FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

The teenage daughter of a friend of mine recently returned from a 6-week trip to Israel. She went with a group of American and Israeli Jewish kids, of various backgrounds — secular, liberal, and orthodox. They traveled all over the country and met all kinds of people, including settlers, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians.

Someone asked her “if there is one thing that you learned on this trip that you would like to tell us about, what was it?”

She said something like this: “Beforehand, I thought that all we had to do to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was to get the two sides to understand each other’s point of view. Now I see that it’s much harder than that — it goes very, very deep”.

Indeed. This young woman has been active in interfaith activities. I’m sure that the emphasis was on understanding, listening to the other side’s point of view, and getting to know each other as individuals, not as stereotypes.

And probably what she heard was that if it were possible to prevent “a few extremists on both sides” from stirring up hatred and violence, the conflict could be solved by reasonable people talking, listening, and compromising.

But, as she found out, it’s not that easy. There are several kinds of basic disagreements between Israelis and Palestinians that can’t be settled this way. Here are just a few of many that inform the conflict:

• Disagreements about what happened in the past. Did the Zionists dispossess Arabs? Did the Arabs commit pogroms against the pre-state yishuv? Did the Palestinians and the Arab Nations attack the Jewish State in 1947-48 or did the Jews try to drive the Palestinians out? Why did the Palestinian refugees flee? Why did the Jews flee from Arab countries at the same time? What was Nasser’s true intent in 1967? Why did Oslo fail? Were most of the Lebanese casualties of the 2006 war civilians or Hezbollah soldiers? How many were there, anyway? Who shot Mohammad Dura (if anyone)?

• Disagreements about what is happening now. Are Palestinians in Gaza suffering from the international boycott of Hamas, or is Hamas getting plenty of aid and using it for a military buildup? Does Fatah represent anyone other than the US? Is Palestinian terrorism justified resistance to illegal occupation, or aggressive warfare against a legitimate state?

• Disagreements about intentions. Is Israel building the security fence primarily to keep out terrorists or to steal land? Does Fatah (assuming that it represents anyone) really intend to abide by a two-state peace treaty, or would they consider a Palestinian state in the territories merely a stepping stone to the conquest of Israel?

And the most difficult kind of disagreement of all,

• Disagreements about principles and ideology. Can Muslims live in a Jewish state? Can a Jewish state also be democratic? Can there be a Jewish state in the Middle East at all? Do Jews have a historic right to live in Judea and Samaria? Should the 1929 Hebron pogrom or the 1948 ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem be allowed to stand? Who must have authority over the Temple Mount? What should be the rights, if any, of descendants of refugees?

None of this is easy, and it is all connected, with the historical narratives serving as justification for today’s ideology. And there is one whole additional dimension of the conflict, which actually has little to do with Israelis and Palestinians:

• The meddling of outside interests. What are the goals of Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the US, the EU, Egypt, Syria, etc.? And what do they all expect to get out of the conflict?

Technorati Tags: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The UN/EU attacks on Israel seem to be reaching new levels lately:

A UN conference, held at the European Parliament in Brussels, heard an array of speakers call for a boycott against Israel and strategize on ways to achieve its international isolation, during the first day of an event billed by organizers as a gathering to promote “Middle East peace”.

The ‘International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace’ has been organized by the UN’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and attracted political figures and pro-Palestinian members of non governmental organizations (NGOs).

…British Member of Parliament Clare Short said during her speech that Israel was not interested in a two-state solution, and blasted the EU for “allowing” Israel to build “an apartheid wall”. “The boycott worked for South Africa, it is time to do it again,” Short was quoted as saying…

Pierre Galand, European coordinator of the Committees and Associations for Palestine, claimed that the conference was taking place despite pressures to cancel it, and blamed the Fatah-Hamas conflict on “Israeli policy”. — YNet

So we have two of the major organizations which should be responsibly working to solve problems and promote peace, taking the side of the forces which are trying to use the Palestinians as a club to crush the Israeli state.

