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Hamas isn't open to compromise

Urging talks with Hamas only encourages it to continue its strategy of dictatorship within Gaza and its war against Israel

• Barry Rubin
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 February 2009 11.59 GMT
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/27/hamas-palestinian-territories-gaza

Perhaps it is true that peace can only be made with enemies, but this is only true regarding those who no longer want to be enemies. This does not apply in the case of Hamas. In fact, the stronger Hamas becomes – empowered by well-meaning, but no less destructive bystanders such as the signatories to this week's letter in the Times, urging talks with Hamas – the further away will be any chance for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

These points should not be so difficult to understand. Yet a large part of the problem is that when this particular issue becomes the topic of conversation, many seem to lose their most basic common sense and their understanding of how politics and international affairs work.

Consider the basic facts. Hamas's main goal is the physical destruction of Israel and its people. In its pronouncements in Arabic, the organisation makes no secret of this fact. That is commonly called genocide. It routinely uses historic anti-Jewish myths and incites hatred of Jews. This is commonly called antisemitism.

Hamas's historic military tactic was the maximum murder of Israeli civilians. This is commonly called genocide. It is ruthless in killing those among the Palestinians who disagree with it. This – recently documented at length by Amnesty International and reported on by the Guardian – is commonly called ferocious repression. It indoctrinates children with the ambition to be suicide bombers. This is commonly called – well, it is so unprecedented that there is no proper name for this behaviour.

Did Hamas win the Palestinian elections? It certainly came in first. But then, after making a deal with its Fatah rival, Hamas launched a military coup and seized power in Gaza by force. Thus, it can have no democratic pretensions for its rule. The Nazis in Germany and the Bolsheviks in Russia also won elections, then grabbed dictatorial power also, yet no one had any illusions about what they did.

During a ceasefire, Hamas continually either launched attacks itself – on the ground and using mortars and rockets – or worked with smaller groups to do so. This is commonly called aggression. It then ended the ceasefire and launched a large-scale attack. That is commonly called declaring war. Then, it used the civilian populace as human shields and committed other actions, which is commonly called war crimes.

Was it productive for the cause of peace or the welfare of Gaza's population for many people in the west to, in effect, support Hamas? Not at all. For this only encourages Hamas to continue its strategy of total dictatorship within Gaza and permanent war against Israel. Keeping Hamas in power, much less providing it with hundreds of millions of pounds of aid – no matter what safeguards are put in, Hamas will end up with lots of the money – is a guarantee of future war, terrorism, instability, and no peace.

And this brings us to the key argument which basically ignores all the evidence of this specific case: that Hamas must be negotiated with and brought into negotiations.

There is a reason why groups are put into two categories: the IRA or Fatah, for instance, in one; the Taliban, al-Qaida, or the Nazis into another. The question is whether an organisation is so extreme, so ideologically intent on conquest and murder, that its goals cannot possibly be satisfied through negotiations.

If the goal of Hamas is not a two-state solution but Israel's destruction, the repression of all other Palestinian forces, and the establishment of an Islamist dictatorship, how is any compromise outcome possible? And remember that this goal is built into the organisation's fabric, ideology, and claim that it is sanctioned by Allah?

There is, however, another issue, which is all the more important for being practical. Adding a large quantity of deadly acid to water will not make a palatable drink. To empower Hamas, in practice, is to undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA). And to add Hamas to the PA, under present conditions, would not make a more moderate Hamas, but a more radical PA.

It would, in fact, destroy any possibility for peace whatsoever. Any time the PA thought of making any necessary compromise, it would be discredited by Hamas's outbidding, which would also appeal to many people within Fatah. Instead of an end to conflict with the Gaza Strip, there would soon emerge a war with both that area and the West Bank.

Hamas would continue to try, aided and strengthened by western assistance, and might well succeed in wiping out the more moderate – and consequently less ruthless – forces altogether. And, of course, it would condemn Palestinians both to Hamas's rule, endless war, and no chance of getting a state of their own. A strange way to behave by those who claim to be concerned about their welfare.

