A familiar face on TV and a stage actor at the cutting edge

Nicholas Selby, who has died aged 85, was, in many ways, the archetypal supporting actor: dependable, grave and imposing while emitting a sense of authoritarian decency, courtesy and old school charm. And yet, although he was a familiar face on television, playing majors, judges and elderly peers – and a chief constable in the long-running late-1960s police series Softly Softly – he was linked with radical theatre work at the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was one of the earliest associate artists.

Selby was, in fact, an old-fashioned socialist, hailing from a working-class family in Holborn, central London, where his father worked for a rubber company. The family lived above a cinema, where young James (he later changed his name at the behest of Equity), the youngest of three, watched all the new releases free of charge.

He made his stage debut in JB Priestley's Dangerous Corner in Preston, Lancashire, for Ensa, the services entertainment wing, before going abroad, serving in Egypt and Palestine during the second world war. After training from 1948 to 1950 at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London – where he forged lifelong friendships with his fellow students Richard Mayes and Richard Pasco – he appeared in repertory theatres for 10 years in Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry, York, Hornchurch and Cambridge.

He made his London debut in 1959 at the Fortune in William Douglas-Home's Aunt Edwina, joining the English Stage Company at the Royal Court in 1960 to appear in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. He had met, and liked, Pinter when the playwright was acting under another name (David Baron) in repertory. Also in 1960, Selby played the eccentric Mr Hardrader, with an imaginary dog, in John Arden's The Happy Haven, and in Chekhov's Platonov, opposite Rex Harrison.

But it was at the RSC that Selby made his true mark during a 10-year association, starting in the history plays cycle of The Wars of the Roses, directed by Peter Hall and John Barton. He was the ideal Lord Chief Justice in Henry IV, gruff and flinty, impatient with Hugh Griffith's lubricious Falstaff, then a supercilious King of France in opposition to Ian Holm's Henry V and a cringing, skin-saving Bishop of Winchester in contrast to David Warner's saintly Henry VI.

His RSC association coincided with the arrival of Trevor Nunn. Selby appeared as the Duke in Nunn's breakthrough production of Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy in 1967, and he was prominent in Nunn's all-white nursery production of The Winter's Tale (as Camillo) in 1969 and his 1971 Henry VIII, starring Donald Sinden.

Selby returned briefly to the Royal Court to appear opposite Ralph Richardson in John Osborne's West of Suez in 1971, and later, in 1975, as the humanely aristocratic Lord Milton in The Fool, Edward Bond's play about the poet John Clare. He played the leading, autobiographical role of Garry Essendine in Noël Coward's Present Laughter at the Birmingham Rep before resuming RSC duty in William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes at the Aldwych in 1974, and in Terry Hands's extravagant, exciting production of Peter Barnes's Bewitched in the same year.

When Peter Hall led the National from the Old Vic on to the South Bank, Selby signed up to play Menander in Hall's luxuriant 1976 staging of Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, led by Albert Finney wielding a curtle-axe in leather chaps. He also chipped in tellingly as Van Swieten in the first performance of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus (1979) with Paul Scofield, Felicity Kendal and Simon Callow.

His few film performances included Duncan in Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971), with Jon Finch and Francesca Annis, and the Speaker in Nicholas Hytner's The Madness of King George (1994), written by Alan Bennett. In between, television kept him busy throughout the 1970s and 80s. He was in seven episodes of the hugely popular Poldark; swished his cloak as Sir Walter Raleigh in Glenda Jackson's Elizabeth R; and popped up as the peppery Uncle George Wooster, with an "unsuitable" girlfriend, in Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's Jeeves and Wooster series.

Selby made his last West End appearance in 1987, taking over the role of AD Knox, the King's don wearied by war and Wittgenstein, in Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code, starring Derek Jacobi as the code-breaker Alan Turing, when it moved from the Haymarket to the Comedy. And he rejoined the RSC to reprise Duncan in Adrian Noble's Macbeth in 1988 (with Miles Anderson and Maureen Beattie) and to play a definitive Alonso in Hytner's production of The Tempest, starring John Wood as Prospero.

Selby was a relaxed and unfussy actor, as he was a man. He was happy in his career, not particularly ambitious, and renowned for wanting to cut lines rather than give himself too much to do. At the RSC, he got the wardrobe department to provide hidden extra pouches and pockets in his costumes so he would never have to be separated from his beloved pipe. And in the early days at Stratford-upon-Avon, he would roam the countryside with Sinden to indulge his hobby of architecture in general, and old churches in particular.

Most of his later years were dedicated to caring for his wife, Kathleen, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Selby had long since removed his details from Spotlight and, although he died in September 2010, the news of his death emerged only last month.

Kathleen died in 2007. He is survived by their daughter, Alison, and two grandchildren.

• Nicholas (James) Ivor Selby, actor, born 13 September 1925; died 14 September 2010

In light of the recent debate on the NSW Greens’ policy of boycotting Israel, many proponents of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel have been attempting to portray their campaign as something original, groundbreaking even. Lee Rhiannon even said that the Greens would have performed better in the NSW election of they did more to “amplify support for BDS and show that this is part of an international movement”. 

In fact, far from breaking ground, the movement is simply re-hashing a 90-year-old policy that has failed before and will fail again.

Since 1922, when the Fifth Arab Congress proposed a boycott on Jewish businesses in British Mandate Palestine, someone has been boycotting Israel in one guise or another. The League of Arab Nations boycotted “Zionist entities” as one of its first points of business after it was formed in 1945 and before Israel even existed. Once Israel became a state, the boycott was strengthened to include all companies that have ties to companies doing business with Israel.

The aim of this boycott was never a peaceful solution to the conflict or the creation of a Palestinian state – in fact, the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt for the first 20 years. The Arab nations invaded Israel as soon as it became a state in 1948 and continued to be officially at war with Israel at least until the peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. To this day, all but two Arab states (Egypt and Jordan) do not recognise Israel to the extent that they do not allow tourists with Israeli stamps in their passports into the country.

The Arab boycott was aimed at the destruction of Israel as a state.

The boycott was never binding, however, and almost as soon as it was implemented, the Arab states set-about creating a series of loopholes and irregular application procedures in order to protect their economies from any actual harm whilst still paying lip service to economic belligerence against Israel. It all but collapsed at the fall of the USSR and today you will find Israeli companies trading in most Arab countries, albeit not especially openly.

This was not the last anyone heard of it, however.

In 2001, the UN determined to hold its “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” in Durban, South Africa. A few months before it was due to take place, a group of South African Muslims decided to form an organisation called the “National Consultative Forum on Palestine” (NCFP). In the words of spokesman Na’eem Jeenah, the NCFP activists, “most of whom were Islamists”, decided to “ensure they promoted the Palestinian cause as a broad human rights issue rather than as a Muslim one.”

In practice, this meant using the language of a movement familiar to them as South Africans – that of the anti-Apartheid campaign – to reframe an Islamist rejection of Israel into a human rights issue.

The NCFP successfully lobbied South African trade unions and NGOs through an organisation known as the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a far-left secular organisation, allowing them to hijack the debate in the Conference. As a result, the NGO forum in Durban managed to ignore the boundless discrimination around the world and condemn only Israel – apparently the Palestinians are the only group in the world suffering discrimination and Darfuris, Egyptian Copts, Iranian Baha’is, Turkish Kurds, Tibetans, Indigenous Australians, Native Americans and every other such group did not deserve a mention.

The arguments used in favour of this Apartheid comparison are spurious at best and downright racist at worst. It demands the return into Israel of every person descended from a Palestinian who fled the conflict in 1948 and compares Israel’s refusal to allow this to the Apartheid policy of herding black people into “Bantustans”. This overlooks the roughly equal number of Jews that were simultaneously forced to flee Arab countries with no compensation.

It claims that Israel is a “European colonial enterprise” that discriminates against non-Europeans and that it is a “theocracy” where Jews get special rights. This is a ridiculous claim – by law, every Israeli citizen has equal rights and Israel is one of the most multi-ethnic societies in the world, with Ethiopians, Russians, Indians and many Jews from around the Middle East and North Africa.

In fact, the 20 per cent of Israelis who are non-Jewish, mostly Arabs, are given the same rights under law as any other Israeli citizen and have sat on the Supreme Court, worked as ambassadors in the Foreign Ministry, served in the army, played for the national sports teams and in general been involved in all aspects of civil society. By comparison, in South Africa, black people, who made-up close to 80 per cent of the population, were not even allowed to sit on the same benches as white people, never mind any of the above-mentioned achievements.

This is not to say that Israeli Arabs do not suffer discrimination, but they are far better-off than Indigenous Australians, British Pakistanis and various other minorities in Western countries – and especially  in Arab countries, where they are not entitled to free speech, or freedom from persecution of women and homosexuals.

Nevertheless, BDS founder Omar Barghouti and a number of others seized on this comparison and formed an entire movement around it known as PACBI or the “Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel”, launched in April 2002. PACBI was an attempt to target Israel with the kind of boycott campaign that had been waged against South Africa in the 1970s and 80s. It was met from the start with derision and condemnation and was marred by discrimination and racism.

PACBI saw Hillel, the Jewish students association at Concordia University in Canada being banned in 2002, as well as St Cloud State University in Minnesota paying $US365,000 in compensation in December 2002 as department administrators had tried to discourage students from taking courses taught by Jewish colleagues. It lost momentum in the UK when an Egyptian-English academic fired two Israelis from a journal she edited, one of whom was a former Amnesty International chair, purely because of the boycott. Because of incidents like this, PACBI died almost as soon as it started. Barghouti, a current doctoral student at Tel-Aviv University, has since claimed that it was started in 2004 – presumably to avoid embarrassing scrutiny of its failure.

However, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave a judgment against the security barrier that Israel was constructing (which successfully reduced deaths due to terrorism from 450 in 2002 to none in 2008), Barghouti and his allies saw an opportunity to compare it to a 1971 condemnation of South African Apartheid by the ICJ and re-launch their boycott effort, this time under the moniker of “BDS”. This is the policy that the NSW Greens endorsed in December last year, that Marrickville City Council implemented a week later – costing Fiona Byrne a seat in the NSW Legislative Assembly – and that is currently being pushed by various the hard left in Australia.

While some proponents of BDS have made the claim that it is “not anti-Israel” but looking, rather, for a “peaceful solution to the conflict”, even a cursory examination would say otherwise. The proposition that all of the descendents of the Palestinians who fled in 1948 should return – ie a sudden influx of millions of immigrants – would destroy Israel as a state. Similarly, the idea that Israel is a colonial enterprise denies the Jewish people their right to exist as a people and their right to self-determination, while ironically accusing them of doing the same to the Palestinians. Barghouti himself has coyly admitted on a few occasions that he does not believe Israel should exist as a state.

The worst thing, however, is that BDS actually hurts Palestinians and damages chances for peace. In 2002, as a result of the boycott, a Norwegian scientist refused to send genetic material to a Jerusalem hospital, which as it transpired, was intended for treating Palestinians with a blood disease.

While the BDS movement has used Israeli security measures in the West Bank such as checkpoints and curfews in order to drive recruitment, ironically these have been removed as a result of cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel – causing Barghouti, who believes that dialogue is “illogical” and “wrong”, to dub the PA a “quisling government”.

All serious policy on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict recognises two states for two peoples as a necessity and promotes dialogue and cooperation in order to achieve this. Initiatives supporting this need to be promoted – initiatives such as TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine), which was formed by several trade union leaders including Paul Howes from the AWU.

BDS is based on a false and offensive comparison and will only ever drive a wedge between the two sides and cause more conflict; this is why Kevin Rudd called it “the stuff of foreign policy being made by pre-schoolers”. Tony Abbott called it “nonsense” and Business Council of Australia President Graham Bradley called it “an absolute joke”.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz is a policy analyst with the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council

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Recruits from Lebanon and Scandanavia are proving that the game's development programme is a big success

There is more than one rugby game in Twickenham on Sunday afternoon. While nobody in league would question the primacy of the Crusaders-Sharks Super 15 fundraiser at the main stadium – especially given the 13-a-side code's strong links with Christchurch – there will be an eclectic bunch of people at the Harlequins-Hull Super League fixture that precedes it at The Stoop who show that the game is finally getting serious about international development.

The Rugby League's recently-formed European Federation launched its technical strategy in London week, and 48 delegates from 19 countries have fast-tracked their coaching education under the supervision of such comparative heavyweights as the England coach, Steve McNamara, and Rob Powell of Quins.

There was stiff competition for the unofficial title of most unlikely and romantic newcomers to international rugby league. Serbia, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Ireland, Russia and the US are all pretty old hat – with American development sufficiently well-established to have experienced one of the debilitating splits that have plagued the code's sporadic attempts at international expansion, although thankfully peace appears to have broken out.

Germany, Latvia, Catalonia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway have a greater novelty value – although those who have travelled to Scandinavia in the past year report a real enthusiasm for the game, even if it remains at the pioneering stage that required Jamie Bloem, the former South African professional who flew to Oslo in his new role as a touch judge, to paint the lines on the pitch that he would later patrol.

Bloem's native country provided the most evocative individual delegate – Steven Van Zyl, the head coach of the South Africa team who works alongside the former Great Britain captain Garry Schofield, happens to be the nephew of Tom van Vollenhoven, the former St Helens wing.

But even the three-man delegation from Jamaica, who were returning to England after a popular appearance in last year's Headingley Nines, were pipped for sheer exoticism by Rabih El Masri. He is from Lebanon, where the game has maintained a presence since the appearance of a team drawn from the substantial Lebanese community in Sydney in the 2000 World Cup. But El Masri, who is unrelated to the record-breaking former Canterbury wing Hazem, is representing Palestine – even though he has never been permitted to visit the occupied territories.

"I am Palestinian, but a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon," said the 28-year-old, whose story is further complicated by the fact that he now runs a health club in the Alsace. "My grandfather left his house in the 1948 war and went to Beirut, but we have the papers from the Lebanese government to say we are Palestinian refugees.

"When rugby league came to Beirut, I had been playing martial arts and Thai boxing, and I decided to try. In general, we can't represent Lebanon in other sports, only rugby league. After one month they chose me to go to an international game in Serbia – I felt good, I loved the game. I had a dream for a long time to present rugby league in the [refugee] camps. Life is hard there, it is poor, there's drugs. The values of rugby league represent courage, teamwork – and the boys are really very strong, one day you will see.

"We have under-13s, under-16s and I already have a senior team who played against the American University team of Beirut. We were second in the under-16 tournament, to a Saudi team I think. We play as a Palestine XIII because we don't have the papers yet from the [Palestinian] Authority, but they know about us and are supporting us."

El Masri hopes that rugby league may even allow him to enter Gaza for the first time. "Palestinian refugees in Lebanon don't have the right to go back to Palestine – it is a big story at the moment, with the political negotiations with Israel. But I am trying to start with them."

Remarkably, Palestinian rugby league already has a potential trailblazer – living in Hull. Ali Ibrahim, a 16-year-old wing who was born in Gaza, but moved to Yorkshire with his family four years ago, has already been selected in an England youth squad. "I have heard this, I need to meet him," said El Masri. For the game born in Huddersfield 116 years ago, these are interesting times.

This op-ed in the Forward last week Martin van Creveld made some waves, because the writer has some serious credentials.

His thesis is that the 1967 borders are defensible. I am not a military analyst, but I will annotate where I find problems with his logic:

When everything is said and done, how important is the West Bank to Israel’s defense?

To answer the question, our best starting point is the situation before the 1967 war. At that time, the Arab armed forces surrounding Israel outnumbered the Jewish state’s army by a ratio of 3-to-1. Not only was the high ground in Judea and Samaria in Jordanian hands, but Israel’s capital in West Jerusalem was bordered on three sides by hostile territory. Arab armies even stood within 14 miles of Tel Aviv. Still, nobody back then engaged in the sort of fretting we hear today about “defensible borders,” let alone Abba Eban’s famous formulation, “Auschwitz borders.” When the time came, it took the Israel Defense Forces just six days to crush all its enemies combined.

If Jordan had tanks on the ridge, and would have attacked Israel a few hours sooner, things very well may have turned out differently. The fact is that Jordan was not terribly interested in war and that is what made the Green Line "defensible" before 1967 - Jordan's King Hussein was not the aggressor Nasser was.

In reality, the snaking Green Line is more than twice the length of the border between the West Bank and Jordan. That by itself makes the Green line less defensible.

Since then, of course, much has happened. Though relations with Egypt and Jordan may not always be rosy, both countries have left “the circle of enmity,” as the Hebrew expression goes. Following two-and-a-half decades of astonishing growth, Israel’s GDP is now larger than those of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt combined. As to military power, suffice it to say that Israel is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of arms.

True, but I believe irrelevant.

Syria, Israel’s main remaining hostile neighbor, has never on its own been strong enough to seriously threaten Israel. While Damascus is getting some weapons from Iran, the latter is no substitute for the genuine superpower patron that Syria had in the old Soviet Union.

Also true, but this article is not about the Golan - and there are other issues there.

Overall, therefore, Israel’s position is much stronger than it was at any time in the past. So how does the West Bank fit into this picture?

One of the main threats that Israel faces today is from ballistic missiles. Yet everybody knows that holding on to the West Bank won’t help Israel defend itself against missiles coming from Syria or Iran. Even the most extreme hawk would concede this point.

Van Creveld is ignoring shorter-range Qassam and Grad-type missiles. There would be nothing stopping a Palestine from allowing those to be smuggled in or built, and nothing Israel could do tostop them.

While they may not be a military threat, Israel has never looked at the conflict in purely military terms, as van Creveld seems to like to do. Israel's position has always been, to its credit, that the security of its citizens are paramount. A danger to civilians is a more pressing issue than the ability to win a war. Van Creveld seems to be thinking in terms of military history, his area of expertise, but that is only part of the story - an Israeli victory in the field can easily be a Pyrrhic victory in terms of the number killed. A situation where easily assembled rockets can effectively hold the biggest population centers of Israel hostage is simply unacceptable, and Israel's ability to win a war is not important if the entire country must live their entire lives the way Sderot lived two years ago.

As far as the threat of a land invasion, it is of course true that the distance between the former Green Line and the Mediterranean is very small — at its narrowest point, what is sometimes affectionately known as “Old” Israel is just nine miles wide. As was noted before, it is also true that the West Bank comprises the high ground and overlooks Israel’s coastal plain.

On the other hand, since the West Bank itself is surrounded by Israel on three sides, anybody who tries to enter it from the east is sticking his head into a noose. To make things worse for a prospective invader, the ascent from the Jordan Valley into the heights of Judea and Samaria is topographically one of the most difficult on earth. Just four roads lead from east to west, all of which are easily blocked by air strikes or by means of precision-guided missiles. To put the icing on the cake, Israeli forces stationed in Jerusalem could quickly cut off the only road connecting the southern portion of the West Bank with its northern section in the event of an armed conflict.

Van Creveld seems to be making a number of unspoken assumptions here. I'll make mine explicit: a demilitarized Palestine will not remain so for long,and Israel would be powerless to stop say, a Hamas government in the West Bank to outsource its army duties to Iran. Or a Muslim Brotherhood coup in Jordan changing the equation. If tanks are already positioned on the high ground, there is little that Israel can do to stop them from cutting the country in half without having a significant proportion of the reserves always mobilized.

Similarly, under that scenario, I do not believe that there is much Israel could do to protect Jerusalem from being cut off from the rest of the country, exactly as it was in 1948.

The defense of the West Bank by Arab forces would be a truly suicidal enterprise. The late King Hussein understood these facts well. Until 1967 he was careful to keep most of his forces east of the Jordan River. When he momentarily forgot these realities in 1967, it took Israel just three days of fighting to remind him of them.

Sorry, but I don't understand why. And even if it was "suicidal," if the enemy is motivated by promises of virgins in paradise, we cannot assume rationality in their decision-making.

Therefore, just as Israel does not need the West Bank to defend itself against ballistic missiles, it does not need that territory to defend itself against conventional warfare. If it could retain a security presence in the Jordan Valley, keep the eventual Palestinian state demilitarized and maintain control of the relevant airspace, that would all be well and good. However, none of these conditions existed before 1967; in view of geography and the balance of forces, none is really essential today either.

Again, I reject the premise that a military edge is the only pre-requisite for Israel's security.

And how about terrorism? As experience in Gaza has shown, a fence (or preferably a wall) can stop suicide bombers from entering. As experience in Gaza has also shown, it cannot stop mortar rounds and rockets. Mortar and rocket fire from the West Bank could be very unpleasant. On the other hand, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran already have missiles capable of reaching every point in Israel, Tel Aviv included. Many of those missiles are large and powerful. Compared to the damage they can cause, anything the Palestinians are ever likely to do would amount to mere pinpricks.

It certainly appears from this statement, and the earlier ones, that van Creveld looks at war like a videogame. Actual human casualties from Qassam-type rockets and terrorism are merely "unpleasant." But from Israel's perspective, they are entirely unacceptable, and his facile acceptance of the hell that Israelis would live under shows that he is not in touch with Israel's very raison d'etre.

Furthermore, in recent years Israel has shown it can deal with that kind of threat if it really wants to. Since 2006, when the Second Lebanon War killed perhaps 2,000 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of an entire section of Beirut, the northern border has been absolutely quiet.

Um, the LAF shot and killed an IDF officer earlier this year during the tree-cutting ambush. It does not help his argument when he makes statements that are demonstratively false. Besides, Hezbollah's motivation is not to secure Lebanon but to destroy Israel and kill as many Jews as possible - a basic concept that seems to elude van Creveld.

Since Operation Cast Lead, which killed perhaps 1,200 Gazans, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of much of the city of Gaza, not one Israeli has been killed by a mortar round or rocket coming from the Gaza Strip. Since mortar rounds and rockets continue to be fired from time to time, that is hardly accidental. Obviously Hamas, while reluctant to give up what it calls “resistance,” is taking care not to provoke Israel too much.

His description of the destruction is exaggerated.

There is no doubt that Israel's reactions in the north and the south have deterred Hezbollah and Hamas for the time being, but van Creveld ignores that in the time since both wars, both the enemies have more than recovered their losses and are both militarily much stronger than they were before. He also ignores that in both those cases, the wars were sparked by Arab actions that had no military value on their part. Van Creveld is again assuming a conventional war scenario where each side acts rationally, but that is simply not the case with Iranian-backed Islamist groups.

Keeping all these facts in mind — and provided that Israel maintains its military strength and builds a wall to stop suicide bombers — it is crystal-clear that Israel can easily afford to give up the West Bank.

That statement is beyond absurd. Van Creveld did not even touch on many other arguments against ceding the West Bank to a sworn enemy.

One example is the vulnerability of Ben Gurion Airport to simple anti-aircraft missiles.

Another is the amount of time it takes for Israel to mobilize its reserves - in those 48 hours, the amount of damage that Israel must absorb is significantly higher without the West Bank as a buffer.

A third is the simple realization that Israel, by ceding the West Bank, could be setting up a scenario where it is completely surrounded by Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, "Palestine" and "Hamastan."

In addition, there are a number of papers on the topic of defensible borders written by people with much more military expertise than I have. They bring up many more points that van Creveld ignores with his flat statement that his thesis is "crystal clear."

Strategically speaking, the risk of doing so is negligible.

Only if you consider it acceptable to have an entire nation held hostage by radical Islamists with crude rockets - that Israel cannot defend against without potentially starting a war with the Arab world. They might not run to defend Gaza but a sovereign nation, with defense pacts, is a different story - especially if they think they can win. Israel's perceived weakness in withdrawing from lands won in war will never make Arab nations less likely to attack!

What is not negligible is the demographic, social, cultural and political challenge that ruling over 2.5 million — nobody knows exactly how many — occupied Palestinians in the West Bank poses. Should Israeli rule over them continue, then the country will definitely turn into what it is already fast becoming: namely, an apartheid state that can only maintain its control by means of repressive secret police actions.

Now we see that van Creveld might have more of an agenda than simply speaking from a purely military perspective. The issue is real, but it does not belong in an article like this; it indicates that his analysis might be colored by his bias.

To save itself from such a fate, Israel should rid itself of the West Bank, most of Arab Jerusalem specifically included. If possible, it should do so by agreement with the Palestinian Authority; if not, then it should proceed unilaterally, as the — in my view, very successful — withdrawal from Gaza suggests. Or else I would strongly advise my children and grandson to seek some other, less purblind and less stiff-necked, country to live in.

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza resulted in thousands of rockets and a war that killed some 1200 people. What exactly are his criteria for success? Again, a statement like that calls into question van Creveld's entire perspective on what it means to be an Israeli, and what its citizens should be forced to endure, for his seemingly bizarre concept of living in security.

Martin van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and the author of “The Land of Blood and Honey: The Rise of Modern Israel” (St. Martin’s Press, 2010).

(h/t Zach)

There are two sides to the refugee story, and the Israeli side is one of the best-kept secrets of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

For a long time now, we have been wanting and waiting to sit down and talk. After all, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not short of talking points that need to be urgently resolved. Unfortunately, however, instead of both sides discussing the problems, the Palestinians seem more comfortable issuing demands.

One of the topics that we could discuss is refugees, what some describe in the familiar mantra as the "right of return". The slogan itself is, of course, a misnomer – a right is a legal function and must be grounded in law to have applicable force. Yet, as with so many of the cliches and familiar refrains surrounding the Middle East, there are two sides to the refugee story, with the Israeli side one of the best-kept secrets of the conflict.

While those Arabs who fled or left mandatory Palestine and Israel numbered roughly 750,000, there were more than 900,000 Jewish refugees subsequently expelled or forced out from Arab lands at around the same time. Before the state of Israel was re-established in 1948, there were almost 1 million Jews in Arab lands; today there are around 5,000.

As opposed to the Arabs in mandatory Palestine, who had been waging a civil war on the Jewish community for decades, the Jews in Arab lands were loyal citizens and residents, and had not been involved in any violence. Sadly, however, the Arab leadership of the time treated them as a "fifth column", and began taking draconian measures to facilitate their expulsion.

On 16 May 1948, two days after the state of Israel was re-established, the New York Times reported that the Arab League had recommended to its member states to freeze all bank accounts belonging to Jews, discharge all Jews in civil service positions and arbitrarily subject Jews to mass imprisonment. Several Arab regimes went further and inspired pogroms and mass murder against their Jewish populations. Just a decade after the Nazi persecution began in earnest, it was now the turn of the Jews in the Middle East to suffer similar edicts.

It is also worth considering how deep-rooted the refugees were in their respective lands. British colonial officials in the early part of the 20th century estimated that the Arab immigration from neighbouring states into mandatory Palestine was "considerable". CS Jarvis, governor of Sinai from 1923-36, said in 1937: "This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Trans-Jordan and Syria."

So while many of the Palestinian refugees were newcomers and fresh economic migrants, the Jewish refugees by contrast were being pushed out of the lands that they had lived in for thousands of years, predating even Islam and the subsequent Arab invasion and occupation of the region, which placed on all non-Muslims a dhimmi or subjugated status.

These obvious disparities on the ground were not replicated in the international arena when dealing with the crises. While early United Nations resolutions attempted to be fair and deal with all refugees resulting from the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Arab bloc and its allies trampled on any references or discussions regarding Jewish refugees, while at the same time creating absurd criteria for the Arab refugees, who are still exploited as political pawns to this day. In fact, as early as the 1950s United Nations refugee agency officials claimed that the Jewish refugees fell within their mandate.

After all, with the exception of Jordan, no Arab refugees were given citizenship and the majority still live in overcrowded areas, with few rights afforded them by their Arab brethren. This stands in contrast to the Jewish refugees, who were all immediately provided with Israeli citizenship.

As well as being absurdly unbalanced, the Palestinian demand of "right of return" also flies in the face of modern refugee resettlement. A recent ruling by the European court of human rights declared that due to the time that had elapsed, Greek refugees expelled from northern Cyprus in 1974 would not be allowed to return to their homes.

The negotiations for a final status resolution to the Israeli-Arab conflict are not merely about the creation of two states for two peoples; they are about historic reconciliation, justice, peace and security. There is also the issue of redress, and the Jews who were forced out or expelled from Arab lands are deserving of that.

Unfortunately, there are those who suggest that there is no need to burden the negotiations with another issue. Yet the fact that the Arab majority in multilateral forums have ensured that the Jewish refugee issue was never given a speaking part on the international stage until recently should be of no consequence.

This issue cuts to the heart of a regional solution to the conflict and recognises that a resolution will encompass all claims by all sides.

Israel has cleared the way for negotiations to restart by constantly declaring that all issues will be on the table. The Jewish refugee issue must be one of them.

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The History Channel has a brief, but very misleading and sometimes false, description of the Arab-Israeli conflict on its page concerning the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

A thorough fisking from J-Wire:

“Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state.”

No mention is made of the fact that the UN also voted for the creation of an independent Arab State.

Again the inclusion of just nine words “and an independent Arab state which the Arabs rejected” would have clearly indicated that the UN had not only offered the Jews a state but also offered the Arabs one as well – which the Arabs rejected.

The failure to insert those missing words carries the innuendo that only the Jews were offered a state in 1947 but the Arabs missed out and begs the question – isn’t it time the UN now rectified that injustice in 2010?

“The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory.”

Actually the conflict had started about thirty years earlier – so that chunk of history is either unknown to the History Channel’s researchers or was deliberately overlooked.

The territory was not “British-controlled” until the conclusion of World War 1. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until then.

Pity the poor students who use this material in their projects – and their teachers – who rely on this material as being accurate and reliable.

“The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state”

Really? Are the history buffs at the History Channel unaware of the following facts?

“The three main political organizations in Palestine-the Arab Club, the Literary Club, and the Muslim-Christian Association (the lack of mention of Palestine in their names is revealing) — all worked for union with Syria. The first two went farthest, calling outright for rule by Prince Faysal. Amin al-Husayni was president of the Arab Club; the extremism which later made him notorious as the leader of Palestinian separatism (and an ally of Hitler) already showed itself in 1920, when he instigated riots for union with Syria. A member of the Arab Club, Kamil al-Budayri, co-edited from September 1919 the newspaper Suriya al-Janubiya (“Southern Syria”) which advocated Palestine’s incorporation into Greater Syria.

Even the Muslim-Christian Association, an organization of traditional leaders-men who expected to rule if Palestine became independent-demanded incorporation in Greater Syria. Its president insisted that “Palestine or Southern Syria-an integral part of the one and indivisible Syria-must not in any case or for any pretext be detached.” The Muslim-Christian Association held a Congress in early 1919 to draw up demands for the Paris Peace Conference. It declared that Palestine, a “part of Arab Syria,” is permanently connected to Syria through “national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic, and geographical bonds,” and resolved that “Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the independent Arab Syrian government.” Musa Kazim al-Husayni, Head of the Jerusalem Town Council (in effect, mayor) told a Zionist interlocutor in October 1919: “We demand no separation from Syria.” The slogan heard everywhere in 1918-19 was “Unity, Unity, From the Taurus [Mountains in Turkey] to Rafah [in Gaza], Unity, Unity.”

“Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine”

Staggeringly the History Channel seems to be unaware of the 1920 riots which saw four Arabs and five Jews killed, while 216 Jews were wounded – 18 critically – and 23 Arabs wounded – one critically.

“Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine,”

Since when is fighting the armed forces of your adversary – not its civilians – described as “terrorism”? The History Channel’s biased slip is surely on display for all to see.

“At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause,”

The United States had taken up the Zionist cause on 30 June 1922 when both Houses of Congress unanimously endorsed the Mandate for Palestine.

On 21 September 1922 President Warren Harding signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine

“The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine…,

It is a pity the History Channel could not have added: “more than 70% of which was the arid and sparsely populated Negev Desert”

“The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces”

Strange that the History Channel should be unaware that these “volunteers” comprised the “Arab Liberation Army” set up in Damascus under the command of Fawzi Kaukji. Seven of these detachments with a strength of about 5000 had made their way into Palestine by March 1948. They were divided into four commands.

“The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded.”

Oops – the History Channel forgot to include Saudi Arabia – a small oversight.

The History Channel then has the gall to state at the end of this outrageous release:

“Fact Check. We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us! “

Creating myth instead of stating fact is one of the greatest impediments to securing a resolution of the conflict between the Arabs and Jews.

The next time you watch the History Channel (if you ever do so again) – don’t take what you hear and see as the truth. There are apparently a lot of dunderheads employed there or – perhaps more insidiously – persons deliberately bent on misleading the public.

The creation of a Palestinian state is closer than ever – but only if its leadership accepts Israel's place on the map

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been endlessly long, tragic, filled with wrong decisions on all sides and there are many ways of telling the story. Saeb Erekat, in his recent article on the Palestinian right of return, chooses to begin his story ("narrative" is the fashionable word) with the assassination of Count Bernadotte, the first UN mediator, by Jewish militants commanded by Yitzchak Shamir, later prime minister, in 1948. The implication is clear: Israelis killed justice from the very outset.

It would, of course, be possible to start telling the story with Hadj Amin el Husseini's visits in Nazi Berlin and his enthusiastic endorsement of the Endlösung, the plan to exterminate all Jews. From there we could move to the Palestinian rejection in 1947 of UN resolution 181 which called for the partition of historical Palestine, the many decades of Palestinian rejection of the state of Israel, through the murder of Israeli athletes during the Olympic games in 1972 to the quotations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Constitution of Hamas.

Furthermore the Israeli side could, with good reason, argue that while the fate of the refugees is no doubt a deep tragedy, it should be noted that the Palestinian leadership and Arab states have cared more about the right of return than the refugees themselves, most of whom have passed away. Instead of giving them citizenship and integrating them into the host states, their refugee status was carefully nurtured, and human wellbeing was sacrificed for political interests.

This competition of narrative and counter-narrative can be continued endlessly; we can forever pitch the suffering of Palestinians against that of Jews; we can find proof of the other side's inhumanity, and point out how righteous our own side is. The result will be perpetuation of the conflict, and bequeathing endless suffering for future generations of Israeli and Palestinian children.

Nevertheless some facts need to be set straight: Erekat repeatedly mentions UN resolution 194. The fact is that Israel accepted this non-binding resolution, whereas the Arab world didn't, and resolution 242 was accepted by Israel, while the Palestinians took until 1988 to come around to endorsing it.

