground for Islamic extremists." (LAT, 10/8/01, A4 R)

The writer of this article was talking to a Palestinian friend in 1994 in Jerusalem. The Palestinian confided, "We have many caches of weapons buried there and all over Israel. Arafat will make the 'peace' with the Israelis and when the time is right and when we get more of the land, we'll take the guns out and take the rest of the land." (O. C. Register, 4/1/01, Commentary 4)

Faisel Husseini, the Palestinian leader who headed the Orient House, compared the 1993 Oslo peace accords with the Trojan horse, an attempt to subvert and ultimately destroy Israel through territorial concessions. The Oslo agreement is a phased goal, while ambushing and cheating the Israelis. The ultimate goal is the liberation of all Palestine, even if this means conflict for another 1000 years. (LAT, 8/20/01, B11) ..... In 1949, one year after Israel was established, Arafat published the Voice of Palestine, in which he vowed to fight "the Zionist entity" and the "agent of imperialism" in the Middle East. (LAT, 2/10/02, A5)

Most Arabs most times believe "that the Jewish state must be destroyed, with its inhabitants either subjugated, exiled or killed." Syria portrays the current Palestinian violence as the "countdown for the destruction of Israel." Lebanon claims that the present time offers "an exceptional historic opportunity to finish off the entire cancerous Zionist project." A Palestinian magazine children's poem addresses Israelis: "You can choose the sea like cowards, or choose us, and we will rip you to shreds." Zionist leader Zev Jabotinsky in 1923 explained, "So long as Arabs have a glimmer of hope to rid themselves of our presence, they will not give it up for all sweet words and far-reaching promises in the world." (LAT, 8/31/01, B15) ..... Author Hillel Halkin is searching for the descendants of the 10 lost Jewish tribes, driven from ancient Palestine in 8BC by the Assyrians. There may be more than 35 million descendants world wide, which could help offset the sharply increasing Palestinian population. (Newsweek, 10/21/02, 11)

A Palestinian militant said, "These weapons (mortars) have existed here for a long time and now is the time to use them." There have been 56 mortar attacks in the last two months. By the 1993 Oslo agreement, which gave the Palestinians control of some of the land, Arafat's police can have 15,000 guns and a few armored personnel carriers. Most other weaponry is illegal. The Palestinians are now using mortars with a range of 2.5 miles. Israel believes the Palestinians have been stockpiling antiaircraft guns, antitank missiles, and other far more deadly equipment. These items have been smuggled into, or manufactured in Gaza. (LAT, 4/10/01, A9)

The Israeli navy intercepted a fishing boat loaded with long range weaponry destined for Palestinian fighters in Gaza. The captured weapons included Katyusha ground-to-ground rockets, antiaircraft missiles, mines, and antitank grenades. (LAT, 5/8/01, A3)

Israel intercepted a ship in the Red Sea, allegedly from Iran, carrying 50 tons of advanced weaponry destined for the Palestinian Authority. The Captain and several crew members were officers in the Palestinian navy. The ship was owned by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority denied any involvement. The weapons included 12-mile range Katyusha rockets, 120-mm mortars, antiaircraft missiles, mines, armor-piercing Sagger antitank missiles, sniper rifles, and C4 explosives. Most of the weapons are forbidden to the Palestinians under existing agreements. (LAT, 1/7/02, A3 & 1/5/02, A7) ..... The Bush administration accused Arafat of lying about his government's role in the arms smuggling operation and lying about arresting three Palestinians involved. (LAT, 1/25/02, A3) ..... "Yasser Arafat lied to the president about a ... shipment of weapons to terrorists that Yasser Arafat said he had nothing to do with, had no knowledge of, when it was proven that he was involved in it," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said last year. (Dan Williams, Reuters, 10/18/04) ..... US and Israeli intelligence concluded Arafat has had an agreement with Iran for shipments of heavy weapons and millions of dollars to Palestinian groups that are waging guerrilla war against Israel. The partnership was arranged at a clandestine meeting in May in Moscow. (OCR, 3/24/02, News 27)

"Under the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Palestinian security forces were allowed to have thousands of machine guns, assault rifles, and pistols, much of the weaponry supplied by Israel. In addition, large caches have been smuggled into Palestinian territory from Egypt, Jordan and Israel or manufactured domestically. Recently, militants have added mortars to their arsenal, and judging from intercepted shipments, may have acquired surface-to-air missiles and artillery." Palestinians "have been armed and trained since the Palestinian Authority gained control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994 and 1995, and are now organized into paramilitary units determined to eject the Israelis." (LAT, 5/24/01, A1) ..... The Israeli army seized eight missiles and a launcher in the West Bank. The missiles have a range of eight miles and could hit cities in the heart of Israel. The missiles were found in a truck carrying vegetables from Nablus to Jenin, both towns very active in the fight against Israel. This is the first time these missiles have been found in the West Bank, but Hamas has fired similar missiles in the Gaza Strip. (LAT, 2/7/02, A3) ..... Palestinians fired two home-made Kassam-II rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. They carry up to 22 pounds of explosives, and have no guidance systems, but are precise enough to be used against a metropolitan target. (OCR, 2/11/02, News 11)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (1/31/06, AP) - Hamas is searching for new sources of funding. International donors that support the Palestinian government said millions of dollars of aid could be in jeopardy if Hamas does not change its violent ways. Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide attacks, is poised to lead the next Palestinian government after winning legislative elections. Western donors, led by the United States and EU, funnel some $900 million to the Palestinians each year, most of it designated for reconstruction projects in the impoverished Gaza Strip and West Bank. The United States and European Union list Hamas as a terrorist group, making it difficult, if not illegal, for them to give money to a government led by Hamas. Israel also said it would stop the monthly transfer of $55 million in taxes and customs it collects from Palestinian workers and merchants to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas government is installed. Hamas officials said the group already is in touch with potential donors in Arab and Muslim nations. Analysts say that although most wealthy Gulf nations will not stand by and watch the Palestinians starve, the Arab and Muslim world is unlikely to provide the kind of cash Western nations have given. Government officials in the oil-rich countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, the most likely donors, are staying clear of the subject for now, refusing to discuss the issue despite repeated contacts from the AP. The Gulf governments have pledged tens of millions of dollars to the Palestinians in the past but sent only a tiny fraction of that money. ..... Arafat opened the space for Hamas. Arafat created one of the most ill-disciplined, corrupt, and ineffective organizations ever to be taken seriously on the world stage. (Newsweek, 2/6/06, 32)

Palestinian aid in jeopardy [after Hamas election victory]: At least half of the PA's $3 billion budget is dependent on funds from donors. The European Union is the largest donor to Palestinian projects. Last year it gave $612 million in aid, but halted direct payments to the Palestinian Authority (PA) due to concerns over the high level of government salaries. The United States gave the PA $400 million last year and has budgeted $234 million in assistance this year. Since 1993, the US has given the Palestinians more than $1.5 billion. Israel has suggested it would suspend customs revenue transfers to the PA, which total $40 million to $50 million per month and are crucial toward paying the salaries of 135,000 Palestinian employees. Hamas has rejected threats of a funding cutoff as blackmail and has said it could seek money from alternative sources, within the Arab world and beyond. Source: Reuters, 1/31/06