As for arguing that Hamas is not going away and must be propitiated, there are always factors in the world that are extremist, terrorist, repressive and dictatorial. Hamas is not going to be changed by any soft-line approach, no matter how much people wish that were the case. The answer – especially when they are so relatively weak – is to defeat them by supporting their would-be victims; to show that moderation pays and fanaticism costs dearly.

We will be watching closely, looking for any signs of genuine change in Hamas. The door remains open. But until then, the world must stand firm and speak to Hamas with one voice. Unwillingness to take this course has been a key factor in the spread of violence and extremism throughout the Middle East and beyond.

"Today, the most dangerous anti-Semites might be those who want to make the world Judenstaatrein, 'free of a Jewish state.'" -- Irwin Cotler, advocate of human rights.

In the following column, Cotler describes the surging ideological and legal push to rid the world of Israel and identifies this movement as the goal of the most recent phase of anti-Semitism -- popularly termed the New anti-Semitism. Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice, offers herein the clearest, brief description of this phenomenon. Well worth reading. //Mark Finkelstein jcrc@dmjfed.org


The New Anti-Semitism: Making the world 'Judenstaatrein'

Feb. 22, 2009 The Jerusalem Post

IRWIN COTLER

Some 125 parliamentarians gathered together last week for the historic founding conference of the Interparliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA), brought together by a new sophisticated, globalizing, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism reminiscent of the atmospherics of the 1930s, and without parallel or precedent since the end of World War II.

The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it. It found early juridical, and even institutional, expression in the UN's "Zionism is racism" resolution - which the late US senator Daniel Moynihan said "gave the abomination of anti-Semitism the appearance of international legal sanction" - but has gone dramatically beyond it. This new anti-Semitism almost needs a new vocabulary to define it; however, it can best be identified using a rights-based juridical perspective.

In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations - the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to live - with Israel as the "collective Jew among the nations."

As the closing "London Declaration" of the ICCA conference affirmed: "We are alarmed at the resurrection of the old language of prejudice and its modern manifestations - in rhetoric and political action - against Jews, Jewish belief and practice and the State of Israel."

Observing the complex intersections between the old and the new anti-Semitism, and the impact of the new on the old, Per Ahlmark, former leader of the Swedish Liberal Party and deputy prime minister of Sweden, pithily concluded: "Compared to most previous anti-Jewish outbreaks, this [new anti-Semitism] is often less directed against individual Jews. It attacks primarily the collective Jews, the State of Israel. And then such attacks start a chain reaction of assaults on individual Jews and Jewish institutions... In the past, the most dangerous anti-Semites were those who wanted to make the world Judenrein, 'free of Jews.' Today, the most dangerous anti-Semites might be those who want to make the world Judenstaatrein, 'free of a Jewish state.'"

Genocidal Anti-Semitism

The first modality of the new anti-Semitism - and the most lethal type - is what I would call genocidal anti-Semitism. This is not a term that I use lightly or easily. In particular, I am referring to the Genocide Convention's prohibition against the "direct and public incitement to genocide." If anti-Semitism is the most enduring of hatreds and genocide is the most horrific of crimes, then the convergence of this genocidal intent embedded in anti-Semitic ideology is the most toxic of combinations.

There are three manifestations of this genocidal anti-Semitism. The first is the state-sanctioned - indeed state-orchestrated - genocidal anti-Semitism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, dramatized by the parading in the streets of Teheran of a Shihab-3 missile draped in the emblem "wipe Israel off the Map," while demonizing both the State of Israel as a "cancerous tumor to be excised" and the Jewish people as "evil incarnate."

A second manifestation of this genocidal anti-Semitism is in the covenants and charters, platforms and policies of such terrorist movements and militias as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah and al-Qaida, which not only call for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews wherever they may be, but also for the perpetration of acts of terror in furtherance of that objective.

