The View from Israel.

ISLAM - THE RELIGION OF PERVERTED SEX.

2012-01-23T11:49:00.016+02:00

ISLAM - THE RELIGION OF PERVERTED SEX.

Women In Islam.

Engaging in their own form of Stockholm Syndrome, most Muslim women publicly defend the very laws that enslave them. They actually justify the evil misogynistic rules of Islam and say it is for the betterment of the Muslim women. Many Muslims claim that “Islam honors women,” just as they claim that Islam is a “Religion of Peace.” The truth however, is just the opposite.
Islam does not honor women, but rather, holds their very lives in absolute bondage. There is no age limit for marriage of girls under Sharia. A man can pay a dowry and sign a marriage contract with the parents of a toddler girl and consummate the marriage at age 9 just because their pedophiliac prophet Mohammed did that, and they think in doing that, they are just following the Sunnah. According to the Shariah, the adulterer will be stoned to death, but not many people are aware that this rule applies mostly for women, because men are allowed to have sex with their sex slaves and concubines. Even if a man and woman are caught having sex and four witnesses are also present, the punishment for women is digging up a hole and inserting her in up to her chest and then stoning her to death, whereas a man is just stoned while he is standing. And if he manages to escape, he is lucky, but a woman is not even allowed a chance to escape.

The right of divorce is solely in hands of the man, whereas the poor women do not have the right to go get a divorce, They can go to a Shariah court and ask for a Khul, which is like a divorce in which the woman has to give up all her alimony right, but it takes a long time, sometimes years, to convince the judge to grant the woman a divorce. Many Arab women wait for years for the Shariah court to make their decisions regarding their Khul, whereas their ‘husbands’ have already married a second time and moved on with their lives.

A rebellious wife is one who refuses to go to bed with her husband. This nullifies the husband’s obligation to support her, and gives him permission to beat her. In fact, that misogynistic son of a bitch said: “A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife."

Here are a few of Mohammed's sexual escapades and the Islamic laws pertaining to men's rights over women, of any age.

Qur'an 33:51

"You may have whoever you desire; there is no blame."

Tabari VIII:187

"The [sixty-two-year old] Messenger of Allah married Mulaykah. She was young and beautiful. One of the Prophet's wives came to her and said, 'Are you not ashamed to marry a man who killed your father during the day he conquered Mecca?" She therefore took refuge from him."

Qur'an 66:1

"O Prophet! Why forbid yourself that which Allah has made lawful to you? You seek to please your consorts."

Qur'an 66:4

"If you (women) turn in repentance to him, it would be better. Your hearts have been impaired, for you desired (the ban) [on how many girls Muhammad could play with at a time]. But if you back each other up against (Muhammad), truly Allah is his protector, and Gabriel, and everyone who believes - and furthermore, the angels will back (him) up."

Qur'an 66:5

"Maybe, if he divorces you (all), Allah will give him in exchange consorts better than you - submissive, faithful, obedient, adorers who worship, who travel, and are inclined to fasting - previously married or virgins."

Tabari VIII:117

"Dihyah had asked the Messenger for Safiyah when the Prophet chose her for himself. Muhammad gave Dihyah her two cousins instead." Ishaq:511 "When he protested, wanting to keep Safiyah for himself, the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims."

Bukhari:V5B59N524

"The Muslims said among themselves, 'Will Safiyah be one of the Prophet's wives or just a lady captive and one of his possessions?'"

Tabari VIII:110

"When Abu Sufyan learned that the Prophet had taken her, he said, 'That stallion's nose is not to be restrained!'"

Bukhari:V4B52N143
V5B59N523

"When we reached Khaybar, Muhammad said that Allah had enabled him to conquer them. It was then that the beauty of Safiyah was described to him. Her husband had been killed [by Muhammad], so Allah's Apostle selected her for himself. He took her along with him till we reached a place where her menses were over and he took her for his wife, consummating his marriage to her, and forcing her to wear the veil.'"

Tabari VIII:122
Ishaq:515

"Muhammad commanded that Safiyah should be kept behind him and he threw his cloak over her. Thus the Muslims knew that he had chosen her for himself."

Ishaq:517

"When the Apostle took Safiyah on his way out of town, she was beautified and combed, putting her in a fitting state for the Messenger. The Apostle passed the night with her in his tent. Abu Ayyub, girt with his sword, guarded the Apostle, going round the tent until he saw him emerge in the morning. Abu said, 'I was afraid for you with this woman for you have killed her father, her husband, and her people."

Qur'an 33:30

"O Consorts of the Prophet! If...any of you are devout, obedient, and submissive in the service to Allah and His Messenger, and does good, to her shall We grant her reward twice. We have prepared for her a generously rich provision."

Tabari IX:126

"The Messenger of Allah married fifteen women. He combined eleven at a time and left behind nine."

Ishaq:311

"The Apostle saw Ummu'l when she was a baby crawling before his feet and said, 'If she grows up, I will marry her.' But he died before he was able to do so."

Tabari VII:7

"The Prophet married Aisha in Mecca three years before the Hijrah, after the death of Khadija. At the time she was six." Ishaq:281 "When the Apostle came to Medina he was fifty-three."

Tabari IX:128

"When the Prophet married Aisha she very young and not yet ready for consummation."

Bukhari:V9B87N139-40

"Allah's Apostle told Aisha, 'You were shown to me twice in my dreams [a.k.a. sexual fantasies]. I beheld a man or angel carrying you in a silken cloth. He said to me, "She is yours, so uncover her." And behold, it was you. I would then say to myself, "If this is from Allah, then it must happen."'"

Tabari IX:131

"My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was then brought in while the Messenger was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. Then the men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old."

Tabari IX:133

"Juwayriyyah was chosen by the Messenger for himself on the day of the Muraysi raid from the captives." "Muhammad married Umm, who had embraced Christianity."

Tabari IX:134

"Muhammad took Zaynab [his daughter-in-law] but Allah did not find any fault in the [incestuous] relationship and ordered the marriage."

Tabari IX:135

"When the Prophet scrutinized the captives on the day of Khaybar, he threw his cloak over Safayah. Thus she was his chosen one." Tabari IX:139 "The Messenger married Ghaziyyah after the news of her beauty and skill had reached him."

Tabari IX:137

"Allah granted Rayhanah of the [Jewish] Qurayza to His Messenger as booty [but only after she had been forced to watch him decapitate her father and brother, seen her mother hauled off to be raped, and her sisters sold into slavery]."

Tabari IX:137

"Mariyah, a Copt slave, was presented to the Prophet. She was given to him by Muqawqis, the ruler of Alexandria."

Tabari IX:138

"The Prophet married Aliyyah, a Bakr woman. He gave her gifts for divorce and left her. He also married Qutaylah, but he died before he could consummate the marriage."

Tabari IX:139

"Layla approached the Prophet while his back was to the sun and clapped him on his shoulder. He asked her who it was and she replied, 'I am the daughter of one who competes with the wind. I am Layla. I have come to offer myself to you.' He replied, 'I accept.'" [Layla shared her story with her parents.] "They said, 'What a bad thing you have done! You are a self-respecting girl, but the Prophet is a womanizer.'"

Tabari IX:147

"A eunuch named Mubur was presented to Muhammad along with two slave girls. One he took as a concubine, the other he gave to Haasn."

Ishaq:186

"He took me into Paradise and there I saw a damsel with dark red lips. I asked her to whom she belonged, for she pleased me much when I saw her."

Bukhari:V4B52N211

"I participated in a Ghazwa [raid] with the Prophet. I said, 'Apostle, I am a bridegroom.' He asked me whether I had married a virgin or matron. I answered, 'A matron.' He said, 'Why not a virgin who would have played with you? Then you could have played with her.' 'Apostle! My father was martyred and I have some young sisters, so I felt it not proper that I should marry a young girl as young as them.'"

Tabari VIII:100

"The Messenger sent Hatib to Muqawqis, the ruler of Alexandria. Hatib delivered the letter of the Prophet, and Muqawqis gave Allah's Apostle four slave girls."

Bukhari:V9B86N98

"The Prophet said, 'A virgin should not be married till she is asked for her consent.' 'O Apostle! How will the virgin express her consent?' He said, 'By remaining silent.'"

Bukhari:V5B59N342

"Umar said, 'When my daughter Hafsa lost her husband in the battle of Badr, Allah's Apostle demanded her hand in marriage and I married her to him.'"

Tabari VIII:1

"In this year the Messenger married Zaynab bt. Jahsh [a first cousin: Allah's Messenger came to the house of Zayd bin [son of] Muhammad. Zaynab, Zayd's wife, rose to meet him. She was dressed only in a shift.... She jumped up eagerly and excited the admiration of Allah's Messenger, so that he turned away murmuring something that could scarcely be understood. However, he did say overtly, 'Glory be to Allah Almighty, who causes hearts to turn!' So Zayd went to Muhammad. 'Prophet, I have heard that you came to my house. Why didn't you go in? Perhaps Zaynab has excited your admiration, so I will leave her.'"

Tabari VIII:4

"One day Muhammad went out looking for Zayd. Now there was a covering of haircloth over the doorway, but the wind had lifted the covering so that the doorway was uncovered. Zaynab was in her chamber, undressed, and admiration for her entered the heart of the Prophet. After that Allah made her unattractive to Zayd.'"

Tabari VIII:3

"Zayd left her, and she became free. While the Messenger of Allah was talking with Aisha, a fainting overcame him. When he was released from it, he smiled and said, 'Who will go to Zaynab to tell her the good news? Allah has married her to me.' Then the Prophet recited [Qur'an 33] to the end of the passage. Aisha said, 'I became very uneasy because of what we heard about her beauty and another thing, the loftiest of matters, what Allah had done for her by personally giving her to him in marriage. I said that she would boast of it over us.'"

Qur'an 33:4

"Allah has not made your wives whom you divorce your mothers: nor has He made your adopted sons your sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths."

Qur'an 33:6

"The Prophet has a greater claim on the faithful than they have on themselves, and his wives are their mothers.... This is written in the Book."

Qur'an 33:37

"You hid in your mind and your heart that which Allah was about to manifest: you feared the people, but it is more fitting that thou shouldst fear Allah. Then when Zayd had dissolved (his marriage) with her, with the necessary (formality), We gave her to you, joining her in marriage to you: in order that there may be no difficulty or sin for the Believers in the wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have dissolved with the necessary (formality) (their marriage) with them. And Allah's command must be fulfilled."

Qur'an 33:38

"There can be no difficulty, harm, or reproach to the Prophet in doing what Allah has ordained to him as a duty. It was the practice (approved) of Allah amongst those of old that have passed away. And the commandment of Allah is a decree determined. (It is the practice of those) who deliver the Messages of Allah, and fear Him. Allah keeps good account. Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but (he is) the Messenger of Allah, and the Last of the Prophets with the Seal: and Allah has full knowledge of all things."

Qur'an 33:48

"And obey not (the behests) of the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites. Disregard their noxious talk and heed not their annoyances, but put thy trust in Allah. For enough is Allah as a Disposer of affairs."

Qur'an 33:50

"O Prophet! We have made lawful to you all the wives to whom you have paid dowers; and those whom your hands possess out of the prisoners of war spoils whom Allah has assigned to you; and daughters of your paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of your uncles and aunts, who migrated with you; and any believing woman if the Prophet wishes her; this is a privilege for you only, and not for the rest of the Believers; We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom they possess; in order that there should be no difficulty for you and that you should be free from blame."

Qur'an 33:51

"You may put off whom you please, and you may take to you whomever you desire. You may defer any of them you please, and you may have whomever you desire; there is no blame on you if you invite one who you had set aside. It is no sin."

Qur'an 33:28

"O Prophet, say to your wives and consorts: 'If you desire this world's life and its glittering adornment, then come! I will provide them for your enjoyment and set you free in a handsome manner. And if you desire Allah and His Messenger and the latter abode, then lo! Allah hath prepared for the good-doers an immense reward."

Qur'an 33:30

"O Consorts of the Prophet! If any of you are guilty of unseemly conduct, shamelessness, or lewdness, the punishment will be doubled, and that is easy for Allah. But any of you that is devout, obedient, and submissive in the service to Allah and His Messenger, and does good, to her shall We grant her reward twice. We have prepared for her a generously rich provision."

Qur'an 33:32

"Consorts of the Prophet! You are not like any of the (other) women. Fear and keep your duty, lest one in whose heart is a disease should be moved with desire. Stay quietly in your apartment. Make not a dazzling display like that of the former times of Ignorance. Perform the devotion, pay the zakat; and obey Allah and His Messenger. And Allah wishes to cleanse you with a thorough cleansing. And bear in mind that which is recited in your houses of the revelations of Allah and the wisdom."

Qur'an 33:36

"It is not fitting for a Muslim man or woman to have any choice in their affairs when a matter has been decided for them by Allah and His Messenger. They have no option. If any one disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a wrong Path."

Qur'an 4:23

"Prohibited to you are: your mothers, daughters, sisters.... Also (prohibited are) women already married, except slaves who are captives." [It's OK to have sex or rape your female slaves]

Bukhari:V5B59N459

"I entered the Mosque, saw Abu, sat beside him and asked about sex. Abu Said said, 'We went out with Allah's Apostle and we received female slaves from among the captives. We desired women and we loved to do coitus interruptus.'"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6wN7k-F33VI

Additional proof of the expression of Islam being a religion of perverted sex is the well
documented reward that persuades Islamic suicide bombers to carry out their inhumane
acts of murder. They have been convinced that 72 virgins wait for them in their deformed
version of paradise.

Isn't is strange that you can't convince a Jew or a Christian to strap a suicide explosive
belt to themselves based on the pleasures of sexual intercourse with multiple, unflowered,
maidens in the next life. Why should that act of self destruction supercede the pleasures of
a normal relationship with a woman in this life? Only Islam promotes a glorious and
everlasting sex life as a reason to send someone to their death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjSmX5aLYLA&feature=player_detailpage

The so-called Holy Prophet of Islam is nothing but a sick, perverted sex maniac, a pedophiliac misogynist, and a heartless creature who had absolutely no sense of morals or ethics. He was a self-proclaimed prophet who wanted nothing but power and sex. That is all he was interested in, that and killing non-believers of his corrupt and brutal religion.

Now if any Muslim person has anything to say in his defense, I would be more than happy to read it. So come on, Slave of Allah, Anj and Skouti, give us your rebuttal.

ISRAEL - A LIGHT TO THE WORLD.

2012-01-13T08:41:00.000+02:00

The Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) has won a global competition to partner with Cornell University and New York City to create an international hi-tech learning center.
It will be called the Technion Cornell Institute of Innovation (TCII).
This multi-billion dollar project will attract top scientific minds from around the world and tackle the globe's toughest problems.
It will be located on Roosevelt Island in the East River of New York. The campus will cover 2.1 million square feet of space and will be home to 2,500 students and 280 professors.
Israel's Technion has produced four Nobel Prize winners.
This truly is the Start-Up Nation going export for the benefit of mankind, and Israel being a light to the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQYQedpyBP8

A Tale of Palestinian Nonsense by Barry Shaw.

2012-01-05T18:51:00.003+02:00

Mahmoud Zahar, the ugly Hamas Spokesman, he’s the bearded idiot with a wart on the end of his nose, opened the new year of 2012 with the nonsense that Palestinians in Gaza are prevented from protesting peacefully because there are no Jews in Gaza to demonstrate against. That is why, he explained, they have no choice but to resort to violence. This is true. You couldn’t make this up. Not surprisingly, to those of us who follow the Palestinian narrative, this insanity is perceived as a logical and reasonable argument to Palestinians and their supporters. It appeals to Israel haters who can use this excuse to accuse Israel of human rights abuses inflicted on Palestinians for occupying Gaza from the outside, rather than the inside. Don’t even try to figure it out. You’ll only tie yourself up in A Gordian knot of maddening illogicality.

This endless nonsense is promoted by pro-Palestinian public relations groupies with an inexhaustible amount of funding from wealthy individuals or mindless European Governments for whom the mantra “Solve Human Rights Abuses and you Save the World”. Their funding also comes from malevolent sources, such as Arab and Islamic regimes, which have successfully transposed the Arab-Israeli War into the more appetizing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This new definition allows bleeding heart liberals to side with the underdog and lose sight of reality.

The world has bought into the Palestinian narrative of victimhood to the extent that, for decades, it has thrown billions of dollars into a lie. Anyone with any legal sense will conclude that if you lie to someone repeatedly to extract money based on a falsehood you eventually risk being dragged into court for fraud. And if you have added violence to your lie of victimhood to your crime you will, more than likely, be found guilty of fraud and assault and be thrown into the slammer. Not so with the Palestinians. They are feted, and patted, and sympathized, with by an international community that cannot see past the tears to get to the truth. They have been flavor of the month for decades while the rest of the world’s genuine basketcases are ignored. The money goes to the Palestinian schnorrers with the universal publicity machine.

The world has bought into this nonsense so deeply and so intensely that they cannot admit the truth any more. When the Hamas spokesman (yes, the one with the wart) announced that Gaza was no longer "occupied", the United Nations continues to declare that the Gaza Strip is still under Israeli occupation. Any other policy would almost make the United Nations Human Rights Council redundant, so passionate have they been in inventing and passing resolutions condemning Israel. They perpetuate a lie that even Hamas denies.

In truth, the Palestinians control every aspect of society in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Hamas, in Gaza, runs the courts, the police, the jails, the schools, mosques, the media, and the social services. It has its own economy and banking. It regulates business activities. It levies taxes, controls its borders. It even imposes Shariah law on its citizens. As Abraham Bell and Dov Shefi, two international legal experts, wrote in a 2010 research paper, Hamas runs "a functioning and fully independent local civil government, buttressed by armed forces." The Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank is thriving compared with other Arab and Islamic nations. Yet, the world still accepts the victimhood fraud.

Their tale of victimhood helps sell newspapers. It is the stuff of poor and biased journalism. It keeps career diplomats and academics in clover. The moneyed societies continue to pump money they don’t have or can ill afford into the fiction mill. The Palestinians are building an empire on it. Many are getting wealthy on the false tale of victimhood. They see the success of this narrative. It serves them well. So well, in fact, they don’t want to change. It’s rather like the guy who drives his big car from his suburban home to the outskirts of the town centre, parks his vehicle, takes out a pair of crutches, limps into town, and starts begging and crying. The naïve and sympathetic of the town throw notes and coins into his lap until it is time for him to drive home and put his feet up at the end of a good days work.

When Republican candidate, Newt Gingrich, recently said the Palestinians were "an invented people" he was quoting numerous Arab figures in recent history. The Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, told the United Nations Peel Commission in 1937, "There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine in a Zionist invention." So, at that time, Palestine was the invention of the Jews, according to a top Arab source. Philip Hitti, an Arab professor of history, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into Palestine in 1946 that, "It is common knowledge that there is no such thing as Palestine in history. Before 1917, when Lord Balfour made his declaration, there had never been a Palestinian question, and there was no Palestine as a political or geographical unit." Even the PLO got into the act of denial. In 1977, Zahar Muhsein, an executive member of the PLO told a Dutch newspaper, "The Palestinian people do not exist." He obviously agreed with Newt Gingrich and went on to say, "The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing the struggle against the State of Israel." The chief witness for Gingrich must be the big boss himself, Yasser Arafat, who told Italian journalist, Arianna Palazzi in 1970, "Our nation is the Arabic nation. The PLO is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call Jordan is no more than Palestine." Clearly, even the Palestinians deny Palestine. For them, it was a carefully crafted Trojan Horse, designed to destroy Israel, as admitted by Feissel Husseini after the Oslo Accords when Israel reluctantly bought into the bluff.

