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Here is a perfect example of how much the Arab nations care about the Palestinians. Gaddafi is threatening to deport Palestinians in Libya to Gaza:

Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi has decided to boycott the Arab League’s summit, set to be held in Riyadh at the end of March, in response to what he considers as the Arab leaders’ plan to “sacrifice” the refugee issue in order to please Israel.

Gaddafi is worried that in the framework of the Saudi peace initiative, Arab leaders would concede the refugees’ right of return, and agree to have them naturalized in their countries of residence, in a bid to encourage Israel’s cooperation with the peace plan.

Libyan newspaper al-Jamahiriya reported this week that Libya may begin deporting Palestinian refugees soon, in protest of the Arab plan.

“Libya will never cooperate with a concession of the refugees’ right of return, and will not allow for the settling of refugees far away from their homeland,” the paper stated.

“Libya is in negotiations to allow thousands of Palestinians who reside within its territory to move to the Gaza Strip through Egypt, before the plot to settle them in the Arab countries materializes,” it added. — YNet

So Gaddafi wants to ‘protect their rights’ by preventing them from being resettled, God forbid, in someplace other than ‘Palestine’. Apparently he actually tried to do this once before in 1995, in protest of the Oslo accords:

Hundreds of those refugees remained stranded in a refugee camp on the Libyan-Egyptian border, while hundreds others spent weeks aboard ships in the Mediterranean Sea, after both Syria and Lebanon refused to give them shelter.

Of course not, because destroying Israel and killing Jews is always top priority for the Arabs, far above the welfare of Palestinians.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Gaza, Libya, Gaddafi

By Vic Rosenthal

Ami Isseroff, a reasonable guy who is pro-Israel, recently wrote the following:

The [Palestinian] “resistance” and the Israeli inhumanity continue because, in fact, nobody really cares about them. They are both used as “issues” to attract sympathy by Palestinian terror groups and interest groups on the one hand, and by settlers and right-wing Zionists on the others. The Palestinians use the occupation, the confiscation of land and the arbitrary rights violations to delegitimize the existence of Israel. Every settler who insults a Palestinian, every IDF soldier who insults a Palestinian at a checkpoint is a victory for the Hamas. The Israel advocates use Palestinian terror as an issue to delegitimize Palestinian rights. Every suicide bombing, every Palestinian rocket that lands in Sderot is a victory for the settlers. All the issues are “excuses” but they are real excuses. They are quite useful. — Mideast Web, The Occupation is not so moral either

There are several things about this that bother me.

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By Vic Rosenthal

The UN is moving to institutionalize its bias against Israel by means of yet another permanent function:

The United Nation’s Human Rights Council is looking to appoint John Dugard as a permanent investigator on Israel’s actions in the territories, which he has in the past compared to apartheid, Ambassador to the UN in Geneva [sic], Yitzhak Levanon, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Levanon said the appointment would be part of a move to create a mandate by which to permanently probe Israeli violations of international law in the territories until such time as Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 border.

A proposal to this effect has been presented to the Council by the Organization of the Islamic Conference but it does not mention Dugard, who published a report on the territories in January. No decision has been taken on the matter so far. The report is slated for discussion by the council next week. — Jerusalem Post

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By Shalom Freedman

Shalom Freedman is a writer living in Jerusalem.

On March 6, 2007, the BBC published a survey taken in twenty-eight countries that rated Israel as one of the world’s most hated countries [specifically, the one most dangerous to world peace — ed.] along with Iran, North Korea and the US. Putting aside the fact that the generally hostile to Israel BBC did its survey during the Second Lebanon War, at a time when Israel’s popularity was at its lowest, it is still possible to give a certain credence to the results and ask why the Jewish State is so despised.

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News item:

A South Korean publisher agreed Thursday to withdraw a best-selling children’s book from stores after meeting with a prominent anti-Semitism watchdog group that accused the author of spreading messages echoing Nazi propaganda.