But the time has come to move beyond the war of narratives, and to go about the pragmatic work of ending this conflict. Both authors of this article have been supporters of a Palestinian state long before the PLO and Israel ever met; we have always recognised Palestinian suffering, and we never thought that recognising the Palestinian Nakba is inconsistent with a firm stance on Israel being the homeland of the Jews.

Both of us believe that the only path to peace is a dignified existence for Jews and Palestinians. We have been opposed to Israel's settlement policies, which we consider to be unjust and an obstacle to peace, and we think that East Jerusalem should be the capital of Palestine. But we are deeply concerned by statements like Saeb Erekat's article that seem to make peace impossible even for liberals like us.

It is time for Palestinians to realise that they are no longer victims of history, but free agents who will have to make choices. International support for a Palestinian state has never been stronger, and it is a matter of time until this state will be internationally recognised along the 1967 borders. In a peculiar repetition of history, the UN general assembly may soon recognise the partition of Palestine once again, this time to fulfil the national aspiration of the Palestinian people.

This is the moment when the Palestinian leadership must avoid repeating the mistake of 1947, when they rejected the original partition resolution, and make clear that they truly accept Israel's existence as the homeland of the Jews.

Hence, at this historical moment, Erekat's article is disappointing. He is not just a private citizen, but the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, and he knows Israel and its internal dynamics very well. He knows that raising the right of return at this moment plays into the hands of Israel's right wing: they will be able to say: "We always told you so: the two-state solution is just a Palestinian plot to incorporate the Jewish state into the Greater State of Palestine."

What does Saeb Erekat mean by demanding Israel's recognition of the Palestinian right of return? If it means that Israel will accept its part in the responsibility of the Palestinian tragedy, and primarily provide restitution, there is a realistic chance for resolution of the conflict.

But Erekat's formulations do not bode well: when he says that Israeli recognition of refugee rights "will not change the reality in the Middle East overnight", he steps on the deepest fears of Israelis. Erekat cannot say in good faith that this "will not lead to an existential crisis for Israel", because he implies that, over time, Israel will disappear as a homeland for the Jews, because beyond a certain point Jews will be a minority in the pre-1967 borders.

Hence we call upon the Palestinian leadership to state clearly what exactly it demands. It will have to be less equivocal on which of the two meanings of "right of return" it endorses. On this question the future of the whole region hinges, and this is not up for Israel to decide. It is time for the Palestinians to realise that the future of the region is now in their hands.

Temple Mount; Wikipedia GNU LicThere is war and there is war.  Wars are fought by men, with men, against other men.  Oftentimes soldiers are taught that to fight in the name of God is what is divinely commanded.  Historically, wars have been fought by Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and many other faiths all in the name of the Creator—as if He belongs only to one particular faith.

I must tell you that this is deceit.  There is no such thing as fighting in God’s name.  There is going to war and there is defending against an invader—but God is not involved.  To falsely use the Creator’s name and steal His will is sin.  It is also a form of mind control.

Many of the wars over faith have focused on a piece of property—specifically Jerusalem.  Historically the city of peace has been the most unpeaceful place on Earth—fought over and controlled by all three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Hebrew calls the city יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎‎  Yerushaláyim, "Abode of Peace" and the Arabic is  سالقُد al-Quds al-Sharif, "The Holy Sanctuary."

Today, the three each have a continuing physical inheritance in the city—the Wailing Wall of the Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of the Christians and the Al Aqsa Mosque of the Muslims.  But all three claim the Temple Mount.

Muslims know it as الشريف الحرم, al-Haram ash-Sharīf.  Jews calls the site Har haBáyith. הַבַּיִת הַר.

The Temple Mount has been considered the birthplace of Adam, the location for the sacrifice of  Abraham’s son, and the place where God is.  The Temple Mount held Solomon’s Temple.  Around 325 the Church of St. Cyrus and St. John was built on the Mount.  After its destruction, the Dome of the Rock Mosque was constructed.  All three faiths know of miracles at the location. (The Romans at one time had erected a Temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount.  Pigs were sacrificed on the altar and statues of Jupiter and Hadrian the Roman emperor stood on the Mount as well.)

Because all three major faiths claim ownership to the Temple Mount, but more so those of the Judaic and Muslim faiths, Jerusalem is a contentious discussion point in any peace negotiation.  Palestine and Israel both want the city—a fight without end.  Palestinians and Israelis have fought wars, and lost sons and daughters to the struggle for land and existence.  Each generation remembers the past and the hatred has grown, sometimes egged on by outside interference—in the name of God.

Because it has been difficult to overcome hostilities (ongoing), and past grievances, outside dealmakers have been brought in to encourage settlement of animosity and the cessation of violence.  Recently, the United Nations and the United States have focused more attention on the matter.  Talk has centered on creating an international peacekeeping force of United Nations soldiers who will maintain order if Jerusalem is ceded into an international city, welcome to all. "Ceded" is the correct term--it means "to surrender."

This would be a mistake.  There is currently a movement afoot to create a worldwide government under the auspices of the United Nations. Those who would control the United Nations, will control Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount.

Yes, the Temple Mount should be open to all—welcoming people of all faiths—including women. However, the United Nations is NOT the answer.

There is no beginning and no ending to the problems between the Palestinians and the Israelis—all have been at fault.  The woman killed in the street, whether covered with the hijab (headscarf) snood,  or with a wimple, is still a woman in the Holy Land.  It does not matter who began what.  Israelis are Jews (orthodox, unorthodox, Hasidic, Ethiopian, Indian, Ashkenazi, Rus, and Sephardim); Christians (Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Baptist, etc..); Muslims (Bedoin, Sunni) and Druz.  Palestinians are Jews born in Palestine prior to 1948, Christians, Druz, Muslims, Bedoin.  You are all of the same blood and spirit.  YOU all worship God.  “Allah” is the same God as “El Shaddai.”  “Al” and “El” are derived from the same Semitic root.  God is God of all people, not just the Jews, not just Muslims, but everyone who calls upon the Creator for love and mercy.

To fight in the name of God is not of the Divine.  To make peace in the name of GOD is.  His law is love.  The only way for true peace in the Holy Land is through forgiveness and trust of one another.  What is taught to the children must be that of the same mind.  We cannot teach sin and hatred to the next generation and yet ask for peace.  

End Times prophecies have continuously centered on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem.  However, prophecy is simply a warning; it is not the final game plan.  The future is not written in stone, it is alterable.  People of faith, God allows us free will.  That is why we are men and women and not animals.  We CAN choose peace.

Israelis—tear down that wall!  Walls only separate people, increasing further animosity.  Palestinians—create an atmosphere of love and acceptance.  You all must forgive.  If you do not, you will not own yourselves.  And those who will continue to suffer will be your innocents: women, children, the elderly.  How long will you send your youth to fight and die?

Part of the peace solution is tangible.  All humans need food, water, power, and medical treatment.  Truth is seen in your works.  Retain the spirit to do good during these End Times.  This is God's Will.

Bibi Netanyahu—do NOT sell your country to the United Nations.  Be the true leader you are and see your neighbor as yourself.  They too have lost brothers.

Ehud Barak—several years ago you said that you’d shake hands with the devil to protect Israel (Jerusalem Post).  This is still your intention.  Drop it.  You endanger the world.

Palestinian leaders—come together as Christians and Muslims—recognizing others within your own house first.  Then look to Israel and see that it exists.  It’s time to move on.  Listening to the outside influence of those who have used you over and over has been useless.  Surely you can see this.  The power of peace lies within your own people.  Plant this idea—and it will grow and thrive.  Palestinians, like Israelis are survivors.  They will do what it takes if they believe in the purpose.  Palestine too has a right to exist.

Israel and Palestine working together can bring about a great blessing to the world as an example of what is necessary to forgive a blood feud.

If you two do not make the peace, we may indeed see the abomination of desolation, and God will be watching what happens from Megiddo's peak.  Today the view from there is beautiful.  God has blessed both Israel and Palestine because you are both good people--I have drunk coffee with you all.  The prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks has already begun.  What will you choose?

Last—know that God does not live on the Temple Mount, though its religious, historical and cultural significance is important.  God lives inside the hearts of men and women who worship the one true Creator.

End Times: UN Population Control

World War III--The Way Out

Global Famine Is Coming--The Way Out

End Times: An International Currency

End Times: Unification Through Love (Way Out 2)

Liz Colado resides in the United States.  A poet since childhood, her poems reflect the images and premonitions of her subconscious dreams.  The writing of poetry has been her escape to a world apart, a dimension of other, a reality considered.  The meaning of poetry has helped center her all of her life.  She is also the main character of a life exposed, written by an anonymous author.  Read the poetry and essays of Liz Colado and consider the interior of her mind to be the discovery of a personal dream journal on the edge. The author publishes exclusively at Basil & Spice. Visit Liz Colado's Writer's Page.

Copyright © 2006-2011, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

It's 62 years since the UN passed a resolution on the rights of Palestinian refugees – rights Israel must recognise for peace

Before his murder in 1948, Lord Folke Bernadotte, the first UN mediator to the Arab-Israeli conflict, stated: "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent [Palestinian] victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine." Lord Bernadotte paid for his candour with his life as Jewish militants assassinated him under the direction of Yitzhak Shamir, the man who would later become prime minister of Israel.

Less than three months after his death, as the war of 1948 ground to a close, and nearly three-quarters of the entire indigenous Palestinian population had been displaced by Israeli forces, the UN passed general assembly resolution 194, calling for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and to be awarded compensation for their losses.

On Saturday, 62 years will have passed without this historic resolution being implemented despite being upheld by the UN with nearly universal consensus ever since. In fact, Israel's own admission as a member to the United Nations was contingent on its adherence to the principles of UNGA 194, something it proceeded to disregard once membership was granted.

Contrary to what Israeli political figures would like the world to believe, the issue of Palestinian refugees is not an academic matter, the solution of which is somehow rendered moot by the passage of time and by the creation of Israeli "facts on the ground." Palestinian displacement continues to this day through the revocation of residency cards, land confiscation, home demolitions and evictions. At the same time, Israel has barred Palestinians displaced between 1947 and 1949, and again in 1967, from returning to their homes or receiving restitution for their lost property, making Palestinian refugees the oldest and largest refugee community in the world today.

The fact that Israel bears responsibility for the creation of the refugees is beyond argument. Even if the state still claims amnesia for its deeds, Israeli historians have debunked the traditional Zionist mythology and shown how Zionist leaders prior to 1948 formulated plans to displace the indigenous Palestinian population in order to create a Jewish majority state. Such a state would have been impossible without the mass expulsion of Palestinians, given that Palestinians constituted a majority in every district of historic Palestine prior to 1948 and also owned over 90% of the land.

Even if we accept the Israeli narrative that refugees left voluntarily – which has been proven false for the vast majority – there is no doubt about the fact that when refugees attempted to return according to their legal right, they were blocked by newly drafted Israeli legislation and declared infiltrators on their own property.

This period of dispossession, known to Palestinians as al-Nakba or "the catastrophe", is the seminal Palestinian experience and source of our collective identity. In fact, the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is himself a refugee displaced from the city of Safed during the 1948 war when he was only 13-years-old.

Today, Palestinian refugees constitute more than 7 million people worldwide – 70% of the entire Palestinian population. Disregarding their legitimate legal rights enshrined in international law, their understandable grievances accrued over prolonged displacement, and their aspirations to return to their homeland, would certainly make any peace deal signed with Israel completely untenable.

In accordance with past Israeli-Arab agreements based on UN resolutions – most significantly the Egypt-Israeli Camp David Accords based on UN resolution 242's formula of land-for-peace – resolution 194 must provide the basis for a settlement to the refugee issue.

Return and restitution as the remedy of choice has a strong international precedent. For example, in the context of the Dayton Accords, concluded under the auspices of the United States, the return of Bosnian refugees to their homes and restitution of their property was considered a "non-negotiable" right that was critical to crafting a durable solution. American leaders such as Madeleine Albright, then the secretary of state, openly called on Bosnian Muslim refugees to return en masse to their former places of residence.

In Bosnia and in Palestine, the return of refugees has been considered absolutely necessary for the stability of peace. Any deal that does not respect the rights of refugees has been viewed as bearing the seed of its inevitable failure.

When negotiations resume once again, the world must not abandon the refugees of Palestine, nor attempt to coerce their representatives to do so either.

Israel's recognition of Palestinian refugee rights and its agreement to provide reparation and meaningful refugee choice in the exercise of these rights will not change the reality in the Middle East overnight, nor will it lead to an existential crisis for Israel. What it will certainly do is mark the beginning of a new reality that will no longer be rooted in repression, denial of rights, and discrimination. In other words, it will lead to a lasting peace – the kind of peace envisaged by Lord Bernadotte and hoped for by Palestinians and Israelis alike.

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Practical Tortoise Raising by Simon Blackburn, Neutrino by Frank Close, and Gaza in Crisis by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé

Practical Tortoise Raising
by Simon Blackburn (Oxford, £25)
The title and friendly testudinal cover image suggest pop philosophy, but this is an academic collection. Blackburn's equability – if some individual is a really bad egg, he gets called a "nuisance" – and amusingly dry style, though, could seduce those looking to graduate from simpler stuff. (Much approachable fun is had with a zoo of imaginary animals, including "the shy but intuitive chameleon" or "finkish skunks".)

There are numerous interesting suggestions (maybe there's nothing properly described as a moral quandary), warnings (about spatial metaphors in accounts of reasoning; though Blackburn wields his own favourite spatial metaphor, approving of arguments that are "well directed"), and testings of distinctions (for instance, between "accepting" and "believing" a fiction). Blackburn offers an intriguing but in my view misdirected argument about derogative words: in speech, he thinks, "feeling [is] naturally signalled by signs such as intonation, and only unreliably read back from vocabulary except in very few cases". If that were true, it would surely be concomitantly much harder than it is to infer attitude from the written word, and we could not appreciate so well Blackburn's own delectably understated evisceration of Hilary Putnam later on.

Neutrino
by Frank Close (Oxford, £9.99)
Our anthropomorphic bestiary next welcomes some "shy" particles (they rarely interact with normal stuff), and the "dog-cat", which oscillates between dog and cat as it walks down the street. It's a vividly explanatory image, deployed in this story of the first hypotheses of, the long search for, and the eventual discovery of neutrinos. Much of it is a chronicle of apparent failure, although hindsight tempts the author to offer some mischievous interpretations, such as that the failure to discover something "implicitly proved" the existence of something else. Thematically it is also a detective story about the sun: solar neutrinos were what everyone was trying to detect, by the apparently paradoxical means of burrowing ever deeper into the earth to build detectors in abandoned mines.

Close, a physicist, writes with great sympathy for his scientist actors, and he also knows how to exploit the pleasure of the amazing fact – that the centre of the sun is 14 times denser than lead; or that "66 billion solar neutrinos" pass through your eyeball every second. That made me blink.

Gaza in Crisis
by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99)
The Obama administration's latest wheeze, to bribe Israel to stop building "settlements" for three months by giving it warplanes, seems to justify anew the pessimism of Chomsky's essay here on a "peace that could happen (but won't)". From him there is also a piece on the 2008-09 attack on Gaza, and two interviews; the "new historian" Ilan Pappé contributes chapters on "US Involvement in the Palestine Question", Israel's expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, the "one-state solution", and Israel's relentless assault on Gaza in the past half-decade. Both authors perform fiercely accurate deconstructions of official rhetoric. Their critiques are themselves performed rhetorically, as is no doubt inevitable: Chomsky appeals to the authority of his chosen sources ("prominent", "leading"), though he also espouses views that may surprise some of his critics – against academic boycotts, and in favour of Hamas "recognising" Israel. Pappé retorts: "Peace is made between enemies not lovers"; elsewhere, he claims that in the wake of 9/11 the US launched "a total war against Islam". Bush may have been a nuisance, but I do not remember him bombing the Maldives.

Refugees remain the most intractable issue of the Middle East conflict, as two new books show

Memories and maps feature prominently in the experience of Palestinians – a people scarred by dispossession, dispersion, occupation and uncertainty about their future. So amid the latest wrangling over the stalled peace talks with Israel come two sharp reminders of the depth of the conflict and how difficult it will be to resolve it.

Salman Abu Sitta, a refugee from 1948, has spent years cataloguing the course and consequences of the nakbah (disaster) that Israel's "war of independence" represented for his people. Now he has published an updated version of his massive Atlas of Palestine, stuffed with tables, graphs and nearly 500 pages of maps that trace the transformation of the country starting with its conquest by the British in 1917 and the Balfour declaration's promise to create a "national home" for the Jews.

Aerial photographs taken by first world war German pilots are combined with mandate-era and Israeli maps supplemented by digitally enhanced satellite images that record old tribal boundaries, neighbourhoods and even individual buildings. Most striking are the hundreds of Arab villages that were destroyed or ploughed under fields, as well as postwar Jewish settlements and suburbs. The Abu Sitta family lands, for example, are now owned by Kibbutz Nirim, near the border with Gaza.

Abu Sitta is a leading expert on the nakbah and what is nowadays widely described as the "ethnic cleansing" it involved. There can be no mistaking where his sympathies lie and where he stands in the febrile debate about Zionist intentions. Still, large parts of his account draw on the history of the 1948 war as rewritten by revisionist Israeli scholars in recent years as archives have opened up and old myths been demolished.

He is also a passionate advocate of the "right of return", under which Palestinian refugees must be allowed to go back to their lost lands and property. Refugees are the single toughest issue of the Middle East conflict: the Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO implied that the right would not be exercised inside pre-1967 Israel, but only in a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and so, apart from a symbolic number of family reunifications, there would be no mass "return" to west Jerusalem, Haifa, Lydda or hundreds of now non-existent villages.

The notion was that such an arrangement would be part of a pragmatic final peace settlement that drew a line under a painful past. Abu Sitta, like many Palestinians, fiercely opposed Oslo, and his views have not wavered. What has changed is the sense that as prospects for that elusive two-state solution fade, the only alternatives are either the status quo of Israeli occupation, cementing what some call de facto apartheid, or one single democratic state in which Israelis and Palestinians live peacefully together – and to which the refugees could finally return.

It is hard to imagine how Israel would ever voluntarily agree to surrender the Jewish majority it has within the 1967 borders – the raison d'être of the Zionist movement. Yet it remains taboo even to question whether that right is ever likely to be exercised. Andrew Whitley, a senior official of Unwra, the UN agency that looks after Palestinian refugees, was forced to apologise recently when he called it a "cruel illusion" to suggest that the 1948 refugees would ever be able to go home.

Abu Sitta leafs through his atlas, which includes detailed plans for refugee repatriation, and insists otherwise. "In the age of advanced technology it is quite feasible to compare the rich and meticulously recorded history of Palestine with the existing electronic Israeli record of every Palestinian house and acre of land, who owned it and to which Jewish body it is leased," he writes. "From this, both cultural and physical restoration of Palestine could take place. What remains is the wisdom, enforced by political will, to implement it."

Social scientist Dina Matar also follows "the trajectory of a continuing nakbah," in her fine book about "what it means to be a Palestinian in the 21st century", but her mission is to record voices that are normally heard only in fragments and at times of crisis. This "composite biography" includes personal stories and "reconstructed experiences" from the 1936 rebellion against the British through to Oslo in 1993, and unifies the disparate worlds of Palestinians living in Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. Individual narratives of suffering, defiance and despair are linked by chapters of factual historical background, and tell of life in refugee camps, the experience of the Jordanian civil war or the first intifada, when the "children of the stones" took on the Israeli military but won only the brief attention of an indifferent world.

Matar, not surprisingly, identifies 1948 as the key date in Palestinian collective memory and notes "the persistent theme that the Palestinian sense of displacement was not the result of one specific event, but an ongoing process, continuing into the present."

Her telling subtitle – "stories of Palestinian peoplehood" – suggests that she too believes that the old aspiration of "statehood" is not likely to be realised any time soon.

Professor Ilan Pappe reveals the truth about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Israeli film-maker Noa Ben-Hagai went in search of a forgotten great-aunt and found cousins who are Palestinian Arabs. What happened next?

Back when peace did not seem such an impossibility, it was fashionable to cast the Middle East conflict as a family feud. Jews and Arabs were held to be if not brothers then long-lost cousins – the descendants, of Isaac and Ishmael, perhaps, or of Jacob and Esau – who would one day end their estrangement in an embrace. After the collapse of the Oslo peace process, a second intifada and a lethal military offensive in Gaza, you don't hear that kind of talk so much these days.

Yet for at least one family that fanciful, even romantic, notion is a long-buried and painful reality. A new film, receiving its UK debut next week at the UK Jewish film festival, tells the true and astonishing story of a single family divided both by the kind of heartbreak that can split any family anywhere and by what is commonly regarded as the world's most bitter and intractable conflict.

Blood Relation comes from Noa Ben-Hagai, a young Israeli documentary maker, who four years ago made a jaw-dropping discovery – a stash of letters and photographs hidden away by her late grandmother. They revealed what no one had ever told Noa: her grandmother had had a sister, Pnina, who, in circumstances hazy with mystery, had ended up "living as an Arab" in a Palestinian refugee camp in the city of Nablus. Pnina was a Jew but her husband was a Palestinian Arab, as were her eight children and their children. Noa suddenly discovered not only a great-aunt she had never heard of but also a large extended family on the other side of the national divide – among the enemy.

"It was hidden behind a high wall of silence," Noa says, recalling the determination with which her grandmother Rachel – who died when Noa was 15 – had kept her sister a secret. Rachel had held on to the "letters of abandonment" her sister Pnina had written to her, but she had rarely replied.

The film seeks to uncover what happened to Pnina, how a Jewish girl ended up removed from her brothers and sisters, on the other side of the Israeli-Palestinian battle-line. It also lays bare what happens when the two sides of this torn family encounter each other today, revealing the guilt, resentment and stubborn sense of kinship that has not faded in 70 years.

Both these stories, past and present, are compelling as family dramas, the kind of tales packed with secrets and lies that lurk in so many families. But they also serve as a poignant parable for the wider Middle East conflict, highlighting the many ways in which, after all, the war of Arabs and Israelis resembles a family affair.

In seeking to get to the bottom of Pnina's fate, Noa discovers what anyone digging deep into their family history soon learns: myths abound. Truths are handed down that are not truths, exaggerations harden into legends. So Noa's Israeli relatives tell her that in 1940, Pnina, then 14, was kidnapped, perhaps while hitching a ride away from the family homestead in the poor Galilee farming village of Yavniel. She was snatched, they say, by an Arab man who promptly took her to his home in Jaffa. She was not heard from again for nearly 27 years. During the 1948 war that attended Israel's birth, the Arabs of Jaffa – now including the Jewish-born Pnina – had fled to the West Bank, where they lived, following the 1967 war, under Israeli occupation. Why did she never come back to Israel? They asked her to, but she refused.

That's the version told by the Israeli relatives, including an elderly sister who admits Pnina "never said [a man] kidnapped her – but we know he did".

From Pnina's daughters, Noa hears a different story. The way they heard it, Pnina was raised in a rich Jewish family with an Arab maid. The young Pnina would watch the pious Muslim girl saying her prayers, and was one day so moved she asked if they could pray together. Later, the maid's father gave Pnina a lift back to their village, where she completed her spiritual journey by converting to Islam. Why did she never go back to Israel? Because her previous family refused to take her back.

The gulf between the two accounts will be recognised by anyone familiar with ancient but bitter family rows, in which the two warring sides can't even agree on the basic facts. It also echoes the so-called war of narratives, in which Israelis and Palestinians have radically different perspectives on the past that preceded their present dispute. In this, the two sides of Noa's unique family – with their incompatible versions of history – are utterly true to their national roles.

Eventually, through doggedly tracking down anyone with memories from the small village where Rachel and Pnina were raised, Noa assembled an account she could hold on to. She agrees that the year of her great-aunt's departure was 1940 and that it happened when – in a widely forgotten episode – Mussolini's fighter planes strafed the northern city of Haifa in what was then Palestine. But "I don't believe Arabs kidnapped her, nor that she fell in love," says Noa.

She thinks the heart of the matter was scandal: Pnina was pregnant. Noa interviewed an elderly villager who brutally declares that the teenage girl was notoriously loose. No beauty, she would do it "for candy", he says – "Anyone could have her."

Unable to deal with the shame, her family recoiled until Pnina ran away. She was taken in by an Arab man who, says Noa, "rescued her … accepted her", despite the fact she was carrying another man's child. To her family, the fact she had gone with an Arab compounded the disgrace; after that, they shunned her.

Pnina lived in fear of her father, afraid he would kill her for the double shame she had inflicted on the family. When her sister later told her to come home – to what was now Israel – Pnina refused, knowing that Arab tradition would oblige her to leave her children behind. Rachel warned her then that if she didn't come, all ties would be severed: she would be dead to them. So began the long silence broken only by Pnina's letters, ever more plaintive pleas to her siblings to visit her in the refugee camp, not to forget her – texts aching with longing and melancholy that continued to arrive until Pnina's death in 1971. "Every day I ask, when will you come? I miss you every day. You are my family."

Noa's research took her to the West Bank, to meet Pnina's children and grandchildren. Most did not want to talk, anxious that any contact with an Israeli – let alone an admission of Jewish ancestry – would raise suspicions of collaboration among their fellow Palestinians. The only one of Pnina's eight children who agreed to speak to her was Salma, a middle-aged woman who had reached rock bottom: "She had no money, she had no work, she needed money for food – she had nothing to lose." With a husband and sons in and out of Israeli custody, usually for trying to work in Israel without a permit, Salma reckoned that contact with an Israeli might prove helpful – especially as Noa's uncle, Shmulik, is a former military governor of Ramallah, in charge for a time of military intelligence on the West Bank. Salma was keen to make contact, sensing that her Israeli cousins might be a lifeline.

The Israelis are not so sure. Noa's camera records her mother, uncles and others debating the wisdom of the family reunion Noa is planning. "What will we gain from this, except helping them out?" asks Shmulik's wife, Sarah. Great-uncle David is worried that, if they help Salma, 10 more Palestinian relatives will pop up demanding similar assistance: "That's our problem with the refugees. They left with two or three children, now they're clans!" In that sentence he speaks for those many Israelis who believe that, while the estimated 700,000 refugees of 1948 might be eligible for some kind of restitution, it's too much to compensate the many millions who now make up the Palestinian nation.

The encounter in the film is tense, confusing and touching all at the same time. Simultaneously you're watching a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian strangers – always awkward – and the reuniting of a family. You ask yourself a basic but profound question: are these people – so divided that on one side stands a retired Israeli military governor and on the other young Palestinian men who include some linked to terrorist organisations – a family or not? "If you look closely," says Noa, "you can see they are the same. They look the same, they speak the same language." And yet they are worlds apart.

The key tension arises between Salma and Shmulik. She needs his money and believes that, as they share the same blood, he should give it. He is torn: one moment he loudly resents her demands, the next he is phoning old contacts and paying bail in order to get Salma's husband out of jail.

Partly this is an age-old family story: the rich man who believes his poor relations are sponging off him, the poor relative who resents her cousin's wealth, the guilt and obligations that come with blood ties. But there is also an echo of the wider story, starting with the perennial Israeli fear that, if you grant one concession, the Palestinians will come back wanting more.

One of the most powerful moments in Noa's journey came when she gathered her Israeli relatives together to debate what they should do about their newly discovered cousins. "Are we ready to accept them as our family?" someone asked. The debate reached a kind of climax when an uncle stated plainly, as if making a confession: "I have a cousin called Salma." At issue here is the question that may well be at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute: recognition.

Noa found that her sessions with Salma and another daughter of Pnina's became especially intense because the two women seized on the film-maker as a connection with, and a reminder of, their late mother. "All they want is to be accepted by the family. They got it from her, this longingness: they want to be accepted by us as equal human beings." What they want is recognition.

The story of Pnina, Salma, Shmulik and Noa provides countless such insights into the conflict in which they are all tangled up. We see that fear lives even among the strong: when Shmulik visits Salma at her home, driving alone in the West Bank, he calls for directions, admitting he's scared. As governor of Ramallah, he made no contact with his cousins, fearing that if his military superiors knew there were Arabs in his family, his career prospects would be harmed.

We see, too, the strange connections that tie these enemies close together. Fascinatingly, Pnina's family were not Jewish immigrants to Palestine caught up in the early waves of Zionist settlement: they had roots in the country going back generations. They came originally from Tiberias, a mixed city of Jews and Arabs, speaking Arabic at home. Precisely described, they were Palestinian Jews. Yet far from that engendering a sense of kinship or solidarity with the Palestinian Arabs, it has, Noa believes, produced the opposite sentiment. Arabs, one interviewee told her, were associated with "poverty, neglect, primitiveness". Noa's grandmother, the rest of her siblings and her children were keen to see themselves as modern Israelis, not to be reminded of their proximity to the Palestinian "natives". Pnina's marriage to an Arab – in contrast with Noa's mother and her uncle Shmulik, who both married Ashkenazi, or European Jewish, partners – seemed an unforgivable step backward. "Our family was once like the Arabs of Israel," says Noa. "But all this time they ran away from this legacy." When they see Salma and her children, "it's like looking in the mirror; it's very frightening".

By the end of Blood Relation, there is no emotional breakthrough, no sudden comprehension of all these complex feelings. Shmulik struggles to relate to his Palestinian cousins in anything but the old way he learned during military service: he speaks to Salma in a kind of interrogator's Arabic. At one point, he suggests that a possible solution to Salma's economic woes would be for him to hire her as his cook and cleaner. When Noa says a real family relationship is impossible because of the occupation, Shmulik is indignant: "What's the occupation got to do with it?"

Noa's investigation has provided no catharsis: her family accuses her of opening a sore better left untouched. And she has not brought the Middle East conflict to a symbolic end with a Jacob-and-Esau-style embrace of long-lost brothers. Instead, she has revealed feelings that run through so many families, even those not rendered extraordinary by a long-running war. Pnina's yearning is exquisite and explicit in those repeated letters. But her younger, Israeli brother, David, outwardly so tough, expresses similar pain when he recalls the first time he saw Pnina in Nablus: "I found a sister who was a complete stranger to me."

Blood Relation is on at the Everyman Hampstead cinema as part of the UK Jewish film festival on 14 November. See ukjewishfilmfestival.org.uk

Prof. Shmuel Trigano has written a fascinating, and all too short, monograph on the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the 20th century.

One of his theses is that the Jew-hatred that became endemic in Arab lands during this time was not a reaction to Zionism, but rather because of the new concept of Arab nationalism and the xenophobia that resulted. He documents that many of the anti-Jewish laws in Arab countries pre-date modern Israel.

Excerpts:

The Jews were isolated from their society by a legal process in many lands.

This was the preliminary stage of their exclusion, which was followed by expulsion. A number of legal measures in various countries illustrate this point.

In Egypt the most articulate evolution occurred. It began with the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), a peace treaty between the Allies and the Ottomans that dismembered the Ottoman Empire and opened the way to the further creation of Arab (and Israeli) states. It addressed the question of nationality in Egypt and can be considered the first infringement of the rights of autochthonous Jews. The notion of belonging to a race (article 105) rather than a nation was introduced, thereby dissociating Jews from the majority of the population of the country. The next step was the nationality laws of 1927 and 1929, which favored jus sanguinis (or right of blood). An Egyptian was from then on defined as somebody who had Arab-Muslim affiliation.

The London Convention (1936) granted Egypt independence under King Farouk, and it was followed by a worsening of the nationality laws. According to additional nationality laws (in 1950, 1951, 1953, and 1956), autochthonous Jews became stateless: 40,000 people were turned into "foreigners" in their own country. In 1956, after the Sinai War, a new dimension was added: Egyptian nationality was taken away from anyone who committed acts in favor of enemy states or states with no relations with Egypt. In practice, all Jews were suspected of dual loyalty. This led ultimately to the accusation that all Jews were Zionists.
...
A number of legal measures imposed restrictions on businesses and associations. Jewish communities and organizations were placed under supervision. Arabic became the sole language of public services.

In Libya, in 1953, Jews were subjected to restrictions and became victims of economic boycotts. The Maccabi sports club was forcibly opened to Arab members in 1954. A decree was issued on 9 May 1957 obliging Libyans with relatives in Israel to register at the Libyan boycott office, even though at that point, 90 percent of the Jews had already left. On 3 December 1958, Tripoli's Jewish community ceased to be an independent entity. Thereafter it was overseen by a state-appointed commissioner. Legal exclusion worsened. In 1960, Jews were prohibited from acquiring new possessions. They were no longer allowed to vote, hold public office, or serve in the army or the police. On 2 April 1960, Alliance Israélite Universelle schools were closed.

Similar developments occurred in Lebanon. As early as 1947, Jewish students were expelled from Beirut University. Jewish "Zionist" organizations (such as the Maccabi sports club) were forbidden. Jews were discharged from public service positions and Jewish youth movements banned.

In Iraq, Jewish history and Hebrew language instruction were prohibited in Jewish schools during the 1920s. Jews were expelled from public service and education in the 1930s. The Jewish schools' curricula were censored in 1932.

In Yemen, sharia law was instated in 1913, worsening the situation of the dhimmi. Decrees specifying forced conversion for orphans were issued between 1922 and 1928, while Jews were excluded from public service positions and the army.

In Syria, real estate purchase was prohibited to Jews in 1947, and Jews began to be discharged from public service positions. In 1967, Muslim principals were appointed to Jewish schools.

In Morocco, after independence in 1956, a process of Arabization of public services began, cutting the Jews off from the larger society. A dahir (decree) Moroccanizing Jewish charitable organizations was issued on 26 November 1958, endangering their freedom.

In Egypt, a long process of discrimination in the public service began in 1929. In 1945-1948, Jews were excluded from the public service. In 1947, Jewish schools were put under surveillance and forced to Arabize and Egyptianize their curricula. Community organizations were forced to submit their member lists to the Egyptian state after May 1948 and until 1950. In 1949, Jews were forbidden to live in the vicinity of King Farouk's palaces.

In Tunisia, a law concerning Judaism (11 July 1958) put an end to Jewish communities, replaced them with temporary "Israelite worship commissions," and suppressed the personal status of the Jews (inherited from the dhimmi status, which obliged the Jews to depend on their religious tribunals for all matters related to their personal status). In Tunisia too, independence (1956) led to the Tunisification of public services.