Why should they change, these Palestinians? They have gotten their tale down to a fine art, and it works for them. They are occupied, they are oppressed, they are exploited, and they are abused by a heartless, brutal, racist, regime. Such emotional outpourings cannot be challenged by cold facts. Their story appeals to the heart, not the head, and a heart is not easily dissuaded, especially if you can knock up some emotive pictures to strengthen your argument. Public opinion is easily swayed by a good sob story.

Just as people who abuse the social service of a welfare state lose the desire to find work and become productive citizens, so the Palestinians are enjoying the status they have achieved as the world’s most appreciated victim. They exploit their inferiority to the extent that they cannot escape their inferiority. It works for them; therefore they are trapped in it. Nobody has demanded that they become a more pragmatic, open, liberal society. They simply throw their money at them as you do to a beggar on the street. Nobody has conditioned their funding on the Palestinians discarding their lies and nonsense. Nobody has insisted that they accept the generous and permanent peace arrangements that would offer them a better life. They have rejected that. They know by accepting this responsibility they must become a normal, functioning, society, offering freedom to its entire people. They cannot accept that solution. It would expose the lie of victimisation they have been telling their people, that they have a holy duty to destroy Israel, their enemy, and possess their land. To accept a small state alongside Israel would expose the truth that they have overspent on corruption and destructive ventures and not enough in developing a normal, open, society. It would expose a real sense of inferiority to a people who see the success story of Israel. It would make them buckle down to proper nation building and independence, instead of looking with greed and envy at their neighbour's flourishing land.

They have taken the nonsense of victimhood and have deliberately prevented progress. They have wrapped the Islamic cloak around their victimhood. It enables them to play both sides of the deck. They are both victim and hero. They glorify the most heinous acts of terror. Their jihad allows them to turn the most inhumane acts of murder and mayhem into some sort of positive glory tale. Their narrative turns mass murder into praiseworthy heroism to be rewarded in this life or the next. It produces a society twisted into a self hating, brutal, and resentful culture.

They are trapped in their negative stew of victimhood and brutality. It finds expression in the nonsensical statements of people like Zahar, or those who accuse Israel of being an Apartheid state. Their nonsense, to them, makes sense. Sad tales have their impact. The emotional tale of victimhood is their power. Focusing on the “oppressed” will win out every time. They can twist every expression they can find to make a point that drips with emotion and useful sound bites, but they fail the test of truth every time.

Basically, the Palestinian narrative is a tale of nonsense.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock whitewashes Hamas in Turkey.

2012-01-03T11:52:00.002+02:00

This explosive document, that came into my possession, shows British support for Turkey's anti-Israel policies.
It gives academic support to Turkish NGOs, and attempt to spread a British message of a "peaceful" Hamas who they charge as being "mischaracterised."

This document is highly charged as it reflects the words and opinions of Sir Jeremy Greenstock who was Britain's Ambassador to the United Nations.

It is unlikely that he would journey to Turkey and make such pronouncements without the knowledge of people in high places in Whitehall.

He admits to the Turks that he has "private" working contacts with Hamas.

By claiming that "not a single Israeli was killed by Hamas", Sir Jeremy Greenstock removes the stigma of Hamas being a terrorist organisation bent on killing Jews and destroying the State of Israel.

He finds a narrow window of time when Hamas was unable and were prevented from killing Israelis to transform their image into one of a peace-seeking organisation advocating a Two State Solution.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock

USAK –Off the Record Round Table Meeting

November 12, 2010

Middle East Politics, Dynamics of Peace and a Future Vision for the Middle East

1- ISRAELI – PALESTINIAN ISSUE:

- A contact has been made with HAMAS through a small NGO.

- Israeli and Palestinian governments are aware of this situation

- We are applying the flowed strategy on the negotiations

- Security in Gaza should be controlled by the Palestinian government (HAMAS does not agree with that)

- Definition of HAMAS: An organization, sometimes uses violence yet it is ready to offer a long time truce and ready to accept two state solution

- HAMAS has to keep its militance speeches in order to maintain its support in Palestine

- In order to reach a solution we have to recognize Palestine as a regional player

2- IRAN:

- Iran is the most important issue right now, because of its nuclear situation

- Iran is trying to be a key player in the region that it why it carries a great importance

3- IRAQ:

- It has incredible amount of economic potential, but it can never reach its full potential

- It has so many security problems

- If Iraq gets out of control, than there is a possibility that the whole Arab world can get violent on streets

4- TURKEY:

- Ad-Hoc position works best for Turkey

- I wish Turkey to enter the EU

- I disagree that EU countries should have a referendum for Turkey’s acceptance .

5- QUESTIONS & ANSWERS SESSION:
Q. Do you think that there is a prejudgment issue regarding Turkey’s relations with HAMAS ? Because if a Turkish authority has made a similar definition on HAMAS, there would be lot of criticisims
A. First of all I work privately with HAMAS, and we are using different models on this issue such as IRA project. There are different ideologies inside HAMAS and I think HAMAS has been mischaracterized. It is ready for the peace process. I think negotiations could succed. There is not one single Israeli killed by HAMAS from January 2009, last week was a mistake.
Q. Can Turkish-Israeli relations damage the peaceful negotions process ?
A. Turkish-Israeli relations can be repaired by a dialogue, yet Turkish should be careful while dealing with those internal issues.
Q. Do you get support from Washington for your negotiations ?
A. I am in contact with some of the Institute members in DC, and I think if President Obama does not plan on being elected for the second time, we will see developments on this situation in a 3 months period. But if he avoids the situation, that means he expects to get elected for the second time.

The Joy of living in Israel

2011-12-28T22:02:00.001+02:00

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.

2011-12-24T08:51:00.001+02:00

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.

2011-12-23T09:45:00.000+02:00

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.

2011-12-19T13:34:00.002+02:00

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.

2011-12-14T08:49:00.002+02:00

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.

2011-12-08T10:14:00.000+02:00

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.

2011-11-24T20:43:00.000+02:00

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?

2011-11-22T09:02:00.000+02:00

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.

2011-11-18T08:44:00.005+02:00

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.

2011-11-14T11:40:00.000+02:00

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.

2011-11-02T16:07:00.000+02:00

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.

2011-10-21T11:45:00.000+02:00

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.

Why Jerusalem?

2011-10-04T09:30:00.001+02:00

WHY JERUSALEM? by Barry Shaw.

One of the main aims of Palestinian participation at the recent United Nations Assembly was to gain widespread international recognition that statehood would begin on 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. Although it is clear that such a proposal would not succeed in achieving the official stamp of law it would, through sheer weight of numbers, resound with virtual legitimacy.

The Palestinian leadership constantly chant the mantra of Jerusalem as their capital. Why? What rights do they have for claiming Jerusalem at all, let alone their new nation’s capital?

The overriding claim they can make is based on United Nations resolutions that call on Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in a war of aggression instigated against the Jewish state by Arab nations. These resolutions did not call on Israel to withdraw from all the territories. It did allow Israel to withdraw to secure boundaries. It can be successfully argued that removing their presence from east Jerusalem would leave Israel exposed to frightening dangers.

Anyone familiar with the geography and demographics of the eastern section of this built up municipal area sense the impossibility of carving out a Palestinian entity. The two parts are so intimately intertwined that grafting on a Palestinian imprint would leave both bodies hemorrhaging badly.

For those not familiar with the real estate involved in Israel glibly handing over what is called east Jerusalem to a Palestinian leadership let me itemize just a few of the ancient, historic, and significant places that would, of necessity, change hands. The implications for Jews is that the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, scenes of the traditional Solomon’s Temple, would fall into Islamic hands, as would the Jewish and Christian Quarters of the Old City. The new Palestinian state, vowed to uphold Islam as their one true religion and have Shariah Law as their guiding principle, would control sensitive Christian shrines such as The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Room of the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane. The Mount of Olives, sacred to Christians and a Jewish burial ground, would also be in Palestinian hands. Other invaluable institutions such as the Rockefeller Museum, Hadassah Hospital, and access to the Hebrew University would fall to the Palestinians.

So the argument is not over a few homes in which the majority of residents are Arab. It is over the fundamental fact that the only time in history when Jerusalem has been free to all the major faiths, and has been developed for the benefit of mankind, has been since it was finally united by Israel in 1967. Does anyone truly believe that a Palestinian entity will maintain the universal godliness and goodliness of Jerusalem as well as it has been maintained under Israeli sovereignty? For those few deranged individuals who would answer in the affirmative I challenge them with this question. What would happen to Jerusalem in a year’s time of the Palestinians hold to their promise of new elections and Hamas again wins with a large majority? Would this radical, terrorist, Islamic organization suddenly become Mother Theresa and throw a blanket of peace and freedom to all over holy Jerusalem? Or would they begin by renaming the Hebrew University the Islamic University?

I find it strange that successive Israeli governments and Prime Ministers have not been more outspoken in rejecting the notion that Jerusalem must be the capital of a new Palestinian state. Maybe they are keeping their powder dry for direct negotiations before telling the Palestinian leadership to go find another center for their capital? I doubt it.

There is very little open space in the residential parts of east Jerusalem. The available open space, with its sharply undulating topography, is not suitable for planning a major new administrative project. If it would have been possible Jerusalem mayors and administrations would have done so long ago. So where would a Palestinian Authority place its legislative building?

My guess is that there will be radical voices calling for the new Palestinian Parliament to be constructed inside the Old City adjoining the Dome of the Rock to add to the religious as well as nationalistic nature of their regime. This would mean that they would locate their official governmental seat right in the center of their new capital in the heart of Jerusalem, and that location would be where the Western Wall Plaza stand today. The Western Wall Plaza is the assembly point for thousands of worshippers, tourists, and visitors to the juncture of the most holy places on earth. It is a vast square where official ceremonies are held throughout the Israeli and Jewish calendar. It is where any Islamic regime would wish to make a statement of intent. By placing their legislature on that spot they would be declaring victory over the infidels and non-believers. And, in such an agreed state, who would be able to stop them?

So, where should a new Palestinian capital be built, if not in Jerusalem? Well, actually, they don’t need to build a new one anywhere. They are already constructing and developing their capital. It’s called Ramallah. That is where their president sits. That is where their prime minister administers his country. That is where they have built all their legislature. That is where their courts are. That is where their founding hero, Yasser Arafat, is buried. This has been done by massive financial support from the international community. Why waste all that huge economic resource by uprooting it all and moving it anywhere?

There has been a building boom going on in Judea and Samaria, known as the West Bank, and most of that has been centered on Ramallah. The number of homes in the last four years has increased by 25%, according to figures released by the Palestinian Authority. This year, more homes will be built in Palestinian controlled areas (33,822) than in Israel. In 2010, in Israel, only 33,128 homes were built. This year’s figure is expected to fall. Much of the Palestinian construction is taking place in or near Ramallah. Mohammad Shtayyeh, a former Palestinian minister of public works recently told the Media Line that “Because of the government and ministries and private sector and the NGO’s, Ramallah has to have public and office buildings. There are 25,000 people commuting to jobs in Ramallah every day.”

The Palestinians are currently building a new town north of Ramallah. With an estimated construction cost of $800 million, Rawabi, is projected to house 40,000 people.

With such intensive development being centered in Ramallah surely the Israeli government and media should highlight the fact that the Palestinians have already established their capital in Ramallah and there is no need to make another capital in Jerusalem as yet another precondition for peace.

Even if Israel does not wish to make this non-starter a precondition for peace talks it should, at least, open the dialogue on this highly sensitive issue.

DELEGITIMISATION OF ISRAEL. THE TIDE IS TURNING by Barry Shaw.

2011-09-26T14:51:00.002+03:00

DELEGITIMISATION OF ISRAEL. THE TIDE IS TURNING, by Barry Shaw.

At the deep dark heart of the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations was a desire to continue their demonization and delegitimisation of Israel. Mahmoud Abbas’s speech at the podium of the General Assembly on September 23, 2011 was forty minutes of hateful rhetoric against Israel that paved the way for the diplomatic intifada of delegitimisation campaigns using the various United Nations institutions. These are intended to be utilized less to advance their statehood than to sideline and eliminate the Jewish state of Israel by accusing it of all the world’s worst crimes.

The Palestinians fully expect that their way will be paved by the automatic majority and support they enjoy from the non democratic regimes, theocracies, tyrannical regimes, that control the infected body known as the UN. As Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rightly pointed out minutes after Abbas‘s poison had won rapturous applause, the United Nations is an ailing body in which Hizbollah-controlled Lebanon chairs the Security Council. This is an Islamic terror regime heading the UN organization governing world security. As Bibi said, you couldn’t make this up!

On the way to achieving this goal there are a number of stations of the Cross. One of those is the Russell Tribunal, commonly known as the “International People’s Court” that will gather in Cape Town at the end of November for a lynch mob trial of Israel. In the eyes of the participants Israel has been found guilty of the crime of Apartheid. All they have to do now is have a show trial, make accusations, call a biased jury to being in the verdict, and have Israel taken out and executed for Apartheid crimes against the Palestinians.

What they will studiously not do is to put the acid test of Apartheid against Palestinians and apply it to the Arab regimes that surround Israel. One only has to look at Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon to see real Apartheid perpetrated against Palestinians. In these countries Palestinians are segregated in camps from the indigenous population. The home regime fails to maintain them. Instead, they leave it up to international organizations to provide sustenance to Palestinian Arabs. They are deprived of citizenship, of civil rights, of proper education, of work opportunities. They cannot vote or attain high office. They have no voice.

So why won’t Archbishop Tutu, Winnie Mandela, Ronnie Kasrils, and others involved with the Russell Tribunal, address this obvious crime if they truly care about Palestinian rights, and the Apartheid being applied against them?

They fail to do so because, for them, it’s a game of colours. If it’s white against brown or black it is a crime. If it’s black or brown against whites, it’s justified. And if it’s brown against brown, or even brown against black, it’s ignored. In this case, Israel is considered as white and the Palestinians as brown. This colour game clouds their political judgment. It is a perverted political philosophy which declares that brown and black people cannot be oppressors because they are black or brown and are, therefore, the weak and oppressed so can never be condemned as oppressors.

This is despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is far more convenient to portray tiny nation states like Israel as the brutal oppressor and the Palestinians as the weak and oppressed. It plays well on the ears of the liberal middle class in the West who overlook decades of Arab incited wars against the nascent Jewish state, decades of horrific Islamic terror, thousands of rocket attacks on Israel from Hizbollah and Hamas in support of the elimination of Israel. It’s all, you see, Israel’s fault for not surrendering their rights to the poor Palestinians. Oh, I forgot, Israel doesn’t have any rights!

This is the background train of thought that has led to “Zionism is Racism!”. This is the agenda that forged the Durban Conference into a “Hate Israel” campaign of constant demonization and delegitimisation of Israel. Every tool was to be applied against Israel as they set out to do to Israel in the 21^st Century what they said they did to South Africa in the 20^th Century, namely to eliminate it by declaring it illegitimate in the eyes of the international community.
Durban died on the streets of New York in September. The latest reworking of the racist fraud against Israel in the form of Durban 3 was boycotted by all sensible democratic nations, leaving the UN sponsored event echoing with the empty speeches of irrelevant and discredited regimes and organisations.

International boycott campaign have been launched. Israel is the sole country to be targeted. Israel has been unaffected by boycotts. In fact, the Israeli economy has burgeoned while the economies of countries on whose soil boycott campaigns have hatched have been damaged.

Hugely expensive exercises such as Gaza flotillas were put together to highlight false claims of nonexistent humanitarian crises in Gaza that would have prominent politicians like David Cameron declare that Gaza is “a prison camp” as they were opening their Olympic-sized swimming pool, a new Water Park, and a new super Shopping Mall in Gaza City.

The Gaza flotilla of 2011 was sidelined and trapped in Pireaus due to the coordinated efforts of European Governments, social media activists, and NGOs, who acted against the nonsense of a non-existent humanitarian crisis in Gaza that had been the failed slogan of an expensive and unsuccessful exercise in fraud. In fact, the social media aspect succeeded in convincing public opinion that the flotilla activists were radicals who exploited naïve and misinformed people to spout empty epithets in favour of Hamas-controlled Gaza, and against a country who were suffering rocket attacks against its civilians.

Israeli, or pro-Israeli, speakers are prevented from speaking on many campuses, or in debating halls, in Britain, Canada, and the United States, while radical anti-Israeli activists and extremists imams, who justify suicide bombers, are treated like rock stars. This is part of the activism that denies a voice to the Israeli side.

Recently, an Orange County jury found ten Muslim students guilty of conspiring to disrupt, and then disrupting a speech, given by Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, at the University of California in Irvine in 2010. These students face up to a year in prison for infringing free speech laws in America. This should act as a precedent for other cases of abuse of free speech on behalf of Israel. We can expect other legal claims to be made against disrupters of Israeli speakers, not only in America, but also in Britain and in Canada.

In the Irvine case, the statement made by Shakeed Syed, director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, who said that “the heart of America died today” as he heard of the result of the trial, says a lot about the divide between Islamic organizations in America and basic American values.

In certain Western countries, usually in English speaking nations, local councils and unions impose boycotts against Israeli goods. These boycotts are introduced by one sided resolutions which are adopted without the executive or members considering inviting an Israeli representation to present their side of the debate. In places like West Dunbarton in Scotland, or Marrickville in Australia, the council members passed boycott proposals with no thought of considering if Israel had anything to say that would challenge the truth behind the anti-Israel proposals.

This is a troubling phenomenon that introduces a malevolent Frank Kafka world of minor officials imposing their narrow and faulted worldview onto their constituents in the name of a greater good. The danger to Western democratic values by such moves is deepened by West Dunbarton’s refusal to allow books published in Israel, books that explain Israel’s position, to be allowed into their public libraries. By this act, a small cadre of councilmen decided what their citizens can, and cannot, read. They strengthen their anti democratic regime by censoring and preventing the ability of their electorate from reading any tract that may contradict the legitimacy of their political decisions.

The economic harm against Israel of a boycott by an impoverished local council is meaningless. There is, however, significant damage caused to the heritage of Western democracies by far left radicals hijacking local and regional councils and imposing resolutions in a manner that chips away at the foundations of unbiased fairness and free speech that should be cornerstones of the higher values practiced by countries such as Britain and Australia.

In Australia, a concerted boycott campaign against a Max Brenner chocolate store was seriously challenged by the high profile involvement of senior members of the Australian Parliament, who associated themselves with the store by publicly dining out in the store as a statement against the principle of boycotts.Public opinion has turned against the boycotters in Australia.

While it is true that the United Nations' various forums will witness increasing and official delegimitisation motions against Israel by the Palestinian Authority, including claims made to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, all is not lost.
The counter offensive has begun, and notable victories have been achieved.

The iniquitous universal jurisdiction that allowed radicals to apply to a local magistrate for the summary arrest of Israeli politicians and security people has been reversed in Britain. Now people like Tzipi Livni, leader of the Opposition in Israel, can travel to London without fear of summary arrest as she steps of a plane at Heathrow Airport.

Increasingly, pro-Israeli NGOs are prosecuting lawfare against the radical anti-Israel lobby that are using suspect methods to get their tainted message across. They are questioning the lies and dubious actions of the activists in law, and in court.

A major academic conference is in the works in Israel. Several top level panels of international lawyers, experts in their own fields, will assemble to discuss many of the legal aspects of countering delegitimisation of Israel. Working papers will include law, guidelines, and legal instructions will be distributed at the conclusion of this important event. The results will be seen with actions, cautions, and prosecutions for any one or any body testing the limits of accepted legal standards when attacking Israel.

The delegitimisation campaign is a battlefield on which Israel is being forced to fight as aggressively as any military campaign. In this battle the soldiers are increasingly lawyers. Victories highlight the criminal intent of the words and actions of the anti-Israel extremists. It is a necessary campaign of delegitimising the delegitimisers that will be won, not by ignoring the narrative of Israel’s enemies, but by confronting them in law.