The behavior of the UN is not surprising, with its plethora of committees, divisions, special functionaries, etc., all of which exist simply to damage Israel. By hosting this conference, which was clearly designed as an anti-Israel tool, the EU too demonstrates that it is officially partisan in this regard.

The UN, meanwhile, continues to plan the “Durban II” conference on racism that will be held in 2009. With Libya chairing the planning committee, it’s hard to imagine that it will be friendly to Israel:

On Monday, Pakistan called for the 2009 conference, dubbed Durban II, to focus on the plight of Palestinians. A number of countries also spoke of expanding the definition of anti-Semitism to cover all Semitic people, i.e. Arabs. — Jerusalem Post [my emphasis]

This Orwellian attempt to define Jew-hatred out of existence seems obviously wrong and remarkably stupid to me, but the fact that “a number of countries” support it indicates the true extent of the antisemitic mindset — in which this seems perfectly sensible — throughout the world.

Technorati Tags: UN, EU, Israel, antisemitism, anti-Semitism

From the Gulf News (George S. Hishmeh):

My niece, Irene, called me a few days ago indignant that some of her American friends, including some Jews, keep describing typical Arab foods such as falafel, hummus and shawarma, among others, as Israeli…

My first impulse was to tell my niece that Israel was almost 60 year old and these food items have obviously existed long before then.

Actually, these foods predate the arrival of the Arabs in the region as well. Chickpeas (the main ingredient in hummus and falafel) were eaten by the ancient Egyptians. And the roasting of lamb on a spit (shawarma) probably goes back to prehistoric times.

So why are these Arab foods, George? Is there any reason to doubt that the Jews that lived in Land of Israel before the founding of the state — indeed all the way back to Abraham — ate these foods?

They are Middle Eastern foods, and Jews are no less Middle Easterners than Arabs, to the latter’s great and oft-times violent chagrin.

Technorati Tags: Jews, Arabs, Middle East, hummus, falafel, shawarma

Dear Mr. Ambassador,

You have asked Israel to “…’deliver’ American Jewish organizations and ensure that the US Congress does not pass a resolution characterizing as genocide the massacre of Armenians during World War I”.

Israeli officials tried to explain to you that Israel did not control American Jewish organizations such as the ADL, whose chairman recently issued a statement that (at least obliquely) recognized the Armenian Genocide committed by your Ottoman predecessors.

But you refused to accept this, saying “On some issues there is no such thing as ‘Israel cannot deliver’”.

Possibly you think that there is an international Zionist conspiracy which takes orders from Jerusalem, and it’s just a question of Israel issuing them. Coming from a country where journalists are jailed for ‘insulting Turkishness’, you expect orders to be obeyed.

Well, Mr. Ambassador, I have news for you.

The government of Israel (sometimes to its sorrow) does not control Jewish organizations, either right-wing or left-wing, in America, Israel, or anywhere else. Abe Foxman cannot be arrested for ‘insulting Jewishness’.

Your attempt to hold Turkish-Israeli relations hostage in order to force Jews to take a position that is contrary to their conscience is reprehensible, and in any event doomed. Jews will be Jews, they will not take orders, and they have very strong feelings about genocide denial.

My expectation is that the pressure will backfire, and Jews will close ranks and support the congressional resolution — even those who had previously stood aside for ‘practical’ reasons.

Update [28 Aug 1027 PDT]: The ADL has rehired Andrew Tarsy as New England regional director. Tarsy had been fired last week for opposing the (then) national organization’s position on the Armenian Genocide. See what I mean?

Technorati Tags: Turkey, Israel, Armenian Genocide, ADL

With all due respect to Anne Carr and to the bloody intractability of the conflict in Northern Ireland, Ms. Carr doesn’t get it:

A Northern Ireland peace activist told an audience of Arabs and Jews at the St. George Hotel in east Jerusalem on Friday, “If we Irish can solve our conflict, then so can anybody.”