Turkey under the Young Turks (1923-1945) created hard-labor battalions for non-Muslim conscripts in May 1941.

...A series of pogroms and related events, such as riots, arrests, murders of public figures, and destruction of synagogues, occurred while colonial powers and Arab state police looked on passively. That gave the Jews the signal that it was time to leave.

In Egypt, anti-British and anti-Semitic riots broke out in several towns on 2-3 November 1945. Massive arrests occurred on 14-16 May 1948; one thousand Jews were detained and accused of being Zionists. On 2 November 1948, riots and lootings took place in Cairo and on 26 January 1952, "black Saturday" saw riots and acts of violence.

In Turkey, in June-July 1934, pogroms occurred in Thrace.

In Iraq, on 1-2 June 1941, in the Farhoud pogrom in Bagdad, 180 people were killed and 600 injured. In 1948, a wave of official anti-Jewish persecutions, including arrests and considerable fines, took place. ...

In Libya, riots against those living in the Jewish quarters occurred in Tripoli in January 1945. Sixty percent of Jewish possessions were destroyed and 135 people were killed; soldiers acted as accomplices to the rioters. Jews were forced to evacuate. Jews in Hara, Tripoli, and Benghazi were put on remand....

Anti-Semitism would have developed even without the existence of the state of Israel because of Arab-Islamic nationalism, which resulted in xenophobia. In the twentieth century, hostility toward Jews was spreading well before Israel's creation: in Yemen, Syria, Mandatory Palestine, Turkey, and Algeria.

It is the custom to say that Zionism was responsible for this development. But Zionism is to be understood, in the worldview of the Islamic mind, in another perspective. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of intolerant Arab nationalism, long-dominated nations (such as the Armenians and the Jews) sought independence. This was understood by the Arab world as a rebellion not only against the new Arab nation-states but also against Islamic law, which puts non-Muslims in the inferior status of a dominated nation: the dhimmis.

Both the Armenians and the Jews were subjected to violent repression. The former were massacred by the Ottoman Empire in 1894-1895 - around 300,000 victims - and suffered a genocide - 1,200,000 victims - by the Turks in 1908. The latter in Mandatory Palestine suffered pogroms in 1920, 1929, 1936, and 1939. And the Jews in Muslim countries, as we have seen, were forced to leave. Hardly any Jews remain in the abovementioned countries, and the number of Christian Arabs is now dwindling in them as well.

The new Arab anti-Zionism contained classic anti-Semitic policies, as demonstrated by the "Statute of the Jews" that could be compared to the Vichy Statute of the Jews, except that it developed over a long time, in a huge geographical area, and at different periods. Jews were accused of being coresponsible with Israel for the war that the Arab states declared against the new state and then lost. Regardless of their ideological affiliation - communist, nationalist, Zionist, religious, and so on - they were subjected to special laws specifically aimed at Jews. They were expelled from all Arab-Muslim countries because a collective responsibility was imputed to them. This is typical anti-Semitic reasoning.

The Jews from Arab-Muslim countries were powerless. They had no army. They did not take part in the conflict. They were not responsible for triggering hostilities between the Arab states and Israel. That the Yishuv, the quasi-Jewish state that developed in Mandatory Palestine, became a state according to the United Nations Partition Plan was not also responsible for the war except for the scandal of its existence. Instead, the cause of the situation was the intolerance and imperialism of the new Arab states: before these attained independence, there were indeed no such states. Before the Western colonial empires there was another Islamic colonial empire, the Ottoman one. Palestine never existed as a political or cultural entity. The new nation-states - Israel included - were a product of the Western colonial empires and all were "invented." Why were these Jews in Arab countries persecuted and expelled if not as a result of an anti-Semitic ideology and policy? It was a continuation of the traditional Islamic anti-Judaism but defined in reference to the symbol of the rebellion of the Jewish dhimmis: Zionism.

This is a fascinating line of reasoning, but I think it needs to be greatly expanded and organized better, on a country-by-country basis. The paper is a good first step in showing that Arab anti-semitism followed a continuum that more closely corresponded with Arab nationalism/xenophobia than with Zionism.

In his latest post, Sergei Bourachaga tackles Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and the OIC in the form of an open letter.


An Open Letter to Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the OIC

By Sergei Bourachaga

Dear Dr. Ihsanoglu:

Allow me to begin my letter with a brief introduction of who you are, since the average North American reader will fail to associate your name with a face, a background, and the critical role you play in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

You are a person of Turkish descent born in Cairo, Egypt (26 December 1943). You lived for almost three decades in that country, mastered the Arabic language, and pursued an academic career in science at the Ain Shams University, receiving a BSc in 1966, followed by an MSc in 1970 from the same university, and last but not least a PhD from the Faculty of Science at the Ankara University in 1974. In January 2005 you were elected as the ninth Secretary General (SG) of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) — an international organisation with a permanent delegation in the UN, and a membership composed of 57 states. According to the official press releases of the OIC the 57 states/members dedicate resources and coordinate efforts, to articulate and promote with a unified voice the interests of Muslims globally.

In a speech delivered in the month of August 2010 at the University of Oxford, you stated to your audience that the time has come to achieve a “historic reconciliation“ between Islam and Christianity. You also warned Western democracies that using freedom of expression to offend Islam and fuel Islamophobia will alienate “moderate Muslims”, and provide more ammunition for Muslim jihadists determined to use violence to eradicate what in their perception can be classified as injustices inflicted by the West on the Muslim Ummah (Arabic for nation).

The same themes and points were reiterated in a different form in your address to the conference on “Islam and Muslims in America”, on September 29, 2010 in Chicago, organized by the OIC in cooperation with the American Islamic College in Chicago. You indicated also that the primary objective of the conference was to familiarize America with “the true and real image of Islam, based on tolerance, peace, pluralism and acknowledgement of diversity.”

With all due respect, sir, I find it very insulting and condescending from a scholar of your calibre to assume that the West in general and Americans in particular have no logical reasoning faculties, with which to dissipate the clouds of distortions you and the OIC have superimposed since 2005 on the real bloody image of Islam, in a desperate attempt to force us to tolerate one of the unique characteristics of Islam: INTOLERANCE. What makes a bad situation worse is the timing of your statements. It was not a coincidence that the OIC selected the month of September to promote the “True Image of Islam”. It was in 9/11/2001 that Islamic savagery showed its real tolerance of our values, and within hours 19 pious Muslims claimed the lives of 3000 Americans with their suicide missions directed against the Twin Towers of New York City, The Pentagon, and the failed attempt to target The White House. The 19 Jihadis of 9/11 were “moderate Muslims”, who lived in Western countries and pursued post-secondary education in well-respected academic environments, such as Hamburg University in Germany. Here I find it appropriate to dispel this myth called “moderate Muslims” or “moderate Islamists” that you, the OIC, and every Muslim who has managed to turn hypocrisy into a sophisticated form of art try to promote in Western democracies.

Any person who had taken an “Islam 101” course will tell you that the labels refer to nonexistent realities within the key principles of the religion called Islam. In the Arabic language the word Islam is rooted in the verb “ASLAMA”, meaning surrendered/submitted. A Muslim is a person who has surrendered or submitted himself to the will of God, as clearly expressed in the noble Koran — a guide in the Arabic language that points all true Muslim believers to the true path of salvation; an Islamic Umma under the wise rule of a Muslim Caliph, who rules justly with full compliance with Divine principles revealed in the Koran.

The Koran dehumanizes, demonizes, and expresses a clear contempt of any person who refuses to adopt Islam as “The Perfect Deen/Arabic for religion”. Just in case your mind often experiences “Selective Amnesia”, let me provide a few samples to refresh your memory:

“Satan has gained possession of The People of The Book (Jews and Christians) and caused them to forget Allah’s warnings. They are the confederates of Satan; Satan’s confederates shall assuredly be lost in hell. The Believers are the confederates of Allah (Hizbollah); and Allah’s confederates shall surely triumph”. Koran 58:19

“We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers (Jews and Christians). They serve other Gods for whom no sanction has been revealed. Hell shall be their home; dismal indeed is the dwelling place of the evil-doers”. Koran 3:149

Any Muslim (Turkish, Arab, Pakistani…) who rejects these verses and hundreds of other verses in the Koran, full of venomous hatred directed against Jews and Christians, is no longer a Muslim, because he is reversing his act of submission and questioning the judgement of Allah or the accuracy/reliability of the prophet who conveyed the will of Allah to his followers. There is no moderation or “pick and choose” your verses or souras. The Koran in its entirety is The Holy Book of Islam, and for many Western scholars a questionable literature.

You might rightfully argue that I am a biased Russian and my personal observations do not carry any weight. Then, allow me to use the statement of your compatriot Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey. During an interview on Kanal D TV’s Arena program, PM Erdogan commented on the term “moderate Islam”, often used in the West to describe AKP and said: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” (Source: Milliyet, Turkey, August 21, 2007).

On the issue of “Islamic Tolerance” and the West. I don’t want to list dozens of verses from The Noble Koran that make tolerance of other religions an anathema. Instead, I want to test your courage and dedication to “Inter-Faith Dialogue”, “Tolerance”, “Acknowledgement of Diversity” with a challenge. If you sincerely believe that Islam is a religion of “Peace & Tolerance” dedicated to dialogue, use your clout as the SG of OIC to launch a project of building a church in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Vatican, the seat of Catholic Power representing almost 1 billion Christians, showed Christian tolerance with deeds not words, by convincing the City of Rome in 1974 to donate (absolutely free) 32,000 sqm of land in an area of Rome, less than 3 km away from St. Peter’s Basilica known as “The Pope Diocese”, to build a mosque and an Islamic Cultural Centre to encourage “Inter-Faith Dialogue”. The inauguration of the mosque took place on June 21, 1995, and the mosque’s construction was financed by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, head of the Saudi royal family, as well as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Deeds speak louder than words, so provide the tangible evidence of “Islamic Tolerance” to the West by convincing the Saudi king to lift the absolute ban imposed on building churches anywhere in the Kingdom, especially Mecca. But until the construction of the church is over we will remember and systematically repeat to politicians seeking the appeasement of Islam, the prophetic warnings of Sir Winston Churchill on Islamism:

“The Mohammedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness [madness of intolerance-emphasis mine]… and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science — the science against which it had vainly struggled — the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

We will remember the statements of Sir Winston Churchill because often the so called Islamic dedication to tolerance is nothing but lip service. The best evidence again was provided by the imam of the Rome mosque (the one mentioned in the previous paragraph) Abdel-Samie Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa, 32, a cleric from Egypt who never showed any interest in learning the Italian language, but successfully used his Arabic oratorical skills with a Nile Delta accent to bite the very hands that have fed him and offered him a free mosque in Rome. A reporter of La Repubblica newspaper taped and translated the following statements made during a Friday sermon:

“O Allah, grant victory to the Islamic fighters in Palestine, Chechnya, and elsewhere in the world! O Allah, destroy the homes of the enemies of Islam! O Allah, help us to annihilate the enemies of Islam! O Allah, make firm everywhere the voice of the nation of Islam!”

“From the Islamic point of view, there is no doubt that the operations by the mujahidin against the Jews in Palestine are legitimate. They are acts of martyrdom, and their authors are martyrs for Islam, because all of Palestine is a ´Dar al-Harb,’ a war zone; because all of Jewish society is illegally occupying a Muslim land.”

The rant of the Imam went on and on, blaming every problem plaguing the Islamic Umma on the West and its corrupt values. Often you wonder why Muslims select Western democracies as their adoptive homeland if they so strongly believe and voice the concern that our moral values are so corrupt.


Please, Dr. Ihsanoglu, don’t try to convince me that what happened in the Rome mosque is an isolated event of misguided religious over-zealousness! On the contrary, in Canada, at least, Islamic radicalism preached regularly in Canadian mosques is a widespread phenomenon. I strongly suggest that you read an article published by Maclean’s Magazine (Sept.13/10), written by Canadian journalist Adnan R. Khan, titled “Spreading The Holy Word — and Fuelling Islamic Extremism”, in which Mr. Khan connects the activities of the Islamic fundamentalist movement Tablighi Jamaat (a movement considered by Western intelligence agencies as “conveyor belt to terrorism”) to the radicalization of the three Canadians arrested in Ottawa at the end of August 2010, on terrorism related charges.

Mr. Khan wrote also that “Virtually every mosque in Toronto has at one time or another hosted members of the group, often travelling from Pakistan to preach and convert Canadian Muslims to the “True Islam“. Of course “True Islam” means blind adherence to the will of Allah, clearly expressed in the Koran via the seal of the prophet Mohammed, whom every Muslim should emulate to impose by force the will of Allah on every infidel who rejected the perfect Deen/Religion — Islam.

Dear sir, Islamic fundamentalists preaching “True Islam” are casually hijacking freedom of expression to destroy our liberal democracies. Two key tools are used in the pursuit of their objective:

a)		The instructions of Allah conveyed by the Koran.
b)		The “narrative” that the West is against Islam, and every evil confronting Islam today can be traced back to the dark machinations of the West.

I am not going to elaborate on point (a) and the decrepit Allah of the Koran, who has to rely in his state of impotence on an army of Muslim jihadis to impose his will on this world. The internet — including this site — has a wealth of material on the Koran, and it would be unfair to inflict boredom on readers by playing the same record again and again. I will invest a significant effort to cover point (b), because organizations like the OIC disseminate the twisted ideas and logic making up the narrative, and it is a critical must for the West, and all who sincerely care about our freedoms and way of life to combat that narrative before an irreversible damage is inflicted on us.

The narrative promoted by OIC and all Islamic countries without exception, gained so much importance since 9/11 in shaping and coloring the relationship of Western democracies and Islamic countries, that former British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, made it the central theme of a speech addressed to an audience, gathered by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in New York City on October 6, 2010.

According to Mr. Blair, the “Narrative” is based on the universal pitiful Islamic lament that “… Islam is basically oppressed by the West; disrespected and treated unfairly; that the military action we took post-9/11 was against countries because they are Muslim; and that in the Middle East we ignore the injustice done to the Palestinians in our desire to support Israel, because the Palestinians are Muslims, and the Israelis Jews… The practitioners of extremism are small in number. The adherents of the narrative stretch far broader into significant parts of mainstream thinking.” Mr. Blair pointed out to his audience also, that thanks to efforts of “mainstream” Islamic organizations (like the OIC), Islamic governments, and the “paucity” of the West’s efforts, the Islamist “Narrative” remained “outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised by Islamist extremism.”

As a historian, Dr. Ihsanoglu, I am sure you are aware that the Islamic conquest of Europe started with the invasion of Spain by Tariq ibn Ziyad, in 711. After an initial consolidation of the land conquered, Muslim invaders moved northeast across the Pyrenees, into present-day France, but were defeated by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours (Poitiers) in 732. The first Crusade to liberate the Holy Land did not start until three centuries later (1096-1099). So promoting the “Narrative” that Western hostility to Islam has roots in the First Crusade of the Holy Land is absurd. The same absurdity applies to the argument that Western support of the state of Israel is a serious source of tension between Islam and The West. The hatred Islam has for the Jews and all the infidels of this world who have rejected the teachings of Islam goes back to the time when the desert bandit masquerading as a prophet of Allah made the following revelations:

“Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews…” Koran 5:82

“Believers, do not make friends with any men other than your own people. They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is clear from what they say, but more violent is the hatred which their breasts conceal”. Koran 3:117

And that is when (629) Muslims decided to obey the instructions of Allah and “…put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers…” (Koran 3:149), not with the birth of the State of Israel in 14 May 1948 or Western support of Israel since its birth.

Dr. Ihsanoglu, I strongly urge you to stop the spread of the destructive “Narrative” the OIC is spreading with total disregard to the dire consequences this planet might face. Already, the madman of Iran (an OIC member), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is engaged in a race to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium to build an atomic bomb and obliterate the State of Israel, to bring the “Narrative” to the disastrous conclusion promoted by the prophet Mohammed:

“Leave to me those that deny this revelation. We will lead them step by step to their ruin, in ways beyond their knowledge”. Koran 68:41


The only problem is that, if and when (hopefully never), such a catastrophic move is made by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the A-bomb is used to destroy and push the Jews of Israel back into the sea, the entire Islamic army engaged against Israel will end up in hell enjoying 72-year-old virgins, instead of the 72 young virgin houris promised by prophet Mohammed.

Iran’s ambitions to destroy Israel bring us back to the issue of religious tolerance, and the double standard used by the OIC in condemning the West for promoting animosity against Islam, but adopting total silence for the genocidal violence promoted by Iran against Israel in particular, and the West in general. And this double standard will remain, together with a long list of contentious issues, the focus of my attention and the attention of thousands of bloggers like me, who rely on the tireless efforts of administrators of sites like this one, to repeat to the rest of the world “WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER OUR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION” for the following fundamental reasons:

• “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.” Sir Winston Churchill
  
• “To many Christian-secularists, Islam has been nothing more than a violent and elitist seventh-century political project, prior to it serving any religious purpose for mankind. It is on the basis of those two concerns of freedom of speech and the freedom of religious worship that the West should never extend an apology to Islam.” James McConalogue, The Pope, the Monk and Islam

Respectfully yours,

Sergei Bourachaga


Previous posts by Sergei Bourachaga:

2008		May		28		The Koran and The Psychopathology of The Prophet (Part I)
2010		Aug		14		The Koran and the Psychopathology of the Prophet (Part II)
				18		The Koran: A “Holy Book” or Hate Literature?
				22		The Holy Father and Turkish Incoherence
		Sep		28		Geert Wilders and the Koran on Trial

In a long speech to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Australia, Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Paul McGeough - who already betrayed incredible bias against Israel with his laughably inaccurate reporting from the flotilla in July - cements his reputation.

In the July article, McGeough (who was not on the Mavi Marmara) said things like the IDF "hunted like hyenas" and that the attack was "timed for dawn prayers" and that "a lot of people moved in to shelter" the first Israeli commando on deck "with their bodies." It was so at odds with video evidence that had already been available as to represent a willful disregard for facts, not a piece of reporting.

Now, McGeough shows that his disregard for facts is as natural as breathing:

Arguably, engagement takes place at three levels. There are two – weapons and diplomacy – in which Israel has been ascendant since, oh, I would say about 1948. But there is a third dimension, one that sways the diplomacy; and which is influenced by resort to weapons. This is the contest for control of the narrative of the conflict.

Across the decades, Israelis have told the story of their enterprise brilliantly. Palestinians, by contrast, have told the story of dispossession terribly.

And this fair reporter aims to correct this problem!

Israel's mythology is built on the likes of the stunning success of the Six Day War. And on daring, edge-of-the-seat ventures like the 1976 raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Remember their abduction, halfway around the world of Adolf Eichmann? And the surgical strike on Saddam Hussein's nuclear facility?

Apparently, he hasn't been reading the newspapers in his own industry for about three decades. Because his examples of Israel's ownership of the narrative ends at Entebbe and Osirak (something that, it will be recalled, Israel was roundly criticized for at the time.)

No, it would not be right for McGeough to notice that the Arab narrative has taken the imagination of his fellow reporters, not to mention diplomats and world leaders. McGeough is imagining himself as a speaker of unknown truths, as bucking the conventional wisdom, as a proponent of "dangerous ideas" for saying things like the Palestinian Arabs are being occupied by a colonial power. It is a joke, as McGeough is simply following the fashionably anti-Israel crowd, not trailblazing it.

Hamas is now a peace-loving entity, in McGeough's considered opinion:

After a six year period in which there had been just a single suicide-bomb attack, but in which thousands of erratic rockets were fired into Israel, Hamas acknowledged that there was more to be gained in setting up Israel as a target of international criticism for its own actions, than as a target of rockets launched by Hamas and the other factions. "When we use violence, we help Israel win international support," Aziz Dweik, a Hamas MP in the West Bank was quoted in The Wall Street Journal. "The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets."

Only one suicide bombing in six years prior to the flotilla! That's remarkable! Too bad it is a lie. From Israel's MFA:

Aug 31, 2004 - Sixteen people were killed and 100 wounded in two suicide bombings within minutes of each other on two Beersheba city buses, on route nos. 6 and 12. The buses were traveling along Beersheba's main street, Rager Blvd, near the city hall. Hamas in Hebron claimed responsibility for the attack.

Sept 14, 2004 - A suicide bomber riding on a bicycle blew himself up near an armored IDF jeep at an agricultural gate, south of Qalqilyah, injuring two IDF soldiers.

Sept 22, 2004 - Two Border Policemen were killed and 17 Israelis wounded in a suicide bombing carried out by a female terrorist at the French Hill junction hitchhiking post in northern Jerusalem. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Nov 1, 2004 - Three people were killed and over 30 wounded in a suicide bombing at the Carmel Market in central Tel Aviv. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Nablus claimed responsibility for the attack, carried out by Amar Alfar, 18, from Askar refugee camp in Nablus.

Jan 18, 2005 - An ISA officer was killed, an IDF officer seriously wounded, and 4 IDF soldiers and 3 members of the ISA were lightly wounded in a suicide bombing attack at the Gush Katif junction in the central Gaza Strip. While search procedures were being carried out, the suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body detonated himself. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Feb 25, 2005 - Five people were killed and 50 wounded Friday night, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Stage club on the Tel Aviv promenade at around 11:20 P.M., on the corner of Herbert Samuel and Yonah Hanavi streets. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

July 12, 2005 - Five people were killed and about 90 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside Hasharon Mall in Netanya. The bomber was identified as Ahmed Abu Khalil, 18, from the West Bank village of Atil. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aug 28, 2005 - A suicide bomber detonated himself outside the Beersheba Central Bus Station. Two security guards who stopped the bomber were severely wounded and about 50 people were lightly wounded or treated for shock. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Oct 26, 2005 - Seven people were killed and 54 wounded, six seriously, in a suicide bombing at the Hadera open-air market. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 5, 2005 - Five people were killed and over 50 wounded in a suicide bombing at the entrance to the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya. The terrorist detonated the bomb when he was stopped by security guards, one of whom was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 29, 2005 - Lt. Ori Binamo, 21, of Nesher was killed when a terrorist en route to carry out an attack in Israel detonated himself at roadblock set up near Tulkarm following an intelligence tip. A second intended suicide terrorist was also killed in the blast as well as the taxi driver and a third passenger. Three soldiers and seven Palestinians were wounded.

Jan 19, 2006 - Thirty-one people were wounded in a suicide bombing in a shawarma restaurant near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv. The Jerusalem Battalions of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mar 30, 2006 - Four people were killed when a suicide bomber hitchhiker disguised as an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student detonated his explosive device in a private vehicle near the entrance to Kedumim.

Apr 17, 2006 - Eleven people were killed and over 60 wounded in a suicide bombing during the Passover holiday near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv, at the Rosh Ha'ir shawarma restaurant, site of the Jan 19 bombing. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jan 29, 2007 - Three employees of a bakery in the southern city of Eilat were killed in a suicide bombing. The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Feb 4, 2008 - Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, of Dimona was killed and 38 wounded - Razdolskaya's husband critically - in a terror attack carried out by a suicide bomber at a shopping center in Dimona. A police officer shot and killed a second terrorist before he detonated his explosive belt. A Hamas statement from Gaza praised the attack, calling it an "heroic act".

And these are only the suicide bombings - there were other more direct attacks on Israeli civilians, shootings and stabbings and bombings and others, also invariably praised by Hamas, no less lethal but ignored by McGeough as somehow irrelevant to his new narrative. Just like he discounts thousands of Hamas rockets as "erratic" - not seeming to notice that their inaccurate nature in no way detracts from their purpose, which is the very definition of terror.

Similarly, he seizes on what a Hamas West Bank MP says to the Wall Street Journal for an American audience and ignores the daily incitement and lionizing of violence in Hamas' (and Fatah's) Arabic-language media every day.

No, for him to acknowledge that the heroic Palestinian Arabs by and large embrace violence and terror and have no desire to live with Israel in peace does not further the false narrative that McKeough is seeking to push of intransigent Israeli leaders hell-bent on pushing every Arab out of the region, which is what his speech implies.

But then again, he might have other more personal reasons to want to push his Arab narrative and ignore the facts. His girlfriend is an outspoken Palestinian Arab activist.

(h/t Greg)

'It's very hard to talk about Palestine to Jewish people - they see me as a betrayer,' says British actor Miriam Margolyes

In a small, bare room in a refugee camp in the southern West Bank, a Palestinian Muslim man and a British Jewish woman face each other on plastic chairs and grope towards a mutual understanding across decades of mistrust, injustice, hostility and violence.

The man is Said Ali Banat Hajarah: 82, partially deaf, failing eyesight, a former farmer nostalgic about his fields and livestock, bitter at the loss of his family home more than six decades ago, still grieving the deaths of his father and a son at the hands of Israeli soldiers, convinced that the gun must be part of the toolbox of resistance alongside the pen and the voice.

The woman is Miriam Margolyes: 69, stage and film actor, ageing knee joints that won't allow her to sit on the floor, intensely curious about life in a refugee camp under occupation, furious at the actions and policies of the Israeli government, passionately opposed to violence as a tool of resistance.

Margolyes has travelled to Al Arroub, halfway between the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Hebron, to hear stories like Hajarah's. "I wanted to see what's going on, to learn – and it's not a happy experience," she tells the Guardian.

This is Hajarah's tale, much abbreviated: born in the village of Aggour in southern Palestine in 1928, he grew barley, courgettes, tomatoes and onions and raised sheep, cows, horses and donkeys. "Then the Jews came from all over the world to our country."

In 1948, the year the state of Israel was declared, Jewish militia surrounded Hajarah's village and started shooting. The villagers left, in fear of their lives, thinking they would return within a week. His family ended up in Al Arroub, where they have lived for the past 62 years, still dreaming of returning to their home and fields. "I remember every square metre of my land," he tells Margolyes, his rheumy eyes staring into the middle-distance.

For the past 43 years, since Israel occupied the West Bank during the six day war, he has lived not just as a refugee, but a refugee under military rule. He joined the struggle; "I believe in all forms of resistance - the pen, the voice and the gun," he says with passion.

This is Margolyes' story, also much abbreviated: born in Oxford into a secular Jewish family, she became an ardent supporter of the anti-apartheid movement at university before becoming an actor. Never a Zionist, she has become convinced of the wrongs perpetrated against the Palestinians in the name of Jews. She has spoken out against Israeli policies, earning opprobrium from fellow Jews and losing friends. She briefly visited the Holy Land 15 years ago and vowed to return to find out more. Now here she is, and she's finding it "emotional and uncomfortable".

The pair talk for an hour with warmth and empathy, but do not fudge their differences.

"I cannot accept violence. Somehow we have to move people, both Palestinians and Jews. But not kill."

"Palestinians use violence because our homes and land was stolen, taken by violence and they can only be restored by violence."

"I can't speak for Israel, but I want you to know I am appalled and sorry and you should know there are other Jews who think like this."

"I respect you as a Jew, I am not angry with you."

Later, after an animated Harry Potter discussion with Hajarah's grandsons who concede that Margolyes looks "very similar" to Professor Sprout in the films (no, says Margolyes patiently, I'm not similar, I am Professor Sprout), the actor reflects on the meeting. "His story is so terrible. I have no glib words," she says.

She explains her mission: "I hope to be able to shift a very harsh attitude [among Jews] towards Palestinians. It's very hard to talk about Palestine to Jewish people - they see me as a betrayer. I'm trying to tread carefully but I'm very angry and shocked. Minds have got to be changed.

"I believe Jews are compassionate people because of what we've suffered. We must not put that suffering on to others."

In another conversation, with mother and grandmother Rasmieh Titi, 55, Margolyes learns that the woman's grown-up sons have been repeatedly arrested and detained without charge for long periods by the Israeli military. "What do you think of Israelis?" Margolyes asks. "You cannot love those who have kidnapped your sons and stolen your land," Titi replies.

Margolyes wants her interlocutors to understand that not all Jews support the policies of the Israeli government, that there are those who do not just sympathise with the Palestinians but want to move forward in partnership with them.

She would like to see one state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land that both have fought over for close to a century. "I can't see any other solution working. I realise that if it's one state, it can't be a Jewish state. When I say this to Jewish people, they go mental - but to me it's the obvious solution.

"It makes me very sad. Everyone's afraid of each other - Jews are afraid of Palestinians, Palestinians are afraid of Jews. Everywhere I see fear, not understanding. Reason went out of the window a long time ago."

By Dr. Joseph S. Maresca

The Nobel Prize is awarded to individuals and sometimes groups who have contributed significantly to an ideal relating to the betterment of the human condition, progress toward disarmament, the reduction of longstanding armies or significant humanitarian efforts. The Prize is awarded for Peace, Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics. 

Traditionally, the award is presented at a major ceremony on December 10th of each year, although the Nobel Lecture may be given earlier by the award winners. The Nobel Lecture generally amplifies the major work of the award winner, although sometimes there may be a Marie Skłodowska–Curie, 1898; Photo Credit: Wikipediaslight departure depending upon the emphasis placed by the speaker. Some known and not so well known award winners will be listed below alongside their major contributions. This article will concentrate on the not-so-well known winners. 

Ralph Bunche, the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. He served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the U.N. Palestine Commission. In 1948 he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Sweden's Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the U.N. to mediate the conflict.

Sir Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 Nobel Peace winner formed the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs organization in 1957. The group promoted nuclear disarmament and greater collaboration between scholars worldwide to prevent or mediate significant global conflict.  In 1995, Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms." In his acceptance speech, Rotblat noted that the group's goals were entirely doable, noting the close-knit structure of the European Union, "within which war is inconceivable."

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen ( March 1845 - February 1923) was a German physicist, who, on  November 8, 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays. This achievement earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

Marie Skłodowska Curie ( November 1867 -  July 1934) was a physicist and chemist of Polish upbringing and subsequent French citizenship. She was a pioneer in the field of  radioactivity and the first person honored with dual Nobel Prizes-in Physics and Chemistry. She was also the first female professor at the University of Paris.

Wilhelm Ostwald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities. He received honorary doctorates from several universities in Germany, Great Britain and the USA, and was made an honorary member of learned societies in Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Russia, Great Britain and the USA. In 1899 he was made a "Geheimrat" by the King of Saxony.

Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932) was a British bacteriologist who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria. His discovery of the malarial parasite in the gastrointestinal tract of the Anopheles mosquito led to the realization that malaria was transmitted by Anopheles, and laid the foundation for combating the disease, as well as understanding the intricacies of the gastrointestinal tract more concretely. 

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1953 was awarded to Sir Winston Churchill "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” He published 43 books. including My African Journey, India, Great Contemporaries, The Unrelenting Struggle, The Sinews of Peace, A History of the English Speaking Peoples and many others. Churchill's Nobel departed slightly from other awards which tend to emphasize poems, belles lettres literature and stories which typify the ideal or ideal tendencies of the human condition. i.e. William Golding's story entitled Lord of the Flies. William Golding was the 1983 Literature Prize Winner. (1)

Wassily Leontief earned the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1973 for his work on input-output tables. Input-output tables analyze the process by which inputs from one industry produce outputs for consumption or for inputs regarding another industry. With the input-output table, one can estimate the change in demand for inputs resulting from a change in production of the final good. The analysis assumes that input proportions are fixed. Therefore,  the use of input-output analysis is limited to approximations rather than predictions per se. Leontief used input-output analysis to study the characteristics of trade flow between the U.S. and other countries. This led to Leontief's paradox; "this country resorts to foreign trade in order to economize its capital and dispose of its surplus labor, rather than vice versa."

A number of very talented people might have won the prize and didn't. One such person is George Washington Carver.  Much of Carver's fame is based on his research into and promotion of crops as alternatives to cotton, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops both as a source of their own food and as a source of other products to improve the quality of life.  The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes that used peanuts.  He also created or disseminated about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, and even nitroglycerin.  His work spanned 235 patents.

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - November, 1910), was a Russian writer widely regarded as one of the greatest novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction. Since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901, he simply did not live long enough to be awarded the prize. 

Rosa Parks, the "mother of the civil rights movement" was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century as was Coretta Scott King.  Their work merited a Nobel Peace Prize at some point. 

Frederick Douglass was another potential winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Simply put, he did not live long enough to be awarded the prize.  Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, circa 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery within the United States. (2)

President Franklin Roosevelt might have won the Nobel Prize for his work in ending the Great Depression which displaced millions in the streets throughout the United States. His efforts helped to cement a solid middle class instead of a growing Proletariat of poor. His diplomatic efforts were extensive and these certainly mobilized Europe and the USA to secure the peace. Again, he did not live long enough to be awarded the Prize. Other American Presidents could have won the prize for various notable achievements.

1) http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/writings

2) www.history.rochester.edu/class/douglass/home.html

Joseph S. Maresca Ph.D., CPA, CISA, MBA: His significant writings include over 10 copyrights in the name of the author (Joseph S. Maresca) and a patent in the earthquake sciences. He holds membership in the prestigious Delta Mu Delta National Honor Society and Sigma Beta Delta International Honor Society.  In addition, he blogs and reviews many books for Basil & Spice. Visit the Joseph S. Maresca Writer's Page.

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

The memory of the Sabra and Shatila massacre makes Palestinians in Lebanon reluctant to give up their weapons

This month, Palestinians in Lebanon commemorated the 28th anniversary of a crime whose perpetrators remain unpunished and whose victims still wait for justice. In September 1982, the Israeli army surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. For nearly three days, Israeli forces allowed their allies in the rightwing Lebanese Christian Phalange militia to enter the camps and massacre more than 1,000 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese citizens. All of the victims – men, women and children – were unarmed civilians.

Prior to this sombre anniversary, Ahmed Moor argued in an article for Cif that Palestinian weapons are the key issue preventing Palestinian refugees from obtaining basic civil rights in Lebanon, which the state has denied them for 62 years. He described the camps as "heavily armed" and their Palestinians as gripped by an "illusion of martial security."

As someone who has lived in Lebanon for several years, I was struck by these assertions. Anyone familiar with Lebanese politics recognises them as the typical refrain of the right wing, whose adherents object not only to providing Palestinians refugees with basic rights but to their very presence on Lebanese soil. Nor do these characterisations come close to accurately describing the camps or the Palestinians in Lebanon I know. The camps today are far from heavily armed, especially when compared to the various Lebanese militias or the Lebanese army.

