ex-CIA chief: Strike on Iran "seems inexorable"

The Associated Press
Sunday, July 25, 2010; 12:31 PM

WASHINGTON -- A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was "way down the list" of options. But he tells CNN's "State of the Union" that such action now "seems inexorable."

He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it's just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing.

Chesnoff: Do the Palestinians Really Want Two States --Or Are they Just Stalling?

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  Richard Z. Chesnoff: Do the Palestinians Really Want Two States — Or Are They Just Stalling?

Published: July 21, 2010 

Khaled Abu Toameh, to my mind the best Arab journalist working in Israel and the Palestinian territories, reports in today’s Jerusalem Post that “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has told his Fatah movement he wants a more specific US commitment on the borders of a future Palestinian state before agreeing to direct talks with Israel.

“Abbas says he received assurances from US President Barack Obama, but that they weren’t clear ‘enough. ,” reports Abu Toameh ” He says he expects enormous pressure, but that he will not go ‘blindly’ into negotiations. “

In other words, until Mahmoud Abbas knows the specific outcome of peace negotiations with Israel, he won’t even begin to negotiate the terms directly with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Even in Arabic that’s known as “hutzpa“.

All of which resurrects the question many of us have been asking for decades: if the Palestinians are truly ready to divide Palestine into two peace abiding states – one Arab and one Jewish -, why have they turned down every offer that’s ever been made to them to do just that – even the one proferred in 2007 at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a Palestinian Arab state in 97 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip. Abbas also used the occasion, and has used several since then, to categorically dismiss the request to recognize Israel as a Jewish state alongside the would-be Palestinian state, insisting instead on full implementation of the “right of return” of Palestinian “refugees” and their millions of on the global dole descendants..

The answer, I fear, is that the Palestinians really don’t want that peaceful solution and will continue to stall for time until the Arab fantasy day when the Jewish state vanishes – their ultimate goal.

One of the best histories of this steady blockage procedure comes from Mideast historian Efraim Karsh. Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author most recently of “Palestine Betrayed” (Yale), Karsh is professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London.

In a biting new article in the Jewish Ideas Daily and reprinted by the Middle East Quarterly, Karsh carefully traces the history of Palestinian avoidance of a Mideast peace solution that will result in two states for two peoples. Indeed, as he pointedly asks, “… is there in fact a fundamental distinction between Hamas and Fatah when it comes to a two-state solution? Neither faction formally accepts Israel’s right to exist; both are formally committed to its eventual destruction. Moreover, for all the admittedly sharp differences between Arafat and his successor Abbas both in personality and in political style, the two are warp and woof of the same dogmatic PLO fabric.”

Anyone interested in the truth about the Mideast crisis should read Karsh’s article in full:

http://www.meforum.org/2689/against-two-state-solution

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Source: http://www.investingcontrarian.com/global/richard-z-chesnoff-do-the-palestinians-really-want-two-states-or-are-they-just-stalling/

Netanyahu opposes conversion bill

jtanews: Netanyahu tells Cabinet he opposes Rotem conversion bill http://bit.ly/a76dNg
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

JCRC deplores analogizing the president to Hitler and Lenin

Statement from JCRC       July 15, 2010

The Jewish Community Relations Commission of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, Iowa

 

JCRC deplores the rhetoric and imagery displayed on a billboard in Mason City analogizing President Obama to Hitler and Lenin.  Such analogies are distortions and are disrespectful of the president, those who were murdered by the dictators, and those whose families suffered the tragic loss of loved ones.

 

Steven Schoenebaum,  JCRC Chair

Mark S. Finkelstein,  JCRC Director

 

Contact: jcrc@dmjfed.org

The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is online at http://jewishdesmoines.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overview: Illegal Construction in Jerusalem

Illegal Construction in Jerusalem

by Justus Reid Weiner        http://www.jcpa.org/jlmbldg.htm  

In the Jewish neighborhoods, illegal construction typically takes the form of additions to existing legal structures - such as closing a balcony or hollowing out under a building to create an extra room. In the Arab sector, however, illegal construction often takes the form of entire multi-floor buildings with 4 to 25 living units, built with the financial assistance of the Palestinian Authority on land that is not owned by the builder.

* Illegal construction has reached epidemic proportions. A senior Palestinian official boasted that they have built 6,000 homes without permits during the last 4 years, of which less than 200 were demolished by the city.

* This frantic pace of illegal construction continues despite the fact that the city of Jerusalem  has authorized more than 36,000 permits for new housing units in the Arab sector, more than enough to meet the needs of Arab residents through legal construction until 2020.

* Arab residents who wish to build legally may consult urban plans translated into Arabic for their convenience and receive individual assistance from Arabic-speaking city employees.

* Both Arabs and Jews typically wait 4-6 weeks for permit approval, enjoy a similar rate of application approvals, and pay an identical fee ($3,600) for water and sewage hook-ups on the same size living unit.

* The same procedures for administrative demolition orders apply to both Jews and Arabs in all parts of the city, as a final backstop to remove structures built illegally on roadbeds or land designated for schools, clinics, and the like.

* The Palestinian Authority and Arab governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an intentional campaign to subsidize and encourage massive illegal construction in the Arab sector, seeing this as part of their "demographic war" against Israel.

* Many large, multi-story, luxury structures have been built by criminals on land they do not own, frequently land belonging to Palestinian Christians living abroad.

* This epidemic of illegal construction is similar to illegal building that troubles cities in scores of countries worldwide and where the authorities utilize the law to demolish the structures.

* More than any single factor, the 35-year-long boycott of municipal politics by the Palestinian leadership has resulted in the continued imbalance in municipal services in Arab neighborhoods vis-a-vis Jewish neighborhoods.

* Despite frequent accusations that the city's planning policy seeks to "Judaize" Jerusalem, the Arab population of the city has increased since 1967 from 27% to 32%. Moreover, since 1967 new Arab construction has outpaced Jewish construction.

Palestinians Have to Say "The Conflict Is Over," As Sadat Did -- Netanyahu

Palestinians Have to Say "The Conflict Is Over," As Sadat Did - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

After meeting with President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York on July 7:

• "We don't want to govern the Palestinians and we don't want them to be either our subjects or citizens of the country. We also want to make sure that they have their own independent dignified life, but that they don't threaten the State of Israel....In addition, the Palestinians have to do something that they so far have not done. And that is to do what Anwar Sadat did - to come forward and say, 'It's over. The conflict is over. There is no more war, there is no more bloodshed and there will be no more conflict.'"
• "One thing that unites all of us is that we all know that we are not foreign interlopers in the Land of Israel....We have nearly a four-thousand-year connection to this land and the return of the Jewish people to Zion, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland, is not just one of the great events of modern times, it's one of the greatest events of all time....For the Jews...Zion is only one place - Israel - and the connection between our people and the Land of Israel is as strong and enduring as any people's connection to any place on earth."
• "All responsible countries say that Israel has a right to defend itself, but virtually every time we seek to exercise that right, we are nearly universally condemned....So it seems that, even after six decades, many around the world are still uncomfortable with the idea of Jewish sovereignty. Perhaps they have not internalized the fact that the Jews will no longer be passive victims of history. We are now actors on the stage of history. We now chart our own collective destiny and that requires Israel to have a secure and unchallenged right of self-defense that is accorded to other nations as well."
• "For 2000 years, the Jews were the perfect victims. And perfect victims may be perfectly moral but they're still victims. The purpose of the Jewish state is to defend Jewish lives. And in that defense, the standard that must be applied to Israel is not perfection but a standard that is applied to any other country faced with similar circumstances."
• "What other country has suffered thousands and thousands of rockets rained on its cities?...Britain. And yet Israel's response to the rocketing of its cities is a fraction, a fraction, perhaps a percent or less of the response in terms of casualties inflicted by Britain on those who attacked it."

Troy: Obama Must Learn from History to Make History

Troy: "Reading history accurately does not negate Palestinian aspirations or
frustrations. They must be addressed....The Palestinians[,however,] must stop trying again and again to destroy the Jewish State. Peace processors must stop trying again and again to demand
Israeli concessions without explaining what has changed, what new understandings, what new safeguards, are in place this time. And Israelis must be open to seeing changes within Palestinian society and within a renewed peace process."

http://giltroyzionism.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/obama-history-middle-east/

Obama Must Learn from History to Make History
By Gil Troy, The Jerusalem Post, 7-7-10

Despite the warm words and attempts at progress when President Barack Obama hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the “make up summit” Tuesday, Obama still does not get it. Stale ideas and boilerplate rhetoric are not enough. President Obama must learn from history to make history. To rebuild Israel’s confidence in him, and in peace processes, Obama should acknowledge the unhappy history of the last ten years – and explain what will change if Israel takes risks for peace, yet again.

The tone deafness of those who claim to seek peace is astounding. Their inability to see what Israelis see and to feel Israel’s pain blocks progress. Most Israelis are stuck. They feel burned by a decade and a half of peace-making and negotiation which yielded ten years of violence, harsh criticism, and attacks on Israel’s very legitimacy.

