The Joy of living in Israel

The joy of living in Israel is the stimulation of the place. It opens up your curious mind to fascinating challenges and discoveries. It makes your being an intellectual stimulation.
There are discoveries of the new Israeli inventiveness and innovation. The discovery of our past comes with constant news of archaeological finds that link Jews and Christians of today with our ancestors from the past. These discoveries cement our Jewish heritage and belonging to the land.
There are the sudden surprises of learning about the Secret Jews, people who, due to Catholic and Islamic persecution, have lived for centuries in fear, hidden from view. Many have buried their Jewishness under the guise of adopted other faiths that have become ingrained with the passage of time, while others have the echoes of their origins speaking to them from the past and now, through the wonders of internet, they can research their family roots. Some reach out to Israel with information and for information of their family saga of dispersion and suppression. Others, suddenly aware of who they are as if awakening from a troubled slumber, come to Israel to take up their identity in an open and fearless new home.
My joy of living in Israel includes encouraging people to take up Israel's just cause in a threatening world. I write, I speak, I act. I reach out to others to become active for Israel. I give them the tools, the words, the facts, that enables them to be diplomats, advocates, for Israel.
I am looking forward to my trip to South Africa, frequently a source of anti-Israeli activity, in late February and early March, to meet people in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, and in Cape Town and share with them the message and contents of my book, "Israel - Reclaiming the Narrative" which is a constant source of information to help people to make the case for Israel against our enemies.
My book will be released soon in America and in Britain when AuthorHouse make it available to 25,000 resellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Waterstones.
I hope, like me, that Israel stimulates you to become curious and act to re-establish Israel on the high ground of moral values and public opinion where it rightly belongs.

THE GALILEAN RESORT & CAMPUS, THE SEA OF GALILEE, ISRAEL.

Here in Israel and around the world, we have been working steadily to build a global network of support for the world Christian center on the Sea of Galilee, The Galilean. This is the for-profit Resort and Spa, www.galileanresort.com, and the separate entity of the not-for-profit 501c3 organization of The Galilean Campus,  www.thegalilean.org.

 

Our mission is to celebrate faith, honor God and bless Israel, and we encourage all supporters of Zion to visit our web sites, and see what God has planned.

 

We have completed the video on the Land Sponsorship program for The Campus, which is dedicating 1 sq ft of land in a person's name for $100. We want to give all Christians an opportunity to have a bond with Israel -- a footprint in the land, and to participate in fulfilling Biblical prophecy. We believe this will be a wonderful Christmas present for children and grandchildren, and loved ones. Celebrating our faith and blessing Israel fits in well with the advent of Christmas. 

 

http://youtu.be/T53urmFukG8

 

I hope you will enjoy it and understand our desire to honor God in all we are doing. I would appreciate it if you could put this video on your web site, facebook, or send it out to all your contacts as a way to promote the Galilean, and bless Israel. 

We are also reaching out to major investors who will help us purchase and develop the land on which we have an option to build this wonderful and unique project.

 

Please let us know if this interests you and how we can work together to make this project a reality. 

Let's not miss this opportunity to make a special contribution to fulfilling a biblical prophecy in the Holy Land,

 

Meanwhile, many blessings for you in this joyous season,

Barry Shaw

The View from Israel

theviewfromisrael@gmail.com

 

The Jewish Spring and Channukah.

                                             THE JEWISH SPRING.

Dan Diker is the Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress. He was invited to address the Netanya Supporters of Laniado Hospital at the Young Israel Synagogue, on December 4, 2011.

Here is his speech;

It is fitting that we are meeting in this synagogue in celebration of the soul of Laniado Hospital. Laniado is the only hospital in Israel whose creation is the result of the vision of one of the great rabbinic scholars of the 20^th century. Rabbi Halberstam spent days and nights in shuls like this.  He is the soul and spirit of Laniado Hospital. An Arab patient choked back tears as he described how wonderfully the doctors and nurses treated him, as they treat every other patient in the hospital. Dr. Abdul al-Yechieh, a doctor in the Laniado emergency room, also spoke about “being part of the family.” In that sense the hospital is unique. However, in a broader sense, this is what Israel is at its best. Saving lives is so much a function of what Reb Halberstadt was in his life and how he turned the tragedy of the loss of his eleven children and his wife to the murderous machinery of the Nazis into one of the most beautiful life protecting and life giving institutions in Israel.

Though it is unique, on any given day it is what Israel and the Jewish people are at their very best. There is a larger story here because the “neshama”, the soul of the rabbi, and the” neshama” of the community he created reflects something about Israel that I would call “The Jewish Spring.” 

You know a lot about the Arab Spring. You’ve read about it in the newspapers. What about the Jewish Spring? What is the Jewish Spring? 

The Jewish Spring is the affirmation of the particular narrative of the Jewish people. It is the affirmation and reassertion of our memory, our rights, where we are today, what our destiny is, our claims, and the universal sense that the Jewish Spring is the essence of human rights and civil rights. The language of human rights that is used against us, against the Jewish people, against the State of Israel – is our language. It is the essence of what the Jewish Spring really is.

A year and a half ago, when hundreds of Israelis landed in Haiti to save the lives of thousands of people who were caught in a horrendous earthquake, they saved over a thousand lives by digging in the dirt. Seeing Dr. Avi Yizchak, an Ethiopian-Israeli doctor, leading that group of holy people – that is the Jewish  Spring. That is Israel at its best. And we remember the tears of the CNN, Fox and even BBC journalists, when reporting about the “messirat nefesh” of the Jews, of the Israelis.

The Jewish Spring is about Israel absorbing 8,000 Sudanese refugees – Arab Muslim refugees fleeing genocide at the hands of other Arab Muslims by walking hundreds of kilometers to come to the only state in the region that they knew would save them – the Jewish state.

You need to see the report that came from Tel Aviv, from William Stephens, a South Sudan refugee and the head of the Sudanese community in Tel Aviv, who danced with the Israeli flag in his left hand, and the new flag of South Sudan in his right hand, when South Sudan announced as the 193^rd member of the United Nations. What he said in Tel Aviv that night was that his prayer was that South Sudan would be as free, democratic, and open, as the State of Israel that had been his home for five years. That’s the Jewish Spring.

The Jewish Spring is when the State of Israel flies over a hundred thousand Ethiopians from certain death in a civil war to a new life and to a new hope in Israel. No country in the free world can take credit for that. In fact, we know what happens when Western countries go to Africa, which is not to liberate people from that continent. That is what makes the Jewish Spring uniquely special and unique to us.

I must share with you that in meetings with Arab officials they told me privately about their astonishment at the sight of three or four hundred thousand Israelis standing in Rabin Square protesting for a better economic life, for better housing prices, for the possibility of moving forward, without the threat of arrest, without violence, without bloodshed. Those Arab diplomats and officials told me how they watch their own TV and see a totally different reality on their streets. “How is it possible that nothing happens in your country when people demonstrate and protest?” they ask. “What is the trick?” Another diplomat turned to me and said, “That is what a free country is.” A free country is one that allows the people to sound off, to let some steam out, and to be able to do it without fear of reprisal. Even when ten thousand Jews were torn away from their homes in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip, they went without raising a hand against the army and security forces of Israel, despite the enormous pain of those people who, for three generations, had lived there. It was an example to the world of a nation that accepts upon itself to be a free and democratic country.