The series of comic books, titled “Meon Nara, Yiwoot Nara,” or “Far Countries, Near Countries” and authored by visual arts professor Rhie Won-bok, purports to teach children about the world and has sold more than ten million copies since the first volume was published in 1987.

One of three books on the US initially published in 2004 contains a chapter claiming Jews were the driving force for the hatred that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, that they exert control over all US media and also prevent Korean-Americans from succeeding in the United States…

[Rabbi Abraham] Cooper [of the Wiesenthal Center] said the author’s responses were inadequate and that he did not expect him to play a role in resolving the issue.

“The net effect of what he’s done here is a disaster and he just doesn’t get it,” Cooper said. “I hope he will someday, but in the meantime this book’s got to go.”

Rhie could not be immediately reached for comment. However, he had earlier maintained despite the criticism that his depiction of Jews in the book was accurate and insisted he was not anti-Semitic. — AP (YNet) (my emphasis)

What is so chilling to me is the way the antisemitic “memes” spread, become part of the collective conventional wisdom of human society, and become so deeply embedded that they are no longer recognized as hateful. Scotsmen are frugal, elephants never forget, Americans are loud and rich, and Jews are devils.

By Vic Rosenthal

Syria’s suddenly getting a lot of play from the West:

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - After an undeclared two-year boycott, U.S. and European officials are talking to Syria again, signaling a possible easing of its international isolation.

Syria had its first high-level contacts with the U.S. in two years at a weekend conference in Baghdad on possible ways to stabilize Iraq. A high-ranking U.S. diplomat visited Damascus on Tuesday, followed Wednesday by the European Union’s foreign policy chief. — (Guardian, UK)

In Damascus with Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem, Javier Solana of the EU said:

With the President (Bachar al Assad) we have also talked about the peace process in the region. We understand it in a comprehensive manner. We would would like to work as much as possible to see your country Syria recuperating the territories occupied in 1967″.

“I would like to repeat, we look at the peace process in that way,” he added. — (European Jewish Press, Brussels)

I’m not sure why the EU is suddenly interested in Syria. Perhaps they think it will be possible to move Syria away from Iran and keep her from further mischief in Lebanon. This would please Saudi Arabia, the major energy supplier to the EU. The US, of course, sees Syrian cooperation as vital to a clean exit from Iraq.

From an Israeli point of view, these developments are highly worrisome.

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The Palestinians have finally agreed on a platform for the PA unity government. Here is how a Hamas website describes it (I’ve added some translations in case the original is unclear):

Our Sources reported that the new platform states that, “The government confirms that the resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people.”

Terrorism against Israel will continue…

It goes onto say that, “halting resistance depends on ending the occupation and achieving freedom and the right of return and independence.”

until there is no more Israel…

The new government also recognizes that “the key to security and stability in the region is in the ending of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, recognition of the right to Palestinian self-determination.”

and nobody else will have peace, either, until Israel is gone.

Thus, the statement confirmed , “the government will work with the international community to end the occupation, and to return the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

Work with us, “international community”, give us big gobs of money so we can destroy Israel.

The government “holds fast to the rights of Palestinian refugees, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land and belongings.”

Just to make sure you understand that ‘occupation’ refers to the one that started in 1948.

Most Israeli reaction was understandably negative. However, if there are any remaining doubts that the Left lives in another galaxy, they can be dispelled now:

Meretz Chairman MK Yossi Beilin…was optimistic.

“The new unity government, based on the Saudi initiative, is a welcome invitation to embark once again upon the peace process. Hopefully, they will be able to create a secure and solid partner for Israel,” he said.

Fellow Meretz MK Ran Cohen also reacted positively to the prospect of the unity government, urging Israel to “immediately begin talks with the new Palestinian government to try and come to a mutual cease-fire agreement. — (Jerusalem Post, my emphasis)

The coming ‘peace process’ may be as violent as the previous one, but at least this time our ‘partners’ are making their intentions crystal-clear.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, PA, Palestinians

You can get a good look at the future by watching this clip from Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas-controlled), thanks to MEMRI. Sample dialogue:

Interviewer: Let’s talk with the two children of the jihad-fighting martyrdom seeker Rim Al-Riyashi - Dhoha and Muhammad. Dhoha, you love mama, right? Where did mama go?

