By Vic Rosenthal
Sasan Fayazmanesh is chairman of the Economics department at California State University Fresno (CSUF), a university that has been called world-class in the misbehavior of its athletes, one of whom was arrested for biting off someone’s lip in a bar fight. But I digress.
On May 25, 2007, Islamist websites posted a communiqué titled “The Military Commander of the Al-Qaeda in Balad Al-Sham” (”Al-Sham” is the historical term for Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine). The communiqué called the Lebanese military attack on the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp “a new Crusader war” and demanded that the Lebanese military withdraw its forces from the area of the camp. Lest, the communiqué said, “rivers of blood” would be spilled and “no Crusader will have a safe place in Lebanon.”
This is starting to look like Iraq. If anything, it’s more complicated. Fatah al-Islam and whoever issued this represent radical Sunnis, Hezbollah (and others) the fundamentalist Shiites. The Lebanese government includes members from at least five Christian groups, as well as Sunnis, Shiites (some aligned with Hezbollah, some not), and Druze. The US is apparently supporting the government. It’s interesting that the communiqué refers to ‘Crusaders’:
“Out of the obligation to aid [our brothers], we are sending a clear message to the head of Christianity in Maronite Lebanon… and telling him: Stop your dogs [from harming] our people, and extinguish your cannon. If you do not, you are hereby warned that, starting tomorrow, [no] Crusader will have a safe place in Lebanon, and just as you do harm, so will you be harmed.
It’s not just the ‘Crusaders’, though. The Druze leader Walid Jumbalat recently blamed Syria for being behind the violence, and others have said that Fatah al-Islam is a “creature of Syrian intelligence”. But apparently nothing except Jews gets Muslim anger up better than ‘Crusaders’, and they haven’t (yet) figured out how the Jews are responsible for this.
If you think you know what’s going on you are probably oversimplifying. One thing that is certain: the army is preparing for the final assault on Fatah al-Islam. Either they will turn out to be a tiny extremist group with at most a couple of hundred members that nobody cares about, or they will be the tail that will wag the dog of a much greater struggle between the members of the uneasy Lebanese partnership, with support from Syria, the US, Israel, Iran and who knows who else on the sidelines.
Update [28 May 1408 PDT]: Actually, they have figured out how to blame the Jews.
[Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker] Abssi has claimed that the group’s fight is with “Jews and Americans” and not with Lebanon. In a video statement aired on Al-Jazeera television, he said his group was “not a threat to the security of Lebanon” and accused an unidentified “third party” of starting the hostilities. — AFP
There is considerable concern in Israel that the violence will somehow find its way to the border.
Technorati Tags: Lebanon
Dozens of British architects signed a petition which charges Israel with oppressing the Palestinian people and accuses their Israeli counterparts of being complicit in “unjust action” against the Palestinians…
Architect Will Alsop told Building Design magazine that he and his colleagues felt compelled to act. “This is not against Israel, it’s for Palestine,” he said. “I think the Palestinians are living in a prison. I’d like fellow colleagues in Israel to feel some responsibility about this shabby treatment. Architects are a fairly humanitarian lot and perhaps they could help.”
Having turned journalists like the formerly self-effacing Alan Hart into raving egotistical lunatics, and infecting a large part of the academic population, the aliens have found fertile pasture among members of yet another profession.
The symptoms include loss of the ability to absorb historical knowledge, the delusion that no matter what one’s profession one is an expert in the Middle East, and a total lack of perspective (something which must be painful for architects).
British architecture, of course, was never all that great, as you can see here. So possibly their descent into idiocy wasn’t caused by possession by aliens after all, but rather a desire to have someone, anyone, pay attention to them.
Technorati Tags: British architects, Israel, Palestinians
The air strikes in Gaza seem to be getting to Hamas:
In response to Israeli air strikes throughout Gaza against its infrastructure, and the killing of five Hamas terrorists, spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, Abu Obeida, said that Israel could forget about kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit if it targets senior army or political officials in the group, Israel Radio reported Saturday. — Jerusalem Post
How about “Hamas can forget about its leaders if Schalit isn’t released within 24 hours?”, something that Israel should have said, and meant, months ago.
In typical fashion, the Hamas point of view is that they are allowed to kill Jews, but Jews are not allowed to fight back:
Earlier, a Hamas spokesman said that “Israel has crossed all the lines,” and called on all Palestinian factions to “hit the Zionist enemy.”
My advice: wage total war against Hamas and wipe them out.
Our metropolitan area has about half a million residents; about 2500 of them are Jews and maybe twice this number are Muslims. The great majority of the rest (the ones that identify as religious) are evangelical Protestants and Catholics.
Recently I had a discussion with a Jewish friend about making alliances. She felt that the Jewish community had much in common with the Muslims, in particular to oppose the aggressive Christian proselytizing that sometimes happens in local schools. I, on the other hand, felt that we had more to gain from an alliance with the evangelical Christians, who strongly support Israel.
Unsurprisingly, this argument hasn’t been resolved and it probably won’t be unless one of us changes some of our much more basic beliefs. She thinks that freedom from religious coercion is important for Jewish survival in the Diaspora. I think that the health of the Jewish state is essential for Jewish survival anywhere. She thinks Israel is just another country, albeit one where a lot of Jews live. I think that our connection to the Land of Israel is the reason for being Jewish at all, even in the Diaspora (and even when the land wasn’t in our hands).
The other day I had another discussion, this time with a person who would call himself a left-wing Zionist, and he said something very illuminating. I said that I thought the problem with Jewish leftists was that they forgot the fundamental principle of the conflict (simply stated, the Arabs want to kill us) and worried too much about the moral issues surrounding the occupation. He explained it differently:
If you ask the question, “How can we strengthen the Jewish state?” then you never get to anti-Zionism. But you immediately understand that the occupation is weakening Israel. If you ask “Is the occupation right?” then you conclude that it is wrong and from there you get quickly to “Zionism is Racism.”
I don’t think I totally agree with him either, but we share a basic belief that the first friend does not, that of the essential nature of Israel to Jews. Possibly this is what’s meant by ‘Zionism’ today.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this several times, but it needs a post of its own because so many people just don’t get it. The fundamental principle needed to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict is this:
Principle: Since long before the founding of the state of Israel, the Arabs have never accepted any degree of Jewish settlement in the Mideast, and have fought violently to kill or expel the Jews.
There were massacres of Jews by Arabs even before the Zionist period, as illustrated by the Pogrom of Tzfat in 1834. The Arab ‘riots’ of the 1920’s and 1930’s instigated by the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem are well known. In between the major wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1972 there were always infiltrations, terrorism, bombings and shootings, etc. In the late ’70’s and early ’80’s, northern Israel was bombarded by Katyushas from Arafat’s enclave in Lebanon; in 1991 Saddam Hussein launched scud missiles at Tel Aviv. More recently there was the epidemic of bombings and shootings of the Oslo years, followed by the horrific suicide bombings of the second intifada, the Katyushas of 2006 and the Qassams from Gaza. And now we have the nuclear threats of Ahmadinijad. I’m sure I left a lot out.
The principle also has an important corollary:
Corollary: It’s not really about the Palestinians.
The entire Arab world plus Iran is arrayed against Israel. Indeed, it’s probably correct to view the Palestinians as a tool of more powerful regional interests in their struggle against Israel (otherwise how is it possible to understand the continued misery of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and their poor treatment by their hosts?)
There is also an important definition:
Occupation (when used by Arabs): noun meaning ‘Jews between the river and the sea’.
Although Israelis sometimes talk about the occupied territories of Judea and Samaria or the West Bank, the Arabs always talk about ‘the occupation’. This is because they mean the one that started in 1948.
So the next time somebody complains about the security fence, you can explain why there is a fence. When they say “the occupation is the cause of the conflict” you can point out that the conflict predates the occupation of the territories and even the founding of the state. And when they are upset about Israel violating Palestinian human rights, ask them about the basic rights of Jews to life and self-determination.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, Arab-Israeli conflict
Shir-el Friedman, 35, was sitting with her mother on a bench near their Sderot home before she was killed by a Qassam rocket Monday night. Noticing that her mother was cold, she walked home to fetch her a pullover.
There was no siren as Shir-el neared the small apartment where she had resided with her mother. The early detection system had failed. The rocket slammed into a parked car just as Shir-el was walking past it. Her upper body was hit by shrapnel and she fell, losing consciousness in a pool of her own blood.
The Haifa Declaration, published last Monday by some 50 intellectuals and political activists, is the fourth and final document in a series outlining Israeli Arab leaders’ vision of what Israel should be. The others were the Mossawa Center’s 10 Points, the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee’s Future Vision and Adalah’s Democratic Constitution. Together, these documents’ drafters comprise virtually the entire political, intellectual and civil society leadership of the Israeli Arab community, excluding the Islamic Movement. And their almost identical prescriptions leave no doubt about their common goal.
The main demands are as follows: 1. Establishing a Palestinian state - whose residents would then be given the right to relocate to Israel (and vice versa). 2. Letting 4.4 million descendants of Palestinian refugees “return” to Israel. 3. Repealing the Law of Return, which entitles Jews worldwide to immigrate to Israel. 4. Making Israel a “state based on equality between the two national groups.” 5. Giving Israeli Arabs veto power over issues that affect them.
As Gordon makes clear, implementation of these demands would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state and its replacement by another Arab-dominated nation (in addition to the Palestinian state in the territories), which might contain some Jews. But not for long.
In fact, it’s likely that the long-term result would not be significantly different from that of a military defeat of Israel by the Arab nations and Palestinians, although of course the amount of short-term violence would be much greater in the latter case.
The unfortunate part of this, as Gordon says, is that the writers of these documents represent the “most liberal” Arab Israelis; for example, they condemn the mistreatment of women common in Palestinian society. If they don’t want coexistence — and it’s clear that their demands preclude it — then who does?
As I’ve written before, the radicalization of the Israeli Arabs, about 20% of the population, is one of the greatest challenges facing the state in the near future. It may be the greatest challenge — after all, I can imagine a whole range of acceptable solutions to the Iranian threat.
By making such unreasonable demands, demands that no rational Israeli Jew could accept — more than that, by moving the consciousness of the mass of the Arab population to a point where such demands seem reasonable — the Arab leadership shows itself to be either certain of success or highly irresponsible.
Although they continually express fear that there will be “another nakba” in which the remaining Arabs will be expelled from Israel, they are doing everything that they can to create a situation in which Israel is caught between expulsion and possibly civil war, and destruction.
They are betting that the explosion that they cause will wreck Israel but leave them standing. Not a good bet.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, Haifa Declaration
Here’s a really scary video of a Qassam missile just missing a gasoline tanker at a gas station in Sderot, caught by a security camera on a nearby building (thanks to HonestReporting):
Only four were fired today; Israeli sources have suggested that the reason is that Hamas is worried by Israel’s threatened targeting of their leadership.
Israeli strikes against Qassam missile teams must be working:
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh met in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in an effort to restore a cease-fire with Israel…
Abu Hamza, of Islamic Jihad’s military wing, said a truce should be conditioned on Israel’s ending its attacks on militant groups, extending the cease-fire to the West Bank, and retracting threats to go after militant leaders…
A tahdiyeh [’lull’] had been in place in the Gaza Strip, but while Hamas largely adhered to it for about six months, other, smaller organizations did not, and Hamas made no move to enforce it. Israel therefore refused to extend it to the West Bank, arguing that only the IDF would or could curtail extremist Palestinian groups operating there. — Ha’aretz
The previous ‘truce’ was less than worthless, since there was always a faction available to attack Israel with rockets or suicide bombers while other factions (and Israel) observed it.
The Palestinian pattern seems to be to create as much chaos as possible, and then call for a truce when countermeasures start to become effective.
A truce isn’t needed. The Palestinian militias started a war, and Israel should end the war by finishing off the militias. Peace will come only when the Palestinians have a leadership that understands that Israel can’t be defeated militarily.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians
The good news from the recent Pew Research poll report about American Muslim attitudes is that they are economically better off, socially more integrated, and politically less radical than European Muslims.
The bad news is that 8% of the 1.4 million American Muslims believe that “suicide bombing against civilian targets to defend Islam from its enemies” is sometimes or often justified. [poll report, p. 53] That’s 112,000 Americans.
Actually, the news is even worse, since the Pew report indicates that fully 15% of American Muslims under 30 years of age hold this view.
According to the 2000 census, there were 4,668 Muslims in the Fresno area; assuming that the growth in Muslim population since then matched the national average of about 6%, (a very conservative assumption), today there are 4,948.
Therefore, about 396 of my neighbors believe that suicide bombings against civilians “to defend their religion” are sometimes or often justified.
In the hopes that Fresnans were more moderate than the national average, I looked at the website of the local Islamic Cultural Center, and was pleased to find a fatwa which unequivocally denounces terrorism, which begins as follows:
The Fiqh Council of North America wishes to reaffirm Islam’s absolute condemnation of terrorism and religious extremism. Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram – or forbidden - and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not “martyrs.”
At the end of this declaration is a list of mosques and Islamic centers that support it. As of today, 23 May 2007, neither the Islamic Cultural Center, the Masjid Fresno, or any other local Islamic institution appeared on this list.
Either this is an oversight or my neighbors are not as moderate as I’d hoped.
Technorati Tags: Muslims, Fresno, Pew survey
By Vic Rosenthal
Israel is presently being engaged in a full scale war by Hamas and the other factions’ militias, even if Israeli officials don’t admit it. As always, Hamas is happy to state their intentions clearly:
“We call on our fighters to launch rockets attacks on the settlement of Ashkelon [within the 1967 borders, of course — ed.], which was built on Palestinian-owned land,” said a Hamas official in the Jabalya refugee camp. “We will force the settlers to run away from Ashkelon as they have already done in the settlement of Sderot. We will continue to fight until the Jews leave all of Palestine.”
According to the official, Hamas has developed new rockets capable of reaching Ashkelon and other Israeli cities. “We will turn Ashkelon into a ghost city,” he warned. “We will use all methods against the Zionist enemy.”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders expressed satisfaction with the recent attacks on Sderot, noting that many residents had fled their homes. They also called for the resumption of suicide attacks…
The armed wings of Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad said in separate statements that the rocket attacks would continue “until the Zionists flee from Palestine”…
“We will make the Jews drip tears of blood,” said Muhammad Abdel Al, a commander of the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of several terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip. “We will never find comfort until we shed the blood of the sons of monkeys and pigs.” — Jerusalem Post
The fact is that Israelis are presently fleeing from Sderot under a rocket bombardment to which “there is no immediate solution” in the words of the Prime Minister.
There is no question that an invasion of Gaza would be costly for Israel and for Palestinian civilians; certainly Hamas and its sponsors have been investing heavily in fortifications. I don’t know if this is the solution that the PM can’t seem to find, or if maybe there’s another one — perhaps something along the lines of the Lebanese army’s action against the Fatah al Islam terrorists.
When one nation declares a war of annihilation on another, and then attacks it murderously, the response should be commensurate. Think Britain, the Blitz, and Nazi Germany.
If the nation that is attacked does not strike back or does so weakly, the aggressor assumes that either it is for some reason incapable of fighting, or afraid of the consequences. In this case, the attack has been successful, and it will be followed by additional attacks until the enemy has been destroyed or surrenders.
Since the aggressor in this case has the backing of several major powers in the region, as well as the whole constellation of terrorist militias, the Israeli leadership is quite right in seeing the war that has been forced on it as a dangerous and costly struggle. But that doesn’t mean that the correct response is to avoid it.
I don’t know if war could have been avoided, but the situation today is past avoiding. Today it’s necessary to crush the enemy before it’s too late to act.
Think Britain, the Blitz, and Nazi Germany.