Our Arab neighbours, who I have met, are noticing their own troubles. Even the media is calling the situation in Arab countries a cold spring, a winter, and even colder than that. Someone suggested it should be called “the winter of the Muslim discontent.” Clearly the Arab world is very anxious as the hope of an Arab Spring that it would be rooted in the same democracy that we see rooted in Netanya, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, and throughout this great country, has not come to the region.

In fact, the opposite is happening.  Sixty percent of the votes in the first round of elections in Egypt went to radical Islamic parties. The Muslim Brotherhood took 40% and the Salafists, affiliated with Al-Qaida, have 20%. The analysts are saying it is just the beginning, that when they get to the higher houses in Egypt, and to the next two rounds of elections, we can expect that it will not be a liberal or a secular government in that country. The Muslim Brotherhood has not only strengthened its hand in Egypt. The Brotherhood and the Islamist parties are emerging in places we never imagined they would appear. Never mind Syria. Never mind Lebanon. Never mind Hamas, as the first Muslim Brotherhood de-facto state in the region. What about Morocco and Tunisia, which Western thinkers are calling “moderate Muslim Brotherhood” actors? This is the perception that the Muslim Brotherhood has always tried to create, that through elections, what they call “political Islam”, they will emerge victorious.

Those of us who are lucky enough to know what democracy really is, are aware that elections are clearly the last step in a multi-step process in building a free society from the ground up. That is not what is happening in our region, where is Iran in complete control of Lebanon as a proxy state, and of Hamas, despite  Hamas being Sunni and Iran Shia. You may have read that the head of the Al-Quds Revolutionary Guard in Iran, the one who sent the force to break into the British Embassy in Tehran, said that if the United States and Israel and the rest of the West did not understand, there is not one Iran in the region. There are twelve Irans throughout the Middle East.

The Arab world looks at Israel as a stable, free, democratic, noisy, defiant, and great example to them. In fact, some years ago I held discussions at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs with the deputy ambassador of Egypt, Dr. Ihab el-Sharif. He was an extraordinary man. He was the chargé d’affaires, educated at the Sorbonne, and a student of the West. He used to say “Why don’t you Israelis tell us of your history? Tell us about your narrative. What was the Temple about? Teach us your history. Teach us, the Arab world. Don’t remain silent. In the face of silence come volumes of our hateful propaganda.”

This is not to say that, if we did tell them of our history, the propaganda would stop but, nonetheless, there would be a strong counterweight against it. Dr. el-Sharif, a real friend of Israel, paid for that friendship with his life when he became the Egyptian Ambassador to Iraq. He was kidnapped by Al-Qaida and murdered. He paid for his friendship very dearly.

We can learn from the Arab upheaval. Look at the political will and determination of the people in the Arab street. I learned from a Palestinian friend, who was one of the senior members of the Palestinian Authority in charge of security forces. At that time, there was an attempt to create a Jordanian-Palestinian federation, which would be a preferable solution to the notion of forcing several hundred thousand Jews out of Judea and Samaria. My Palestinian colleague, with whom I went to Washington, would pray five times a day.  His timing was curious because within ten minutes of every important meeting he would pray, and we were constantly late for these meetings. I said to him, “Could you pray just a few minutes earlier?” Not wanting to be late, I tried to prevail upon him to pray a little bit earlier so that we could get to these meetings on time. He said, “Nothing is more important than prayer. The White House is not more important. The President is not more important. The Vice-President is not more important.” I just had to be a bit more patient, and I was.

When we returned to Israel there was a follow-up meeting in Ramallah. I went there as I had many times before. When I would go to Ramallah I would not wear my kippa. I would take it off and put it in my back pocket as we would be picked up by Palestinian Authority security and driven at about 190km an hour in a 30km zone and arrive in Ramallah. These meetings were held with the founding generation of the PLO, its Fatah faction. It was about 16:45 in the afternoon in the winter and time for Mincha prayers. I had a choice to make. Would I put on the kippa in the headquarters of the Fatah commander and his PLO buddies and risk my life, or would I not pray and simply let it go. The reality show personality in me took the decision to pray. I thought that if I lived through this experience I could then tell about it to a group of friends like you. So, I took this little prayer book, put on my kippa, and asked the PLO staff which way was al-Quds. One said one way, the other said another way. They started to argue. The sun was going down before they decided on the general direction. They sent me into the dining room, next to the running machine, and I started to pray towards Jerusalem, to the west, because Ramallah is to the north east of Jerusalem.  I prayed – fast. They kept quiet, and I returned to the meeting, leaving the kippa on my head. My Palestinian friend asked, “Have you finished praying?”, and I said yes. And he asked, “Can we continue our meeting?”, and I said yes. From that incident I understood something that I had not understood before. When he prayed in Washington, he never had trouble  with the notion of taking off his keffiya, never had trouble with the notion of being late for a meeting, and never had trouble with my praying in his hometown either. When we talk about the Jewish Spring, it is important to be assertive, self-confident, and proud. That was the moment that I will always remember – the respect, or in Arab terms, the honour, he accorded me as a believer in my own history, faith, and destiny.

Our Jewish Spring is not new, as we all know. It began with a revolution three thousand years ago. In fact, with all the human rights’ talk by our opponents, and by others who do not wish us well, we are the custodians of human rights and civil rights, which are but two aspects of the Jewish Spring. Three thousand years ago it was a reluctant prophet named Moshe who approached a cruel Egyptian tyrant, Pharoah, and demanded freedom for his people under law and liberty. It was the first time in history that anyone was successful in demanding a dictator to grant independence, freedom, sovereignty, liberty, and justice under law. It was that defining moment between Moshe and Pharoah that would become the paradigm for all the liberation movements for freedom and independence in the world as we know it today. What an inheritance!

It was that unlikely moment that we celebrate every spring – the Jewish Spring – at Pesach. It forms the underpinning to the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and other movements for freedom.  It is important for us to talk about human rights and the Jewish custodianship over human rights. Human rights and civil rights are gifts that Jews have given the world. It was a Jew who denounced the word “genocide” and came up with the original language of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. The Rome Statute on Universal Jurisdiction was also drafted by a Jew. Human rights and civil rights are Jewish gifts to the world, part of the Jewish Spring.

Why is it so important to talk about the Jewish Spring? Because our human rights, including our rights as people to sovereignty, our self-definition, is under threat. It is under threat by the Arab Spring with the anti-Semitic – not anti-Israel per se – comments and invective coming out of Tahrir Square. Five thousand people in Egypt, just the other day, called for killing the Jews.

Even more than that, we face a bigger problem.

We face a fundamental assault against our very right to our own nation state. The enemy is not just Hamas. The leaders of the political, diplomatic, legal, economic, and cultural wholesale assault against the Jewish people, are based in Ramallah. They are the leaders of the Palestinian Authority. They are not  sending terrorists to blow themselves up in this city any more, but they are trying to terrorise us by using other means. The first thing they do is deny any existence of the Jewish people. Did you hear Mahmoud Abbas at the UN?  He sent his regards from Palestine, the land of the Prophet (not ours) and of Jesus, he said. Salam Fayyad, the moderate, used the same language in UN talks. While they ignored any Jewish connection to the Jewish homeland, no major demonstrations outside the UN followed. In his letter to Ban Ki Moon about the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state,  Abbas did not mention the 1967 lines. Instead, he mentioned UN Resolution 181, which refers to the 1947 lines. This is the continuation of the fundamental diplomatic assault against Israel and the Jewish people. The Palestinians’ UN unilateral declaration of independence, and their attempts to secure international affirmation of that declaration, is a fundamental violation of international law, a fundamental assault against the international system. It was the UN itself, together with the EU, Russia, the USA, Norway and Egypt, who witnessed an interim peace agreement in 1995 in which it was absolutely crystal clear that the only possibility to move toward a conflict resolution was through direct negotiations. The Palestinians, with malice aforethought, have broken that agreement. No major demonstration in the UN followed.  In fact, in the Security Council, Israel barely escaped the approval of an 8 to 7 vote in our favour. 