Dhoha: To Paradise.

Interviewer: What did mama do?

Dhoha: She committed martyrdom.

Still think we can talk to these people?

Peace Now’s accusations of massive land confiscation have turned out to be grossly exaggerated:

A military database released to the left-wing anti-settlement organization Peace Now under court pressure shows that very little private land was seized from Palestinians to build Israel’s largest West Bank settlement, the watchdog group reported on Wednesday.

The new numbers are vastly smaller than numbers Peace Now issued in a November report based on leaked information.

In November, Peace Now claimed that 86 percent of Ma’aleh Adumim was built on private Palestinian land. After successfully petitioning the court to see the database, the group reported Wednesday that data show that only 0.5% of the settlement was built on private land…

Dror Etkes, Peace Now’s settlement expert, said that if the original information it published was inaccurate, then the IDF was to blame for refusing to release the database until the court ordered it to do so after the November report. — Jerusalem Post (my emphasis)

I doubt very strongly that the IDF leaked the original data, waited for Peace Now to file suit, and then sprang the truth on them in order to discredit them (although I’m sure this will be a popular explanation).

And I don’t even think that Peace Now just made it all up. The actual explanation is worse, really.

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Article 301 of the Turkish penal code defines the crime of Insulting Turkishness as follows:

1. A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2. A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

This has been applied by the Turks to various writers, Journalists, and others — even to the publisher of a book by Noam Chomsky. Although part of a package of laws designed to help bring Turkey into the EU, some people think that they haven’t quite got the idea yet.

However, given the critical situation that we find ourselves in today, it may be necessary for the Jewish people to create a similar offense, which of course will be called Embarassing Jewishness.

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Sunday’s Washington Post contains a long article by Scott Wilson about “new historian” Benny Morris. Morris gained fame (or notoriety) by arguing that many Palestinians were deliberately expelled by Israel in the 1948 war. The article argues that Morris has moved to the right, and indeed includes remarks critical of Morris by extreme left-wing anti-Zionists Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé.

The article does a fair job of presenting Morris’ point of view, although I suggest that little weight should be given to the comments of Shlaim and Pappé. Indeed, I think that Morris’ basic outlook hasn’t changed much over the years, but rather he has become aware of some inescapable facts.

You should read the whole article, but here is how it ends:

“Two states is the only solution with an element of justice,” Morris says. “But there are two other realistic solutions — one is that the Jews will kick out all the Arabs across the river, and the other is that the Arabs will throw the Jews into the sea. I’m not sure one of them won’t happen.“

“The problem that existed here in 1947 remains today — the Arabs don’t accept Israel’s presence,” Morris says. “A major switch in mind-set must occur for peace to come. That is the sine qua non of any peace agreement. All the rest — the road map, the peace process — is just footwork.” [my emphasis]

I couldn’t agree more.

Technorati Tags: Benny Morris, Palestinians, Israel

This is the attitude you get if you are a member of a royal family:

Saudi Arabia criticised Israel on Tuesday for setting preconditions to Middle East peace talks and urged it to accept an Arab initiative first proposed in 2002 and discuss details later.

“We only hear of conditions from Israel about everything, but no acceptance. You cannot have negotiations like that, you accept the proposals then you talk about this,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said.

A 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut adopted a Saudi initiative offering Israel normal ties with Arab countries in return for full withdrawal from land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war [and the estalishment of a Palestinian state as well as a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem acceptable to the Arab nations — ed.] — Ha’aretz

The text of the Saudi/Arab League initiative is here. My primary objection to it is that even if the ‘details’ of full withdrawal to 1967 borders and ‘return’ of Palestinian refugees to Israel could be worked out, the initiative, which calls for Israel to make concrete security concessions in return for a promise of normal relations and peace — but significantly, not ‘recognition’ — totally accepts the Arab story, in which Israel bears all responsibility for the conflict and therefore must take all the risks in ending it.

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