The birth of a Hamas terrorist statelet in the West Bank is not just one disaster but many. It will destroy the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, it will threaten America's regional friends, such as Jordan and Egypt, and it will embolden all of America's enemies in the region—Syria, Iran, the Islamic insurgents in Iraq, al Qaeda, and Hezbollah. Hamastan, as they call it, will become a training ground for terrorism—a sort of Afghanistan lite. As Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar put it, "We will join the Legislative Council with our weapons in our hands." These killers will now be wearing official police and military uniforms. Who in Palestine will dare argue for a peaceful negotiation with Israel? Hamas, which claims the blood of almost 600 innocent Israelis on its hands, could not have been more explicit than it was in a tv advertisement that aired January 17: "We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay [on the land], nor his ownership of any inch of land." Hamas doesn't even pretend to want peace with Israel. Its goals are, quite simply, the annihilation of the Jewish state in favor of an Islamic state throughout the Holy Land—an Islamic regime whose source of authority and laws is Islamic law as codified in the sharia. As Zahar put it, "In the Islamist Palestinian State, every citizen will be required to act in accordance with the codes of Islamic religious law."

Hamas covenant: "The time [of Muslim unity] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry, 'O, Muslims, there is a Jew behind me, come on and kill him.'" In Article 6, the covenant states Hamas's objective clearly: "To raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine . . . Israel will just continue until Islam will eliminate it." The conflict is defined in religious terms: "The Land of Palestine from the river to the sea is considered an Islamic waqf [endowment], and no Muslim has the right to cede any part of it."A two-state solution? "Never!" How will Hamas accomplish the obliteration of Israel? Article 13 states: "There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by jihad; initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are but a waste of time." A former Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, spelled it out: "We will not leave one Jew in Palestine." The current Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal, reiterated the threat at a post-election press conference in Damascus. Hamas will not disarm; it will not even recognize Israel's 1967 borders—never mind the secure and recognized boundaries for Israel called for by U.N. resolutions. A two-state solution? "Never!" vowed Zahar, when asked if Hamas would recognize Israel.Hamas is not just a mortal threat to Israel and all who live in the state. It inhabits an irrational world of paranoid fantasy. Articles 22 and 32 of the covenant, for instance, assert that "the Jews" control the world media, such as news agencies, the press, publication houses, broadcasting, and the like and have used this power and their wealth to stir revolutions—including the French and the Communist revolutions, wwi, and wwii. "They used their money to establish clandestine organizations such as the Free Masons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, and the like—all secret organizations . . . that act for the interest of Zionism and under its direction . . . laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The Protocols! Everyone knows they were a clumsy Bolshevik fraud, but to Hamas they are sacred writ. How can Israelis or anyone else negotiate with such fantasists? And only fantasists can hope that Hamas will soon turn its back on terrorism. Extremist parties of this nature don't become more moderate; they become more extreme—see the record of the Baath Party in Syria under Hafez Assad and in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, as well as Muslims under the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran—not to mention how Arafat's idea of responsibility was starting the second intifada or the wretched behavior of Hezbollah in Lebanon.Hamas may try to play the old word game and put a sheep's clothing on the wolf, as Arafat did. Israeli intelligence has concluded that, in fact, Hamas will do just that, biding its time before it finally strikes. It ought to be clear to everyone that any deal with Hamas will have as much meaning as a deal with Osama bin Laden. Is it really so hard to understand that a group that calls for genocide, extols terrorism, and demands a Taliban-style regime is not about to become moderate?

Contempt for Christianity. Hamas hates Christians as much as it does Jews. Take Bethlehem. It is no longer a Christian city. Muslims now vastly outnumber the departing Christians who are being effectively forced out at a rate where fairly soon the only Christians in Bethlehem will be holiday tourists. Just last year, Hamas won the citywide election, and a city councilor quickly advocated a special tax on non-Muslim residents, as ordained by the Koran for dhimmis, second-class Jews and Christians. The contempt for Christianity was manifest several years earlier when the newly elected radical Muslim mayor of Nazareth gave permission to build a mosque in the parking lot of the Basilica of the Annunciation, which would have overwhelmed the Basilica and made it virtually impossible for Christians to visit. Fortunately, the plan was blocked by the Israelis.In 2002. Washington has already helped create another flashpoint, by imposing on Israel the porous border-control agreement between Gaza and Egypt in Raffah in the belief that the Palestinian Authority, corrupt and inefficient as it was, would do what it promised. Now this border will be taken over by Hamas, which will try to bring in terrorists and weapons, especially rockets with greater range and accuracy. If rockets are deployed to fire on Israeli cities, Israel will have to intervene to protect its citizens.The Palestinian election reminds us all that the Islamists remain the only organized political force in the Arab world. They are the most effective at capitalizing on popular discontent. We have seen their resurgence in Iraq. If really free elections were held in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood would win; in Algeria, in Saudi Arabia, the same thing would happen—and not because of Israel. Jordan, with its population made up of 70 percent Palestinians, is now at risk, and it is a country whose stability is vital to America's interests.Sadly, the beneficiary of this turn of events is another heinous power in the region, Iran. For 25 years, Tehran has been steadily giving more and more money to terrorist organizations. It has been the principal sponsor of Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as Hamas, and they all work together. For example, Hamas has been transferring rockets and other materiel to these terrorist organizations so they can launch rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel. A few weeks ago, in Damascus, the extremist Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said publicly to Mashaal, the Hamas leader, that the party's victory in Palestine has become a matter of life and death for the Islamic world. The flow of funds from the United States and Europe should cease; it has long been unconscionable that so many millions of dollars have been spent to support terror and hate: Palestinian schools and media have never ceased inculcating hatred, sowing the poison from generation to generation. (USN&WR, 2/13/06, 64)

MOSCOW (AP, 3/3/06) - Hamas' political leader on Friday bluntly rejected any discussion of the militant group's refusal to recognize Israel, dealing a setback to Moscow's effort to persuade it to soften its stance. The issue of recognition (of Israel) is a decided issue," said Hamas' exiled political leader Khaled Mashaal upon arrival in Moscow for talks with Russian officials. "We don't intend to recognize Israel."

The newly designated Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh was speaking from Shati refugee camp in Gaza, where he lives with his wife and 12 children. Do you recognize Israel's right to exist?
The answer is, let Israel say they will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs.
(Newsweek, 3/6/06, 30) [Clear answer and commitment?]