Let's call the Palestinian spade what it really is - a bloody shovel.

2011-09-22T11:35:00.002+03:00

Let's make no bones about it. Let's call a spade a bloody shovel!

The evil behind the unilateral Palestinian ploy at the United Nations is bringing the infamous Khartoum Resolution of 1967 into practice and give it authoritative status in the international community.

To remind ourselves, the Arab League assault on the Jewish state degenerated into their conference of September 1, 1967 in which all the heads of the Arab regimes determined to punish Israel with the three notorious "No's". No to peace with Israel. No to recognition of Israel. No to negotiations with Israel.

In the last few years, since Abbas rejected the most generous and far reaching Israeli concessions, he has turned his back on Israel and set about putting the Khartoum No's into top gear.

Despite the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, publicly declaring his acceptance of the need to create a Palestinian state, freezing settlement construction for a period in a failed attempt to invite the Palestinians into face to face talks, continuing the flow of goods, services, and money into Palestinian controlled territories, the Palestinian leadership have taken what's given to them and, at the same time, scorned, insulted, and attacked Israel.

Ignoring pleas to enter into direct talks, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership plotted their unilateral route through the United Nations corridors of power that will allow them to pursue recognition of sorts, and improve their status to a level where they can reactivate their delegimitisation campaign against Israel through UN bodies such as the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and biased organisations top heavy with sinister regimes that are brothers in arms with the Palestinians.

They have refused to negotiate in good faith with Israel. Instead, they formed a new alliance between Fatah that control much of the West Bank and Hamas, the terror rulers of the Gaza Strip. They have barely managed to control the hate spewed rhetoric of Hamas who divulged their United Nations bid as "a political scam."

All the statements emanating from the "moderate" Palestinian Authority confirm their total lack of recognition of Israel, neither as a Jewish state and neither as a permanent entity.

Their schoolbooks, their TV programs, their mosques, their state-run print media, their slogans, all cry out for the elimination of Israel to be replaced by a Greater Palestine with Jerusalem as their capital.
In their glorification of their mass murdering terrorist heroes they perpetuate their cult of blood - Jewish blood.
They retain the right to "armed struggle" and "resistance". These are slogans for war.

In total - no peace, no recognition, no negotiations.

This is the aim and intention of the Palestinians. Let's put an end to the pretense that they are nice people simply seeking self determination in their own land so that they can get on with their own peaceful lives. If only it were so. They would have had a state decades ago. Instead, let's get real. Let's call a spade what it really is.
In the case of the Palestinians, it is a bloody shovel designed to bury Israel.

A Prayer for Israel written by Barry Shaw.

2011-09-21T13:08:00.000+03:00

They're coming with their murder.
They're coming with their hate.
They're coming with their lies,
that win the great debate.

The world has lost its reason.
The world has lost its soul.
The world has caved to treason
against one that was its own.

Once courage was a virtue,
Now is lost and gone.
Now appeasement is the purview
and honesty's day is done.

They talk of human rights
when people are around.
But human wrongs are hidden
when hypocrisy abounds.

Let's shine the light on those that point
yet hide the guilt of sinners.
Let truth protect the moral ones
and expose the false deceivers.

Let the curses of the cursed ones
fall short of true believers.

For facts and rights belong in truth
with those brave souls with God.
While wicked lies and evil plots
rot in hearts that God forgot.

So worship life, be strong and brave,
for truth, in the end, will out.
And evil ones who make the noise
will, one day, have no clout.

God supports Israel. Do you?

2011-09-20T21:47:00.000+03:00

When Uri asked me to talk in our synagogue on the Shabbat that the Palestinians were presenting their statehood bid at the United Nations, I hesitated. I admit to being a secular, rather than religious, Jew. But, in my advocacy work for Israel, I use as a cornerstone of my hasbara the fact that we share a God-given land as an integral part of our rights as the Jewish people possessing our national home.

I only agreed to give this talk if I could link this week’s Bible portion to my recent intensive advocacy activities for Israel, particularly taking into consideration this weekend’s events at the UN.

I have also been involved in highlighting the association of an increasing number of Jews with the pro-Palestinian lobby, and against Israel. When it goes beyond criticism to delegitimisation is when they have crossed all red lines.

I even have one who is a leading member of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement in Britain. He insists that Israel should stop its Law of Return. Let everyone living here share full and equal rights as Israelis and stop calling ourselves a Jewish state. Of course he feels it fair to allow all the Arabs who once had any claims here to return as, to him, they were once an indigenous part of the land. They, apparently, do have the right of return.

In other words, we would become Palestine. Anything else would be, for him, a racist state.

So, when Uri pointed me to this week’s portion, several passages leapt off the page. Let me share with you some of these passages that, for me, a passionate advocate for Israel, have special relevance. With the growing Jewish support for anti-Israel activism this took my eye;

“Lest there be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart has turned away this day from the Lord our God to go serve the gods of those other nations.”

This, for me, speaks of the Jews who not only criticize Israel, but actively plot and act against us. For our God is one who promised us the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who led the Jewish people out of bondage to the Promised Land as mentioned in Vayalech.

Then it makes reference to a strange expression of these people who say “I walk in the stubbornness of my heart – that the watered be swept away with the dry.” What does this mean? The Commentary describes it as those people who should be in our tent, that devour the narrative of our enemy to the extent that they add drunkenness to their thirst. In other words, they add hate to criticism of Israel to the extent that they demonise and delegitimize us. I know this is true. I know this happens. As I said, I am currently writing to one such person.

It seems that, on this matter, we have God on our side as it is written, “The Lord will not be willing to pardon him, and the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against that man, and all the curses that is written in this book shall be upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.”

Wow! I would hate to be in that man’s shoes!

And it is written, if these people, these Jews, reject God’s Covenant to the Jewish people, the Covenant that He made with us when He brought us out of Egyptian slavery, the Covenant He made with us as He guided His Chosen People to our Promised Land. If they then go over to serve our enemies, then surely they will feel God’s wrath.

The portion mentions the choice that God gives us in the form of the blessing and the curse. Choose which path you choose. Are you with us, or against us? And here God asks these people to return to the fold, to our tent, to avoid the curse.

He also promises to gather in the Jews from the four corners of the globe, and we have seen this in action. I am involved with the recent revelation of the Anusim, known as the Secret Jews, who are slowly emerging from centuries of Christian persecution and reclaiming their Judaism here in Israel.

He also vows that we will multiply and we have surely seen that in Israel. He also says that we will live and rejoice, and we have seen that in our developing economy in a world of financial woes.

For those who think this command is somewhat holy, mystical, supernatural, think again!

It clearly says that this promise and commitment is not something out of reach, or made in heaven. It is not something that is inaccessible, or beyond the seas, in some distant land, among strangers, but the act is here at home. As it says, it is in your mouth, and in your soul. So speak up for Israel, bravely.

He gives us another choice. To choose good, and live, or evil and death.

What I found astounding in NITZAVIM and VAYELECH is that it clearly states Israel’s rights to a land that is God-given, and it says where it is.

It says Choose life. Love God. Listen to His voice. Read His words. For it is His Covenant that we will dwell in the land that is west of the Jordan that God swore to our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as an inheritance. And this is where we are today.

VAYELECH clearly commands us to live in the land over the Jordan, that means here in Israel, to possess it. To read this, this week, of all weeks, is mind blowing.

It closes by saying “Be strong and of good courage!”

If you want a supreme example of advocacy for Israel - this is it. Israel cannot have a better advocate than God.

This is a message I have rushed to deliver to the thousands I have on Facebook, email, LinkedIn, Twitter. They will send it out to thousands more.

So, thank you Uri. God works in mysterious ways.

WHY DID THE PALESTINIANS GOING TO THE UNITED NATIONS?

2011-09-15T21:21:00.002+03:00

“Why did the Palestinians going to the United Nations ?” by Barry Shaw.

It is obvious that the Palestinians will not achieve the legal stamp of statehood after they turned up at the United Nations on September 20. They were aware that, despite having the bulk of the votes in the General Assembly, their statehood bid will fail with an American veto in the Security Council. So, why did they go?

They went for two reasons.

What they wanted to achieve from their UN tactics was, firstly, to win the consensus of widely covered international recognition for their cause of a state within 1967 borders and with Jerusalem as their capital. Although the phrase “mutually agreed land swops” is often included in this formula this has no relevance in Palestinian intentions with regard to Jerusalem.

The simple understanding of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders will be the cause of a prolonged public opinion campaign to force Israel into conceding to indefensible borders. Failure to comply with this will make Israel appear to be the ongoing obstacle to peace.

By placing Jerusalem as their Palestinian capital on the public record they will attempt to pull the rug out of Israel’s cherished position that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel. Why do they need Jerusalem as their capital? Surely one of their claims is that they have built up their national institutions and infrastructure of statehood, and they did that in Ramallah. That is where their president sits. That is where the Prime Minister's office is. That is where their "national" legislature resides. That is where their founding hero, Yasser Arafat is buried. So, surely, Ramallah should be touted by them as their capital? But no. They want to split apart the Jewish notion that Jerusalem should remain as the undivided capital of Israel.

The majority of those that will vote in favour of this proposal know the radical implications of this resolution. Those who are ignorant of the significance of 1967 lines need to be reminded that this would include Israel being forced to cede to the Palestinians such valuable real estate assets as The Temple Mount, The Wailing Wall, The Hurva Synagogue, The Jewish Quarter of the Old City, The Rockefeller Museum, Hadassah Hospital, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Room of the Last Supper, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is happening at a time when the Palestinian Ambassador to the United States confirmed his President Abbas’s statements that the PLO opposes the presence of Jews and gays in an independent Palestinian state. In other words Judenrein - free of Jews.

But this is not the main thrust of Palestinian representation at the UN. The main item on their agenda is to improve their standing within the fabric of the United Nations. The Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister, Raid Maliki, announced from Ramallah that his President, Mahmoud Abbas, intends to request full U.N. membership. He is not likely to get it, but the Palestinians are seeking to accept increased U.N. status from observer to non-member status.

This would put them on a par with the Vatican, but the Pope has no intention of eliminating Italy, and the Swiss Guard are not suicide bombers and are not armed with rockets. Neither do they subscribe to “the armed struggle.” In the important scenario that the Vatican took the violent course of action that Palestinian society has taken against Israel they would immediately lose any preferred status at the United Nations. So why should the Palestinian enjoy parity with the Vatican?

Their increased stature would allow them to lodge claims and complaints with United Nations bodies, top heavy with Palestinian cheerleaders, such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, and also to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

In January, 2009, The Palestinians tried to take advantage of an obscure provision in the Rome Statute (the treaty establishing the ICC) that allows states that have not joined the ICC to grant the prosecutor authority to investigate crimes on its soil. The provision, Article 12.3, says that a state "which is not a party" to the Rome Stature may lodge a declaration to the ICC registrar accepting the "exercise of jurisdiction by the court with respect to the crime in question." They did so in order to attempt to bring claims of “war crimes” to the Hague.

The ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has mulled over a decision on whether to accept the investigation and is unlikely to do so before the General Assembly acts. A decision by the General Assembly recognizing Palestine, while not legally binding, will increase pressure on Moreno-Ocampo to make up his mind, according to legal experts.

The U.N. General Assembly's "recognition of Palestinian statehood would likely bolster the argument that the Palestinian territory is a state for purposes of Article 12 of the Rome Statute," said James Goldston, a former ICC trial attorney and executive director of the Open Society's Justice Initiative. "Once the statehood legal hurdle is surmounted -- by no means a sure thing -- the question would arise of how far back jurisdiction attaches."

At that time, the Palestinians asked the prosecutor to exercise jurisdiction over major war crimes dating back to 2002, opening the door to possible investigations of Operation Cast Lead. But legal scholars remained divided over whether the prosecutor can open cases dating back that far. Once the Palestinians achieve higher standing in the United Nations such restrictions may no longer apply.

It is clear that if this is the aim of the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas admitted this in his newspaper article which appeared in the New York Times of May 16, 2011 in which he wrote “Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice”.

So, a prime purpose of the United Nations exercise is not to establish a secular Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. Rather it is one that will begin as a racist Islamic state that excludes Jews as they continue to pursue their delegitimisation campaign against Israel. As Abbas admits, we can expect to see constant resolutions, tribunals, claims, and accusations aimed to diminish the legitimacy of the Jewish state. The Palestinians are already plotting massive riots dressed up as “civil disobedience”. They, together with the Israeli far left, are organising huge photo-op demonstrations that will echo scenes being played out in other Arab regimes. They hope to provoke an Israeli response that can be portrayed as similar to unpleasant footage being viewed daily on our TV screens from Arab and Muslim countries. Mohammed Shtayyeh, a ranking member of Fatah, said that all Palestinian medical services will be in a state of emergency next week in anticipation of violence. This, despite the statements of their leaders that demonstrations will be “peaceful”.

The warning signs are there. Their aim is to try and equate Israel with the brutal regimes of Assad, Mubarak, and Qaddafi. The big difference, a difference that will be kept from the viewers, is that their angry protesters will be marching into Israel and on to Israeli property, and not marching against their own regime. Should these mass demonstrations get out of hand the Israeli forces will have no choice but to defend Israel and Israelis from a potentially murderous scenario.

If there is any doubt that the ultimate aim of the Palestinian delegitimisation ambitions is not to eventually eliminate Israel one only has to look to statements from leading Palestinian politicians. It was vitally important to Mahmoud Abbas that he goes to the United Nations with a signed agreement with Hamas to show wall to wall Palestinian unity. But the Hamas representative responsible for international relations, Osama Hamdan, said at a conference in Cairo, Egypt on July 24, 2011 that was covered on Al Aqsa TV that "the conflict will never come to an end until Israel comes to an end." He went on, "Regarding what some have demanded of us, to recognize the enemy, that matter is behind us. We then clearly said that we will never recognize Israel, and today I say more than that: Israel completely doesn't exist in our political or intellectual dictionary." Hamdan was quoted on the El-Amal website the following day where he defined the Palestinian state as being "until the liberation of the lands of Palestine from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river."

The United Nations approach was described by Khalil al-Hayeh, a member of Hamas' political bureau, on July 31, 2011, who said at a reception for a Malaysian delegation visiting the Gaza Strip, that the appeal to the UN was “only an illusion.”

The Palestinians may try to display unity for the United Nations cameras but the truth is that their delegation does not represent the majority of the Palestinian people. Hamas, despite their signature to a unity agreement, are against the UN move.
Many within the ruling Fatah political group are opposed to this move. Several leading tribal chiefs have told Abbas that they are against his exercise. Even Palestinian Prime Minister, Salim Fayyad, voiced his scepticism in an AP interview on June 28, 2011. He admitted that anything achieved at the UN would only be symbolic and the reality on the ground will only change with Israeli consensus.

As Hamas is, to all intents and purposes, a Palestinian partner to this United Nations bid, it could be construed as recognition in the UN of Hamas as a partner to this statehood bid while Hamas is still recognised as a terrorist organisation. Further, the United Nations would be conferring statehood on a new state in which one of the leading player’s objects to Israel’s right to exist and calls for its destruction.

The only benign excuse given for Mahmoud Abbas’s unilateral act is that he is defining his legacy. He has repeatedly told anyone within earshot that he intends to retire soon. Perhaps his hurry to rush to the UN to claim Palestinian statehood before the international community is his parting shot. If it is, he is likely to set back genuine statehood for his people for decades, as did Arafat when he refused to pick up the pen and sign an agreement at Camp David in 2000.

What this Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence is, in law, is a breach of all signed agreements with Israel, including The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement signed by Yizhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn on September 28, 1995 which clearly states in Article 7 that “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.” Further, Article 6 states that “Nothing in this Agreement shall prejudice or pre-empt the outcome of the negotiations on the permanent status to be conducted pursuant to the DOP. “

The Palestinians are displaying dangerous bad faith by reneging on their signature. How can Israel possibly trust any future agreement, in which they reduce their security in the hope of a future peace with a party that, years later, defaults on their commitment?

This brings us to a final critical question that must be asked before September 20, and maybe for years following. Several countries signed on to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement not only as witnesses, but also as guarantors of this agreement. They are the United States, Russia, Egypt, Jordan, Norway, and the European Union. It will be instructive to see which of these nations vote for, or against, the unilateral Palestinian bid that will make this internationally recognised legal document null and void?

Those who vote for the Palestinian motion will do so knowing that they have dishonoured their responsibilities according to international law.

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

I used to be left. Now I am right.

2011-09-06T10:10:00.000+03:00

This article is a reworking of a chapter in my new book “ISRAEL – RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE” available on Amazon Kindle or in paperback from www.israelnarrative.com)

I have no problem with the liberal left. Actually, I do, but I have a bigger problem with the far left that have seduced the liberal left with the lies that cloak a dark secret they are scared to expose.

Hasn’t it always been thus? Consider the history of Communism and Marxism. Isn’t it riddled with persuading the masses into purgatory? So it is today.

Today, they disguise themselves as human rights activists, progressives, fighters for a better world, for social justice. They are deceivers. They are plotters. They are for upheaval. They are against peace and pragmatism.

As an example, close to my home and close to my heart, they mean to destroy Israel. They saw that decades of war and terror failed to dislodge or frighten a tiny but courageous Israeli population. They imposed boycotts, yet saw Israel become the Start Up Nation, a powerhouse of initiative and inventiveness. They try to disqualify Israel with trumped up charges that will not stand in any reputable international court, so they fill the court with representatives from nations of despots and human rights abusers to file prosecutions against the one free, democratic shining star, in a sea of mud.

Their actions repel and appall me.

The tainted chamber of the United Nations, replete with those who tried for decades to kill the Jews, or at least drive them into the sea, rob the Jews of their national home, and replace it with a holy Islamic Palestine from the river to the sea, will approve the imposition of yet another corrupt and riven Arab regime into the region. They will impose this divisive regime on land once guaranteed in law to the Jewish people as their national home. Their decision will be endorsed by nations so morally lacking that they usurp Israel’s legal rights for their own financial interests that are vested in the immoral and abusive Arab world. And they have the gall to accuse the Jews of usury and greed!

All pretence to what is right and proper is swept aside. Once the Europeans insisted that the authoritarian regimes, exhausted from the gross failure of the Communist system, that splintered away from the Soviet bloc must reform themselves first into democratic entities with the rule of law, respecting minority rights, democratic principles, and committed to good and peaceful neighborly relations. That was before they crumbled into multicultural Socialism. Today, they betray all of these values by encouraging a new regime whose very Charters scream the message of anti-Semitism, racism, genocide, death, and violence. In their appeasing cowardice, the diplomats and bureaucrats welcome a regime with decades of blood on their hands who have vowed to continue their arms struggle until their neighbor is no more. Most of these voters represent a socialism that has failed completely, and nations in internal turmoil.

Despite this legislative attack, Israel will stand. Yet Israel is not divorced from its own seditious Marxists. It has its share of plotters. Plotters, who call their comrades in Ramallah and ask them to look carefully at the upheavals in the Arab world. These Jewish and Arab plotters tell them to do the same against the Zionist state. Israel braces itself against the potential tsunami of marching masses of crazed Arabs, whipped up by the incitement and exhortation to go out and claim their holy land from the Jews, a mob that will not stop at the checkpoints and the settlements but will keep on marching in an effort to swamp the Jewish nation with their numbers. The plotters plot a scenario in which the Israelis have to defend themselves forcefully. The plotters plot a scenario in which the demonstrators become cannon fodder for the cameras. For the plotters, bodies become propaganda gains. For the plotters, bodies become evidence to bring before the corrupt international courts of opinion and law. The plotters intend to dominate the agenda by friction, not by peace, by confrontation, not by negotiation.

The organizers, the instigators, are the usual suspects. They are the combined malevolent allies that are international socialists and Islamists. They are infiltrated the media who have adopted their agenda. When was the last time, if at all, you heard a studio debate, or read informed articles, that proposed the notion that it would be national suicide for Israel to make further radical gestures and concessions to the Jekyll and Hyde that is the current Palestinian leadership? When do you hear, if ever, that the Palestinians must commit to recognizing the legitimacy of Israel and respect the historic and legitimate rights of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people? When do you hear that the Palestinians must condition their people to a peaceful future alongside the Jewish state, and renounce violence? Instead, their post United Nations exercise include their planned “civil disobedience”, which is a codename for the Third Intifada. Why don’t you hear the pro-Palestinian left putting as much effort into turning the Palestinian leadership and population into pragmatic peace partners as they are into making them into martyrs and rejectionists?

I admit that I used to be in their camp. Not any more. I saw, what I perceived to be moral values turn into seditious plotting that endangers my country. These people have never been for a Two State Solution. They stand for the Final Solution of the Jewish people that will eradicate Israel and turn it into a One State Solution in favour of the Arabs.

I was a liberal. I became a realist. Better to listen to the threats of your enemy than to believe in the promise of your friend. So I listened to what Arafat, and later Abbas, told their people in their own language. There you will find the truth. There, not in the utopian dream of the political naïve. I see how they honour and glorify their terrorists. I listen and read what they plan for Israel. They dispossess me of my rights, legitimacy, history and heritage. I know they intend to march on to claim possession of what I have left. So who should I believe when the liberal left tell me to give the Palestinians what they want to achieve peace, and the far left and the Palestinian leadership plot a Trojan horse strategy in advance of achieving their final goal of leaving me stateless? The answer, to me, is clear. It is time to draw a line in the sand.

The far left have a plan for Israel. It is one founded on its destruction. The liberal left and the progressives are delusional. They hold on to their dream of a new Middle East in which the surrounding states, including Palestine, will live in peace with Israel, despite the compelling evidence to the contrary. Little or no effort is expended into transforming a dogmatic and rejectionist Palestinian leadership into a pragmatic and flexible peace partner. Instead, blame and criticism is hurled solely upon Israel. As Ramallah heads for confrontation with Jerusalem following their September United Nations campaign it is time to draw a line in the sand.

We see the colour of that line as blue and white. They see it as red, or the colour of the Palestinian flag. We want peace, but not on these terms, and not with this duplicitous enemy. We know what they plot. Therefore, we draw a line in the sand.

The world may try to push us back to indefensible borders, but we draw a line in the sand and say, they shall not pass. They may try to claim we have no rights. We say that right is on our side. And so we draw a line in the sand.

I used to be in their camp. Not any more. My country is under attack. The enemies are outside our gates, but also within. This position does not make me right wing. It just makes me right. I am mainstream Israel, defending my country.

I used to be left. Now I am right.

Where were the Jews?

2011-08-23T14:27:00.002+03:00

My attention was directed to a newspaper article that announced a large demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London the day after a number of Israelis were killed and many more injured by the combined venom of Palestinian terror and rocket attacks against southern Israel.

I expected to read that Britain's Zionist and Jewish organisations had rallied British Jewry to stand in support and solidarity with a Jewish state under siege. But no!

The picture was of Palestinian flags and placards being held by anti-Israel protesters. I assume that some of these activists were Jewish. Israelis were dying and these people had the pro-activism to condemn Israel.

Certainly, there were no Israeli flags to be seen in the picture. I searched the internet expecting to see that there had been a turn out in support of Israel. Maybe, they were there but the press had, as usual, overlooked them? But no. Apparently the heads of the Jewish and Zionist bodies in Britain were below the barricades, or sleeping on the job!

As an Israeli, and one active in hasbara for Israel, I demand to know why the voice of British Jewry was not shouting out loud and clear as we were being attacked? If they weren't outside the Israeli Embassy, why weren't they outside the Palestinian diplomatic mission in London protesting Palestinian terror tactics against my country? Or don't they care enough to get up and become pro-active?

If I were a Jew in Britain, and cared for Israel, I would demand to know what these so-called pro-Israel professionals are doing? certainly, they are not hyper-active when it comes to moments of crisis for the Jewish state.

If these people can't do what they are paid to do, let them move over and allow other, fresher, and more dynamic people take over.

As you can tell, I am one angry Israeli who is disgusted with the country of my origin - and glad to be out of there.

Kurds and Palestinians. A comparison.

2011-07-24T09:46:00.000+03:00

A Jerusalem Post editorial reminded me of why we Israelis should highlight the recent declaration by Kurdish people of a democratic autonomy in North Kurdistan. They made this announcement in their new capital of Amed. New, that is, if the Turks, the Iranians, and the Iraqis do not ruthlessly put down this cry for independence, as they have done in the past. The Turks are already livid. North Kurdistan sits in a large area of southeastern Turkey.

Why is this important to Israel? Well, for one reason, the Kurdish case makes interesting comparison to the Palestinians.
The Kurds were overlooked when the Supreme Powers carved up the Mesopotamian region following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War One. Palestine was Mandated to Britain to be the National Home of the Jewish People. That was before Winston Churchill took a huge chunk of the land mass to be gifted to the Arabs as TransJordan. The Kurds were not so fortunate. They were completely overlooked as the Allied Powers divided up their territory to the Turks, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

It is clear that the Kurds were ethnically recognised people way before the Arabs concocted a Palestinian entity as a weapon to attack Israel.

Today, when it comes to Palestinians, the international community suddenly clamour for self-determination as the natural and inalienable right of each nationality, as the Jerusalem Post editorial reminded us. The international community should have the courage of its own convictions, if they truly stand by that principle, to encourage the self-determination of the Kurds. Let them not turn a blind eye so as not to offend Turkey, or Iraq, or even Iran. Let them, instead, place as much effort, funding, and resolutions in support for a sovereign state of North Kurdistan, as they have done for Palestinians. And if they don't, let them also back down on their poking of Israel in favour of Palestinian Arabs, lest they be accused of political hypocrisy.
If pressure and censure of Israel applies with regard to Palestinians, then so should censure and pressure be applied against Turkey, Iran, and Iraq in support of independence for the Kurds.

And here are some other strong reasons why Kurds should have preference, in the pecking order, over Palestinians.
Not only do the Kurds have longevity that Palestinian Arabs do not have, they also have far more genuine grievances and claims of genocide and human rights abuses than the Palestinians. Yes, I know that the Palestinians and their supporters have made global capital out of their perceived suffering but compared with the Kurds, they are living in Disneyland.
Perhaps one of the most startling statistics that lean in favour of an independent Kurdistan is there are an estimated thirty to thirty five million Kurds. This is far, far, more numerous than any estimation of Palestinian Arabs.
Unlike the Palestinians, the Kurds have distinctive characteristics. They have their own culture developed over the centuries. They have their own distinctive language. They established their own Republic of Ararat in 1927, way before there was any Arab nationalism, let alone a Palestinian one. Both Turkey and Iran brutally suppressed any Kurdish expression of self determination, until now. On the other hand, the Palestinian Arabs are indistinquishable from any other neighbouring Arab people, as the Jerusalem Post article reminded us. They share the same language, religion, culture. They have no unique ethnicity.
So why is it that the world is buzzing to establish recognition for a Palestinian state yet turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the Kurds? One obvious reason is that the Kurds do not have the passionate and wealthy patrons of the Palestinians, namely the Arab states, Islamic interests, and the International Socialists (actually Marxist Communists) who have adopted the Palestinians as a stick to beat Israel with.
The Kurds would be better advised to set up hundreds of human rights NGOs who could then apply to the members of the European Union for funding to highlight their plight. Perhaps they should pick a quarrel with Israel. That always works. Maybe they should get some advise on this from Turkey. Oops! Maybe not. Actually, that's a brilliant idea. They should protest to the United Nations about the criminal acts of genocide. apartheid, inflicted on them by the racist Turkish regime. Don't forget, Kurds, to use expressions such as "war crimes", disproportionate use of force", "deliberately targeting civilians". And make sure you end with claims of "ethnic cleansing." That always works. I would recommend that the Kurds demand a commission of enquiry from the United Nations Human Rights Council to come and examine the crimes against the Kurds perpetrated by the Turks. Make sure you get Richard Goldstone. Christine Chinkin and Navi Pillay will only get involved if you are ready to accuse Israel of human rights crimes.
Joking aside, the world couldn't care less what happens to the Kurds. They can continue to be slaughtered by the Turks for all the human rights people care. They are not, you see, flavour of the month, year, decade, as the Palestinians are. There is no money and no political or career benefit in promoting the Kurds. There is also no motive with which the international community can beat Israel. So, sorry Kurds, you will just have to establish your independence on your own. And good luck to you. Israelis, at least, genuinely wish you success. I think that Israel has an interest is helping and supporting the Kurds, as we have in assisting South Sudan in their national endeavours.

Add Cape Town 1 to Durban 3.

2011-07-23T07:06:00.000+03:00

This is an excerpt from a talk I gave to Telfed Raanana on July 21, 2011. Telfed is the association of South African immigrants in Israel.

As most of this audience is ex-South Africans let me begin by informing you of an event that will take place in Cape Town this November.

Winnie Mandela with join Archbishop Desmond Tutu in what they are calling an “International People’s Court”. They will decide whether Israel is practicing apartheid against Palestinians. The chair person announced that they would determine if the treatment of Palestinians by Israel meets the criteria of the United Nations convention against the crime of apartheid.

This sounds wonderful, and these personalities will have the sympathy of the world as the perceived champions of the apartheid battle successfully won in South Africa in the last century. But, there is a disturbing undercurrent going on as we approach the date for this lynch mob trial against Israel. The chair person, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, said that the tribunal was being assembled to examine Israel’s “recognized violation of international law.”

Another panel member is Ronnie Kasrils who is closely associated with the BDS Movement. In 2006 he said in an article in South Africa’s “Mail & Guardian”,

“We no longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the apartheid regime. We call child murderers ‘child murderers.’”

He also said “Those who use methods reminiscent of the Nazis must be told they are behaving like Nazis.” He went on “We feel sorrow for those who died under rocket fire in Israel, but we do not blame Hizbollah or Palestinian resistance any more than we blamed the South African liberation forces when civilians died.”

In other words, for Kasrils, terrorism that slaughters civilians is OK. If you are on the side of the terrorists then civilian deaths can be justified. Kasrils said that this kangaroo court “must take strong measures against Israel. We applaud governments that decided to sever ties with Israel.”

Clearly, Israel is guilty before this hearing even begins. With the additional presence of Irish Mairead Maguire who participated in the 2010 Gaza flotilla, and Alice Walker, who participated in the 2011 Gaza flotilla, the odds are heavily stacked against Israel.

Another associate of this tribunal, Jackie Achmat, complained that Palestinians who hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers were being tried in military courts. “Even under apartheid, we didn’t have separate legal systems for black and white people.” His logic is confusing but, in Achmat’s words, any Israeli apartheid is worse than South Africa’s apartheid. In late 2009, Achmat told an Open Shuhada Street audience that “95% of Israelis are racists.” It is clear what he thinks of Israelis in advance of the people’s court.

Don’t expect Israel to participate in this witch hunt. Why is this significant for Israel? Because this panel will have international resonance to people who are impressed with names linked to the apartheid issue. Because a world will be inclined to listen to their voices and their decisions, even if their foregone conclusions are warped and incorrect. Because a powerful minority is forcing delegitimization onto Israel based on crimes against humanity, and apartheid is considered a crime against humanity.

What they are ignoring is that true apartheid is being practiced by the Palestinians and the Arabs as they seek to remove the Jewish state of Israel from their presence in the Middle East. Not only apartheid but also incitement to genocide, and ethnic cleansing. To this we can add blatant anti-Semitism.

In support of the Palestinians, this panel would accuse Israel of being a racist state but, in a recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, 73% of Palestinian polled supported Islamic teachings to murder Jews. 80% agreed with the Hamas Charter which says,

“The time will not come until the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews hide behind trees and rocks who will cry out ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come on and kill him!’”

The Tutu/Mandela tribunal has no intention of examining or including this in their findings.

The poll found that 61% of Palestinians reject the idea of a peaceful Palestinian state living alongside Israel as a solution to the Arab/Israeli war. 66% said that their real goal should be to set up a Palestinian state alongside Israel as the first step to creating a single Palestinian-controlled state. Kasrils clearly identifies with this ambition.

72% of Palestinians deny Jewish history and connection to the land of Israel. An overwhelming 92% of Palestinians say that Jerusalem should only be the Palestinian capital, and only 3% of them said it should be the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state.

Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly said that any Palestinian state must be free of Jews – Judenrein. Is that not ethnic cleansing? Is that not apartheid? The Palestinian Authority has threatened that any Arab who sells land to a Jew will be executed. Is that not Nazi Nuremberg justice?

These are just some of the extenuating circumstances that Israel finds itself in. These, together with three major and aggressive wars waged by the Arabs against the Jewish state together with decades of the most brutal and inhuman acts of terror, force Israel to fight for its survival. Yet, the Cape Town delegitimizers have no intention of letting facts cloud their preconditioned judgment. Israel will be found guilty, and the implications will resound around the world.

So, when I hear about Israel being compared to an apartheid state I am reminded what my friend, Raanan Gissin, told an audience at a recent IBCA event in Herzlia. He said that he had compared Israel to South Africa and the only thing he could find was that Israel was roughly the size of South Africa’s Kruger National Park. That’s the place where they put their endangered species, fence the place off, and have an army of game wardens protect these endangered animals from people who come with weapons to kill them. This reminded Gissin, and me, of Israel today.

The Jews, an endangered species, found refuge in the Zionist state and are protected by our game wardens, the IDF, who defend us from those who come to kill us. The only difference between our game wardens and those in the Kruger Park is that sometimes our game wardens have to make house calls on those who want to kill us, before they set out to do so.

Palestinian unilateralism and '67 borders.

2011-07-14T13:51:00.000+03:00

I was present at a remarkable session of the Israeli Knesset Forum in Jerusalem on July 13, 2011. many notable people expressed their views on the new Middle East, the striving for democracy, and the impending Palestinian strategy to establish a virtual form of statehood at the United Nations come September.
Here are the words of Dore Gold, who was once Israel's Ambassador to the United Nation. He subsequently wrote a book on that organization entitled "Tower of Babel." Here is what he told us at the Knesset;

"Frankly, we have no idea where the Middle East is heading. We hope that the revolution of freedom will grip the population, will affect the political system, and what will emerge will be a democratic peace. But we don’t know where we are today. Are we in 1945, are we in 1648, are we right after the last of the Crusades? Where are we? We have absolutely no idea. And because we have such uncertainty, when we are asked to take risks for peace, we have to approach this question with a wide variety of scenarios that could emerge.

General Amidror asked a rhetorical question. Can anybody guarantee that the regimes around us will be there in a few years? He wrote that in 2005. Can anyone guarantee who will be ruling Egypt? No. Do we know who will be ruling Syria next year? Absolutely not. And even our old partner for peace, Jordan, we can’t be certain who will be ruling that country in five or ten years. I will add one other element to this uncertainty. Iraq. We have been living with the reality where the American army has in one way or another has been inside Iraq, over Iraq, next to Iraq, basically since 1991, in one form or another. Iraq who is always viewed as the key element of Israel’s eastern front was removed from our equation for many years, but can anyone guarantee that Iraq as a democracy will succeed, and Iraq will become a beacon in the Arab world about how democracy works? Or, alternatively, will Iraq become a satellite of Iran? We don’t know. It is in that context, when we discuss the issue of Israel’s future borders, we have to take into account this range of possibilities.

Israel actually has a legacy of several of our greatest leaders, I use the American analogy of the Mount Rushmore of Israel – Moshe Dayan, Itzchak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon – the architects of Israel’s national security doctrine, who left us with a very clear legacy, do not return to the 1967 lines.

Rabin’s last speech in the Knesset, one month before he was assassinated, he told the members of the Knesset “We must preserve the Jordan Valley in the widest sense of the word.” Not the river bed, the eastern slopes of the West Bank hills. That was the legacy that we received. Many people like to throw off this legacy. So, what does that have to do with Palestinian unilateralism? When you switch on the radio in the morning you hear that Abu Mazen is going to the U.N. to declare a state. It is as though states are declared at the United Nations. They are not. New states are declared in their capital. The recent new members of the international community, East Timor, Kosovo, South Sudan, were declared inside their countries, and then afterwards they are declared states by the UN. You don’t go to the UN to declare a state. There is a problem here of misinformation and ignorance.

So what are the options for Mahmoud Abbas this coming September? Option 1 is to do like other states, which is to stand in Ramallah and go out on his balcony, or in his office, and declare a new Palestinian state. All indications today are that this is not what he wants to do. He wants to be passive and he wants to receive a Palestinian state on a silver platter.

Which brings us to Option 2, for the Palestinians. This is to seek UN membership without declaring a state. This is sort of like driving a car without a driving license. That’s what he seems to be heading for. That’s what he wrote in the New York Times. That is what Saeb Erekat has said repeatedly in interviews. The serious problem, of course, because anyone who understand the UN Charter knows there is a procedure. You first have to go to the UN Security Council and, if it approved there, you take it to the General Assembly. But, in the Security Council, while we have had our differences with President Obama, he has been very clear that the Palestinian state will not be attained at the UN and we have every reason to believe that an effort to attain a Palestinian state through the Security Council, which is the normal order of events, will be vetoed by the United States. So if Abu Mazen doesn’t want to declare a state in Ramallah, if it’s known that a Palestinian state at the UN is not going to work, what’s his third option?

The third option is to go to the UN General Assembly and the UN General Assembly is the place where you the clarity of resolutions, the power of resolutions, but they are not binding on international law. They don’t change anything in the reality of the Middle East. So what is he going to gain by going to the UN General Assembly? There will be a resolution that says;

Clause 1. There should be a Palestinian state.

Clause 2. It should be recognized by the member states of the United Nations.

Clause 3. (This is the critical clause.). The borders of the Palestinian state should be the lines of June 4, 1967.

If that is his goal, and that is what I suspect is his goal, and those that are intimately involved in his decision making have admitted to me, his goal will be to enshrine the 1967 lines at the UN General Assembly. In other words, just at a time when we look at the region as Israelis and we see complete uncertainty around us, where no one can guarantee whether we are heading, to democratic stability or greater chaos, Abu Mazen will try to determine where the future borders of Israel will be. He will put us exactly back to the lines that the fathers of our national security doctrine, Dayan, Rabin, Sharon, said we must never pull back to. And that includes withdrawing from the Jordan Valley.

Therefore, I see, when I look at the developments that are going on in the Middle East, when I look at the challenge of Palestinian unilateralism, and if I look at a Knesset anxious to take part in the struggle for Israel’s future, that the struggle we are going to face come September is the struggle for defensible borders. It is a struggle to make sure that we are not going to be pushed back to lines that our leaders have said are indefensible. There were diplomats 44 years ago at the UN who once supported not going back to them.

I close with one final observation. Resolution 242 never called on Israel to fully withdraw from the territories that it captured in a war of self defense in 1967. To impose that on Israel is simply changing the goalposts and changing the rules of the game. We have a collective obligation together to defend Israel’s rights to borders that can be defended.

IRWIN COTLER, a member of the Canadian Parliament, and a former Minister of Justice, added an important rider to Dore Gold’s statement;

"Dore spoke of UN resolution 242 and a non return to 1967 borders. I think it is important not only to address this matter on the principle of security which is clearly there. It should also be put on the principle of international law, especially when you make the representation to a President like Barack Obama in a language that he can understand.