I thought I would visit the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, which today are essentially one camp resembling a slum, and speak with Palestinian refugees about the issue of trading in their weapons for rights.

Inside a small call centre in the camp, frequented by Palestinians without credit on their mobile phones and foreign workers calling home, I spoke to a young man named Osama. "The issue of our arms and our civil rights are unrelated," he told me. "Lebanese should give us rights as Arabs, as human beings living among them like Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Syria."

He added: "Our weapons don't necessarily make me feel safer, especially with the internal problems that we have in the camps here like in Palestine. But if we were to give them up, we'd have no protection. At least with our weapons if we die, we die standing and not like in Sabra and Shatila when we were massacred without even one weapon to resist. If the Lebanese army was able to protect us from Israel, then there would be no need for Palestinians to have weapons."

At the headquarters of the Najdeh Association just outside the camp, I spoke with executive director Laila al-Ali. Founded in the 1970s, Najdeh is an NGO that runs social programmes in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps and is the leading organisation behind the Right to Work Campaign for Palestinian refugees. Al-Ali, a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Shatila, explained: "It's not the Lebanese who are looking for assurances or guarantees from the Palestinians, it's the Palestinians who need this guarantee from the Lebanese. Palestinians don't feel safe."

Al-Ali said that only a few groups and individuals have weapons in the camps. She added that the argument claiming these small arms are an obstacle to granting Palestinians rights is merely "Lebanese [rhetoric] trying to deny Palestinians their human and civil rights".

I asked her about a recent law passed by the Lebanese parliament that made minor changes to the restrictions on the ability of Palestinian refugees to work in the country. Al-Ali stated bluntly: "It gives them nothing. The Lebanese mentality needs to be changed, they cannot continue dealing with Palestinians from the security perspective [alone]."

Back in Shatila, others shared her sentiments. I walked into a barbershop owned by Ahmed, who explained while snipping away at a man's hair: "We keep weapons for protection. Even between the Lebanese there is no stability. Today they are together and tomorrow they're not. In the past we only had our weapons to protect ourselves, like during the (1985-88) war of the camps, our weapons protected us from the [Lebanese Shia] Amal movement."

I turned to a young man named Omar who was finishing a deep pore cleansing. Bearing a pistol on his hip, Omar is a member of one of the camp's security branches. He told me: "The weapons are not the reason for denying us rights, this is a pretext for the Lebanese to take our weapons. If we lose our weapons, we lose the right to go back to Palestine. I carry my weapon because it's not worth throwing away. The weapons are the peoples' property."

Unprompted, a taxi driver named Mahmoud said: "Once we lose the weapons we'll be slapped from all directions. I will never accept to give up our weapons. The Lebanese will never be able to protect our cause. It's not their cause, and nobody can protect it but ourselves."

After speaking with dozens of individuals in the camp, all of whom refused to give up their right to bear arms, I asked a friend to take me to someone in the camp who he thought would disagree. He brought me to his 66-year-old grandmother, Miyasar, a refugee who has been forced to flee her home at least five times since 1948. She now lives in Shatila, where we sat overlooking a newly constructed multimillion dollar water well that has yet to be used.

Before I could even finish asking her the first questions about trading rights for arms, Miyasar closed her eyes, shook her head and said: "The Lebanese cannot give us rights, they can't even give themselves rights. Each group is by itself with its own weapons – Hezbollah has guns, Amal has guns, Future [Movement] has guns, The Lebanese are the ones who need help, not the Palestinians.

"When the Israelis came they said give up our guns, and we did and look what happened! Even a donkey that falls in one spot learns not to fall in that same spot again. We have no faith in Lebanese to give us rights. We will keep our weapons until we go back to Palestine."

New York, New York

10:01 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen.  It is a great honor to address this Assembly for the second time, nearly two years after my election as President of the United States.

We know this is no ordinary time for our people.  Each of us comes here with our own problems and priorities.  But there are also challenges that we share in common as leaders and as nations.

We meet within an institution built from the rubble of war, designed to unite the world in pursuit of peace.  And we meet within a city that for centuries has welcomed people from across the globe, demonstrating that individuals of every color, faith and station can come together to pursue opportunity, build a community, and live with the blessing of human liberty.

Outside the doors of this hall, the blocks and neighborhoods of this great city tell the story of a difficult decade.  Nine years ago, the destruction of the World Trade Center signaled a threat that respected no boundary of dignity or decency.  Two years ago this month, a financial crisis on Wall Street devastated American families on Main Street.  These separate challenges have affected people around the globe.  Men and women and children have been murdered by extremists from Casablanca to London; from Jalalabad to Jakarta.  The global economy suffered an enormous blow during the financial crisis, crippling markets and deferring the dreams of millions on every continent.  Underneath these challenges to our security and prosperity lie deeper fears:  that ancient hatreds and religious divides are once again ascendant; that a world which has grown more interconnected has somehow slipped beyond our control.

These are some of the challenges that my administration has confronted since we came into office.  And today, I’d like to talk to you about what we’ve done over the last 20 months to meet these challenges; what our responsibility is to pursue peace in the Middle East; and what kind of world we are trying to build in this 21st century.

Let me begin with what we have done.  I have had no greater focus as President than rescuing our economy from potential catastrophe.  And in an age when prosperity is shared, we could not do this alone.  So America has joined with nations around the world to spur growth, and the renewed demand that could restart job creation.

We are reforming our system of global finance, beginning with Wall Street reform here at home, so that a crisis like this never happens again.  And we made the G20 the focal point for international coordination, because in a world where prosperity is more diffuse, we must broaden our circle of cooperation to include emerging economies -- economies from every corner of the globe.

There is much to show for our efforts, even as there is much work to be done.  The global economy has been pulled back from the brink of a depression, and is growing once more.  We have resisted protectionism, and are exploring ways to expand trade and commerce among nations.  But we cannot -- and will not -- rest until these seeds of progress grow into a broader prosperity, not only for all Americans, but for peoples around the globe.

As for our common security, America is waging a more effective fight against al Qaeda, while winding down the war in Iraq.  Since I took office, the United States has removed nearly 100,000 troops from Iraq.  We have done so responsibly, as Iraqis have transitioned to lead responsibility for the security of their country.

We are now focused on building a lasting partnership with the Iraqi people, while keeping our commitment to remove the rest of our troops by the end of next year.

While drawing down in Iraq, we have refocused on defeating al Qaeda and denying its affiliates a safe haven.  In Afghanistan, the United States and our allies are pursuing a strategy to break the Taliban’s momentum and build the capacity of Afghanistan’s government and security forces, so that a transition to Afghan responsibility can begin next July.  And from South Asia to the Horn of Africa, we are moving toward a more targeted approach -- one that strengthens our partners and dismantles terrorist networks without deploying large American armies.

As we pursue the world’s most dangerous extremists, we’re also denying them the world’s most dangerous weapons, and pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

Earlier this year, 47 nations embraced a work-plan to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years.  We have joined with Russia to sign the most comprehensive arms control treaty in decades.  We have reduced the role of nuclear weapons in our security strategy.  And here, at the United Nations, we came together to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As part of our effort on non-proliferation, I offered the Islamic Republic of Iran an extended hand last year, and underscored that it has both rights and responsibilities as a member of the international community.  I also said -- in this hall -- that Iran must be held accountable if it failed to meet those responsibilities.  And that is what we have done.

Iran is the only party to the NPT that cannot demonstrate the peaceful intentions of its nuclear program, and those actions have consequences.  Through U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, we made it clear that international law is not an empty promise.

Now let me be clear once more:  The United States and the international community seek a resolution to our differences with Iran, and the door remains open to diplomacy should Iran choose to walk through it.  But the Iranian government must demonstrate a clear and credible commitment and confirm to the world the peaceful intent of its nuclear program.

As we combat the spread of deadly weapons, we’re also confronting the specter of climate change.  After making historic investments in clean energy and efficiency at home, we helped forge an accord in Copenhagen that -- for the first time -- commits all major economies to reduce their emissions.  We are keenly aware this is just a first step.  And going forward, we will support a process in which all major economies meet our responsibilities to protect the planet while unleashing the power of clean energy to serve as an engine of growth and development.

America has also embraced unique responsibilities with come -- that come with our power.  Since the rains came and the floodwaters rose in Pakistan, we have pledged our assistance, and we should all support the Pakistani people as they recover and rebuild.  And when the earth shook and Haiti was devastated by loss, we joined a coalition of nations in response.  Today, we honor those from the U.N. family who lost their lives in the earthquake, and commit ourselves to stand with the people of Haiti until they can stand on their own two feet.

Amidst this upheaval, we have also been persistent in our pursuit of peace.  Last year, I pledged my best efforts to support the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, as part of a comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its neighbors.  We have travelled a winding road over the last 12 months, with few peaks and many valleys.  But this month, I am pleased that we have pursued direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in Washington, Sharm el Sheikh and Jerusalem.

Now I recognize many are pessimistic about this process.  The cynics say that Israelis and Palestinians are too distrustful of each other, and too divided internally, to forge lasting peace.  Rejectionists on both sides will try to disrupt the process, with bitter words and with bombs and with gunfire.  Some say that the gaps between the parties are too big; the potential for talks to break down is too great; and that after decades of failure, peace is simply not possible.

I hear those voices of skepticism.  But I ask you to consider the alternative.  If an agreement is not reached, Palestinians will never know the pride and dignity that comes with their own state.  Israelis will never know the certainty and security that comes with sovereign and stable neighbors who are committed to coexistence.  The hard realities of demography will take hold.  More blood will be shed.  This Holy Land will remain a symbol of our differences, instead of our common humanity. 

I refuse to accept that future.  And we all have a choice to make.  Each of us must choose the path of peace.  Of course, that responsibility begins with the parties themselves, who must answer the call of history.  Earlier this month at the White House, I was struck by the words of both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.  Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “I came here today to find a historic compromise that will enable both people to live in peace, security, and dignity.”  And President Abbas said, “We will spare no effort and we will work diligently and tirelessly to ensure these negotiations achieve their cause.”

These words must now be followed by action and I believe that both leaders have the courage to do so.  But the road that they have to travel is exceedingly difficult, which is why I call upon Israelis and Palestinians -- and the world -- to rally behind the goal that these leaders now share.  We know that there will be tests along the way and that one test is fast approaching.  Israel’s settlement moratorium has made a difference on the ground and improved the atmosphere for talks. 

And our position on this issue is well known.  We believe that the moratorium should be extended.  We also believe that talks should press on until completed.  Now is the time for the parties to help each other overcome this obstacle.  Now is the time to build the trust -- and provide the time -- for substantial progress to be made.  Now is the time for this opportunity to be seized, so that it does not slip away.

Now, peace must be made by Israelis and Palestinians, but each of us has a responsibility to do our part as well.  Those of us who are friends of Israel must understand that true security for the Jewish state requires an independent Palestine -- one that allows the Palestinian people to live with dignity and opportunity.  And those of us who are friends of the Palestinians must understand that the rights of the Palestinian people will be won only through peaceful means -- including genuine reconciliation with a secure Israel.

I know many in this hall count themselves as friends of the Palestinians.  But these pledges of friendship must now be supported by deeds.  Those who have signed on to the Arab Peace Initiative should seize this opportunity to make it real by taking tangible steps towards the normalization that it promises Israel. 

And those who speak on behalf of Palestinian self-government should help the Palestinian Authority politically and financially, and in doing so help the Palestinians build the institutions of their state. 

Those who long to see an independent Palestine must also stop trying to tear down Israel.  After thousands of years, Jews and Arabs are not strangers in a strange land.  After 60 years in the community of nations, Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate.

Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people.  It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States.  And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people.  The slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance -- it’s injustice.  And make no mistake:  The courage of a man like President Abbas, who stands up for his people in front of the world under very difficult circumstances, is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children.

The conflict between Israelis and Arabs is as old as this institution.  And we can come back here next year, as we have for the last 60 years, and make long speeches about it.  We can read familiar lists of grievances.  We can table the same resolutions.  We can further empower the forces of rejectionism and hate.  And we can waste more time by carrying forward an argument that will not help a single Israeli or Palestinian child achieve a better life.  We can do that. 

Or, we can say that this time will be different -- that this time we will not let terror, or turbulence, or posturing, or petty politics stand in the way.  This time, we will think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire.

This time, we should draw upon the teachings of tolerance that lie at the heart of three great religions that see Jerusalem’s soil as sacred.  This time we should reach for what’s best within ourselves.  If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.  (Applause.)

It is our destiny to bear the burdens of the challenges that I’ve addressed -- recession and war and conflict.  And there is always a sense of urgency -- even emergency -- that drives most of our foreign policies.  Indeed, after millennia marked by wars, this very institution reflects the desire of human beings to create a forum to deal with emergencies that will inevitably come.

But even as we confront immediate challenges, we must also summon the foresight to look beyond them, and consider what we are trying to build over the long term?  What is the world that awaits us when today’s battles are brought to an end?  And that is what I would like to talk about with the remainder of my time today.

One of the first actions of this General Assembly was to adopt a Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. That Declaration begins by stating that, “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.”

The idea is a simple one -- that freedom, justice and peace for the world must begin with freedom, justice, and peace in the lives of individual human beings.  And for the United States, this is a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity.  As Robert Kennedy said, “the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit.”  So we stand up for universal values because it’s the right thing to do.  But we also know from experience that those who defend these values for their people have been our closest friends and allies, while those who have denied those rights -- whether terrorist groups or tyrannical governments -- have chosen to be our adversaries.

Human rights have never gone unchallenged -- not in any of our nations, and not in our world.  Tyranny is still with us -- whether it manifests itself in the Taliban killing girls who try to go to school, a North Korean regime that enslaves its own people, or an armed group in Congo-Kinshasa that use rape as a weapon of war.

In times of economic unease, there can also be an anxiety about human rights.  Today, as in past times of economic downturn, some put human rights aside for the promise of short term stability or the false notion that economic growth can come at the expense of freedom.  We see leaders abolishing term limits.  We see crackdowns on civil society.  We see corruption smothering entrepreneurship and good governance.  We see democratic reforms deferred indefinitely.

As I said last year, each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its own people.  Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty; that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments.  To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.  And I believe that truth will only grow stronger in a world where the borders between nations are blurred. 

America is working to shape a world that fosters this openness, for the rot of a closed or corrupt economy must never eclipse the energy and innovation of human beings.  All of us want the right to educate our children, to make a decent wage, to care for the sick, and to be carried as far as our dreams and our deeds will take us.  But that depends upon economies that tap the power of our people, including the potential of women and girls.  That means letting entrepreneurs start a business without paying a bribe and governments that support opportunity instead of stealing from their people.  And that means rewarding hard work, instead of reckless risk-taking.

Yesterday, I put forward a new development policy that will pursue these goals, recognizing that dignity is a human right and global development is in our common interest.  America will partner with nations that offer their people a path out of poverty.  And together, we must unleash growth that powers by individuals and emerging markets in all parts of the globe.

There is no reason why Africa should not be an exporter of agriculture, which is why our food security initiative is empowering farmers.  There is no reason why entrepreneurs shouldn’t be able to build new markets in every society, which is why I hosted a summit on entrepreneurship earlier this spring, because the obligation of government is to empower individuals, not to impede them.

The same holds true for civil society.  The arc of human progress has been shaped by individuals with the freedom to assemble and by organizations outside of government that insisted upon democratic change and by free media that held the powerful accountable.  We have seen that from the South Africans who stood up to apartheid, to the Poles of Solidarity, to the mothers of the disappeared who spoke out against the Dirty War, to Americans who marched for the rights of all races, including my own.

Civil society is the conscience of our communities and America will always extend our engagement abroad with citizens beyond the halls of government.  And we will call out those who suppress ideas and serve as a voice for those who are voiceless.  We will promote new tools of communication so people are empowered to connect with one another and, in repressive societies, to do so with security.  We will support a free and open Internet, so individuals have the information to make up their own minds.  And it is time to embrace and effectively monitor norms that advance the rights of civil society and guarantee its expansion within and across borders.

Open society supports open government, but it cannot substitute for it.  There is no right more fundamental than the ability to choose your leaders and determine your destiny.  Now, make no mistake:  The ultimate success of democracy in the world won’t come because the United States dictates it; it will come because individual citizens demand a say in how they are governed. 

There is no soil where this notion cannot take root, just as every democracy reflects the uniqueness of a nation.  Later this fall, I will travel to Asia.  And I will visit India, which peacefully threw off colonialism and established a thriving democracy of over a billion people.

I’ll continue to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, which binds together thousands of islands through the glue of representative government and civil society.  I’ll join the G20 meeting on the Korean Peninsula, which provides the world’s clearest contrast between a society that is dynamic and open and free, and one that is imprisoned and closed.  And I will conclude my trip in Japan, an ancient culture that found peace and extraordinary development through democracy.

Each of these countries gives life to democratic principles in their own way.  And even as some governments roll back reform, we also celebrate the courage of a President in Colombia who willingly stepped aside, or the promise of a new constitution in Kenya.

The common thread of progress is the principle that government is accountable to its citizens.  And the diversity in this room makes clear -- no one country has all the answers, but all of us must answer to our own people.

In all parts of the world, we see the promise of innovation to make government more open and accountable.  And now, we must build on that progress.  And when we gather back here next year, we should bring specific commitments to promote transparency; to fight corruption; to energize civic engagement; to leverage new technologies so that we strengthen the foundations of freedom in our own countries, while living up to the ideals that can light the world.

This institution can still play an indispensable role in the advance of human rights.  It’s time to welcome the efforts of U.N. Women to protect the rights of women around the globe.  (Applause.)

It’s time for every member state to open its elections to international monitors and increase the U.N. Democracy Fund.  It’s time to reinvigorate U.N. peacekeeping, so that missions have the resources necessary to succeed, and so atrocities like sexual violence are prevented and justice is enforced -- because neither dignity nor democracy can thrive without basic security.

And it’s time to make this institution more accountable as well, because the challenges of a new century demand new ways of serving our common interests.

The world that America seeks is not one we can build on our own.  For human rights to reach those who suffer the boot of oppression, we need your voices to speak out.  In particular, I appeal to those nations who emerged from tyranny and inspired the world in the second half of the last century -- from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to South America.  Don’t stand idly by, don’t be silent, when dissidents elsewhere are imprisoned and protesters are beaten.  Recall your own history.  Because part of the price of our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others.

That belief will guide America’s leadership in this 21st century.  It is a belief that has seen us through more than two centuries of trial, and it will see us through the challenges we face today -- be it war or recession; conflict or division.

So even as we have come through a difficult decade, I stand here before you confident in the future -- a future where Iraq is governed by neither tyrant nor a foreign power, and Afghanistan is freed from the turmoil of war; a future where the children of Israel and Palestine can build the peace that was not possible for their parents; a world where the promise of development reaches into the prisons of poverty and disease; a future where the cloud of recession gives way to the light of renewal and the dream of opportunity is available to all.

This future will not be easy to reach.  It will not come without setbacks, nor will it be quickly claimed.  But the founding of the United Nations itself is a testament to human progress.  Remember, in times that were far more trying than our own, our predecessors chose the hope of unity over the ease of division and made a promise to future generations that the dignity and equality of human beings would be our common cause.
     
It falls to us to fulfill that promise.  And though we will be met by dark forces that will test our resolve, Americans have always had cause to believe that we can choose a better history; that we need only to look outside the walls around us.  For through the citizens of every conceivable ancestry who make this city their own, we see living proof that opportunity can be accessed by all, that what unites us as human beings is far greater than what divides us, and that people from every part of this world can live together in peace. 

Thank you very much.  (Applause.) 

END
10:34 A.M. EDT
 

Source: Yahoo News (9-20-10)

The British government used bombs and covert tactics to try to thwart the settlement of Palestine by post-World War II Jewish refugees, according to a new book by Keith Jeffery, titled "MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949." The British government has independently verified Jeffery's revelation. Jeffery, a historian from Northern Ireland, notes that his book was "published with the permission of the Secret Intelligence Service and the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office."

According to Jeffery, the British undertook the effort -- dubbed, oddly enough, Operation Embarrass -- in order to curry favor with oil-rich Arab states upset over the Jewish migration to the Middle East. The Daily Beast's Andrew Roberts broke the news of the book's disclosures.

MI6, Britain's secret intelligence service, planted explosives to disable ships before they could transport Jewish men, women and children from Europe to Palestine. Britain controlled Palestine at the time and, partly due to pressure from wartime Arab allies, adopted a policy of strictly limiting Jewish migration to British-controlled lands in the region. In May 1948, the British left and Israel declared independence....

M. Shahid Alam is a professor of economics at Northeastern University. As a professor, he knows a lot of big words. He's also an academic fraud and a borderline anti-semite.

Check out this recent piece he published at a far-left website where he tries to explain why Zionism was successful and colonial adventures from major world powers were not.(It is apparently an excerpt from a book of his.)

How did the Jewish colons [sic] in Palestine succeed in creating an exclusionary colonial settler state in the middle of the twentieth century, and continue to grow with support from a surrogate mother country, while the French colons in Algeria, the Italians in Libya or the British colons in Kenya had to give up their colonial projects?

The answer to this question is simple. The white colons in Algeria, Libya, or Kenya simply did not have enough influence over the mother country—over France, Italy, and Britain—to overrule what the elites in the mother country had decided was in their interest: to pull out of their colonies. The Jewish colons in Palestine had more power than the white colons in Algeria, Libya, and Kenya. Where did their power come from?

The success of Jewish colons in Palestine and the failure of the colons in Algeria, Libya, or Kenya is a paradox. The French, Italian, and British settlers had a natural mother country, a country of origin, with whose people they shared an ethnic bond. The Jewish colons in Palestine did not have a natural mother country, a powerful Jewish state to support their colonial project. Yet, their colonizing project succeeded, and they drove out the Palestinians to create a nearly pure Jewish state in Palestine. The Jewish colons did not pull off this feat on their own; they succeeded because of their ability to recruit the greatest Western powers, and many others besides, to support their colonial project. Somehow, the Zionists turned what could well have been a fatal deficiency for their colonial project – the absence of a natural mother country – into their greatest asset. They gained the freedom to pick and choose their mother country.

How did the Zionists bring this about? The Jews were not a majority in any country, but there existed a Jewish minority in nearly every Western country. In itself, the presence of Jewish minorities could not have been a source of strength; a weak Jewish minority in any country could do little to help their coreligionists in another country. What made the Jewish minorities different was that they carried a weight that far outweighed their numbers. Over the course of the nineteenth century, they had become an important, often vital, part of the financial, industrial, commercial, and intellectual elites in several of the most important Western countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. Moreover, the most prominent members of these elites had cultivated ties with each other across national boundaries.

Once these Jewish elites, spread across the key Western countries, had decided to support the Zionist project, they would become a force in global politics. On the one hand, this would tempt the great powers to support Zionism, if this could buy them the help of the Jewish communities, based in a rival or friendly power, to push their host country in a desirable direction. Conversely, once the Zionists recognized this tendency, they too would seek to win support for their cause by offering the support of Jewish communities in key Western countries. ...In September 1917, this competition persuaded Britain, at a difficult moment in the execution of its war, to throw its support behind the Zionist project.

Anxious to conceal the power of the Jewish lobby, Zionists often argue that the Western powers supported Zionism only because the Jewish state served their strategic interests in the Middle East. We have shown that Zionism was in conflict with the long-term interests of Britain and the United States. Exigencies of war and the presence of a strong contingency of Christian Zionists in the cabinet of Lloyd George explain British support for the Balfour Declaration in 1917. On the other hand, the strong U.S. support in 1948 for the partition of Palestine – and later – was the product of a domestic Jewish lobby.

Alam's entire thesis rests on one simple lie: that Zionism is colonialism. Once that idea is accepted, then he must jump through ridiculous hoops to figure out why these powerful Zionist Jews from Europe and the US - so powerful that they couldn't convince their host countries to bomb the railroad lines to Auschwitz - managed to take poor, homeless, oppressed immigrants and place them as white interlopers into an Arab nation and force them to stay while under daily attack by Arabs.

Not even once does Alam consider that the Jews themselves had a millenia-long connection to their own homeland. Never does Alam entertain the notion that only a people who feel connected to the land will fight to the death for it; while the Arab inhabitants who never considered themselves "Palestinian" had much less incentive to stay and fight rather than emigrate to one of the many other Arab countries that they had traversed for centuries.

The anti-Israel crowd will never get it because they don't want to admit that Jews do have a deep, emotional connection to the Land of Israel. French people never wanted to live in Algeria, Italians never yearned for Libya and British never pined for Kenya. But Jews have prayed to return to Zion - daily - since Biblical times. But accepting that Jews are a nation means that Jews have the right to self-determination - anathema to academic fakes like Alam.

This is the "simple answer" that eludes genteel anti-semites like Alam. Accepting that Jews are a nation and are not just a religious group would upset his entire edifice of Zionism as colonialism. Instead he constructs a bizarre scenario, with zero proof: a story of outsized Jewish influence in the West in the 19th and early 20th centuries, where the stupid Westerners were manipulated by clever powerful Jews into supporting a national movement that, according to Alam, was against their own interests!

This pseudo-intellectual is forced to downplay or ignore innate cultural, historic and religious Jewish ties to Israel - all because he wants the world to accept the lie of Zionist as colonialist.

Israeli army officer and military strategist known for the design of the Merkava tank

From 1948 to 1973, Major General Israel "Talik" Tal, who has died aged 85, created and commanded the fledgling tank corps of the Israeli army – the Israel Defense Forces – establishing it as the principal arm of the IDF and primary safeguard of Israeli military security. Best known for his design of the Merkava (Chariot) tank, Tal fought in and won many critical battles in the first 25 years of Israel's creation, and is widely acknowledged as the main architect of the highly successful armoured campaign of the six-day war of 1967.

Tal was raised in Moshav Be'er Tuvia, then in the British Mandate for Palestine. His military career started when, at the age of 17, he joined the Jewish Brigade, a British army unit formed from Jews living in Palestine, and fought as a machine gunner in North Africa and Italy. After the Jewish Brigade was disbanded in 1946, Tal returned to Palestine and served in the Haganah, the militia formed as a precursor to the IDF. During the 1948 war Tal rose to the rank of platoon commander and fought against Jordanian and Egyptian forces.

Following the success of Israeli tanks in the 1956 war against Egypt, in which Tal commanded the 10th Infantry Brigade, the IDF sought to move the use of armour from a secondary role in support of the infantry to the role of the main fighting component of the IDF. Tal, already an exponent of tank warfare, was transferred to the Tank Corps, assuming command in 1964. It was here that his military theories and strategies were to reach their pinnacle. His emphasis on "pure tank" doctrine placed the use of tanks at the heart of an offensive, aggressive and mobile IDF, strategies that were to lead directly to the dramatic victory of 1967.

The standardisation of training and emphasis on accurate long-range gunnery meant that Israeli tanks were capable of defeating the enemy when outnumbered and ostensibly outgunned by more modern tanks which, despite better firepower and protection, had less well trained crews. His tank doctrine, initially vindicated during skirmishes with Syrian armour during the 1964 "war over water", emphasised the importance of quality over quantity, and reinforced the importance of crew survivability. Trained tank crews were hard to replace, and long-range gunnery allowed them to destroy their opposition before the enemy could make superior numbers count. Despite his reputation as a disciplinarian, Tal developed a force structure that emphasised the primacy of small units and sufficient informality in command to allow the officer on the ground to use local initiative to exploit situations in the quickest way possible.

It was during the six-day war that Tal's operational doctrine and leadership was most successful. Tal's division fought in Gaza and northern Sinai, advancing along the Mediterranean coast from Rafah into Gaza to the east and westwards through El Arish to the eastern bank of the Suez canal in just three days. Greatly assisted by air superiority, Israeli land forces rapidly gained and held tactical surprise, preventing the Egyptian forces from being able to reorganise and counter penetrations of their front lines, which led to a collapse of morale in the Egyptian army. It lost some 80% of its equipment, including an estimated 800 tanks, abandoned in the face of the Israeli advance.

Such was the extent of the victory that Israeli tank forces saw a net gain of some 100 tanks. But Tal's "pure tank" doctrine was to sow the seeds of future problems.

In the runup to the 1973 war, Tal was one of a few officers who believed that an attack was imminent, and his failure to pursue his conviction and insist that a third regular armoured division be transferred to the Sinai caused him considerable remorse afterwards. When fighting broke out, Tal was deputy chief of staff, in which role he clashed with many of his colleagues, some of whom claim he was overly pessimistic in the early hours of the war. Others insist, however, that Tal's call for a 40km retreat along the Suez front was a move calculated to allow time for Israel's reserve forces to arrive at the battle, and fitted well with his opinion that a victorious war required the manoeuvre of large armoured forces.

Tal clashed with his superiors in the aftermath of the war, refusing the then defence minister Moshe Dayan's and chief of staff David Elazar's order to continue the attack on the Egyptian 3rd Army, which was cut off on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, despite the signature of a ceasefire. Dayan's insistence stemmed from his desire, shared in the IDF command, to eradicate the last offensive formation in the Egyptian army, and Tal's refusal, which he cited for moral reasons, marked the end of his chances of becoming chief of staff, effectively ending his career.

After retiring from the army in 1974, Tal joined the defence ministry and continued with his work on the design of a new tank, which eventually became the Merkava. It entered service with the IDF in the 1980s and remains, in an upgraded version, its main tank. Conceived with close attention to detail according to Tal's principles, it was developed with the survivability of the crew foremost in mind. Unusually the engine is front-mounted, so that when the vehicle is hit, it may lose its engine, but the driver, who sits behind, is shielded. Advanced composite materials are used on its heavily sloped armour. The Merkava even features a small mortar in the middle of the turret to fire smoke rounds, and a small cabin in the rear of the tank for either an infantry dismount section, extra ammunition or stretchers for wounded troops. Widely regarded as one of the most effective tanks of its generation, it has a combat record second to none.

The major general rejoined the army to oversee the implementation of a field forces command, but his pure tank doctrine had outlived its effectiveness, since the advent of anti-tank missiles made the use of supporting infantry and artillery increasingly important, and his influence on strategy, while still considerable, declined.

Weakened by a stroke in 1999, Tal remained frail until his death. He is survived by his wife, Hagit, a son and a daughter.

• Israel "Talik" Tal, soldier, military strategist and tank designer, born 13 September 1924; died 8 September 2010

Zvi commented:

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Jewish Refugees  

The Jews who "left by choice" were motivated by pogroms, riots, theft and violence, together with a rising tide of demonization of Jews and a series of murders in various Arab countries, together with the knowledge that Arab nationalist movements used Nazi propaganda and had Nazi advisors. Jews in the region had every reason to fear what was coming. Given the subsequent history of many of the Arab governments, it is crystal clear that only the flight of most of the Jews from the Arab world prevented even more extreme repression or annihilation.

The claim that the Jews "left by choice" neglects to point out the nature of the choice. The evidence of the Shoah - then very recent - showed that it was smarter to get out before they had to watch their kids' blood running in the streets.

This year, in 2010, the last Jews of Yemen have not been expelled from Yemen either. But only a particularly cruel sort of madman would insist that they remain there as Islamist threats and violence against them grow more and more terrifying.

The claim that Jews from the Arab countries would be granted any kind of mass right of return - to anything other than a temporary "stay of genocide" - is simply not credible at this point in history. The heavily funded and promoted Anti-Semitism industry in the Arab world has worked for decades to indelibly poison those populations. For at least the next 100 years, and probably much longer, the toxin will be far too dangerous for any significant Jewish presence to exist in those lands.  Hatred, demonization and conspiracy theories take a long time to wipe out, even with wisely designed democratic systems and general goodwill toward Jews, all of which are lacking in Arab countries.

In addition, society abhors a vacuum as much as nature does. Non-Jews have replaced the Jews of Iraq, Libya, etc., and there are too many Arabs with incentives to commit acts of violence against any Jewish returnees - whom they would see as a direct competitive threat. Arab Muslims in Iraq, who continue to slaughter each other in a bloody power game and in a bloody campaign of massacres, would unite to slaughter returning Jews.

No person has a right to require that an Israeli Jew whose parents helped to build the democratic State of Israel that he must go back to be obliterated in Iraq or Algeria. No person has a right, based on idealistic notions that ignore the facts on the ground, to pretend that it is possible to roll anything back to 1948 or 1967.  

Sanity  

The only reasonable approach is to adopt the same model used by most nations throughout most of history: accept that wars happened, and that an exchange of populations happened, get over it and live in the present rather than trying to inhabit an imaginary past or an ideal world. There will be no "right of return" for Arabs who left Israel in 1948 - not to Israel, at any rate. If someone else wants to grant Arabs a "right of return" to its own sovereign territory, then they have every right to do so.

The sovereign state of Israel took up the challenge of relieving and mainstreaming the Jewish refugees from the Arab world, a challenge that no other country was willing to meet. It continues to do so to this day, providing the only reliable haven in a world that sees Jews fleeing from places like Yemen. Mizrahi Jewish refugees and their descendents were granted Israeli citizenship decades ago, have contributed to the construction of the State of Israel and have an absolute right to remain in Israel and in territories that Israel annexed during a decades-long defensive war in which its neighbors tried repeatedly to annihilate it.

The grandchildren of the Arabs who left what is now Israel back in 1948 - however brief or long their stay in "Palestine" and whatever their reason for leaving - have rights too. They have an absolute right to be sworn in as citizens in the Arab countries in which they and their parents were born. If a Palestinian leadership, with sovereignty established through a final peace agreement, decides to grant these people a "right of return" to territories that the Palestinians hold as a sovereign state, then that is a Palestinian prerogative. But the "Palestinian" Arabs abroad nevertheless have a right to stay exactly where they are if they wish to do so.

The West Bank  

Over the almost two decades since Oslo I, it has become quite clear that the settlements are simply one of many (invalid) excuses for Arab violence and intransigence - no more, no less. The western press has piled on, as have pontificating demagogues and talking heads, but this does not make the excuse any more meaningful.

The West Bank is not Occupied; it is formally Disputed. There is a difference. A disputed territory is one to which multiple parties may have a claim, and there is no law that forbids a government from allowing populations to move into disputed territories. Were there such a law, would the Palestinians entering the West Bank with Arafat in the 1990s not have been in violation? After all, if there were such a law, then neither side should have been bringing populations into a Disputed territory.

Regarding Disputed territories, here is a list of disputed territories around the world (there are an awful lot of them). You have heard of Korea, Kosovo, Taiwan, Jammu and Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and South Ossetia, but there are many more. And guess what? Virtually every government that holds any substantial disputed territory either allows or actively encourages "settlement" of that territory.

Can you imagine telling South Korea (or North Korea, for that matter - the whole peninsula is Disputed) that it can't establish a town, or expand an existing one?
How about telling India that it can't build anything in Jammu and Kashmir because that will change the facts on the ground in a way that could prejudice future negotiations? 
How about telling the British that they can't build anything in the Falklands, or Gibraltar? Hint: the UK is now exploring for oil off the Falklands. 
How about telling Taiwan that it can't build anything?
What about telling Russia that nothing can be built in South Ossetia and Abkhazia?
Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh?

Why is it only Israelis who are not allowed to exist normally?
 
Let's please stop repeating the "conventional wisdom" that the West Bank is "Occupied." Conventional wisdom is wrong.  


Is the PA Serious?  

Settlement blocs like Maale Adumim are expected to be part of a trade. Everyone involved knows this; various proposals exist. Lieberman, for instance, proposed turning over some of the largely-Arab areas of Israel to the PA in exchange, together with their populations - who don't accept a Zionist country anyway - if those people want to remain on their land. Again, the Arab leadership needs to get over it and stop pretending that the last 40 years never happened. Israel is pretty much expecting to have to trade some territory for these settlement blocs. There has been little expansion of anything outside of these blocs recently.

The Palestinians need to stop playing image/power/revenge games and start trying to close a deal. The thing that will end the expansion of settlements forever is a real, meaningful, implemented and permanent peace agreement, one that defines a national border.

Anyone who is serious about ending the expansion of settlements would push hard to conclude a treaty that would define a workable national border. Any person who claims to want an end to the growth of settlements should be hammering on the PA's door, demanding that they stop playing games and start pursuing a real agreement. The fact that Abbas would rather play stupid PR games about settlements rather than hastening that day shows that he simply is not serious.

So, using this metric to measure the how serious Abbas and his cronies are about resolving the disputed status of the West Bank and Gaza, we find that they are not serious at all. What is more, they have never been serious. They have run away from every single opportunity to negotiate a peace that would end the growth of settlements.

Every single opportunity.

Below is the fourth of six parts of an article by John J. Dziak about the Islamic counterintelligence state.

The article is reprinted here with permission of the author. It first appeared in Papers & Studies by the International Assessment and Strategy Center, Washington, D.C., on 6 April 2007. It was later republished in the Summer/Fall 2007 issue of Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies.

Previously: Part I, Part II, and Part III.


Islamism and Stratagem
by John J. Dziak, Ph.D

IV. Sources of Contemporary Islamism — External

Looking outside Islam for other sources of influence we must examine the attraction for Islamists of the premier totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, namely Nazism and Soviet Communism. To begin with the former, Islamism has been characterized as fascism with an Islamic face. Islamism and Nazism/fascism have collaborative roots going back to the early twentieth century in mutually perceived and shared practices, grievances, common enemies, and formative catastrophic experiences.^[12] Both shared a deep hatred of Christianity, Western culture, capitalism, liberalism, and Jews and America in particular. Although militant Islam long predates Nazi Germany, its twentieth century resurgence paralleled the rise of Nazism in mutually perceived catastrophes. These were the collapse of the Ottoman Empire — the last Caliphate — and the defeat of Germany in World War I followed by the Versailles Treaty.^[13] The contemporary variant of Islamism was annealed in the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan Al Muslimun) that emerged in 1928 as a direct reaction to the elimination of the Caliphate by the secularist Young Turk reformer, Kemal Ataturk. Founded by Hassan al-Banna and several followers to focus at first on Muslim spiritual reform, the Brotherhood blossomed in the 1930s and 1940s after pursuing far more active political goals and imitating organizational models from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. By the end of World War II the Brotherhood had a half million members just in Egypt, not counting the rest of the Middle East. It had modeled itself on Mussolini’s Blackshirts with all the paramilitary forces, intelligence elements, and secret apparatus common to both Germany and Italy of that era. And in the struggle for political power it fostered terrorism and political assassinations to the point that the Egyptian government had al-Banna himself assassinated in 1949.

The Brotherhood collaborated with the Germans before and after World II and with another group of Nazi-fascist imitators, the “Young Egypt” (Misr al-Fatah) movement, two of whose notables, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar El-Sadat, became Presidents of Egypt. Like their Brotherhood friends, Nasser and Sadat’s “Free Officers” were in contact with German military intelligence before and during World War II, resulting in Sadat’s arrest by the British in 1942. An equally important Muslim Brotherhood figure was Sayyid Qutb, frequently billed as the father of contemporary Islamism who helped inspire the likes of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri is viewed as Qutb’s intellectual heir. Qutb wrote numerous radical tracts that became almost canonical readings for Islamists down to the present, including a thirty-volume commentary on the Koran, and the revered Islamist masterpiece “Milestones” in which he propounded an Islamist seizure of the state by an elite vanguard that would then impose Islam from above. Qutb’s Bolshevik-Nazi style apparently was radically honed during several years (1948-1951) of graduate study in America whose decadence and female liberties disgusted his Islamist sensibilities. Following release after years in Nasser’s prisons, another Brotherhood assassination attempt on the Egyptian leader in the spirit of Qutb’s top-down revolutionary recipe, Qutb was rearrested and executed in 1966. Belated revenge, of sorts, came with the 1981 assassination of President Sadat by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Together, al-Banna and Qutb, both heavily influenced by the Nazi-fascist model, put their own unique militant stamp on contemporary radical Islam. For years Islamist dissemblers have tried to hide or play down that troublesome pedigree for obvious reasons.^[14]
- - - - - - - - -
Another key Islamic figure in the Nazi-Brotherhood connection was the go-between for al-Banna and the Nazis: Haj Amin al-Husseini, one-time Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and regarded by many in the Arab world as the founding father of the Palestinian movement and inspiration for the Arab League.^[15] Al-Husseini was instigating pogroms against the Jews in Palestine as early as the 1920s, was put on the Nazi payroll in 1936 following a meeting with Adolf Eichmann and, using Nazi supplied funds and weapons, helped initiate the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine against the Jews and the British authorities — as well as moderate Arabs and Husseini’s Arab opponents. In 1941 al-Husseini had a major role in the failed pro-Nazi coup in Iraq, followed by a murder campaign against Iraqi Jews. Escaping Iraq al-Husseini fled to Germany where he spent the war years hosted by Hitler and treated as a head of state. During his sojourn in Germany al-Husseini campaigned against the exchange of European Jews for German POW’s and helped in the recruitment and training of Yugoslav and other Muslims for German sponsored and led military units, including those of the SS. According to recent research into German wartime records the Germans had stood up a mobile SS unit (“Einsatzgruppe Egypt”) in Greece for deployment to Palestine to eliminate the 500,000 mostly European refugee Jews there. Al-Husseini and his Arab supporters were to have an important role in this operation that would have been modeled on the Einsatzgruppe units on the Eastern Front.^[16] Montgomery’s victory over Rommel in 1942 prevented this from happening. Al-Husseini was heavily involved in atrocities against Jews, Serbs and Gypsies during the war and he was actively sought by Yugoslavia and Britain as a war criminal. After the war the French held him in custody but refused to extradite him. Al-Husseini “escaped” to Egypt with the assistance of the Muslim Brotherhood and spent the rest of his life working against Israel and the West (he died in Beirut in 1974).^[17] During that time he and the Muslim Brotherhood worked with German ex-military and security personnel brought in as advisors by King Farouk — to the latter’s regret. The Germans conspired with the Brotherhood, Nasser, and his Free Officers to overthrow the King in a well-executed coup, eventually bringing Nasser to power.

One last note on Nazi influence on contemporary Middle East and Islamist developments: the Ba’athist movements in both Syria and Iraq owe a great deal to the Nazi influences vectored into the region by al-Husseini and the Brotherhood. Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Assad family in Syria were the beneficiaries of that influence, a legacy that both Ba’athists and Islamists would rather be forgotten using the time honored and religiously sanctioned techniques of “taqiyya” (dissimulation or deception) and “kitman” (akin to mental reservation) — more on this to follow. However, Yasser Arafat in a fit of candor a couple of years before his death haughtily dispensed with “taqiyya” when he paid worshipful tribute to al-Husseini as “…our hero…and I was one of his troops [in the 1948 war].”^[18] Arafat’s mother was a cousin of al-Husseini and Arafat supposedly spent four years as a youngster with the Mufti after his mother died. Arafat later became active in the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mufti’s own group as well and is rumored to have been involved in running Nazi-supplied arms into Gaza. Arafat’s pedigree suggests that it would be wise for western observers not to make too much of a distinction between an Arab nationalism of an earlier generation and a resurgent Islamism of more recent vintage.

When overt Nazi-fascist influence in the Islamist world ebbed after Germany’s defeat, Soviet and Warsaw Pact penetration and presence rushed in. Moscow, in a volte-face, switched its support from the Israeli state to the Arabs, reinforcing Nasser’s pan-Arab and nationalist schemes (Stalin had, at first, backed the creation of the Israeli state and provided arms). We cannot detail the specifics of Soviet military and political support which lasted through the collapse of Communism; but we will briefly explore the influence of Soviet/Warsaw Pact intelligence services and their contributions to an already established deception style inherent in Islamist traditions as exemplified by “taqiyya” and “kitman.”^[19]

The Soviet intelligence and security services were always at the leading edge of any Soviet penetration or aid effort in the Third World, an operational style which simply replicated the way Moscow injected its presence and interests into Eastern Europe at the end of World War II or, indeed, the way it carried out clandestine efforts to spread its revolutionary influence around the world following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The “Organs”, as they were known in Soviet parlance, were the Party’s instrument of choice in the advancement of Soviet objectives. This continued to the last days of the USSR’s existence and carried over into the practices of the current Russian Federation under Putin, the KGB and GRU being followed by the FSB/SVR — and the unchanged GRU.

Wherever the “Organs” went they exported an operational tradition that was based on the nature of Soviet intelligence. The Soviet Union was a “counterintelligence state”, that is, an enterprise in which the premier function of the “organs’ was to preserve the exclusive claims to power of the Communist Party and its ruling cadres. This “counterintelligence state” fixated on enemies, real and imagined, domestic and foreign. From the very first days of the USSR the intelligence services, as they were mistakenly labeled in the west, were imbued with a counterintelligence character, as was the whole of state and society. Soviet foreign intelligence had the demeanor and feel of external counterintelligence, a characteristic inherited in part from its Okhrana predecessor of Tsarist days.^[20]

The Bolshevik regime was a conspiracy come to power. The Soviet Union in practice was a seventy-one year old counterintelligence operation raised to the level of a state system. The Party and the secret police operated in a conspiratorial amalgam perpetually focused on “enemies.” When this system projected itself, either invasively or through assistance to clients, the same structure, habits, and mentality were imposed or emulated on the receiving end.

Organic to such a counterintelligence system is the widespread practice of provocations, diversion, deception, disinformation, “maskirovka” (military focused deception), penetration, and other active measures of a highly aggressive nature (hereafter collectively referred to as deception or active measures). From the first days of the Bolshevik regime these aggressive operations were conducted on a truly strategic scale, targeting Moscow’s domestic and foreign enemies, the celebrated Trust (or Trest) legend being just the more visible of numerous similar major actions.^[21]

An institutional mechanism, called the Disinformation Bureau, for coordinating and orchestrating active measures was established in the GPU (state security) in 1923 by a Politburo decision^[22]; its successors exist to this day in several intelligence organs, the military, and other Russian state entities, albeit with various name changes. By the end of the Cold War the Party, the secret police and the military had in place a highly structured and centrally coordinating mechanism for all aspects of active measures and “maskirovka” (military deception), to include a wide range of defensive and offensive activities. This structure and associated operations carried over intact to the successor Russian Federation.

When the Soviets mounted their thrust into the Third world in the 1950s, the security organs were dominant with the KGB in the lead. The GRU took point for the Soviet military. In the Middle East the KGB and GRU worked with their intelligence and security counterparts in Egypt (they were later thrown out by Sadat), Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Algeria, and others. The “others” included various terrorist groups throughout, but not limited to, that region (e.g., the PLO, PLFP, ETA in Spain, etc.). Moscow supplemented its presence in the Middle East and elsewhere with cadres from the East European (especially East German) intelligence services, and Cuba. Some of the Russian intelligence relationships continued after the collapse of the USSR, especially the ones with Syria and Iraq. The connections with Iraq were obvious in the events leading up to Desert Storm in 1991 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Russian Federation still maintains the same close intelligence links with the Syrian Ba’athist Regime of Bashar Assad that its Soviet predecessor had with his father, Hafez al-Assad.^[23] Next to Iran, Damascus and its intelligence arms probably have more intimate links to Islamic terrorists, including the Iranians, than any other Muslim state. Indeed, one of the most persistent deceptions has been the carefully fostered myth that most Islamic terrorist groups are transnational, with no direct state support. Syrian links to Jihadists in Iraq as well its decades-long provision of safe haven to numerous secular and Islamist groups (including Iraqi Ba’athists today), reflects the pattern from the Soviet era when Moscow and its surrogates both perpetuated the legend of non-connectivity to their terrorist clients. The reported January 2006 visit of Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Damascus where he met with Bashar Assad and with one of the worlds most notorious and wanted Islamic terror chiefs, Imad Mugniyeh, would fit with long Syrian practice.^[24]

The old Soviet intelligence connections entailed far more than mere liaison for information sharing. Training for insurgency, terrorist, and military operations occurred both in the Middle East and back in the Soviet Union and East Europe.^[25] Huge quantities of weaponry and other military equipment had flooded the region over several decades. It is no accident that the signature weapon of Islamist terrorist groups today is the AK-47 assault rifle. This intelligence and military collaboration also included the whole panoply of techniques in deception, disinformation, maskirovka, etc., at which the Soviet and, later, Russian intelligence services excelled. The Iraqis demonstrated their adeptness at these lessons before and during Desert Storm (witness their success in evading US/Allied searches for their elusive mobile SCUD missiles) and in the interwar period in their cat and mouse games with UN inspectors and US intelligence searches for their elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It must be remarked, too, that the long years of the anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan provided hands-on training in which thousands of mujahideen from around the Muslim world absorbed Soviet battlefield intelligence, counterintelligence, and associated deception experience — and how to counter it. In sum, decades of Soviet intelligence warfare, technology, influence, tutelage, and presence were added to existing Islamic Jihadist traditions in the world of deception and counter deception.

As Arab nationalist and pan-Arabic dreams died in the repeated failures in the multiple Arab-Israeli wars and the collapse of their main patron — the USSR — Islamists picked up the march. The discredited secular radical movements were either overtaken by, or morphed into, the existing Muslim Brotherhood and its spin-offs. Salafists, Al-Qaeda, other Wahhabist or Sunni radical elements, and Shia radical groups rounded out the trend. While pan-Arabic dreams may have evaporated in disillusion, Moscow’s intelligence legacy has left its mark, being absorbed in today’s Jihadism in ways probably unforeseen by its original Soviet craftsmen.

Resurgent, radical Islam’s encounter with the twentieth century’s two violent totalitarian ideologies produced a troubling legacy and residue. Whereas the victorious Allies dug Nazism out root and branch in conquered Germany through a determined program of de-Nazification, core elements of Nazi ideology nevertheless have prospered in radical (and not so radical) Islamic thinking especially in its noxious anti-Semitism. Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s ugly rants about Israel and the holocaust are representative of this phenomenon. The longer-lived infatuation with Soviet Communism, especially in its conspiratorial, Bolshevik elitist and active measures dimensions, added still more layers of totalitarian style to a militant theocratic mindset inclined to millenarian thinking to begin with. The fact that a process of de-Communization never materialized to exorcize seventy-one years of Soviet mass murder and other criminality^[26], seems to have had the effect of sanctioning the totalitarian legacy gifted by Moscow’s long association with radical Middle Eastern states and movements. The thuggery of the Iraqi and Syrian Ba’athists, Libya’s Qaddafi, the Iranian Mullahs, and the various Islamist terrorist groups is but one example of the bitter fruit of that long romance.

Next: V Stratagem in the Islamic Tradition


© Copyright 2007, John J. Dziak

John J. Dziak is an adjunct professor at The Institute of World Politics, a graduate school of statecraft and national security affairs in Washington, D.C., where he teaches a course on comparative intelligence systems. Dr. Dziak is also Senior Fellow, Counterintelligence and Strategic Technology, at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, and the president of Dziak Group, Inc. He retired from a distinguished career in the U.S. intelligence community in 1996. Dr. Dziak has written extensively on Russian intelligence, and holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University.

Notes:

[12]		This section draws on the following series by Marc Erikson: “Islam, Fascism and Terrorism”, Asia Times, Parts 1 — 4, 5 & 8 November 2002, 4 & 5 December 2005.
[13]		Obviously the roots of Nazism and fascism long predate Germany’s World War I defeat. Likewise, the notion of a revived pan-Islamic movement began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But Germany’s and Islam’s mutually perceived losses in the wake of the war were the proximate events which precipitated Nazi and Islamist stirrings and helped to foster a shared identity politics of grievances between them.
[14]		For a detailed examination of the Egyptian roots of contemporary Islamism and the roles of al-Banna and Qutb, see: J. Bowyer Bell, Murders on the Nile: the World Trade Center and Global Terror, San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.
[15]		For a fuller discussion of the Nazi connection to Islamism, see Matthias Kuntzel, “Islamic Antisemitism and its Nazi Roots”, April 2003 (presented at a conference on “Genocide and Terrorism — Probing the Mind of the Perpetrator”, Yale University, 11 April 2003.
[16]		See Washington Times, 13 April 2006; Boston Globe, 7 April 2006. The research is found in a new work, published in Germany, titled: Germans, Jews, Genocide — The Holocaust as History and Present by Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cueppers.
[17]		A penetrating and concise evaluation of al-Husseini’s virulent anti-Semitism and Nazi involvement may be found in David G. Dalin, “Hitler’s Mufti,” First Things, August/September, 2005, pp. 14 — 16.
[18]		Al Quds, 2 August 2002.
[19]		For details on Soviet/Russian intelligence and the role of deception, see: John J. Dziak, “Soviet Deception: The Organizational and Operational Tradition”, in Brian D. Dailey and Patrick J. Parker (eds.), Soviet Strategic Deception, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1987, pp. 3-20; and John J. Dziak, Chekisty: A History of the KGB, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988.
[20]		It is no accident that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) dates itself to 1920, when the Foreign Department of the CHEKA was established. The KGB (State Security), now known as the FSB, celebrates 1917 as its birth year, that is, when the CHEKA was established. The CHEKA, KGB, and FSB fundamentally were/are counterintelligence services. When Lenin and Dzerzhinsky decided in 1920 to create a Foreign Department of the CHEKA, the Civil War was virtually over, the CHEKA having played a key role in the Bolshevik victory.
[21]		The Trust (Trest) was a combined provocation and active measure (kombinatsiya in Russian) — a classic strategic counterintelligence operation simultaneously targeted against domestic and foreign intelligence enemies. The operational “style” of the Trust characterized the intelligence lessons the KGB and GRU imparted to their clients and surrogates since 1917.
[22]		V. A. Kirpinchenko (ed.), Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoy Vneshney Razvedki, Tom2, 1917 — 1933 (Sketches form the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence, Vol. 2, 1917 — 1933, Moscow: International Relations, 1996, p. 13.
[23]		From 9 March 2005 testimony of Dr. Walid Phares before Helsinki Subcommittee of U.S. CSCE, reprinted in: Dr. Walid Phares, “The Russian Syria Connection”, Front Page Magazine, 18 March 2005; and Ariel Cohen, “Russian Spying for Saddam Demands a Careful U.S. Response”, Heritage Foundation, Webmemo # 1023, 31 March 2006
[24]		The Sunday Times, 23 April 2006. Janes’s Intelligence Review is cited along with former and current US officials that a terrorist intelligence summit occurred in Syria at this time in which Mugniyeh and the Iranian President participated. Mugniyeh, who is linked to the bombing of the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the torture and execution of the CIA Beirut Station Chief William Buckley in 1984, and the 1985 highjacking of a TWA jet and murder of a US Navy diver passenger in 1985. He is considered one of the most dangerous and capable Islamic terrorist operatives ever and has been intimately linked with Iran and Hezbollah. The same sources concluded that Mugniyeh is charged with overseeing Iran’s retaliation against the West should the US attack Iran’s nuclear weapons’ facilities.
[25]		Among the premier KGB/GRU sites in the USSR for such training were Balashika in European Russia and Simferopol in the Crimea.
[26]		This statement applies to the former Soviet Union. Selected former Communist East European states— Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, and Hungary in particular — have enacted limited measures to cleanse their political systems of the Communist legacy. None of these actions, however, equaled the scope and intensity of the de-Nazification measures of an earlier era. Still, they far exceeded anything the Russians timorously undertook.

An intractable asymmetry between Palestinian and Israeli power bases means the US must intervene. Otherwise, these talks fail

The pope, according to a no doubt apocryphal story, maintains that there are two possible solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict – the realistic and the miraculous. The realistic solution involves divine intervention; the miraculous solution involves a voluntary agreement between the parties themselves. The American-sponsored peace talks that got under way in Washington last week may be viewed in this light. It will take nothing less than a miracle to produce a peaceful settlement of the century-old conflict between Jews and Arabs over the Holy Land.

The obstacles to peace are formidable. All previous attempts to clear them have ended in failure, most notably the Camp David summit of July 2000. An American-sponsored peace process of some sort has been going on intermittently since the Madrid conference of 1991, the mother of all Middle East peace conferences. So direct peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, with or without American peace processors, are nothing new. In the words of one American, it is deja vu all over again.

The current negotiators will have to find solutions to all the deeply sensitive issues that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the so-called permanent status issues. These include the right of return of the 1948 Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, the future of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, and the borders of the Palestinian entity.

But there is an immediate stumbling block: settlements. A partial and temporary Israeli freeze on their expansion on the West Bank is due to expire at the end of the month and, if it is not renewed, the Palestinian negotiators have said they will walk out. And who can blame them? If Israel persists in its bad old Zionist ways of "creating facts on the ground", the peace talks will become a charade. It would be like two men negotiating the division of a pizza with one of them continuing to swallow chunks of it.

The prospects for reaching a permanent status agreement are poor because the Israelis are too strong, the Palestinians are too weak, and the Americans mediators are utterly ineffectual. The sheer asymmetry of power between the two parties militates against a voluntary agreement. To get Israelis and Palestinians round a conference table and to tell them to hammer out an agreement is like putting a lion and a lamb in a cage and asking them to sort out their own differences.

Third party intervention is clearly indispensable. To put it more simply, there can be no settlement unless America pushes Israel into a settlement. Playing the honest broker will not do the trick. In the first place, most Arabs regard the United States as a dishonest broker on account of its palpable partisanship on behalf of Israel. Moreover, honest brokerage is not enough. In order to bridge the huge gap separating the two sides, America must first redress the balance of power by putting most of its weight on the side of the weaker party.

The negotiations in Washington will be face to face but they will also be back to back, with each leader constantly watching his domestic constituency. President Mahmoud Abbas, popularly known as Abu Mazen, is the most moderate partner for peace Israel could hope for. But his domestic position is rather precarious. He is the leader of the mainstream party Fatah, a democratically elected president, and the head of the Palestinian Authority. But he faces a formidable rival in Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, and other splinter groups like Islamic Jihad.

Hamas won a free and fair election in January 2006; it moderated its rejectionist stand once in power, and formed a national unity government with Fatah in March 2007. In June of that same year, however, it seized power violently in Gaza to pre-empt a Fatah coup. Since then Gaza has become an open-air prison camp because of the brutal and illegal Israeli blockade.

Today the Palestinian camp is deeply divided between the West Bank, ruled by the Fatah-dominated PA, and the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas. Hamas is vociferously and violently opposed to the peace talks with the Jewish state. It maintains that Abbas has no mandate to represent the Palestinians. Its military wing reinforced the message by killing four Jewish settlers in Hebron on the eve of the talks. Hamas's capacity to play the spoiler should not be under-estimated. Even in the highly unlikely event of Abbas reaching a peace agreement with Israel, it is difficult to see how he would impose it on Palestinians in the teeth of such strong opposition.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister and leader of the Likud party, enjoys a more solid power base at home but he, too, is subject to severe constraints on his freedom of action. His coalition partners are the Labour party, Yisrael Beitenu, and Shas. Together they command a comfortable majority of 66 seats in the 120-member Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Confronted with painful choices over the future of the West Bank, however, the coalition is likely to fall apart. Likud used to regard Judea and Samaria, the Biblical names for the West Bank, as an integral part of the land of Israel. Yisrael Beitenu and Shas still do. Labour, with only 11 seats in the Knesset, carries little weight. This is the most rightwing, chauvinistic and racist government in Israel's history. The ideological makeup of the government militates against a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu is not a dove who has fallen among hawks. On the contrary, he is a rightwing nationalist, a believer in Greater Israel and a proponent of the strategy of the iron wall, of dealing with the Palestinians from a position of unassailable military strength. He grew up in a nationalistic Jewish home. His father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, who at 100 years old is still a force to be reckoned with, was the secretary of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the spiritual father of the Israeli right. Netanyahu junior belongs to the hawkish wing of the Likud. He denounced the 1993 Oslo Accord between Israel and the PLO as incompatible either with Israel's security or with the historic right of the Jewish people to the whole land of Israel. The policy guidelines of his first government, when the Likud came to power in 1996, amounted to a declaration of war on the peace process. Netanyahu spent his three years as prime minister in a largely successful attempt to destroy the foundations for peace with the Palestinians that his Labour predecessors had built.

To his second term as prime minister Netanyahu brings the same old ideological baggage and the same dogged determination to deny the Palestinian people the same right to national self-determination that Israel exercised back in 1948. His rhetoric has changed, but his policy can still be summed up in one ominous word: politicide – to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence in Palestine. This world view identifies him not as a genuine partner to President Abbas on the road to peace but as the proponent of permanent conflict.

Yet the possibility of a change of heart cannot be entirely ruled out. Maybe Netanyahu will surprise us all by moving on from the relentless rejectionism of the past to become a peacemaker. And maybe the pope will start smoking pot.

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From JPost, somewhat shortened:

As a sitting member of a democratic government, it might appear strange to declare that I am a refugee. However, my father, his parents and family were just a few of the almost one million Jews who were expelled or forced out of Arab lands. My father and his family were Algerian, from a Jewish community thousands of years old that predated the Arab conquest of North Africa and even Islam. Upon receiving independence, Algeria allowed only Muslims to become citizens and drove the indigenous Jewish community and the rest of my family out.

While those Arabs who fled or left Mandatory Palestine and Israel numbered roughly 750,000, there were roughly 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands. ...

An important distinction between the two groups is the fact that many Palestinian Arabs were actively involved in the conflict initiated by the surrounding Arab nations, while Jews from Arab lands were living peacefully, even in a subservient dhimmi status, in their countries of origin for many centuries if not millennia.

Financial economists have estimated that, in today’s figures, the total amount of assets lost by the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, including communal property such as schools, synagogues and hospitals, is almost twice that of the assets lost by the Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, one must remember that Israel returned over 90 percent of blocked bank accounts, safe deposit boxes and other items belonging to Palestinian refugees during the 1950s.

EVEN THOUGH the number of Jewish refugees and their assets are larger than that of the Palestinians, the international community only appears to be aware of the latter’s plight.

There are numerous major international organizations devoted to the Palestinian refugees. There is an annual conference held at the United Nations and a refugee agency was created just for the Palestinian refugees. While all the world’s refugees have one agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Palestinians fall under the auspices of another agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNWRA’s budget for 2010 is almost half of UNHCR’s budget.

Equally impressive is the fact that UNHCR prides itself on having found “durable solutions” for “tens of millions” of refugees since 1951, the year of its establishment. However, UNRWA does not even claim to have found “durable solutions” for anyone.

If that is not distorted enough, let’s look at the definitions and how they are applied: normally the definition of a refugee only applies to the person that fled and sought refuge, while a Palestinian refugee is the person that fled and all of their descendants for all time.
WITH DIRECT negotiations about to resume between Israel and the Palestinians, the spotlight will be returned to this issue. The so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ is legal fiction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, the supposed source for this ‘right’ does not mention this term, is not legally binding and, like all other relevant United Nations resolutions uses the intentionally ambiguous term ‘refugees’ with no appellation.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, still seen as the primary legal framework for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict asserts that a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement should necessarily include “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”

No distinction is made between Arab refugees and Jewish refugees.

In fact, one of the leading drafters of the resolution, Justice Arthur Goldberg, the United States’ Chief Delegate to the United Nations, said: “The resolution addresses the objective of ‘achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ This language presumably refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees.”

In addition, every peace conference and accord attended or signed between Israel and its Arab neighbors uses the term “refugees” without qualification.

During the famous Camp David discussions in 2000, president Clinton, the facilitator and host of the negotiations said: “There will have to be some sort of international fund set up for the refugees. There is, I think, some interest, interestingly enough, on both sides, in also having a fund which compensates the Israelis who were made refugees by the war, which occurred after the birth of the State of Israel. Israel is full of people, Jewish people, who lived in predominantly Arab countries who came to Israel because they were made refugees in their own land”.

In 2008, the US Congress passed House Resolution 185 granting, for the first time, equal recognition to Jewish refugees, while affirming that the US government will now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally.

Before 1948 there were nearly 900,000 Jews in Arab lands while only a few thousand remain. Where is the international outrage, the conferences, the proclamations for redress and compensation? While the Palestinian refugee issue has become a political weapon to beat Israel, the Arab League has ordered its member states not to provide their Palestinian population with citizenship; Israel absorbed all of its refugees, whether fleeing the Holocaust or persecution and expulsion from Arab lands.

People like my father, the hundreds of thousands who came to Israel and the millions of Israelis descended from these refugees are entitled to redress. It is vital that this issue return to the international agenda, so we don’t once again see an asymmetrical and distorted treatment of Arabs and Jews in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

 7:05 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Good evening, everyone.  Tomorrow, after nearly two years, Israelis and Palestinians will resume direct talks in pursuit of a goal that we all share —- two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Tonight, I’m pleased to welcome to the White House key partners in this effort, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the representative of our Quartet partners, former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

President Abbas, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Your Majesty King Abdullah, and President Mubarak —- we are but five men.  Our dinner this evening will be a small gathering around a single table.  Yet when we come together, we will not be alone.  We’ll be joined by the generations —- those who have gone before and those who will follow.

Each of you are the heirs of peacemakers who dared greatly -— Begin and Sadat, Rabin and King Hussein -— statesmen who saw the world as it was but also imagined the world as it should be. It is the shoulders of our predecessors upon which we stand.  It is their work that we carry on.  Now, like each of them, we must ask, do we have the wisdom and the courage to walk the path of peace?  All of us are leaders of our people, who, no matter the language they speak or the faith they practice, all basically seek the same things:  to live in security, free from fear; to live in dignity, free from want; to provide for their families and to realize a better tomorrow.  Tonight, they look to us, and each of us must decide, will we work diligently to fulfill their aspirations?

And though each of us holds a title of honor —- President, Prime Minister, King —- we are bound by the one title we share. We are fathers, blessed with sons and daughters.  So we must ask ourselves what kind of world do we want to bequeath to our children and our grandchildren.

Tonight, and in the days and months ahead, these are the questions that we must answer.  And this is a fitting moment to do so.For Muslims, this is Ramadan.  For Jews, this is Elul.  It is rare for those two months to coincide.  But this year, tonight, they do.  Different faiths, different rituals, but a shared period of devotion —- and contemplation.  A time to reflect on right and wrong; a time to ponder one’s place in the world; a time when the people of two great religions remind the world of a truth that is both simple and profound, that each of us, all of us, in our hearts and in our lives, are capable of great and lasting change.

In this spirit, I welcome my partners.  And I invite each to say a few words before we begin our meal, beginning with President Mubarak, on to His Majesty King Abdullah, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas.

President Mubarak.

PRESIDENT MUBARAK:  (As prepared for delivery.)  I am pleased to participate with you today in relaunching direct peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.  Like you, and the millions of Palestinians, Israelis, Arabs and the rest of the world, I look forward that these negotiations be final and decisive, and that they lead to a peace agreement within one year.

Our meet today would not have taken place without the considerable effort exerted by the American administration under the leadership of President Obama.  I pay tribute to you, Mr. President, for your personal, serious commit and for your determination to work for a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine since the early days of your presidency.  I appreciate your perseverance throughout the past period to overcome the difficulties facing the relaunching of the negotiations.

(Continued as translated.)  I consider this invitation a manifestation of your commitment and a significant message that the United States will shepherd these negotiations seriously and at the highest level.

No one realizes the value of peace more than those who have known wars and their havoc.  It was my destiny to witness over many events in our region during the years of war and peace.  I have gone through wars and hostilities, and have participated in the quest for peace since the first day of my administration.  I have never spared an effort to push it forward, and I still look forward to its success and completion.

The efforts to achieve peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis encountered many difficulties since the Madrid Conference in October 1999, and progress and regression, breakthroughs and setbacks, but the occupation of the Palestinian Territory remains an independent -- an independent Palestinian state is yet -- remains a dream in the conscious of the Palestinian people.There is no doubt that this situation should raise great frustration and anger among our people, for it is no longer acceptable or conceivable on the verge of the second decade of the third millennium that we fail to achieve just and true peace -- peace that would put an end to the century of conflict, fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, lift the occupation, allow for the establishment of normal relations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

It is true that reaching a just and comprehensive peace treaty between both sides has been an elusive hope for almost two decades.  Yet the accumulated experience of both parties, the extended rounds of negotiations, and the previous understandings, particularly during the Clinton parameters of 2000, and subsequent understandings of Taba and with the previous Israeli government, all contributed in setting the outline of the final settlement.

This outline has become well known to the international community and to both peoples -- the Palestinian and Israeli people.  Hence, it is expected that the current negotiations will not start from scratch or in void.  No doubt, the position of the international community, as is stated in the consecutive statements of the Quartet, in particular, in its latest August 20th statement, paid due respect to relevant international resolutions and supported the outline of final settlements using different formulation without prejudice to the outcome of negotiations.

It has stressed that the aim of the soon-to-start direct negotiation is to reach a peaceful settlement that would end the Israeli occupation which began in 1967, allowing for the independent and sovereign state of Palestine to emerge and live side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel.

I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu many times since he took office last year.  In our meetings, I listened to assertions on his willingness to achieve peace with the Palestinians, and for history to record his name for such an achievement.  I say to him today that I look forward to achieving those assertions in reality, and his success in achieving the long-awaited peace, which I know the people of Israel yearn for, just like all other people in the region.Reaching just peace with the Palestinians will require from Israel taking important and decisive decisions -- decisions that are undoubtedly difficult yet they will be necessary to achieve peace and stability, and in a different context than the one that prevailed before.Settlement activities on the Palestinian Territory are contrary to international law.  They will not create rights for Israel, nor are they going to achieve peace or security for Israel.  It is, therefore, a priority to completely freeze all these activities until the entire negotiation process comes to a successful end.

I say to the Israelis, seize the current opportunity.  Do not let it slip through your fingers.  Make comprehensive peace your goal.  Extend your hand to meet the hand already extended in the Arab Peace Initiative. I say to President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt will continue its faithful support to the patient Palestinian people and their just cause.  We will continue our concerted efforts to help fulfill the aspirations of your people and retrieve their legitimate rights.  We will stand by you until the independent state of Palestine on the land occupied since 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.  We will also continue our efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation for the sake of the Palestinian national interest.

Once again, I’d like to express my thanks to President Obama, and I renew Egypt’s commitment to continue exerting all efforts, sharing honest advice and a commitment to the principles on which Arab and regional policy rests upon.

Please accept my appreciation, and peace be upon you. (Applause.)HIS MAJESTY KING ABDULLAH:  (As translated.)  In the name of God most merciful, most compassionate, President Obama, peace be upon you.(In English.)  For decades, a Palestinian-Israeli settlement has eluded us.  Millions of men, women and children have suffered.  Too many people have lost faith in our ability to bring them the peace they want.  Radicals and terrorists have exploited frustrations to feed hatred and ignite wars.  The whole world has been dragged into regional conflicts that cannot be addressed effectively until Arabs and Israelis find peace.

This past record drives the importance of our efforts today. There are those on both sides who want us to fail, who will do everything in their power to disrupt our efforts today -- because when the Palestinians and Israelis find peace, when young men and women can look to a future of promise and opportunity, radicals and extremists lose their most potent appeal.  This is why we must prevail.  For our failure would be their success in sinking the region into more instability and wars that will cause further suffering in our region and beyond.

President Obama, we value your commitment to the cause of peace in our region.  We count on your continued engagement to help the parties move forward.  You have said that Middle East peace is in the national security interest of your country.  And we believe it is.  And it is also a strategic European interest, and it is a necessary requirement for global security and stability.  Peace is also a right for every citizen in our region.A Palestinian-Israeli settlement on the basis of two states living side by side is a precondition for security and stability of all countries of the Middle East, with a regional peace that will lead to normal relations between Israel and 57 Arab and Muslim states that have endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative.  That would be -- well, that would also be an essential step towards neutralizing forces of evil and war that threaten all peoples.

Mr. President, we need your support as a mediator, honest broker, and a partner, as the parties move along the hard but inevitable path of settlements.

Your Excellencies, all eyes are upon us.  The direct negotiations that will start tomorrow must show results -- and sooner rather than later.  Time is not on our side.  That is why we must spare no effort in addressing all final status issues with a view to reaching the two-state solution, the only solution that can create a future worthy of our great region -- a future of peace in which fathers and mothers can raise their children without fear, young people can look forward to lives of achievement and hope, and 300 million people can cooperate for mutual benefit.

For too long, too many people of the region have been denied their most basic of human rights:  the right to live in peace and security; respected in their human dignity; enjoying freedom and opportunity.  If hopes are disappointed again, the price of failure will be too high for all.

Our peoples want us to rise to their expectations.  And we can do so if we approach these negotiations with goodwill, sincerity and courage.  (Applause.)

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU:  Mr. President, Excellencies, Shalom Aleichem.  Shalom Alkulanu.  Peace unto us all.

I’m very pleased to be here today to begin our common effort to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

I want to thank you, President Obama, for your tireless efforts to renew this quest for peace.  I want to thank Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Mitchell, the many members of the Obama administration, and Tony Blair, who’ve all worked so hard to bring Israelis and Palestinians together here today.

I also want to thank President Mubarak and King Abdullah for their dedicated and meaningful support to promote peace, security, and stability throughout our region.  I deeply appreciate your presence here today.

I began with a Hebrew word for peace, “shalom.”  Our goal is shalom.  Our goal is to forge a secure and durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  We don’t seek a brief interlude between two wars.  We don’t seek a temporary respite between outbursts of terror.  We seek a peace that will end the conflict between us once and for all.  We seek a peace that will last for generations -- our generation, our children’s generation, and the next.

This is the peace my people fervently want.  This is the peace all our peoples fervently aspire to.  This is the peace they deserve.

Now, a lasting peace is a peace between peoples -- between Israelis and Palestinians.  We must learn to live together, to live next to one another and with one another.  But every peace begins with leaders.

President Abbas, you are my partner in peace.  And it is up to us, with the help of our friends, to conclude the agonizing conflict between our peoples and to afford them a new beginning. The Jewish people are not strangers in our ancestral homeland, the land of our forefathers.  But we recognize that another people shares this land with us.I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both our peoples to live in peace and security and in dignity.  I’ve been making the case for Israel all of my life.  But I didn’t come here today to make an argument.  I came here today to make peace.  I didn’t come here today to play a blame game where even the winners lose.  Everybody loses if there’s no peace.  I came here to achieve a peace that will bring a lasting benefit to us all.I didn’t come here to find excuses or to make them.  I came here to find solutions.  I know the history of our conflict and the sacrifices that have been made.  I know the grief that has afflicted so many families who have lost their dearest loved ones.  Only yesterday four Israelis, including a pregnant women  -- a pregnant woman -- and another woman, a mother of six children, were brutally murdered by savage terrorists.  And two hours ago, there was another terror attack.  And thank God no one died.  I will not let the terrorists block our path to peace, but as these events underscore once again, that peace must be anchored in security. I’m prepared to walk down the path of peace, because I know what peace would mean for our children and for our grandchildren. I know it would herald a new beginning that could unleash unprecedented opportunities for Israelis, for Palestinians, and for the peoples -- all the peoples -- of our region, and well beyond our region.  I think it would affect the world.

I see what a period of calm has created in the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, of Janin, throughout the West Bank, a great economic boom.  And real peace can turn this boom into a permanent era of progress and hope.

If we work together, we can take advantage of the great benefits afforded by our unique place under the sun.  We’re the crossroads of three continents, at the crossroads of history, and the crossroads of the future.  Our geography, our history, our culture, our climate, the talents of our people can be unleashed to create extraordinary opportunities in tourism, in trade, in industry, in energy, in water, in so many areas. But peace must also be defended against its enemies.  We want the skyline of the West Bank to be dominated by apartment towers -- not missiles.  We want the roads of the West Bank to flow with commerce -- not terrorists.

And this is not a theoretic request for our people.  We left Lebanon, and we got terror.  We left Gaza, and we got terror once again.  We want to ensure that territory we’ll concede will not be turned into a third Iranian-sponsored terror enclave armed at the heart of Israel -- and may I add, also aimed at every one of us sitting on this stage.

This is why a defensible peace requires security arrangements that can withstand the test of time and the many challenges that are sure to confront us.  And there will be many challenges, both great and small.  Let us not get bogged down by every difference between us.  Let us direct our courage, our thinking, and our decisions at those historic decisions that lie ahead.

Now, there are many skeptics.  One thing there’s no shortage of, Mr. President, are skeptics.  This is something that you’re so familiar with, that all of us in a position of leadership are familiar with.  There are many skeptics.  I suppose there are many reasons for skepticism.  But I have no doubt that peace is possible.

President Abbas, we cannot erase the past, but it is within our power to change the future.  Thousands of years ago, on these very hills where Israelis and Palestinians live today, the Jewish prophet Isaiah and the other prophets of my people envisaged a future of lasting peace for all mankind.  Let today be an auspicious step in our joint effort to realize that ancient vision for a better future.  (Applause.)

PRESIDENT ABBAS:  (As translated.)  His Excellency President Barack Obama, His Excellency President Hosni Mubarak, His Majesty King Abdullah II, His Excellency Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Tony Blair, ladies and gentlemen.I would like to start by thanking President Obama for his invitation to host us here today to relaunch the permanent status negotiations to reach a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement covering all the permanent status issues within a year in accordance with international law and relevant resolutions. As we move towards the relaunch of these negotiations tomorrow, we recognize the difficulties, challenges and obstacles that lie ahead.  Yet we assure you, in the name of the PLO, that we will draw on years of experience in negotiations and benefit from the lessons learned to make these negotiations successful.

We also reiterate our commitment to carry out all our obligations, and we call on the Israelis to carry out their obligations, including a freeze on settlements activities, which is not setting a precondition but a call to implement an agreed obligation and to end all the closure and blockade, preventing freedom of movement, including the (inaudible) siege.

We will spare no effort and will work diligently and tirelessly to ensure that these new negotiations achieve their goals and objectives in dealing with all of the issues:  Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, border security, water, as well as the release of all our prisoners -- in order to achieve peace. The people of our area are looking for peace that achieves freedom, independence, and justice to the Palestinian people in their country and in their homeland and in the diaspora -- our people who have endured decades of longstanding suffering.

We want a peace that will correct the historical injustice caused by the (inaudible) of 1948, and one that brings security to our people and the Israeli people.  And we want peace that will give us both and the people of the region a new era where we enjoy just peace, stability, and prosperity. Our determination stems to a great extent from your willpower, Mr. President, and your firm and sweeping drive with which you engulfed the entire world from the day you took office to set the parties on the path for peace -- and also this same spirit, exhibited by Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator George Mitchell and his team.  The presence of His Excellency President Mubarak and His Majesty King Abdullah is another telling indication of their substantial and effective commitment overall, where Egypt and Jordan have been playing a supportive role for advancing the peace process.  Their effective role is further demonstrated by the Arab Peace Initiative, which was fully endorsed by all of the Arab states, and the Islamic countries as well.

This initiative served a genuine and sincere opportunity to achieve a just and comprehensive peace on all tracks in our region, including the Syrian-Israeli track and the Lebanese-Israeli track, and provided a sincere opportunity to make peace.

The presence here today of the envoy of the Quartet, Mr. Tony Blair, is a most telling signal, especially since he has been personally involved in the Palestinian Authority for many years and in the efforts for state building in Palestine.

Excellencies, the time has come for us to make peace and it is time to end the occupation that started in 1967, and for the Palestinian people to get freedom, justice, and independence.  It is time that a independent Palestinian state be established with sovereignty side by side with the state of Israel.  It is time to put an end to the struggle in the Middle East. The Palestinian people who insist on the rights and freedom and independence are in most need for justice, security, and peace, because they are the victim, the ones that were harmed the most from this violence.  And it is sending message to our neighbors, the Israelis, and to the world that they are also careful about supporting the opportunities for the success of these negotiations and the just and lasting peace as soon as possible.

With this spirit, we will work to make these negotiations succeed.  And with this spirit, we are -- trust that we are capable to achieve our historical, difficult mission -- making peace in the land of peace.

Mr. Netanyahu, what happened yesterday and what is happening today is also condemned.  We do not want at all that any blood be shed, one drop of blood, on the part of the -- from the Israelis or the Palestinians.  We want people in the two countries to lead a normal life.  We want them to live as neighbors and partners forever.  Let us sign an agreement, a final agreement, for peace, and put an end to a very long period of struggle forever.And peace be upon you.  (Applause.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  I want to thank all the leaders for their thoughtful statements.  I want to thank the delegations that are represented here because they are the ones who oftentimes are doing a lot of the work.  This is just the beginning.  We have a long road ahead, but I appreciate very much the leaders who are represented here for giving us such an excellent start. And I particularly want to commend Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas for their presence here.  This is not easy.  Both of them have constituencies with legitimate claims, legitimate concerns, and a lot of history between them.  For them to be here, to be willing to take this first step -- the most difficult step -- is a testament to their courage and their integrity and I think their vision for the future.And so I am hopeful -- cautiously hopeful, but hopeful -- that we can achieve the goal that all four of these leaders articulated. Thank you very much, everybody.

  END  7:41 P.M. EDT

I always allow myself to get hopeful when peace talks break out on the Middle East, and my hopes are always dashed. But, there were some very fine statements made tonight at the opening dinner. They are worth a read. No doubt there are little clues riddled throughout that signal where real problems lie, but the sentiments are seemingly sincere. Even Netanyahu's statement showed more enthusiasm that I would have expected. But, you know, these may be fine words, but they are still just words. THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release September 1, 2010 REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA, PRESIDENT HOSNI MUBARAK OF EGYPT, HIS MAJESTY KING ABDULLAH OF JORDAN, PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU OF ISRAEL, AND PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY BEFORE WORKING DINNER East Room 7:05 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening, everyone. Tomorrow, after nearly two years, Israelis and Palestinians will resume direct talks in pursuit of a goal that we all share —- two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Tonight, I’m pleased to welcome to the White House key partners in this effort, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the representative of our Quartet partners, former Prime Minister Tony Blair. President Abbas, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Your Majesty King Abdullah, and President Mubarak —- we are but five men. Our dinner this evening will be a small gathering around a single table. Yet when we come together, we will not be alone. We’ll be joined by the generations —- those who have gone before and those who will follow. Each of you are the heirs of peacemakers who dared greatly -— Begin and Sadat, Rabin and King Hussein -— statesmen who saw the world as it was but also imagined the world as it should be. It is the shoulders of our predecessors upon which we stand. It is their work that we carry on. Now, like each of them, we must ask, do we have the wisdom and the courage to walk the path of peace? All of us are leaders of our people, who, no matter the language they speak or the faith they practice, all basically seek the same things: to live in security, free from fear; to live in dignity, free from want; to provide for their families and to realize a better tomorrow. Tonight, they look to us, and each of us must decide, will we work diligently to fulfill their aspirations? And though each of us holds a title of honor —- President, Prime Minister, King —- we are bound by the one title we share. We are fathers, blessed with sons and daughters. So we must ask ourselves what kind of world do we want to bequeath to our children and our grandchildren. Tonight, and in the days and months ahead, these are the questions that we must answer. And this is a fitting moment to do so. For Muslims, this is Ramadan. For Jews, this is Elul. It is rare for those two months to coincide. But this year, tonight, they do. Different faiths, different rituals, but a shared period of devotion —- and contemplation. A time to reflect on right and wrong; a time to ponder one’s place in the world; a time when the people of two great religions remind the world of a truth that is both simple and profound, that each of us, all of us, in our hearts and in our lives, are capable of great and lasting change. In this spirit, I welcome my partners. And I invite each to say a few words before we begin our meal, beginning with President Mubarak, on to His Majesty King Abdullah, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. President Mubarak. PRESIDENT MUBARAK: (As prepared for delivery.) I am pleased to participate with you today in relaunching direct peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Like you, and the millions of Palestinians, Israelis, Arabs and the rest of the world, I look forward that these negotiations be final and decisive, and that they lead to a peace agreement within one year. Our meet today would not have taken place without the considerable effort exerted by the American administration under the leadership of President Obama. I pay tribute to you, Mr. President, for your personal, serious commit and for your determination to work for a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine since the early days of your presidency. I appreciate your perseverance throughout the past period to overcome the difficulties facing the relaunching of the negotiations. (Continued as translated.) I consider this invitation a manifestation of your commitment and a significant message that the United States will shepherd these negotiations seriously and at the highest level. No one realizes the value of peace more than those who have known wars and their havoc. It was my destiny to witness over many events in our region during the years of war and peace. I have gone through wars and hostilities, and have participated in the quest for peace since the first day of my administration. I have never spared an effort to push it forward, and I still look forward to its success and completion. The efforts to achieve peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis encountered many difficulties since the Madrid Conference in October 1999, and progress and regression, breakthroughs and setbacks, but the occupation of the Palestinian Territory remains an independent -- an independent Palestinian state is yet -- remains a dream in the conscious of the Palestinian people. There is no doubt that this situation should raise great frustration and anger among our people, for it is no longer acceptable or conceivable on the verge of the second decade of the third millennium that we fail to achieve just and true peace -- peace that would put an end to the century of conflict, fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, lift the occupation, allow for the establishment of normal relations between the Palestinians and Israelis. It is true that reaching a just and comprehensive peace treaty between both sides has been an elusive hope for almost two decades. Yet the accumulated experience of both parties, the extended rounds of negotiations, and the previous understandings, particularly during the Clinton parameters of 2000, and subsequent understandings of Taba and with the previous Israeli government, all contributed in setting the outline of the final settlement. This outline has become well known to the international community and to both peoples -- the Palestinian and Israeli people. Hence, it is expected that the current negotiations will not start from scratch or in void. No doubt, the position of the international community, as is stated in the consecutive statements of the Quartet, in particular, in its latest August 20th statement, paid due respect to relevant international resolutions and supported the outline of final settlements using different formulation without prejudice to the outcome of negotiations. It has stressed that the aim of the soon-to-start direct negotiation is to reach a peaceful settlement that would end the Israeli occupation which began in 1967, allowing for the independent and sovereign state of Palestine to emerge and live side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel. I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu many times since he took office last year. In our meetings, I listened to assertions on his willingness to achieve peace with the Palestinians, and for history to record his name for such an achievement. I say to him today that I look forward to achieving those assertions in reality, and his success in achieving the long-awaited peace, which I know the people of Israel yearn for, just like all other people in the region. Reaching just peace with the Palestinians will require from Israel taking important and decisive decisions -- decisions that are undoubtedly difficult yet they will be necessary to achieve peace and stability, and in a different context than the one that prevailed before. Settlement activities on the Palestinian Territory are contrary to international law. They will not create rights for Israel, nor are they going to achieve peace or security for Israel. It is, therefore, a priority to completely freeze all these activities until the entire negotiation process comes to a successful end. I say to the Israelis, seize the current opportunity. Do not let it slip through your fingers. Make comprehensive peace your goal. Extend your hand to meet the hand already extended in the Arab Peace Initiative. I say to President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt will continue its faithful support to the patient Palestinian people and their just cause. We will continue our concerted efforts to help fulfill the aspirations of your people and retrieve their legitimate rights. We will stand by you until the independent state of Palestine on the land occupied since 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. We will also continue our efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation for the sake of the Palestinian national interest. Once again, I’d like to express my thanks to President Obama, and I renew Egypt’s commitment to continue exerting all efforts, sharing honest advice and a commitment to the principles on which Arab and regional policy rests upon. Please accept my appreciation, and peace be upon you. (Applause.) HIS MAJESTY KING ABDULLAH: (As translated.) In the name of God most merciful, most compassionate, President Obama, peace be upon you. (In English.) For decades, a Palestinian-Israeli settlement has eluded us. Millions of men, women and children have suffered. Too many people have lost faith in our ability to bring them the peace they want. Radicals and terrorists have exploited frustrations to feed hatred and ignite wars. The whole world has been dragged into regional conflicts that cannot be addressed effectively until Arabs and Israelis find peace. This past record drives the importance of our efforts today. There are those on both sides who want us to fail, who will do everything in their power to disrupt our efforts today -- because when the Palestinians and Israelis find peace, when young men and women can look to a future of promise and opportunity, radicals and extremists lose their most potent appeal. This is why we must prevail. For our failure would be their success in sinking the region into more instability and wars that will cause further suffering in our region and beyond. President Obama, we value your commitment to the cause of peace in our region. We count on your continued engagement to help the parties move forward. You have said that Middle East peace is in the national security interest of your country. And we believe it is. And it is also a strategic European interest, and it is a necessary requirement for global security and stability. Peace is also a right for every citizen in our region. A Palestinian-Israeli settlement on the basis of two states living side by side is a precondition for security and stability of all countries of the Middle East, with a regional peace that will lead to normal relations between Israel and 57 Arab and Muslim states that have endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative. That would be -- well, that would also be an essential step towards neutralizing forces of evil and war that threaten all peoples. Mr. President, we need your support as a mediator, honest broker, and a partner, as the parties move along the hard but inevitable path of settlements. Your Excellencies, all eyes are upon us. The direct negotiations that will start tomorrow must show results -- and sooner rather than later. Time is not on our side. That is why we must spare no effort in addressing all final status issues with a view to reaching the two-state solution, the only solution that can create a future worthy of our great region -- a future of peace in which fathers and mothers can raise their children without fear, young people can look forward to lives of achievement and hope, and 300 million people can cooperate for mutual benefit. For too long, too many people of the region have been denied their most basic of human rights: the right to live in peace and security; respected in their human dignity; enjoying freedom and opportunity. If hopes are disappointed again, the price of failure will be too high for all. Our peoples want us to rise to their expectations. And we can do so if we approach these negotiations with goodwill, sincerity and courage. (Applause.) PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Mr. President, Excellencies, Shalom Aleichem. Shalom Alkulanu. Peace unto us all. I’m very pleased to be here today to begin our common effort to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I want to thank you, President Obama, for your tireless efforts to renew this quest for peace. I want to thank Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Mitchell, the many members of the Obama administration, and Tony Blair, who’ve all worked so hard to bring Israelis and Palestinians together here today. I also want to thank President Mubarak and King Abdullah for their dedicated and meaningful support to promote peace, security, and stability throughout our region. I deeply appreciate your presence here today. I began with a Hebrew word for peace, “shalom.” Our goal is shalom. Our goal is to forge a secure and durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We don’t seek a brief interlude between two wars. We don’t seek a temporary respite between outbursts of terror. We seek a peace that will end the conflict between us once and for all. We seek a peace that will last for generations -- our generation, our children’s generation, and the next. This is the peace my people fervently want. This is the peace all our peoples fervently aspire to. This is the peace they deserve. Now, a lasting peace is a peace between peoples -- between Israelis and Palestinians. We must learn to live together, to live next to one another and with one another. But every peace begins with leaders. President Abbas, you are my partner in peace. And it is up to us, with the help of our friends, to conclude the agonizing conflict between our peoples and to afford them a new beginning. The Jewish people are not strangers in our ancestral homeland, the land of our forefathers. But we recognize that another people shares this land with us. I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both our peoples to live in peace and security and in dignity. I’ve been making the case for Israel all of my life. But I didn’t come here today to make an argument. I came here today to make peace. I didn’t come here today to play a blame game where even the winners lose. Everybody loses if there’s no peace. I came here to achieve a peace that will bring a lasting benefit to us all. I didn’t come here to find excuses or to make them. I came here to find solutions. I know the history of our conflict and the sacrifices that have been made. I know the grief that has afflicted so many families who have lost their dearest loved ones. Only yesterday four Israelis, including a pregnant women -- a pregnant woman -- and another woman, a mother of six children, were brutally murdered by savage terrorists. And two hours ago, there was another terror attack. And thank God no one died. I will not let the terrorists block our path to peace, but as these events underscore once again, that peace must be anchored in security. I’m prepared to walk down the path of peace, because I know what peace would mean for our children and for our grandchildren. I know it would herald a new beginning that could unleash unprecedented opportunities for Israelis, for Palestinians, and for the peoples -- all the peoples -- of our region, and well beyond our region. I think it would affect the world. I see what a period of calm has created in the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, of Janin, throughout the West Bank, a great economic boom. And real peace can turn this boom into a permanent era of progress and hope. If we work together, we can take advantage of the great benefits afforded by our unique place under the sun. We’re the crossroads of three continents, at the crossroads of history, and the crossroads of the future. Our geography, our history, our culture, our climate, the talents of our people can be unleashed to create extraordinary opportunities in tourism, in trade, in industry, in energy, in water, in so many areas. But peace must also be defended against its enemies. We want the skyline of the West Bank to be dominated by apartment towers -- not missiles. We want the roads of the West Bank to flow with commerce -- not terrorists. And this is not a theoretic request for our people. We left Lebanon, and we got terror. We left Gaza, and we got terror once again. We want to ensure that territory we’ll concede will not be turned into a third Iranian-sponsored terror enclave armed at the heart of Israel -- and may I add, also aimed at every one of us sitting on this stage. This is why a defensible peace requires security arrangements that can withstand the test of time and the many challenges that are sure to confront us. And there will be many challenges, both great and small. Let us not get bogged down by every difference between us. Let us direct our courage, our thinking, and our decisions at those historic decisions that lie ahead. Now, there are many skeptics. One thing there’s no shortage of, Mr. President, are skeptics. This is something that you’re so familiar with, that all of us in a position of leadership are familiar with. There are many skeptics. I suppose there are many reasons for skepticism. But I have no doubt that peace is possible. President Abbas, we cannot erase the past, but it is within our power to change the future. Thousands of years ago, on these very hills where Israelis and Palestinians live today, the Jewish prophet Isaiah and the other prophets of my people envisaged a future of lasting peace for all mankind. Let today be an auspicious step in our joint effort to realize that ancient vision for a better future. (Applause.) PRESIDENT ABBAS: (As translated.) His Excellency President Barack Obama, His Excellency President Hosni Mubarak, His Majesty King Abdullah II, His Excellency Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Tony Blair, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to start by thanking President Obama for his invitation to host us here today to relaunch the permanent status negotiations to reach a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement covering all the permanent status issues within a year in accordance with international law and relevant resolutions. As we move towards the relaunch of these negotiations tomorrow, we recognize the difficulties, challenges and obstacles that lie ahead. Yet we assure you, in the name of the PLO, that we will draw on years of experience in negotiations and benefit from the lessons learned to make these negotiations successful. We also reiterate our commitment to carry out all our obligations, and we call on the Israelis to carry out their obligations, including a freeze on settlements activities, which is not setting a precondition but a call to implement an agreed obligation and to end all the closure and blockade, preventing freedom of movement, including the (inaudible) siege. We will spare no effort and will work diligently and tirelessly to ensure that these new negotiations achieve their goals and objectives in dealing with all of the issues: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, border security, water, as well as the release of all our prisoners -- in order to achieve peace. The people of our area are looking for peace that achieves freedom, independence, and justice to the Palestinian people in their country and in their homeland and in the diaspora -- our people who have endured decades of longstanding suffering. We want a peace that will correct the historical injustice caused by the (inaudible) of 1948, and one that brings security to our people and the Israeli people. And we want peace that will give us both and the people of the region a new era where we enjoy just peace, stability, and prosperity. Our determination stems to a great extent from your willpower, Mr. President, and your firm and sweeping drive with which you engulfed the entire world from the day you took office to set the parties on the path for peace -- and also this same spirit, exhibited by Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator George Mitchell and his team. The presence of His Excellency President Mubarak and His Majesty King Abdullah is another telling indication of their substantial and effective commitment overall, where Egypt and Jordan have been playing a supportive role for advancing the peace process. Their effective role is further demonstrated by the Arab Peace Initiative, which was fully endorsed by all of the Arab states, and the Islamic countries as well. This initiative served a genuine and sincere opportunity to achieve a just and comprehensive peace on all tracks in our region, including the Syrian-Israeli track and the Lebanese-Israeli track, and provided a sincere opportunity to make peace. The presence here today of the envoy of the Quartet, Mr. Tony Blair, is a most telling signal, especially since he has been personally involved in the Palestinian Authority for many years and in the efforts for state building in Palestine. Excellencies, the time has come for us to make peace and it is time to end the occupation that started in 1967, and for the Palestinian people to get freedom, justice, and independence. It is time that a independent Palestinian state be established with sovereignty side by side with the state of Israel. It is time to put an end to the struggle in the Middle East. The Palestinian people who insist on the rights and freedom and independence are in most need for justice, security, and peace, because they are the victim, the ones that were harmed the most from this violence. And it is sending message to our neighbors, the Israelis, and to the world that they are also careful about supporting the opportunities for the success of these negotiations and the just and lasting peace as soon as possible. With this spirit, we will work to make these negotiations succeed. And with this spirit, we are -- trust that we are capable to achieve our historical, difficult mission -- making peace in the land of peace. Mr. Netanyahu, what happened yesterday and what is happening today is also condemned. We do not want at all that any blood be shed, one drop of blood, on the part of the -- from the Israelis or the Palestinians. We want people in the two countries to lead a normal life. We want them to live as neighbors and partners forever. Let us sign an agreement, a final agreement, for peace, and put an end to a very long period of struggle forever. And peace be upon you. (Applause.) PRESIDENT OBAMA: I want to thank all the leaders for their thoughtful statements. I want to thank the delegations that are represented here because they are the ones who oftentimes are doing a lot of the work. This is just the beginning. We have a long road ahead, but I appreciate very much the leaders who are represented here for giving us such an excellent start. And I particularly want to commend Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas for their presence here. This is not easy. Both of them have constituencies with legitimate claims, legitimate concerns, and a lot of history between them. For them to be here, to be willing to take this first step -- the most difficult step -- is a testament to their courage and their integrity and I think their vision for the future. And so I am hopeful -- cautiously hopeful, but hopeful -- that we can achieve the goal that all four of these leaders articulated. Thank you very much, everybody. Somehow, when something like this happens, it makes a lot of other things seem petty. Here's hoping it comes to something.

David J Goldberg finds that a study of Jews under Muslim rule suffers from its broad-brush approach

The feared doyen of Judaic scholars in the US is Professor Jacob Neusner, an abrasive curmudgeon who, to borrow football manager Sir Alex Ferguson's description of an opposition player, could start a fight in an empty room. Wikipedia credits him with the authorship or editorship of 950 books – a stat that has prompted a joke about a student who knocks on his door, asking to see the professor. "You can't," says Neusner's wife. "He's writing a book." "That's alright," replies the student. "I'll wait."

In this country Sir Martin Gilbert – urbane, charming, helpful; the official biographer of Winston Churchill and a member of the Iraq inquiry panel – is the polar opposite of Neusner in personality and reputation, but for sheer fecundity he is a potential challenger. He has over 80 books to his name and, one senses, more to come.

Neither a brash TV personality nor a young turk revisionist, Gilbert writes broad-brush narrative history of the old-fashioned kind. By now his method is well rehearsed: a balanced overview is produced, based on exhaustive research of all the available material, and then illuminated with individual case stories or a telling quotation. It is a technique that proved popular in his books about the Holocaust, the state of Israel and Churchill. Now he brings it to bear on the history of Jews in Muslim lands.

Perhaps that well-oiled modus operandi is why there is a sense Gilbert is going through the motions here. He dedicates In Ishmael's House, somewhat preciously, to the 13 million Jews and 1,300 million Muslims in the world "in the hope that they may renew the mutual tolerance, respect and partnership that marked many periods in their history". In truth, however, there is little fresh to be said about that long and complex relationship because it has all been covered before by more specialist scholars. Gilbert simply quotes his sources and summarises their conclusions, without attempting to offer many of his own.

Shrewdest of the quoted sources is Bernard Lewis, the foremost contemporary authority on Jews under Islam, who wrote in Semites and Anti-Semites that their situation was "never as bad as in Christendom at its worst, nor ever as good as in Christendom at its best". On the one hand, there is nothing in the history of Muslim-Jew relations to parallel the Spanish inquisition, the Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. On the other, there is nothing to compare with the progressive emancipation and civic equality accorded to Jews in the democratic west since the French revolution.

Gilbert reveals his inexperience in this particular field on the very first page, when he misdates the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud by at least 500 years and the choice of Jerusalem as the Jewish capital by around 200. Thereafter – apart from appearing to regard the Biblical fable of Queen Esther as authentic – he provides a soberly accurate account of the 1,400 year propinquity between Jews and Muslims since Mohammed first proclaimed himself God's prophet, appropriating many of Judaism's beliefs and practices. The so-called Pact of Omar in the early 8th century formalised the rights of non-believers under Muslim rule: in return for personal safety, security of property, freedom of worship and communal autonomy, Jews and Christians had to accept inferior dhimmi status and consent to payment of the jizya (poll) tax to the local ruler.

As in Christian Europe, the stringency or leniency with which these rules were applied – along with ancillary ones forbidding Jews to build new synagogues, wear certain clothing, ride horses or employ Muslims – varied from ruler to ruler and depending on Jewish utility to the state. Under the fanatical Almohad dynasty, Jews faced ferocious persecution – the great Moses Maimonides was one who temporarily converted to Islam to escape death during that period. But in Toledo, Seville and Granada, before Ferdinand and Isabella expelled both Jews and Muslims in 1492, many Jews rose to high office while relations with followers of Islam were so convivial that it is still referred to as the "Golden Age of Spanish Jewry". By the same measure, conditions for Jews were generally benign throughout the Ottoman empire for centuries.

The influx of Zionist pioneers into Palestine from 1897 onwards, and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, had a fateful impact on Jewish-Muslim coexistence. In such a bitter conflict we are all parti pris and even a scrupulous recorder like Gilbert is drawn into polemics and apologetics. For example, in detailing the shocking Arab riots of 1929 – in which 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded – he might have mentioned that the violence was fuelled in large part by the provocations of Zionist activists at the Wailing Wall (as with Ariel Sharon's walkabout on the Temple Mount before the second intifada). And while it is pertinent to point out that 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands have been fed, housed and absorbed by Israel since 1948 while 750,000 Palestinian refugees languish in camps, dependent on United Nations handouts, this does not invalidate the crucial fact that the latter suffered a grave injustice at Israel's founding.

The pogroms in Baghdad, Tripoli, Cairo and Tangier that followed events in 1948 were almost as bad as any atrocity perpetrated against Jews in medieval Europe, with its accusations of poisoned wells and revival of the "blood libel" – the accusation, recurrent throughout history, that Jews use Muslim or Christian blood in their religious rituals. The Suez crisis of 1956 and the 1967 six-day war intensified the hostility palpable in Arab streets and hastened the exodus of virtually all remaining Jews from countries such as Egypt where they had lived for over two millennia. In recent decades, growing religious fundamentalism on both sides has added a toxic new ingredient, exacerbating still further an intractable geopolitical dispute.

For Gilbert to conclude with the wish that his book contribute to a better future for Muslims and Jews does credit to his faith in humanism – but also, some might say, signifies the triumph of hope over experience.

Rabbi David J Goldberg's To the Promised Land: A History of Zionist Thought was recently reissued by Faber Finds.

A long diplomatic hiatus in efforts to resolve the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict will end when direct talks are convened in Washington on 2 September 2010. The Barack Obama administration’s commitment to progress is highlighted by the president’s role in opening the discussions, and in its invitation to Egyptian and Jordanian leaders to attend the gathering. But the obstacles are formidable, with the White House’s ambition of a resolution of outstanding issues taking only a year looking very optimistic.

A list of the four most substantive and difficult matters that will have be engaged is enough to illustrate this:

•    the settlements that now stretch right across the West Bank, and which have been greatly expanded since the Oslo peace process started in the early 1990s

•    the final boundaries for an independent Palestine, including the status of Gaza and the physical link between the strip and the West Bank

•    the status of Jerusalem - seen by both parties to the dispute as its capital (see Mariano Aguirre, "Israel-Palestine: a frontline report", 26 March 2010)

•    the rights of the Palestinian diaspora, both refugees and their descendants living in the region and those in other parts of the world, including the question of a return to land and homes lost in 1948.

The Palestinians face enormous problems, of which even the enduring political division between the Fatah and Hamas movements is but one. Their national predicament is such that many Palestinians find it near-impossible to envisage a viable state as a realistic possibility; a significant minority now embraces the idea of a unitary state covering the whole of historic Palestine. This “one-state solution” is anathema to almost all Israelis, not least as demographic trends would mean that Israeli Jews would become a minority in such a state within a few decades.

More generally, Israel’s overriding preoccupation with security reinforces its view of a region of enemies where any measure of political progress is seen in terms of the new vulnerabilities it may entail. Thus, for example, it views Hamas as exclusively a terrorist entity with which no negotiation is possible.

The reward of failure

At the outset of the talks, the Israelis will seek - as a precondition for any negotiations - the immediate and complete acceptance of the state of Israel, with all the security guarantees it requires (see Akiva Eldar, "With a victory like this...", Ha'aretz, 23 August 2010). Any decision by Israel to halt the freeze on new settlement-construction, and to restart further large-scale building projects, could wreck negotiations before they are underway. This alone means that it will be fortunate if the two sides are still talking in October, let alone in mid-2011.

Moreover, many in the Israeli government are confident that Israel is negotiating from such a position of strength that it need not make any serious concessions. They are bolstered here by a domestic rightward shift over the past generation, in part because of the influx of migrants from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s (see Colin Shindler, "Israel's rightward shift: a history of the present", 23 February 2009). 

The calculation here is that the talks will (sooner or later) fail, leaving Israel to return to its tried-and-tested stance of enforcing security through overwhelming conventional military power, backed up by nuclear forces. In addition, behind its own iron fist it can rely on the backing of the world's sole superpower.

Israel is supported in this outlook by influential networks in Washington, among them the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and other lobby-groups. Aipac itself may not enjoy such unstinting loyalty as before - and liberal Jewish initiatives such as J Street offer a more nuanced view of what it means to be “pro-Israel” - but it has been successful in forging links with evangelical Christians who espouse an apocalyptic vision of Israel’s role in God's plan (see “Christian Zionists and neocons: a heavenly marriage”, 2 February 2005).

This balance of forces, with Israel “impregnable in its own insecurity” and the Palestinians weak and divided, looks a recipe for diplomatic failure. Yet three factors are in play which should in principle give the Israelis pause - and should certainly be of deep concern to any thoughtful Israeli politician with a longer-term perspective on his or her state's situation.

The costs of failure

The first factor is that asymmetric military systems in the region - especially the extraordinary levels of mass production of short- and medium-range missiles in Iran, Syria and elsewhere - are becoming ever more difficult for Israel to counteract. Hizbollah, in Lebanon, has tens of thousands of missiles that can reach across much of Israel (see Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “The Hizbollah project: last war, next war”, 13 August 2009); and Iran, whether or not it has serious nuclear ambitions, is developing robust solid-fuel medium-range missiles (see "An asymmetrical drone war", 19 August 2010).

The second is that some senior figures in the American military are beginning to express in public a view they may previously have voiced only in private: that in relation to US interests in the middle east, Israel is part of the problem rather than a means to a solution. The argument here is that the Palestinians’ enduring predicament, for which Israel bears a great responsibility, acts as a potent radicalising force across the region - with deleterious effects both on the US’s strategic position and on the security of its forces (see "America and Israel: a historic choice", 18 March 2010).

The exceptionally close relationship between the Israeli and the American military makes such a shift of focus too important to ignore. The United States, after all, meets over 20% of the Israeli defence budget, and US forces make extensive use of Israeli equipment and training facilities. A number of columns in this series has explored this theme: (see, for example, “After Saddam, no respite” [19 December 2003]; "Between Fallujah and Palestine" [21 April 2004]; "Gaza: the Israel-United States connection" [7 January 2009]; and “A tale of two towns” [21 June 2007]). In these circumstances, indications of diminishing support for Israel in leading US military circles should be of huge concern to serious Israeli politicians.

The third factor is more long-term; it too relates most immediately to the United States, but it also affects western European public opinion. In June 1967, Israel vanquished three Arab armies in the six-day war and in the process occupied great swathes of territory. This historic victory consolidated support in the west (particularly the US) for what was perceived as “brave little Israel”, and in time was also seen by those adhering to a politically influential Christian-Zionist worldview as the fulfilment of a religious destiny.

Almost two generations on, both the region’s geopolitics and its demography have changed. The war of 1967 is a living memory only for those in middle age or above; far more important and pressing on the minds of people observing the region from outside is Israel’s widespread destruction in the Gaza war of 2008-09, the relentless expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and other human-rights infringements great or small. The Israeli government may present these issues in a very different light - but its message is less persuasive than ever. In many circles, even those previously sympathetic to Israel, a profound reversal of roles has occurred in the region’s “David vs Goliath” combat - with the result that Israel, now seen as an overweening bully, is losing its moral legitimacy.

Some in Israel’s national community - journalists, academics, NGO workers among them - recognise this, and are doing their best to alert their compatriots to the dangers of the situation (see Thomas Keenan & Eyal Weizman, "Israel: the third strategic threat", 7 June 2010). But most Israelis, starting with the Binyamin Netanyahu administration, do not. As a whole, the Israeli state seems not to understand - and may simply be unable to see - that its posture is unsustainable (see “Israel’s security trap”, 5 August 2010).

Time really is running out for Israel; but most probably, only outside actors can enable the country to recognise this (see “After Gaza: Israel’s last chance”, 17 January 2009). In this respect, the Barack Obama administration may be different enough from its predecessors as to ensure some serious diplomatic progress. If as a result the Washington talks on 2 September 2010 become truly serious in the coming months, Obama’s presidency could yet be responsible for a historic achievement that would help save Israel from itself.

Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox: 

Department of peace studies, Bradford University

Paul Rogers, Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010)

Ha'aretz

Colin Shindler, A History of Modern Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

J Street

Dina Siegel, The Great Immigration: Russian Jews in Israel (Berghahn, 1998)

BitterLemons

Victoria Clark, Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (Yale University Press, 2007)

Miftah - Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy

Colin Shindler, The Triumph of Military Zionism: Nationalism and the Origins of the Israeli Right (IB Tauris, 2005; paperback 2009)

Sidebox: 

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001, and writes an international-security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group

His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010)

Related stories: 

Israel’s security trap

The Hizbollah project: last war, next war

Israel vs Iran: fallout of a war

Israeli post-democracy: origins and prospects

Arabs in Israel: on the move

Israel's shadow over Iran

In search of an Israeli left

Asymmetric war: Iran and the new normal

Hamas's path to reinvention

Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality

Israel: the third strategic threat

After Gaza: Israel's last chance

Israel’s rightward shift: a history of the present

Israel at 60: the “iron wall” revisited

Hamas: talk to them

Israel: how things fell apart

The Palestinian vuvuzela

Israel-Turkey-United States: Gaza’s global moment

Israel-Palestine: a frontline report

From Ha'aretz in 2007:

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) was an important British historian, who through his controversial theory on civilizations found a place in Israeli and Jewish awareness as an "anti-Semite." According to his theory, civilizations, like human beings, have life cycles that are marked by rises and falls. But the story of the Jewish people, who were determined to survive 2,000 years in the Diaspora only to rise again as a modern nation, did not suit his theory. Thus Toynbee described the Jews as a historic "fossil" - not dead, true, but also not really alive.

When he published his theory at the beginning of the 1960s, he was invited to a debate. The person who invited him was Dr. Yaakov Herzog, at the time Israel's ambassador to Canada, son of the former chief rabbi Yitzhak Herzog and the younger brother of Chaim Herzog, a brilliant scholar and diplomat. Many of Foreign Ministry officials were wary of this debate, which was reminiscent of the mythological word battles in the Middle Ages between Jews and Christians. In the end, however, all those who were present at the debate that took place in January 1961 in Montreal were convinced that Herzog had won.

An email correspondent brought this to my attention and asked if I could find the transcript of that debate. Well, not quite, but the Canadian Jewish Chronicle summarized the entire debate point-by-point, and even though it occurred nearly forty years ago, Toynbee's criticism of Israel sounds exactly the same as those of today's critics - except that Toynbee actually had some regard for the truth. Herzog's successful counter- arguments apply today as well as they did then.

Here is their description of the debate:

Professor Arnold Toynbee and Israel`s Ambassador to Canada, Yaakov Herzog, met in debate at Hillel House on Tuesday, January 31 at noon. At issue were the contentions which Dr. Toynbee had put forth in answer to the student body at an informal session held there last week.

During the course of his observations. Dr. Toynbee had compared the Israeli treatment of the Arabs during the War for Independence in 1948 with that which the Nazis had done to the Jewish people. He also questioned the legal right of the establishment of the Israeli state in a territory which was predominantly Arab.

Ambassador Herzog began addressing himself to the initial issue raised by Professor Toynbee. This point of view he had initially expressed in a book published in l954 wherein he made the comparison between the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis and the manner in which the Israelis dealt with the Arabs during the course of the Arab war to frustrate the United Nations’ decision to partition mandated-Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

At the very outset, Dr. Toynbee audibly agreed with the Ambassador that, in question of magnitude between the between these two events, there was no possible comparison. The Ambassador in turn, agreed with the point of view which Dr. Toynbee had put forth....that the answer to the human dilemma [between] the preservation of man or the destruction of the race lies in the willingness to take a moral leap which must oome from a deep sense of moral commitment.

‘What was the exact situation in newly-partitioned Palestine? Mr. Herrog asked. With the announcement of the United Nations decision in 1947, Radio Cairo promised a war of extermination and massacre. Even before the actual partition took place, vicious attacks on the Jewish settlement had become the order of the day. Inevitably, in every struggle, individual groups of military have been guilty of atrocities towards civilians. That this was never the attitude of the Israeli people has been fully established by subsequent history, the Ambassador  continued. "We resisted in self- defence.' But the moment the war was at an end, the 200,000 Arabs within the country were fully integrated into the life and economy and enjoy full and equal privileges with all other citizens of the state.

Professor Toynbee agreed, in his address, with the Ambassador that in magnitude. there was a profound distinction between what happened to the Jews under Nazi control and the treatment accorded the Arabs. While insisting that in essence, the extensiveness of an atrocity is not
the determining factor, he conceded that this action was probably taken by military forces representing independent groups rather than by the regular forces. But what about the occupation of Arab-owned property?

Ambassador Herzog pointed out that 70 per cent of the land occupied hy the Israelis had not been privately owned. These were crown lands under Turkish control and with the establishment of the mandate, the rights were assumed by the British government. He also underscored Israel's constant willingness since the armistice to engage in definite negotiations promising full  compensation to the former owners. These had fled from Palestine in response to the radio urgings from Egypt to leave during hostilities in order to return with the victorious Arabs.

If we are to think in humanitarian and moral terms, the Ambassador asked, how can we justify the action of the Arab states in putting the refugee problem in a political and demagogic framework? 

Dr. Toynbee admitted that he, too, had asked the same question of Arab leaders and that he roundly condemned their refusal to participate in the resettlement of their fellow-countrymen who are now in camps within their borders. At the same time he underscored his conviction that the continuing displacement of the Arab refugees remains a grave moral issue.

To this, the Ambassador responded in practical tems. The Israelis have been willing since the
close of the fighting to negotiate a settlement including full compensation to those who left property and home behind. Thus far, the governments involved have adamantly refused to do anything about it. Furthermore, is it good political logic to ask Israel to take back peoples who left with the expectation to return with conquering, victorious armies and, who have, for the ensuing years, lived with the notion of hatred and revenge? To admit these peoples is tantamount to national suicide. ‘Is this to be expected of any state?

Finally. Mr. Herzog raised thc controversial issue of Professor Toynbee's reference to the Jewish people in terms of a “fossilized civilization." The Professor explained that he had merely applied this term in want of a more appropriate word fof description to indicate those civilizations which, while continuing to live, had temporarily ceased to function. "A fossil doesn`t die," the Ambassador objected. “but also doesn`t live." That this is not applicable to the Jewish c1vilization, he offered these distinct points in evidence. A civilization has survived which would be acceptable today to the very men responsible for its creation these two millenia ago. A national existence has been reborn. There has been an ingathering of peoples from seventy lands who have discovered spontaneously a common cultural link, that has assumed democratic forms in keeping with the best of western traditions and the only nation in the Middle East to have attained this stature. Finally, its own technological advancement has been a source of help and guidance to a great number of newly-formed states. This, he concluded. was ample proof that the Jewish civilization is not to be included in a fossil-labelled category.

The debate, which at the outset assumed the form of a high-level dialogue, concluded on the same cordial note, with expression; of good-fellowship on the part of both participants.

At least one newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen, agreed that Herzog's arguments won the day:

Oroub al-Abed has spent her career documenting the endemic and systematic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Egypt, writing numerous articles and a book on that topic. Yet it is practically unknown.

A book review summarizes the main points of their history up until 1978:

El-Abed notes that prior to Israel’s independence in 1948 there were approximately 75,000 Palestinians living in Egypt. Most had settled in Cairo and Alexandria and lived close to other Palestinians, and were from the middle and upper classes, and some had acquired Egyptian citizenship. Their residency was considered temporary, and many believed, with the encouragement from Arab governments, that they would return to Israel. However, after the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Egypt became responsible for the welfare of two separate Palestinian communities; the Palestinians living in Egypt proper, which numbered approximately 87,000 and the 200,000 Palestinians living in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, a small, densely populated territory seized by Egypt during the war. Palestinian living conditions in the Gaza Strip were harsh. They remained stateless, their travel was restricted, and an Egyptian governor ruled the territory with an iron fist.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by granting them free education in public schools and many worked as businessmen, merchants, mechanics, farmers, and fishermen. He also allocated subsidies for students to enter Egyptian universities and helped create the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, although the latter was more out of his desire to control Palestinian affairs than out of benevolence.

After the 1967 War, the Gaza Strip fell under Israeli control and approximately 13,000 additional Palestinians entered Egypt. Their stateless condition persisted after Nasser’s death in 1970, and new, harsh measures enacted by President Anwar Sadat sought to draw clearer distinctions between Palestinian and Egyptian identities. Sadat revoked some privileges Palestinians enjoyed under Nasser and in 1978, he enacted a law which banned Palestinian children from free public schools, forcing them to switch to costly private schools. He also imposed Law 48, which prohibited Palestinian workers from the public sector. Palestinians were also viewed with suspicion and persecuted, particularly after Egyptian Minister of Culture Yusuf al-Sibai’s assassination by the Palestinian terrorist group Abu Nidal in 1978.

That assassination is a hugely important event in Palestinian Arab history, as al-Abed writes in this fascinating section of her book. Essentially, in the course of only weeks after that assassination, Palestinian Arabs in Egypt turned into the Jews of the Arab world:

For the Palestinian population in Egypt, the turning point—repeatedly cited in our interviews—was the 18 February 1978 assassination in Nicosia, Cyprus, of Egyptian culture minister Yusif al-Siba‘i by the notorious Palestinian Abu Nidal faction. Though Abu Nidal had been expelled from Fatah and the PLO with much fanfare in the early 1970s and was widely known to be their sworn enemy, the Egyptian government and media did not hesitate to stigmatize the Palestinians in general for the assassination. At al-Siba‘i’s funeral, Egyptian prime minister Mustafa Riyad declared, “No more Palestine after today.” The fallout of the assassination was immediately felt within Egypt’s Palestinian community, with a flurry of arrests, surveillance, and detentions. Although the research for this book did not yield specific information on the number of Palestinians arrested after al-Siba‘i’s death, some interviewees reported that Palestinian houses were regularly searched for young men to bring in for questioning.

The police made intensive arrest campaigns against Palestinians after the death of al-Siba‘i. That day, the police came to the building where I live and asked about a Palestinian officer in the army, which was my rank then. My Egyptian neighbors spoke highly of me and I was lucky that they did not come again. (P1, Giza, Cairo, 10 May 2002)
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After the killing of al-Siba‘i, Egyptians considered Palestinians as Jews [an allusion to Palestinian perceived economic power], although we are Arabs like them. One day the front window of my shop was broken. Of course, it was an Egyptian who did it. Why? What have I done to them? Is it only because I am Palestinian, like those who killed al-Siba‘i? (P9, Wailey, 24 June 2002)

The al-Siba‘i assassination triggered a spate of anti-Palestinian editorializing, which further inflamed popular opinion. “Disloyalty” became a trait frequently attributed to Palestinians. Another endlessly repeated charge—mentioned by a great number of our interviewees as a standard and deeply ingrained idea about Palestinians—is that they “sold their land to the Zionists” of their own accord and therefore got what they deserved. Not atypical is the following passage from the popular Egyptian daily al-Akhbar:

Each one of the thousands of people who participated in the funeral asked himself: Is this what we get for having waged four wars for those who killed him? For having deprived ourselves of bread in order to recover their lost land? . . . for having deprived our children of the places in the university that were their due so they [Palestinians] could have them? . . . for having tasted death so they could live? Are those the words we sacrificed ourselves for so that Gaza and the West Bank would be liberated before Sinai? Our people do not deserve such ingratitude. (Mustafa Amin, al-Akhbar, 20 February 1978)

It was also during the period following the assassination that reports of Palestinian wealth increased, which sharpened resentments among poor Egyptians and fueled the Palestinians’ reputation for having “taken over” the Egyptian economy. As an example of the kind of journalistic writing that encouraged such notions, a 13 May 1979 article headlined “All These Fortunes for Palestinians Living in Egypt!!!” appeared in Egyptian Weekly Magazine. Among the article’s claims were that 60 percent of the shops in Central Cairo and Port Said were Palestinian-owned and that 12,000 private import-export offices and 40 farms were run by Palestinians. Exaggerating Palestinian economic power in this way suggested to the local population that the Palestinians in their midst were vampires sucking the blood of the Egyptian people.

Of far more lasting practical consequence, however, were the legal changes that followed al-Siba‘i’s killing. On 28 February 1978, a mere ten days after the assassination, the authoritative al-Ahram reported the prime minister’s announcement that the government would “reconsider all procedures that treated Palestinians as nationals. The purpose [was] to rank Palestinians with other Arab nationals and to safeguard national rights for Egyptians.” Indeed, the threat was soon carried out, with President Sadat issuing administrative regulations 47 and 48 of 1978 decreeing that all regulations treating Palestinians as nationals were to be annulled. Ministries hastened to apply the regulations: “The Ministry of Labor warned against issuing foreigners, including Palestinians, permits for business or for creating offices for export/import. Exceptions [were] made for those who had been married to Egyptian women for the past five years” (al-Ahram, 7 August 1978). More specifically, Law 48 concerned work in the public sector. Section 1 of Article 16 of the law stipulated that employment of Arab nationals should be on a “reciprocal basis.” This meant that the government of Egypt would hire citizens only of countries that hired Egyptian nationals. Needless to say, the stateless Palestinians were excluded under this law.

The dismantling of Nasser’s legislation favoring the Palestinians continued for the remainder of Sadat’s regime, further tightening restrictions on employment and extending the restrictions to other spheres, especially education, where Palestinians saw themselves progressively deprived of their access to free education and to university study.

An often overlooked aspect of the cancellation of the regulations treating Palestinians as nationals is that it did not concern solely the Palestinians in Egypt. The measures had far-reaching consequences for Palestinians across the Arab world, at least with regard to education. For more than twenty years, Palestinians could be educated in Egyptian universities free of charge, and tens of thousands took advantage of the offer: From the mid-1960s until 1978, an average of 20,000 Palestinian students per year were enrolled in Egyptian universities. 

In this sense, then, what ended with the legislation following the al-Siba‘i assassination was the lingering legacy of Nasser’s “sponsorship” of the Palestinian people. By enacting these measures, Sadat was signalling that Egypt was no longer the patron of the Palestinians nor the primary Arab defender of their cause.

Here we have explicit "anti-Palestinianism" that was enshrined as Egyptian policy - and most of it remains to this day, as can be seen in this shorter article on the same topic.

Palestinian Arabs in Egypt are discriminated against in terms of jobs, education, land ownership and (of course) citizenship. Yet this topic is essentially unknown.

Because, really, who cares about Palestinian Arabs when their troubles cannot be blamed on Israel?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of Middle East Review of International Affairs and Turkish Studies. Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Rubin describes what he considers the new Israeli consensus with respect to making peace with the Palestinians:

• In exchange for full peace, Israel would give up all of the Gaza Strip and almost all the West Bank, with border adjustments or land swaps to adjust the borders by about three percent.

• Israelis doubt the Palestinians are ready for a full peace, and are more skeptical than they'd been during the Oslo experiment, which cost thousands of Israeli lives.

• True, there is no consensus about precisely how east Jerusalem should be handled. What is basically accepted as the highest priority is incorporating the Jewish Quarter of the Old City (captured by Jordan in the 1948 war, after which all its Jewish inhabitants were expelled), access to it through the tiny Armenian Quarter(about one city block), and the Western Wall, with the Temple Mount next. The Arab-inhabited areas are likely to be traded away as long as there is no significant security threat to the Israeli portion of the city.

• Palestinian refugees must be resettled in Palestine, not Israel.

• The rise of an Islamist threat, including the seizure of Gaza by Hamas, makes real peace seem even further off.

• The status quo is sustainable for a long time. If Palestinian misery is the motive to break the deadlock, then why don't we see any eagerness to make peace, negotiate with Israel, and get a state on the part of the Palestinians themselves? Within this framework, the governments of Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu have all functioned along similar lines. There is no strong alternative vision; there is no real alternative to current policies.

The final point, though crucial, is often overlooked. For its part, Israel clearly has no strong incentive to change the status quo with respect to Palestinians. The country is thriving and Palestinians are inflicting very little damage.

Reasonable Israelis might wish to see the Palestinians improve their lot. But even assuming that Israeli concessions would help bring this about, it would be unreasonable for Israel to put its security at risk just to help Palestinians.

The absence of any strong incentive for Israel to take such risks probably helps explain the Obama administration's stridency. It is attempting to create an artificial incentive by threatening Israel's standing in Washington. But Israel probably believes that this threat will blow over, either because Obama will back off or because Obama will blow over.

Israel does face serious threats from Iran and from Iran's client, Hezbollah in Lebanon. It may be that these threats make the status quo unsustainable for Israel. Thus, the Obama administration has attempted to bootstrap these threats into his efforts to extract concessions from Israel, claiming that they are the product of the absence of a Middle East peace agreement.

But Israel understands that this is not a serious claim. Even if the Palestinians agreed to give up their efforts to eliminate the Jewish state, and meant it, they would still feel aggrieved by the existence of that state, as would Israel's militant enemies in Lebanon and Iran. Thus, there is no reason to suppose that a Middle East peace agreement would eliminate or reduce the threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah.

If Israel concludes that the status quo in South Lebanon and/or Iran is unsustainable in the strong sense, the answer lies in military action, not in making concessions to the Palestinians.

Historian Efraim Karsh notices the same poll that I noticed a week ago:

What... are we to make of a recent survey for the Al Arabiya television network finding that a staggering 71 percent of the Arabic respondents have no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks? “This is an alarming indicator,” lamented Saleh Qallab, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. “The Arabs, people and regimes alike, have always been as interested in the peace process, its developments and particulars, as they were committed to the Palestinian cause itself.”

But the truth is that Arab policies since the mid-1930s suggest otherwise. While the “Palestine question” has long been central to inter-Arab politics, Arab states have shown far less concern for the well-being of the Palestinians than for their own interests.

For example, it was common knowledge that the May 1948 pan-Arab invasion of the nascent state of Israel was more a scramble for Palestinian territory than a fight for Palestinian national rights. As the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdel Rahman Azzam, once admitted to a British reporter, the goal of King Abdullah of Transjordan “was to swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine, with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the Negev. Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to the Lebanon.”

From 1948 to 1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Arab states failed to put these populations on the road to statehood. They also showed little interest in protecting their human rights or even in improving their quality of life — which is part of the reason why 120,000 West Bank Palestinians moved to the East Bank of the Jordan River and about 300,000 others emigrated abroad. “We couldn’t care less if all the refugees die,” an Egyptian diplomat once remarked. “There are enough Arabs around.”

Not surprisingly, the Arab states have never hesitated to sacrifice Palestinians on a grand scale whenever it suited their needs. In 1970, when his throne came under threat from the Palestine Liberation Organization, the affable and thoroughly Westernized King Hussein of Jordan ordered the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, an event known as “Black September.”

Six years later, Lebanese Christian militias, backed by the Syrian Army, massacred some 3,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the Beirut refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar. These militias again slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in 1982 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, this time under Israel’s watchful eye. None of the Arab states came to the Palestinians’ rescue.

Worse, in the mid-’80s, when the P.L.O. — officially designated by the Arab League as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people” — tried to re-establish its military presence in Lebanon, it was unceremoniously expelled by President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.

This history of Arab leaders manipulating the Palestinian cause for their own ends while ignoring the fate of the Palestinians goes on and on. Saddam Hussein, in an effort to ennoble his predatory designs, claimed that he wouldn’t consider ending his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait without “the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Arab territories in Palestine.”

Shortly after the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaitis then set about punishing the P.L.O. for its support of Hussein — cutting off financial sponsorship, expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers and slaughtering thousands. Their retribution was so severe that Arafat was forced to acknowledge that “what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.”

Against this backdrop, it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For if the Arab regimes’ self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.

The sooner the Palestinians recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace with the existence of the State of Israel and to understand the need for a negotiated settlement.

(h/t JSing)

1. Where did the Yaman and Qais tribes, who fought a bloody feud for hundreds of years in Palestine, come from, respectively?

A. Ancient Canaan and Philistia
B. Yemen and Northern Arabia
C. Syria and Transjordan
D. Yemen and Egypt

2, According to John MacGregor, who visited Palestine in the 1870s, what was the worst insult that an Arab could hurl at another Arab?

A. Dog
B. Pig
C. Monkey
D. Jew

3. What was the year of the first organized Arab attack against a Jewish settlement?

A. 1852
B. 1886
C. 1921
D. 1929


4. What was the year of the first official Arab boycott of Jewish businesses in Palestine?

A. 1909
B. 1921
C. 1936
D. 1946


5. In the early 1930s, tens of thousands of people from what country illegally immigrated into Palestine because of a severe drought?

A. Russia
B. Poland
C. Syria
D. Egypt

6. Who gave a live radio broadcast to the attendees of the Palestine Pavilion in the 1939 New York World's Fair?

A. Hajj Amin Husseini
B. Winston Churchill
C. Fawzi al-Qawuqji
D. Chaim Weizmann

7. Two teams of Nazis parachuted into Palestine in 1944. Each team included one person who had what in common?

A. Jews who bargained their lives to avoid death camps
B. Arab ringleaders of the 1936 uprising who fled to Nazi Germany
C. British Nazi-sympathizers
D. Iraqi collaborators

8. What were "boycott bombs"?

A. Bombs against Arab businesses by Jews
B. Bombs against Jewish businesses by Arabs
C. Bombs against Arab businesses by Arabs
D. Bombs against Arabs by Jewish victims of the Arab boycott

9. Who collaborated with the Arab side in the 1948 War of Independence?

A. Escaped Nazi prisoners of war
B. WWII French Resistance fighters
C. Members of the British Union of Fascists
D. Soviet spies

10. Who were the first refugees forced to flee their homes in the days leading up to the 1948 War?

A. Jews from Jaffa
B. Arabs from Deir Yassin
C. Arabs from Jaffa
D. Jews from Jerusalem



Answers with links:
1. B
2. D
3. B
4. A
5. C
6. D
7. B
8. C
9. A and C
10. A  (Palestine Post pageviews gone at the moment)

A nice piece in City Journal. Here is a portion:

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A specter is haunting the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations—the specter of the Nakba. The literal meaning of the Arabic word is “disaster”; but in its current, expansive usage, it connotes a historical catastrophe inflicted on an innocent and blameless people (in this case, the Palestinians) by an overpowering outside force (international Zionism). The Nakba is the heart of the Palestinians’ backward-looking national narrative, which depicts the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 as the original sin that dispossessed the land’s native people.

There is only one just compensation for the long history of suffering, say the Palestinians and their allies: turning the clock back to 1948. This would entail ending the “Zionist hegemony” and replacing it with a single, secular, democratic state shared by Arabs and Jews. All Palestinian refugees—not just those still alive of the hundreds of thousands who fled in 1948, but their millions of descendants as well—would be allowed to return to Jaffa, Haifa, the Galilee, and all the villages that Palestinian Arabs once occupied.

Such a step would mean suicide for Israel as a Jewish state, which is why Israel would never countenance it. At the very least, then, the Nakba narrative precludes Middle East peace. But it’s also, as it happens, a myth—a radical distortion of history.

During the 1948 war and for many years afterward, the Western world—including the international Left—expressed hardly any moral outrage about the Palestinian refugees. This had nothing to do with Western racism or colonialism and much to do with recent history. The fighting in Palestine had broken out only two years after the end of the costliest military conflict ever, in which the victors exacted a terrible price on the losers. By that, I don’t mean the Nazi officials and their “willing executioners,” who received less punishment than they deserved, but the 11 million ethnic Germans living in Central and Eastern Europe—civilians all—who were expelled from their homes and force-marched to Germany by the Red Army, with help from the Czech and Polish governments and with the approval of Roosevelt and Churchill. Historians estimate that 2 million died on the way. Around the same time, the Indian subcontinent was divided into two new countries, India and Pakistan; millions of Hindus and Muslims moved from one to the other, and hundreds of thousands died in related violence. Against this background, the West was not likely to be troubled by the exodus of a little more than half a million Palestinians after a war launched by their own leaders.

In the 1940s, moreover, most of the international Left actually championed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. It was widely noted that the new state would be led by self-proclaimed socialists. Statehood for the Jews was supported by the Soviet Union and by the Truman administration’s most progressive elements. The Palestinians were also compromised by the fact that their leader in 1948, Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, had been a Nazi collaborator during the war.

In fact, I. F. Stone, the most revered left-wing journalist of the day, was one of the most influential American advocates for the Zionist cause. I have in my possession a book by Stone called This Is Israel, distributed by Boni and Gaer, a major commercial publisher at the time. The book, based on Stone’s reporting during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, has become a collector’s item by virtue of the fact that Stone’s fans want to forget that it ever existed.

Accompanied by famed war photographer Robert Capa’s iconic images of male and female Israeli soldiers, Stone’s text reads like a heroic epic. He writes of newborn Israel as a “tiny bridgehead” of 650,000 up against 30 million Arabs and 300 million Muslims and argues that Israel’s “precarious borders,” created by the United Nations’ November 1947 partition resolution, are almost indefensible. “Arab leaders made no secret of their intentions,” Stone writes, and then quotes the head of the Arab League, Abdul Rahman Azzam: “This war will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongol massacres and the Crusades.”

And how does Stone explain the war’s surprising outcome and the sudden exodus of the Palestinian Arabs? “Ill-armed, outnumbered, however desperate their circumstances, the Jews stood fast.” The Palestinians, by contrast, began to run away almost as soon as the fighting began. “First the wealthiest families went,” Stone recounts. “While the Arab guerrillas were moving in, the Arab civilian population was moving out.”

What is most revealing about the book is the issue that Stone does not write about: the fate of the refugees after their exodus. Stone undoubtedly shared the conventional wisdom at the time: that wars inevitably produced refugees and that the problem was best handled by resettlement in the countries to which those refugees moved. Stone surely expected that the Arab countries to which the Palestinian refugees had moved would eventually absorb them as full citizens.

Stone could never have foreseen that for the next 62 years, the Palestinians would remain in those terrible refugee camps—not just in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but in Lebanon, Syria, and present-day Jordan as well. Nor could Stone have imagined that not one Arab country would move to absorb the refugees and offer them citizenship, or that the Palestinians’ leaders would insist on keeping the refugees locked up in the camps for the purpose of dramatizing their Nakba narrative.

Unfortunately, no amount of documentation and evidence about what really happened in 1948 will puncture the Nakba narrative. The tale of dispossession has been institutionalized now, an essential part of the Palestinians’ armament for what they see as the long struggle ahead. It has become the moral basis for their insistence on the refugees’ right to return to Israel, which in turn leads them to reject one reasonable two-state peace plan after another.

Nor will the facts about 1948 impress the European and American leftists who are part of the international Nakba coalition. The Nakba narrative of Zionism as a movement of white colonial oppressors victimizing innocent Palestinians is strengthened by radical modes of thought now dominant in the Western academy. Postmodernists and postcolonialists have adapted Henry Ford’s adage that “history is bunk” to their own political purposes. According to the radical professors, there is no factual or empirical history that we can trust—only competing “narratives.”

This makes for a significant subculture in the West devoted to the delegitimization of Israel and the Zionist idea. To leftists, for whom Israel is now permanently on trial, Stone’s 1948 love song to Zionism has conveniently been disappeared, just as Trotsky was once disappeared by the Soviet Union and its Western supporters (of whom, let us not forget, Stone was one).

Several years ago, I briefly visited the largest refugee camp in the West Bank: Balata, inside the city of Nablus. Many of the camp’s approximately 20,000 residents are the children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren of the Arab citizens of Jaffa who fled their homes in early 1948.

For half a century, the United Nations has administered Balata as a quasi-apartheid welfare ghetto. The Palestinian Authority does not consider the residents of Balata citizens of Palestine; they do not vote on municipal issues, and they receive no PA funding for roads or sanitation. The refugee children—though after 60 years, calling young children “refugees” is absurd—go to separate schools run by UNRWA, the UN’s refugee-relief agency. The “refugees” are crammed into an area of approximately one square kilometer, and municipal officials prohibit them from building outside the camp’s official boundaries, making living conditions ever more cramped as the camp’s population grows. In a building called the Jaffa Cultural Center—financed by the UN, which means our tax dollars—Balata’s young people are undoubtedly nurtured on the myth that someday soon they will return in triumph to their ancestors’ homes by the Mediterranean Sea.

In Balata, history has come full circle. During the 1948 war, Palestinian leaders like Haj Amin al-Husseini insisted that the Arab citizens of Haifa and Jaffa had to leave, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state. Now, the descendants of those citizens are locked up in places like Balata and prohibited from resettling in the Palestinian-administered West Bank—again, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state, this time by removing the Palestinians’ chief complaint. Yet there is a certain perverse logic at work here. For if Israel and the Palestinians ever managed to hammer out the draft of a peace treaty, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, would have to go to Balata and explain to its residents that their leaders have been lying to them for 60 years and that they are not going back to Jaffa. Which, to state the obvious again, is one of the main reasons that there has been no peace treaty.

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Read the whole thing.

Special to My Catbird Seat

Defenders of Israel right or wrong continue to assert that the absence of peace is all the fault of the Palestinians.

In one sense they are right. When the Palestine file was closed by Israel’s victory (ethnic cleansing and all) on the battlefield in 1948, the Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency. That was according to the script written by Zionism and effectively endorsed by all the major powers and, behind closed doors, the regimes of a divided and impotent Arab order. Nobody in power anywhere wanted the Palestine file to be re-opened because, if it was, a confrontation with Zionism in all of its awesome manifestations would one day be inevitable. So it could be said if the Palestinians had been prepared to be the sacrificial lamb, the first Arab-Israeli war would also have been the last.

By such cruel and mad logic the Palestinians are to blame for the sustaining and escalation of the conflict.

But let’s now leave fantasy land and acknowledge that the hallmark of Zionism in action is saying one thing to the world and doing the opposite.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that Israel has no future unless there’s a two-state solution, but the colonization of the occupied West Bank went on. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu let the word’s “two states” pass through his lips and, under pressure from President Obama, he even declared a moratorium on settlement building for 10 months, but the colonization went on. (And will no doubt be speeded up when the phoney moratorium ends in September).

So a question. Is there now case for saying that the time has come for the Palestinians to call Israel’s bluff?

Continue Reading

PLEASE SIGN THE CIRCULATE THE PETITION
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/12101982/petition.html

To: International Olympics Committee
Dear International Olympics Committee (IOC)

We, the undersigned citizens of the world, call on the international Olympics Committee to rescind Israel's participation in the London 2012 Olympics.

Israel's attack on a humanitarian aid fleet on Monday 31 May 2010, its murder of 9 human rights activists in international waters, and wounding many more, demonstrate that Israel rejects the structural tenets of our shared humanity, manifested in a global moral consensus and international law.

Israel was established on the ruins of another country, Palestine. In 1948 more than half the population of Palestine were uprooted from their cities and villages, 400 of which were completely destroyed. The state of Israel has never allowed Palestinian refugees to return and today their number has reached 7 million, many of whom are still stateless, living in refugee camps in Palestine and other Arab countries

Since its establishment the state of Israel has consistently violated international law. To date, it has defied 246 UN Security Council Resolutions. As a direct consequence, seven million Palestinians are excluded from the right to live on land internationally acknowledged to be theirs; and increasingly, they are being excluded from their right to any future at all as a nation. The 4 million Palestinians in the occupied territories have endured over 40 years of brutal occupation and denied even the most basic Human rights. The 1.4 million who remain in Israel are second class citizens.

The daily brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues; Palestinian land continues to be stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For years now the state of Israel has been carrying out a slow genocide in the Gaza Strip, maintaining a tight blockade over its inhabitants and repeated bombing raids all of which are contrary to International Laws which prohibit collective punishment.

The Israeli military used white phosphorus munitions in the 2008-2009 Gaza war. The IDF acknowledged it's use after the war ended.

Several reports from human right groups during the war indicated that white phosphorus shells were being used by Israel in violation of international law. Human Rights Watch said shells exploded over populated civilian areas, including a crowded refugee camp, a UN compound where food was stored, and a United Nations school where civilians were seeking refuge.

Human Rights Watch said its experts in the region had witnessed the use of white phosphorus. Kenneth Roth, the organisation's executive director, added: "This is a chemical compound that burns structures and burns people. It should not be used in populated areas."

Amnesty International said a fact-finding team found "indisputable evidence of the widespread use of white phosphorus" in crowded residential areas of Gaza City and elsewhere in the territory. Donatella Rovera, the head of an Amnesty fact-finding mission to southern Israel and Gaza, said: "Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the USA to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes."

"Israel's policy on settlements is not only unlawful, it also impacts severely on the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the constructions taking place on occupied Palestinian land," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other prominent South Africans have likened the situation of the Palestinians to apartheid for which South Africa were banned from international sporting events including the Olympic Games.

The challenge of apartheid was fought with the non-violent international response of a campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions. Today Palestinian artists, trade unionists, teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable boycott of Israel, as offering another path to a just peace, saying, “ At a time when the international movement to isolate Israel is gaining ground in response to the escalation of Israel's violently colonial and racist policies, we respectfully urge conscientious organisations, sportsmen, academics, artists and intellectuals from around the world, including those who visit [or host Israeli's from] the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), to refrain from visiting [or hosting] Israel to participate in any event or encounter that is not explicitly dedicated to ending Israel's illegal occupation and other forms of oppression. Regardless of intentions, such visits only contribute to the prolongation of injustice by normalizing and thereby legitimizing it, and inadvertently support Israel's efforts to appear as a "normal" participant in the "civilized" world of sport, science, scholarship and art while at the same time practising a pernicious form of apartheid against Palestinians.” This call has been endorsed by some brave Israeli dissidents and many prominent international figures.

Boycott is a tactic which allows people, as distinct from their elected governments, to apply pressure on those wielding power in an unjust way. It is directed not against people but against oppressive and unjust policies and regimes in order to bring about change. I would also remind you that Principle 2 of the Olympic Charter declares the principles of Olympism to “place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity”. Also principle 5 which states "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion,
politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement." Clearly the acts of genocide against Palestinians and the forcing out by the illegal expansion of the settlements is a violation of this principle. By your own words in Principle 6 "Belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC." As Israel are not compliant how can they then participate under the current conditions that Palestinians are faced with? Particularly considering that "The name of an NOC must reflect the territorial extent and tradition of its country..." However many Israelis are living on disputed land and therefore Israeli athletes cannot be considered to be from the legitimate territorial extent of their country.

Contrary to Olympic Charter bye-laws stating "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas" you will; by allowing Israel to participate and not taking a stand against their racist policies; be implicitly supporting war crimes, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and continued oppression of the Palestinian people, a people seeking to end the silence of the international community and achieve a just peace. The Israeli politicians and citizens see every visit to and from Israel as an act of support for their policies. Every cancellation is a reminder to them that all is not well and that there will be a price for the ongoing oppression and the indifference for rights of Palestinians.

If you require more information about the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories, organisations such as Amnesty International, the World Health Organisation and the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem have published detailed reports.

We feel sure that, in the light of the information available, you would not wish to lend support – however indirect and implicit – to Israel’s policies, by allowing them to attend and participate in such a high profile event that aims to be “a force for good”.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
(http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?12101982)

An on-line Arabic  Al Arabiya poll (not scientific, but not as self-selecting as PressTV polls) showed that only 10% of their audience followed the "peace process" closely, and 71% say it no longer interests them at all.

A columnist in Asharq al-Awsat, Saleh Qallab, is very upset. He asks, unbelievingly, "Palestine is not the top priority for Arabs?!" He calls the results "surprising and frustrating" and calls this development "dangerous."

It is inconceivable to this editorialist that the wall-to-wall coverage of a people who have nothing to do with the day to day lives of ordinary Arabs has made them sick of the whole topic - especially in light of the Hamas/Fatah split, which turned off a lot of previously supportive Arabs. If Palestinians can't get their act together, they are saying, why should we beat our heads against the wall for these babies?

Qallab allows that Arab nations have other concerns that may appear more pressing, like the war  in Yemen and the situations in Iraq and Somalia and the Sudan and fears of an Iranian nuclear bomb and intra-Arab terrorism. Even so,  he continues to claim - without any supporting evidence - that the Palestine issue is the "core of conflict in the region," as if those other issues would vanish once there is a Palestinian Arab nation.

It shows once again that ordinary Arabs tend to be far wiser than their intellectual and political leaders. They don't buy the fiction that Palestinian Arabs are the most important issue in their lives, despite being brainwashed to that effect for generations. And more than a few are actively angry at Palestinian Arabs.

The first comment to the op-ed is interesting. An Iraqi now in Sweden writes:

On the issue of Arabs and their problems with Israel, I say why didn't the Arabs will agree to the United Nations partition in 1948? And why did they not give the Palestinians the West Bank and Gaza Strip when it was under their control before 1967? I say to myself, an Iraqi, why would you want me to support the people who applauded the criminal who killed my people, who still have his picture in their homes and who they now they see as a martyr? Do you think I have suffered blindness? The Palestinians do not deserve me, not even a fingernail, and never will!

Apparently, "linkage" is believed more by the Obama administration than it is by the Arab world whose leaders harp on that very fiction.

(h/t Ali for finding the poll.)

Arabs conquered Spain in the 8th century. Then the Spaniards, 800 years later, returned, claimed their land back and got it after the bloody war which is known as the Reconquista. And all the world does not put the right of Spaniards on this land in doubt even for a second. Moreover, Spaniards EXPELLED Arabs from Spain! ALL of them! Hundreds of thousands of men, women , children! Did someone say a word? Not even in a whisper. And Arabs do not claim Spain as their "native land" and do not tell tales about how they are "the native inhabitants of Andalusia". Arabs ruled in Palestine only 300 years. They never created there anything that can be called A State. Then Jews, 1000 years later, returned, claimed their land back and in 1948 got it after the bloody war. But they did not expel all Arabs. And now we have Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians", who weep over how "Jews stole their land" in Judea, and tell surrealistic tales about how "Israelis robbed them of their land" in Israel. And the world thoughtfully nods. What conclusion would you make? What should the Jews do in 1948?

Most of you probably won't recognize filmmaker Julian Schnabel, but you may recognize some of his past films, including Before Night Falls and the Oscar nominated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly with Mathieu Amalric, one of my personal favorites. His latest film is called Miral, after the main character in the film, a young woman, played by Freida Pinto, who lives in an orphanage setup in Jerusalem by Hind Husseini in the wake of the 1948 partition of Palestine. In addition to Pinto, this stars Willem Dafoe, Vanessa Redgrave and Alexander Siddig. This is a French trailer (via The Playlist) but is in English, so it's definitely watchable. Watch the first official trailer for Julian Schnabel's Miral: Miral tells the story of four women whose lives intertwine in a starkly human search for justice, hope and reconciliation amid a world overshadowed by conflict, rage and war. A chronicle of Hind Husseini's ...

An Israeli religious group plans to build flats in a historic area, threatening to overturn an uneasy balance with local Arabs and reviving memories of past traumas

Almost anywhere else, it would be exactly what it seems: an empty plot of land behind a wire fence where weeds sprout and rubbish blows about while it awaits the concrete mixers.

But here every stone and blade of grass comes with a bitter and contested history. This unremarkable plot on Jaffa's Etrog Road is at the centre of a struggle that touches on social, religious, nationalist, economic and legal questions and which – whatever the outcome – will inevitably result in further strife.

Jaffa is one of the few areas of Israel where Muslims and Jews have coexisted, albeit often uneasily, for decades. But the determination of an organisation of national-religious Jews to build a 20-apartment development, exclusively for subscribers to a rigidly Zionist ideology, is threatening to destabilise the delicate balance in this troubled area of Israel's main city, Tel Aviv.

This week the high court in Jerusalem is set to rule on a case brought by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel claiming that the project discriminates against Arabs and non-religious Jews. The organisation behind the development, Bemuna, says it merely wants to create a religious community free from non-Jewish and secular influences.

The activists fear the newcomers intend to impose their observances on the neighbourhood – such as a prohibition on driving cars on the Jewish sabbath. They blame the state of Israel for leasing the land to Bemuna in the full knowledge that it planned to build housing barred to locals.

"If they come, the community will be polarised," local historian and political activist Sami Abu Shehadeh told the Observer. "Those people that say Jaffa is a model of coexistence will be silenced." Their objective, he claims, is to "Judaise" a mainly Arab neighbourhood.

Bemuna rejects this, saying it aims to "spread Torah" (religious texts) among secular Jews. "Jewish families buy properties in [Jaffa] all the time, but when a religious company decides to do so it is unfortunately considered to be racism," Israel Zeira, the company's chief executive, told the Observer. He earlier told the Jerusalem Post that claims of Judaisation were "a ridiculous incitement by radical Muslim elements who make their money from strife and conflict".

Jaffa – the "Bride of Palestine" – was the country's commercial and cultural centre in the first half of the last century. All that changed in 1948 when, according to an "abridged history" displayed by the Tel Aviv city authority on a boulevard overlooking the Mediterranean, "Jaffa was liberated" in the war that led to the creation of the state of Israel.

The Arab population saw it rather differently. The vast majority of the 100,000 Arabs in Jaffa were forced to leave in fear for their lives; the port and beaches were packed with families scrambling for places on ships to Gaza or Lebanon. Others fled on foot to Nablus in the West Bank or Jordan. Within days, only 4,000 remained; the rest were destined to be lifelong refugees.

"All the Palestinians in Jaffa were rounded up and brought to the Ajami neighbourhood, surrounded by a fence with soldiers and dogs," said Abu Shehadeh. "The Jews called our neighbourhood a ghetto. My grandfather, who used to get a taxi from Jaffa to Beirut, needed military permission to leave Ajami."

A year later Israel decreed that properties whose owners were "absent" would pass to the state. Not only did all of Jaffa's refugees lose their property, but so did those forced into Ajami who owned property in other areas of the city: "1948 was the first naqba [catastrophe]," said Abu Shehadeh. "The absentee law was the second."

An Israeli policy of moving new, poor Jewish immigrants into Ajami during the 1950s worsened the overcrowding. Ajami became the most deprived and criminal neighbourhood of Tel Aviv.

After decades of neglect, developers spotted Jaffa's potential. Work began on renovating the Old City in the 1960s; today it is a charming area of bijou shops, galleries, museums and restaurants. Even this has not been without controversy. Not one of the artists in the "artists' quarter" is Arab, says Abu Shehadeh.

Developers have moved beyond the Old City. There is a plan for the former Ottoman-era prison in the grounds of Jaffa's main mosque to be converted into a boutique hotel. A shopping mall has been proposed. Gated apartment blocks are being built for Jews from abroad.

"The whole neighbourhood is a construction site," said Abu Shehadeh. "We – the Arabs – are being forced out again, but we have nowhere else to go. Usually in gentrification projects at least part of the community enjoys the benefits. Not here."

Arabs who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 were subsequently only allowed to part-own property in Jaffa, he said. For three decades, no permits were granted by the city authority for Arabs to extend homes. Many did so illegally, as their families expanded. Now, locals say, 500 families have been issued with eviction or destruction orders and more are facing huge fines.

Abu Shehadeh estimated that 5-10% of local Arabs had benefited from tourism and gentrification schemes. This comes on top of overcrowding, poor education, inadequate policing, crime and poverty – all graphically depicted in the Oscar-nominated film Ajami.

These issues are not being addressed, activists say. The authorities, they claim, are only interested in advancing the interests of Jewish incomers.

Abu Shehadeh does not expect Ajami's Arabs to win their case on Wednesday. "We have no power. Economically and politically we're at the margins," he said. Recounting a recent episode when, he claimed, national-religious Jews marched through Ajami, carrying Israeli flags and abusing Arabs, he said: "After the court case, it will only be a question of time. They will come, and this will be our daily life."

Silke in the comments points to a UNRWA document showing the increase in Palestinian "refugees" since 1950. Here it is (transposed to make it easier to read):

Year	Jordan	Lebanon	Syria	West Ban	Gaza	Total
1950	506,200	127,600	82,194	-	198,227	914,221
1955	502,135	100,820	88,330	-	214,701	905,986
1960	613,743	136,561	115,043	-	255,542	1,120,889
1965	688,089	159,810	135,971	-	296,953	1,280,823
1970	506,038	175,958	158,717	272,692	311,814	1,425,219
1975	625,857	196,855	184,042	292,922	333,031	1,632,707
1980	716,372	226,554	209,362	324,035	367,995	1,844,318
1985	799,724	263,599	244,626	357,704	427,892	2,093,545
1990	929,097	302,049	280,731	414,298	496,339	2,422,514
1995	1,288,197	346,164	337,308	517,412	683,560	3,172,641
2000	1,570,192	376,472	383,199	583,009	824,622	3,737,494
2005	1,795,326	401,071	426,919	690,988	969,588	4,283,892
2008	1,930,703	416,608	456,983	754,263	1,059,584	4,618,141

If you prefer charts:


A couple of things struck me when looking at this.

First of all, there is a missing column in the table. There is one other country that had people defined as Palestinian refugees in 1950 not listed here - and that country is Israel.

According to UNRWA, Israel had 48,000 Palestinian refugees:  31,000 Arabs and 17,000 Jews. Israel managed to integrate the refugees, Arabs and Jews alike, into its society and they disappeared from the refugee rolls within a couple of years.

If Arab countries had worked at treating their Palestinians as well as Israel did (reducing the population by 25,000 refugees a year,) they would have eliminated the refugee problem within 20 years rather than let it fester for thrice that time.

Not only that, but the percentage of refugees compared to total population was about 8% in Lebanon, 2% in Syria, and 4% in Israel. So there is no excuse that the other countries were overwhelmed and couldn't handle the refugees - Israel not only absorbed these refugees but took hundreds of thousands of additional refugees from Arab countries at the exact same time - all without help from any UN agencies. (In Jordan, the percentage of refugees was about 40% of the population, but keep in mind that Jordan also gained a lot of land in the 1948 war that many of the refugees were already living on.)

Isn't it interesting, though, that UNRWA doesn't acknowledge the Palestine refugees in Israel in their statistics? It's almost as if they are embarrassed that the single success story for Palestinian Arab refugees came in the country that they have a seething hatred for.

Another very important fact that we glean from these statistics: Nearly all of the "refugees" that live in Jordan are Jordanian citizens! Not only is UNRWA's definition of a "refugee" skewed by including the descendants of refugees, but they also include a huge population that is not stateless at all!

UNRWA actually admits this, with tendentious logic. This past February, Michael Kingsley-Nyinah, Director of the Executive Office of UNRWA, gave a speech in Malta about how UNRWA looks at Jordanians of Palestinian origin, and his words are amazing:

Refugees residing in Jordan and Syria enjoy a wide range of rights and freedoms that have helped to mitigate the hardships of displacement. Many are granted economic rights and access to the employment market, and the stability of these countries means they are spared the trauma of armed conflict. Among the relatively less disadvantaged are the refugees in Jordan who enjoy the privileges of special categories of Jordanian nationality.


The advantages of residing in Jordan and Syria are welcome and beneficial. Yet they do not obscure the vulnerability inherent in the refugee label. Neither do they detract from the distinctness of the refugee identity.

The refugees and host communities share an implicit understanding that the sojourn of Palestine refugees is temporary – and that this transient state is unchanged by the lengthy duration of their exile. As a corollary, “refugee consciousness” is strong among Palestinians, including the younger generation. The passing years have left intact a sense of injustice, a demand for acknowledgement and a desire for their travail to be justly resolved. Across the Middle East, Palestine refugees define themselves (and are defined by others) by reference to the historical experience of exile.

For any other group of refugees, the UN (meaning the UNHCR) bends over backwards to remove the "refugee label," but UNRWA applies it even in situations when it shouldn't exist. Arab nations refused to treat the early refugees like human beings, and UNRWA eventually not only went along with this evil plan, but institutionalized it.

A person who was born and raised as a citizen of another country cannot be called a "refugee" by any sane definition. Yet the UNRWA does exactly that. With a stroke of a pen, they could have reduced the number of "refugees" by 40% - and they instead kept the label.

One result is that even Jordanians are discriminating against Palestinian Jordanians, sixty years after their ancestors became citizens. UNRWA has made their "otherness" official and has justified it by using the words of those who hate them most by claiming that their status is temporary. By defining Palestinian Jordanians as somehow only temporary Jordanians, UNRWA is justifying their discrimination.

There is another implication of using the word "temporary" to define the "sojourn" of the PalArabs. If their status is only temporary, then surely Israel's status is temporary as well, and will end with their "return."

As I've mentioned before, on two occasions when Lebanon allowed a limited number of so-called "refugees" to become citizens of that country, the Palestinian Arabs jumped at the opportunity. Many more would happily trade in their "refugee" status for the opportunity to be normal, functioning citizens of their host countries, or of other Arab countries. They are not being given that choice, and a good part of that is because UNRWA is doing everything they can to perpetuate and expand the purported number of "refugees" for decades after they no longer should have that label.

Today's Times has a front page story purporting to tell us what life is really like for residents of the Gaza strip.

Some of the important points made:

:: Hunger isn't the most serious problem. Though some Gazans are desperately poor, overall the situation is worse in places like Lebanon. In Gaza, the most serious problem is "idleness, uncertainty and despair." People can't work, and can't leave. This despair is what seems to be at the root of the population's hatred for Israel.

:: And not just hatred for Israel:  "Dozens of interviews with all sorts of people found few willing to praise their government [i.e. Hamas] or that of its competitor. [i.e. Fatah]" “They’re both liars,” Waleed Hassouna, a baker in Gaza City, said in a very common comment.

:: Disagreements between Hamas and Fata contribute to the crises in Gaza. It is their rivalry, for example, that has caused this summer's electricity shortage.

Read it all after the jump




Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and ETHAN BRONNER

GAZA CITY — The women were bleary-eyed, their voices weak, their hands red and calloused. How could they be expected to cook and clean without water or electricity? What could they do in homes that were dark and hot all day? How could they cope with husbands who had not worked for years and children who were angry and aimless?

Sitting with eight other women at a stress clinic, Jamalat Wadi, 28, tried to listen to the mental health worker. But she could not contain herself. She has eight children, and her unemployed husband spends his days on sedatives.

“Our husbands don’t work, my kids are not in school, I get nervous, I yell at them, I cry, I fight with my husband,” she blurted. “My husband starts fighting with us and then he cries: ‘What am I going to do? What can I do?’ ”

The others knew exactly what she meant.

The Palestinians of Gaza, most of them descended from refugees of the 1948 war that created Israel, have lived through decades of conflict and confrontation. Their scars have accumulated like layers of sedimentary rock, each marking a different crisis — homelessness, occupation, war, dependency.

Today, however, two developments have conspired to turn a difficult life into a new torment: a three-year blockade by Israel and Egypt that has locked them in the small enclave and crushed what there was of a formal local economy; and the bitter rivalry between Palestinian factions, which has undermined identity and purpose, divided families and caused a severe shortage of electricity in the middle of summer.

There are plenty of things to buy in Gaza; goods are brought over the border or smuggled through the tunnels with Egypt. That is not the problem.

In fact, talk about food and people here get angry because it implies that their struggle is over subsistence rather than quality of life. The issue is not hunger. It is idleness, uncertainty and despair.

Any discussion of Gaza’s travails is part of a charged political debate. No humanitarian crisis? That is an Israeli talking point, people here will say, aimed at making the world forget Israel’s misdeeds. Palestinians trapped with no future? They are worse off in Lebanon, others respond, where their “Arab brothers” bar them from buying property and working in most professions.

But the situation is certainly dire. Scores of interviews and hours spent in people’s homes over a dozen consecutive days here produced a portrait of a fractured and despondent society unable to imagine a decent future for itself as it plunges into listless desperation and radicalization.

It seems most unlikely that either a Palestinian state or any kind of Middle East peace can emerge without substantial change here. Gaza, on almost every level, is stuck.

Disunity

A main road was blocked off and a stage set up for a rally protesting the electricity shortage. Speakers shook nearby windows with the anthems of Hamas, the Islamist party that has held power here for the past three years. Boys in military camouflage goose-stepped. Young men carried posters of a man with vampire teeth biting into a bloodied baby.

The vampire was not Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. It was Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

“We stand today in this furious night to express our intense anger toward this damned policy by the illegitimate so-called Fayyad government,” Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official, shouted.

As if the Palestinian people did not have enough trouble, they have not one government but two, the Fatah-dominated one in the West Bank city of Ramallah and the Hamas one here. The antagonism between them offers a depth of rivalry and rage that shows no sign of abating.

Its latest victim is electricity for Gaza, part of which is supplied by Israel and paid for by the West Bank government, which is partly reimbursed by Hamas. But the West Bank says that Hamas is not paying enough so it has held off paying Israel, which has halted delivery.

“They are lining their pockets and they are part of the siege,” asserted Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader and a surgeon, speaking of the West Bank government. “There will be no reconciliation.”

John Ging, who heads the Gaza office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as U.N.R.W.A., says the latest electricity problem “is a sad reflection of the divide on the Palestinian side.”

He added, “They have no credibility in demanding anything from anybody if they show such disregard for the plight of their own people.”

Today Hamas has no rival here. It runs the schools, hospitals, courts, security services and — through smuggler tunnels from Egypt — the economy.

“We solved a lot of problems with the tunnels,” Dr. Zahar said with a satisfied smile.

Along with the leaders has come a new generation that has taken the reins of power. Momen al-Ghemri, 25, a nurse, and his wife, Iman, 24, an Arabic teacher, are members of it.

University educated, the grandchildren of refugees, still living in refugee camps, both of the Ghemris got their jobs when Hamas took over full control by force three years ago, a year after it won an election. Neither has ever left Gaza.

Mr. Ghemri works as a nurse for the security services, earning $500 a month, but is spending six months at the intensive care unit of Shifa Hospital.

Spare parts for equipment remain a problem because of the blockade. But on a recent shift, the I.C.U. was well staffed. In the office next door, there was a map on the wall of Palestine before Israel’s creation.

Mr. Ghemri’s grandparents’ village, Aqer, is up there, along with 400 other villages that no longer exist. A wall in another office offered instructions on the Muslim way to help a bedridden patient pray.

Mr. Ghemri’s wife greets visitors at home wearing the niqab, or face veil, only her eyes visible. She believes in Hamas and makes that clear to her pupils. But her husband sees the party more as a means toward an end.

“You can’t go on your own to apply for a job,” he said. “For me, Hamas is about employment.”

He does like the fact that, as he put it, Hamas “refuses to kneel down to the Jews,” but like most Gazans, he is worried about Palestinian disunity and blames both factions.

In fact, there is a paradox at work in Gaza: while Hamas has no competition for power, it also has a surprisingly small following.

Dozens of interviews with all sorts of people found few willing to praise their government or that of its competitor.

“They’re both liars,” Waleed Hassouna, a baker in Gaza City, said in a very common comment.

People here seem increasingly unable to imagine a political solution to their ills. Ask Gazans how to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — two states? One state? — and the answer is mostly a reflexive call to drive Israel out.

“Hamas and Fatah are two sides of the same coin,” Ramzi, a public school teacher from the city of Rafah, said in a widely expressed sentiment. “All the land is ours. We should turn the Jews into refugees and then let the international community take care of them.”

Dried-Up Fortunes

Hamza and Muhammad Ju’bas are brothers, ages 13 and 11. They sell chocolates and gum on the streets after school to add to their family income. Once they have pulled in 20 shekels, about $5, they go home and play.

On one steamy afternoon they were taking refuge in a cellphone service center. The center — where customers watch for their number on digital displays and smiling representatives wear ties, and the air-conditioning never quits — seems almost glamorous.

The boys were asked about their hopes.

“My dream is to be like these guys and work in a place that’s cool,” Muhammad said.

“My dream is to be a worker,” Hamza said. He hears stories about the “good times” in the 1990s, when his father worked in Israel, as a house painter, making $85 a day. Later, their father, Emad Ju’bas, 45, said, “My children don’t have much ambition.”

The family is typical. They live in Shujaiya, a packed eastern neighborhood of 70,000, a warren of narrow, winding alleys and main roads lined with small shops.

The air is heavy with dust and fumes from cars, scooters and horse-drawn carts. Every shop has a small generator chained down outside. Roaring generators and wailing children are the sounds of Shujaiya.

Families are big. From 1997 through 2007, the population increased almost 40 percent, to 1.5 million. Palestinians say that large families will help them cope as they age, and more children mean more fighters for their cause.

Mr. Ju’bas and his wife, Hiyam, have seven boys and three girls. Two of their children have cognitive disabilities. Since Israel’s three-week war 18 months ago here aimed at stopping Hamas rockets, their children frequently wet the bed. Their youngest, Taj, 4, is aggressive, randomly punching anyone around him.

For six years Mr. Ju’bas worked in Israel, and with the money he bought a house with six rooms and two bathrooms. In 2000, when the uprising called the second intifada broke out, Israel closed the gates.

After that, Mr. Ju’bas found small jobs around Gaza, but with the blockade that dried up. His only source of work is at the United Nations relief agency, where two months a year he is a security guard.

He admits that at times he lashes out at his family. Domestic violence is on the rise. The strain is acute for women. Men can go out and sit in parks, in chairs right on the sidewalk or visit friends. Women are expected to stay off the streets.

The women at the stress clinic gathered about 10 a.m. They entered silently, wearing the ubiquitous hijab head scarf and ankle-length button-down overcoat known as the jilbab. Two wore the niqab over their faces.

They spoke of sending their children to work just to get them out of the house and of husbands who grew morose and violent.

They blamed Hamas for their misery, for seizing the Israeli soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, which led to the blockade. But they also blamed Fatah for failing them.

“My own children tell me it is better to die,” Jamalat Wadi said to the group.

Ms. Wadi’s home was next door and she ran over to check on the family. She found her eight children wandering aimlessly in an open paved area, a courtyard filled with piles of clothes and plastic containers. The house had one unfurnished room and her husband, Bahjat, 28, was on the floor, unconscious, his arm over his head, his mouth open.

“He sleeps all the time,” Ms. Wadi said, motioning as though throwing a pill in her mouth.

The Wadis are refugees, so they receive flour, rice, oil and sugar from U.N.R.W.A. Tens of thousands of others here receive salaries from the Ramallah government to stay away from their jobs in protest over Hamas rule. They wait, part of a literate society with nothing to do.

Ms. Wadi said that when she visited her mother, her two brothers fought bitterly because one backs Hamas and the other backs Fatah. Recently they threw bottles at each other. Her mother kicked them out.

In another meeting, Mr. Ju’bas was unshaven and unwashed. The previous night he had hit his wife, one of his children said. The washing machine had broken and he had no money to fix it.

He told his wife to use the neighbors’. But she was embarrassed. She stayed up all night cleaning clothes and crying.

“My only dream,” Mr. Ju’bas said, “is to have patience.”

Inside Looking Out

The waves were lapping the beach. It was night. Mahmoud Mesalem, 20, and a few of his friends were sitting at a restaurant.

University students or recent graduates, they were raised in a world circumscribed by narrow boundaries drawn hard by politics and geography. They all despaired from the lack of a horizon.

“We’re here, we’re going to die here, we’re going to be buried here,” lamented Waleed Matar, 22.

Mr. Mesalem pointed at an Israeli ship on the horizon, then made his hand into a gun, pointed it at his head. “If we try to leave, they will shoot us,” he said.

There are posters around town with a drawing of a boot on an Israeli soldier, who is facedown, and the silhouette of a man hanging by his neck. The goal is to get alleged collaborators to turn themselves in. The campaign has put fear in the air.

Israel is never far from people’s minds here. Its ships control the waters, its planes control the skies. Its whims, Gazans feel, control their fate.

And while most here view Israel as the enemy, they want trade ties and to work there. In their lives the main source of income has been from and through Israel.

Economists here say what is most needed now is not more goods coming in, as the easing of the blockade has permitted, but people and exports getting out.

That is not going to happen soon.

“Our position against the movement of people is unchanged,” said Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, the Israeli in charge of policy to Gaza’s civilians. “As to exports, not now. Security is paramount, so that will have to wait.”

Direct contact between the peoples, common in the 1980s and ’90s when Palestinians worked daily in Israel, is nonexistent.

Jamil Mahsan, 62, is a member of a dying breed. He worked for 35 years in Israel and believes in two states.

“There are two peoples in Palestine, not just one, and each deserves its rights,” he said, sitting in his son’s house. He used to attend the weddings of his Israeli co-workers. He had friendships in Israel. Today nobody here does.

The young men sitting by the beach contemplating their lives were representative of the new Gaza. They have started a company to design advertisements, and they write and produce small plays.

Their first performance in front of several hundred people involved a recounting of the horrors of the last war with Israel, with children speaking about their own fears as video of the war played.

Their second play, which they are rehearsing, is a black comedy about the Palestinian plight. It assails the factions for fighting and the Arabs for selling out the Palestinians.

“Our play does not mean we hate Israel,” said Abdel Qader Ismail, 24, a former employee of the military intelligence service, with no trace of irony. “We believe in Israel’s right to exist, but not on the land of Palestine. In France or in Russia, but not in Palestine. This is our home.”

Mona El-Naggar and Fares Akram contributed reporting.

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Palestinian refugees fled their homes for Jordan in 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence, expecting to return some day, but refugee camps have become homes even for their children, who have never seen Palestine.