Below is a critique of "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think." The findings of the book will be presented by its co-author at the DM Public Library on Grand Avenue, 5:30 pm on Tues., May 27. To register for the forum, go to: www.uscenterforcitizendiplomacy.org/
Just Like Us! Really? By Robert Satloff
The Weekly Standard, May 12, 2008
On the inside back cover of books published by Gallup Press there is the following breathtaking statement:
Gallup Press exists to educate and inform the people who govern, manage, teach and lead the world's six billion citizens. Each book meets Gallup's requirements of integrity, trust and independence and is based on a Gallup-approved science and research.
Don't be distracted by the bad grammar. Focus instead on Gallup's "requirements of integrity, trust and independence." Thanks to a remarkable admission by a coauthor of Gallup's new bestseller Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, we are now able to know precisely what Gallup's "requirements" really are.
Who Speaks for Islam? is written by John L. Esposito, founding director of Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. As the authors state at the outset, the book's goal is to "democratize the debate" about a potential clash between Western and Muslim civilizations by shedding light on the "actual views of everyday Muslims" -- especially the "silenced majority" whose views Esposito and Mogahed argue are lost in the din about terrorism, extremism, and Islamofascism.
This majority, they contend, are just like us. They pray like Americans, dream of professional advancement like Americans, delight in technology like Americans, celebrate democracy like Americans, and cherish the ideal of women's equality like Americans. In fact, the authors write, "everyday Muslims" are so similar to ordinary Americans that "conflict between the Muslim and Western communities is far from inevitable."
Similar arguments have been made before; some of this is true, some is rubbish, much is irrelevant. The real debate about the "clash of civilizations" is about whether a determined element of radical Muslims could, like the Bolsheviks, take control of their societies and lead them into conflict with the West. The question often revolves around a disputed data point: Of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, how many are radicals? If the number is relatively small, then the fear of a clash is inflated; if the number is relatively large, then the nightmare might not be so outlandish after all.
What gives Who Speaks for Islam? its aura of credibility is that its answers are allegedly based on hard data, not taxi-driver anecdotes from a quick visit to Cairo. The book draws on a mammoth, six-year effort to poll and interview tens of thousands of Muslims in more than 35 countries with Muslim majorities or substantial minorities. The polling sample, Esposito and Mogahed claim, represents "more than 90 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims." To back up the claim, the book bears the name of the gold-standard of American polling firms, Gallup.
The answer to that all-important question, the authors say, is 7 percent. That is the percentage of Muslims who told pollsters that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were "completely" justified and who said they view the United States unfavorably -- the double-barreled litmus test devised by Esposito and Mogahed to determine who is radical and who isn't.
The authors don't actually call even these people "radicals," however; the term they use is "politically radicalized," which implies that someone else is responsible for turning these otherwise ordinary Muslims into bin Laden sympathizers. By contrast, Muslims who said the 9/11 attacks were "not justified" they term "moderates."
More than half the book is an effort to distinguish the 7 percent of extremist Muslims from the "9 out of 10," as they say, who are moderates and then to focus our collective efforts on reaching out to the fringe element. With remarkable exactitude, they argue: "If the 7 percent (91 million) of the politically radicalized continue to feel politically dominated, occupied and disrespected, the West will have little, if any, chance of changing their minds." There is no need to worry about the 93 percent because, as Esposito and Mogahed have already argued, they are just like us.
There is much here to criticize. The not-so-hidden purpose of this book is to blur any difference between average Muslims around the world and average Americans, and the authors rise to the occasion at every turn. Take the very definition of "Islam." From Karen Armstrong to Bernard Lewis -- and that's a pretty broad range -- virtually every scholar of note (and many who aren't) has translated the term "Islam" as "submission to God." But "submission" evidently sounds off-putting to the American ear, so Esposito and Mogahed offer a different, more melodious translation -- "a strong commitment to God" -- that has a ring to it of everything but accuracy.
Or take the authors' cavalier attitude to the word "many." How many is many? Thirty percent of the vote won't get Hillary Clinton nominated for president, but it would be a lot if the subject were how many Americans cheat on their taxes or beat their wives. At the very least, one might expect a book based on polling data to be filled with numbers. This one isn't. Instead, page after page of Who Speaks for Islam? contains such useless and unsourced references as "many respondents cite" this or "many Muslims see" that.
Or take the authors' apparent indifference to facts. Twice, for example, they cite as convincing evidence for their argument poll data from "the ten most populous majority Muslim countries," which they then list as including Jordan and Lebanon, tiny states that don't even rank in the top 25 of Muslim majority countries. Twice they say their 10 specially polled countries collectively comprise 80 percent of the world Muslim population; in fact, the figure is barely 60 percent.
These problems would not matter much if the book gave readers the opportunity to review the poll data on which Esposito and Mogahed base their judgments. Alas, that is not the case. Neither the text nor the appendix includes the full data to a single question from any survey taken by Gallup over the entire six-year period of its World Poll initiative. We, the readers, either have to pay more than $20,000 to Gallup to gain access to its proprietary research or have to rely on the good faith of the authors.
Or, more accurately, we have to rely on Gallup's good name -- the "integrity, trust and independence" cited above. Public comments by Mogahed at a luncheon I hosted at the Washington Institute on April 17 show exactly what that is worth.
Here's the context: As the event was about to close, Mogahed was pressed to explain the book's central claim that radicals constitute 7 percent of the world's Muslim population. A questioner focused on the critical distinction between the 7 percent of respondents who said the 9/11 attacks were "completely justified" and the other 93 percent. How many of those 93 percent, Mogahed was asked, actually answered that the attacks were "partly," "somewhat," or even "largely" justified? Were those people truly moderates?
In her answer, transcribed below, Mogahed refers in pollster code to numbers ascribed to the five possible answers to the poll question about justifying 9/11. Although she and Esposito never discuss the details of this question in their book, they did expound on them in a 2006 article in Foreign Policy magazine, which described a five-point scale in which "Ones" are respondents who said 9/11 was "totally unjustified" and "Fives" those who said the attacks were "completely justified."