Simply put, I will use this analogy. State A targets State B in a war of aggression, not once, not twice, but three times. If the target State B, and I’ll give it a name, if target State B – Israel – is then required to return all the territory to aggressor State A, this not only licenses him, but rewards acts of aggression. It means that states can wage war with impunity, with the full knowledge that they have no indemnification to make, or to be held accountable.

So, there is a principle under international law that says, and former Prime Minister Begin used it again and again, that no one can profit from the commission of an illegal act. And if Israel goes back to 1967 borders, it not only licenses, but rewards, acts of aggression. I think we should be using an international law that is applied, generally speaking, in international relations.

It should also apply with respect to the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Important initiative from the Israeli Knesset.

2011-07-13T19:36:00.000+03:00

Today, July 13,2001, I attended a landmark initiative from Israel's Knesset.
The Knesset Forum on International Relations launched a hearing on Middle East Democracy. In a session that achieved a broad coalition of cross party support a statement was issued from the seat of Israel's parliament which read:

Whereas demonstrations, riots, and revolutions have rocked the Middle East from Morocco to Iran and political stability, violence, and call for change of government have touched over a dozen countries in this region, all people have the right to live free from dictatorship and live in safety and security.

At a time when people throughout the Middle East seek to create systems of liberty free of corruption, extremist forces seek to turn popular hope into personal power. These forces of violence do not respect the basic rights of freedom and liberty and danger the yearning for freedom across the region and the world.

Therefore, it is resolved that the Knesset Forum on International Relations;
1. Supports the desire of the people in the Middle East to live freely and enjoy democratic freedom, and
2. Recognizes the necessity for Israel's security needs at a time of great instability in the region, and
3. Appeals to the global community to support Israel as a beacon of democracy and human right, and
4. Condemns extremists forces that promote violence and bloodshed, and
5. Calls on the international community to isolate radical elements that oppose freedom, and
6. Conveys hope for the rest of the Middle East to enjoy the benefits of democratic rights.

For better or worse, Israel is an integral part of the Middle East and, with it's record of freedoms and example of a liberal democracy, it has lots to offer to regional nations groping in the dark for the door of true democracy.

We were assured that this was only the initial meeting of this new initiative, and that Israel intends to turn these fine words into finer deeds for the benefit of the region.

THE NEXT GREAT ALIYAH.

2011-07-12T22:45:00.000+03:00

Over a cold drink in the Netanya sun, a London contact of mine asked me an interesting question while we were discussing the future of Israel.

"So, where is the next great Aliyah to Israel going to come from?"

Without hesitation I responded, "The Anusim. The secret Jews."

I am no expert on this subject. I staggered across this amazing and hidden drama of Jewish history by accident.

While browsing through the shelves of a Barnes & Noble bookstore during a vacation stopover in Florida, I picked up a tantalisingly entitled book. It was called "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean." I thought it would be a light chuckle of an easy holiday read while we fittingly sailed through the Caribbean on a cruise to Panama. It was written by Ed Kritzler, and it turned out to be an amazing read. It had little to do with swashbuckling antics, a la Johnny Depp. Instead, it was a profound study of Spanish Jews who were hounded by a cruel and dogmatic Catholic Church that tortured, expelled, and burnt Jews to death in public exhibitions of massacre if they failed to convert to the Christian faith. This persecution chased them across four continents. The death toll was enormous. Jews who could not escape adopted an overt Christianity, while many risked death by overtly maintaining Jewish rituals at home. A large number ensured their heritage by marrying people of the faith who also outwardly appeared to be members of the Catholic faith.

I assumed that these Jews were long lost to Christianity until fate brought me back to this intriguing topic. I helped a client to find a new home in Netanya. Gloria Mound had made the move from Gan Yavne in the south of Israel to be close to the Netanya Academic College who had contracted to receive her 40 year old archives on the Anusim, the forgotten Jews of Spain and Portugal. She, and her husband, had sent decades investigating, researching, and recording the history of this people. They came across many who admitted, in deepest confidence, that they were Jewish but did not want this information to become public. They lived in a society to this day as secret Jews and felt concerned should this knowledge be known to their neighbours, friends, and the general society in which they lived and worked, which was exclusively and outwardly Christian as it has been for centuries. Buried underground, they were hesitant to announce their core faith. Even today, they are the closet Jews.

But there are signs of an awakening. The Jerusalem Post of July 12, 2011 had an article "Chuetas of Majorca recognized as Jewish." The article displayed a member of the newly announced Jewish community in Palma de Majorca dancing with a Torah at the Shavei Israel's seminary for Bnei Anusim. In may of this year there had been a memorial service in Palma, commemorating the execution of 37 Chueta Jews for practicing Judaism in secret. They, including Rabbi Raffi Valla, who was the secret rabbi of the Anusim, were burned alive.

The grave injustice done to the Jews has been blotted out of Spanish history. This shameful chapter has been kept secret from Spaniards but, increasingly Spanish authorities are being asked to open their archives so that researchers can study official records that had not been seen for centuries.

DNA tests done on Portugal reveal that as many as six million Portuguese have some degree of Jewish blood in their veins. Secret Jews inhabit the Caribbean, Central and South America. Slowly, inevitably, people are becoming curious in discovering their roots. They volunteer their names and details to researchers who examine family trees, name and location associations, in order to establish a more detailed record of the Anusim.

Israel is witnessing the early signs of a return to open Judaism. This is increasingly linked with a desire to start a new life, with their new pride in their identity, in Israel.

There are a number of organisations who have outreach programs to these secret Jews. They include the Shavei Israel organisation, and the International Institute for Secret Jews (Anusim) Studies which includes the Casa Shalom Library, at the Netanya Academic College.

I am proposing setting up a special Facebook group for Anusim. This group will have information published in English and Spanish. Anyone interested in helping with this research, or have information, should contact me and I will pass you over to the right person. We are aware that many people may be curious as to their roots, yet not ready to make any public disclosure. Concerns for confidentiality will be strictly observed.

Many people who are involved with this yet to be fully discovered section of Judaism, feel like I do. That these people, when the awakening becomes public and larger in numbers, will become the next huge wave of Aliyah to Israel, which is the only place they can truly enjoy the freedom to openly celebrate and appreciate their faith.

The delegitimization of the delegitimizers.

2011-07-08T14:50:00.000+03:00

This year's version of the Gaza flotilla is dead in the water. Sunk by a changed perception of them by public opinion, and European authorities who are fed up with them.
Last year they were flavor of the month. Their mission hit headlines with the action that took place on the Turkish "Mavi Marmara" ship. The world forgot that five other ships were tamely towed into Ashdod port and the passengers deported.
What was behind the utter failure of the Gaza flotilla exercise?
Following the refusal of the Turks to not only allow the "Mavi Marmara" sail, but also to disallow their ports to be used as launch pads for yet another anti-Israel exercise, the organizers decided to base their fleet in a Greek port before setting out on their provocative cruise to Hamas. Big mistake!
They did not take into consideration the warming of ties between Greece and Israel. This diplomatic embrace suits both countries. Israel, following violent verbal and physical confrontation from an increasingly Islamic Erdogen government, turned to Greece as a convenient and useful counter. Greece, struggling with a serious economic crisis, welcomed Israeli advances with open arms. Increasing Israel investment and tourism into Greece will significantly assist the Greek economy. Israelis share a love of Greek culture. It was a natural fit.
Past Greek governments had been quite radically left wing but recent trends have made the current government much more pragmatic. So, when the Gaza flotilla fly approached the Greek spider's web, Israel requested the Greek authority to recognize the ships as representing a provocative act against a friendly country. The Greeks obliged by refusing to grant sailing permits to the boats. When a number of them tried to sneak out of port the Greek coast guard chased them down, returned them to port, and arrested the captains.
Gradually, the number of passengers drifted back home as defeat stared them in the face.
The Israeli Government had learned from last year's events. This time they employed a great deal of diplomatic effort and succeeded in showing several European leaders the false flotilla propaganda pretense to the extent that a number of countries, apart from Turkey, refused to accept the flotilla and did nothing to assist them when the radicals asked for their help. The diplomatic cooperation was a success for Israeli governmental ministries involved in strengthened ties with their counterparts in mainland Europe. Not only did the Gaza flotilla fail to increase the delegitimization of Israel, by their action they affected a public legitimization of the Jewish state by many southern European nations who displayed common sense and close cooperation with Israel.
Not only was the Gaza flotilla circus a victory for Israeli diplomacy it was also a stunning success for the massive social media efforts of a small group of volunteers. An office and computers were provided by the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel's Herzlia and a team of savvy people created the architecture of a grassroots organization that pumped out facts, information, articles, videos, discrediting the message of the flotilla organizers. They set up a website,Twitter accounts, and numerous Facebook groups made up of pro-Israel lawyers, doctors, teachers, activists, NGOs, bloggers. The team translated material into various languages and attracted pro-Israeli activists in their own mother tongue. The network grew rapidly. Feedback clearly indicated that the general public was prepared to listen to their case and be persuaded that the flotilla narrative was a lie, that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, except in the case of Gilad Shalit, and that these so-called "human rights activists" refused to help a person held for five years in isolation by the Hamas authority that they wished to embrace. This hypocrisy turned public opinion against them.
The social media structure that has connected millions of people in record time has been described as a pro-Israel Facebook revolution, though other forms of social media, apart from Facebook, were operated with successful results.
An added value to their success was the cooperation between this small group of grassroots volunteers and the authorities. Research exposed names, organizations, and links that led to hundreds of extremists being prevented from flying into Israel to cause chaos and disruption. The material found will be a rich source of intelligence that can be used to identify the money trail back from the radical groups to the donors. It could cause embarrassment for a number of countries, foundations, and other official bodies.
If the social media was responsible for the Arab Spring, the same tools were used in this Israeli Summer. The structure is on place to be used by groups on an ongoing basis. More importantly, it has become a powerful communication instrument to reclaim the Israeli narrative and allow Israel to take the moral high ground where it rightly belongs.

GAZA FLOTILLA TRUTHS - IT'S INSANE, IMMORAL, AND ILLEGAL.

2011-07-02T18:35:00.000+03:00

INSANE:

Gaza today is a middle class society being portrayed by the flotilla, and BDS crowd, as one of the greatest humanitarian disasters on earth. The 2011 flotilla is sailing just days after Gaza City opened its second super shopping mall replete with a wide range of goods, mostly supplied by Israel. By the way, most of the building material, including the moving escalators, came from Israel.

Even assuming that Palestinians can’t survive on an excess of one and a half billion dollars of annual international aid plus a local economy that is growing at a double digit rate per annum, thanks to the cooperation of Israel, why are these flotilla people blowing more than ten million Euros on a publicity circus? Danny Williams in the February 2, 2011 edition of “Liberal Conspiracy” said that this figure only covered the hire of the ships but did not include the fuel, personal expenses, or the needless aid which, in the case of the American ship, seems to be an essential bundle of love letters to the people of Gaza. Will Gazans survive without this essential humanitarian aid, I wonder, if “The Audacity of Hope” gets diverted to Ashdod?

William’s assessment did not include the more recent addition of a Jordanian ship for which Jordanians miraculously found $805,000 to buy this boat. And you thought they were also struggling to make end meet?

The twisted logic of anti-Israel radicals can pervert anything. Take the example of the “Juliano” ship of the flotilla. This boat was named after Juliano Mer, an Israel Arab from Haifa who closely identified with the Palestinian cause to the extent that he organized a theatre in Jenin. Mer was gunned down outside his theatre by Palestinian gunmen. Yet, despite the fact that he was murdered by Palestinians the activists can push credence to such an extreme degree as to name a boat after him as part of their Palestinian platform and use it to condemn Israel. They are unable to find the irony in their decision.

The American radicals involved with the “The Audacity of Hope” have fronted their publicity stunt with useful idiots who purport to champion minority civil rights. Alice Walker may be author of The Color Purple, but it is the Code Pink radical movement who intend to arrive in Gaza and embrace the Hamas leaders of Gaza and hand them their love letters with speeches of support. Do these people not know that this Islamic terror regime came to power in a brutal and bloody coup during which they threw opposition members of rooftops to their death? Do they not know that Hamas is imposing a radical Shariah law in Gaza that marginalizes women, permits honor killings, executes and tortures gays, and put their children into military style summer camps where they are taught how to kill Jews? When they return to the calm of mid America will they then realize the insanity of what they have done? I doubt it.

In their political ignorance and blindness they do not realize that, in their meddling, they are delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority. One of the chief organizers of the flotilla, Joe Catron, announced in the Palestine News Network that the flotilla is indeed a political provocation. When has it pretended to be anything else?” They think they are attacking the legitimacy of Israel. Israel will simply impound the boats, deport the radical activists and misguided passengers, and get on with life. The real and profound damage of this expensive charade will be to undermine the so-called moderate arm of Palestinian society, namely the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. By openly embracing Hamas, an act that would be magnified by the close attention of the media horde, they strengthen the Palestinian extremists who wish to ratchet up the violence, and they weaken a Palestinian political element on whom any hope for peace and reconciliation depends upon. The sheer act of heading for Hamas, and ignoring the cooperative venture between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, highlights what really lies at the malevolent heart of the Gaza flotilla. It is a deliberate provocation to a success story of mutual interest. They know it. This is what Catron meant by his words.

Israel and the official Palestinian Authority ship massive amounts of aid, money, goods, and services to Gaza through official, efficient, and supervised channels. Surely this is what they should have been promoting? The truth is the flotilla organizers are not interested in a peaceful solution. That is the evil insanity of this flawed mission.

IMMORAL.

There are Jewish floaters on the flotilla boats. What is that all about? How can these people embrace Hamas Gaza? Have they not read Article 7 of the Hamas Charter? How can they hug and kiss people whose motivation is enshrined in these words;

“The time will come when the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them until the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees who will cry out ‘Oh Muslim! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!’”

Notice this Hamas Charter does not talk of Israeli, or Zionists. They talk of Jews. To be honest, I did not know where to categorize the American Jews who are sailing to support the racist, Anti-Semitic, Hamas. Are they insane? Are they immoral? I think they are both. They are worse than useful idiots. They are traitors to their people and to their faith. Shame on them!

Much more can be said about the insanity of the Gaza flotilla. It certainly is not a humanitarian mission. The International Red Cross and the United Nations have said so. Insanity and immorality merge when describing the excessive activism that goes into promoting the fraud of the Palestinian condition. The World Bank statistics show that 15 million children die of hunger every year. None die of hunger in Gaza. They also state that well over 500 million people live in absolute poverty in Asian, Africa, and Latin American countries. Why are these flotilla people heading to a prospering society? By the way, the International Herald Tribune on June 27, 2011, reported that an additional two luxury hotels are opening up in Gaza in July. They also record something we have known for some time, that thousands of new cars are flooding the wide new streets of Gaza, and two dozen new schools are in the advanced planning stage.

Wouldn’t the efforts of the flotilla, if they were genuine humanitarians, be better appreciated in more desperate parts of the world? It would, but then they wouldn’t be able to beat on Israel, would they?

So we are back to the main aim of the flotilla which is a political provocation organized by people who support Hamas or other terrorists. Catron, who I referred to earlier, is a leading member of the International Solidarity Movement. This is an organization of hardened radicals who aid and abet terrorists as they did when they protected the two British suicide bombers who were on their way to blow up Israelis in Mikes Place on the Tel Aviv beachfront on April 30, 2003. Three were killed and more than 50 injured by their “charitable” act.

The immorality is pretending to offer substantial help to Gazans while their real intent is to discredit Israel with a bunch of lies.

These pretend humanitarians, who claim to be coming to champion the abused human rights of people in Gaza, have studiously ignored the human rights of one lonely guy in Gaza. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists who infiltrated into Israel over five years ago and dragged this Israeli back into Gaza where they are holding him in defiance of human rights, and in defiance of the Geneva Convention. In June, they refused the demand of the International Red Cross to have access to Shalit, or to receive evidence of sign of life. Shalit has been held in isolation for five years. Hamas has consistently refused access to him. They have refused to give details of his condition or even if he is still alive. They have tainted his family with mock demonstrations of a desolate and aging Shalit being terrorized by Hamas. One of the main flotilla activists, Dror Feiler, asked the head of the Free Gilad Shalit campaign to give him a letter to produce if and when the flotilla mob get to Gaza. The Shalit guy correctly conditioned the release of a letter to Gilad to the Gaza flotilla people personally delivering it to Gilad and not simply use it as a publicity stunt. Not surprisingly, they did not respond to this condition. That is the immorality and fraud of their mission. It has zero to do with human rights. It does nothing to protect Israel. It does nothing to advance a peace process. It interferes with cooperative ventures between Israel and the Palestinians via the official and recognized channel. It has more to do with hate of Israel than love for Palestinians. It is an extravagant waste of money that appalls those involved with genuine humanitarian missions.

ILLEGAL.

Now we come to the criminal actions of this fraudulent campaign. The Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza is legal. International law says so. No matter how much these radicals may protest, this is an inevitable truth. So their provocative actions, in attempting to break this blockade, gives support to an internationally recognized terrorist organization that targets innocent Israeli civilians in rocket and mortar attacks, suicide missions, and kidnapping of Israelis for ransom. Israel is within its rights to defend its citizens. It provides full logistical support for the transfer of aid, goods, and services to the people of Gaza. The Israeli blockade is legal. The action of the flotilla in defying international law is, therefore, illegal. And they know it.

Allow me to add another element of the illegality of the flotilla, namely the media that are accompanying the radicals. Let me explain this point with an anecdote.

A local reporter hears that his friend is planning a major bank robbery. He asks his friend to join him on the heist in the interests of getting the scoop on this breaking event. He joins the gang on their ride to the bank, enters the bank with the robbers and witnesses the job in action. He is on the spot when the police arrive in force. After a scuffle they overcome the bank robbers but also arrest him.

“Wait!” he demands. “You can’t arrest me. I’m a reporter. I have immunity under freedom of the press!”

“Screw you,” replied the police chief. “You’re an accomplice. You’re nicked!”

The media decided to embed themselves with the flotilla crowd knowing they were setting out to defy the law. Faced with punishment when they are towed into an Israeli port with the rest of the passengers they are claiming “freedom of the press” as their excuse for immunity from criminal charges being lodged against them. Many would argue for a free press, but when journalists side with people defying the law, especially when they are terrorist supporting radicals, they have crossed that red line between honor and cynical dishonesty, even illegality.

BARRY SHAW

THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL

theviewfromisrael@gmail.com

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, OR AIDING AND ABETTING A CRIME?

2011-07-01T09:44:00.000+03:00

A local newspaper reporter had a criminal friend who was planning a bank robbery.
The reporter asked his pal to join the criminals gang on the bank heist and the robber agreed.
They drove together, the reporter, his friend, and the gang, to the scene of the crime. The reporter joined the gang as they burst into the bank, frightened the customers, and demanded the money from the bank staff.
Before they could make off with their loot the police arrived in numbers. There was a scuffle. Some of the gang violently resisted arrest and people were hurt.
All were arrested, including the newspaper reporter.
"But I'm a journalist!", he protested. "I have immunity under freedom of the press!"
"Screw you," said the cop. "You've been nicked."

The Gaza flotilla sets out on its Mediterranean cruise knowing that their act is illegal. The Israeli blockade on Gaza is legal. International law clearly says so. The maritime radicals willingly set out to break that law, and the media have asked to join them. The media are, therefore, embedded with those embarking on an illegal act and in the full knowledge that they are breaking the law. As in the parable, the journalists did not ask to join the police. Instead, they rushed to join the radicals. Like the local reporter,they are, in effect, aiding and abetting in a crime. Like the local reporter, they should be arrested and punished.
If they get away this time we may find them embedded with terrorists next time. After all, they often broadcast the motivation of these killers rather than cover the personal tragedy that they cause.
The press, it seems, has no interest in presenting a full and fair picture. It simply takes one side of a story and projects it from the perspective of the author. This is bias reporting. When their reports do not accurately and fully reflect the position of the legitimate party to a conflict their work is tainted with dishonesty.
Freedom of the press is no excuse to avoid justice.