The third manifestation of this genocidal anti-Semitism is the religious fatwas or execution writs, where these genocidal calls in mosques and media are held out as religious obligations - where Jews and Judaism are characterized as the perfidious enemy of Islam, and Israel becomes the Salmon Rushdie of the nations.

In a word, Israel is the only state in the world - and the Jews the only people in the world - that are the object of a standing set of threats by governmental, religious and terrorist bodies seeking their destruction. The London Declaration - again in a significant clarion call - recognized that "where there is incitement to genocide signatories [to the Genocide Convention] automatically have an obligation to act." This promise must now be acted upon.

Ideological Anti-Semitism

Ideological anti-Semitism is a much more sophisticated and arguably a more pernicious expression of the new anti-Semitism. It finds expression not in any genocidal incitement against Jews and Israel, or overt racist denial of the Jewish people and Israel's right to be; rather, ideological anti-Semitism disguises itself as part of the struggle against racism.

The first manifestation of this ideological anti-Semitism was its institutional and juridical anchorage in the "Zionism is racism" resolution at the UN. Notwithstanding the fact that the there was a formal repeal of this resolution, Zionism as racism remains alive and well in the global arena, particularly in the campus cultures of North America and Europe, as confirmed by the recent British All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism.

The second manifestation is the indictment of Israel as an apartheid state. This involves more than the simple indictment; it also involves the call for the dismantling of Israel as an apartheid state as evidenced by the events at the 2001 UN World Conference against Racism in Durban.

The third manifestation of ideological anti-Semitism involves the characterization of Israel not only as an apartheid state - and one that must be dismantled as part of the struggle against racism - but as a Nazi one.

And so it is then that Israel is delegitimized, if not demonized, by the ascription to it of the two most scurrilous indictments of 20th-century racism - Nazism and apartheid - the embodiment of all evil. These very labels of Zionism and Israel as "racist, apartheid and Nazi" supply the criminal indictment. No further debate is required. The conviction that this triple racism warrants the dismantling of Israel as a moral obligation has been secured. For who would deny that a "racist, apartheid, Nazi" state should not have any right to exist today? What is more, this characterization allows for terrorist "resistance" to be deemed justifiable - after all, such a situation is portrayed as nothing other than occupation et résistance, where resistance against a racist, apartheid, Nazi occupying state is legitimate, if not mandatory.

Legalized Anti-Semitism

If ideological anti-Semitism seeks to mask itself under the banner of anti-racism, legalized anti-Semitism is even more sophisticated and insidious. Here, anti-Semitism simultaneously seeks to mask itself under the banner of human rights, to invoke the authority of international law and to operate under the protective cover of the UN. In a word - and in an inversion of human rights, language and law - the singling out of Israel and the Jewish people for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena is "legalized."

But one example of legalized anti-Semitism occurred annually for more than 35 years at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This influential body consistently began its annual session with Israel being the only country singled out for country-specific indictment - even before the deliberations started - the whole in breach of the UN's own procedures and principles. In this Alice in Wonderland situation, the conviction and sentence were pronounced even before the hearings commenced. Some 30 percent of all the resolutions passed at the commission were indictments of Israel.

After the commission was replaced in June 2006 by the UN Human Rights Council, the new body proceeded to condemn one member state - Israel - in 80% of its 25 country-specific resolutions, while the major human rights violators of our time enjoyed exculpatory immunity. Indeed, five special sessions, two fact-finding missions and a high level commission of inquiry have been devoted to a single purpose: the singling out of Israel.

This week's ICCA conference and London Declaration unequivocally condemned this "legalized" anti-Semitism, calling out that "governments and the UN should resolve that never again will the institutions of the international community and the dialogue of nations states be abused to try to establish any legitimacy for anti-Semitism, including the singling out of Israel for discriminatory treatment in the international arena, and we will never witness - or be party to - another gathering like Durban in 2001."