A video message on the Hamas website proclaims: "We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of the Jews." But the lust to kill Jews is only part of it. Hamas, like Osama bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has ambitions that threaten us all. Khaled Mashal, Hamas's top leader, spelled them out: "The nation of Islam will sit at the throne of the world ... Muhammad is gaining victory in Palestine [and] in Iraq. ... The Arab and Islamic nation is rising and awakening. ... Tomorrow we will lead the world." Not to be outdone is the Hamas leader in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar: "We are part of the great world plan whose name is the world Islamic movement." According to the Jerusalem Post, the Hamas victory will "lift the morale of the Arab and Islamic world and affect the battle for Afghanistan and Iraq." Just a few days before the Palestinian election, Ahmadinejad met Mashal and Hamas's other leader-in-exile, Musa Abu Marzuk, in Damascus, along with the leaders of nine other Syria-based terrorist groups. The Palestinian conflict, they concluded, will become a "focal point of the final war" between Islam and the West. Hezbollah has already moved its operational headquarters from Beirut to Gaza; al Qaeda elements are already there. These are omens of an evil confluence, the formation of a Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah-Gaza axis in which Iran will fund and arm a new front of terrorism with its head in Iran, its body in Iraq and Lebanon, and its feet in Gaza and the West Bank. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's leader, warned that financial aid to the Palestinians would be conditional on continued terror and resistance against Israel. (USN&WR, 3/20/06, 72)

"The original Jewish community in Hebron was destroyed in 1929, when Arabs rose up against Jewish immigration to Palestine, killing 69 people and forcing the rest to flee." (L. A. Times, 4/2/01, A6) ..... After living in Hebron for centuries, Jews were driven out during Arab riots in 1929. Dozens were massacred. When Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, settlers began moving back into what had been Hebron's Jewish quarter. Kiryat Arba, one of the West Bank's largest settlements, was established in 1972, and is home to thousands of Israelis today. Nearly all the (about 450) Jews in Hebron and many living in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba walk to the Tomb of the Patriarchs every Friday evening, and the route is heavily guarded by Israeli security forces. The site is the burial place of the biblical Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are revered by both faiths. (AP-NY-11-15-02 1601EST) ..... Before 1948, Arab riots forced Jews from Yemen to flee from Silwan, a community area in east Jerusalem. Some Jews now want to re-establish their Silwan community. The Arabs call it a "land grab." (OCR, 4/1/04, News 21)

Israeli public relations now will stress that the Jews were there long before the Palestinians. They recognize that Palestinians now living in Israel are entitled to rights, but "the whole land of Israel is the birthright of the Jewish people." (LAT, 8/8/01, A1)

No practising Muslim looks at you as a Jew -- if he knows you are a Jew -- looks at you in any way other than you are the enemy. He can give you any line, he can tell you, he can lie…Under the practise of Islam, Taqiya is lying under Islam in order to advance the cause of Islam. And the way you advance the cause of Islam is lying to the Jews under Dawa, and I know this is another word that you have never heard. Dawa is literally "the call" -- when Muslims must befriend the Jews in order to win them over. http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3403
http://www.answering-islam.org/Index/T/taqiya.html more on taqiya

Lebanese troops arrested about 250 Christians because of their demands that Syria pull its 25,000 soldiers out of Lebanon. (LAT, 8/9/01, A4) ..... A Lebanese journalist faces death for meeting with Israeli officials. (OCR, 8/24/01, News 30) ..... Israel fears that Syrian-backed Hezbollah is heavily armed and preparing direct attacks on Israel. However, the Israeli response will not be to Lebanon, but will be to Syria. (USN&WR, 3/18/02, 4)

"The United Nations admitted last month that it misled Israel about the existence of a videotape filmed 18 hours after the Oct. 7 abduction [of 3 Israeli soldiers]. It showed U.N. peacekeepers handing over, at gunpoint, two vehicles probably used in the abduction." (LAT, 8/9/01, A6) ..... A U.N. report found no evidence of a massacre in Jenin refugee camp (April 2002), refuting Arab lies that it had occurred. (OCR, 8/3/02, News 2)

"A Palestinian blew himself up in a crowded downtown Jerusalem pizzeria at lunchtime Thursday, killing 15 other people, including children and one [pregnant] American." This followed a June 1 suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv disco killing 22 young people. (LAT, 8/10/01, A1) ........ A 28-year old Palestinian blew himself up in a cafe in northern Israel, injuring about 20. (LAT, 8/13/01) ..... During the five months of the Palestinian uprising when Barak was prime minister, Israelis were killed by Palestinians at a rate of 13 per month. This increased to 21 per month during Sharon's year in office. (OCR, 3/7/02, News 14)

In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed the Osirak (Iraq) nuclear reactor, capable of producing nuclear weapons. The raid was roundly condemned in Europe and the United States. Ten years later (1991), Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a U.S.-backed coalition responded. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney gave to Israel a satellite photo of the destroyed nuclear plant, with the message, "With thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job you did on the Iraqi nuclear program ..... which made our job much easier in Desert Storm." (LAT, 8/12/01, M2) ..... http://www.alisrael.com/tamuz/ ..... Ilan Ramon, a 48-year-old Israeli air force colonel, died with 6 other astronauts on the Columbia space shuttle 2/1/03. Ramon was one of the first Israeli pilots for F-16 fighters, fought in 1973 and 1982 wars, and was one of the pilots that destroyed an unfinished nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. (OCR, 2/11/03, News 18)

"Under the Israeli government, all religious groups have always had full access to their special sites and, in most cases, full control of them." (San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/5/01, B9 Letter) [The Jews were denied access to their most important religious site, the wailing wall, when the Arabs controlled it.]

In 1901, a fund was created to buy land for Zionists. During the past 100 years, the fund has developed 250,000 acres and planted more than 200 million trees. (LAT, 9/7/01, A3)

After the 9/11/01 murder of 5000? civilian Americans, the Israeli Defense Minister said, "I hope the world now understands that its No. 1 enemy is Islamic terror." Predictably, most Arab leaders, even those advocating 'death to Americans', expressed their regrets about the killing of so many innocent people. However, many of their people were dancing with joy and having celebration parties. Elliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies, said "we have to stop thinking about this as cops and robbers and start thinking of it as war. .... It means you may well do thing that may well involve collateral damage and hurting civilians." Loren Thompson, a defense analyst, said "retaliation might include bombing in major cities and attacks on material assets of countries considered friendly to terrorists. ..... The only way to prevent this in the future is to do what the terrorists did to demonstrate the consequences. We need a huge show of force that involves huge loss of material assets and lots of casualties." Larry Johnson, a former counter-terrorist official, said "Bin Laden's awakened people to the need to use weapons not used before - including nuclear weapons - on Afghanistan. You don't launch a few missiles and make a few craters and expect the problem to go away." (LAT, 9/12/01, A15) ..... A poll in the U.S. "finds that 66 percent of Americans think that a government should stop terrorists before they act, just as Israel has done in Palestine." (USN&WR, 9/10/01, 10)