THE FLOTILLA FRAUD SINKS THE SHIPS THAT LIE.

2011-06-29T06:41:00.000+03:00

One thing for sure is that the Gaza flotilla radicals are lying through their teeth.
Weeping crocodile tears for the weak and the oppressed they head of for Gaza to relieve the suffering of a increasingly middle class society who have just opened their second super Shopping Mall in Gaza City. Meanwhile, they have turned their backs on the Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, Tunisians, Yemenites, who are being slaughtered by their leaders in favour of a terrorist regime that also tramples on the rights of its people in Gaza.
Their adventure cruise in the Mediterranean may seem to them to be a goodwill mission but the effect will be to dislocate the Middle East even further and drive a dangerous wedge deep within Palestinian society. The result of their expensive, foolish, and illegal jaunt will not affect Israel one iota.
Let me explain with three sharp examples:

1. THE FLOTILLA RADICALS, BY THEIR ACTION, WILL DELEGITIMISE THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY.
By heading for Hamas controlled Gaza they are outlawing the official Palestinian Authority in favour of the Islamic terror regime in the Gaza Strip. This is bound to cause irrevocable damage within Palestinian society, fracture even further Palestinian politics, and make peace even more distant. In their ignorance, they are unaware of the delicate Palestinian political balance and rivalry. Instead, they intend to go blundering into Gaza. This can only result in stirring up a hornet's nest that will weaken the more moderate arm of Palestinian politics. Or maybe it is one of their intentions to support and strengthen an Islamic terror regime that has introduced harsh Shariah law rather than a pragmatic liberal, secular, democracy? By doing so, they trample on any hope of normal human and civil rights as we know them for Hamas does not respect rights for women, gays, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Yet, amazingly, these are the people to whom the flotilla crazies are sailing with their letters of love and their out-of-date humanitarian aid. Come on! Give me a break!

2. THERE IS NO HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN GAZA. The International Red Cross has said so.
You only have to search Google Earth to view spectacular pictures of modern day life in Gaza with beautiful homes, gorgeous squares and broad avenues, luxury hotels, fine restaurants, new sporting facilities, several splendid shopping malls. So what is all this nonsense of coming to rescue and free the poor people of Gaza?
The gates are open between Israel and Gaza with aid, goods, money, and services finding their way into the Strip in an orderly and supervised fashion. There is full cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. All goods and services are checked by both parties and, as long as there are no weapon grade materials, everything flows into Gaza unhindered. Since the upheaval in Egypt the border between Gaza and Ehypt is now also open. The rush of Palestinian wishing to leave has been surprising. Only an average of two hundred and fifty people care to "escape" Gaza daily.
If their motivation was to bring human rights and an expression of love and humanity to people in Gaza why did they refuse to make contact or demand that Hamas release Gilad Shalit. This Israeli boy was kidnapped in Israel, dragged across the border into Gaza, thrown into a dark room, been kept isolated from the world for five full years. Hamas has refused to offer any sign of life. They refused access from the International Red Cross. They cruelly taunt Shalit's family. Yet, the "humanitarian" cruise passengers refuse to confront Hamas and demand the immediate release of Gilad Shalit from Gaza should they get there. Alice Walker! Where is your compassion now?
Readers should research not only the level of prosperity in Palestinian society with an economy growing at a rate of 12% annually. They should also compare Palestinian lifestyle with other areas of the world. Life expectancy if longer than people in Africa and Asia. Child mortality is lower than those regions. Obesity is greater than those places. All signs of a healthy, wealthy, society.
So why aren't these flotilla radicals not taking their aid to places where it is desperately needed? Because the starving in Africa are not the poster child of the radicals, nor do they interest the Arab Muslim world. They have no interest in following the lead of stars such as Bob Geldorf and Bono who are genuinely trying to help the genuine needy of this world. Israel helps these people, as it helps improve the lives of Palestinians. The flotilla mob, however, are using their pet project as a club to beat Israel. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the bottom line, the profound truth, about what this flotilla joke is all about.

3. THE FLOTILLA PARTICIPANTS ARE COMMITTING AN ILLEGAL ACT.
The blockade of Gaza is legal. International law says so. After suicide bombers, tens of thousands of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli civilian areas, the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, Israel has the legal right to protect itself. The supervised flow of goods into Gaza is one legal way of ensuring its self defense. The flotilla mob want to destroy that defense. They embark on their flotilla campaign knowing that it is a criminal act. They try to dress it up with the liberal language of humanity but their malevolent intent is to cause harm to Israelis.

It is imperative that Israel show the funders and organisers of future flotillas that their provocations will be costly. Israel should impound all equipment used in this illegal act against the Jewish state. It should check international law and see if it is legal to impound the ships themselves. Those who provide the ships, the crew, and the equipment will think twice if they know they chance losing their assets.
It is time to close this avenue of confrontation.

FRAMING THE IMAGE.

2011-06-25T10:19:00.000+03:00

PUBLIC OPINION IS FORMED, INFORMED, MISINFORMED BY THE IMAGES THEY RECEIVE ON THEIR TV SCREENS OR IN THEIR NEWSPAPERS. USUALLY, TV AUDIENCES AND NEWSPAPER READERS ARE PASSIVE MINDS ABSORBING WHATEVER SIGNALS THEY ARE RECEIVING, NOT REALLY ANALYSING THE DATA THEY ARE BEING FED. THEY SIMPLY ACCEPT IT AND ABSORB IT. THEY RARELY CHALLENGE OR QUESTION THE ‘FACTS’ THEY ARE BEING FED.

WHEN YOU GET AN IMAGE THAT IS PERSISTENTLY ECHOED AND REPEATED IT HAS THE EFFECT OF SOLIDIFYING THE PERCEIVED NOTION THAT THAT PRODUCT IS RELIABLE, THAT THE NEWS ANGLE IS CORRECT, THAT THE IMAGE IS THE REAL THING.

NOBODY QUESTIONS THAT THE IMAGE HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT, THAT THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE TO THE STORY, THAT, IN FACT, THE IMAGE IS MISLEADING AND ITS EFFECT ON PUBLIC OPINION IS A FORM OF MANIPULATION BY THE MEDIA.

THIS HAS BEEN THE FATE OF ISRAEL’S IMAGE ON THE WORLD.

ISRAEL HAS HAD TO FIGHT SEVERAL WARS AND DEFEND ITSELF FROM THE MOST HORRENDOUS ACTS OF PALESTINIAN TERROR FOR DECADES. IT HAS BEEN ASSAULTED BY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ROCKETS FIRED BY AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANISATION IN LEBANON CAUSING MILLIONS OF ISRAELIS CITIZENS TO FLEE THEIR HOMES IN NORTHERN ISRAEL. IT HAS BEEN VICTIM TO THE SAME FATE IN THE SOUTH AS ANOTHER ISLAMIC TERROR REGIME ALSO FIRED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL’S SOUTHERN TOWNS AND VILLAGES.

BUT THE CONSISTENT MEDIA MESSAGE IS NOT OF ISRAELI SUFFERING, OR ISRAELI JUSTIFICATION IN DEFENDING ITS CITIZENS FROM THIS ONGOING ASSAULT. INSTEAD, THE MEDIA IMAGE HAS BEEN DOCTORED TO PRESENT A BRUTAL REGIME DELIBERATELY OPPRESSING INNOCENT CIVILIANS.

FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN YOU GET IMAGES OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH TROOPS ON PATROL SMILING AT LOCAL KIDS AND HANDING OUT CANDY. YOU NEVER SEE THOSE IMAGES WITH REFERENCE TO ISRAELI SOLDIERS THOUGH IT HAPPENS ON A DAILY BASIS. AMERICAN AND BRITISH TROOPS IN FAR OFF AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ ARE PERCEIVED TO BE KEEPING THE PEACE. ISRAELI SOLDIERS ON PATROL ARE THE CAUSE OF THE TENSION. IT’S ALL ABOUT IMAGE AND INTERPRETATION. AND SO, WHEN ISRAELI SOLDIERS FIRE TEAR GAS AND WARNING SHOTS AT THOUSANDS OF VIOLENT AND PROVOCATIVE ARABS WHO HAVE BEEN PAID TO CREATE A MASSIVE BORDER INCURSION INTO ISRAEL THE IMAGE IS ONE OF ISRAELI SOLDIERS OPENING FIRE ON UNARMED DEMONSTRATORS. THE DESIRED EDITORIAL EFFECT IS TO EQUATE I.D.F. SOLDIERS WITH THE FORCES OF REGIONAL DICTATORS WHO ARE SLAUGHTERING THEIR OWN PEOPLE. IN OTHER WORD NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL.

THIS REINFORCEMENT OF A FALSE IMAGE CAN BE EXPECTED TO CONTINUE AS MAJOR MEDIA CHANNELS HAVE EMBEDDED THEIR REPORTERS WITH THE ACTIVISTS WHO ARE INTENDING TO FORCE ISRAEL TO RESPOND TO THEIR ILLEGAL ACT OF BREAKING A LEGAL BLOCKADE OF GAZA ON THEIR FLOTILLA. THIS TRUTH WILL HAVE LITTLE PLACE IN THEIR REPORTING. IT IS THE IMAGE THEY ARE AFTER, THE IMAGE OF ISRAELI TROOPS STORMING THE SHIPS. THE GREATER THE RESISTANCE AND VIOLENCE THE MORE SENSATIONAL AND NEWSWORTHY THE VIDEO AND PICTURES. ONE PICTURE, THEY SAY, IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS AND ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO EXPEND A THOUSAND WORD TO EXPLAIN THAT ISRAELI SOLDIERS WERE SIMPLY APPLYING THE LAW IN DEFENSE OF ISRAEL, BUT THAT MESSAGE IS IRRELEVANT TO THE IMAGE. WHO WANTS TO HEAR THAT ISRAEL IS CONSTANTLY UNDER ATTACK. IT IS THE IMAGE THAT FORMS PUBLIC OPINION. HENCE THE VICIOUS CIRCLE.

THE IMAGE GOES BEYOND FORMING PUBLIC OPINION. IT EXPRESSES ITSELF IN CONCRETE ACTION THAT IMPACTS ON ISRAEL. ONE MICROCOSM CAN ILLUSTRATE THE KNOCK ON EFFECT.

A LITTLE KNOWN, INSIGNIFICANT, LOCAL COUNCIL IN SCOTLAND HAS IMPOSED A BOYCOTT ON ISRAEL. IT HAS ALSO BANNED ISRAEL BOOKS FROM THEIR LIBRARY. WEST DUNBARTON COUNCIL, YOU SEE, HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY A LEFT WING ACTIVIST COUNCILLOR WHO DECIDED TO CHAMPION THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE (THE PALESTINIANS BEING THE POSTER CHILD OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS AND RADICAL ISLAMISTS) BY CALLING FOR THE BOYCOTT. HE QUOTED THE "DELIBERATE TARGETING OF CIVILIANS" AND THE "DISPROPORTIONATE USE OF FORCE". THESE ARE OFT REPEATED AND UNFOUNDED ACCUSATIONS OF THE TV AND PRINT MEDIA IN BRITAIN. BASED ON HIS RESOLUTION, AND THEIR RESPONSE TO THE REPETITIVE IMAGES THAT FORMED THEIR OPINION, THE COUNCIL VOTED AND APPROVED THE BOYCOTT.

NO ONE IN THAT COUNCIL CHAMBER THOUGHT TO INVITE ANY OFFICIAL ISRAELI RESPONSE TO BALANCE THE PROPOSAL. THEIR DECISION WAS TAKEN BASED ON A ONE SIDED RECOMMENDATION. THE COUNCIL MEMBERS HAVE NO FEAR OF BEING THROWN OUT OF OFFICE AS THIS ISOLATED PART OF THE WORLD HAS NO ISRAELI AND ONLY A HANDFUL OF JEWS, IF ANY, AMONG IT CONSTITUENTS TO RAISE A LOCAL PROTEST. THEIR RESOLUTION NOT TO BUY BOOKS PRODUCED IN ISRAEL SAYS THAT WEST DUNBARTON COUNCIL WILL IMPOSE ON THEIR CITIZENS WHAT THEY CAN AND CANNOT READ. THEY HAVE CLOSED THE DOOR ON OPEN MINDED RESEARCH, DEBATE, OR EXAMINATION INTO WHETHER THEIR DECISION IS FAIR OR RIGHT OR EVEN JUST.

AND SO, WHEN LOCAL COUNCILS, TRADES UNIONS, THE ACADEMIC WORLD, EVEN CHURCH GROUPS ARE PERVERTED TO SLAM THE DOOR IN THE FACE OF A JUST ISRAEL ACTING IN ITS SELF DEFENSE IS IT ANY WONDER THAT THE MEDIA CONTINUES TO MANIPULATE PUBLIC OPINION WITHOUT TOO MUCH OPPOSITION.

THIS IS WHY OUTLANDISH ALLEGATIONS EQUATING ISRAEL TO A RACIST, NAZI, APARTHEID STATE GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES USING A DISPROPORTIONATE SHOW OF FORCE IN THEIR ETHNIC CLEANING AND GENOCIDE AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE GAINS SUCH FOOLISH ACCEPTANCE IN PEOPLE WHO SHOULD, AND MUST, KNOW BETTER.

THEY DO NOT SEE THAT THE PALESTINIAN POPULATION HAS NOT BEEN ETHNICALLY CLEANSED BUT HAVE, IN FACT, GROWN AND IT IS THE JEWS OF ISRAEL THAT FACE GENOCIDE AND ETHNIC CLEANSING AND THE HANDS OF THE PALESTINIANS AND ARAB ISLAMIC STATES INCLUDING IRAN.

THEY DO NOT SEE THAT PALESTINIANS HAVE PROSPERED IN RECENT YEARS MAINLY THANKS TO THE COOPERATION OF AN ISRAEL THAT HAS REPEATEDLY AGREED TO A TWO STATE SOLUTION AND IS ASSISTING THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY WITH ITS NATION BUILDING.

THEY DO NOT READ THAT BOTH FATAH AND HAMAS MAINTAIN AN ANTI-SEMITIC CHARTER THAT CALLS FOR THE KILLING OF JEWS AND THE ELIMINATION OF THE JEWISH STATE.

THEY DO NOT LEARN ABOUT THE HATE EDUCATION AND INCITEMENT AGAINST JEWS AND ISRAEL THAT IS BEING TAUGHT IN PALESTINIAN SCHOOLS AND IN THE CHILDREN’S SUMMER CAMPS.

THEY ARE NOT INFORMED BY THEIR MEDIA AND LEADERS THAT THE PALESTINIANS HAVE REFUSED TO NEGOTIATE WITH ISRAEL DIRECTLY, REJECT THE NOTION OF THE JEWISH STATE OF ISRAEL, AND CLAIM ALL OF ISRAEL AS THEIR PALESTINE.

NONE OF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAVE CONDUCTED ANY INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING ABOUT THE TERORRIST NATURE OF PALESTINIAN SOCIETY. THIS HAS NOT BEEN DONE BECAUSE OF TWO REASONS. THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF MOST OF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAVE NO INTEREST OR POLITICAL BENT TO CONDUCT SUCH HONEST REPORTING. EVEN IF THEY CHOSE TO DO SO THEY KNOW THEY WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED INTO PALESTINIAN TERRITORY TO CONDUCT SUCH INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING AS THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE PRESS THERE, AS THERE IS IN ISRAEL. REPORTERS AND JOURNALISTS HAVE BEEN KILLED AND KIDNAPPED BY PALESTINIANS. IT IS A RISKY BUSINESS TO TELL THE TRUTH IN PALESTINIAN HELD AREAS.

THESE ARE THE IMAGES THEY DON’T WANT TO SHAPE PUBLIC OPINION. TO RELEASE SUCH IMAGES WOULD RAISE THE QUESTION WHY THE PUBLIC WAS KEPT IGNORANT OF THE TRUTH, WHY THEY HAVE BEEN DECEIVED, FOR SO LONG.

BARRY SHAW

THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL

theviewfromisrael@gmail.com

25.6.11.

THE SECRET JEWS

2011-06-22T21:24:00.001+03:00

I strongly recommend that you research a fascinating and tragic period of Jewish history that stretched for more than three hundred years yet is little known.
The story of the Anusim, the Secret Jews, is a valuable and significant, yet rarely discovered, Jewish event that, in its world range, the numbers of Jews killed or affected by it for centuries can be called the longest genocide in world history.
I refer to the fate of the Spanish and Portugese Jews at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.

The campaign of the Catholic Church to eliminate the Jews went beyond the borders of Spain and Portugal. The plague of Antisemitism swept through north Africa, across the Atlantic to South and Central America, and to the Caribbean in pursuit of the Jews.
Under threat of deportation, torture, and death by being burnt alive at the stake many Jews adopted an overt Christian image while covertly maintaining their Jewish rituals and prayers.

I attended "The Worldwide Awakening of the Descendents of the Secret Jews: Conference . This major conference marked the launch of a new international institute for the study of Anusim (the Secret Jews) at the Netanya Academic College.
Gloria Mound, an impressive English lady who has just moved to Netanya to be close to the college, has researched this subject for decades compiling an impressive two thousand five hundred books and over five thousands documents and files that record a cruel oppression of the Jews that outstrips in time and range anything seen in human history. Her archives will be a precious addition to the research centre but, as one important speakers at the conference pointed out, research is insufficient if it is not linked to practical application. This should apply to the Anusim who should be encouraged to openly adopt their heritage to the extent of making Aliyah to Israel. Early research reveals a startling statistic that as many as six million Portugese were descended from Anusim (Secret Jews).

Even today many thousands of Spanish speakers on three continents are fearful or wary of announcing their Jewish heritage. Others are not aware that they have Jewish blood in their veins as this part of their history has been kept from them for generations out of fear, and out of shame.
The Spanish Government is loath to open its official archives to researchers of this horrendous period in Spanish history. The Vatican, similarly, keep documents and records secreted away in the Vatican vaults.

Increasingly, though, Anusim people are making their way to Israel to fulfill a new life that had been forbidden for hundreds of years to their family. And here lies another problem. Israeli authorities do not know how to receive these people. Are they truly Jewish and welcome in the Jewish state under the Law of Return? Or are they, as they publicly claimed, really Catholics? The feeling at the conference was that Israel should welcome these people home with open arms. They have suffered centuries of persecution for holding secretly to their faith and it should not be down to local politicians or bureaucrats to question the ambition of these people to come and live as free Jews in a state of their own.

I knew about the Spanish Inquisition but never fully appreciated the scope and size of the persecution of the Jews. I read a book tantilisingly called "The Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean" when I was on vacation that opened my eyes to this episode of history. Now this conference revealed more amazing stories and detail.
Please research this rich and dramatic story and be prepared to be moved by the human tragedies, tales of ingenuity, and learn about a period of Jewish history long forgotten but slowly being discovered. The effect of its telling will affect Israel, the Jewish people, and Christian conscience.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PALESTINIAN BORDER INCURSION FROM SYRIA.