The Resurgence
of Global Anti-Semitism: Evidentiary Data

The data unsurprisingly confirm that anti-Semitic incidents are very much on the rise. Still, the available figures only show half the picture - they demonstrate an increase in this old/new anti-Semitism by concentrating on the traditional anti-Semitic paradigm targeting individual Jews and Jewish institutions, while failing to consider the new anti-Semitic paradigm targeting Israel as the Jew among nations and the fallout from it for traditional anti-Semitism. But the rise in traditional anti-Semitism is bound up with the rise in the new anti-Semitism, insidiously buoyed by a climate receptive to attacks on Jews because of the attacks on the Jewish state. Indeed, reports illustrate both an upsurge in violence and related anti-Semitic crimes corresponding with the 2006 Second Lebanon War and the recent Israel-Hamas war, which delegates to the ICCA conference characterized as a "pandemic."

Conclusion

It is this global escalation and intensification of anti-Semitism that underpins - indeed, necessitates - the establishment of the ICCA to confront and combat this oldest and most enduring of hatreds. Silence is not an option. The time has come not only to sound the alarm - but to act. For as history has taught us only too well: While it may begin with Jews, it does not end with Jews. Anti-Semitism is the canary in the mine shaft of evil, and it threatens us all.

The writer is a Canadian MP and former minister of justice and attorney-general. He is professor of law (on leave) at McGill University who has written extensively on matters of hate, racism and human rights. He is a co-founder of the Interparliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism with UK MP John Mann.

This article can be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304849224&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Leading terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel to speak Monday, March 30 presented by Jewish Federation and JCRC

The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines and The Jewish Community Relations Commission invite you to a public presentation with Brigitte Gabriel, one of the leading terrorism experts in the world.

Brigitte Gabriel, a Christian Arab who survived the Lebanese Civil War, speaks out.



“The Untold Story”

Monday, March 30, 7:00 pm
Tifereth Israel Synagogue, 924 Polk Boulevard, Des Moines.


Author of New York Times best-selling books “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terrorism Warns America” and “They Must Be Stopped: Why WE Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It," Brigitte Gabriel provides information and analysis on Global Islamic terrorism. Among her activities, Gabriel is a regular guest analyst on Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, ABC and various radio stations daily across America.

This program is made possible through the generosity of Stanley and Gail Richards.

Join us for this thought-provoking presentation and discussion. Free of charge. No reservations necessary. Book signing to follow. For more information contact jcrc@dmjfed.org.


Brigitte Gabriel has become one of the leading terrorism experts in the world providing information and analysis on Global Islamic terrorism. She is a member of the board of Advisors of the Intelligence Summit and lectures nationally and internationally about terrorism and current affairs. Her expertise are sought after by world and business leaders. She has addressed the Australian Prime Minister John Howard, members of The British Parliament/House of Commons, members of the United States Congress, The Joint Forces Staff College, The US Special Operations Command, the FBI and many others. In addition, Gabriel is a regular guest analyst on Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, ABC and various radio stations daily across America.

Gabriel began her career as news anchor for "World News," an evening Arabic news broadcast for Middle East Television seen throughout Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and Lebanon. She covered the Israeli security zone in Lebanon and the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank. Her work is of international scope having brought her in contact with world figures such as Margaret Thatcher, George H. Bush, Queen Nour El Hussein, Itzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

With a passion and vigor hailing directly from profound experience -- the opening salvos of Islamic jihad towards the Western world in the Middle East -- Gabriel offers a poignant account of a remarkable upbringing. A native of South Lebanon, as a pre-teen she survived the first attack of the Lebanese civil war in 1975: a barrage of Muslim rockets that exploded in her house and left her wounded and buried under the rubble. Gabriel and her family then spent the next seven years in subterranean hiding while Lebanon was under Islamic attack.

Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Gabriel outlines mistakes the West has made in underestimating the single-mindedness with which radical Islamists have pursued their goals for the past 30 years. A political hawk on international policy, she discusses the threat of radical Islam to world peace and national security in her New York Times best-selling memoir, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terrorism Warns America (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). Gabriel's second book, They Must Be Stopped (St. Martin's Press, 2008), continues her mission to - in her words - "challenge our western and politically-correct notions about Islam, demonstrating why radical Islam is so deadly and how we can halt its progress."