Anne Carr, who opened the first integrated (Protestant-Catholic) school in Northern Ireland in 1986, was delivering the keynote address at a conference organized by the Bereaved Families Forum as a part of its “Knowing it the Beginning” project, which aims to bring together families who have suffered loss from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so that they can better understand each other…

“We have to work out a way of living together, respecting the dignity of each other, not creating a humiliating peace so we can feel contentment with our lot, and not resentment with our lot,” she said. — Jerusalem Post

There are of course some similarities between the Troubles and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in particular the employment of terrorism. But there are also fundamental differences.

The nationalists did not view the unionists as interlopers who must be killed or expelled from Ireland, as most Palestinians view the Jews in Israel. If they had come to power, they would not have ethnically cleansed the Protestant neighborhoods. The Roman Catholicism practiced in Ireland does not call for Catholics to hunt down and kill Protestants.

Although the British government may have sided with the unionists, they do not fire rockets into Catholic areas. Northern Ireland is not surrounded by hostile nations who wish to destroy the state using chemical or nuclear weapons, supposedly to help the Catholics.

There are not four or five million hostile Catholics in camps located in the Irish Republic who are not permitted to live normal lives, but are kept in a permanent state of limbo until they can be introduced into Northern Ireland to change the demographics (and incidentally, to wreak violent havoc).

The question in Northern Ireland is how the area will be governed. Will it be a part of the UK, the Irish Republic, or something in between? In the Mideast, one asks whether the Jews will keep their state or, after a bloody war which may become nuclear, the survivors will be dispersed again throughout the world.

The idea that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can be solved if only the two sides could sit down and talk enough is seductive but false. This is in part because the Palestinians have a wholly unrealistic view of what they are entitled to in any settlement. The Palestinian position is based on a narrative which distorts historical facts, perverts justice, and does not admit that they bear any responsibility for their actions.

I said ‘in part’ because the other part is the fact that in the Middle East the Palestinians are just the tip of the iceberg. Israel is under siege by the entire Arab world, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are pumping large sums of petrodollars into support for Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas which directly confront Israel, and which shortly will be at war with her. There is nothing even remotely analogous to this in the Irish example.

So, while I am certainly in awe of the Irish, who may have ended a conflict that has been going on in some form or other for centuries, I suggest that there’s more than “working out a way of living together” that has to occur before there will be peace in the Middle East.

Technorati Tags: Northern Ireland, Anne Carr, Israel, Palestinians

Abraham Foxman of the ADL has issued a new statement regarding the Armenian Genocide, which includes the following truly remarkable paragraph:

We have never negated but have always described the painful events of 1915-1918 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as massacres and atrocities. On reflection, we have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have called it genocide. [my emphasis]

Does Mr. Foxman think he is writing some kind of international treaty whose language must be creatively ambiguous? Or perhaps one of those software licensing agreements?

What he should be saying is that the ADL was wrong in not applying the word ‘genocide’ to the aforesaid events, which in fact were a genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire. It would have been much easier to write than the tortured prose above, which is not going to win him a lot of friends among either Turks, Armenians, or Jews who understand the importance of calling genocide by its name.

The statement also includes the following explanation:

Having said that, we continue to firmly believe that a Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States.

Of course I don’t know what threats the Turkish government has made. However, if they are attempting to hold the Turkish Jewish community hostage for actions taken by the US Congress, this should be exposed as a clear violation of their human rights, and Turkey should be censured for it.

Technorati Tags: ADL, Foxman, Armenian Genocide

Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel’s Chief of Staff since January 22 of this year doesn’t talk to the press. And he doesn’t allow his officers to do so, either. Or talk to politicians. And he prefers that they do not go to cocktail parties.

Ashkenazi himself wouldn’t have time for parties, since he normally arrives at his desk on or before 7 AM and doesn’t get home to his family until 11 PM.