2011-06-18T23:43:00.000+03:00

Interesting developments followed the recent unsuccessful attempt at a mass insurgency from Syria into Israel in early June.
The numbers showed a reluctance from the Syrian Palestinians to involve themselves in an Assad sham. Those that were paid and did participate received a bloody reminder of the cynical use that regimes make of civilians.
On Naksa Day on June 3rd border protesters were easily repelled by the IDF with the use of tear gas and sniper fire to the legs of a few. Much more serious was the deaths that took place close to Kunetra when protesters stumbled across an old Syrian minefield. Up to nine people were killed by the exploding mines.
Little media attention was given to events in the Yarmuk refugee camp near Damascus. The inmates understood that they had been duped into acting for the Assad regime to detract attention away from their blatant murder of civilians. It took time for the bodies to be returned to their families by which time tempers were boiling. An estimates 100,000 took part in the mass funerals. They chanted slogans against Assad.
Syria is the base for some of the extreme elements of the Palestinians, including Hamas and the PFLP led by Ahmed Jibril. Jibril came to the funerals with some of his close henchmen and leaders of other radical Palestinian organisations. When he started making a speech blaming Israel for the deaths and praising Assad the crowd drowned him out with their protests. He was asked to leave and allow the people to bury their dead, but he chose to remain. At this, the crowd began pelting the visiting leadership with stones. Then the protest grew more violent. Protesters vented their anger by bursting into the PFLP offices. They broke furniture before setting the offices on fire. Two PFLP guards were killed in this assault and Jibril's security forces opened fire on the protesters killing 14 and wounding many more.
Hamas leader in Syria, Khaled Maashal, visited the camp in an attempt to appease the protesters but he was met with jeers and was driven out of the camp.
Ahmed Jibril is not only the head of PFLP. He is also a senior intelligence official of the Assad regime.
The only official communique from the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah was a tepid response saying that " a group of armed men was responsible for the crimes and promised an investigation.
In short, the deaths of the Palestinian can, in no way, be blamed on Israel.

THE NAKSA BORDER INVASION - WHY IT FAILED.

2011-06-11T10:36:00.000+03:00

Following a trial run in May a coordinated effort was launched by Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Syrian regime to mount a massive three-pronged border invasion into Israel. The aim was to gain international propaganda by the sight of thousands of unarmed protesters demonstrating their desire "to return home to Palestine". The anticipated numbers were put at 100,000. Israel prepared itself to face this illegal action.
The organisation began to unravel from the beginning. The Palestinians had just announced a unified front between Fatah and Hamas and the Palestinian leadership insisted that this was not the time to disrupt delicate international diplomacy with a violent confrontation with Israel. In a secret agreement, the Palestinian Authority agreed to let some local Arabs blow off steam in and around Jerusalem if Hamas backed off. In a surprising show of authority, the Lebanese Government told Hizbollah that they would not tolerate a major border incident with Israel and placed troops along the border to head off the rioters. And so the much vaunted "humanitarian" cry to return home came down to about a thousand Syrians transported to the border near Magdel Shams, and about five hundred on the Golan border near Kunetra. Each was paid the equivalent of a thousand dollars each for their time and efforts to breach the border fence.
The IDF was instructed to act with restraint using tear gas and only open fire if the border fence was breached and then only to fire at the legs of demonstrators. This, indeed, was the tactic employed on the borders. The "Skunk" liquid canon was used in the demonstrations in Kalandiah near Jerusalem after rocks were thrown by rioters and injuries began to occur among the soldiers as a result of the stoning.
The Syrian regime, keen to distract attention from their wholesale slaughter of their own people, announced that twenty three demonstrators had been killed in the border incident. This false claim was immediately adopted by extremist anti-Israel activists as a club to beat Israel. The West Dumbarton Council (emphasis on the word DUMB in the middle of their title), an insignificant local authority in Scotland that has been hijacked by radical leftists including a Jim Bollan, has recently passed a resolution boycotting Israel and banning Israeli books from their library. The radical rantings of Bollan preferred to support the lies of an Assad regime that butchers its own people than, heaven forbid!, accept the truth from Israel and from non partisan observers that twenty three Syrians were not killed by Israeli gunfire during a massed and violent border incursion attempt.
Sky News were also guilty of unsubstantiated sensationalism when they announced the Syrian numbers without prefixing their announcements with words like "alleged" or "according to Syrian sources". Instead, they gave out the number as if it were fact.
When I say that no one was killed by Israeli gunfire my claim is much closer to the truth than the murderous Assad regime's falsehoods. Several were injured as can be seen by video footage.
The truth is that four people were killed when they strayed into an old Syrian minefield near Kunetra. You would have thought that the Syrian and Palestinian organisers would have warned them of the existence of this minefield on the Syrian side of the border with Israel but, hey, what's a few lives to a regime that has recently butchered over one thousand five hundred of its own people?
It was noted, at least in Israel, that the Kunetra protesters turned around and went home after seeing poeple blown to smithereens in a desolate minefield. Well, your confidence in your leaders would dissipate a little if that happened to you, wouldn't it? You too would lose faith in the leaders that set you up for death, and that was exactly the motive of the organisers, to try and show the world Israelis shooting and killing unarmed protesters who only wanted to go home..
Instead, the paid volunteers (a contradiction in terms if ever there was any) angrily turned on their local Palestinian leader, Ahmed Jibril, demanding to know why he sent people to their deaths on behalf of an evil Syrian regime who wanted to use the Palestinian issue as a distraction. Jibril, you see, is not only the representative of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Syria. He is also a high official in the Syrian Intelligence Service.
Palestinians in Syria enjoy dual citizenship, unlike in other Arab countries but Jibril has been a useful instrument to the Assad family for decades.
And so the recent border incursions failed. This, however, will not stop the Arabs from attempting to redesign the model of massive protest across borders in the future and Israel must take radical action now in preparation for future violent border events. It is vitally important for the IDF to preserve the ethos of purity of arms when confronting overwhelming civil unrest. Every method should be taken that leaves the use of live fire as a last resort.
My recommendation to Israel's security and military leadership is to prepare and lay stretches of minefields at strategically sensitive locations. They should be laid in a design that leaves no possibility that innocent civilians can stray into these areas. This, on our borders, can easily be done by using the no mans land of the space between two border fences. On top of this minefield stretch should be placed barbed wire coils. The fence should be clearly marked in Hebrew and Arabic "Warning! Minefield!" Any approaching mass demonstration can be met by Israeli soldiers cautioning them over loudspeakers that they are approaching minefields. There would be no need to open fire and anyone stupid or radical enough to venture into a declared minefield would only have themselves to blame for the consequences.
Israel has successfully deterred Arab nations from initiating conventional warfare against it. Israel has taken radical steps to reduce the scourge of suicide bombers to zero. Israel can clearly think outside the box when it comes to organised and massive border incursions.

THE ARAB FEEL BAD FACTOR.

2011-06-04T11:42:00.002+03:00

The conclusion is that the Arabs feel bad...

They feel bad in Gaza.
They feel bad in the West Bank.
They feel bad in Libya.
They feel bad in Algiers.
They feel bad in Tunisia.
They feel bad in Morocco.
They feel bad in Yemen.
They feel bad in Iraq.
They feel bad in Afghanistan.
They feel bad in Pakistan.
They feel bad in Syria.
They feel bad in Lebanon.
They feel bad in Sudan.
They feel bad in Jordan.
They feel bad in Iran.
They feel bad in Chechnya.

And where do the Arabs feel fine...?

They feel good in England.
They feel good in France.
They feel good in Italy.
They feel good in Germany.
They feel good in Sweden.
They feel good in Holland.
They feel good in Belgium.
They feel good in Norway.
They feel good in the USA.
They feel good in Israel
They feel good in Romania.
They feel good in Hungary.
They feel good in any country around the world that isn't under Muslim rule.

And whom do the blame?

Not Islam.
Not their leaders.
Not themselves.
They blame all those countries they feel good living in.

THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT IN MEDICAL TERMS.

2011-05-28T09:31:00.000+03:00

ALL ISRAELIS DREAM OF A PEACEFUL SOLUTION TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT. ALL ISRAELIS YEARN FOR PEACE. RECENT HISTORY HAS SHOWN THAT WE WILL BACK HUGE PAINFUL CONCESSIONS FOR PEACE, CONDITIONAL ON NOT JEOPARDISING OUR SAFETY AND SECURITY.

ALL ISRAELIS WANT TO REMOVE THE YOKE OF PALESTINE FROM THEIR BACKS. THE BURDEN OF PALESTINE IS MUCH TOO HEAVY. YET, GENEROUS CONCESSIONS HAVE BEEN REJECTED BY THE OTHER SIDE AND THIS IS THE CRUCIAL POINT – IN THE NEGOTIATIONS WE ARE NOW DOWN TO THE NERVE ENDINGS WHERE FURTHER CONCESSIONS BEGIN TO CUT INTO THE SINEWS AND VEINS THAT WILL KILL OR ENDANGER THE SURVIVAL OF THE JEWISH STATE.

FOR ISRAEL TO CONTINUE THIS LIFE THREATENING OPERATION WE NEED THE INFUSION OF CONCESSIONS AND FLEXIBILITY FROM THE PALESTINIAN SIDE OF THE OPERATING TABLE. UNFORTUNATELY, ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS TO CUT DEEPER INTO OUR HEART AND BODY AND END THE LIFE OF THE JEWISH STATE.

MOST OF THE NEGOTIATING ISSUES ARE THE BODY. JERUSALEM IS THE HEART AND SOUL. THAT, IN MEDICAL TERMS, IS THE STATE OF PLAY IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT.

IT IS AT A CRITICAL LIFE THREATENING STATE WHERE THE MOTIVATION OF THE PALESTINIAN SURGEON MUST BE CLINICALLY QUESTIONED.

DON'T LET THE EVIL GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE.

2011-05-22T04:24:00.003+03:00

DON’T LET THE EVIL GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE by BARRY SHAW.

President Obama recently showed his naivety in discussing the Palestinian problem when he made an issue of ’67 borders with minor alterations a major condition that Israel must cede for the imminent creation of a newly formed Palestinian state. The very issue of borders at this time is a smokescreen, a red herring, to avoid facing the real significant issue of the nature of what this state truly represents.

Borders, at this time, are not the issue. The real issue is the nature of a regime that may be about to be inflicted onto the world. The nature of this regime make borders irrelevant. The issue must be concentrated as to whether this new state should be born at all in the shape it presents itself today.

The so-called “moderate” and “pragmatic” Palestinian Authority have introduced a law which says that any Arab that sells land to a Jews will be executed. This is a law straight out of the Nazi Nuremberg laws. Furthermore, the so-called “moderate” and “pragmatic” Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has said, on more than one occasion, that any Palestinian state must be clear of Jews, in other words “Judenrein”. This is straight out of “Mein Kamf”.

If any further evidence is needed as to the true nature of this new regime that the world is hurriedly trying to foist onto us hear the words of Yunis Al-Astal. In his excitement of an impending new Palestinian state he said the following. Bear in mind that he is a member of the Palestinian Legislature and a cleric. On A-Aqsa TV on May 11, 2011 he said this;

“The Jews are brought in droves to Palestine so that the Palestinian, and the Islamic nation behind them, will have the honour of annihilating the evil of this gang. All the predators, all the birds of prey, all the dangerous reptiles and insects, and all the lethal bacteria are far less dangerous than the Jews.

In just a few years, all the Zionists and the settlers will realize that their arrival in Palestine was for the purpose of the great massacre by means of which Allah wants to relieve humanity of their evil.

When Palestine is liberated and its people return to it and the entire region, with the grace of Allah, will have turned into the United States of Islam, the land of Palestine will become the capital of the Islamic Caliphate, and all these countries will turn into states within the Caliphate. When this happens any Palestinian will be able to live anywhere because the land of Islam is the property of all Muslims.

Until this happens, we must reject all the resettlement plans, naturalization, or even reparations prior to the return of the refugees.”

If you think this is an aberration of Palestinian intent, think again. The Hamas Charter contains the following gems;

“Israel will exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it has obliterated others before it.

The day the enemies usurp part of Muslim land Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In the face of the Jews usurpation, it is compulsory for the banner of Jihad to be raised.

The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out, ‘Oh Muslim! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!’”

The Hamas regards itself as the spearhead and vanguard of the struggle against world Zionism.”

If you thought that it was only the extreme Hamas that harboured evil intentions towards Israel, and that the Palestinian Authority was more reasonable to accommodate Israel, consider these references in their Palestinian National Covenant;

“The basic conflict exists between the forces of Zionism and the Palestinian Arab people. Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. One national front for the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle. The liberation of Palestine is a national duty to repel the Zionist aggression against the Arab homeland and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.”

If anyone is in doubt that the Palestinians do not accept a two states for two people solution continue reading the PNC Charter;

“The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the State of Israel are entirely illegal.

The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate of Palestine are deemed null and void.

Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinians look to the support of all progressive and peaceful forces in the just struggle for the liberation of their homeland. It requires all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations.”

But let us not concentrate on the leadership alone. The effect of their racial, inflammatory, anti-Semitism can be seen in the actions and heard in the voices of the Palestinian people. Voices like Sara Awwadh Jaber of Hebron. Interviewed on Al Aqsa Palestinian TV she said this;

"I lived through the massacre of the Jews in Hebron. We, the people of Hebron, massacred the Jews. My father massacred them and brought back some stuff. Allah willing, you will bury Israel and massacre the Jews with your own hands. Allah willing, you will massacre them like we massacred them in Hebron."

This, then, is the face of a "moderate" Palestine.

There you have it in all its clarity. The Palestinian intent is not the establishment of a state alongside Israel, but the eventual replacement of Israel by force. All the “progressives” and outside “peaceful forces” have been recruited solely and purposefully for the destruction of Israel and the elimination of Zionism in the land of Israel. This perfectly describes the actions and intentions of the so-called “human rights” groups, the boycotters, and the Free Gaza mob. They are all fully aware that they seek the destruction of Israel.

If any state should be the target of delegitimisation surely this racist, anti-Semitic, Nazi-like regime, to be called Palestine, is it.
Can you not read and feel the evil that will be inflicted onto the world should such a state be granted validity? Certainly all the Islamic nations will line up to give this entity their blessings. For sure, the Marxists will be cheering wildly. But surely the Western and free nations will pause before bringing this monster into being? Or will they?

Let them be warned. Let them read the words of an eager Palestinian leadership and a bloodthirsty Palestinian people with evil intent to understand the tragic results of a wrong decision. Do they really want to release this evil onto the world?

Remember this. It always starts with the Jews. It never ends with them. Once you let the genie out of the bottle you will be unable to put it back in again. It will come to haunt you, eventually.

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

www.israelnarrative.com

NAKBA. A SELF INFLICTED CATASTROPHE.

2011-05-14T20:45:00.000+03:00

A new tradition has been allowed to grow in the Arab world. Once a year Arabs commemorate a period when many uprooted themselves from what had become Israel. It was at the time when Arab armies invaded the nascent state of Israel. It was this incident that created a refugee problem that is unsolved to this day. They call this event The Nakba. (The Catastrophe).

At its core they are not commemorating their upheaval. They are not celebrating their dispossession. Rather, they are campaigning for the elimination of Israel. They are protesting over the creation of the Jewish State of Israel, an event that occurred before the personal tragedies of many local Arabs. They do not use this day to mourn the tragic events of the 1948 war. Rather it is an emotional and public outpouring of their rejection of Israel, a rejection that began decades ago, and will continue beyond the September Palestinian claim for statehood in the United Nations General Assembly. They rejected Israel in the United Nations in 1947. They will continue to do so after the United Nations 2011. The Nakba parades and slogans accuse Israel of their “calamity”. It is a self inflicted tragedy caused by the Arabs themselves.

With the flight of so many local Arabs from the area of conflict came the flight from fact into fantasy with the development of a political myth, a rewriting of history, to be used to delegitimize Israel and accuse it of crimes it did not commit. It is a dangerous effort by the Palestinian leadership to create a history out of a lie for a malevolent agenda.

When the Jewish State of Israel was brought into being at the United Nations in 1947 it was roundly rejected by the Arabs. Arab immigration into the part of Palestine in which the Zionist enterprise was being developed dynamically by the Jews had increased the Arab population on the West Bank of the Jordan River. The other larger parts of what had been Palestine, namely Transjordan, as well as Syria, and Egypt, were still backwaters, offering little employment or development to its people. The Jews employed this immigrant source of labor despite the fact that acts of violence and murder were committed by Arabs on Jews. Jews in the land suffered decades of bloodshed and murder at the hands of the Arabs going back to the massacres in Safed and Hebron in 1929. So it continued, including murderous raids by what were called “fedayeen”, an early form of Arab terrorism.

In 1948 the fledgling Jewish state was attacked by heavily armed and trained Arab armies. The war was initiated by the Arabs for the purpose of driving the Jews they did not kill into the sea. Victory over the newly-born state seemed inevitable. Combined forces from Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, supported by arms and soldiers from Lebanon, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, attacked the undermanned and barely armed Jewish nation. Less than three years from the horrors of the Holocaust, Jews faced yet another genocide. The outcome, however, was a resounding defeat for the Arabs that left Israel in situ over a larger territory and the local displaced Arabs in despair.

The Arab hatred of the Jews and their desire to remove the Jewish presence from the Middle East was not erased. The new narrative purported to give the lie that the Jews woke up one day and decided to execute ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Arab population. Not true. The intended ethnic cleansing of 1948 would have been of the Jews at the hands of the invading Arab armies.

Another myth is that the Palestinian refugee problem is the fault of the Jews. Not true. My book ISRAEL – RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE lists and dates the numerous orders and statements where the Arab leadership and Arab states ordered and instructed the locals to abandon their homes and possessions. It was the Jewish leaders, and even the Hagana (the newly formed Israeli army), that implored them to remain. It was the Arab military and political leaders and the Arab states that were exclusively implicated in the mass exodus of the Arab population and for the personal tragedies suffered by them.

Nowhere is this more implicitly expressed than by Emile Ghoury, who was the Secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Command. In an interview with the Lebanese newspaper “The Beirut Telegraph” on September 6, 1948 he said;

“The fact that there are these refugees is a direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of this problem.”

The Nakba, then, must point directly at the Arab leadership and not at Israel. It is a tragedy that thousands of Arabs remain in Arab refugee camps to this day. It is a tragedy perpetuated by Arab nations in conjunction with the United Nations who chose to keep them in this status for a political purpose in order to use them as pawns in their ongoing campaign against Israel.

The obscenity of the decades old Arab refugee problem is completely down to the failure of the surrounding Arab nations with the collusion of the United Nations who are both guilty of perpetuating this human tragedy.

Juxtapositioned with this Arab catastrophe was the tragedies of the Jewish populations of the neighbouring Arab states. At the time that the Arab armies were attacking the newly formed Israel, Jews were being attacked, killed, and displaced in most of the Arab countries. Some statistics show that two hundred thousand more Jews were driven out of their homes in the Muslim countries than Arabs that left Israel. The big difference was that these Jews found shelter in Israel where they were welcomed, absorbed, nurtured, and made useful citizens.

No Nakba exists for Jewish refugees. Neither does the State of Israel go begging to the United Nations to keep them in victimhood and permanent sponsorship. Self pride and an independence spirit is a Jewish value that prevents this sense of self loathing and hatred of the other. What could have been a Jewish Nakba was turned into a Jewish humanitarian success story and a glorious example to the world.

Why is this Nakba relevant this year and, more significantly, next year? Nakba is a writing of Palestinian intent. If one looks at the large maps that are displayed in the Nakba parades and marches “Palestine” has replaced Israel. In the Palestinian leadership narrative to their own people Israel does not exist. Their maps, their chants, their ambition does not allow for a Jewish state living in peace alongside a state of their own. Rather, their Palestine replaces Israel. Israel Arabs are, for them, “the Palestinians of the Interior”. Their narrative refers to Israeli Arabs, including those born in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s as “the Palestinians of ‘48”. Increasingly, Israeli Arabs identify themselves with this cause and not with the state in which they have a waning identity. The sight of Israeli Arabs waving Palestinian flags, carrying maps of Palestine that replace Israel, and chanting anti-Israel slogans is not an expression of democratic freedom but sedition against the state.