In that article, she and Esposito wrote: "Respondents who said 9/11 was justified (4 or 5 on the same scale) are classified as radical." In the book they wrote two years later, they redefined "radical" to comprise a much smaller group -- only the Fives. But in her luncheon remarks, Mogahed admitted that many of the "moderates" she and Esposito celebrated really aren't so moderate after all.
MOGAHED: I can't off the top of my head [recall the data], but we are going to be putting some of those findings in our [updated] book and our website.
To clarify a couple of things about the book -- the book is not a hard-covered polling report. The book is a book about the modern Muslim world that used its polling to inform its analysis. So that's important: It's meant for a general audience, and it's not meant to be a polling report. One very important reason why is because Gallup is selling subscriptions to its data. We are a for-profit company; we are not Pew. We are Gallup. So this isn't about . . . it was not meant for the data to be free since we paid $20 million to collect [the data] . . . that we paid all on our own. So just to clarify that . . .
So, how did we come up with the word "politically radicalized" that we unfortunately used in the book? Here's why: because people who were Fives, people who said 9/11 was justified, looked distinctly different from the Fours . . . At first, before we had enough data to do sort of a cluster analysis, we lumped the Fours and Fives together because that was our best judgment.
QUESTIONER: And what percent was that?
MOGAHED: I seriously don't remember but I think it was in the range of 7 to 8 percent [actually, 6.5 percent].
QUESTIONER: So it's seven Fours and seven Fives?
MOGAHED: Yes, we lumped these two and did our analysis. When we had enough data to really see when things broke away, here's what we found: Fives looked very different from the Fours, and Ones through Fours looked similar. [Mogahed then explained that, on another question, concerning suicide bombing, respondents who said 9/11 was only partially justified clustered with those who said it wasn't justified at all.] And so the Fives looked very different; they broke, they clustered away, and Ones through Fours clustered together. And that is how we decided to break them apart and decided how we were to define "politically radicalized" for our research.
Yes, we can say that a Four is not that moderate . . . I don't know. . . .You are writing a book, you are trying to come up with terminology people can understand. . . . You know, maybe it wasn't the most technically accurate way of doing this, but this is how we made our cluster-based analysis.
So, there it is -- the smoking gun. Mogahed publicly admitted they knew certain people weren't moderates but they still termed them so. She and Esposito cooked the books and dumbed down the text. Apparently, by the authors' own test, there are not 91 million radicals in Muslim societies but almost twice that number. They must have shrieked in horror to find their original estimate on the high side of assessments made by scholars, such as Daniel Pipes, whom Esposito routinely denounces as Islamophobes. To paraphrase Mogahed, maybe it wasn't the most technically accurate way of doing this, but their neat solution seems to have been to redefine 78 million people off the rolls of radicals.
The cover-up is even worse. The full data from the 9/11 question show that, in addition to the 13.5 percent, there is another 23.1 percent of respondents -- 300 million Muslims -- who told pollsters the attacks were in some way justified. Esposito and Mogahed don't utter a word about the vast sea of intolerance in which the radicals operate.
And then there is the more fundamental fraud of using the 9/11 question as the measure of "who is a radical." Amazing as it sounds, according to Esposito and Mogahed, the proper term for a Muslim who hates America, wants to impose Sharia law, supports suicide bombing, and opposes equal rights for women but does not "completely" justify 9/11 is . . . "moderate."
Could the smart people at Gallup really believe this? Regardless, they should immediately release all the data associated with their world poll and open all the files and archives of their Center for Muslim Studies to independent inspection. With a dose of transparency and a dollop of humility, the data just might teach something useful to the world's six billion citizens.
Robert Satloff is the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
AP Explains to you why Israel shouldn’t exist [ A critique of the AP article published in the DM Register on April 27, 2008]
By Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
If I would choose one article in the Western media that I have read over many decades as the worst piece of anti-Israel propaganda of all, it might well be Karin Laub’s April 26, 2008 piece, “Palestinian plight is flip side of Israel’s independence joy.” [The Register chose a different title.]
Why? Because many articles have slandered Israel on various points or told falsehoods ranging from the disgusting to the humorous or been based on assumptions that were at odds with the truth. But in this case, the article encapsulates the way in which much of the world has turned from admiration to loathing of Israel, and the way in which Israel’s destruction — which in other contexts would be seen as genocidal — has been justified.
Sound exaggerated? No doubt, reading the above two paragraphs would shock the author who, I believe, had no conscious intention of perpetuating such a verbal atrocity. It is, once again, the unchallenged myths that are blithely assumed, that do so much damage.
Let me explain, first briefly and then at length. Israel is the only country in the world which is regularly slated for extermination and it is certainly the one most reviled. Without entering into a discussion of why such extraordinary double standards are maintained, the core issue is that Israel is allegedly an illegitimate country because it is founded on the theft of other’s property and the suffering of other people.
This is the modern equivalent of the blood libel, which held that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for the Passover matzoh. But if that myth is too exotic for people, remember that its “secular” equivalent was responsible for even more anti-Semitic persecution. That was the idea that any Jewish prosperity was based on the blood-sucking of Christian peasants or of society at large.
In this case, Israel is said to have murdered, ethnically cleansed and otherwise persecuted the Palestinians. Therefore, nothing it does can be good, no achievement of itself counts, and it has no right to self-defense. Obviously, such claims are often greatly diluted but nonetheless rest on this basis.
The Laub article is a systematic restatement of this thesis. To begin with, it is extraordinarily long for an AP article, 1,724 words. If this isn’t a record for an AP dispatch, it must be up near the top. Obviously, this is a message that the AP editors are especially eager to convey: that everything Israel has is at Palestinian expense.
That this is a lie can be explained on many levels but at least two must be presented here. First, why is this measure applied only to Israel, and certainly only to Israel on an existential basis? It is well-known, certainly, that Germany has taken responsibility for Nazi crimes, and also there are applications for reimbursement of Jewish property seized in eastern Europe during the Nazi period.