His predecessor, Dan Halutz, tried to execute surprise inspections of various units. But somehow, the word would get out, and Halutz would arrive at a base and find everything in abnormally perfect order. Ashkenazi does this too, but he tells no one where he is going until he gets into his car and gives instructions to his driver.

Ashkenazi was drafted and joined the Golani Brigade in 1972. He fought in the Sinai in 1973, the Litani campaign in 1978, and the 1982 Lebanon war, where he commanded the forces that captured Beaufort Castle, Nabatiyeh, and Jebel Baruch — some of the fiercest fighting of the war. He has held almost every position there is in the IDF ground forces, and has a remarkable memory for detail. So it is impossible to bullshit him. He knows how everything is supposed to be, and who is responsible for everything.

Dan Halutz, an Air Force man, thought that it was possible to explain logically why something should be done and it would happen. Ashkenazi, a ground combat soldier, understands that it is also necessary for every individual to know with 100% certainty that failure to follow orders and procedures will be noticed and there will be consequences for the responsible party.

Combat soldiers tend to like him. His immediate subordinates learn quickly that they need to be very well prepared at all times.

It would be unfair to call his style ‘management by fear’, because this implies a degree of capriciousness, a situation where no one knows where the lightning will strike next. In the case of Ashkenazi, it’s more like management by total knowledge. There’s nothing arbitrary at all: whoever screws up will pay the price. Don’t screw up and you have nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, the IDF let a lot of ‘little’ things slide in the period between the two Lebanon wars. We saw then that little things add up, but they are not sliding any more.

In my opinion, it’s very probable that Israel will see war on an even greater scale than 2006 within the next year or so. It looks to me as though Israel has put the right man in place for a very tough job.

Technorati Tags: Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel, IDF

What is it possible to say about Shimon Peres, Israel’s new president?

Israeli President Shimon Peres has proposed that Israel release all 10,000 Palestinian security prisoners it is holding in exchange for the Palestinian Authority finally cracking down on anti-Jewish terrorism, Israel’s Ma’ariv daily newspaper reported on Monday.

According to the report, Peres’ plan would see Israel free 2,000 prisoners every year for the next five years as an incentive for the Palestinians to begin dealing with the terrorism emanating from territories under their control. The Palestinians were supposed to start cracking down on terror back in 1993, when Israel granted them autonomy with a guarantee of statehood at some point in the future. — Israel Today

I hate to use the same quotation twice in the same week, but Benjamin Franklin allegedly said that the definition of insanity was to do the same thing over and over while expecting different results. If anyone was ever insane in this way, it is Mr. Peres.

Last week, Peres proposed a ‘peace’ plan that would have Israel withdraw from most of the West Bank while ‘compensating’ the Palestinians with territory within the Green Line so that they end up with 100% of the territory that he believes belongs to them.

Never mind, as Isi Leibler points out, that this is throwing out the correct interpretation of UN resolution 242 and accepting the Arab version. Never mind that it calls for unprecedented concessions regarding Jerusalem and the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian ‘refugees’.

Never mind that since 1993 we have learned, except for Peres who is apparently incapable of learning anything, that concessions do not bring peace, but rather more war.

Never mind that proposals like this, even if the government officially denies them, send a message of weakness and surrender which will ultimately result in more bloodshed, when Israel responds to the inevitable terrorism which is the Arabs’ way of showing strength.

Only a man with the enormous arrogance of a Shimon Peres can accept the honor of being elected president, a post which incidentally is supposed to be above politics, and then turn around and make proposals for which he does not have any kind of mandate, and which are actually dangerous to the state that he is supposed to serve.

There are no more Nobel Prizes waiting for you out there, Mr. Peres. Incidentally, Arafat’s prize, which he got at the same ceremony, is now in the hands of Hamas, which stole it from Arafat’s Gaza headquarters. I devoutly hope that this doesn’t happen to yours.

Technorati Tags: Peres, Israel

The BBC continues to live in its massive time warp, believing it to be 1949. Here is a map which they present to illustrate a story about a shooting in the Old City of Jerusalem:

Note the “1949 armistice line”. Even better is the area marked “no man’s land”!