After a Palestinian state is voted into being, albeit illegally, at the September United Nations General Assembly, the next critical factor will be the identity and loyalty of Israeli Arabs. Will Arabs, born post 1948 consider themselves to be loyal citizens of Israel? Or will they call themselves Palestinians? Will they rally, speak, and act to defy Israel, to deny Israel, and encourage the Palestinian leadership to come and liberate them? The signs are clearly in evidence by the actions and words of several Arab members of the Knesset who identify more closely with Palestinian ambitions than with affairs of Israeli state. Some even renounce the Parliament they sit in, the legislature that they were elected to service.

The delegitimization of Israel is not merely an external strategic danger. It also has roots within Israel itself. The Nakba movement is one prominent element of this internal danger.

Barry Shaw is an Israeli board member of AXIUS (Academic Exchange Israel – United States). He is also the author of ISRAEL – RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE.

www.israelnarrative.com

CHRISTIANS OF EGYPT - GET OUT NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

2011-05-10T09:59:00.001+03:00

The world applauds the Arab Spring. They project the Arab uprising as a new dawn led by attractive, non violent, young modern people linked to the wonders of Twitter and Facebook.
Even while Egypt's National Museum was being burnt and looted of the countries national treasures and heritage, even as American journalist, Lara Logan, was being gang raped in Tahrir Square, even as people cowered in fear of the Cairo mob, the media insisted on portraying the mob rule that overthrew a benign leadership (as compared to Libya Syria, and Iran) as non violent and secular.
The world refused to listen to Israel when it protested that the upheaval was less spontaneous than it appeared, that the social networking was efficiently being used by the organisers to rally the crowd, and that the Islamists were discreetly pulling the strings together with the Arab Marxists and International Socialists.
This is the unholy alliance that will dominate Egypt and the Arab world as we head into a pretend democracy.
Israel will be a prime target for the next generation of Arab governments. The Middle East neighbourhood will remain uncertain and a very tough place to live.
The Jewish population of Egypt, Libya, Tunis, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and all the hotbeds of revolt were forcefully removed, if not murdered, by the Muslim majority decades ago. Most found refuge in the Jewish State of Israel. Having threatened, killed, deported, and stole their possessions the Arabs now turn their envious and greedy gaze to the success story of a modern Israel. They see yet another pot of gold if only they can remove the Jews from their midst in the region. They will use holy Islamic slogans to justify their avid lust for Jewish lives and possessions. Hence the fiction of an Islamic Palestine as a sacred conviction. But Israel is strong. The Jew no longer quakes in fear and surrenders to the executioners meekly. Not so the Christians in the Muslim world. They are defenseless. They are the easy victims to racial Islamic passions and greed. Their co-religionists in other countries, though they have elected their own governments, do not have the voice, the will, or the power, to raise an army to save their fellow Christians. They can only look on in silent horror.
The unraveling Egyptian tale leaves a trail of Christian blood. Twenty one Christians were murdered in January in the port city of Alexandria, A Coptic priest was killed in southern Egypt. A Christian familly were slaughtered by Msulims near Maghagha in February. In May, a church was burnt to the ground and twenty two people were killed in Cairo.
Clearly the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are growing in violent confidence as Egypt heads for the reforming elections later this year and the first victims of this new found Arab-style democracy will be the Christian population.
The world, led by American President George Bush, demanded democratic elections from the Palestinians. They got them. It resulted in Palestinians voting for the Islamic terror group, Hamas. The same will happen in the so-called Arab Spring. Just keep your eyes on Egypt and watch the radical Islamists sweep into power.
Don't believe me? Then believe the words of Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, and the leading ctontender to become the next President of Egypt. He is a savy politician who knows which side his bread is buttered. In reality, he is an anti-Islamist. He is running as an independent candidate but is a shoo in to take over his country and lead whatever government is elected. In an interview to the Wall Street Journal he said that it is inevitable that the Egyptian parliamentary elections in September will usher in a bloc of Islamists with the Muslim Brotherhood at the forefront. He is ready to work with them.
The subsequent rewriting of the Egyptian constitution will convert the country to Shariah law, will reduce non-Muslims to the status of dhimmi citizens, which means being penalised for simply living there as non-Muslims. If places such as Bethlehem are an example, the Christians will face relentless oppression, persecution, violence, destruction, and death as the Islamic majority force them out.
Bethlehem had a wealthy majority of Christians when Israel controlled that town. After Israel ceded control to the Arafat-led Palestinians, the eighty percent Christian majority was reduced to a fearful minority of less than twenty percent.
The writing is on the wall for the Christians of Egypt and other Arab nations. Heed the warning signs. Things are about to get worse, a lot worse.
Get out now, while you still can! There's no one around to help you. You are as defenseless as were the Jews in Europe seventy years ago.

Osama Bin Laden -v- Sheikh Ahmed Yasin. More anti-Israel hypocrisy.

2011-05-09T17:44:00.000+03:00

Osama Bin Laden versus Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.

International hypocrisy and anti-Semitism.

Hypocritical world that slammed killing of Hamas' Yassin now lauds bin Laden hit.

Published: 05.03.11, By Manfred Gerstenfeld

The flurry of international reactions to the killing of Osama bin Laden by the American army provides Israel with a great opportunity to demonstrate the double standards applied against it by so many in the Western world and elsewhere. All one has to do is compare the reactions of major institutions and leaders with those after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

This leader of the Hamas terrorist organization was killed by Israel in 2004. He was directly responsible

for many lethal attacks on Israeli civilians including suicide bombings.

On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that "the death of Osama bin Laden, announced by President (Barack) Obama last night, is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism."

Yet after the killing of Sheikh Yassin, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said "I do condemn the targeted assassination of Sheikh Yassin and the others who died with him. Such actions are not only contrary to international law, but they do not do anything to help the search for a peaceful solution."

The now-defunct UN Commission on Human Rights condemned "the tragic death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in contravention of the Hague Convention IV of 1907."

At the Security Council, the US had to use its veto power to prevent condemnation of Israel.

After the bin Laden killing, the leaders of the European Council and European Commission stated that his death made the world a safer place and showed that terrorist attacks do not remain unpunished.

Following the Yassin killing, then-EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said, "This type of action does not contribute at all to create the conditions of peace. This is very, very bad news for the peace process. The policy of the European Union has been consistently condemnation of extra-judicial killing."

British Prime Minister David Cameron congratulated President Obama on the success of the bin Laden assassination. Cameron considered it a massive step forward in the fight against extremist terrorism. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair also welcomed bin Laden's demise.

However, the killing of Sheikh Yassin was called by the then-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw "unacceptable" and "unjustified." The official spokesman of then-Prime Minister Blair condemned the "unlawful attack" and observed: "We have repeatedly made clear our opposition to Israel's use of targeted killings and assassinations."

A case of anti-Semitism?

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Bin Laden's killing as a coup in the fight against terrorism.

He called President Obama, praised his determination and courage and all others who had pursued the head of al-Qaeda for 10 years. Sarkozy added that the two heads of state had agreed to continue the just

and necessary fight against terrorist barbarity and those who support it.

Yet after Sheikh Yassin's death, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Herve Ladsous, said, "France condemns the action taken against Sheikh Yassin, just as it has always condemned the principle of any

extra-judicial execution as contrary to international law." Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin

declared that "such acts can only feed the spiral of violence."

German Chancellor Angel Merkel said at a recent press conference, "I'm glad that killing bin Laden was successful." She also called it "good news."

Then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had stated after the killing of Sheikh Yassin that "the German government is deeply concerned about the development."

Russia released a statement regarding bin Laden which the Voice of America quoted as saying that retribution inevitably reaches all terrorists and that Russia is ready to "step up" its coordination in the international fight against global terrorism."

After the Yassin assassination, a foreign ministry spokesman said that Moscow was deeply concerned about the situation.

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey declared that the killing of bin Laden was a message for terrorist organizations all around the world. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called the killing of Yassin "a terrorist act" and said that "the assassination was not humane."

This comparison gets even more meaningful when seen in the context of the definition of anti-Semitism as regularly used in the European Union. It was prepared by one of the EU agencies. It gives examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel, including the following: "Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."

Israel could considerably improve its public diplomacy by using the comparison of the two killings and other comparisons of events which occur with great frequency to stress such double standards. This is one of the many ways that Israel can fend off at least part of the unjust criticism against it.

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is the Chairman of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and founder and director of its Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism Project.

Master of the House.

2011-05-02T18:49:00.002+03:00

After our Prime Minister called the Palestinian President his "partner for peace" at a White House ceremony last September, the recent Mahmoud Abbas embrace of the Hamas terror organization put me in mind of the lyrics of "Master of the House", one of the hit songs of the stage musical "Les Miserables." I quote;

"I used to dream that I would meet a prince, but God Almighty have you seen what's happened since!"

We have all seen what has happened since that Cinderella moment in Washington.

Abbas has resolved to reject recognition of Israel. He stubbornly refuses to have direct peace talks with us. He continues to name streets, squares, cultural and sporting events after the terrorist murderers of innocent Israelis. Palestinian state TV refers to Israeli towns as Palestine, and Israeli Arabs as "Palestinians of the Interior."

Now, with the new unity accord, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has become an affiliate of Hamas, an internationally designated terror organization.

The massive funding by the UN, EU, and the United States, was predicated on the PA pursuing peace with Israel, obligating them to hold to their commitments of signed agreements, and holding to a renouncement of violence and terror. None of this has taken place. Indeed, as the Palestinians have prospered they have become more intransigent, not less. Yet, the international community seem to have turned a blind eye to this and, in their utopian haze, look on the accord as a step in the right direction.

We should all now demand that our politicians stop being the public relations officials for the Palestinian leadership and call a spade a bloody shovel. Let's name them and shame them. Let's tell the world the truth about the awful human rights records of both sides of the so-called Palestinian unity, not only against us but against their own people. Let's reveal to the world what Palestinian leaders are telling their own people about their ultimate and deadly intentions for Israel. Let's quote chapters from both the Palestinian and the Hamas Charters which are replete with the most racist and anti-Semitic references. Let's expose the racist and, yes, apartheid policies pronounced by the Palestinian Authority regarding any future territory being Judenrein, free of Jews. Let's bring the Palestinian Authority to the International Criminal Court for declaring a death sentence on any Palestinian who sells land to a Jew.

We all yearn for peace, but peace can only be made with a pragmatic neighbor that does not hold malevolent, racist, and violent designs to eliminate us.

As the clock ticks down to a fateful September this is no time for dreaming about marrying a prince.

Barry Shaw

Netanya, Israel.

theviewfromisrael@gmail.com

The Holocaust haunts us today...Are you with us, or against us?

2011-05-02T00:28:00.000+03:00

They are telling you that we, the Jews of Israel, have no rights.
They delegitimise us. They demonise us. They kill us. Just like then.

Didn't they say, then, that we had no rights? No right to exist? Not so long ago.
I recall that the Jews of America bickered and stayed with their President then.
As they do today.
Don't make waves. Don't save the Jews. Don't speak out for them. Leave them to their fate. They said then.
Until it was too late.

To us, the Jews of Israel, it seems that many Jews of America share the same misguided tradition
of those tragic days.
Don't make waves. Don't save the Jews. Don't speak out for them. Leave them to their fate. They say now.
Until it will be too late.

Then, we didn't expect the goyim to speak up for us, to stand by our side. But you, the Jews. Why do you stand with our enemy today? Why do you stand with those who vow to kill us for being Jews, here, in our ancestral land?
Shame on you then. Shame on you today.

Let me tell you the story of a Holocaust survivor. He told me of Jews that spat on their rabbi, because their enemy told them to do it. Tell me, why are you spitting on your people now, because our enemy tells you to do it?

Then, they plotted the Final Solution of the Jewish People.
Today, on Holocaust Day, in the name of those who could not speak, do not stand with those who are plotting the Final Solution of the Jewish People, in Israel.
You were silent then. Do not be silent now.

Today, especially today, spare a precious moment to reflect and say "Am Israel Chai! The People of Israel must live!"

You failed us then. Do not fail us today. Stand with us. Not against us. And keep us safe from harm.

The Moral Bankruptcy of Palestine.

2011-04-18T11:14:00.004+03:00

Palestinian Authority representative are busy globetrotting in a charm offensive to persuade nations to vote this September in the United Nations for a resolution calling for the creation of the state of Palestine.

They claim to have the support of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund who have declared that the Palestinians have their fiscal house in order and have developed the necessary infrastructure for nation building.

Reports suggest that more than one hundred countries favour adding Palestine to the United Nations membership list. But what sort of nation are they introducing to the world, and is their vote, at this time, a wise move? Would it not be better, before admitting yet another troublesome Middle East nation into the fold, to insist on other considerations beyond a nice bank balance and a healthy GNP?

Should this virtual state be dragged into being what would be the territories assigned to it? Where would the borders be delineated? Surely the international community would not mug Israel and steal their legally owned real estate? Would they?

The United Nations should be forced to delve into the statute books going as far back as the league of Nations in 1922 and San Remo 1920. It should also question the unsuccessful attempt at partition when the Security Council rebuffed the General Assembly in 1947, thereby voiding any legal validity to the partition of Palestine leaving the national Home of the Jewish People as the only legally recognised status in Mandated Palestine. The Arabs can kick and scream as much as they want, the facts are on the record and in the statute books.

Recent murders in Palestinian controlled territories, as well as the ongoing killings of Israelis, should give these voters pause.

Vittorio Arrigoni was an Italian activist with a passionate hatred for Israel. He sailed into Gaza on an anti-Israel flotilla and made this place his home for three years. He identified fully with the Palestinian cause, placing himself close to Hamas in Gaza City. This did not prevent him from being grabbed off the streets by radical Palestinians, beaten to a pulp, filmed with the background music of a Palestinian victory chant, before being strung up and hanged. This naïve Italian had vacuously protested Israel’s human rights record. He discovered at the end, that Israel’s human rights record would have kept him alive. It was the lack of human rights in Palestinian society that killed him.

Just a couple of weeks before, the strange life story of Juliano Mer came to an end when Palestinian gunmen shot and killed him outside his Freedom Theatre in Palestinian-controlled Jenin. Mer promoted the Palestinian cause through theatre. His productions automatically accused Israel of all the sins under the sun. What he did not promote was mutual understanding and a pragmatic and peaceful solution between Palestinians and Israelis. He inculcated the Palestinian desire for the whole of Israel through plays and readings. This was insufficient to prevent his death at the hands of Palestinian killers.

Neither Mer and Arrigoni, nor the boycotters and flotilla activists, have any desire for a pragmatic two state solution. They, like both Fatah and Hamas, want it all and will not be satisfied until the Jewish state of Israel is eliminated. All their talk of oppression, occupation, human rights, and all the other slogans they throw at Israel encourage violence and distance any peaceful solution. But that is the whole point. A point not yet appreciated by a world that continues to nurture the violent birth pangs of a state that intends to enter this world with a vengeance and an agenda. Is this the sort of nation that needs to be introduced into the world at a time when the whole of the Middle East is in such violent upheaval?

The Palestinians are experts in truth denial. According to them it wasn't Palestinians that committed these gruesome crimes. It was the Jews. It was anyone but them. The height of ridicule was a large poster on show at a Ramallah demonstration which stated "I love Palestine. Kill me too!" The intention of the poster writer somehow got lost. The message, instead, was a warning board to pro-Palestinians who favour liberal values. Don't get too close to the core of Palestinian ambition and intent. You may find yourself killed for importing human rights issues they have no intention of sharing.

After a ten day struggle for life, sixteen year old Daniel Viflic died of the head injuries he suffered when a Palestinian rocket exploded on the school bus carrying him home. Had the Palestinian terrorists fired their missile moments earlier the deathtoll would have been much higher as all the other children had left the bus at the previous bus stop.

This tragic death fades into Palestinian normalcy when compared to the inhuman horror of the brutal killings of the Fogel family in their home in the village of Itamar.

Two Palestinians broke into their home and cut the throats of eleven year old Yoav and his brother, four year old Elad, while they were sleeping. Their parents, disturbed by noise in their house, met their young children’s killers and shared the same fate.

The killers, who share the same name but are not related, left the house but decided to return in search of weapons. When they entered one of the bedrooms they came across three month old Hadas. Showing no humanity they cut the baby girl’s throat before fleeing the scene of their horrific crime. Two other Fogel children returned home to discover the awful fate of their family.

The Palestinian killers showed no remorse when arrested. So far as they were concerned, as they openly stated, they had killed five Israelis and five Jews. They were the product of Palestinian indoctrination.

These brutal murderers were not part of some extreme radical Islamic terror group. They were members of Fatah’s secular PFLP, ably supported by Yasser Arafat decades ago, and still terrorising and killing Jews today.

It needs to be highlighted that the Mer murder, as with the killing of the Fogel family and many others, did not take place in the Gaza Strip but in the areas controlled by the “moderate” Palestinian Authority, nurtured and cared for by the United Nations, EU, and funded by most Western governments.

All these killers are products of a modern Palestinian Authority that continues to incite against Israel in their schoolbooks, in their mosques, on their state-run television channels, and by statements publicly made by their elected officials and politicians.

Not only have the Palestinian Authority staunchly rejected recognition, compromise, and peace talks with Israel, as their quest for nationhood gathers strength their voice has become more strident in their education and indoctrination to their own people that all of Israel belongs to them.

It goes way beyond the denial and expunging of thousands of years of Jewish history and archeological evidence. The hatred of Jews is expressed in their declaration that any Arab who sells land to Jews will be killed, and any territory given to a future Palestinian state must be Judenrein, free of Jews. This racism finds expression with the anti-Semitic statements to be found in the Palestinian Charter, which is the constitution of their nationhood.

Note! I am talking about the Palestinian Authority here, not the Islamic Hamas regime in Gaza. Both are guilty of human rights offences, racism and anti-Semitism. Both glorify murderers and terrorists, naming public squares, streets, cultural and sporting events after the murderers of Jews. The massacre of the Fogel family was cause for celebration in many Palestinian towns.

This then, in a nutshell, is the type of state that the Western world wishes to support and bring into being. While alarmed and concerned over the upheavals in the Arab and Muslim world, they blithely encourage a Palestinian entity that will follow in the wake of radicalism and hatred.
It is far from certain that a future Palestinian state will not fall to Hamas, or to even more radical elements. Hamas is being seriously challenged by groups loyal to Al-Qaida in the Gaza Strip.
The schism in Palestinian society is another reason not to award them statehood. The violent immaturity that expresses itself with bloodshed in not conducive to good governance. Is statehood meant to reward the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority at the expense of an internationally recognised terror organisation, Hamas?
Surely not. The current Middle East upheavals in the Muslim world that is leading to the rise of Islamic representation will surely find its voice in a future Palestine.

Surely statehood should be given to new authorities that prove themselves worthy by showing unity and the basics of democracy, namely regular free and open elections? Such a thing is currently impossible in the riven divisions of Palestinian politics. Statehood is not the balm that will cure all evils.

It may well be that the billions of dollars pumped into the development of a Palestinian state has turned them into an incurable middle class basketcase. All the evidence shows that the evolving Palestinian society, be it in the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or Hamas in the Gaza Strip, is morally bankrupt and incapable of finding solutions not only to their internal divisions but also in making pragmatic steps to a viable peace alongside Israel.

No state should be introduced into the world until it can prove itself to be strongly pragmatic and at peace with its neighbours.
To do so would be to add oil to an already burning Middle East.