Gabriel took up residence in Israel in 1984 and while there rose quickly to an anchor position with Middle East Television's "World News" -- an evening-news program broadcast in Israel, Lebanon, Syria and beyond. Relocating to the United States in 1989, she created a TV production and advertising company, with a client roster that included ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX News, CNN, Discovery, TLC and the History Channel.

From the war-torn bomb shelters of Lebanon to the boardrooms of America, Gabriel is a startling illustration of the American Dream. An inspiration for women throughout the world, she has balanced the demands of a successful career with the equally challenging duties of motherhood. Her passionate lectures emit a positive and empowering message to act on one's beliefs.

Ms. Gabriel is represented exclusively by Greater Talent Network, Inc.

Controversy over the agenda of the UN's World Conference Against Racism, April 2009

What is the controversy over the UN World Conference Against Racism ( Durban II) all about?

 

Here is a brief examination of the topic by Mitchell Bard, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Israelsroots.html#a7

 

Bard informs readers that the UN's 2001 Conference Against Racism did not address the very real and important cases of racial oppression around the world but crudely and hatefully aimed to brand Israel as a racist state.  The present concern is that the April 2009 Conference in Durban, South Africa, not simply repeat the prior outpouring of blatant attempts to delegitimize Israel, in preparation for its destruction.  //Mark Finkelstein

-----------------------

In 2001, Arab nations again were seeking to delegitimize Israel by trying to equate Zionism with racism at the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The United States joined Israel in boycotting the conference when it became clear that rather than focus on the evils of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia that were supposed to be the subject of the event, the conference had turned into a forum for bashing Israel.

The United States withdrew its delegation “to send a signal to the freedom loving nations of the world that we will not stand by if the world tries to describe Zionism as racism. That is as wrong as wrong can be.” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer added the President is proud to stand by Israel and by the Jewish community and send a signal that no group around the world will meet with international acceptance and respect if its purpose is to equate Zionism with racism.²⁰

The UN's Durban Review Conference, dubbed “Durban II, ” has been scheduled for April 2009. Though the conference is intended to target racism, many fear the agenda will again be hijacked and turned into another hate fest directed at Israel. The Obama Administration has declared its intention to participate in the planning for Durban II to try to prevent Iran, Cuba, Libya, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (all gross violators of human rights) and hostile nongovernmental organizations from again promoting Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and the demonization of Israel. The United States is determined to see the conference play a positive role in combatting global racism and supporting human rights.^20a Israel has nevertheless declared its intention to boycott the event and has publicly asked the ‘free world’ to do the same.^20b The expectation is that the United States will again join the boycott if the agenda is not consistent with its expectations.

Israeli journalist Yossi Klein HaLevi interviews ilndividuals from what he terms the ultra-nationalist Jewish and Arab political parties.  The location:  Akko, which is in our Des Moines/Israel Partnership region.

 

 

Postcards from the Edge

Ground Zero Of Israel's New Ultra-Nationalism.

Yossi Klein Halevi ,  The New Republic  Published: February 13, 2009

Adham Jamal, head of the local branch of the fundamentalist Islamic Movement, and Ze'ev Noiman, head of the local branch of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel is Our Home") party, call themselves friends. Both men are deputy mayors of this mixed Arab-Jewish city near Haifa, and their offices are on the same floor of the municipality. "Adham is a great guy," says Noiman, a retired career army officer. "He's condemned terrorism. True, I don't know what he says when he's speaking among Arabs, but to us he says the right things." Jamal: "Ze'ev isn't a racist like Lieberman," referring to Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman. "He grew up here in Acre. He lives with us." Both men say they keep disagreements over national issues separate from cooperation on local issues.