These are very trying times for our legitimacy due to the actions of the PA. UNESCO’s acceptance of the renaming of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron as a mosque, and the renaming and acceptance of the renaming of the Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem as a mosque, accepted by the international community, is a fundamental eraser, a trampling not only of our rights, but also the rights of the Christians and their understanding of what they call the Old Testament and those holy sites which are, to them, holy as well.

This is only the beginning for the Palestinians. They are going to approach every single UN agency unilaterally and ask for membership. They are going to continue to attempt to rewrite and revise history through UNESCO itself, through its schoolbooks around the world that teach about the history of the land of Israel, which they intend to turn into the sovereign land of Palestine. They portray Israel as an invader, making a complete reversal of history, a perversion, a distortion, that is highly dangerous. It is dangerous because the West is not standing up against it. That is why we, as part of the Jewish Spring, must stand up for the truth. We stood up for truth and defeated the Babylonians, we stood up for truth and defeated the Romans, we paid a price of two thousand years but, ultimately, we were victorious. We overcame the pogroms and the  Nazis, and we will also overcome this challenge. If we have any doubt, let us remember that we are moving towards the festival of Chanukah, the festival of light. The mitzvah of Chanukah is the miracle. We are the people of the miracle. We survived as a miracle, but with pain and suffering along the way. We will continue to do so. 

Let me leave you with this short story. Three years ago in Rome I attended a conference. I was there with Natan Sharansky, the dissident who survived seven years of solitary confinement in Siberia for being a Jew, and the former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel. It was the last night of Chanukah and we were in a hotel near the Pantheon. There were Italians, Americans, and Israelis; all of us Jews. We all huddled into Natan’s room to light the final candle. A debate broke out in the room. Should we light it in the room, or on the windowsill? There was a long discussion over what we should do in that situation. Natan Sharansky said, “I suffered years of sitting alone, so put it in the windowsill.” The room was on the second floor and there was a stream of people passing by outside. Not Jews – Romans. He lit the candles where everyone could see and we all went downstairs to watch the menorah in its light and glory. Natan said, “That’s freedom!” That is what the Jewish Spring is all about, our freedom.

What we have overcome in the past we shall overcome in the future with our “neshama” of the Rebbe and the great work that his vision created at Laniado Hospital. Laniado Hospital, the Jewish people, and the nation state of the Jewish people, have one “neshama.” Let’s all put that chanukiah, that menorah, on the windowsill and think of the freedom that we have all fought to defend.

Gingrich is right. The Palestinian Arabs are an invented people, and Israel is the victim of this fraud.

Newt Gingrich's comments may be startling to many in the States but it is not surprising for Israelis, especially those of us who have been advocating Israel's arguments for years.

The Palestinians are constantly delegitimizing Israel yet were shocked by a voice from America, who is a leading candidate to be the next US President, telling the world that the Palestinian Arabs are an invented people.

The Palestinians are indeed an invented people. Even Arabs have said so. Azmi Bashara was an Arab Member of the Israeli Knesset who fled Israel when charged with treason against the State. In 1994 he said "I think there is an Arab nation. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation. I think it's a colonialist invention. When were they any Palestinians? Until the 19th Century, Palestine was the south of greater Syria."

In my book ISRAEL - RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE I quote the Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul Hadi who, in 1937, told the United Nations Peel Commission "There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. Palestine is alien to us. Our land was, for hundreds of years,  a part of Syria."  So, there is the link between the Arabs of the 1930s and the Arabs as recently as 1994.

Allow me to quote other Arabs voices from my book that resonate in agreement with Newt Gingrich.

In 1946, Philip Hitti, Princeton's Arab professor of Middle East history, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, "It's common knowledge that there is no such thing as Palestine in history."

In his testimony before the same committee, the Arab Professor Juhan Hazam said, "Before 1917, when Balfour made his declaration, there had never been a Palestinian question, and there was no Palestine as a political or geographical unit."

The founder of the PLO itself, Ahmed Shukari, declared at the podium of the United Nations in 1956 that "such a creature as Palestine does not exist at all."  In 2011, it was the turn of Mahmoud Abbas to address the United Nations in an effort to have them declare statehood for a country that, fifty five years earlier, the UN members had been told did not exist.

When it came to delegitimizing Israel, the Arabs were prepared to denounce Palestine as having any political, nationalistic, relevance. Now, having lost seven Arab wars to annihilate the Jewish State, it became useful to invent a Palestinian identity beginning in the late 60s.  As proof of that, Walid Shoebatt, who was a former PLO terrorist, acknowledged the lie he had been fighting for when he asked, "Why is it that on June 4th, 1967, I went to bed as a Jordanian and woke up as a Palestinian? We considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then, all of a sudden, we were Palestinians."

Even Yasser Arafat, the so-called founding father of the Palestinian cause, admitted in 1970 to Italian journalist, Arianna Palazzi, that "The question of borders doesn't interest us. Palestine is nothing but a drop in an enormous ocean. Our nation is the Arabic nation. The PLO is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call Jordan is nothing more than Palestine."

His admission was correct. It was established by the British on 77% of the land promised to the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922, to be their National Homeland. 

The "Palestinian People"  is an anthropological fabrication, an invention. A deception, as described by Feisal Husseni after the 1993 Oslo Accords, as a "Trojan Horse" for conquering the land of Israel.

The object of this propaganda campaign is to blot out and forget the name and identity of the ancient biblical Eretz Israel, and to transform it into the land of "the Palestinian people",  an invention fabricated by Arab propaganda and widely adopted by the international community who have pumped billions of dollars that have succeeded in turning Israel into the victim of the most unprecedented fraud in modern political history.

THE MUGRABI BRIDGE - A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE.

          

                                          


The Mugrabi Bridge is the ugly, rickety, construction of wooden slats hinged to a scaffold frame that allows people to gain access to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built as a temporary structure following the collapse of the original embankment on February 14 in the winter of 2004 due to rainstorms, snow, and a minor earthquake.

When the temporary structure was being erected, following Islamic threats against any Israel construction that would touch the area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, UNESCO visited Jerusalem in 2007 to inspect the excavations and preparations being done by Israel to erect a replacement bridge to the Temple Mount.  Their report absolved Israel of any wrongdoing.

In February 2007, UNESCO dispatched a delegation to inspect the excavations at the Mughrabi Ascent and, on 12 March 2007, the delegation's report was published. The report determined that "no work is being conducted inside the Haram al-Sharif [Temple Mount], nor is there anything in the nature of the works being performed at this stage that could constitute a threat to the stability of the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

UNESCO further determined that "the work area ends at a distance of approximately 10 meters from the Western Wall." Delegation members also noted that the work is performed with light equipment, picks and shovels, and it is supervised and documented according to professional standards." "The Jerusalem Municipality," notes the delegation, "is responsible for planning and construction in the Old City, as well as for the infrastructure and its maintenance including the planning and construction of the new ascent.”