Arafat angrily rejected any suggestion that the Palestinians rejoiced over the terrorist attacks on the U.S. He said that "it was less than 10 children in East Jerusalem, and we punished them." "It was unclear how this assertion could be squared with photographs of the crowds." (OCR, 9/13/01, News 22) ..... Palestinian groups celebrated in the streets the attack on the U.S. "Palestinian policemen and gunmen threatened photographers and other journalists who attempted to cover the demonstrations, and Arafat quickly banned further displays." (LAT, 9/14/01, A36) ..... "Palestinian security agents are said to have detained cameramen and confiscated their tapes after they filmed Palestinians celebrating the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. In subsequent days, some areas of the Gaza Strip were closed to journalists by Palestinian authorities in an apparent effort to prevent the coverage of such demonstrations." (OCR, 5/4/02, News 7)

Extermination of Jews and Subjugation of Christians-Inevitable Goal of History
(Excerpt from Palestinian Authority TV Sermon)
The final stage of history will be the subjugation of all Christian countries under Islam and the extermination of every single Jew - this according to the PA religious leader during Friday’s Sermon. The Jews are so evil, Ibrahim Mudayris teaches, that they cannot be subjugated like the Christian countries, and therefore the only solution awaiting them is death – literally the extermination of every Jew. In his words: “The day will come and we shall rule America, Britain, we shall rule the entire world, except the Jews.” In the sermon Ibrahim Mudayris reiterated many of the often-repeated PA justifications for the anticipated genocide, including the following hate messages: God has predetermined that the Jewish problem will be solved with the extermination of the Jews. God has predetermined that the Christian -Islam interactions will end with today's Christian countries under Islam. Israel has no right to exist and will be destroyed. http://www.pmw.org.il/Latest%20bulletins%20new.htm#May13 5/16/05

Jews in Arab Countries        1948           Now
Algeria                                         140,000                  0
Egypt                                                75,000             100
Iraq                                                135,000             100
Lebanon                                            5,000              100
Libya                                               38,000                   0
Morocco                                       265,000           5,700
Syria                                               30,000              100
Tunisia                                         105,000           1,500
Yemen                                             55,000              200
http://www.factsandlogic.org/pdf/ad_106.pdf    (USN&WR, 3/19/07, 63)

Egypt and Saudi Arabia allow intellectuals to attack the United States and Israel, as long as they leave the local government alone. Consequently, the dissidents vent their anger and produce many believers. (USN&WR, 10/22/01, 43) ..... Vietnam now is viewed as a safe place for tourists because the communist government does not tolerate Muslim radicals and Muslims are less than 1% of the population. (OCR, 1/5/03, News 23)

The Arabs already are complaining if the U.S. bombs Afghanistan during the month of Ramadan. The 1973 Middle East war launched by Syria and Egypt against Israel was called "The Ramadan War" in the Arab world because that is when it was started. The "Arab world can launch wars on Ramadan, but not receive them." (OCR, 10/28/01, Commentary 5) [The Arabs, with the equivalent of all the forces of NATO, attacked Israel on 10/6/73 on the Jews' holiest day, Yom Kippur. The remarkable story is on http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/73_War.html]

"Islam was great in medieval times, establishing Muslim empires, spawning magnificent art, culture, architecture, and medicine, and ending the Dark Ages of Europe. But today it is an anachronism, and no more than expansionist ideology. While there may be great passages in the Koran about tolerance and equality, the modern Islamic nations are characterized by suppression of women, intolerance of non-Muslims, and intolerance for freedom of expression." (USN&WR, 11/5/01, 4 letter) ..... Fourteen girls died and 50 were injured in a fire 3/11/02 at the Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 31st Girls Middle School. The country's religious police allegedly prevented male firemen from rescuing the girls, because the girls were not wearing the long dresses and head coverings required in public. (OCR, 3/18/02, News 15)

The tablighis evangelical Muslims believe Islam should be spread by good example, modesty, and nonviolence. 500,000 met in Pakistan, with scant media coverage. The same day in Pakistan, 6000 Islamic fundamentalists demonstrated with fiery rhetoric and burning effigies, well covered by media television. (LAT, 11/3/01, A1) [The media frequently create the news, rather than simply reporting it.] ..... The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque were built on The Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the 7th Century by the Umayyad Muslims. Thus, we have the Muslim's third most holy site atop the Jew's most holy site. The Jewish flag was hoisted over the site after the 1967 war. General Moshe Dayan immediately ordered the flag lowered and gave control of the site to the Muslim Waqf (religious trust), which has remained relatively independent of Israeli control for over 30 years. One proposal would divide the hill horizontally, the Muslims controlling above the surface and the Jews controlling below the surface. This makes historical sense given the nature of the site. (Archaeology, Nov./Dec. 2001, 62)

The Muslims are attempting to construct a large mosque next to the main Christian shrine in Nazareth, the Basilica of the Annunciation, the largest church in the Middle East. Tradition says the angel Gabriel foretold the birth of Jesus at the site. Christians worldwide, including the Vatican, are angered, saying it is disrespectful to build a mosque just outside the Basilica. After much deliberation, Israel halted construction of the mosque. This drew a furious response from the local Muslim leader, who called it a "declaration of war" on Israel's large Muslim minority. (LAT, 1/10/02, A4R) [Damned if you do and damned if you don't.]

Historian Bernard Lewis has divided the Middle East into three broad categories: pro-American regimes and anti-American populations (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan), anti-American regimes and pro-American populations (Iran, Iraq), pro-American regimes and pro-American populations (Turkey, Israel). (USN&WR, 2/18/02, 26) ..... About 355 million people live in Middle Eastern and North African Muslim nations, and less than 1% of them live in the West Bank and Gaza. 77% of Muslim countries are non-democratic. Israel and Turkey are the only two democracies in the Middle East. (OCR, 3/17/02, Commentary 1) ..... The International Committee of the Red Cross recognizes only the Cross and the Muslim Crescent as official emblems and will not sanction the Jewish Star of David as a symbol for relief workers. (OCR, 4/24/02, News 19)

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the state must officially recognize conversions to Judaism by Reform and Conservatives groups in Israel. The Orthodox controls marriages, divorces, and burials for Jews, and could continue to refuse such services to such converts. (OCR, 2/21/02, News 15) ..... "An American can lose citizenship by serving in the armed forces of a foreign state that is engaged in hostilities against the United States." (LAT, 12/4/01, A13)

The Ford-Werke plant in Cologne used slave and forced labor, but Ford claims it did not profit from its German subsidiary during World War II. "Company founder was a notorious anti-Semite who wrote a 1921 pamphlet, 'The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem,' and other anti-Jewish articles admired by Adolph Hitler. In 1938, the year before the war began, Hitler awarded the American industrialist the Grand Cross of The German Eagle, the highest honor the Nazis bestowed on foreigners." (LAT, 12/7/01, B1) ..... In 1920, Henry Ford began publishing 91 successive weekly articles, "The International Jew: The World's Problem", depicting the Jews as perpetual aliens, united by race, and busy employing their financial sophistication to further a program of world domination. (Business Week, 1/21/02, 15) ..... In 1940 Henry Ford's son agreed to build a Willow Run (MI) plant for B-24 bombers for lend-lease to England, then fighting Germany. Henry Ford was such an isolationist that he tried to stall construction by pulling up surveyors' stakes. (USN&WR, 2/25/02, 62) ..... Evangelist Billy Graham complained to President Nixon in 1972 that Jews control the nation's media and that "this stranglehold has got to be broken or the country is going down the drain." (USN&WR, 3/11/02, 18) ..... American Christians donated $20 million in 2001 to help Jews resettle in Israel. Some of the strongest support for Israel comes from evangelical Christians (including Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson), which are 26% of U.S. voters. Christian Zionists are a segment of evangelicals, and believe that the Jews have a divine right to settle the entire Holy Land, so oppose a Palestinian state. (OCR, 2/1/03, News, 18)

Bernard Lewis, in his book "What Went Wrong?", traces the seething anger among Muslims to the Islamic world's catastrophic loss of influence and power to the West, starting about the 15th century. The peak of Islamic power, 9th through 13th centuries, represented the greatest military power on earth, with armies invading Europe, Africa, India, and China. It was the foremost economic power in the world and achieved high levels in arts and science. The reversal was remarkable. In the 19th century, the Western powers began colonizing the Islamic world, and after WWI, they sliced up the Ottoman Empire. The Islamic world soon was surpassed by other parts of the world, and could not prevent the establishment of Israel. Western society allows the individual far more freedom and scope for creativity. the Islamic lands place severe restrictions on women, spawn rapacious rulers, and lack separation between religion and state. (Business Week, 1/28/02, 20) ..... "It is hard for some Americans to appreciate what we are dealing with - not just people who differ with us but are ready to die to assault Christianity, Judaism, and anything connected with the West. America in particular is seen as a direct challenge to their civilization centered in faith. What we see as pluralism and diversity, these extremists see as indifference to values. They believe that Islam should command all life, and in pursuing those ends, will use whatever means are at their commands. ... The suicide bomber may well become a metaphor for these people as a symbol of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, and ruthless lack of concern for non-Muslims. We may not feel we are at war with Islam, but the most radical elements in the Muslim world are convinced they are at war with us." (USN&WR, 3/24/03, 76) ..... American Muslim groups continuously complain about a massive increase in anti-Arab crime. There were 481 anti-Muslim incidents in 2001, for a population of 2 to 7 million Muslims. Anti-Jewish incidents that year were twice the Muslim total. In Orange County (CA) there were 15 incidents in 2002, compared to about 7 per year during the 1990s. Complaints about "racial profiling" have made anti-terrorism more difficult. Is a Swedish nun as likely to set off a bomb as a young male from Iran? (USN&WR, 6/9/03, 37)

Between 900 and 1200, Islam and Christianity were battling, with the Jewish minority left with few privileges in medieval Spain. The Jews were free to live in the Islamic world as long as they paid special taxes to Muslim rulers. The Jews had their own legal system and social services, but could not own Muslim slaves, could not build new synagogues, and were supposed to wear identifying clothing. (USN&WR, 8/16-23/99,50) ..... For more than 600 years, Jews were at the heart of intellectual and commercial life in medieval Spain. An estimated 500,000 Jews lived there before the edict of expulsion in 1492, when all Jews and Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or were expelled. (OCR, 2/17/02, Getting Away 5)

In Saudi Arabia, all Christian and most Muslim feasts are banned. Sexes are segregated in public: schools, festivals, restaurants, fast-food outlets (screens separate the takeout lines). Dating is taboo and unmarried couples caught together are imprisoned. (OCR, 2/9/02, News 35) ..... Two million Muslim pilgrims converge outside Mecca for an annual hajj. (OCR, 2/21/02, News 21) ..... A London Muslim cleric was charged with incitement to murder after a newspaper reported he had urged his followers to kill Jews. (OCR, 2/21/02/News 21) ..... Billy Graham's son (Franklyn) said terrorism is part of main-stream Islam and the Quran preaches violence. The silence of the Muslim clerics around the world is frightening, for not condemning the 9/11/01 attacks on the U.S. (OCR, 8/15/02, News 6) ..... A Kuwaiti official said he was happy about the 9/11 attack and attended parties held in celebration. He considers the two Kuwaiti men who killed a U.S. marine to be martyrs. His view is common in the Middle East, but surprising coming from someone whose country the U.S. rescued from Iraqi domination. His view represents a spreading anti-American sentiment. (OCR, 10/12/02, News 7) ..... A Lebanese Grand Ayatollah said that Islam is "a religion of mercy and love." An Iranian Muslim cleric said that Rev. Jerry Falwell must be killed because he said Muhammad "was a violent man. a man of war." (OCR, 10/13/02, News 32) [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a FATWA against Salman Rushdie February, 1989 because Rushdie (a Muslim) wrote a book disapproved by Khomeini. Rushdie's death was ordered, with rewards increasing to $2.5 million.]

About 1800, "The [Barbary] pirates were Muslims, their captives Christians. Prisoners who converted to Islam escaped hard labor and landed cushy jobs. Those who disparaged Allah risked being impaled or roasted alive. Jefferson and Adams, as diplomats in Europe, asked Tripoli's ambassador why his government sanctioned such savagery. The Koran established that non-Muslims were 'sinners,' the envoy replied, and Muslims had a 'right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners.'" (USN&WR, 2/25/02, 48) ..... Pat Robertson described Islam as a violent religion that want to "dominate and then, if need be, destroy." Spokeswoman Angell Watts explained that militant Islam is dedicated to the destruction of America and the killing of Jews and Christians around the world. To deny that the Quran promotes violence to many followers would be to deny the truth. (OCR, 2/23/02, News 15) ..... Malaysian Muslim fundamentalists want a hard-line Islamic with hudud laws that punish adultery and sodomy by stoning, theft with amputation of hands and feet, drinking alcohol with whipped 80 times, and death to those denouncing Islam. The laws would extend to all Malaysians, Muslim or not. (OCR, 7/19/02, News 27) ..... Radical Muslims will meet in London to celebrate the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. They support making Britain a Muslim state and aim to implement Sharia law in Britain. (OCR, 9/8/02, News 8) ..... There are no true democracies or free countries in the Arab world. The only free country with a Muslim majority is Mali. (OCR, 9/22/02, Commentary 6) ..... "Apart from Israel, there are no faithfully functioning democracies in the Arab world, stretching from western Africa to Central Asia and taking in some 275 million people." (OCR, 3/9/03, News 3)

In the early 1600s in Constantinople, Murad IV, ruler of the vast Ottoman Empire, roamed the city streets in disguise, feigning a craving for a smoke, then beheading anyone who gave him one. In 14 years, Murad killed or had put to death 25,000 suspected smokers. (BW, 2/18/02, 22)

The U.S. and Russia have 6000+ nuclear weapons. China ranks third with an estimated 400. However, Israel had an estimated 100 to 200 in 1986, though it never acknowledged having nuclear weapons. It is assumed that Israel has strengthened its nuclear stockpile since then, and may now rank third. (OCR, 2/15/02, News 2) ..... Even though outnumbered, the Israeli military is qualitatively far superior to Arab armies, and the Israelis have the ultimate deterrent: a small undeclared nuclear arsenal. (OCR, 4/14/02, News 8) ..... It is estimated that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons. With air-, sea- and land-based launching systems, Israel has the middle East under control. (OCR, 4/22/04, News 23)