Acre has always been an unlikely home for co-existence. Many of its 35,000 Jews are children of immigrants from Arab countries, or recent immigrants from the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. And many of Acre's 17,000 Arabs are poor and traditionalist. But somehow it's worked. The security guard who checks the bags at the municipality is an Arab--a gesture of trust in the Arab minority I've never seen in Israel. The town's Arab restaurants are filled with Jews. In Sa'id, one of the best hummus restaurants in the country, Jews and Arabs share tables; one recent afternoon there, I ate with a young Bedouin man named Ali, who had volunteered for the Israeli army and was voting for Kadima.

But the balance is becoming increasingly hard for Acre to manage. Last Yom Kippur, hundreds of Arabs and Jews fought in the streets. Jewish store windows were smashed, Arab homes firebombed. The riot was set off by an Arab man who drove into a Jewish neighborhood, violating the unwritten law against traffic in Jewish areas on the fast day. The driver, who Jews say was loudly playing Arabic music, publicly apologized, religious leaders from both communities met for a sulha, or peace accord, and Acre tried to return to normal.

The atmosphere of mutual distrust never quite dissipated, however, and now it has been coopted by two extremist parties. In the recent elections, Yisrael Beiteinu, which regards Israel's Arab minority as a fifth column and wants to revoke the citizenship of those who won't take a loyalty oath to the Jewish state, won as many votes in Acre as the more mainstream Likud party, according to local party officials. And a plurality of Acre's Arabs voted for the nationalist Balad, or "Homeland," which rejects a Jewish state and insists Arabs be recognized as a national minority. For Lieberman's supporters, Balad founder Azmi Bishara--who fled Israel after being accused of spying for Hezbollah--embodies Arab treason. One ad by Yisrael Beiteinu declared it's a "shame and disgrace" that former Knesset member Bishara "is still getting a pension of 8,000 shekels a month from the Israeli government."

I've come to Acre because promoting Arab Israeli equality and Arab-Jewish co-existence is my civic passion. I know how hard it is to separate the Arab Israeli issue from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel's Arabs are a unique minority: second-class within a Jewish majority, yet part of a regional majority hostile to Israel. But Israel's dilemma is unique as well. To be true to itself, Israel must remain a Jewish state responsible for Jews around the world, and a democratic state responsible for all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews.

What's breaking down in Acre is the habit of decency that makes these insoluble paradoxes possible. Acre offers a scenario for the unraveling of Israeli society. Between Lieberman and Bishara there can be no shared identity. If Yisrael Beiteinu and Balad are our future, then Lieberman is right: The greatest threat to Israel's existence comes from within.

 

Acre's walled Old City, one of the country's leading tourist sites, has an Arab market, an ancient port, and a vast underground Crusader-era fortress of tunnels and vaulted hallways. Acre was the last capital of the Crusaders before they were expelled from the Holy Land. And that past intrudes on Acre's politics. Jews say Arabs see them as Crusaders, conquerors who will one day be expelled. "They say it half-jokingly," says Yisrael Beiteinu's Noiman, "but it isn't a joke."

I have the fate of the Crusaders in mind when I visit the headquarters of Balad, a one-room storefront at the edge of the Old City, facing Ottoman walls built against the sea. "National Identity and Full Citizenship" reads the Arabic banner hanging out front. The citizenship is Israeli, but the national identity is Palestinian.

Balad's posters and leaflets are only in Arabic; unlike Hadash, the mostly Arab Communist Party, Balad doesn't even bother trying to appeal to Jews. On the wall is a large framed photograph of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the late Egyptian leader revered here for his pan-Arabism. Beside it hangs a poster warning young Arabs against doing alternative national service--" A Step Toward Military Service."

I ask Maryam Wishahie, an English teacher and a Balad activist, whether she thinks the Jews will end up being expelled like the Crusaders. "That depends on Israel's behavior," she says. "The Crusaders surrounded themselves with forts, just like Israel's security wall. If Israel doesn't become part of this region, it will have no future."

The more immediate possibility, she fears, is that her Jewish neighbors will build a wall around Arab neighborhoods, or try to force Acre's Arabs out. "The house next door to mine was recently bought by a Jew. I'm used to seeing the other: In my apartment building there are Muslims and Christians and a Jewish-owned restaurant. But this was done through an organization that wants to settle Jews in the Old City. What is this, the West Bank?"

For me, I say, the presence of Arab citzens in a Jewish state is an opportunity. You're the only part of the Middle East I can still talk to.

"We're not a bridge," she counters. "A bridge means that you belong to both sides. We are Palestinians. But if Israel will make real efforts for peace, we can help draw hearts together."

For Balad, peace can only happen when Israel abandons its Jewish identity--and its Jewish majority. "There is no solution between Zionism and Palestinian nationalism," says Maryam.

The Acre headquarters for Yisrael Beiteinu is a ten-minute walk from the Old City, and it is located in the Histadrut labor union building, once a bastion of the left. A group of young activists sit at a recruiting booth outside. They are all secular; one young man has a ponytail, a young woman multiple piercings. Posters taped to the booth show Lieberman's brooding bearded face, and the words, "Lieberman, I believe him."

As the leading parties blur into each other, and peace and security become more elusive, Lieberman promises clarity. He breaks the rules, not only of civility but of Israel's political categories. He combines left and right in a brutal pragmatism that speaks to a post-ideological generation. Lieberman is the only right-wing leader to support a Palestinian state. And he goes farther than the left in his willingness to concede territory, though for right-wing reasons: He wants to withdraw from areas within pre-1967 Israel that are overwhelmingly Arab, to reduce the number of Israel's Arab citizens--to eliminate the internal enemy.

Lieberman's young activists are eager to talk.

Itamar: "They say they're discriminated against? I'm discriminated against. I have to do three years in the army; they don't. Okay, I don't want them in the army. But what about national service? When I get out of the army at twenty-one, an Arab young man is already a lawyer. I want them to contribute. Also the ultra-Orthodox."

But whenever you target a specific group, I say, you're on a dangerous road. Lieberman doesn't target the ultra-Orthodox for avoiding military service, just the Arabs.

"It's not like that," says Itamar. "This is a life and death issue for the state. The ultra-Orthodox don't call for the destruction of Israel. In another twenty years, we will lose this country if something isn't done."

Yotam: "We're not motivated by hatred, but by love for our country. From the moment this state was born, the Arabs have tried to destroy us."

Chen: "A minority anywhere has to respect the country."

Yossi: "I see my future here in Acre with a Jewish majority, and with Arabs who respect the country. They want to be Palestinian? Then go to Palestine. This is the state of Israel.

Yotam: "This party [Yisrael Beiteinu] is my hope for staying in Acre."

Yael: "For staying in the country."

A car loudly playing Arab music drives by.

"You'll see," says Yael, "he'll come back."

He does. Twice.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a senior fellow at the Adelson Center for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-usiran12-2009feb12,0,3478184.story

From the Los Angeles Times

U.S. now sees Iran as pursuing nuclear bomb

In a reversal since a 2007 report, U.S. officials expect the Islamic Republic to reach development milestones this year.

By Greg Miller

February 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington — Little more than a year after U.S. spy agencies concluded that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration has made it clear that it believes there is no question that Tehran is seeking the bomb.

In his news conference this week, President Obama went so far as to describe Iran's "development of a nuclear weapon" before correcting himself to refer to its "pursuit" of weapons capability.

Obama's nominee to serve as CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, left little doubt about his view last week when he testified on Capitol Hill. "From all the information I've seen," Panetta said, "I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability."

The language reflects the extent to which senior U.S. officials now discount a National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 that was instrumental in derailing U.S. and European efforts to pressure Iran to shut down its nuclear program.

As the administration moves toward talks with Iran, Obama appears to be sending a signal that the United States will not be drawn into a debate over Iran's intent.

"When you're talking about negotiations in Iran, it is dangerous to appear weak or naive," said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-proliferation organization based in Washington.