Construction of the temporary bridge that allowed access to the Temple Mount led to widespread Muslim rioting in Jordan and Jerusalem with calls for a third intifada.

The temporary walkway has been coming under increasing stress causing the walkway to be in

dangerous condition and a high risk to people using it as well as those in the immediate area in

case of collapse of this unsafe structure.

On 22 May 2011, Jerusalem Municipal Engineer Shlomo Eshkol sent a written warning to the

Western Wall Heritage Foundation demanding, by virtue of his legal authority, that the temporary bridge be dismantled quickly and the permanent bridge be built as soon as possible.

"The temporary bridge," Eshkol wrote, "is not intended to provide a permanent solution and is unsuitable to security and civilian needs. It might prove a danger due to its deficient physical state, and action should be taken to stop using it and to destroy it.” 

He recommended replacing it with a permanent structure to allow access to the Temple Mount, known to the Muslims as Harem al Sharif.  Eshkol's opinion was shared by security bodies who warned of a possible disaster. 

The scenarios sketched by the security forces described an incident where hundreds of policemen ascend to the Temple Mount simultaneously, in response to a security incident or a public disturbance that regularly occur there and, as a result, the wooden bridge (currently supported by iron scaffolding) falls down and collapses into the women's prayer area at the Western Wall. The potential result of such a scenario could be scores of fatalities among the policemen and the praying women. 

A similar scenario described the collapse of the bridge while large groups of tourists stand or walk on it. It has been described as unsafe and a fire hazard. As many as ten million people a year visit the area.

Safety, it seems, does not figure in the protests started by Palestinian Arab leaders. Instead, they intend to make the dismantling of this dangerous structure into a worldwide religious conflict by Muslim against Jew.

Palestinian Authority spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, said the decision to close the bridge was designed to scuttle international efforts to revive the peace process.

“This is a violent act that amounts to a declaration of religious war on the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem,” screamed Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhum. 

These are just two of the growing  anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic, condemnation. Muslim rioting and violence against Jewish targets is waiting in the wings. Like most of the expletives emanating from Ramallah and Gaza it is full of sound and fury signifying nothing more than blind hatred over reason and rationality.

They would have us believe that it is, as one Palestinian Arab said, “a Zionist scheme of aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” In other words, it’s the Jews declaring war against the Muslims.   

Like all their false and hysterical statements you only have to scratch a little below the surface to uncover the truth. 

The Mugrabi Bridge does not give entry to Islamic holy places to Muslims. It is strictly an entry point to the Temple Mount for non Muslims.  It enables tourists and Jews to visit the famous site. Muslims have a variety of access points that allow them entry to their religious shrines. So, no Muslim is prevented from gaining admittance to their important mosques by the closing of this temporary bridge. 

The Palestinians are making noise against Israel not to touch the shaky bridge to win religious and political points. They are also aware that, if there will be a terrible accident when the walkway collapses, no Muslims will be hurt, only Jews and Christians, and Israel will bear the brunt of the blame for not taking measures to ensure the safety of the bridge users. For them, this would be a win-win situation, even if people died or were seriously injured.

There is no Jewish war against Islam. There is, as there has always been, a genuine Israeli desire to construct a permanent entrance not only to Muslims, but to Jews, Christians, and others, who wish to visit and pay their respects to an area that is important to all three of the world’s major faiths.

Israel has been prevented from contributing a positive solution to this problem that will not infringe on Muslim or Jewish sensitivities by the Islamic world that, as usual, turn any event into a negative and destructive dialogue against the Jewish state.    

THE GALILEAN RESORT & CAMPUS, THE SEA OF GALILEE, ISRAEL.

          

                                              

          THE GALILEAN World Christian Center on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

I am delighted to be involved in this much needed Center that will create future harmony between Christians and Jews and give both religions further mutual respect and recognition.

The Galilean Resort & Campus is to be constructed at the most awe-inspiring , untouched , and beautiful, spots on earth, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Now you can be involved in the creation of this spiritual center.

After 2,000 years an unprecedented moment in history is taking place – the fulfillment of Isaiah 9:1.

“He shall make it glorious, by way of the sea, on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Nations.”

Now you, personally, can have a direct impact on Israel. You can be a part of God’s promises, and fulfill Biblical prophecy.

Rising on the northwest shores of the Sea of Galilee, The Galilean Campus will give you and millions of other Christians the opportunity of a lifetime to experience God’s presence in a powerful way.

Here, millions of Christians will walk the land of the Bible, where Jesus fed the five thousand, gave the Sermon on the Mount, healed the sick, stilled the raging storm and told his disciples, “I will make you  ‘fishers of men’”.

Now, you can sow into The Galilean.  Leave your footprint in the land of the Galilee.  You will bless Israel, and give others the opportunity to have a mountaintop experience with God.

The land of The Galilean Campus is being apportioned by square foot parcels. For $100, you can sponsor one square foot of this sacred land right on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. 

You will receive a Certificate of Dedication in your name or in the names of your family and loved ones, along with a Galilean Stone of Remembrance, gathered from the land and individually carved with the number of your parcel.  

Hold your Remembrance Stone in your hand as you pray for the peace of Israel.

The Galilean Campus is the first world center in Israel designed for Christians for worship, Bible study and educational, cultural and spiritual enrichment.

•             Outdoor amphitheater seating 2,500

•             House of Worship, designed as 1st century synagogue in Jesus’ time

•             Educational complex

•             Auditorium for the performing arts, seating 1200

•             Conference center

•             Fully equipped broadcasting center

•             Campus facilities constructed of Jerusalem and Galilean stone.

•             Beautifully landscaped Biblical gardens

•             Architectural design replicating a first century village with stone walkways, wrought-iron balconies, and gazebos.

Partner with us and dedicate this land. Millions of Christians will experience a spiritual renewal through fellowship, faith-based activities and study programs, learning more about Israel and her people.

For $100, you can sponsor one square foot of this sacred land right on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Do not send me money. If you wish to join this amazing spiritual experience by dedicating $100 for your personal contribution to the Galilean World Christian Center on the shores of the Sea of Galilee please send your name, address, email address, and phone number to me at theviewfromisrael@gmail.com and I will arrange the contact between you and the inspirational leaders of this wonderful project.

Barry Shaw, The View from Israel.

ISRAEL IN A NEW STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT.

BESA Center Experts Say:
Iran is an Intolerable Threat; Arab Spring Not Resulting in Democracy

Summary of Remarks at the BESA Center Conference on 
"Israeli Security in a New Regional Environment"

"As steep as the price for hitting Iran may be, a military strike on Iran will be less painful than the cost of living with an Iranian nuclear weapons threat," argues former Mossad head Maj. Gen. (res.) Danny Yatom. "The backlash from a strike on Iran's nuclear sites will not be as bad for Israel as will an Iran armed with nuclear weapons," he says. "I don't think that those predicting apocalyptic repercussions of a strike on Tehran are correct, and even if they are, Israel can't afford to wonder if Tehran will go crazy and bomb us."

Yatom made these remarks yesterday (November 23, 2011) at a BESA Center conference on Israel's new strategic environment, which focused on the so-called "Arab Spring" and its implications. Speaking alongside him was the Prime Minister's former National Security Advisor Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan. 

Yatom's position is diametrically opposed to that of former Mossad head Meir Dagan, who sparked significant controversy earlier this year by stating that an attack on Iran would be a foolish move that would lead to a war with an unknown outcome.