And of course they find it necessary to introduce the following into any story relating to Jerusalem:

East Jerusalem has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Palestinians hope to establish their capital there, but Israel claims the entire city.

Israel’s annexation of the city is not recognised by the international community.

Palestinians ‘hope’ to do a lot of things, as we know, and the BBC is behind them all the way.

Technorati Tags: BBC, Jerusalem

An editorial on Wednesday’s Ha’aretz English site discusses the so-called ‘Peres plan’, which I mentioned yesterday (and which the Prime Minister’s and President’s office have denied). Ha’aretz believes that we are now on the verge of “genuine diplomatic processes and practical plans for solving the conflict”, as opposed to previous “empty words” and “barren meetings”.

What is the great breakthrough that PM Olmert and Palestinian President Abbas have achieved at their recent meeting? Nothing less than this:

Olmert, basing himself on a proposal by President Shimon Peres, welcomed the key principle of the Arab peace initiative, which guarantees that negotiations over the borders of the Palestinian state will be based on the June 4, 1967, lines.

It seems to me that all two-state proposals, including Oslo, the Geneva Initiative, etc. have ‘based themselves’ on the 1967 borders, more or less. So this isn’t exactly a breakthrough.

Maybe it’s the part about the Arab [League] Peace Initiative? But that calls for “Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines”, which of course does not leave room for Israel to keep some settlement blocs while compensating the Palestinians with land from within the 1967 lines, as in the Peres plan. Nor does it leave room for the “practical and balanced solutions for the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees’ return to places other than Israel’s sovereign territory” that are called for in the Peres plan.

So either Olmert has agreed to nothing, or he has given away the store.

Ha’aretz’ exposition of the alleged Peres plan is interesting not so much for the content, as for the point of view it exposes:

The Peres document proposes that Israel and the Palestinians draft a document of principles, with an upfront guarantee that Israel will provide the Palestinian state with territory equal to 100 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A prior agreement on this central issue, along with a binding timetable, would enable negotiations to be held on the details of the agreement. Such a discussion would focus, among other issues, on what compensation the Palestinians would receive for the designated settlement blocs, which must not interfere with the West Bank’s territorial contiguity.

It seems strange to me that somewhere along the way from the Balfour Declaration, through the major wars and minor conflicts, it has become enshrined as an inviolable principle that the territories belong to the Palestinians, and Israel must transfer them or compensate their owners.

It might be possible to convince me that for practical reasons Israel should not hold on to all of the territories, but I certainly do not start from the position that they are Palestinian territories which Israel must give back to their rightful owners! But this is the position expressed above, and what bothers me about it is the slippery slope to the next step, which is the general Palestinian position that all of the area of the mandate belongs to them, from the river to the sea. If we agree that the territories are Palestinian, what is the distinction between them and the rest of Israel?

Ha’aretz continues to display its remarkable perspective as follows:

Moreover, time is not on the side of pragmatic forces in the Middle East. Israel’s failed war in Lebanon, and the failure of American policy in Iraq, have raised the status of Shi’ite fanatics like Hassan Nasrallah, who receive support from Iran. [my emphasis]

Israel’s war? Somehow I’d thought that Hezbollah’s invasion of Israel, the kidnappings, and the rocket attacks would make it Nasrallah’s war.

And here’s the main point Ha’aretz wants to make:

Without a substantive change in the situation in the territories [i.e., Israel abandoning them], Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip is liable to turn out to be the first step in a takeover of the entire territories by Islamic fanatics.

And I ask: How will an abandonment of the West Bank be different from the abandonment of Gaza?

Olmert, Peres, Abbas, and Fayad may sign a document with great fanfare, and maybe more Nobel Prizes will be distributed. Then, when the IDF has evacuated the Jewish residents from the Judenrein province of Palestine and has withdrawn across the green line, what will prevent Hamas from doing exactly what they did in Gaza?