During the mid-1970's the United States adopted two laws that seek to counteract the participation of U.S. citizens in other nation's economic boycotts or embargoes. These "antiboycott" laws are the 1977 amendments to the Export Administration Act (EAA) and the Ribicoff Amendment to the 1976 Tax Reform Act (TRA). The antiboycott laws were adopted to encourage, and in specified cases, require U.S. firms to refuse to participate in foreign boycotts that the United States does not sanction. They have the effect of preventing U.S. firms from being used to implement foreign policies of other nations which run counter to U.S. policy. The Arab League boycott of Israel is the principal foreign economic boycott that U.S. companies must be concerned with today. The anti-boycott laws, however, apply to all boycotts imposed by foreign countries that are unsanctioned by the United States. http://www.bxa.doc.gov/AntiboycottCompliance/OACRequirements.html ..... The U.S. seriously considered using military force to seize Middle East oil fields during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. (OCR, 1/2/04, News 26)

Across the lands of the Bible, Christians are abandoning their homes. According to the World Council of Churches, the region's Christian population has plunged from 12 million to 2 million in the past 10 years. Lebanon, until recently a majority Christian country—the only one in the Mideast—has become two-thirds Muslim. The Greek Orthodox archbishop in Jerusalem, where only 12,000 Christians remain, is pleading with his followers not to leave. "We have to persevere," says Theodosios Atallah Hanna. "How can the land of Jesus Christ stay without Christians?" The proportion of Christians in Bethlehem, once 85 percent, is now 20 percent. Egypt's Coptic Christians, who trace the roots of their faith back to Saint Mark's preaching in the first century, used to account for 10 percent of their country's population. Now they've dwindled to an estimated 6 percent. "The flight of Christians out of these areas is similar to the hunt for Jews," says Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-Italian author and expert on Islam, himself a Muslim. "There is no better example of what will happen if this human tragedy in the Arab-Muslim world is allowed to continue." Nowhere is the exodus more extreme than in Iraq. Before the war, members of the Assyrian and Chaldean rites, along with smaller numbers of Armenians and others, constituted roughly 1.2 million of the country's 25 million people. Most sources agree that well over half of those Christians have fled the country now, and many or most of the rest have been internally displaced, but some estimates are far more drastic. According to the Roman Catholic relief organization Caritas, the number of Christians in Iraq had plummeted to 25,000 by last year. Of the 1.7 million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria, half are Christians, says Father Raymond Moussalli, a Chaldean vicar who now says mass every night in a basement in Amman. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762050/site/newsweek/page/0/

Allah or Jesus? by Rick Mathes (This is a true story and the author is a well known leader in prison ministry.)
Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their belief systems. I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers. When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked: "Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world. And, that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims, they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?" There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, "Non-believers!" I responded, "So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can go to Heaven. Is that correct?" The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sheepishly replied, "Yes." I then stated, "Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering Protestants to do the same in order to go to Heaven!" The Imam was speechless. I continued, "I also have problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me. Let me ask you a question. Would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in order to go to Heaven or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to Heaven and He wants you to be with me?" You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame. (An e-mail, 3/27/04)

What Islam Isn't By: Dr. Peter Hammond
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, April 21, 2008

The following is adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat:

Islam is not a religion nor is it a cult. It is a complete system.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic and military components. The religious component is a beard for all the other components.

Islamization occurs when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their so-called 'religious rights.'

When politically correct and culturally diverse societies agree to 'the reasonable' Muslim demands for their 'religious rights,' they also get the other components under the table. Here's how it works (percentages source CIA: The World Fact Book (2007)).

As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:

United States -- Muslim 1.0%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1%-2%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:

Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. ( United States ).

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- Muslim 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad &Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions ( Paris --car-burnings). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats ( Amsterdam - Mohammed cartoons).

Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 10-15%

After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:
Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace -- there's supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 99.9%

Of course, that's not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.

'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel. – Leon Uris, 'The Haj'

It is good to remember that in many, many countries, such as France, the Muslim populations are centered around ghettos based on their ethnicity. Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. Therefore, they exercise more power than their national average would indicate.

LONDON, Feb 1, 2005 (Reuters) - Israel said on Tuesday it would double the pace of Jewish immigration from Ethiopia in order to bring out the remaining 20,000 members of the Falasha Mura group by 2007.
Here is a short chronology of attempts to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
-- 1973: Status of Ethiopian Jews is formally decided by Israeli chief rabbis who determine they are descendants of the Jewish biblical tribe of Dan and entitled to immigrate.
-- 1984: Under tight military censorship, Israel brings 12,000 Ethiopians to the Jewish state in a secret airlift through Sudan known as Operation Moses.
-- 1985: Israeli magazine breaks censorship in interview with Israeli immigration official. The story appears worldwide. Sudan, a Muslim country, responds angrily, halting airlift.
-- 1989: Israel and Ethiopia restore diplomatic relations, bringing hope to those awaiting stranded relatives.
-- 1990: Under a family re-unification programme, then- president Mengistu Haile Mariam allows Jewish emigration but interrupts it several times. About 3,500 arrive in the year.
-- 1991: Planeloads of Ethiopians arrive several times a week with about 350 passengers each in what Israel dubbed "Operation Solomon." About 2,000 Ethiopian Jews arrive in Israel by February.
In March, immigration stops abruptly. Concern in Israel for fate of 15,000 to 18,000 Jews waiting to leave Addis Ababa.
In May, Mengistu flees to Zimbabwe. Israel airlifts out more than 15,000 Ethiopian Jews.
-- 2003: Ethiopia blocks a plan by Israel to move the Falasha Mura to Israel, arguing that a mass migration was unnecessary when everyone was free to leave Ethiopia in the normal way.
-- 2004: Following a visit by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Israel says it plans to start moving the remaining 20,000 Ethiopians of Jewish origin to Israel.
-- 2005: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approves the decision to allow 700 Falasha Mura a month to fly to Israel.

GAUHATI, India (AP) - About 6000 people in India's northeast who claim to be descendants of a lost Israel tribe are celebrating a reported Israeli government decision to formally convert them to Orthodox Judaism - a step that would allow them to emigrate to Israel. About 800 members of the Bnei Menashe have been taken to Israel from northeast India over the last decade by a group called Amishav, Hebrew for "my people returns." According to Amishav, there is ample evidence to show that the Bnei Menashe - comprised mainly of the Mizo, Kuki and Chin ethnic groups - are of Jewish descent. Their customs, including mourning rites, hygiene and the use of a lunar calendar, closely mirror Jewish traditions. The Bnei Menashe were animists when they were converted to Christianity by British missionaries in the 19th century. In 1953, a tribal leader named Mlanchala had a dream that his people would return to Israel. The tribe then adopted - or perhaps readopted - Jewish traditions. However, their links to the Jewish people could not be proved, so they were not deemed eligible to immigrate to Israel under Israeli law, which gives Jews the right to automatic citizenship.

Nobel Prizes . . . comparing Muslim and Jewish recipents

The global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature: 1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewai
Economics: (none)
Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

**************************************************************************

The global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000, or about 0.02% of the world population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:

1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:

1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - MurrayGell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - BurtonRichter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charle s Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:

1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - LawrenceRobert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:

1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - SalvadorLuria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis

The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for "jihad and death to all the Infidels".

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, the following two sentences really say it all:

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.

If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

(from an e-mail [unverified], 11/25/06}

Washington, D.C. — The RAND Corporation issued April 28, 2005, the most comprehensive recommendations ever made for the success of an independent Palestinian state.

The proposals – including a landmark rail, highway and infrastructure link between the West Bank and Gaza that would open the door to dramatic new development in Palestine – are designed to give Palestinians new access to jobs, food, water, education, health care, housing and public services.

Many of the actions proposed by RAND can get underway now to begin improving the lives of Palestinians and begin laying the groundwork to sustain long-term development in a future state that would provide good government, become self-reliant economically, and improve security for Palestinians and Israelis.

A report produced under the oversight of RAND Health titled “Building a Successful Palestinian State” describes many of the proposals. A companion volume by the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy titled “The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State” proposes a new corridor from the northern West Bank to Gaza that would help achieve the goals of the first report, enabling Palestinians to build a more prosperous future and cope with rapid population growth.

The corridor – called the Arc – would support a high-speed 140-mile interurban rail line, highway, aqueduct, energy network and fiber optic cable linking Palestine’s major towns and cities. This would act as a catalyst to generate housing, jobs and business development. Construction of the Arc would create an estimated 100,000 to 160,000 jobs for Palestinians over five years, on top of thousands more jobs in new businesses built along the corridor. It would also foster revitalization of historic city centers and preserve forests, nature reserves and agricultural land.

“Creating a state of Palestine does not ensure its success,” according to the first report. “But for Palestinians, Israelis and many around the world, it is profoundly important that the state succeed.” A failed Palestinian state, or one so weak that it must be sustained and policed by others, would endanger international security, the report says.

The reports do not discuss how Israelis and Palestinians can reach a settlement to create a

Palestinian state. Instead, they focus on what would happen if such a state is created –

recommending actions that Palestinians, Israelis and the international community can take to increase chances a new state would be successful. An upcoming RAND report will examine security issues and multinational military participation.

Rather than being a blueprint to be followed in every detail, the reports are designed to provide helpful ideas that Palestinians and other involved parties can study and develop further to best meet the needs of the Palestinian people. They are also designed to help a new Palestinian state avoid some of the problems encountered in nation-building initiatives in Iraq and elsewhere.

“These studies spell out practical steps that can help make the goal of a Palestinian state living in peace and prosperity alongside Israel a reality,” RAND President and CEO James A. Thomson said.

“We hope RAND’s two years of rigorous and objective problem-solving research will point the way to a better future for the people of the region,” said RAND Executive Vice President Michael Rich.

Recommendations in the reports could be implemented for approximately $33 billion in capital investment in the first 10 years of a new state. This represents an annual average of about $760 per person – a level that is broadly comparable with other recent nation-building efforts. An estimated $6 billion of the investment would be used to build the core rail and road infrastructure of the Arc. Billions of dollars would need to come from international assistance and investment, combined with Palestinian spending and private investment. Security arrangements for Palestine would also need international financial commitments.

The studies say the chances of success of a Palestinian state will increase with a high level of territorial contiguity of Palestinian lands (apart from the separation of Gaza from the West Bank); relatively open borders allowing movement of people and goods between Palestine and its neighbors, especially Israel; and security within Palestine and for its neighbors. Here are highlights:

GOVERNANCE: A precondition to good governance is that Palestinians view their leaders as legitimate and effective. This will depend on terms of the final peace settlement – including the size and contiguity of territory, status of Jerusalem, and freedom of refugees to resettle in the new state – along with actions of the Palestinian government. Good governance will be more easily achieved if Palestine’s borders are open, its economy is prosperous, its refugee absorption is manageable, its security is guaranteed, and its early years are bolstered by significant international assistance. This assistance should be invested to ensure long-term economic growth. Good governance and legitimacy also require that Palestine fight corruption and authoritarian practices, promote the rule of law and empower the judiciary, give more power to a parliament, promote meritocracy in the civil service, and delegate power to local officials. The more the international community and Palestinians insist on good governance, the more likely good governance will be practiced.

INTERNAL SECURITY: The first report says “the success of an independent Palestinian state is inconceivable in the absence of peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike…. An independent Palestinian state must be secure within its borders, provide for the routine safety of its inhabitants, be free from subversion or foreign exploitation, and pose no threat to Israel.” The most pressing internal security concern will be to suppress militant organizations that would undermine stability of the new Palestinian state and threaten Israel. Public safety, routine law enforcement and the administration of justice will also need to be put on a sound footing as quickly as possible. At a minimum, this will require funds for rebuilding courthouses and police stations, buying legal texts and computers, obtaining training and purchasing police equipment. Internal security services will need to be restructured and will need monitoring, training and analytical support.

THE ARC: The Palestinian population of about 3.6 million in the West Bank and Gaza is expected to grow to roughly 6.6 million by 2020 due to natural population growth and immigration. The Arc would link the major towns and cities of Palestine – including Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Hebron, and Gaza City – making it possible to travel from southern Gaza to the northern West Bank in less than 90 minutes. Each rail station, located several miles from existing historic urban cores, would create a focal point for new development and would connect to a historic core via a new boulevard and an advanced form of bus rapid transit. Along each boulevard, new commercial and residential neighborhoods would be developed – largely by private sector investment – to accommodate population growth. Housing and jobs would be created within walking distance of the transit system. New building design would incorporate sustainable systems using solar energy and recaptured water. Development along each boulevard would pump economic activity into the historic centers of Palestinian cities and assure their preservation and revitalization – an essential strategy for creating a much-needed tourism industry. In addition to creating a ladder of linear cities along the defining mountain ridge of the West Bank, the Arc would preserve open land for agriculture, forests, parks and nature reserves. A national park following the line of the Arc would provide needed recreation space within each city, and a path for hiking and biking between municipal areas. A parallel toll road would provide access for trucks and other vehicles for people and freight, linking the country to its economic gateways at a possible airport and seaport in Gaza.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Successful economic development in Palestine will require adequate security, good governance, contiguous territory, stable access to necessary supplies of power and water, and a transportation infrastructure that meets the needs of Palestinians. “In a territorially non-contiguous state, economic growth would be adversely affected and the resulting poverty would aggravate political discontent and create a situation where maintaining security would be very difficult, if not impossible,” according to “Building a Successful Palestinian State.” Economic development will depend on human capital, with stronger systems of primary, secondary and vocational education. Other important conditions include Palestinian access to the Israeli labor market to get jobs, and substantial freedom of movement of people and products across Palestine’s borders, including the border with Israel. Economic activity would also be strengthened by improvements and investment in the transportation, water, power and communications infrastructure of Palestine. Equally important, the government will need to adopt appropriate monetary and fiscal measures and open trade policies.

WATER SUPPLY: A successful Palestinian state will need adequate supplies of clean water for domestic consumption, commercial and industrial development, and agriculture. Today Palestinians have only half the minimum amount of water per person established by the World Health

Organization. Coping with a severe and worsening water shortage will require a combination of

measures to enhance supply and restrain demand. One way to provide Palestinians with enough water to meet World Health Organization standards would be for Israel and Palestine to renegotiate the allocation of existing water resources. Removing water from aquifers beyond sustainable limits must be halted to avoid creating worse shortages. Increased efficiencies, water re-use, and irrigation management should be used to deal with part of the water shortfall. The international community should be ready to finance construction of desalinization plants and infrastructure improvements.

HEALTH: Palestine has a relatively healthy population, many highly qualified health care professionals, national plans for health system development, and a strong base of governmental and health care institutions. There is poor coordination, however, in the health care system and too many under-qualified health care providers. Health system planning and policy development should be better integrated and planned. Public and primary health care also need to be expanded to include programs for immunizations, nutrition, preventing and treating chronic and noninfectious diseases, and treating developmental and psychosocial conditions.

EDUCATION: Schools should offer a quality education accessible to girls and boys. The education system should be open to reform, enroll more students in secondary schools, expand early childhood programs, make special education available, and stress development of student civic skills and social responsibility. Vocational education should be redesigned, expanded and modernized to produce workers with needed skills. Universities should reduce an over-emphasis on humanities and social sciences, and expand science and engineering programs. This will require increased funding, higher quality standards, better-paid teachers, and new and renovated facilities .

Lead authors of “Building a Successful Palestinian State” are Steven N. Simon and C. Ross Anthony. Others who worked on the study include Glenn E. Robinson, Jerrold D. Green, Kenneth J. Shine, Michael Schoenbaum, Jack Riley, Justin Adams, Mark Bernstein, Keith Crane, Adel K. Afifi, Rachel Christina and Charles Goldman. Doug Suisman is lead author of “The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State.” Other authors are Simon, Robinson, Anthony and Schoenbaum.

A donation by David and Carol Richards initiated and funded “Building a Successful Palestinian State.” A donation by Guilford and Diane Glazer initiated and funded “The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State.” Both studies were also funded directly by RAND from philanthropic donations and fees earned on client-funded research.

RAND Health is the nation’s largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care quality, costs, and delivery, among other topics.

When Hitler and his Nazis built the Warsaw Ghetto and herded 500,000 Polish Jews behind its walls to await liquidation, many Polish gentiles turned their backs or applauded. Not Irena Sendler. An unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she sneaked the children out between 1942 and 1943 to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them.

Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, a town some 15 miles southeast of Warsaw. She was greatly influenced by her father who was one of the first Polish Socialists. As a doctor his patients were mostly poor Jews. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and the brutality of the Nazis accelerated with murder, violence and terror. At the time, Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which operated the canteens in every district of the city. Previously, the canteens provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute. Now, through Irena, the canteens also provided clothing, medicine and money for the Jews. They were registered under fictitious Christian names, and to prevent inspections, the Jewish families were reported as being afflicted with such highly infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis.

But in 1942, the Nazis herded hundreds of thousands of Jews into a 16-block area that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto. The Ghetto was sealed and the Jewish families ended up behind its walls, only to await certain death. Irena Sendler was so appalled by the conditions that she joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish underground resistance movement, as one of its first recruits and directed the efforts to rescue Jewish children. To be able to enter the Ghetto legally, Irena managed to be issued a pass from Warsaws Epidemic Control Department and she visited the Ghetto daily, reestablished contacts and brought food, medicines and clothing. But 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and disease in the Ghetto, and she decided to help the Jewish children to get out.

For Irena Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. Finding families willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk their life if the Nazis ever found out, was also not easy. Irena Sendler, who wore a star armband as a sign of her solidarity to Jews, began smuggling children out in an ambulance. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department. With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities.

Some children were taken out in gunnysacks or body bags. Some were buried inside loads of goods. A mechanic took a baby out in his toolbox. Some kids were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins, some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances. One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw. They entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians. "`Can you guarantee they will live?'" Irena later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. "In my dreams," she said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents."

Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said. The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the childrens original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past. In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children ...

But the Nazis became aware of Irena's activities, and on October 20, 1943 she was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. She ended up in the Pawiak Prison, but no one could break her spirit. Though she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she withstood the torture, refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding. Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Germans to halt the execution. She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Gestapo.

After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps. The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler, "`I remember your face,' he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!"

Irena Sendler did not think of herself as a hero. She claimed no credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death." She has been honored by international Jewish organizations - in 1965 she accorded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem and in 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel. Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle in Warsaw Monday Nov. 10, 2003. This lovely, courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Her courage enabled not only the survival of 2,500 Jewish children but also of the generations of their descendants.

US President George W Bush has granted a rare posthumous pardon to a man who broke the law to supply aircraft to Jews fighting for the state of Israel. Charles Winters served 18 months in prison for violating the US Neutrality Act by helping to deliver in 1948 two converted B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. In 1961, then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir commended Mr Winters for his contribution to her country's survival. Two others convicted with him in 1949 were pardoned by previous presidents. President John F Kennedy pardoned Herman Greenspun in 1961, and President Bill Clinton pardoned Al Schwimmer in 2000. Mr Winters died in 1984. In the summer of 1948, Charles Winters worked with the two men to transfer to Israel two B-17s that he had converted for use in his Florida fruit business. Winters flew one of the two aircraft himself to Czechoslovakia, where they and a third B-17 were retrofitted to be bombers before being flown to Israel. The three aircraft were the only heavy bombers in the Israeli Air Force, and historians say they helped turn the 1948 war against Arab armies in Israel's favour. Mr Winters, a Protestant, was hailed a hero in Israel, but in the US he was later convicted of conspiracy to export and the exportation of a military aircraft to a foreign country. The posthumous pardon for Mr Winters - only the second ever granted by a US president - came after a lengthy campaign by his son, Jimmy. "I'm overwhelmed," he told the Associated Press. "It happened 16 years before I was born. He went to jail and he didn't want his kids to know. He was old-school and proud." Jimmy Winters said he first learnt of his father's famous past after seeing an outpouring of gratitude from the Jewish community after his death in 1984. His mother, Joan, was flown to Israel, where she buried half his ashes at a Christian cemetery near the Jewish cemetery of the Knights Templar in Jerusalem. The other half were scattered from the top of Mount Tabor. The Hollywood film director, Steven Spielberg, was one of the many people who wrote a letter to President Bush in support of a pardon. "There are probably many unsung heroes of America and of Israel, but Charlie Winters is surely one of them," he said.

Click here to send E-mail now Please include software or other words in the subject of the e-mail to clearly show it is not spam. Thanks.