Israelis – and their supporters — connect the dots, seeing how Ehud Barak’s hasty, chaotic withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May, 2000 and Barak’s generous offer during the Camp David negotiations that summer telegraphed weakness, resulting in Palestinian terrorism that murdered over one thousand innocent Israelis –many of whom lived within Israel’s Green Line, the post-1949 border. They remember that the 2005 Gaza Disengagement was supposed to bring peace but instead intensified the rain of rockets on towns and kibbutzim also within Israel’s Green Line. They resent that when Israelis finally defended themselves in Lebanon against Hezbollah attacks in 2006 and in Gaza against Hamas attacks in late 2008 and early 2009, they were pilloried. Just last week, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who supports Israel, made the harsh, ahistorical, inaccurate and immoral comparison between Israel’s acts of self-defense in those two wars, and Syria’s systematic massacre of as many as 30,000 Muslim dissidents at Hama in 1982, by claiming Israel was following Syria’s brutal “Hama Rules.” If peace-making efforts result in war, terrorism, and delegitimization, most Israelis prefer safer stalemates to disastrous breakthroughs.

These recent traumas resonate with a deeper understanding of Israeli and Palestinian history. In his important new book, “Palestine Betrayed,” Professor Efraim Karsh of King’s College London demonstrates that the Palestinian violence which trashed the Oslo hopes of the 1990s was paralleled by the Palestinian violence which killed earlier hopes for peace in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Professor Karsh is one of those annoying historians who researches in archives to recreate the past rather than simply regurgitating today’s conventional wisdom. He shows that the Arabs living in Palestine – many of whom enjoyed warm, productive, and profitable relations with their Jewish neighbors – were betrayed by radical leaders, especially the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Husseini’s harsh anti-Zionism laced with Hitlerite anti-Semitism rejected the Zionist calls for coexistence, triggering what Palestinians now call the “Nakba,” their catastrophe.

Neither the conflict nor the catastrophe was inevitable. “Had the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs been left to their own devices, they would most probably have been content to get on with their lives and take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the growing Jewish presence in the country,” Karsh proves. Instead, Husseini and others tapped into Islam’s radical potential, incited violence, and took a “zero-sum approach that assigned to the Jews no national or collective rights whatever.”

The result was a “repeated Arab resort to violence” which worked initially, securing British concessions. Ultimately, however, turning to terror and spurning compromises betrayed the Palestinian Arabs, as hundreds of thousands lost their homes due to the violence their leaders instigated. In the late 1940s, unlike today, Karsh shows, neither the Palestinians nor objective observers called “the collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society … a systematic dispossession of Arabs by Jews.” As the British diplomat Sir John Troutbeck reported after his fact-finding mission to Gaza in 1949, the refugees “express no bitterness against the Jews” but “they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. ‘We know who our enemies are,’ they will say … referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes…” Subsequently, Yasir Arafat, Hamas, and other Palestinian elites replicated their predecessors’ mistakes, preferring to target the Jewish State rather than accepting any compromise, which begins by first accepting a Jewish presence in a tiny geographic slice of the vast Middle East Arabs control.

Karsh’s must-read book reminds us how much of the Palestinian narrative delegitimizing Israel even Israel’s supporters have absorbed.

Reading history accurately does not negate Palestinian aspirations or frustrations. They must be addressed. Still, understanding their origins might help policy-makers ratchet down the rhetoric – and the demands. Moreover, by emphasizing that the conflict was not inevitable, Professor Karsh reassures us that the conflict might be solvable today.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  The Palestinians must stop trying again and again to destroy the Jewish State. Peace processors must stop trying again and again to demand Israeli concessions without explaining what has changed, what new understandings, what new safeguards, are in place this time. And Israelis must be open to seeing changes within Palestinian society and within a renewed peace process.

President Obama and his advisers must begin by acknowledging the last decade’s failures. They must help end Palestinian incitement. They and the Palestinians must prove that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s initial steps toward state-building represent an historic change within Palestinian political culture from seeking Israel’s destruction to seeking Palestinian redemption.

For all their mistakes, most Israelis repeatedly have been willing to accept painful compromises, to risk for peace. If Obama wants a big Middle Eastern win, he must show he understands what went wrong in the past and offer substantive proposals guaranteeing future success.  All of us who seek peace should wish him luck. But none of us should settle for presidential rhetoric instead of new, constructive, Palestinian realities.
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Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Shalom Hartman Research Fellow in Jerusalem. The author of “Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today,”he is also the author of “The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.”