Maybe this time they won’t even have to fight; perhaps the Saudis can negotiate a unity government for them.

Technorati Tags: Ha’aretz, Peres, Olmert, Abbas, Israel, Palestinians, West Bank, Hamas

Israeli PM Olmert and President Peres have strongly denied reports that they are talking about a two-state deal with the Palestinians that will allow Israel to keep about 5% of the heavily Jewish portions of the West Bank, while compensating the Palestinians with some Arab-populated territory within the 1967 lines, with the consent of the residents.

Although this would be a rational way of bringing about a two-state solution, insofar as any such solution could be made to work, it is impossible for at least two reasons.

First, very few Arab citizens of Israel, no matter how ‘Palestinized’ they may have become, will be prepared to trade the conditions they enjoy in Israel for life in a Palestinian state governed by the Islamist Hamas or the corrupt Fatah.

And second, the PA is not interested in “populated-area exchange” because they see the Israeli Arab population as a lever to put pressure on Israel, even as a possible fifth column in the event of a regional war. The last thing they want is fewer Arabs inside Israel.

In fact, a form of this plan was proposed by right-wing cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman in 2004:

The Lieberman Plan suggests a territorial exchange whereby Israel would acquire most Jewish regions in the West Bank at the same time as it would cede Arab regions of Israel to the Palestinian Authority. There are three major Arab regions in Israel, all contigious with the West Bank; (1) the southern and central Galilee, (2) the central region known as “the Triangle” and (3) the Bedouin region in the northern part of the Negev desert. Giving up these three regions would reduce the number of Israeli Arab citizens by 90%. Only those Arabs living in isolated villages and as minorities in Jewish cities would remain. The ethnically Druze community which is Zionist would also remain part of Israel. All remaining citizens whether Jews or Arabs would have to pledge an oath of allegiance to the state in order to keep their Israeli citizenship.

It would be ironic indeed to find Shimon Peres and Avigdor Lieberman on the same side of this issue, but even if the report is true, it’s certain that an Olmert/Peres plan would differ significantly from Lieberman’s. In response to the rumor, Lieberman said,

“I welcome the acceptance of my idea of population exchanges, because there is no other solution… The solution must include all of the settlement blocs and leave Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty. But there is no sense in talking about a Palestinian state until the PA proves itself.”

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Peres, Olmert, Avigdor Lieberman

The media in the US barely mention this stuff anymore:

A massive terror attack was foiled Saturday night when an IAF air strike on two vehicles near the southern Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt killed two Palestinians, including an Islamic Jihad operative, and wounded 21 others, the IDF said.

The army said that one of the vehicles was carrying Islamic Jihad operatives and was filled with explosive devices including suicide bomb belts.

The group, said the IDF, was on its way to carry out a huge terror attack against Israelis…

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing a rocket into a Sderot neighborhood shortly before the air strike, but it was not clear if they were the same group hit by the IAF strike. Two more rockets were fired at the western Negev on Saturday night. No casualties or damage were reported as a result of the Kassam attacks. — Jerusalem Post

Rockets are falling on southern Israel every day. Hamas still holds Gilad Shalit. Hezbollah still holds Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, if indeed they are alive.

These facts represent violations of international law. They represent denials of basic human rights to Israelis. If you listen to pro-Palestinian voices, you hear the same stuff over and over: Israel mistreats us, Israel denies us our rights, Israel builds an annoying fence, etc.

How can anyone miss the fact that Palestinians (and others) are trying to kill Israelis and the only thing that prevents them from doing so is the army?

Isn’t it reasonable to think that you would be tempted to treat someone badly if he is trying to kill you, in fact, if he has been trying to kill your family since the beginning of the 20th century?

Just sweep away all the accusations and counter-accusations and you are left with the simple fact that Arabs have always wanted to kill Jews in the Middle East, and Jews (and later Israelis) have responded in various ways to protect themselves.

This isn’t news anymore.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians