FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

By Vic Rosenthal (updated 4 Feb, again 5 Feb)

Recently I was discussing the really outrageous beliefs that are common in the Muslim world, like the opinion that the Mossad and/or Bush Administration perpetrated 9/11. It was suggested that Muslim society, not having experienced the Enlightenment period as the West did, did not absorb the same concept of objective scientific or historical truth into everyday thought. So, when faced with the coercive power of modern media, Muslims did not apply the same kind of critical analysis that Westerners might.

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Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah made some instructive comments recently:

On the topic of kidnapped IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, Nasrallah [said] that the organization chose to conduct the action as part of an ongoing struggle against the continued incarceration of Lebanese prisoners inside Israeli jails, and the continued Israeli occupation of Shaba Farms…

“Iran assists the organization with money, weapons, and training, motivated by a religious fraternity and ethnic solidarity,” Nasrallah said. “And the help is funneled through Syria, and everybody knows it.”

When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the UN adjudicated the Lebanese/Israeli border and decided that the 10 square mile Shebaa Farms area originally belonged to Syria, and was part of the Golan heights. Hezbollah says that it belongs to Lebanon, to support its claim that Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory and to justify its attacks on Israel.

As far as Lebanese prisoners in Israel, they are talking about multiple murderer Samir Kuntar about whom I’ve written before.

These issues are transparent pretexts for Hezbollah’s continued terrorism. Note that there is no connection here with Palestinian human rights or any of the usual rationalizations that may appeal to liberal Westerners. The reason is simply pure hatred for Israel and a desire to remove the Jewish presence from the Middle East, motivations clearly shared by the governments of Iran and Syria.

Technorati Tags: Hezbollah, Nasrallah, Israel, Iran, Syria, Shabaa Farms, Kuntar

The AP reports:

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in internal violence since Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to exist, won parliamentary elections a year ago and wrested power from Fatah, which advocates peacemaking with the Jewish state.

On Friday alone, the day’s death toll reached 17, including four children, and more than 200 people were wounded. Casualties were so high that hospitals ran out of ambulances to transport the dead and wounded, and blood supplies were running low.

In Washington, the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators met on Friday to explore ways to jump-start peacemaking between Israel and Abbas despite the latest round of Palestinian factional violence.

”There’s simply no reason to avoid the subject of how we get to a Palestinian state,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after meeting with foreign ministers from the European Union, United Nations and Russia.

Er, Condi, could you repeat that please?

Nobody knows the Mideast better than Bernard Lewis. Today’s Jerusalem Post has a long interview, which I found fascinating. For example:

If you go back to the Egyptian peace process, Sadat didn’t decide to make peace because he was suddenly convinced of the merits of the Zionist case. Sadat decided to make peace because he realized that Egypt was becoming a Soviet colony.

The process was very visible. There were whole areas of Soviet bases and no Egyptian was admitted. Sadat, I think, realized that on the best estimate of Israel’s power and the worst estimate of Israel’s intentions, Israel was not a threat to Egypt in the way that the Soviet Union was.

So he took the very courageous step of ordering the Soviet specialists out of Egypt, facing the danger they might do what they did in Czechoslovakia or Hungary. They didn’t, fortunately. Then he hoped that Washington would help him, instead of which Washington produced the Vance-Gromyko Agreement, a sort of diplomatic carve up, in effect giving Egypt back to the Soviets. That was [former president Jimmy] Carter’s real contribution to the peace process. All the rest of it is imaginary; imaginary is the polite word. [My emphasis — ed.]

That persuaded Sadat that he had to go to the Israelis.