Cirincione said the unequivocal language also worked to Obama's political advantage. "It guards against criticism from the right that the administration is underestimating Iran," he said.

Iran has long maintained that it aims to generate electricity, not build bombs, with nuclear power. But Western intelligence officials and nuclear experts increasingly view those claims as implausible.

U.S. officials said that although no new evidence had surfaced to undercut the findings of the 2007 estimate, there was growing consensus that it provided a misleading picture and that the country was poised to reach crucial bomb-making milestones this year.

Obama's top intelligence official, Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, is expected to address mounting concerns over Iran's nuclear program in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today.

When it was issued, the NIE stunned the international community. It declared that U.S. spy agencies judged "with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."

U.S. intelligence officials later said the conclusion was based on evidence that Iran had stopped secret efforts to design a nuclear warhead around the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Often overlooked in the NIE, officials said, was that Iran had not stopped its work on other crucial fronts, including missile design and uranium enrichment. Many experts contend that these are more difficult than building a bomb.

Iran's advances on enrichment have become a growing source of alarm. Since 2004, the country has gone from operating a few dozen centrifuges -- cylindrical machines used to enrich uranium -- to nearly 6,000, weapons experts agree.

By November, Iran had produced an estimated 1,400 pounds of low-enriched uranium, not nearly enough to fuel a nuclear energy reactor, but perilously close to the quantity needed to make a bomb.

A report issued last month by the Institute for Science and International Security concluded that "Iran is moving steadily toward a breakout capability and is expected to reach that milestone during the first half of 2009." That means it would have enough low-enriched uranium to be able to quickly convert it to weapons-grade material.

Tehran's progress has come despite CIA efforts to sabotage shipments of centrifuge components on their way into Iran and entice the country's nuclear scientists to leave.

Iran still faces considerable hurdles. The country touted its launch of a 60-pound satellite into orbit this month. Experts said Iran's rockets would need to be able to carry more than 2,000 pounds to deliver a first-generation nuclear bomb.

And there are indications that the U.S. and Iran are interested in holding serious diplomatic discussions for the first time in three decades. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said this week that his nation was "ready to hold talks based on mutual respect," and Obama indicated that his administration would look for opportunities "in the coming months."

Hassan Qashqavi, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday warned the U.S. not to wait for Iranian presidential elections this year, because ultimate authority rests with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He also said Iran would be patient.

"Since a new administration came to power in the U.S., we do not want to burn the opportunity of President Obama and give him time to change the reality on the ground," Qashqavi said.

But experts said Iran was now close enough to nuclear weapons capability that it may be less susceptible to international pressure.

"They've made more progress in the last five years than in the previous 10," Cirincione said.

Attitudes. The two following items are related. The first, from London, hatefully characterizes Jews as taking joy in the death of Arab children. The second documents the extremist Islamic glee in having their children pursue death for Allah.
Unbelievable. //Mark Finkelstein jcrc@dmjfed.org


New anti-semitic play in London

Commentary by blogger Elder of Ziyon.

[There is]a new ten-minute play called "Seven Jewish Children" where Jewish parents and grandparents teach their unseen charges to hate Arabs.

The climax of the play is where unfeeling Jewish parents literally cheer the deaths of Gaza children:

" Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows, why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? Tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policeman, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.


Commentary by Elder of Ziyon: It is pointless to argue that Jews and Israelis don't feel anything like the words spoken here. It is a waste of time to explain that Jews are not happy to see dead Palestinian Arab civilians. And it is beyond the comprehension of the playwright to mention that the only population that unabashedly and joyously celebrates the deaths of innocents are the Arabs that the author of the play is so sympathetic to.

But it is important to point out that the playwright, who pretends to be a liberal, is displaying the worst kind of bigotry possible.

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Palestinian Women Urged To Sacrifice Their Children.


Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas/Gaza), Al-Quds TV (Lebanon) -Granddaughter and Wife of Giants of Terrorism, 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam and Abdallah 'Azzam, Urge Palestinian Women to Sacrifice Their Children