It is impossible to stake the nation's security on predictions by those who claim a nuclear Iran can be deterred and that the Iranian regime would not launch a nuclear attack, Yatom added. He acknowledged that rocket attacks would likely ensue from Lebanon and Gaza following a Western or Israeli strike against Iran, but added that Israel's response would be "so painful and crushing that rockets will come to an end. Civilian facilities and infrastructure in Lebanon and Gaza will have to be hit. Innocent civilians could be hurt. But we will have to deliver a crushing blow so that the barrage of rockets against us will not continue."

The world does not have much time left to act on Iran, the former Mossad head warned, adding that "there is an evaluation that they have crossed the red line. They have the knowledge to make the bomb. All that is needed now is the decision to do it.... The world has a year in which to halt the Iranian nuclear weapons program, probably less."

Yatom also doubted that sanctions or covert operations could stop the Iranians. "We have only two options: to let Iran get the bomb, or to use military force against their military nuclear program. I think that force will have to be used. But I don't think Israel should lead. This is, after all, a global problem.... Nevertheless, should the world stand on the sidelines, Israel will be fully entitled to use its natural right to self-defense. To us, the Iranian nuclear weapons program is an existential threat."

Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, former head of IDF military intelligence and national security advisor to past Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, agreed with Yatom that Iran's nuclear weapons program must be halted, but felt that sanctions which embargoed Iranian oil and gas and which outlawed transactions with the Iranian National Bank could dissuade the Iranians from proceeding. "While not an existential threat, Tehran's nuclear program is an unacceptable threat," he said. 

Relating to the turmoil in the Arab world, Dayan said that the upheavals in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere "prove once again that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the central problem in this region.

"The implications for Israel of this unrest are manifold," he said. "At a time of such uncertainty, Israel must preserve and secure its strategic assets. This is not the time for Israel to be taking territorial or other risks, since we don't know what is ahead. Israel must maintain defensible borders, with strategic depth, the ability to defend ourselves against attack, and in the Palestinian context – full demilitarization of areas under their control. Israel must guard against the possible emergence of three hostile Palestinian states – in Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza," he said.

Dayan also called upon Israel to take the diplomatic initiative and advocate for Kurdish independence. "There are some 30 million Kurds in a clearly-defined region spread across four countries. They deserve statehood no less than the Palestinians," he declared.

Prof. Gabi Ben-Dor of Haifa University, who spoke at the conference about Arab societies, dismissed the notion that a surge of enthusiasm for Western-style democracy lay behind the recent turmoil. "Who says that protests against dictatorship necessarily lead to democracy?" he asked. "Democracy is not what emerged from the revolution against the Tsars of Russia 100 years ago, nor has democracy emerged in many CIS states that threw off the Communist yoke. Thus there is no rational, logical or historical basis for assuming that democracy will result from the revolutions underway today in the Arab world."

Egypt has a decent chance at a long-term march towards democracy, Ben-Dor said, but only if the military maintains a degree of moderating control over the country and prevents the Islamists from exploiting the situation in order to wrest complete power.

Prof. Efraim Karsh of the Middle East Forum and King's College London was more pessimistic. "Islam remains the strongest identity framework in Egyptian society in particular, and in Arab society generally," he said. "The Arab national dictatorships that were layered over this basic Islamic identity for the past 80 years were but a thin veneer of repression. With the fall of these dictatorships, what remains is the core Islamic underpinnings of society, and these will now come to the fore. Consequently, no democratic structures, processes or values are likely to emerge in the Arab world for many generations."

Panelists at the conference disagreed about Western reactions to the Arab upheavals. Prof. Hillel Frisch of the BESA Center argued that one could discern the emergence of a clear American approach to the changes in the region – a policy construct that emphasizes the promotion of democracy while underscoring the containment of the influence of Iran, Russia and China. Prof. Karsh and Prof. Eytan Gilboa disagreed. "America is fumbling for responses, reacting differently in each case, without any obvious grand strategy," Karsh asserted. "Though American responses to each Middle Eastern state can individually make sense, overall strategy seems to be lacking, creating an image of a confused and untrustworthy America," said Gilboa.

BESA's Dr. Jonathan Rynhold argued that at present there are no chances of successfully completing a peace process with the Palestinians. A conflict management strategy or an attempt to reach a partial agreement are the only realistic policy choices in hand, he said.

BESA Center director Prof. Efraim Inbar warned of a deteriorating security situation for Israel. "States like Egypt are already losing control of their own territory, and Israel can expect increased cross-border attacks and terrorism. The Turks may ignite a confrontation over energy in the eastern Mediterranean. Israel should not be cutting its defense budget now. On the contrary, Israel should be investing more in the military and in the defense industries – so that we'll be ready for challenges five years or more down the road."

www.besacenter.org

Put yourself in my shoes. What would you do?

Times have changed, and not for the better. I am no longer the naive and trusting teenager I used to be. I've become cynical. I've been lied to and I've been hurt to many times. Trust is a commodity that is long gone.
It began, I suppose, when the lodger began to demand my house. Yes, that's right. He claimed that my home belonged to him. What nonsense! I refused, of course. You'd do the same. What right does he have to my home. When the police came after a particularly brutal act of violence he said it had all been a big mistake, that he only wanted a place to sleep, that he didn't mind me living there. It was all a lie, a deception, but I was persuaded, in my stupidity, to allow him a place to be. So I agreed. Once inside my home he again became abusive and violent. My life was hell. Somehow I managed to drive him out and I managed to evict him. He spent some time away from me. The restraining order kept him some distance away from me and I began to feel safe. I began to put some order and tranquility back into my life. I had a short period of quiet. He appealed to me to let him back in. I refused, of course. Wouldn't you? Who would do such a thing having experienced what I had experienced with him? But he spoke to the neighbours, and he spoke to the authorities, and he signed an agreement witnessed by others to say this time he was going to be a good boy. Just give him a couple of rooms and everything would work out fine. No violence, he promised. Promised? That's a laugh! The witnesses said they would guarantee his good behaviour. They were respectable and influential people. How could one not have faith in their word? How much of a sucker do you have to be?
The moment he was installed back into my house he tore up the agreement and started beating me up again, swearing, cursing me, using violence, inflicting injury, worse than he had done in the past. He demanded the whole house. He demanded that I should leave. I turned to the authorities for help. I pleaded with those dignified people who had promised to guarantee his good behaviour. They said we had to sort out our grievances between us. They did nothing. They never do. I had a decent standard of living. I did well. Much better than the neighbours whose world has gone to pieces. My home was a good place to be. Economically, things were good thanks to my success. My neighbourhood went to hell. By the way, his relatives, who live in the neighbourhood, surround my home and are threatening to come and help him get me evicted. Once or twice I thought I had reached an agreement with him, but he never signed the paper at the end of the day. I offered a compromise to him, I offered concessions, I even took my things out of one more room and made way for him to use it. He did. He used it to store the tools he used to try and wreck the rest of my home. He rejected my offers, he rejected everything. The truth was he wanted it all. The authorities were no good. One or two, very few of them, muttered some words of support but did little. That didn't help. The majority were against me. It seems to me that the authorities are made up of his friends and relatives all ganging up on me. At least one of them actually publicly and repeatedly threatened to come and kill me. If I didn't give my home to him he would come and blow up my home and kill me with it. Now he's trying to change the law to make out that I have no legal rights to my home, that I am the villain and he is the victim. In the mad world I am living in the authorities have set up committees to examine his claims and to challenge my right to live in my own home. One of them has even put him down as being the owner.