Yet most countries are founded on expropriation, often of Jewish property. For example, Oxford University, where recently debates were conducted calling for Israel’s destruction, was started on property stolen from Jews expelled in 1290. Far more recently, many Arab states received a huge infusion of capital from the expropriation of Jewish property after Israel’s creation. Does France’s or Britain’s or Belgium’s independence day require discussion of colonial depredations? We don’t read articles that Japan’s independence day is blighted by Chinese or Korean suffering, though the Japanese did engage in mass murder of those people. What about the fact that every country in the Western Hemisphere is based on the suffering of the indigenous natives? Or even in the case of Russia, given Czarist and Soviet behavior? In no case, however, is far worse behavior said to have poisoned any other country’s very existence.
But perhaps even more important is the question of where true responsibility for Palestinian suffering lies. Here is how Laub’s article begins:
JALAZOUN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Mohammed Shaikha was 9 when the carefree rhythm of his village childhood, going to third grade, picking olives, playing hide-and-seek , was abruptly cut short. Uprooted during the 1948 war over Israel’s creation, he’s now a wrinkled old man. He has spent a lifetime in this cramped refugee camp, and Israel’s 60th independence day, to be celebrated with fanfare on May 8, fills him with pain.
For 60 years, Israel has been sitting on my heart. It kicked me out of my home, my nation, and deprived me of many things,” he said. And each Israeli birthday makes it harder for 70-year-old Shaikha and his elderly gin rummy partners in the camp’s coffee house to cling to dreams of going back to Beit Nabala, one village among hundreds leveled to make way for the influx of Jewish immigrants into the newborn Jewish state.
Well, let us ask the following questions: How did Shaikha leave his “carefree” utopia of Palestine? Most likely because his parents decided to get out of the way while, they expected, the Jews were exterminated by Arab armies. He was in fact “kicked out” by an Arab decision to reject partition — in which case at worst he would be living as an Arab citizen of Israel and at best, depending on where he lived, be a citizen of Palestine celebrating its own sixtieth birthday.
Consider a worst-case alternative history:
Mohammaed Shaikha sat in his nice house and recalled how in 1948 his family left its village and moved a few miles into a village in the new state of Palestine. “It was rough for a while,” he said. “But with the compensation money we got for making peace and aid from Arab states I was able to build a very nice life for myself.”
In fact, it was the Palestinian and Arab leadership which — in contrast to every other refugee situation in modern history — insisted on keeping these people suffering and in refugee camps to use as political pawns. They, too, rejected every offer of peace and resettlement.
For example, if Yasir Arafat had negotiated a solution on the basis of the framework proposed at Camp David in 2000, Shaikha and the other refugees would have shared out over $20 billion in compensation and a Palestinian state might be celebrating its seventh birthday. The PLO refused — a policy pursued since 1993 by the Palestinian Authority — to move people out of refugee camps. They must be kept there as tools with which to blame Israel and also to continue the fires of hatred and violence burning.
A hint of the truth is inadvertently given in the article — though not explained — by a Palestinian ideologue:
Anthropologist Sharif Kaananeh urges his fellow Palestinians to take the long view and learn from Jewish history: “If they waited 2,000 years to claim this country, we can wait 200 years.”
During those 2,000 years, however, Jews whenever possible built up their own lives and acted peacefully and productively. In Kaananeh’s version, he is willing to keep Shaikha and his descendants in refugee camps for 200 years. And why not, since the media will blame their suffering on Israel and provide it as a reason why Israel should disappear, or make endless concessions or be denied full support despite the assault on itself.
By the way, this is what the author prettifies as “perseverance” as if it were something admirable. Don’t make a peaceful compromise; keep fighting and spilling blood unless or until you achieve total victory. In any other situation, this would be decried as a foolish, bloodthirsty, and fanatical world view.
If the Palestinians want to make this their strategy they certainly should not be allowed to blame this on Israel. The true nakba (catastrophe) was not Israel’s creation but the Arab failure to create Palestine and their continuation of conflict to this day. But only Israel is branded, in effect, as a war criminal nation. In this light, the hateful and vicious attacks on it make sense.
Yet why don’t we see the following headline: “Israeli plight a flip side of Palestinian celebration,” or substitute “Israeli plight is flip side of [insert name of any Arab state name or Iran]” or “Israeli [or Jewish] plight is flip side of [insert name of any European state]”?
This could be followed with interviews of displaced Jews (living in poverty since they never left post-World War II refugee camps in Europe or the transit camps built in Israel to house Jewish refugees from the Arab world. Or interviews with Israelis who were maimed or whose families were murdered in wars or terrorist attacks?
For, indeed, Israeli misery is built on the support of terrorism and hatred by Arab states, the incitement to murder and appeals for genocide among Palestinian groups.
Even in direct Palestinian terms, the irony doesn’t stop. The same week as this article was written, it was reported (by Reuters) that while Arab states have promised $717.1 million in aid to the Palestinians, only $153.2 million, that is a bit more than 20 percent, was actually delivered. If Palestinians are not well-off perhaps this is what one must examine, or at least acknowledge.
How about this, from Laub’s article: “The 1948 war had largely separated Israelis and Palestinians, except for some 150,000 Palestinians who stayed put and became Israeli citizens.” No mention of the fact that those Israeli Palestinians have prospered.
And this: “The symbols of occupation, settlements, army bases, roadblocks, are visible across the West Bank.” No mention of the fact that Israel has withdrawn from large parts of the West Bank, and in all the populated areas (except a section of Hebron) Palestinians have had self-government, with massive international aid for 14 years!
And this: “Palestinians under Yasser Arafat took to bombings and hijackings to make the world notice their existence…” So the sole purpose of terrorism was as a misguided public relations’ campaign so the world would take pity on Palestinian suffering, not an attempt to destroy Israel [or just to kill Jews — ed.].
Or this, “Few refugees can realistically expect to go home again, because Israelis fear being swamped by a mass repatriation.” That makes the Palestinian predicament especially harsh, said Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency which helps the Palestinian refugees.” While at least a motive is given for Israel’s refusal (though not that the problem here is not just that a massive influx of Palestinians might overwhelm social services but that the “returnees” goal would be turning Israel into a Palestinian Arab nationalist or Islamist state through violence), no other alternative is presented, not even resettlement in an independent Palestine.