And so I appeal to you, dear reader, I ask you what am I to do? What would you do in my shoes? Leave home? No way! Kiss and make up? We've tried that so many time before. It ain't going to happen. I am still ready to give him a share of my home but to kiss and make up is really, for me, the kiss of death. So I ask you again. What would you do in my shoes? And while you are thinking about your answer allow me to introduce myself. My name is Israel.

THE MIDDLE EAST - THE MOVIE, written by Barry Shaw, author of ISRAEL - RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE.

                              

 It seems to us in Israel that the Europeans, of which Britain is a part whether you like it or not, look at the Middle East, or even the future of the Middle East, through a movie lens. A movie for which they have written the script, and have actors play the roles set out by them.  It takes no account of reality on the ground.

The movie “Utopia” has to have a happy end and anyone spoiling that vision has to be called out by the director.  The script writers have been raised on an education of multiculturalism, human rights, liberal leftwing views, democracy, and try to apply these values on the actors who don’t know what he’s talking about. All the actors, that is, except one. His name is Israel. So it is Israel that is bullied by the director, the American producer, and the crew to comply with the script while the other actors are running riot around the movie lot. Israel is the actor who is called upon to apply human rights while the other actors are not pulling punches in the fight scenes. Israel is the one who has to make concessions while the others are riding roughshod over the scenery. And when the director complains the other actors call in the union, in which they have the majority, to censure Israel.

When the movie proves to be an expensive failure there is only one actor to blame. Israel. It’s not the director’s fault for having a lousy script, or for not changing the premise of the movie to fit the actors and the location of the movie. The other actors can’t be blamed for not keeping to the script because they got a free pass, and the director and producer need some of the background players for another more successful long running movie called “Oil”. No. It’s Israel’s fault that nobody is buying tickets to see this failure.

It’s only when some of the actors start burning down the movie house, and the European audience staggers out into the dark cold night, that they face the reality of what a difficult and threatening place the movie takes place in . They emerge to find that their neighborhood has changed, that some of the actors relatives have moved their community and are beginning to change their world, and not for the better. They are behaving like their kinfolk did in the movie. It is then that some of them realize that Israel was the good guy after all.

Of course, there are others that will continue to blame Israel for ruining the film, for having them waste their money and their time at the cinema as they face an uncertain future, a future in which they need to question the values that led them to impose a movie on others that was doomed to failure from the beginning.

IDEA NOTES FOR THE BIG TENT.

                                IDEA NOTES FOR THE BIG TENT by BARRY SHAW.

What began as a private initiative is taking late roots in Manchester with the upcoming Big Tent Conference at the end of this month.

What drove the initiators to put together their programme was a grave concern over the growing delegitimisation campaigns against Israel that have gone relatively unchallenged in Britain.  It is to be hoped that the event will not dilute into a lukewarm agenda of nice speeches and little post-conference action.

To concentrate the attention of the participants and audience of the Big Tent it is vital that they fully appreciate the clear and present dangers facing Israel today. There are vital reasons why the conference must stand firmly with Israel and vow to take ongoing action to confront the delegitimisers.

Here are some of my recommendations based on experience, contacts, and knowledge about who, in Britain, are on the forefront of the battle being waged against Israel and what they need to win the fight.

It is, in the main, the young, staunchly pro-Israel, activists who are facing down the radical elements that have made London the hub of delegitimisation. They are the ones who are left alone to counter hate Israel events and speeches on the campus, who are assaulted verbally and even physically when speaking up for Israel, and take to the streets to counter anti-Israel demonstrations dressed up as pro-Palestinian, human rights, protests.

These are the dynamic and brave groups and individuals that must be reinforced and strengthened in their David and Goliath battle against the well organized, well financed, opponents of Israel.

SOCIAL MEDIA.

As an organizer of the Herzlia Situation Room, set up at the time of this year’s Gaza Flotilla, I saw the successful effect of a coordinated social media attack on the radicals and “useful idiots” who participated in the failed flotilla. It failed due to a two pronged approach that reaped dividends.

The Israeli government worked with European governments to hamper the progress of the ships that were tied down in Greek ports.  It also failed due to the efforts of individuals and a couple of NGOs who worked, through legal means, to prevent the ships from sailing while, at the same time, mounting a campaign to delegitimize the flotilla activists.

The use of the social media played a large part in driving a wedge between public opinion and the ship’s radicals. We created a social media presence with a website, over 40 Facebook groups in various languages, and numerous Twitter accounts.

We banged out a strong message that accused the ship’s radicals of perpetrating a lie, that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and that it was wrong to sail into the welcoming arms of a Hamas terror regime.  The sound bites that I created did not mention Israel. By putting the spotlight on these extremists was sufficient to distance broad public opinion away from them. The 2011 Gaza Flotilla was an expensive failure for the radical organizers. It costs them, according to a Dutch investigative journalist, ten million Euros as the ships remained anchored in Pireaus.

The same team of social media volunteers was made to turn their attention to the “Flightilla”. This was the planned air invasion of 600 radicals who intended to descend on Ben Gurion Airport from various European airports and stage disruptive demonstration in Israel both at the airport and at a number of other locations.

Due to the intelligence we had gathered by researching the radical organizations behind this campaign about 450 of them were prevented from getting on planes at the points of departure while those who managed to fly were arrested as they landed in Israel.

The social media savvy team of 14 volunteers helped avoid an embarrassing international incident for Israel.  We found that there were many overt and covert ways of taking the war to our enemy, the delegitimisers. We proved that it is possible to beat a ten million Euro anti-Israel enterprise with a small bunch of willing volunteers.

The method and the message are lessons to be learned by The Big Tent activists as one way to mount successful campaigns against the delegitimisers in Britain. The huge advantage to this is that it does not take a big budget, expensive offices, to execute. All you need are a bunch of savvy and keen young people with laptops with a coordinated approach to their actions. Their work, as we have seen, includes a rapid response element. This has been used to get people on to the streets to counter the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests   with a properly organized strategy it is possible to rally thousands in support of Israel.

Vivian Wineman, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, was quoted in the Jewish Chronicle as saying that British Jewish leadership has access to the British government but it does not have influence.  He would gain that influence if backed by thousands of people demonstrating against the radicalization that has taken root in London that is a danger not only to Israel but also to Britain. It must be in the interest of the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies to encourage and to assist the groups who have proven capable of identifying the enemy and are taking the fight to them. They are doing this in the social media and on the campus.

THE STUDENTS.

Perhaps the most battered of our advocacy warriors are the students. The campus is the hotbed of radicalism where extremist actions are fermented. These are the campaigners who must be armed with well funded strategies. Pro-Israel British student groups can learn from the successful tactics being employed in America. 

On campuses across North America, pro-Israeli student groups are reaching out to multiple ethnic and social student groups and establishing relationships of shared interests.  As Tali Segev of Illinois University told the Jerusalem Post recently, “We’ve had a lot of success with cross-cultural programming. We’ve held events with the East-African Student Association. We did a fundraiser with the African Cultural Association for Save a Child’s Heart, based in Israel. We even did a fundraising effort alongside the different Japanese organizations following last year’s earthquake in Japan.”

Segev happens to be a Chicago Jewish Federation Israel Education Center intern. “We want to teach about Israel, its diversity and its connections all around the world.”  Segev’s message that Israel is not isolated is one that beats the aims of the delegitimisers.