That last point was, after all, the whole idea of the 1990s’ peace process. But the reporter collaborates with the Palestinian line: the only two choices are suffering or total victory, wiping out all other options.
I could literally write a book on the misstatements and misleading basis of this article. But it can be summarized as follows:
This is the Palestinian narrative adopted by a large sector of the American media, as well as academia: It is a zero-sum game in which either Israel must be eliminated or poor Palestinians suffer.
That the continued conflict — and their own suffering — is due to Palestinian actions or that it could be resolved by the kind of compromises Israel has long been advocating (and Palestinians rejecting) and taking risks to bring about is not mentioned. Equally, the perspective that Palestinian radical leadership (by both Fatah and Hamas) and doctrine must be eliminated as the source of Israeli suffering is understated or ignored.
The real victim here is both Israelis and Palestinians. The real cause of the suffering is Arab state intransigence and the kind of Palestinian leadership, strategy, goals, ideology, and behavior that this and so many media stories extol.
Remember that the poisonous forest of hatred and violence grow from the acorns of articles like this.
By Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
If I would choose one article in the Western media that I have read over many decades as the worst piece of anti-Israel propaganda of all, it might well be Karin Laub’s April 26, 2008 piece, “Palestinian plight is flip side of Israel’s independence joy.” [The Register chose a different title.]
Why? Because many articles have slandered Israel on various points or told falsehoods ranging from the disgusting to the humorous or been based on assumptions that were at odds with the truth. But in this case, the article encapsulates the way in which much of the world has turned from admiration to loathing of Israel, and the way in which Israel’s destruction — which in other contexts would be seen as genocidal — has been justified.
Sound exaggerated? No doubt, reading the above two paragraphs would shock the author who, I believe, had no conscious intention of perpetuating such a verbal atrocity. It is, once again, the unchallenged myths that are blithely assumed, that do so much damage.
Let me explain, first briefly and then at length. Israel is the only country in the world which is regularly slated for extermination and it is certainly the one most reviled. Without entering into a discussion of why such extraordinary double standards are maintained, the core issue is that Israel is allegedly an illegitimate country because it is founded on the theft of other’s property and the suffering of other people.
This is the modern equivalent of the blood libel, which held that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for the Passover matzoh. But if that myth is too exotic for people, remember that its “secular” equivalent was responsible for even more anti-Semitic persecution. That was the idea that any Jewish prosperity was based on the blood-sucking of Christian peasants or of society at large.
In this case, Israel is said to have murdered, ethnically cleansed and otherwise persecuted the Palestinians. Therefore, nothing it does can be good, no achievement of itself counts, and it has no right to self-defense. Obviously, such claims are often greatly diluted but nonetheless rest on this basis.
The Laub article is a systematic restatement of this thesis. To begin with, it is extraordinarily long for an AP article, 1,724 words. If this isn’t a record for an AP dispatch, it must be up near the top. Obviously, this is a message that the AP editors are especially eager to convey: that everything Israel has is at Palestinian expense.
That this is a lie can be explained on many levels but at least two must be presented here. First, why is this measure applied only to Israel, and certainly only to Israel on an existential basis? It is well-known, certainly, that Germany has taken responsibility for Nazi crimes, and also there are applications for reimbursement of Jewish property seized in eastern Europe during the Nazi period.
Yet most countries are founded on expropriation, often of Jewish property. For example, Oxford University, where recently debates were conducted calling for Israel’s destruction, was started on property stolen from Jews expelled in 1290. Far more recently, many Arab states received a huge infusion of capital from the expropriation of Jewish property after Israel’s creation. Does France’s or Britain’s or Belgium’s independence day require discussion of colonial depredations? We don’t read articles that Japan’s independence day is blighted by Chinese or Korean suffering, though the Japanese did engage in mass murder of those people. What about the fact that every country in the Western Hemisphere is based on the suffering of the indigenous natives? Or even in the case of Russia, given Czarist and Soviet behavior? In no case, however, is far worse behavior said to have poisoned any other country’s very existence.
But perhaps even more important is the question of where true responsibility for Palestinian suffering lies. Here is how Laub’s article begins:
JALAZOUN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Mohammed Shaikha was 9 when the carefree rhythm of his village childhood, going to third grade, picking olives, playing hide-and-seek , was abruptly cut short. Uprooted during the 1948 war over Israel’s creation, he’s now a wrinkled old man. He has spent a lifetime in this cramped refugee camp, and Israel’s 60th independence day, to be celebrated with fanfare on May 8, fills him with pain.
For 60 years, Israel has been sitting on my heart. It kicked me out of my home, my nation, and deprived me of many things,” he said. And each Israeli birthday makes it harder for 70-year-old Shaikha and his elderly gin rummy partners in the camp’s coffee house to cling to dreams of going back to Beit Nabala, one village among hundreds leveled to make way for the influx of Jewish immigrants into the newborn Jewish state.
Well, let us ask the following questions: How did Shaikha leave his “carefree” utopia of Palestine? Most likely because his parents decided to get out of the way while, they expected, the Jews were exterminated by Arab armies. He was in fact “kicked out” by an Arab decision to reject partition — in which case at worst he would be living as an Arab citizen of Israel and at best, depending on where he lived, be a citizen of Palestine celebrating its own sixtieth birthday.
Consider a worst-case alternative history:
Mohammaed Shaikha sat in his nice house and recalled how in 1948 his family left its village and moved a few miles into a village in the new state of Palestine. “It was rough for a while,” he said. “But with the compensation money we got for making peace and aid from Arab states I was able to build a very nice life for myself.”
In fact, it was the Palestinian and Arab leadership which — in contrast to every other refugee situation in modern history — insisted on keeping these people suffering and in refugee camps to use as political pawns. They, too, rejected every offer of peace and resettlement.
For example, if Yasir Arafat had negotiated a solution on the basis of the framework proposed at Camp David in 2000, Shaikha and the other refugees would have shared out over $20 billion in compensation and a Palestinian state might be celebrating its seventh birthday. The PLO refused — a policy pursued since 1993 by the Palestinian Authority — to move people out of refugee camps. They must be kept there as tools with which to blame Israel and also to continue the fires of hatred and violence burning.
A hint of the truth is inadvertently given in the article — though not explained — by a Palestinian ideologue:
Anthropologist Sharif Kaananeh urges his fellow Palestinians to take the long view and learn from Jewish history: “If they waited 2,000 years to claim this country, we can wait 200 years.”
During those 2,000 years, however, Jews whenever possible built up their own lives and acted peacefully and productively. In Kaananeh’s version, he is willing to keep Shaikha and his descendants in refugee camps for 200 years. And why not, since the media will blame their suffering on Israel and provide it as a reason why Israel should disappear, or make endless concessions or be denied full support despite the assault on itself.
By the way, this is what the author prettifies as “perseverance” as if it were something admirable. Don’t make a peaceful compromise; keep fighting and spilling blood unless or until you achieve total victory. In any other situation, this would be decried as a foolish, bloodthirsty, and fanatical world view.
If the Palestinians want to make this their strategy they certainly should not be allowed to blame this on Israel. The true nakba (catastrophe) was not Israel’s creation but the Arab failure to create Palestine and their continuation of conflict to this day. But only Israel is branded, in effect, as a war criminal nation. In this light, the hateful and vicious attacks on it make sense.
Yet why don’t we see the following headline: “Israeli plight a flip side of Palestinian celebration,” or substitute “Israeli plight is flip side of [insert name of any Arab state name or Iran]” or “Israeli [or Jewish] plight is flip side of [insert name of any European state]”?
This could be followed with interviews of displaced Jews (living in poverty since they never left post-World War II refugee camps in Europe or the transit camps built in Israel to house Jewish refugees from the Arab world. Or interviews with Israelis who were maimed or whose families were murdered in wars or terrorist attacks?
For, indeed, Israeli misery is built on the support of terrorism and hatred by Arab states, the incitement to murder and appeals for genocide among Palestinian groups.
Even in direct Palestinian terms, the irony doesn’t stop. The same week as this article was written, it was reported (by Reuters) that while Arab states have promised $717.1 million in aid to the Palestinians, only $153.2 million, that is a bit more than 20 percent, was actually delivered. If Palestinians are not well-off perhaps this is what one must examine, or at least acknowledge.
How about this, from Laub’s article: “The 1948 war had largely separated Israelis and Palestinians, except for some 150,000 Palestinians who stayed put and became Israeli citizens.” No mention of the fact that those Israeli Palestinians have prospered.
And this: “The symbols of occupation, settlements, army bases, roadblocks, are visible across the West Bank.” No mention of the fact that Israel has withdrawn from large parts of the West Bank, and in all the populated areas (except a section of Hebron) Palestinians have had self-government, with massive international aid for 14 years!
And this: “Palestinians under Yasser Arafat took to bombings and hijackings to make the world notice their existence…” So the sole purpose of terrorism was as a misguided public relations’ campaign so the world would take pity on Palestinian suffering, not an attempt to destroy Israel [or just to kill Jews — ed.].
Or this, “Few refugees can realistically expect to go home again, because Israelis fear being swamped by a mass repatriation.” That makes the Palestinian predicament especially harsh, said Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency which helps the Palestinian refugees.” While at least a motive is given for Israel’s refusal (though not that the problem here is not just that a massive influx of Palestinians might overwhelm social services but that the “returnees” goal would be turning Israel into a Palestinian Arab nationalist or Islamist state through violence), no other alternative is presented, not even resettlement in an independent Palestine.
That last point was, after all, the whole idea of the 1990s’ peace process. But the reporter collaborates with the Palestinian line: the only two choices are suffering or total victory, wiping out all other options.
I could literally write a book on the misstatements and misleading basis of this article. But it can be summarized as follows:
This is the Palestinian narrative adopted by a large sector of the American media, as well as academia: It is a zero-sum game in which either Israel must be eliminated or poor Palestinians suffer.
That the continued conflict — and their own suffering — is due to Palestinian actions or that it could be resolved by the kind of compromises Israel has long been advocating (and Palestinians rejecting) and taking risks to bring about is not mentioned. Equally, the perspective that Palestinian radical leadership (by both Fatah and Hamas) and doctrine must be eliminated as the source of Israeli suffering is understated or ignored.
The real victim here is both Israelis and Palestinians. The real cause of the suffering is Arab state intransigence and the kind of Palestinian leadership, strategy, goals, ideology, and behavior that this and so many media stories extol.
Remember that the poisonous forest of hatred and violence grow from the acorns of articles like this.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
ANALYSIS: Cease-fire with Hamas would make PA irrelevant
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel Last update - 27/04/2008 Ha'Aretz
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' statement Friday in Washington that he had failed to move ahead negotiations with Israel after talks with President George W. Bush reveals how anxious the Fatah leadership is over a possible cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which would make the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank almost irrelevant.
While no apparent progress has been made between Israel and the PA on the final-status agreement, Hamas will have one of the most significant victories in its history, if not the most significant.
Palestinian public opinion may see the agreement, which lifts the blockade in exchange for a cessation of hostilities, as proof that only attacks and Qassam rockets can wrest concessions from Israel.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources say the cease-fire will initially apply to the Gaza Strip only, but six months later, if quiet prevails, it will expand to the West Bank, something the PA has failed to do for seven and a half years. Under those circumstances, who needs Abbas - they might really be able to start packing at the Muqata.
Hamas is also demanding that during the cease-fire in Gaza, Israel does not respond militarily there to attacks in the West Bank or within the Green Line. This is a stumbling block for Israel, which is concerned that the agreement will increase Hamas' motivation to carry out attacks in the West Bank.
Another weakness in the agreement is that it apparently does not include the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
The head of Hamas' political wing in Damascus, Khaled Meshal, took pains yesterday in Qatar to explain that Hamas is not keen for the cease-fire to happen. But in reality, Hamas is very interested, so the economic blockade can be lifted and its position strengthened.
If Hamas fails this week in Cairo to persuade the other groups in Gaza to join it, its dilemma will be whether to restrain Islamic Jihad, or risk the collapse of the understandings with Egypt and Israel.
Without the other [Palestinian terrorist ] groups on board, Israel will discount the agreement. The murder Friday of two Israelis at the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone near Tul Karm might be the first of a wave of terror by Islamic Jihad and other groups hoping to disrupt the calm in the Strip.
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel Last update - 27/04/2008 Ha'Aretz
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' statement Friday in Washington that he had failed to move ahead negotiations with Israel after talks with President George W. Bush reveals how anxious the Fatah leadership is over a possible cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which would make the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank almost irrelevant.
While no apparent progress has been made between Israel and the PA on the final-status agreement, Hamas will have one of the most significant victories in its history, if not the most significant.
Palestinian public opinion may see the agreement, which lifts the blockade in exchange for a cessation of hostilities, as proof that only attacks and Qassam rockets can wrest concessions from Israel.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources say the cease-fire will initially apply to the Gaza Strip only, but six months later, if quiet prevails, it will expand to the West Bank, something the PA has failed to do for seven and a half years. Under those circumstances, who needs Abbas - they might really be able to start packing at the Muqata.
Hamas is also demanding that during the cease-fire in Gaza, Israel does not respond militarily there to attacks in the West Bank or within the Green Line. This is a stumbling block for Israel, which is concerned that the agreement will increase Hamas' motivation to carry out attacks in the West Bank.
Another weakness in the agreement is that it apparently does not include the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
The head of Hamas' political wing in Damascus, Khaled Meshal, took pains yesterday in Qatar to explain that Hamas is not keen for the cease-fire to happen. But in reality, Hamas is very interested, so the economic blockade can be lifted and its position strengthened.
If Hamas fails this week in Cairo to persuade the other groups in Gaza to join it, its dilemma will be whether to restrain Islamic Jihad, or risk the collapse of the understandings with Egypt and Israel.
Without the other [Palestinian terrorist ] groups on board, Israel will discount the agreement. The murder Friday of two Israelis at the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone near Tul Karm might be the first of a wave of terror by Islamic Jihad and other groups hoping to disrupt the calm in the Strip.
AP's coverage of Israel at 60 continues. Installment focuses on the Palestinian perspective.
The second installment of the AP's coverage of Israel at 60 was published today in the DM Register and presumably in newspapers across the country. CAMERA.org will most likely examine the series in detail.
Today's installment covers the Palestinian side of the story, recounting both how Palestinians "look back on failures" and how the current "influx of foreign aid ahve given the West Bank's middle class and business community a sense of opportunity." The article states, for example, that "Abbas' government plans to build 30,000 apartments in several new suburbs [ =settlements. Let's use the same terms. ]." And that there is high-rise construction leading into Ramallah.
In brief, the language used in the article is generally pareve. For example: "The state [Palestinians] were to have in a partitioned Holy Land was made stillborn by the 1948 war. The 1967 war that brought the West Band and Gaza under Israeli rule doubled the [Palestinian] catastrophe [naqba]. And the negotiations that are meant to bring about a Palestinian state are bedeviled by violence and distrust."
Yes, the 1948 war initiated by the Arabs to prevent Israel from coming into existence did also kill the prospects of the Arab Palestinian state --- when Jordan and Egypt grabbed the land and failed to created, in it, the Arab Palestinian state. But... those are just details.
Similarly, in sidebar introductions of Palestinian leadership, we see a similar "even-handedness" of expression. In describing Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas "political leader" [ read: terrorist resident in Syria], it is noted that "Hamas does not recognize Israel." [read= Hamas preaches that Jews are the sons of 'apes and pigs' a nd teaches Palestinian youths to hate and kill Jews.] But again, just details.
The paragraph introducing Arafat fails to indicate that his PLO was a terrorist organization which pre-dated "the Occupation," which itself was created after the Arab countries failed to negotiate with Israel for the territory Israel captured in a defensive war in 1967. The paragraph does state that " A six-year Palestinian uprising [beginning in 1987] ended after Arafat negotiated a peace deal with Israel [in 1993], but [the Oslo peace process ] later fell apart after new violence." [read= After rejecting the offer of Palestinian sovereignty at Camp David in 2000, Arafat reneged on the basic terms of the Oslo peace process -- in which he swore to abandon the use of violence -- and started a second, violent intifada rather than continue negotiations with Israel. The result: thousands of deaths attributed to Arafat and the decimation of the Palestinian economy.] And oh yes, he stole millions of dollars from his own people, funds that were supposed to go to building businesses, jobs, and infastructure to support a fledgling Palestinian state.
---------------------------------------------------
Hamas admits the truce is only a "tactic" in furthering its aims
CAIRO (AP) — The chief of Hamas said Saturday that his group would accept an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, but that it would be a “tactic” in the group’s struggle with the Jewish state.
Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television that Egypt had proposed a six-month truce between Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, and Israel. He said his group was ready to cooperate, but added, “It is a tactic in conducting the struggle.” He called it “normal for any resistance” to sometimes escalate, sometimes retreat from fighting. “Hamas is known for that. In 2003, there was a cease-fire and then the operations were resumed.” He warned of an explosion of violence in Gaza if Israel rejected the truce.
---- [commentary on this at http://www.yourish.com/2008/04/27/4730 ]
The second installment of the AP's coverage of Israel at 60 was published today in the DM Register and presumably in newspapers across the country. CAMERA.org will most likely examine the series in detail.
Today's installment covers the Palestinian side of the story, recounting both how Palestinians "look back on failures" and how the current "influx of foreign aid ahve given the West Bank's middle class and business community a sense of opportunity." The article states, for example, that "Abbas' government plans to build 30,000 apartments in several new suburbs [ =settlements. Let's use the same terms. ]." And that there is high-rise construction leading into Ramallah.
In brief, the language used in the article is generally pareve. For example: "The state [Palestinians] were to have in a partitioned Holy Land was made stillborn by the 1948 war. The 1967 war that brought the West Band and Gaza under Israeli rule doubled the [Palestinian] catastrophe [naqba]. And the negotiations that are meant to bring about a Palestinian state are bedeviled by violence and distrust."
Yes, the 1948 war initiated by the Arabs to prevent Israel from coming into existence did also kill the prospects of the Arab Palestinian state --- when Jordan and Egypt grabbed the land and failed to created, in it, the Arab Palestinian state. But... those are just details.
Similarly, in sidebar introductions of Palestinian leadership, we see a similar "even-handedness" of expression. In describing Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas "political leader" [ read: terrorist resident in Syria], it is noted that "Hamas does not recognize Israel." [read= Hamas preaches that Jews are the sons of 'apes and pigs' a nd teaches Palestinian youths to hate and kill Jews.] But again, just details.
The paragraph introducing Arafat fails to indicate that his PLO was a terrorist organization which pre-dated "the Occupation," which itself was created after the Arab countries failed to negotiate with Israel for the territory Israel captured in a defensive war in 1967. The paragraph does state that " A six-year Palestinian uprising [beginning in 1987] ended after Arafat negotiated a peace deal with Israel [in 1993], but [the Oslo peace process ] later fell apart after new violence." [read= After rejecting the offer of Palestinian sovereignty at Camp David in 2000, Arafat reneged on the basic terms of the Oslo peace process -- in which he swore to abandon the use of violence -- and started a second, violent intifada rather than continue negotiations with Israel. The result: thousands of deaths attributed to Arafat and the decimation of the Palestinian economy.] And oh yes, he stole millions of dollars from his own people, funds that were supposed to go to building businesses, jobs, and infastructure to support a fledgling Palestinian state.
---------------------------------------------------
Hamas admits the truce is only a "tactic" in furthering its aims
CAIRO (AP) — The chief of Hamas said Saturday that his group would accept an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, but that it would be a “tactic” in the group’s struggle with the Jewish state.
Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television that Egypt had proposed a six-month truce between Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, and Israel. He said his group was ready to cooperate, but added, “It is a tactic in conducting the struggle.” He called it “normal for any resistance” to sometimes escalate, sometimes retreat from fighting. “Hamas is known for that. In 2003, there was a cease-fire and then the operations were resumed.” He warned of an explosion of violence in Gaza if Israel rejected the truce.
---- [commentary on this at http://www.yourish.com/2008/04/27/4730 ]
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Israel's UN Ambassador: Internal improvements for Jewish communities in WB are necessary, not obstacle to peace.
The Palestinian line, which is picked up again today in the DM Register (p. 2A) is that "the biggest obstacle [to peace] is Israel's continued expansion of Jewish settlements ..."
When was the last time you've seen the media give Israel's side of the story?
According to Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman:
DAN GILLERMAN: Israel has no policy of expanding or building new settlements. Israel is only doing what is absolutely necessary to accommodate the people who are already living there.
And I really do not believe that settlements, which has become sort of a coined word, is the obstacle. The real obstacle to peace is the extremism and fundamentalism of Hamas. The real obstacle to peace is terrorism.
As long as the Palestinians are set on killing and maiming Israeli civilians, babies and children, shelling our cities and our villages with rockets indiscriminately, there will be no peace. And if Saeb Erekat mentioned the road map, the first obligation under the road map is for the Palestinians to cease terror. That is the first obligation and the main obstacle.
And, therefore, you know, settlements, occupation, you know, we have Gaza as a model. Israel was in Gaza for many, many years. Israel left Gaza over two years ago, every single grain of sand, every inch of Gaza. The Palestinians then had two choices, one, to turn it into a place where their people would live well and improve their quality of life and standard of living, or make it into a launching pad for missiles to Israel and a terror base.
Sadly, tragically, not just for us, but for them, they chose the latter. There isn't a single Israeli in Gaza. There were, indeed, Israeli settlements in Gaza. They were totally removed. And we're still experiencing terror.
It's terror which is the impediment and the obstacle to peace, not settlements.
-------------------------
[From Gillerman's interview, along with Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat, on the PBS News Hour. A transcript of the program is available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june08/peace_04-24.html ]
The Palestinian line, which is picked up again today in the DM Register (p. 2A) is that "the biggest obstacle [to peace] is Israel's continued expansion of Jewish settlements ..."
When was the last time you've seen the media give Israel's side of the story?
According to Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman:
DAN GILLERMAN: Israel has no policy of expanding or building new settlements. Israel is only doing what is absolutely necessary to accommodate the people who are already living there.
And I really do not believe that settlements, which has become sort of a coined word, is the obstacle. The real obstacle to peace is the extremism and fundamentalism of Hamas. The real obstacle to peace is terrorism.
As long as the Palestinians are set on killing and maiming Israeli civilians, babies and children, shelling our cities and our villages with rockets indiscriminately, there will be no peace. And if Saeb Erekat mentioned the road map, the first obligation under the road map is for the Palestinians to cease terror. That is the first obligation and the main obstacle.
And, therefore, you know, settlements, occupation, you know, we have Gaza as a model. Israel was in Gaza for many, many years. Israel left Gaza over two years ago, every single grain of sand, every inch of Gaza. The Palestinians then had two choices, one, to turn it into a place where their people would live well and improve their quality of life and standard of living, or make it into a launching pad for missiles to Israel and a terror base.
Sadly, tragically, not just for us, but for them, they chose the latter. There isn't a single Israeli in Gaza. There were, indeed, Israeli settlements in Gaza. They were totally removed. And we're still experiencing terror.
It's terror which is the impediment and the obstacle to peace, not settlements.
-------------------------
[From Gillerman's interview, along with Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat, on the PBS News Hour. A transcript of the program is available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june08/peace_04-24.html ]
Friday, April 25, 2008
Palestinian headline [from Ma'an] Brigades claim killing of two Israeli guards in Tulkarem industrial zone Date: 25 / 04 / 2008
Translation: 5 Palestinian terroirst groups claim killing two Israeli guards in Israeli city near the West Bank
Ma'an report -[Palestinian source] Five Palestinian resistance factions have claimed responsibility for shooting dead two Israeli security guards in the Tulkarem industrial zone on Friday. Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades say they carried out the attack in co-ordination with the relatively unknown Al-Awda wa Nidal Brigades and the Ahrar Al-Muthalith Brigades, who are based inside Israel.
A spokesperson telephoned Ma'an and said that three of their members targeted Israeli the security guards, using only one gun. They then escaped."The operation was two weeks in the planning and so the brigades rejected the ceasefire talks with Israel by Hamas and other factions," the spokesperson said.
The military wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades the military wing of Hamas, also claimed responsibility for the operation in Tulkarem. They sent a joint statement to Ma'an giving details of the operation -
"At 5.15 am at dawn on Friday one of the resistance fighters was able to reach get into the location disguised as a woman. He went from near Tulkarem to the region of Nitzanei Shalom, which is the industrial zone located between the territory of Tulkarem and the lands of 1948. He then changed into a worker's uniform and went to the area at 7.17 am at the same time as Palestinian workers enter the factories. The Palestinian youth that shot the guards was slightly injured but managed to escape safely." The two Israeli guards were shot dead in the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone near the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Friday morning.
-------
(h/t: Israellycool.com, who comments "Coming soon: palestinian complaining about checkpoints and their inability to work inside Israel."
The above source quotes the Jerusalem Post description of Nitzanei Shalom, the Israeli city:
The Nitzane Shalom complex was built in 1995. It houses nine factories that provide jobs to many Palestinians from the West Bank.
Translation: 5 Palestinian terroirst groups claim killing two Israeli guards in Israeli city near the West Bank
Ma'an report -[Palestinian source] Five Palestinian resistance factions have claimed responsibility for shooting dead two Israeli security guards in the Tulkarem industrial zone on Friday. Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades say they carried out the attack in co-ordination with the relatively unknown Al-Awda wa Nidal Brigades and the Ahrar Al-Muthalith Brigades, who are based inside Israel.
A spokesperson telephoned Ma'an and said that three of their members targeted Israeli the security guards, using only one gun. They then escaped."The operation was two weeks in the planning and so the brigades rejected the ceasefire talks with Israel by Hamas and other factions," the spokesperson said.
The military wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades the military wing of Hamas, also claimed responsibility for the operation in Tulkarem. They sent a joint statement to Ma'an giving details of the operation -
"At 5.15 am at dawn on Friday one of the resistance fighters was able to reach get into the location disguised as a woman. He went from near Tulkarem to the region of Nitzanei Shalom, which is the industrial zone located between the territory of Tulkarem and the lands of 1948. He then changed into a worker's uniform and went to the area at 7.17 am at the same time as Palestinian workers enter the factories. The Palestinian youth that shot the guards was slightly injured but managed to escape safely." The two Israeli guards were shot dead in the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone near the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Friday morning.
-------
(h/t: Israellycool.com, who comments "Coming soon: palestinian complaining about checkpoints and their inability to work inside Israel."
The above source quotes the Jerusalem Post description of Nitzanei Shalom, the Israeli city:
The Nitzane Shalom complex was built in 1995. It houses nine factories that provide jobs to many Palestinians from the West Bank.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Envoys from US, UK, France, Costa Rica and Belgium walk out of UN Security Council meeting, Wednesday, after Libya compares situation in Gaza worse than Nazi concentration camps.
Excerpts from (AP) — .... The remarks led the United States, Britain, France and others to walk out, a rare protest by members of the U.N.'s most powerful body against one of their own members.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said: "The Libyan delegate is being tendentious, selective, historically incorrect and making morally outrageous comments, and that's why I walked out."
"Libya is a very pertinent example of what happens when you let terrorists infiltrate the Security Council," [said Israel's UN Ambassador Dan ]Gillerman .
Hamas offers 6 month 'period of quiet' with caveats
[Ha'aretz] Hamas' Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday that Hamas [will offer a 6 month 'period of quiet' if Israel lifts its blockade, etc.] [No mention of stopping smuggling of weapons...]
[Haniyeh also said that Hamas] is prepared to offer Israel a long-term cease-fire, or hudna, in return for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and right of return for refugees - without recognizing Israel. [Israel will not agree to letting Palestinian refugees flood Israel.]
Israel's UN ambassador: Truce would give Hamas chance to regroup
04.25.08,
"We don't think Hamas is trustworthy. Whenever they offer a truce, it is because we have been able to hit them where it really hurts and they then need time in order to regroup, in order to re-arm and be ready for the next round," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters in New York.
"We do not intend to give them that time and we do not believe any truce offer that comes from Hamas is indeed trustworthy," he said. (AP)
Excerpts from (AP) — .... The remarks led the United States, Britain, France and others to walk out, a rare protest by members of the U.N.'s most powerful body against one of their own members.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said: "The Libyan delegate is being tendentious, selective, historically incorrect and making morally outrageous comments, and that's why I walked out."
"Libya is a very pertinent example of what happens when you let terrorists infiltrate the Security Council," [said Israel's UN Ambassador Dan ]Gillerman .
Hamas offers 6 month 'period of quiet' with caveats
[Ha'aretz] Hamas' Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday that Hamas [will offer a 6 month 'period of quiet' if Israel lifts its blockade, etc.] [No mention of stopping smuggling of weapons...]
[Haniyeh also said that Hamas] is prepared to offer Israel a long-term cease-fire, or hudna, in return for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and right of return for refugees - without recognizing Israel. [Israel will not agree to letting Palestinian refugees flood Israel.]
Israel's UN ambassador: Truce would give Hamas chance to regroup
04.25.08,
"We don't think Hamas is trustworthy. Whenever they offer a truce, it is because we have been able to hit them where it really hurts and they then need time in order to regroup, in order to re-arm and be ready for the next round," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters in New York.
"We do not intend to give them that time and we do not believe any truce offer that comes from Hamas is indeed trustworthy," he said. (AP)
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