I recommend that pro-Israel student bodies outreach to other ethnic, cultural, and social groups on UK campuses. The initial effort need not be to gain their immediate support for Israel but to create mutually respectful bonds of cooperation that will pay dividends when it comes to recruiting understanding and support for their pro-Israel events. By making Israel relevant to Indian students, Asian and African students, gay students, even with moderate Arab and Muslim students to gain dialogue, British pro-Israel students can copy the programming being done across the Atlantic.  An essential part of this type of partnership should involve inviting the heads of these student bodies to come to Israel and experience firsthand what a vibrant, all embracing, country we have here.  I, as an Israeli board member of AXIUS, can facilitate a Study Tour of Israel that will involve meeting political, academic, community, and security leaders in Israel.

LAWFARE.

It is not possible to face the challenges of delegitimisation without considering the legal aspects of this threat. This is the reason why I initiated and am organizing an international conference on The Legal Aspects of Countering the Delegitimisation of Israel. It will be held under the auspices of the Strategic Dialogue Center of the Netanya Academic College in Israel next year. This conference could be one of the follow up events if the Big Tent includes the legal challenges to the delegitimisation campaigns against Israel on its agenda.

I consider this to be an important cornerstone of the battle against delegitimisation as lawfare is increasingly being applied against Israel. The Palestinian Authority ‘s  recent actions at the United Nations were primarily to invoke resolutions against Israel as part of their delegitimisation campaign against a Jewish State they reject and refuse to negotiate with. Universal jurisdiction was recently removed as a threat to Israelis visiting Britain, but there are many more actions that must be taken such as those against boycotts, prevention of free speech, dishonest reporting by the media, and mistrials brought by biased judges in the UK.

I am delighted to have been a guiding spirit in the creation of the UK Lawyers for Israel NGO. More British lawyers should associate themselves with this group. I am currently helping to set up similar groups in other European countries. There is much to be done in the courts and by changing legislation that will defang a lot of the extremist and radical forces based in Britain.

As the title suggest, these are notes that point to just three of the sectors in which it is possible to make discernable progress in fighting the evils of delegitimisation of Israel.

My basic message is to take the spotlight off Israel and point it firmly in the face of the delegitimisers. The main aim of any delegitimisation campaign must be to out them, name them, and shame them. It is they, not Israel, that should be placed in the dock of the accused. It is their lies, hypocrisy, and obvious intentions to stir up hate that must be exposed.

By exposing their radicalism and extremism it is possible to win over the hearts and minds of the broad middle ground of public opinion in Britain and bring them into the Big Tent.

BARRY SHAW is the author of ISRAEL –RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE. 

It's time to think of an alternative to a failed Two State Solution.

The time is long overdue to speak out for an Israel under assault. We should fight fire with fire. In fact, we should start a few fires of our own. And who should do this fighting? Who should light these fires? We should.  We, the people. Not the governments. They’ve been lying for years. They have not faced reality for decades. Not our non-governmental leaders. They have been leaning so far left that they have become the verbal puppets for the radicals. Oh, they speak in the tongue of the liberal left, but they come at us from the same oblique angle as those who attack Israel and the West.

These governments, these leaders, haven’t woken up to the fact that they are living in a dreamlike fantasyland of illusions, illusions such as social justice, multi-culturalism, and equality. They campaign for human rights for people who are among the biggest abusers of human rights. They think that human rights means supporting statehood for a people who deny the rights of Israel. Equality, for them, is equating Israeli actions with Islamic terror.

Europeans have been living in an economic fantasyland ever since their created the delusional Euro zone.  Now reality is hitting them hard. They are scrambling around still declaring that their system is great and it’s only certain countries that are out of control. Not correct. As Margaret Thatcher once famously said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of somebody else’s money.” Europe has sold off, or given away, its inventiveness and industry and has been living on borrowed time, and borrowed money, for far too long. Their people continue to insist that they get six week vacations, retire at fifty five, and receive a full pension for the rest of their lives, and riot when they discover that their country is bankrupt.

Just as they have been untruthful with their economic programs so are they dishonest in their political platforms as well. Basically, the Europeans haven’t been able to tell the truth for decades. They have a narrative that is far removed from reality. They have a myopic worldview, based on their Socialist roots, that is far removed from reality on the ground. It is as if they see the world through the lens of a movie of their own making. In this script, the Palestinians are the weak and oppressed, the Israelis are the brutal occupiers, and all the scenes have to be portrayed to fit this plot. If it doesn't, it is taken out of the frame. The truth, the reality, lies on the cutting room floor.

The producers of this utopian vision look at the ugly face of the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and miraculously see a beauty spot where, in reality, there is a deep scar. They perceive and portray the villain as the victim.

They do not appreciate that the Arabs only have three seasons to their calendar. The naïve world sees an Islamic Spring and call it an “Arab Spring”. I don’t know what they are smoking while they are watching this movie but they insist on putting a positive spin on what is, in truth, the emergence of a more radical future from the current upheavals. The harsh Arab environment does not permit them bask in the summer sun. The winds of their autumn blow away the stirrings of spring and announce the bleak arrival of winter.

The outcome of the bloody Arab turmoil will lead to the Islamic Autumn with promised elections. The dream-fixated world may project this as a democratic movement but, as with the Palestinians and Hamas,the western invention of the voting system will give legitimacy to the rise to power of forces in Arab societies that will become the breeding ground of future crisis for the world. That will reach its peak when autumn turns to the long, cold, Islamic Winter as the extreme elements of Islamism fully take control. It is then that the world, and the indigenous people in the region, will regret not maintaining the much derided “status quo.” By that time, it will be far too late.

The fraud behind the claims of Palestinian statehood, and the deliberate avoidance of obeying the constitutions of United Nation official bodies, is further proof of a world gone mad with deceitful “political correctness.”  The truth has been hijacked and silenced to the extent that supposedly responsible governments knowingly, cynically, flaunt the law in order to pass international resolutions in defiance of their obligations to do otherwise. Morally, responsibility, and justice is turned on its head in a damning display to the world that rules don’t count any more. Thus, it is possible for normally sane countries to defy the rules and vote a non-existent Palestine into full membership of UNESCO. These representatives sit in the voting chamber of a United Nations organisation that is their global body for education and vote for a "Palestine" that teaches incitement to its children, denies the rights of Israel, racially rejects Jewish history and heritage in its schoolbooks, classrooms, and summer camps.

In such radical scenarios the deep scar, referred to earlier, will only be removed with major and painful surgery. No amount of cosmetic work will do the job. No wishful dreaming, or willful misconceptions, will change the truth that those who should have known better refused to side with their constitutional obligations because it did not fit into their slanted political lexicon.

In such a world, should Israel be one of the individual nations that remains obligated to stand by its principles? Or should it enter into the law of the jungle where the vast majority of the world powers now roam?

We need to establish some clarity and sanity into the Palestinian statehood debate. It will not be what some wish it to be. It will be the truth. To understand what the truth is one simply has to look examine Palestinian words, their acts on the ground, their outrageous demands. The truth is founded on facts, not Palestinian fiction, or European interpretations.

Perhaps Israel should follow the successful Islamic example of “taqiyyeh.” Taqiyyeh is an Islamic term. You can agree, even sign an agreement, to gain a benefit and, once obtained, can then be discarded to allow you to progress to an even better advantage. This tactic allows you to lie and deceive your opponent and break your word or contractual obligation. Yasser Arafat was a typical example of a taqiyeeh deceiver. 

Palestinians feel no compunction to have a terrorists returned to them and, within days, renew intensive rocket fire on Israeli towns and villages in advance of the second stage of the prisoner release. Israel may feel morally bound to continue the second phase of the release of five hundred and fifty terrorists to Gaza which was part of the Gilad Shalit deal. However, in light of the loss of Israeli life, injuries, and property destruction, Israel should consider imposing a new condition to their release.

Israel should tell the Palestinians that their prisoners will only be freed following eighteen months of a total terror freeze by them. 

If the Palestinians can come up with the excuse of a settlement freeze as a  precondition for direct talks then Israel should learn from their methods.  Palestinian should be told “a total terror freeze for eighteen months and you can have your 550 terrorists back." Should there be a single act of terror the clock stops ticking and start over again. No rockets. No mortars. No suicide bombers. No knife-wielding Arabs. No kidnappings. Nothing. For something you get nothing. For nothing (no terror) you get five hundred and fifty Palestinian murderers.

If the Islamic Winter, that is the upheaval of a Middle East that has never known democracy, is irrevocably turning into a Shariah winter, so a future Palestinian state will inevitably become an Islamo-fascist Hamas/Islamic Jihad regime.

One fire we should light is the one that says that Israel cannot, must not, make any concessions to a Palestinian society that voted 73% for Hamas. This is not the spark of deception. This is the flame of truth.

In such a vicious neighbourhood, with such dangerous and deadly foes, there are some in Israel who are daring to look beyond the notion of a Two State Solution. This is yet another fantasy movie that is being replayed with no connection to facts on the ground. With the best will in the world, and successive bipartisan Israeli leaders have called for such a solution, this has been repeatedly rejected by the Arabs for a hundred years. There is nothing that indicates that either a Fatah-led Palestinian Authority or Hamas are willing to reach a solution that does not end in the eliminate the Jewish State of Israel. 

Israeli experts are capable of thinking outside the box. Unlike their European counterparts, this type of thinking is not cocooned in the fuzzy world of fantasy. They analyse the facts and the underlying currents and come to the conclusion that, as long as a radical Islamic nieghbourhood rejects the presence of a Jewish entity in their midst, friction will always drive the agenda. 

They reckon that time will prove the Two State principle to be dead in the water. Not that they favour the present status quo, in this case. Neither do they welcome a One State Solution, either. 

The range of options include Jordan is Palestine based on 1922 League of Nations resolutions. It also includes a "Three States for Three Peoples" solution which positions a Palestinian state in northern Jordan which was originally the Arab Palestine. This plan goes under the sub heading of "A Better Life for the Palestinians. A Better Life for the World."  Another idea is breaking down the Palestinians into their ethnic tribal origins and creating eight city states each one being a self contained sheikhdom. The reasoning behind this proposal is that the upheavals in the Arab world are, in essence, the disintegration of lines drawn a hundred years ago by the Supreme Allied Powers that failed to take tribalism into consideration.

The analysts and experts know that time is on their side. They know that, sooner or later, the wonderful dream of a pragmatic two state solution is doomed to failure. The alternatives are being discussed right now behind closed doors. This is a flame not yet lit, but one that will burst into life when the spark is required. This spark will awaken the dreamers out of their fixated mantra when the clash of conflict demands a reassessment of wonderful notions that are leading nowhere. 

British Jewish leadership is bad for Israel.

In Britain, yet another positive pro-Israel initiative is being blocked by the leadership of British Jewry.

The Big Tent, an event being organized in Manchester, has been attacked by the very people who should be getting behind this event.  One of the excuses given for their lack of involvement is a suspected lack of pluralism, though invitations have gone to the Reform movement as well as to pro-Israel Christians and Muslims.

While they find a limp excuse for not backing this strongly pro-Israel advocacy event, they have been sponsoring another group doing research into the status of Arabs in Israel.  

By showing that Arab women are a smaller percentage of the workforce than Jewish women they attempt to highlight the inequality within Israeli society. Of course, they make no mention of the fact that a far higher number of Israeli Arab women are employed in Israel than in all other Arab countries. Neither do they highlight that Arab women are restricted in their desire to work outside the home by still-existing Arab traditions. Why should they? Doing so would reduce the intent to which the research was required. To find an angle to attack, rather than support, Israel.

Looking for angles with which to attack Israel seems popular with Britain’s Jewish leadership. Now I hear that Yachad, a new NGO in Britain even further to the left than JStreet, has the backing of British Jewish leadership. 

Yachad just made a visit to Israel and guess which place took their strongly pro-Israel attention?  East Jerusalem. 

Yes, this location, which is intended by the Palestinian leadership to become their future capital, takes preference for Yachad than all other critical issues for Israel. 

Speaking as an Israel, I can announce that Yachad does not speak in my name. Why should it speak in the name of the leadership of British Jews?  It is so clear to me that the prefix “pro” cannot be used before “Israel” by Yachad. So why is the London-based leadership getting into bed with them, while throwing out Manchester initiators?

Pluralism, it seems, is excellent if you can put an anti-Israel spin on it. Pluralism, it seems, is excellent if pluralism means lining up with Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, and left wingers. I am trying to discover if notable and real pro-Israeli personalities like Melanie Phillips or Douglas Murray have ever been invited to address an audience at one of the leadership bodies Israel events, if they have ever had any.

Maybe the bio of Vivien Wineman expresses clearly what is happening in Britain, and why London has become the hub of radical anti-Israel hatred and the delegitimisation campaign.  Wineman recently said in a report quoted in the Jewish Chronicle that the Jewish leadership “has access to the British Government but doesn’t have influence.”  I suppose we Israelis should be thankful that they are so totally ineffective. I would hate the think what influence they would employ when headed by someone who was the British chairman of Peace Now and founder of Britain’s New Israeli Fund, two virulent NGOs that have done more to hack away at the defense and security of Israelis than many pro-Palestinian groups. 

He is currently serving as President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and also the Chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council.  Add to this role call his position as Vice Chairman of the European Jewish Congress and you can see how deep-rooted and influential his critical attitude to Israel really is.

Many of those following him into leadership positions echo his political leaning. Maybe that helps them get elected?

Is it any wonder why AIPAC failed to unite America and Britain behind Israel. They gave up on the British leadership after six frustrating years of trying to create a common front against the delegitimisation of Israel. They failed. They are concerned. They, like Israel, see London as the hub of the demonization and delegitimisation campaigns and the centre of radicalism against Israel. They also see a Jewish leadership that appears to line up against Israel rather than stand solidly with the Jewish state. 

They are concerned because they are experiencing blowback from England into America as the anti-Israel extremism, even the type that is disguised as “healthy criticism of Israel” make inroads onto their campuses and debating chambers, and through operators such as JStreet.

It is heartening to see the rapid growth of grassroots, young, organizations such as Stand With Us, British Israel Coalition, and Israel Connect. Hopefully, the future rests on the shoulders of these enthusiastic activists. These are the campaigners who got people onto the streets of London recently in support of Israel, and in the face of the Palestinian demonstrators.  These are the people who are fighting the hard fight on the campus and in the social media. These are the people who are using the language and words that will bring the broad middle ground back to the justice of the Israeli cause.

I strongly recommend that the rank and file Jew in Britain give their hard earned money to these people, rather than to the leadership that has let them, and Israel, down so badly in recent years.

Barry Shaw is the author of ISRAEL – RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE.